coming up on r t obama's second term seems to be plagued with scandal after scandal guantanamo bay hunger strike of the justice department's tracking of those a.p. phone records things just aren't looking good but look deeper into those scandals concerns over the save the in nutrition of the nation's food contend used to grow no cure food movement takes its first step will the child investigates its own schools bad food assertions a look at the power of the people's food coming up. the words of the koch brothers buying the tribune company have been met with protests by unions and legislative leaders a potential buyout would include the chicago tribune and the los angeles times fueling fears of a buyout would drastically change the news coverage in favor of one political leaning or more of these protests in the streets of los angeles later in the show.

well it's wednesday may fifteenth five pm in washington d.c. i'm margaret how well you're watching r t and on monday the associated press the nails the department of justice secretly obtain telephone records of its reporters and editors during a two month period the a.p. c.e.o. called the actions a quote massive and unprecedented intrusion in the company's news gathering methods and the d.o.j. didn't just collect the phone records from the a.p. newsroom it also tracked personal call logs and records from the house of representatives press gallery well today r.t. correspondent was walt went to capitol hill and brings us more on the story. the controversy between the government and a major media organization continues i have to say that this is among if not the most serious it is within the top two or three most serious leaks never seeing

attorney general eric holder justifying the department of justice spying on reporters from the associated press since holder has recused himself to avoid a conflict of interest he points his finger at the deputy attorney general what appears to be contrary to to the law and standard procedure. well again there are exceptions to some of the rules that you pointed out and i. i have faith in the people who actually were responsible for this case that they were aware of the rules and that the followed and a letter to the associated press the deputy attorney general james cole insists that obtaining the a.p. is phone records was a last resort cole says quote in this case that apartment undertook a comprehensive investigation including among other investigative steps conducting over five hundred fifty interviews and reviewing tens of thousands of documents before seeking the toll records at issue but gary pruitt says the justice

department's response does not address their concerns he tells the d.o.j. quote the scope of the subpoena was overbroad under the law given that it involves seizing records from a broad range of telephones across a.p.'s news gathering operation more than one hundred journalists work in the locations served by those telephones how can we consider this inquiry to be narrowly drawn the justice department of records incoming and outgoing calls of at least twenty eight lines used by reporters at least one of those lines right here at the capitol and house line paid for by the associated press and the house of representatives press where the associated press believes the justice department snooping is a result of this story reported in may of two thousand and twelve about with the word terror attack in yemen the government has expressed concern over who leaked classified the media organization to make the story possible now the a.p.

worries about other anonymous sources they were in contact with during the time in question an example this story about tighten rules in the secret service amid a prostitution scandal citing an anonymous a.p. source meanwhile the obama administration reiterate its dedication to freedom of the press you believe strongly in the need for the press to be unfettered in its pursuit investigative journalism but this has been put media organizations at. in a letter to the justice department dozens of media organizations are demanding answers and expressing quote displeasure with how this incident was handled and demand that any similar actions in the future be handled with greater consideration of the news media's first amendment rights all signs of growing concern in the media and its right to report the news and protect its sources and washington liz wall our team what hasn't exactly been the easiest week for the obama

administration how the president who ran on the issue of transparency now finds of his administration looming under major scandal after scandal after scandal here he is on the campaign trail the way to make government responsible is to hold it accountable and the way to make government accountable is make it transparent so the american people can know exactly what decisions are being made how they're being made and whether their interests are being well served by the old rules said that if there was a defensible argument for not disclosing something to the american people that it should not be disclosed that era is now over now that it his administration is being questioned on its own accountability it seems to come up short on the answers . i recused myself from this matter so i can't comment on the specifics of that don't know but the facts but i cannot comment on that now i'm not familiar with all that went into the formulation of the subpoena was recused from that matter but we

simply can't comment on the specific investigation i don't know all that went into the formulation of the subpoena i can't respond to this in a specific well the administration is not only faced with the controversy over the department of justice monitoring the associated press's phone records but now it's come up to life the theater internal revenue service has been targeting conservative groups like the tea party examining them with excessive audits and delaying the group's application for tax exempt status and then there's the inquiry into the administration's response to that deadly attack in benghazi libya still unresolved and still at the forefront of political debates let's not forget about guantanamo bay no breaking news there this week but the one hundredth day of the hunger strikes are tomorrow and it's a cold reminder that this president's seemingly empty promise to close that detention facility. well it just adds to the laundry list of controversy that this

administration is up against so how is the obama administration dealing with this mass well to discuss i'm joined by justin great act with the government accountability project hi there just so i have he has to get right into it so obama ran on that issue of transparency and one because of that honest and open form of government that he was he was wanting was it just a lot i do you think you know where's the transparency in this administration well there has been none but the fact of that has been lost upon many for years that this has been one of the most secretive presidential in the straight sions ever it took the bush secrecy regime and expanded it by an order of magnitude including over classifying far more many documents then bush did during his entire time in office having super secret interpretations of laws having decisions about who we assassinate being made completely in secret with no accountability so the lack

of transparency has been there. for most i would say ninety five percent of the presidency yet he got reelected. i think this bad week though is kind of the perfect storm of a number of different issues all coming to a head it certainly seems to be you know what i want to ask you want to talk about these scandals with you i want to know why hasn't obama gotten out in front of these scandals you know it seems to me he's letting jay carney his press secretary or d.o.j. had eric holder even hillary clinton who took the fall for benghazi what you know not not too far out long ago you know why what's his reasoning for this why isn't he getting out front and defending it that's a very good question because a lot of these scandals did not happen overnight you know the boston bombing was a sudden event and bengazi was an unexpected event but certainly the military sexual. salt's and i are as stewing what it's been doing and monitoring the a.p.

these are big going on for a long time and i'm not sure why he didn't try to get out in front of them but certainly trying to have his minions explain them away has been equally painful and problematic for him particularly with the a.p. scandal because obviously he has had a war on whistleblowers which has been in bill i'm atika of his lack of transparency and no commitment to government accountability and that by going after the reporters really crossed the rubicon into new territory i've been saying for years that the war on whistleblowers is really a backdoor way of going after journalists journalists appearing every single one of these espionage indictments yet not been quite concerned enough that the government is willing to burn their sources ok just so even talk to

me i want to take you back to the scandals you do you think that his fear could be impeachment at this point you know is that is that in the back of his brain which is why he's letting his minions as you say get out in front of him and defend these actions i don't think he's worried about that because if george w. bush things get impeached i don't think there's any way a sitting president could ever again and peached i think he does have a serious issue with holder his response to be a piece scandal has been bizarre i think holder could. we could see him resigning or getting fired i mean it's incredulous to think that you would recuse yourself from an investigation of this magnitude but not remember when you were yourself and not put it in writing which is that one of the most important parts of recusing yourself is. explaining what your conflict of interest is and having a record of it i think that he would do that ok do you think that this administration

thinks that they're about the law i mean that's one interpretation because of these serious violations of civil liberties that we're seeing do you think that could be their interpretation i do think they believe they're above the law or that the law is what they say it is i think it's more likely the latter they are telling themselves that the law is however they interpret it or what they say but yes under both bush and obama they both have been acting outside legal constraints and unfortunately so many of these bad a bit events have been politicized which i think takes away the legitimacy going to cut you off so much great information we have to leave it there we're out of time that was just one great act with the government accountability project where you are which you eat so the saying goes and however do you actually know what's in your food while you're eating well the documentary elim g g m o sets out to investigate just that. when it comes to

one industry anything that's too big you know it's too. easy. there's nothing to. support it you know where you think you know we've got it right. well i was joined earlier by the executive producer of g m o m g elisabeth consented and she filled me on on genetically modified foods and their safety. just exact produced e m o m d a which is a documentary that premiered at the been an international film festival eddie a base here and hopefully will be set to take america by storm later they see it. when you wrote that article for mother's day calling for mothers of pure food how i was a rebirth movement explain to me what that is and what you meant by it ok so back at the turn of the last century actually sort of the late eighteenth hundreds of women got together they understood that food was really being polluted by some of

the processes that people's health was being compromised and that something needed to be done this was a time when there wasn't any labeling there wasn't any ingredients labeling on products and basically companies could put whatever they wanted to do include into their products so after about a hundred years. well now is one hundred years but then it took about seventy years for this for a piece of legislation to pass which is called the fuel food and drug addict and it policy in one thousand nine hundred six and my thing my blog that i wrote the other day is really looking at the fact that was nineteen zero six now we're in twenty thirteen and we've still got these problems with labeling we don't really know what's in our food we've got compromised food all over the place we don't know if g.m.o. is there in the we're not sure of the source of the food so we need to be reinvigorating this movement and i was calling mothers on mother's day to really join the pro food movement again and. do you think that they are uniquely qualified in this area i think mothers really care you know i have been blessed with children but i feel

like maybe i'm a mother more of ideas but i really feel that you know a mother understands that nurturing of a child and that responsibility of another life is something that we need to understand and some others to embrace and take their voices and their concerns more into the political field. well elizabeth let's talk about this elementary school or zachary maxwell from the public school system now he released his own documentary called yok a fourth grader short documentary about school lunch got a clip of this trailer for you. the department of education said that it's going to be if you're providing delicious and nutritious meals to their futurist through. the months being served at my school was nothing like what they were advertising on their watch. so the factory maxwell seems to be getting it right. we're serving the sub par food to our kids and often celebrity shops like

rachael ray i think she was the shaft it was featured in his school in charge of you know something designing the foods that was going on there do you think that that influence is just a money grab what do you make of that i you know i worked at quite a bit in the child nutrition reauthorization a few years ago when i was going through congress and a lot of people say well the other kids won't eat healthy food that's not what they'll do but actually in my organization that is what we then which was the physicians committee for responsible medicine we would go into schools and the day before we'd put something wonderful new on the lunch line which generally would be very plant based so lots of vegetables in it we would give stickers to anybody who tried that food and of course everybody wants the sticker so everybody tries the food and then when that food is served in the lunch line guess which food is taken up by the children more than the others it's a healthy stuff so it's really about reaching children and educating them and also

making sure that the food service directors really have the resources that they need to work for me to work with and have help with planning the menus because we can delicious healthy food to children that they will enjoy it is actually a wonderful chef coat and cooper he's down the in colorado and he's done an extraordinary amount of work in this area and it completely transformed the food system that she's worked in should primarily sourcing from local produce is having a salad bar and freshly made options every single day for the children it's wonderful i sat in the in the canteen about a year ago with the children and we had. wonderful and together it sounds like you're taking the misconceptions out of it they will actually eat about you ball ok talk to me about those roadblocks what have you found to be the road blocks you know against getting this healthy food into our school systems. well some of the the things that jamie oliver may be came up against when he did his work was

a resistance at the school level another resistance sometimes is that schools don't actually have kitchens anymore they don't have to prepare those foods there's a lot of heat and serve which is you know plastic goes from a freezer into a microwave and then it's up to the kids so we have to make sure that the schools already have the equipment that they need and that the people who are making the food trained to a degree that they can actually make it and really understand what children would like to eat them back to make sure that the government funds these programs appropriately and we've got more children now who are claiming free and reduced lunches because they coming from families who've been hit very hard by these economic times and many of them oh so participating in the supplemental nutrition assistance program snap which is being cut provisionally in the farm bill and so we need to be addressing food all around and make sure that we understand that a well fed nation really is a very strong and healthy nation i was executive producer of g m o o m g elizabeth

because the national she's also the policy director at the center for food safety. well charles and david koch are among the richest people in the world and they're known for their libertarian and conservative causes now the rumor is that these billionaires might buy the tribune newspaper group giving the coax potentially a direct outlet for their message and that's hitting a nerve now among the prize media outlets that are a part of the tribune company are the chicago tribune and the l a times newspapers all artes remember lindo shows us how some people are trying to keep the koch brothers from gaining control of the l.a. times. union members and progressive groups are sending the koch brothers a very loud and clear message they are not welcome in l.a. and we will get there until we set this thing down and tell we stop this madness and the koch brothers coming to los angeles david and charles koch aren't moving to

southern california but they are reportedly preparing a bid to buy the los angeles times and the seven other dailies that make up the tribune company's newspaper division demonstrators are outside of oak tree capital one hopes of putting pressure on the major shareholders of the tribune company not to sell to the koch brothers they're worried that billionaires will put their political agenda on the front page of the paper sit tight labor and by the anti-union like you. he seems like me want to put everybody back on the plantation charles laird has worked at the l.a. times for decades and is concerned about a possible shake up if the koch's can control we need these paper for really we don't need this paper representing another political boss the l.a. times has been decimated by massive staff cuts in recent years but the major daily in america's second largest city remains very influential the fear is that the influence of the times will be used for conservative causes close to the koch brothers chosen david koch became household names or in the twenty two election

when the brothers spent millions of dollars and ended to prevent president obama from winning a second term as we do support having newspapers owned by local owners because we think that there is more of a commitment to keeping a robust investigative reporting staff other billionaires are also in the running to buy the paper news corp boss rupert murdoch has expressed interest and just recently bought a new home in los angeles l.a. brode a former real estate developer and democratic party donor is also interested no one knows yet which way the new owners will take the l.a. times. to the code breakers. for the time being a growing number of people in liberal l.a. are saying no to the cooks in los angeles the moment lindo r t we are an awful lot about business lobbying groups and driving government decisions but a new report from the food and watch watch group says that the tables may have just

heard after combing through leaked weekly leaks documents they discover that the state department has widely been promoting biotech industry interest abroad and what's worse they just may have been using the taxpayers' dime to do it meghan's mega lopez artie's mega lopez has more. for years now americans have been concerned about the food in their refrigerators and more importantly the ingredients in those foods the debate over genetically modified crops that isn't only playing out in the fields it's being harvested in the courtrooms as well as within the walls of capitol hill and it turns out the u.s. government might have a bigger stake in the biotech industry than anyone could have imagined a report released by the food and water watch group shows that the u.s. state department played a major role in promoting g.m. foods and crops around the world the report examined diplomatic cables from two thousand and five to two thousand and nine to revise the first comprehensive analysis of u.s.

foreign policy when it comes to the biotech industry the cables were released by wiki leaks in august of two thousand and eleven and food and water watch group actually researched some two hundred and sixty thousand cables to discover that no fewer than one hundred twenty six of them dealt directly with promoting the biotech industry abroad here's what they discovered state department officials actively promoted the commercialization of specific biotech seeds in more than one hundred countries it was a push that began during the bush administration and continued into the obama presidency and the c.f. issue is an experts claim the biotech industry will help increase farm productivity combat global hunger and strengthen economic development opportunities all leading a lighter environmental footprint the state department cables say this is science diplomacy their target audience spans from the scientific community to the media farmers to legislators in fact the state department actually invited experts to

participate in nearly one hundred sixty nine events in fifty two countries around the world this happened in between two thousand and five and two thousand and nine those department meetings they also invited individuals that may influence the national biotech policy to the u.s. to learn more now. here are the four stated goals that food and water watch discovered in these cables the first one is to promote biotech interests abroad they try to facilitate trade and encourage cultivation of g.m. crops seconda lobby foreign governments to weaken biotech rules you can't after all profit off these countries if you can't get your products in some of them along with lobbying the need to protect biotech exports by stopping trade barriers like terrorists all this to promote and protect an estimated twenty five billion dollar industry and biotech crop exports and in particular one company monsanto which was

the biggest biotech seed company in two thousand and eleven and finally reach out to new markets by pressuring the developing countries to adopt a biotech crops the main argument here is that these crops are stronger and can end food insecurity around the world with a growing global population the state department also lobbied against the labeling of these crops and genetically modified foods they don't want any type of labels on them countries from egypt to hungary argentina to mozambique were targeted in these efforts and many of them were very receptive some of them actually changed their regulations as a result you know this lobbying started happening around the same time that monsanto admitting to bribing indonesian officials in an attempt to weaken environmental oversight of g.e. crops monsanto attempted to pay in division indonesian officials fifty thousand dollars as an incentive but ended up coughing up more than one point five million

dollars in fines so the u.s. government instead now in the wake of these cable releases it appears that monsanto and other biotech firms don't need to bribe country officials anymore they have the government to do that using taxpayer money nonetheless it is the latest chapter in a dispute over your dinner plate in washington that. well pez r t well i'd just as begin to describe the events surrounding the arrest of the accused cia operative under russian foil this week on tuesday an american embassy worker identified as ryan fogle was apprehended by russia's federal security service to detain him under the notion that the third secretary politics was actually u.s. u.s. cia operative fogle at the time of his arrest was allegedly in a blonde wig a baseball hat and carrying a promissory letter of one million dollars and one hundred thirty thousand dollars in cash now russian officials say that fogle was trying to recruit

a spy now fogle has been shipped back to the u.s. after being ordered out of russia r.t.c. corpus going up has more and more details to offer the latest spying scandal between moscow and washington continue to emerge we've managed to obtain audio recordings of what the federal security service claims were phone conversations between the undercover cia officer and the person he was hoping to recruit you're going to so it's a lot more than even more than it is the process talk a little and you know what the store attack yes because of remorse just a lot of right there was a million little young yes the case is still some nine mil at the idea that the state. it all happened late on monday night in one of moscow's city parks where another uncover a cia officer officially working in moscow as an american diplomat was hoping to meet an officer of one of russia's security services who he was working to recruit

chang here is where the classic spy story begins the man brought to the meeting several wigs including one on him tens of thousands of the euro in cash map of the city of qom pass and the cheapest and most simplest mobile phone you can possibly find and pretty much. throw away right after using presumably the one used in these phone conversations but despite all the calm of large and the spy tricks obviously he didn't know that he was under surveillance by the f.s.b. for the past few years and that the man he was hoping to recruit would be the same one to detain him but just before that happened here's a piece of what seems to be the last phone conversation he had not told the vast. sea of park. oh you have a seizure. obviously that didn't turn out very well for the undercover cia officer and well the f.s.b. has also released. note that he also had along with them with instructions

apparently to recruit agents on how to connect the center had encoded registering a separate to g. mail account which would be used specifically for the connection with the center and had information about salaries that this person would receive receive which would reach up to one million u.s. dollars a year plus bonuses depending on the importance of the information that he would pass along to the american side now after he was temporarily detained the man was passed over back to american authorities has been announced persona non-grata in russia and is reported now to be getting ready to return to the united states there's still been no official reaction from washington but we do know that u.s. ambassador in russia michael mcfaul did make a visit to the foreign ministry earlier today but no details have been released that russian officials have been voicing outrage with what happened saying that the

leaders of the two countries have been working to develop and improve relations with there's been progress around the syria issue and how to deal with that and now the scandal here in sochi where the russian president currently is one of his advisors told us that it's really. uprising that it happened now despite orders from the builders of both countries to their security services to work together on one side rather than against each other it was r t z corpus going up reporting. looks a bit like top gun for twenty thirteen the u.s. navy has launched an unmanned aircraft the size of a fighter jet the x. forty seven b. stealth drone which took off from the deck of the u.s.s. george h.w. bush near the coast of virginia now this is the first time a do rone it has ever launched off an aircraft carrier the drone later landed in nearby maryland as it cannot yet land on another carrier this aircraft has been

designed to take off from another aircraft airfield an aircraft carrier if the united states navy can launch drones from anywhere on the open seas it raises further legal questions surrounding america's covert drone program does it for now see back a day. giving peace a chance this may or may not be the case when it comes to the state of syria russian peace plan to end a civil war is being reconsider are the u.s. and its goals ally serious or is this a ploy we commune we can supply the conflict. download . the cation so choose your life stream quality and enjoy your favorite.