coming up on our t.v. the sochi winter olympic games heat up we'll have a report on the winners and the losers today and excitement builds for a hockey showdown between russia and the u.s. the latest on events in sochi head. because of edward snowden the world no no it was a more about n.s.a. surveillance a former lawmaker has started a petition and his name that urges the u.s. to give snowden clemency a look at this petition coming up. and in connecticut many gun owners it may be classified as a felons under a new law that requires gun owners to register their military style rifles but tens of thousands of owners are worth using to do so more on restrictive

a second amendment was a leader in the show. it's friday february fourteenth four pm in washington d.c. i'm perry i'm boring you are watching r t america. we are nearing the halfway point of the sochi winter games another day wrapped up in russia and here's a look at the medal count norway and the u.s. topped the total medal count with thirteen eight the netherlands and russia are just one behind followed by canada and germany for a full wrap up of today's events and a preview of tomorrow's a russia usa hockey match here's our tease in sochi. well america's men's curling team won one and lost one on day seven they secured an eight five victory over germany but followed it up with

a seven six defeat to russia meanwhile the women's team went down knowing two to denmark not a defeat which keeps them rooted to the bottom of the table and all but ends their chances of progression to the semifinals meanwhile america's men's team are in the final of the five thousand meter short track speed skating that's despite finishing fourth in qualifying now the reason for that is that there was a collision with the south korean team america actually finished fourth but in this situation it said the referees the discretion to decide who was at fault for the for the collision and he decided that it was the south korean team's fault and therefore america progressed to the next round in rather intriguing unusual a nerve racking circumstances elsewhere the excitement is building ahead of saturday's showdown between the usa and russia in the ice hockey of course the two old fierce rivals go head to head in their second group much on saturday afternoon local time here in sochi both teams ensured and enjoyed comfortable victories in

the opening fixture rush of the slovenia five two was the usa for seven one victory is a gate slovakia and these u.s. stars that r.t. spoke to said they were expecting a tough challenge against the host nation you know how tough that game's going to be against russia. on their home turf and on their own soil so it's going to be. i think all the games will be fun but that game saturday night will be pretty interesting show was fun when the russians and probably the one thing. we had the opportunity to play canada in canada and i think that's always a special thing regardless of if you have an opportunity to play the host country. that's always a fun game to be a part of it's just it's one of those there's so much excitement and energy in the building and. we were lucky enough to do it in canada now we get a chance to play russian russia which i think is always special. things before you

come over and you're not really sure what to expect. you know everything's going great so far whether it's been you know the food or the commendations or the rooms or you know the village ice rink seems to be. unbelievable just looking at it from the outside and going and cracks in on it so. you know i'm sure a lot of it's blown out of proportion but as far as you know in the two days we've been here everything's been great so far that was a report from our team is paul scott. former congressman says he wants clemency for former n.s.a. employee i'd word snowden ron paul has repeatedly praised snowden for exposing the national security agency's spying program and now he started a petition to demand that snowden is granted clemency. edward snowden sacrificed his livelihood citizenship and freedom likes closing the disturbing scope of the world wide program. thanks to one means courageous actions americans know about

this leave the group. their government is lying on the. run paul is hoping his petition urges the government to take action before snowden's amnesty and russia expires on july thirty first of this year that deadline is still up in the air after a russian lawmaker said last month that the country plans to extend its asylum offer snowden faces felony charges and the u.s. and now those who were involved in giving him access to the classified government documents are seeing repercussions for their actions three people who worked at the national security agency including a contractor an active duty military member and s. a civilian employee have been implicated according to an n.s.a. memo sent to the house judiciary committee the n.s.a. civilian and method to f.b.i. special agents that he allowed to mr stone and to use his public key infrastructure certificate to access classified information the civilian was not aware that mr

snowden intended to unlawfully disclose classified information over the n.s.a.'s states that by sharing his passwords he failed to comply with security obligations his security clearance was revoked in november and he resigned in january on january tenth the other two employees were denied further access to the n.s.a. and as of last august additional punishments would be the responsibility of their respective employers. we hear about crime and corruption flooding our streets but it seems the moral compass in public offices across the u.s. has also been a bit off. let's take a look at some of the top corruption cases over the past year we begin in new york where state lawmaker eric stephenson was found guilty last month of taking more than twenty two thousand dollars and bribes and exchange for drafting legislation that would have given monopoly power to four businessmen who operated and

a date and adult day care center he faces up to thirty five years in prison maybe the new york legislature could use a babysitter of their own. the fourth spot on our corruption countdown takes us to virginia where former former governor bob mcdonnell and his wife were charged last month were taking loans and gifts in exchange for helping promote dietary supplement maker star scientific a civil case is ongoing but authorities allege that the couple to a private plane rides a rolex watch leave it on shoes golf clubs and a more totaling at least one hundred sixty five thousand dollars the mcdonald's pled not guilty to the charges and requested a jury trial is scheduled for this summer now to the downfall of the former leader of a city that's now in crisis x. detroit mayor kwame kilpatrick was sentenced to twenty eight years in prison for

corruption last october this is one of the longest sentences ever handed to a major u.s. politician he was involved in racketeering bribery and extortion which worsened the city's financial crisis detroit filed the largest municipal bankruptcy and our country's history last year partially and things to mayor kilpatrick and in baltimore twenty seven correction officers at a maryland jail were indicted last november for help. the black family prison gang managed a profitable drug operation while incarcerated in the city's jail most of the sex drugs murder bombshell accusations about criminal activity inside the baltimore city detention center most of the corrections officers who assisted the gang members in keeping their operations going behind bars were women who smuggle drugs cellphones and other contraband into the jail via their hair and body parts

additionally four of these women became impregnated by the gang leader trayvon white one of the corrections officers even got his name tattooed on her wrist the union representatives for the correctional officers is calling for tighter background checks but for now those guards could be finding a more permanent position at the jailhouse. and topping off our list of recent corrupters is my new new when of santa ana california the immigration official was bribed with cash two hundred egg rolls and a sausage in exchange for granting either u.s. citizenship or permanent resident status for immigrants to the u.s. the eggrolls cost about one hundred fifty dollars they were needed for a big party one was having the sausage was fish but the affidavit did not state what it was for. ray nagin jr the former mayor of new orleans was convicted this week of twenty counts of corruption taking home the

award for being the first mayor of the city's two hundred ninety six year history to be found guilty of corruption nagin was the mayor before during and after hurricane katrina hit new orleans we now know that he told people who wanted to help clean up the aftermath that they had to pay him first here to discuss as lou rockwell founder and chairman of the me says institute. lou what this man has done is really shocking katrina caused one hundred thirty five billion dollars in damages in new orleans and one hundred eighteen hundred people died across the gulf coast well the city was in chaos nagin accepted close to half a million dollars in bribes and exchange for city contracts what drives a politician to accept these kind of kickbacks at the expense of their community. well because he's a politician i mean it's not actually not shocking at all i mean this is municipal

government in america to argue with other kinds of government to all these cities are corrupt the mayors are corrupt they all take bribes this is the way the cities run the city the town council and so it's really not shocking at all the ray nagin is corrupt unlike you just like other big city mayors the question to me is why was he singled out because of course he's corrupt of course he was taking bribes and before i get into why i think he was single out i actually argue this is preferable to an idiot logical mirror like say bill de blasio who thinks of himself as some kind of semi leninist and what he wants to do to new york city you don't want that kind of mayor you want the kind america is concentrating on on lining his pockets paying off his friends and so forth that's a far less harmful practice than the than the socialists and the fascists that we should rahm emanuel in chicago and sort of those kinds of guys are far more dangerous but i think what happened what why did nagin get sing the love you always asked i have to ask the question since the corruption is so one demick why does

a guy like that get singled out my guess is that he offended somebody in fema or some other federal agency who was capable of setting saying go get this guy while they all got every but we all knew he was corrupt they're all corrupt well by our it is true even though we're up to your i mean this is this is municipal government small towns and cities are corrupt too i don't want to shock anybody's civics class version of government this is the way they all are well while it is true that there were many people that were responsible for what happened and new orleans during katrina but nagin is faces up to twenty years and prison and he was a live person responsible but do you think the punishment fits the crime is that enough no i mean i i mean we should you know i could see taking all this money i don't think anybody belongs for twenty years in a government cage i think that's you know i think it's a terrible thing as you mentioned you know earlier about the. corruption and baltimore prisons you know all the you know because prisons are all full of criminals i don't want to shock anybody about that either and all the terrible

things go on there so to put somebody for twenty years in prison i think that's just the outrageous sentence but the us of course of the prison capital of the world it's the gulag capital of the world we have far more people in prison per capita than any other country in the world and the sentences are getting longer and longer because there's a prison industrial complex of corporatists businesses and connection with government they're all making a lot of dough putting people in cages it's a terrible thing and that's what we ought to be concerned about and if we concerned about government corruption we have to reduce the size of government you can actually change the zebra stripes you just can make the zebra smaller that's what we have to concentrate on right in the prison issue as a whole another issue that we don't have time to get to today but how do we get corruption out of politics you mentioned lemonade governments what else what else would you well i mean i don't. i guess you can't get corruption out of government i mean maybe once in a while there's some good person in government ron paul you mentioned earlier he's

an example maybe thomas jefferson didn't take any bribes either or george washington whatever but with the suit with the government the size that it is you know they they put the slops into the pig trough and they're horrified that the pigs come up and eat so there's all these programs all this spending when you have trillions and trillions of dollars being taking prum some group of people given to other groups and when just changing a few words in a government document can give you a billion dollars or take away a billion dollars from you of course there's going to be corruption i mean the idea that you know government without corruption is entirely utopian and makes us think about the wrong sort of things what we ought to think about again is cutting back the government the government is strangling us they're surveilling us killing people all over the world they're running hate campaigns against russia over the olympics right we can go down many of the play. they're doing and they're all evil so you can't get rid of you can't get rid of evil in the devil exists but we

certainly can cut down on the evil if we can make the devil a little bit shorter and most powerful gray thank you so much that was a little rockwell the founder and chairman of the me sensitive. and a couple of weeks political leaders will be speaking at apac the american israeli public affairs committee conference and an aerial event hosted by one of the most powerful lobbying groups in the u.s. the meeting garners a lot of attention to the high profile names there but beyond the headline there's a growing religious movement in the us away from the strictly pro israel views you hear at the conference r.t. correspondent lives wall reports on how members of the movement hope they can lead a more balanced foreign policy approach. my commitments to the state of israel. every crucial juncture every four days in the road it's a commitment u.s. politicians are compelled to make if they want to be elected and for those

appealing to christian evangelical voters devotion to israel seems mandatory he has chewed his back on the people of the issue that's rick santorum bashing president obama for not being pro israel enough at the annual apac conference the american israeli public affairs committee is the most powerful pro israel lobby in the us during the two thousand and twelve election cycle almost every republican presidential candidate spoke at the event touting their support for the u.s. ally i think we've had an invented post in people but there is a movement among christian evangelicals in the us away from the political norms associated with the group it's a movement away from the staunchly pro israel stance to a stance that is more sympathetic toward palestinians there's no question about the fact that that is a common probably the most popular american christian view and yet there's an older

historical christian view doesn't seem that is the case john scott red is the president of the reform theological seminary outside washington d.c. he observes a trend among. in his students to a more balanced approach to the israeli palestinian conflict we see a lot of young evangelical both aspiring pastors and folks pursuing other jobs at the seminary come through and see that there is a increasing interest in a reading of the scripture that sees modern day the modern day israeli state as a country like all the other countries in the world the movement has kept a low profile but is gaining popularity among younger evangelicals in america religious leaders say it's happening for theological reasons but can also be attributed to a disillusion with the one sided pro is really rhetoric i think you found in the

many christian young christians found themselves saying they're complicated the logical view being appropriated and used in a. more possibly divisive form political position not all evangelical groups agree with the direction of the youth movement christians united for israel one of the largest pro israel organizations encourages american christians to support israel they declined comment for this story but palestinian ambassador myin arrey cat thinks the movement is a step in the right direction we seeing that also among the american jewish community i mean the younger generation do enough to feel bolland by the political convict. the old guards or their parents and grandparents the birthplace of christianity the holy land has seen an exodus of christians as the religious minority they're often caught in the crosshairs of the israeli palestinian conflict

now christians make up about two percent of the population in israel and the west bank with millions of tourists flocking to holy cities like bethlehem and jerusalem each year the region could eventually be without a local christian population many christians have left but aside after the israeli occupation of one hundred sixty seven. you know their conditions are deteriorating in different parts of pakistan specially around bethlehem the birthplace of jesus christ so it is our responsibility to reach out to them now some evangelical community is are aiming to bring attention to the plight of palestinian christians by organizing trips to the region when you you learn. a lot more about a region about peoples and their inner relationships with each other and their history. it causes you to reframe the whole way that you think about things the

hope is that greater understanding of the conflict can pave the way to peace in the middle east in washington liz wahl r.t. . still ahead here on our team gun control efforts turn a sinister and connecticut and new wild requires gun owners to register a military style weapons but most of them haven't they may be considered felons very soon but tell you more after the break. and some are forcing them to. look at the finish line of the.

think. i would rather as 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 r.g.p. question. in connecticut tens of thousands of residents have failed to comply with a new law that requires gun owners to register all military style rifles with the state and response to the sandy hook school shooting that resulted in twenty six fatalities connecticut passed one of the strongest gun control measures in the nation is estimated that only fifteen percent of gun owners have applied for

assault weapon certificates meaning the remainder could it very soon become a class d. felony and earlier i spoke with brian crosswhite of the founder of second amendment dot org and first asked him why these gun owners are not complying with the new law . well i think the issue in connecticut is that the gun laws that are currently been passed since january are very confusing there's two different ways people are looking at it as a way of civil disobedience because these laws are unconstitutional and second of all there is people just don't understand the law special pertaining to twenty two . rifles so there is probably estimated about fifty thousand people who are not complying with the lives do you think this is civil disobedience will i believe that you know when you look at what's going on there's a surveys done by the c c d l in connecticut and they're saying that people are

coming out saying it's civil disobedience because this is a law that doesn't go against the crimes that are going on in connecticut is going against the law abiding citizens who are who have guns and you said that this is unconstitutional though some of the members of the state legislators that's not you think this is going to be repealed go to possibly the supreme court not sure yet on that that's something that's being debated right now in connecticut and one of the senators on the public safety committee he said that if you pass laws that people have no respect for and they don't follow them then you have a real problem how do you think the station move forward and bringing these tens of thousand people back in compliance with the laws well i think you can have a hard time coming back in compliance specially when precedents is already said here in capitol hill with a president who is changing the laws which he's breaking the national federal laws every day with what the stance that he's taking on different legislation primarily his health care plan so people look at that and say well why should we abide by

these laws if the president is breaking these laws well there's also the issue of a deadline has passed to register their arms people have said that they're scared to come forward because they could be slapped with criminal charges so do you think the state should take any type of steps maybe. passing rather legislation or no i think what's going to happen the governor knows very well that this is not going to this is not going to work it's not going to make everyone compliant and there is twenty thousand only on the books in the united states on gun laws and currently crime is still criminals who are criminals who still use guns it's not affecting them at all it's only affecting the the hunters and the sportsman but there are some people who think that these types of stricter gun laws actually make residents more safe well that's that's an opinion well this is why it one of the debaters on

our gun show had said about. having a gun and you're twenty two times more likely to use it on yourself or someone you know or love suicide accidental shooting domestic abuse homicide rather than to repel an invader and that's that's the data so low gun ownership rates having fewer guns in the home and strong gun laws actually do end up protecting citizens of states with strong laws. given that they. cited do you think that stricter gun laws make us safer actually i don't think it does i think though the statistics you state is true but that's where we're coming in as organizations who are pro second amendment to educate people on gun safety within the home and that's one of our goals is to be able to provide that type of educational process but as the statistics that wasn't spoken about was that forty percent forty times more a year are forty times more a year is people using guns in self defense and that's not ever talked about and so

that's a critical thing socially when one point five million times a year guns are being used and what your organization second amendment dot org you've created your own type of registry that people all over the country are signing up online you tell us what your message is so our mission overall for two a.o. is to bring consumers and business owners who believe in the second amendment together so we're registering over ten thousand businesses in the last thirty days throughout the united states to support the second amendment and how are you going to move forward with your goals our goals is is we have a lot of movement here on our organization that we're trying to understand where we want to take it as an organization since we're a fairly new organization but our ultimate goal is to bring together all of these consumers and businesses alike and to be able to support them and have a voice here in capitol hill ok well thank you very much this is brian crosswhite the founder of second amendment dot org thank you bill. four farm workers at a wisconsin dairy farm have been charged with alive and counts of animal abuse and

undercover investigator with the animal rights group mercy for am animals obtained a job that we see brothers farm and then with a hidden camera recorded videos of employees stabbing beating and abusing the cows the farm has already lost at least one major contract with the cheese supplier of the joint to pizza the abuse of workers will be sentenced on march fourth and face a maximum penalty of nine months and prison is worth noting that mercy for animals method of sending undercover workers with hidden cameras into these facilities is a legal and multiple state these ag gag laws as they refer to her habit taking video or photos of a factory or farm without permission of wisconsin had similar measures in place these workers probably never would have been brought to justice that does it for now for more on the stories we covered go to our team dot com board slash usa

you can also follow me on twitter at perry and d.c. stay tuned boom bust as next. technology innovation. developments. the future covered.

but there are militants that the location of a voice still revert. to the weller's of the low height texan said you would stop this storm we might think you know my people will die quickly. put it on your. face like you. should have you with us here on t.v. today i'm sure.

there and happy valentine's day my boom busters here's what's coming up on the show . now the potential comcast time warner merger would create an enormous company with extensive control over television content and internet service but is this a good thing we look at the details of the deal come in or it up plus we have the one meal me mr peter schiff live on today's show the money manager author and financial pundit in giving us his thoughts on the u.s. economy wage growth euro zone and pretty much everything else for that matter you won't want to miss that either and finally it's friday which means it's viewer feedback day here on boom bust harrison i address your questions comments concerns that is on the shelf now let's get to it.