the centers of disease control recently released its final u.s. mortality data for two thousand and seventeen about some rather disturbing news that folks living here in the u.s. were actually dying younger the c.d.c. found that the average u.s. life expectancy in two thousand and seventeen was seventy eight point six seventy eight point six years old down from seventy eight point seven in two thousand and sixteen and while many would say tyro i don't i don't i don't understand it is only down one point what's what's really the big deal well it's the larger downward trend that's got many experts concerned as fortune magazine points out since the one nine hundred sixty s. when the u.s. led the world in life expectancy by almost two and a half years it has made slower gains than most other rich countries in fact among nations in the organization for economic cooperation and development the u.s. now rings twenty ninth in life expectancy experts believe that one of the chief

causes for this decline are now uptick in what's called diseases of despair tragedies like suicides and drug overdoses and good us response to this dark trend of despair comes this brilliant headline from bloomberg americans are dying younger saving corporations billions. yeah you have. to corporate america lower life expectancy equals lower pension costs and rivington profits that is the hold with the liberal and it is that grim cold out of doors the problems affecting us to bury that we don't want to follow us into our very bright future which is why we are watching hawks. wonder what. the playing field with this would. lead to the bottom. line what it looks like you know what i got.

which we. would. be. welcome we're going to watch from the horse i am i robot and i'm to have a wallace so looking at the leading causes of death i think it's really important because it's not just one. many different bright so one of those is our heart disease and cancer star still leading the way in twenty seventeen unintentional injuries that includes drug overdoses jumped to third place suicides are bringing up tenth place. and the one bright spot i guess you could say is that while deaths due to cancer are still still strongly holding that second spot they cancer deaths are actually on the decline that's in part of that is because of

things like and as you know i've seen in my own life and we've seen with many people you know in the work we do here. is that we're getting early detection and yeah that's a big that's a big no to all of those things it would have saddled to believe that look at the end of the day we're we're getting kind of crushed by this idea of diseases of despair you know diseases that are totally it's one thing if you're fighting a cancer it's one thing if you're fighting you know the plague you know something about these things we're all making great strides and fixing but boy when you look at things like you know overdoses you look at things like suicides these are things the are mental issues the we should you would big in one of the great thriving economies of the world and driving nations of the world that we would be overcoming you know it's pretty incredible yeah i mean you would but when you have obviously declining health care costs here are declining health care available living here in

the united states people are suffering economically a lot of working class people and they're avoiding going to the hospital for a means that ultimately are easy to take care of and preventive medicine to stop and i mean we're going to cordon the federal data you go hundred fifteen people in the u.s. die each day from an opioid overdose and six americans per day or dying from alcohol abuse six per day. that's the highest rate in thirty five years like that really tells you that something is wrong which breaks my heart when i see bloomberg headlines trumpeting like that money that can be made now that people's life expectancies are shorter hey we don't have to pay our pensions as much as it really is lead to grovel to do one thing a shocking thing is that what you can look at is that a report that took two years to put together on the data from twenty seventeen that bloomberg analysis from twenty seventeen already saw the trend they don't need two years they saw that they didn't have to pay because more people die so that's sort

of the strange thing that goes on there and they said at least twelve large companies and that bloomberg analysis that at least twelve large companies have reported that negative transom. have allowed them to reduce their estimates for how much they could go to retirees by a combined nine point seven billion so yes. that's really critical it's a pretty story and it's as if they knew they already knew so they're less likely they're already turning their numbers down seeing that people were already dying soon and you know. one of our good friends lockheed martin actually has reduced its retirement obligations like this back in two thousand and two into the sixty's they were dues their retirement which is about one point six billion general motors' came in there as well varieties and was in the there's a major breath. you know where you know we're good there's and this is something that we do need to look at and we do need to make better in this country because at the end of the day if we're going to hold ourselves as one of the best countries in the world we're the holders really have to come you know these diseases of the

despair of the cold war over two out of the top you know term things on the list that's killing yourself and making your life expectancy lower. according to the twenty democracy index report from the economist intelligence unit a mere four point five percent of the world's population live in a full democracy the report rate of countries in areas critical to democracy such as political participation on a scale of one to ten coming in the top of the list were at number five denmark for number four new zealand third sweden second iceland and coming in as the full us democracy on the planet was norway now way down at the bottom of the list which are categorized as authoritarian regimes where the nations of chad the central african republic the democratic republic of congo syria and coming in dead last in north korea on the up side the first time for the first time in three years the

global democracy overall has remained stable and the report identifies a positive reaction to what many feel is. chaos in governments across the planet stating quote the deterioration and functioning of government and in political culture is likely in fact to be helping drive the rise and political participation around the world and while north america's average score is still the highest of any region canada at the six spot on the list actually makes up for the united states downgrade due to recent trade wars questions regarding the independence of the justice department and the use of court cases to resist the trumpet ministrations of watchers while the quality and quantity of the participation in our democracy is increasing in the united states is coming in at number twenty five and being labeled a flawed democracy. oh no not for all we carry ourselves in the world and not for the attitude that we have you know we kind of live and breathe go over about

american exceptionalism for more go you know what are we exceptional if we can't even do democracy let write like what you know what are we doing wrong you know there's a lot brought up about ronald reagan and there's a lot you can say about ronald reagan but he did have that shining you know we're the shining beacon on the hill and we're supposed to be that we should be the non zero five go can a few extra boy in the back to lead characters that were what twenty five twenty six. years that i've got a load of of luggage you're going to we're going to hold ourselves and deserves our big time to you know and what's interesting is the question is you know well is it all war and donald shoulders well a part of one part of what brought us down actually in that is using the court system using our justice system to resist a trump agenda that's actually hurt us because it's not using the the ideals of democracy it's not saying we have

a checks and balances it's going around the checks and balances in order to resist a president whose agenda you don't like. that's interesting and never thought about that before the democracy every time you. but into the economic report the highly partisan nature of washington politics as you said is contributing to this trend as parties are increasingly seen as being focused on blocking one of those agenda to the detriment of policy making in fact a pew research poll in mid two thousand and eighteen from that sixty one percent of americans say significant changes are needed in the fundamental design and structure of american government to make it work for this current for these current times we are too divided we are there's too much partisanship the government doesn't work anymore because of the yeah and it's not just on one thing like you said there's traitorous these things but really it's this and you know we're going to talk about a little bit i think you talked with ray mcgovern about that about the idea that this whole impeachment process and things like that that doesn't help it actually

makes it harder because people don't feel like they're part of the thing so one of the thing i want to mention is the methodology that was used in this report and part of it so they used sixty indicators spanning five interrelated categories so you talk about whether national elections are free and fair the security of voters the influence of foreign powers on government and the capability of the civil service to implement policy so you know that's a lot that's a lot to go through but it's pretty basic it's is there a system in place that gives you free and fair elections are people given the say to say i know you're a came out fairly or not i don't know who are going to go to get out of sort of you know it is it's like creeping up the back of my eyes but i was suddenly realizing if you told me that i'm a belgian but i'm shocked we got to twenty four and. remember uncover as we've covered everything going on in u.s. politics and what almost five years and i hope i am shocked that we've made it to

twenty five oh really downgraded from a full democracy like norway or iceland to a flawed democracy and that doesn't mean. were bad and we're never going to get any better because what we're seeing is that we're going through major changes whether it's generational changes changes in how we do government politics clearly the trump administration and the trump era is making everybody sort of rethink how we do so and that's one of the good things if a member of the also this is kind of discovered you know what they discovered in this study and put together this list is that actually. women are actually leading the way out of like most things in terms of rocks the hundred across the world not like they are in the u.s. and all that but actually women are jumping on saying like you know we're being active we're being proactive politically to try to and fact i think it's you know that we've got more women old more political office in the u.s. for a you know i think it's record breaking about the brain that's really incredible really is and so didn't involve man get

a raise of democracy. as we're going to break card watchers don't forget to let us know what you think of the topics we've covered on facebook twitter and you tube and your poll shows that are t.v. dot com coming up the word impeachment has been thrown around a lot these days so i sat down with former cia analyst ray mcgovern to get the inside dirt on washington's impeachment frenzy. do not want to miss this state to watch and will. that entire collection of countries and regions that have been the main economic.

players for decades now over time they're going to become this much more players of the world is going to evolve. india middle east africa. under certain scenarios they're going to represent about eighty percent of world g.d.p. at the end of the century and that scenario is where they do catch up in terms of quarter to ready growth. officer. told them to get up off the ground in the office or begin to pay him down. democrats on the sounds of kind of fighting into the grown man like wrestling essentially. through his or her own. twisted away from the officer pulls out of his crib. the obvious or did they kind of lunge for the web in one's midst and then when it happened on three swung at the observations didn't hit them i never saw any contact with. any kind of went back to where they were so the officers back here there try

again fifteen feet apart at this point and that's when the officer pulled out his gun and he bit down tree. left right up down and center impeachment has been the word of the day here in

washington d.c. since russia gate to the election about old trump as president of the united states hit the store shelves back in two thousand and sixteen but while every pundit politician and political journalist loves to throw the term around the real question is just how realistic about outcome is the impeachment of a us president to give us an idea i recently sat down with former cia analyst and member of better intelligence professionals for sanity or perhaps ray mcgovern to find out his rather fascinating history with trying to impeach a president how that actually leads in and plays into the many holes in loose ends in the russia gate conspiracy that now grips all of washington d.c. . it's a lot to go on take a listen. there's a lot of very legitimate reasons that you could like you mentioned earlier that one could make a good case for moving trauma from office that he's you know it was it was for dereliction of duty as the president you first had experience with impeachment and talk of impeachment on capitol hill with john conyers and nancy pelosi over trying

to impeach george bush for war crimes i believe rightfully so. but it but it's interesting that kind of impeachment on capitol hill for politicians is a really great campaign slogan but very hard to execute in real life could you kind of tell us why it's so hard and difficult with palosi about to get an impeachment well i'm not an analyst of domestic policy but i can tell you what i know from firsthand. cindy sheehan had a good relationship with john conyers when he was head of the judiciary committee in the house you'll recall that in zero six the democrats took back the house and so he waited to decent interval and then send a invited me along to talk to john conyers and i went in there and he says well i'll kind i hope you're going on and we said we'll we're hoping that you won't page bush and cheney now the chair which you know what impeachment is i mean you were on the committee one when you impeached or voted the articles of impeachment for nixon

so so let's go. through that. why not or could get the votes bicycle or you get the vote or the well actually nancy pelosi says it's off the table. so why would it be of well she says that if we appear divisive that fox news going to have a heyday and then we won't win is big in the next election now you know i left that meeting and i think that you know it's so crass so political here's a constitution you've got here and they you know these really foresighted founders included impeachment six times in this constitution and she's not going to do and then i talked to my n.s.a. colleagues and veteran intelligence professionals for sanity and they said great if you don't know the half of it as they were read it well. when the cia or n.s.a. brief these chief people in congress the heads of the committees in the deputy

heads and then the heads of the senate and the house they do the usual member kinds so if they brief them on surveillance to violates the fourth amendment will they go back to the headquarters and say when we told closely this that's exactly what happened she approved or at least she didn't demur when they told her about the blanket surveillance of all ins and torture now you know what i thought about that is the so that means yeah that means that she's won't pull that means she can only say that sometimes they don't tell us the whole truth she can't say they lied to us but there's a very interesting clip that i dug out that shows how she tries displaying everything about why she can and why she couldn't do what she should have done with respect to the torture so she did she did have all those things she knows it's all written down so when she says sometimes they mislead or they do have these.

things and then it could be that they're not misleading it will be her her voice or her were to give slayers is that it's not something the you know being the professional the intelligence community that you have but for good you know the bulk of your life is that something the. do you feel that happy i mean is that kind of control over elected officials something new in the intelligence world or is this like an old story just with the new generations j. edgar hoover and steroids and j. edgar hoover would salivate at the technology this vailable now and you know i hope that they do collect everything now when i asked my friend and i say colleague that come on bill the need for your company every day all the mail the whole telephone call is he said trust me ray they can and they do and so i said well why don't they have the russian hacking that's. how many times i have to tell you if there

were i should hacking they gave the d.n.c. e-mails to wiki leaks. yes they would have it ok but that's not much of a you know it's sort of like rumsfeld saying the absence of evidence is not evidence of absence so we looked at submitted data. and these people can explain it better than i can but it's very simple really. they had one supposed alleged attack that turned out to be downloaded or copied off the web at three times the speed that the internet could tolerate at that time but exactly the same speed that a little from dr could tolerate and so that's how that happened we think a separate thing before june one julian assange engine mounts that he had these e-mails related to hillary clinton we think that's what happened somebody in the d.n.c. physical access to the computer or the server put the thumb drive in it got it somehow to julian assigned now this is the major point and i just want to mention

this because not many piece. realize that. even after being briefed up and down by these gang of four on the fifth of january two thousand searching obama saw fit to get up before a press conference on the eighteenth two days before he left and he said. apropos of not much he said you know the conclusions of the intelligence community with respect to how the russian hacking got to wiki leaks are inconclusive and look at that which he. has and i asked clapper about that it would you say is that i can explain i get explain why the president said oh he clearly didn't believe you you know you guys you clowns so you know this is not much that's a known about this in the major media and my friends you know the people i went to college with in new york they looked at me like i have a well they look real strange at me let's put it that way and it's ruled unsettling

because this is exactly what happened before iraq and as you probably know remember . before. sixty nine percent of the american people believe not only that saddam hussein had weapons of mass destruction but he played a role in nine eleven ok now what would you say the percentage of americans who believe in the if the russians are responsible for trump i would suggest is about the same and you know it's almost not their fault they have two three jobs what do they get when they think they're getting news from the from the mainstream media you know it's really sad situation because this could lead to a real confrontation with the only country that could really help us destroy the world and that's the thing that i give you a lot of credit for ray is that you buy them on the front lines of not only this with you know kind of combating the but i think we all can agree it's very dubious

information being put out about about russia russia gave all that but you've also been fighting since you know with the iraq war as you mentioned things like that and you know it's as much as i love the work that you do you this is the job of actual journalists that should be doing what you do base should be the one stepping in front of james clapper saying hey you need to answer these question. as we need to hold you to task on this why is our media so kind of complacent in this in your opinion well you know i've had some immediate experience but this i had another opportunity to challenge clappers patron actually don rumsfeld the fall of put him in in place so that you could make sure that nobody would be a skunk at the picnic and say whoa there are a day we can't find any weapons. ok so rumsfeld was down at the lad and i happened to be down in town for another reason and i challenge him and people can look at that on the web my point will be this that as i left the auditorium was very

hostile about you know idea that if i could get anybody usually somebody to come up with your i mean nobody was i going to call all of that anderson cooper. oh this is ray mcgovern well you know you're causing quite a stir down there are likely to have them i will show but but first i have to ask a question and i so with that he says well how do i say this or over and over that well. we're too afraid. and i thought to myself well that's a normal question you know so i said well no i've briefed a lot of secretaries of defense i thought way saying yes this is the heir to the fan the vendor both fortune right this is a pretty face on c.n.n. and he says he made more than a afraid and so i had some fun i said anderson actually it was a real high it was a real high i had prepared my questions it's going real questions i know you have to lie or make up new excuses you might want to try it some time and kill the show you it's a real high s.-a real quick you know all this very well and good i'll have my

people get in touch with your people or you know i don't know how many people you know people just give me a call back. and he asked for the same question. seen power has been around since the first century of the roman empire but wasn't until the late decades of the twentieth century that steam power became the dominant source of energy propelling the industrial revolution now the robotics in the university of central florida are looking to use steam power in space they have developed a prototype of a spacecraft that would be able to extract water from moons and asteroids in order to have a never ending supply of energy to explore the craft called the world is not enough or wine is the mere size of an average microwave will be able to work indefinitely as supposed to other rovers that are and spacecraft that are limited to the fuel brought onboard at launch no word yet as to how soon the craft will launch for full testing in space however nasa has already helped fund the project and is looking

for private investors so the project can go full steam ahead of school. that is kind of like the future of space travel troops is really going to get us there is kind of finding ways to refuel in space. because you can't go back out there and do that sort of gas stations in space but if it can run on steam power it can always find ice on asteroids especially if that's what you know you could ultimately just keep going out into space over and over and jump from asteroid to asteroid school to infinity and beyond with some steam never heard the term before the infinity and you know. that's really cool it's like the. science fiction steampunk go you know. a little you know all right everybody that is our show for you today remember in this world we are not told that we love the wall you turned over and happened a lot watching those hawks out there another great game that everybody.

does you know provision are going to know what it. was but i. lost his boss because i just got to be described as you know. anybody. but that's one of. the. so now says you know what i was you're not. you know just i mean what it i'm already what it was but. i remember. it up as well i must admit that he was i just don't get off on his english but

those were the old. my family fussy you couldn't get a bomb i just but that's already yes it did. i think i think with you jim clemente cadia my thought out loud but to me just got to go you. know one else truths seem wrong. but all quotes just don't call. me at all yet to stamp out disdain comes to educate and in detroit equals betrayal. when somebody find themselves worlds apart when she's to look for common ground. when i came back from iraq. oh marijuana her was

cocaine methamphetamine so anything that's altering trying to get us out of. that bad mindset using a chemical that would be self medicated. i want to be drinking and drinking ino new not just killing myself. out the whole links don't drink to get drunk alcoholics drink to feel normal. that's why it's this way drug addicts do what they do shop while still bringing their. star cool under which these guys are going through to it it just means to. need to be helped and not good pushed on by the v.a.'s are as drugs go and stuff they need to be helped. and they've really shouldn't be looked at like numbers they should be looked at like people if they go to a veteran center for health issues be considered as someone who really needs attention .

i. i. was. i. believe. an american born iranian t.v. anchor is reportedly set to appear in a u.s. court but charges remain a mystery we speak to a friend of the detained journalist who says she's been in contact with her family . the family is saying to me every time i.