hello and welcome to cross talk where all things considered i'm people of a few u.s. presidents elected to a second term in office leave the white house successful or even popular rock obama is a case in point his 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 check 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 any time 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 you've 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. there are 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 saramago 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 they were 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 that 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 was presented in how we move 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 healthier eating 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 was a big ticket item and i want to say ok much i mean. it's not i mean don if we look at health care if we look at health care it's still not it's not any place here is

a matter of fact it's far from being in place 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 and johnson asked medicare ok 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 when he promised that i would pay what's going to be. ok chad jump in go ahead that's crosstalk go ahead why would i would think that millions and millions of the people who are now covered under health coverage to getting health coverage. tended to get. 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 they put obama number two in 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 not bad 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 chant 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 and he is enough to get things done in this this is where this is where this is where where 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 transcript of what has happened as he does in his ascension. pretty much defining himself on the world stage at critical marks. i think a lot of people in the world would agree with you on that don but done eight 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 that's 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 identifying 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 is 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 swing 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 pat let me go to chant down that obama is a war president just like george w. bush. worse so it doesn't make any sense i mean we haven't had any

episodes of shock and awe we don't have you know. this is going around libya and let's not forget about libya is a little ad becomes a little bit a 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 be in the room the balance here so for you this is not to seem to let me just correct you on something let me get you some forgot if you want to get it that is very easy to put it that way ok does not know now go ahead with i done go ahead and 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 this 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 the popular. total what the time of six million people what he did to libya made what shock and awe 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 issue that was a new ager issue that's the first time i've been saying to them the numbers that i've had i just am going to like to read

a line here but i don't want to resupply our new i'm sorry and after our short break we'll continue our discussion on obama's state party. legal. gives a. very take. on. that back with me here live.

upon. sixteen percent of imports came from illegal fishing. the european union is ironically taking fish from some of the poorest nations on earth so this is a very serious and very urgent problem that needs immediate international action. on the territorial waters they fish they load the fish on to the ships and leave

for europe. to day illegal fishing just taking the bread out of our mouths. of the country fourteen olympics what's this place like the line is is so special as the russian resort prepares to welcome the world power the games should be the city's present and future. so this is the moment they're reporting from a very cold snowy windy mountainous beyond the olympics. starting journey of the first.

welcome back to cross talk where 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 let's go back to you in new york things are getting flaring up and we're going to 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. to me just a nonstarter but we talk about is the effort here and 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 take cruz being the gift that keeps on giving the american public right now you see . it probably his. 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 a congress on its own most of the american people have poll rabbit see all the members of congress replace and congressional approval is at ten percent so ten percent compared to the forty two percent ok i don't think he's ok chad back those are all fair numbers so those are going to twenty. fair numbers however if i go to the opportunity i say that not to say this no no but i 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 don had done what 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 politics. 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 does help 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 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 were 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 get in i have leader does ok chad point you had to have some point don at some point we're going to we're going to let me speak but this is we're number zero all right the homeowner to country is throw the

bums out and particularly the republicans and twenty fourth seed here's an opportunity need to reset this whole political paradigm would be wooing 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 and seeing congress with approval with an approval rating of less in temp. and i mean i could go out of here right now and i could pull you know more people who believe that elvis is still alive and they can take bad and move bad bad more 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 callista

truants do we get past this deadlock and start moving some policy and start getting some. chad let's have to be split to do that let's take a pass and so badly damaged that they have no other choice it's let's stay with policy what diane you know no that's going to be done no died waiting to do or i've 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 article to do pretty. serious are you serious you don't have audio magic observers about it so we have to demonstrate why anyone who's read up about it now you can't be you she have confidence in your ears listen. listen and the rest of the world the range of ideological do. differences goes from basically libertarianism to socialism and not republicans calling barack obama a socialist because he wants to give somebody a quarter of their cup in the corner but will the workers on the means of production socialism the state is own by the workers socialism that will listen let me finish that's the range of ideological and we have to have major if you have a major honeybees the. major one of these in a thread i rejected socialism don you know i know how much i want

a tacit assumption i just want to have me here many things i want to read out right out list so you had sound socialism all right what i write i mean can't be ready for could let me and let me jump in but i'm gonna let me in trance chanting 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 add 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 do you have missing the point you're missing the point chet the point i was making is that elsewhere in the world the political parties are organized around different ideological perspectives and in the united states these share the ideological perspectives fundamentally that large corporations are allowed to exist that thought finance is allowed to control the political system that whenever there is a problem 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 there's only 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 them up to see why is it i mean it's just character. 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 fascinated running out of time i want to change gears here 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 don't i don't see that as the great criticism i think this guy is very respected and where it began to plan and you see this enthusiasm with people who would 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 he had and i don't know unity i don't know of anyone who came into a host of polls that sort of rock star status would such as the need time. ok chad

i'm sorry john go ahead. yeah just very quickly when brock 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 came running toward their first chance i don't 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 head first there 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 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 guest today in new york and thanks to our viewers for watching us here see you next time and remember. me she.

said she wasn't like the easiest person to negotiate with i mean many people who've met him or even those who knew him briefly all say that he wasn't completely sane what was he like when you were talking to him and negotiating with him about the lives of these people you know he was very he was very. how can i say maybe on the drugs or medicines but she was listening maybe it wasn't the right place said the right moments. why is the price of gold so high. demand global demand do you think it was money. know the value of the only place we have to live of the water that we need to survive it's

not compared to i mean gold we're not going to eat we're not going to be. we're not going to drink we're clearly one of maoism is in a desperate economic situation absolutely right. what we're running to do is say therefore any kind of economic development from the outside is going to be a benefit their only purpose is to extract as much money as possible to feed into the global financial system. with part of the geo political economic system that's extremely exploited or. first of all is a question whether mining should even be carried out altogether can it be done in a way which doesn't destroy people's lives resources environment and so on well you know those are pretty serious questions mining is not a what

a moment problem it's happening in asia in africa and south america in central america in mexico and it's even happening in canada and the united states. these locals have been comics out here braving the elements in order to stand on a u.s. oil giant chevron. this comes after a massive hunger strike that returned the world's attention to the place that sums up jobs the gulag of our times. is an undeclared global battlefield in which yemen is just one of the front lines. now that is that it's up.

to see a rise in the digital economy leaves a penal colony in crossing a yarmulke spot of a presidential honesty just hours after a fellow band member maria you know was also let go. of the new. steps into the news yes both light to find the release of his associates examine the case and why they're still behind bonds. also seen is really officially condemned america for spying on the country saying when leaders while the government ignores the elephant in the room to preserve its relationship with the us. i know how the past in a series of reports about the brands that twentieth today we look at least the captain of trip to rule in.