the military said it will stop issuing daily reports on a number of these protesters and only a core group of nineteen of them remain striking now considering how the response of the strike was force feeding the inmates is it any wonder why so many of them have given up as i demonstrate on this show force feeding is torture and a complete and utter violation of human rights going through this excruciating experience and day after day after day is unimaginable but just because so many detainees have reached the absolute limit of human suffering doesn't mean we should pay any less attention to the crimes occurring at the shadow prison just a few hundred miles from our shores. of the. earth they are very hard to take a. look. at or how to act with that heartbreak there.

was. no it's not really my style to give props to someone who claims they are dane by god to be as right hand man on earth but i got to say i'm going to begin this new pope and i don't think i'm the only one. you know i freaking love this new poll pope francis you know i'm talking about right the pope are you guys watching this guy because you should be it's early but i'm thinking best pope ever saying let's get back to the roots let's get back to serving. auteur cool actually he calls the

church of the old hospital he's not afraid of anything and i think that's what's really getting these crowds and more than a million kids they're excited to see him it's pope mania. and his first album hasn't even dropped yet. that's right folks puns from across the spectrum seem to be love in the new pontiff for good reason to bob has been whistling a new tune in attempt to rebranding the church i don't know maybe has something to do with the tarnish the legacy of rife with sexual abuse or exclusion of women gays and atheists just name a few sealed up boston cisco has been quite busy asking parishioners worldwide to stop making issues like abortion contraception and gay marriage the primary focus of kampala says i'm wow almost sounds like francisco might just might be slightly in tune with the twenty first century just check out how he's doing on social media you know the facts is absolutely killing it on twitter just recently offered

catholics reduced time in purgatory for a faithful follow perhaps the best shout out came from the treat of god who outed pope francis is either world's coolest pope or the world's most conservative hippie . i'm not sure that's entirely accurate i did find a few quotes from the holy bishop to give you an idea of where he stands on the real issues on women in the church and in society pope francis said quote the feminine genius is needed wherever we make important decisions the challenge is this to think about the specific place of women also in those places where the authority of the church is exercised although that's not a direct indorsement for women to become priests it doesn't seem like he's ruling that out either if you could call systems finally going to catch up with most of the world religions and allow women to rise to the highest ranks of the church but let's move on to that issue of homosexuality because that's where the pope is a really starting things up saying that quote if someone is gay and he searches for the lord and has good will who might to judge. him that's

a huge change in tone from the last guy pope benedict the sixteenth who firmly held on to his archaic belief that homosexuality is an intrinsic disorder that finally the laws of nature have pope francis seems pretty firm about moving past these divisive issues that the main. owners of the church while some conservative catholics might be hyperventilating right about now i can really get behind a lot of what he's saying especially when it comes to what's truly important today's global society he said quote it is the consequence of a global choice and economic system which leads to this tragedy and economic system which has as its center and idol called money. ok ok and the pope things that the love of money is the root of all evil wow but really the pope's critique of current crony capitalism is really just an extension of the core values of christianity stepping outside our comfort level to be generous kind to others and taking care of the poorest among us before i really get ahead of myself here none of this means

that there will be a revolutionary transformation in the doctrine and practice of catholicism and i was refreshing that maybe to hear such a new progressive discourse coming from. i can't in good conscience indorse the catholic church i still feel very strongly about the fact that institutionalize religion is a main hinderance of progress in the world and is greatly inhibiting humanity's collective consciousness but that's the world we live in today so for now the change in tone promoting a more inclusive and tolerant catholicism is something to celebrate. the regular viewer break in this you know i often criticize u.s. foreign policy but you know when it comes to syria i'm in lockstep agreement with obama on what needs to be done with this country mired in debt it's more important than ever to port our pocketbooks and make sure this war happens. i'm going to bomb

a supporter i support president obama but the president needs your help our president can't launch into another war without you and remember we voted for him in two thousand and eight and twenty twelve we promise to support him. no matter what together we can do it that's why we here at the americans for whatever barack obama one did you know he's president say they have launched a kickstarter campaign to blunt world war three and america is dead ass broke so our goal is to raise one point six trillion dollars and on behalf of the u.s. government. this hilarious that from the comedy groups i can fit it has gone viral so far racking up nearly two and a half million new this quarter i spoke to one of the creators behind the video tyler alexander and i first asked him why he thinks the sketch is so popular. i think people can relate to it and that's you know degrees and the other side of it is that it's really funny and it's just

a really great piece out tires so you know that it sort of came to be it's interesting it came in originally the writer john lewis said just an idea you know we took we took one look at it and you know we gave him a couple of notes he took those notes turn the script around and you know about two and a half hours and are at a production just order pretty much for illustrator production and organizing our crew and everything like that you get your shot and produce. all it's excellently done i really really enjoyed it you know it's still a tense topic of conversation amidst the serious debate going on in the world right now have you received any backlash from obama supporters from putting out the sketch. that people don't understand that it's actually a piece of satire when some of the but the most frustrated or vocally angry. and on either side of the coin i mean there is the funniest one that i think i saw

was that it's tend to see. are people that are. a company and as a comedy brand for why mr all who are three. we actually want to stir all we're three. really. absolutely missed the point of the video if you think that we was or anything like that. if you had just had to tune out completely some of the trolls because it just drive you insane but you know i think if you're not offending people then you're not really doing your job at a certain extend you ever consider the sensitivities of your audience when you're writing comedy and how do you really balance that medium with politics and comedy if you're approaching a subject like that sure i mean the most important thing for us is not being afraid to make fun of those in power and it doesn't matter if the republicans you know liberals you know neo cons it doesn't matter to us you know we wouldn't be

doing. our audience a service if we were. taking shots at both sides so that includes obama that includes you know. george bush during his presidency so we need to make those that those we need to make fun of those in power that's what we have to do as a as a comedy brand that brace satirical sketch comedy that's politically charged and i just know not taking any side just going after everyone that's kind of what i try to do with this show as well how would you say that the proliferation of social media and kind of the evolution of the internet has changed a revolutionize the way sketch comedy is done. i think it's a lot more accessible that's for sure there is so much content out there just in general. you can you can find really great pieces and sketch comedy and satire online. you know so that great on one side of the coin you can see more people writing more comedy on the other side as those people are also who are competing

with you know for eye walls and in the end we all want we're all proud of the work that we're doing and we all are people to see that so you know you tend to get lost a little bit as you are on industry that's it. as the community is using technology to create this content so what's next from you guys are you plan to play out more political sketches or is this kind of a one time wonder you know we're constantly producing we're constantly you know coming up with video ideas along with you know written ideas for the second city. and we're releasing that stuff weekly but yeah i mean definitely employers also. we're excited to do more well we need to laugh about what's going on in order to elicit change taking so much tyler alexander everyone check it out whole areas sketch second city thanks so much. still ahead peter king is a tragic shooting

a fear monger against muslims again. the island is so small the burmese it's the center see the center of the universe. on a tiny island the size of a football field in the middle of a lake stands a ruined monastery forty years ago two lovers decided to spend their honeymoon here . they have no idea but the island would change their lives forever but they would change the fate of the island. never seen anything like this before you begin to come in the house. in the fortress of ice is grown in just one hour and it's only the beginning. of the media leave us so we leave that maybe. the scene pushes some two or the

other your party there's a goal. for shoes that no one is asking with the guests that you deserve answers from it's all politics only on our team. think. they're going to do that you know the premise is the only industry specifically mentioned in the constitution and. that's because a free and open process is critical to our democracy albus. well. in fact the single biggest threat facing our nation today is the corporate takeover of our government and across several we've been hijacked right handful of transnational corporations that will profit by destroying what our founding fathers once built that's my job market and on this show we reveal the big picture of what's actually going on in the world we go beyond identifying the problem.

rational debate and the real discussion that critical issues facing that define ready to join the movement then welcome in the big picture. alec the. play. lists. mass violence struck nairobi kenya last weekend when al shabaab militants held hundreds of people hostages shopping mall standoff resulted in a horrific three day gunfight between the kenyan military and the militants maybe

more than sixty people dead and one hundred seventy five injured now details have emerged that at least two of the militants are american we're going to be half of the militant islamist group and that's where our favorite congressional islamophobia comes then see representative peter king has created a unique legacy of fear during his time in office thanks in large part to his memorable hearings on the radicalization of. most americans aka mccarthyism two point zero and during those hearings king repeatedly warned congress about the threat of al shabaab outside the horn of africa. some argue that al-shabaab is only a somali problem and the group will never strike outside the horn of africa region that kind of thinking is a glaring example of what the nine eleven commission called a failure of imagination we must face the reality that al shabaab is a growing threat to our homeland a failure of imagination higher grows on not case let's build giant robots to fight the sea monsters from pacific rim you know as tragic as this massacre is al-shabaab

is not an immediate threat to this country look we have our own regular gun massacres to deal with here that doesn't stop king from using air time to call for the racial profiling of american muslims. i would assume that the f.b.i. and local law enforcement looking into the somali american community where the leads are indicators using all we're sources and resources to make sure that there's no follow up attempt here in the united states yes kings blanket approach suggests that law enforcement should hunt down every single somali american just in case one small problem no keeping tabs on every brown person in this country has proven itself ineffective king is from new york same state where police and gage in a decade line spying program on local muslim communities and guess what they didn't get a single digit in that lead on one terrorist attack but king doesn't care about facts

if he did he would have ended his witch hunt years ago no no no he just wants to keep churning the gears of the islamophobia machine and we all know that fear sells in the halls of congress so for being a bigoted fear monger peter king for the second time is my villain of the day hey one more time and i'll give him a one way ticket to mogadishu. for many the issue of prisoners' rights is out of sight out of mind but a recent hunger strike of nearly thirty thousand california and mates of your international tension with the condition of america's prisons the prisoners who began striking in july had banded together to call for an end to the use of extended solitary confinement a practice which many human rights groups have likened to torture now after two months of hunger strike in the prisoners and the protests to accept the promise of

legislative hearings on the matter but the use of solitary is just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to america's incarceration machine this country has only five percent of the world's population that holds twenty five percent of the world's prisoners according to and he joins me now to discuss how it got to be this way as eugene career author of shackled and chained and mass incarceration and capital of america thank you so much for coming on eugene thanks so much for having me a pleasure eugene i want to show this chart to our audience showing that no country incarcerates are higher percentage of its population than the u.s. what is the main factor behind this shocking statistic well i think the main factor behind this massive growth we've seen in the u.s. prison population what's come to be known as mass incarceration is really in the context of the development of u.s. capitalism that ultimately it was a surplus population problem what you have is if you see the post world war two period in the united states was a period of so-called rising prosperity it created amongst people does this feeling

that life should continue to always get better living standards should get higher the civil rights movement raised a similar sort of. expectation among black americans that they would be integrated into this quote unquote american dream but what we saw with the economic crisis of the one nine hundred seventy s. is not just a general rightward shift in the country but a decision that social services and jobs programs and creating jobs for people would go by the wayside which created with the rise of technology as well this issue of what are you going to do with this growing number of unemployed and underemployed people particularly those concentrated in the ghettos as it were the people of color black americans who have a traditional of the. sort of a rebellious legacy in the history of the country and that sort of confluence came together to create the policies of mass incarceration as we know them of course the drug war would come a little bit later providing a crucial fuel to that fire. people joke about how they need to go to prison to get health care and services it's just a really sad state of affairs your book talks about the horrible conditions and

these prisons you've likened torture chambers what do you mean by that well i mean it's an interesting point i mean you pointed out for example the california prison . five hundred people who have been in solitary confinement for over ten years now the council of europe in two thousand and eleven said that anything over fourteen days in solitary confinement should be considered so that's just one example twenty five thousand people being held under solitary confinement but everything from generalized overcrowding with the federal prison system roughly thirty six percent overcapacity to food cost for example in two thousand and one the u.s. government estimated that people spend about eight dollars a day on food the year after that the key state of california was spending roughly two dollars a day. on food per prisoner so we can see a large degree and whether it is access to health care access to mental health and all these other things that exist the situation in prisons is quite dire indeed one to many thought was really fascinating that you point out is that

a lot of these prisoners the overwhelming majority in fact don't have a trial by jury. talk about that yeah well you've got about eighty percent of people who end up in prison who never even really had a trial and i think there's a lot of things about that i mean obviously recently what we've seen is a public defender services happening all across the country and in the federal public defender service but beyond that things like these draconian sentences that exist under mandatory sentencing laws and so many different states and the federal level create a situation where people don't want to even take the chance of going to trial rather than going to prison because they feel that because of their legal counsel or the way the laws are. that they have absolutely no chance and so we see that the deck is kind of stacked against people really from jump street when it comes to you know a criminal trial you bring up a good point which is these minimum sentencing you know considering the massive overcrowding that we're seeing in prisons today why are these laws still in effect like the three strikes law well everyone good thing is that we're seeing that that's starting to move by the wayside but the real reason is because this issue of

mass incarceration as a policy view has not really fully come around i mean you saw in the nine hundred eighty s. when reagan came in the first thing he did is he put in the very first thing one of the first things he did was put together an attorney general's task force which stated that the most important issue when it came to criminal justice in america was the need to have more prison beds and this sort of punitive law and order and mass incarceration set of policies is still had a wide variety of the political and economic elites view the issue of crime and how it should be dealt with eugene right now an african-american male who doesn't have a high school diploma is more likely to end up in prison than with a job really sad why is the justice system so disproportionately skewed against minorities well i think it goes back to the original point i made about sort of the surplus population problem and the fact that the african-american community is really the most oppressed community in this country and is sort of the further outside of the mainstream when it comes to employment and all of these other wealth building type issues and indicators education and so on and so forth so the laws

that have existed to create mass incarceration have been aimed disproportionately at those two who where african-americans are overrepresented ultimately that's what it comes down to and we see that it plays out sort of on that structural level and also you know for example seventy one percent of black men who are convicted of drug crimes end up in prison as opposed to sixty three percent of white men that could you know reflect a number of different things but i think it certainly reflects the biases of the judges the biases of the juries and so on and so forth so really it's very inception this issue of how to deal with. mass incarceration was how to deal with the problems in the quote unquote ghetto the perception that crime is mostly black people mostly poor black people and they live in certain neighborhoods how do we control them how do we make our police and prison policies match up with our need to not help these people not give them jobs not give them health care not improve their situation but just deal with them so we'll find a way to throw them in prison and make these listen to superficially and just

argument to say that they have to you know they're inherently more criminal obviously when you look at the conviction rates of the same exact crime is white versus black it's very apparent what's going on here you talked about the drug war very briefly i want to you elaborate on how much of this really has to do with the drug war i think quite a bit i mean a quarter of prisoners in this country are convicted of drugs but i think what's important realize is we mess incarceration policies first came and i mentioned reagan's report you didn't have the crack boom that would later happen in the eighty's and so what the crack epidemic in particular did and giving acceleration to the war on drugs was provide this kindling to the fire so things like mandatory sentencing which notably joe biden and other democrats like ted kennedy's so-called liberals were key bringing in these sort of things that before people were a little skeptical about when crack starts to happen with cocaine overdose you start to see that as an impetus to bring in things like three strikes laws and other mass incarceration policies that might have been a little bit on the fringe in the early eighty's late seventy's but then because of

the crack epidemic they were able to push these these punitive policies very heavily on the state and federal level let's talk about private prisons which is something that's expanding greatly in this country the whole argument that we hear is that privatization was a lead to better conditions for prisoners less of a burden for the taxpayers of course what's your response well i would say that you know it's not borne out by the facts i mean one thing that we point out in the book which people can get shackled and chained dot com is this massive growth just since one thousand nine hundred five in private prisons i mean obviously what we've seen through all the studies is there's no evidence whatsoever that private prisons cost less and in a number of cases they turn out to cost more to create scandals that are so. that they're not worth the issue in so many different ways they turned out to be more brutal and also you know the whole idea that people have to be incarcerated for profit and i think sixty five percent of private prisons the contracts they signed requires states and localities to put a certain number of people in the prison for you know the period of the contract so ultimately they're not concerned with corrective activities rehabilitation or

anything like that just get as many people in the door as they possibly can and locking them up for profit yes it's been it's been also revealed that you know payoffs from from people who are putting people in prison get cut back from these private prisons and really shocking how kind of openly corrupt it is let's talk about the corrections corporation of america the umbrella company kind of taking over this president's trip for profit how they exploited prison labor for their own advantage well c.c.a. geo group all of the i mean the federal prisons they're now exploiting prison labor and a big way and it's sort of creating a new dynamic i mentioned the issue of social control and excess population but now you have this whole new billion dollar industry that's looking to use prisoners to exploit them and we see it whether they have been doing farm labor working for eight hundred companies taking reservations for things like american airlines wrapping nintendo games i mean almost anything you can think of these prisons both private and public are putting prisoners to work for extremely low wages the federal prison industry unicorn and those are the people who make military uniforms

and repair homebodies that are destroyed in afghanistan the average high is the average salary for people working at unocal or is less than a dollar fifty per hour which is just shows the high level of almost slave type wages sweatshop wages no doubt that are happening in prisons and it's the biggest fortune five hundred companies like i said american airlines bank of america they're all involved in this was a really just modern day slavery i mean that is i don't dollar you know i thought they were only making license plates until i heard that b.p. actually to outsource prison labor to stage these photo ops of cleanups on the beach and i just couldn't believe that that was happening you know it's interesting you repeatedly hear. but the reason top bankers can't be prosecuted because of the devastating effect to have on the communities the company why is that same standard not applied to entire communities that are inflicted and destroyed by mass incarceration policies i mean you know it's a great point i mean it was unbelievable to hear eric holder say that people you know people who've been convicted of crimes in the economic crisis and of laundering drug money were too big to jail i think it just shows the reality of

this system that it's a system that skewed towards the richest people the one percent if you will the financial elites the ruling class and not the poorest most oppressed people so that you know those who are considered the job creators and so on and so forth are able to live this gilded lifestyle and sort of fly above all of the double standards that are put out there and those who are at the lowest end of the totem pole are the ones who really the blood of society those who have to put up with the worst forms of oppression living standard exploitation in the fact that they will put millions and millions of people in oppressed black communities and jail absolutely destroy so many of these communities and then do basically nothing towards wall street bankers is a clear clear indicator of what the priorities of our society really are indeed we are about thirty seconds left but please tell people where they can find your book and find out more about this issue of course so people can check the book out at. shackled and chained dot com they can also follow me on twitter at eugene per year i also write for liberation news liberation news dot org you can see some of my

writings on this and other issues excellent work here shackled and chained in mass incarceration in capitals america thank you so much. for our friends here in d.c. you guys thanks for watching we'll see record of all over again tomorrow. i want to. pick up. something that is quite simply. was no way over. clearly they were just at the wrong place at the wrong time. and sold to the us or turned over to the us for. the soul that could be buried alive. was saved with great over. and they wanted to turn me into

a terrorist so it was with them they wanted me to admit that i was a member of al qaeda and the taliban but i fought with them. not about time i didn't even know what al-qaeda is nevertheless there are people all. brave enough to start a fight. something is going to be done that's going to be done by me in the span of a short amount of time to do it but it's going to impact me i'd be prosecuted but it's going to impact. the wife my daughter. the one time a trap. on our t.v. . right on the scene. first street. and i think the church. an army corps twitter. and instagram.

be in the know. on the. news today violence has once again flared up. these are the images and seeing from the streets of canada. china operations are old today.

president hassan rouhani slams the suspicion surrounding iran's nuclear program claiming there's no place retirement weapons in his country in his address to the u.n. general assembly. president clinton says greenpeace activists are not pirates but reprimands them for breaching international law when trying to storm a russian oil rig. in the u.k. a brig's its own citizens people of a tiny mid atlantic i didn't say they're being squeezed bang to make room for u.s. military bets. are they watching our take on.