the fact that twenty nine u.s. states and the district of columbia have mandates that utilities and other entities produce or procure a certain amount of their electricity and so what that does is it drives a whole secondary market of what's known as renewable electricity credits and that is a big financial tool that a lot of companies are getting to make renewable deployment even more economical and we've talked about this before and i don't want to get into it now but about the whole carbon credits and trading and i blubbed that stuff i think it's the way that way to go when europe's done it but not doing it enough they're doing it but not enough in the u.s. now we talk about energy on the program in particular crude oil we talked last week because crude had risen so much although it's taken a slide in recent days. it looks like coming up at the opec meeting that both saudi arabia both opec including saudi arabia the largest producer and russia who has joined in the production cut will go ahead and get rid of that production cut

will remains to be seen but that could add pressure on for a lowering or oil prices with more production u.s. is producing it's a little bit of apples and oranges but will that have in a business impact on some of these companies that are making a decision now based upon finances to go with renewables or is it really sort of separate i think it's separate when we're talking about wind and solar about's for electricity production and electricity is one big component of energy the other is transportation and right now in the united states the vast majority of our transportation sector is fueled by petroleum so when oil prices are higher you see a bigger market incentive for larger electric vehicle penetration for companies like tesla but as prices start to ease you're going to see less folks clamoring for electric vehicles when you're looking at solar and wind except for in what we're talking with these big companies that are making these procurement the decisions.

they look their complaint petition is really against what coal and nuclear for electricity right and natural gas yes ok now that you're going to fill me and the all the boom busters in washington because i read a story not long ago about the u.s. government i'm not sure if it was a deal we are for her all of the above that are talking about mandating the purchase of fossil fuels and nuclear by companies or what's the deal with that unfortunately you heard right so last week donald trump issued a directive to his energy secretary former texas governor rick perry to explore all options to force consumers and taxpayers to bail out an economic nucular and coal fired power. wants this is an asinine proposal that could cost hundreds of billions of dollars and it's going completely against what we're seeing in the marketplace what we're seeing in the marketplace right now is huge deployment of

renewables because increasingly they are the least cost option in power markets and so what you're seeing now is some politically connected companies like first energy like murray energy and some nucular companies like exxon are using their connections in the trumpet ministration to turn back what we're seeing in the marketplace and force massive government intervention you know i don't know it's crazy but i can imagine a critic saying well wait a minute barr you like when some subsidies might support renewable sorts of fuels like like ethanol or which are essentially subsidies to corn producers corn farmers so what's the deal the president decides he likes coal what's the difference what i think the differences look i'm sensitive to displaced workers all the folks that work in coal country that are losing their jobs because coal has been displaced and out competed by natural gas and renewables but bailing out an economic power plants

is not the way to save those jobs instead reinvesting in those communities to have them be the centers of you know solar photovoltaic manufacturing or wind turban manufacturing that's going to be the solution here we have to understand that we're in the middle of disruptive changes in the energy industry being driven by these technological innovations particularly in renewable energy bailing out these an economic power plants and forcing consumers to pick up the tab is not the right strategy we are always more informed and you make us question more and we do that a lot here tyson slocum director public citizens energy program thank you sir it's my pleasure. and time now for a quick break but hang here because when we return we go to moscow where our t. correspondent caleb maupin spoke earlier of the global operates and we ask him about some of the international reaction to tariffs and sanctions plus we'll be

joined by america's lawyer might happen tonio to drill down on yesterday's ruling by the u.s. supreme court supporting a colorado baker decision to not bake a cake for a same sex couples marriage what might it mean for other businesses we'll find out as we go to break here are the numbers at the closing bell bitcoin is up slightly today. louis.

match geysers financial survival guide liquid assets those that you can burn in zigzags quite easily. to keep in mind no assets i mean to a place in the last record. of. the first. radially reinforced rammed earth bricks was what they really are. this more than seventy houses about one hundred forty people with families living here. it's really a way of forming same as. the sun's coming in and hitting the house and being stored in massive walls. sagebrush

is the natural environment here but as we're containing the sewage and and using the plants to process the sewage we create our own little way says here. welcome back for the first time in many years greece has experienced a surge in economic growth the country's gross domestic product grew more than two point three percent in the first quarter of the year while it only grew it point eight percent in q four exports also saw a seven point six percent growth in the quarter as compared to q one of twenty seventeen where there's actually a decrease a decline of almost three percent this follows nearly ten years of economic

depression for greece the ongoing bailout of the country by the european union is set to expire by the end of august. as the u.s. continues to issue sanctions and tariffs alienating allies across the globe other countries are hoping to strengthen ties on issues regarding security and of course economic growth currently the development of parliamentarian is an international forum is taking place in moscow it started june fourth and ends on the fifth to help us get a more international look at the world as artie's caleb joining us all the way from moscow thank you for joining us you gave us some remarks there and if we have time i want to ask you about those because they were really eloquent but before we dig in can you explain to all the boom busters out there who may not know what the forum is and who was in attendance. well over one hundred different countries were represented and this was essentially

a gathering of the lawmakers from around the world people that hold seats in parliament some national assembly is and legislative bodies in different countries and they gathered to discuss and talk about the ongoing issues facing lawmakers in the current atmosphere one hundred different countries represented and they gathered here in moscow it was quite a conference we heard many different voices from many different corners of the globe a lot of exciting stuff now it's interesting to note you know we saw you know we had speakers from indonesia we had speakers from both north and south korea were represented here now the united states was invited both houses of the u.s. congress the house of representatives and the u.s. senate were both invited to participate but they and fortunately declined so the usa did not send any lawmakers to this huge international conference i know you were a very active it's late late at night over there now and i know you tweeted from over there but one of the big things to make international headlines was of course the president trumps announcement to hit allied nations and various other nations

with tariffs and and there in russia with economic sanctions which have been going on for several years what has been their reaction from the attendees with regard to the latest round of trumps sanctions and tariffs. well we heard from the chairman of the russian state duma he opened the conference welcoming legislators from around the world and when he spoke he specifically called out the economic sanctions described them as basically an attempt to you know bully countries around the world into doing what the usa wants and from there he actually said that this shows that russia needs to strengthen the eurasian economic union and try to work with other countries around the world to kind of overwhelm and overcome while what's being what's being pushed by the united states furthermore many countries emphasize that the continued use of sanctions by u.s. leaders shows the need to build up the brics and the alternative bodies that are emerging in the global economy and that basically as countries see the usa impose

these tariffs and and sanctions and different things that this shows that basically countries need to start trading with each other there needs to be more of what you might call a. you know just just just kind of you know countries trading with each other and not depending on the united states give and take always works best in a free market and we like that in the us and we should embrace that a little bit more than we have it seems to me but what other economic discussions have been happening there didn't seem to be any particular economic policies discussed between the a ten ten days. well in russia their state run mining corporations have been working with different countries especially in the african continent to help develop their own manufacturing and their own industries for example we heard from guinea the african nation of guinea the speaker of their parliament described how you know russia has been there working with them to develop their own mining companies and their own mining system and they are actually helping guinea to work toward its long term goal of developing and

producing its own aluminum domestically and that would be a huge achievement for this historically impoverished african country to have its own alumina manufacturing and that russia has taken great lengths to help them work toward this ultimate goal and so we heard a lot about russia's involvement in economic development in different countries around the world specifically and you know whether it's related to gazprom ross nafta in their role in the energy markets but also in mining and metal manufacturing well it seems a little bit maybe russia and china are stinging from a similar song with regard to trying to develop economic ties with others in hopes of creating better a-y. and says while the u.s. is perhaps pulling back caleb i want to shift back to what you told the audience there just briefly before we run out of time i watch what you said and again think it was eloquent but can you give our viewers a quick taste of what you told the audience in attendance there. well i was invited

to participate in the session regarding the issue of media and freedom of speech and how these kind of things play out and we heard from a lot of different speakers a speaker from sri lanka a speaker from burundi speaker from venezuela talking about the moves that they're taking regarding social media and news and sharing free speech but also stopping terrorism and i got up and i talked about the pressure that's been placed on this t.v. network r.t. and how it kind of shows a little bit of hypocrisy on the part of our leaders in the united states and the remarks were very well received by those in attendance many are very interested in the controversy surrounding r.t. in the usa. caleb op and thanks and if folks are interested in caleb's moscow remarks you can find them at youtube dot com slash r.t. america us chicken joint tyson foods the largest meat packer in the u.s. is acquiring to come suppose l.l.c. in a play to enter the organic chicken market tysons has been on

a buying spree since two thousand and thirteen is acquired jimmy dean and ballpark hot dogs given that organic chicken sales have increased nationwide by twelve percent in the past year walk conventional chicken sales were only at three percent it makes sense tyson would acquire the nebraska based to come so which markets organic chicken and sausages under the brand name smart chicken what terms of the deal were not disclosed to concert reportedly is predicted to clear forty million dollars this year in profits of one hundred seventy million dollars in revenue while tyson's move is a response to growing demand for again a chicken a similar acquisition by competitors including perdue and pilgrim's pride continues while again excels did grow at four times the rate of conventional chicken sales totaled a whopping seven point seven billion dollars over the past year for conventional birds versus roughly three hundred thirty million for organic. the

unit. laureus lee anti-union newspaper the chicago tribune has been forced to recognize a union to represent its journalists and april tribune workers voted by eighty five to fifteen margin for collective bargaining with their employer joining with the writers guild of america east or. as their representative a month later tribune management reluctantly accepted the democratic result and recognize the w g a as the workers representative the tribune's deferral to workplace democracy follows a recent labor organizing victory at the los angeles times which has a record of hostility to labor rights similar to the tribunes the w.g. a represents about five thousand workers but over twelve hundred of those one hundred of those have been added in just the past three years workers that digital media outlets including garc are huffington post and vice have also won recognition of their rights to organize and bargain collectively.

and yesterday as we reported the u.s. supreme court ruled in support of a colorado bakers decision not to bake a cake for a same sex couples marriage what might the ruling mean for other businesses let's find out and bring in america's lawyer mike papen tonio counselor thanks for joining us the contention was that the baker had a first amendment right not to create or bake a cake does the ruling set a precedent for other businesses here. no i think it's a very narrow ruling the spring board handed down it's unlikely to have any real repercussions for other businesses at least for right now what the ruling specifically says is the original group that brought the baker to court was too overzealous a very interesting kind of language here to overzealous in in their attack on baker's religion and due to that incredible animosity that is all through the

opinion how they go back to this issue about incredible animosity how this is just a personal attack on his religion that they displayed a violation of this man's first amendment rights that's what the ruling says so this particular ruling only applies to one baker in this one instance but it does open the door for future cases to effectively decide this matter what i'm saying most importantly is they should have made a commonsense secular kind of argument where they just focused on the bigotry of this individual and relied on just just run of the mill discriminatory kind of language they should have got off got it got after him not for his religion but the way that the attack was made was just bad lawyer and really when it comes down to it they focus completely around this religious animosity issue and it really did edge right into a first amendment problem which raised the standard for what the court had to had to review any time you move into religion things like race or religion you're

actually raising the standard of the level of review that the court engages in so really this is honestly just bad lawyer but at the same time it does kind of it does kind of tweak the notion that this is a court that is interested in kind of taking a look at closer look maybe at religious liberties and how they balance against i guess secular issues that's what it reads to me but this particular case there's no broad meaning to this case in in my reading of it it sounds like not only bad lawyer. to me but as a former regulator it sounds like bad regulating to me you mention the colorado civil rights commission which originally ruled against the baker as as being hostile to religion because of the remarks of one of its members if that had bet not in the record if the regulators had done a good job do you think this decision was played out the same way i think if this had just been handled just as

a regular discrimination case i mean if it was the chances of it in the least getting past the seventy two decision would have been much higher but somehow somehow that happens in the business of regulation we take our politics with this we don't actually stand outside and look at what the field looks like and make decisions according to that field we take this overzealous notion maybe this was somebody that had this overzealous notion in their need to attack religion and in doing that they actually were in the process of creating what some people might say is bad law because now somebody is going to build on this they're going to say they're going to point out that overzealous attacks any time that falls within the religious realm that we could easily fall into this case so you know bad lowering makes bad laws and bad regulatory beth regulatory agency that certainly makes bad laws to bad soup where this seems like a real balancing act for the court and that they they must consider you know

discrimination while respecting individual first amendment rights and that's particularly infos given justice kennedy who wrote the majority opinion is written pretty much every major supreme court decision protecting gay men and lesbians on the other side is also an ardent free speech defender i mean how do the supreme's look at those two under the law free speech and nondiscrimination when they will be in conflict. there is not there's not there's never a formula ok but there are there are certain kinds of cases that are always going to get what we call a higher level of scrutiny and then they're going to from from that higher level of scrutiny they're going to find the unique aspects of the fact situation that maybe can move it towards a free speech kind of protection were towards a route religious protection you could go two to two years and years of constitutional law classes and you would never come out with a formula beyond that but if this it's interesting to me that you have

a seven to kind of decision here that's telling you that you know that people looked at this and they were upset by the by this vigorous anti religious argument and so that to answer a question that's one element this way the court of usually so it's different case to case how good is the lawyer presenting the issue does the lawyer understand the president do they understand kind of the back stories to some of these supreme court justices this was totally misunderstood by the lawyers in the regulators in this particular might happen tony host of america's lawyer thank you as always and that is it for us we're out of time catch boom bust on you tube dot com slash boom bust artie.

that's sort of the. four men are sitting in

a car when the fifth gets shot in the head. all four different versions of what happened one of them is on the death row there's no way he could have done it there's no possible way because the list did not shoot around a corner. faced with frustration and dismay for america's allies even members of the g.o.p. donald trump is sticking to his campaign promise to recast washington's trade relations with the world the reaction has been loud in swift only on the verge of a global trade war. think you see a good. mood. this is the only. church secret indeed just like priests accused of sexually abusing children can get away with it quite 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 were the previous standards not the highest ranks of the catholic church help conceal the accused priests from the police and justice system to that it has not asked the i intend. to use this yet in. this. case both. join me every first day on the alex simon show and i'll be speaking to guests of the world of politics or business i'm show business i'll see them. the spokesman for the u.s.

led coalition in syria and iraq says it's impossible to know how many civilians died during the iraq a campaign that follows amnesty international's report accusing the coalition of possible world crime. sanction for and the energy supplies top of the agenda as glad of it putin who visits vienna on his first foreign trip since starting his fourth term as president. also ahead america's ambassador to israel gives on less than diplomatic feedback to journalists covering the i.d.f. skews the extreme force against palestinian protesters in gaza.

as a very warm welcome this is r.t. international with mina key arab great to have you with us this hour now our top story the spokesman for the u.s. led coalition against isis says that accurate figures for civilians killed in iraq are will never be known as far as how do we know how many civilians were killed i'm just being honest no one will ever know anyone who claims they all know is lying this comes after amnesty international accused the us led coalition of committing potential war crimes during last year's operation to liberate the syrian city of raka from islamic state more now from anas to see it. this international report dubbed war of the hill ation devastating tolls on civilians in iraq to syria is a very highly critical analysis of the airstrikes that were carried out by the u.s.

led coalition that involved britain and france on the city of raka from june to october twenty seventeen in their fight against isis and this amnesty international report talks of decimated families and neighborhoods says that not enough was done to protect civilians and that some of the attacks resulted in violation of international humanitarian law and indeed talks of potential war crimes as a result of the these strikes the report finds that hundreds of people died and thousands were injured despite the coalition saying they did everything they could to minimize casualties. we did everything we could in our intelligence assessment in our planning to minimize to the maximum degree possible any chance of civilian casualties the coalition's claims that it's precision air campaigns allowed to bump islamic state out of iraq while causing very few civilian casualties do not stand up to scrutiny on the ground in iraq we witnessed

a level of destruction comparable to anything bush seen in decades of covering the impact of wars you know when you're fighting an enemy. uses noncombat as collateral damage you know it's very difficult when the when you fight it we like that too to completely avoid. any casualties of war like that but i can tell you we have a process that we go through. to minimize you know civilian casualties at all costs well amnesty international interviewed one hundred twelve civilians in as many as forty two locations of airstrikes for this report and some of their focus was specifically on four families who had lost very big numbers of family members in these airstrikes they look at one family that lost as many as eight members and one airstrike another lost sixteen another family lost eighteen and a fourth family that lost as many as thirty nine people in those airstrikes and of

course while we know the coalition says that in this case as others they did all they can to minimize casualties and in these kinds of scenarios according to them this is inevitable according to amnesty international that is just not good enough and they have called for investigations and justice for the victims of those strikes. let's go live now to richard becker of the anti war on so coalition thank you for joining us on the program mr baca now the u.s. led coalition is accused of having killed a number of civilians in the write a campaign but the u.s. is disputing this data from amnesty international what do you think. well there's a long history of the u.s. military denying that it has responsibility for what are obviously casualties that have been caused by their banning often indiscriminate bombing and it appears that in iraq and there was a great deal of indiscriminate bombing that took place but then afterwards we hear

like we heard a little bit earlier the usual. claim or pretext that well the the people they were fighting against were using civilians as human shields or something like that i mean the people who live there they're not human shields they live they live in iraq and they live in these other places that have been targeted by u.s. bands all over the middle east from libya to iraq and the casualties have been astounding and very little known in the west if we take the real casualties of banning and sanctions and black aid and starvation and all that that's gone and it's in the millions now since nine hundred ninety the u.s. led coalition spokesperson says that no one will ever count the lack of victims do you think that's an adequate statement well i remember in the first u.s. war on iraq that after the war was over.