coming up on r t in response to the guantanamo bay hunger strike president obama restate his promise to close the detention camp so what options does he have to act without congress' help we'll find out just ahead. for decades now the american prison industry has continued to expand to historic levels but what i could be one of the people locked up inside of this system words from the other side coming up plus charges against an animal welfare activist who reported the ongoings of a few tossed waterhouse were just dropped but that's not an end to the ongoing clash between transparency and private interests we'll tell you more in tonight's show. it's thursday may second eight pm in washington d.c.

i'm maggie lopez and you are watching marty starting off tonight new information is coming out this week about a federal public defender who was actually found dead in his apartment we first reported this afternoon that thirty eight year old andy hart committed suicide a story broken by investigative reporter jason leopold of truthout who has been closely following the developments that one ton of obey the public defender died a suffered a self-inflicted gunshot wound early last week heart left behind a suicide note dr purportedly containing files of his clients and some of those clients were actually one time obey him aides over the years he has represented low level al qaeda operatives like colleagues. hammad who doesn't even have a photo accused tunisian extremist adel hakimi and most notably mohamed rushdie ghani a man who was thought to have been osama bin laden's personal translator meanwhile the hunger strike in guantanamo bay has no end in sight. one hundred of one hundred

sixty to sixty sixty teens are starving themselves twenty three of those men are now being force fed by medical personnel now this is happening despite president obama's renew pledge to close down that guantanamo bay detention facility in cuba there are a lot of criticisms over why the president obama has made this promise time and time again but actually failed to follow through now some believe that the president's hands are actually being tied by congress well our chief political commentator sam sacks shows us what measures the president can take without congress' approval. this week the hunger strike at the u.s. military detention facility in guantanamo bay grows with more than one hundred prisoners now involved in the president once again pledge to close get mo down it is not a surprise to me that we've got problems in guantanamo which is why. when i was campaigning in two thousand and seven and two thousand and eight. and when i was elected in two thousand and eight i said we need to close guantanamo i continue to

believe that we've got to close guantanamo now congress. determined that they would not let us closer. now it's true congress has thrown roadblocks they've denied funding for a new facility in the u.s. to replace kemo they forbidden any prisoners from being tried in the u.s. in civilian courts the forbidden the transfer of detainees to nations in unrest or that sponsor terrorism and they for bin the release of any prisoner into the administration can confirm with absolute certainty that these prisoners won't pose a future risk the united states something that's well it's impossible to guarantee so yeah congress hasn't made it easy and with the latest poll showing seventy percent of americans support keeping give open well don't expect congress to budge any time soon but it sounds like the president foresees a moral crisis is the facility stays open so what can he do right now to close it well first he can certify the release of more than half of the current detainees by

claiming it's in the interest of national security there are one hundred sixty six men only nine have been convicted or charged with a crime another twenty four could soon face prosecution and forty seven are considered threats the united states but aren't facing prosecution mainly because the evidence obtained against them is not permissible in court like if the authorities got a confession but they used waterboarding to get it so that leaves eighty six other prisoners cleared for release yet remaining get no block by congress but congress does allow for an individual to be released if it's in the interest of national security. so right now right now the president can order the pentagon to use this loophole to get those eighty six prisoners out of get most now fifty six of those eighty six prisoners cleared for release or transfer from yemen a country barred by the administration from receiving detainees so the president would have to lift this ban next the president and let the courts do his work for him there have been more than one hundred habeas corpus cases filed on behalf of

good no prisoners by groups like the center for constitutional rights so he the president can instruct his justice department to not fight these court cases essentially giving the get go plaintive so when that would lead to either their release or an actual trial and finally the president can actually make closing gitmo a top priority all these blocks by congress expire on september thirtieth when the national defense authorization act which contains these provisions expires to congress will likely try to keep these provisions in place but the president can tell congress that he'll veto any bill that prevents him from closing gitmo it was through the veto before but never actually went through with it of course this would require the president to use a lot of political capital but if he really considers give no a moral stand that it would cost him and the nation a lot more to keep it open in washington same sex party while from detention centers abroad to those right back here at home let's turn now to the state of the prison system within the u.s. remember the story we told you about last week where thirteen female corrections

officers in baltimore have been indicted for helping actually run drug operations out of a jail while the union who represents those officers has now responded representatives say that they have identified several systematic weaknesses at this particular detention facility they say that a lack of staff might have contributed to the problem meanwhile governor martin o'malley insisted that the indictment of the inmates and correctional officers was quote a positive achievement in maryland fight against violent gangs he was also did. sending the prison chief in this speech but let's talk about the prison the prison system more broadly if correctional officers could get away with this after all what else are they currently get away getting away with earlier i was joined by mack gaskins he's a community organizer and prisoner rights advocate mack was actually a prisoner for fourteen years in the virginia department of corrections many of those years were spent at red onion supermax prison in appalachian where the quote

worst of the worst are held in confinement we talked about the prison industrial complex and what that term means to him. go through complex i mean it was done differently he says to that we can only talk to a prisoner talking about. judicial system right like how folks so i heard it into a prison for them is like on the back and over time someone at the prison at the age of seventeen came home when i was almost thirty two years all fourteen and a half years. and. six of those are spent in solitary confinement in my opinion two of the worst presidents in the country because of the isolation of these presidents like no publicity. where i would like to be tortured in these presidents like all the other prisoners that were there like the beating but beaten by the guards by dogs shot with rubber bullets that they shoot from a twelve gauge shotgun and. have our meals refuse on a daily basis. like all the horror stories that you've heard before it's like

indoor i'm a witness no i think. it's like we talk about the prison industrial complex i get an idea of like what prisons where what the true role the function of a prison is in this country. and prisons like i have always in this country i've represented it a place it does represent like one of the chief impression institutions like in a society hike this is where you put political prisoners people who like commit acts that directly challenge the government are like the moral fiber of the government and the way society is structured right and then once i like to like expand that to what is a political prisoner me because almost everyone is in prison and some sense of the political prisoner in the us in the sense of if you are. politicized prisoner like you're someone who comes to prison for not for political action but you go to prison and you become politicized the treatment is pretty much the same as like a political prisoner in terms of like every release from prison like your jack i

was a politicised prisoner like one of the most famous prisoners ever playing out of prison for a political act but in present he became politicized on the black panther party and he never got to prison but all the folks are in prison for like property crimes and most crimes are property crimes are like stem from that robberies and theft. crimes of poverty right like there are some exceptions but for the most part most prisoners like are in prison because of a political basis like the war on poverty is political the war on drugs is political it's not like a coincidence certainly an interesting argument and let's talk about the justice system do you think that people are treated differently within the prison system based on race or based on class or anything like that doesn't know how to have well i think that most laws are. are a way to avoid but to get at certain communities or certain people like the law definitely isn't equal across the board based on class based on race. but when they

get within those at a correctional facility do you think they're treated differently. a. lot of accountability there but only because most people in prison are poor and you don't have rich if you don't have any sons of the waltons like in prison you have more people in prison whether a white flag latino whatever. these presents up in appalachia and that region they. are very unique because when i came there came there. and two thousand and four i believe and it was almost like an office leadership like it's permissible to talk about the two in the same breath. because these why folks that lived in that region they had never interacted with blacks or latinos before and all of the folks that were on that bus were black and latino so if the racial tension was very high . so it was like racism right like that. mentality that

singling them people through institutions had nothing to do with like the whole argument of whether a person is humane or not but talking about your personal experience and alleged torture that you suffered well the day i got to run a state prison there we were met by like fifteen guards at the gate and they had helmets on they had on jump boots they had dogs no guns and they had to glisten but also anyone on the bus of all the folks on the bus that needed to be trained and i was one of them i was sent there for allegedly assaulting an officer and i've been involved with a work stoppage at sussex one state prison so they drag me off the bus and bring me inside and begin. this process of humiliation like stripped naked then over and i refused so they beat me unconscious stripped me naked they dragged me across the yard i still have scratches on my feet from that incident and they took me to

the super segment where the torture i can creased the strap today as they have this practice called five point restraints where they put you down on the bed. and they leave you that would be. unfortunately i only have a very short amount of time left but i want to ask you. do you think that people are listening to you when you say that there is torture going on in the prisons do you think anyone listens and why would they listen to a so-called hardened criminals. you know well those you know part of. people being first of all ignorance really people not really knowing what the true role and function of a prison is or what actually happens inside of a prison there was there was a guard around the enjoy and he was like the director of corrections and for doing it at one point and he was doing an interview and he was asked why are you how can you justify keeping these moon rocks in their cells twenty three hours a day whose response was that we didn't bring them up here to rehabilitate and we've been too dark to recall the money programs have been in these prisons one

sort of college degrees in prison like all of the prisons toluca and it's very interesting the way that the prison system functions and the gaskins community organizer and prison rights advocates thank you for joining us for that personal story thank you well for virginia taxi driver mohammed salim april twenty sixth started off like any other day picking up people and dropping them off at their destinations in the tri state area that was before the c.e.o. of emerald aviation ed dahlberg entered the cabin asked for a ride in the eleven minutes that ensued mohammad saleem says that he was subjected to an anti muslim tirade from this in the brit passenger before being physically harmed by the man but celine was quick on his feet he pulled out his cell phone and recorded the entire encounter he now wants to be charged with a felony hate crime oh by the way mr salim is an iraq war veteran who served as a linguist for our armed forces now for the latest on this case our to

correspondent margaret how joins me in the studio margaret i just gave a very brief kind of analysis of what what actually happened to tell us a little bit more about. interaction between these men and how it got so heated i certainly can bag and so mohamed saleman taxi driver was called to the fairfax country club at two in the morning to pick up adult work now mr dahlberg how i understand it he had a beer in his hand and was clearly in the braided got into the taxi and began what was essentially an eleven minute anti muslim tirade of sorts where he ended up physically punching his taxi driver and i actually have a clip now before i play it let me let me add that mohammad saleem essentially could feel that the tide was turning in a sense and he needed to record what was about to happen and he did so capturing add all berg's tirade on his phone i brought a clip for you let's take a listen so whatever you say is recorded i'm.

going to go and i want to. know i think that it was right or that i'm going to. play and you know i think i'm going to call. the police or. whatever you're saying it's recorded and. you punch him do you think it was proper for the you know i mean you know you question me right. you want you know right what. so meghan it was there for the world to see mr muhammad's limbs horror where he was essentially defenseless against. and at his mercy and that was you know horrifying enough but thank goodness he caught it on tape absolutely the tape is it evidence now as i understand it the c.e.o. was not actually arrested for several days and when he was arrested it's now being charged as a misdemeanor crime what does mr saline want to see happen with this man certainly we'll let me just backtrack here for

a minute so that's right you are correct the c.e.o. has not been charged with a hate crime at this point now when mr psyllium actually told him that he was going to call the police and this was after mr dahlberg had hit him mr dahlberg then scampers into the woods the police are called they are able to retrieve mr dahlberg information from the dispatch that they were they could trace it back to him they show up at his house his wife there he's not there and it's only after the media picks up this story did the police actually charge him this took a few days and it's misty meter battery it's and hasn't been the classified as a hate crime which is remarkable so what's the current legal status of this case well you know i talked to mr salinas attorney today in lincolnshire a boss and he's saying that what they would like to come out of this obviously is that mr dull burke is charged with a hate crime like i said before at this point it's simple assault misdemeanor battery charge and they would like to see this classified pave the actions of him

labeling a group of people muslims as terrorists you know something that i wasn't in this tape essentially and i would like to first take you to the attorney if you don't mind and let's just hear what he has to say about this. mohamed even asks mr daalder are you prejudiced and mr goldberg replies in the affirmative. and. the threats made home and started to fear for his safety and should. mr dahlberg know that he had been recording the whole time. so meghan as you heard there you know. if you hadn't been recording goodness knows what it would have happened in this case certainly and margaret as you just said you talked to this attorney and he says that he gets these cases all the time what happens with them isn't that remarkable meghan you know he told me that he gets several calls of similar situation where taxi drivers typically muslim will have hate crimes committed against them but they have no measure of recourse because as you

know it's very hard to prove a hate crime and you know if mr salim hadn't had that video recording he would be in the same boat that other people who have these complaints are n. and we have just a very short amount of time left margaret but obviously a taxi driver job is a very dangerous job a very other ways other than recording the police. and recording these people that we can protect ourselves they can be done intensely you know maggie that seems to be a the go to protection source there is to get it on tape if you feel like something is about to happen to you especially if it's a crime about to be committed against you get it on tape our chief correspondent margaret how with the latest on that story thank you margaret. well mayday has traditionally been a celebration of spring as well as international workers' rights but demonstrations in seattle turned violent again this year.

police officers squared off with hundreds of protesters wednesday night marchers broke windows threw rocks and actually threw bottles and fireworks at police officers law enforcement spotted with flash bang grenades and pepper sprayed seventeen people were arrested for property damage now the anti capitalism protesters heard right after a peaceful immigration rally earlier in the day and as i mentioned this is not the first time that the city has erupted in protest during may day festivities last year protesters clad in black race havoc on the city prompting the mayor to make an emergency declaration in order to quell the violence there and that was enough to actually prompt the government to send f.b.i. agents out to seattle even before this year's made protest actually began and to actually track down an artists but even that wasn't enough to prevent the violence this year back in the nation's capital a few intermittent violence broke out during the demonstrations once where

protesters veered from the planned route and rushed the gap clothing store and once when a brawl broke out between a few stores. the latest now on the first ever prosecution of a person under utah's agag law of two thousand and twelve prosecutors have now dropped all charges against twenty five year old amy mayor mayor face a class b. misdemeanor charge for allegedly interfering with agricultural operations when she filmed practices taking place at the draper slaughter house on her blog she describes seeing cows struggling to be free piles of porn's flesh being spewed from the chute on the side of the building and sick cattle being carted away as if they were rubble but after dominating the headlines of publications. cross the country the case was dropped so is this a win for animal rights advocate well earlier i was joined by will potter he's an independent journalist and author of green is the new read and i asked him if the latest news out of utah suggest anything as far as ad laws goes moving forward. i think it really reflects that the biggest way and most effective way to fight these

build around the country is just like the most effective way to expose abuses on factory farms and that's to shine a light on it and expose what's happening what happened in utah as soon as news of this prosecution broke help people were outraged i mean literally went viral and got hundreds of thousands of views and just twenty four hours later the prosecutors dropped all charges and to me that really reflects the state of this legislation the industry wants in on the books but when it comes to enforcing it i think there's going to be a difficult road ahead so let's break this down into two parts first of all this talk about this case specifically i understand that this case is a little bit more unique in the fact that she was actually on public property do you think that the prosecution used that as an excuse to to drop these charges in the midst of unpopular press absolutely i mean if you look at utah's law which is still overly broad and very vague it doesn't include this type of activity like filming from the side of the road or filming from public property specifically says

you have to be trespassing among other things so the law clearly cannot apply i mean this was a losing battle there is no way that amy meier could have been convicted in court for this but the real danger is the chilling effect that says i mean prosecutions like this being arrested for being prosecuted for filming from the side of the road makes other people afraid and that's why these bills are so dangerous well let's talk about the other kaviak to this the owner of that meat packing factory was actually the mayor of this you talked out of he is currently so isn't that a conflict of interest absolutely but it's the same conflict of interest we're seeing around the country in iowa where the very first ag gag law that was passed in the last legislative session the sponsors all have close ties to the agriculture industry we're seeing a similar pattern that with that in pennsylvania in tennessee which is now considering a veto industry is in close ties with politicians on this matter really should make everyone pause and how do you think the media actually claimed into this do you think that this case would have. gone through a have the media and these negative headlines actually come out about this case i

think it's very clear i mean if this media attention hadn't been there and prosecutors were to move forward i don't think she would've been convicted i don't think the impossible hopefully but it could've been tied up in the court system for a year a year and a half going through a process how to weigh over her in every desk attentional jail time and fines i think exposing this and write about it to shine a light on them but something about the bigger picture here now dropping this case is obviously good news for any mayor but is it dropping this case does it necessarily make for good for the battle overall when it comes to these ag laws i mean obviously it's shine some light but and a couple of months this story is going to be forgotten right well in the last still on the books i mean six you know it was a victory to have this prosecution wrapped but the utah got the law still exists so does iowa and missouri and all states and right now the tennessee governor is considering signing another piece of legislation pennsylvania more legislation is

about to be introduced in north carolina these bills are still a threat i think what you talk shows is the importance of fighting them tooth and nail and exposing what's actually happening and without once that happens the public overwhelmingly opposes them well let's talk about all of those other states that you just brought out this is something that isn't contracting if the expanding right what in it's expanding in unique ways i mean the industry has been met with the severe of backlash against this legislation that criminalizes photography and video and what we're seeing now are new bills being introduced that don't even mention photography and also don't even mention factory farms and agriculture in north carolina the bill is called the commerce protection act kluges every industry not just farming i mean this is people who are working on auto assembly lines or tobacco plants that include all workers which think that says about the current state of industry in this country i think what it really reflects is that the biggest threat to business as usual for a. any corporation in any tree is an informed public and that's why the industry

that's why the agriculture industry is trying to shut down opposition and keep consumers in the dark well potter thank you so much for joining us that was well care independent journalist and author of green is the new red well we all cherish the feeling of cold hard cash in our hands but it can also become spectral when carried by the spooks of the cia for more on the secret transfers of money from the u.s. to questionable world leaders the residents lori harvest. i'm hearing about something called ghost money and like ghosts themselves ghost money

has the confirmed as very real here's the deal the news times recently ran an article about how the cia has delivered bags stuffed with money to the office of afghan president karzai as a way to buy influence in that country president karzai i and his deputy chief of staff admitted that their office had received the cash saying that the cia just dropped it off in some cases backpacked and sometimes even plastic bags just plopped plastic bags filled with cash at the office no big deal they called it the ghost money saying it came in secret and left in secret it totaled in the tens of millions of dollars. according to american officials the cash fueled corruption and paid off warlords with ties to the taliban making the situation even worse and afghanistan but even if the money went to building hospitals and schools under people plastic bags filled with ghost money delivered by the cia is just downright

good see it they know and it's not exactly illegal and it's definitely not new in iran in one thousand fifty three the u.s. helped overthrow the democratically elected prime minister then the cia gave over a million dollars in ghost money to the new leader and we all know how well the u.s. and iran get along today so. that goes to money investment turns out great cia between one hundred fifty seven and one hundred seventy seven the cia gave millions in goes money to king hussein of jordan the best part of this example is the payments of ghost money to caves and saints were made under a cia projects code named. some reports say the no beef money went to a wide variety of uses a clue to any helping the young who fades procure women. other cia

insiders have confirmed that manual noriega the militant ruler of panama was receiving ghost money in the seventy's from the cia while he was infamously laundering money racketeering and running drugs the us ended up invading panama in one thousand nine hundred ninety two overthrow noriega after giving him all that goes twenty so as shocking as the new york times article about the cia giving ghost money to afghanistan might have been it's nothing new it's happened a ton of times and it'll happen again the weirdest part of the whole ghost money thing though is that just because the cia gives you free money it is apparently doesn't mean the us won't invade your country an hour to do whatever it feels like it to you better watch your back cars i know what they say goes to money can't buy you love unless of course you are came faint of jordan and no beef indeed tonight let's talk about that by following me on twitter at the residence.

all right and that's going to do it for me for tonight but for more on the stories we covered go to use hoop dot com slash party america or check out our website our q. dot com slash u.s.a. and don't forget to follow me on twitter at meghan underscore lopez i want to hear all of your comments feedback and story suggestions so send them to me there for now have a great night. well . science technology innovation all the list of elements from around russia we've got the future covered. download the official application to your cell phone choose your language stream

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