coming up on our t.v. politicians say that they go to d.c. to serve public interest but it looks like they're doing even better serving themselves with lucrative private jobs when their terms and will give you a look at the revolving door of washington's wealthy and on my back yard took a new meaning over the weekend and exxon mobil pipeline spilled thousands of gallons of oil into an arkansas neighborhood more on the spill in the future of oil pipelines coming right up. plus with their history of accosting travelers you hope the t.s.a. would lay off one man found himself stopped from carrying what was needed for his medical safety why was this item taken away from him r t will question more coming up.

it's monday april first eight him in washington d.c. i'm megan lopez and you are watching r t. 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 this is a good sign for our 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 of recovery one place in particular is on the fast track to riches washington d.c. according to a new analysis by zip realty inc the nation's capital is it the least affordable city in the entire united states here's what else we found out forty three percent of the richest one percent of counties in the us surround washington d.c. the region's medium home prices are seventeen times higher than the media income in the u.s. and the standard two bedroom apartment in the district typically costs about

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 for living in these apartments so talk more about this dichotomy between washington and the rest of the country i was joined earlier by barton naylor he's a financial policy advocate for public citizen and i began by asking him what a huge financial contrast there is and what it really means for all of 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 is this going to 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 there can be the 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 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 it a brace of public trust well i don't know that i would call it a breach of public trust i would call it a psychological without that ability. so what's 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 have 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 that 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 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 at ansett announced 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 that that's why they're experiencing this kind of boom or that the housing market isn't 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 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 to this the certainly not a recommendation for for admiration for washingtonians and the culture of the capital all right well let's set let's turn the conversation for just a little bit talk about kind of some of the ways 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 it 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 it's a subplot that she will be making i don't know because 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 because 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 and 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 lobbying in the private sector they are making money. 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 between the united states and the european union wasn't complicated enough and you 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 nor he's the guy you see on your screen 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 is computer science and artificial intelligence laboratories decentralized information group he's a former policy director for world wide web consorting him and the co-founder of the center for democracy and technology so an impressive resume yes but privacy experts are concerned that whites are 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 policy this that whites nourish and his group supports actually mirror those of the obama administration it all circles around one word interoperability meaning improving privacy standards with the new framework without changing the way that 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 us 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 could be just another extension of the current establishment reach. well just one week after the diversity of the one nine hundred eighty nine exxon valdez spill that is considered one of the most devastating environmental disasters in history the oil company is added again and this one is much closer to home an exxon mobile type

line actually ruptured on friday leaking nearly ten thousand barrels of tar sand into tar sands crude into the small and alaska town excuse me arkansas town the streets flowed with black gold. as you are which is unaffected by the smell is unbelievable i mean look. credible and that is where. twenty two homes were evacuated when the eight hundred forty eight mile long pegasus pipeline burst this line 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 that exxon mobil is dealing with last wednesday a train that was supported lee to be carrying tar sands between states actually spilled nearly fifteen thousand gallons in minnesota for more on this story i'm joined now by anthony swift he's an attorney with the natural resources defense council hi anthony thanks for joining us so this leak obviously pales in comparison

with anything that we saw in one thousand nine hundred nine with everything that we saw during the gulf coast spill but it's in people's backyard so it's much more present can you talk about what kind of impact that could possibly have on how people see this spill will oftentimes spills do happen in remote areas where you know people don't see the impacts but the reality is with many of these pipelines are now in people's backyards and they don't even know it. i think that you know you look at those pictures what happened in arkansas really does show the true risks of some of these pipelines and i would say that you know particularly tar sands pipelines we found that you know pipelines carrying tar sands crude are more susceptible to rupture the pipeline sort of carried them in the northern midwest who spilled you know over three and a half times as much crude is is the american average per pipeline mile and why is that well one of the reasons is tar sands is physically different from conventional

crude i think most people wouldn't recognize it is crude if they saw it in the field it's basically a tory simply solid substance that has to be mixed with you know volatile toxic natural gas liquids to move in a pipeline but it's still very thick has to be moved at high pressures and high temperatures those temperatures cause corrosion to increase it in a much more rapid rate and once it spills on the other side of this and we found this out with the kalamazoo spill in in michigan just three years ago the natural gas liquids gas off and that leaves the heavy tar sands beach maine to sink in water bodies and right now there's no way to really deal with spills involving bichon in that sinks kalamazoo nearly three years later has cost nearly a billion dollars for cleanup and thirty eight miles of that river still contaminated wow those are pretty overwhelming numbers now how likely is this spill to change anything well let i mean obviously whenever

a spill of any magnitude happens there some type of liability that well company comes and they clean it up they also pay reparations but it doesn't really seem to ever draw the kind of conclusions that we want well yes i mean when it comes to these spills oftentimes the oil companies are insured and they're liabilities capped by federal law one of the interesting things is that the liability system is run by a government fined and doesn't even pay. into this fund so often the money used to pay for these spills you know are contributed by by the movement of tar sands but i think that given the fact that big pipeline projects are currently under public scrutiny pipeline projects like keystone x.l. keeping in mind that the pegasus pipeline was about a tenth the size of keystone x.l. this should factor into that public debate because you know it's a tragic warning of what could happen with these major high capacity tar sands

pipelines and let's talk about the keystone x.l. pipeline i mean last week the u.s. senate held a more or less symbolic vote in favor of the keystone x.l. pipeline and obviously something that we've been fighting for for quite some time and terms that the u.s. what could this potentially mean it for environmental safety well i think that it really shows the american public what the risks of tar sands pipelines are i mean right now most americans think this is a conventional oil pipeline bringing oil to the united states but the reality is it's moving a. substance is dramatically different has increased risks and it's actually moving this tar sands not to the united states but through it in order to get it to the gulf coast where millions of barrels a day of refined product are exported to the international market so it's really not a pipeline it's in the american interest we don't need the oil and certainly we don't need to provide a thorough and fair for canadians to export their oil internationally particularly

when the risk is borne by american communities and on american water resources that's surprising that they're exporting it and using way that would go basically through the u.s. not importing as many of those places as many of the commercials the ads that surround the keystone x.l. pipeline actually advertise so finally let's talk about the difference between or is there any difference between the practices that exxon mobil uses for since other companies can we expect a leak a small leak are largely to happen from any company. unfortunately yes when you look at the pipeline safety standards many of them really do protect the worst performers and you know we have over one hundred leaks a year particularly as i said we've seen more leaks on tar sands pipelines but even the conventional pipeline system has got some major problems and you know as time goes on we're seeing significant gaps in pipeline safety when it comes to maintaining pipelines building safe pipelines and detecting leaks when they happen

i think with the arkansas pipeline you had a very large leak that was detected by residents and not the company and that is most often what happens nineteen out of twenty twenty spills are detected by landowners and not sophisticated leak detection systems and of course that's a major problem very interesting and luckily this time only twenty two houses were actually affected the next time anthony attorney at the natural resources defense council thank you so much for joining us it's a pleasure to be on thank you. still ahead here on our team with fair history of accosting travelers you hope the t.s.a. would lay off yet one man found himself stopped caring what he says medically necessary what was this item and why we'll tell you more after the break. pretty much in the field that you won't find it here if you're looking for relevant

stories unique perspectives and tough questions. potentially deadly blizzard taking aim for the northeast it's expected to hit starting in a few hours from new york to maine we have team coverage of the storm. but we're watching news the very heavy snow moving into boston properly or today it was very you can see it start to become much more powdery. and there's still a lot of snow out here and the place for snow banks like. d.c. it is been a pretty incredible day there and record snowfall throughout much of it might be the word you see here in the exceptional.

welcome back well taking to the skies is hard enough these days given the 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 son i reside he suffers from a neurological disorder that causes episodic knew this and muscle spasms now because of his condition doctors have advised him to have juice continuously available to help him control his condition according to t.s.a. guidelines medically necessary liquids are allowed through checkpoints after they have been expected but this is what size i experience when he tried to fly. did you read the part of the special needs' memo that specifically said he has

a medical liquid this is not going to leave answer my question you can if you have in your country which is what you do you read the part of the special needs memo it says that uses the maximum. this is good. for you get what you want but it's not. your choice i think. since you are essentially detaining me without cause. or not you're free to go. yourself with. my policy you're feeling my life. yes you are and you're also violating clearly established law and clearly. as such you have no qualified immunity. now according to sign this isn't the first time that he's actually dealt with these problems he joined me earlier with more experiences that he encountered with the t.s.a.

specifically for the liquids i've had my liquids confiscated by senior t.s.a. agents at least twice in different airports and probably at least a dozen times if not more i've had to sort of show them a written copy printout of their policy highlighted. and sort of insist that they will pay their own tough policy just to get it through. in the case that i videotaped i didn't bring with me a highlighted copy of their policy because kind of fed up having to teach them their own policy they should know it sure now we're a liquid fall under the medically necessary liquids so how can we determine what like with our medically necessary and what liquids are just a person trying to bring on a water bottle. well i would kind of object to the premise of the question actually . i think that. the t.s.a. has no business terminating what travelers medical needs are and

they have no business even asking about somebody is private medical information the t.s.a. is job is to determine is it dangerous or not and they have dedicated machines that can say this is juice it is not an explosive. and they should just allow anybody who has something that they can tell is not an explosive to take it on as it happens i do have a serious disability and i need to have jews constantly available to mitigate. episodes when they occur and to try to prevent episodes but i don't think i should be subject to interrogation by t.s.a. personnel who have no medical training no hipaa compliance no knowledge of my needs about what my needs are it's totally irrelevant to the question of security sure so you're in as i said for allowing liquids through him i slowed down the process i

think of people who are you given that the fact they would take time to test each individual one that's a t.s.a. figure that's not for us to figure out now one question i had actually disagree got i don't i've i've done this before by the way and i've gone through airports like r.t.u. which actually was perfectly fine the process takes less than thirty seconds literally it's they take your bottle they put it in much in a machine the machine thinks for a few seconds and it beeps and you're on your way that's it. and there's no reason they can't just do that for everyone if someone wants to take liquids with them they can say is it worth an extra minute of screening time to have my liquids tested that's up to them for me it is sure ok so what let's ask you that critics might argue why don't you just buy and use the inside of the airport screening. is

this medically is this medically and given just or is it just any type of. well personally i prefer a couple juices allo juice while a super food and really strong ginger beer is but that's just because they make me feel less queasy because knowledge is one of the side effects the other thing is i shouldn't have to rely on finding overpriced unavailable. medical needs in an airport when i can bring them with me when the t.s.a. is own policy says i am allowed to bring them with me. and i don't think it's acceptable to say to a traveler who needs to bring medics in medicine or medical liquids with them oh just get it after security and rely on some store in the airport being willing to have it and know that's that's not an acceptable solution so if i can you run me

through what your experience has been as a person living with disability travelling through the airports what is it like. to be honest for the most part it is perfectly normal so as you can see right now i'm i'm capable of speaking just fine my at my mutism is episodic and only happens a couple times a month to last a few hours. really and also the airlines have generally been very cooperative with the brief the purser and the pilot when i board about issues just so that they don't have any misunderstandings if something happens and they're always very nice about it the only problems i've had are with the t.s.a. when they refused to let me bring medical liquids through or like in boston where when i was new they refused to allow me access to paper and pen that i had

immediately available and that i needed to communicate and then when i. wrote to them saying that i protested the illegality of the search they were conducting on my documents they confiscated my paper literally depriving me of the freedom of speech all right interesting and problems that many people don't have to think about and don't have to deal with but people such as yourself do on a daily basis sighs i thank you for sharing your story well here in the united states we enjoy many freedoms every day yet we also have a lot of things here in the u.s. that we just can't do why is that well the residence laurie harkness explains.

my fellow american are you an american or an american hand. you can't threaten violence on twitter however i want to clear humorously you might do so without facing potential consequences by the f.b.i. you can't be gay and get married in most places here in america still you can't walk around public streets in the city without being watched by surveillance cameras because there's more than three hundred million of them here you can't be president if you're anything but a christian god forbid that you can't hand out condoms at a college without getting into trouble as students of boston college recently found out if you can't have a sex life be a politician but don't worry you'll get a great job in the mainstream media when you get kicked out of politics. you can't

have some liberal views and some conservative views you need to be either republican or democrat one hundred percent and you have to hate the other side. you can't say the anatomical words for the female sexual part in many so cool places of legislation or on t.v. i wish i could tell you the word i'm talking about but i can't you can't run for u.s. senate and win without spending an average of about ten million dollars according to data collected by math play if you live in new york city and the mayor has his way you can't drink it so. that you can't see cigarettes displayed in the store and you most certainly can't be mad if the police stop and frisk you without a discernable reason. if you live in north dakota you can't get an abortion if the fetus has a detectable heartbeat which can happen as early as six weeks in the pregnancy if

you are a liberal minded you can't even be an american according to many republican pundits and politicians you can't be for things like gun control or government funded health care and be an american at all. with so much corruption and greed in my country i make no mistake money drives a lot of these can't i'm at a place now where i'm struggling with what it means to be an american at all it used to be something people were proud to write american for all i can is that even the big anymore outside of conservative pundit tree how can it be when we seem to be more and more a nation of america camp so tell me what do you think of the american back tonight but talk about that by palin on twitter at israel.