service personnel demonstrating at the capitol to a full blown strike it is seemingly caught everyone from union leaders the state legislators to the rest of the country by surprise by surprise and by storm because while our elected officials and cable news pundit and spite rant over whether or not to buy every teacher a shiny new glock educators around the country are instead calling for better classrooms better resources and higher wages you know little things that actually you know tend to work you know to make a child's life a little better those things in oklahoma for example things have gotten so bad that even school district administrators who are generally not a teacher's greatest ally are actually throwing their support behind a potential teacher strike you know with the recent success in west virginia and the strike rumblings in oklahoma as that is the u.s. ready for their teachers to take a knee to occupy and to cry out me to hell and start watching the

hawks. but that's. the bottom. that i got. with. watching the hawks i am told that and i'd have a fellow teacher strike i know i love this i love that energy in the air when you see progress mass group of people say enough is enough we demand our work you know we demand rights without higher wages we get together we organize we push our legislature to make a difference and that's the essence of what this country in the united states and other countries. you know that's the essence of what it's all about sure do you

think it's because we you know we grew up with things like teacher strikes and we just driver strikes and those are major things and they move things along and it was about workers' rights it was about treating people with respect. and now it seems obviously there's been a huge push of the koch brothers. to get rid of of many many many many many aspects of you know say oh you know i think of the when you it's not the union unions were these like bright shiny places of gum drops a lollipop so you know learned a lot of them were there lot of bad union leaders and that kind of thing but there are very some some core of unions is what you need it's work ever i believe every job with the amount of people working that job in every sector should have some kind of union representation absolutely or at least have collective bargaining rights and that's something that we've seen stripped away every night of states and around the world as some poison everyone had it you know is that

a billet doux that a group of employees can get together and say ok as your employees we demand x. and let's negotiate let's talk out what works for you what works for us find some of the middle right there i don't see is like fair and i think people mistake like oh it's better if you just work with your boss on them like no it isn't the reason that you know actors have agents and why when you're going through a real estate deal you hire an expert you know say or someone to be the bad guy when you have to be and to be the person who looks out for you so that way you and your boss can always have good relationships that our working relationship and negotiating your time off or whatever it is it doesn't become a personal it's the use of the unions or whatever you write representatives who have put pretty interesting here but there are teachers i think that's one of the places to look at it from what i hear it's really unsettling and so the washington post had seven teachers are paid less than in virtually any other place in the country. schools have been so financially challenged because of budget woes that

students in some districts only go to class four days a week that is foul and disgusting i wouldn't mind if they said hey we're doing this whole thing for it is that we because we're doing longer day as a reader that's fine but i do not understand like hey we're just on the money to educate you all five days one you get reading and writing but you don't get written about that you don't get out of that ferrari and oklahoma is one of those places where it was kind of like the republicans kind of make that legislature and said we're going to do smaller smaller smaller smaller government and then i just basically got to the you know what i wouldn't for them to run yet they had the past six years oklahoma has had their funding has dropped by twenty three point six percent this is education for our children public education for our children and you're going to tell me we're going to go we don't need all that you know and i'm going to talk about the republicans issues in oklahoma but that doesn't let the other side of the two party dictatorship in the united states i want to be there

and not just that we're not radical party because when you go to west virginia which is a long time democrat spot the jolie recently went donald trump and went you know like bernie sanders and twenty six t. they hard core bernie sanders hard core donald trump the democratic party was regina after only occupies a third of the seats in the in their legislature but this is after they like ran the place for about eighty so i want to say like sixty seventy eighty years then you know hardcore democrat in one thousand nine hundred sixty three percent of what west virginia voters were registered democrats thirty percent republican seven percent independent twenty years later twenty sixteen forty five democrat in the independents grew twenty one percent you see a shift in that place because everyone talks about west virginians like everyone takes from west virginia yeah they take our coal they take our resources and everyone's been taking no one's putting anything back in and that's what has that group of people very upset and what's really interesting. is.

mentioned earlier could also wrote it was also the democratic party led by the majority governor joe manchin that enacted corporate tax cuts a decade ago that currently cost the state this demitted two hundred twenty million oh you're if you put that to twenty million in the issue of the state workers now which is what that strike was over a period of five percent payroll you could give every public employee a twelve percent raise that's incredible so these are things the of one group who fought teachers fought for a five percent raise and you literally sit back and say all this money you could have given everyone in the whole state was a public employee twelve percent revenue growth that away democrats didn't act collective bargaining there so it's not a right and left problem here it's a politician versus people problem. many good folks here in the united states so i often find themselves asking why does our congress seem so out of touch with the

actual problems facing the citizens they represent for the answer to that question one can very easily start with the wealth gap separating elected officials and the people they represent according to open secrets dot org in twenty fifteen it would take the combined wealth of more than eighteen american households to equal the value of a single federal lawmakers household and nowhere is this wealth gap more parent that in california where it was very recently really revealed that members of the california legislature are worth a combined four hundred thirty nine million dollars at least artie's natasha's suite has more from los angeles. in the united states congress there are about twenty millionaires coming from the state of california and their net worth adds up to at least four hundred thirty nine million well california is the most populous state and rent the third most expensive place to live in the country several members of congress receive their fortunes from real estate holdings tech stocks and investment portfolios as well as their spouses now just. close in their net

worth lawmakers are not required to list their one hundred seventy four thousand dollar annual salaries or their property unless of course it's creating the revenue the wealthiest california lawmaker is duro i said a republican representative out of vista his network is listed at two hundred eighty three point three million he made the majority of his fortune as being the founder of a car alarm giant he also owns ten properties in carlsbad california earning him between five to twenty five million in rental income he's not seeking re-election in the coming year and a far away second senator dianne feinstein who was also the wealthiest woman in congress has almost fifty nine million this includes the carlton hotel property she owns with her husband which sali twenty million increase in value last year the democrat faces her most significant challenge for reelection this coming fall got peters of san diego rounds out as the top third wealthiest member of congress on the lower end of the spectrum presented of david ballad out of hand for it is the

poorest among california lawmakers that every farmer has assets of roughly two million however his hefty lines of credits of at least seventeen million puts him at the bottom of the list when it comes to net worth and there are other california members of congress in the red ten reported tonight loan debt totaling three hundred seventy five thousand representative raul ruiz holds the majority of that debt as a former e.r. doctor the palm desert democrat owes roughly between one hundred to two hundred fifty thousand dollars for his education now sometimes there are errors when it comes to these reports and many times lawmakers are merely asked to file an amendment from an ethics panel but there is no actual standard as to how this information of their net worth is filled in and los angeles and hottest tweets r.t. . why oh politicians don't like us but really this is under their side. sense of feeling out of touch that when they talk about working class

issues that always sends a little vapid because they really have no idea even a two million dollar net worth i got to tell you that they're selling middle class as upper upper middle. when you figure that the average household in the united states is probably you know make him somewhere around what that thirty to fifty thousand dollars a year is about that we have heard somewhere in there and these guys are polling and you know networks of one to two million to get their allies over two hundred million dollars for a and then when you wonder what would you like your previous story would you say well why why would why would unions be being destroyed and things like that why would politicians allow that because millionaires don't like union rights you know as president millionaire business owners and things like that which most politicians are most politicians are either like you know big business owners or more years reza really when it comes down to it or have their my lawyer it and it's . you know where we're talking about you know in terms of that gap between and how

much it's grown yet the rest of us. don't know what everybody else is not worth has gone down about eight percent since two thousand and four the median that medium at median net worth of the members of congress was one million about one million twenty nine thousand dollars and twenty thirteen and the majority were millionaires so you've got let me add to that between eighty four and two thousand and nine when you're saying the well for them to medical american family was dropping the median net worth of congress more than double seven hundred thousand dollars i mean. the many quarterly out a few thousand for their median net worth a member of congress for fifteen percent since two thousand and four there they make fifty and that's just their general so they're getting richer. this hello dark money and obvious things that the thing it's like you can sit there and cry foul every time somebody says follow the money and well they took money from this person and everything else but if you look at that list and you look at where they're

actually making their money and making their wealth you will find connections and i think a proper ethics committee on every of it to really look at that and you would see a lot of people making decisions as a government employee that profit for them only and i would hope that those people in the tossers report who said that their logo was of the emergency you know driver you are doctor who is still paying off student loans to the tune of like a hundred g.'s i would hope that those people in california least the state of california would be fighting for student loan forgiveness to be there i think to restructure that they're not and that's the thing let me make that persist but i mean you know the that's the thing it's like we need representation in government and when the people who are supposed to be our representatives live in a completely different world in a completely different bubble that a majority of the people living in this country you don't have representative not for a socio economic scale at all they are not represented in this country the ninety nine percent of this country are not represented by people who understand them who

are them who understand their wants needs desires their hopes their dreams they doubt this is why we need election reform because it cannot be the only millionaires and billionaires can run for office we've got to change those rules and it starts with you at home getting out there running for mayor get the part of the community and thing in this go to the whole world everyone just of us throw messing mobile problem that as we go to break court watchers don't forget to let us know what you think of the topics we've covered on facebook and twitter see our poll shows that are to dot com coming up we talk to military industrial complex or someone very familiar with its influence former brigadier general of the u.s. army and bestselling author telling stay tuned for watchable.

jamie diamond no matter how much you tried to talk down because the matter how much she tried to. get his buddies in washington and out whopping guy i mean the fact is he's lost is lost the battle of big climb he's got it now come crawling back to the market and say you know what the whole banking industry is going to fundamentally change we need to adapt. but you. know melissa another good morning and one million people died. he killed people even.

now no one's income tooling everybody's rounded up and that's. the u.s. department of defense is the world's largest employer with over three million people worldwide under their command and employment and many wonder how they balance the needs of soul. as with the needs of capitol hill former brigadier general tony tait out for the united states army i am the author of direct fire the fort and his captain jake and he again thriller series joined us recently to get

his take on reforms needed within the us armed services and after soldiers return home from war always a pleasure having you serve thank you so much for coming on the beard. i wanted to start with an interesting interesting question from an interesting man i don't know if you're familiar of the medal of honor winner was a major marine corps major general smedley butler who back in the one nine hundred for those of you that don't know and he authored a book called war is a rocket and in that book he wrote i spent thirty three years and four months in active military service and during that period i spent most of my time as a high class muscle man for big business for wall street and the bankers i wanted to ask you in in your experience is that still a problem today you know does that kind of money corporate influence that we know pull so many strings in washington you know how much of a role does that play in the business of the pentagon and where we choose to

operate around the world you know i think that's a great question particularly watching the hawks you've got to watch this race and we have to ask this question continuously and then as in i'm familiar with the general's comments in his book in and when when he fought and war won for example the defense spending was forty percent of gross domestic product forty percent of g.d.p. today weren't five percent of g.d.p. and so i think that it may help frame the discussion a little bit where back in the day what he probably saw was a lot of you know contractors and businessmen and so forth maybe go into the bank and today it's much more scaled down and it's much more streamlined and and we still do have issues with our. and you know the blackwater controversy is a good example where they they became too powerful they i know when i was a commander in afghanistan and you had some contract personnel come through terrain

that you had worked six months to secure the friendships and the villagers in the in the local mayor and all that and then they blow through and shoot some people you're back to ground zero negative turf because they're all americans and it's all the same thing to the indigenous population so there's some of that that needs to be watched and sure you know this is what inspectors general do and what you know we all the audit trail stuff or. yeah there's probably a little bit of that but forty percent of g.d.p. versus five percent g.d.p. i think that's. you know we're not spending as much in relative relation to the size of the economy which is why like right now we're not having rubber drives that sort of things like that so make some contacts stand there what's interesting is just how big that even if we had so you know like you said i think

a lot of it's private contractors we've talked a lot about because they don't fall under exactly the same. loyalty or i think honor in the field when you're there for a paycheck i think it's a little bit different and one of those is that she's gotten so big they're much like the banks so the u.s. defense department has three point two million employees that makes it one of if not the biggest employer in the world right we spend more on defense than the next eight countries combined with this big amount of money and with so much bureaucracy which all of us would like to see effects and so much bureaucracy and so much spending it to me feels a little like the big banks where i feel like is there or is it impossible to draw down our military at this point because of how. that it is from contractors to the banks to all this sort of interchange of military industrial complex is another great question and i'm glad that we're having these conversations because they're

important conversations when you think about the size of the military you know gulf war one about eight hundred thousand and change troops in the army today word forty five around five hundred so the scaling of the army very intentional by the framers of the constitution by the way that's raise an army but maintain a navy and very very much and project that power but always be wary of a large standing federal army and that right that's one of the things that the framers constitution put in there and so as we see the accordion a fact you know we're going to war so we increased the size of the army we got up to around five eighty i want to say during iraq and afghanistan because we needed it and now we're you know we we drop that down about eighty thousand so you see that scaling of the active duty reserve and national guard forces and then there are so that's about half of the you know two point nine or three million people

that you're talking about the other half are civilians and are and so looking at those there's always every new administration that comes and says we're going to take a hard look at you know the size of this bureaucracy and and i'm sure that the things are being reviewed now i know that when the president president trump came in he put a freeze on hiring so that you could take a snapshot and actually know what you have because there's constant churn and so there's you know the bureaucracy it's always too big i'm a field soldier former paratrooper and i was always like you know. get rid of a few of those bureaucrats and give me one or two more troops you know get rid to give me one and that way you can have more detail ratio which right now may be a little skewed about what's next. what i was going to ask because it's very it's intriguing i think because these are important questions like you said because ultimately it is you know us tax dollars at work so it is the citizen from that

army alternately you know there are military and i think the that it's important for these questions would be because and so that's the one thing i want to ask you as someone who's in the field and spent a lot of your your time in the service in the field you know how did that bureaucracy become a handicap in terms of being able to operate in the way that you that you hoped you could operate and the you know keep people safe create the best relations you can given the circumstances of wire in a foreign country and you know how invasive was that bureaucracy coming back from like the pentagon's yes so you know when you when you think i see the picture the pentagon here in the background i'm thinking you know i wanted to be in afghanistan on the pentagon and you know it's a lot but the i think the relationship is that when when you've got when you're thinking about the importance of the troops on the ground and how it scales back to who or whatever that support system is you've got the leadership has to make sure

that that support system is resourcing the soldier on the ground and so for me as the deputy commander general tenth mountain division brigade commander one hundred first airborne eighty second airborne battalion commander i was always just very focused downward on and taking a look at the what my mission was and so at the national level we need to make sure that we're looking at ins ways and means what are the vital interests of the united states and are we are we scaling the military industrial complex to address those final interests and is that driving it or is it the military industrial complex and striving to get back to to the you know larger part of the discussion because there is a level bit of greed there i mean you can whenever you introduce businesses into any situation whether it be military or utility utility. what it always is going to be the profit driven decision making there's not the big fear to me it's what happens when and i say i believe i see it all the time as i see too many military decisions

made by politicians the you can clearly see trace their roots back to corporate decisions well a great example of this is i think it's a c one thirty aircraft is built in i think all fifty states and that way it's never going to go away exactly you know i may have the frame wrong but there are there are aircraft or there are ships or whatever and they provide jobs right and so congressman fight hard for to keep the the jet engine made and the state acts in the in the wheels made in state y. and so forth and that that's part of what we're talking about here and our jobs important of course are important is is that aircraft important i've jumped out of it a hundred times you know it's great wars are you know and so i think the fear though is that like what happens whether it's what have some aircraft that you don't actually need right anymore you know like c one thirty is going to be a war that's there for a long time but what happens when you have a piece of american made in all fifty states that cost

a fortune right you don't actually need the more but we're continuing the buying cycle because we're worried about and that's where you've got to have an administration in leadership that takes a look at it and ways and means what are the vital interests and do are we buying the equipment or we scale in the army in the navy to make sure that we're dressing those vital interests and securing our freedoms and liberties because you know security is a little bit like oxygen you don't really realize how important it is until you don't have it. if you're traveling to japan and are into robots augmented reality and floating tsunami proof pod like hotel rooms you're in luck the house then resort and theme park near nagasaki japan sports a dutch fame if you can believe it including cuddling replicas of dutch buildings total of farms and now eight. a floating sphere shaped tsunami proof hotel room the futuristic capsule can accommodate two to four people with a top floor observation deck and i will run you about three hundred dollars and

that the plan is to tote the capsules at night while people are sleeping to a nearby uninhabited island in a more a bay where within the year visitors will be able to visit the island and the battle dinosaurs in a live action augmented reality game which makes sense since hoost and busch resort is probably most well known for being the proprietors of the world's first robot staffed hotel dinosaurs tulips floating tsunami a perfectly additions with survival games and a prehistoric base. now at first i had reservations about the idea but surviving a tsunami and dinosaurs pretty sweet i'm just really excited about the velociraptor of the tracks in the hotel i know you're right but i want to start i want our conversation over last the raptor we're. going to go this way any one of those so

that i've seen those and what's really ingenious about those rooms is that they are these essential orbs and so if a tsunami hits you're carried along with the really you're not destroyed walls of the question and you're floats that way i think that's really true in school and you can actually there is there stuff you can see it online and step four people have safety pod so you can get one of those if you live in small areas safety pods and dinosaurs that is our show for you today remember going on this world we're not told. you i am tired robot and i'm tapped to keep on watching those hawks and have a great day about everybody. the new global economic war is unfolding in the realm of education the right to education is being supplanted by the right to access education alone higher education is becoming just another product that can be bought and sold so this is not just about education anymore it's also about running

a business where you could also. look at these souls. as they could to me. what is the place of students in this business model before college i was born now in an extremely more high education but the new global economic war. is a. secret indeed just as the priests accused of sexually abusing children can get away with it literally. i like to call this the geographic solution so what the bishop needs to do then he finds out that the priest is is a perpetrator is simply moves him to a different spot where the previous standard was not known highest ranks of the catholic church conceal the accused priests from the police and justice system to

that is no that's not going to as the i and then i included used to. this baby and. say this on march eighteenth vote with your remote. special coverage of the russian presidential election exit polls opinions real time results monitoring and much more. i was i. was. i. was. i was was was.

was. the british media speculates on kremlin involvement in the suspected poisoning of a former russian double agent in the u.k. . u.s. halted ground operations in eastern syria after its kurdish allies headed to the north of the country to repel an incursion by turkey. and ninety nine days and take a call for teams world cup team guides you through some of the host cities preparing for russia two thousand and eighteen. for the latest on these stories you had to r.t. dot com stay with us now for crosstalk debating the prospect of a new nuclear arms race between the u.s. and russia.