Frozen rain and sleet may be a bigger factor. Running ragged trying to get the lights back on. Expect wide spread outages. The u. S. Military is upset about the release of 65 prisoners in afghanistan. It is of no concern to the u. S. And should be of no concern to the u. S. There is a four these women that stand on stage with these guys. My life has been all about trying make a success of the gift that i have. Lean on me lean on me we begin with losing power another fierce storm has left more than threequarters of a million customers throughout the eastern seaboard in the dark. Utility crews are scrambling but Power Outages persist long after storms past. As janet toboni reports, its starting to feel like we are powerless against our nations aging power grid. Reporter if you are watching this you probably didnt lose power. There is going a lot of outages. Reporter Many Americans are in the dark and extreme weather like this can get pretty pricey. The department of energy estimates weatherrelated outages cost between 18 and third billion dollars a year. Quite a range. Despite efforts upgrade the aging power grid millions of americans lose power each year due to weather. Over 7 million in Hurricane Sandy alone. In areas where power lines are above ground just put them underground that way ice, high winds, falling trees cant get to them. But its not that easy. At a whopping 1 million per mile its not cheap. Not to mention repairs are most costly and timeconsuming, but if you look at other countries like germany the underground move has worked, their pout grid has average averages an average1 hours a year. The government doesnt agree our weather preparedness isnt up to par. This administration and local governments are briefs pairing for very real threats posed by extreme weather vents and climate change. Reporter burying power lines though ambitious could be an investment for the future. We are joined by dr. Tim sh shaw. Good to have you with us, tim. We have seen a Record Number of Power Outages, penn residents and businesses havent recovered from the last storm and they are getting hit again. People are upset, do they have a right to be this. Obviously when you are without power, and we depend so much on power you expect to be upset. The fact of the matter is utilities are besieged when they have storms of this magnitude that we have had over the last couple of weeks. The way that most you tilts repair outages is that they borrow crews, get work crews from adjoining areas and adjacent states but when you have a storm like we have had that covers 10 states, there is nobody to borrow from. And so unfortunately, what happens and as you end up with an awful lot of tremendous limbs down, power bowls that are broken and wires underground and crews have to go out one by one and repair them and it takes time if you dont have the manpower. The great part of the issue is 61 persian of our power lines are above ground. Here i am in manhattan no problems at all because the power lines are underground. Well, you are just lucky. Because last year when super storm sandy hit, the fact that would all those power lines and the transformers and substations were down in vault under the ground was not of benefit because super storm sandy filled them with water and thats why manhattan lost most of their power. As guillaina pointed out the cost of putting lines underground would be about a Million Dollars a mile. Wouldnt that work exempt in flood situations like sandy. To help places that are snowstorm prone. Yes, and no. Its not as easy as it may sound to put things underground. If you put something underground in an area where you have extreme temperature differentials for example, very cold winters, very hot summers the ground is going to swell and he can panned and just like water pipes that are constantly breaking, you can have electrical lines that break. And when something thats buried, especially if its in an urban area its harder to get to. You have to tear up roads and such. There are benefits both ways, certainly would be nice and a lot of electric utilities when there is new construction, lets say a new subdivision these days in the United States. Most of that wiring will be buried. But to go back and try to take all of that above ground distribution wiring and put it underground would be prohibitive. I know North Carolina conducted a study and found if they about during i everything that in the long run it would be pretty much double, more than double the cost for the average consume fore their electricity t but, on the other hand, as she mentioned in herpes, germany has power fewer Power Outages than we wouldnt do that save us money not having the power out i believes and the prepares to the power lines arent there more repairs above than below ground . Yes and no. The problem is again, if you have your power lines buried, and you have a fault, and by that i mean somewhere along the line you have a crack in the insulation, and so the line has to be taken out of service to repair it. You cant just drive down the road and climb the pole you have to figure out family where that break is occurring and it may be underneath a major thoroughfare, it may be underneath a building, you know, in urban areas, for example, london, they spent a great deal of time and money digging up roads to repair some of the old cables that are buried there that distribute power around the city of london. There are plusses and minuses both ways. Its important to remember also that today electric utilities are deregulated which means unlike the 60s and 70s where their major thrust was good service and dependable power today its poff at that bit. Anything that they have to do that address cost to their bottom line doesnt add up to them. What solutions, improvements can be made. What can we do, we have been seeing a lot of problems over the past few years, pretty much from florida all the way to maine. Certainly. We have to breakdown the grid in different systems. They are not the things that cause the problem. They are above ground unless somebody drives out in the middle the nowhere with dynamite and blow up the transition power its not those lines that we worry about. Its the Distribution System that feeds your neighborhood and the power to your household, those are the lines that are above ground throughout neighbor neighborhoods. Throughout many years, especially another west coast their been embark on the ground feeder automation. If you think of a transmission line that comes out through your neighborhood, you know, the same way that you would the wiring in your house, you know that youve got a Circuit Breaker pam in the basement. And if something bad happens, somebody sticks a fork in the toaster and the Circuit Breaker pops you go to the base and reset the Circuit Breaker. The Electrical Distribution Network is somewhat like that. The problem is for years those Circuit Breakers were out on power poles and it too someone in a truck to drive out and manly reset them. And some in cases they are fuses. Utilities are not putting smarter devices out there. Devices capable of resetting the Circuit Breaker shall we say automatically at least attempt toying restore service with intelligent feared automation we can improve things, utilities are playing around with distributed generation, rather than having just large generating plants a few places around the u. S. And then sending the power out everywhere from there, the notion is to build smaller generating facilities, especially because we have such a good supply of natural gas these days and, build them closer to where the people need the electricity so that if you have an outage, it doesnt affect as many people. To a limited area. Exactly. All right. Lets hope that figure something out. Because a lot of people have suffered as a result of these Power Outages, dr. Tim shaw, great to have you on the show, thank you. My pleasure. Is washington actually working again . We have a twoyear budget deal, debt ceiling was ways rays forked a year and a farm bill was passed after years of disagreement but immigration may be dead. Some democrats are running away from the president. Evening a Political Action committee associated with minority leader nancy please is a behind Television Ads attacking the obama care website. Joining us now or james wayne, Washington Bureau chief for the new york daily news, hes in our washington, d. C. Studio, from tallahassee Florida Republican media strategist rick wilson worked for rudy giuliani. The Republican Governors Association and Republican National committee and florida campaigns. From los angeles we are joined by michael shure. Jim, ill start with you. A budget deal, debt ceiling deal, farm bill. People not completely happy but there is certainly movement s washington working better . First of all, thanks given the snow here for surrounding me with guys from florida and california, i am envious. To amid the slush. To, well, to be succinct, no. Not at all. I think those are exceptions that prove what is a depressing rule of gross legislative underachieve. When it came to the debt ceiling the republican speaker of the house jammed that through with very precious few republican votes not wanting a repeat of what surrounded the government shutdown. The farm spill a little more complicated. It was a threeyear odyssey on a piece of legislation that is both significant and totally of no interest to most of the washington media but there were a lot of gaudie goda the goodief folks, you may have some record set by the congress in how few days it will be in session. When it comes to president obama, he tipped things off about how he was going to go it alone basically in the state of the union and has since done so including minimum wage for federal contractors. And on the big deal, Immigration Reform that is quickly morphed in to more of a political tactic to be used by both sides rather than any substantive happening this year. Rick, lets go to immigration. That has been a big issue for republicans, a lot of people, depending on who you talk to think that they have to do something if they want to appeal to hi hispanics in the next he x s there any chance immigration will move forward . Look, i think the distrust among all the parties from the conservatives in the house to the more business oriented republicans in the house, republicans in the senate to the president , to schumer, his faction, the distrust is so intention and deep no one believes anybody is here to do a transactional political deal anymore. They are all looking at this as quicksands and looking at it as a serious of possibly terrible outcomes, so i dont think that there is enough trust among the parties to put this thing together. Even schumers little fake throw away deal this last weekend of delay it until 2017, wasnt enough to move the dial much with the republicans. There is a tremendous amount of skepticism on the part of the caucus that the president would enforce the law. He picks and chooses what he does in obama care like its a chinese menu, why would he do anything different with em immigration is what i hear a lot saying. The president is doing that through he can executive orders, jim brought it up. President saying he was going without congress. Here is Jonathan Turley a fan of the president s that that weighed in on that issue. I happen to agree with many of president obamas sit policies, but its what you do he have a president claiming the right to ignore or negate federal laws thats a dangerous thing. Michael, your reaction its a case of democrats turning against democrats. Listen, what he is doing is negating history there. President s have used this, its when you become president you get air force one and you can bowl whenever you want and you have executive privilege. And you know, president s, actually barack obama has used executive privilege in this way fewer times than any president s preceding him. The average i think was 44. I looked it up today. I dont remember the exact number. 44 per year that president s use this, Ronald Reagan used it, gerald ford, richard nixon, both bushes used it, bill clinton used it. Its something that president s do. The argument is going farther and really setting policy. But how is that different antonio, i wonder, than george w. Bush, gets legislation and look through all the markups and check off the ones he liked and didnt like. Thats what you get when you are a president. So, of course, if i were a republican i would be complain that go the president is doing it as well because they are fighting and saying we dont want to have this. The fact of the matter is every president has done it. Its just like the filibusterer you can criticize it when you are not in power but when you are in power you dont want to touch it. Republicans are complaining about each other. We have this feuding between john mccain and ted cruz, he tweeted that his followers must read the wall street journal he had tour yell talking about minority making talking ted cruz hurting his party he forced a meaningless debt ceiling folk. Mccain has never been a fan of cruz, called him a wacko bird before but is creating problems. I think we blew an opportunity yesterday to have a clean debt ceiling vote put it on the democrats and make them put 51 votes on the board instead we had to have mcconnell hustle up enough boats to get this stink on them that wasnt necessarily politically. I dont love raising the debt ceiling i think its a disaster i think it will come back some day and bite us so hard we wont know what happened it. The political tact for republicanses should be focus what works for them the obama care. The pointless debt fights dont work for us. If you look at the numbers during the shutdown period we were having this great ideological purity moment of the shutdown, Democrat Voter intention spiked dramatically. Republicans fell. Its not a good issue for us, doesnt bourque. I dont love the debt but i dont want to be in a fight that doesnt gain something for us politically in a year where the opportunities are tremendous. Lets talk about obama care, there is drama on that front by democrats. They are now running away from obama care. Nancy pelosi through one of her super pacts has an add that basically trashes the website. In floridas 26th district incumbent joe garcia has this. Tea party billionaires think attack ads can cover the true. Joe garcia is work to go fix obama care. He voted to let you keep your existing health plan and took the white house to task for the disastrous health care website. And joe garcia fought to hold the Insurance Companies accountable so they cant deny coverage from preexisting conditions or drop coverage when you get sick, attack ads cant change the truth. Joe garcia is doing whats right for florida. House majority pacts responsible for that ad. That was paid for by Nancy Pelosis pact. Hes not saying repeal obama care but the other swipes sounds like something out of the republican playbook. Yeah. Although, you know, for some of these democrats, i think you know, this is not that difficult one particularly, you know, polling shows that obama is not particularly popular in your district as hes not particularly popular nationally, so you talk about something that i think there is pretty strong consensus about the website roll out was disastrous, Something Else you can probably get consensus on is lets fix its interesting he uses the word fix there, everybody will agree with that including obama. Its not surpriseing in some areas of the country folks are going to say, oh, see, i thought obama care was a mestro, but i am going try to fix it. And make sure that obama himself is not seen on any high School Platforms with them during the height of their campaigns. On the other hand, michael is there some light at the end it up on obama care. Nearly 3. 3 Million People have signed up through marketplace only a fourth young adults. They were hoping for a significant amount more. A lot of people signing up are getting subsidies. So how good is the news . Al yeah, well, i mean, you just hit the nail on the head. Is there light tend of the trouble . Yes,less until it dims when you look at how many young people ironed up. That signed up. The legislation, the policy in place here is policy that the people wanted. Gradually you are seeing it work. The hiccups and stumbles at the beginning have made it impossible to do a victory dance for anyone. I dont think youll see that for quite a while. Well keep on top of all of this and hope you guys come back and join us. Good to have you on the show. Think cog up americas tenuous partnership with afghanistan and its president from releasing scores of alleged terrorists to afghanistans failure to stop the opium trade funding extremists. Or mel a is tracking the top stories on we can, whats trending. Protests in venezuela take an ugly turn ill tell you more coming u join the conversation throughout the show on twitter at ajconsiderthis and on our facebook and google plus pages. What is this place . Where are we . This is where we bring together the Fastest Internet and the best in entertainment. We call it the x1 entertainment operating system. It looks like the future we must have encountered a temporal vortex. Further analytics are necessary. Beam us up. Thats my phone. Hey. [ female announcer ] the x1 entertainment operating system, only from xfinity. Tv and internet together like never before. Relations between afghan President Hamid karzai and the Obama Administration may have plunge to a new low thursday following the release of 65 suspected taliban prisoners off officials said there was no credible evidence that justified holding the men. And president karzai insisted the u. S. Had no prison criticizing the decision. Afghanistan is a sovereign country. If the afghan judicial authorities decide to release a prisoner, it is of no concern to the u. S. And should be of no concern to the u. S. But the u. S. Embassy and the u. S. Military both blasted the release as did Coalition Headquarters in kabul saying the release of these dangerous individual poses a threat to u. S. Coalition and Afghan NationalSecurity Forces as well as the afghan population. New jerseys in the Group Released today have killed coalition and afghan forces. So why would president karzai go ahead with this prisoner release . The latest in a series of not so diplomatic slaps delivered to his chief ally and main source of funds. For more i am joined by party gartbalancegalbraith. Where he hemmed uncover massive voter fraud in 2009, currently serve is aserving as a state sen vermont. The u. S. Says there is credible evidence tying these guys to bombings and attacks. Why would they release these prisoners despite all the objections from Coalition Forces and washington. Well, first, one of the problems is that the evidence that the u. S. Military has may not be in every case the quality of evidence necessary to convict somebody in a trial. And there is certainly enough evidence that people have been detained both at the big prison in afghanistan and at guantanmo, who are only peripherally involved in insurgent or terrorist activities or not at all. So there have been mistakes and there is a problem withholding people indefinitely without a trial. On the other hand, there clearly is strong evidence against a number of these people and releases it is a stick in the eye of president obama and frankly i think thats precisely what president karzai is intending. Relations between the u. S. And afghanistan, and i think on a personal level between president obama and president karzai have not been particularly good since obama took office. In spite of all that the u. S. Has been doing for afghanistan. And they have been deteriorating in recent months, president karzai has refuse today sign a by buy lateral Security Agreement even though it was recommended by council that he himself called and supported by all the candidates who want to succeed him. Supported by the parliament. In the last month he charged the u. S. With killing civilians in a fire fight and released evidence. That was clearly doctored and included photographs from an incidents in 2009. There is a message here. Br he has accuse the u. S. Of adding and conduct can go attacks to undermine the afghan government. Called the u. S. A colonial power, conducted secret talks with the taliban, has called the taliban his brothers and now outsiders think hes lost it. Is he trying set himself up for what happens after he leaves the presidency this year . First, he is often emotional. He can be irrelevan erratic. But i think there is a myth you had tmethod tothis. President karzai would like to be a the continued major player in afghanistan, occupy the role of father of the nation which is a kind of informal but very important position in afghanistan hes just construc constructed or moving for nba to a palace adjacent to the president ial palace and he would like to be sure that whoever succeeds him will take his lead from him. What he doesnt want to have happen is what happened in 2009. When the United Nations was supporting elections, funding them, and the elections were massively fraudulent and the world saw that they were fraudulent. So i think part of this is hes trying to intimidate the United States so that and the United Nations so that they will not make an issue of the very likely fraud in the upcoming president ial elections. And to some degree his intimidation is working. Now, you were part that have group that found the massive fraud in 2009. Was that sort of the beginning of the end where the relationship really started going downhill fast . Yes, i think that was a turning point. What it h happene had happeneds that president obama had come in to office. He announced a surge, he trip go ahead the amount of troops in afghanistan, it was a concerted strategy but depend odd having an afghan party. Already there was a sense of frustration with karzai in the new administration because of corruption and he was inadequate and ineffective. With the massive fraud in the elects he was all illegitimate and frankly from that point on not only did relations between the u. S. And afghanistan begin to dee tou deteriorate. And the whole strategy was an expensive failure. As you mentioned most of the main contend nurse the election this year, favor the bilateral Security Agreement with the u. S. That would allow more troops to stay in afghanistan. Do the afghan a officials care that these things are poisoning relations with the u. S. . I think they care greatly. After all somebody will be the president after karzai and he whoever that is, is going to want to have continued Financial Support from the International Community, afghanistans entire government budget is heavily dependent on foreign aid and theyll want to have u. S. And nato military support for the afghan army because theyll be concerned without it that without that support, the army may collapse and finally, those contenders who really have a base of support in the elections, particularly Abdullah Abdullah who may have been robbed in the 2009 election will want to have an honest vote. So only have about 20 seconds left. Clearly there is very little contact between washington and kabul now, reports that they havent been talking since november. So are you confident that once karzai is out of power that the relationship will get better . Yes, it will get better. But it may be that the United States will decide that actually it does want to get out and will go to the zero option, that is a complete are drawl. Karzai is pushing things to the edge. Ambassador Peter Galbraith good to have out show thank you for your inside. Very good to be with you. Staying in afghanistan but switching topics to a constant threat to the u. S. War effort. Afghanistans flourishing opium trade. Accord to this latest figures from it the u. N. Office on drugs and crime. Afghan only yu opium productions from 3700 to understand to what could be 5500 tons in 2015. They he have mat taliban profits from the opium trade were around 100 million last year. And while the Defense Department has spent some 2 billion on afghan counter narcotics programs, eric logan with the dods office for counter narcotics and Global Threats admits we do not believe that 2 billion has been well spent. For more i am joined by Gretchen Peters senior fellow on transnational crime. Former abc news correspondent in afghanistan and pakistan and the author of seeds of terror. Good to have you with us, gretchen. As i said we spent billions of dollars to suppress the opium trade in afghanistan and it grows despite our efforts, it gets turned in to heroin, we saw the big problem in the u. S. And other places, what are we do to stop it and how is what we are doing getting it wrong . Well, i think the policy mistakes are the strategic mistakes came from the very beginning. Late 2001, early 2002. There was really a golden opportunity for the United States and for the International Community to take advantage of the fact that farmers across afghanistan had not planted opium for the first time in more than a decade. The taliban had beened farmers from planting opium and it was a chance to perhaps it was a chance to shift it onto al alternate crops. But at the time the importance was hunt for fugitives and terrorists and the drug problem didnt get the attention that it deserved. After that the focus was put on or the bulk of the focus was put on destroying the crops of opium farmers as opposed to going after some very, very powerful drug lords, most of whom actually lived outside of afghanistan ironically. So the focus was put on the poor farmers not the wealthy traffickers. More recently, i think now we see a situation where the bull believing of the effort going on in afghanistan is just to get out of afghanistan. I dont think there is a coherent strategy too fast what the International Community is going to do about that regions drug problem post 2014. And in the end is there anything that we can really do . Because the opium trade has gotten so important, this is a poor country, and many afghans depend on it now. So will it just go on no matter what we do . Well, no country in history has ever been as addicted to narcotics from an economic standpoint as afghanistan is. At some points opium has represented about or almost half of gdp in that country. So thats a major challenge, we also have a situation where more than half of the opium thats produced in afghanistan is consumed inside afghanistan and in neighboring states and also up in russia. So you have addiction rates and the associated diseases that come with sharing needles that are spreading like wildfire through the region. And thats going to creator has already created Public Health crisis that i dont think any of the countries have the capacity to deal with. They dont have the Public Health capacity to deal with it. An immensely challenging situation. In afghanistan and pakistan very officials in both of those countries in the leadership positions who are deeply implicated in the drug trade and so president karzais brother ahmad will wary car side says hes a victim of politics, is that i big part of the problem the corruption of opium sales reaches the highest levels of government. Its the core of the problem. History would indicate until you have an indigenous Political Movement that seeks to drive out organized crime and crumbs what the outside world tries to imposing will never stick. I think thats worrisome. I am not particularly optimistic about the near future in afghanistan or the region with regards to this problem. And i think that we are going to only be able to measure success in decades. These are problems that there is a tendency to look at the size of the opium crop from year to year, the number of provinces that are cultivating opium, the number of traffickers that have been arrested. Unfortunately this is a part an economy where success is measured in decades. And then there is the Homeland Security issue because the taliban as you said were briefly opposed to opium trade but now embrace it wholeheartedly, they are getting hundreds of millions of dollars or 100 million at least every year. And in 2008, richard holbrook, the late richard holbrook, late special an say to kabul he said break the narc owestate in afghanistan is essential or all else will fail. If we fail in afghanistan we cant suppress that narc owestate s that going to be the issue . Is that really how we are going to fail . I think we are failing in after i think the United States has failed in afghanistan and i think its in large part due to the fact that the country is governed by an incredibly corrupt leadership. There is pervasive corruption not just around the drug trade, but around all sorts of aspects of the roared government business. And there is very little security through large part because of the rampant and violent organized crime across the country. And there is sort of no end in sight for any of that. The other challenge is that the militants, the insurgents in afghanistan and across the board never pakistan, in fact, all over the world, are increasingly funding themselves through organized crime and they are diversifying their activities across the spectrum of organized crime activities. So they are becoming more violent, more ruthless, and more criminalized and that, too, is adding challenges for the average afghan person. The book is seeds of terror, krech inning petersgretchen petn the show. Time to check back in with hermela. Of a two weeks of december strayings antigovernment protests in venezuela turned violent five people killed, 25 injured after a stands off between pro and antigovernment protesters. Under the slogan the exit, the opposition is calling for president nicholas who was elected less than a year ago to step down. They blame his government for the rampant crime, corruption and economic hardships in the country. Therharvard education is leading them. Lopez told reuters, quote, the government is playing the violence card and not for the first time. They are blaming me without any program i have a clear conscience because we called for piece, on the website alfredo compares the president to the last leader, he says time for venezuelans rise up and free themselves from the curse of the hugo chavez type of failer. Chavez responded you can read more and join the conversation on the website americ america. Aljazerra. Com. No force was used and this is a country thats oil rich and you cant find toilet paper often in stores, unbelievable. Straight ahead, extremely talented and extremely overlooked. The oscarnominated look at background singers and the forces that block their way to stardom. Plus the high price of valentines day. And the Surprising New choice as hollywoods most romantic new movie ever. While you were asleep news was happening. Here are the stories were following. Find out what happened and what to expect. International outrage. A day of political posturing. Every morning from 5 to 9 am Al Jazeera America brings you more us and global news than any other American News channel. Tell us exactly what is behind this story. From more sources around the world. The situation has intensified here at the border. Start every morning, every day 5am to 9 eastern. With Al Jazeera America. The physical distance between back up singers and the stars they are backing may only be 20 feet. But the struggle to get from one or the other request tak can taa lifetime. Our program in oscardominated series continues with 20 feet from stardom. There is a power to these women that stands on stage with these guys. Its a bits ive walk. That walk to the front is complicated. My gettest pleasure is to stand back and let them do what they can do. When you are a backup singer it is a springboard but it can be a block to what you want to do. There are no guarantees in entertainment. I felt like if i just gave nigh heart, i would automatically be a star. Moral an neville directed the fill. Hes nominated for an oscar and joins us from studio city, california. 20 feet from stardom is available on demand, dvd and blue ray. You have provide huge stars in the past now backup singers what did you see as the difference in approach between the two . There is a world of difference, we talk about the 20 feet being the distance from the difference between the lead is singer and back up singer, mouth back up singers spend their life trying to contend with that distance, its something that the they all havo come to terms with when is its not just about talent, thats one of the messages of the film which is an industry that values image and am bins and luck and timing and all these things talent can be far down the list, and that can be a tough psych rolling cal pill to take. But the women in our film have a lost teach. Mick jagger says its great to sing not oohs and aahs but at time it gets hard to take. You bring up the issue that prejudice may have been part of the problem. Absolutely. I mean, there is certainly something about the fact that back up singers are probably the ultimate disenfranchised members of the Music Industry. There is something about it being a ghetto within the Music Industry itself. And, in fact, the film touch on his a lot of real such rights issues and what you see and what these women dealt with is that there were only a certain number of slots for africanamerican women in the is city at the time. There was a an Aretha Franklin slot, diana cross and a couple of others and there wasnt enough room for them to move up but a lot of white male back up singers moved up. And you faced that ghetto early on as you were researching the movie you ended up finding that it was heart to get footage on background singers because they hadnt cat bogge cataloged. By their definition they were invisible. When i bents to find anything about back up singers they all said they had nothing had wasnt true they just didnt notate them because they are the back ground. Thats the who theme. The film for me and hopefully for the audience is about a paradigm shift where you change ohow you listen to music and change how you look at music and suddenly the background becomes the foreground and you realize that there are new things and songs that you had heard a thousand times before suddenly new voices come out and that you realize that you are singing along with the back up singers and not the lead singers. Thats what you are often doing. Many struggle to make a living. You profile darlene love and her move from back up to rock and roll hall of fame career. But in there, somewhere she ended up as all house maid lets look at how she got a signed during that low point. One particular christmas i was clean this is ladys bathroom, and christmas baby please come home, my christmas record came on the radio while i was cleaning the bathroom. And i just looked up and just said, okay, all right, darling this is not where you are suppose the to be. You are supposed to be singing. There is a whole world out there that wants to hear you sing. Christmas Pretty Lights on the tree and, of course, there was. But how difficult is it to make a living as a background singer . Its very difficult. I mean, only the best of the best survive in that industry. But its a tough industry. The Music Industry is difficult and its certainly got through a lot of changes. But its one of those odd paradoxes about the back up world that as a backup singer you hear your voice on the radio all the time and now that i have spent all this time with backup singers in restaurants and elevators they seo, thats me singing but just because people see you in proximity to rock stars, or hear you on the radio, they assume that you have a much more glamorous, much more lucrative life than you actually have. When, in fact, many have gone through really hard teams. And many are better singers than the big stars and some of the ones that you profile are vocal cameleons in a single day they can do gospel, pom, rock, and swing. Yeah. I mean, exactly. Darlene love would tell me about going in to sessions in the morning with Frank Sinatra and in the evening with frank sap a and in between they would do bucco ens, that takes incredible dexterity to be able to do that. But its actually one of the difficult things about that transition from the backup role to the fore tkpwrourpbgsd which iforeground which is ifyou are e industries only wants to you do anything and thats what they want to sale. And a lot of backup singers base of their versatility have a hard time figuring out what the singular thing is they want to do because they can do it all. You profiled judith hill who is spectacular, viewers might know her because she was going to the Michael Jackson tour and shows enough that movie of the tour, the preparation for that tour that never happened. She got a lot of attention because she went very deep on the voice chilling. She even had a moment in between the jackson thing and the voice they was chefs a backup singer and did it in disguise on television. Its really a struggle. It is. When judith got voted out i looked at the comments and it was backlash, shes already made it, a professional, shouldnt be on the competition show, the whole time we were making the film. Judith was sleeping in our childhood broom at her parents house to try to raise money to get a record deal. Its not as glamorous as it seems, just because you are on stage next to Michael Jackson doesnt mean you have made it. But because of the film and her talent judith has been sign today sony records and will be putting out a record. Thats great to here. 23 to stardom is available on itunes dvd and blue ray. Great to have you with us, best of luck at the oscars. Thank you so much. Straight ahead, how much does it to say i love you on valentines day, more than you might think. Our data dive is next. Remembering the life and legacy of sid caesar. Is libya unraveling . Theres coffin after coffin being carried into the cemetery. Fault lines libya state of insecurity only on Al Jazeera America todays data dive gets romantic. Americans are celebrating valentines day this week seemingly with little concern for cost. Last year the National Retail federation found americans would spend more than 18 1 2 billion dollars on the poll holliday. About 130 bucks per person, including everything from candy, cards, gifts, and its not just for loving lovers. Twothirds are buying for family members, one in five says theyll get gifts for their pets. Even though 100 percent of pets polled didnt realize valentines day was happening this week, more than half will show their love with cant i. Another third nowers its the biggest floral day in america after mothers day. Some go over the top. 4. 4 billion will be spent on gold, diamonds, and silver. No wonder half the 13 Million People set to get engage third degree year will have the question popped on valentine as day. Of course you can always stay in and watch a much i. Flavor wired just released the list of the 50 most roman fix movies ever. Casablanca took 30 plays but topped an older list on passionate films number two, he certainly sunshine of the spotless minds, jim care and i indicate winslet play a couple that breaks up and gets a procedure to erase their memories of each other only to rediscover why they were in love in the first place. And the top film, a modern classic, the Princess Bride. It features love, swashbuckling and andre the giant. How can you go wrong . Love the Princess Bride but my favorite is dr. She having owe it came in seventh. Coming up just in time for valentines day, the arranged marriage of two cable super giants worth more than 45 billion. With the most interesting people of our time. Hip hop pioneer Russell Simmons talks with Soledad Obrien i make mistakes everyday, i dont try to count them. About his music. The artist should say whats on peoples minds. His cause. Dominion over the animals does not mean abuse. And his future. I wanna make movies and tv shows that reflect the new america. Russell simmons up close and personal. Talk to al jazeera only on al jazeera 45. 2 billion, price that comcast agreed to pay to time warner cable. The deal will bring about a third of all american tv subscribers under one roof. Giving the company huge Bargaining Power with cable networks. Tv stayings and independent contest providers. So how will the deal if its approved by fed regulators affect the television landscape. Joining us is former npr arts editor bill why ma wyman, good e you with us. Neither are known for high customer satisfaction. What will this do for their customers will they pay more . Probably undoubtedly. But they are direct any competition anywhere, so it wont are worse for customers per se, however it will continue to be bad. If i can make that distinct. But if the deal goes through, and having been a customer of both, i know where you are coming from, they will own msnbc. A ton of local news stations including new york 1, the entire nba network and all of their owned and operated stations around the country. And former sec chairman reid hunt said only comcast could have paid this price and the combined company, if approved, would tilt the balance of the power at every negotiating table in media and content and broad band and equipment industries. That is a pretty broad state. Hes basically saying comcast can block competition. Its entire possible and may not pass regulation, this is a testament to the robers family vision in growing in company in ways that a lot of us could never imagine 10 years ago, thats the first thing. They are looking at a different media landscape than we are. They are worried about things like net escape and the prevalence of broadband going in to the home and a lot of people turning off cable. We have seen the cable audience declining overtime. Which when taken in to conjunction with the growth of the actual population of the United States and the number of households is a really bad sign for the industry. So consolidation to some extend is natural. I dont worry about this too much because you really do have these choices, we want to see net flicks do better and amazon, because the more pressure those Companies Put on these big bee them you go companies and they are awful companies, lets be clear about it, this company will continue to raise cable rates, we will not see real relf from that at all but they are looking a more complex media landscape but but that may be changing. The sec shutdown the Net Neutrality rules letting the internet providers decide what websites, what internet content can get in to peoples home. They can say we dont want netflix to compete with us and wont let it in for to your home. Didnt that too much power . I dont think we have seen that yet and the f. C. C. Hasnt given up that up yet. Youll see a lot of public pressure this. One thing that comcast people will say is that quite often, when content providers go up against these cable companies, the content providers tend to win. So again, i dont want to be taking comcasts side in all of this, but it is a very complex landscape with a lot of powerful people. I dont think this is a good merger for consumers in any case, but we should see how it plays out. Time warner imagine today block cbs for a while in new york city. It can be an issue you feel lets talk about another Massive Company that could conceivably have too much or, you know, conceivably too much control over an industry, amazon, there is an article coming out in next beaks new yorker that says that amazon is bad for books and the Book Publishing industry. But didnt amazon in a way create more appetite and more action for books . Boy, its really true. And this is a very complex subject and easy to get very romantic about things like books and records and things like this. I am speaking here as someone who put his way through college as a Union Reporter at a newspaper, i saw that industry he vanity wait. I worked in Record Stores i saw that industry evaporate on the other hand the amount of choice available to us as read percent many magnitudes in better and in terms of getting music and books orders of magnitude better the. We would like the cable industry to be more like amazon where there is one place we can get every book, every tv show that we want, every move that i went that doesnt stand in the way and charge us hundreds of dollars a month just for the privilege of doing that. But rather turns around the other side and gets the price lower for we as consumers. One more quick point on amazon, one of the arguments in this article is that in the end the elite publishing houses, you know, mostly in new york, pretty mitch can decide what books we would read because those are the only Ones Published now amazon allows for self publishing, then the argument is that might be cheapening the american novel because we are getting flooded with bad books. Thats a really good thing. Puts more responsibility on us the consumer. Thats the way it is we have to work harder to find good music, books, good news articles, but as someone who grew up 20 or 30 actually 30 or 40 year old ago, when your choices of news and books and music was so much more attenuated i think its a great problem to have. I dont want to end without talking about sid cesar, hes been called the father of tv comedy. Carl reiner called him the greatest stretch comedian to ever live. So many people, you know, owe their careers to him. Mel brooks, carl reiner himself, woody allen, kneel simon and i gonameneil sometime un. The funnn is him he changed things. He did. Back in the 50s when tv started it was so much more experimental you had these guys and writers doing things that the sketches were very hrofb, l, very in deposit and this cerebral it was a golden age of tv and one of the great things for sid cesar, is that, boy, he out lived his audience, he lived a great life in to his 90s. And had two or three lifetimes after his career as a big tv star. Its a shame on this day when hes passed that he hasnt gotten as much credit and as much attention as he deserves. Bill wyman good to sigh thank for joining us. Thank you. The conversation continues on our website aljazerra. Com considerthis. Westervelt good evening, welcome to Al Jazeera America. Im John Seigenthaler in new york. Bitter blast no relief from one of the worst storms in decades. Thousands of flights grounded. Nearly a Million People in the dark and the new york mayor taking heat for not closing schools. Ethnic cleansing in Central African republic, investigators find a mass grave. An aimish couple fighting ohio over