to live on one hundred thirty three bucks a month for food i should try it because you know how fabulous i'm glad i got so many i mean. i know that i'm still feeling really messed up. in the old story so personally i believe it's. worse cheaper to live through the white house or for the. radio guy and for minestrone. what we're about to give you never seen anything like this i'm telling. you guys i'm having martin and welcome to breaking the set so big crowds came together on the street steps of the supreme court today has rulings came down on

two important elements the same sex marriage debate the first is huge news for the community in the golden state of california after a five to four ruling that struck down proposition eight as unconstitutional a law that had originally banned gay marriage in this state the other ruling was in regards to one element of the defense of marriage act or doma and in that five to four ruling the supreme court justices determined that this law which denied benefits to same sex marriages was also unconstitutional now as a result of these rulings all same sex marriages in the states that recognize it will be eligible for help tax and pension benefits that are already allotted to their heterosexual counterparts the court's decision also prompted defense secretary chuck hagel to announce that quote benefits will be available to all military spouses regardless of sexual orientation as soon as possible guys this is fantastic news that a huge step in the right direction for the l.g.b.

community and for humanity at large but there is still much more to be done the way the supreme court ruled it leaves them. and problems first of all same sex marriage can still be banned in the thirty six states that have yet to rule on it secondly the benefits now a lot of the same sex couples won't necessarily be recognized everywhere so right now it's still a states' rights issue but the majority of people in this country supporting gay rights it's time for the federal government to move on the right side of history i'm talking about a federal law that legalizes marriage for everyone so yes a victory today but a long road ahead until there's equal rights for all so let's go to work and let's break the set. this week the texas state house was scheduled to vote on

a controversial unprecedented bill that many have called an outright assault on women's reproductive rights it's called senate bill five which was all but certain to pass until it was thwarted by an epic thirteen hour long filibuster done by a little known state texas state senator wendy davis shortly before midnight deadline davis was forced to stop speaking by lieutenant governor david duke hurst but that move prompted hundreds of demonstrators in the state house to erupt in outrage. this protest effectively delayed the vote and though it was the texas bill the filibuster has brought the issue into the national spotlight to get a better grasp on how exactly it all went down i spoke earlier with one of the demonstrators who was on the floor at the texas state house katie hope i first asked her what it was about this bill that had people so riled up. in texas we have a legislative session every two years for and one hundred forty days and we had

special session called originally about redistricting in texas and halfway through the session governor rick perry to say that he wanted to add abortion legislation to the bill. the call for special session s.b. five by senator hagar is a bill that would require all abortion facilities to meet certain requirements which i believe currently forty two facilities only six five or six would actually still remain in existence if these requirements were promptly put in place and the requirements were more structural and or the guys you know protecting women in who were seeking abortions when really what it would do is close eighty percent of the facilities in taxes and in many cases forcing folks from el paso to have to travel six hundred miles to receive any type of medical treatment to terminate

a pregnancy and not only would you have to make that trip once but because of legislation passed in two thousand and eleven you have to make that twice and so the reason why that's the problem is that is an economic burden especially for a lot of the women they're having to make these very personal and traumatic decisions and so for. sure i'm sort of i don't but they're really really quickly you know you were at the texas state house when this happened at pick filibuster thirteen hours a come. by an army of supporters a lot of eyes are now on wendy davis what drove the state senator to do this epic filibuster. senator davis is always an addict can't see in and known for her making legislative headlines when she filibustered last session to support teachers and so senator de this week has chosen to do the filibuster by the senate democrats

because she is a mother of two she's a single mother of two who also you know had a lot of personal challenges in her life where she literally went from being almost homeless to being a harvard graduate and so she really embodied. what it is that the women they're making these decisions face and and so we thought i should be the best voice to really represent all texas women which is what she did on the house floor she read testimony from hundreds of women who wrote in who were not allowed to testify because in in the previous week senators and state representatives would not allow them to testify in the committee hearings and so yes i expect filibusters how is what senator davis did different than say the filibuster with senator rand paul because i as i understand the rules for filibusters are actually much more strict in texas. right so in texas as if you're not allowed when you're

doing a filibuster you have to get official notification and you're not allowed to sit you know and i had to lean on your desk and one of the points of or that was called on her was because senator allen's help her with her back brace which the senate republicans are trying to say was her receiving assistance you're not allowed to drink water you know allowed to eat anything you have to stand the entire time you can yield the floor to take questions but you have to be talking about specifically the topic of that and so of the. three points of order last night that republicans called to try to end her filibuster which they ultimately did to have them related to her talking about issues that they said were not germane to s.b. five and the other one was for receiving assistance because she was putting on a back brace because she'd been at that point standing for over nine hours straight because the senate bill five stand right i mean is it essentially dead in the water going to be revived. the governor perry can call another special session which we

imagine he will because there are a number of bills that were not put there were night voted on last night. specifically the transportation legislation that was also a part of this call just this special session so we anticipate in the coming months that coming weeks actually the governor perry will call another special session and will more than likely he can add abortion legislation to that call again but right now as it stands as the five is dead the special session ended at midnight and that decision was upheld and finally lieutenant governor dean has conceded that women of texas that the vote was not taken before midnight and so the legislation is now dead and it seems like we're seeing this kind of legislation pop up not just in texas but all across the country katie why do you think that forty years after roe v wade we're still seeing this issue at the forefront. you know i don't know i

thought it was interesting i don't know if many people know this but sarah weddington is actually a texan and lives in austin texas and i was her assistant for a few years in college and i would always ask her why is this still happening and she said if men could have children there wouldn't be a fight and so i think the fact that the original points of order on center davis the fact that they were made by men the fact that it was lieutenant governor do hurston senator duncan acting as chair of the senate at the time. really does drive leader. line that you know it was women on the house floor who were fighting for our constitutional rights and it was men who were trying to deny them and in some pretty unscrupulous ways as well the rules of the senate are pretty clear and. i would probably say i guess maybe ten to fifteen times points of order poison inquiry and even moves to adjourn were not heard by the republicans

and jiggly sen duncan throughout the night welcome to the fights far from over thank you so much for shedding some insight on the issue and thanks for being there to report what is going on kate in iran who really appreciate a time. thank you of course will still be here. after three years of legal limbo for army private bradley manning his court proceeding finally commenced on june third of this year with today marking the tenth day of trial unfortunately the case has been totally closed off to the public and no cameras were allowed inside luckily artie's very own lives while has been in attendance to keep us up to date she joined me earlier from fort meade to give us the latest. already dark. reading as you've been covering the trial for the past couple of weeks give us an update on what's happening right now and where the trial stands. that's right abbie we are in a week for a bradley manning's court martial here in fort meade maryland today centered around

the two hundred fifty thousand diplomatic cables that were leaked to wiki leaks the prosecution alleges that manning stole because cables manning says that he admits to leaking the cables he says he didn't steal them we heard testimony today from state department officials some of the testimony we heard testimony specifically about this database called that center of diplomacy this database that's used by the defense intelligence community supposedly this is where these cables came from where they were taken for a couple of interesting things we learned that as much as seventy five percent of the documents are administrative so you know that means a lot of the documents probably weren't too explosive in terms of what they contained another interesting thing is that according to the testimony today there was no proof that manning hacked into the database or hacked into the computers that in order to obtain this information that it was readily. attainable to him based on the clearance that he had so a little bit of a gap there from what the prosecution is alleging that he stole these documents and

i think the prosecution is also i mean they came in a really strong in the beginning with a lot of heavy charges me you know hacking in and releasing a lot of information that could be a lot of very damaging to the government have any of their other argue. it's fallen apart as far as the trial i know it's still early on. yeah but as you mentioned a lot of very serious charges aiding the enemy that carries a life sentence no parole is what he would face if he is in fact charged with that also charged under the espionage act. it's interesting how the prosecution is trying to prove this as to be an act in the opening statements they said that they were going to prove that man they took this video of this airstrike in the farah province of afghanistan and that he sent this video to a man by jason katz and that caps was going to encrypt this video and all of this was done in a conspiracy with julian assange and it to get this video on wiki leaks but. pretty

pretty significant had testimony was that there was no connection found between manning's computer and kept this computer the timing very didn't add up either so a pretty big hole in the defense excuse me the prosecution's theory that there was this you know big conspiracy. kind of there the way that they're trying to go about proving this espionage charge. is a glaring hole the. bomb is new favorite law what's expected be heard moving forward this week and moving on. well if they don't give us too much information too much of a hand in the future it's kind of go on a day by day basis but we are expected to hear we heard about i'd say sixty to seventy of the projected one hundred forty witnesses that the prosecution told us we were going to hear from throughout this trial supposed to go on all summer advantage we'll keep you updated or you'll be there and i think it's important to make note that there is no jury it's very secretive and so it's understandable

they're not told too much thanks was for keeping us updated there. on the show i'll speak to investigative journalist. journalists in this country and the media project stick around. looking pretty much in the feel good luck you won't find it here if you're looking for relevant stories unique perspectives on top of my scans and our.

the to. have you ever seen anything like.

the latest n.s.a. leak has solidified the fact that journalists are now in the line of fire could be guilty in the court of public opinion of course i'm referring to recent calls for the prosecution of guardian journalist glenn greenwald folks were living in backwards times where politicians and pundits would rather attack the messenger and to address the message that's a reality my next guest knows all too well as an investigative journalist working in local television he was criticized multiple times simply for asking questions that go beyond official narratives and fact is someone i have highlighted on this show as a hero in one of the only journalist to directly confront president obama about his kill list and the n.b.a.'s indefinite detention clause take a look. when you signed the national defense authorization act into law you issued a signing statement at that time but said you would not use that power for indefinite detention of americans you understood the concerns that people had a judge earlier this year issued that the administration couldn't use those powers because it's unconstitutional so why are the government's own lawyers fighting that

judge's order the injunction in particular that was ben's won an award winning journalist who's most known for hosting a hard hitting ground breaking news segment called reality check which aired on a local fox affiliate in ohio. earlier i spoke to ben about everything from the n.s.a. leaks to his new media venture i first asked him if he feels like the attacks that we're seeing a glance against glenn greenwald are intended to create a chilling effect for journalists and here's his response. i think that's exactly what they're designed to do look we saw this whole thing play out with james rosen a few weeks ago rosen of course was being targeted by the department of justice because he we had a source inside the military who was leaking information to him the idea there was that he was committing criminal acts and so the department of justice including attorney general eric holder were involved in this investigation where they were acting his e-mails they were active his private e-mails his phone his parents' phone we saw this happening and we saw journalists rally around you know what's

strange in the greenwald case is i don't see a lot of journalists rallying behind him but other than journalists like yourself like myself there aren't as many coming out in support of greenwald the idea the notion that you would say that greenwald hates america and that's the reason he interviewed and snowden is unconscionable it's ridiculous it's outrageous that it really is a chilling if i can already ice cold environment for journalism you know a lot of people are using glenn greenwald's open bias toward whistleblowers as fodder for his prosecution interesting we had a chance to talk to larry king about it i asked him whether he has a problem with journalists who have an open bias and this is what he had to say. journalists i mean they could perform a kind of journalism but they come with an opinion that's fine i mean you but i call them op ed page as you would not call glenn greenwald a journalist or he could be a journalist but was is it is to some if you give an opinion you then come with a bias so similarly ben your work doesn't shy away from taking

a stand neither does mine how do you feel about people who say that that kind of work isn't journalism well i think you have to balance the to be taking a stand we're taking a position but backing it up with either facts or rule. law is not really editorializing and i had this conversation with a number of people because people look at the content that we put out will say well clearly you're taking a stand for the constitution therefore you're editorializing no not necessarily look rule of law is the standard in this country i didn't decide it was the standard you didn't decide it was the standard when the president takes his oath of office he swears allegiance to uphold and protect what the constitution of the united states every member of congress firefighters police officers military members be all pledge this oath to the constitution and so when you take a stand that says rule of law is a standard that doesn't make you editorializing to say look clearly this is outside the bounds of rule of law it's what the journalist is supposed to do hold those in

power accountable that's not editorializing so you have to differentiate between that and someone who looks at rule of law and says well i think in this case we can begin to in this direction or in this case we can bend it in this direction and that's what the left right paradigm as you know abbie has been doing for so long in this country the left right game being played in media is we're going to pull people from both sides and we're going to in cases where the constitution doesn't fit what we want we will bend it in cases where it backs up what we want to remain rigid to it i couldn't agree more about it in your career you've come under heat for asking questions about the boston bombing in other vans that have happened in recent months and why do you think it is they are labeled radical or fringe just for questioning in official narrative but i think that's the group think mentality that we have in media today where if you don't follow along with what everyone else is saying you're somehow on the outside of that and therefore you are either a some kind of a rogue player or you are as they like to say the truth or it's funny we hear this

term truth there all the time now you're a nine eleven truth or euro sandy hook truth or you're a boston bombing truth or whatever it might be well the fact is this hear me when i say this but every journalist in america should be a truth or someone who is seeking the truth not someone who sequences. spirity theories but someone who's actually seeking after truth and if that means going beyond the narrative i mean were woodward and bernstein were they truth others well to an extent yes because the official narrative did not match what they found through their investigative reporting but today we would never refer to those two as truth theirs because that's a slur that's used against journalists who are actually doing their job it's amazing that become a project of term to seek truth that ban and that report you talked about how many questions were left on answered there is no follow up of course about things like the war rich murder or the f.b.i. assassinating to da have warnings received about these events and of course this lack of transparency breeds distrust confusion speculation what's your advice to people who have such a hard time sorting through the noise to find the truth well i think you have to go

around mainstream media and you have to be able to support journalists like yourself like myself who are doing our part to try to answer questions i give you an example this past week we released a piece on ben's one dot com going through this and i have the n.s.a. story but what we didn't do was continue the usual narrative of deciding whether or not to try and read snowden in the court of public opinion instead we look at number one whether he is legitimately looked at legitimately a whistleblower and number two if he is a whistleblower that must mean the n.s.a. was committing a crime and so our investigation looked at whether or not what the n.s.a. had been doing it continues to do is in fact a crime and having it is a crime the job of a journalist is to find that information but they need the public to then rally behind that the problem we have today in our current media culture is people don't go to media to get information they go to the media to be validated in the belief system they already hold the r.t. decide whether or not something is true or untrue and now they're looking for

someone to validate that elite we have to get away from that we have to we have to report the truth no matter how uncomfortable that truth may be and of course that's the problem with these partisan networks that actually push that two party dictatorship is what i like to call it and i reports and i encourage everyone to watch that report that you just said about. and i say let's talk about your career you became wildly popular with the second a reality check on a local fox station in cincinnati ohio it was unprecedented i mean the way they are able to push very controversial topics on local television i mean did you pitch reality check did you have to fight to get it or did someone high up have your back there you know here's how it worked it was actually not even my idea it was a consulting group that came in and said there is this gap in the market that allows us to go after what they called snow style journalism we're going to be the fact checkers and from that the problem is as you know when you start checking facts it leads you to more facts and leads you to more facts and what we found after a short amount of time was that all of the sudden we're getting into stories that are really very controversial and in many cases the mainstream media won't talk

about an example a year ago i did this story and i got a lot of heat from it including from my own newsroom about the fact these different tea party groups around the country were saying they were being targeted by the i.r.s. was the first television reporter in the nation to talk about this a lot of people said oh i scraped he's just talking about these chin foyle had tea party people who think everyone's out to get them well then it comes out a year later and in fact that wasn't the case we were way ahead on that story and part of the reason for that is because we were fearless in the questions that we would ask and the stories we would go after we never went after stories with this presumption of what the end result would be and so time and time again we've actually been way ahead of the curve in terms of that and that's why the decision finally came along just a couple of weeks ago to leave and i said you know what it's time to step away from that and let's go out and try something different let's let's crowd source support for journalism in this country so many people have been i know they do with you as well complain about the left right paradigm in media and about corporate media in

america well their chance now is to back a project that we started called the truth and media project on kickstarter they can back that project and help us to actually go after these stories fearlessly and without any limitation based on what corporate buy. those might say immediate boss might say and that's what we're trying to much time and i encourage everyone to go check it out support you because we need you we need trailblazers like ourselves and to really pave the way in this new media fight that we have is it really is an information or war and i am are you going talk about the corporate media quite a bit there's this charade i mean i remember waking up to the charade when the media lockstep across both parties were selling they are was selling the iraq war what was that realisation for you. for me it actually came a few years ago i was working down on the border for the us mexico border in el paso texas that's where i'm from started my journalism career there and about two thousand and seven two thousand and eight when the city of what is became really

gold in the drug war i went over into mexico and really covered it extensively what was happening there what were the results of not only u.s. policy and mexican policy on drugs and how it was helping to create this war but also the truth behind what was happening with government involvement on both sites the collusion between cartels and government started doing this reporting and found that so many folks in national media would even listen and it wasn't like we were just coming up with theories and we were finding all kinds of facts and evidence and proof i was working with a guy who's a documentary filmmaker and we had so much evidence of what was happening down there but networks weren't interested in it and corporate media wasn't interested in it but we felt as they already had their presumed kind of the end game of what this drug war was about for some was about immigration for others it was about stricter drug policy and none of none of what they were saying actually matched up with the facts it was at that moment that i realized i wasn't going to get very far trying to push truth to these guys because they just weren't interested in truth

they were interested in the narrative that you already design and a lot of self-censorship going on as well ben really quickly tell people one more time where they can find you and help your project you can check out business one dot com there we have a link to the truth in media pride. checked again it's been be in as you wait in dot com check out the truth in media project and also while you're there you can check out our full disclosure on the n.s.a. and read snow awesome ben swan amazing to have you on investigative journalist thank you so much it's a pleasure thanks. well if you're wondering what i'm doing when i'm not on air check me out on twitter at abby martin if you like what you see you can follow me there you'll find all my tweets linked in a segments from the show as well as random thoughts i have throughout the day and also please help us get breaking aside trending on twitter ok i'll throw the hostiles we can get trending on the what does fail but only with your hopes so head to twitter check me out at abby martin and guys that's a wrap for us here in d.c.

they're sure to come back and break the sound mic all again tomorrow. i would rather as questions for people in positions of power instead of speaking on their behalf and that's why you can find why still larry king now right here on our t.v. question more. is

he because you believe he says he's. going to leave. the nation free accreditation free in-store charges. range lists three. three stooges free. download free blog cancer plug in video for your media projects and free media oh god r.t. dot com you. feel

. the feeling . that the end. loss is for it's all a comeback please do this all night and answer please find spotlessly and you. i were going up as well that you look up. and i'm about to actually go to afghanistan here in june so i got i got that very much tired i have. that's why we try to do it they want to go drag us are going to employ before yes man tired those.