Hundred thirty s. That was glass beads originally and they were very treasured because only if certain floats gave them out or certain people and so if you have a good man to lift up your top of the hour to do now is that sort of came out of those nine hundred seventy is that became a thing that they started having these plastic beads which is about the time we got cheap plastic. You know so were known for those types of things right so in this at another study that was by a group called healthy stuff dot org and very grass just trying to sort of green up the mardi gras celebrations these beads contain a range of Hazardous Substances that exceed the Consumer ProductSafety Improvement act regulation tests have shown at mardi gras beads to contain lead and to moni chromium cadmium nickel trace levels of mercury and several flame retardants all of these things are incredibly toxic these are having about. Mardi gras theyre extremely toxic but its all its interesting when you break down whats in these beads is as were talking about earlier you showed what is interesting. About taking credit for your work but more than half of the body Growth Products they tested fifty six out of seven had levels of lead above one hundred people thats the no one hundred b. P. M. Thats actually the legal limit for lead in childrens toys. It was above so prone to be put on your body getting into the going down the drain thats just dump unleaded there not to mention the fact that the little mardi gras plastic footballs is not just the beaded necklaces you know its all of somebody getting thrown out they can do about twenty nine percent pathology by weight which including books of this amount of science which are. To ethel hex or put the. Band by the Consumer ProductSafety Commission in the plastic bubble i want to know why is everybody in the party toilet business saying hey lets pack our toys because what really gives people a good time lets pack our toys with toxic substances sure and really do this nothing seemed like the the life of these beads is that you know you take petroleum from the middle east it goes to china it gets all packed in with these horrible toxic chemicals and shipped off along with other a cheap plastic things to throw out and as new orleans is also trying to make mardi gras more Family Friendly and theyre like theres kids through grams of like dont they literally have on there dont let your kids touch them wipe them off with baby b. If people who handle them a lot are encouraged. Very hard way to wear gloves when theyre handling these things they go so well because the tab is there any alternative that is we still i still want to see people get out of the orleans have a great time to grow a legend on their own let down on the ground one of the alternatives that are out there are from the lead party favors the start early weve all been using right at least put them in the proper guard garbage disposals and dont dump them out so that they clog up these very old drains because we do know that you know hurricanes make that even worse there are some groups and new orleans some of the groups that have these out these crews like crude floors that make it a point to only throw things that are biodegradable that or you know were sorry here hand made of Recycled Materials and this year what theyre going to be showing is this which is the be made from flower seeds so that we handing out these will michael says this began it and you could take it home with you and plant and flowers from mardi gras will grow it was a much better the. Yeah way better that i dont think not as we go to break were going to let us know what you think of a property over facebook and twitter see our poll shows thats r t v dot com coming up we welcome retired Brigadier General told me of the hawks nest to discuss reports of u. S. Of Afghan Soldiers violating human rights never gonna stand i will talk about his new book state to watch from. The release the memo moment is upon us republicans are billing it as some kind of Silver Bullet revealing political corruption at the highest levels of the department of justice and f. B. I. The democrats on the other hand and their supporters in the liberal media holiday a distraction finally the public will decide. More and more we seem to dip into an orwellian world where up is down left is right defeat is victory and nothing quite make sense in the news we digest every day take for example the proxy war washingtons go to tactic when faced with authority conflict in a part of the world it may be imprudent or unpopular for us to dive into directly whether it be our financing and training of the moderate rebels in syria who with alarming frequency ended up mysteriously disappearing with their us approved weapon the u. S. Provided weapons into the hands of isis and other terrorist groups or the never ending debate over whether to hand over afghanistan to a private mercenary army or allow a barely functioning government to face the odds in a three way match against the taliban and isis proxy wars come with no shortage of risks not the least of them of the american governments money arms and seal of approval are often bestowed on groups of misfits and renegades who only has only qualification is often just being in the enemy of my enemy a friend zone in that same troubling news has emerged from afghanistan where u. S. Taxpayer money has apparently been flowing freely to local forces credibly accused of Sexual Assault against children for more on how these entanglements and makeshift alliances affect our military strategy abroad we turn to retired Brigadier General tony. Thank you for joining us today though i want to ask you first to start off is this special report by the Inspector Generals you know focuses on how the pentagon the state department essentially circumvent the wall requiring military funds to be cut off in instances where you know Human Rights Violations and war crimes may be taking place over giving money to people that we suddenly realize these are good people we dont want to be giving money or support to these people in your experience are we generally is this something is this common are we generally too lax with how we better for. Partners abroad i dont think is this is reprehensible its just disgusting behavior for these seven incidents or six incidents that have been reported and i would say a few things are one hundred seventy four thousand Afghan NationalArmy Soldiers that have been trained by the United States army and allies all the Multinational Forces there ties so i think if we have six cases thats six too many of course but given the percentage when youre when you look at an army comes is just a cover cloth from the society from which it comes some some of these types of problems unfortunately are going to come with that so what what the military does is they feel theyve got a system for reporting and theyve got a system for finding this and so general nicholson over there in afghanistan four star used to work for me when i was a Deputy Commanding general of all the troops there hes a great guy and hes four star general and im sure that hes going to get to the bottom of this now thats been brought to his attention and sometimes you know its just a very bifurcated area fighting from valley to Valley Mountain the mountain and reporting structures and so forth its unacceptable behavior and its unacceptable that we continue to support these six or seven units or where these folks came from most of the one of the concerns that comes up whether youre very supportive of war antiwar is in danger and of our troops on the ground and one of these things that kind of comes up is that theres certainly a jacked of human rights component here though theres also sort of more self interested cause for concern senator Patrick Leahy the architect of the legislation in question said to n. P. R. About the people sort of sweeping these abuses on the rug what he said was quote i dont think that they realize the United States ultimately gets blamed for this it becomes a talking point for our enemies so my question to you is do you think. Sort of ignoring them or sweeping them under the rug as often you know obviously these arent but if it does sort of get swept under the rug does that ultimately. You know do you think ignoring those kind of things committed by allies may ultimately endanger troops on the ground because they can be right and i dont believe that were ignoring them i think the leaders in charge are going to do the right thing here and i think we have very open and Inspector General hotlines we have ways if there are you know just take a look at the mirror that were holding up to the United States with the me too movement in all of that and weve been under the rug with hollywood and so for so i think the military at least has in place of reporting system and and that reporting system has been strengthened over the years with what the integration of several different minority groups and so forth and i its not perfect but but it certainly is something that good commanders like general make nicholson will take to heart and take corrective action immediately and follow the legislation and do what the right thing is but your question is does it reflect poorly on the United States on that rig or all if it isnt so easy ammunition of course and the taliban Al Qaeda Isis theyre all experts at taking just a little slivers of information and then using that to radicalize others and as propaganda so we want to try to eliminate as much of that as possible because in any information we give the enemy they will expand it up and make it into Something Like i said one hundred seventy four thousand trained six on acceptable incidents six too many but when you do the math on that you know it is a cut of the fabric of that society. I think some would be even argue the and say look you know maybe we need to back away from kind of using forces to kind of you know in the in this kind of proxy war set up where its like ok we cant really feel we commit ourselves whether it be unpopular at home or whatever the reason would be so were going to kind of you know flood money or weapons or support into groups you know if you look at like syria you look at a lot of other places around the world throughout history the ultimately kind of throughout. To be these are unsavory characters do we need to kind of rainy and that idea that kind of go to plan and i think what youre really seeing here is we got a new National Security strategy and talks about protecting and prosperity and one of the areas within protection is to pursue enemies to their source and thats really good not the transnational threat of isis and al qaeda and the taliban and those types of borderless threats that we we face and so the idea is its better to fight them on their five yard line to use a football analogy than than our five yard line and so if were going to continue to support our National Security strategy we have to have some way of getting at the enemy at their source and whether thats use Us Special Forces whether thats yours and other countries special forces or proxy units or military contractors the end result is we want to eradicate the threat at the source and deny sanctuary if we if we cut through all the noise of the last seventeen years the primary mission has been to kill capture al qaeda and deny sanctuary because they planned these missions against on during nine eleven. And sanctuary in afghanistan that that was the very beginning and we sort of took our eye off that ball and in my opinion i would agree to have the other you know i think that weve really diverted especially with you know kind of the continue selling of were ok now we need to be over here now we need right over here and now we need to be over here and thats really been diluted over the years from what the original thing that we were told was here this is what we need to go into iraq. And i think that thats part of the route thats where you get into trouble like this i think you make too many you know enemies of my enemies we might not be degraded people right with you know i before we run out of there i want to get on a slightly better now it. Since retiring youve been writing thanks sam has been and your latest book direct fire. Tell me a little bit about it and your landau all of your real world experience because im there right and you know everybody asked me that and you know ive always been i get asked how does a general become a fiction writer and i answer how did a fiction writer become a general goes you know really as a kid i used to read my mom saying i write novels and all that and i loved i became very interested in the writing process and i just started writing and realized that you know people started liking it and when i got my first book deal back to about ten years ago and ive had eight novels number nine comes out in may ten in october so im kind of started to write every four to five months and its a lot of fun to create in this direct fires a story about our hero and National Best selling hero jake may he again who is a former delta force six foot tall native american from the outer banks of North Carolina and this story has to go find the former the current joint special Operations Command commander whos been kidnapped and is being held in a mine band in mine and near asheville North Carolina as some erstwhile hackers and their farias actors of Syrian Refugees that are now terrorists who want to attacked and doesnt know the facts and theres zero can i say i know that most of it yes i know its interesting you said you know kind of a writer became a general military when you were growing up as i were you wanted to go it was like im going to go military or did you lean more towards kind of english things like that and then said no im going to the both my parents were School Teachers counselors and i was a pretty good athlete as a kid play baseball wrestled and i was recruited by west point to russell and i had this great affection for history growing up in virginia and going to all of the battlefields whether its revolutionary war civil war and all of that and and so when west point called me about perhaps wrestling on the team there. I you know when i was very very interested i already had a brother at the Naval Academy and so it made sense to do it and my parents of course were yes they look at it as a point. But you know writing the direct fire the fourth book in the series and and its just something that id love to do and and get great reviews from Publishers Weekly and you would you think youd have gone told if you didnt end up as a military man would you go on writing i think i probably would have been like my dad i wouldve been a High School Teacher and he coached football i probably would have baseball coach and i still would have written and that would have been the one constant but you know i was super privileged to serve and lead americas finest in combat in the eighty second airborne hundred first airborne tenth Mountain Division and what i think of you know having this discussion i know a lot of times like our viewers to be i want to push you know this person harder go after this and you know i was like to say that look you can disagree with the war doesnt mean you have to necessarily disagree with the people fighting it youre i just try to have a good conversation together and try to find a good mutual you know understanding of where both sides are think rest why you have such a good nurse thank you very much bigger much stronger and always a pleasure to have you on there terry thank you. What hasnt been see him in a hundred fifty years and is finally making a return appearance this wednesday january thirty first its thankfully not nosferatu but the once in a lifetime convergence of a blue moon a blood moon and a Lunar Eclipse all at the same time our david miller has more. Wednesday night it doesnt matter what youre doing you owe it to yourself to gaze at the darkened sky in the Early Morning hours of the western hemisphere and the evening and the certain you will be treated to both a visible super moon what experts call a full moon and a close to over two point to the earth and a total Lunar Eclipse the celestial coincidence hasnt happened in more than one hundred fifty years i mean there are people who have lived and died on this earth without even having a chance to see this phenomenon which one appeared again for in another decade and according to nasa visible supermans appear fourteen percent bigger and thirty percent brighter than full moons that occur at the far this point in the moons orbit and during the eclipse with totality visibility from eastern asia across the pacific to the west or north america the moon will slowly lose its brightness and take on a reddish hue because of the way the atmosphere binns the light and to answer a question do i need special glasses to watch the super moon and Lunar Eclipse like the Solar Eclipse the super moon and the Lunar Eclipse are safe to view with the naked eye theres nothing to worry about if you find yourself in thrall and staring up into the sky for a very long time except maybe your neck and the best time to enjoy the super moon is right after the moon rise and before sunrise when the moon is setting on the horizon reporting from washington d. C. David miller. And that ladies drama is our show for you to remember everyone in this world we are told real love the absolutely wall i love you i am a robot and on top of the people watching those hawks and over great. Weve seen that market failure many times we saw in two thousand and nineteen ninety seven in one thousand nine hundred. And were going to see it again probably in the very near future because the underlying design of this capitalist system has not been modified to town for changes in technology over the past fifty sixty seventy year and we keep having these catastrophic failures. That. I. Am not. I i i i i. Represents this for most syrian groups including the government opposition on tribes have agreed to form a committee on a new constitution despite heated discussions during peace talks in the russian resort of sochi. In an unprecedented move the pentagon has banned us watchdog which oversees the situation in afghanistan from publishing information on who controls what on the ground to meet a string of deadly terrorist attacks in the country. Oh. Oh oh oh god oh thats the message u. S. Officials will give you my angry palestinian protest this meeting is. A recognition showed no sign of calming. You could even into your international. Pretty heated day in the russian resort of sochi where troops from the Syrian Opposition talk to representatives from damascus along with other concerned parties about the prospects for peace in syria and it seems that as a powerful result emerging from those talks margos the explains first of all theyve agreed on Twelve PointsTwelve Points along which a future syrian state will be built its a guideline the document itself made the rounds of geneva multiple times but ultimately it courts know where it was finally side here in sochi and its a room massive government everything from syrian from Syrian Government itself to syrian sovereignty to how the military will be over who will compromise what the different sides wanted and you know what what they could offer what they could put a foot on the table the other pig thing that was agreed on is a Constitutional Reform Committee to amend will rewrite the syrian constitution the interesting thing here is that seats on the fifteen twenty Man Committee seats on it will be saved for those that were unwilling or unable to attend these talks this will be passed on to the u. N. So the u. N. Will oversee this new committee and the u. N. Special envoy to syria will personally personally sort of guide this initiative there was also of course drama nobody saw it coming this morning there was no we interviewed but from late arrivals to cancel participation even arguments and shouting matches theres even heckling i want to express my sincere gratitude to our colleagues. Oh. Yes yes yes the how was a shoot us as friends again i would like your attention. If its long lives russia then let me speak please. There was sides as i mentioned the. Unwilling to come to these talks were talking here about the hardcore the islamist opposition and her. The high the high negotiations the committee that is based in saudi arabia and compromises many rebel groups theyve sent a delegation on the turkish pressure reportedly that came to sochi but they refused to leave the airport they stayed for about ten hours at the airport of sochi and they took offense at the various banners that were hung up in the city for these talks for this such a peace conference because it portrayed a Syrian Government flag there were other preconditions that they had this the turks tried to get them to come but to no avail nevertheless there were many other parties many denominations ethnicities christians you see these muslim sunnis and shias theres certainly a lot of debate internationally Turkey Russia iran three big players the guarantees of the astronaut Peace Process they were all here and all in agreement the western partners for example the United States they only sent junior representatives and from what weve been told by Sergey Lavrov the Russian Foreign minister they havent displayed much optimism much enthusiasm for this sochi peace peace conference as the new year to go it would so yes its way more difficult to negotiate when its not like minded people who sit around the table like in paris and washington that opposing sides but agreements by opposing sides are way more stable long lasting and sustainable the news achieved in an in a circle of like minded states take the decisions for the Syrian People and the syrians can decide the fate of their country the other thing that organizes and the Russian Foreign minister wanted to make very clear is that. The world and it is your system you are a competitor to the geneva process the geneva accords s. And will continue under the auspices of the un told by the un and overseen by the un and the Un Security Council that the main talks the main breakthroughs are expected at geneva what sochi is is just the space platform for the various sides to come here and to sit down and to talk to the Un Special Envoy to syria he was here as an observer seeing what was happening seeing the discussions and he said himself that there was plenty of debate plenty of arguments which is healthy and that this is a positive step all theory and seek see calm neutral environment for the girls to do tional drafting on trolled and last but not least all therians need danger. For humanity remarks live in the release of detainees abductees imaging people absalom illegal we now have the text we have the theory we have the documents that have been signed by everyone what were means to be seen is whether theyll be put into practice you know whether theyll be enforced and what will come of this of the new Constitutional Committee a twelve point plan that theyve agreed on but the u. N. Envoy has promised to take them to geneva and to keep this ball that has gotten rolling to keep it rolling. In an unprecedented move the pentagon has apparently instructed the Inspector General for afghanistan of watchdog which oversees the situation in the country to keep quiet about how much afghan territory is controlled by the government and how much by the taliban and other insurgent groups thats according to the watchdogs latest report. This development is troubling for a number of reasons most least of which is that this is the First Time Since hes been specifically instructed not to release information marked unclassified to the american taxpayer the instructions are coming from the pentagon and they are given to the special inspector for general afghan reconstruction and from what we understand theyve instructed him not to give out certain pertinent information especially about casualties among Afghan Forces but one of the key things that theyve told him to leave out of his reports is the balance of power on the ground hes essentially not being permitted to reveal what territory is controlled by the taliban and what territory is controlled by the Afghan Government what territory is controlled by the i still forces and thats Key Information if you want to understand what progress is being made and how the work is really going now at this point the usa has been in afghanistan for almost two decades its had its forces on the ground there have been air strikes and such and we actually have a kind of an admission from secretary of Defense James Mattis that not a lot has been achieved during that time this is what he said during understand the urgency to understand its my responsibility we are not winning in afghanistan right now and we will correct this now at this point there has been a little bit of a change in strategy in afghanistan the usa is escalating its airstrikes and bombing of afghanistan at this point four thousand three hundred bombs were actually dropped in the year of twenty seventeen thats more bombs that were dropped in two thousand and fifteen and twenty sixteen combined however it hasnt really had the effect of changing things on the ground in fact the ice still forces and the Taliban Forces have actually increased the number of attacks that theyve carried out lets take a look. Now at this point the usa is sending mixed messages about the possibility of negotiations with the taliban we heard in october Rex Tillerson the u. S. Secretary of state say that the usa was not willing to negotiate with the taliban entirely but that it was willing to negotiate with what he called moderate voices among the taliban now weve heard from donald trump that there will be no negotiations with the taliban no talking to the taliban whatsoever theres no talking to the taliban we dont want to talk to the taliban were going to finish what we have to finish what nobody else has been able to finish were going to be able to do it now weve heard a response from the taliban essentially mocking the United States and saying that if the usa wants to find them it knows where their office is located in the city of doha at this point we are not hearing moves from either side the taliban or the United States about resuming negotiations so at the moment it appears that the violence and chaos in afghanistan is going to continue no. Middle east Affairs Expert at risk believes that the latest move by the pentagon is effectively tantamount to an admission of failure in afghanistan see some horrific attacks launched by the time of the taliban and by officers which have now begun to talk of kabul at least ive got a couple