israeli warplanes conduct their strikes near damascus according to unconfirmed syria and israeli media reports. also this hour a bomb scare triggers a mass evacuation near a christmas market in the german city of stuff. and a u.s. national security advisor michael flynn pleads guilty to making false statements to the f.b.i. spotting a probe into russia links. for those latest stories head to our dot com stay with us now though for the big picture of the back with you and i. what a week and what have we learned from these people matt lauer

garrison keillor al franken joe barton charlie rose glenn thrush roee muar louis c.k. kevin spacey harvey weinstein mark halperin roger israel's eric bolling bill o'reilly bill cosby bill clinton donald trump dennis hastert tiger woods clarence thomas. i'm holland cook in washington this is the big picture on r t america.

eighty eight year old congressman john conyers the longest currently serving member of the united states house of representatives lies in a michigan hospital tonight he's coping with stress attributed to what a spokesman calls this media assault conyers is accused of sexual harassment and his accuser has now broken the nondisclosure agreement she signed in two thousand and five house minority leader nancy pelosi has called on him to resign and right now this issue is a shock wave and every workplace is feeling the tremors to help us all understand better we welcome dr gina loudon a psychoanalyst and david lewis c.e.o. and founder of h.r. outsourcing consulting firm operations and thank you both for being here thanks for having me holland david definition of terms what is sexual harassment in the

workplace. well i think it's everything that any common individual would understand it's any type of overt action comment any type of unwanted physical contact of a sexual nature but i think the bigger issue is that most people don't understand that it goes much further than that that intent is not as important as perception and that when you do investigations as i have over thirty one year career you start to learn most about the fact that victims look at him harassment differently perhaps than those that are the sources of harassment so you have to be careful about the subtle in addition to the obvious dr gina it would be unfair to ask you what went on in the minds of those particular accused we've just named but tell us more generally about the predatory mindset one of these people thinking. well the predatory mindset holland is all about control that is the root of the issue

it's usually in compensation psychologically for other realms where that person feels inadequate and so therefore they act out. in an attempt to feel some control over a person that they believe that they can control and so there in lies the entire problem but i think it's important to note that this doesn't only happen to women i noticed in your extensive list that those were all men but it also happens to men i know of incidents many incidences in fact that i've counseled one very personal to me where this kind of thing happened to men too so it's about when you are in a in a position of employment underneath someone with in a superior position with power over you that is the obviously the prime situation where these sorts of things can happen and need to be just guarded against i think now more than ever you know i am genuinely surprised that twitter didn't crash when

this mt lauer story broke and at first n.b.c. statement seemed turners and before more details emerged this had to be the most remarkable clip i saw during that early coverage of a look. the new york times reported that up to five women had come forward over the years and complained about sexual heresy at your hands and that fox news actually made deals with those women financial settlements amounting to about thirteen million dollars for their silence is that accurate i don't know well there's matt asking bill o'reilly the tough questions he's now ducking jena you've described workplace harassment as a power play and two of the accused that we named. earlier where each accused by multiple accusers of harassment in the world's most powerful workplace the white house did bill clinton get off easy and should donald trump.

i think that bill clinton did get off easy there's a vast distinction though between and i think we have to be very careful about this no matter who we're talking about or how important they are how much power they have or where it happened i think you have to be sure that there is actual tangible evidence some sort of proof and we all know that there is that from the bill clinton incidents and i think that it wasn't just that the things happened to those women under bill clinton but i think it's that they were further victimized by the way that the clintons continued to carry out punishment to them in order to keep them quiet and then every time that they spoke up coming down on them even harder and those sorts of things continue to rassmann it makes it even worse i mean the case of the president the current president trump you know there is no tangible evidence that anything was done there's no videotape there's no picture we all know about the incident with the on the bus but that was that was talk and till you have

tangible evidence i think we have to be very careful not to convict people in the court of public opinion so where there's an admission or whether there where there is evidence i think we definitely need to punish those to the fullest extent of the law for sure no to your point about evidence david question when a worker feels victimized what is the first thing she or he should do. well i think the policies that we all have within the workplace tell you to go to human resources or to your manager to report issues and it's important to understand that there are two different sets of guidelines here there's those that exist within a court of law which is what the doctors are referring to and then there's those that exist within the law of employment and those are completely different as an investigator i can tell you i don't need to have definitive proof or the same type of bar i have to have enough evidence that tells me that i have

a good feeling that the person who is telling me the truth is the victim not the individual who's being accused and to that and the employer has the right if they so choose to go ahead and terminate that individual or take some kind of action they don't have the same standards that exist in a court of law or in front of a jury of your peers and similarly your risks relatively speaking are far less in the workplace when you choose to fire somebody on suspicion of being the bad character that they've been accused of being versus having to have definitive evidence in any of these instances and the bottom line is this if donald trump worked in a workplace today he'd be fired if he was in an organisation where i went in to go ahead and do an investigation the same thing would be true for bill clinton the same thing would be true for bill o'reilly who by the way is a distinction has not admitted that he's done anything wrong where matt lauer did over the course of this past week and several of these high profile scandals

a lot of credence has been attached to contemporaneous notes if you feel violated david is that the first thing you should do is tell someone write it down dated somehow. yeah i mean i think a lot of what you're seeing is a question about whether or not human resources departments are on the side of the employees and you can't get around the fact that the h.r. organizations work for management they are there to go ahead and advise and direct but they don't make the decisions so what you're seeing a lot out there about is for example gretchen carlson is out there and understandably has thrown the h.r. machine at fox under the bus but she's also throwing the entire h. r. apparatus under a bus here and i think the advice that's being provided is that if you don't feel h.r. is a trustworthy entity or you're not comfortable with the way h.r. has responded to your claim go ahead and document these issues but you're doing so because at some later point in time you're going to go to the equal employment opportunity commission or the commission on human rights or you're going to go to

a local lawyer and those are going to be the smoking gun items that are going to add to your contention that you were harassed in the workplace you worked in that i imagine your phone's ringing off the wall lately what should employers be doing right now. employers should be taking a look inward the proverbial look in their mirror they should be looking at the company culture that they have developed right now and they should look at the stories they're reading in the newspaper and ask themselves the question does this sound like us if it does you have a problem and you can empower all you want the h.r. organization but the bottom line is the buck stops at the top and works its way down so management needs to take the lead they need to say that we're no longer going to be the organization that we have been they're going to ensure that the environment is safe is free of any type of harassment is not a hostile work environment and only then can they go ahead and move forward without a fear of being accused of perhaps something that is true that they have harbored in some way shape or form the kind of environment that we're reading about in the

newspaper each day right now and clearly not having a policy or a sitting duck now dr gina the psychological component of this we populate nears zero attention span culture after mass shootings outrage of actually fades when another story blocks out the sun and for the last several decades the manners that our parents preached have been dissed as political correctness can this cascade of sexual harassment outrages maybe affect political correction or is the way we're wired such that this too will pass. i think political correctness could play a role in what has happened here i believe men have been emasculated in this culture they don't understand their proper roles feminism has taught them that it might not be ok to open a door it might not be ok to walk three steps behind

a woman and the general chivalrous acts that used to be the norm that was all about elevating women and respecting them and putting them on a pedestal that women have said no no no we're equal we want to compete with you and so men don't know you know where to put that respect that we used to teach our children and i think political correctness may be a largely responsible for some of the of the frustration that has you know perhaps caused some of these men i don't think that that causes aggressive behavior don't misunderstand me but for some of the things that they've said that women have maybe perceived as verbal harassment those are the kinds of things that i think we're going to have to work out in the workplace definitely because there are victims on both sides of this the falsely accused and the women who women and men who endure the harassment david i've got thirty seconds all the exposure of details of big cash settlements does this threaten opportunity accusers who lie.

it does i mean it enables that population and it does allow for individuals to potentially manipulate the system and this is a very easy situation to manipulate all you have to do is yell fire and in this case yell harassment sure and relatively speaking if you don't have the right h.r. apparatus and the right approach that the company takes that person could wind up without a job but also with a big fat check as a result sure so there is something to be said for that that's why companies have to be on their toes understand what proper and complete process looks like and also at the same time not run scared you can be aggressive if you are complete and you are fair in your approach you are going to companies need to at least understand what they're supposed to be doing i gotcha thank you very much dr jean aloud and david lewis this conversation is much closer to the beginning then the end coming up yeah you've been hearing a lot about net neutrality and you're about to hear

a lot more including what the heck it means and how what you pay for the internet is about to change this is the big picture on our team america. join me every thursday on the alex salmond show and i'll be speaking to guest of the world of politics sports business i'm show business i'll see that. bitcoin for some it's the perfect marriage of technology and finance for others it's a get rich scheme though no one can deny its market value was soaring and becoming an attractive alternative to the current global basing system is bitcoin

revolutionizing the world. this footage is unique because there's a tribal lands and normally off limits to the public eric's allowed in because he's this is personal don't. people here know him simply is don't to eric he's rich and famous some always on the move saving yachts and flying aircraft that . he's considered one of the best neurosurgeons in brazil. that's happening. allergies so says. the busy doing nothing is going to get to the population because it's going to people on the zone .

how you get online and how much you paid up be there are about to change the chairman of the f.c.c. says the federal government will stop micromanaging the internet the former chairman quips if you like your cable company you'll love what this does for the internet. you've been hearing a lot about net neutrality and you'll be hearing a lot more between now and december fourteenth when the f.c.c. will vote almost certainly to undo the open internet rules put in place two years ago what is that neutrality it's controversial and here's the short version seeing

this is pretty annoying and if net neutrality is rolled back in the us people will be seeing a lot more of it is how it works at the moment internet providers have to treat all online traffic equally that means that they can't block or slow anything down but authours he's well not to and they think the private sector will invest trillions of dollars into web services if their plan goes ahead they even asked the country what it thought of the move people to submit comments and twenty two million replied the majority in favor of repealing net neutrality problem is some users started to complain that they didn't write the comments then approved by the new york attorney general revealed some feedback to the f.c.c. plan was actually fake hundreds of thousands of americans were likely impersonated to drown out the views of real people and businesses this was the can to identity theft on a massive scale. but the scale won't be even bigger than that one data scientist

claims he's found at least one point three million fake program people comments he noticed repetitive language looking as if it was generated by a computer program meanwhile the national tracking poll shows that the majority of americans actually support net neutrality as to who is definitely against it the telecom corporations who stands and huge profits by charging more for foster connections and by the way the current head of the f.c.c. used to work for the biggest telecom operators in the u.s. . why i call this impending change almost certain the f.c.c. consists of five commissioners each appointed for a five year terms which overlap each other and presidential administrations these commissioners are appointed by the president and confirmed by the u.s. senate and could be removed if impeached by the senate why the december fourteenth vote is almost certain the commissioners are always two democrats two republicans and a chairman from the president's party so that party always enjoys

a three to two majority the current chairman is. who was first appointed a commissioner by president obama in two thousand and twelve and elevated to chairman by president trump this past january the f.c.c. is what's called an independent agency meaning it operates outside the cabinet departments other independent agencies include the cia the postal service and social security administration but how independent are these agencies and how will these new internet rules change how you access and what you pay for the internet we invited chairman piet to join us and he did not reply so let's ask patrice on will senior apology and policy analyst at the independent women's forum and attorney and professor stephen jay jay wiseman welcome both. patrice they had to do with the open internet rules the f.c.c. is about to do. had classify the internet the way the phone companies were way

back when as a utility the internet is so part of the fabric of our lives now is it not a utility. i think it's a mistake to classify it as a the way you classified telephone a telephone company and the reason why this was done was actually more of a political move the previous f.c.c. chairman under president obama you know tried to bring suit against another broadband company and failed to do so because they didn't have that kind of the authority and so he said well why don't i change the authority and go through and you know have them reclassified in a way that allows the f.c.c. now to be able to intervene to really regulate the internet and regulate broadband companies this really muddles the water and i think you know you're seeing the f.c.c. take over a realm that had already been regulated or was a police so to speak by the f.t.c. so you pretty much have two different federal agencies going back and forth and really when you think about it there were no issues about competitiveness or

anti-competitive nesa before these open internet regulations came to be so why was this even that's a sorry the of the three legs that stool of open internet are no blocking no throttling and no preferential high speed areas succinctly explain what these mean so really these are just tools for broadband companies think about verizon comcast to determine how fast or slow you can get access to different websites you want to be at so what's ended up happening here is you have you know that your your internet providers on one side versus your internet content creators your facebook c.e.o. or your twitter or your netflix and so these companies are saying hey without regulations you know your your internet providers could say you know i'm going to slow down the speed to somebody who's watching netflix we've seen even porn websites coming out and saying if you want your porn to be downloaded at the regular speeds you better

support net neutrality rules and i think it's an overblown. hyper hyper over the top way of just trying to you mayn't. regulations that didn't exist before and the internet blossomed without them so why do we need them now and then the internet future which will soon confront they could charge you more if you opt in to higher speed right potentially potentially but when you think about it why would these companies you know once the these regulations are scaled back go back in and now try to to to institute some of these policies right it would automatically you have federal agencies coming after them for that kind of anti-competitive behavior that they are trying to to go after well steve actions like this begin with the public comment period and when we the public are invited to weigh in and as that video mentions the new york state attorney general says he smells a rat what's up with that. you just smell a rat and he's not getting great cooperation from the f.c.c.

which is decided to just not listen to any of the comments and in fact this is the way of the world right now and there are groups that can get bots of large numbers of computers to send in really the identical emails and in this case there were fake emails sent in and we really don't know enough there's been some recognition by the new york attorney general he focused on the net neutrality ones but they showed the similarities to indicate where they came from and that frankly these comments couldn't be trusted it's interesting to note that polls show that the public is as much as seventy six percent in favor of net neutrality and it's a very very important thing in no we don't trust the internet service providers because when they weren't there when they didn't have the regulation there was a period where netflix was negotiating in regard to speed of their

downloading and their speed got downloaded their speed got downgraded until they agreed to pay a higher amount this is what we are facing the you know part of the problem is of course we have we have regulations that go back to nine hundred thirty four but when you want to classify what is the internet it is probably more of a important utility to us today then that telephone way back when downstream whenever a change like this threatens to rock the consumer's world were urged to call our senators and representatives or if we fear it does the f.c.c. these independent status fire wall them from that pressure or could congress legislate net neutrality terms and by statute force the f.c.c. to enforce them. they could first of all there is nothing preventing congress

from doing that from actually legislating this rather than leaving this as a subject to regulation to the f.c.c. they can also issue a a resolution of disapproval by which they overturned the regulation both of these are somewhat unlikely but the public could influence congress to take these steps and yes congress could override the f.c.c. will listen up in court before the f.c.c. can toss out the open internet rules steve. you know someone could go for a temporary injunction i think it very well will end up in court if the vote goes as everyone expects on december fourteenth but it will be a long process and the idea then will be were these changes in the rules done in an arbitrary and capricious manner because it isn't just something that the f.c.c. can just without reason change its mind because it just doesn't like it so it could

end up in court patrice the previous chairman tom wheeler said he figures the job of the f.c.c. is to represent the consumer and he says tragically this decision is only for the benefit of largely monopoly services that deliver the internet to the consumer your take i think that's great rhetoric but that's wrong i believe the f.t.c. the federal trade commission is the watchdog for consumers and i you know i his heart may be in the right place but i think his political motivations were not in the right place and this became really just government overreach and a power grab from one agency to another you know i do agree with my colleague here though congress has an opportunity to step in and decide once and for all so that you don't have an in a change of administration another f.c.c. saying ok i'm going to go we're going to go back and we're going to we're going to be implementing this let's let congress decide now and i know congress is a lot and it's player and well they do but just as those who may be wary of this change should call their senator and congressman you would similarly urge if you

don't like what you hear you should reach out to your members well well that's true and i mean i going back to the the bots that are so that were apparently heading up the f.c.c. is web site i mean that's actually those programs are are used by groups on the left and the right or on for lots of different issues and it's really just a way of saying ok we want to we want you to comment and i agree with whatever's being said i'm going to check the box that goes often and it becomes a comment so whether all of these are fictitious comments i'm not necessarily falling for the line that all one point eight or one point three million of those comments are fake fake news patrice and steve in that order i'll put you on the spot predict one year from today will the internet be more expensive less expensive or the same the same the same steve. week from today and then after that it will be more expensive and particularly if some of these internet service providers we're going to be regulating get into content and start competing so

eventually the consumer is going to pay well i want to round you both up again in a year. lets see who was right thank you patrice on will casino connelly policy analyst at the independent women's forum and stephen jay jay wiseman who's scam aside dot com can steer you clear of some con games the greats runs this time of year i appreciate you both being here and happy holidays to you too. and that is the big picture for now i'll be back here next friday and in the meantime talk to me at holland cook on twitter thanks for watching and question more.

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