coming up on r t the u.s. orders russia to close down its consulate and san francisco and scaled back staff at others have the latest and what it all means for u.s. russia relations plus multiple explosions at a chemical plant and probably taxes will explain how unprecedented flooding in the area caused multiple fires. and the pentagon confirms the u.s. has thousands more troops in afghanistan than previously thought and more are likely to follow will break down u.s. involvement in afghanistan by the numbers.

it's thursday august thirty fourth thirty first four pm in washington d.c. i'm actually banks and you're watching our t.v. america we begin today with the breaking news coming from the white house the state department has ordered to russia to close its council life and san francisco into an exit buildings in washington d.c. and. this comes in response to russia demanding that the size of the u.s. mission and russia cut down i mean they're calling this acted tit for tat to raising tensions between the u.s. and russia for more on this here is r.t. correspondent jacqueline. well this decision on the part of the u.s. today really is signaling a new low for u.s. russia relations and it comes just after the beginning of this month fresh sanctions were signed by president trump against russia and in contrast to that sort of retaliatory measure just two days ago president trump was saying that he had hope and confidence that. that the two countries could come together find

common ground and work together finally well i hope that we do have relations with russia i say loud and clear i've been saying it for years i think it's a good thing if we have great relationships or at least good relationships with russia that's very important and i believe someday that will happen. it's a big. country that we should get along with and i think we will eventually get along with russia so realistically this all started last year when russia was being accused of having meddled in the us presidential election allegations of course that are unfounded and have not been backed up by any concrete proof and in december we saw the first come from the side of the u.s. at that point they expelled thirty five russians from the country and started an acting round after round of sanctions against russia now today we see the answer from the u.s. after earlier this month russia did decide to reduce the u.s. embassy numbers in russia by seven hundred fifty five people today as answer does

come as the u.s. deciding to close the consulate in san francisco and the and the next in new york city and one here in washington d.c. now what we're seeing is all of this is being from based on the claims that russia interfered in the u.s. elections and at the end of the it's being used to continue to be used as a springboard to attack and take action against russia and in fact at the end of the statement that came from the state department today they did promise that the u.s. is prepared to take further action if they consider it to be warranted which clearly it does not take much for them to decide to do so joining me now to continue this conversation is former cia officer and counterterrorism specialist philip giraldi thank you so much for joining us bill up now in your opinion was this move today expected and was it a smart move by the u.s. . no it wasn't expected at all made up the decision by russia most recently to reduce the number of staff wanted to create parity between the two

countries where russia would have as many people working at its embassies here in the u.s. as the u.s. would have been in russia so we were at a parity situation as now they're suddenly comes out of the blue and it's again destabilize the situation and at the same time we have trump talking about relations with russia so you have to wonder who is calling the shots here i want to read you a statement from the department of state they put out a statement today saying quote the united states has fully implemented the decision by the government of the russian federation to reduce the size of our mission in russia we believe this action was unwarranted and detrimental to the overall relationship between our countries would you agree and wasn't russia just responding to the sanctions the u.s. says you know exactly russia was responding to the sanctions that the obama administration imposed want to expel thirty five diplomats now these are diplomats

not just personnel of the embassy these are senior people who also close down several for so he is one here in the washington area who want to new york so it's like for tact going on here but the u.s. is the one that's pushing it and you have to wonder why if they were foolish and chips the relationship with russia which is important and trump and said it's important why do they persist in doing this and as a man you say today's move is hardly a sign that the trump administration is seeking to improve relations with russia what exactly do you think will happen to us russian relations now. well i expect their russia will feel compelled to do something in response and and of course this will this will probably lead the state department to do something else and it's just the stabilizing it makes no sense if there is something specific that the u.s. government or the russian government in this situation sees as

a critical issue i would understand it but this is not the case this is just something that is is put out there again for public consumption now and the state department said we have chosen to allow the russian government to maintain some of that the annexes in an effort to arrest the downward spiral in our relationship to love all this and do anything to help us russia really. well and certainly not going to help us russian relations at that level of government i think the u.s. public is probably starting to get very confused about this as you noted in your broadcast there has been no evidence that russia actually interfered in the election and a lot of this does it is being driven by that perspective in. congress of course with the media. and want to. be pushing back a little bit but as i say who's in charge here you know who is making the decision

and similar earlier you said now the state department is cutting more russian staff in the last which will invite yet another response by moscow this creates an endless cycle of punishment and a response from which there is no easy way out philip we have about a minute left how do you think russia will respond to that. well i'm. judging it basically on a lot of her potence responses in the past because generally fairly restrained and it's very proportionate in terms of what he does i think he will probably have be feel compelled to do something but i'm hoping it will be relatively mild brooke because just because you. know the relationship does no good for anyone it's not good for russia is not good for the united states it's not good for the american or russian people and the fact that someone in the white house someone in the administration is pushing this kind of policy is quite disturbing we're going

to have to leave it there that's former cia officer and counterterrorism specialist the bludger all do you think is so much thank you. over now to our continued coverage of harvey now a tropical depression over twenty five trillion gallons of water has fallen on texas at least thirty have died and dozens more are injured minutes ago the white house announced trump is pledging one million dollars of it on aid to harvey relief efforts and as the situation unfolds the community and city officials are now facing new concerns overnight two explosions erupted at a chemical plant and crosby texas trinity chavez joins us now live from our new york studio trinity what do we know about these fires so far. now this is an area of confusion while the chemical company arkema says that there was two explosions and residents reported hearing pop like sounds local fire officials are not calling the incidents explosions they're saying that they're intense small fires is

something the plant owners predicted what happened now see these chemicals at this company are used to me things like on cops and hoses well those chemicals they need to stay cool but the end flooding knocked out all the electricity and two sources of backup power there for resulting in what officials are calling a chemical reaction and resulted in a fire i don't want the public to thank these are massive explosions we're trying to make sure that our citizens are comfortable and what's going on and they know the truth and so with that these are small container ruptures that may have a sound they have a sound of a pop or something of that nature this is not a massive explosion. there are nine containers total this is just one of the three containers they last refrigerator on so we can expect to have similar types of decomposition in those trailers and maybe all nine of them but workers cannot assess the situation from the ground just yet because the water still remains too

dangerous trinity be the spread of these chemicals obviously can't be a good thing on do we know the kind of health risk better associated with breathing in these chemical. well officials are saying that these intense chemicals are organic peroxides and they believe that they are nontoxic but at a press conference today richard rendered an ark my executive would not say that these chemicals were in fact non toxic but he did say the fumes were noxious officials even compared the boat to that of a barbecue but environmental protection agency experts say that this is much more dangerous let's take a listen in general these types of materials will be putting. if they if they either right or bird well they're going to be put off gases that are probably not what you could have from the normal barbecue will be in many cases more dangerous you certainly would want to read it because that's the kind of thing that that

could get in your lungs and cause she would never want to be exposed to it on your skin. and that seems to be exactly what happened to fifteen deputies who responded to the fire they all complained of respiratory your attention and went to the hospital thirteen of those fifteen deputies have been released but what's so concerning is the fact that there are more fires expected to occur we fully expect that the other eight containers will do the same thing. the water is still in our facility and preventing us from accessing the facility. and we believe at this point that the safest thing to do is to allow the other eight containers product in those to degrade. officials nor the plant executive to permit exactly how big these fires will be or the kind of damage they'll bring it's all speculation at this point but what we do know is that the smoke that was seen by these fires was estimated to be about thirty to forty feet tall right now residents within

a mile and a half radius have been evacuated but environmental experts warn that while these chemicals are still in the air to wear as much clothing as possible and find something that you can use as a mask to cover your face from inhaling this material and add that since the fire could spread through the air very quickly in this case maybe having a lot of water around isn't such a bad thing thanks for staying on top of this story trinity that i was trying to travel as reporting in new york thank you say it all too familiar with the destructive nature of hurricanes is helping texas with the search and rescue operations officers from the florida fish and wildlife conservation commission deployed to houston on monday this comes just days after the. twenty fifth anniversary of hurricane andrew as marina pour ny reports the damage caused by harvey is drawing attention to flooding concerns in miami.

this was my walk to work on august first when miami endured four hours of thunderstorms. in the busy downtown brickell district cars stalled on every block streets turned into rivers pradesh koreans were left stranded and drainage failures were put on display like never before in miami beach a power outage knocked out the anti flooding storm water pumps which are not equipped with backup generators experts say storm water flooding will worsen unless miami's poorly designed and outdated infrastructure is updated vit the elevated c. we have less you know less reports for our infrastructure our roads from this things so what happens is whenever we have heavy rain falls there is little room for our for draining the excessive excessive rain and

that causes flooding and the higher this the level becomes the more dire the situation will be miami has already spent an estimated five hundred million dollars to fight rising sea levels meanwhile some experts say massive construction projects underway throughout the city exacerbate the flooding because land where water could previously drain has been paved over and made impermeable a two point eight million dollars pumping station is currently under construction in miami's old neighborhood city engineers say it should be operational in september the peak of hurricane season both pumping stations are temporary solutions so they are not. solve the problem for ever they are meant to just prevent the very immediate. so. cause i said i was last week florida marked the twenty fifth anniversary of hurricane andrew the

category five monster made landfall in south florida destroying more than sixty three thousand homes claiming sixty five lives and costing twenty six billion dollars in damages today one hundred forty five officers from florida's fish and wildlife conservation commission are in texas supporting search and rescue operations on houston continues to feel the brunt from harvie concerns are rising that miami could be next. or to. defense secretary james mattis signed orders to begin deploying troops to afghanistan today however details of the deployment will not be released until next week last week president trump announced the u.s. will be upping its commitment to what seems to be a never ending war and now we are learning new details about the already existing number of troops in the country or to the pentagon confirmed this week as more than previously thought are to correspondent on

a pair of hello breaks down the numbers and how the military is able to shield the true number of troops on the ground anya that's right actually until this week the pentagon acknowledged eight thousand four hundred troops in afghanistan but speaking to reporters this week a pentagon spokesperson admitted that number is actually closer to eleven thousand a difference of about two thousand six hundred c. it turns out that original figure did not include troops on so-called temporary assignment as a spokes person dan a white explained madison's decision quote the secretary has determined we must simplifier accounting mythology and improve the public's understanding of america's military commitment in afghanistan keeping in that mission the pentagon will now include troops on temporary assignment in afghanistan politico reports mattis himself alluded to the lack of transparency in numbers recently telling journalist. traveling with him last week quote there is a very strange accounting procedures i inherited which apparently did not count

troops deployed to afghanistan iraq and syria for less than one hundred twenty days at a time now this is where things get tricky because while not as reviewed the way of the procedure for counting troops in all three of those countries he only announced a change for afghanistan leaving iraq in syria still in the dark in fact this very administration announced in march it will no longer disclose troop levels in either country quote in order to maintain tactical surprise according to the pentagon last week president trump announced he will send more troops to afghanistan this week brother of education secretary betty davis and blackwater founder erik prince was granted an op ed in the new york times to proclaim contractors not troops will save afghanistan secretary matt as will report on the situation in sudan to congress next week and promises to introduce more facts then but for now while the pentagon is attempting to bring about a guise of transparency we still have no concrete details spelling out the

president's path forward in that country only that quote we will win while exactly what victory means remains vague in washington on your part pill r.t. to continue this conversation i am now joined by matthew hoh former marine and combat veteran of veterans for peace and world beyond war and center for international policy thank you so much for joining us matthew now you just wrote an article called the lies in afghanistan and you also saw president trump the recent speech on afghanistan what did you think of his speech. well you know first thanks for having me on the first i was chuckling because you know the lies don't stop you know as your correspondent was just saying right there with general mattis talking about how he inherited the accounting procedure for troops in afghanistan just a few years ago he was in charge of that procedure so that was his procedure he did inherit it he was in sharjah of by being commander of central command he was in

charge of that whole thing there so the lies just keep going on throughout this war whatever beat whether it be about the whole war about how many people who are being sent there to fight it or just about whether or not how the war is actually going but with regards to the president's speech it was you know it was the basis form of fear mongering. it was just you know basically just blood loss the president used the long dead bodies of nine eleven victims he used dead american the imagery of dead american soldiers with no regard to using to the families of those people you know how they feel about it being used for political purposes but that has a great effect to the nice states because he's hailed as being presidential for doing those things his his speech is seen as uniting both the right and the left on

afghanistan it's this union of neo liberalism and neo conservative ism and so you walk away from a speech like that and you think my god this president just said that we are entering into an unending commitment to war in afghanistan and by extension also to the entire middle east the greater middle east and he. really as i saw it at the end of his feet tacitly threatened pakistan and. with nuclear weapons as well as very pakistan threw out a lot of his speech but also threatening a pakistan with nuclear weapons and the next day the media in the united states is abuzz with how presidential he seems and also to you can notice there is almost no response from the united states congress about this commitment to. a war in afghanistan because the president came off being presidential because he

talked about killing them so much and matthew i want to jump into your ad say you pointed out that despite previous troop surge isn't even with the u.s. and nato troops and tens of thousands of private contractors that the u.s. war in afghanistan has never achieve stability or think carrot so your pen and in your opinion will sending more troops now and change that no it doesn't and i don't believe that this administration is interested in changing that. this is an illustration has. the generals behind the president which is really important in all this is generals who occupy those civilian positions in the as a secretary defense and white house chief of staff and national security advisor they see the middle east and afghanistan as the edges of the empire and they view that success of attempts to democratize the middle east or to do counterinsurgency towards a win hearts and minds were failures in that the only thing that's been

a work in the middle east is subjugation just to punish those who are not lining up with us and so i don't believe the trump administration and again not really so much donald trump but the generals behind him or interested in progress as president bush or president obama's administration would have said by achieving elections or by winning hearts and minds or by having some kind of political control or economic development what we're going to see is just a lot more violence as we've seen in. iraq and yemen in order to just punish the population to subjugate them in order to get a military control as opposed to any type of political control as previous administrations that's right matthew we have a little bit under a minute left as a combat veteran who has struggled with the last thing psychological effects of war do you feel those who are sending young americans into these dangerous situations overseas appreciate the true have human costs and sacrifice their manhood by these

wars no no absolutely not they they are so far removed from it they are so distant from the actual price paid by those who fight no wars and those who are victimized by. you know what the afghans iraq is the syrians the in many ways except for our suffering and have been suffering for so long enough but what the service members are dealing with and their families the psychological wounds that lasts for so long and that go through generations because the children of men who come home just shattered by war grew up in households where it is a horrible or and i mean a horrible very difficult childhood having other what has been ruined by war matthew we're going to have to leave it there we greatly appreciate your thoughts that's matthew hoh former marine and combat veteran of veterans for peace and world

beyond war and center for international policy thank you again. boom bust is coming up next here on our team america all of the frames joins us for a quick preview of hi there wednesday hey what's up listen we got a new requirements setting in in the state of new york for financial services companies they're required to pay out big time for amped up internet security also my guests and i talked goal and surprise climb and what it could mean in the near future also the new c.e.o. of general electric and now drastic job cuts that's coming right up thanks so much lindsey. all that does it for now for more on the story as we cover to go to youtube dot com slash r t america also check out our website r.t. dot com forward slash america you can also follow me on twitter at actually banks underscore r t and don't forget to question mark.

where you are watching. for sure the more. when i do something a little embarrassing i try to stay a little undercover i feel bad and i try to take some time to myself to figure out where i might have gone wrong other people however seem to have absolutely no sense of humility or introspection and one of those people seems to be who my avid abdeen is a long time aide of hillary clinton she vice chair at the twenty sixteen presidential campaign while clinton was campaigning and all her pictures on her airplane are at jeezy concerts or when she was hanging out with chance the rapper or her talked about how soft like beyonce on the radio aberdeen was always not too far away often

right in the shot next to clinton she was very visibly one of the people responsible for clinton's entire twenty sixteen campaign she was the vice chairwoman so one could say that she did something a little embarrassing by being in a orchestrator of what was one of the worst presidential campaigns ever evan is also famous for her husband which is an entirely fair but that's what happens in the public eye her husband and the winner is the one who got caught sexting a million times to underage girls sending pictures of himself in his underwear and using fake names like. carlos danger i mean talk about embarrassing now that aberdeen should be held responsible for that only for like taking him back a million times when he'd been caught sexually preying on children she didn't do the thing herself but she partially condoned it by standing by him through the whole ordeal the embarrassing thing aberdeen didn't do for sure in regards to her

husband though was regularly forward classified emails to him according to the f.b.i. she constantly spent e-mails with classified information to wean her so maybe it's not fair to say that abby dean did anything embarrassing by being married to a man who sexed children but i think it's fair to say it's a little embarrassing on her part to constantly send him emails with classified information so in general things have been a little embarrassing lately for whom aberdeen so you might think she'd try to stay undercover for a little bit to figure out where she went wrong and take a moment of introspection but nope you'd be wrong because instead aberdeen is actually still seeking the spotlight by doing a fashion spread in w. magazine where she just posed in expensive clothes by her favorite designer. if i just helped loose such a pivotal election and got caught sending classified information to my ski husband i might try to avoid the spotlight it might not aberdeen she apparently feels just

. which is maybe the most embarrassing part about her overall. it's. called the feel we go from coming. every the world should experience. and you'll get it on the open road. the old according to just. welcome to my world come along for the ride.

most people think to stand out in this business you need to be the first one on top of the story or the person with the loudest voice of the biggest raid in truth to stand down and lose business you just need to ask the right questions and demand the right answer. the. question.

i. see frances is broadcasting around the world from washington d.c. tonight wells fargo is in the hot seat again with an expansion on the number of customer accounts it opens also net neutrality gets pushed to the back burner yet again and this comes as congress goes back to school on capitol hill in just days we've got the details on that and cyber security the state of new york is requiring financial services companies to overhaul their departments and it comes with a high price tag my guests tonight discuss stand by right now.

we have new information on the wells fargo fake account scandal the bank has revealed that up to three point five million accounts were potentially opened by its employees while under pressure to meet aggressive sales targets but without customer permission this is a one hundred thirty thousand account jump in those fraudulent accounts up from the two point one million originally reported one hundred ninety thousand of those incurred fees and charges the original investigation only covered the years between two thousand and eleven and two thousand and fifteen but investigators quickly saw that the scandal timeframe extended from four years to seven years the type of

accounts extend to five hundred seventy thousand. needless car insurance accounts opened without customer knowledge as well as five hundred twenty eight thousand customers which likely were signed up for online bill pay this scandal is the biggest in wells fargo's history it cost then c.e.o. john stumpf his job in the bank is also under congressional inquiry and an investigation by the justice department wells fargo is so far set to refund two point eight million dollars to customers in addition to three point three million and is already agreed to pay. next week a house committee was supposed to hold a hearing on net neutrality but on wednesday we learned that a hearing has been delayed until further notice but she has more on that for us now to what's the reason for this back burner ring of this well the committee invited

leaders from a bunch of different tech companies and internet service providers but none of them committed to even attending the hearing and they're kind of important in this debate the u.s. house energy and commerce committee was planning to meet next thursday to discuss the future of net neutrality under the obama administration broadband internet was regulated as a utility which stops providers from blocking or slowing websites it also prevents them from offering fastlane services but the trump administration wants to change that ever since i was appointed chairman of the federal communications commission congress knew it was in for a fight is moving forward but scrapping the obama rules though he knows he has more than congress to worry about executives from eight different internet companies and providers declined an invitation to testify in the hearing or even attend at all it's a fairly divisive issue in silicon valley though most companies that have spoken up

are the ones that support the current rules that includes facebook google. and amazon to name a few and according to a report from earlier this summer they were allegedly told by republican members of congress that they shouldn't push too far if they did that mean they might have problems with other policy issues that they care deeply about and republicans have been able to count on some providers like eighteen t.v. rights and comcast all of which support changes to the current rules but it's unclear exactly what they will support when it comes to those changes and they're already having a hard time with public support outside of the beltway and silicon valley leaders and how the rest of the country to worry about too and right now the figures aren't looking good in fact a recent study shows that a majority of americans who wrote to the f.c.c. regarding net neutrality want the rules to stay in place. it's an on going war isn't it yes that is tell us more about the study you mentioned who conducted it so

it was conducted by which is a consulting firm and it was funded by broadband for america which is a pro net neutrality group but what it did was basically analyzed all of the messages that americans were able to send to the f.c.c. were guarding net neutrality they were able to say i support the current rules i want changes and at the surface sixty percent were against. a proposal thirty nine percent supported them but when you were able to submit these messages which was done online it wasn't like you were writing a letter so they couldn't go through the physical copies of them you can you could have submitted an automated one that said yes i want to keep the rules the way they are no i want to see changes and they found that ninety eight point five percent of the personalized messages were in support of the current rules so a majority of these people want that submitted of course i've participated in this want to keep the rules the same now again this is by broadband for america i was funded by them when there are pro net neutrality group but you know going off

without data. and it doesn't look good for lawmakers that support the f.c.c. chair as current proposal right let's talk about this this hearing being delayed a trade association made some interesting comments about this well what did that groups so encompass which is a trade association association that represents a lot of these groups which is also pro net neutrality. published a statement regarding you know that the delaying of this hearing and they basically said if these proposals were to be enacted it would go the way of what has become of the cable industry right and we know how frustrated many americans are with their cable providers and they're saying listen if you implement these rules it could be really frustrating for customers and executives alike ok thank you very much. on august twenty eighth the new york state department of financial services kicked off strict new requirements for banks and financial

service companies in the state of new york they are now mandated to create larger scale cyber security programs they're also required to hire a so-called chief information security officer it's the first law of its kind let's bring in an expert on this please welcome todd shipley president and c.e.o. of euro software thank you so much for joining me on this big things are happening what are your thoughts on the state requirements. well thanks for having me this afternoon i think this is a fantastic thing that the seed of new york is actually doing now you have to remember that this kind of framework for assessing what they're doing for service here is not new the national institute of standards as been doing this for some time but the state of carroll state of new york has just finally implemented the law requiring that the banking industry actually do this and i think this as a first in the country will be a guy for other states to follow in the future one of the main compliance requirements is to hire a new chief information security officer some companies have this now it's going to

be called c.i.s. so it's not cheap in san fran. the numbers we've got you know the cost can go upwards of three hundred eighty thousand dollars for this person it's a big job j.p. morgan citigroup might be able to handle that but what about the smaller companies . well it's going to have a huge impact i think a lot of the other companies that you've named probably already have somebody in place the need to reassess the title probably but there are already somebody doing this function within the company the smaller banks that are looking to doing this will have to implement something now the good thing on the law is they don't have actually have to hire a person full time they can have somebody designated already within the company responsible for this or they can hire a third party to do this but it does come at a cost and they all need to understand that it's not just the cost to the person that is coming in to do this work it's the fact that the companies are now responsible for cyber security that they really haven't been responsible in the law before you know let's talk about cyber security in general you mention these costs

if we look at some of the numbers we have in this chart we see that since two thousand and nine look at these numbers go up spending on cyber security has increased pretty substantially topping over but about sixty billion dollars in two thousand and seventeen alone hitting point three five percent of the u.s. g.d.p. just to put this in perspective this type of increase in spending how hard will it be for any company to maintain the minimum requirements for you know state requirements or even federal requirements as they maybe come online. well that's going to be huge as war and more companies are put under regulation by there is the state or federal energies to comply with this is going to be huge but i think all companies are recognize that over the past decade the increase in requirements for cybersecurity of any kind has gone up substantially unfortunately it's a cost of doing business and they need to invest in it as part of the

infrastructure that is part of what the company does to prevent crime. and within their own networks you know we always say that you know bureaucracy in this sort of government infrastructure it just tags along right after technology and a lot of people would say this this is a long time coming especially after the so many happy yahoo hack things like that those are just media companies don't even financial firms but the maiden and costs on something like this someone who works in cybersecurity how much can any company expect to actually spend on maintaining systems. well they're going to spend a lot and that ends up being part of the problem there is not just an initial investment that brings in the equipment and the software to do it all these software devices and. procedures that are in place require maintenance and it's going to be have to cost at least forty or fifty percent probably of what they already spent for initial implementation so it's going to be huge for these companies to maintain that but they've already been doing this this is not

something new these companies understand that it's occurring so it's just part of what they've already been doing is just being identified now and that the cost is going you know astronomically high but it's something that they have to do otherwise they're never going to be able to be part of the internet world ok so you would say that a lot of these financial services firms especially have already got onboard themselves because you've got to keep your credibility in your safety for your customers but now it's being sort of. you know across the board they're trying to get sort of a uniform approach but what kind of a strain does this put on the system you've got to notify state regulators then seventy two hours of cyber security or data security instances breaches this system a bit vague. well it's hugely vague and this is going to end up being the problem when they say the cyber security event that impacts the system is that a spam e-mail that potentially comes in is it event that actually were somebody gets through the network and actually into the system it isn't clear yet what that

means and that's going to be one of the problems that these companies have to deal with it in. porting to the state is what is an event in the state has to be a little bit more clear about that i think that's going to eventually fall out but right now we don't know for sure what it means because the state hasn't defined it well enough for those companies to respond to it so it's going to be a big deal as you say something sort of vague like this the vague outline that these companies are getting as i mentioned before a drag on the system from a government perspective is the government sort of up arming to deal with a situation like this. well that's the part we don't really know yet is how they're going to be able to respond to all this data as it comes in what it's going to mean to them how are they going to critique companies for failing to report are they going to find them we're going to go we don't know yet. well it seems terrifying for a lot of these smaller companies to have this these vague sort of marching orders but do we know from the government what is enough and what's not enough as far as

whether or not a company is meeting these standards are we sort of in a holding pattern to see what for the rules are going to come out especially from a financial perspective for these companies. well i don't think so because if you look at what the state of new york has implemented it's the miss the national institute of standards technologies previous framework that's been around for quite a long time nist has been working on this for a decade or more i wrote about this you know a decade ago how to deal with risk assessment for law enforcement in the same space and nist has been working on this for a long long time and implemented this framework that the state of new york is doing so it's fairly straightforward and there is not a known everybody knows what the framework is interesting to keep up on on how this situation involved a new sop to a lot of people thank you so much todd shipley president and c.e.o. of euro software. thank you for having. hurricane harvey has not brought the boost

to our oil that some expected oil rose one percent today but u.s. crude stands at forty seven seventeen cents in fact oil prices fell this week analysts say the focus appears to be more on the lower demand from knocked out refineries than to hit the supply from producers. actually twenty five percent of u.s. refining capacity so far was slowed by the hurricane according to goldman sachs nearly three million of the eighteen million barrel refining capacity in the united states has been stopped members of the organization of petroleum exporting countries admit their stupefied opec has extended its agreement to restrict production and to boost prices and harvey has not helped opec has done this for months and just see no break meanwhile for the first time in two years gas prices hit above two dollars a gallon jumping fourteen percent on the news that motif the largest refinery in the u.s. or shut down by flooding from hurricane harvey it could remain close we've just

found out today for up to two weeks. time now for a quick break stick around though when we get back the new c.e.o. of general electric plans to carry out aggressive job cuts to get in line with expense cuts also my guest tonight top goal is a safe haven rally or are we seeing something longer term go to break here the number the. all the world. and all the news companies merely players but what kind of part does already america play r.t. america. america. just like.

all over the world all the world's a stage or. i'm a trial lawyer i've spent countless hours for a few documents to tell the story about the ugly side of. corporate media really uses to talk about. i'm not a pretty clear picture about how disturbing. for me. these are stories that no no. no you're close to the american. west. would you have for breakfast yesterday why would you put those ok as your wife. what's your biggest fear in the little bit on the right wing so let's talk

a little bit bored you say if you ever. thought about. exploring the topic doesn't belong to you now i do did you do to push more. it's a new job planned by a new c.e.o. new general electric chief executive officer john flannery now says the company will reduce staff at corporate headquarters and those occupy non revenue producing jobs in the partment such as human resources recruiting corporate security helicopter and jet operations and procurement just to name a few. no numbers have been released but those close to the situation tell the media that the cuts will be aggressive the plan is to take out two billion dollars in cost by the end of two thousand and eighteen according to g.e.

flannery will present a blueprint of those cost cuts to investors in november but jobs will go before that g. stock has fallen twenty three percent this year alone. and wall street showed a higher open today the dow jones industrial average was up two point three percent at opening at twenty one thousand nine hundred forty one and then the s. and p. five hundred went up two point two seven percent at two thousand four hundred sixty four the commerce department says pending by u.s. consumers a group point three percent in july the highest in three months also the federal reserve's preferred inflation measure increased one point four percent from july two thousand and sixty eight it's the smallest year on year increase since december two thousand and fifteen so we've got tepid feelings about a rate hike by the end of the year on top of that wages and salaries grew the a.d.p. jobs report indicates two hundred thirty seven thousand jobs were added definitely an option what was projected now in the previous session just after the government

raised its estimate of second quarter economic growth stocks climbed. gold breached thirteen hundred dollars this week so what brought us to this point and will this last please welcome c.e.o. of euro pacific capital peter schiff peter thank you so much for talking with me about this when one does well the other doesn't do so well we're talking about the dollar versus gold if you look at gold the u.s. dollar since november of last year up and down way down and then it swung right up spend the strongest. in a while let's just say but since the beginning of this year we've just seen it go straight out for saying a total decline now. short term drop off of the dollar is this a problem that's been happening for some time now. well i think the dollar had

a substantial rise based on the expectation that the fed would be able to normalize interest rates and unwind its massive balance sheet and the general belief that the fed's experiment had actually succeeded and that the economy was in better shape as a result and so the dollar kind of a road that rally and now i think it's starting to surrender those ill gotten gains you know the dollar is on pace for its worst year since one nine hundred eighty five we just finished the month of august a down month for the dollar it's been down six months in a row and so the weakness in the dollar is one of the reasons that the price of gold has been rising in dollar terms of what it has had risen much in terms of other currencies but i think that's about to change i think now that we've really kind of broken out gold's above thirteen twenty in dollars and in fact goal was strong most of today even as the dollar began the day ferber it did end negative

but goal was still up against all currencies and i do think that that trend is going to continue between now and the end of the year and then accelerate next year you know the argument can be made that political tensions with north korea pushed gold ob causing it to break thirteen hundred this weight but do you think. well goal was going up regardless of the political tensions in north korea which seemed to last just one day in fact gold was up that evening but it actually finished down the following morning so gold has been rising and it's not because of a safe haven you know if people really were concerned if there were geo political fear out there the stock markets would be falling but they're not the stock markets are right. so people are not buying gold because they need a safe haven at least not from geopolitical events they're buying gold to get out of the u.s. dollar they're buying gold to have safety from inflation which

a lot of people haven't understood the risk but i do think globally the risks are going to start to become more evident as a result of monetary policy that is this that around the world not just the united states but in europe and japan and china there's been a lot of money creation interest rates have been how the artificially low and i think currencies around the world are going to be losing value and so people want to get out of them and some people buy stocks and other people are buying gold and i think more and more people will be buying gold around the world and if we ever do get a real geopolitical threat then i think people will flock into gold as they dump equities but that's not happening yet let's take a little bit of. the dollar's decline since we're talking ninety seven down ninety three on the dollar index now some are saying that is a good thing. goldman sachs has said it's actually an attractive prospect and we should consider

a long trade on the dollar thought. well i think going long the dollar would be wrong i mean i think that trade is already played out and i think the better you know the real money to be made betting against the dollar but the question of whether or not a dollar going down is a good thing it depends on your perspective you know if you're a foreign if you don't own dollars if your debt is denominated in dollars if you buy commodities that are priced in dollars but your income is in other currencies that is a good thing and i think the weakening dollar will end up being a very positive event for a lot of people around the world particularly in the emerging markets that have a lot of u.s. dollar denominated debt and especially some of the countries that not only have dollar debt but that export commodities so they will benefit but. it is a negative for america because a weak dollar means that americans have less purchasing power so it means our standard of living goes down because things are more expensive for us to buy and ultimately it's going to push up interest rates says the world has to price in

dollar weakness into interest rates and so far the fed has been able to keep rates artificially low but a strong dollar made that much easier for the fed once it's fighting a weakening dollar the task is going to become increasingly difficult right so let's talk about those those rates traders in the u.s. they're more interested many times of course and knowing about fed policy we heard some tepid statements jackson hall last week we're talking looking at spending inflation by the fed's own index that it looks at pretty low do you think there could be an interest rate hike by december a lot of people say no do we see another rate hike at all much could it do to the dollar prices by the end of the year well either the dollar the dollar is going to go down regardless of what the fed does i mean the trend is in motion and you know the fed has shown a propensity to raise rates regardless of the economic data ever since trump was

elected president so i don't really know what they're going to do maybe they'll raise rates again before the end of the year but regardless i think they're very close to the end of the cycle i mean anybody who's smart now is looking beyond the next rate hike to the next rate cut because that's going to be the beginning of the next easing cycle which i think is going to take rates back to zero maybe even below zero it's going to on leash you know q.e. four which i think will be bigger than the first round one two and three combined and so those are going to be more important factors also look at the budget deficit that i think is going to be exploding over the next several years particularly if we go into recession but if we get tax cuts you know course we're going to have some big government aid package for the victims of the hurricane in the right by the intact. and you know all that money has to be borrowed because we literally have nothing save for a rainy day and when we have a day we're poor as you know we have to go and borrow the money ok real quick before we go we've got to talk about this debt ceiling september is

a big month for the u.s. government it heads up on capitol hill again it's not only going to talk about raising the debt ceiling but also to create a spending bill for the next fiscal year as we move into these talks do you think we'll see any sort of market reaction a real this turn into sort of another wait and see situation where we won't see any real market reactions until we either raise the debt ceiling or go into a shutdown of some sort. yeah well you know i don't think anybody really believes that the debt ceiling is gloc going to go off i mean this is a phony crisis that they've manufactured but you know the real crisis is the debt ceiling going up i mean i would love to see the debt ceiling stay there because that would shut down the borrowing and force the government to cut you know its size and spend less money but you know we're going to keep on raising the debt ceiling and that is the crisis because that means the debt keeps growing and so the downward pressure on the dollar is going to keep rising and you're not alone in that fair let me tell you oh thank you very much peter schiff c.e.o. of europe pacific capital. well time warner the parent company of c.n.n.

the mainstream media news giant says it is donating one hundred thousand dollars to victims of hurricane harvey and it's matching employee donations also stepping up to the plate comcast and d.c. universal it's giving one million entire nations to that relief effort something unique here the company will also donate advertising time to the organizations that are undertaking this aid so at least comcast is sharing the air but it kind of makes you wonder about these companies which directly profit from the hurricane ratings go up when you cover bad weather everybody in news knows this it's why we have the weather channel the pre landfall the preparations you can see it here when the storm hits the aftermath you show the tragedy in the cleanup you lie. the traumatized locals and you knock your ratings out of the park when they cry what's really odd here is offering power donations while making big money on the

devastation and most importantly the devastated victims but that's just a bit suspect to me. thank you for watching that's all for now check out the show on you tube you tube dot com slash boom bust our take thanks for the next time. they know me. i'm going to do just that if you're watching all the. swash jacob or.

the guys i made a professional is powerpoint to show you how artsy america fits into the greater media landscape is not all right but we are a solid alternative to the. liberal or conservative and as you can see from this bar graph we don't skew the facts either the talking head left these talking head righties oh there you go above it all to look at world artsy americans in the spotlight now every lead might have no idea how to classify as and it actually took me way more time than i care to admit ploughboy are selling you on the idea that dropping bombs brings police to the chicken hawks forcing you to fight the battles that still. produce offspring to tell you that what we gossip and tabloid let's file for the most important news today. on the cost of advertising tell me you are not cool enough and let's buy their products. all the

hawks that we along the border will watch. coming up on r t the u.s. orders russia to close down its consul one and san francisco and scale back stab at others while the latest and what it all means for u.s. russia relations. plus multiple explosions at a chemical plant and probably taxes will explain how unprecedented blooding in the area caused the multiple fires. and the pentagon confirms the u.s. has thousands more troops in afghanistan the previously thought and more are likely to follow will break down u.s. involvement in afghanistan by the numbers.

it's thursday august thirty first five pm in washington d.c. i'm actually banks and you're watching our team america we begin today with breaking news coming from the white house the state department has ordered russia to close its consulate in san francisco and to annex buildings in washington d.c. and new york city this comes in response to russia demanding that the size of the u.s. mission in russia because down many are calling this act a tit for tat raising tensions between the u.s. and russia for more on this here is our correspondent jacqueline booga. the decision by the u.s. to close the consulate in san francisco in the two annexes one here in d.c. and one in new york city is really signaling a new low for relations between russia and u.s. now this follows a new round of sanctions being signed off by president trump earlier this month trump himself has repeatedly said that he hopes for better relationships between

the two countries and in fact just days ago expressed confidence that. that could be achieved yet again and i hope that we do have good relations with russia i say loud and clear i've been saying it for years and i think it's a good thing if we have great relationships or at least good relationships with russia that's very important and i believe someday that will happen it's a big country it's a nuclear country it's a country that we should get along with and i think we will eventually get along with russia all this started last year when december and retaliation of allegations that russia meddled in the u.s. presidential election the u.s. decided to expel thirty five russians from the country at that time russia took it in stride and did not react but throughout the year we've seen further sanctions imposed and earlier this august the last straw was finally struck and putin did it i wonder about the u.s. embassy reduced its not numbers in russia by seven hundred and fifty five members

now today we do see the u.s. reaction to that reduction closing the consulate and the two annex this is the russian foreign minister sergey lavrov has expressed his disappointment by the move from the u.s. saying this was not started by russia and the timing of the u.s. closures is actually very interesting today the new russian ambassador to the u.s. has arrived has already started on the job and said that russia will react to this decision without any hysterics whatsoever both countries have called for better relations between the two of them and yet washington sort of tit for tat approach really doesn't seem to be getting in the way so now we can only wait and see what happens. washington d.c. joining me now and to continue this conversation a former u.s. diplomat him thank you for joining me jim now during the white house you during a white house press conference earlier today the spokesperson said this is a figure that was made by president trough this week the president himself repeated

he wants to have better relations with better relations with the russia so where is the disconnect between rhetoric and action. well i think the disconnect is between president trump and pretty much everybody who works for him present trump has been quite clear going way back to the campaign he wanted to improve ties with moscow he's been very consistent but you know just now he's added the words someday or eventually i think he realizes that he's not in control anymore a congress passed a bill which sanctions on russia with a veto proof majority virtually everybody around him including and especially after the departure of steve bannon is a globalist or a military man and they're deeply committed to maintaining a very strong hostile attitude toward russia and they don't care what the president wants he's in a box and he knows jim what is the diplomatic end pact of quote these office. i think is a symptom more than anything else remember that this is

a consulate and san francisco so it's not one to directly relates to diplomatic ties between the two countries but rather providing services visas for americans going to russia other services passport services and so forth are russians in the united states so those people will be inconvenienced business will be inconvenienced but again i think that's more of a symptom then what the real causes is that you have an entrenched class in the americas stablished been for whom bad relations with moscow are not a means to an end they are the end and they're in the driver's seat i want to read you a quote from the state department it says that we have chosen to allow the russian government to maintain some of its annex is an effort to arrest the downward spiral and our relationship and you touched on the betting you mentioned that some people will be and convenience because of this in lieu of but exactly how will this impact the u.s. russia relations. i think it's just a marker along the road to what has been people been speculating i don't know why

are we in a new cold war of course we're the new cold war we have been for some time it's going to deepen for some time and i think the real live the real the real real watershed wasn't this this is a symptom the real watershed was passage of that sanctions bill i think at that point everybody in moscow understood things are not going to get better any time soon and they could get a lot lot worse now we know the u.s. has started this test for tat firstly accusing russia with meddling and the us elections back in twenty six kenya with no purpose at all so what do you think of that where there is no proof at all and in fact even on the key allegation that was somehow russia that hacked the d.n.c. e-mails aside from the fact that the emails were true and they showed the kind of shenanigans going on on the democratic side of the campaign is that there has been strong information put out by former inventors of the u.s. intelligence community showing by technical means that it couldn't have been a hack it must have been a download and a leak from an insider do you see that be reaping reported in the american

mainstream media know the narrative goes on because that in accusing republicans of racism is all they got so they're going to milk it for all it's worth and you know we have about forty seconds to laugh now la the new russian ambassador arrived in the u.s. today do you think the timing of that played a role in the u.s. if they had i don't think it probably did i can't rule it out but i don't think so i think that when the russians downgraded the number of american personnel in russia remember that was a response to president obama's sanctions we haven't even gotten to what's going to happen with regard to the sanctions legislation that was passed that it was inevitable that something else would be done from the american side and the the fact that we had three consulates in russia and they have four here was an obvious target all right thank you so much for your and say that was former u.s. diplomat kim gye trysts thank you you thank. over now to our continued coverage of harvey now a tropical depression over twenty five trillion gallons of water has fallen on

texas at least thirty have died and dozens more are injured and minutes ago the white house announced trump is pledging one million dollars of his own money to harvey relief efforts and as the situation unfolds the community and city officials are now facing new concerns overnight two explosions erupted at a chemical plant in crosby texas trinity chavez joins us live from our new york studio trinity you what do we know about these fires now this is an area of confusion while the chemical company arkema says that there was two explosions and residents reported hearing pop like sounds local fire officials are not calling the incidents explosions they're saying that it was more of small intense fires something that plant owners predicted what happened see the chemicals out this company and what the company uses these chemicals to make things like foam cups and hoses well those chemicals they need to stay cool but the intense flooding knocked

out all of the electricity and two sources of backup power therefore resulting in what officials are calling a chemical reaction that resulted in a fire i don't want the public to thank to these are massive explosions we're trying to make sure that our citizens are comfortable and what's going on and that they know the truth and so with that these are small container ruptures that may have a sound they have a sound of a pop or something of that nature this is not a massive explosion. there are nine containers total in this is just one of the three containers they lost refrigerator and on so we can expect similar type decompositions and other of the trailers and maybe even all mine of them but workers cannot assess the situation from the ground because the water levels remain too dangerous turn it only turn to be obviously the spreading of these chemicals can't be too good for people living nearby do we know the kind of health risks that are associated with breathing in these chemical while officials are saying that

these chemicals are organic proc sides and they believe the chemicals are nontoxic but at a press conference earlier today richard rather an arc my executive would not say that the materials were in fact non toxic but he did say that the fumes were noxious officials even compare the smoke to that of a barbecue but an environmental agency expert says that this is more dangerous let's take a listen in general these types of materials will be putting. if they if they either right or birds well they're going to be put off gases that are probably not what you would have from the normal barbecue they'd probably be in many cases or dangerous you certainly want to read it because that's the kind of thing that could get into your lungs and cause problems she would never want to be exposed to it on your skin. and that seems to be exactly what happened to fifteen deputies who responded to the fire they all complained of respiratory irritation and went to the

hospital thirteen of the fifteen deputies have been released but what's also concerning is the fact that there are more fires to be expected. we fully expect that the other eight containers will do the same thing. the water is still in our facility and preventing us from accessing the facility. and we believe at this point that the safest thing to do is to allow the other eight containers product in those to degrade and. officials nor the plant executives can determine exactly how big these fires will be or what kind of damage they will bring it's all speculation at this point but what we do know is that the smoke that was seen from these fires was estimated to be about thirty to forty feet tall right now residents within a mile and a half radius have been evacuated but environmental experts warn that while these chemicals are out in the air to wear as much clothing as possible and to find something that you could keep over your face like a mask to prevent you from hailing the material and they add that the fire could

spread quickly throughout the air in this case that maybe having a lot of water around isn't necessarily a bad thing you think eternity for thing on top of this story i was trying to report in the new york knicks again things that actually. a state all too familiar with the destructive nature of hurricanes is helping tech says what that search and rescue operations officers from the florida fish and wildlife conservation commission deploy taking a stand on monday that comes just days after the sunshine state marked the twenty fifth anniversary of hurricane andrew after in a poor naive reports the damage caused by harvey as drawing attention to a lot in concerns in miami. this was my walk to work on august first when miami endured four hours of thunderstorms. in the busy downtown brickell district cars stalled on every block streets turned

into rivers pedestrians are left stranded and green is failures were put on display like never before in miami beach a power outage knocked out the anti flooding storm water pumps which are not equipped with backup generators experts say storm water flooding will worsen unless miami's poorly designed and outdated infrastructure is updated. the elevator. we have less you know less freeboard for our infrastructure our roads from this things so what happens is whenever we have heavy rain falls there is little room for our for draining the excessive excessive rain and that causes flooding and the higher this the level becomes the more dire the situation of miami has already spent an estimated five hundred

million dollars to fight rising sea levels meanwhile some experts say massive construction projects underway throughout the city exacerbate the flooding because land where water could previously drain has been paved over and made impermeable. a two point eight million dollar pumping station is currently under construction in miami's brickell neighborhood city engineers say it should be operational in september the peak of hurricane season those pumping stations are temporary solutions so they are not meant to solve the problem or ever they are meant to just prevent the very immediate impacts of the new says flooding caused by sea level rise last week florida marked the twenty fifth anniversary of hurricane andrew the category five monster made landfall in south florida destroying more than sixty three thousand homes claiming sixty five lives and costing twenty six

billion dollars in damages today one hundred forty five officers from florida's fish and wildlife conservation commission are in texas supporting search and rescue operations on houston continues to feel the brunt from harvey concerns are rising that miami could be next for niamh r.t. . earlier this week north korea launched a ballistic missile over the territory of japan before plunging into the north pacific ocean the united nations security council condemned the launch and has urged north korea to abandon its nuclear and ballistic missile programs according to a congressional report the u.s. has thirty three warships in the pacific ocean each equipped to launch an enter scepter to head a mid or intermediate range missile similar to the one launch by north korea but if we have that many wondering why the u.s. to not shoot down north korea's missile joining me now to discuss this further is

former pentagon official michael maloof thank you so much for joining us michael now matta said earlier in august that if north korea launched a missile towards the us some qualms or other u.s. territories that it would be shot down however. we did not see that happen on monday why is that they determined that the trajectory was not a threat to anybody even though it flew over japan they said that if the if it looked like it was going to hit a u.s. . asset or a friendly country yeah they would shut it down however there is a this was from a mobile launcher and it's also my understanding that we may not have known precisely where that missile originated from and be able to shoot it down in a timely way you want to be able to hit that missile not would not wait until it gets about halfway across before you're to shoot it down because it's like a bullet trying to hit a bullet and that makes it much more difficult you want to catch that missile and

the blue stage so what this all means is that given the threat that can jump one made against guam that the united states could be placed in the position of shooting down any any missile that they can catch in time not knowing what where that missile is going to go so this could actually escalate things very dramatically and i would imagine that behind the scenes united states has been talking to china to get him to stand down many for the missiles even though kim jong un has announced he intends to shoot missiles and now that the. maneuvers between the united states and south korea are beginning to come to closure the question is well maybe he'll stop he has assured us that he's going to continue the missile shooting so this this continues to keep this this crisis on the front burner now you say the trajectory on which the missile is going on monday it didn't pose a real threat and that's why the u.s.

did not intervene but in general does north korea pose a threat to the united states not to the mainland per se but certainly to guam and also poses another threat that no one ever talks about it has the ability to. to orbit missile orbit satellites and a satellite because of the miniature ization that they've accomplished with nuclear weapons could in effect become the nuclear bomb that would orbit anywhere in the world and b. and b. exploded at a high altitude creating an electromagnetic pulse electromagnetic pulse e.m.p. and this this is something that we need to be guarded against in the united states and we haven't been doing that no one is talking about this potential threat and i might add the other potential reason why we may not have shot down the outgoing missile was the fact that given that it went for so long there was some concern whether we would even hit it and because it once it's accelerates and and and goes

as quickly as it is there's some question whether that would have we would have been able to hit it even though we had it subsequent to that proved to be successful if we had missed that would have then buoyed. the confidence of a can and even further so there's a lot of a lot of things in play here that need to be looked at but if it looks like from the trajectory it was going to be heading to a target that we're concerned about i think every attempt would have been made to shoot it down but ideally what you need to be able to do is hit it in the booster stage because we don't know what's on that missile and that missile warhead all right we're going to have to leave it there thank you so much that was former pentagon official michael maloof thank you. but then i got as just this close that u.s. troop numbers in afghanistan has now reached close to eleven thousand soldiers exceeding the previous eight thousand four hundred troops that were originally stationed

there that follow president trump the recent announcement that the u.s. would increase its presence in afghanistan and support for afghan security forces fighting the taliban earlier i was joined by matthew hoh a former marine and combat veteran of veterans for peace world beyond war and center for international policy i first asked him what did he think of president donald trump's speech on afghanistan just a few years ago he was in charge of that procedure so that was his procedure he didn't heritage he was in charge of by being commander of central command he was in charge of the whole thing there so the lies just keep going on throughout this war whatever it be whether it be about the whole war about how many people were are being sent there to fight it or just about whether or not how the war is actually going but with regards to the president's speech it was you know it was the

basis form of fear mongering. it was just you know basically just love lost the president used the long dead bodies of nine eleven victims he used dead american imagery of dead american soldiers with no regard to using to the families of those people you know how they feel about being used a little purposes but that has a great effect here in the united states because he's hailed as being presidential for doing those things his his his speech is seen as uniting both the right and the left on afghanistan it's like this union of neo liberalism and neo conservative ism and so you walk away from a speech like that and you think might. god this president just said that we are entering into an unending commitment to war in afghanistan and by extension also to

the entire middle east the greater middle east and he also really as i saw it at the end of his speech passively threatened pakistan with nuclear weapons as well as very pakistan threw out a lot of his speech but off assad a reckoning of pakistan with nuclear weapons and the next day the media in the united states is abuzz with how presidential e.-c. and also two you can notice there's almost no response from the united states congress about this commitment to a turn a war in afghanistan because the president came off being presidential because he talked about killing members so much matthew i want to jump in here as say you pointed out that despite previous troop surges and even with the u.s. and nato troops and tens of thousands of private contractors that the u.s. war in afghanistan has never achieve stability or security so in your opinion and

your opinion will sending more troops now and change that no it doesn't and i don't believe that this administration is interested in changing that. this is a ministration has. the generals behind the president which is really important in all this is generals who occupy those civilian positions in the as a sector defense and white house chief of staff and national security advisor they see the middle east and afghanistan as the edges of the empire and they view that success of the tense democratize the middle east or to do counterinsurgency with the hearts and minds were failures in that the only thing that's no work in the middle east is subjugation just to punish those who are not lining up with us and so i don't believe the trump ministration and again not really so much donald trump but the generals behind him. or interested in progress as president bush or president obama's administration would have said by achieving elections or by

winning hearts and minds or by having some kind of political control or economic development what we're going to see is just a lot more violence as we've seen in iraq and yemen in order to just punish the population to subjugate them in order to get military control as opposed to any type of political control as previous administrations that's right. our air dinosaur fossil have been on earth out of colorado construction site thirty means they long to a sixty six million year old triceratops and they will soon be on display for everyone to see artie's brigitta santos has a story from los angeles. construction crews and thornton colorado came across several dinosaur bones this week while breaking ground on a new public safety facility joe search dinosaur curator at the denver museum of nature and science says an excavation is now underway it's. one of those rare terraces covers on a construction site but we're always sitting around waiting for it and this one

happens to be a trait circle which is one of those iconic dinosaurs for all the very end of the time dinosaurs it was. by eating dinosaur with the horrors that live right alongside treacherous rocks triceratops is one of the most common types of dinosaurs found in the american west in places as far north as canada to the southern united states what makes this particularly unique because it was first discovered your endeavor but there are a lot of tracer cups specimens that have been collected from the denver area so it's going to really fill in that gap for what trace or how it was doing in the southern part of the rocky mountain where search says the skeleton is one of the most complete ever found in the metro area oh oh oh or little bit too big for us look them all over. the front of the lower jaw out kind of a like oh well we've got part of the shield that's called the fro behind her hair

and we're starting to find other parts of this guilt sort of up to this where we've got a bunch of rooms with one little part of the tail and the shoulder blade but we really just scratched the surface of the so i suspect in the next few days we're going to uncover a lot more of the scope denver sits right along the cretaceous and tertiary boundary better known as the k.t. period when dinosaurs became extinct the site sits just below that boundary and provides the last glimpse into dinosaurs living in an urban environment of the denver area once all of the bones have been excavated and cleaned up they will be placed on display at the museum shedding more light on these ancient iconic creatures in los angeles proceed to santos r t. well that does it for now for more on the stories we covered go to youtube dot com slash our team america and check out our web site r.t. dot com slash america you can also follow me on twitter at actually banks underscore r t and don't forget to question more. comments from here in the pool.

not a bad manager in the. when i do something a little embarrassing i try to stay a little undercover i feel bad and i try to take some time to myself to figure out where i might have gone wrong other people however seem to have absolutely no sense of humility or introspection and one of those people seems to be who my abbot aberdeen is a long time aide of hillary clinton she vice chair at the twenty sixteen presidential campaign while clinton was campaigning and all her pictures on her airplane are at jeezy concerts or when she was hanging out with chance the rapper or her talked

about how soft like beyonce on the radio avidly in was always not too far away i've been right in the shot next to clinton she was very visibly one of the people responsible for clinton's entire twenty sixteen campaign she was the vice chairwoman so one could say that she did something a little embarrassing by being in a orchestrator of what was one of the worst presidential campaigns ever evan is also famous for her husband which isn't entirely fair but that's what happens in the public eye her husband anthony weiner is the one who got caught sexting a million times to underage girls sending pictures of himself in his underwear and using fake names like carlos danger i mean talk about embarrassing now that aberdeen should be held responsible for that only for like taking him back a million times when he'd been caught sexually preying on children she didn't do the thing herself but she partially condoned it by standing by him through the whole ordeal the embarrassing thing aberdeen did do for sure in regards to her

husband though was regularly forward classified emails to him according to the f.b.i. she constantly sent e-mails with classified information to weed or. so maybe it's not fair to say that abby dean did anything embarrassing by being married to a man who sexed children but i think it's fair to say it's a little embarrassing on her part to constantly send him emails with classified information so in general things have been a little embarrassing lately for whom to aberdeen so you might think she'd try to stay undercover for a little bit to figure out where she went wrong and take a moment of introspection but nope you'd be wrong because instead aberdeen is actually still seeking the spotlight by doing a fashion spread in w. magazine where she just posed in expensive clothes by her favorite designer. if i just helped loose such a pivotal election and got caught sending classified information to my ski husband i might try to avoid the spotlight for

a minute but not aberdeen she apparently feels just. which is maybe the most embarrassing part about her overall. it's. called the feeling of a priori. every the world should experience cleaned up and you get it on the open roll in. the old according to just.

walk up the modern world come along for the ride. most people think just stand out in this business you need to be the first one on top of the story or the person with the loudest voice of the biggest ratings in truth to stand down lose business you just need to ask the right questions and demand the right answer. questions there. redacted in idea camp tonight entire episode deals with various aspects of climate

change and the fight for our survival as a species in the first half i talked with ed fallon a climate activist and the director of bold iowa which is being sued along with other organizations for hundreds of millions of dollars by energy transfer partners the oil and gas giant responsible for such family fun projects is the color blind and hiring mercenary army tiger swan to go after peaceful activists fun for the whole family now they're also suing the people who stand up for our future for clean water and for a livable world in the second half i'll go through how exactly the horrible flooding in houston proves that unfettered capitalism is eating us alive but first here's my conversation with ed fallon. thanks for joining me. good to be here

so i'm going for many years and you're always on the ground fighting the corporate just drugs out of our country and the world how are our spirits out there as morale oh morales ok we've got. to deal with. but. we're disappointed they started running oil through the dakota. but we still get a big court case here. it would stop the flow of oil so. early next year. yeah that would obviously be here. but i want to get into the laws so that they're pulling against you you along with many others are fighting against it or go to access pipeline which you just mentioned which is not just in north dakota cutting across your homeland of iowa well first let me ask you what's so important about stopping this pipeline do you know it's just it's just oil infrastructure right what's the problem oh good point you convince me. you

know it's there or there's the potential for five hundred seventy thousand barrels of oil per day running through this pipeline and if you just look at the carbon emissions from the oil in the dakota houses play it one that's the equivalent of six to sixteen i believe new coal fired power plants you know and we you know i mean look at houston we can't continue to me i don't know who i don't know who's still out there who doesn't get it but apparently there are plenty who do and they're refusing to move forward on the policy changes we need but but this is pretty critical you know we thought we had to start the lock in double trouble in reissued it and now we can stop it in the courts well who are going to do this sort of person of some of these other barrels some of these other play plans yeah and it seem like obama just wanted to get held it up to kick the can down the road because it's not like he was against pipelines he bragged about lying more oil pipeline

than anybody but but anyway to get into this lawsuit energy transfer partners the evil villains behind the pipeline are now suing earth first greenpeace other organizations including gold iowa which you're the director of can you talk a little about the lawsuit. well the big basically they want their wanting a billion dollars from us and i hope they've been studying on how to squeeze squeeze blood from a turnip i mean they can take my one dollar car they want i be happy to sell my chickens get in the proceeds from that and maybe i'd even get my cat involved in some kind of a i and i were invited to as there is delia check and honestly about. to get these yes no so have the bottom line is we've hurt them pretty bad between the the protest movement that cost them a lot of money and the best new campaign we started seeing banks and other financial his divisions pulling out of financing part of the projects we were

pretty dead and that's what we wanted to do because we believe we've got to stop this fossil fuel infrastructure from expanding and so their response of course is not to try to find a way to move beyond fossil fuels but as the sewers is the ship the ship the messenger who saying that we've got to change and what are you what exactly are they claiming you did and that was wrong or illegal they're calling it racketeering which is fascinating to me i've never thought of myself as in the same league as they are the poll that is kind of cool to be there. so they're alleging that we we misrepresented the facts when he described then in terms of there were unflattering and and untrue we misrepresented the the reality that they they claim that this pipeline this is amazing they actually claim that the pipeline is going to reduce climate change which is incredible but they're saying we misrepresent the facts and based on that we use that information to fire up people to donate to our causes

which they claim is racketeering so i think is a pretty weak argument but they got a lot of money and the same lawyer the defense trump and a lot of his lawsuits is the guy that energy transfer has doing this lawsuit for them yeah it seems very similar to what trump likes to deer were. just drowned his opponents or people who died lived in lawsuits hoping they'll you know take a saddle manner back out or whatever but this lawsuit is is not just harmful to you it's also dangerous for the precedent it would set if if energy transfer partners were to win this it will mean that peaceful protesters can be financially destroyed in court even if they aren't already brutalized by police by the police states.

or. talk a little about that. you know this is a huge attempt to silence the right to speak out in opposition to policies and practices that you believe iran and it cuts across the political spectrum the case i mean it does good just as well i mean it is silas's the freedom of you know pipeline dividers to speak out you know it's going to apply across the board and you know we see this happening in state legislatures at the federal level even sometimes in local local or jurisdictions where they're trying to find more and more ways of keeping us quiet while in and out here in iowa during the pipeline fight there was one county that increase the fine for civil disobedience leading arrested from three hundred bucks to two thousand drugs and all over the country using those kinds of initiatives and so this one is the mother of all anti speech

initiatives because you know if they're successful it could absolutely silence we would bankrupt a couple organizations maybe a handful maybe a law and it will also silence a lot of people who would then be really afraid to speak out but i you know i am and i'm optimistic we can win. yeah i mean i'm obviously you have freedom of speech on your side but also there is other good news and that is that this shows what a huge impact a small number of activists have had on this corporation or these corporations that are putting in these pipelines i mean i mean they're sending us down a suicide path and fossil fuel extinction and you guys have at least you know shot a couple arrows in them for anybody out there wondering whether one person or only a few people can have an impact against these monsters this is kind of proof don't you think oh yeah this is

a this system is extremely encouraging because there's no way they would be wasting their money filing this lawsuit if we hadn't had any. and i you know i'm i really want i'd love to be a fly on the wall of energy transfer partners corporate boardroom because i wonder if they really think they're going to win this or they're just trying to send a message trying to find a way to silence us to scare us i don't you know i get it and i don't think our country has come far enough down the wrong road where they're going to win this but they could take it far enough where they drain resources from organizations that have lawyers they can afford lawyers i was not one of them so you know it's not going to doing us in that way if it keeps girliest vote possible that i could get subpoenaed i could i could have to travel to washington d.c. or new york i think the key of the case might be heard in new york and if i do that i'd love to love to visit with uli but. you know i don't i don't see myself doing jail time over this i don't see myself losing my flock of chickens but. i see it as

just being a way to drain resources but again i think the main point is we're having need that we are pretty hard we need to the armor of this beast and that's what coming after us and this is not your first time in court with energy transfer partners you there is a they seem to see suing you and other activists is kind of a hobby of their. well it is an interval and specifically in the month of august that because it was last august that they sued both iowa and i have a citizens for community improvement and by name myself and had a nice and they sued us and the goal was to get the court to issue an injunction to prevent us from engaging in any kind of protest that might lead to civil disobedience now in that case the judge threw it out of court but not till you know we dropped a few thousand dollars trying to you know find back against it so again as part of the goal not just a silent speech but to you know take your take away limited finances because these

guys are they were a bottomless well of money we have limited right resources so i don't know that they're always going to win some of them and so they want you and i want to hear your resources and like you just said they also are hoping to win some sort of decision where you and other. activists leaders aren't allowed to be involved in pro terror thing at least if they can just got some of the the leaders then they they figure they can you know get away with their pillaging of the world a little more easily you also served in the in the iowa legislature for fourteen years so you're one of the few people who's tried to make change both on the inside of the state government and outside on the streets do you feel one is more a factor than the other what it what did your experienced teacher about that oh they're both really really important i mean think about the civil rights struggle you know the the passage of the voting rights act the civil rights i mean that that really is what changed the change the improve the situation immensely for blacks

living in the cell but none of that would have happened without protest civil disobedience the marches the rallies all that so important so you know i think more good people should run for office and more people who have people who vote should be really really meticulous about making sure they're not voting for some social up and just getting in there to benefit their own nest and that's hard because you. sometimes these politicians of commands with a nice big smile are in a glitzy brochure that lives i didn't pull before but you know when you get in if you're the right kind of person with the weather you know a clear head and a good heart you can do some really important stuff and so i would love to see more people running you know i think one thing is coming more more clearly is that i mean the republican party is is so far gone it's not even worth talking about some levels even though they hold sway but the democratic party just more and more shows how incompetent and ineffective and actually out of touch it is and i you know

right now i think it's even odds as to whether the democratic party can be saved or whether it just needs to be replaced and leaning toward the latter up but again i think it's important to have people doing good work on the inside and on the outside yeah they're good terry fell or both and it is amazing to watch the that the corporate democrats have done no self reflection over the past two years they seem to have not realized at all why they lost to someone as horrific as donald trump yeah i just they seem to show no change what one more thing i want to get to before we wrap up you were also filed followed by tiger swan the mercenary army that was hired by energy transfer partners talk a little about about tiger swan and what you know about the. well times one yeah they they got they cut their teeth apparently over in the in the mideast you know doing doing doing anti-terrorist work and they've actually referred to us as

a jihad like movement they referred to us as you go terrorist it seems that they can't get the terrorist they off their brain but they didn't you know they operated i without a license they finally got one but well after that already you know then following us there are there are water protectors heather pearson for example has been you know she's in she's been followed her residence has been sort of you know under surveillance maybe mine has too but i'm in the sit in the so many cars out here i don't know which ones block the tires one but maybe it's a nice black one without the license plates i don't know but. they've done a lot of things that are really questionable and that offend most americans and i'm really glad that they're they're being exposed by the series of articles by the intercept and you know the bottom line is they're going to keep their word they want to keep just go and they're trying to make it isn't it does look as look as bad as possible so they can keep keep working for energy transfer partners and

other companies but you know the only security firm doing this stuff again we were a nation right now where this kind of covert operation isn't just something happens overseas it happens right here and you know read in our own small towns and big cities even if it's happening and we've got to be aware of it and push back against it without being afraid there's no point in being afraid you're afraid then then when well thank you so much for being one of the good guys out there fighting as this continues down fall and how can people are keep up with all your work. well this really content contact us. with dot com is my e-mail address we're actually just in the process of retooling our website in facebook page but that will be up and running probably within the next week or so so look for us there and keep in touch we we love getting cards letters and boxes of candy and fallon thank you so much keep firing and. let's go to

a quick break but if you don't have time to catch every redacted tonight then check out the free pod cast you can listen to it on your on your on your drive to work when you're shopping for groceries all the times you can listen it's called moment of clarity it's free on i tunes and stitcher and it has everything we do here redacted a night i'll be right back with more. on larry king you are watching our america question and more. people have got to know whether or not their presenter support american people deserve to know the answer to this point does it mean

a guard against the military in death. or we shall never go. to zero yes we do. welcome back i'd like to take a minute to politicize the catastrophe in houston i want to take the the furring of the people there and use it to make political points not really i mean i do but i'm going to but it's all my fault see the problem is any event already has the politics the issues bay didn't do it some of that takes us a while to put our thoughts together on a tragedy but that doesn't mean the politics were thrown from the beginning

furthermore as naomi klein points out this week in the intercept if we sit around with our thumbs up our butts for two waves and only then to explain the politics of the situation it will be too late and the powers that be will already have exploited the situation for their own ends naomi klein didn't use that wording i don't think she said bums up the but. she said in an ideal world we'd all be able to put politics on hold until the immediate emergency has passed then when everyone was safe we'd have a long thoughtful informed public debate about the policy implications of the crisis but we can't do that because we don't have the time or the news cycles in one week or less are incompetent virulent our bill and truculent fly actual into mainstream media will have moved on to bickering about donald trump's tweets furthermore even the people saying don't politicize this are

politicizing it if you listen to them they get they go do not politicize it you goddamn liberals are always politicizing catastrophes how dare you say more french jaxa dog politicize this flooding and it's the gays too they gave that you can claim we shouldn't politicize moments like this but life is political life is philosophical and only when things are truly dire do we tend to see what actually matters but when things are not dire not urgent we filter our actions through the stupid and hateful political ideas if those you know the viral image of the people in the nursing on elderly people in the floodwaters not getting any help needing help if those elderly people were dying not from a flood of water but instead were obvious their necks in debt and therefore lacked

the one e for health care would we go running to their aid with images have gone viral or would some of us. for not having enough money. so now that we can all understand the don't politicize this means nothing as in fact kind of dangerous let's get past the elephant in the room of course the houston flooding is at least partially due to climate change even if you don't believe that you still believe that deep down deep down you know the records being broken year after year whether the drought storm surges wildfires or just heat are happening because the planet is markedly warmer than it has been since record keeping began these record setting events are happening more and more frequently we're in a hundred year whatever god we are floods every other dam and sit near going oh

something a little unusual going on but beyond the obvious points about climate change there's much more to be learned from this very sad event think of everything positive you've heard you've heard or seen in houston during this catastrophe think of neighbors helping neighbors think of the strangers saving people's lives think of people picking up dogs that they have to don't even know who they were they belong to there's a put them in the boat bring them to safety think of the viral moments of the storm and flooding think of that nursing home that desperately needed help and soon got it ok do you have those thoughts in your head all the positives now nothing about this all of those moments. are outside of capitalism they are outside of the market economy nobody asked for money to rescue a person nobody said how much will you pay me to go save those elderly people in a flooded nursing home no one said well i'll save the americans but of anybody's

undocumented come boats going to keep on lovin alright show me your papers before you go on about it or pay brazil also auggie no one said that no one sent i found three dogs they belonged to but i picked them up because i'm pretty sure i can sell them or cook them up and do a nice dog stew no one said that and if they did they were met with near universal revulsion they were pulse of people who are making money off of this all of the beautiful and caring acts we see in moments like this in true catastrophe is because it enables us to see outside of capitalism outside of the market economy we see our shared humanity we see what really matters in our tiny transitory existence there is no time for the nonsense during a natural disaster with no time for that no one is shopping for pants or crockpots

or their third t.v. for their fourth bedroom where they have one or observation west. no one's buying crap you know i did not new device down to put on your socks when their house is flooding you just use you're so far away just bending over to put out your socks it's really painful every day. introducing sucks light or the pain free you don't bend over way to put on your socks every day just place your sock on the great lower the cradle to the floor it's like you're putting it that easy so it's lighter puts the socks on for you so bending over is something you'd never have to do the secret is the unique cradle design that expands the sock opening and places it in the perfect position so all you have to do is like your foot gear then when you want to take them off the socks lighter makes it easy to somehow everyone gets their socks on during a flood even though there is sucked of ice floated away they said who knows it

somehow everyone's got sucked on i don't know how it happens but it does. because we don't time for the crap ok now think about some of the awful things in a hurricane harvey in the flooding in houston i'm sure the some people are price gouging i'm sure that's going on there is the fact that poor people are far more likely to be devastated by this flooding there's our incompetent president tweeting . during the storm there's oil and gas refineries releasing chemicals into the air in the water because they haven't been well regulated at all and didn't prepare for this nearly everything discussed or morally repulsive you can think of in this event has its root in materialism consumerism and unfettered capitalism that tell you anything the profit motive who we are and what we should really care about it takes the best and purest elements of our being and turns them on their head

and as these floodwaters recede the corporate monsters will rise up and exploit this tragedy for all its worth they will milk it they will do all they can they will take over lands they didn't have access to before just like happened in new orleans they will did not insurance claims oh no you didn't fill out the date properly right there so we're not covering your house they will they will reprocess homes and cars they were condemned public housing they were trying to even replace flooded public schools with charter schools privatized education here here's video of george w. bush dancing at border in eastern charter school in new orleans to celebrate how great it was to use hurricane katrina to public education.

as. the balancing of our society by way of natural disaster is ugly is that dance which should be labeled a hate crime let's be honest climate catastrophe will continue to tear apart our society as we saw in new orleans as we're seeing in houston and as naomi klein said in the shock doctrine the neo cons and neo liberals will use these moments to push forward disaster capitalism but if we look closely these disasters show us the best in humanity for profit is factored into the equation that's

all the time i have but we have live shows coming up in philadelphia and washington d.c. and other cities for details and to vote for your city go to redacted tor dot com also you can check out www dot com site for dac to deny we've all kinds of content there good night. it's called the feeling hopefully going to. everyone in the world should experience phillida and you'll get it on the open rolls. the old according to just. welcome to my world come along for the ride.

i'm tom hartman and i'll give you what the mainstream media can't help big picture . going to happen and when you question mark find what you're looking for this is the little. dog. will go deeper investigate and debate all so you can get the big picture. most people think to stand out in this business you need to be the first one on top of the story or the person with the loudest voice of the biggest raid in truth to stand down lose business you just need as the right questions and demand the right answer. the.

question. greetings and salutations prepare yourselves hawk watchers because today i think it's time we upset some safe spaces and dive headlong into a controversy that's been simmering boiling and dominating the streets and campuses and social media conversations here in the united states ever since the tragic clash of protestors in charlottesville took but took the in the life of an innocent young woman and force two disparate groups and nazi white nationalists once again into the headlines clearly two groups who are on opposite ends of the ideological speck.