coming up on r t battle in flu shot iraqi government forces continue to battle against al qaeda militants who have taken over two strategic cities in the country secretary kerry says no troops will be sent but we'll tell you how the u.s. plans to get involved just ahead and in chicago the battle over gun control rages on a federal judge has just overturned keil legislation banning the sale and transfer of guns within city limits but what does this mean for a city with high crime we'll take a look at that debate coming up. and cruising down the highway of life the american public has long had a love affair with the automobile buckle up later of the show r t will take you for a spin in the cars of the future.

it's tuesday january seventh eight pm in washington d.c. and i live near a david you're watching our team. and we begin tonight with iraq where clashes have erupted between iraqi special forces and al qaeda linked militants just outside the city of fallujah is the latest outbreak in a standoff that's taken hold of the sunni dominated province of anwar according to the associated press the fighting resulted from the capture of an army officer and four soldiers in the area just a day earlier also in the province earlier today and iraqi government airstrike killed twenty five al qaeda linked militants the clashes also followed a deadly attack in which a suicide bomber rammed his explosives laden truck into a police station in the northern city of the crew the attack killed two people wounding fifty five more in recent days iraqi security forces and allies from sunni tribes have been battling militants to recapture two very strategic cities in the

on barre province volusia and ramadi however currently in the two city. these are the lease or at least partially under control of al qaeda the latest infighting is seemingly a continuation of the heightened violence seen in two thousand and thirteen a year that now marks the most bloodshed seen since two thousand and six when the u.s. military still had a presence in the country according to the united nations latest figures last year the violence claimed the lives of about eight thousand nine hundred iraqis i spoke earlier with austin peterson editor at the libertarian republican dot com i first asked him if history is repeating itself in iraq. it's sort of days i mean the idea that we were going to be able to govern iraq in the long term was not tenable everyone knew that we were hoping that iraqis to the security forces will be able to step up and meet the challenge but we have a problem there's a multi-pronged problem here we have a problem of hearts and minds and we have a military problem it's very difficult to defend the on bar province it took it

took the lives of one thousand americans a combat troops to take the on by our province i think there were something like sixty eight troops killed in flu gena worst urban combat since vietnam so it's all about a matter of how we fight our military strategy we're sort of still fighting these old first generation second generation styles of warfare and the way that terrorist groups work now they're very decentralized and so what they can do is they can move and they can they can change positions all over different part of the country so that they can stay alive and the way that we've been fighting our fights in the past again has always been to sort of strike invasion route try and set up diplomacy and install a new government but regime change didn't really work in iraq although the all molecule government is there it's highly unstable and they don't really have the sort of mandate from their citizens that they require in order to govern that large of a country really iraq is three separate countries and there's the sunnis there's the kurds as the shia and they have always been sort of at war with one another so i think that the problem here lies in a misunderstanding of the middle eastern political situation because the americans

try and look at everything in terms of first generation war like fighting some type world war two where you would take over the enemy's province or you would take over their city capital city and believe that you would be able to change their hearts and minds that's just not how this works or tribal region the andar province is an enormous region it's forty miles west of baghdad and it's sort of symbolic that it's so close to the capital but there's no way to really win the hearts and minds of the people in the andar province just because you may have taken over baghdad right at the very end the a very complicated situation and now secretary of state kerry has said that we will not be sending troops into the region however the u.s. is excel or aiding deliveries of military equipment do you think the u.s. sort of has an obligation. now and going forward to help iraq militarily i don't see an obligation to help iraq militarily i do see an obligation to protect american national security interests to the extent that sending how fire missiles to the iraqi government or sending the drones to moloch the will increase the security of the united states that remains to be questioned so you really have to

ask yourself what are the interests of the united states are we trying to protect a fledgling democracy democracy in iraq are we really trying to protect american national security i think that arguably the sending of more missiles in drones to the maliki government isn't necessarily going to result in long term stabilization i think the long term stabilization efforts are going to have to come through diplomatic efforts and you know secretary of state john kerry is sort of knowledge in this he's saying that you know we may be sending arms and weapons but we're not going to be sending american troops in there which will be interesting to play in the political season throughout to the question of you know where do you draw the line what are the implications of doing it now while the implications of doing this now just means that there will be more bloodshed there will be more maliki is absolutely going to try to hold on to power for as long as he can this is how people operate in this region so really what we're doing is we're trying to prop up a regime that has the backing of america whether or not that actually has anything with national security of the united states is really what's in question right now i want to take a look at something that congressman former congressman ron paul said in his weekly column he said last month the u.s. ships nearly one hundred air to ground missiles to the iraqi air force sal combat

the surging al qaeda ironically the same kind of group c. u.s. is helping the iraqis combat are benefiting from the u.s. covert and overt war to overthrow assad next door in syria why can't the us government learn from its mistakes do you think he has a point here he absolutely has a point and one of the things that's interesting is that the obama administration has signaled that not only will they not plan on sending more troops and but president obama has come out and said that he will actually vote to repeal the authorization of military force in iraq which is a very big news the first time that that happened was back in two thousand and eleven when senator rand paul introduced that in the senate when he was struck down . administration so that it wouldn't sign right now so it appears that this may be some something of a short term strategy in the obama administration to send these missiles now but that may not be a long term commitment how significant is it is it more symbolic or is it actually i don't really see it is that significant to be quite fair because the reality is is that we had this agreement with them for a long time if you look at what we did with egypt we stop stop shipping certain

arms to egypt because of the strife that was going and down there you can take a look at what happened in syria i think that the president right now is sort of rocked back on his heels from the inability to use military force in syria so the administration may be taking these conciliatory steps and just saying well we have an obligation to provide them with arms and weapons but there's no way they can have a long term agreement and it seems as if they're signaling that they're not interested in sort of a long term right right right well of course iraq border syria and that's another highly contentious situation you know there's so much instability that's growing in the region as a whole how do you think the international community should really be dealing with this as as a threat going forward so i think really how they have to deal with this is a have to start to win the hearts and minds of the battle for what we call property rights basic property rights and that's one thing that hasn't been introduced to the discussion yet is that the idea that people should have be able to own their own property and this is something that in the middle east they haven't necessarily had a long tradition of and i think in the united states we have this tradition of classical liberal classical liberalism the property rights and when people are invested in

their own countries when they're invested in their own communities when they own businesses if you encourage that kind of a culture it leads people to not want to bomb these buildings if they don't if they don't own something if people feel like they don't have a stake in their communities then long term there's no way that you're going to have security because people don't feel invested and so i think that the idea of free market capitalism was a for laws a fair entrepreneurism these are the ideas that we have to introduce the people in middle east because i think that's the only way that they're going to feel invested in their own communities well unfortunately that's all we have time for but often petersen editor the libertarian republican com think the logic you mary. and the first shipment of chemical weapons material has left syria according to the u.n. the vessel left the northern syrian port of latakia today and it was escorted by russian and chinese warships the removal was supposed to take place before december thirty first of last year but the logistics were held up as a result of syria's worsening conflict the export and destruction of the most dangerous substances in the syrian arsenal have long been considered the most

hazardous part of the operation which syria agreed to carry out as a part of a deal reached three months ago the pledge came as a result of intense talks between russia and the united states which ultimately averted u.s. military action in the country. and a federal judge has overturned chicago's ban on the sale of transfer the sale and transfer excuse me of firearms ruling that the city's ordinances aimed at reducing gun violence are unconstitutional the ruling is the latest in a series of legal blows to the city's efforts to restrict gun ownership since the supreme court ruled chicago's handgun ban unconstitutional back in two thousand and ten and regards to the city's latest law attorneys had argued that the gun sale ban makes it harder for criminals to get their hands on weapons and a thirty five page opinion published on monday district court judge edmund chang agreed that the city had a fundamental duty to protect its citizens and acknowledged that pope the stark

reality facing the city each year is that thousands of shooting victims and hundreds of murders committed with a gun but he added that on the other side of this case is another feature of government certain fundamental rights are protected by the constitution put outside governments reach including the right to keep and bear arms for self defense under the second amendment ultimately judge chang found that the city failed to convince him that banning the sale of guns by licensed dealers was necessary to reduce gun violence i was joined earlier by ben swann investigative journalist and founder of ben swann dot com to talk a little bit more about this ruling and what it means going forward i first asked him to explain how big of a win this is for gun advocates. i think it's a big win on several levels first of all if you consider the fact that the judge went back to the second amendment and ultimately said that this is something as you just read a minute ago that comes down to the government does not have the right to restrict or prevent people from owning guns lawfully and he says essentially that's what the

law did here though i do think and i want to say there's a little bit of a slippery slope here because one of the things the judge saying did was he specifically mentioned the issue of chicago's almost failed policies even though they have this ban in place the fact that there are so many gun deaths in gun murders in the city of chicago and almost use that as a justification for why he was saying that this ban was unconstitutional in doing so he's ultimately saying that the metrics by which this the success of this law would be measured have bearing on whether or not it's constitutional or not and i don't agree with that i think the judge got it wrong in that case that whether this issue was unconstitutional has nothing to do with whether or not it's effective in preventing gun violence we'd have to get a little more more into that in terms of the detail but i think that that's the one slippery slope that gun rights advocates even though they consider this a victory they need to watch out for is that greater good concept creeping its way into constitutional rights ok now considering what we're seeing happen in the city

of chicago with unprecedented rates of gun violence and so forth do you think this is a city that could have maybe benefited from the now struck down regulation. well it really hasn't benefited from really any of the things that chicago's been doing look illinois was one of the last states in the country to allow concealed carry a chicago has numerous gun restrictions one of the toughest cities in the entire country when it comes to gun laws and yet they just they have not seen the net result of that you would expect that if you have more gun laws and fewer legal guns you would have less gun crime and the exact converse is true in chicago when you take chicago and you take houston which are two cities with very similar demographics very similar numbers in terms of rates of of nonwhites rates of poverty the size of the city population and yet the number of gun deaths in those two cities isn't even close houston is about half the number of chicago and those are the third and fourth largest cities in the country and so you have to be able

to look at that and say so far what chicago has been attempting to do in terms of controlling guns has not resulted in controlling gun violence now that in response to the ruling roderick drew drew was a spokesman for the city's lot of harm and had this to say said every year chicago police recover more illegal guns than officers in any city in the country a factor of lax federal laws as well as lax laws in illinois we need stronger gun safety laws not increased access to firearms within the city if other jurisdictions surrounding the city had maybe tightened their gun laws do you think you know chicago would be better off. again i mean i think it goes back to the fact that look the argument can be made that if everyone around chicago would have tighter gun restrictions there would be fewer gun crimes but again you go back to that comparison between houston and chicago in houston you have much more lax gun laws and in texas of course is the state where you can conceal carry in some places you

can open carry in some places and in the state of texas and in particularly in houston there's a lot more access to these guns and again they don't have the same kind of gun violence so the issue in chicago look is really comes down to a gang issue it comes down to a drug culture issue it comes down to. the turf war issues it comes down to family issues there are a lot of of different issues that surround what's happening in chicago and we shouldn't downplay what's happening there we should really look at it but legislating your way to fixing this problem does not seem to be the answer it seems to be the answer that that the mayor of chicago that the administrations there for several decades now really have pushed for we need to legislate our way out of violence and out of crime but it doesn't work that way you can't legislate your way out of crime and you mentioned the mayor and you know the judge did leave open a window for the city to appeal the case and mayor rahm emanuel has already hinted that you know that city will probably do so are there any other options you would

consider that would be more you know you would consider more fair i guess to regulate the sale of firearms. well look i think again the issue and i agree with you i think this will be appealed and i think that the judge left it open to appeal again that's concerning to me because of the fact that the judge really pointed to the numbers here and said hey if chicago had essentially seen fewer gun deaths as a result of these laws we keep them in place that's what it sounded like to me as i read what the judge essential he wrote there and if that's the case then you're leaving it open to appeal essentially saying prove to me that this is working and it should stay if it's unconstitutional it's unconstitutional and that's really the point here. you know what are the steps that chicago can take in order to restrict this those are really good questions and again it gets down more into the i think the discussion of what is driving the violence there i don't think that we can have a reasonable conversation that guns are driving the violence in chicago it's not

the guns are driving it it's the factors again going back to the turf wars going back to the gang violence they're going back to so many of the socioeconomic issues that are taking place in chicago lead to the violence that ultimately is perpetrated with guns but it's not guns driving the violence well i want to turn to the n.r.a. because many people say it's disproportionate influence has played a role in all of this recently one campaign director for the illinois council against handgun violence said that this is all a result of a systematic breakdown he said that that's the n.r.a. and ari's game plan they keep filing suits and filing suits to chip away laws and get to their ultimate goal of a complete armed citizenry what do you make of that argument. well look i think the n.r.a. certainly they they lobby often they lobby very effectively and we see that happen whether or not that played a role again in what the judge ultimately ruled i can't say one way or the other whether it did or it didn't because i really don't know i would suspect that

lobbying the judge why the n.r.a. would necessarily help the n.r.a. look they have a vested interest in seeing americans own firearms and the n.r.a. has almost become kind of the poster child for the big bad gun lobby and they're this terrible force that is attempting to you know create chaos in america times i feel like the n.r.a. becomes the red herring here where we're so focused on what the n.r.a. is doing the bigger question should be what is being done that's effective in terms of reducing reducing violence and not just gun deaths and that's the other problem i think we have in some of the media coverage of this is too often we look at just gun deaths what's the overall rate of violence and what are cities and communities where we're seeing those rates drop what are they doing it's not ever just a gun thing you know some folks will tell you well you look at the comparison of states where they have instituted concealed carry you get concealed carry in and violent crime rates drop and that's true in some cases in the state of ohio that's

certainly true that since concealed carry came into law the rates of violent crime not just deaths but rape and aggravated assault those numbers have dropped but it's never the result of gun versus gun more guns less guns as being the sole factor and i think that's where we get out we really get off track here especially with media it's easy to have the good guy in the bad guy and i guess we just fill in the blank of who's who are a or government but at the end of the day these issues really are much more complicated than just how many guns are on the street and how many or not it is very complicated indeed will be very interesting to see what happens after it is appealed abend swan investigative journalist and founder of ben swan dot com thank you so much. and los angeles county sheriff lee baca announced earlier today that he will step down from his post at the end of the month and will not run for a fifth term as the county's top cop because he doesn't want quote a campaign of negative contentious politicking. i will go out on my terms i'm

not going to seek reelection for a fifth term as sheriff and i will retire at the end of this month so in conclusion as you like to share for the past fifteen years. i have held. to the core values of this great department the decision comes just a month after federal prosecutors filed criminal charges against eighteen of the sheriffs current and former deputies the deputies were charged with beating jail inmates and attempting to intimidate an f.b.i. agent following an in-depth investigation into the l.a. jail system at the press conference earlier today baucus said the decision was out of quote the highest concern for the future of the sheriff's department. and still ahead here on our t.v. sit back relax and let the car do the driving we'll take a spin in the driverless cars of the future and next.

i got a quote for you. that's pretty tough. stay with substory. because this guy likes that smear that john stead of working for the people most issues the mainstream media were for each other right be sure that. they did rather well. i would rather ask questions to people in positions of power instead of speaking on their behalf and that's why you can find my show larry king now right here on our t.v.

question. in two thousand and fourteen the race is on to bring a driverless car to the masses google's driverless car has already logged thousands of miles but all the major carmakers are also getting into the game some are hoping to make an affordable autonomy's car in the next few years our teams are among the window shows us some of the driverless technology already in use today. both big yet gridlock crashes and high levels of stress it's all part of driving in america's cities but pretty soon people will be able to cruise in their car while playing on their tablet or reading a magazine and today's cars actually can drive themselves not literally but practically they can have more than a half dozen auto makers are working on self driving car technology logos autonomy's driving project will have one hundred self driving cars on public roads

in sweden the goal is to have the cars on the road in just three years twenty fourteen there is going to be this kind of in the marketplace we're where you see receipts from the old meats. to take a magnitude of the leap forward if you will nice and has the ambitious goal of making their fully autonomous car available to us consumers by the year two thousand and twenty when we have cars driving themselves around california today if you've got lane keeping technology which keeps you gently turned you into the lane if you get out of line this lincoln equipped with a parallel parking assist can pretty much park itself without me even putting my hands on the wheel while driverless cars are being made in mass quite yet underlying technology like this is already in many vehicles i pride myself in my parallel parking but this car does it on its own it's not quite an autonomous car but it does do

a lot of the work. mercedes perhaps has some of the most technologically advanced driving systems from radar to cameras to sensors that can detect vehicles in front this is probably as close as you're going to get to fully autonomous they can remove the human ear and bring down that would significantly raise the safety of travel in vehicles in the u.s. california michigan florida and nevada have all adopted loss for thomas vehicles one of the biggest obstacles might just be drivers and their reluctance to let go the wheel there's the individual am i ready to do that am i ready to get into the passenger side of the vehicle and have no one on the driver side and go to l.a. i don't know if i'm there you know whether or not people are ready for driverless cars i don't makers are moving forward with the technology open and put them on sale suit each in san diego california remote galindo r t. an apple a day keeps the doctor away that's the phrase most children will hear as they are

guaranteed the way to stay healthy but over the years maintaining good health has come to mean something far more extensive with many adults now depending on troves of different vitamin supplements to fight off a myriad of elements but our vitamins really all with their chalked up to be our lives wall has the story. well if you're one of millions of americans banking on multi vitamins to make you healthier you may not be doing your body any favors a series of recent medical studies show that multi vitamins have no proven help benefits and may be doing more harm than good according to an editorial in the annals of internal medicine quote the message is simple most supplements do not prevent chronic disease or death their use is not justified and they should be avoided this message is especially true for the general population with no clear evidence of micronutrient deficiencies who represent most supplement users in the united states and in other countries that conclusion is based on large scale

studies but about half of americans take a daily multi-vitamin making dietary supplements a profitable industry take a look the vitamin industry rakes in twelve billion dollars a year just for multi-vitamins and thirty billion dollars a year total for dietary supplements but not everyone totally agrees with the study critics say the findings apply to americans that get enough nutrients from food naturally but high obesity rates and difficulty getting affordable healthy foods leaves socio economically disadvantaged people nutritionally deficient the host would industry is a really miniscule part of the overall. industry and so their foods while holding some of them getting some subsidies it's newsgroup compared to the big businesses so the cost of food is greater true is that the time to prepare. the best way to stay healthy experts agree is to get your nutrients from real

nutritious foods rather than pills the number one tip. that my grandmother gave me which is your fruits and vegetables and lean meats to. dairy products all the very common sense. and tips according to this most recent medical consensus for the most part taking vitamins and other supplements is a waste of time and money in washington liz wall r.t. utah legislators just launched a new portal which allows lawmakers to be more transparent with the public so its resident takes a deeper look into this new system. new

tone legislators just launched a new online portal which allows them to share their e-mails with the public of course they're using this as an opportunity to act like they care about being transparent there's lots of posturing and congratulating going on but let's be honest they don't give a crap about transparency and they're doing this because in two thousand and eleven they screwed up over transparency and now they're trying to do damage control that year they passed a law that made it extremely hard for anyone to get information about their work the law increased fees for records requests and raised language that favored transparency and basically exempted themselves from the government records access and management act the public was outraged by this shady bill and it was repealed just seventy two hours after it was introduced that's how bad it was so three years

ago the jerks in utah as legislative branch screwed up over transparency which is why they are so proud now to announce this new on line portal where they can choose to post any of their e-mails it's someone from the public wants to see them it's like a magic portal to. an alternate reality where transparency exists right. but did you catch the kicker there they can choose to make e-mails public but they certainly don't have to the system is the voluntary and law makers can choose which e-mails to share or not share they can also choose to remove their messages from the portal once they've shared them you know what is the if you go to this transparency portal today about one hundred or so really weird of random emails there's an email from the utah cannabis commission saying why utah should legalize pot and email with the subject line yes america yes with a link to a you tube video that bashes obama and email from one person in utah as they keep

marriage between a man and a woman and more random weird selective stuff. look i understand rome wasn't built in a day and that this could be a good start toward transparency but we're talking about politicians here they're only going to post e-mails there that make them look good or further their own agenda and so far that's exactly what it's looking like it's just very annoying to see politicians pat themselves on the back for doing the most basic things and inadequately at that. so the only thing transparent in business dory probably is how much i hate posturing by all addition tonight let's talk about that by following me on twitter at the red button.

and that does it for now you could follow me on twitter at a mirror david have a great night. hello there i marinate and this is boom bust here are some of the stories we're tracking for you today. first up the winkle vi brothers enter the world of microcap trading with their new hedge good hedge fund scuse me briarwood chase and management now does this mean that they're battling out of the big one race i'll tell you coming to break up and also jim hamilton he's going to try and join me later on the show we think we have him we'll find out soon enough he is coming from san diego to talk about oil economy and the first lady of the fed janet yellen hopefully we'll get back to you and finally branding is a powerful powerful marketing tool but why do so many companies get it so so wrong .