coming up on r t it's the one year anniversary of president obama's reelection it's been marked with political scandal and some success so how does his second term stack up so far we'll break it down and you don't know yet know it from soldiers love lives to mcdonald's breaks life or detainees is tough but for the men and women who work there it's a different story marty has gained exclusive access to the facility and we'll show you a sign you've never seen before plus the death and destruction littering the streets of damascus today after a series of attacks killed civilians for mortar shells strikes to a car bombing or the violence inside the war torn country later in the show.

it's wednesday november sixth four pm in washington d.c. i'm meghan lopez and you are watching our t.v. well today is the one year anniversary of the day that americans went to the polls and chose to give president obama a second term to follow through on his various vision for the country now a lot has happened in the three hundred sixty five days since the president was reelected the i.r.s. been gazi and us a scandals have erupted deportations of miners and non-criminals have gone down the economy is slowly recovering gay rights are slowly but surely becoming american rights and much more are to correspondent lose wall takes a look at some of the successes and failures of president obama's second term president obama has won reelection that was one year ago president obama really acted despite high unemployment. and

a weak economy. his campaign hammered home what he did manage to achieve osama bin ladin is dead and general motors is alive obama highlighted his ability to pass historic health care reform known as obamacare his supporters side as a promise fulfilled if you like your plan you can keep your plan if you like your doctor you can keep your doctor but here we are one year later and president obama's approval rating is falling according to the most recent gallup poll his approval rating is at thirty nine percent that's the lowest it's been since two thousand and eleven it's been a rocky year the launch of the health care reform website has been plagued with glitches it's opened up a firestorm of controversy over the law's implementation and whether or not it will really improve health care for most americans we are doing everything we can possibly do. to get the websites working better faster sooner the debate over

health care is almost as divisive as the climate in congress a far cry from this outlook president obama portrayed in his reelection acceptance speech and in the coming weeks and months i am looking forward to reaching out and working with leaders of both parties to meet the challenges we can only solve together but working together has proven difficult sometimes impossible this congress is criticized as one of the most unproductive in the nation's history the inability to agree on almost anything with lawmakers failing to compromise on a spending bill led to the historic government shutdown for three weeks. delayed. state and today when it comes to transparency unprecedented questions over government spying they come after leaked information from former n.s.a. contractor edward snowden reveals a mass government surveillance program the revelations put the administration under

the critical eye of americans and political leaders abroad are all signs that a year later much more needs to be done over the next three years in order for expectations set on this day. of the way this is all the way to be fulfilled in washington liz wall r.t. and joining me now to talk more in depth about what president obama's accomplishments and failures have been during the past year the ever spoken out to breaking the set team joins me now host abby martin and producer manwell rock polo thank you guys so much for joining me here in oz so let's start off with getting your overall opinion of how he did us last year do you guys have a grade in mind abby f. that's straightforward and mannish a for effort a for just getting to know if. you're fired you. know is there any in president that you would actually. higher ratings hero yeah i

think presidents i mean overall they're just managers of you know operators of the empire so you can't really give them that much credit for what they do because they're just basically managing the system but i mean there have been president in the past who have done you know overtures for a good like nixon created the e.p.a. you know carter did some good things so if you look over the story context there are definitely some things that stand out exactly we're trying to do other things you know that our president has as has his challenges i think it's it's difficult to kind of compare one versus the other and try to give a grade one but i would have to agree with abby i mean you can look at any presidency and see the progressive policies that they have the things that they did right nixon for example you mention the e.p.a. and several other progressive policies but at the end of the day he was a. hungry maniac the you know was paranoid about everything and on top of those races so. great can you really give the i'll have the sure now let's take a quick look at some of the president's shortcomings in the first year in a second term he promised to increase manufacturing jobs by one million in four

years now in order to do that we need to have twenty one thousand jobs per month to meet that mark we are falling way short of that market right now anyway obviously the rollout of the affordable care act was disastrous and capital here hill hearings taking place today and have that have been taking place recently are enough to kind of demonstrate that the uncovering of the n.s.a. as you guys mentioned is something we've been covering here a lot on our t.v. obviously that isn't only damaging the president's reputation at home it's also damaging them are broad and then there's the i.r.s. scandal revelations about the benghazi attack and lack of preparedness there and the failure to get the farm bill renewed you know those are just a few of some of the failures that we were able to find abbi what are some of the others that you know of where do i start let's start with the end of the law the complete evisceration of due process and the rule of law that goes back to the magna carta i mean we're talking about something that you can indefinitely attain american citizens without the right to trial sign that right into law we've got rahm. bush's knees they fifty two drone strikes and we have the drone cain said in

his high throne killing thousand civilians rant of the use of these killer robots abroad failed to close gitmo you can blame the republicans all you want but he can close it tomorrow if he wants to there is a provision in india that allows him to release these detainees to their respective countries just failing to seize on the super majority in congress failing to get that public option escalating the afghanistan war with the failed troop surge trying to stay in iraq people actually give him credit for leaving iraq he tried to stay there past the timetable and is a spineless zero accountability war on whistleblowers and charging a people with the espionage act world war one piece of spying legislation. any good i can't even add to that i completely agree with you i think that's a start i think it's kind of a roni is to you know at this point on in the second term say oh he had a really tough handover guess he did back in two thousand and nine we had the financial collapse seven trillion dollars is how much that housing bubble cost us

american homeowners just in home equity seven trillion dollars how much you know that sparked the recession that sparked that almost caused the entire collapse of the u.s. economy yes that was bad but what is he really done to fix this one economy alone i think that it's been an abysmal failure i think that when you look right now words of twenty percent of americans are still underwater when it comes to their mortgages i think that you know the rate of foreclosures is still really high and that in itself is causing a depreciation in home values as well so i think and all of this is linked to jobs as well so i think that on the whole like not only on civil liberties and on the war front but on the economy as well it's been overall bad and i think that this latest poll by by gallup this week that shows his approval rating dropping below forty percent is a perfect example of that and if you're looking for a great let the american people speak for themselves it's below fifty percent pretty bad well let's go ahead and talk about some of the accomplishments that he has achieved in this last year since the re-election just to give him some equal time so first of all jay carney touted. yesterday the president succeeded in

raising taxes on the wealthy during the fiscal cliff negotiations obviously they weren't as high as he had wanted but there was some compromise and those taxes were in fact raised he helped usher in a new era and gay rights across the country with coming out and being the first president who is in office to support that he's begun implementing parts of the dream act to help young illegal immigrants become legal citizens we have a new chemical weapons treaty with syria an agreement anyway we are on our way to cutting net oil imports by half in two thousand and twenty we've already reduced them by forty two percent since two thousand and eight so that's obviously a step forward in terms of deficit reduction his goal was to reduce the deficit by four trillion dollars and twelve years and we are arguably on our way to that and he is in the process of rebuilding relations with iran just by beginning those first tops the talks if very long few decades of silence between the two countries so abby let's start with you is there anything that you have to say positively

about the president versus some of his previous failures that you mentioned you know i think as you just said there have been a lot of symbolic gestures of course coming out for gay marriage is huge however i'm not going to really be happy until i see a federal law legalizing gay marriage i mean and we saw dick cheney come out during the bush administration saying that he supported gay marriage so that's it's symbolic and it's huge and doma was huge too and i don't want to you know there are some great things that are going on but of course bush had successes too when it came to africa he was good on africa relations and aids so you know i don't dwell on kind of these minuscule symbolic reforms i focus on the overarching policies that are really continuing the destruction of this country the planet syria i would call anything but a success congress and putin basically forced his hand on that and all i saw was just fear mongering rhetoric about that iran great we're starting relations with iran fantastic but the syria thing i mean let's start. diminishing our nuclear arsenal in our chemical weapons arsenal and then we can start really having some standing in that portion of the world many where do we go. i'm here obviously he's going to be in the white house for three more years what do you want to see happen

will i want to see an end to these this political circus i think that what we've been seeing for the last three years and two thousand and ten you had that bipartisan commission that was going to slash the deficit by by four trillion dollars over the course of a decade you mention this is a potential accomplishment i see this is as an utter failure ever since ever since then and only two thousand and eleven and i think republicans have their fair share of the blame yes of course but it's been a horrible job that president obama's done trying to bridge this bipartisan gap in congress he squandered his opportunity to do so by having a super majority when he took office and i think that what we really need to see right now changes is to have the sort of bridge building between the two houses of congress that really the only option it's going to succeed here guys so much for weighing in and bringing us some of the successes and failures that breaking this that host abby martin producer many rappel oh thank you so much because megan well one of the major second term promises president obama reiterated this year was his

commitment to close guantanamo bay detention facility for good in order to do that the obama administration must figure out what to do with the one hundred sixty four detainees currently living there some will need to be released others transferred and some prosecuted a bill to begin those transfers could hit the floor of the senate as soon as november eighteenth but it has a rocky road ahead of it and still life continues at the camps there in reports. are to correspondent ana stasia chair going to take a closer look at some of the things you might not know about the detention facility . despite misconceptions give mo is not just a geo to be or not to be shot it's also a forty five square mile military base with no plans of going anywhere. full of signs of the stablished american life it is a navy base and we just happened to have the camps in here home to the only mcdonalds on cuban soil a subway sandwich shop a starbucks and a taco bell you got the best the best financial interest the you got pizza

starbucks and. all of these other places that helped to set up a logistical support for the troops over the there are about five and a half thousand people living and working on the base roughly half serve the actual detention center the u.s. government has been leasing this territory since one thousand nine hundred three for just over forty five hundred dollars curiously that is still the price today but it's said that the cuban government has been refusing to accept this money for decades the castro government said you know we don't want this lease anymore in the united states' position was that it's a binding lease and in the lease it actually says that it can't be broken unless both sides both countries agree to that that strikes me as a very odd contract so when territory that the u.s. has occupied against cuba's wishes since one thousand nine hundred fifty nine most officers come here for short term of up to nine months or longer deployment of two to three years far from home life isn't put on hold and you can't date certain people and certainly have if it's away from your. rank system then you're allowed

to you know there's the don't tell an open air movie theater playing all the hottest hollywood blockbusters and it ticky bar to let loose after a hard day's work even though most say schedules aren't that intense anyway we actually get quite a bit of time off like a decent man and we go to the beach and. m.-w. our stance for morale welfare and recreation. almost every sport known to man is available to get well on state of the art facilities. i love it it's a lot of people think there's not much to do but there's definitely an abundance to do. being in a remote location doesn't even have to affect eating habits and all you can eat lunch cost just under five bucks and breakfast is that price a downside though information or lack thereof. for a decision a lot of the t.v. programs broadcasting here are army focused. and internet is almost nonexistent the

base dubbed no stream a stand by some soldiers even so we're told those serving here are banned from looking at websites like wiki leaks for example once classified always classified. even if the information has long been made public there are other strict regulations in place to fun fact about guantanamo apparently a life of an costs here a little more than a life of a detainee if you run one of these babies over the fine is ten thousand dollars. there's a very strict speed limit in guantanamo and it's a very slow speed limit and people say that that's that's all about the quantised somewhat ironic at a place marred by human rights scandals officials make a point of showing journalists how well prisoners two are kept and thirteen here we're not going to call so for a compliant detainee at guantanamo they would be allowed to eat books have. these here are some head and shoulders who the less compliant ones have to wear the

orange uniforms and get only two books at a time i was going to the other side so you can see the books detainees can't come in here but the prisoner library lovingly displays the best of their art for t.v. crews to see a lot of pre-selected books to avoid certain topics violence sexual milicz and religious stuff controversy shelves packed with magazines d.v.d.'s and video games plenty of ways for legit prisoners of war to pass the indefinite time they're kept here without charges and party guantanamo bay cuba for more of an in-depth coverage on guantanamo bay today i've gone to r.t. correspondent honest and amir and david joining me now on a saucy i want to start with you what was it like as a journalist to go in there and to cover guantanamo bay do you think you actually got a realistic look at what it was like their day day to. well ladies i mean certainly

it was very fascinating but curiously even though we had these twelve hour tours every single day visiting detention camps visiting kitchens libraries you name it the curious fact was that at the end of each day we would turn to ourselves and say this just can't be it i mean we have to see more we have to see the detainees we have to see their actual lives and that was unfortunately something we did not get enough of because of this really cover up surrounding the cells even where the detainees are i mean you saw in that report that short good through the dark window that we saw of a detainee and that was pretty much the extent of it and that was one of the things we discovered only when we got there because we figured we would have a little more access than not and what's the takeaway lesson for this experience for you know. i would say question rule or you know this was really a great example just you know slogan but really in this particular case i would say

definitely question more because out of the all of the things we were shown we did just kind of have to look through the actual information and facts because there were a lot of the things that officials told us we knew did not have much basis behind it did not have much to do with the facts and overall you know they did try to present the whole police as just this great deal that's just you know a dream to be if you're a prisoner and certainly we know that's not the case and i'm here i want to bring you into this conversation as i understand it you recently came in contact with the former i guess most detainee there what was it like talking to somebody who has been there and not only heard about it but experienced it well he does have a very interesting story his name is david hicks and he's not your prototypical detainee at least what i would think of when i think of the get no detainee he's not yemeni or rocky or afghan is actually a caucasian man from australia definitely. gave him some very interesting perspective he was actually captured back in two thousand and one by the u.s.

taken to guantanamo in early two thousand and two and was really there for about five years not being charge of course he was charged thereafter but he experienced what he calls torture sleep deprivation medical experimentation so this is a man when i spoke to him that i found to be very troubled by his past by his experiences and he even said recently that he still suffers from nightmares and how did you can contact with the sky how did you find him well interestingly it doesn't always happen this way we're not always lucky enough but david did reach out to us and said that he frequently watched our get coverage of course we've been doing a lot on this issue and i think you really just wanted to share his story with the american people really looking to clear his name as a convicted terrorist and let's take a look at that story. he was once known as the australian taliban david hicks the first man to be convicted of war crimes at guantanamo bay in two thousand and one

after being detained for five and a half years hicks is now asking an appeals court to overturn that conviction arguing that his guilty plea was unknowing unintelligent and involuntary and part of a desperate attempt to secure his release hicks was captured in afghanistan for his alleged involvement with al-qaeda in late two thousand and one soon after he was turned over to the us and taken to guantanamo in the facilities first batch of prisoners there he says he faced day after day of inhumane treatment was self and everyone else was tortured on our on a daily basis or minutes from. typical physical baiting. alright injured so it's a logical ploys. there was medical experimentation and it was that medical experimentation that would give hits the most harrowing memories we were forced to take your injections or heroes. what those were did

not tell us or the reasons i would constantly china. especially as far as the peer was the sort of the trio the color of the pills. if you're a genius through its injections of the pills they would send in what they called the yep james like a ross lord. i'm ok with is equally. the tightest medication the former detainees claims are now at goaded a new study out this week that shows military doctors had designed and participated in cruel inhumane and degrading treatment of detainees these conditions finally pushed hicks to take a plea deal in two thousand and seven on the charge of providing material support for terrorism it was called an alford plea which meant he acknowledged the evidence but did not make any admissions however hicks still knew there would be implications it wasn't an easy decision because i had the think about the ramifications of doing one or you know it was or professor point isn't as lost to

do so to say duty to any crime little on something as serious as terrorism i don't need at the least destroyed the media would never let me forget that the charge of providing material support for terrorism was created by congress in two thousand and six five years after hicks was captured in afghanistan and now his lawyers are seeking dismissal of that conviction saying it wasn't a war crime at the time he was detained there relying on a recent us federal appeals court decision that overturned the conviction of saline home don the former driver above some of bin laden who was charged with the same crime the court ruled that one don could not be charged retroactively and now twelve years after his detainment david hicks will seek the same outcome at the very least he'll get the chance to explain his plea in court and perhaps even prove his innocence in washington and the area david artsy. i mean in the heart of damascus killed eight people and wounded at least fifty others according to

state run television the syrian government blamed the attack on his own square on rebel forces though no one immediately took responsibility for the bombing also happening today in the capital rebels allegedly struck an elementary school and sports complex with mortar shells injuring dozens and state media reports that eight others were killed and forty one were injured when a car bomb exploded in the southern city of suite of artes paul a flea or brings us the latest. at least eight people have been killed and many more injured in the capital city of damascus as a result of an explosion that happened at the entrance to the railway building among those injured are women children and construction workers there is no group that as of yet has come forward to claim responsibility for this attack but the government is corning it the work of terrorists which does what it was issued and we're going to have been back now with the syrian president bashar assad at the

same time there's been a second incident of violence in the southern city of psuedo now then we're hearing that a suicide bomber drove a car into a building belonging to the syrian military intelligence and then in another incident in hama province they we're hearing that a gang has attacked a military outpost again no word there of casualties but this has been a bloody few hours of violence in syria the attacks come in the wake of no movement on the diplomatic front there had been hope that geneva two would bring together the syrian government and the opposition before the end of the year but the latest word now is that on november the twenty fifth if the russian as well as the american delegates under the umbrella of the united nations arab league envoy lakhdar brahimi will meet and only even perhaps will they agree on a date by when to have this next round of negotiations the problem is the sticking points which first and foremost is the division within the opposition they also are

insisting that the syrian president bashar assad is removed before they're prepared to come to talks now this comes on the back of several weeks of foreign inspectors working inside syria and up until now the wood from these inspectors has always been positive. that was artie's paula slayer reporting. well yesterday's elections across the country resulted in a few clear victories and many more questions for how midterm elections could play out in two thousand and fourteen so let's take a look at the results from last night new jersey governor chris christie won a second term in a landslide victory already rumors are spreading about him being a presidential candidate contender for twenty sixteen in virginia democrat terry mcauliffe narrowly defeated tea party republican ken cuccinelli to become the governor elect this race was much closer than analysts thought it would be libertarian rob rob sarvis missed his goal of ten percent winning six point six

percent instead so it's back to the drawing board for libertarians in that state in new york bill de blasio blew his republican contender joseph lhota out of the water by taking over seventy three percent of the vote in miami philip levine declared himself the new mayor last night though an official recount is likely to happen since this race was so close with opponent michael gora comedian and rapper steve berchtold at about twelve percent floyd elected its first white mayor since one nine hundred seventy four former detroit medical center chief mike doogan he must face the city's twenty billion dollars bankruptcy problems but on not on his own most power is still in the hands of the city's emergency finance cheat in colorado an initiative to tax recreational marijuana at a twenty five percent rate was passed the funds will go to schools and also toward

regulation also five of the eleven rural counties in the mile high city voted to secede from the state over the likelihood of that becoming a reality is zilch finally in washington state voters took a cue from their california neighbors to the south and struck down. a ballot measure that would require the labeling of genetically modified foods so if you're living in that state you won't know what's in your food any time soon anyway but that's going to do it for now for more on the stories we covered go to youtube dot com slash r t america and don't forget to check out our stories on our to dot com slash usa our website is always working hard to bring us some of the latest and greatest information and some of the stories that you just we don't have time to cover right now on our t.v. but they are doing a wonderful job covering it for us so go to that web site r c dot com slash usa and don't forget to follow me on twitter at meghan underscore lopez to find out what i'm doing when i'm not behind this desk a lot of it is news some of it is entertaining some of that are pictures of my cats

but stay tuned boom box is next. or people are interested but he has something to say everybody has a story on the potomac person or sit next to one in the airport. i mean there's always in the winds and. that's whether it's a ballet dancer a ball player. those things that are curious to see just things i think about. them were not at. the trial of mohamed morsi what is this trial all about constitutional legitimacy or political retribution can morsi get a fair trial for the military backed government the trial does keep showing its plans for transition towards democracy all sound of

a plane is this what message does this trial send to the muslim world. it sucks but. we're going to do. it you know the price is the only industry specifically mentioned in the constitution and. that's because a free and open press is critical to our democracy albus. rule. in fact the single biggest threat facing our nation today is the corporate takeover of our government and our civic we've been hijacked by handful of transnational corporations that will profit by destroying what our founding fathers once built 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 problems. rational debate real discussion political issues these. are ready to join the movement and welcome good to.

have their i am marinate and this is boom bust here are some of the stories we're tracking for you today. first up the federal reserve is considering changing the goal posts heard short term interest rates will get beyond the jargon that's coming up right ahead and jacket abrams off to grease the wheels of power on capitol hill as one of the most infamous lobbyists in d.c. ever and iran sat down with us earlier today to talk about dodd frank and the politics of money you won't want to miss that one and as our ever wonder what goes on behind the doors of the gilded doors that is the goldman sachs we've got the guy who can tell you author stephen man does it work that goldman for more than a decade and joins me in studio today to discuss his.