coming up on r t american whistleblowers have made a trip to russia for a secret meeting with former n.s.a. contractor edward snowden they presented him a special award for revealing the surveillance program more on that. day ten of the government shutdown republicans are now pushing for a short term debt ceiling increase but don't get your hopes up that doesn't mean the government will be back to business so what does this mean for the economy find out coming up climate change global warming it doesn't matter what you call it scientists say we're getting closer to the point of no return a new documentary sheds light on what could happen if humanity fails to curb our carbon emissions we'll talk with the man behind that documentary later in the show .

it's thursday october tenth five pm in washington d.c. i'm meghan lopez and you are watching r.t. well starting off this hour for the first time since she was convicted of the largest leak in u.s. history chelsea manning formerly known as private bradley manning has released a letter to her supporters clarifying her position for the mass document drop and criticizing people for speaking on her behalf without her consent the letter which was delivered to the guardian reads in part from my perspective at least it's not terribly clear to me that my actions were explicitly done for peace i don't consider myself a pacifist antiwar or especially a conscientious objector now i accept that there may be peaceful or antiwar implications to my actions but this is purely based on your subjective interpretation of the primary source documents. released in two thousand and ten

and two thousand and eleven later on in the letter manning did clarify what she was in fact doing she writes quote i am a a transparency advocate i feel that the public cannot decide what actions and policies are or are not justified if they don't even know the most rudimentary details about them and their affects manning was convicted in august by a military judge in fort meade maryland on twenty eight charges including violations of the espionage act along with fraud and theft she was sentenced to thirty five years in prison but is eligible full for parole in just seven and speaking of whistleblowers former n.s.a. contractor edward snowden had some special visitors travel all the way to moscow russia to meet with him this week f.b.i. whistleblower jesselyn radack n.s.a. whistleblower thomas drake former cia analyst ray mcgovern and former f.b.i. whistleblower colleen rowley met snowden in a secret location they are the first americans known to have met him since he was

granted asylum in russia in august they travel to moscow to present snowden with the sam adams amir for integrity in intelligence also noted edwards' father arrived at the sheremetyevo airport this morning one has yet to meet his son but is planning to see him in the next couple of days. no wins caught up with the group of whistleblowers today here's a wrap up of that conversation. well you know some would call them veteran whistle blowers jesselyn radek thomas andrews drake remedy govern colin rowley all sides around the table with me earlier to tell me their experiences of whistle blowing themselves and how they were treated them by the authorities as a result just earlier they met edward snowden at the undisclosed location here in russia we still under heavy security to present him with the sam adams award this been presented annually since two thousand and two to intelligence professionals who take a stand for integrity and ethics what they see is the greater good incidentally

samuel adams was a cia whistleblower during the vietnam war now we've been extensively covering edward snowden story and r.t. for a long time the first thing i wanted to ask was i was the i thought he looked great he seemed very centered and and. brilliant smart funny a very. i thought he looked very well then of course the obvious question was given the time edward snowden is now it reflects on what he's done did he have any regrets when he fired right mcgovern a former federal employee and served on the seventy u.s. presidents over twenty seven years but then in two thousand and two went on to criticize president george w. bush's use of government intelligence in the lead up to the war in iraq put that very same thought to edward this is an extraordinary person he's made his peace with what he did he's convinced that he put he did was rate his no regrets and he's willing to face whatever the future holds for him is that the person you saw in front of you calling yes actually we discussed this intel integrity and

intelligence issue quite extensively and are we talked about prior examples of great people in history that had themselves been under this type of pressure and he's remarkably centered then thoughts went to war about the future well i asked him if edward snowden had shared any of his plans for the immediate or long term future their response focused on the future reforms he's paved the way for now by his revelations i think its primary concern is about reform not at. his future what's going to happen to him but more about being the reform that is beginning and that has begun in the united states and more importantly or just as importantly around the world because it really is a global issue to the extent that the n.s.a. is spying on everybody friend or foe and that that conversation needs to continue and also people need to realize that there's a greater issue of human rights that is brought up by asylum and the fact that

a number of people involved in his case like sarah harrison glenn greenwald laura portress people are having trouble even moving around and getting where they're going to be personally and say we're worried about coming into your country we are worried about getting back into our own country and and that should not be that already the our united states is a ban on the rule of law that's unchained itself from its very own constitution the mechanism by which we govern ourselves so when you when you as a rule of law and use of secret law secret payments your interpretation the law we're in a whole new ball game it's pandora's box and of course these last twenty four hours we also think he's being or about to be reunited with these over him more scope as well who i'm sure behind closed doors would be giving ed with the support that only a father condit that was archies kevin owens. well it's day ten of the government shutdown and i don't need to tell you this but people are peeved so how mad are the

i well remember when we were comparing their approval ratings to cockroaches and to toenail fungus a new poll by the public policy polling found that members of congress are less popular than witches zombies jury duty potholes hipsters the d.m.v. the i.r.s. dr who and oh yeah hemorrhoids congress's approval rating stands at a dismal five percent according to the associated press sixty one percent of americans line a majority of the blame on republican. ends another fifty two percent say president obama could be doing more to help out the situation but there does seem to be some progress within the walls of capitol hill today a couple dozen house republicans took a trip down pennsylvania avenue this afternoon to meet with president obama and negotiate they are meeting as we speak that you know p. members will most likely discuss the proposal that they released today which is a six week extension of the nation's sixteen point seven trillion dollar debt limit

in order to avoid the first ever u.s. defaults and the possibility of a debt deal has the stock market smiling dow jones just closed the day with the biggest gains of the year of three hundred twenty three points so it is their hope yet for congress well i was joined earlier by anthony rand dazzle he's the director of economic research at the reason foundation and i asked him if this temporary extension will solve our fiscal woes well in terms of a solution for the stock market i don't necessarily think so my popularity is probably based on the audiences that you ask in which it comes to congress his popularity and you talk of the stock market then on the so looking at those polls they're looking at a much more long term picture in the simple reality is is that the president doesn't want to negotiate at all on the government shutdown and he said if congress passes a clean debt ceiling raise for the next six weeks will accept it he'll sign it but he still doesn't want to negotiate on the shutdown so what are we looking at here

how tangible is this debt limits solution really or are we just kicking the can down the road. well the debt ceiling is always been a can't kick down the road from the outset it was pretty clear the republicans didn't really want to play with fire on the debt ceiling the republicans buy into the same idea that democrats do that if the united states government defaults it's an economic catastrophe i don't necessarily think that's the case. from the outset it didn't look like they were going to to really play chicken and this offer on the table i think proves that the debt ceiling is a mere political tool it doesn't mean anything when push comes to shove both parties are happy to increase the amount of debt that the u.s. government has or we probably should just get rid of it would be much better off with a spending cap shirt on i know that this is also coming if they do in fact kick it down the road it comes during the holiday season which could make it a little more tricky when it comes to. an a.p.

poll found that four in five americans say they haven't felt any personal effects from this shutdown should they expect to feel it sooner or later. it all depends on what it is you do so the people who have been feeling the effects the most are either government workers or people that use national parks people that are fishermen on the federal coastlines they'll continue to feel the same effects of the shutdown the simple reality is and i'm sure that the white house says internal polling that most people haven't felt the effects and that i think has made the president feel comfortable in continuing to to push back on the republicans and say look i gave in to you before in two thousand and eleven i'm not going to give in again and the republicans thought that they could push around the president like they had in the past it looks like they can't as long as that polling suggests that most people are feeling the effects the white house will probably continue to take this stand so i mean we are in day ten how much longer can we go on like this.

you know it's all is going to depend on really who blinks in this political game and it's unfortunate political game because it really shouldn't be but i think that's what's going on in washington i mean i've spent about five years there i know people on capitol hill and they see this in political terms they want to be able to claim victory unfortunately both sides are going to claim victory no matter what happens so they probably could just go through with anything built each side is still going to claim they won this game. how we get out of this somebody is going to have to politically blink as the language has been going along one side is going to have to give in the federal government is not going to remain shut down for three four five months it's just a matter of which side begins to feel the political pain to the point where they think that they have to break and i'm glad you brought that political game up one of the major criticisms that i have heard coming out from the democrats anyway is that the shutdown is a result of a fringe group of republicans however according to that same a.p.

poll that i referenced earlier more than four in ten republicans in the public identified with the tea party and insist that their leaders hold firm in the standoff so is this idea of an ideological standoff becoming more popular even if it means closing shop on the entire country but the thing is if you are republican that is in a district that got elected with sixty seventy percent and it was a tea party wave as much as congress has a low approval rating you're fired it's moderate republicans people who are in these districts that are incumbents who are now losing in the polls to democrats that care the most about it you do have a group of people that actually kind of like the president don't worry about being voted out of office next november and so is long as those people have the strongest voice they will try to continue and they will see this as a political game that unfortunately i think that you do have the tea party looking at this is a game and you also have the. zidan who is looking at it as

a game he doesn't want to break his will he doesn't want to give in he wants to make sure that the republicans can't push him around anymore i understand and sympathize with their it's coming from they both see it as a game i don't know what the outcome is but what ensued will have to wait and see indeed and all of us tend to be the pawns in this political chess match anthony rand as our director of economic research at the reason foundation thank you so much for having me was the u.s. continues to withdrawal from afghanistan the question now is how will we move forward with relations in the region the fact is that the middle east isn't what it was a decade ago dictators have been toppled the young democracy is are trying to plot a path through us territory and the opinion of the us has fallen artie's sam sachs takes a look at the challenges the military faces in coming years and how the previous decade may have set the stage for conflict instead of prevented it. i hear the daily beast here a summit which gathers military leaders politicians and journalists gathered to

talk about the role of the u.s. military in a rapidly changing world of this conference arrives just as the twelfth anniversary of the afghanistan war comes and goes this week with troops still on the ground there plus news of new raids in africa is part of the global war on terrorism so the question is where has more than a decade of military intervention around the world left us well for one with a destabilized africa and middle east senator john mccain talked about the troubles in libya and syria two countries that are military of either directly or indirectly influenced in recent years first in libya where their prime minister was recently kidnapped and then released by militants what we did a hands off leading from behind and now we see this situation in a crisis and these militias as you say. leadership that is not as strong as we would hope and the situation is going to i'm afraid be

chaotic for some time into syria where the united states has been funneling weapons to the rebels in their fight against the assad government there too mccain was pessimistic i can't tell you how demoralized the free syrian army are and that's why some of them are now moving over into the radical islam a camp because they think that they have been abandoned so despite years of u.s. military intervention in the region more fires are burning today than in the years before this global war began the same is true of the threat of terrorism itself former n.s.a. chief michael hayden joined other national security experts to talk about al qaida is growing strength since the u.s. war on terror began al qaeda controlling more territory and having more to hear and today than they have at any time in their history and i actually think that's true doesn't mean we're less safe than we were ten eleven twelve years ago doesn't mean we haven't been very successful. the recent attack on the shopping mall in nairobi

was fresh on everyone's mind and former member of the house intelligence committee and now president of the wilson center jane harman talked about similar threats coming to the united states and this is an evolving threat and they attack asymmetrically they have to be right once we have to be right whoever we is whether we is kenya or the us or france or britain we have to be right one hundred percent of the time to block them that's impossible and anyone who says there is one hundred percent security is absolutely wrong but there was some acknowledgement that the united states military should tread lightly when confronting this new breed of terrorism coming from africa a new strategy could involve using nonmilitary tools and if we don't figure out a way using our face or the face of others to provide economic aid and help improve education as in not good education or no education especially for girls we're never going to get out of the soup and so despite the warm embrace of

us militarism at conferences like these it's pretty well recognized that there are still a lot of problems existing all around the world one has to wonder if it's the u.s. military that's making them worse in washington sam sachs r t well in an age where most people would rather use their fingers to scroll through a screen rather than turn pages there's one book that continues to fly off the shelves more than half a century after its publication on the fifty sixth anniversary of i know rand's book atlas shrugged r.t. is parry and boring takes a lock out the tomes legacy and controversy i'd like to share a few excerpts on one of my favorite books. atlas shrugged. and rant and let me encourage any of you who have not read atlas shrugged to go tomorrow by atlas shrugged and read the book that arguably played a part in spurring the government shutdown as republican senator ted cruz read

parts of it on the senate floor during his twenty one hour floor speech and today marks the fifty sixth anniversary of the publication of iran's atlas shrugged it's not only relevant if you read it it's almost precious and it's actually scary can mehlis is the c.e.o. of mollison company a world renowned financial firm and he's read atlas shrugged four times and encourages his employees to do so too i'm always in company. i told everybody that it affected my life and we we created a book club voluntary book club we provided the food the books and sixty people signed up to read the book with us and we're kind of in the middle of that and it's been very exciting to see people get affected by it in the organization. so yeah i think and i can see people being have their eyes opened to new ideas. i wish rugs is the story of a failing economy because the state is suffocating business entrepreneurship and a vigil of freedoms as an alternative ran a formed her own

a philosophy objectivism which calls for an economic environment with a very limited government the book is seeing a new surge in popularity in iran brooke is the president of the rand institute and he says almost two million copies of this book have been sold since two thousand and eight what i mean does is provide them all in the philosophical fung dacia for such a free society so she in that sense she philosophically ideologically completes the work that the founding fathers started and is so desperately needed today in america but not everyone agrees with her philosophy thom hartmann believes the government should play a much bigger role than what iran calls for you look at the difference between somalia and a developed country where you find is government. infrastructure government provides the stuff that allows a marketplace to exist in mogadishu you got to pay off a local warlord that's arguably the government but the local warlord isn't investing much in infrastructure because he doesn't care much of the businesses form because he doesn't care much if there's

a middle class doesn't care much about the people he also believes in a strong government welfare system that provides for those who can't provide for themselves rans critics say she lacks compassion for the poor but her supporters say that she has a plan for them to history again suggest that free societies of the most benevolent societies are the most charitable societies and i don't believe for one instant that there would be any problem for those who are truly falling through the cracks for no fault of their own for people who truly just can't take of themselves they would be provided for. according to a study by the library of congress atlas shrugged range as the second most and for once a book of all time only behind the bible so love it or hate it you can't deny atlas shrugged is still relevant today fifty six years after its publication in washington d.c. perry and boring r.t. . all right well move over al gore there's

a new documentary out on the internet that attacks the issue of global warming take a look. sort of. place that. because of my image. it's hard to imagine her without life we take away for granted but life has not always flourished or recognize that voice well if you're an avatar to america viewer you should big picture host tom hartman is the man behind the documentary it's called at the last hour and it takes a different look at global warming or at least one that is less popularized it's a ten minute film so it's short sweet and to the point definitely worth a watch tom foreman joins me just a short time ago to talk about his new project we started off by speaking about the permian mass extinction which is a period of time when over ninety percent of marine species and seventy percent of terrestrial vertebrate died off the facts behind the events known as the great

dying play a major role in this film so i asked tom why we in the twenty first century should be worried about an event that happened over two hundred fifty million years ago listen. well the mass extinction first of all is the worst of the five mass explain extinctions that the planet has experienced ninety five ninety six percent of all life on earth vanished all five extinctions involve the crust of the earth being punctured and and greenhouse gases principally carbon dioxide coming out and warming the planet they were all caused by global warming and if you were in the case of the permian it started because of this massive lava flow up in siberia in what's called the siberian traps that went on for thousands of years so if you were standing in you know somewhere far away from where the lava flow was you know on the other side of that during the early years of the permian even the early two thousand years of the permian looking around the atmosphere you might see that the

skies get a little redder at night and things like that but other than that you would not have any idea that an extinction had started it had passed a tipping point that there was no way to stop it and that within a certain period of time ninety six percent of all life would be gone. but we use that knowledge as a metaphor but example because we are within possibly centuries possibly decades of tipping points that could lead to another mass extinction. is probably a closer example than the permian the permian you've seen the whole maximum but it's like we want to bring the word that you were the extinction word of the conversation sure and you certainly did that with some very startling graphs that actually appeared in that film now it's interesting because one of the things that i noticed was that you chose to bring climate scientists in geologists together to

talk about this talk about why you decided to bring these two disciplines together back in the one nine hundred sixty s. they were just beginning to figure out what caused mass extinctions is huge debate made the assumption in fact back then was that probably all five of them had been the result of meteorite impacts it turns out only one was the. extinction sixty five million years ago killed the dinosaurs they didn't really figure that out until the late one nine hundred eighty s. and they didn't really nail it down until the one nine hundred ninety s. they were still debating the permian mass extinction one cause that up until the early two thousand it's b.b.c. did a brilliant documentary in two thousand and two called the day the earth nearly died where they brought together a bunch of these geologists to lay out exactly why the permian happened and in that documentary they talk about how the giant. volcanic lava flow in siberia produced a six degree warming celsius of the earth and that was enough to warm the oceans six degrees which was enough to melt the hundreds of thousands of billions of tons

of methane methane clathrates methane hydrate that is frozen that is a lattice kind of a slurry like a snow cone thing at the bottom of the oceans to melt that so it went into the atmosphere this methane is one hundred times more potent than carbon dioxide is a greenhouse gas so this sudden eruption of methane into the atmosphere then doubled the rate of global warming and that killed off all the life on earth and so you know what we're what we're pointing it out right now is that that methane is down there again it's still there and you know we need to. be very careful that we don't warm this planet up enough that the methane starts coming out and it's already starting to come out from the siberian tiger right now and of all the different documentaries that i've watched that others have watched about global warming very few actually mention that methane that's on the bottom of the ocean why is this like one of the first times that we're actually hearing about this well it's this is sort of a follow on to your last question why do we talk about the permian and all this because we just discovered this i mean two thousand and two is real recent science

and and there's a huge. debate is the wrong word because there's no debate it's an inquiry nobody really knows how much carbon is out there the range the guestimated range for curb in in the form of methane in the in the frozen slurries of around the continental shelves is anywhere from three trillion tons on the low end which is enough to produce the permian mass extinction that was two trillion tons from three trillion tons in the low gas to around ten trillion tons on the high guess the amount this just in the arctic is pretty closely you know a good guestimate is probably two to two and a half trillion tons the car of experiment the carbon arctic reserve experiment the nasa is doing right now you can't visit their website because they're shut down because the government shut down but we had one of their scientists in the video and he was talking about how there's forty to fifty billion tons of carbon that is ready to be activated right now i mean this close enough to the surface that just

a little bit of warming could bring it out and then you get that positive feedback loop that spirals you into an uncontrollable global global warming which five times in the past history of the planet has produced an extinction where more than half of all life dies but at the same time i know that if you are sitting at home are going to ask the question if that's the station's happen like this where the ocean warmed up before without humans contributing to it how are we contributing it to it these days that's a brilliant question each time in the past five times the crust of the earth ripped open. carbon dioxide came out four times it was apparently from tectonic activity continents moving around you know massive volcanic eruptions as a consequence of that one time it was because a meteorite punched through down here can punch through the surface of the of the crust what we have been doing for the last hundred fifty years is very methodically drilling holes through the crust of the earth and we're not doing it in a big clumsy fashion like a meteorite where you hit some areas that have

a lot of carbon and some areas that don't have a lot of carbon we're doing a very specifically going just for those areas where we know that there's a lot of carbon and we're pulling that carbon out in the form of coal oil and gas and burning it and throwing the carbon dioxide into the air so we are and we have been over the course of the last century and a half replicating the mechanism by which the previous five extinctions happened which is the puncturing of the earth's crust the release of this carbon dioxide and so quickly where can they find this documentary to watch last hours dot org thank you so much tom hartman host of the big picture and joining me with his new documentary thank you mary. and finally according to state farm insurance montana ranks number two in the country when it comes to deer or vehicle collisions and in the next few weeks montanans will be able to put a lot of that road kill to use by eating it that's right a new law passed the montana state legislature which allows residents to recover and each road kill lying dead on the state's highway system it took effect on the

first of this month but don't pull your car over get regulations governing the retrieval and consumption of roadkill won't be finalized until the states fish and wildlife commission meets later this week montana is one of the multiple states that allows individuals to scoop up and take home roadkill wyoming minnesota and wisconsin are a few of the others now in idaho the law allows individuals to collect any animal they find on the side of the road but the new montana legislation permits only four times of road kill to be recovered deer elk moose and antelope and individuals who come across some roadside carcass in montana will have to notify the state of their catch on an on line call within twenty four hours of collecting the dead animal and it's expected that the law will be ready to take full effect sometime in november just in time for thanksgiving but please be careful getting out of your car on

a highway ask yourself of a dead deer is really worth it that does it for now i'm meghan lopez c evacuate. millions around the globe struggle with hunger each good. what if someone offers a lifetime food supply no charge. against g.m.o. and we think that's. pretty cool too. there is no. evidence to this any problem with genetic engineering when you make a deal. or is free cheese always in a mouse trap. the. tree. then try.