well you're in the slowdown so much they lost their jobs that laid the american dream is changing that's not what it used to be. it's a tough reality to deal. greetings and salutations. there's blood in the water hawk watchers and one of the big dogs a big pharma in the opioid epidemic has swum way out past the blue eden is desperately trying to swim to shore before the sharks come rolling in in a brilliant bit of good news after a change for a change after a weekend of presidential buffoonery i mean seriously could me at least take

a little bit of time to get the name right of the entire town that burned to the ground before launching into his forest floor sweeping routine seriously. anyway like i said in a much needed dose of good news in our feeds it's now being reported that the multi-billionaire sackler family you remember them the predators behind her too far most think that their great philanthropic endeavors can hide their soul tarnishing acts of pushing oxy cotton on the world for fun and profit well they're now facing a mass amount of law of litigation the likes of which we haven't seen since the big tobacco lawsuits in the one nine hundred ninety s. and oh yes they're also facing potential criminal investigations and prosecutions as well legal sources told the guardian recently that quote prosecutors in connecticut and new york are understood to be considering criminal fraud and racketeering charges against lead it against the leading family members over the way oxy cotton has allegedly been dangerously overprescribed and deceptively

marketed to doctors and the public. like i said earlier when there was blood in the water the sharks will come to play per do farmers now facing down roughly thirty state lawsuits and in federal court they along with other corporate defendants are facing a lawsuit coalition of more than twelve hundred cities counties and this is a pal these across the united states of america. i think it's time to grab some snacks roll out the beach towels and break out the binoculars because it's going to be allowed to swim back to shore per day when the sackler so we'd better start watching the hawks. to. get the. real that this would. lead to the bottom. like you that i got. was that we. would. be.

pretty. well before the watching the hard science i robot and time to happen. so it's a little good news for a change to see them see in the multibillion there sackler family. finally maybe at least legally being held responsible for the amount of damage and destruction they've caused of the country and the world yet once i was going to say let us not forget that just about a little over a year ago we reported here on this show about how the sack i family and purdue was moving and to china and to the market because they have a large amount of retired or aging population and that they can push all this wonderful wonderful ox they. because you know. just as the world needs more pain killers of those four we do but. no i mean just to give

people an example i mean right now the c.d.c. estimates the. over seventy two thousand people died from overdoses in twenty seventeen that's an increase of about ten percent from two thousand and sixteen nearly two hundred people die from overdoses every day that year when you do the math a majority of the nearly forty thousand of that seventy two was caused by the opioid epidemic which is also bubs basically one hundred thirty four people were dying from opioid overdose in the us incredible you know it's true and some of these are what would be i think anybody would consider some sort of it's kind of in the accidental category in the sense that these weren't overdoses on purpose and taking it it's that they literally were around so much for taking so much to relieve pain that. a certain point too because they're so addicted to it it's not even about the pain relief i mean more to you well that's what's so insidious about opioids is

that there's a point where especially these opioid medications oxycontin particulars that you have to take more of it to get that same. work the same pain relief that you get you have to keep adding to it which is what makes it so insidious and this family the pretty family. they try to keep things very secret so that they can be not and kind of in the in the situation i want it. paul hamley is a lead attorney in the suffolk county case county suit against the sack our family and their company told reporters this is essentially a crime family drug dealers and nice suits and dresses what produce farm in the sack their family have done to society through their aggressive peddling of opioids is unconscionable and that's all you're profiting off of what is clearly and i think what's right why i think these these cities have a really smart legislative ground to stand on is. they have spent a lot of money trying to stop this you know we should be paying for the farm for

but also how much does it cost us as a society as well there's so much to be trillion could be five hundred thousand dollars a year because you're also talking about taking all these able bodied people who are now addicted to opioids out of like the workforce out of society because they are so screwed you know they're so screwed up because of these guys pushing doctors to overprescribe it and i kind of i will say i do think that a lot of this responsibility also has to fall back on the doctors to oh it's one thing we can blame big pharma all day long they're guilty but we also have to look at the doctors too they're the ones who took the cruises they're the ones who took the payoff is there the one hundred of the state dinners are said oh yeah sure i'm take it they love it these lawsuits though are pretty incredible i mean you mentioned hanley his lawsuit names eight of these family members and that's they include the children of the two deceased brothers mortimer and raymond sack were developed purdue pharma mortimer and launched oxy cotton back in the mid ninety's also named in the suit are teresa and beverly sackler the two brothers wives i just

mentioned these eight ten members have served or have observed the board of purdue pharma. magazine estimates that a core group of twenty sackler is the meat mortimer and raymond branch of the sackler family including the eight that are under this litigation collectively worth get this thirteen billion dollars saying this is why so man call them here is an american art photographer almost died from an addiction to oxycontin and is now in recovery and she told the guardian that i'm sick of these people behind the scenes controlling companies and getting away with murder while their faces are never shown and she's right why do you get to make thirty billion dollars off of the suffering of this nation off of people you've ruined families you're going over to china to try to bring. and opioid two. that's terrifying to do but in this event it's like at some point you have to take responsibility and this is where capitalism ends eventually got to take responsibility for the. recently or i'm watching the hawks we discussed how

a solar storm back in one nine hundred seventy two caused widespread disturbances and led to the detonation of of water mines during the vietnam war well apparently some forty six years later here in twenty eighteen we are still under prepared for potential solar storms solar storms today could knock out communications network causing massive electronic blackouts and according to the back office the united kingdom is in particular danger due to their heavy reliance on satellite technology in new york city r.t. america is trading charges more. experts are warning the u.k. to brace for solar storms now urging officials to take immediate action because a violent storms will have devastating potential the study claims that the u.k. is especially vulnerable because of the country's high reliance on satellite technology which is particularly vulnerable to these kind of events according to the sun such flares could generate intense magnetic fields over the earth which in a flash can burn out delicate electronics and even set them on fire the met has

told the u.k. minister's office that a flare up of the kind that hit earth two or three times in two hundred years. would cost the country sixteen billion pounds that's over twenty billion dollars in catastrophic damage. one. lift to prevent this from happening the studies suggest that the nation needs to build a satellite network to act as an early warning system which could monitor the sun's activity this way they were no where the storm is coming the met office study said in this statement that we find that one in one hundred year event with no space weather forecasting capability the gross domestic product loss to the united kingdom could be as high as fifteen point nine billion pounds. with existing satellites nearing the end of their life a forecasting capability will decrease in coming years so if no further investment takes place critical infrastructure will become more vulnerable to space weather the system would give earth up to a week to prepare for

a storm of this magnitude should any dangerous particles be detected reporting in new york turn of each of those are to. blobs a little doom and gloom there from the sun thank you thank you you know it's funny because when you when i hear a story about this you know immediately pops into my head a very simple question why are a human being is today. it feels like to be so stubborn to prepare for a rainy day or in this case you don't violent blackout causing space storms the why why is that the we can't seem to like hey maybe we will work of this so we don't have to pay for the repercussions later there it is we don't like investing early we like not spend money like fun i mean the break we think we're just given no one later yeah we do have a hard time preparing for the for those rainy days yet and all of the climate change it's like we've known this is coming for ever and you know we're kind of sitting here well i mean we'll put it off till next year. and the big this is an

expensive expensive problem we've become very technology is that i mean you think about the u.k. or my guru do you have a lot of c.c.t.v. that's run off of all of us and the amount of things that can go wrong in. the report so these things are said he could damage data transmission cables power lines. could cost a place like the united kingdom something like sixteen billion euros in damage from one solar storm weather report which was coauthored by the british antarctic survey rather for it home built in laboratory and cambridge university thank you all states that with existing satellites nearing the end of their life forecasting capability will decrease in coming years so if no further investment it takes place critical infrastructure will become more vulnerable the space weather so let me get this straight so now let me make this great for everybody so the infrastructure here on earth the stuff that's falling apart and probably going to tell us ok on top of that our space infrastructure is falling apart and probably going to kill us

yeah i was worried that a good when you do who says stop this from happening stop investing in wars around the world and stop living money go straight up in a pure pyramid the true in other words the down to the rest of us because all of us use infrastructure just one percent of the world and they still. there's times i know they love to make things that they're nothing but there's a line history of really serious tellers rurals history when you look at the history of solar storms in the days before cell and i know and eighteen fifty nine the sun a solar flare doubled the sun's brightness and caused a powerful like trickle currents in the telegraph wires across europe but i believe here in the u.s. too and that ignited widespread fires in a in one nine hundred eighty nine a flare struck quebec and canada and actually left six million people without power and then as recently as two thousand and three players affected crews in the international space i'm sorry we're still going to take cover but i mean this isn't

like it's one of those things where i think it's because like we as human beings love to ignore what we can't see now while most of us are a solar flare or whatever i was when i was sure there is some government agency to that effect that somebody will take care of that before i have to worry about it some serious materials are and as we go to break our crotches tone for good to let us know what you preach about topics we've covered and facebook and twitter see our poll shows at our dot com coming up author researcher tentpole could joins us to discuss the of the above the law of brutality found in the ranks of the state of ohio's blue mafia so put down them jury and stated in the interim.

join me every thursday on the alex simon chill and i'll be speaking to guests of the world of politics sports this list i'm showbusiness i'll see you the. chinese economy in the last fifteen years is done to prevent other countries emerging that were once emerging economies and became big economies like united states did the same thing they were export exporting it with unfair advantages until they got big and then they transition to a consumer economy so china and britain before then did the same thing so china is just following history and now they want to become a big consumer economy and so far so good.

the city of warren ohio is like so many other small world american towns a little over forty thousand residents in just an hour from cleveland you'd think it would be the perfect blend of small town feel and big city amenities but it isn't injured in two thousand and three a videotape surfaced of warren resident wendell campbell being beaten by three white police officers these police officers were at least two hundred pounds each kemble was choked slammed against the pavement kicked punched and even gored multiple times with a metal object all in front of his family children and neighbors at the time officers claim a campbell who had been pulled over for failing to use this turn signal had stopped crack cocaine and with mouth and they were only trying to save him but the video showed that this incident was about a lot more than a minor drug violation it painted

a picture that many of us. always seen in pinpoint focus while others have struggled to see it clearly the law is above the law the city of warner is just one example of how small towns across america have been allowed to fly their brutality under the radar in the book blue mafia writer tim tolka investigates the town of warren as well as stupid fellow heigho and a civil rights attorney you took on small town corruption joining us now to discuss his book blue mafia is writer editor and researcher tim tolka thank you for joining us to em. you for having me want to start and in your book you quote a named resident award told a local journalist there to the one who thinks you said quote to the one who thinks warren was better off when the mob ran it consider this one of the mob still runs the show it's an interesting statement can you tell us a little bit about war in the kimball incident and what led it to being a place with such a. dark and questionable history with the police. well worn is like many other small towns in america it's unchanging there's

a concentration of power and the police were not questioned and my investigation showed that. these problems went back decades and that the black community had been talking about them for ages but nobody would listen and it took a outsider as well as a viral video to bring attention to this small town but what i learned was that there are many towns just like warren whose problems are been swept on the road. so it's not like mayberry anymore as you're thinking you know well what we've all been told about small town america. interesting can you tell us a little bit about i guess about war and steubenville and how they differed in terms because there were two it's as i talk about the campbell incident in warren which was a big it made national headlines actually c.n.n. ran the video at you know viral in the day before a big fire over the thing and steubenville obviously is

a different case than what most people know suman fall for as sadly we have to parse out which steubenville case it is but how they differ to one of the things in your book that i thought was really interesting was your take on how the press handled things differently in each of those situations can you tell us a little bit about that and why that has such a big impact on what eventually has happened with the department of justice that and everything else there. absolutely so the steubenville did not have a free press. there is a local paper there called the herald star and basically they close their eyes to everything and they do not believe local residents when they complain this was back in the ninety's that steubenville had its most serious problems so before viral videos and before there was much press attention on the problem of police brutality what was different about warren is that they had very active journalists there were at least three that were pretty focused on the police issues and they also had

about ten years or fifteen years on steubenville so that there were hand-held camcorders and once one resident got one of those in this hands they blew up the police brutality problem there so that everybody in the nation saw it but there are many towns just like warren just like steubenville i'm from a little town in the midwest where it's still. effectively segregated no black families have been able to move into this town it's called salem illinois. near warren the former headquarters of the k.k.k. is in niles and the way i see it this was a kind of periodic. racial animus that comes up through the surface but most of the time it's just below the surface kind of simmering and when lyndall campbell was videotaped in his situation with the warren police those

floodgates and all that anger came into the public. you know very quickly you know it's interesting when you mention the the thing with the steubenville newspaper i just quickly you know what do you think what do you believe leads to that kind of you know where that where a local newspaper suddenly no longer believes local residents what what what what what make it what makes that happen what is it why do you believe you know why is that happening. well it's a couple of things there was a very very vocal police chief that was in charge of the police department he would threaten anybody who criticize the police and the prosecutor was the same way he would charge anybody who made any kind of months misconduct allegation with making false claims and so there was a there was a atmosphere of great fear in the town and nobody wanted to go against the police chief or the prosecutor because of their awesome power to silence people and in

warren even though they had kind of similarly vocal and aggressive police chiefs and prosecutor the threats didn't have the same effect because the media was actually asking the residents to tell their stories whereas in steubenville everybody just was afraid in the journalists didn't want to ask any questions you know. as many federal police misconduct investigations as as they've had as many as new york and are there they're the only state in fact the only state with more is california which i think many people would not expect to have much larger pop and you talk about civil rights attorney richard all of it oh in your book how was he able to shine a light on the misconduct and what effect did it have on his on his on his life. well the short answer is it ruined everything for him it gave him

a purpose and it brought him into the media which also made him a target. at first in steubenville the local police retaliated and they tried to blow his apartment they tried to shoot him in his house they tried to silence him with threats they broke into his also numerous times and urinated on the carpet and put his wife's underwear out on the lawn they did everything to keep him quiet but he just kept working harder in warren the police didn't retaliate the judges did and so the judges accused him of being crazy then. cheating his clients and eventually the supreme court came out after him with completely false fabricated allegations and eventually took away his license to practice law while. and it seems like there's not much of a change even today just last week the ohio house of representatives passed

a new stand your ground bill that sort of shifts the burden of proof. for self-defense cases among one of the things it does it doesn't mean other things but one of the self-defense cases to the prosecution and removes the sort of duty to retreat to try to get away before you kill somebody state representative de would leave unsaid it is a stand your ground on steroids this shoot first ask questions later bill is a solution looking for a problem you know this this new bill also there is you know the idea they took away the need for a conceal and carry permit holder to have to have id on him while he's carrying a gun. i feel like that's that's going to be an african-american who's going to end up getting shot or arrested because we know they don't hold these gun these gun laws in the same regard for whether it's a caucasian person or african american any person of color we've seen that so my question is who is ohio clearly hasn't learned from its mistakes and where this is

come from like where is the site you know it just seems like they're purposely doing things to drive people out and you say it's sort of self segregated is this just legislative and economic and sort of. it's the state. trying to literally push people out. that's a really good question it's something that i've pondered because ohio and pennsylvania are they lead the nation in racially charged google google searches so if you look in between the look into the data you find that there is a lot of racist sentiment and it goes back a long time is even though ohio was a hotbed for abolitionism it was also a very very serious jim crow state there are many towns that had signs threatening black people that they shouldn't let the sunset over their head i was

born in a town like that so i know very much how those towns are they're very violent and they they put the responsibility on the victim to make justice happen and it's the same way with police police are not supposed to be questioned white people are not supposed to be questioned but there's also a deeper history of organized crime and strong arm tactics so back in the forty's in the thirty's this was the places where the east coast mafia was looking for new markets. the gambino crime family families that were operating in pittsburgh and cleveland they were going into these little towns in order to start new gambling businesses and one by one they would take down all the major institutions by corrupting all of the officials and i think it's going to grown into a culture now where certain people are protected and the people who have bought

the institutions and the officials they stay in power and they reinforce their power with laws like this that effectively turn over all of the responsibility for justice under the victims and i got to tell you i got to tell people they definitely need to check out your book blue mafia to talk with thank you for coming out and educating us a little bit about a part of the country that we don't talk about as much as we definitely should thank you so much today. my pleasure thank you for. the world's most extensive nearing effort by a single space suit is wasn't made by humans it was created maintained by term mates and it all started about four thousand years ago researchers from the state university of feta. sun tunnel in brazil reported this week that the study and slow efforts by termites built a series of regularly spaced inhabited termite mounds of northern brazil to cover an area the size of great britain or for you americans the size of minnesota

visible on google earth the approximately two hundred million mounds are each about two and a half meters tall and nine meters across the termites built the mounds and the networks of connecting tunnels underneath them by excavating close to ten cubic kilometers of soil that's the equivalent of four thousand great pyramids of giza and soil samples indicated that the soil was put into the at least the eleven mounts tested from between six hundred ninety and thirty eight hundred years ago and researchers also concluded that the spacing of the mounds was due to cooperation between the term it's not a grass fed as previously sought thought so it turns out the term mates are better at infrastructure projects and working together toward a common goal better than humans look at those termites. never would have thought yeah. like we could learn a thing or two we could at the end of the work together right to be real or termites. how can you be a better term whatever for iraqi and u.s.

government programs be a better term i don't watch the video or that is our show for you today remember every one of those world we are told that we are above the belt so i tell you all i love i roll the world i'm tired of the wallace people watching those hawks in a great big invited body. nobody could see coming that false confessions would be that in the spot the waist up wrongful conviction. had any interrogations out there what you'll see is threat promise threat promise threat lie a lie a lie the process of interrogation is designed to put people in just that frame of mind make the most comfortable make them want to get out and don't take no for an

answer don't accept their denials she said if i were. a sad statement then i would be all about that the next day there's a culture on accountability and police officers know that they can engage in misconduct that has nothing to do with all the crime. i've been saying the numbers mean something they matter to us is over twenty trillion dollars and. more than ten white collar crimes happen each day. eighty five percent of global wealth you longs to the ultra rich eight point six percent market saw thirty percent rise last year some with four hundred to five hundred three per second per second and bitcoin rose to twenty thousand dollars. china is building two point one billion dollars a i industrial park but don't let the

numbers overwhelm. the only numbers you need to remember is one one does not show you can afford to miss the one and only. cut. even the. headline stories this hour in brussels shoes a. police station. also.