well let me explain why that is i would occur just on vacation got into a taxi driven by a former migrant worker who used to make a living in moscow he told me that he really worked hard driving unloading trucks after five years he came back home and bought a house yes from the seller that russians can't even survive and he was able to buy a house employers and russian america say that locals don't want to work or demotivated well want to margaret work or on a salary that could build a bright future when compared to a local who can't even make ends meet while you could see why the market workers are a lot more motivated let me put it to you this way if you knew that you had to work five hard years of some awful labor under awful conditions somewhere far away like brazil or germany what would be able to pay off a house would you do it i think you would let's not buy into this myth that locals and country x. don't want to work they just don't want to work in complete futility for table scraps but the shust my opinion.

what's happened is law enforcement and the national security agency has gone behind our collective backs and try to accomplish this using the courts in secret and that's truly what the issue is a broken whatever trust and violated whatever trust we may have had and that's the real issue and they're going to have to earn that back the hard way. below and welcome the cross-talk where all things considered i'm peter lavelle q us presidents elected to a second term in office leave the white house successful or even popular for uk obama is a case in point is. poll numbers are low his legislative agenda is in deep trouble

and washington's friends and foes around the world do not take him seriously is obama already a lame duck president. cross not whether obama is a lame duck i'm joined by my guests in new york why he's a democratic political strategist and we also have don de bar he is an anti-war activist and host of a daily radio program right gentlemen cross talk rules in fact that means you can jump in anytime you want and i very much encourage it chad if i go to you first in new york congratulations on your victory. race in new york a breath of fresh air a lot of people say but let's go to president obama he's got very low numbers in the polls right now about forty six that's the lowest during his time in office and a lot of people are saying at home and abroad this guy just doesn't cut the mustard he doesn't have the to get his agenda through and hence he is a lame duck now agree or disagree. well i i really disagree i mean any time you

have three years ago on any term that's a really too soon to make that kind of declaration in american politics so barack obama has a little bit of distance right now but he has some some great opportunities to implement he said gently ok that was short and sweet don we have a lame duck president in the in the white house right now i don't know if a lame duck is an appropriate term of go back to the issue of an agenda i don't know what the agenda is part of the agenda was to bring in the health care reform that's been done to a degree i mean there are issues with that it's a step forward a baby step forward people acted obama thinking that we're going to get a single payer health care system because that's what he promised across the board looking at foreign policy international affairs war and peace issues everything that he was elected to do was done pretty much the opposite it's like a third term for george bush only on steroids for example in africa he's doing

things that bush would never of tried to do invading libya bombing it for eight or nine months all over the rest of the globe the pivot to china everything else of george bush tried to do that you'd have thousands of democrats out in the street in every little town in the united states instead they're lining up behind it but the agenda itself it's unclear exactly what that is ok chad you want to respond to that george bush's third term. well you know we been hearing that. for a number of years but i don't think all that and it's valid his health care agenda ate up a lot of the clock for the first term and certainly it could have been some adjustment and it was presented and how it was moved through congress but he was successful weaving in a way that eisenhower was unable to do it you know kennedy was unable to do it with johnson nixon carter all down the line none of these presidents. was able to

implement health here in any kind of reforming he was able to do would despite the circumstances we're looking at the second term and we still have to get through immigration reform which is a big ticket item and i want to say ok much i mean. it's not even done if we look at health care if we look at health care they still do you know it's not any place here is a matter of fact it's far from being in place and one could even make the argument that obama is still running in his first term because his great achievement if you like it or not isn't his first term but it hasn't come to fruition not by a long shot in his second term. yeah but that's by its terms first let's correct the history ok kennedy started formulating in johnson passed medicare a that is a much more extensive health care program perhaps not in terms of the age groups in terms of demographics but in terms of the depth of coverage and the number of

people in the class you know people sixty five and over sixty two and over whatever that were reached that was remarkable because it came from nothing what has been accomplished or what is yet to be actualized but what's been accomplished on paper under the obama administration is essentially a reorganizing of the private insurance industry nothing more it's insurance regulation or the adjustment of insurance regulations it's not creating a new health care system out of whole cloth it's just requiring a little more give back out of a private health care insurance system that sucks most of the money out of the health care system when obama ran he promised and i would pay what's going to be. ok chad jump in go ahead that's crosstalk go ahead i would think that millions and millions of the people who are now covered under health coverage to getting health care coverage. tended to. i disagree with that but let's look at somebody's

observations that we've seen of late you know especially the forbes in this. put obama number two the power in the world again who is number one and we look at business and this observation there are a lot of holes in the listing itself and there are some some places there that you know i think are pretty incredible but there are some places where it is believe. i'm glad you brought up this back you brought this up you know why that's why we're doing this program exactly because of that list and that's what what i was thinking about when thinking about doing this program is leadership chet i want to go back to you leadership and this is the the problem that a lot of people see obama has right now he doesn't have the leadership skills so ok the presidency of the united states is very powerful and no one has any doubts about that but it's he powerful enough to use the office to get what he wants

that's a very simple question and a lot of people say he's not up to the task. but he is going to he is enough to get this this is where this is where this is where we are we have to examine this whole scenario. the president is pretty much on to see the republicans since the first term. but he has an opportunity now in what is about to happen in the twenty fourteen elections to make a reversal so we look at for the force of this it's a snapshot of right now it's a snapshot of where the perception is of obama and the perception is i don't think it's so much a weakening of obama when you look at the entire landscape but what has happened as he does in his ascension. pretty much defining himself on the world stage at critical marks. and i think i think

a lot of people in the world would agree with you on that point but don we've done a kind of allays my question here is barack obama a strong leader because gun control immigration. minimum wage i mean i get my i mean i can go on and on and i'm not particularly a critic of the president but i look to what he ran on when he promised and come up short big time. listen there's some essential facts to the american political system that have to be considered even to frame this discussion because the assumption underlying the questions and underlying you know the way we're looking at it is that obama has a particular agenda this being frustrated by the republicans and so consequently the reason that the things that people expected from him are not being actualized is because of being obstructed as opposed to identify and specifically what interests he represents who put him there who is beholden to what what his real

agenda is now when you're trying to figure out what someone's religion and as you take a look at what they've actually done for us let's remember that for the first two years of president obama's term and for the two years prior it is taking office both houses of the congress were democratic now you had obama eclipsing clinton hillary clinton in the primaries over the issue of war the democratic you know the prime voters that went out and voted in the primaries the people that swaying the constituents in that party or against the war the american public has been polling since two thousand and four as being against the wars in iraq and i think two thousand and six or two thousand and seven in afghanistan which still continues the democratic congress had every opportunity in two thousand and nine two thousand and ten i'm sorry two thousand and seven two thousand and eight two thousand and nine and two thousand and ten to defund those wars which which. was done with the

vietnam war that's actually what ended it and since in the first two years president obama was in office he was like wise could have done it instead he did exactly the opposite we're at war in more places now that we were one ok. let me go down tax let me go to chant on that obama is a war president just like george w. bush. worse so it doesn't make any sense to me we haven't had any episodes of shock and awe we don't have but you know. listen again about libya and let's not forget about libya is a little ad becomes a little bit little bit hard not a bit hard to fathom and when you look at the numbers when you look at the numbers compared to iran's it is you know pretty astounding to me that the balance here so for you this is not to seem to let me just correct you on subject of your letter is going to be some sort everybody is going to say is very easy to put it that way ok

dogs no no no go ahead with i done go ahead let me let me give you some facts ok my friend former representative sensi a macand he spent a couple of weeks in libya while the bombing campaign was going on and she was sending me reports which i was forwarding out to my audience and so you know it's a different news agencies while she was there on one particular day and while we were in touch she was with representatives of the african union who were there to monitor what was going on now this is only in tripoli this particular day one of like eleven cities that are the major population centers in libya on that date from eleven thirty in the morning until eleven thirty in the evening twelve hours they counted eighty three explosions from bombs each one the size of the equivalent of what happened at the world trade center in a city population of about two million about the population of manhattan now that campaign went on from march until october and hit every city in libya with

a popular. and total at the time of six million people what he did to libya made what shocking all it did to baghdad pale in terms of tonnage in terms of duration and in terms of the extent of the destruction of the infrastructure so don't say that it wasn't that that was some minor initiative that was engage your mission that's the first thing i didn't say to them these numbers are but i can tell you just stated i'm going to actually read a line you're going to resupply our new hampshire rank and after our short break we'll continue our discussion on obama's state party.

it's simply for that so i only goal in life was nothing more than making money as quickly as possible with what we got to offer the kids. so that mornings wake up no one to sleep. but it's not a kindergarden or an orphanage it's a host where you live with your family your children. children and you can be a father to seventy children just like i'll be a husband to twelve mothers. why are you all shouting i wasn't ready it's like if a man proposes to you and you answer oh whoa i need time to think so when she told me mom i needed time to think with that well as think. you could say mom is the most important simply person in your life and yes they told me much scarier stories about what their lives were like about their trunk mothers fleeing home and living on the streets they've let me into their world and it became easier for them

to cope just. want to. pick up something that is quite simply. was no way. clearly they were just at the wrong place at the wrong time. and sold to the u.s. or turned over to the u.s. for. the sole that could be buried alive. was saved with great effort. and they wanted to turn me into a terrorist they wanted me to admit that i was a member of al qaeda or taliban but i fought with them. about time i didn't even know what ok. it is nevertheless there are people. raving of

the start of. something is going to be done that's going to be done by me never short of money but it's going to impact me i'd be prosecuted but it's going to impact. a wife my daughter. the one time i'm a trap. on our team. welcome back to crossfire for all things considered i'm peter lavelle to mind you we're discussing barack obama's presidency and whether he's a lame duck. ok chad i to go back to you in new york things are getting flaring up and we'll into the end of the first hour of the program so please respond to don go ahead. well

you know i have a problem when the source of information is. just a nonstarter but we talk about that as the africa we talk about the topic that we're here for whether or not whether or not he is a lame duck president and we're looking at three years to continue this presidency and there are a lot of opportunities and i think there are some opportunities. especially with the shutdown of the government by the republicans and. whole piece with ted cruz being the gift that keeps on giving the american public right now you see . it probably his his and always approval rating which is in the forty's but when we look at the shutdown. in ninety six with bill clinton his approval rating has dropped to forty two but he was able to read another thing to consider is that the

republican party itself has only an approval rating of twenty two percent and when you look at the congress on its own most of the american people have a poll that they would rather see all the members of congress replace and congressional approval is that ten percent so ten percent compared to the forty two percent ok i don't think he's ok chad those are all fair numbers those are going to twenty. fair numbers however if i go to the opportunity i say that not to do this i don't know but i would say here that what you're saying is true about all those numbers i agree with you but don how does that help barack obama finish his term in office as a success when you go to done had done what let me let me let me go back to john first go ahead i think that the numbers are relevant and i think the invoking of bill clinton is very useful in light there particularly for people that are outside of the united states that are watching this there's two aspects to american

politics there's what they call retail politic. acts which is almost like watching a football game a soccer game or something where you have people on either side that are very emotionally involved but it's really much ado about nothing the real political aspects you know the real material aspects of politics of course is policy what what policy decisions are made you know you can study the mechanisms of that but what actually comes out what's the output what the implications are for both this society and what the united states for everyone else on the planet more or less bill clinton after his numbers went up for whatever value that had turned around and brought in the hundred ninety six telecom act nafta ended welfare as we knew it you know basically debts helped to began the decimation the real decimation of the safety net in this country began the real consolidation of the media in this country began the real was shipping overseas of american jobs in this country and

so great his numbers were up he was the best republican president we ever had was his numbers and obama's numbers are about as relevant in the same way what policies are as he actually trying to implement that we can look at the window when he had both houses of congress where and we had and i have these are his ok chad point had to some point don at some point down we're going to we're going to let me speak but this is we're number zero. homeowner the country is throw the bums out and particularly the republicans and twenty fourth seed there's an opportunity need to reset this whole political paradigm would be wooing of the congress as opposed to being so red and making the situation policy can actually start to move so with this sort of situation and day american public can see congress with

approval with an approval rating of less intent. and i mean i could go out here right now and i could pull you know more people who believe that elvis is still alive and they can take that and move. more democrats go into the two congressional setting but this is with the knowledge of what happened with the last opportunity in two thousand and nine as far as moving agenda so we have to set the stage that we get past this callus a truce do we get past this deadlock and start moving some policy and start getting some. let's have to be split to that let's take a pass and so badly damaged that they have no other choice but stay with policy you know no let's go to don don waiting to war really been waiting for immigration reform well i think a lot of latinos are too and it's probably not going to happen don i mean the perception from the outside looking in is that barack obama is just

a figurehead for corporate america he's more interested in their interests. it's hard to hard to dispute that based on policy let's look at immigration reform he has deported more people than all prior presidents combined and he's only partway through his second term ok so what kind of policy is likely to come out i mean this is charade that goes on that this is a compromise american politics i know is the world are in to people outside of the united states you don't have ideological differences between the parties there is wage issue. you know matters that you don't have audio identical to do that is for you to bottles or to serious are you serious you don't have audio magic observers about it so we have to demonstrate why anyone who remembers about it now you can't be you she had confidence in serious late wait listen said listen and the rest of

the world the range of ideological differences goes from basically libertarianism to socialism and not republicans calling barack obama a socialist because he wants to give somebody a quarter with their cup in the corner but will the workers on the means of production the socialist state is owned by the workers socialism that will listen let me finish that's the range of ideological and we have to have major in you have a major honeybees that are frantically major wendy's in afraid all rejected socialism don you know i know how much i like the task of assessment of design you're going to have me even exist i want to read out right out list so you have socialism all right what i write i need to be ready for combat me and let me jump in but i'm the mean transplant here i mean we have to we have to take in account i think this is what chant was getting to is the tea party now they are very ideologically i would go ahead i would have president putin what do you think it's not a political party i would ask president putin what do you want to sit with him you

have missing the point you're missing the point at the point i was making. it is that elsewhere in the world the political parties are organized around different ideological perspectives and in the united states that share the ideological is perspectives fundamentally that large corporations are allowed to exist that finance is allowed to control the political system that whenever there is a we have to maintain the largest military in the world by far and that's appropriate that we have to maintain the largest prison system in the world by far these are all areas by the way for example the prison industrial complex barack obama hasn't lifted a finger you have a young black man being killed like every thirty eight hours in this country it's actually gotten worse since he became president and he has he's not doing anything about it not nothing there's a million issues like that actually you know if their constituents parties are

going to go on if the parties if the parties themselves are so so similar if the parties are so much of a lie then why is it that we would have to look at them honestly why is it i mean it's the contradiction why is it that we have this they're not no i'm not you can have two you can have two guys trying to break into your house to steal your t.v. set but one of them will block the other because he wants it ok that doesn't mean that there are any different they're both quirks ok but all right gentlemen it's there gentlemen while we're fast lane running out of time i want to change gears here and one of the great criticisms of barack obama today is that he's not respected around the world america's enemies don't respect him and america's friends don't respect him anymore chad how do you react to that. why don't i don't see that i mean i know i know you see that is the great criticism i think this guy is very respected and where it began. to plan and you see this enthusiasm with

people who not only. look to him for leadership but also respect him great. ok don but i think you know one of his when he was making a stop in europe right after his election he was welcome as a rock star i don't think chad he's welcomed as a rock star in germany today but you agree he blew it out and i don't know unity i don't know of anyone who commits a whole suppose that sort of rock star status would such as time. ok chad i'm sorry john go ahead. yeah just very quickly when barack obama came into office he had the opportunity particularly among third world countries of really showing a you know a different side of america and what he has done instead by pursuing more aggressively than the last president as that president did before and going back the imperial policy of the united states in africa if you look at the way he dealt

with while margaret safiya look at what nelson mandela said about what markets often he held them out as a hero if you look all around the third world at the position the united states has been staking out under obama in central and south america and how the people feel in those places where he could have done tremendous outreach and they were giving him the benefit of the doubt the problem is that he wasted it because he pursued the interests that put him into power just like everyone before can't run is no different chant i want to give. the last word on the program to be fair three years what kind of bomb a accomplish in the last three years of his second term go ahead the first their first and foremost duty person and foremost duty of the american president is to serve the american people and he did that with the delivery of health care reform he did. so it is it is for me this is just unfathomable that you could say that he has no major accomplishment and he does ok we've still twenty seconds

don go ahead yeah one that actually comes into effect you could say that much except for the twenty five to thirty million people that are still not covered ok gentlemen thank you for a fascinating debate many thanks to my guests today in new york and thanks to our viewers for watching us here see you next time and remember topples. please. you got a lot of sneering and negative press for your engagements here in russia especially public appearances with food and even though they weren't explicitly political you were just supporting sports one of the scenes that certain people's regime has become very adept at is controlling the media for example right here c.n.n.

do i think c.n.n. is you know completely telling it like it is no i think we have an agenda i think. is is bought and paid for. the olympic torch is on its epic journey to such. one hundred twenty three days. through to some nine hundred cities of russia. relayed by fourteen thousand people or sixty five thousand killings. in a record setting trip by land air c.n.n. . first face. a limp the torch relay. on r t r two dot com. we speak your language not

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some. of our times. in the film and i turned towards the true story bridge on a car exploded and my neighbor admitted killing me was a direct order that he would see me as the number of downs from terror attacks in iraq steers towards new tragic records our team documents the surge in civilian casualties with an in-depth database on the growing terror. what we're looking at now our desk specifically from terror attacks this year old and the figures while the figures speak for themselves. it is just nothing you don't. read the spy chief going down whistleblowing in a parliamentary committee hearing on mass surveillance that ryan's group say avoided all the tough questions. britain has declared a global hub of financial secrecy as banks.