coming up on r t the n b a twenty four team is out on capitol hill lawmakers have been dragging their feet when it comes to funding the defense department but yesterday they announced an agreement so what's in the new n.b.a. and what's been left out details on that ahead and homelessness on the rise in new york the growing income inequality is forcing families out of their homes and as a result the big apple is seeing the most homeless children since the great depression more on these dire economic conditions coming up. and sheriff's deputies charged with abuse in los angeles county eighteen sheriff deputies are being accused of abuse and local prisons now it looks like the jailers might end up being jailed themselves an in-depth look at this case later in the show.

it's tuesday december tenth eight pm in washington d.c. i'm in you're a david and you're watching r t. prominent lawmakers have come to an agreement on the latest version of the n.b.a. or the national defense authorization bill with the clock ticking down until the house adjourns for the holidays this friday leaders of the senate and house armed services committees are working out a deal to move forward with a bill that will fund the u.s. military next year the twenty fourteen bill will authorize five hundred fifty two billion dollars in national defense spending and nearly eighty one billion for overseas contingency operations yesterday i attended a press conference in which the leaders of those committees expressed confidence that the bill would be passed in due time however if it is not passed there are a number of extensions that are set to expire those include combat pay hardship

duty pay special pay for nuclear qualified service members and listen bonuses incentive pay were tension bonuses and more according to senator carl levin but beyond funding the military passing this bill would have huge implications for good mo detainees and for soldiers who are victims of sexual assault earlier i spoke with former congressional attorney mark levine and i first asked him if he could explain why there is such a rush to pass this bill before the end of this legislative session. first of all this is one of the few absolute must pass bills in washington this is actually the least productive congress in american history no congress has passed fewer bills and they did in twenty thirteen but the reason it's a must pass bill is because the constitution provides that there's no standing army in the united states that may surprise people given the military this is today but the founders require appropriations bills to be passed every two years or the army ceased to exist that means they're going to pass this bill one way or another right but why is it that so lawmakers are saying that this is going to you know

a lot of things are going to expire if this is not taking care of before the holiday and it will is that really the case or is this something that they could possibly take up in january one they come back they will pass this bill there's no doubt in my mind they will pass this bill they will not allow people to lose combat pay there are many many things that don't work in congress this is one of those things they absolutely will work out some agreement to do so well ok let's talk about some of the big provisions of this bill first of all get now there is an update with that let's take a listen first to what senator carl levin had to say the bill basically takes half of what we did in the senate and passes and that is to give flexibility to the president to transfer detainees from guantanamo to third countries it maintains the prohibition on transferring detainees here for trial and detention . right so like he said half of them are going to be transferred out they can go

back to third party countries you know many people are saying that this could be the beginning of the and forget mel is that all that was really standing in the way of president obama you know closing this down are have a green light now well first of all have already been cleared for transfer to other countries and they have been transferred president obama is obviously very nervous that he's going to transfer someone back and they're going to be engaged in terrorist activities that happen for some of them the released under george w. bush but more than half are already cleared another thirty five or so are cleared for trial and then the real trouble is about forty eight who have been deemed neither able to be transferred nor able to be tried there in this indefinite detention situation which i would argue is completely not in the constitution united states but this was set up under george w. bush it was inherited by president obama and congress was prevented from dealing with it in the way that i and many americans and they like to say to do with anything but them on trial because they're not allowing the one thing that they're sticking with us throughout allowing these people to come to the united states to be imprisoned here or to be you know to stand for trial here so how can he really

policy wise even get around that obstacle how would you be able to close i don't think he can i mean the congress has prevented i mean president obama came in his very first years he's going to close guantanamo bay within a year and then congress passes legislation basically prohibiting him from doing so so for all the criticism of president obama for not shutting it down it really is congress's prevent him from doing that yeah it seems like it's going to be a huge sticking point well let's talk about sexual assault in the military because this was undoubtedly one of the most controversial issues to come up this year there was a proposed amendment by senator christian. brand and then also one by senator claire mccaskill those amendments were not implemented as far as i understand but there were some other measures can you talk about that's great. bill would basically take the prosecution of sexual assault away from military commanders so normally sexual assault is prosecuted the courts as it should be with a civilian jury. but in the military there are special laws that allow the

commander to weigh in and a lot of victims of sexual abuse it's not fair the commander may be friends with the perpetrator and a lot of social saltsman punished so they didn't get that bill through the bread will propose it next year they did however achieve significant half measures for example if a jury convict someone of sexual assault it can be overruled by the military commander that person must go the perpetrator must be dishonorably discharged and the victim can give independent counsel and cases that are not brought are reviewed by a civilian review board to make sure that there should be brought other things that you can't retaliate against a victim you can't harm them in the military and there's no such limitations that maybe even the most important you can basically accuse people of crimes that occurred five ten twenty years ago right some significant changes indeed and we have to see if that it is taken up next year and lastly i want to talk to you about something interesting i asked a question a very end of the press conference about section ten twenty one which is the indefinite detention clause of the n.d.a.

i'm sure you're familiar with it basically it allows for the government to indefinitely detain anyone including american citizens who are associated even in the least with terrorism i asked i pointed the question to all of them but buck mckeon is the one who responded and this is what he had to say to me. let me go back over and tell you that what we have in the bill will be an improvement over what we've already passed in the house and in the senate committee and it was an overwhelming vote so i think i think will be i think we'll be ok i think we've progressed people's concerns thank you very much we need to go get the bill pass thank you now he wrapped it up really quickly after a mad fleet we dodged mike it is an overwhelming vote he's right about that it has support from democrats and republicans i would argue though it doesn't have support in the constitution and states which i'm always carrying around with because the constitution says the writ of habeas corpus the right to challenge your imprisonment shall not be suspended except in cases of rebellion or invasion and

this is a rebellion this is an invasion george bush argued i think wrongly that because what tom obey is not the united states of america even though it's in a long term indefinite lease which is why i think it's basically a loophole therefore he didn't have to follow the constitution it's going time will be i've never agreed with that and i think clearly going to our base under our control and i don't think we can hold people indefinitely there but obviously congress at least disagrees with me maybe the courts will go on fortunately it seems like it's going to be a mainstay of this and be a bill going forward afraid so but unfortunately run out of time mark levine former congressional attorney thank you thank you mary. and seymour hersh is calling out some news organizations who have refused to publish his recent story on the obama administration's case for war with syria hearses up a list of prize winning journalist who accuse the obama administration of having pro cherry picked intelligence as it relates to syria's august twenty first chemical attack so why should her spread the story with his usual magazine the new yorker or the washington post r.t.

political commentator sam fact more this is pulitzer prize winning investigative journalist seymour hersh he's been exposing u.s. military intelligence scandals since vietnam and he's got a new scoop this one alleging that the obama administration cherry picked intelligence reports when it allege that syrian president bashar al assad was behind the august twenty first chemical weapons attack near damascus published in the london review of books hersh argues the obama administration failed to acknowledge something known to the u.s. intelligence community the syrian army is not the only party in the country's civil war with access to sarah hersh goes on to say in the months before the attack the american intelligence agencies produced a series of highly classified reports citing evidence that the al nusra front as you how to group affiliated with al qaida had mastered the mechanics of creating serin and was capable of manufacturing it in quantity person or use when the attack occurred al nusra should have been

a suspect but the administration cherry picked intelligence to justify a strike against a saw. the white house has called hirsch's report simply false as you'd expect they would now to be clear hersh doesn't know who carried out the chemical attack that night he just knows that for the second time in a decade the president of the united states was willing to take the country to war using intelligence that could be flawed. they don't know who did what but there's no question my government does not. and there's also the question that the american president that we now have voted for. has a lot of good things about it was willing to go to war wanted to throw missiles at syria without really having a case and knowing you didn't have much of a case but hirsch's report didn't originally appear in the united states you had to go overseas to the london review of books to have it published where it was extensively fact checked both the new yorker and the washington post rejected hersh

a story yep that's the same washington post that right after colin powell made his case before the un and w m d's in iraq back in two thousand and three read an editorial titled irrefutable that editorial said after secretary of state colin powell is representation of the united nations security council yesterday it is hard to imagine how anyone could doubt that iraq possesses weapons of mass destruction and he offered a powerful new case that saddam hussein's regime is cooperating with a branch of the al qaeda organization that is trying to acquire chemical weapons and stage attacks in europe yep i don't bother looking for that article on the washington post archives it's been completely scrubbed you see hersh is story isn't just about intelligence cherry picking in manufacturing consent for war it's about how the white house can get away with this stuff because of the sad state of journalism in america if you can create

a narrative which he did and you know the mainstream press is going to carry out that narrative i mean it's almost impossible for someone that we mainstream newspapers who have consistently supported the administration this is after we had to have the scandal and everybody wanted to be on the team and it's in this way that seymour hersh actually became part of the story again not just a story of war but a story of how the media lets the president get away with war just like they did in iraq by silencing those or speaking truth to power. two months ago the united state . it was dangerously close to making the same recirculate ten years ago in iraq with another war in syria has not worn mainstream media out where the new york state was willing to seriously question legitimacy of the illustrations intelligence corps and unfortunately they still aren't willing to. in washington same sex party. and now to another voice straight from syria mother agnes mariam

she came to the r.t. studio last night and had this to say about the plight of christians in syria currently where to be a christian or to be a civilian in syria today it's really ventured because the. daily bases big value relations of human rights nobody is safe today in syria because we have thousands of for the united states come to syria to spread. violence in. we we are really in a mental in the silence of the international community for this a beautiful a village among the most. all in syria and in the world they speak out in my language that christ was speaking of course in its. different transformation and it is a world heritage. and there were no really no reason

to put out the simple pollution to slaughter people on a religious basis and now to a thirteen nuns and sickly workers from the most old. monastery in the region and the son to take when necessary who is hussein some to take love is a disciple of simple and you put the blame squarely on the rebels and it turns out last of course they do it they have done it and they appeared on the video is such . a shame to do so. that was mother agnes mariam to loco founder of james the mutilated monastery in syria. and today presidents prime ministers celebrities and thousands of south africans gathered to say farewell to nelson mandela died just last week at the age of ninety five and guided south africa out of apartheid and into a multiracial democracy as the president of the country thereby becoming an international

icon of peace and reconciliation artie's policy or is in johannesburg and brings us more reaction from this historic memorial day was one of the most important days in south africa's history as tens of thousands of south africans an international dignitaries from all corners of the globe turned out to pay their last respects to nelson mandela it was one in a series of memorials that are being held throughout the week that will culminate with his funeral on sunday in his hometown of qunu in the eastern cape but as always on these sad and often tragic occasions world leaders use the opportunity for their own personal politicking not least of all the american president barack obama who raised quite a few are brawls when he shook the hands of the cuban leader now this is despite the fact that an embargo is in place between the two countries the bomber was also smiling alongside me british prime minister david cameron and the danish leader they actually took

a self shot of themselves and this despite the fact that there has been some kind of friction particularly between the united states and britain in recent weeks and recent months at the same time it was noted that the comment that was made by the czech prime minister who was caught on camera when he was commenting over the fact that he had a knee injury and might not be able to attend mandela's funeral at that time he said and i'm quoting i'm dreading i will have to go in the end he did not come but his foreign minister did come and what this does point to is the fact that will be does use these kind of opportunities as an opportunity not only to pay respect to south africa's greatest son but also as an opportunity for their own personal gains . that was our correspondent policy. and contrary to what many people believe homelessness is still very much an epidemic here in the united states perhaps the greatest snapshot of that is new york city where poverty has just reached its

highest level since the great depression of the one nine hundred thirty s. now take a look at this this is data out by the department of homeless services and it shows the number of people in new york city who sleep in shelters every night as you can see that number has steadily increased since one thousand nine hundred three and in fact as of september of two thousand and thirteen there were about fifty two thousand four hundred people in shelters that's a sixty nine percent increase since just in january of two thousand and two but perhaps what's most unfortunate is that a large number of those falling under the poverty line are now children as you can see the number of children on the streets of new york is now exceeded twenty two thousand it's a shocking number that was explored recently in an in-depth new york times story that followed the daily life of one eleven year old homeless girl named i was doing two earlier by artie's on a stasi a church cannot discuss this a little bit more i first asked her to explain the conditions that the psammead lives in and whether it's reflective of what other homeless kids are experience

experiencing well i mean unfortunately the answer is yes it is reflective of these staggering numbers of children that are going through homelessness as we speak this particular new york times piece a very in-depth piece five part or the life of this eleven year old girl who lives really does shovelled brooklyn shelter with her parents and seven siblings she takes care of her babies her babies her sister her younger brothers and sisters the conditions of the shelter are just they seem to mind blowing when you read about them because this is something that happens is happening in the united states in new york city one of the richest cities in the u.s. and yet this is mice and rat infested. shelter where just a. there's been allegations of sexual assault and sexual predators that have gone on accountable and just the struggles of this little girl showing exactly what it is to be living a life like that in this article really pushing forward

a new wave of debate surrounding child homelessness in the u.s. like you rightfully said twenty two thousand is the highest number since the great depression in new york we talked a little bit to new yorkers about what they make of all this take a listen it's quite alarming that as the economy picks up indicators getting getting worse it could get hired so i mean like things are getting better but these are getting worse so it's kind of like this. a lot of people just can't afford to live anymore like ways of living and being in new york this is like you know the worst place to be so maybe people get like go somewhere else besides the big city bigger cities in you know more metropolis suburban areas to try to make you know their lives where but it's hard here i'm an adult and it's hard for me to maintain with no kids so i can imagine families trying to maintain here the one person at the top is been increasing it's more than its fair share and the people at the bottom tend to be completely left behind. well you know nearer to give you

some more perspective on how bad it really is because these numbers are hard to imagine the new york times makes a good point if if all of the homeless children of new york city were to go into madison square garden which is a huge stadium in manhattan as many as over forty eight hundred children would be left without a seat so imagine that is pretty staggering number that's that's really really scary to think about actually want to see could you talk a little bit more about what is really thought to be behind these numbers what is behind this rapid increase in homelessness specifically for families. well i mean what we have is a continuation of increasing home prices of course with very low incomes and it's a widening gap and experts are saying this is likely to continue so because housing prices are going up and so many people are still unable to find work what we have is the situation where as many as fifty two thousand people are in shelters every night in new york city and it's twelve thousand people and families twelve thousand

families and those families have children and the sad part really is that the children are the people the ones we don't see you don't know they are the invisible homeless because it's you know you're not able to tell in the street which child is suffering and who is not and the numbers are that one in five children in the u.s. are living in poverty currently and the new york times again goes on to say that this is the highest number in the developed nation except for romania and i think a lot of people would be surprised to know that some people are attributing the growth of income inequality in the city to the policies of michael bloomberg you know we saw sort of a staggering increase in homelessness after two thousand and two which is sort of when he. came into power what exactly are they were for him to what are these policies. you know also from two thousand and eight homelessness has gone up by a staggering fifty percent so it's just the the reason people are talking about bloomberg of course is because he has been mayor and just stepped down for twelve

years and he has been and is one of the richest people in the united states and it's under his reign of that this increase enormous inequality gap kind of surfaced obviously it had a lot to do with the financial crisis of two thousand and eight but also you know bloomberg implemented certain policies back in two thousand and four where he said homeless people should be made more self-reliant and provided short term rent assistance to two homeless people in new york city hoping that this would empower them this did not happen so. people are blaming bloomberg for the reason that also millions of dollars were spent in certain projects in new york city where as homelessness clearly obviously continues to be a huge huge plight of so many people here all very interesting stuff well thanks for your reporting r.t. correspondent. and there is a wide scope of illegal conduct inside the los angeles county sheriff's department according to the f.b.i.

and federal prosecutors now more than a dozen deputies have been charged with corruption and civil rights abuses artie's among the linda takes a look at the scandal rocking los angeles i'm outside of the f.b.i. offices in los angeles agents here are spearheading an investigation into alleged abuse and widespread misconduct inside l.a. county jails posting a list of indictments including charges of conspiracy and obstruction of justice were handed down against eighteen former and current members of the l.a. county sheriff's department federal prosecutors claim that members of the department consider themselves to be above the law this indictment charges a sergeant and four deputies with civil rights violations related to illegal arrest and detentions or detentions of people who are not inmates but rather people who merely went to the jail to visit inmates the federal investigation found that these incidents did not take place in

a vacuum in fact examples of illegal conduct alleged and these indictments demonstrated that certain. the individuals and certain of that behavior have become institutionalized in one case u.s. attorney ajay brought claims that the austrian counsel general here in los angeles was illegally detained after trying to visit an austrian national who had been arrested and taken to jail and then there's a case of gabriel career who was allegedly beaten by deputies when trying to visit a relative l.a. county's top cop responded to the allegations defending his deputies we do not tolerate misconduct by any deputies this department is grounded in its core values namely to our perform our duties with respect for the dignity of all people and the integrity. to do what is right and fight wrongs we have fully cooperated.

with the federal bureau of investigation and will continue to do so we have a very strong partnership please know that i respect the criminal justice system and no one is above the law it one of the most gay the accusations the u.s. attorney's office claims that deputies tried to hide an f.b.i. informant from his handlers not only that deputies are also accused of trying to intimidate a female f.b.i. agent people who i spoke to who are close to the case feel that more bombshells will be revealed as a federal investigation into misconduct at the sheriff's department continues in los angeles. archie. how do you ever heard of the chemical known as listen well you've probably come into contact with it whether you know it or not tonight the resident takes a look at this mysterious chemical. i

haven't heard of the chemical try close and yet if not and you are american you should know about it because it's probably coursing through your veins right now and there's a good chance it can screw you up here's a lousy story about it the f.d.a. has known about the potential long term health dangers of priceless and since one thousand nine hundred seventy eight when they first proposed to removing it from consumer products thirty five years ago it's been documented to disrupt ten different systems and lab tests which means it messes with hormones that deal with reproduction and brain development it's been linked to poor sperm polities infertility learning disability and memory problems the f.d.a.

knew that back in one thousand nine hundred seventy eight but they didn't bother writing any rules or regulations for our products makers to follow other countries have already banned the use of typos and consumer products but our corporate geniuses are free to put it in all of their crappy products in one thousand nine hundred seven the f.d.a. approved colgate total for market which contains tried was there and nowadays trial is and isn't that a ton of our soaps even though the f.d.a. and miss it probably has no real benefit as an anti-bacterial agent in fact it's been found to contribute to the development of antibiotic resistant bacteria which is very bad at it so it's in toothpaste with a direct line to the bloodstream. i did some soap where it can be absorbed to the skin so there's a decent chance that it seeping right into us and screwing with our end a current systems in fact it's now so pervasive that in bio mom attorney tests

residues of trifles and were found in seventy five percent of americans over sixty years old it was found in most people's blood urine and even breast milk one group that's raising the alarm now is the n.r.d.c. or natural resources defense council this past year they requested the f.d.a. slacker it's about their nine hundred ninety seven approval of coal the total under the freedom of information act since the f.d.a. hasn't complied with the n.r.d.c. is now suing the f.d.a. goodness. because of what the hell is hoping that how can the f.d.a. just continue to let product makers include tricolors and as an ingredient even though they've known it's bad for thirty five years. maybe it's because the f.d.a. is just a bunch of bureaucratic idiots who don't do with anything right because our system

is utter crap that's what i happen to think but maybe it's just all that try closing and coursing through my veins talking tonight let's talk about that by following me on twitter as the resident. does it for now for more on the stories we covered go to youtube dot com slash r t america check out our website r t dot com slash usa you can also follow me on twitter adam you're a david for now have a great night. there

i marinate and this is boom bust and here are some of the stories we're tracking for you today. first up j.p. morgan. nepotism especially in china now that's according to new documents on earth and published in the new york times we're going to tell you all about it coming right up and one of the sexiest metals known to man is behind some of the most criminal behavior in the world has ever seen bold it's a complex thing and the best selling author matthew heart knows a thing or two about it he joins me to discuss his new book aptly titled.