news and views about today's big stories the announcement of a new proposed russian prime minister and the resignation of the entire government can be found on our t.v. dot com keep right up to date there at the top of the hour. join me every thursday on the alex salmond show and i'll be speaking to guests of the world of politics. i'm showbusiness i'll see that. just one magic bullet you could actually come up with some of the top of his baby by talking about ways we get access to capital in capitalism couples important so we could actually have programs that actually help folks who want to do that but when you give everybody a $1000.00 i'm a poor person i'm going to consume that and if you're rich you're going to invest that. the wealth the spirit is going to grow because you're you're not using your money to consume your literally buy more crazy things and then my landlord knowing

that i got a $1000.00 and you just go raise my rent so then you get your inflation going on in their. ratings and sell you. recently while traveling internationally over the holidays me. a legal u.s. born and raised was subjected to having my face scanned by the department of homeland security not only when i return to the united states from my travels abroad but at the very beginning of my trip as well. now legally u.s. citizens like me can opt out of these scams but in no way was that made aware to us at the departing gate nor were we told that upon re-entry instead we got the brusque dystopian style treatment we've seen in many

a science fiction film that left many of us spell it me and my fellow travelers feeling violated for simply wanting to travel beyond u.s. borders but having your face scanned by a faceless government agency feels invasive imagine what immigrants and refugees must feel like when after their long hard trek to the shining city on the hill that is the united states the u.s. government reaches into their mouths and takes the very strands that make up the core of their being regardless of their consent i'm talking of course about the new pilot program launched this january by the u.s. government that will not only collect d.n.a. samples from the thousands upon thousands of people that are detained regularly by the u.s. immigration officials but then they will send those samples to our trusted friends at the federal bureau of investigation to be held indefinitely in their criminal database in a memo released by the department of homeland security the new york times reports

that u.s. citizens and permanent residents holding a green card who are detained could be subject to d.n.a. testing as well as asylum seekers seekers and people entering the country without authorization and that refusing to submit d.n.a. to submit your d.n.a. could lead to a misdemeanor criminal charge. my goodness from facial scans and our airports the d.n.a. swabs at our borders seems that now more than never it is a very good time to start watching the hawks. like that. i got.

to. know them a bone the watching the hawks to roll them for and joining me today to discuss the taking of d.n.a. and facial stands by the united states government at our borders investigative journalist ben swan ben now yeah i know that you like myself have recently traveled internationally were you going to ask were you subject to have in your face scanned upon departure the way i was and was there any signage or helpful notices informing that you that as a u.s. citizen you can opt out of these scans if you want to know i here's what was interesting so i actually went to australia leaving the u.s. i did not have to go through any kind of face scan but coming back into the country i did have to go through it when we landed we actually then it in l.a. accident l.a.x. they forced us to go through a facial scanning because they didn't even make us fill out the forms you know when you get on a plane in your travel into the country or into a new country coming out here you have to fill out a customs form right and then submit the form but they said you don't need to

submit the forms and we got off the plane we did have to have our faces scanned so our faces respond in order to go through that process of what's really interesting about the story tyrell though is that most people don't realize this d.h.s.s. has been wanting to do this for a long time and not just on international flights for people coming into the country or leaving the country they were pushing as of april of last year to actually have facial scans in every airport for every domestic flight so if you get on the domestic flight they wanted to mandate that you had to go through a facial scan they couldn't get that through there were too many fights and legal challenges from the a.c.l.u. so instead they decided to move on international flights and that's where it is right now you know what it was going to ask what is their excuse or why what are the reasons that they're saying that we need these scans and i mean it do they have a justifiable excuse beyond the kind of you know the president well and it makes things safer it's for security of things like that and do the civil liberty issues with this outweigh the support these supposed security benefits. well that's what

we don't know in terms of the legal standing of whether or not it outweighs that look yeah you're absolutely right the excuse that's being used that's always to this right is this is about security protecting the homeland we've got to know it's coming and we have to be able to recognize who's getting on planes because those of course are the greatest threats to our national security or you know planes in the hands of wrong people 20 years later this is the line that's still being used after 911 but here's what's interesting is that we don't know as to whether or not a court would ever side with the government on this because as i said they've backed off when the a.c.l.u. began challenging them saying you can't just scan every single face that's getting on an airplane because essentially what you're doing is you're creating a barrier to the right to travel we have a constitutional right to be able to move about and encumbered and so if you make it essentially a process where you have to be searched and have a facial scan in order to get on a plane you're preventing people from being able to do that because the only option now would be to say i want to get on a plane so we don't know where the courts would fall on it because the a.c.l.u.

never got a chance to challenge it but again it has already happened here on these international flights and i think it should be challenged in court as well whether or not you should be forced to have facial stance taken before you're allowed inside the country you know it's interesting too because when i look when i think about what i want through without that that bothered me but then when i read another story about the fact that you know immigrants and even green card holding people travelling into this country and you know people so you can you know refugees are now getting their d.n.a. swab at the border that just got implemented the beginning of january that really frightens me and it raises the question in the mind maybe you can help me answers why why do we need to collect the d.n.a. of citizens and non-citizens who are taken into custody by customs and border patrol i mean that sounds absolutely crazy especially when you look at the it just sounds nuts to me when you look at it because it by the time they even get it over to the f.b.i. these people have already been let loose anyway right so the people have already been let loose. the type of d.n.a. samples we get to the f.b.i.

so it makes you question why would we need a. d.n.a. reservoir of all the different people who are coming in the country illegally and where is that certain green card holders now we're being told us citizens will have to go through this but think about just the sheer numbers so p.h.s. saying about last last year they took about $7000.00 d.n.a. swabs they're expecting this year what's now this is that put into place taking about 7 148000 swap that's a massive difference right 774-8000 where would you be catalogued who will keep them how will they be useful and here's another question for you so you know d.n.a. samples the biggest track people what it's not like oh well someone took their d.n.a. sample return the list of the country now we can find the one we leave them with with the life slots and they have 5 after the fact so if somebody later on i suppose the rest of it and then matched the d.n.a. then you would have a match but how would that serve

a purpose that has any kind of usefulness to it i think that's the big question around us we don't know what answer that seems like an awful lot of waste of time energy and money for an issue that really we the initiative is important you know immigration and what to do with these refugees is important at the end of the day i don't think that swapping their d.n.a. is going to make that any easier or any any better at the end of day but i want to thank you so much for coming on always a pleasure having you on and bringing your insight to our audience thank you sir. several things. with tensions still white hot following the united states assassination of iranian military leader qassim solo money and iran's we're told tori strikes on u.s. military bases in iraq it doesn't take a team of experts or political prognosticators the tell you that before the end of 2020 war between the united states and iran is a very real tangible possibility but what are the american people ready for a potential u.s. war against iran i mean does the american people really know today that the cia actually deposed to be a coup

a democratically elected leader of iran back in 1953 and action that led to much of the anti-u.s. sentiment we see today can u.s. citizens even find iran on a map that's a good question well a recent poll done by politico interviewed nearly 2000 registered voters and found out that nearly 80 percent of them couldn't actually locate the middle eastern country so many questions well r.t. america's own john he took to the streets of miami to put political findings to the test and here is his report. a new survey by the research for morning consult a new site politico finds that quote fewer than 3 in 10 registered voters can identify the islamic republic on an unlabeled map the poll was conducted january 4th and 5th after the u.s. killed iranian general qassam sulu money and just days before iran bombed a us air base in iraq 28 percent of the 1995 registered voters surveyed in the poll were able to accurately locate iran on an on label map of the middle east region

only 23 percent could identify iran on a larger also unlabeled map well we printed out our own unlabeled world map and hit the streets of miami to see if people here had any better luck pointing out iran i'm doing a poll talking to people can you point out iran on this map. you help me with that . i think is in this general area here you're absolutely correct yes point out iran on the map iran. here right yeah yeah you got it right around here. pretty much tell you what value iran you've got the middle east region iran. next and you know that saudi arabia is the it's his big win here is iraq you're. runs right. it's right there yeah yeah i will say this when i said yeah yeah yeah. you'd see. right there he got it

on our run out on this map iran. iran iran the country at iran iran. does right here oh that's africa but close close what about you can you point out i can just point out but you tell me very sure it's run by here's this it is this it now right there yeah it's. one of the. you get to be on t.v. and that they are by the way those young men said if the u.s. did go to war with iran they think the u.s. quote would hold its own speaking of which the morning consult political poll also found that while most people surveyed supported the u.s. strike on general somani 69 percent said the attack made war with iran more likely and half said they thought it made the united states less safe. room right i guess

was boxed out of miami do actually they can actually pick ron out on the map all right everybody as we go to break watchers don't forget to let us know what you think of the topics we've covered on our social media be sure to check out watching the hawks the podcast which is now available on spotify awful music and everywhere you listen to your favorite or maybe not so favorite podcast coming up representatives from both the left and the right of us politics join us to debate and discuss some. most important unique news stories of the day including social media censorship surrounding the rising tensions between the united states and the state to watch.

as the democrats gear up to officially start their 2020 presidential primary that is to assess donald trump's performance in office a report card of sorts where is he kept his promises and where has he come up short will any of this really matter. and the united states presidential candidates debate the future of the u.s. and the world its leadership well joining me now to practice a little free speech on this story and more including the upcoming final democratic presidential candidate debate before the iowa democratic caucuses are 2 voices representing the left and the right in u.s. politics democrat strategist and political analyst. cross i'm so sorry. strategist bill leak of fuel i apologize for that he just talked about the man and i'm so so let's get into this i want to ask you both should instagram and other

social media companies be silencing reporters journalists or anyone who shows support for solo money or iran's star which i'll say absolutely i think that this is a clear violation of the freedom of speech but i also feel like these in this particular case these are journalists the expectation that they are going to uncover and from from their viewpoint being journalists who are based in based in iran being journalists who are going to have. the vision of iran that a lot of our american journalists do not who also have a historical understanding of what's going on in the sense that also our journalists do not and even americans many have questioned whether or not the killing of solo money was actually legitimate whether or not the timing was actually legitimate whether or not this president had the authority to do so considering the fact that he has not present the case for why this was an imminent threat so i don't think that this should have been that their statement have been removed at all but if you cook answer no no no absolutely not and i feel this way even there was a discussion that we had a probably a few weeks ago about whether or not donald trump's twitter should be suspended in

things like that you know i had i don't support censorship across the board and i think that that you know like i said there's a lot of information you know someone who actually follows what's going on i actually do know where iran is over there but this is one of those instances where i think there is an overreaching government there appears to be an inconsistency because as we saw i think you know if twitter. twitters just twitter it's not going to do that so it's really just facebook and instagram but i think this really is just an overreach and maybe they're trying to align themselves with what they feel is if it's do us sanction and i understand like the u.s. sanctions argument but most people don't understand that even if where journalists are in the process of delivering news especially in a region like iran i say no you don't even if that news let's say is against u.s. foreign policy but we have a lot of news that is shared shared widely now that you know nudes or news that are supporting supportive of different regimes or even organizations that we may not like but i think that if we're talking about

a free press i think that we should just have it all out there yes you can you can turn away from it you don't actually have to watch it but i think this is just it's going down a very very very thin line between that type of censorship and what we look at because we've seen these social media companies go after you know voices of opposition on both the left and the right over the past year which is really interesting. and now they're private businesses they have a right to decide who is or is not on their platform but it is interesting seeing this kind of play out like this i want to also has this this week president trump tweeted in a long tweet but i want to pull this out of the usa is watching this you tweeted this to iran turn your internet back on and let your reporters room free now trump along with many other u.s. politicians and pundits have criticized the rounds treatment of free speech protesters journalists and things like that over the years but i want to ask you too can the u.s. kind of throw can politicians here and whatnot throw these stones at other countries iran in particular when we've used tear gas on protesters you know we've

we've we've imprisoned whistleblowers and have marginalized journalists and gone after people like julia sondra many people use a journalist can we can we throw stones at other countries given what we've done absolutely not i mean we have a president who is trying to pull out a whistleblower right now we also have a president who under his under his regime and i will call it the trump regime was ok with him as not pursued in american journalists who was actually killed and we have a very interesting history of in many cases suppressing journalism particularly journalism that we don't like and we have a president right now who is absolutely ok with. taking i'm taking away the credentials of journalists we have a president who is ok with calling our journalists the enemies of the people american journalists who are actually just doing their job as another branch and branch that's very important of the government to showcase to the people what is actually going on behind the veil we have a president who has gone in an all out assault on on journalists in and of themselves he's been bombarded with talking at his rallies about them getting

beaten up he's been fine with inciting violence against them and i think that it's very rich coming from someone who has been the leader that president trump happens to be when it comes to his own relationship with journalists right here in this country really go to your book so. i'm going to say i think think there's a huge difference between the u.s. and many of the countries over the or the middle east. as far as whether or not they should you know i think we probably go down a really a slippery slope if we start comparing that to yes there are many instances where the u.s. has kind of piled around with. kind people and not just really just across the world so we really do have that history but the u.s. just as a nation as a sovereign nation you know we're not in the business of you know purposely you know attacking protesters you know who go out and i think that's probably some of what the opposition is that or what trumps concern is is how it was done we are

that we've seen this happen with black lies matter protesters specifically we brought in tear gas we've seen them bring and we've seen them bring in weaponry we've seen basically an all out sim i army assault on $1000000.00 protesters in our country right on the right to move in like we have a history but you know when it comes to iran our relationship but i really have a habit of doing absolutely but i think the u.s. has the u.s. and how they've gone about how we've gone about doing it is a little different than what we see over in iran or any of these states we're still a democratic well absolutely and i think i think for me that really makes the difference if you start comparing the 2 i don't think there's really much comparison between. and how the u.s. deals with free speech and what we're talking about with iran so i do think there is a there is a difference there but you know the idea that trump tweeted and i mean it is i mean it's well i do feel that we should we know it's always important to make sure that if you're going to throw stones and if you're going to criticize other countries if you lead to make sure you have clean hands before you do it i want to speaking of

interesting hands the wall street journal recently reported that allies of president trump are pursuing an effort to acquire right wing news channel one american news network and it's in a bid to shake up a conservative media that's really been dominated by fox news and only box news now some say this move is being considered because fox news has been going left which is news to me. you know and so i have to as i've been this is about i read this today is fox news now too progressive for the right for the republican party and are we seeing a split potential split in the republican party like we're seeing in the democratic party where you see that split between centrist democrats and progressive democrats is there a rift taking place right now there are the there is a rift in the republican party but it's definitely not with fox fox is as conservative as right leaning as it's always been and probably always will be i mean the viewership speaks for itself and i don't think that fox news you know i

think there's probably some washington d.c. speaker talking about the idea that somehow you know it's either people don't want to merican work and so you know that's a that's that's not true at all and it's interesting that people are even making the argument that fox news out of all networks is moving left now that they do the you know they push conservative points of views and there are a lot of great discussions there on fox but i don't i would i would be interested in finding out where you read that i like. the i think it was like new america a little rabbit a few other things were kind of like you know they've been critical of donald trump fox as so therefore they're looking for an overwhelmingly positive to come to the memory of donald. some problems here in there saying oh you know this person is on fox news donna brazil is on fox news so fox named the firing of don it still is a contributor has ruffled a few feathers but in addition to that i think the elevation of shepard smith and especially in certain conversations where he was the one who made a lot of national news and various sources being critical of the president and

watching how that how that has shifted some of the conversation bought started off with a monster of being fair and balanced everyone knows that that was out of the window from its insert but i think that they've gone probably more right since president trump has been obvious than they even were you know i want to i want to ask you about this through we're talking about ok we know emerson we see plays to the left you know fox plays to the right now we're talking about having more channels and all along these kind of very divisive party lines is the news media divided enough at this point like should our news media really be playing to audiences regardless of what political corner. and i think cable news is very different if you're talking about the original big 3 you're c.b.s. or a.b.c. or n.b.c. i think that those will always be the most mainstay middle of the road anybody on either side is probably going to have a bit of a conversation piece there if you're talking about cable news it's more entertainment value and i think that whether you're c.n.n. m.s.n. b.c. or fox you know that you have to have certain characters as there are of you know that moneymaking machine that actually helps you so i think that when you do that

you automatically know who your audience bases and you cater to that audience and i don't necessarily think that's wrong but i think that as a viewer people have to understand that that's part of the market and that's part of their market has got a job and then rinse ratings matter and then that's what is really driving a lot of the even the the back and forth the negativity that you see in news i mean these things trim so you get on you get on television you say something nasty about the president well more than likely that's something that's going to try and or even when barack obama was in office if you get on television and you say something about barack obama that type of thing will turn and i don't think that well unfortunately i don't see this type of actor a moment or whatever getting any better because i think the state of our power. it's just one allow it i don't think that people are so pushed to their own side you know you're talking about living in tribes now i think we're in the middle of tribalism and i don't expect to change any time some of these other new sources like the way in which believe in 20 their team has it has the element of we're right we're going to always stay right we're going to be far right they push a lot of conspiracy going if there was

a lot of confusion is one thing about being conservative another thing when your net conspiratorial conspiracy to get a lot of kids and never agree on anybody on the outside is they go that's that's kind of the spin machine they've been going to i'm going to say thank you both for coming on the day mailing the number so she was truly a pleasure as always thank you very. right. in what can only be described as taking a page out of blade runner researchers and scientists the united states have created what are being called the very 1st living machines yes these tiny less than one millimeter long xeno bots as they're called are made from assembling the stem cells of african clawed frog embryos incubating them and then cutting them reshaping them into a body forms designed by a supercomputer not only not only can mate heal on their own but these you know bots can also heal themselves researchers believe that these are the very 1st living programmable organisms because they are neither the traditional robot nor

a known species of animal yet they have the traits of both scientists believe that in the future will be able to do a host of things from finding radioactive contamination to cleaning the oceans and even the arteries in your body. that does not my friends make them any less creepy all right everybody i got to say that is our show for you today remember everyone in this world we're not told that we love that up so i tell you all i love you tyrrel been keep on watching all those hawks out there and have a great day and but everybody. the money is in my.

name was it was a bit. more about. what with more than this i don't. see in the following to him but i'm before. him but. this is a story about what happens auster a stray bullet kills a young girl in the streets. what happens to her family and daughters in florida the mother daughter is buried in a cemetery it really messes with your head what happens to the community the public was screaming for a scapegoat the police needed a scapegoat so why not choose a 19 year old black kid with

a criminal record who better to pen this than him and what happens in court be. shocked shocked as far as we feel. we don't know she'll share this truth. and of this unfortunately you. will still not know children. russia's prime minister and his entire cabinet. resigned to the president to make a series of amendments to the constitution. for the new head of government to replace dmitri medvedev. the proposed changes will give parliament the power to appoint ministers a task which is currently the responsibility of the president. according

to the constitution of the russian federation the president needs only the state duma's consent to make official appointments the president appoints the cabinet his deputies and all the ministers i propose shifting this power to the state duma and also the approval of the russian government's chairman.