the the the. the. how do you know i'm not a martin and this is breaking the set so yesterday marked the start of the jury selection in the case of jonathan jordan excuse me davis seventeen year old black teenager who was shot and killed by michael dunn a forty seven year old white man in jacksonville florida so according to authorities davis and dunn got into an argument over the loud hip hop music coming from the teens car dunn study felt threatened by davis pulled a concealed handgun from his glove compartment and shot at a teenager's s.u.v. multiple times davis was unarmed i got to be seen it is likely that dunn's attorney will employ a stand your ground defense because we all know how much it helped in jurors consideration when it came to trayvon martin and george zimmerman so if you don't want to see dunn go free for claiming that an unarmed teenager is music's threaten

his life anough to take the young teenagers then join me and let's right side. of the please please please share a similar very hard to take a. look. at you ever had sex with her right there. please. please. please. please.

but there's one thing this country loves it's a clarion wars on things the war on drugs the war on terrorism the war on christmas and the list goes on. but perhaps it's time we declared a war on a real threat that's and in the lives of millions of people around the globe cancer see earlier this week the world health organization released its annual world cancer report and its findings are harrowing to say the least according the report over the next twenty years cancer cases worldwide are predicted to rise by fifty seven percent from fourteen million diagnoses in two thousand and twelve to an estimated twenty two million by two thousand and thirty two with this kind of dramatic increase it would be nearly impossible to treat our way out of the problem and the only hope is to prevent future cases from occurring although the report notes that developing countries have been and will continue to be disproportionately affected by increased cancer rates the rise in the deadly disease is by no means confined to the third world affluent lifestyles in their connection to tobacco and alcohol use as well as the consumption of processed foods

are normal contributors to the problem in fact the report notes that nearly half of all new cancer cases are preventable lung cancer for example which is largely associated with smoking is the most commonly diagnosed cancer and is responsible for about thirteen percent of all cases but beyond the human decimation that this sickness is inflicting throughout the world the economic burden is tremendous as well in two thousand and ten the disease cost the global economy an estimated one point one six trillion dollars but it doesn't have to be this way because as we've seen time and time again pharmaceutical companies continue to put profit above treatment take one of the more egregious cases in india for example recently indian pharmaceutical company. was allowed to create a generic version of a kidney and liver cancer medicine known as next of their next of theirs created by a giant pharma company bayer and costs around sixty nine thousand dollars for

a one year supply with a per capita income of around fifteen hundred dollars that's not exactly in the. rice range of most indians let alone western citizens so based on india's patent laws the indian courts granted napco a license to make the generic version of the drug because no cheaper alternative existed and this generic version only cost one hundred seventy seven dollars for a year supply and ninety seven percent discount from bayer is version as you can imagine bear didn't take too kindly to the ruling c.e.o. margin decker's even went as far as calling it theft but he didn't stop there when discussing at this development what effect the company's profit margin decker's said no because we did not develop this product for the indian market let's be honest we developed this product for western patients who can afford the product quite honestly wow i can agree with his honesty is despicable and heartless as it may be if this isn't stark enough evidence to show what

a big pharma is real motives are i'm not sure what is so while we continue to waste trillions of dollars per year fighting terrorism with the greatest minds in science research and better ways to kill people there is a real threat that's being completely neglected and it's not just cancer itself it's a system that puts profit over people. the animal enterprise terrorism act or the t.s.a. is a little piece of legislation signed into law by president bush back in two thousand and six the backing of the biomedical and industrial farming industries the eighty eight was slipped into law with bipartisan support and allows the government to charge animal rights and environmental protesters with terrorism while recently a group of five activists have filed

a lawsuit against the government claiming that the law is unconstitutional and infringes on their first amendment rights the case balloon v holder was originally thrown out in march of last year but the plaintiffs have since presented the case in front of a first circuit appeals court in massachusetts and just yesterday the court heard the first round of arguments concerning the appeal of the case so to discuss what happened in the courtroom as well as the broader implications of the a.t.m. joined by one of the plaintiffs in the case j. johnson thanks so much for coming on jane. thank you so much for having me appreciate it so what prompted you and the other four activists to file the lawsuit . well in order to really understand that i think you need to go back to a time before the law was passed when i got involved in the animal rights movement there was really a thriving powerful grassroots movements going on and there was really a strong movement going against corporate profit against the exploitation of animals and it was really doing the successes of that movement i think that the

eighty eight was passed the animal enterprise terrorism act because sense then because of the overly broad nature of the statute really any threat to a loss of property or profits can now be criminalized as terrorism and obviously with the shadow of affective activism being labeled terrorism looming over that movement it's really made you know affective activism very very difficult. and why yeah as you mentioned i mean this was this was an acted there was already an animal enterprise protection act which was signed into law in nine hundred eighty two why was that law replaced with such a more harsh law. honestly in my opinion because the impact that that was intended to have of silencing the movement didn't really work i think. in two thousand and two when that was passed it was obviously you know a frightening bit of legislation but it really didn't cripple the movement or cause people to sort of step back in their activism people are still willing to get out there and exercise their first amendment rights but you know with the era of

terrorism and with you know the buzz word that is terrorism in this day and age having the threat of being labeled a terrorism you know being a terrorist sorry for engaging in first amendment activity is is just a much scarier notion and i think that that's in my opinion why you know the law was enhanced was just to kind of have a more effective chill on the movement right and didn't also just trumping up the charges so much more extreme talk about where the case stands right now why you filed a lawsuit and what happened in the courtroom yesterday. well as for why we filed the lawsuit is essentially because of the fact that you know we myself and my code of my complaint to sorry are you know longstanding animal rights activists and we want to be engaging in first amendment activity that this law essentially is making it that we are unable to do it's chilling the movement it's causing it so that people won't come out to protest and individuals that want to exercise their rights are afraid to do so because of being the threat of being labeled a terrorist and as for where the case stands. original facial challenge on

constitutional grounds was dismissed in appeal now and we just had our first round of oral arguments and we're hopeful you know it went well the government was asked some strong difficult questions by the just by the judges and we're really kind of you know hoping for the best your attorneys are arguing that you've been forced to self censor your work house so. well i mean i think for myself it's been an issue of trying to organize you know under the threat of this makes it very difficult one just to get people out but for you know some of my co-defendants as well like. the lead plaintiff has you know engaged in the past undercover investigations and i mean i think if you look at things like you know the animal enterprise terrorism act and as well as ag gag laws that have been forced you know pours through in certain states they're trying to make it you know essentially terrorism to expose animal cruelty you know if say for instance she

wanted to do another undercover investigation and there is now a much bigger threat to liberty in your future because of this law so she's unable to do that and many other people honestly feel of great just based on the fact that loss of profits is included in the animal enterprise terrorism act honestly any effective campaigning if you're trying to abolish the use of animals you know for a slaughterhouse say if you're trying to close down a slaughter house obviously it's first amendment protected but that's going to cause a lot of profits and with that you know threat hanging over people wanting to engage in a protest any effective protest could be terrorism under this law i just don't understand how the governments of justify i mean i could see the loss of profits and charging the animal rights activists for that but i mean how is the government just a fine labeling them then as terrorists. well i mean honestly in terms of how they're just playing i don't think they necessarily need to that much because of the fact that the animal rights movement is sort of a fringe movement of the left you know we're sort of you know the outliers and in

a lot of senses i mean obviously i think the left needs to have a broader conversation about the role of you know animals within social justice but outside of that i think that this is sort of why this is so important to not just animal rights activists but activists in general because you know this law i think they aren't having to justify it that much because of the fact it's going after a fairly marginalized community of the left but i think that's why the center for constitutional rights has been taking this up is because they're able to sort of see the writing on the wall that while this is going after you know a fringe community if it's effective if it works and if it can silence our movement there's no reason they're not going to try to push further legislation towards any other social justice movement be a you know and be it animal rights gay rights movement whatever if it can shut down dissent they're going to use it j i think when people look at as you mentioned it's a fringe movement of people even on the left are you know it's foreign to them talk about a notable case of an activist be in charge of this law and kind of put in the context

of why people outside of this movement should care. well i think one of the great examples of that would be the people who ended up being called the eighty eight for they were one of the first people charged in this law in california and essentially what they were accused of doing was engaging in first amendment protest activity they were accused of you know protesting against u.c.l.a. and vivisection and specifically somewhat controversial tactics in terms of going and doing home demonstrations outside the homes of individuals of the sectors however they were used of you know breaking windows they weren't accused of you know doing anything particularly illegal other than holding a protest that was legal within that jurisdiction but because of the fact that the law is so broad they were essentially charge of the animal enterprise terrorism act . with you know threatening you know behavior and so in this particular instance it was luckily dropped but i mean that is a prosecution for terrorism that is you know just for a protest that has been you know

a tactic that's been used by union activists by environmental activists by animal rights act as by any number of activists and so in that sense you know luckily that one did not go through but there are you know other laws are coming down and the f.b.i. has said that they've considered using the animal enterprise terrorism act against undercover investigations and things like that so really there's any number of ways this could be applied and i think that that's you know sends a chilling message not just to our movement but to anyone that wants to engage absolutely and and coupled with the ag gag laws it's really getting out of hand thank you for keeping up the pressure of being a plaintiff's amazing thanks so much for coming on jay johnson plaintiffs bloom beholder and animal rights activists appreciate it. thank you so much for having me appreciate it coming up i'll discuss philip seymour hoffman's death and the dangers of addiction in the u.s. .

and so far more so that it was a little. different than the finish line of the

era on. what is happening. over the weekend the world lost when the greatest actors of our time philip seymour hoffman died at the tragically young age of forty six from an apparent heroin overdose hoffman was a brilliant talent and was able to transform himself into any character on screen but usually picked the darkest and deepest roles according to reports he was found with a surrender still in his arm but at least fifty bags of heroin inside of his apartment along with a host of prescription medication his death comes on the heels of an outbreak of a particularly dangerous strain of heroin laced with

a prescription grade fentanyl that is so far cause nearly one hundred deaths over the last year but hoffman's death is not unique by any means ben love ascend founder of the origins recovery center told c.b.s. news quote for every celebrity that overdoses there are seventy five to one hundred addicts that die and for every celebrity with an addiction problem there are millions more that suffer in silence in fact majority of deaths in the us are from drug overdoses which is a wonder considering how much else can kill you according the centers for disease control drug overdoses were responsible for one hundred five deaths per day in two thousand and ten which doesn't take into account the near seven thousand people that are treated daily for abusing drugs according to the daily beast seventy five percent of america's thirty eight thousand a draw year they. overdoses are opioid related but what we have had the same reaction the hoffman's death is if he was found dead from a pill overdose instead of with the needle in his arm considering how one is

a legal form of heroin and the other is illegal it's certainly more culturally acceptable and confusing when celebrities die from something less taboo so how does such a brilliant person who knows the risks still pick up the needle hoffman's death exemplifies how difficult the struggle is for a lifetime addict someone who can successfully kick drugs for over two decades only to relapse and die addiction is a powerful curable disease and the only way to beat addiction is to manage it the u.s. is only one of two countries in the world that has direct to consumer advertising of prescription pills and also has the most medicated population on earth obviously there is a huge problem here but aside from the obvious need to overhaul education or rehabilitation programs to incorporate more preventive preventative methodology there are some things that can be done right now to help struggling addicks take drugs more responsibly and big pharma isn't going away any time soon so in order to

combat this epidemic head on we need more information about the dangers of chemical cocktails of uppers and downers and needs to be much more difficult to get medical access to high grade opioids as far as street drugs we need the labs that can freely test them without penalty and or questions asked so users know exactly what it is they're taking and how much to take safely especially since there is no legal recourse on the user's side just two weeks ago the supreme court ruled that drug dealers are not responsible for overdoses which i'm sure applies to people knowingly selling death doses of fentanyl laced heroin since this country is fighting a war on drugs that costs billions of dollars annually and wastes millions of lives in prison or worse the first thing that should be done is stopping the flow of opium from the very country the us is occupying over ninety percent of the world's heroin comes from afghanistan so it shouldn't be that hard to oversee the export route and try to eradicate the crop. on that note the entire war on drugs needs to

and immediately and all drugs decriminalized but someone's making a lot of money from this war and the opium flow so i guess the responsibility is left for you and me there is a light on the horizon now through ballot initiatives and pressure on local governments to take action recently a good samaritan measures have been passed and both vermont and new jersey which offer legal protection to anyone seeking medical help for themselves or others in the event of an overdose also there needs to be a nationwide access to now now looks on an overdose antidote for opiates according to huffington post quote studies have shown that this drug overdose death rates can cut overdose death rates excuse me by fifty percent it only eleven states have enacted laws giving legal protection to those who can administer the drug so although drug abuse has been stigmatized and silenced in this country for decades it's very real and the dialogue needs to be opened so others can seek help seek

treatment and most importantly stay alive. despite the economic woes here at home every year the u.s. government gives away around thirty seven billion dollars in assistance to foreign countries and while many u.s. assistance projects focus on humanitarian crisis relief advocacy groups like human rights watch and amnesty international suggest that most u.s. aid isn't going to these types of causes at all aggression research service recently released a report for the top ten recent the ends of u.s. foreign aid and what we see is that all ten countries have ties to torture programs and half of them that he admitted to engage in torture on a wide scale moreover support for these governments could be in violation of u.s. law so help me go over just the top five about less than one. means for u.s.

and international law i'm joined by b.t.s. producer emmanuel what's going on now and so before we get into this i do have to read the u.s. code of law twenty two u.s. code true fifteen one and human rights in development assistance a no assistance may be pervaded to the government of any country which engages in a consistent pattern of gross violations of internationally recognized human rights including torture or cruel inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment many consider how this law is on the books i do find it really shocking how the top ten recipients of u.s. foreign aid are regis human rights abusers and torturers yeah i mean the congressional research service came out with this list of the top ten countries that received foreign aid right but. what they didn't publish it actually took human rights watch and amnesty international come up with this but you just mentioned u.s. law that also goes with the foreign assistance act section thirty two which is

essentially the cornerstone of human rights for for us law here in this country and i mean you say you know how if this law is on the books how can we continue to do so but only to how can we have kuantan and have to create these are things that just happen they just are but the truth is that it's not just u.s. law that this is kind of in spite of it's in spite of of u.n. resolutions and u.n. treaty is the u.s. is a signatory on the u.n. convention on torture not only a signatory but ratified that along with almost every other country in the world so for the u.s. to continue to say that they're giving assistance to these countries and believe me this is far more than just five or ten countries it's a lot of countries that the u.s. is giving money to that doesn't just go in the form of economic aid or disaster relief it's military aid specifically going and here we are as you know and i hear the u.s. is touting human rights as a reason to invade and occupy countries and kill millions of people and at the same time they're just funding the most of taliban regimes and let's go into number five which is nigeria. i don't know if

a lot of people understand how much money we actually horror into this country every year and this is actually not even as much as the other countries that the u.s. is giving money it's number this is the fifth this isn't it right so six hundred ninety three million dollars this is how much money is going to be given to nigeria this year twenty fourteen and what's going on in nigeria it's a very complicated situation there's there is violence going on between the government and the boko extremist militants and in nigeria and what's going on is. the violence is escalated so bad that the government is actually just essentially going after anybody who they allege is a militant and they're and they're targeting almost anyone there so there's extrajudicial assassinations going on so this is a clear case of human rights abuse that the united states continues to fund militarily to the sum of six hundred ninety three million dollars and pakistan is the number four on the list and of course there's so many more ones that we can't really go over and how but pakistan in this country is being used as the whole

launchpad launching drone missiles killing thousands of people there it's also a huge military supplier of pakistan's military the u.s. is the largest military supplier for the u.s. in two thousand and fourteen it's estimated that we're going to be giving one point two billion dollars to pakistan now pakistan's been through a lot in recent years in two thousand and twelve there were seven hundred thousand people displaced due to extreme flooding and rains specifically in a region that can't remember the name is stand in pakistan as a result of that this specific area is actually become very unstable and very politically unstable there's been a lot of violence breaking out there as many as. seven mentioned that other figure but it's well over a thousand people that have been targeted specifically it's just a little bit odd to use pakistan to launch drone wars and kill thousands of people in the same time just pour billions of dollars into the country for humanitarian relief i mean i just it's just mind boggling you know but. make sense you know the

u.s. u.s. interest will the war on terror it's one terror and that far outweighs any and it's humanitarian right and egypt is next in line i mean this is just a complete disaster after the democratically elected. with egypt i don't even know where to start to see. this despite thousands of arrests by persecution against supporters of the muslim brotherhood the u.s. is still giving half a billion dollars to egypt currently despite the political instability and they don't want to break ties with with egypt their actions in congress taken right now to make sure that this year twenty fourteen we're doubling that up not half a billion but one point six billion dollars in aid to egypt this is despite i can't even begin to comprehend the complexity of what's going on in egypt right now but the united states wants to continue to fund not just economically and and humanitarian military most of that money is military and just on a side note i mean this country was sponsoring mubarak's brutal repressive regime for fifty years i mean so i just obviously there's

a stake in egypt and you know morsi and all the things that are going on now is obviously not to turn the u.s. from aid afghanistan is next of course this is the longest war in u.s. history still going strong ninety percent of the world's heroin is coming out of that country we're still funding billions of dollars in there i mean at the same time bombing the hell out of it i guess afghanistan becomes a little bit more complicated because the u.s. is still occupying the sense of the u.s. is still running a lot of these a lot of the infrastructure there so we're seeing widespread cases of human rights abuse widespread abuses i mean irrefutable evidence of of torture happening in prisons in afghanistan so this is tough but the u.s. is still giving this is the second largest and ever sort of the first largest that everyone knows is israel our favorite ally the ally that unshakeable bond three point one billion dollars for two thousand and fourteen i mean really where do you start with the treatment of palestinians and the prisons and i mean it is unbelievable what's going on there right and israel. singlehandedly the largest i

mean the u.s. gives more aid to israel militarily than every other country in the world combined and they are i mean there was even reports of kids being kept out in cages outside in the freezing cold prisoners i mean there's people who die every day at checkpoints that's just really agree to some rights abuses going on there the guy who wrote this article for media roots basically sums it up by saying you know obama at the very least needs to halt this aid and tell these countries do something about their greatest human rights abuses right and there are so many more countries than we can even begin to list it's just unbelievable something needs to be done and this country has so much power to really you know shift if it wanted to thanks so much manny appreciate it. that's our show you guys join me again tomorrow when i break the set. list to see if. there were

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marinate join me. for impartial and financial commentary cancer news and much much. only on going bust and. we welcome aaron eight and mark to two of the coast guard team network. it's going to give you a different perspective give me one stock never i'll give you the information you make the decision. i'll bring you the work of the mind of ideas and consciousness. the system. would be described as angry i think in a strong. single. ambushes

the perpetrators are old learners driven by the hatred of the government. or religious fanatics. the society protect itself against the. how should it react to attacks with retaliation. or like the citizens of norway and spain who opted for freedom openness and.