you live on one hundred thirty three bucks a month for food i should try it because you know how fabulous i had lunch i got so . i mean. i know that i'm still really messed up. and we're all really sort of sleepy that's. the worst you're going to go lie down for the. radio guy and for a minute. what. we're about to give you never seen anything like this i'm still. going on guys i'm abby martin and this is breaking the set so if there's one person

that comes to mind when i think of what bodies and prove of the human condition it's president george w. bush clearly i'm being facetious but believe it or not there are actually people who feel this way namely those of the university of denver yet the universities program an international study in the corbell school presents an award every year called improving the human condition and this year a highly coveted honor has been granted to none other than you know the same man responsible for two illegitimate wars based on false pretenses the death of over one million iraqis the violation of countless international laws and you know what we're going to stop now because listing all of his crimes have taken the entire show so what was the stated reason to grant bush this award well no surprise here money yep school administrators defended their decision by explaining the annual awards ceremony is the biggest fundraising event of the year and bush is present with drawing some much needed funds but surprisingly there is much outrage coming from the student body and faculty over the. want to express her discussed on

a circulating petition she said george bush was known to authorize torture and numerous other crimes against humanity being given an award for improving the human condition is a sick cruel joke my sentiment exactly so a war criminal torturers being recognized as improving humanity what's next president obama the drone king being awarded the nobel peace prize await let's go break the set. so guys in case you missed it obama's appointed someone new to run the f.b.i. his name is james komi a former bush officials surprise surprise although he was deputy attorney general under bush is being recognized as a trailblazer in defiance of some bush's most controversial policies he was appointed by president george w. bush is a top justice department official but at

a critical moment komi defied the bush white house rejecting a request to renew a controversial terrorism surveillance program he's seen by many as in the same mold as the current f.b.i. director robert muller tough and a straight shooter wow rejected insane overreach of government surveillance maybe he isn't so bad after all before we hail him as a civil liberties hero let's take a closer look at his track record first starter's although he initially opposed warrantless domestic spying he eventually agreed to it but that's just the beginning remember jose padilla the u.s. citizen who is suspected of aiding terrorists back in two thousand and two one step receiving due process the deal was held for three and a half years in a military prison as an enemy combatant there he was kept in blacked out isolation and tortured repeatedly now i'm only bringing this indefinite detention case of a u.s. citizen up because james komi fully endorsed it saying quote we'll figure out down the road what to do with jose. administration could not care less about

a criminal case when right now before us is the need to protect american citizens yes protecting american citizens means foregoing their constitutionally guaranteed rights that makes perfect sense but while we're on the subject of torturing someone in a cell let's talk about companies record on torture of the by the memos most famously known as the torture memos while they were internal documents created by bush official jay bybee discussing the guidelines for what's considered torture and our good friend james comey concurred with the following torture techniques which included sleep deprivation solitary confinement stress positions water dallas' scene and of course waterboarding yes comey was in full agreement that these techniques were needed to fight the war on terror wow so glad of bush torture apologist of the road to head the f.b.i. but then again what more can we really expect from ministration that's essentially just a continuation of the previous one remember we're talking about the same president

that appointed john brennan to head the cia you know the man calling is bush's drone assassination czar so please spare me the ad tricks to train this man is a defiant pioneer because he's endorsed actions that stand in direct violation of international law so instead of calling him a trailblazer let's call him by his real title a gate keeper for bush put two point zero. letters for a. regime anything like that. the hunger strike of thirty thousand prison inmates in california has now reached its fourth day and spread to two thirds of the state's thirty three prisons the prisoners are protesting what they see as unfit prison conditions but the main focus of the strike is to call for an end to the practice of solitary confinement it's common practice to throw in. mates into solitary as punishment and in

california alone as many as forty five one hundred prisoners are kept in isolation cages at any given time while in a shocking twist the l.a. times reported that as a result of these protests quote corrections officials are threatening to search the hunger strikers cells seize their food stashes and possibly move them to solitary confinement if they continue their meals strike. that's right inmates protesting in solitary confinement may end up in solitary confinement if they continue to protest is it just me or is there something seriously wrong with this equation when my next guest is someone who represents federal prisoners who are victims of this practice to help me get a better understanding of solitary confinement and what long periods of isolation do to the human spirit i'm joined now by rachel senior staff attorney at the center for constitutional rights rachel thanks for coming on thanks for having me so rachel for people who don't understand can you break down what the conditions of solitary confinement are shore so prisoners in california and decades some of them

up to twenty years in a small cramped concrete cell they sleep on a thin mattress on a concrete slab floor and they never have normal face to face conversation with other human beings the only people they have access to to talk to are the guards who slide their food tray through a slot in their cell door they don't have a window they can't see the outside world california alone out of any correctional system that i've ever heard of even denies prisoners in solitary confinement telephone calls they can't make any social phone calls to loved ones friends on the outside unless in the case of an emergency like when an individual's parent dies they might be given one call in that decade prisoners spend decades in this type of confinement you might expect that an individual who spends five ten fifteen years in solitary confinement is there because he's committed an act of violence in

prison or has violated a prison rule but in california that's not the case these men are being held in these conditions because of alleged gang affiliation sometimes something as simple as having artwork that president officials claim shows gang affiliation displayed on their cell walls. and what are some of the effects that this has on a person physically. psychologically. well social science has shown us that this type of solitary confinement is incredibly detrimental to human beings it places individuals at significant risk for developing serious mental illness and even individuals who don't sort of become diagnosable the mentally ill suffer serious effects prisoners report headaches hallucinations anxiety depression our clients talk about the fact that you know after fifteen twenty years in solitary confinement they feel completely they have lost the ability to concentrate to read

to engage with people even in those small periods of time when they're allowed to have some sort of human contact they have sort of ceased to be able to function as human beings function because of just being denied contact for so long looks talk about the color fornia strike what exactly is going on in these prisons that's prompting the mouse protests and how common is it to punish prisoners with solitary because it seems like that's going on as well. well we've seen a lot of solitary confinement across the country california is not unique in placing prisoners who violate prison rules in solitary confinement what really makes california new unique is the number of prisoners they place in these units for such prolonged periods of time and for such amorphous reasons so instead of requiring that a showing that a prisoner has violated a prison rule california places these individuals in solitary confinement just because of intelligence that they may be associated with

a gang and then holds them there in till the individual debriefs in other words snitches on other alleged gang members to show that they have renounce the gang for many individuals there's no way they can do this they don't have any actual information about gang members and they're unwilling to lie about another prisoner and put them in the same situation they're now facing now prisoners in calif. engaged in a hunger strike to hunger strikes in two thousand and eleven challenging these policies the california department of corrections. led them to agree to stop that hunger strike by promising real reform that reform hasn't happened and that's why the prisoners are once again engaging in a hunger strike and one issue that your organization is working on is the growth of the communications management unit so what are these and why are they predominately filled with muslims shores so the states don't have aren't the only ones that violate prisoners' rights the federal government does it as well and we've seen two

communications management units that have popped up in the federal bureau of prisons these are units designed to isolate certain prisoners who the federal bureau of prisons considers dangerous mostly to keep individuals who are engaged in social movements primarily a significant amount of muslim prisoners who the bureau of prisons doesn't want to spread their religious practices and thoughts through the larger prison system individuals are sent to these units without any procedural protections so individuals are told you know reliable evidence indicates your involvement in recruitment or radicalization or something to that degree and with no more is sent into one of these communications management units in the units they're denied contact visits they have extremely little limited telephone access to the outside world and it's about segregating and isolating unpopular prisoners and your organization has concluded that solitary confinement is torture i heard multiple

eyewitnesses who had been in solitary testifying at the senate's first hearing on solitary last year i mean it seems pretty cut and dry why is the u.s. still using this practice to an enormous degree well that's the right question to be asking and we're in the courts right now trying to ensure that this country no longer tortures people in this way the courts really haven't had a chance to rule get on. long solitary confinement court cases considering call terry confinement for shorter periods of time largely allow it especially when it's in reaction to a proven rule violation so a prisoner receives indeterminate sentence of months even years in solitary confinement to punish his misbehavior but as i've said courts haven't had the chance yet to rule on california's brand a prolonged indeterminate solitary confinement and we're looking forward to them doing so thank you so much paul senior staff attorney for the center for constitutional rights thank you. guys we're taking a quick break but when we return i'll respond to some of the you look at home and

so stay tuned. looking for somebody else in the field that well you will find it here if you're looking for relevant stories unique perspectives and tell my scans to start.

well guys i'm always asking you to write your feedback and let me know you think about the show and say it's viewer feedback time story with twitter at cole while the drunk thirteen m. says and the city for a legals is

a stand in for an army inside america's borders every president has done it for the past thirty years white seriously suggesting that undocumented immigrants are a standing army right here over the u.s. government if they get amnesty w.t.f. man ok seriously though let's move on to the you tube where overseas expert says you seem to fall into the trap of thinking that any riot or rebellion is an arche anarchy simply the lack of an organized government you know what you are absolutely correct in that statement sometimes i fall into the trap of equating chaos with anarchy which couldn't be more incorrect understanding anarchism is fundamentally nonviolent ideologies and thanks for that still on you tube venice it one writes in response to a segment that i did about obama and mend bella can anyone else detect the buyer's remorse coming from abby she probably voted for obama both times like the other obama girls now are she now lights going off in her brain that tells her that she got to do total fail over oh please don't lump in with the other quote obama girls

if you knew anything. me on the show before making such absurd insinuations you would know that i've been against the two party system years before i even knew what an abysmal failure obama was supposed to spare me and i want to move on to e-mail where i just got a lot of this warning from a man named blair that said how do you deal with anxiety fear that someone may come to get you since you're shedding a light on this corruption blair first of all thank you for worrying about my safety but i choose not to live in fear fear is exactly what the establishment would like to use to cripple us from speaking out what i do want to daily basis is much bigger than my life remember the only thing the fear is fear itself and finally on facebook and response to my nestle segment where i call it the corporations for takeover of water woman actually day they sent me this is a photo of a screenshot she got of a text from her friend that said just want to know that because of obvious video my wife and i made the decision to stop selling bottled water in our pizza shop ice

and filtered tap water for free thanks for helping to bring about change in a positive kick ass fashion whew that is the coolest freaking thing ever when i read things like that it makes everything i do worth it and in that same thread many other people added that they too are now filtering their own tap water even the smallest change can make a world of difference thanks as always guys for watching and writing the show would be nothing without your love and support. over recent years there's been a staggering increase the number of sexual salt in the military and as more attention is paid to the issue questions are rising over whether the military's response is enough to remedy the problem while the discussion is largely focused on the women who have fallen victim to the aggression there's another part of the story often overlooked the majority of service members sexually assaulted every

year. a man the pentagon report about in two thousand and twelve an estimated twenty six thousand service members had experienced some form of unwanted sexual contact and fifty three percent of those incidents were attacks on men mostly by other men now while the evidence does support the fact that women are more likely to be sexually harassed experts say assaults against men have been vastly under-reported so here to talk about the silent epidemic and how it's being addressed i'm joined by a male survivor brian lewis he's an advocacy committee member of protect our defenders and president of men recovering from military sexual trauma thank you so much brian for the question tonight and i know it's a obviously sensitive subject how were you sexually abused and what happened when you tried to report it. was such an abuse while stationed and. he was a superior noncommissioned officer and when i was tried to report this crime to my chain of command. they came back down to me my. senior level my commanded and

said you're not to take this any further you're not to make a report of a criminal investigative service and basically silence the whole thing. how did it affect your life thereafter as i understand more inevitably destructive yes i was i was seen by a psychiatrist from medical center san diego and he had me discharged with a personality disorder which means i received no benefits from my military service after that. i sank into a deep hole. i had after the assault i suffered by attempted suicide several times. and i became a self harmer to try to deal with the pain and eventually about five years ago i met. my partner and began climbing out of the hole that. was dug.

brian is this more common than we like to think absolutely it is men are. men do not seek to come forward and for that matter neither do women right now in our military eighty six percent of victims do not come forward because they are afraid of retaliation by their chain of command and that's another statistic because the chain of command is who we're told to trust day in day out from the moment we enter boot camp and then to have that staggering violation the trust is something that a lot of survivors are paid aren't prepared for and it variably rivett demise is that so you know the numbers that i mentioned before the fifty three percent cases are men i mean since you said it's such a vast unreported issue i can imagine the numbers actually much higher those that are cited right now of the best guest estimates from the pentagon say that about ninety percent of men do not report this crime and we're talking ninety percent

of. right now the military is about one point two million men and roughly two hundred three thousand women so if only one point eight percent of men are experiencing sexual soul you're talking upwards of fourteen thousand sexual assaults occurring every year and only about three hundred or less are being reported to them through their channels because men are afraid of being labeled and discharged and nobody wants that. the issue might confuse people right because when a lot of people think of rape rape in the military they think of men raping women. give some insight on what the motives are for the rapists here well i've got it. most survivor so i don't really want to see them look inside my perpetrators head at all but clearly there are no just motives right but these guys this has nothing to do with sex as i want to make you know absolutely not this is not an issue about

sex this is. an issue about power control this is an issue about a crime taking place and the failure of the military to properly address it's not. bumped into men that have been victimized going as far back as world war two in vietnam and that's fifty sixty years ago i've also talked to men who have been victimized by women. and we are we really need to be talking about this in a gender inclusive way where we're talking about victims and perpetrators we're not talking about this as a women's issue or a gender issue where men are always seen as the perpetrator and women are seen as always the victim we need to be talking about it in a broader sense and we're starting with that in some areas of society we learned from the penn state scandal that boys were being abused there we've learned in the catholic church that boys are being abused there even in the russian figure skating federal federations we're learning that people always have been abused there as

well so that really needs to start translating over into the military more and more men like yourself are starting to come forward i do think male survivors are starting to break their silence on their show. i think. i can't speak for every male survivor out there but for my personal experience i was tired of living in silence and a lot of male survivors are tired of carrying that secret it's a secret we shouldn't have to carry it's a shame and forced upon us by the perpetrator and by the department of defense and . it's not our shame to carry and we're finally in a place where that message can come out do you think that the don't ask don't tell policy and in two thousand and seven had any sort of effect on the increase or buried at all on whether male servicemen came forward or not i believe it did. don't ask don't tell was a very horrendous policy and it was used as

a club for me. many survivors heads to say if you report this crime we will discharge you for being homosexual when in fact the issue of homosexuality has nothing to do with the crime of. brian it's hard to imagine the military in any other way than this kind of tough guy mentality i mean it kind of defines the culture there how can any change be possible in a quilter like that. the key to a culture change is the same key that has started in other institutions and nets that investigation the prosecution in the cation of those crimes has to come outside of that culture we wouldn't ask. we would ask to turn to investigate jerry sandusky we wouldn't we don't ask pope francis to investigate the bishops we asked trained criminal investigators we asked neutral judges and prosecutors to do that and that's what's going to inevitably lead the charge in the military is

getting these crimes outside of the chain of command where victims feel safe to report and just make this clear is that people understand when this crime happens you have to report to your chain of command and sometimes i've talked to survivors that said that they were actually actually abused by their chain of command and so really it's taking it outside and there's actually a bill in the senate you're testifying about this as you talk about what's being pushed through legislatively about changing this yes i was i was very honored to be asked by senator joel brandon the ranking member graham to testify on the issue of sexual assault in military and. i believe that bill right now is that. is going to if it's incorporated into the national defense authorization act is going to be the way forward invariably there are several bills competing and none of them have been adopted into the core piece of. legislation for the defense

department yet and congress really needs to step up and act upon that quickly who is in opposition to the bill as it stands i mean does it have a lot of support generally as far as i know yes. the opposition is coming from the chairman of the joint chiefs and most of the service chiefs that are saying we are in charge of our military and we can solve this problem but fifty years of evidence. they cannot adequately solve this problem as far as i'm concerned they've had their swings at the plate they failed three strikes the batteries out and that's just the way of world brian lewis can you give some advice to people out there who might have suffered from this sort of sexual abuse what would you tell them absolutely i'd really like to tell any survivor watching this male female transgender whatever that. we need you to come forward

we need you to. break the silence that you're a perpetrator imposed upon you and come forward and talk about what happened call your senator call your congressman and tell them that what happened to you isn't an isolated incident and you need their help enough calls like that and hopefully will get somewhere and hopefully we'll make some culture change along the way to those survivor suffering in silence please don't do it anymore thank you so much thank you brian this really appreciate your courage and strength pleasure. guys that's going to do it for our show tonight check us out on twitter if you want to know what i'm doing when i'm not on the air at abby martin directly so you can follow me there you'll find all my treatment in a segment from the show as well as i have got the day and also please help us get a break in the set run being on twitter because now you can get funding on that with us here but only with your help so i had a twitter check me out at martin and i'll do it here. first tonight in d.c.

thank the phone for watching have a great night. this journey is not about seeing the world. it's a mission that i could to myself the project will succeed if i stay in the same place all the time. i've been traveling around the world for twenty days so far in all the time i haven't spent any money at all the main idea of the project is a delta's payne's people's portraits in return for some goods. we have to get used to each other i think is a little disappointed about the bus a thing because we're still spending a lot of money i mean if i spend it shouldn't worry about that right now i don't think so goes a great artist but i don't think it's

a coma if you don't like the painting you just don't do anything. you know how sometimes you see a story and it seems so you think you understand it and then you glimpse something else and you hear or see some other part of it and realize that everything you thought you knew you don't know i'm tom harpur welcome to the big picture.

well for everything was fine until the moment i came to sing for opal. you're still local journalists wrote that a tramp artist had painted the minister of culture. from which the media reacted immediately. saying that ukrainian papers had dared to call a famous painter from following years a tramp. the main idea of the project as of the artist paints people's portraits in return for some goods things like. supplies or things that might be useful for traveling he doesn't use any.