says that being the sadistically. see einstein's. prevails. and. cynical as it sees them and. brings in the salyut age. the great experiment of voting donald trump into the presidency is paying off in spades for those hoping to unleash the inner is good of the united states on the rest of the world the brand name in chief conducted his first speech at the united nations tuesday morning and delivered to the world audience some vintage trump bravado and saber rattling while metaphorically wrapping himself in his custom edition liker and used made in china u.s. play he included some choice words were guarding north korea take

a listen the united states has great strength and patients but if it is forced to defend itself or its allies we will have no choice but to totally destroy north korea rocket men is on a suicide mission for himself and for his regime if the righteous many do not confront the wicked few then evil will try and. he has also declared that the iranian government masks a corrupt dictatorship behind a false guise of the mock receipt. for far more than the fifty four billion initially asked for i guess for democrats like senate minority leader chuck schumer resist drum switches to enable trump when it comes to the military industrial complex and america's ability to kill large amounts of people in faraway countries and this is why we cannot trust the democrats and always be watching the hawks.

to. get the. real deal with. the bottom. like you that i got. this. week so. well we're going to watch iraq so i am tired robot and on top of the wall if you know some it's extraordinary to me that this congress would pass one you know. seven hundred billion dollars in the n.b.a. you know i was in my before trump goes on in a speech at the u.n. clearly giving him his his bluster and bravado there and what it's just it boggles my mind that like this this congress that said oh no we're going to

resist him we're just going to we're just we have writers like this big car monger he's going to do this we can't do this we need to spend our money we need to take care of people and instead of taking care of the people that actually voted him into office and looking at their issues they decided now let's spend seven hundred billion dollars dropping. and less every single serviceman or woman is getting a raise. i think that money is out there not as. i believe those a little bit of a raise that they dropped in there but. i mean look. at the national defense authorization argento. democrats eighty nine to eight and will basically set the us as annual military budget like roughly seven hundred billion trump originally asked for fifty four like a bigot like that has led to eighty year. votes

against came from bernie sanders christian bill brown patrick leahy jeff merkley and ron wyden those are the democrats that stood against them and there was three republicans who stood against the bill bob corker rand paul and mike lee but what's interesting is the eighty nine votes in four of the yes this same people who say you can't trust anything this president says you can't trust anything that his cabinet members come back with we have to resist the trump war machine and here you are voting for the bell you've got cory booker. kamali harris chuck schumer elizabeth moore allays the best and dianne feinstein i can't take it anymore with people out of one side of their mouth saying you have to resist and we have to do something different and the other by the other side of their mouth say well it's just been seven hundred billion dollars i mean despite the do nothing but argue and grandstand us congress the n.d.s. been passed straight fifty five years they just they do it they grandstand they yell about things that help them get elected but when it comes time to put their

money where their mouth is they don't do it and this is a goddamn you're because i was wrong as they say i'm saddened of all the bills that they argue about that they never get past you know or the they have to like you know fight over almost shut down the government over and all that but boy when it comes to the military industrial complex is no room stamp please move on what i want to ensure you know. basically it means that this new if it now it still has to go the house it already kind of passed their version of this so there's still to kind of like join these two together and them eventually you know iron out some details of the way we go so by the end of the year this will but you know sub through seven hundred billion dollars means that we are now if it goes as a as it is means that we the u.s. is exceedingly total spending of its next time rivals combined in military spending three times as much as china ten times as much as you know russia the us already accounts for more than a third of all military spending in the entire world what it was left of what are

we afraid of i mean seriously i mean more afraid of people and the fact that they want to have health care that they want of any chance at an education that their communities will fall apart that they're fabulous foxconn jobs are not going to show i mean to have at this point want to spend this much money on defense at a certain point you have to say maybe you maybe it's overkill but yeah you know i mean the biggest problem for me also is how much money is being spent there is nothing fiscally. conservatives know i may trust me i'm as well as the liberal as they come when it comes to social issues but financially i'm a much more conservative a fiscal conservative there is no fears they were no fiscal conservatives there is nobody and democrats or republicans i don't see a single fiscal conservative it contains took twenty one percent pay raise for our military which i still don't think is got an office and eight point five billion going to buy more missile defense systems which apparently don't work on anything

any so let me put it this way with eighty billion dollars a year just eighty billion of that each year you could make public colleges and universities near diversity in the u.s. to ition free. and because bernie sanders proposal is only estimated to cost like forty seven billion or one point three trillion in student loan debt the us. you could literally cut that in half. which would actually stir the economy a heck of a lot more then raising wages two percent on less than one percent of the populace . and relieving some of the bring produce the way rock groups and boards. for years social media companies like facebook have a contended that it isn't their job or place to censor the internet or to discourage legitimate political a political expression on their platform despite these assertions facebook has pulled themselves into politics with their often the subtle ings standards and standards and practices which is held the role in giant often referred to as most

persecuted minority in the world has found itself in this crosshairs of facebook's misguided acts of self-censorship there one point one million rodin jaya living in the south east asian country of mayan mar having lived in the majority buddhist country for centuries a muslim roman jiah have been denied citizenship in my amar since one thousand nine hundred eighty two and is not included in my arms list of official ethnic groups they are forced to live in one particular area within my marne are allowed to leave without government permission living. and squalor they are met with constant violence and persecution was just escalated to the point that even the hot of hussein the united nations high commissioner for human rights called recent actions by mayan mar military as disproportionate to the insurgent actions last month called them brutal and even stated quote these situations seems a textbook example of ethnic cleansing more than three hundred ten thousand runs i have fled the neighbor and fled to neighboring bangladesh but the daily beast

recently discovered a targeted campaign against pro growth and facebook accounts and post even going as far as to ban all my and more muslims from another sect because he posted critically of them i am our actions on his facebook account in canada facebook's excuse well the post which clearly show government forces committing violent acts even burning villages don't follow facebook community standards. aung san suu kyi the country's defacto leader seems to have forgotten that she was a democracy darling of the left a nobel peace prize winner and she has even accused of burning their own villages there she is tuesday morning defending her military forces the security forces instructed to destroy the mood on. cue. and she came. she told him no. she.

didn't point out that she makes these very specific statements so it's while they're doing they use things and later on and she actually talks about you know we want to take you guys to the villages i mean the safe ones to show you what's working the wall thing is just mind blowing that someone who was so ho part of democracy coming to a place is now standing up there saying well we're making sure they're doing their best to keep an innocent civilians but remember the wrong and die are considered citizens they can have citizenship but they can't leave careers now so it's interesting that she doesn't i don't think she considers them actually part of that sort of excuses that they were going back to facebook it is pretty incredible trying to draw to figure out what facebook considers standard what it doesn't it is pretty amazing i mean the even pro publica recently found the base book and able to advertisers were able to target what was labeled as the shoe of haters through

their advertising system even claiming in one instance that facebook's automated system suggested second amendment as look there's no gotta grow that would boost our audience size to one hundred thousand people presumably because that system had correlated. with anti semites oh and so hey guess what you hate this group of people here have some gun grabber times some we've found through our wonderful. people who are pro second amendment also tend to be i'm like first of all that's a whole level of the they put those two in there that and there's always this excuse because then fate according to facebook they say that they remove hate speech that which includes content that directly attacks people based on their race ethnicity national origin religious affiliation sexual orientation sex or gender yet i will point out once again and till i'm blue in the face rape threats are not a violation of the holocene every standards and practices death threats have to meet certain specific you remember it's like these certain specific criteria to

even be considered for removal and yet my god you have to take those videos down of the military they're burning people's villages because that's how god remember that you know don't violate the ones you know race or ethnicity or national origin or roads or sports minded like that if i don't have to do that. you know what's interesting too is that more needs facebook actually surprising as it is they are really different facebook because there's very little access to the internet as a career as the country is in the process of basically trying to come modernize its communication infrastructure so citizens there use facebook the way americans use e-mail it's essential to their very giving that's how they communicate with each other and the rest of the world it's probably one of the only ways that they're allowed to speak publicly specially the one hundred and the

a smaller communities because they don't have representation the exam room and where they don't have even the muslims are the only where they get the message oh that's the really scary part because you know they also they need that it's so important. and i have to wonder about that i mean we spoke to i asked our viewers there are thoughts on this on facebook i know hilarious ironic i asked them on facebook about facebook about whether they have a responsibility whether facebook has a responsibility. to censor a divisive topic since i've spent also a number of thing of oh there were these russian ads were divisive and so we're talking about divisiveness so much that do they have this a responsibility to censor divisive topics or should they simply protect the right to free speech and allow users to opt out of speech that they don't want to hear right and. chevy jim said from our facebook page actually said this free speech needs to be cherished to be held up and cherished i do not have the

right to tell you or anyone else what they can and cannot say and that's the thing at this point i think that the ideas of being politically correct or this idea of identity politics has gone from being a helpful discussion about how best to articulate issues of oppression to a political talking a point and excuse to shut down for the rest of i'm going all right as we go bird court watchers don't forget to let us know what you think about topics we've covered of facebook and twitter is your poll shows that are coming off the press or political science international terrorism is a real studies at northeastern university wax of the center of the talks most to discuss the ever changing relationships and by a member of the united states and israel to the. all the series of. the world series. and you'll get it on the old the old. according to jewish.

world cup i am sure there are. of all foreign policy debates in the u.s. the one over our relations with israel tends to draw the most outrage and polarization every apac a vendor of hundreds of thousands of protesters with palestinian flags and musicians mere belief in the need to boycott israel's government over human rights these two calls for censorship but even as the public debate rages on a quiet shift has been taking place inside the jewish american community as northeastern university is middle east center director waxman explain and his book trouble in the tribe the american jewish conflict over israel for more on that growing political divide and its deeper roots professor waxman joined our show earlier. this is

a change that's been going along. in decades. all of these generational changes young. all will be good just a little so i'm willing to be outspoken a little cliques but also well it's also a default go between secular jews whole lot older. than all all about religious jews. just like this but it does somehow or look like a divided developed population or less than total secular porcelain just so so in some ways the change in attitudes toward israel were to the jewish. border shifts in a moment attitudes toward israel. right now one of the one of the big debates and split seems to be the idea of the b.d.s. may have meant they boycott divestment and sanctions in an interview with the foundation for middle east peace last year you addressed how that the liberal

jewish community is splitting over these issues and what you had said was quote the problem with the american jewish community today when it comes to p.b.s. is that there. isn't enough to bait about in fact in much of the mainstream jewish community the debate isn't even allowed to take place supporters of p.b.s. for the record i'm not one of them are actively excluded from the organized jewish community. how do you see this window of sort of respectable debate being sat. well there's almost. totally large opposition to e.t.s. within the american jewish he just generally crosses the traditional left while it's just the blue jeans on the left who are critical of the occupation critical of the so israeli government policy i'm astonished doesn't support the b.d.s. by and large but the issue isn't just the level you support e.t.s. or volatile. boycotts is the big an issue here is the pattern of all

censorship the kind of mccarthyism that exists in some parts the american jewish community which is essentially blacklists any individual any organization that even supported the partial court culture boycott of the west bank settlements for example. there was a question common particularly form a small number of all the. white wing elements within the jewish community who clearly are all trying to establish a litmus tests all for jews whether it be a killing insert the dog speaking in sort of dogs in any kind of public jewish or being printed in the jewish newspaper or magazine which basically says anything that they were god as destroy all jews are on they have a billion dollar definition of what constitutes support for israel other than the bible god is disloyal to his art that to keep him in support boycotts against itself is completely unacceptable i makes energy applicator more dollars in those

positions especially ostracized from the jewish community and i think that's like problematic in terms of allowing for open debate on allowing the bill. tical clueless about willis is so issue isn't just about the yes the border issue is allowing for a greater degree of political pluralism and openness to that but when it comes to israel jewish we reach so i must certainly do something about many of the market forces. if so many younger american jews are becoming increasingly critical of israeli policy of the government and some even supporting things like b.d.s. and working with palestinians all of that why is the community as a whole not catching up because we've seen this there's ben more of the birthright trip started going up and they made you know where they want to more and more people coming there so if you're gathering people into you know the fold why aren't they listening to what they have to say as as everything sort of evolves well i

think part of the disconnect between the organization it's important to be trying to let the market just what we might call the mold of jewish establishment and the majority of the narcan jews in the jaw on the other the geology of them are all moving in a direction levels increasingly critical of also willing to open the. this is our and i will challenge for it all the lives of all the jews teach them up and do it the traditional institutions but dollar a local jewish politics tend to be watch of the like they tend to look let's all the constituents who typically of all the logistics admirable politically conservative. play our particular out for will spot a small number sometimes a large donors who can really say. x. so there's a disconnect a lot clearly democratic in the sense represent is to change attitudes and what do

you suppose them up to what are they representing the smaller group who tend to be altered. when it comes to this all significant evil and that's part of the problem i guess part of the what's driving young democracies away from joining me is organize aisha's of people and get out like they have a voice now speaking of hawkish. who previously talked about how prime minister netanyahu over time you know kind of clearly aligned with the u.s. republican party whether in supporting mitt mitt romney or siding with congressional republicans over president obama and you know now obviously opening openly embracing donald trump do you do you think these partisan choices could potentially backfire on israel as a whole considering that the liberal leaning the liberal bend the most american jewish people are kind of heading towards actually i think they're

a little back by that i think it will look at the trends in terms for melbourne public opinion in general one of the things that's that's most striking is that a growing partisan divide when it comes to actually squirrels on the israeli palestinian conflict in particular. democrats liberals those who started to rise and it was allowed increasingly critical of israel on my lips and particularly all growing more sympathetic toward the calloused ins rather than is well documented the reasons for this but i think undoubtedly prime minister just. kind of a good it's almost alliance that he's fortunate the republican party of the united states i think didn't particularly his cleverly contentiousness a relationship with obama which was very knowledgeable in douglasville i think that's one of the fact is that has that is driving them out. of them out and democrats in the united states away from simple result ultimately support for

israel in the united states has. persisted to southern lebanon in part because it's rested on a bipartisan foundation it's been supported by. democrats and republicans don't want the support for israel in the united states the columns public or something that's associated with those who are conservative i think ultimately in the long run that's going to have probably less government support a result of this article eventually there's going to be a democratic at the white house and maybe a democratic majority in congress and that's going to challenge us israeli relations but you chad. very fascinating very very fascinating well now let me ask you because of all that beth all of these research changing times and sort of figuring out how the community and the politics are all going to come together do you think this more politically diverse and outspoken jewish american community and in the same way are bad a very conservative jewish community has sort of lobbied here in some bands can

they do the same thing and push israel and a more peaceful direction when it comes to resolving the palestinian conflict so we have a little upon. that was actually part of the question that i had in my mind when i mentioned start to actually write the book and i was wondering whether at a time when the obama was just coming into office that that kind of immersion liberal majority of them up in jeans could in fact be a force for peace between israel and the palestinians are cautiously i think that exaggerates the implants for them all and to several israeli governments. certainly the israel sees a lot of them out of your support and some might think that given the support they would be attentive to the. colonies well you've got them i don't but it's really i pretty much demonstrated it's. a disregard toward a local jewish views not only concern the economy of the palestinians but of matches unsubtle themselves with regards to the spaces all streams of judaism in

israel so i don't think israeli government certainly not this poem by the window is particularly with. all the liberal love and she's here trying to keep it just misses naive and idealistic at best well a multitude may in total be more intellectual or is in shifting the use of the united states in particular well by sending the message to the politicians in washington that criticism of israel. it's not completely unacceptable. while it can be close well actually it's a lot. more although it didn't. take that position that you couldn't be closed low blood sugar but i think some of politicians have begun of choice us a position but. it's all these presidential campaigns and i think

a little toy that can create a space in politics in washington well you might have a lot of politicians who are all coming up. with all goods as well but we believe that is all a lot of hours to the challenge is not only the buyer to the palestinians it's part of who is well. most awfully well dog i want to thank you for coming on today what's going to be of works when the co-director of northeastern university is middle east institute a pleasure having you on with us today on people in the shed. you may have heard about the great barrier reef and you may have also heard that is in grave danger of destructions and the reasons are plenty commercial fisted fishing is irreversibly altered the ecosystem that builds and support three pollution attacks or even in tons of forms from dirty run up to oil and shipping accidents and of course climate change just exponentially in this entire process but the most dramatic threat to the great barrier reef is a fellow live creature the crown of thorns starfish outbreaks of the invasive sea creature have been wreaking havoc on the coral reefs that they literally consume

for years but are now getting worse and more frequent but fear not doubt because biologists at the australian institute of marine science have been busy devising a new strategy to tackle the giant starfish problem and it involves a giant snail we use the ocean may be lacking in courageous predators to take on the crown of thorns but the pacific triton is one of the few and by breeding the deadly lovable snail and spreading it across the reef scientist at ames hope to put an eco friendly dent in the starfish population and save us trillions natural wonder absolutely fantastic. that is our show for you today remember anyone in this world were not told of the absolutely wall i love you i am i wrote them to keep on watching all those hawks out there ever great day and night.

i do not know if the russian state hacked into john podesta emails and gave them to wiki leaks but i do know barack obama's director of national intelligence has not provided. to support his claims. i also know he perjured himself in a senate hearing three months before the revelations provided by edward snowden he denied to be n.s.a. was carrying out wholesale surveillance of the us. the hyperventilating corporate media has once again proved to be an echo for government claims that cannot be verified you would have thought they would have learned something after serving as

george w. bush's useful idiots in the lead up to the invasion of iraq. it is vitally important that the press remains rooted in a fact based universe especially when we enter an era when truth and fiction are becoming indistinguishable. new developments in the ongoing russia. takes the world stage in new york at the u.n. general assembly one of the all main song on this edition. of the politicking i'm larry king trying to new york this week for his u.n. debut as america's commander in chief. this as there are new developments in the ongoing probe into russian meddling in the twenty sixteen u.s. election and allegations about trump campaign collusion for the latest on what it

all means i'm joined by david jolly former u.s. representative republican of florida he's in tampa and constitutional scholar and harvard law professor emeritus alan dershowitz he joins me via skype alan's also a bestselling author and his newest book is trumped up how criminalization of political differences endangers democracy to start with you david the new york times reports that key white house lawyers who are at odds over cooperating with robert mohler what do you make of all of that. there's a lot of heat in the kitchen larry and listen as we have political debates as we continue to follow the developments of the current administration the reality is robert mueller and his team continue to do their work just in the last week we saw a grand jury testimony from paul mann a four spokes person and listen a prosecutor does not and panel a grand jury if they're not serious about what they're investigating this is not

a political question that robert mueller is looking at that's left to congress that's left to elected officials this is a legal question a potentially a criminal question robert mueller is very good at his job and so that's why you're seeing the white house counsel and the president's private counsel at odds because they are under a lot of scrutiny right now now on what do you make about those to our lawyers can differ when you make the differences between the personal lawyer to the president and the white house lawyers well they have two very different interests the personal lawyer to the president wants to get all the evidence out there he's been assured by his client that no criminal acts of occurred and if that's the case of course you want everything to be turned over and complete cooperation assured in the investigation come to an end as soon as possible the white house counsel who doesn't represent mr donald trump who represents presidency of the united states doesn't want to establish a negative precedent for disclosure of material that might be covered by some kind

of executive privilege and so it's important that the president have his own lawyer and that the united states government has its own lawyer because inevitably we're going to see some conflicts occur they occur during the clinton white house they've occurred during other ministrations and so no surprise that occurs here which side is right. well they're both right in the say it's in the interest of donald trump if he did nothing wrong to get all the information out there and the white house counsel may be right by saying it's in the best interests of the white house in general to reserve issues of privilege i think on balance it's better to provide the information if the personal counsel wants to provide it and if i were president trump's lawyer i would want to provide as much information and try to get this investigation behind us soon as possible at least get the president out of the gross errors of muller's investigation david dianne feinstein the senator from

california says this investigation could go on for a movie year and a half to send some module you certainly could look at how the clint investigation started with the land deal in arkansas long evolved to the travel office at the white house and ultimately to whether or not the president committed perjury president clinton you know larry one of the things and i'd be interested allan agrees with this that the president should be worried about don again as a white house counsel but also his personal counsel need to be worried about is all of the recent staff departures at the white house from rights previous to sean spicer frankly to steve bannon and others those loyalty oaths have somewhat evaporated and now they are looking out for their own interests not the president's interests and senator feinstein in the congressional investigations will be speaking to those recently departed staff members as well robert mueller very likely to find out what they know go back to the dismissal if you will of komi and that that oval office meeting where trump apparently said everybody get out and then had this conversation those are the moments that will be retold to senator

feinstein as well as to muller's team you grew i grew i grew that i think i've told my clients over and over again the one pete don't do is fire people very close to you because if you're in a criminal investigation you know the first rule of committing crime in america is always commit crime with people more important than you are so you can turn them into. they can turn you in and inevitably feel right to get it out of court gail yet out of jail courts free by turning on their bourses the problem is sometimes these cooperating witness is not only saying they compose they make up stories that are helpful to the prosecution in an effort to get immunity they oversell their story one of the reasons i was opposed to the appointment of special counsel and still am opposed to it is the american public has the right to know what russia did in this election the worst way of getting is through special counsel behind the closed door as a grand jury there should have been a bipartisan or nonpartisan nine eleven commission established to have open

investigation about what the russians didn't didn't do and how to prevent them from doing it in the future it should be nonpartisan because the issue of russian collusion is nonpartisan but i don't think we're going to learn anything certainly not for a year or two and by that time who knows what the water will be under the bridge so i wish we had an open investigation maybe congress could do some of that but i think a nonpartisan commission would have more credibility with the people at night it's that day than the former white house strategist steve benen said the firing of james komi was the biggest mistake in modern political history when you go off far . why i think it led to the appointment of robert muller and alan's point you have there are really two questions here what was the extent to which russia meddled in our election and congress should have a role in that i think i agree they should appoint an independent commission that takes the politics out of it but then there is a question of was there criminal activity was there collusion though that night might not be the perfect legal term was there coordination of some sort and that is

what is currently being investigated i think banham was right listen trump made a lot of moves that only raise suspicion as opposed to knocking down the big question where since tax returns listen that is one of the biggest questions right now that the president could settle whether or not he had dealings with russia or not whether any of his corporate entities had dealings with russia or not the president and a few little cooperate has led to the appointment i know where his tax returns are his tax returns are right now in the desk drawer robert muller robin wright that's right investigators will think he is the first he's going to do is go to the i.r.s. and subpoena the tax returns you can get those by subpoena and i suspect that somebody is going through those tax returns very very carefully the problem of course is that the tax returns probably show conductivity before he was president not while you was president and maybe even years before he became president and so

that might not be as useful to lower if he's trying to really investigate the rush connection but you might find for example. that he has loans from russian oligarchs whose who are. all of these are significant developments. are you a boy lawyer i had the president good had the president publicly had he publicly released those tax returns had he not fired komi those are the moves that might have prevented a molar appointment in my opinion they would trump announce that he would be ending the docket. immigration policy and now after meeting with top democrats he seems to support it what do you think when from philosophy is told those eight hundred thousand people look i think it's clear in the day sense he has said he supports doc and this shows the division between the president and congressional republicans the president should have had a press conference with paul ryan and mitch mcconnell same we're going to end this through executive action and instead we're going to do it through a legislative process and look at when i served in congress i oppose what president

obama did there were four executive orders on immigration that i thought he overreached the constitution says the president's job is to ensure that the law is faithfully executed in the law is one that says if you're here without proper legal status you are eligible for deportation president obama used executive action to delay that i think it's the right policy to delay that and to create a pathway for those who have come here those dreamers if you will it does it within congress's purview the president just acted too brash rationally on this he should have done in coordination with the hill to have a long term solution for the dreamers alan britt with rod news says the trump is being rolled by chuck schumer and nancy pelosi you believe that well i can gradually all three of them were sitting down together and trying to work at a reasonable compromise good piece i think it was in the hill saying president trump says he has a big heart and if he has

a big heart he should announce that if congress doesn't work out something for the dreamers that you will make sure that they're not deported and i don't know whether you read my piece or not but shortly after that he made a similar announcement set down our grass i'm very pleased whenever i see republicans you know they were great and congress and you know used to do that a lot and the best congress the best senators and the best presidents do that a lot so i want to encourage a republican president sit down with democratic leaders it's a good thing good thing remember you agree david. yet so larry this is kind of the tragedy of donald trump if you will if you set aside all the rhetoric everything we've seen in the past eighteen months a lot of mainstream republicans who are looking for a candidate to bring the party back from the tea party of two thousand and ten frankly that could have been donald trump on paper this is a person without real conservative convictions he should have had nancy pelosi and chuck schumer to the white house on the night of his inauguration and said let's get deals done and steady created this division for the past six months of his

administration so it's hard to believe who he is right now and it does look like he got rolled by democrat al he's all rums we're going to have oh he's an equal opportunity divider by. the bug republican among people in this white house staff. you know i think this is a this is been a hard steep curve learning process i don't think any president has ever lost so many important staff members in so short a period of time you know as a as a loyal american a patriotic american i want to see our government always succeed and i'm hoping this is a learning process and we'll see better a better president and a more efficient president if he can work together with democrats and bring some positive resolution to tax reform to medical care for americans i'm hopeful. david you know one of those he knows the republicans on the other side and

those who support him and you would probably know a lot of those who would've supported a movie shot someone on fifth avenue few think they will draw away from him if he gets close to schumer and palosi. you know i think you're seeing some of that already these shots of people burning their their red hats at the end of the day though where do those people go and i don't think they go anywhere except back to donald trump if bill clinton felt your pain donald trump felt your anger his base of thirty percent or so is still angry and donald trump is their vessel the question is those mainstream republicans that held their nose and still supported a republican nominee do they begin to reconsider some of their reservations and say wait a minute this is a guy who despite what he does on twitter is now getting deals done in the fashion of say a john boehner used to try to do and so that will be interesting to see able to bring some of those people more on board that have had reservations in the past and i think we're. getting up there are people on the democrat side who are furious it

below sea and schumer for doing this you know the radical wing of the democratic party doesn't want to see any any relationship they just want to see you know the trump presidency demolished and destroyed and i think both parties have an interest in moving toward the center the democrats made a terrible mistake by giving in too much to their radical wing the republicans did the same thing early on with the tea party and i think it's in the interest of all americans to see both of our major parties move to of the center work with each other and marginalize the extremes on both parties times when jolly alan dershowitz thank you both very much for your time. great to be with you larry after the break why one expert at north korea's says he's starting to believe war with the role nation may be inevitable that expert joins me to talk about his stay right there.

about your sudden passing i've only just learned you were a south and taken your last turn. here at the top to us we all knew it would i tell you i'm sorry i could so i write these last words in hopes to put to rest these things that i never got off my chest. i remember when we first met my life turned on each breath. but then my feeling started to change you talked about war like it was again still some are fond of you those that didn't like to question our arc and i secretly promised to never be like it said one does not leave a funeral in the same as one enters the mind it's consumed with death this one quite different i speak to you now because there are no other takers. to claim that mainstream media has met its maker. and.

i'm tom hartman i'll give you what the mainstream media can't help big picture. little rabbit and when you question more find what you're looking for this is the first look at the atlas dog. we'll go deeper investigate and debate all so you can get the big picture. for decades the american middle class has been railroaded by washington politics. big body corporate interests that's drowned out a lot of voices that's how it is in the news culture in this country now that's where i come. i met phil on r.t. america i'll make sure you don't get railroad you'll get the straight talk in the break. but.

you are going back to politicking as donald trump meets with counterparts this week in new york at the u.n. one topic sure to come up over and over again what to do about north korea and its leaders ambition for a nuclear arsenal gordon chang is an expert on asia and north korea is a columnist for the daily beast and forbes dot com he's the author of nuclear showdown north korea takes on the world and he recently said he's starting to believe that war with that nation may be inevitable gordon joins me from new york what lends you to think that way gordon. i was a little bit unnerved by the war talk from senior administration officials this weekend so for instance we had a charming master the national security advisor saying that the time for diplomacy was over and those comments were very similar to those from our u.n. ambassador nikki haley you know we've been hearing these comments about diplomacy

you know forces on the table all of that and that's a concern but what also is a concern is what's coming out of north korea so for instance kim jong il the north korean leader is talking these days about final victory that's code in north korea for taking over south korea and so obviously that sets up a confrontation with the united states and with others and there's a possibility and maybe even a probability that north korea will badly miscalculate as it tries to do that so events are not moving in the right direction and drug called can join moon rocket man. yeah and i hope he was not doing that just to get royalties from sir elton john. the other thing about this though is that north korea is allowed to fire rockets it's not allowed to fire missiles so president trump probably should have said missile man but in any event we get the idea of where he's going with

these comments but gordon for either side wouldn't this is used on a nuclear weapon war is that this is pure insanity. of course it's pure insanity and no one ever wants to start a war especially a nuclear weapons war when you know countries want their adversaries to submit and now we have a situation where the north koreans want to take over south korea the united states wants to defend it also we want to disarm north korea for various reasons so we have interests which are irreconcilable and to make this even worse of course north korea has two very powerful backers beijing and moscow so there is a confrontation brewing here and i don't know what the solution is and so therefore this is going to be difficult for the you know the international community for the united states to get through but we're not going to go and why about north korea

and the you don't think they'd be insane enough to drop a bomb on us or on south korea and that's world war three that is world war three but you know kim jong un when he's confident about his arsenal is going to probably try to blackmail the united states to ending our treaty with south korea getting our twenty eight thousand five hundred troops off the peninsula so that he can then go to work on saul and during the whole process with these threats you know we have seen what's happened in the past when countries have tried to do these things and so that's why i'm concerned not that you know either cam or trump wants a war i don't think that they do of course but they do want things which are incompatible at least from the other side's point of view and so things could get very difficult we know that the kim family has used violence to upset status quos that it found to be unacceptable the north koreans don't respect the united states

so therefore there's a whole lot of room here for miscalculation. what is the actual role of china over north korea. well china high believe has overwhelming leverage over the north koreans despite the obvious friction between chinese leaders and kim jong un and the reason is not only because china as you know accounts for more than ninety percent of north korea's two way trade supplies somewhere between a third and maybe forty five percent of north korea's food which is especially important because of the drought there now and there are a lot of other reasons but the most important thing is that beijing supplies confidence to the regime that it is safe in the united states and the international community and of beijing wanted to it could signal it no longer supported the weapons programs it could signal it no longer supported kim jong il and and i think that what would happen would be regime elements around kim would then head for the exits because you can see where beijing was going with this candy and night is

states pressured china to do more oh absolutely so for instance the largest chinese banks have been laundering money for the north koreans including bank of china which was named in a two thousand and sixteen un report for devising an operating a money laundering scheme for pyongyang that makes these banks extremely vulnerable that's a violation of u.s. law and the treasury secretary could declare them to be primary money laundering concerns basically that's a death sentence for a bank in today's world also we know that the chinese have been stealing hundreds of billions of dollars each year of u.s. intellectual property the u.s. trade representative has started an investigation that could end up in extraordinary remedies against the chinese and right now we know that the chinese political system is extremely steep phoner will because of the one thousand party congress which starts october eighteenth chinese leaders see jumping has to consolidate his control between now and then and that leaves him open to pressure

from president trump what is russia want in this. i think you know russia has always been a spoiler and right now you know it sees an opportunity to bedevil the united states it sees an opportunity to get some more favorable support from from beijing so you know russia is up to no good and i think that essentially you know putting is much more interested in what he calls his near abroad which is you know crimea eastern ukraine the baltics you know western europe but nonetheless he does see an opportunity for russia to exert more influence on a situation which is obviously grabbing the world's attention and one of our relations with when the united states and south korea. this is one of the bright spots moons are you in who was elected president in that special election in early may here has a very sort of pro north korean view he's a north korea he's

a korean nationalist wants to support really want style log but president trump through some pretty clever diplomacy has been able to maneuver moon into a much more traditional south korean position and so therefore there is not as much daylight between the positions of seoul and washington as many people including me feared but that was i think because of an extraordinary amount of effort on the part of the white house garden as always thank you very much thank you so much larry on monday president trump in israeli prime minister benjamin netanyahu met in new york one topic they reportedly discuss is the iran nuclear deal which both leaders have universally criticized and promised to bring down meanwhile several friends for reports say that members of former president barack obama's team are working behind the scenes to protect the deal and prevent the drums administrated from dismantling it let's win a few moments with courtney dealy see the current spot of that t r t world she's

covering the u.n. general assembly this week she joins me from new york what do you make of this. this move by former members of the obama administration to try to keep the deal intact. well i think it's interesting because clearly it was they have their fingerprints on it it's their legacy and that it was the one point they said if that at least they had iran's nukes in check then they could move on towards other kinds of diplomatic solutions i mean i'd say the obama administration and the trend of ministration is very well aware that iran works on two different levels to mastic li internationally and then also in terms of who they fund and what will that be three what what conflicts are involved in what we heard yesterday was that the trump administration said on the sunday talk shows as the secretary of state rex tillerson said that iran is in technical compliance he said that they have one

foot of one yard that's ok and what this really means is what they put in place for the nuclear deal iran's iran's agreement they're not violating that but they have iranian revolutionary forces in syria they fund hezbollah fighters and what president trumpet his administration are saying is that they're not keeping up with the idea of the peace and security part they're not effort ng peaceful resolutions they are getting involved militarily but critics going to say that the u.s. and other countries are doing the same but what has the u.s. military is involved in syria as well but what clog the democratic position should the obama administration possibly have with this administration it's unclear i mean trump just shifted alliances last week with this meeting with police and chuck schumer. you know he is now saying that he might actually engage and not disengage from the paris climate accords this backpedaling of rhetoric that we saw on the

campaign trail and then what we're seeing this week at the u.n. g.a. which is president trump on the world stage president trump using the language is very very different than when he was talking to his constituents he's backing off of being. intensely critical of the u.n. he was sitting with the u.n. security general saying we want reform they're talking about democracy but he's not using vulgar and critical words he's starting to try to use words that clearly his administration is trying to get him to use you think obama's part of his avert. obama's sort of having his own peace effort this week and i don't really know if the two sides would ever talk but i can tell you that the democrats in general will try to save any any accords including the iranian nuclear deal that they put in place they believe in it and we are seeing the president is i wouldn't say falling in line but i would say adjusting his policies towards

a more moderate view we're not seeing we're seeing well garrity on his twitter feed but we're not seeing it in what he's saying at the u.n. for instance obama's former u.n. ambassador samantha power tweets it's hard to see how abandoning the iran deal doesn't lead to war is that grim assessment widely shared. i think that that's an assessment with the policy makers that were involved in the iran nuclear deal but i think what it does is it neglects to say that technically iran is the major player in syria and iraq as well that the u.s. is playing all sorts of sides with with iran right now that they are engaged in isis in northern iraq against isis in northern iraq with a sunni militias that ally with not only the iraqi government but with iran and that you have to get things done and against isis in syria you have to play nice

with the russians and the iranians so to stick to just this nuclear deal obviously they don't want to dismantle it and someone like samantha power has skin in the game but i would say that that's slightly hysterical tones when we're actually talking about two horrible conflicts and then the yemen conflict as well that iran has his fingerprints are all over and the u.s. usually is a saudi on so that he's a mean besides that iranian nuclear deal staying in place what secretary of state rex tillerson said is there's a whole lot to this relationship at the wrong that needs to be fixed on a security level and you'll see them talk about that more core nero's on the mark thanks for your time today bank you and thank you the audience for joining me on this edition of politicking remember you can join the conversation on my facebook page or tweet me at kings things and don't forget to use apology again ash tag and that's all for this edition of politicking.

about your sudden passing i've only just learned you were a south and taken your last wrong turn. up to you as we all knew it would i tell you i'm sorry for me i could so i write these last words in hopes to put to rest these things that i never got off my chest. i remember when we first met my life turned on each breath. but then my feelings started to change you talked about more like it was again still some more fun to feel those that didn't like to question our arc and i secretly promised to never again like it said one does not leave a funeral in the same as one enters the mind it's consumed with death this one quite different i speak to you now because there are no other takers. to claim that mainstream media has met its maker.

our culture is awash in logs dominated by streams of never ending electronic hallucinations that lurk fiction until they are indistinguishable we have become the most deluded society on politics as a species of endless and needless political theater politicians have morphed into celebrity are two ruling parties are in reality one party to corporate and those who attempt to hold this vast breathless universe of fake news designed to push through the tool chain and exploitation of the neoliberal board up for so far to the margins of society including by a public broadcasting system that has sold its soul for corporate money that we might as well be mice squeaking against an avalanche but squeak we must cut.

hello i'm tom hartman in portland oregon and here's what's coming up tonight on the big picture the signs are everywhere so are we need nearing the end of capitalism and if so what comes next i'll ask a condom is richard wolffe

a little later on in the program and donald trump did his best george w. bush him imitation today threatening countries he called the enemies of humanity with annihilation or extinction when will we when will he show that kind of outrage about the fossil fuel companies that are literally in on the apocalypse i'll talk with us and doug christian and it's politics. if donald trump is so dead set on fighting against the so-called enemies of humanity then why is he filled his administration with people who are literally i mean the literally sending us down the road to apocalypse let's ask that i have big picture politics.

with me for tonight's panel are nick jay of us who is the militant the media reporter for the daily caller and political commentator doug christiansen and gentlemen welcome let's get started. so after calling for the annihilation of north korea and threatening iran with more or less the same donald trump closed his first speech at the united nations by calling on the world to make common cause against the quote enemies of humanity history is asking us whether we are up to the task our answer will be a redo all of will a rediscovery of resolve and a rebirth of devotion we need to defeat the enemies of humanity and unlock the potential of life itself we are in the midst of

a record breaking hurricane season and according to a new study from the scripps institute of oceanography there's a one in twenty chance that seventy three years from now the entire human race could be extinct as a consequence of climate change if donald trump wants to fight the enemies of humanity should he take it on the fossil fuel industry. that's of no not necessarily tom i think there are a lot more enemies to humanity i mean you could argue fossil fuels or corporations definitely there's evil in them but i think there are a lot of other enemies and rational state actors are irrational state actors that are causing american dismay i think that's why he was addressing it at the u.n. because it fell under the umbrella of foreign nations. but if we're all dead isn't that sort of a moot point where they show me the proof they're all going to be dead i remember hollywood clamoring and saying well going to be underwater by now in the new york said you know hollywood florida they harp on it quite

a bit the day after tomorrow the simpsons was popular for poking fun at climate change and yet we're still here so i don't know i was not as ensign's or movies i'm sorry i actually listen to scientists nick and. the that's pretty strange and secondly you said you know where's the proof well you know there's no hundred percent proof here the science that came out of the scripps institute of oceanography which is not some liberal think tank this is one of the most highly respected scientific institutions in the world particularly with their guard to you know the state of our oceans and our atmosphere said you know by twenty one hundred there's a one in twenty chance it's a five percent chance the human race will be all dead as a concept you know if we don't do something now obviously if we do something now we can change those numbers but you know if we maintain the status quo that's that's one out of twenty if one out of twenty airplanes fell out of the sky would you ever get an airplane neck that if i needed to get somewhere and it was more important

than those numbers yes i would i would continue to travel and i don't let things like that stop me but what i was making before was that there's been a lot of fear mongering over the last decade about climate change not just in reality with scientists but in the media and in hollywood as well and yet like i said we're still here so i think we're spending more time in this issue than is necessary that's what i fear monger in if the. drama based on science but i'm talking about the science here or you're serious if there's ten thousand airplanes in the air at any given moment if if if five percent of the five hundred airplanes crashed every single day all around the world you would still feel fine getting on an airplane tomorrow like i said if i had had these or if i'd have surgery in california or my life was on the line yeah i'd get in the plane but that doesn't happen and that's not and then you know proof that's happened with the climate here i mean it doesn't really have to come down to that if we're all here or not all here. yeah ugh doug your thoughts yes does it does it mean that we have to wait until world dead before you believe in climate change

nick no i don't think that's the case and i think that when you see these institutions that come out with these numbers some of them including the n.o.a.a. have been caught numbers to fit a political agenda and that's plain press is never fudging the numbers that's it's plain as day if this is a political issue they've politicized it and this is what's coming out of it i don't think it's a political this is nothing political i really just is called science you up in the you open echo is that you guys if you all are chicks if you're going to talk about hurricanes and during the hurricane coverage c.n.n. and embassy n.b.c. couldn't stop talking about climate change even when there are people displaced from their homes being interviewed because the change was the kitchen climate change has to make liberation worse that's been politicized and it's over the top that i don't know that's not all it takes is science there's a difference no no no. no i mean no i mean seriously the thing is that it looks like they're like we're coming to a head in terms of there are we got to deal with this or are we not going to deal

with it and the and the good news is is that if we actually went and did work on alternative fuel sources it provides a it provides economic. incentives and growth and different ways of looking at this rather than looking at it as a zero sum game whereby if we just get rid of of fossil fuel that somehow we're going to hurt the economy i don't think that's the case ok i would just just for the record this is from the journal climate change which actually was written by scientists published by scientists peer reviewed by scientists and has no dispute the scientific community quote nearly thirty percent of the rise in global sea level between eight hundred eighty and two thousand and ten resulted from emissions traced to the ninety largest carbon producers more than six percent of the rise in global sea level resulted from emissions trace to exxon mobil chevron and b.p. the three largest contributors this. so anyway live but let's move along as centrist as centers and republicans are hand-wringing about the cost of

guaranteeing health care a human right to sing to every single human being in the united states the senate has just handed the war machine another big fat check on monday have passed the twenty seventeen version of the annual national defense authorization act the n.d. devil a this year the end of a and e. double a sets the defense budget at a whopping seven hundred billion dollars and eighty billion dollar increase over next year over last year to me that's almost double the cost of bernie sanders free college plan which is around forty seven billion this is exactly what this is exactly what republican president dwight d. eisenhower warned us about in his one nine hundred fifty three cross of iron speech every gun that has made every warship launched every rocket fired signifies in the final scene a thing from those who hunger and are not those who are code and are not going this

world in arms is not spending money alone it is spending the sweat of its labors genius soviet scientists who obvious to their cost the one modern you have the bomb or is it a modern brick school in more than thirty. two electric power plant each serving eight pounds sixty found the population it is to find fully possible it is some fifty miles on the way we pay for a single fighter plane with a happy million bushels of wheat we pay for a single destroyer with new homes that could have more than a thousand feet this is not a way of life at all many people under the cloud of threatening war it is humanity hanging from a cross of my. so doug how come we can always find hundreds hundreds and hundreds of billions of dollars for this gigantic war machine but every time we

talk about improving the health the education the infrastructure the quality of life of average americans the republican party in particular even if you democrats start screaming to special interest dog yes it all comes down to special interest tom i really does i mean it comes down to zero who really who who is gets gets the ear of our congress and it's it is the defense industry. you know so nick are you going to agree with me and rand paul that this is rageous or are you going yeah i said to courtney o'connell i'd like to say two quick things on that tom one yes the military has been known to pentagon especially for massive waste money gone missing so there is something to be said i think the pentagon we should audit the pentagon we should audit the defense department to see where that money is going to let's let's think of the name of the panel let's think big picture and also see that for bernie sanders medicare for all plan would cost between one point four and two trillion dollars so when we look at that it may not

be a big of a purchase less that we're spending right now well i argue bold but i think it would be you know it is i think less than we're spending right now i think so that sounds like a good deal i would think i don't i don't think so i don't think it is we're very happy about that other one point four trillion on top of everything else in the twenty trillion that we just surpassed on the debt is not on top of it's instead but it's instead of instead of cycling your money through united health care so they can skim twenty percent off the top and give stephen j. hemsley another billion dollars he's already taken over a billion dollars in compensation this one c.e.o. of this one health insurance company if i never gave one damn vaccination no one child although dark and with regard to defense like i said i think you can argue that you know that there is fraud there is waste and that it needs to be be found out but at the same time we can go to form the other direction and swing the pendulum to where do we not need the military but then we'd be strong on the military if we had these extendible threats so i think there's a fine balance to be struck there and like i said i think it starts with audit and

not just the defense department but all of government spending it's always corrupt there's always more money going out the back door than there is coming in so it shouldn't be the military across the board let's look at everything was whatever you have generalize like that you know always always always you you run into some risks and you could say look at the government do they do anything efficiently do that but they don't but it's just a fact go ahead. you're generalizing too much nic on this you really are i mean the thing is also when you look at that. military spending. let's put in comparison to just what we're spending in the state department maybe one percent of what we're spending in the military and yet if you're a fiscal conservative you believe in getting the most for your money the state department provides way more for your money in terms of just dollar for dollar than the military does. doug we have to wrap it up in a bit to let me just add to that also social security has never missed

a check since one nine hundred thirty three and we're going back to the and their overhead is two percent medicare is overhead is one and a half percent it is possible to you know government does do some things well but in any case go to a part of that didn't believe us it's great having both of you with us thank you so much for being with us here to see it tom thank you thanks joe. and coming up professor richard wolfe has some rather dramatic thoughts on the future of capitalism stick around. all the feelings of. every the world should experience. and you'll get it on the old the old. the old according to just.

come along for their. own. all the world's a stage and all the news companies merely players but what kind of parties are anti american plate are to america offers more artsy american personal. many ways to use landscape it's just like the real news big names good actors bad actors and in the end you could never you're on. the park you need all the world's a stage all the world's a stage all the world's

a stage and we are definitely a player. you guys and i made a professional is powerpoint to show you how artsy america fits into the greater media landscape is not all laughter all right but we are a solid alternative to the. liberal or conservative and as you can see in this bar graph we don't skew the facts either talking head left these talking head righties oh there you go above it all so look out world r.t. america is 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. all the feeling to know. everything the world should experience. and you get it on the old the old. the old according to just.

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a stage all the world's a stage all the world's a stage and we are definitely a player. like guys i made a professional ish powerpoint to show you how artsy america fits into the greater media landscape is not all laughter all right. we are a solid alternative to the bullshit that we don't skew liberal or conservative and as you can see in this bar graph we don't skew the facts either talking head lefties talking head righties oh there you go above it all to look at we're all artsy americans in the spotlight now every really i have no idea how to classify as and it actually took me way more time and i care to admit. all the feelings of. every the world should experience.

and you'll get it on the old the old. the old according to josh. the world come along for the ride. and. all the world states and all the news companies merely players but what kind of parties are anti american plate r.t. america offers more r.t. america first. in many ways the news landscape is just like the real news

big news good actors bad actors and in the end you could never know you're on. the market all the world's a stage all the world's a stage all the world's a stage and we are definitely a player. you guys and i made a professional is powerpoint to show you how artsy america into the greater media landscape is not laughter all right we are a solid alternative to the. liberal or conservative and as you can see in this bar graph we don't skew the facts either talking have left these talking head righties oh there you go above it all so look at world r.t. america is in the spotlight now every lead must have no idea how to classify as when it actually took me away. more time than i cared to admit. and welcome back continuing with our politics panel with doug and nick speaking on

capitol hill today senate minority leader chuck schumer laid out as clearly as possible what would happen if republicans successfully force through the gramm cassady bill their latest and perhaps even cruelest attempt to appeal to repeal obamacare will result in about seven hundred billion dollars in cuts to health care by two thousand and twenty seven it would cause millions to lose coverage millions it would radically restructure and deeply cut medicaid would bring us back to the days when assurance companies could can discriminate against people with preexisting conditions it would get rid of the consumer protections that gives americans access to maternity care substance abuse prescription drugs and it would throw the individual markets into chaos resulting in fifteen million people losing coverage. this is this is amazing so we've

got a few possibilities here for why and how this is apne is this happening because and i'll just toss these questions out and then we can have a conversation about it guys is this happening because the republican party is is so committed i mean we know that the health care lobby for the health insurance lobby excuse me the banks who call themselves health insurance companies the health the health insurance lobby and the big pharma lobby are two of the most powerful in washington d.c. so a is it because the republicans are simply bought out shills and maybe a few of the democrats or b. is it because this whole libertarian philosophy that david koch espoused in one nine hundred eighty when he ran for vice president that the government should have no business at all in the health industry or in health period or in even helping keep americans healthy even though the general welfare of the people is mentioned in the preamble of the guy's decision the opening of article one section eight the

closing of article such in one. section one or article one section eight the specific a numerated powers of the constitution is it so is it idle ideological number two following coke and the other libertarian or three is that that we've got a bunch of sociopaths who just don't give a damn about their fellow human beings doug what are your thoughts on well i don't think it's socially sociopathic behavior but i do think that it's people that want to win at almost any cost i mean they're not looking at the price of what is going to happen by winning and really. it would be nice if washington had the people in washington had the ability to just step back for a moment and say is it worth the price to win on this or am i willing to lose right now i don't see that as a possibility. but how is how is causing millions of people to not have access to health care winning exactly it's not winning it's not winning it's winning only

politically winning and that's with deaths the distinction i mean in that sense the voter is right when they say washington is removed from the needs of voters when when you look i mean at first for some reason it has always been the case that reforming health care. is a positive or progressive way has been politically dangerous for i would say democrats and as a result i mean for some reason the republicans have been able to capitalize on that and it gets back to tom franks book what's the matter with kansas that for some reason voters are willing to vote against their own interest well i mean germany has had a single payer health care system since eight hundred eighty eight if my memory is correct nick chivas what do you think are the reasons why the republicans are opposing this i think doug makes a good point i said this

a few weeks ago and you had me in studio on your show last time there is a certain mentality of let's be the first ones across the finish line so our bill is the one that gets passed and i think that's what you're seeing now with cassidy and grand i mean i don't think this is something that's going to going to work i mean even even when they propose a conservatives are skeptical liberals are skeptical and you need to work with the other party this is so massive that to do with the liberals that in the democrats that with obamacare it is ram it down the public's throat you'd be no better than what you were calling out for years on the campaign trail so i think they need to reach out this is too big to have one party rule just ram it through and i think the opioid crisis plays i don't know if. you know a year it was over a year long process doing obamacare or there were forty or fifty hearings there were public hearings there were meetings all over the country. i don't know that there was any ramming through but ultimately sort of can invent. votes legislative that let's remember that they didn't go to conference on it when it took over

a gigantic course of the economy so we have to just keep that alive because we did hear a house by reconciliation they did it yes but that but that's but that's neither here nor there that's that's then this is now so so here we've got these republicans who are opposed to this you're suggesting that it's not that they're they're in thrall to the literally millions of dollars that they're taking from the big insurance companies the drug companies and it's not that they're just you know they just don't like poor people or were average working people you think that this is just all politics they're just trying to notch their belt donald and well and the republicans well we actually we don't know what don you know we can't speak for don but yeah i mean these this user politicians right and left this is what they are they live for this there's a huge amount of ego involved and if their name is a senator could be on a passage of a bill that ends up being in the history books as the health care reform bill i bet you bet your butt they're going to take it and they're going to try to do anything they can to get that passed including not working with the other party and not working on substance but but there is the there's a lot of legislation there's a lot of legislation that nobody wants their name on it i mean you know separate

but equal from from eight hundred ninety s. i mean the dred scott to say this legislation this is popular this isn't as controversial as that at the same time it won them election a lot of them are there because they promised to get this done so but nick a serious question to you and just a genuine on a serious question to you know how much of the republican base's opposition to obamacare do you think is coming out of real genuine information and how much of it is coming out of this incredible misinformation campaign that was put in particular run while it was all being legislated and litigated and and has been ever since i think it's real and i think it's big and i can speak with personal experience on that having been through the medical system the past five to ten years and seen its deterioration firsthand spoken with fellow patients spoken with doctors doctors who are retiring because the system puts them in handcuffs i mean this is something that needs to be changed. cross the board and i think the american people have voted for trump if they don't believe that. well i get that i mean my doctor has

two people who do just paperwork in her office which is crazy there's a hospital in toronto that's virtually the identical size number of beds and size as i believe it is the einstein hospital in new york city einstein has an entire floor but does billing the hospital in toronto has one room with two people in a to do billing i mean that's how sky crazy these two systems are do they be american people are figuring this out nick i hope so because this kind of you know skit so way of going about it we're only putting one foot in one foot out i mean i'm not a big government guy but if you're going to go go all the way do one or the other because this in-between is going to kill the country slowly and i think that if we at least all got on the same page in one direction of the other it be better than the slow crawl that we're doing right now into debt and nick i totally agree with you that's fantastic. we got it we got to wrap it up with a great one nick nick and doug thank you very much thanks tom and that's the way it is tonight and don't forget democracy is not

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welcomed on contact today we discuss the uses and abuses of american history with historian eric foner we want to have a public commemoration of history of or to be diverse enough to include the whole history not just the history that those in power want us to remember. chris hedges. history like most scholarly pursuits and academia is dominated by the banal and the trivial the montra of disinterested scholarship and the obsession with data collection add up as the historian howard zinn wrote to the fear that using our intelligence to further our moral ends is somehow improper academics are rewarded for buttressing the ruling social structure producing heavy tomes on the ruling elites and ignoring the underlying social forces that have been the true engines of social and political change in the united states most academics are complicit in

masking the inconvenient facts that tarnish the myth facts about genocide slavery class repression racism and the lies told by the ruling elites the mass media and powerful institutions to justify power historians who are apologist for the past are rewarded and promoted. truth tellers are often marginalized this struggle to discern the truth of our past is being played out with the popular revolt against confederate monuments. going today by professor eric foner the pulitzer prize winning historian and to wit clinton professor of history at columbia university he is one of the country's foremost scholars of american history from his first book free soil free labor free men the idiology of the republican party before the civil war to his books on reconstruction and slavery tom paine and the underground railroad he has shattered the myths we tell ourselves about ourselves to shine a fierce and uncompromising light on our nation's past

a past that informs our present his latest book is battles for freedom the use and abuse of american history thank you and i should add not only are you a brilliant historian but you can write which makes me wonder how you ever got into academia thank you thank you because i appreciate a letter that when i worked as a reporter at the new york times we used to say that. we manipulated facts they were facts they were verifiable facts but we could spin them any way we wanted to and i i think when i read your stuff that you would agree that that's also true about historians yeah in a lot of ways it is i mean we do we're not novelists we do not invent facts we don't invent dialogue from the past you know that we leave that to the novelists who sometimes who very good job of it but you know one of the things a lot of people don't quite understand about the writing of history is history is the creation of the istari and in other words the narrative is is

a product of your imagination these how you put the facts together how you choose what is a fact and so for almost any important subject in american history or any history there are many different interpretations out there and there's nothing unusual about that people have preconceptions they have different ideas. what's important and they hear the history to their own interests and to the interests of their own time that they're writing in and as a result you come up with a lot of different histories which is partly what makes it interesting to study you make a couple points one is that any writing of history it is grounded in the moment is responding to the contemporary moment but also you talk about you know what we might call the lie of omission what nietzsche calls creative forgetfulness that that amnesia i mean you say at one point that amnesia best describes america's official stance regarding slavery but it is what we omit that so much shapes our

perception of ourselves and we're watching that now with the whole turmoil around confederate monuments in the south right callback or the istari in the road you know that history is what the president chooses to remember. and then you choose to forget things too so yes when i was in high school i got in my history textbooks a story of american history which was a very one dimensional it was all about the rise of freedom and liberty and all this kind of thing slavery was omitted almost entirely the general plight of african-americans and other non whites were pretty much omitted from the story so it was very partial it was very limited and that's the same thing with all the statues in the debate you just mentioned you know i'm not one of those as tear down every single statue of every confederate all over the place but if you step back and look at the public presentation of history particularly in the south through these monuments and things. where the black people of the south where the money

went to lynching right where is the monument to slavery to begin with so the victims of slavery the monument to the victims of lynching the monument to the black leaders of reconstruction the first black senators and members of congress my view is as well as taking down some statues i think we need to put up others if we want to have a public. commemoration of history it or to be diverse enough to include the whole history not just the history that those in power want us to remember you write in the book about how. this creates a kind of you quote lowen a landscape of denial what do you mean by that well low in the james low and very good star and wrote a book called lies across america which is exactly about monuments and the lack of monuments of those that exist what they what they say for example there was a monument that was now taken down it's sort of in limbo in new orleans to the

white league which during reconstruction was a racist organization which had an uprising trying to our military yeah try to overthrow the government the biracial government of louisiana and there was a monument to the battle of liberty place and the marker on it said you know they gave us they tried to give us back our state well who was the us it's the white louisianans who could not come to terms with the fact that black people were exercising significant political power at the time. so that's a very warped that's a denial of the actual history of the period and there are many many monuments that suffer from that as low and then others have been pointing out in the book you write about an exhibit about the west in the smithsonian so it's coupled with this landscape of denial this historical amnesia is a deification of in this case westward expansion that is a lie well you know as you well know the mythology of the west is deeply

rooted in our culture whether it's in western movie to see you know of which there are good zillion of them or the idea of the lone pioneer or you know and the sort of individual who you know roughing it out in the west and of course basically the main. and why there is that the west was kind of empty before white settlers and hunters and trappers and others farmers came from the east to settle it in fact the west has been populated forever and the real story of the west is the clash of all these different peoples native americans asians in california settlers coming in from the east. mexicans the west is a very multicultural place there were a lot of history is there but many of those histories a kind of ignored or subordinated in this one the story of the west will you will back and look at the particular world view of the artists in this case who are

perpetuating that vision west and they are rabidly racist yeah that that exhibit at the smithsonian was actually meant to deconstruct so to speak the mythology and to preserve which it was attacked oh and that's the point i wrote about the controversy a many people don't want to hear it they don't want their mythology to be taken apart or complicated and so there was a lot of criticism of this of the smithsonian for challenging the more traditional few of western history the west is very is a multi-racial place and racism is certainly part of western history but you're not going to get that from a john wayne movie you're not going to get that from many of the. yeah right of the paintings by remington and others you not going to get that aspect of western history so but the problem is really not simply oh well this is not accurate or it's inadequate it's that that's

a history which doesn't help you understand is not presents not true it's a myth right but in a way that's not even the worst thing about it the worst thing is that if you adhere to that myth you can understand the present hilarious actos to give you that's right insight into the present and that history could not have produced the present were envelop. you know country that believe that just confuse myth with history which means they can understand the present well there are i think in some ways our understanding of history has gotten a little more sophisticated over the over my fifty one it has such a place as like columbia. and in the high schools textbooks but you're right about what you write about of the tech the rewriting of textbooks in texas yeah well texas is a funny place if not well enough let's leave them out in their own little corner yes texas has this school board commission which vets the textbooks you could use in high school in texas and unless they had here to the

idiology of that commission you're not going to get into their selves white supremacy well it's approaching federal it's only white supremacy it's limited you know it's current republicanism limited government deregulation that sort of thing and definitely has a strong white supremacist element to it but the texas market is gigantic i mean you know where was the problem with texas is that so many other states because it's strike and use those textbooks well that's a problem because a publisher is not going to say all right we're printing these books to texas but then we're going to print. other books for other states they don't do that they've got a text book if they have to modify it for texas that will be the way the text would go so i think that is a problem in wouldn't you say that i mean look at with the rise of donald trump i mean isn't this based on a completely on a complete fantasy of america who we are where we can isn't it well trump certainly as we have seen in the past few weeks appeals directly to those who have

a particular view of what you might call a white supremacist view of of america of american history i wrote a little piece in the new york times questioning when he talked about our history the taking down statues is you know is ruining our his will who are the our who is that our it's a very limited group it's it's white people particularly it's pro confederate people i'm not claiming that that trump is a neo nazi in and frankly he doesn't even have enough political ideas to be called in but his general you know approaches to appeal to those elements of his base who are the most retrograde and so yes it does come with a view of americans and that and that goes back to what you call the cult of the lost cause about the civil war which is becomes vital to how these people perceive america perhaps you can talk about that well the last

cause was you know an idea developed mostly in the eighteen ninety's and then a little bit after that which glorified the confederacy romanticize slavery and basically tried to write slavery out of the history of the civil law even to the point where you're right that they will claim that there were blacks fighting i mean because of course figures like nathan bedford forrest his slaves with him there is there was no idea for the writer see but unfortunately if you go on the internet today you can find websites devoted to the blacks fighting in the confederacy but this is a myth. at the there were there were certainly blacks working in the army camps every army as you well know has all sorts of civilian people working for it whether it's a good teamsters a laundress says or construction workers or many many other things and some people did bring their slaves along and the government impressed slaves to work for the but these are not soldiers in

a combat troops the number at the very end of the war like the last month the confederacy began putting a handful of black soldiers into the army around richmond when just before it fell but around petersburg but you know but yeah there's this mythology of the confederacy as a kind of a multi-cultural it becomes a way to deny that it was about slipping yeah it was about section of slaves and this is a myth but unfortunately like many things on the internet you can find it even though it is admits it's out there and there are people who are propagating it all right when we come back we'll hear more from professor eric foner. the mission of news with his to go to the people tell their side of the story our stories are well sourced we don't hide anything from the public and i don't think

the mainstream media in this country can say. average. r.t. america has a different perspective so that we're not hearing one echo chamber that one stream media is constantly spewing. we're not beholden to any corporate sponsor no one tells us what to cover how long the coverage or how to say it that's the beauty of our t.v. america. we give both sides we hear from both sides and we question more. journalists not letting anything get in your way. bringing it home to the american people. 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 talking at lefties talking at righties oh there you go. to look at world is in the spotlight every really have no idea how to classify isn't it actually took me way more time than i care to admit. chris hedges welcome back to on contact let's get back to our conversation with professor eric foner author of battles for freedom the use and abuse of american history i want to talk about the nature of what it means to write history and you. say that there are three approaches to the writing of history the monumental the antiquarian and the critical. right well the monumental is the history that glorifies basically the nation state that is represented in monuments that do not question anything about the society and a lot of history is like that

a lot of you know the rise of history as a discipline coincided with the rise of the nation state and every every nation needs a kind of set of myths to justify its own existence that's why another of my favorite writers ernest read on the french istari and wrote long ago the historian is the enemy of the nation he doesn't mean that they're spies or anything he comes along and takes apart the mythologies that are helping to underpin the legitimacy of the nation so monumental that historian right but that's why people don't like them very often they don't want to hear these things ok antiquarian is what a lot of people are and that's fine they're looking for their personal routes they're looking for their family history they're going on ancestry dot com to find out where the d.n.a. came from that's not really history exactly they don't really have much of a historical context but it stimulates people to think about the past and then there's what nature call a critical history or i also said the history that judges and condemns in other

words it takes a model stance it doesn't just relate to facts it decide tells you what is good and what is evil and a lot of stars don't quite like to do that but to me it's important it's important for the istari and having done the research having presented the history to say i look this is my here's where i stand in relation to all these important issues of our history and this you're reading this about howard zinn i wrote about zinn because certainly he was an example of what nature calls critical history his people's history of the united states you know has sold i don't know two million copies a more very influential book you know there are things wrong with that book as there are with almost any book but what i found as a teacher is i've had. many students good students whose interest in history was stimulated by how i think i told i taught it in a prison and it he is very cognizant of the african-american experience from the beginning when washington throws african american soldiers out of the continental

army and end it electrified my students well it open the people hope it opens their eyes they say wait a minute this is not what i was taught in high school i'm talking about college students see it this is not what i've heard this is a different view of america our story it's not the story of the powerful and it gets people interested to go and do more reading and do more research and you know how it was i knew him reasonably well he was a courageous guy he was a very. you know friendly and just open minded guy and nobody could accuse howard zinn of being like a foreign agent i mean if he was at a pilot in world war two you know he's a middle american guy this guy was a homegrown american he was not some foreign idiology infiltrating into the united states well i think one of your you write an essay in there about bernie sanders saying let's you know it's tough talk about denmark let's talk about deb's yeah and

this came during the. campaign when bernie was trying to get the democratic nomination in two thousand and sixteen and yes someone else and what do you mean by democratic socialism he said well we should be like denmark and i just said you know bernie that's not know most people don't know anything about denmark and don't really care that much about denmark and more to the point as you said there is an indigenous american radical tradition that we ought to be identifying with whether it's frederick douglass eugene debs elizabeth cady stanton luther king jr those are the people who are trying to make america a better place and that's the tradition those others become sanitised they hang you talk about helen keller of committed socialists right now king is particularly king was a very radical god and yet every you know january. we always see is king up at the lincoln memorial rosena nine hundred sixty he rose in his one speech even one sentence you know i want my children to be judged you know by the content of their character not just the color of their skin that's not what the whole civil rights

movement was about the king people forget he died leading a poor people's march leading a strike of sanitation workers he wasn't just out there talking about civil rights he had moved to economic inequality as a fundamental issue and bernie picked that up and bernie should be saying hey i am following in a great american tradition of you you make a point about that i thought was very interesting and you talk about the practical politicians as opposed to the utopian social reformers and in particular the abolitionists who you said their first task was to destroy the conspiracy of silence by which political parties churches and other institutions sought to exclude slavery from public debate and then you go on and you say for most of the eight hundred fifty s. the first two years of the civil war lincoln widely considered the model of a pragmatic politician advocated a series of plans to end slavery gradual emancipation monetary compensation setting

up colonies to send block african-americans out of the country to settle you call the harebrained scheme that had no possibility of an act and it was the abolition is still viewed by some historians as irresponsible fanatics who put forward the program in a media and uncompensated end to slavery with black people becoming u.s. citizens that came to pass and that's pretty good writing. you know that's exactly right and i've written a lot about lincoln that's my time period the civil war reconstruction and yes. there's a whole lincoln industry out there i of contributed to it which seems like it has the absolute model of the practical politician but in fact lincoln's ideas were not practical at all what was good. right about lincoln was he changed he was able to change when lincoln saw that his ideas were not working he moved to other ideas he wasn't stubborn he was a stuck in his ways he was not too prideful to say i was wrong you know the

abolitionists who are generally considered absolutely fanatical impractical z. their policy came to be so that is. somewhere in there you know what is possible would never have been possible and in your book other people had not asked for the impossible so it's this symbiotic connection between radical demand and practical implementation that i think we need to try to look for what you studied with hofstetter and he said american history was characterized by broad agreement on fundamentals particularly the virtues of individual liberty private property and capitals enterprise arguing an essence that the division that historians write about in american history are minor well he was associated very closely with what they called the consensus school which argued that there was an overriding consensus yes democrats versus whigs republicans versus democrats it's

all kind of a family quarrel without any genuine serious disagreements and the other side of that coin is the people who didn't have. serious disagreements a kind of fanatics there outside the mainstream or a phrase he used that became very prominent lately the paranoid style there's psychologically the reins to the someway and you know so that the people in consensus a normal and stable in the people criticizing from the outside a paranoid and irresponsible now hofstetter himself began to move away from that in the one nine hundred sixty s. when he saw the society forming a part in all of this turmoil and the consensus vision could not explain this if there's no disagreement in america why are hundreds of thousands of people in the street every weekend. so hostile to move beyond that but nonetheless that consensus view certainly did have a strong hold on american till it does now doesn't it through i mean you talk about neo liberalism i think you get a zombie you know that no it's dead but still warm sterile still walking but out it

was that is our consensus well that's who was it fukuyama who said that's right we've reached the end of history in other words there's nothing more to debate there's no more disk this disagreement about what the best form of society is from you know from the late eighty's maybe until two thousand and eight that was it neo liberalism whether democrat or republican didn't matter obama bush clinton reagan there were only a lib and that was true i think hofstetter was writing about the early american history which was this lokki and deification of private property right but then you get to like to say how do you explain the civil war within a consensus point of view the only way to do that is with some istari to say well it was all a big mistake you know the blundering generation the needless war it takes the fundamental issue of slavery sort of out of the out of the narrative but yeah there was this neo liberal consensus that was shattered by two thousand and eight the fed

the little liberalism failed abysmally and we're still living in that wreckage it's the as i said it's a zombie movement now because it's dead. still alive but nonetheless nothing really viable has come to take it's well it's i mean we're this moment of morbidity i want to read a quote. the search for a nonexistent objectivity has led us ironically into a particularly retrogressive subjectivity that of the bystander which he condemns and i think you do yeah i mean i don't think the istari and objectivity is an interesting and often misunderstood word i tell my students what objectivity means is you have an open mind not an empty mind there is no person who doesn't have preconceptions values assumptions and you bring those to the study of history what it means to be objective is if you begin and countering evidence research that

question some of your assumptions you may have to change your mind you have to have an open mind in your encounters with the evidence but that doesn't mean you don't take a stand deprived that stance of the bystander is not the right thing you have an obligation if you have done all this study if you've done all this research if you understand key issues in american history better than most people just because you've done the research and they haven't you have an obligation as a citizen to speak up about it and to say ok i have studied all this here is my conclusion that doesn't mean everyone has to say oh you're right you're right i'm not going to think for myself but. we should not be bystanders we should be active citizens being a star into being an active citizen is not mutually contradictory well and that is what makes us and greatest option thank you very much i was professor eric foner author of battle for freedom the use and abuse of american history. culture and literacy in our final stage of decline have been replaced with noisy diversions on

empty cliches the roman statesman cicero inveighed against their ancient equivalent the arena cicero for us. honesty was hunted down and murdered his severed head and his right hand nailed to the speaker's platform in the forum the roaring crowds were gleefully told he would never speak or write again we are infected with a toxic mindless cough in a our own version of spectacle and gladiator fights of bread and circus pumped out over the airwaves and endless cycles political life has fused into celebrity worship education is primarily folk a tional intellectuals' are cast out and despised artists cannot make a living few people read books thought has been banished especially at universities and colleges where timid pedants and careerists churn out academic drivel although tyranny because it needs no consent may successfully rule over foreign peoples

hannah arendt wrote in the origins of totalitarianism it can stay in power only if it destroys first of all the national institutions of its own people and because ours have been destroyed the imbecilic utterings of our degraded culture is tweeted daily in sound bites from the oval office. thank you for watching you can find us on our t. dot com slash on contact a c n x week. in case you're new to the game this is how it works not the economy is built around crazy preparations from washington to washington post media the media

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and you'll get it on the you'll roll. according to just. welcome to my world come along for the ride. on the news tonight president trump addresses the united nations general assembly in condemns north korea and the iranian nuclear deal into harsh terms and a seven point one magnitude earthquake strikes mexico city toppling buildings to the ground and killing at least seventy two people and senate republicans pushed hard in their last desperate attempt to repeal and replace obamacare despite resistance from both ends of the political spectrum. reporting tonight from washington d.c. you're watching the news on r.t. america.