it is at the rules for. venezuela moves to protect its assets by ordering this company's european h.q. to move to moscow concerns shared by russia over us whether to be stabilize the country. it is very clear was going on u.s. is seeking to arm terrorist groups in order to destabilize undermine our peace creates tensions and situations that might trigger the u.s. wants an explosion and bloodbath of venezuelans to justify military interference. in indian pilot captured by pakistan is freed in what the pakistani prime minister

called a gesture of peace after the escalating tensions of recent weeks. and a split emerges in germany's ruling coalition over whether to restart on sales to saudi arabia. follow us on twitter and to subscribe to our you tube channel for all of the latest updates but right now it is time for the big picture right here on our construction. on this week's show those days alone we had a couple hundred to get through the week it could end up costing you thousands and now the ministration wants to dial back obama. protections and microsoft employees are up in arms about arms their manufacturing but first venezuela battle lines being drawn nobody's right if everybody's wrong holland cook in washington this is the big picture on our t.v. . america.

venezuela is in chaos inflation there is measured in seven figures trade sanctions have disrupted commerce and two men claim to be in charge sitting president nicolas maduro and legislative leader one why doa is united states military action and venezuela now inevitable and even imminent let's ask dan kadlec professor of international human rights at the university of pittsburgh school of law he is author of among other books the plot to control the world how the u.s. spent billions to change the outcome of elections around the world dan welcome back . thank you holland to quote a popular cable news joke when the weather channel's jim cantore he shows up it's

time to evacuate and historically it is no joke when elliot abrams talks about saving a country and we hear that all options are on the table which analogy do you think is the most apt is venezuela the next iraq the next libya. well it could be either of those i mean i fear for venezuela if it's either of those it certainly could be the next libya where the course the u.s. and nato you know so chaos that reins to this day were slaves are now being sold openly in slave markets. the u.s. certainly has designs on trying to topple the government and nicolas maduro but short of that they certainly want to fatally undermine the venezuela's economy and the social fabric there. and so we hear from.

their ambassador to the u.n. that the u.s. may be arming some sort of rebel groups in colombia to attack venezuela of the contras in nicaragua during the eighty's which is a quite frightening. prospect and again as you mention the fact that elliott abrams who was one of the key figures in the iran contra scandal is the head of u.s. policy for venezuela right now. has to make is very concerned that the u.s. has some sort of military intervention either direct or by proxy planned for venezuela well as we are between no fishel ambassadors at the u.n. elliott abrams is filling the chair and we have some videotape from the discussion at the u n on thursday can we roll that now. the united states will pursue all avenues to increase humanitarian assistance to venezuelans both inside and outside

their country there was in fact an additional aid delivery today to the border region who could talk colombia emergency medical kits for forty thousand people high nutrition food for enough for ten thousand infants for two months hygiene kits for thirty five thousand people. then as you listen to that do you hear a trojan horse. of course i mean first of all we have to keep in mind that the u.s. sanctions that have been in place since two thousand and fifteen have cost the venezuelan economy billions of dollars in revenue and by the way the venezuelan government spends over seventy percent of its red revenue on social programs so those sanctions are costing venezuelans medicine and food and social benefits and the fact that the u.s. now says oh it wants to give a handful of aid. to venezuela has to be seen as

a trojan horse if they really cared about venezuelans they would lift those sanctions. which are preventing people from getting. some of the things they need to so yes i think venezuela rightly sees this is a trojan horse and rightly sees the u.s. is attempting to use humanitarian aid as a means to breach their borders and attack their country well the elephant in the room is obviously oil venezuela has the largest oil reserves on the planet but because of sanctions they're not getting market value for it from countries that will buy us a hawks contend that with our help under a president why go they'd make enough money to fix their economy here is dell see rodriguez the vice president of venezuela announcing the transfer of the office of the venezuelan state owned oil and natural gas company from europe to moscow

and in her view why that's necessary give a list of. that's been a part of our plans in terms of deepening relations with russian companies like gross and gas problem europe has not given us enough for sure and says that it will respect our assets look at the bank of england which is holding venice while in gold there has been an armed robbery. and we want to ensure our relationship with russia. ok dan unpack that. actually i did not hear that audio oh and i can tell you why you know why venezuela would need need to you know move operations to russian that is because the west has been sanctioning venezuela and preventing them as you say from getting fair market value for their oil and in addition sanctions are now preventing. venezuela from

getting profits from their oil companies sic go out of the u.s. so that is citgo will sell venezuelan oil here but they can't ship you know send the money back so it's just getting stuck in the u.s. so venezuela hast to. find a means to do a work around both the united states and europe in order to get the value for their oil and to get needed revenue for their people the other thing i'd like to point out is that we also know that in two thousand and fourteen the u.s. and saudi arabia. conspired to lower oil prices to hurt countries like venezuela and this is not a conspiracy theory this is well known the independent of london spoke of this and that devastated venezuela's economy so venezuela has to find other partners to be able to dig themselves out of the crisis that the u.s. has really put them in this situation is so fluid even compared to

a week or two ago as things stand now down in your view is more duros administration doomed still tenable and if so what is the need to do to hang on. well i think it is still tenable i think you know the one thing that u.s. threats of of intervention do and have done in venezuela is really cause people to rally around the flag and to say hey you know whether we. support it. arrow or another person we don't support intervention in fact polls have shown that over eighty percent of venezuelans oppose us intervention and oppose sanctions and so i think you will see venezuelans rallying to defend their country i think there are will be able. to hold on he is the duly elected president he has a lot of powerful. allies in russia china iran turkey

you know but at the same time the question is whether he can continue in power and you know move the economy forward while the u.s. continues to mount sanctions against his country and continues to threaten military action that all remains to be seen it certainly is a very concerning situation down while we have you the hanoi summit ended abruptly without a de nuke deal meanwhile there is renewed tension between india and pakistan both of which are nuclear powers and pakistan is inviting the usa into the equation it's an offer president bill clinton extended almost twenty years ago listen to this. i believe it is also in pakistan's interest to reduce tensions with india. when i was in new delhi urged india to seize the opportunity for dialogue. but pakistan also must help create conditions that will allow dialogue to succeed. for india and

pakistan this much me a time of restraint for respect for the line of control and renewed lines of communication the voice of reason to end with the least the possibility of the first ever nuke versus nuke conflict how bad would it be if the usa just left venezuela alone and went where were invited pakistan and india where the stakes are much higher. yeah well you really raise an important question you know the u.s. should be looking for ways to bring down the temperature in the world to bring down the risk of nuclear war and confrontation as you say to focus on being a mediators between countries like pakistan and india instead of trying to provoke conflict in countries like venezuela you know meanwhile the us is going the

opposite direction by itself backing out of the one nine hundred eighty seven intermediate range nuclear missile deal with russia the us just seems to but to want war and to shy away from peace but but you know it should be a peace broker in the world europe perspective as always provocative and value thank you dan professor of international human rights if the university of pittsburgh law school. coming up why microsoft employees are this is the big picture on r t america. what we really need is someone from the outside. we had somebody

we lost because. series they lost. souls they say could not intermediate the cause of the palestinians. the folks who prayed the money when they want more money they just print more money they don't rely on workers to go and produce stuff that they have to go sell and then make a profit on the stuff they sell you know see that the car industry mars become financially you don't see that the property market any more spend a financial as you don't see manufacturing in the us has been exported to china and financial eyes commodified securitized american as a worker is completely redundant the same as they are around the world wages are converging and they converge at the wages in china so china wages are roughly i think four or five thousand dollars a year this is where the american wages are headed.

employees identifying themselves as a global coalition of microsoft workers has published an open letter to company president brad smith and such in the dell saying we are alarmed that microsoft is working to provide weapons technology to the u.s. military helping one country's government increase lethality using tools we built we did not sign up to is the little voice in your head saying you refuse to do the company's work so quit or what company doesn't want a big government contract or can we possibly mount an effective national defense without state of the technology let's ask former pentagon official michael maloof welcome back thank you tactical augment. ality is the cousin of every day video games michael uncle sam suffers caricature is like good enough for government

work and they're still running windows ninety five but having been on the inside is not the pentagon just always hungry for cutting edge technology sure it's it actually has been trying to work and develop a bridge with silicon valley for years. and it has its own little skunks works through darpa and they in turn contract out to companies such as united technologies and the others to do special exotic type of technologies but there has been an effort in recent years to because of the advancement of technologies and it's happening so rapidly particularly in the digital age and biotechnologies there . we cannot hire people fast enough internally to bring them on in internally so they were reaching out to folks outside and there seems to be a generational issue here that has emerged and this microsoft case is not the first

and it's probably not going to be the last former defense secretary carter was very mindful of this in the in the obama administration he saw that that companies that we needed the technology because of the advancements of technology are happening so rapidly we can't bring people on fast enough and it takes years to develop these weapons systems that's why you had cost overruns on the f. thirty five the technologies were advancing so much of the reporting more and more demands that it was priced out of line and because it's a billion dollars deal but a trillion dollar deal by the time they get done so this is the problem that where we need to bring on people it's not only a question of bringing all the technology that you need but bring it on the people fast and are exactly yeah and this system doesn't allow that so. we've gone out to reach out to the. to the silicon valleys to google to microsoft

to who love as you point out these big lucrative contracts so they say and they do they have technologies that the military can use but they're in is where we. we have a problem and this has to do with the much younger millennial who say we've come on board in order to advance. the end of people and their society and we don't want to be dealing we don't have in our technologies and what we put into this going toward lethal things but now but the question is in the challenge is how do you bridge that gap you have and this is this is the challenge that the defense department has right now and they're working on well they're coders they're not soldiers but you remind us that the pentagon when you see darpa in arpa before that for them we wouldn't have the internet we have that is correct they it wasn't al gore who discovered it but it was a darpa we you know you mentioned the generation gap are we naive to dismiss these

microsoft employees as ben and jerry's peaceniks or because they know what they know is there more to their concerns than personal politics it's i think it reflects the fact they have not had the experience in the in the in national security they don't have that that that that knowledge of what what you need for national security they look upon what the defense department's trying to do is as bad and in fact you know we have we have our people in our saying look we're the good guys we're here to help and the technologies that you have is meant to further and enhanced the united states of america we're not we're not going to be used and sent it off to. other dicta dictators and what have you and it they said after world war two for example seventy seventy percent of peace. street block had had a military experience now it's down to like twenty percent or less and the

generational thing is is there and people in silicon valley and the engineers and what have you they don't have that background of the military in most cases and consequently they come in saying what we want to do for the greater good well this is for the greater good when you get to the u.s. defense department earlier in the show we talked about venezuela when john bolton and elliott abrams beating the drum how does a situation like this blows within the pentagon is there always just a fundamental appetite within what i call the military industrial complex for action well military people and you saw this in general mattis who was then the secretary of defense if you've been in a war celeste thing in the world you want you want to you want to be as strong as you can in order to prevent war that's what that's what our mission should be in terms of the defense the defense department is peace through strength and that's that's not

a an empty issue you want to be ready in case you really need it and just to go out and create regime change and and what have you is not in keeping with our values and we should not be pushing that but unfortunately the neo conservatives are doing that there isn't a war they don't like and they and they have to do it in order to keep the defense establishment well greased they think but i think it can be done in other ways deterrent effect though should be don't even think that is correct if you even think about it we can use this if you use if you use it against us thank you former pentagon official michael maloof thank you for always good to have you thank you a whole doesn't come up short from time to time what a quick five hundred dollars tide you over for a couple of weeks is it worth seventy five dollars in interest and that's if you pay on time many who borro don't and end up owing a pile. thus obama era rules against short term loans with interest rates of four

hundred percent or more now as president trump makes good on candidate trump's promises to deregulate deregulate deregulate but consumer financial protection bureau is looking to roll back safeguards against predatory lending how shady is the industry behind these check cashing stores let's ask attorney professor author and a scam buster stephen j. j. wiseman his website updated daily is scam aside dot com steve welcome back. good to be with you this whole payday lending industry seems to be based on the likelihood that borel words cannot pay on time so the meter keeps running tell us how these quicksand transactions are structured. and there is that sit in that shell because what happens is these are low amount loans but they're very

very high in the fees in the short to short term loans is supposed to be for a week or two weeks and then they get paid back but the people who are borrowing these don't have the money to pay them back so they roll them over into another loan then they can't pay that back and they roll them into another loan and what you often have about eighty percent of the time is people rolling them over ten times or more which turns out to make it such that sixty percent of the people will be paying back more if they don't default more in fees than what they've actually borrowed these are predatory loans and it's kind of interesting to look at a couple of statistics and one is they're illegal in twenty states these are you serious you talked about the interest rates being hundreds of percent in texas there is high in nevada is six hundred percent and it's ridiculous and in nevada they prey on people to the extent that there are actually more of these. payday loan companies and stores than there are mcdonald's or starbucks and so there were

some good regulations to go into effect but now they're being rolled back well the consumer financial protection bureau is rationale for these changes is that the protections. just weren't necessary and the claim based on what evidence. they get out of the worst of evidence their argument for rolling them back is that there is no evidence that they are necessary well the evidence was their own study of twelve million loans that really came up with all of these figures showing why they are needed so you know as as a lawyer i've always kind of admired people who can lie with a straight face that my grandmother couldn't even pronounce lord she would say that's my grandson the liar but i don't know how anyone at the bureau can can say that steve while i havea it's income tax season and every season seems to bring new

scams one of the wise guys up to a bit we need to watch out for. its income tax season it's a new income tax law and so a lot of people are confused about it one of the things is income tax identity theft and someone steals your social security number files an income tax return with a counterfeit w two and gets a refund it's a mess if you try and get your own refund so the the lesson there is the early bird gets the refund filed before the suit as you can file before the identity thieves and then there's going to be all kinds of phone calls and text messages in e-mails from the i.r.s. and it'll say it's the i.r.s. on your caller id and you need to give them some information to send some money well the truth is the i.r.s. is not going to call you they are not going to e-mail you or they are not going to text message you and believe it or not the i.r.s. actually had to give a war. we don't take gift cards all of those are scams wow well

a lot of americans are shocked at how small their refund is because they were less over withheld as a result of the tax changes ironically there may be fewer refunds to steal steve's blog scam aside dot com is updated daily you've got a scam of the day it's searchable i highly recommend this and you don't want anybody's gift card or e-mail address or anything delia steve. i don't ask for any of it thank you attorney author pro fessor and scam busters stephen jay jay wiseman scam aside dot com we invited the community financial services association of america to respond and they did not and thank you for watching the big picture if you see us somewhere else you can also watch r t america live now at youtube dot com slash america and we're also live on direct t.v. channel three two one pluto t.v.

channel one three two and on dish two eight zero and all of our shows are available anytime anywhere on any device at youtube dot com slash the big picture r t m holland cook in washington back here same time next week and in the meantime i am at holland cook on twitter where we welcome to your suggestions for what you would like to see in the big picture and remember if you follow me i'll follow you question more.

of. what to do so. they put themselves on the line to get accepted or rejected. so when you want to be president. some want to. have to go right to cross the sea like that before three in the morning can't be good. i'm interested always in the waters of my college. classes should. all. my dough for not sixteen level.

just. for my isis fighters and no boarding a philippine naval ship. but not for me ned. lives. just aren't abdulla still don't know what's waiting for them. this is what. we do tell you not to. just. pick it out of. hand i'm nobody. war. much was expected from the noise

summit there may have been goodwill on both sides but in the end neither the united states nor north korea could agree on the path forward the two sides failed to reach a common understanding of what their desired endgame for denuclearization actually ends. in our last program. the palestinian perspective. so are there. today i ask. the former had israel's domestic security service.

the unresolved conflict palestine is hosting israel's position on the international stage and. threatening jewish communities all over the world with palestinian. and israeli voters leaning towards hardline action. any real progress towards peace will any israeli politician be bold enough to start decades of hatred and contention the fall they blow up once again. former head of israel's seen backed security service on commander in chief. welcome to the show it is greats.