the irony was that we started having people complain because the bond market was losing some of. their bonds to sell and they complained that we didn't have debt. it's kind of funny and you're dead serving of nearly twenty point five trillion was imposed in december after a three month debt ceiling suspension house republicans now believe that they have until late february to act on the ceiling what do you think will or should happen. well what should happen is along with increasing the debt limit they should show that they can control spending and get a handle on spending but in mean even the amounts that they're talking about for national defense are are pretty extreme i was reading recently what president eisenhower said in his farewell address and he talked about the the industrial defense complex that would always encourage us to spend money it's not that defense

doesn't need money but it wastes so much money i chaired the commission a wartime contracting and it was astonishing the waste we have too many bases now that's the fault of congress because they don't want to get rid of them. but it's not an efficient use of money in defense congress will stay right there will be back with more politicking right after the break they are imposing their sanctions we just start developing our domestic capabilities and topping our internal resources remember how during the previous u.s. administration they said that the russian economy will be in shambles but pointing to falling oil prices and sanctions and all that stuff. quite the opposite. this little bundle of joy would have no chance of surviving in the what. is can only really one come at a time but usually. china put

a lot of effort into making up for this cruel mistake of nature. china's panda breeding has become something of a production. it's almost as though they've been in three d. printed and put on shows for the public. several come here each year. but don't let work by dedicated scientists will be for nothing if panda love can't be encouraged in captivity it's not as though they don't practice at all but in the same lazy way they do everything else this proud mommy gave birth to twins and has no idea that a special love potion was formulated just for the. ride

was. the best out of the dogs at. the concerts i was preparing to perform i had actually prepared myself to die i. don't know said he'd what i'm so sorry trust me last time. i was not. in the home of staff tariana. that i come. to. this country he was. really good. so we'll see if you think. what. was it he could with us the. yes camp moorcock i did mission. education

there are a couple so kind of b.s. i never knew. was. about the politicking i'm talking with chris shays former republican member of congress where he served on the budget financial services homeland security and government reform committee. he did not mention the russian investigation in the state of the union nixon in seventy four state of the union call for an end to the so-called watergate affair did you expect the president to bring up russia. frankly i didn't i didn't expect him to but i also i didn't expect him to have so many wonderful stories so there were a lot of things i didn't expect that happened but but but the bottom line is russia

and his involvement with russia is messy ugly and and he exhibited tremendous fear about the outcome of the investigation and i think most of us recognize it has something to do with his income taxes something to do with the financial support he received from the russians maybe something to do with things that they have about him and his activities because we know he's been someone that. has been willing to do a lot of things that my mother would not approve of. he was very ominous about north korea saying they're reckless pursuit of nuclear missiles could very soon threaten our homeland there are reports that hawks in the administration want a limited strike a preventive attack against north korea are you worried about all that oh i am and you know the longer i was in congress the more i realized you don't threaten to do something and then not do it. and you don't show weakness because then you

alternately have to use force but the way the president has approached this has been it's been pretty alarming a limited strike on north korea you have stalled just you know within easy range of the artillery that are incased in the mountains in north. north korea they could obliterate the city it would just be. now having said that. it's one of the reasons why i believe that. you merican people need to understand that we can always promote our values and criticize countries that we need help from we need the chinese and the russians to be absolutely determined to prevent north korea from progressing with its nuclear arsenal and its missile program we need that and i greatly fear north korea having the ability of venture to have missiles that could reach the united states not just california but new york city several commentators

have noted the truck never used the word democracy in the speech and that surprise you you know frankly nothing he surprises me now if you ask me if it disappoints me it does disappoint me but what i loved his speech about you know talking about in the end that the that to temple is right there where he was in congress lech walesa when he addressed us this is the polish leader who climbed over the chain link fence and he came to congress after he became in charge of poland and he said when i cross that chain link fence and thought i might be killed i knew that this chamber this congress would know what i had done and it would not be for naught i mean that's the impact that we had elect will lend you know he wants to make america great again and we're not being made great again by you know a tax cut we're not being made great unless the rest of the world sees our moral

leadership as well as our economic leadership he said he's offering and this is a quote an open hand to work with americans of both parties for these talks the bipartisan talk willie walk that wall. well if you want to get something done you have to do and and i guess i had an issue with people who are criticizing his proposal if he is willing to make i think one point eight million a so-called dreamers and you know i agree with him there are a lot more than just those individuals that we could call dreamers but that's huge and if it means that we have a fenced in mexico along the mexican border and it has some expense to it i think that's a pretty good trade off if it means they can become citizens after twelve years i think that's a pretty good tradeoff but i also buy the argument that you can't allow people who

are here illegally to then bring in others because you now are going to become a citizen chris as always thanks for your time today love talking with the end and we love love talking with you god bless bob shrum is a veteran demesne democratic operative who's worked with many progressive candidates during the last four decades including positions as senior adviser to the presidential campaigns of al gore and john kerry he's presently director of the jesse m. institute of politics at the university of southern california i spoke with him earlier about the prospects of testing a government spending bill doc and his opinion of the current congressional leaders in the democratic party hears that interview watch. ok robert what do you make of the latest stopgap measure funding the government to foot worry eighth well it's it's ridiculous it was the only thing they could get done because the president

seems incapable of just sitting down and making a deal i mean he held that meaning at the white house he said you came up with a deal lindsey graham and dick durbin came up with a deal on daca funding some of the border wall came back to him and obviously he talked to other advisers like steven miller and he just turned it down so it's not clear how you get a permanent deal and larry this is going to get more more critical because we're going to bump up against the debt limit in february and if we ever breach the debt limit the economic consequences across the world would be extraordinary because of be the first time in history that the u.s. had in a serious way damaged its full faith and credit so that the u.s. bonds and investments in the u.s. underlie the world economy and if we ever violate the debt limit we're in serious trouble then the democrats make any mistakes. i think think i think that if they you want to say they made a mistake is they took the president at his word but they had to try when he said

i'm willing to make a compromise they had to go ahead and try and make that compromise so they had no other choice i don't think they had any other choice what do you think will happen between now and february eighth when the funding runs out i think republicans are very worried about the midterm elections there is a route it's a radical group called the freedom caucus radically conservative in the house that wants to hold out wouldn't be all at all on having about shutting down the government but i think that there is going to be an enormous amount of pressure on the president on paul ryan mitch mcconnell to come up with some kind of deal but once again the kabi here is the unpredictability of donald trump you just don't know how he's going to react when they get a deal and whether he's actually going to he could agree to the deal one day and two hours later say i don't i don't want that deal how's the current congressional leadership on the democratic side are you happy in the senate in the house i think that chuck schumer has done a very good job of holding his caucus together of getting them to act in unison on

tough measures the other day the ban which is flatly unconstitutional the ban on all abortions after twenty weeks. and he held democrats together even them across from red states and it was voted down. i think nancy pelosi is the most unfairly maligned person in american politics. stunning amazing job of exercising power in the minority in the house an amazing job of recruiting candidates to run this year in all of these congressional races and an amazing job of raising the resources to help them do that and if they take back the house of democrats take back the house a lot of the credit will be due to nancy pelosi i have to add though a lot of the credit will also be due to donald trump will she be sworn in again this. speaker i think it's inconceivable that if the democrats win the house by anywhere between six ten fifteen votes that she would not be sworn in as

speaker she would have to decide after that having had this achievement and having been the first woman ever to become speaker in two thousand and six or two thousand really two thousand and seven how long she would like to stay but i think it would be the height of in gratitude not to swear in a speaker assuming democrats took the house and strummed done anything you like yeah i'll give you one. getting rid of ban it. oh i do think the russian thing is gone we've been talking a lot of people van jones alan dershowitz they said no matter where it goes they don't think it will bring down his presidency well i'm not going to i'm not going to go that far i think it would be very hard to to get him impeached first of all the republican house is not going to impeach him secondly even if democrats took the senate which is a big uphill climb this year because of the numbers twenty five or twenty six

democrats up only eight republicans to be very hard to get the two thirds needed for conviction. on the other hand if evidence comes out of either in collusion with the russians in which he was involved serious obstruction of justice or financial dealings that are questionable it will certainly hobble his presidency will certainly drain authority away from his presidency look he i think he's been given the wrong advice or he's come to the wrong conclusion himself he's got a base strategy george w. bush in two thousand and four had a base strategy mobilize the base but he also tried to reach out to other people and he reached out just enough that he won that election. trump only appeals to the base and the base is getting smaller and smaller so he's going to end up marooned on an island with about thirty or thirty three or thirty four percent of people and it's going to be very tough for him to get reelected one of the other things in our poll that was astounding was that twenty five percent of republicans want someone

else to be the nominee in two thousand and twenty other than donald trump and forty two percent of college educated republicans want somebody other than donald trump it's inconceivable to think that members of their party in those numbers would have said that about ronald reagan or john f. kennedy a year into their presidency what do you make of these attacks on the at the way. they're outrageous they're dangerous they're subversive of democracy. if you start taking law enforcement institutions that are supposed to be neutral and labeling them as prejudiced on no real evidence at all. you begin to destroy faith in the system and you try you you try to build look the president apparently keeps talking about my justice department it's not his justice department it's the american people's justice department and the people who work there did not take an oath to donald trump they took an oath to the constitution so i were the attacks on the

press the attacks on law enforcement those are the kinds of things that can subvert democracy there are some reports including in the hill paper that bob kerrey is thinking about running. i mean john kerry john kerry maybe bob you think. well i mean look well run run again do you think i have no idea i do think there will be a very big democratic field in two thousand and twenty. on our numbers in our poll joe biden starts out as the clear favorite this by his age despite his age. but there's also a sense in that play and bernie sanders has a hard core of supporters but there's also a sense in those numbers that people are yearning for someone new but kerry did a kerry almost got elected president he became he was a terrific secretary of state if he ran again i think he'd be a serious candidate but they're going to be twenty people up on that stage i mean i don't know that these debates may have to be broken into elizabeth one will be in

the hunt right bernie sanders as you said any. long shots that might not be long shots well thought they're all long shots they're all these these these new folks who. who are registering at three or four or five percent. cory booker hair or joe kennedy the third but you've got to step back from this is say one thing the great unwitting unifier of the democratic party in two thousand and twenty will be someone named donald trump and people will understand i think that even if their choice didn't get the nomination if they don't go out and vote for the nominee they're likely to get donald trump for another four years with terrible consequences for the supreme court for example i mean ruth bader ginsburg has just hired clerks for two thousand and twenty she sent a big signal that she's staying you know hiring clerks for twenty twenty four

that's a long way away and that's what she'd have to do there will be a lot on the line in two thousand and twenty and i think democrats are very likely to rally around whoever the nominee yes my thanks to bob shrum for that interview and i thought. thank you 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 do you use the politicking hash tag and that's all for this edition of politicking. join me every thursday on the alec simon show and i'll be speaking to guest on the world of politics sports business i'm showbusiness i'll see that. exists is holland kentucky. with all of the places you could walk in st chinese dream only.

a coma any city with almost no coal mines left. the jobs are gone all the coal miners the fed. live to these people a survivor of a world disappearing before their eyes. i remember thinking when i was younger that if anything ever happened to the coal mines here that it would become a ghost town but i never thought in a million years i would see that and it's happening it's happened. the warhawks selling you on the idea that dropping bombs brings police to the chicken hawks forcing you to fight the battles they don't. produce talk to try to tell you to separate gossip and public by file for the most important day. off the bad guys and tell me you are not cool enough to buy their products.

are the hawks that we along with are on the watch. as one of the biggest police corruption scandals in the us sun rivals will report from the city of baltimore on what triggered the case and some of the mysteries surrounding it the. world anti-doping agency says it's seriously concerned with the decision by sports top court to remove bans and return medals to russian athletes. and a public and professional backlash russia's medical community stands up to the harsh sentencing of a doctor whose patient died shortly after a simple procedure. i welcome to our to international live from moscow and daniel hawkins wherever you

are thanks for joining us this hour. one of america's biggest police corruption scandals is unraveling in the city of baltimore officers from an elite police unit tasked with reducing crime seem to have actually been adding to it are on trial accused of turning the law on its head they came at me like a gang or something i remember one of the officers saying i looked like someone who needed to be robbed everybody's life is destroyed because of this my kids are afraid to go in the house of a so-called gun trace task force is made up of plainclothes officers has been trying to tackle the city's increasing murder rate however the unit has been dissolved and officers arrested with charges against eight of them ranging from drug trafficking to planting fake evidence r.t. smear a car now reports on what triggered the case and how the police units crimes were exposed. well it all started with an investigation into drug trafficking in new

jersey then as the case unraveled federal authorities found out that the baltimore police department was also involved mostly its elite gun traced task force unit months of recordings recovered from a device planted in a police cruiser reveal that officers were involved in drug trafficking robbery falsifying reports and planting fake evidence in one case a high speed car chase resulted in a crash which the officers tried to cover up one of the indicted x. detectives involved actually broke down in tears in court it was a really bad accident none of us stopped to render aid to see if anyone was hurt we were foolish although i was doing so much wrong it got to a certain point where too much was too much altogether six officers have already pleaded guilty and two are still being tried but there are indications there's more to the story than just one rogue police unit court records show that the city paid over half a million dollars to settle claims of misconduct and falsifying reports involving

the very same officers and dating back as far as twenty fourteen so why did they all forty's choose to sweep it all under the rug kind of you see this those offices of very well known industries for door without the door. where it came up it's been it's probably been plenty of complaints you can go and ask for help because you're afraid that this particular might just do some so you might pencil it's common when we see them coming we go to opposite direction if we can and if we can't we deal with this circumstance this has been corruption for a long time you know just because this is one as in a way as though they decide to you know come forward or you know they got caught for what they've done is stops that particular asset but at the same time as not going to stop the corruption has to be done to stop the corruption from these criminals are cops and the cops are criminals then there's the unsolved murder of detective shawn souter that took place in. november last year wasn't part of the

country's taskforce but worked with some of the officers were now under indictment and the day before he was set to testify in the corruption probe he was shot in the head with his own weapon while on duty and another unfortunate twist which some might find suspicious a patrol car transporting the dying officer to an asp it all got into an accident there's no suspect in the murder so far and no eyewitnesses except one unnamed partner and when the police commissioner tried to redirect the investigation to the f.b.i. the agency refused saying that the case had nothing to do with the corruption probe i'm growing increasingly uncomfortable that my home side detectives do not know all of the facts known to the f.b.i. or the u.s. attorney's office that good if revealed to us assist in furthering this murder investigation in the wake of the scandal baltimore police have launched an overhaul including a new commissioner bowing to rein in city violence but investigators still seem to have a very complicated plot to unravel samir khan r.t.

reporting from baltimore. and other news the world anti-doping agency says it's concerned with the court of arbitration for sport to uphold the appeals of russian olympic athletes why don't i understand that this decision will cause dismay and frustration among athletes the agency supports the i.o.c. is intention to analyze these decisions very carefully and consider all options including an appeal to the swiss federal tribe you know i want thursday the court of arbitration for sport ruled to lift all sanctions and reinstate the olympic medals for twenty eight russian athletes eleven others will miss the upcoming south korea olympics but how the lifetime bans overturned over the decision has disappointed some of the leagues from other countries who were hoping to move into medal positions retrospectively from the saw three games back in twenty four to. but anything else this is a very very very dark day for the olympics and this is

a very very very dark day for clean sport if there is such a thing when. the i.o.c. looks very bad in this case with its lifetime ban and stature if you're not sure you should touch the athlete now it turns out to be sued instead. people are saying they can prove they were dirty in the same breath you can prove that they were innocent. the mood was of course very different for the russian athletes involved sheer relief came over those who thought their dreams and careers had been dashed loyalists and you know i found out about the decision during my training c.a.'s decided to overturn my disqualification my band i had only positive thoughts in my head about that i've been ready to ski for a long long time keeping up my training but i had a question right away what about the olympics are we able to dispute this and get

an invitation but i was waiting for the results of a pill when i came back from practice it's amazing yes then my skeleton team started congratulating each other such a relief when not guilty and the whole public will know that a lot of people thought we date but only those close to us knew it's not tree. let's go live now to thomas bryant from the law. partners thanks for joining us good to have you on all water certainly seems to support the stance of reviewing appealing that decision by cas how does it appeal would work exactly. well let me first say that i'm a little bit surprised of virus reaction and of course also of the reaction of the i.o.c. and some of its executive committees members to the reaction of the cast i'm

surprised because we have a decision now that states that twenty eight sportsman's of russia are found not guilty and now the i was the states that does not mean that they will participate in the olympics the upcoming winter games so for me that means that practically we have a court decision that will not be enforced and i see a new population here. as there was a violation by the i.o.c. when banning these sportsmen and so this is actually a little bit odd to me and when we see we have not seen the reasons for the decision right now but for me they don't come as a surprise and i mentioned that in an interview for russia today two years ago i think we have the presumption of innocence here and actually stated that this general law principle applies here and i think the court decision we have now

is correct all about the clean russian athletes whose appeals have been up held i mean do you think they should consider perhaps taking legal action against the all you see the others who have made the miss out on these these events their career goals perhaps for defamation all for other you know other costs legal damages. well that might be the case but i think that's not the most important thing here and i think the most important thing here is that we have to have a system in international sports that does not need infringe the individual sportsman is right and if we see now that we have a court decision in favor of these sports men and they will not be able to participate in the olympic games i think that it's a huge damage for for their career and we're not talking so much about money the first place but we're talking about

a system that brings justice for all parties involved but for sure claim damages were also maybe the point here just a wider issue here obviously this is been an ongoing scandal fall for a couple of years now do you think you know overturning these bans do you think that will raise questions about the validity of the detail in the mclaren report into doping will further questions be raised about how accurate that report really was. whether that's what i said two years ago and it is stated in the mclaren report itself mclaren report didn't find any individual violations of doping rules of individual sports men's because there was only a very limited time the team of mr mclaren had fifty seven days i think so. i think it's clear that the system has to be changed into.