on the tonight hurricane harvey has been downgraded to a tropical storm but rains continue to fall of prost southern texas and louisiana and a levee breaks that columbia lakes in brazoria county south of houston a major reservoir west of the city overflowed and unicef says nigeria terrorist group boko haram has used eighty three child suicide bombers since the beginning of twenty seventeen i'm going to try and think inferential here in washington d.c. you're watching our team america.

good evening we begin again tonight with hurricane harvey and the devastation it is inflicted all across southern texas and louisiana officials have downgraded the hurricane to a tropical storm but rain continues to pour rescue operations continue across both states houston police chief art acevedo spoke to the situation that houston texas are facing with hurricane harvey and please know one of the delays is this is a catastrophic event that i don't think we see when the weather channel starts creating a new color. for rainfall they're used before there's a reason they've used it and she for monday morning quarterbacking out there you can. talk about it because there is no wind so it in terms of an event that's never occurred trying to be chavez has been following this killer storm and has the latest details of this disaster is unfolding on an epic scale today marks the sixth consecutive day that her. harvey has just pummeled southeast texas just moments ago

the american firm about the death of a police officer who was trapped in his flooded patrol car raising the death toll now to at least ten people with dozens more injured this deadly storm is of historic proportions there has been over nine trillion gallons gallons of rain that has fallen with rain reaching over forty nine inches in an area outside of houston the national weather service says that this is a new u.s. record and this storm can still dump up to fifteen more inches of rain this week already hundreds of roads in houston have been completely turned into rivers at least two hundred seventy six of them have been declared high water locations the water is said to be thick and deep as deep as your neck and some areas are completely immerse the cars you can't even see them city officials are urging residents not to go outside meanwhile around one hundred thousand people are left without electricity the houston police department reported today that well over

thirty five hundred people have been rescued a thousand of them are water rescues in the search and rescue continue here's what the houston police department had to say. we will not be reducing our posture officers continue to sleep in the station and they will be continuously. throughout the response for these we are doing the response for these and we probably will not be moving towards recovery for a matter of a couple more days he will not be going home. right now an estimated ten thousand people are still trapped in their homes authorities are urging stranded people to make their way to high ground and to hang sheets or towels from their homes so it's easier for rescuers to find them city officials said today that more than seventeen thousand people are seeking refuge in texas shelters and with the search and rescues continuing that number is likely to grow houston mayor sylvester turner said that this city is not turning anyone away and he said that he has asked for additional help from thema and let's take

a listen to that the reality is that not only are we providing shelter for houstonians but we're also providing shelters for people who are coming out of the city of houston who have been directly impacted by the storm but not turning anyone away but it does mean that we need to expand the capabilities and i look at pasadena in that regard and we've certainly made the official requests to fema we need additional assistance and so we have been asked them to provide supply. food for an additional ten thousand individuals shelters have also opened as far inland as san antonio austin and dallas but emergency management officials warn some shelters are already filling up. and our reservoir just west of houston overflowed earlier today increasing the flooding in nearby neighborhoods the addicks reservoir is located about one thousand miles west of houston and has eight

hundred eight foot high spillway meanwhile a levee at columbia lakes in brazoria county just south of houston was also breached residents were urged to leave the area immediately the city has opened more mega shelters to house families meanwhile experts believe houston has ignored rising concerns over climate change houston is the largest city in the united states without any zoning laws many homes have actually been built directly on swamps and water lands so for more on all of this we're being joined now by our political panel for the evening we have holland cookies a media consultant at survival speech dot com and of course ms heidi harris conservative talker thank you both for being here today ok glad to be here a little glad to be with my buddy who know me. all right guys harvey really flips talk about this texas is still being pummeled and today senator ted cruz is being criticized for voting against the two thousand and thirteen

hurricane sandy relief package when now that his own home state is suffering he's pushing for relief funding heidi over to you first is this fair to remind the senator of his previous stance on disaster relief oh sure it's always fair to remind anybody that you've ever done you know but of why it is there was a lot of pork in that bill your words money for fisheries in alaska and all kinds of other things so that's what ted cruz was complaining about at the time and i'm sure that whatever they vote for now with harvey is going to have pork in it because there's just no way you can keep track of all the money legitimately so you know it's legitimate to bring it up but you know ted's got a different attitude now that it's texas paul and your take on this. think the pork thing is a bum rap because the congressional research service has a lot of that there were some questionable items that got. forward it's not all spent yet five years later some of the spending went out to twenty seventeen and as

a result of that they're going to spend three billion dollars less because they hit seaquest ration and what they've been bickering about one hundred million for a head start well that was to rebuild headstart facilities that were storm ravaged in new york and new jersey there was criticism about beefing up noah and after superstorm sandy i think what we ought to do is invest in the very best weather forecasting there could be at the time all of the texas republicans voted against it ted cruz was the loudest among them possibly figuring this was going to be twenty sixteen hobbyhorse heidi is it possible at all to just get relief funding put through to help all these people in need without adding all of this pork. well it would be nice to be able to do that but the problem is when you're trying to do something in a very big hurry there are things that get slid into the legislation at the last minute and people are so anxious for relief very quickly that

a lot of times things just slip in and you've got to be paying very close attention to right now the nation's attention is focused on houston everybody wants to do what they can to help the folks so there's going to be pork in this one no matter what you do i'm sure now our folks amid the the houston disaster joe arpaio is pardoned in arizona and now fears among the immigrant community that are that are suffering in houston right now in the in the disaster shelters they're rising their fear is that ice might actually come in and check for papers khalid what's your read on this and a greater feeling about the trump administration towards immigration. this is proof that anything can be politicized talk about an act of god the statistic we heard a moment ago is sobering this is the biggest rainfall ever ever in the usa and i think what mayor turner has done assuring people that there will be room where ever they can find them shelter is the right thing to do if you want to argue

about this later we can do that but the images we're seeing on t.v. are just heartbreaking. and what ago we heard about the first responders sleeping on the floor at the police station and i think we owe it to pull of the hat to our colleagues the first informers because all of america is seeing and hearing this story reported by the local houston radio and t.v. broadcasters and they are the first informers that are bringing this sad story home to us i think it is just so as the president says epic that if you want to argue about this let's do it later but we've got to come to the aid of these poor texans how do your thoughts on this should should the immigrants that are suffering have to even worry about this. no nobody should have to worry about this this is america anybody in need right now is being plucked out of a boat plucked off a roof and nobody's asking for their papers nobody's going to ask for their papers

everybody to try to stop this fear in immigrants is totally unfair like collins says we'll talk about this later but now is not the time notice how there are no police protests right now nobody's complaining about the police showing up all of a sudden are they these are all things we need to put aside in the time of crisis we can always argue later you know and tonight is evidence of that as well the left and the right both a consensus agreeing that we need to do something for the folks in texas thank you both heidi harris holland cook. thanks manilla great to talk to you great to see both on you. a man wanted in charlottesville for an august twelfth assault on the andrea harris has just turned himself in michael alex ramos appeared at the monroe county sheriff's office monday night a warrant was previously issued for ramos for malicious wounding in relation to an aggravated assault during a protest in charlottesville earlier this month down to harris has organized a go fund me page to pay for reconstructive surgery for head injuries he sustained

in those rallies. and the taliban is claiming responsibility for a suicide bombing in a crowded district in kabul the attack occurred near a major banking area of downtown kabul not far from the american embassy at least five people were killed in the attack and nine more wounded the number of casualties is expected to climb meanwhile thirteen civilians were killed during an overnight air strike by the afghan air forces at taliban positions in the country's herit province. and u.s. led coalition forces in syria have fired on the free syrian army near the city of men in the north of the country u.s. forces were responding to fire by the turkish backed syrian rebel group coalition commanders have informed turkey of the incident and stated the attacks on their forces are unacceptable and must be disk. immediately u.s. coalition forces are supporting local syrian democratic forces comprised of kurdish and arab fighters against the islamic state the coalition forces are currently not

observing the four deescalation zones a stablished by russia iran and turkey earlier this year and also welcomed by the un artie's jacqueline has the details it's a very complicated situation of course in northern syria and the coalition spokesperson actually confirmed today that u.s. backed forces have clashed with pro turkish troops not once but multiple times in recent weeks over patrols that have been conducting patrols in their area to keep tensions down received multiple times over the course of the last two weeks now the u.s. has already responded warning turkey that to pull its rebels that they support in the area back into line saying that attacking u.s. forces of is of course not acceptable the spokesperson out of the patrols will continue however and that u.s. backed troops are ready if need be to defend themselves and this is also of course not the kind of dialogue that you would expect between close friends and allies but

the fact is the situation is extremely tangled the u.s. is fighting eisel with the support of kurdish fighters who of course do not get along with turkey and the rebels that they have back to say the least turkey in fact considers the kurds to be terrorists and the u.s. troops are sort of caught in the crossfire it seems up till now america has managed to navigate the murky waters between its allies to keep them both happy but conflicts like this one have really been a long time coming if my b.g. units and then american military advisors go. oh fusees would not kill american the well that carries out the will of assad by accident if you look it's going now the u.s. of course was never officially invited into the region and it seems that they may have blindly rushed him without fully understanding the lay. the land. north korea has fired its thirteenth ballistic missile this year monday's missile flew just over northern japan and north korea's longest ever test now the north claims the

missile it fired is the same one it threatened with artie's actually banks has the details u.s. officials call this the latest north korean missile launch aggressive due to the path in which the missile traveled for the first time shot a missile over japan a close u.s. ally so is the joint chiefs of staff said the ballistic missile traveled close to one thousand six hundred seventy seven miles and reached a height of three hundred forty one miles making this north korea's longest missile test ever u.s. ambassador to the united nations nikki haley responded to the latest missile launch the united states along with japan and south korea have called for an emergency security council meeting this afternoon we are going to. talk about what else is left to do that north korea the no country should have missiles flying over them like those hundred thirty million people in japan it's unacceptable they have violated every single un security council resolution that we've had and so i think

something serious has to happen. japan's prime minister shinzo i base said quote we will do our utmost to protect people's lives this reckless act of launching a missile that flies over our country is an unprecedented serious and important threat sergey lavrov minister of foreign affairs of russia chimed in we insist the north korean neighbors food bowl the u.n. security council resolutions this is the position that was stick to the u.n. security council meetings and will do so of the meeting that is now being suggested also the recent by north korea. and the nigerian terrorist network boko haram has used four times as many child suicide bombers already this year than it did in the whole of two thousand and sixteen eighty three children have been used as human bombs since the beginning of the year that's according to unicef fifty five of them were girls twenty seven were boys and one girl had

a baby strapped to her during the explosion boko haram has been active since two thousand and two primarily in northeastern nigeria the group gained notoriety back in twenty fourteen for the kidnapping of almost three hundred schoolgirls in nigeria borno state for more on boko haram influence in nigeria and west africa we're being joined now by michael maloof he's a former pentagon official mike thanks for being here so nigerian officials are making it seem like they've got this handle on on boko haram do they really know shortly after you know they have undertaken a somewhat of an aggressive approach toward boko haram in the urban areas but certainly not in the rural areas where boko haram is really reaching out to various villages taking hostages killing people indiscriminately. the government itself has a problem in that it's corrupt and that it's. and some folks suggest that maybe

that it's quietly working with local they're actually go luzhin in collusion that is one church i haven't seen the proof yet however the fact that they're not going out into the hinterlands and tracking them down and chasing them is a testament to the fact that they're not being very aggressive beyond the city limits in effect and this and this is a problem so yesterday the pentagon notified congress then they would be selling them five hundred ninety three million dollars worth of military equipment selling it to nigeria in fact take a take a look here on look at this tweet the vice president of nigeria tweeted saying quote we are thankful to the u.s. . government for its decision to sell super to condo aircrafts to nigeria to aid its fight against insurgency in the north east first of all do you think that's true and secondly what impact do you think this type of sale to the nigerians will have in defeating boko haram if they are indeed that corrupt. there is an operation

underway where the united states has agreed to give them some counterterrorism counterinsurgency assistance converses congress is probably giving them some some additional assistance but it's not the the to the extent that we would like to see in a four full robust effort given the fact that boko haram is a major threat not only to northeastern nigeria but also to. chad and also cameroon and that is a very intriguing location because that suggests that book iran which is affiliated with isis could link up with al qaeda in the islamic magreb and you're going to see and given that isis has moved down in from from libya which is just north this you can see a strategy emerging by this and the other. as you how this group's to basically control after north africa if not all of africa well what's the u.s.

what they're from the d.o.d. do we have one working with nigeria we have we have a slight one but it's only intelligence assistance some assistance as you pointed out a little earlier we need a much more robust approach we have we're in djibouti you that's where the main character out of africa we have located in some thirty four african countries little bunkers here and there for special ops but it's nothing robust nothing that goes after him now we go after we did look for a boko haram a number of a few years ago and one of the obama administration for the missing two hundred girls or was it the. school girls and were soon. doing this all over again now that they're kidnapping their kid in the schools the shutting down anything that's christian even muslims so their idea is to terrorize to kill and in this by terrorizing like that they're fulfilling their of their desire to gain territory

and influence what's the end goal for them to to take over territory and that gives them the prescription to belong to isis as a consequence because they control of certain amount of territory it's conceivable that isis is looking to africa to be in the new caliphate and vocal rahm is as you just heard accused of using almost one hundred children this year as human bombs where is the humanitarian outcry where's the u.n. where's the rest of the american mainstream media talking about this i mean when the schoolgirls were kidnapped and that's just kidnapping we heard from the white house they can poke out on it michelle obama had her her whole. program set up to help them sure but now we're not hearing anything and this is not the first year u.n. has been reporting on this and really it's just getting worse they're going primarily after a little girls girls are expendable in the eyes of the jihadists and and fewer boys

but but they're going after children primarily because no one suspects children however the word getting out they're the ones who are carrying the suicide bombs some of unknowingly some many of them unknowingly and then they're detonated so children children are just fodder for the book because there are so many kids around and we're talking hundreds of thousand where is the world outcry there is no uk there is none it's not focus that's not the that's not of primary. national security interest to the united states right now we're worried more about north korea we're worried about other things we've got flooding. and that's been the focus primarily attention is elsewhere it's almost like when rwanda happened nobody focused on it during the clinton administration until the genocide occurred right only then the we have any kind of attention focused on it and that's pathetic to see that happening here potentially that is

a grim grim future and looks like there is so much for sharing your expertise for this michael maloof. germany has banned a far left protest website following the g. twenty protests the country's interior minister has declared it a crime to use the site link sinton dot indymedia police seized computers and even weapons from activists associated with the site in one of germany's southern states meanwhile german security services say they foiled a right wing plot to kill leftist politicians r.t.s. peter oliver has the details police have uncovered what they described as potential kill ists a hit lists all containing the names of left wing politicians and political activists here in germany they also uncovered a stockpile of weapons as well from two properties that were searched in the northeast in state of mecklenburg vorpal martin. now the two men that were arrested

they are believed to have connections to an extreme far right group one of them is a serving police officer in the region now when this statement from the prosecutor general here in germany he said that they investigated and proceeded with this these raids after they found web chat room chats between the two men and which they talked about angler merkel's as they put it failed refugee in migration policy they also talked about how they feared for an economic collapse across the country and that they were scared of an increase in terror. attacks that they put down to the policies of the german chancellor the two were apparently prepared for the collapse of the state plates stockpiled food ammunition for their weapons as well but what we do see is two people two men here that had raged against one particular policy

and that particular policy is so tied to the german chancellor angela merkel that back in twenty fifteen when she said that all refugees and migrants were welcome to come here to germany now she's just been speaking on cheese day to the collective press as part of her summer address and the german chancellor said that she stands by the decisions she made in twenty fifteen. it's a decision we made back then in that exceptional situation to take in those people was important and right but this is quite a different statement than we've heard from the chancellor in the very recent past . that's the sentence we can do this in spite of my political work but so much has been read into this every day expression it has become a simple motto in the discussion around it has turned into an unproductive and loose loop we didn't embrace the problem in an appropriate we currently the chancellor leads sixteen to seventeen points from her nearest rivals ahead of next

month's general election and looks almost certain to be returned as chancellor so she doesn't need to question her own legacy her own policy decisions that she's made however as this ongoing investigation shows of two men arrested for potentially plotting to carry out murder is what has being called a terrorist attack by a potential terrorist attack by investigators it does show that her policies still remain controversial to this day. and a new study suggests sugar may be as addictive as cocaine sugar consumption has been linked to binge eating controlled uncontrolled cravings rather and withdraw all the latest findings are getting a strong reaction in the medical community r.t. is pretty to santos has more. is sugar addiction real that's the question a team of us health researchers have set out to answer in their latest study the paper published in the british journal of sports medicine outlines how sugar

consumption produces symptoms that are similar to other addictive substances like cocaine according to the authors it can alter moods possibly through its ability to induce reward and pleasure leading to the seeking out of sugar in animal experiments sugar has even been found to be more addictive than cocaine with heart disease obesity and diabetes on the rise researchers say that sugar should be classified as an addictive substance however responses from the medical community are mixed some people disagree with these findings arguing that sugar is not addictive to humans while others agree based on the met. and he donek properties of sugar only they do not consider sugar to be as powerful of a drug as heroin instead they compare it to weaker substances of abuse like nicotine dr james dean a colon tonio a research scientist at st luke's mid america heart institute who coauthored this study told me in an email talk to anyone included diction anonymous or sugar

addiction anonymous look them in the face and tell them they aren't addicted to sugar he also says there's a tremendous release of opioids and dopamine when we consume sugar if we eat enough of it eventually it causes periods of dopamine deficiency in the brain this can lead to withdraw or other states similar to those found in patients with depression whether sugar is addictive or not it's in everything from candy and soda to pasta sauce and baby food and there's no denying that it's wreaking havoc on human health in los angeles but she does santos r t. all right that is the news tonight that does it for me you can follow me on twitter right there at the bottom of your screen i am going to advancing it for as this week reporting out of washington we'll see you back here tomorrow. i. i. i.

i. am sure there are. can. watch the hawks founded by three young americans who love their country but we have to constantly question our government watching the hawks brings the stories the give voice to the voiceless we dig a little deeper we get the stories than the average one else is afraid to touch is afraid to talk about because they don't want to upset their corporate sponsors or interrupt their government access now is the time more than ever we made to question more. we're in this post truth world bird world we're going to have to

matter again to the south educating people and giving them contacts instead of telling them what to make dialogue is far more valuable than debate. i do not know if the russian state hacked into john podesta scheme ailes and gave them to wiki leaks but i do know barack obama's director of national intelligence has not provided credible to support his claims of russia i also know he perjured himself in a senate hearing planned three months before the revelations provided by edward snowden he denied the deep n.s.a. was carrying out wholesale surveillance of the us. the hyperventilating corporate media has once again proved to be an echo chamber for government claims that cannot be verified you would have thought they would have learned something after serving as george w. bush's useful idiots in the lead up to the invasion of iraq. it is vitally

important that the press remains rooted in a fact based universe especially when we enter an era when truth and fiction are becoming indistinguishable. i. see france is broadcasting around the world from washington d.c. tonight crypto currency is just keep on climbing big coin heads above forty seven hundred this comes as countries scramble to build regulations around it and the block chain in general also consumer spending is up but the numbers are shaky we

take a look at what's contributing to this also my guest former u.s. trading commissioner chilton is with us to explain the damage hurricane harvey has caused on the oil and gas industry and on your wallet stand by starts right now. the prospects of a u.s. rate hike dimming the euro soared to one dollar twenty cents for the first time since january two thousand and fifteen following hurricane harvey in texas most analysts assume the federal reserve will delayed major changes on top of that frequent confrontations with north korea have left the markets nervous as a result the euro has made some pretty big gains in two thousand and seventeen it rose nearly fifteen percent against the dollar monday's extended gains following

last week's surge after european central bank president mario draghi speech at the jackson hole summit it also jumped after a fed chair janet yellen spoke at that same conference but made no mention of monetary policy. and across global exchanges big coin is trading at its highest level ever at four thousand seven hundred three dollars and twenty one cents big coin split back in august first but then it hit a high of four thousand five hundred twenty two on the eighteenth the cryptocurrency is up now three hundred fifty percent from roughly one thousand dollars on january first also of note is a light point it has reached a record high of nearly sixty five dollars a thirty six percent rise it holds the fifth spot worldwide with a market capitalization of just under three billion dollars according to coin market cap dot com that is now it rallied fourteen hundred percent since the start of the year when it traded at around four dollars thirty three cents vigorous

trading in the last twenty four hours was seed in south korea which has a soft spot for light coins a warning though that country is set to see massive regulatory adjustments to crypto currencies which could change the landscape there for like that cited as a major reason for the dramatic upswing in cryptocurrency asset classes as a whole. consumer confidence numbers were released and the conference board numbers saw a rise of one twenty two point nine higher than one twenty in july which was surprising to some economists that predicted a drop the university of michigan also saw an increase with consumer sentiment up to ninety seven point six from ninety three point four but a drop in how consumers feel about the current economic conditions from one thirteen down to one eleven let's bring in danielle de martino both president of money strong and author of fed up an insider's take on why the federal reserve is

bad for america look if we go up these numbers alone what does that tell us about how consumers as a whole feel about our current economic situation. well currently they're getting. i have to tell you. i can't take credit for this one of my buddies is an economist mentioned to me the fact that there right now americans are feeling really patriotic for the first time in the better part of a decade and you know what that thought had not occurred to me that why all this saber rattling and especially with what we saw with north korea flying an actual missile over japan why this wouldn't be polling down consumer confidence and his reaction which makes perfect sense is that americans are really feeling their patriotism right now i would warn you though that this will not be very long lived ok well let's take a look at some numbers we've got a graph here which shows you're sixteen years worth of consumer confidence levels why do we still see numbers so high even though we haven't really seen any major

financial legislation pushed from the current administration you point to patriotism but do we see anything else he's. remember about a third of americans are still very much in favor of trump being in office that's not a small number and then when you tack on the twenty percent of americans who have benefited from the fact that the stock market remains near record highs you're talking about a good chunk of the population here who has yet to see a dent in their four a one k. statement and who still remains hopeful that the president's going to be able to push through legislation i for one have my doubts and they're increasing by the day especially as we see the distractions for the current administration begin to multiply ok let's talk about some sales numbers we seem to keep seeing these high confidence numbers but that's also against the backdrop of being box store retailers macy's sears stores closing down their stores are we seeing customers just have stronger faith in spending elsewhere are they becoming more discerning

where they spend their money price comparisons trying to save what do you think this is well i think you hit on boat. all of the factors that are driving what's going on here and look it is not it is not a feel good situation to see these stores closing down and the more stores that we see closing down my mother just mentioned a few days ago my gosh i'm worried that my local mall has a sears and i'm a sees it will start to chip away at consumer confidence but by the same token you hit the other major factor that's driving confidence and that's that they are able to exert their own pricing power by switching to e-commerce where we've obviously seen seen sales rise much more appreciably grow much more strongly ok but there's lots of oil refineries we need to talk about in the gulf texas we look at at this chart right here we can see west texas intermediate benchmark starting off strong and sinking in the week leading up to hurricane harvey we're still seeing massive fallout from that what kind of effect could this hurricane recovery do to consumer

confidence in the long term if we account for not just dropping oil prices for something like home repairs there's tens of millions of dollars that are going to go into i'm sorry millions billions they're going to go into cleaning up the mess this size. the one factor that's missing and the huge whammy that's going to be suffered upon consumer confidence and what economists will tell you is the very first thing to make households turn on a dime on confidence is rising gasoline prices now as it pertains specifically to the houston area it will be a double economic quickly if oil prices stay low on the one hand which is going to keep people out of work it's going to keep those refinery shut down and it will be a drag on the fourth largest economy in the country but by the same token the entire nation feels that gasoline prices prices at the pump rise by thirty forty cents a gallon this could. we could potentially for this current cycle be seeing the peak

in household consumer confidence and we've got analysts pointing. to the effects of this hurricane as you as you mentioned some of the recent refineries closing down the platforms have been evacuated refineries closed down supply lines many of them wiped out still trying to analyze that situation and a lot of analysts are saying look the dominoes are just beginning to fall are you are you keeping your eye on the fall out of the situation as we hear the hurricane maybe you know winding up off of off the coast and coming back in. absolutely look this is unprecedented i don't know that this is katrina because new orleans is not near the economic powerhouse that houston is nor does it have the same impact on the energy industry lindsay i don't think anybody can make any sort of a determination at this point about what the potential ramifications were are going to be i saw a statistic earlier today that said ten to fifteen percent of homeowners in use didn't have flood insurance you're talking about

a ton of devastation it's not that these repairs aren't going to happen in the coming years but what about so many millions of households who could potentially be deeply harmed by this situation and not have the financial wherewithal to simply not have the money to repair their homes that they need that it's a terrifying and catastrophic situation they're dealing with down there let's talk about the month of september which we are heading right into we're talking raising the debt ceiling with the potential government shutdown on the horizon mitch mcconnell even said quote there is zero chance no chance we will not raise the debt ceiling and quote if numbers aren't wavering now what kind of a drop can we see once these talks begin just real quick before we go well i think that there's a lot of vulnerability right now to any kind of a shock talk about cruising into the eye of the storm in the month of september if there's any kind of a wavering at all i would say that the markets right now are highly highly vulnerable to any kind of doubt that enters into these discussions will be will all

be on red alert in the weeks to come that's absolutely right when congress goes back to school on capitol hill thank you so much danielle de martino president of money strong and author of fed up insiders take on why the federal reserve is bad for america thank you. over the past few decades the cost of higher education in the u.s. has skyrocketed along with that came a jump in student loan debt which just reached yet another all time high. has more on that for us now what's the average number. loans americans have now well to be exact the average american has three point seven loans so on average anywhere from three to four compared to ten years ago that number was two point four per cent the student loan balance in the u.s. has changed a lot over the past decade according to the latest data we have hit the one point four trillion dollar mark up more than eight hundred billion dollars from two thousand and seven and currently the average american has

a total of thirty four thousand one hundred forty four dollars in student debt that's a sixty two percent increase from ten years ago and that's not all a report from the consumer financial protection bureau shows that the number of borrowers with over fifty thousand dollars of debt has tripled during that same period and while members of every generation deal with it it's generation y. or the millennial that have taken out the most the average millennial has four point four loans more than both their parents' and grandparents' generation z. notably has less than that but that's because some of them haven't even started their freshman year yet and what's more interesting is that members of generation x. the highest average balance at almost forty thousand dollars meanwhile have average less than thirty four thousand dollars regardless of those differences going to college has become one of the biggest expenses we make next to buying a house but the growing balance of student debt has hampered the ability to do that

across the country in fact the u.s. home ownership rate sits at sixty three point seven percent down from sixty eight point four percent in two thousand and seven and to make matters worse the housing market hasn't adjusted to the rise in debt that young americans are taking on and neither have we. you know it's down but even sixty eight point four percent back in two thousand and seven was an impressive zero home ownership for upwardly mobile adults let's talk more about these home prices though how do they play into this debt problem so they're not exact. connected to student debt but they do kind of depend on each other obviously with more americans taking now more student debt and having more or bigger balances it makes it harder to save for a down payment to buy a home that's why we're seeing one a decrease in the homeownership rate but also an increase in the rental rate and of course rent prices that goes along with that. and on top of that the housing issue wages have not kept up and in in fact in sixteen of the twenty biggest metro areas

in the u.s. housing prices grew twice as fast as wages in those metro areas so when you combine student debt with stagnant wages it becomes almost impossible to really buy a home unless of course you live in an affordable area in the u.s. we can make a good info graphic of that and put it on it will do a whole segment of that to find where those are in the united states because we're all on the hunt for those because it's exorbitant now a lot of the focus here is on the debt millennial specifically hold how does that affect other generations so you know every single generation has taken out some amount of student debt obviously taken out the most but because we're taking out more loans they need cosigners on these exorbitant amounts that they're taking out means their parents and in some cases their grandparents are cosigning these loans so it's not just a millennial that i've been hampered down in one hundred thousand dollars of debt when they graduate it's going to their parents and their grandparents accounts so

that affects them not only because they're taking out for their kids or their grandkids on top of the debt that they might have so it's really an interconnected problem it's not just a separate one else have it worse than the older generations haven't suffered as much as a problem that affects everyone it's a family affair thank you very much. time now for a quick break but stick around because when we return a u.s. visa holder seeking green cards based on employment are set to face mandatory in person interviews in my. guest fills us in on how the oil and gas industry is tearing in the gulf after hurricane harvey we got a break here of a number because. your

watching and our team. basically everything that you think you know about civil society has broken down. there's always going to be somebody else one step ahead of the game. we should not be. normalizing mind. we don't need people that think like this on our plate. this is an incredibly tense situation. most people think this is this you need to be the first one on top of the story or the person with the loudest voice of the biggest read. truth to stand losing you

just the right questions to the right answer. the. question dear. here's will people been saying about rejected and. actually just. the only show i go out of my way to you know it was some really packs a punch oh yeah it is the john oliver of margie omero is doing the same. verily better than. i see you don't ever heard of low down the. rest of the world but i'm so very. seriously sent us an email.

starting on october first visa holders seeking us green card to based on employment will be required to undergo in person interviews with us citizenship and immigration services the same goes for visa holders who are relatives of refugees or asylum seekers it's all part of president extreme vetting plan for immigrants the interview has largely been waived for employment based card seekers because of the backlog it creates in processing and the strain it puts on resources such as personnel u.s. citizenship and immigration services says the agency will expand these categories of green card seekers requiring an interview on an incremental basis. homeowners hit by hurricane harvey in the gulf coast are racing against the clock to file insurance claims current texas insurance code gives claimants eighteen percent interest if their insurance company pays late pays too low or doesn't pay

at all but house bill seven hundred seventy four changes that starting september first penalties for insurance companies will be reduced and climate lawyers will face stiffer requirements to file suit supporters say it will help shut out for us lawsuits but opponents say it allows. insurance companies a cheaper way to act in bad faith but that's just homeowners insurance flood insurance is another issue in harris county texas which includes houston fifteen percent of homes habit in two thousand and five hurricane katrina half of homes were covered by flood insurance people without coverage will have to apply for grants or low cost loans from other branches of the federal government how miners in high risk flood zones are required to pay into the national flood insurance program but it can be hard to track if they're actually obeying that directive and premiums can be very expensive also those zones deemed high risk are growing fast hurricane hurricanes katrina and sandy lead to claims of nearly twenty five billion

dollars this left the national flood insurance program in debt by twenty three billion dollars to the u.s. treasury grants and low interest loans could be the only way out for those without flood coverage. and the storm is also giving ramifications reciprocal ramifications and worries for the fuel costs as the oil coast as it's called produces and refined oil into gasoline a huge chunk of it for the united states gasoline prices have surged more than four cents nationwide as a result former u.s. attorney chilton says we can expect more at the same time price gougers are out there in the impacted areas gosh you said it we're seeing some dirty stories out there or oil prices have gone down gasoline prices have gone up what's happening in oil and gas markets well i mean there's fifteen percent of the refining capability is gone offline that's two point five million barrels a day and there are some concerns that it could go. thirty percent with you know

the storm coming back around to port arthur and parts will lose you know so with that reduced refining capability refining capability it means that the actual crude oil is sitting there and growing a surplus and with that surplus comes. lower prices so we saw on the new york mercantile exchange prices of west texas intermediate which is the u.s. benchmark go down to a five week low forty six forty four now at the same time we've got that gas the they need more of that right and so that's in you know tight supply or tighter supply and that's why we've seen a two year high in wholesale gasoline prices to a dollar seventy six a gallon for the rest of us that prices that prices are also going up there are two dollars and thirty seven cents on average right now so that's sort of the market dynamics on the stock market side some oil companies are doing better and some are

sixteen what's going on to our viewers well really it's like they say about real estate right location location location and so if we look at the one that's really taken a tumble it's exxon mobil who's been pretty hard hit one with their beaumont texas plant that they've shut most of that down the refining capability and then just a little bit north and east of that is the number two refinery in the united states and that's in baytown and they're having big problems there they even had to report to the texas environmental quality folks they've had a spill it's not sure what it is but it really reeks and this is a plant that's known for having some problems in the past now a new few years ago they had a twenty million dollar fine so exxon mobil during this circumstance not looking too good others are up just a little bit marathon valero philip sixty six but again it depends where you are

and what you know the impact of this hurricane on your refining capabilities as you say depending on where you are with some of the these refineries shut down gasoline prices should people be going out to fill up their cars and trucks right now i would i did. did i mean that this is a normal thing at this time of year right labor day weekend people will go and fill up but even now more than ever like i said the average cost nationwide is two dollars and thirty seven cents that's up four cents in a week but it's one of the larger price surges we had this summer the other day when we were talking about the storm coming in i said that you know estimates were from five to fifteen cents a gallon those estimates are up to ten to twenty cents a gallon but quite frankly when i look at what's going on in the reduced capacity of these refineries you know i could see thirty cents a gallon more and that could last for a long time too it could last for you know

a month or six weeks or longer and as you noted you know katrina we saw forty cent increase in prices so it might not be that high but i think it's going to be higher than most of the experts are predicting i'd certainly higher than you know five to fifteen cents i'd say so katrina as you mentioned we saw forty cents in two thousand and five. gasoline prices how high could they call how how likely are they to stay high what they could like it will stay there for a long time stay high for a long time whether or not it's thirty ish cents a gallon i think a long time because. they'd have been able to even assess the damage and this is not just damage to the window no yeah absolutely we don't know it's like a i said i said yesterday to somebody it's reminds me of that old song the midnight oil song where they say how can we sleep when our beds are burning well how can they assess the circumstances when they're in the middle of the disaster and it's

relentless and it keeps on and on they can't even get in workers can't even get there to do the assessment and it's not just the refineries too it's all of the logistics i mean the pipelines are closed the ports are all closed there's four or five of them long the texas coast no oil's going out. nothing's coming in so everything's that a standstill and underwater and it's relentless so i think this is going to last a long time i think prices are going to go up i wouldn't be surprised if we see another nickel in the next couple of days that another nickel left over the weekend and we get up to that thirty cents a gallon and it stays there for a month well then we've got the holidays when turner and all those events isn't household expenses going up and it's going to be a real pinch on people at these prices they high you've always been a consumer advocate you've got a book about consumer protection last week on this show you warn viewers we could see price gouging update on that they're doing it bad actors are out there lindsey over five hundred reports to the texas attorney general of price gouging now this

is an all just gasoline although the reports that the attorney general's office is taking it in shows that some of charging four dollars a gallon which you could say well maybe there's a reason for dollars but allan come up to ten dollars a gallon some of them you know it's just crazy and it's look the free market is one thing but during these times when there's an emergency out there and people need fuel to survive you know that's a big deal and the fines by the way are also pretty hot out of doing this and you get fined twenty thousand dollars ok unless you are doing it to somebody not you but somebody that sixty five or older than the finest two hundred fifty thousand cars shame on you shame on you now by the way if this goes into louisiana and there's price gouging we did see that back in two thousand and five with katrina there you're doing jail time six months jail time and if somebody is injured by the

price gouging you know as a result of what you've done then you could go to jail for even longer up to twenty one years if somebody dies so big deal the price gouging and they're doing it with water by the way they're doing i'll tell them. that i read report a. port the taxes or services for water ninety nine dollars for a case of water somebody was trying to charge so. be careful when you're feeling like this though how do you go about reporting it telling someone about it getting you into it and both tattle you call the texas attorney general or the losy anna general's office they have a hotline i've looked at their forms they're pretty easy to fill out and it's definitely something people should do these bad actors need to be caught it's just not right particularly when everybody's in such a hurry right circumstance what are you looking at me coming down whether or not you spine these other talk about the number two refinery in the country the exxon mobile in baytown but we're also looking at the. port arthur which shut down

a little bit today that that's something that if they're closing the largest refinery and second large refinery in the country that's going to have a longer term impact than others might and how the reassessment works over the next couple of weeks and it's going to be weeks to do this reassessment that's the key thing i'll be looking at stories not going away thank you very much part of us. ever wonder what it would feel like to trade and use crypto currencies and get free food in the process while burger king russia is rolling out its own crypto currency called the whopper coin. customers will get a whopper coin so-called for every rouble they spend on a regular whopper when you get seventeen hundred you can redeem them for a free hamburger burger king russia even has apps ready for launch on apple and google devices can trade and share their whopper coins with other users big fan

base there in that country that's all for now check out the show on youtube youtube dot com slash bill passed our t.v. thanks for watching the next time. people look i don't know whether or not fair presenter supply american people deserve to know your difference at this point does it make you must guard against the military industrial war we shall never go. to war you should know that. yes we do but. with.

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a former cia operative launches a fund raising campaign aimed at getting donald trump kicked off twitter and she's here to talk about it that replaying on this edition of. politicking on larry king valerie plame wilson is a former cia operative whose covert status was blown when members of the george w. bush administration who were motivated by political retaliation against her husband leaked her classified identity to the press that was back in two thousand and three since then she's will come

a bestselling author of several books including the memoir fair game my life as a spy in my betrayal by the white house and spy novels blowback and burned she's also become an activist for nuclear weapons free world her latest project is a crowdfunding campaign designed to buy a major stake in twitter and then using that position to pressure the company to kick president donald trump off the social media platform. she says the busy truth has within the eyes twitter she worries that his tweets could play a part in leading the world into a nuclear war it's dog to her about that valerie plame wilson joins me from son of the new mexico tell me about this campaign and how did the i did come about hi larry thank you for having me the idea came about when his tweets just became

increasingly reckless impulsive and of course from my previous life with the cia what i focused on was nuclear chemical if ration so this is a passion of mine something i care about deeply and i'm working with global zero we set up this go fund me site the idea being to buy majority stake in twitter and have the twitter executives in force their own rules which explicitly prohibit hate speech or inciting violence and particularly with north korea i would say he's making a bad situation worse and that's what we're hoping to do and. we're already off to a great start how do people get involved how do people send you fun as. they go to the go fund me site and it's the by twitter one and then they just walk through it i want to make absolutely clear to your viewers that i am not benefiting

financially at all from this if we do not reach our goal admittedly a billion dollars is very ambitious all that money will go to global zero which is leading the resistance against nuclear war and hopefully moving us toward a world without nuclear weapons. you say that some students are dangerous dangerous hall. they make a bad situation that much worse as we know the leader of north korea kim jong un is . not stable and to have this escalating twitter war between president trump and the. un of north korea it was i don't want to see a stumble into

a conflict that could go nuclear it would be truly catastrophic public opinion so a majority of americans are critical of trump's use of twitter tom says that his use of it is modern day presidential going right to the public what's wrong with that. well i don't agree with modern day i'm not sure it's presidential i find many of his tweets personally to be offensive. and he has managed to offend many in his own party women private individuals people with jewish backgrounds people of color but that's what not what we're focusing on we're focusing on the most dangerous of all of them to my mind which is existential which is potential nuclear catastrophe the thing is no matter what you care about whether you think every single confederate statue should remain in the public

square or you want obamacare care repealed and replaced whatever it is gun control doesn't matter if you don't get the nuclear question right none of the other ones matter. you're a veteran of the cia you know world people you know it's political figures and public figures what sane person would start a nuclear war. hopefully no one the the fact is we're no longer in a bipolar world we no longer have the soviet union on one side the united states and the other for many years for decades what kept nuclear war from happening was the mad doctrine mutually assured destruction you were to your point exactly they figured no one's going to be insane enough to start a nuclear war because we will be annihilated moments later but with the

politicization of new nuclear weapons and of course terrorists seeking nuclear capability all bets are off we have come close dozens of times in accidental nuclear incidents i think we've just gotten lucky thus far. the time has come where nuclear weapons are no longer keeping us safe that that old paradigm of mad no longer applies and that's what global zero i'm also on the board of the ploughshares fund that's what we're trying to do ratchet back. our nuclear arsenal across the board not unilaterally this is not something that's going to happen on tuesday but it can happen over time these weapons have to become absolutely taboo because the destruction we are little human minds can't even begin to understand what they would do in an email

statement to the l.a. times white house press secretary several hundred to be sanders called your campaign in the temp to shut down the president's first amendment rights and an expression of hate and intolerance how you react. i respectfully disagree with this sarah huckabee sanders along with sarah other republican operatives like roger stone have said the same thing again this has nothing to do with the first amendment the first amendment protects people from their government and not all speech is protected when you are ratcheting up an already very dicey incendiary potentially incendiary situation. i think twitter has an obligation to step in and say to president trump what you

need to be abide by the same rules as everybody else you know inciting violence and no hate speech you do agree that a really you're gambling. with a lot of tory. is a long shot i would agree it's a long shot a billion dollars is a whole bunch of money i totally get that the idea is to shine a spotlight on how dangerous donald trump's tweets are and it undermines our national security. thanks to people like you we've gotten a lot of attention and i do hope people are thinking. you know maybe it doesn't have to be like this i want people to fear or feel that they can actually do something they don't just have to sit by while we are moving ever closer toward a nuclear catastrophe what scares you more trouble. or trouble having the

new clue codes. i would say the latter and here's why the way this is a volved since the first time the first atomic bomb was exploded not too far from where i'm sitting in the new mexico desert. it is a volved to the point where we have given one individual and one individual alone. this awesome destructive power i think many americans believe that the supreme court has to weigh in or the secretary of defense or congress that is not the case at all it is one human being and i would add that if the president is warned that we are potentially under nuclear attack the president has between eight and ten minutes to decide how to respond we have all seen these so-called nuclear football the nuclear foot briefcase the person from one of the arms for

services following the president around at all times. just in such an emergency and it is time to rethink our policy on this we have many of our weapons on hair trigger alert we also have something called a first you know first use policy or was what we should move to meaning that we would not use nuclear weapons in the first instance we have now launch on warning which is a policy where we say if we believe that we're under attack that we will respond these are all policies that incredibly high in the tension and the potential for disaster in south come. how do you assess the current risk of nuclear conflict

is this the highest you've experienced or do you remember a period where was higher i think this is probably the highest since the cuban missile crisis which we now know from historians how very close we came to nuclear conflict with the soviet union. north korea is essentially a cult masquerading as a state their number one. their number one priority is regime survival and they believe that they can do that by threatening their nukes threatening the united states with their nuclear weapons i totally agree with my friend and hero former secretary of defense william perry who says look we cannot rely upon china to do all the heavy lifting on this sanctions alone are not going to do it no military option is a good one. the only way ahead is serious direct talks including

of course with south korea china and japan secretary perry was here last week he makes quite a case what do you make of that. is valueless what do you make of the term those yeah making headlines again who. yes and dave the m i six officer christopher steele. more more information comes out daily it's hard to absorb all of it and make sense of it what i would say is this as a former cia officer what i find really odd and very concerning is that in the period before donald trump was even a candidate much less elected there was an incredible amount of. cooperation conversations contacts with russian officials i find that really odd

you would think that a presidential candidate would be busy thinking about how what pre-sentencing needs to bring up to where a needs to deploy his resources insead what we're seeing is really unusual contacts with various people that all seem to have associations to putin the latest was i believe some emails have surface to surface that. that someone was making a promise that if the trump tower got built in moscow. you know putin would help a left donald trump president whether that has any basis in reality or not it's just one in a really long line you look for patterns and the pattern is concerning and i just hope like most americans that robert mueller the special prosecutor is working

really hard with his crackerjack team and get to the bottom of this quickly more with valerie plame after the break. about your sudden passing i've only just learned you were yourself and taken your last wrong turn. your act right up to you as we all knew it would i tell you i'm sorry. so i write these last words in hopes to put to rest these things that i never got my chance to. i remember when we first met my life turned on each parent. but then my feeling started to change you talked about more like it was a cave still some more fun to view those that didn't like to question or are. secretly promised to never be like it's one does not leave the funeral in the same as one enters mind gets consumed with this one to. speak as there were no one there to. seems that mainstream media has not its make.

all the world's. news companies nearly players but what kind of parties are into the america. america offers more artsy america offers. many ways. just like the real news. and in the end you could never. see the parking. world all the world all the world's a stage we are definitely a player. back

with valerie plame wilson for covert status was rolled my members of the bush administration she's off the books like fair game my life is my betrayal by the white house and spy novels roback and burned and that davis against nuclear weapons and she's joining us from santa fe new mexico well as john le carré the great spy novel was two was in the british. said that putin was k.g.b. once a small always a spy are you still. in your heart a spy. i would say in my heart yeah i'm still incredibly curious about people and that is what makes this successful operations officer among other skills but you have to really care everyone has

a story everyone you just have to ask what it is and that is the heart of human intelligence i was proud of my career i love that i serve my country i love that i focused on nuclear issues but it ended rather abruptly do you think that. having the spy in and lead was involved in the election is still involved in the running of the government has something on trump this is your gut feeling do you think that my gut feeling tells me there's something there there's just too much smoke for there not to be something there hooten you're right comes out of the k.g.b. you don't forget that you don't forget that training how to manipulate people what's your leverage and he's got that all going on inside of his head i can't imagine that i i don't know that putin thought for sure

that trump would be elected but it's a classic what we would call influence operation why not you spread it out you put as many different contacts in toward your target in this case a potential president and see what you get and as it turns out a lot of the people around trump are either not too smart inept or greedy and so those are all great characteristics to work with when you're trying to do something are you comfortable with the number of military people around the president. no and i come from a military family my father was an air force officer he served in world war two my brother was a marine who was wounded in vietnam so i grew up in the military but we have a longstanding tradition in this democracy that the military is subservient to civilian control and when i see so many stars and bars sit around his either the

situation table or in the cabinet room it makes me a little nervous no but in this case since january when i add i will go ahead i just wanted to add that i don't mean in any way to take away from their service to country it's just that this. this foundation that we have that we have civilian control over our democracy this is one of the bedrocks of this country valerie thanks so much thanks for your time today. thank you larry thank you for having me joining me now is bill press talk radio host and progressive commentator and an old friend he's host of the pressure on the young turks network he joins me from washington what do you think of trump's use of twitter does this help his presidency or heard it hi larry good to see you first of all saying you know i i

think it hurts his presidency i think it's an embarrassment i also tell you as a journalist who follows the donald trump tweets because i have to him part of the white house press corps you know it's a pain in the us because. he tweets nonstop the first thing i see on my phone when i got up in the morning or tweets from donald trump you know i don't know whether you ever sleeps but seriously i think i think their problem for a couple reasons one i think they're embarrassing to the american public too i really do think they demean the prez but the office of the presidency of the united states i mean you know he sounds like a. egotistical teenager right is just so happy to see his name out there that he keeps tweeting mostly about himself and thirdly you know he said he has said the tweets are official presidential statements which means that he sees his tweets as

having at least having some power and i think people around the world see it god knows what north korea things when he attacks the leader of north korea or any other country or members of the republican senate or says that there are no transgender americans should be allowed to serve in the in the military so i don't what valerie plame is trying to do and i'm all for how about. let's take the other side for a minute how above here's a president directly communicating with people every day what's wrong with that. because he's telling lies for the most part. and again. i don't you know you i don't think you can trust anything that comes out of this white house from anybody certainly not from the president so he is spreading fake news his fretting false hoods around around the world and again i think we expect the president of the united states and larry i say this is republican or democrat right you know george bush had

a certain i disagreed with him on his policy but he respected the office of the presidency he did he maintained a great respect and dignity in the office so did his father so did everybody else donald trump he treats it like a place that. he's been treating a lot about hurricane harvey how do you assess thus far his handling of this. you know i think it's mixed frankly first of all i think the fema has been on the job from the response that i've seen with the governor abbott with the fema director bruce locke with. representing the president of course with the local mayors i think the agencies have been cooperating and doing as much as they can to help people down in that area trumps tweets i find it very strange first of all he's obviously fascinated by this hurricane and he if you read the tweets he brags about how big it is it's almost like he sees it as an accomplishment of the trump white

house that we have the biggest storm ever to hit in the last twenty years it's like he bragged about the size of the inauguration instead of focusing on the poor people down there who need help and i mean there's something else he talks about the size the fact that this is a bigger storm than we've ever seen before never makes a connection to climate change of course we're seeing bigger and worse storms a largely meteorologist all say this because of climate change as hurricane harvey bore down on texas friday he announces a ban on transgender people serving in the military he pardons sheriff arpaio and he tarred swayze was. what do you make of those three things on that friday night. well you would i for a long time has seen the friday night dump. larry i don't think we've ever seen so much dumped on. and i don't think we've ever seen anybody use

a national or natural disaster hurricane to get this bad news out there. that would reflect badly on him but i think all three of those moves well two of the three certainly are a disaster and by the way it was not an accident that he put those up at the time he knew is going to pardon a pio we knew he was going to follow through on the drip transgender thing we thought that corker was on thin ice and he just chose a time when he thought that rightly that the networks and cable news would not be paid and would not pay as much attention to it bill when did transgender in the military become a big problem. i don't remember it being a problem. i think if you ask anybody and i have anybody in the military and i've talked to some generals about it too they don't see it as a problem i mean we're talking larry what may be point zero zero one percent right

if that and these are men and women who are serving today in uniform proudly serving the united states of america we ought to be grateful to them rather than throwing them out of the military they're in iraq they're in afghanistan they're in game and they're across across the globe i'm sure some in south korea. and you know i say the same thing about them as the. americans. are all l.g. beauty americans with if they want to put on the uniform and volunteer to serve this country then god bless you and thank you for your service i think this this is this is nothing but pure discrimination i remember evolved to trump donald trump promise he was going to be the most gay friendly president ever and he voc a trump said she was going to hold her father to that promise both of them being made on that promise and the joe pio part. i got to tell you from all the outrage is that that we've seen and heard from donald trump from

accusing barack obama for wiretapping you know trump tower which he didn't firing james comey whatever you name it i think this pardon of joe arpaio is the worst. because the message it sends is you can defy the law you can defy the constitution of the united states you can be an out right racist and that's ok as long as you're a friend of the president of the united states now you know clearly donald trump has the authority under the constitution to pardon anybody who wants which is something we maybe ought to revisit for any president but this is the first time a president has used his constitutional power to reward somebody for violating the constitution if that doesn't turn things upside down. or what does racial profiling

it's got to we're totally over the line here go ahead well i was just going to say remember what arpaio was was found guilty of that the judge said no what you're doing is deliberately racially profiling latino's and stopping people just because they have brown skin they've committed no crime and demanding to see their papers and arpaio said i don't care what you say i'm going to continue to do it and donald trump is saying ok with me the other thing is larry i think and other people have made this point is i think what donald trump is saying he's this is the message to michael flynn and to paul maddow forte and to roger stone and a carter page and maybe to jared christian or don't worry about robert mueller if you get indicted a pardon. over the weekend said jerry state rex tillerson said the president speaks for himself when it comes to values what do you make of that. my question is so why

is rex tillerson still on the job why doesn't he quit i thought it was stunning and he said that on fox news sunday as we know to chris wallace. and what we're tillerson in the context right chris wallace ask the secretary of state told us and whether people around the world might be concerned for after what happened in charlottesville until august and said i don't think i'm paraphrasing but very close to this i don't think there's any doubt that people around the world know what america's values are and that all americans share those values and chris wallace follow up and said all americans even the president and for tillerson he could have said of course the president is right of course i speak for the present and said he said no donald trump speaks for himself. but i don't remember ever seeing a cabinet member break with the president the way bill always great talking to you

i hope to see in washington soon we'll see at the prom fave we just got started are a lot ari i think you know the other day failure for us great guy we thank him for joining us on this edition of politicking remember you can join the conversation on my facebook page or tweet me at kings things and don't forget use the politicking hash tag and that's all for this edition of politicking. about your sudden passing i've only just learned you worry yourself and taken your last turn. your act caught up to you as we all knew it would i tell you i'm sorry i could so i write these last words in hopes to put to rest these things that i never got off my chest. i remember when we first met my life turned on each breath . but then my feelings started to change you talked about more like it was again still some more fun to feel those that didn't like to question our arc and i

secretly promised to never be like him it said one does not leave a funeral in the same as one enters the mind it's consumed with death this one different person to speak to now because there are no other takers. to claim that mainstream media has met its maker. plus. all the food we don't need. everyone in the world should experience flu and you'll get it oddly all the role in. the world according to just. look up the modern world cup i am sure there are. guys i made a professional is powerpoint to show you how artsy america gets into the greater

media landscape arts scene is not all laughter all right we are a solid alternative to the bullshit that we don't spew liberal or conservative and as you can see that is barbara real let's do the facts and either talk you have left these talking head righties oh there you go above it all to look out world artsy americans in the spotlight down every really hot have no idea how to classify . and it actually took me way more time than i care to admit. greetings and sal you take. this week well the united states government convulses in the horror of having to react to another crisis of whether there are a few other horse or horror shows that have conveniently ducked under the radar of the news cycles let's start with the recent revelation that according to a frederick court judge. the democratic national committee and former d.n.c.

chair your friend and mine debbie wassermann schultz did indeed hold a bias and work to endorse hillary clinton at the expense of bernie sanders and his supporters despite dismissing the class action lawsuit brought by burning supporters seeking redress for lost campaign donations federal court judge williams lock in his court order states in a bally waiting plaintiff's claims at this stage the court assumes their allegations are true that the d.n.c. and wasserman schultz held a palpable bias in favor of clinton and sought to propel her ahead of her democratic opponent but while the d.n.c. primary rigging got off with really nothing more than a vigorous scolding by the judge attorney general jeff sessions and president donald trump decided that a militarized police force is a good police force speaking out the perturbed order of police police convention in nashville tennessee attorney general sessions exclaimed we will not put superficial

concerns above public safety the executive board of the president will sign today will ensure that you can get the lifesaving gear that you need to do your job and send a strong message that we will not allow criminal activity by a once and lawlessness to become the new normal my jeff sessions and person nation yes because. as we all know armored personnel carriers and those lifesaving grenade launchers and bayonets are perfect perfect for combating all that criminal activity and lawlessness limits what happens when citizens practice their constitutionally protected rights of freedom of speech and assembly how lawless of them so the d.n.c. gets to keep on shooting a law enforcement gets back to you know gets back their equipment beating on people looks like it yeah it looks like it's time for us to start watching the hawks.

as the bottom. like you know i got. this. week so. well corona watching the harks i am tyrol voted for and. so the big c. will slap on the wrist meanwhile hey let's put some more military gear back in the hands of the polies because they do so well with it they do they really do they love it really. and that's right and you know what your show me earlier today illegal districts had they been great to be. police and there's a police department that just takes care of the l.a. school district but they get them. tested for high school get before we get in the

grenade launchers for high school kids because we all know that police guarding high school kids in l.a. apparently need grenade blowing right and obviously. law and order yes speaking of law nor a lack thereof federal judge williams lock dismissed the lawsuit the class action lawsuit that was brought against the b m c a our good friend debbie. stating in a judicial order that even assuming that the allegations are true which he's basically saying look you got assume the allegations are true that they did do this it's impossible he's saying the judge is saying it's impossible to test any fraud claims against the d.n.c. in federal courts basically telling these people that like look whether this actually happened or not it's not up to the courts to decide whether this was right this is up for review because the d.n.c. is technically a private organization to figure that out now the mc does get public money and so there is kind of a gray area there whether they're public or private this point but that is up for

those of the d.n.c. democrats to solve themselves it's a private organization but you know a lot of private companies i mean corporations get tax breaks technically public funds are through but they're not a government agency about why this whole act of war if then so many was an act of war and we should have done all this if that's all we're going to say and i don't care that it's a political party that or a private organization that's private citizens coming together getting now. these private citizens got together and decided to steal the election for what i did i stole a lot of elections that i think is a whole politics i'm sure the republicans have done and every else done the same thing by a dad which is deflect from anything that's going on and make sure nobody one side anybody but the ones that isn't there a little idea the judge did that kind of labor smart a little bit. yeah so lawyers for the d.n.c. as you said had argued this whole thing was they weren't bound by a law to create fair elections even though like we had during that they said well you know we could be in backrooms just decided with

a bunch of people smoking and decide we don't have to even have primaries which is a whole very strange thing that's what angered and upset a lot of the progressive base so the judge kind of said this whole thing about that the argument that the d.n.c. lawyers made but impartiality and even handedness are nothing more than political rhetoric not enforceable in federal courts what he wrote was quote the court does not accept this trivialization of the d.n.c. as governing principles the d.n.c. through its charter has committed itself to a higher principle and quote i would say the judge has to remind the democrats what they stand for they have to themselves up to hold themselves to our principle what they say they don't have to the democrats say they don't care how beautiful all old voted for these two parties it's absolutely ridiculous the idea that there is no problem i think that's all it is it's there's democratic principles are a wonderful thing as are certain republican principles the problem is nobody's following them anymore and even to judge that you know this judge is like no you

know what you know there's a wonderful thing a militarized police. the american civil liberties union agrees with. that through the media we have an epidemic in the united states of police using excessive force particularly against people of color with this reason and that's mounting at the part of the logic to arm the police with weapons of war so well with the democrats on one side basically saying. well actions are kind of we don't care we can be as we want and the republicans and from the other side saying the police. what is there. in an effort to clean up our waterways and cut down on fossil fuels over the last decade governments around the world have started implementing various forms of taxes and bans on those thin plastic bags some of gently nudge consumers in the right direction by incentivizing reusable bags while others have taken a stricter approach implementing punitive taxes or banning and plastic outright no country however has taken an approach to chromium as kenya where after three

attempts the government has finally succeeded in banning plastic bags because they're punishable by a fine of up to forty thousand dollars and four years in prison seriously and not only does the law target stores and businesses police will have the power to arrest anyone spotted carrying a plastic bag on the street so the question of how tough is too tough in the war on the ultra thin but ultra controversial plastic shopping bag wow what a mess and i never i never knew that this was good for the environment you know when he was plastered but i didn't realize it was this heavy oh yeah there's really no important. measure going to you know whole foods or trader joes with a plastic bag of sugar water heaters but instead of just the passive aggressive condescension you get from the person that they can't even bring around bags you. know it's going to be like you don't bring your own bags. police or your borders and forty graham pearman over what's interesting is you're in the u.s.

like in most places around the world we get let off easy we you know we'd like to you know complain all the. taxes you know the taxes we put in to try to get people to stop using force that will work but if you go to a place like ireland thirty seven is a great hong kong fifty actually there's a city in texas. the charges as much as a dollar every time you use this plus the. many many many countries especially africa ones i've actually complete ban is completely you cannot use them whatsoever . for using them but i don't think anyone's really have this every year but for your final threatens of the present for using pasta you know that serious one of the. thing is. it's there's a good side the down side of this that helps the environment obviously we should be using these petroleum products in general that's fine but there is

a little bit of an issue that hasn't really been thought through is that kenya about three percent of their population actually is employed in the plastic bag industry which is a tough thing when you're actually having all these manufacturers and people are getting jobs from it. so that's going to be another target that you know and you're talking about tens of thousands of workers that are i mean if the if the ban works that's great but what could end up happening is that you have kenyans who are living on two dollars a day. one more or less but two dollars a day getting forty thousand dollars fines well this is a great it's going to disproportionately hurt poor people a lot more than it's going to hurt the people at the top obviously we always see that across the board and i think that's also an interesting microcosm of the look we have to stop using certain products we are using you know these plastic boiler radical hamill's or microbial thing and yeah you know we've got to stop using things but at the same time that we stop using these things and get you know

humanity off the addiction to the things that damage ourselves on the arab and around us we also have to start looking at what are we going to do to put in place to make up for the loss of job when you say ok over three percent of population can you works in the bad plastic bag making you history. you've got to come up with something but those people to do otherwise like you said just that and those are out of a job now because you also have. business owners who have put a lot of money into this and if african country after african country starts doing . bans and they made a huge part of a business in kenya and other places there those those business owners are going to be in a large amount of people are going to need help and there needs to be some sort of structure and that's where that next stop is you can break a window you can get out to say pass a law but then you have to have that process of what do you. say yeah exactly and i think we will see that i think we're going to see the resourcefulness step up

people's you know humanity is. step up and say now we have a better idea here's we're going to do all right as we go to break. topics we've covered a facebook and twitter see our poll shows that are coming up. to be truth behind the flooding that we're seeing take place in texas and then sean stone sits down with journalist. to discuss the latest on the crisis in venezuela states to. the american middle class has been railroaded by washington politics. big. boy that's how we. are in this country. that's where i come in.

i'll make sure you don't get railroad. in the. i made a. power point. an alternative to the we don't you liberal or conservative and as you can see that is barbara we don't skew the facts either talking you have left these talking out righties oh there you go. so look out world is in the spotlight down every lead heart of religion and a class of runners that actually took me way more time than i care to admit. in response to the great mississippi river flood of one nine hundred twenty seven that displaced over six hundred thousand two hundred thousand of whom were poor

minorities american poet robert lee frost wrote blood has been harder to damn back than water just when we think we have it impounded safe behind new barrier walls and let it breaks away and some new kind of slaughter following the one nine hundred twenty seven flood than president herbert hoover did little to help the african-american sparking the migration north to more industrialized cities led many blacks to leave the republican party and change the face of politics for a century this week's natural disaster in texas especially the houston area is a result not just of bad luck and increasingly violent storms but a political failing both to the residents of texas and to the land itself so what happened well part of the problem can be traced back to excessive on regulated housing development in wetland areas nearly six point five million people currently reside in the houston woodlands sugarland area that makes up the metropolitan area including and surrounding the city of houston up from around four million people

just twenty years ago more people coming to houston to pursue jobs in the booming energy health care and aerospace and biomedical fields meant the need for more housing and construction workers who would also need housing despite federal regulations governing need destruction of wetlands or saturated lands made up of marshes or swamps he used it has seen over fifty thousand acres of wetlands just. droid are paved over and the last twenty years houston's fort bend county saw fifty three percent increase in impervious surfaces like asphalt and concrete between two thousand and one and two thousand and eleven during the same time period harris county saw a twenty six percent and crease and the k.t. prairie area saw a seventeen percent increase of course houston needed homes no one can deny that but where and how those homes were built and the infrastructure around it has put the entire houston area and its two decade economic boom in serious jeopardy so weapons aren't just smelly places where mosquitoes live they play an incredibly

important role in the abatement of flood waters and they probably ask yourself how does wetlands help in a flood well wetlands act as natural sponges that hold and slowly disperse things like rain snow melt ground water and most importantly flood waters according to the university of maryland center for environmental science natural ground cover like wetlands creates just ten percent runoff with the rest being absorbed in the air or ground into the water table but with impervious ground cover like concrete you get over fifty percent run off with only fifteen percent absorbing into the groundwater tables this means that the very flat city of houston is covered in asphalt and concrete to such an extent that when heavy rains and storms come which are more frequent there just isn't anywhere for the water to go so it sits destroying homes and lives regulation should have done its job but as with most environmental regulations no one is overseeing the implementation or administering punishment to

those who break these regulations and a lot of people are breaking those regulations in ninety nine it became federal policy that there would be no net loss to wait in the united states that means that of developers want to pave over a marsh they have to get a special permit and they must create mitigation for the last two years ago the houston chronicle found that over half of the permit records they reviewed showed little to. no evidence of compliance with federal mandates compliance could be as little as just creating retention ponds they also found that since one thousand nine hundred ninety the army corps of engineers has issued over seven thousand permits to destroy wetlands in the houston area and they are in no position due to budget local politics to change that right before retiring after eighteen years having houston's harris county flood control tester act mike tell them told pro publica last fall that his office had no plans to study the effects of climate change that he doesn't believe in the scientific evidence that shows that

development is making flooding worse and asserts that the idea that these magical sponges out in the prairie would have absorbed all that water is absurd here's the thing those retention ponds gutters and sewers are designed based on the science and natural activities of those magical sponges we call wetlands and well houston hire the floods are last year that guy hasn't got the budget or any staff says his appointment in may in addition republicans in congress are laser focused on removing any even more environmental regulations to building a housing development how democrats are more interested in clutching to conspiracy theories than protecting lives and the environment it doesn't seem like washing is ten swamp will be very useful and bringing back the swamps we need. most definitely true to all of them. to the. brilliant breakdown that you gave of what's going on in houston by also saying that the u.s.d.a. and natural resources conservation service did an inventory back in ninety two

regarding whether lives are being converted to other uses of the between eighty two and ninety ninety two around seventy percent of us wetlands had already been converted into developments that's incredible in. my father's political career want to get personal my father of political career was based on trying to. when i'm in the neighborhood i grew up with him when he ran for mayor of brooklyn park back in the regular of nineteen ninety and he was doing it because the city wanted to put him storm curb and gutters and storm sewers and basically pave everything over one we already had ditches in a well i'm going to act as a natural system you have water to go and heavy storms this is a problem but we've been in oregon and now it's coming full circle road to buy this in the but terrible problem and there's very and this is the thing that it's not just about the flooding it's you know we can we can do a lot of things to mitigate and we can do

a lot of things to help people in these these kinds of disasters and whether it's climate change or not it doesn't really matter there's this is what this is what matters is what happened in houston and the fact is it's story after story every year in the houston chronicle and all these papers saying this is a problem this is a problem we've been told her kid for twenty years save the well and save the outlands why because it keeps your house from flood it's very simple and the other problem that arises that only fifteen percent it's estimated of people who live in houston of houston homeowners have flood insurance and flood insurance comes out of this federal program that sadly that underwrites most thing the national flood insurance program the problem with that program is it's completely out of date with this flood plain information also it's heavily and. government program that would surprise surprise so it could collapse is one thing but the problem is that it doesn't. doesn't have enough money because they need more studies to update the information on flood plains the problem the new administration is saying they want

to cut one hundred ninety million dollars from that program and the one hundred ninety million dollars is exactly what the cost to update the information on flood plains it's true it is going in circles because of politics while people's homes are destroyed is truly despicable of what is going to go to one of or issues that we talk about here all the time of watching the hawks is the structure of caring about him. structured want to spend money on infrastructure i want to update infrastructure which i will tell it to everyone here in the u.s. and everyone around the world infrastructure is going to be about the only thing that can help at least delay the effects of climate change whether you believe it's manmade or not having all around us and used them as a good example wetlands were destroyed not replaced adequately here is the major problem you've got now of course there's other mitigating factors true it can be argued but not having a place for the water to go is a pretty big was telling mother nature you can do it better not a great idea. well are good for goldman sachs themselves back in the

headlines once again this time for conveniently getting a free pass from the trumpet ministrations new round of sanctions against the beleaguered nation about his way alone and their president nicolas maduro so goldman sachs going to parties on its new found exempt status. the trials and tribulations for the citizens of his whaler being exacerbated by the united states to sanction happy mentally our own sean stone recently sat down with journalist and author pepe escobar and discussed the state of affairs in venezuela and what the future holds for the poor south american country. how do you perceive this conflict going on currently because there's a lot of perspectives as far as the fact that the door of the president trying to essentially recreate the constitution creating the super congress that's basically giving him more power do you see this as a potentially good thing for the country ultimately leading to more chaos and dissension in what could ultimately lead to a civil war sean that if it is well it's extremely complicated and i wish we had

less. but. ok to basic scenario. they called for some saying that is allowed by the constitution the nine hundred ninety nine constitution dead was discussed in approved do you go charges at the beginning of the first job as governor. you know only four months they you know they congregated people they started a discussion they made a modification there was a referendum on the constitution was approved was a very fast process because even as well and wanted a new constitution at the time there is a previous or yes you can call for a national a constituent assembly to discuss possible amendments to the constitution. call just the latest election for exactly that the problem is the opposition boy caught this thing from the beginning and boycotted not really

as you read it in american corporate media or european corporate media there were very violent protests if you go to reliable web sites if you go to fin is well analysis in english which is a very very good website that it is also critical of many aspects of the government you have the whole numbers are there proving once again that it was not unilateral riskily its own people what this was was a rehearsal sue prepare western public opinion for something that might happen and what might happen once again is regime change don't forget of it as well as others . regime change in syria yet the whole scene was other centocor but the difference is even if it is well as in sol sco. colombe has

a partnership with neat and that ties with nato and takes in this so-called arc of instability the pentagon arc of instability this means that need to. close partnership the area gaming scenarios for regime change even as well this is has been going on for quite a while delete war game was. a months ago. one of those stupid names they come up with really. military guards or something like that and they were it gave me with the columbian forces and they were gaming the usual more do you know special forces dropped across the border from colombia into fit as well and they still are up a lot of trouble there really put then surely a response the response by the government the next day we see headlines all over the world dury skilling its own people and then we have bashar al assad all over

again so you know it's not very creative but it's always the same modus operandi so this has been this is. in the books mike but. yeah a few days ago he said yes we can even know about regime change possibilities so yeah you know nazi has it and when you see this from a latin american point of view people in latin america you know you presume in argentina where everybody. in america. you are the exactly what it's what could happen and there is no self some merican what america unity at the moment to prevent the possibility of regime change even as well. the noble cassini spacecraft may be approaching its final days before its twenty year old mission is over and boy is they given us all all we can before it's having orbiting saturn for the past thirteen years cassini has been transmitting

groundbreaking images and data giving space scientists an unparalleled glimpse into the distant planets environment earlier this year cassini made headlines when i helped discover that saturn's moon and the lettuce is covered in oceans releasing hydrogen a potential energy source for extraterrestrial life. the spacecraft manage a photographic dive in between saturn and its famous ray. ng's for the first time ever and providing previously unseen footage of the eight main rings from the inside out but before cassini is set to run out of fuel in two weeks and rain down the saturn surface and a ball of fire it's still on track to carry out several missions i just measuring the length of a day on saturn and gathering data on the planet's atmosphere very good cassini very good we will definitely talk about it when your mission is finally over bring blows up on my own i never thought i'd see the inside of saturn's rings and right there it was pretty good for me to go to look at us humans can do when we're not

you know bulldozing wetlands or you know equipment is a military hardware look how little a bunch of a bunch of people from different countries all get together and do something and somehow manage despite all of that i don't like this show everybody that is our show every day remember everyone in this world we're not told we're loved enough so i tell you all i love you i am tired and i'm sad for the wallace keep on watching the arcs another great great day and night everybody.

welcome to on contact today we discussed the rise of white violent right wing hate groups with. today will we have it will be see is a new. emboldened the radical right that feels that they have now the political space and the justification to ally themselves with this reactionary ministration and to carry out the desires the aspirations of the white race is right the ones to make america great again. with chris hedges. as the country disc.