at issues per trade in editorial cartoons. we will take your phone calls on facebook and twitter. -- phone calls in comments on facebook and twitter. washington journal is next. host: as we entered the last few days here of the year 2014 we have a question for you this sunday morning. who had the best and worst year in washington? it could be someone in congress, over at the white house elsewhere in government, or just elsewhere in town. who had the best and worst year this past year 2014. call the following numbers -- host: if not iphone, you can

weigh in on social media -- host: we will start taking her calls and a couple of minutes. in case you have not heard, we want to begin with one of the many photos coming out of asia this sunday morning. an airplane with 106 people on board is missing in indonesia. you can see a couple of relatives here this air asia flight comforting each other. again, 162 people on board, lost contact on sunday. flying over the sea after taking off from a provincial city in indonesia. they were headed towards singapore. in terms of numbers 138 of the passengers were adults. 155 asterisk. most on board were from indonesia. six were from other countries.

the u.k. foreign office has confirmed that one britt was on board the flight as well. this has been going on for maybe 12 hours or so, so if there is more information out there by the end of the show, we will let you know. this is the third incident, the ap writes, following two of the worst aviation tragedies to hit malaysia airlines this year. in march flight 370 disappeared with 239 people on board and in july you will recall that flight 79 was shot down over the ukraine. again, we will bring you more information as we get it as the program goes on today. to our question, who had the best year and worst year here in washington? we look forward to your comments by phone and social media. politico wrote a story yesterday about president obama, ending

the year with improving approval ratings. the store -- the president is ending the year on a high note even performing better than his predecessor. this is from a recent gallup poll showing obama with warty 3% at the end of his sixth year in office, putting them ahead of george w. bush who saw a 37% approval rating at the end of his six year back in 2006. the poll was published on the 19th of december, showing that bill clinton and ronald reagan enjoyed 67% and 48% approval ratings at the same respective points but for obama it is the latest in a number of recent polls that have been favorable for the president. so, there is a starting point for our conversation this morning. first we want to remind you of the story that the huffington post put out a couple of days ago.

they write what they see as the official biggest losers of 2014, writing this way -- "sometimes the best effort is just not good enough and at those times one is a loser." in no particular order, here are the biggest losers of 2014 according to "the huffington post." they begin with the democrats. they got no shellacking, no thumping, no nothing. republicans just wanted it more." they also talk about bobby jindal.

host: just a starting point there. we have our first call this morning from nate in tennessee. good morning. caller: how are you doing? host: good. who had the best and worst year in washington? caller: the best will be the republican establishment. his latest continuing resolution, they could have showed some real back home by pushing it to february, but they push it into september. they betray all the people that put them in office. the biggest losers? i don't know, i guess it would be my spectrum of the party i hate to say that, constitutional conservatives. we actually feel the country is on the road to tyranny. by acquiescing to this president

who shreds the constitution and defecates on it, they are betraying us. guys like senator alexander in tennessee, he's a winner because he is part of the establishment. boehner, it is just amazing how quick he turned around to doublecross us. have a good day, sir. host: all right, jack is on the line now from appalachia, new york. hey, jack. caller: good morning, how are you doing? host: what do you think? caller: i am jack strickland that i wanted to say that this program can suck my balls. host: we are moving on to mark in kingston, jamaica. go ahead. who had the best and worst year in washington, 2014? caller: the democrats got the worst year because of the election. host: tell us more.

caller: the democrats lost big-time in the midterms. i think the republicans definitely had a better year this year. host: thank you for calling. when he writes that the best year was had by propaganda politicians, the worst year was the middle class. host: of course, we know the republicans took over in the last election. this is on the huffington post piece on the official big losers of 2014. chris christie, they write "taking the fight to the wrong nurse." that was after the nurse and the governor got into a battle over

that issue. host: more on that a little bit later. matthew from washington, democratic line. caller: i was going to say that eric cantor probably wound up having the worst year. mitch mcconnell had the best year. but the president like fedor and 2013, he had a bad year but wound up having a great 2014, by -- barack obama's going to do the exact same thing. host: michael, hey there. caller: i think the republicans

this year. they were allowed to take the majority in the senate. put more money in their own pockets. host: how about the worst year? caller: the worst year has to be police departments. host: how come? caller: they kill a bunch of people and might have to wear body cameras now. caller: david wrote this year that free speech was the biggest loser --host: david writes that free speech was the biggest loser -- biggest loser. mark pryor, according to this --

host: they also pointed to the washington redskins in this piece. "the team seems more dysfunctional than ever." him and him him himmo --mo is on the line now. caller: good morning. i think the republicans have the worst year this year. host: how come? caller: the views that they left on the american people have us thinking that they were against the lower class, the middle class, and it just -- i think for me, frighteningly, is this going to be our future?

i think that they left that case. host: how about the fact that the republicans took over the senate by a pretty decent margin? caller: i see a lot of political power, persuasion, and money that is due to those numbers. host: all right, thank you. arden, democratic caller, good morning. caller: i think that c-span had the worst year? host: how come? caller: you have 435 house members in the best that you all could do all the time was have people like steve king and

marsha blackburn on your show. it looks to me that you could do a better job having someone with a bit of principles. host: who would you like to see? caller: some house of representatives that represent the country the way that they talk. you never say anything back to them whenever wrong. thank you. host: ok. back to twitter -- host: we are continuing to take your calls, the lines on the bottom of the screen. from social media and facebook you can also send us an e-mail.

wendell writes that the president had the best year because he did everything he could for the people. he also writes that the republicans had the worst year because they did nothing. surely comes back and says -- where have you been living. back to the article written by "the huffington post" this morning. they write about gabby giffords having one of the worst years in washington.

host: guest: that, according to the huffington post this morning, their official biggest losers of 2014. more on all of this from the last week or so from "politico." who has been naughty and nice in washington? this is a piece by matt vladimir . "the former editors of the new republic," they write --

"the most proudly unemployed people on the happy campers of wall street until they had a media pile on of chris hughes so smug that even bill cosby pitied him." host: back to the phones on who had the best year and worst year this year. john, oregon seaside. caller: how are you doing? i think the american people that the worst this year. the 1% got the best. i think that the crony capitalism is ruining our country. when you have so many people out of work and then the 1% holding trillions of dollars, the people that work for walmart, for target, getting two hours per

week, barely making minimum wage, then these big corporations doing better than they have ever had in their history and they cannot take the money back. i think it is a shame that we, the american people, have to suffer because of the rich. host: us we go, illinois, steve hey, steve. caller: the conservative wings of the republican party had a bad year. the other side would be the establishment republicans. they had the best year. i think it is going to be the same one year from now. caller: i was going to ask you about 2015. the president still in office of course, republican congress,

what are you expecting here in town? caller: i expect them to spend the same amounts of money as before. i expect large budget deficits and the national debt to go up. i expect them to do nothing more than they did last year, like with this bill that they just passed for spending next year. it's going to be the same. you are going to see static spending until probably, maybe until we get a conservative republican president who sticks by his guns, i think that george bush, hastert, boehner and all -- what was his name? trent lott, all those people who wanted to be conservative republicans and tamp down the spending, i think that they

destroy the republican party. but that's my room -- my opinion. host: thanks for calling him, jim, texas. caller: first time caller. thank you for my call. host: glad that you made it in, finally. caller: yeah, finally got in. harry reid in -- harry reid the progressives got the best of it because they were able to appoint as many progressive and liberal judges as they could. the american people to the worst of it for the very same reason. host: thank you for calling. back to facebook -- hi host: tom is on the line from

saddle brook, new jersey. hey, tom. tom, are you there? cannot hear tom. let's try david in spirit lake, iowa. are you there, dave? caller: good morning, i'm here. i think the american public got the short end of the stick. and i believe that thanks to the democrats and lack of transparency, those examples of the irs cover-up, they could not find the e-mail records and later they find 20,000 or more? latest by dianne feinstein. she wants to get down to the truth on this political issue this torture issue? yet where was she getting to the

bottom of the truth on benghazi or the irs or any of the other issues? i think that the american public has lost a lot of faith and i believe that the newspapers have lost scriber's and no longer have the financial ability to actually investigate the checks and balances. i believe the supreme court has become political and i think the american people of the losers. host: ok, back to twitter -- host: political rights about the creators of buzz feed --

host: they also have the dnc chairwoman,, from florida. "this year she came up with the most fiendish plot yet to rule and republicans, put them in charge of congress. they already regret it, truly diabolical." lindsay is on the line now. democratic caller, thank you for waiting. caller: the worst year was for my granddaughter, eight, my son did not get unemployment in michigan because of a technicality. this is their second year, they are hungry and cannot pay their rent. and for the older people in mississippi that i see sometimes have been cut back to one bath per week.

it's no longer cyclical and they are sick. that is my comment. thank you. host: wade is on the line from california. independent line, hello. go ahead, turn the sound off on your set, we will be able to hear you much better. this is weight from redding, california. hello. i there. caller: i want. ok. ok, i wanted to congratulate mr. obama and his wife for making gas prices go down in the economy. doing a great year. caller: who is having a bad year question --host: who is having a bad year? caller: [no audio] host: think we lost in there. let's try bert. florida.

caller: [indiscernible] obama was lying and deceiving. the losers are the people at c-span for not calling people out on this, the people that did call when missed -- mr. obama said you could keep your insurance and your doctor and keep things and then they came back and said he could not. that they tried to cover it up and lie about it. again, once they did get caught in the light, where were all the people telling you all of this before the election, before he got elected the second time? i just think of the national media tries to tell people after they see the first turn, that mr. obama was deceiving.

host: where do you get most of your news from? caller: a lot of it is on the internet. a lot of it is from the different sources on television, radio. host: pretty broad. caller: yes. host: ok, thank you for calling. george, decatur, hey, george. you with us? caller: yes, i sure am. host: who had the best and worst years in washington and why? caller: i would say both parties have had the same year. i am calling really because i wish the medicare advantage subsidies would be reintroduced to the medicare ran. they have been taken away and put to the obamacare, causing a downgrade in the coverage on the

medicare advantage plans. we didn't get what we asked for. i have been a democrat my life but this is not the party i grew up with. host: thank you. we will do this for about 20 more minutes or so, but we want to turn your attention to the new york times. this is a photograph from yesterday. this is the widow of officer rafael ramos with her two sons at the funeral for her husband on saturday. he was shot, along with another officer one week ago. the funeral was yesterday. if the camera can move over, there are more pictures from "the new york times" piece. filling up with blue coats early, footsteps of saddened officers, the medley of sounds were the sounds of the city shaking itself awake.

they wrote about christmas decorations in the doorways and windows with the babar -- with the barbaric death that tested the city's character and more than 20,000 leagues officers came from as far away as wisconsin and england, some driving to the night to make it. 20,000 officers, many, many more onlookers yesterday in new york city. tom has been waiting on the line from saint augustine, florida. good morning, tom. caller: i wanted to make a comment regarding the best and worst. the people who have the worst year were the american people. those that love the constitution, those that believe in supporting the constitution. the people that had the best

year are the politicians that have sold out to special interests. both democrats and republicans and independents have sold out. host: what are you looking forward to from the folks in washington this year? caller: i am looking forward to them proving that they are not going to be bogged down like the previous congress and senate. i want them to prove that they mean what they say. caller: do you think it is --host: do you think it is possible that they will be bogged down? caller: it is possible, if the republicans are smart, they control both houses and will become functional and actually serve the american people. host: patrick on twitter --

host: back to "politico" this morning -- host: host: thomas, riverhead, what do you say? caller: the republicans did

best, maintaining a little bit of some power. but the thing that concerns me is what they do with it and that they don't let the people down. this has happened time and time again. you see all these things, these policies they get put forth obama and his liberal agenda, no one seems to be able to stop them. the stuff that he has done -- you could take a look around the country. i look at my neighbors, i talked to everybody, they are crippled with these policies. the obama care, the economy. jobs this is the worst, the worst president ever and office. he is not giving any relief and the republicans have to take the ball and run with it and help the people of the country. this is getting to the point of ridiculousness. there is a lot of ignorance. nobody pays attention to what is going on in front of them. it is being laid out in front of you. freedom is being taken away. obamacare is the worst thing

that's ever happened. i don't understand some of the people who call and who don't really look at what is going on. i don't know how they are not affected. host: let's hear from herbert and camilla, georgia. caller: america appears to be coming out of the vigil. we got the most calls coming in republicans are mostly white you understand me? it was 2000 miami. i am retired. i told them, when bush got into office, they are going to shoot themselves in the foot again. the worst thing that we are suffering that we need to understand, we just need to stop fighting.

this division, this republican and democrat, we need to start being americans. they are making a hundred times more than the minimum wage. obama doesn't have anything to gain. those people have more money than obama does. the president doesn't -- doesn't control the insurance companies. you've got to get mad at them. that is what time it is. we have got to wake up. we need to stop this division america. caller: herbert, thank you for calling --host: herbert, thank you for calling from georgia. chris alyssa recently roast that obama had the worst year for crises abroad and losses at home. "his sixth year in office was

arguably his worst, it all came crashing down around him. it started with him -- "along with memoirs questioning his decision-making and judgment. arthur, -- judgment." arthur, good morning. caller: thank you. the biggest loser this year's the gulf of mexico, they found a big glob of oil down there with nobody trying to make it in the she to suck it up. the biggest winner is auditory

sociopaths who wish to continue the war on women can now independently do something in their environment, because they are already stretched out to make their point. or they can go to isis and continue to take things away from women. people who think that obama is a very bad president? they are not seeing the forest for the trees. 10 years from now they will look back and think what were they thinking? host: this on twitter -- host: warrior, alabama, republican line, good morning. caller: good morning. i feel like it is a disengaged american voter. i don't feel like our citizens are engaged in the process. i feel like they are too involved in their technology their facebook, what they have

got to do in their communities. you can go out on the street and show a picture of vice president biden and people don't know who he is. caller: --host: what is the effect of that lack of involvement? caller: i have been involved in politics and so was 17. i want people have the opportunity to understand what it means to vote. you have a right to vote. we don't practice that. there are certain third world countries with participation rates and coatings much higher than ours. we should be ashamed for that. -- participation rates in voting at higher than ours. we should be ashamed of that. host: why did you get involved in politics? caller: i got involved in

birmingham, working with the sclc and electric company was trying to turn off power for the poor and indigent people for the hot times of the summer and cold times of the winter. we got a thing so that you could donate money to that cause to help these people. that is when i first got involved. host: thank you for sharing your situation in your opinion. rodney is an independent. welcome. caller: in my opinion, wall street definitely had the best year. as they say the numbers don't lie. as regards to who had the worst year, i will have to piggyback off the last caller and say the american public. because the people who participated in the last

election, it's almost depressing, we need the public to take part in the election. for any politician to move forward, you cannot say to you have a mandate will only one third of the people participate. those of you the best and worst. wall street is having a blast. us, the american people? we have it worse. host: tim, alabama. go ahead, sir. who had the best and worst year and why. caller: i think that president obama had a good year when you look at where he has brought the economy, now the unemployment rate is below 6%. wall street had its best year ever. i think that people should look at where the country was at when he came into office and without the house and senate support where has he taken this country?

the economy is doing great right now. my last thing that i want to say is -- please, don't put another bush back in office. that's all i want to say. thank you. host: thank you for calling. one of the leads in "the washington post," for the secret service. a lengthy story about their slow and steady slide they start by saying the service began struggling to carry out its most basic duties after congress in the bush administration expanded the elite law-enforcement agencies mission in the wake of 9/11.

host: that is only the start of the piece, it is a lengthy piece if you want to read more about it today. dave arizona, you are on the air. caller: good morning. as far as the biggest losers it is you, me, everyone listening. as far as the biggest winners, i would have to say it would be the cia, who can disrupt investigations of their own miss doings and get away with it. host: all right, henry, you are up. stanton, michigan. henry, you on the line? caller: i'm on the line. host: good. best year in worst year and why.

caller: the only ones benefiting are the politicians. the politicians need to step back and think about where they are at. we also need to step back and think about what we are all doing. the simple fact is that it will not be getting any better between the whites, blacks, or any of the rest, they just don't understand where it's at. american people have to take back their civil rights. caller: --host: henry writes -- host: last couple minutes of our segment here. best and worst, darrell? >> -- caller: the american people got the worst deal. i don't understand how these people can call in and say that

obama has done them of favor when they stand up to him and hillary clinton in front of four caskets and lie to them, tell them that they can have their health care that will be paid for by dying more. it's just a bald faced lie. i cannot believe that anybody republican or democrat, would believe that. host: what are you looking forward to in 2015? caller: i would like to see the budget under control. if anyone thinks that $18 trillion in debt is right, but attend the president gets out of office it will be $20 trillion. when i got to school they used to say how far it was in this and no one could even believe it. how big is that number? no one knows. it's unbelievable. caller: darrell --host:

there'll, "political" writes about the clintons -- darrell "politico" writes about the clintons. host: wilson, columbus, georgia hey there. caller: i'm 24, i go to college in the deep south, and i want to say that the worst are the young

folks taking out student loans. host: you have loans yourself? caller: yes, we are graduating in debt, going into the workforce in making decisions based on us getting paid off. we have workforce people trying to get paid off instead of doing good for society. we need to rethink how we live our lives on a national scale. caller: [captioning performed by the national captioning institute, host: what is your debt level? pretty heavy, or reasonable? caller: i have kept it pretty low. caller: --host: are you in line to get a job as you graduate? caller: i still have a year and a half left. host: it will be a little while, then. we have been hearing so much about this in the so-called next big bubble, student loans.

caller: i need to quit letting so many people go to college is because college will be worth more. now that everyone goes to college, it does not mean anything anymore. now you need to have a masters degree and a doctorate just to be somebody. host: thank you for sharing your situation in your opinion. a couple of more calls from waukesha, minnesota. good morning, democratic line. caller: i think that obama and the american people had the best year. if you take a look at the jobs that were created, the stock market, you know, he got us out of two wars. unemployment numbers are down. he has just done a real decent job this year it is being reflected in the economy with

the gop being what it is, it has been the highest in about 14 years. i think that things are starting to turn around and by the way i think he did that pretty much single-handedly. he had no help from the republicans whatsoever. host: our last call comes from michael. louisiana. good morning. caller: a lot of people, we complain about the job that obama is doing. someone elected him into office, that is why he is our president. just wanted to comment. the scaffolding behind you on the rotunda of the capitol, i am the capital superintendent for a major company and i have to say is one heckuva job. host: thank you for calling in, thank you to everyone who called in about the best and worst year in washington. we will take a short timeout and

then get to some specifics about congress and the white house as they speak to the economy. steve moore will be with us, previewing the economic agenda. and sexual assault on college campuses has emerged as an issue in 2014. and the president of a nonprofit group will discuss with us how haulage is are responding. in the meantime we wanted to give you a taste of our "newsmakers" program our guest this week is governor steve bullock of montana, talking about money flowing into the campaigns from outside groups. [video clip] >> truly one of the biggest challenges to our democracy and representative government is the amount of money pouring into the system. it is the biggest threat to

citizens united, it took the biggest law post citizens united and unfortunately even my last legislative session had a bipartisan bill to say that if we have to work under these new rules for the road, at least let's find out who the wizard is behind the curtain. disclose the dollars. we just got done with the 2014 midterms. $1 billion was spent in the congressional races by outside groups. 75% of that was in the dollars. i think we do need to do significantly more for transparency. as was suggested, by the same token i don't think that it makes sense as we are doing that to make sure that every individual voters voice matters.

you cannot even have that discussion if you don't have a seat at the table. it certainly would not make sense for -- well, my distaste for the amount of dollars in the process would be folding the cards up to watch these moneys coming into the states. >> does that mean that the doj will be more transparent going forward? >> i think that weeks into this, trying to get a sense of the overall budget, yes, at the end of the day if we are going to be spending money on elections we ought to know where the money is coming from. >> "washington journal" continues -- host: at the table now, stephen moore, good morning. what are your expectations for the upcoming congress? guest: there will be a lot of

battles with obama, clearly. they have very different priorities. we have seen them in hand-to-hand congress -- hand to hand combat with them for several years. i think that the republicans will start with a flurry of activity. certainly they will pass something like the keystone xl pipeline. they will pass some tax law changes. we are talking maybe about rolling back some of the obama regulatory onslaught. i think the big question right now is whether president obama will be in the mood to compromise. or will there be more partisan battles? is clearly up to the 2010 midterm elections where president obama did not move to the middle and he saw the showdown over the budget. he may be seeing some of that over the next 18 months.

host: stephen moore is with the heritage foundation, he has been on the program many times, the author of five books, senior economics writer at the washington journal editorial board and has appeared in all of these capacities on the show. good to have you. the 114th congress starts up in about 10 days, more photos of the bottom of the screen for our guests. we want to go to something about keystone, which you were talking about. they spoke recently about keystone and where they will be in the schedule -- here's a look. [video clip] >> we will start next year with a job creating bill that enjoys significant bipartisan support. the first item up will be the keystone xl pipeline.

the holding bill. it will be open for amendment. i hope. i would hope that senators on both sides would offer energy related amendments, but there will be no effort to try to micromanage the amendment process. we will move forward and hopefully be able to pass very important job creating bills early in the session. host: why is keystone so important? guest: we talk about this last time i was on, the real story of the last five years was the energy revolution. the united states has moved to being the biggest oil and gas producer in the world. the shale oil gas population is just getting, we are seeing it all over the country.

it has power the economy, by the way. one of the reasons i am bullish on the economy is we are going to see an increase of output in the future. what is critical is that we need pipelines to get the oil and gas that we are producing in places like oklahoma to the places where we need it. we need to start exporting the oil and gas as well. in the next five years the united states of america will move from an oil and gas import company to an oil and gas export company. it is necessary for facilitating our energy-based economy. i would make another point, that this is clearly about jobs. these are union jobs, mostly. pipe filters teamsters construction workers electricians.

its pretty clear from the evidence that is much safer to transport oil and gas from pipelines and doing it on trucks or on rails. i think it is environmentally an acceptable thing to do as well. one last point, we don't just need the keystone xl pipeline in the united states we need to create a network of pipelines around the country so that we have the infrastructure. host: will there actually be a vetoproof majority? guest: a great question. [laughter] a lot of people say that mary landrieu, who lost her senate race one month after in a runoff , a lot of people think that that is the reason she lost. this is a bill that 70% of americans support.

they see it as a needed part of the infrastructure. every speech that the president gives on the economy, he talks about infrastructure. we need pipelines in this country. this is a project, by the way that won't cost the taxpayers a penny. host: you mentioned tax changes tax reforms, will this be something significant this year? guest: a tough question. republicans clearly want to begin something big. i think that 2017 after the next presidential year is the time that we really start over with a new tax system. 2015 could be the year where we get something on the business side. remember, the united dates had the highest statutory corporate tax rate in the world. we think that it has put america

at a competitive disadvantage and we could be bringing more jobs and businesses back to the united states. host: what has it been like transitioning to a place like heritage? caller: guest: in -- it will be one of the most influential think tanks in the country. the influence in congress will go up now the republicans are running congress. we have an action team now that is really trying to promote. it is basically on the economy and free markets strong defense with a powerful voice in the years to come. host: let's get our first caller on the line from michigan. what did you like to say to

stephen moore? caller: i had a job for two years and was on -- on unemployment for one last winter, but suddenly gas prices drop down -- i don't know, half? why? guest:guest: great question. the big change in the energy field has been shale oil and gas, a result of these technologies and hydraulic fracking, which make it possible for the united states to tap into hundreds of years of oil and gas. by the way, we are not running out of oil and gas, we are running into a big-time. as we are producing more and putting more oil and gas on international markets, that increase in supplies bringing down the price.

it a lot of very positive effects. for the last 40 years opec has really controlled the world markets for oil but it can no longer do that. this reduction in oil and gas is having a dramatically positive impact on the economy. every time you go to the gas pump, you are paying less. every reduction in the gasoline price puts $1 million more money into the pockets of the american consumers. the main reason we are seeing the benefit of these lower oil and gas prices is because in the united states we are producing a lot more and the rest of the world is starting to figure out fracking and as they do we will see increases for the world supply of oil and gas. host: from twitter, they want to know what guest: when you look at dodd

frank and i have looked at some of the consequences of that law and one of the consequences is that because it requires so many reporting requirements on these banks, you are see in a consolidation of the banking industry. more and more of the financial transactions in this country are being handled by the four or five biggest bank. the consolidation of the banking industry is the opposite of what we want. we want to see hundreds of thousands of community banks in the country so that we don't see centralization. number two, i do think that you need to reform that so that small banks are not at a regulatory disadvantage. the doctrine of too big to fail, are we going to continue to bail out banks the next that we have

a financial crisis? that has never really been resolved. when i talk to community bankers one of the things they say is giving a huge bang -- advantage to these big banks. host: reminder to the callers keep the sound down on your set, we will be able to cut down on the feedback and delay. gail is calling from florida. you're on with steve moore. guest: appreciate your taking my call -- caller: i appreciate your taking my call. i love c-span. thank you, steve, for being on c-span. i was concerned about the budget , about the information in the budget that is going to go back to 2008. you know, with derivatives putting a burden on the

taxpayers. the things that elizabeth warren is concerned about. i want to get your thoughts on that. i am trying to get as much information as i can to understand what congress is really doing with this. it just seems like we are going backwards and forwards. caller: --guest: i agree with you, the last thing we want to see are more bailouts of financial institutions. by the way, i thought the bailouts were a mistake, i thought that we should have made the banks with the worst practices fail. we have now kind of indoctrinated this idea that banks are too big to fail with financial institutions being too big to fail, creating a financial advantage to those big institutions. it's like they have a huge taxpayer safety net underneath them. i want to make one other point about this. in the papers you may have read

-- it did not get a lot of attention at the time -- one of the things that we all know from 2005, 2006, 2007 2008, you have this massive number of foreclosures and mortgages as home prices fell. i think that what was their elected the duty of our federal government was that the federal housing administration are back, believe it or not and this is unbelievable, are back to taxpayer guarantees on mortgages with 3% down payment. one of the lessons we learned in the financial crisis is that the most important factor in terms of what was likely to go into foreclosures were the ones through down payments. wine the world, while the world would we want to go back to 3%

down payment with a 100% guarantee? in my thinking, that would lead right to the very crisis we saw before. >> a timely piece written by our guest in the washington post steve writes about the laffer curve, 40 years old now and looking pretty good. remind us what that is and what you are writing. guest: it is a fun story, the matter what your opinion is of the laffer curve. it is very controversial. 40 years ago this month, a very famous dinner in washington, d.c., dick cheney, and aid for president ford and roosevelt the chief of staff. at that time before we were old enough to remember the mid-1970's, the inflation was running out of control. one of the problems with the

u.s. economy is that tax rates had gotten so high that they are strangling economic activity. he drew a laffer curve at that meeting. it was a very famous incident that really led to, that was the beginning of the reagan revolution, reagan cap -- reagan economics. he reminded us that tax rates do matter and one way you could get your economy to move faster and create more jobs is to bring tax rate down so they are not impeding growth. i think it was one of the most significant economic history lessons in the last years. host: moving on to jim in michigan, independent caller. caller: good morning.

i would like to talk about these maverick republicans afraid to say anything or the media will jump on top of them. sitting on their rare and doing nothing. what will you do about those people? straighten them out? maybe have a big meeting and get them going here. i heard rush limbaugh mention them and who they are. guest: i am not sure exactly what he means by the maverick republicans, but the people who are really more on the conservative side who want to see more conservative reforms. i am a conservative myself. i also understand there is a democratic president and you cannot always get what you want if you are a conservative. the big challenge for republicans and conservatives going forward is how do you move the public hollis e ball in the

direction you want it to go? there is obviously a big showdown a few years ago and i think that was an important moment in history. one of the consequences is that government spending is finally reversed after two years of president obama's a two years in office. some lessons were learned that you have to compromise a bit to get things done. i also think there are times to take a principled stamp and one of those things is obamacare. that will be an issue of great controversy. i think republicans want to change that law, and repeal it if possible. i do not think repeal is probably very likely while barack obama is in office. but you do see major changes to that law. host: let's hear what had to be

said the day after the election on a health-care law. >> obamacare is hurting our economy and middle-class families and is hurting the ability for employers to make more jobs. the house, i am sure at some point next year, will try to remove obamacare. it should be repealed and it should be replaced with commonsense reforms that respect the doctor-patient relationship. whether that could pass the senate, i don't know. i know in the house it will pass. but we will pass it. that does not mean we should not do other things. there are bipartisan bills that passed the house and senate that would in fact make changes to obamacare. others, a bipartisan majority in the house and senate, i think there is a bipartisan majority in the house and senate for getting rid of the independent

payment advisory board in obamacare. how about the individual mandate. a lot of democrats and republicans believe this is not fair. just because we may not be able to get everything we want doesn't mean we should not try to get what we can. host: steve moore, talking perhaps about a broad vote, the more specifically, some pieces of the current system. what are you really expect it to happen? >> i agree with virtually everything the speaker said. a bombing care has not only messed up the health-care system in a damaging way and made health care more expensive, but also, it has been negative for employers. it is true the requirement that if you have over 50 workers, you have to pay the extra costs to cover all your people, has cap employment in a lot of firms of 49 workers. why, when we have 50 million

other people, do we want to pass a law and cap employment? i think what you will see is a bill in the house to repeal obamacare. if it gets the president it will not sign that and you will have to do individual things. there will be a big push to change the worker role make it 250 workers or more that you have to cover your employees. you may be familiar with a 30 hour a week world -- rule, where you if you work more than 30 hours a week, you have to cover your employee with obamacare coverage. a lot of part-time people, i think there will be a move to fix that. maybe most importantly republicans have to show the american people that there is a workable alternative to obamacare. what i have been suggesting it is, but give people alternatives

. they don't want the mandated package and they do not want to pay huge cost, they do not have to. there is an alternative. the reason that is important, i will speak personally, i just had to does sons that graduated from college and they are young and healthy, they can get obamacare coverage two or three times more expensive than the economy's package in the private market that would provide them catastrophic coverage they would need but at a frack it should -- at a fraction of a cost. young people do not have a lot of income. that is the kind of alternative you need to give people. host: steve moore of heritage. caller from ohio. hi, steve. caller: i like your first name because i have the same first name. my question is, if congress passes keystone and the president vetoes it, do you think congress will be able to override the president's veto? guest: thank you.

these are tough questions we're getting. i think there is a chance. here is the problem for democrats right now. they are fighting with the radical environmental movement. 7% of the american people. a lot of people who feel passionately about building the keystone pipeline, jobs. i made the point to republican leaders, this is an opportunity to go to union halls electricians welders people like that, and say, we are the ones as republicans trying to protect and create more jobs, and it is the radical environmentalists who hate industrialization who are trying to do to -- to destroy jobs. democrats look at what happened

to west virginia which used to be a democratic state, and they say, you know what, maybe we are on the wrong side of the energy issue, and maybe we should be for coal and oil and gas, which we have so much of in this country. we will see if we have democrats to cross the line. host: 10 stays on keystone. how many permanent jobs will cost american workers? guest: who knows? when he says he wants to build highways and bridges, these are major job programs. those are not permanent jobs either. they are temporary jobs. but this project will create at least for the next couple years, jobs and will be a vital part of our infrastructure. that is the point. we need the infrastructure to get the energy to the markets. host: staying with twitter --

guest: that is a great question as well. one of the things that is going on here is that saudi arabia, a major oil producer, has been flooding the market with more oil. u.s. production is going up. you have a massive increase in the supply of oil and gas and the price comes down. this has certainly hurt me russian economy. i do not know if this was intentional, but think about the nations being hurt the most i this massive reduction and a massive increase in u.s. production. we know that putin is a bad guy who has been militaristic. isis, we know the terrorists are being funded with petrodollars. we can reduce prices of oil and that hurts the people trying to kill us.

venezuela was hurt by this. iran has been hurt by this. the countries being hurt by the low oil prices are some of our biggest enemies. host: one more point about oil. energy companies are actually bracing for job cuts now and oil prices are falling. we have read a lot about this lately. how do you see this leveling or evening out in the future? guest: another great question. the last 16 years have been stories of massive increases in gdp and jobs from the energy sector. now what we are seeing, because the price is falling, we will see over the next few years to

almost every other sector of the economy because when you think about it, when the price of energy falls the prices reducing and everything in the economy falls. our manufacturing sector will make a big comeback and it already is. michigan will dramatically benefit. the auto industry will benefit. the construction industry will benefit. this is going to provide a big increase in our industrial production in the country and we will see a shift from the oil and gas sector to other sectors. geographically, that will matter. places like texas will not see the big job growth they have whereas the western states, more manufacturing states, they will see an increase. host: florida, democratic line,

ron. caller: good morning. i have seen you on several shows here at i expect good answers. i am originally from minnesota and there is a refinery up there. they have had a three-year project going on and a four-year project to make that -- quadrupled their capacity for the north dakota they -- now the keystone pipeline, that is for canadian, canadian only. being a union electrician, there have been over 1000 job -- guys on that job, electricians and pipefitters, and there will be at least 200 people hired to take and run the refinery, way more than the permit jobs you

are talking about on the pipeline. these are american jobs that will help americans. these are not american jobs helping a foreign country send foreign oil to another foreign country. that, i do not like. that is the one reason there is a shortcut to a refinery rate in minnesota. why in god's name is it going all the way down to the coast? guest: i am so glad this gentleman called impaired we not only need pipelines but refineries in this country. we have not had major refineries built for a long time in this country. by the way, we also need terminals that liquefied gas and transport that well overseas. what will happen over the course

of the next 5, 10, 15 years, north america, canada, the united states, and met -- and new mexico, it will be entirely independent region of the world. the answer to your question is, we will produce so much oil and gas in canada, the u.s., and mexico we will need an infrastructure to get the oil and gas across the continental so it can be sold abroad ear that is why we need these pipelines. host: what is the status of the oil? guest: analog goes back to the 1970's that prohibits the x porting of oil. that is a relic of an older time , when we're in the middle of the oil embargo imposed on the united states. just about every economist and energy expert agrees that law is outdated. as we produce more oil and gas

we need to export the stuff and overturn the ban on x orting. -- exporting. already, president obama has used his decision-making to allow more of that. host: independent caller, good morning. caller: good morning, german. he infrastructure and everything, i live in a blue state, massachusetts, and i think it is because we have got the most homeless. i recently voted for a republican governor because he was talking about jobs. myself, i have been fighting these people against the pipeline of natural gas. it is like they do not want it in their backyard. it is a proven fact that new england needs more energy. the eastern part of our state -- and the western part where i

live is dying and people still fight the pipeline for, "not in my back yard." i can tell you right now the industry is saving on heat and gas and transportation now and it is starting to show that things are getting better, but just the heat in your buildings for manufacturers, they are saving money there so they will be able to up the insurance or whatever. guest: you put it better than i did. the benefits of oil and gas, i get so annoyed the downside of oil prices and the downside of gas prices, there is no downside. in the energy sector it hurts jobs. for everybody else, a huge plus for the economy. this is a windfall for the u.s. economy, falling gas prices,

about $100 billion a year. and massive stimulus for the economy. i am very bullish on the economy. i think the gas prices are changing the u.s. economy in a dynamic way. this gentleman is so right that we need to be producing our energy resources in the country. we don't need oil, we don't need gas, a lot of my friends on the left say, we will provide enough electricity and energy for this country with windmills and solar. that is crazy. we are and industrialization with $18 million economy. we need fossil fuels and we have got a lot of it. we should be exporting the resources we have to create good paying jobs for americans who do not have good paying jobs. host: let's go to entitlement reform, we have a video for you.

it was on a recent newsmaker program here. here is a look. >> the budget is a visionary document. it sets a number the appropriators can use on the discretionary side. it also lays out our vision for how we believe we ought to solve the challenges we face. medicare and social security is going broke. medicaid is no longer providing the kinds of services they need to provide to those into that community. he things concern me greatly. we ought to work to save and strengthen these programs, the other side has not brought about any fundamental reform. i am enthusiastic and excited about the opportunity to be able to put forward our vision to

say, this is how we would save and strengthen medicare, this is how we believe we would save and strengthen and secure medicaid this is how we believe we ought to move in a direction. guest: tom is taking over from paul ryan. they really -- the committee really sets the framework. they already have caps on discretionary spending. if you want to get serious about challenges -- balancing the budget, we need to contain these gigantic entitlement programs. there will be a lot to talk about reforming obamacare, but there are all these other welfare programs and people should remember what happened, i think, back in 1996. a democratic president, bill clinton. a republican congress just like in 2015-sit 2016.

-- 2015-2016. exploding in cost, too many people for whom welfare has become a way of life and it is just not a way for people to progressed economically. what we need to do, i think, is look at the 30-40 major welfare programs and encourage people to get off welfare -- get off welfare and into jobs, whether that is stem or providing incentives. we are providing two years of unemployment benefits that a lot of people felt that was too many and was encouraging people to not find work. north carolina was a good example. it said, we will give you six 9, 12 months, but not two years of benefits. they cutback, size of benefits, and north carolina has one of the biggest reductions in the unemployment rate. if you do not pay people -- if you pay people not to work him a they will not work. when you take away the pavement

-- the payments, -- >> indiana, thank you for calling in, republican line for steve moore. caller: thank you for taking my call. i enjoy watching c-span and especially washington journal on the weekends. i work in the baking industry especially in small, midwestern u.s. back in the subprime lending era, a lot of what has been missed when we talk about home mortgages and what has led up to the foreclosures and what has not been talked about is, why people were revived -- refinancing their mortgages and a lot of it were them

refinancing due to all their credit card debt. and they're debt consolidation. what has continued to happen is the credit card company is continuing with their big offers save 20% on your purchase and opening your credit card. nothing has been mentioned and nothing has been done toward helping people getting off credit card debt. guest: one of the things that was interesting was in 2005, it triggered by massive debt. if you look at data right now businesses have deleveraged. if you look at major companies in america today, their balance sheets look beautiful. they deleveraged massive amounts of debt, they are in eighth strong financial shape. they're sitting on $2 trillion

of capital and cash. savings of households. household debt has actually started to fall in love it which is a good thing. the one area where we are not seeing a reduction in the debt load is government. i think it starts with getting government debt down by covering government spending rate is not necessary. we have not done it in something like 20 years in this country. we have got to get back to a balanced budget by cutting government spending to bring down our debt. host: before you came onto the year -- to the air, one of our callers talk about student loan debt, which has exceeded credit card debt. what is the impact of such a debt burden overall? guest: negative. i continue to provide all of these loans to students at universities.

what we have done is, it is like a dog chasing its tail. listening who have kids in college, and i have one in college right now, the biggest scam in america today is the cost of higher education. it is outrageous what universities are charging american families. a reason they get away with it is the government keeps subsidizing universities. the more we increase student loan amounts, the more colleges increase tuition requirements. i am not so sure we have made colleges more affordable with all these student loans. when a kid graduates from college with debt, they're already two strikes against them. we have got to change the system so we are not graduating a 23-year-old with 75-100,000 dollars worth of debt. host: hey, george. caller: i have a two-part question. first of all, i hear a lot from

the heritage foundation as it relates to the debt and deficit. i believe the deficit has dropped two thirds in the last 4-5 years. guest: under obama, it went to 2.5 trillion dollars. now, 500 billion here is still a big number. a reduction since 2010. caller: is it a lower cost of oil today? how does that impact the same debt? guest: a good question. the governor -- the government produces things and has a massive fleet of automobiles. reduction in gas prices should bring down the cost of government and should help ring down the deficit. this gem and makes an important point. people get confused about the

deficit and the debt there is deficit is the annual amount of borrowing we are doing. this gentleman is right that we are at about $500 billion a year right now. that is still an atrocious number. we are still borrowing over $1 trillion a day in the united states. we have got to rebalance our budget. the debt is the cumulative amount of deficits. the debt right now is above $18 trillion. i find that to be troubling. the biggest debt in the world today is the united states government. i was worried about, what is the impact of the debt? what happens if the interest rates start to rise? interest rates today are as low as they have been any time in 40 years, a great benefit to the economy. if we start to see interest rates rise by 200 basis points to 2% to 5%, the cost of borrowing in the united states government goes way up in that

it becomes, again, another story of a dog chasing its tail. we pay more and more taxes not for the services we want, not for roads and bridges and schools and police and now national defense. we would be paying massive amounts of our taxes just to pay interest on the debt. >> before we wrap up with calls we want to bring something senator mcconnell said recently. talk about something called regular order in the senate. this is part of the process i want to talk about. he says "many of my members are not used to purchasing appropriations bills, but if -- guest: i groove mitch mcconnell. one of the things we have seen in the last years is the reason

we have seen the bill that wrapped up almost the entire budget in $1 trillion bill, just test a couple weeks ago something like a 1600 page bill nobody read, that is no way to make a sausage and it is no way to make a budget. we have to get back to the idea of individual appropriations those, and there are supposed to be 11 or 13 of them. they passed them individually. the defense bill and so on, and you do this in a thoughtful process, you send them to the president, and he makes a decision on whether he wants to sign it or not your the idea of having massive ills all rolled into one that the president either have to sign or shut down the government thomas that is no way to do business. getting back also means ringing up individual items not just on the budget, but anything. the keystone pipeline or obamacare or whatever it might be. let's have a series of votes and under harry reid, there were not a lot of votes.

he simply would not allow a lot of these things to come up for votes. whether liberal or conservative or democrat or republican, i think we all agree to have these members of congress stand up and say, i do not know to these major issues, that is the way democracy should work. host: one last call mike, and independent. are you there? caller: the way i see things are going right now, i do not know with keystone, but i think the way we see this going is that obama did not say he would veto that, and if obama does not veto that and i do not think they have a veto proof majority, if he does not, obama looks that immigration reform or something. the way i see it, the valve has been let up by obama because republicans got the house and the senate and obama is just

going to get nothing but better and his poll numbers will get nothing but better. it is like the health care bill. he is not letting anything happened to the health care bill. he will veto it and he will -- you want to play the repeal game, put your own bill down on the table. it will be time, i think the pressure will be really from obama. he will say, you guys have the majority of both houses. pass some bills and show me what you got. guest: a fair point. i think republicans need to be solutions. the last few years, they voted no on a lot of things. they have to prove to the american people who just gave them a big vote of confidence with a blowout election were democrats got wiped out all over the country, people were saying to the democrats stop and get back to what is important creating good paying jobs for americans.

i am bullish on the economy and we will have a good 2015. the one thing that concerns a lot of people listening to the show is that americans on balance have not had a pay raise now in six or seven years. that means inflation is starting to catch up with them. get back to job number one and president obama said that has to be creating jobs, getting rid of some of the worst features of obamacare that destroy jobs. that should be our primary focus. if congress and republicans and president obama can get together on that, if it is a -- that, it is a positive. host: steve moore, thank you a lot for your time and insight. happy new year. we are about halfway through this sunday edition of washington journal. coming up in a couple of minutes, we will return to the topic of a sexual assault on a college campus.

our guest will be the president of a nonprofit group and later we will switch gears once again and talk to the president of the association of american editorial cartoonists to talk about the year in political cartoons. we will be right back. ♪ [captioning performed by the national captioning institute, which is responsible for its caption content and accuracy. visit ncicap.org] [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2014] ♪ >> tonight the washington post fact checking columnist on his biggest pinocchio's of the 2014 awards. the people he will -- the people he believes made the most false claims in past year. >> democrats had to get more upset because i think they're bothered by the myth of the liberal media, and they think the media is on their side,

which republicans, they firmly believe in the myth of the liberal media. so they kind of expect that they will not be fair to me. i kind of think, i hope, over the last four years, i've done enough back and forth, treated both parties with equal fervor, that people how -- have now come to be grudgingly say, ok, you're someone we can do business with. i know the senate majority pack, affiliated with harry reid, they stopped answering my questions midway through the campaign season. they felt they were not getting a fair shake from me. >> tonight on c-span's q&a. >> new year's day on the c-span networks, here are some of our

featured programs. 10:00 a.m., washed and ideas form, energy conservation with david crane and inventor dean kamen. at 4:00 p.m. eastern, the brooklyn historical society holds a conversation on race. at 8 p.m. eastern, from the explorers club, apollo 17 astronaut on the first manned spaceflight. figures amcs then sue, just before noon eastern, and author on the 43 men buried in a mine. and at 3:00 p.m. eastern, the life of nelson rockefeller. at 8:00 p.m. eastern, for investigative correspondent for cbs news on her experiences reporting on the obama administration. new year's day on american history see -- tv on c-span three, at 10:00 a.m. eastern, one need on her experiences and the role of women in the civil

rights movement. at 4:00 p.m., a brooklyn college professor on the link between alcohol and politics in prerevolutionary new york city. then 8:00 p.m., a cartoonist draws 10 presidential caricatures as a historian discusses the president's and -- and some of their most memorable qualities. new york debt -- new year's day on the c-span networks. for our complete schedule, go to c-span.org. >>/journal continues. host: you remain -- you may remember earlier this year, big 10 and interviewed presidents and other leaders at these universities. we have been doing a follow-up series in the last few days of the year here. we yesterday talked about college athletic programs and tomorrow, the cost of college and is it actually worth it. today, the topic will be preventing sexual assault on college campuses. our guest in oklahoma city is a,

state's john foubert. good morning, professor, and thank you for joining us. >> good morning. my pleasure to be here. host: let's start with the statistic, which gets us to the name of your group, one in four. the organization reports that one in four college women have survived rape or attempted rape in their lifetime. one in four women in the military spirits rape or attempted rape during military service. in my college realm, how did you determine the actual figure, one in four? guest: there have been several studies in the last few decades that found one in four college women survived either rape or attempted rape at some point in their lifetime. the first of those studies was done by a woman at the university of arizona in 1987.

she surveyed students on 32 different college campuses but -- about five thousand students were involved. when she looked at the data from the women, she found one in four had experienced either rape or attempted rape since their 14th birthday. the study was replicated in the 1990's, by the u.s. centers of disease control and finally the department of justice last decade published a study that was a random sample of students on college campuses throughout the country, again finding that one in four college women have survived rape or attempted rape. at that point, it was sometime in their lifetime. something we need to realize about that statistic is that it does not say one in four women are raped during college, which is one of the ways that is sometimes misconstrued. but if you ask college women have you ever experienced rape or attempted rape, and that

could be in high school or later in college, about one in four will respond yes. host: the natural question would then be, why is this happening and is this the the sense -- is it your sense that this is happening more frequently than in the years past? >> the data has been remarkably consistent and that was when the first nationwide study was done. i think it has been, unfortunately, remarkably consistent. we would hope the numbers would go down. >> what are the causes and why is this happening? what are the factors involved? guest: there are many. as one might get, the people perpetrating rape are primarily men, about 98% of rates are perpetrated by men. but certainly not all men perpetrate rape here we need to make that distinction clear. why do they do it? i can tell you risk factors for

men to perpetrate sexual violence. one is that they consume, excuse me, that they didn't drink two or more times a week. the second risk factor is that if they have a peer group around them who somehow support men's violence against women, either through jokes or this -- or just cultural norms. if you can find within striking and support for friends, the individual mail is 10 times more likely to commit sexual violence than other men. there are certainly other risk factors associated with perpetration. lower empathy and more impersonal relationships with women, believing that they are controlled or dominated by women, that is something that threatens them. >> i want to let viewers know how the phone lines will be broken up for this segment. we will go about 50 more minutes. the top line will be for students.

we have a line set aside for parents. educators. and all others. joining us from oklahoma city is john foubert, the national president of a group, one in four. professor, he dug a little bit deeper into things, but let's start with one in four. what is your group trying to do about the issue, and how much success do you think you are having? guest: we have been around as a nonprofit in 19 -- since 1998. what we try to do is get as many of our educational programs that have a very strong research base to them out into colleges and into the military.

we believe the way to responsibly prevent rape is follow the data where it leads. we are a data-driven organization and we develop some educational workshops to provide to both colleges and the military, that have been shown in published studies that have gone through the peer review processes, and in the case of men, to lead to a 40% decline in sexual violence among high-risk men who see it. for both of our programs of men and women, to lead to an increased bystander intervention. the willingness of someone to step in if they see a situation that could turn into a rate, an attempt to stop it. >> i want to go back to a piece of the series we did at universities, the big 10, earlier in the year. one of our hosts read to the ohio state provost, a letter from a female student, written

to the newspaper about what she called and others call "rape coulter" on campus. i will show you that and we will talk more. question was a letter to the editor who says, i have been a student at ohio state for six out of seven weeks and there have been four ordered sexual assaults. she goes on to say there is a rape culture and it must stop. i understand the desire to let loose andriy getaway, but just because you decide to get wasted, doesn't mean the rules all the sudden do not apply to you anymore. just because you're drunk and the girl you have been dancing with all night is john, that does not mean you get to have sex with her or vice versa. guest: that is a wonderful statement. i think it actually summarizes the education that we continually need to do. also, what is critical in this, again, is how we report out

sexual assault on campus and in our surrounding areas area it is a populated area. i think she hit the issue right on the head here and i could not say it that are myself, about the need for this particular kind of education. host: any reaction to what you heard there? guest: i have a couple of reactions. the woman who wrote the letter is surprised to have been four reported rapes in the first weeks of the academic year. and reported is a concern, but one of my thoughts about that is that there are statistics that show there are many, many more rates occurring at a campus like ohio state or, for that matter almost anywhere, then just the few in the first few weeks. if you take a look at the most

reliable nationwide data, you have a rate of 5% of college women experiencing rape or attempted rape every academic year. if that translated into a campus of 10,000 students, 5000 of whom would be women and if you take five or 10% of that figure, that would be 200 50 women every year. that will be on a campus of 10,000 students. 40 or 50,000. one of the biggest issues we have is helping women feel comfortable enough, and men, who experience sexual violence, helping them feel comfortable enough, speaking with administrators and speaking with police about what happened to them so we can begin to get a handle on holding perpetrators accountable far more than we are now. >> let's get to our phone calls in oklahoma city. robert is up first, a parent from riverview, florida. welcome to the program.

>> good morning. i have a couple of issues, a son who is in a college. he is in a fraternity. a daughter will be going to college next year. i want both of them to be safe. i want our daughter to be safe from sexual assault and i want our son to be free from any false accusations. i have noted quite intensely the rolling stone case. i think the journalistic standards displayed there and the fact that an allegation was made it branches of the alleged individual with a stigma that never goes away, whether or not it is justified. what is your organization doing to address issues like, let's not make names of victims or alleged assaulters public until it is substantiated?

host: thank you for your question. guest: there was certainly a lot in there. there is a societal belief that women are out there who simply get angry at a man and decide to throw an accusation of rape against them to somehow get even. if you look at the data, that is really so unbelievably rare as to be almost not worth speaking about. i think any topic of human behavior, we can study but if you take a look at the better data we have, any kind of false reports is extremely rare. well under 10% in data in that case. i would be well under 10% of cases that are actually reported to police and then police believe there is something there that does not quite add up there that does not change the fact

that maybe rape happened and maybe it did not. there are also very few men who are actually held accountable through campus conduct process or through the courts, for particular sexual assault did not occur. one of the things prosecutors will tell you is one of the hardest cases for them to win is a sexual assault case against a perpetrator. the bigger issue here, i think is that there are so many women out there who either will not report because of the attitudes displayed by that color, or they talk to police about something that happened to them, or campus administrator, because they do not think they will be believed. we are trying to educate the public. people in college campuses in the military who false report -- false reports are extremely rare, and rates that do happen -- rapes that do happen are extreme the common.

host: following up on what you just said, nick anderson wrote recently in the washington post about college. here is the story. reluctant to expel for sexual violence, and a prime example at the university of virginia. seeking justice through internal challenges learning that even when allegations are upheld, student officials are still reluctant and often reluctant to impose their harshest punishment on these attackers. that is expulsion. what do you make of the headline and that lead? guest: i have a number of thoughts on that. 10 or 15 years ago, i had an assistant dean of students and i'm quite familiar with that culture. i found when i was on the administrative side of things, a lot of my colleagues were very hesitant to not only have a case against a perpetrator, but

moreover, to expell a student for sexual violence. i think we need a cultural change among university administrators to realize that the worst thing a college can do to a student is to say you have 4500 other choices of where to go to college, but this will not be one of them. in the grand scheme of things that is not a huge consequence. certainly, anything less than that for a crime of rape is unconscionable. we need to do it better job educating university administrators about the trauma involved in rate about how to decide on different cases that came before them, and what are different penalties, and hopefully work hand-in-hand with local police so there is a concurrent process of adjudication through the criminal court system. host: joe is another parent

calling in. good morning. caller: good morning. can you hear me? hello? host: we can hear you just fine. can you hear us? caller: sorry. i'm turning my intercom off. thank you for taking my call. i have always heard a lot of reasons for rape. one of the ones i often hear, and i have been around a long time, is that some part of it is sex, but a lot of the educators say it is always about power and control. i was wondering, has anything ever been studied to find out just how much of it is about sex , and if it is about sex who is the bigger perpetrator of it? host: thank you. let's hear from our guest. guest: there are some

philosophical discussions about that. we need to pay attention to, whose perspective are we talking about? if you are thinking about the perspective of a survivor, a woman raped by a man, her perspective is very much about power and control, the perpetrator took control of my body when i did not want him to. there are some men who commit violence against women who essentially have decided at the beginning of the evening, i am going to have sex with x woman. whether i get it consensually or not, i will proceed. if you think about it, it is a crime that in -- that involves control and power over a woman and sexual behavior. a little bit of both in that case. i do not think we can just say that rape is about sex.

it is a violent crime were one person takes control over another person's body. host: chris in alabama writes via twitter this morning -- we have a call from michael in new york. caller: i welcome c-span's coverage on this and i want to thank everybody. you bring a great wealth of experience and i appreciate that. my name is pastor michael vincent, and you can go to my website, one world life systems, where i have even protested outside of former pope benedict's window. this subject has been dealt with on a front-page story in

november, following up the president's rollout of the public service announcement this year. also, measures that have been taken appeared, as well as being looked at in other ivy league schools and other schools like women down in columbia university. what i would like everyone to start realizing is i have been working over 20 years. africans were not looked at as citizens until the 14th amendment and women were not looked at as visible until 1920. disabled from being raped in the new york seminary and lived with posttraumatic stress. i am not a survivor. i call myself a violated reviver. every day, have to live with this. i think we need to focus not

with college educators, per se. we need to focus that we have a first amendment and everyone is free to practice their faith as they choose. i do not proselytize. what we need to do is cheat -- teach our children at an early age everything about early human rights. host: we will take a look at the website the guest just talked about. go ahead. guest: there are any number of issues brought up in the caller's comments. we should not just limit ourselves to one population when we are talking about educating people about sexual violence. we need to talk about college students and people in the military and the general public and definitely, i would agree we need to educate our children.

i have two small children now. one is a four-year-old lloyd. one way i will educate him right now, we will play games or whatever, if i'm tickling him and he says, stop, i will stop immediately and will say, if someone says to stop, and you say stop, you're supposed to stop right away. a wonderful lesson i learned from my mentor in graduate school, i think there are a lot of ways we can educate people of all ages. i certainly have deep sympathy for the callers experience. i am glad he was willing to share it here on television. >> we talked about colleges that might be reluctant to expel students of sexual violence, but what is the flipside? we have a headline from the recent huffington post about the university of iowa making it clear that rapists will be removed from campus. who is doing this well in terms

of preventing and acting on sexual assault when they happen? >> it is a good step to say, if you are found responsible for rape through a process that involves standard due process in the context of a college or university, that the penalty is expulsion. i think college and university should do that. from a prevention standpoint there are two universities i would highlight here one is the university of pennsylvania. my sense is they are doing a very good job of preventing rape on their campus. we have a chapter of the one in four organization there that has always been very strong. the other one, which may come as a surprise for some people, is the united states naval academy. they have done a great job of designing multitiered

educational programs throughout the experience there. it is not just, let's just do one education workshop and call it done. let's do four years and build on it every year. those are a couple of places i would highlight. >> i want to talk a little bit more about the big ten. when we did our series a couple of months ago, the president of indiana university came on and talked about what i you has been doing this year to respond to sexual violence. here is a look. >> there is nothing more important at the university than the welfare of our students. we are deeply concerned about the welfare of all of our students. earlier this year, we announced a student welfare initiative, which is a comprehensive approach to problems of sexual violence and the other kinds of

issues you have raised across the institution. that is administrative at the very highest level of the institution. two vice president cochair and executive council that is actually responsible to the comprehensive evaluation of -- improvement of these policies in the area. one of the things we are most proud of on this campus, the campus of indiana university is the fact that our students are not just sitting around waiting for the administration to do more to address these issues. . . .

a, a woman is walking down a haul with a man. she is tripping over on her feet, looks like they are headed into a private room. that's the time that students, other students need to get up make sure that the woman gets to a safe place and that the man stays away from her. so, i think that's part of it. and i think it is certainly very helpful when students are embracing that message and educating each other about it. one of the things we found in 1 in 4 is that students need to understand what this experience might feel like from a deeply empathetic point of view before they will be more motivated to intervene as bystanders. so we have been doing programs

on college campuses for over 20 years, and throughout that time, we found that when you combine a very strong victim empathy component with bystander intervention, that's when we get the behavior change. host: manasas virginia, a parent on the line. what's your first name? hello. are you there? caller: hello host: what's your name? caller: sherry. i am from tacoma park. host: thank you for calling. caller: i would like to know officeif the guest could give me a historic perspective part from the '50s, '60s 'and 70s so we can put it in perspective. guest: there is not as much written about what happened with rape on campus prior to the 1980s. >> that's really when the issue of rape on campus the term

"date rape", those sorts of things began to be used. now, before that period of time, what would often happen is there would be different euphemisms like "he took advantage of me." we had "we had a bad date" "i had the bad experience." there wasn't the language at the time to discuss acquaint answer rape. all the rape that was talked about was that that occurred with a perpetrator who was a stranger. so we know little about what happened prior to the 1980s when it comes to rape on college campuses because the data by and large just weren't there host: thank you for waiting michael. >> i think you answered my question. i am from the generation well before the '60s, back in the -- i will be honests. i was born in 925, went through college, high school and

college, and i do not recall the amount of this kind of activity going on and today even in high school. i just wondered: do they have any kind of information on is there a cultural change in america or what? i guess that's my question. host: thank you, michael. the professor and a twitter jumped. have attitudes changed, or are they being talked about more? if they changed, what caused the change? guest: there is attitude change that is associated with different programatic method. if someone has been educated more about sexual violence in a way that is in con sonant with the research some attitudes are likely to change. but most of the public hasn't had good strong research-based education about sexual violence. now, did rape occur in the '20s

and '30s? of course, it did. absolutely. my guess is that the raise weren't a whole lot different than they are now. it's just there was even more reticence to report what happened and less likelihood that a perpetrator would be held accountable. now, today, perpetrator accountability is still em embarrassingly low. we need to do a better job on that. we can only confidently discuss that which we have good data about and the better data started in the '80s. host: where is the u.s. congress on this matter, professor? guest: there are a couple of senators who i think have been helpful, kirstin jillibrand and claire mccaskill and senator blumenthal have begun to push colleges to address the issue of sexual violence to a much greater degree. the entire congress passed the most recent amendments to the violence against women act often transferred to as the campus save act and there are

many helpful provisions in there that will require some more educational programming to be available to students in the conduct process. so, i think one of the reasons why we are talking about it more is that we have a large group of survivors nationwide who banded together to put pressure on congress and some people in congress paid attention. so they are attacking it from a public policy perspective, which, largely, i find helpful. although i think some could be a little more data-driven. but then again i am a professor. that's how i think. >> let's hear from sara from montrose, colorado. she is a parent. caller: i would liable to put forth a perspective i think a lot of people are not considering, and by know means to i wish to blame the victim. these are children. okay? but a lot of times, our fashions these days are so greatly

exposing every possible portion of a woman's body and these young girls are just going to the store and picking up the merchandise that's in stores that everyone seems to be wearing. but i will tell you that if we could get our fashion designers and merchandisers to begin pushing long, flowing skirts and lovely blouses that do not cling to the breasts or show cleavage these girls would begin to be looked at differently by the young boys around them and they would begin to think differently about themselves as well just because others were thinking differently about them. and i don't think it would solve all of the problem, but i do think it might help to cause people to have more respect. i think that showing every inch of your body is causing people to think that your body is the most important thing about you.

host: sara we understand the post. let's get a response from professor fauberg. guest: whenever i hear someone say i don't want to blame the victim but i wait for how they are going to blame the victim. i don't think that's the intent of the caller but there are so many survivors who will second-guess every decision that they made thinking they were somehow responsible for what happened. but the fact is rape happens because usually a man decides that he is going to force his will on usually a woman. so, i think that's where we need to put a lot of our efforts. now, i don't think we will have much success in convincing the fashion industry to do much of anything unless they want to and they think that something will sell. i would take her point to a deeper level, though and say that the pornography industry is, in my opinion, based upon the research providing men with a res pay for rape and women

with messages that they should enjoy it. so, i think maybe going to a deeper level of the woman's comments by talking about addressing the pornography industry where there is rampant violence against women that is rewarded in those movies and video clips and such. >> that's something we really need to address, and i do believe it could have an impact if we did. host: we have about 20s minutes left with our guest in oklahoma city. if you are looking to find out a little bit more about what's going on congress we have some details on the campus accountability and safety act. we touched on it a couple of minutes ago. in part, it would require colleges to conduct annual anonymous survey in which students are asked about their experiences with sexual assaulted on campus. it would require colleges to publish results online so parents can can make an informed choice according to the legislation. it would toughen sanctions for

colleges that will fail to report sexual assault crimes raising penalties from $35,000 per violation to 150,000. it would fine students up to 1% of operating budgets if they fail to investigate reports of sexual assault on campuses. >> from "u.s.a. today." back to twitter two ask this question: can you explain why some universities stop helping victims if they decide to report a rape to the police? does that happen? guest: yes. it does. i mean i think you can take a step back. i mean, usually, what is often an approach opinion college campuses is that they will provide a survivor who comes forward with several different options which could be hearing the case internally going externally to the criminal court system or wherever. there are some universities who believe that if it goes to the criminal courts that they need to wait until the criminal courts make a determination.

from my perspective and from the best advice i have gotten that is a pretty ill--advised way of handling a rape case because if you have a rape that occurs in a residential community, assume that it might have happened whether it's in a fraternity house or residence hall the criminal court system takes a long time to hear these cases. you can provide due process in a university environment where you can hear a case within 60 to 90 days and have an outcome there, and we have to remember, you know, we talked about campus aid. there is also a title ix here universities need to provide an environment that's free of a hostile work environment and a hostile educational environment for students on their college campuses. certainly, cases of rape raise the hostile environment standard and meet that. so,ty think as a university -- if a university is not hearing a case simply because it's going

through the courts they are making a mistake. host: abill calling from bremmer bremmerton, washington. caller: thank you for c-span. host: bill can you hear us okay? i think we might have lost bill. actually, bill, if you want to try to get back in we will try to put you through as soon as we can. nebraska is on the air meantime pat from won netta, nebraska gest: ? >> it's juanita. the lady who called from colorado who will suggested the way women dress causes the problem, and i would like to site the yaw apa. . i tribe, a peaceful tribe and they wear absolutely no clothing except the band around their waist, and they have no rape at all. so, you know it's a cultural ailment in my opinion in our country, and there. >> that's my comment.

host: thank you. jim from fort knox kentucky a parent. hey, jim. caller: yes. i would like to ask your guest why his numbers are so much different from the doj study made from 1995 to 2013 where the page 13 says 95% of the time, the rape and sexual assault rape would fall between 5.0 and 7.2 per 1,000 persons versus the 1 in 4 that your guest quotes. host: professor fouberg. guest: i appreciate that very much. there are different ways of measuring the presence of college rape on campus or society in general. the statistics are what i believe to be the most method logically samples. they would involve random samples of college students on multiple campuses and that sort of thing. and actually the most receipt study where the statistic did

come from the department of justice. there is no branch in the department of justice, though that publishes rape reports based upon some methods that have come to be questioned over the last couple of decades particularly because one of the methods that's commonly used is that they will call a house, a home line they will talk to whoever is on the phone and they will say, has anyone in your house experienced, you know, theft, armed robbery, rape those sorts of things? and if the person on the phone doesn't know that someone else in that house has experienced rape because they haven't shared that with them, that's not going to come up in their data set. so, i think we need to ask people directly what has happened to them. the other thing is that will if you -- some of these rapes happen on college campuses. if you are calling a home line in a residential community, college students are often away at college. and so they are not going to be

included in much of that data. so we need to look at what the questions are, what's the point of this study. i think our most responsible efforts are informed by nationwide random samples and looking at prevalence in that way. host: if you are interested in reading more about the numbers glen kessler in his fact-checker pace on page a-4. white house is fighting campus assault. where does it get statistics? it goes through how the white house goes about finding its own information out there. they talk repeatedly about 1 in 5. what do you make of the white house efforts, professor, in this area? white house, the administration? guest: well i am glad at the very highest level of our government there is concern about sexual violence. i think, though sometimes when you have elected public officials who are trying to

address a problem that is very deep-rooted, cultural and that there are a lot of differing data sources out there and you may have people writing the reports who are 23, 23, out of college, you know, working for the staff of someone in the white house, they may not have the sophistication to determine the validity of one study or another. the 1 in 5 statistic that's often quoted is not one that i often quote. it comes from the united states centers from disease control and prevention. in my opinion, rape isn't a disease, and i question whether the u.s. centers for disease control is even able to get a handle on ebola, let alone rape. so, i think we need to look at justice department studies, u.s. department of education, studies that are done by scholars. but i do think that it is helpful that the white house is pushing this agenda and putting the weight of the white house behind it. i just wish that in some cases,

they had a little bit better advice on the data that they could be quoting. host: move okay to dalton ohio, a parents named mike. good morning to you, mike. caller: following this real closely, this show, i just turned it on heard you talking about rape on college campuses. host: uh-huh. caller: i think several things are conspiring to promote this idea. one of them, of course is this hook-up culture. i don't know if you talked about this morning or not. another thing is, you know, just general general immorali. y, speech codes, speech codes on college campuses political correctness. host: mike, as a parents when you hear that term, "hook-up culture", what does it mean to you? what do you hear? caller: well, that just i don't know kind of like intense dating, i guess. i don't know. it's like just general immorali.

y. girls are going along with this hook-up culture. guys seem to be in control. i don't know if it's a -- if it's an image problem or what that women have today or young women are easily coerced into foolishness. they have no moral base. same with men. i am not making a distinction here but host: that being said as well we have been talking about the university's approach to all of this, mike. what should the universities be doing that they are not doing in your view? guest: mike, are you still there? i think we lost mike. let's go back. caller: i am still here. host: are you still here? the role of universities. caller: they have to get away from speech codes and political correctness, i think, and, you know, they are so out of touch

with traditional values. i don't like that phrase "traditional values" but more a lot morality like the bibleliable says in -- i am not sure where it is but anyway it says, "flee fornica. ion." i think, you know, really action truthfully colleges are a confusing rape with foreigninication. guest: rape absolutely is a moral issue. when a man makes a decision to rape a woman, that is a morally deficient decision and there are any number of world views that i think could be in agreement with that. i think that there also is what's called a hook-up culture on college campuses and i think, you know, essentially,

shared physical activity between two or more individuals of a sexual nature. is that the reason that we have rape on campus? i wouldn't say it's necessarily the reason we have rape on campus. also in the context of a consentual encounter, sometimes that will turns into something that is not consentual. i think there are certainly aspects of hook-up culture in the united states and worldwide that could be addressed that would help us to decrease the prev lance of rape. so, i guess i would relieve it there. host: let's hear some input from the provost at ohio university. he was on our program during our big ten series earlier this year. talk about what osu is doing about sexual assault on campus and violent crime. it is in an urban setting. let's listen to that and we will talk to our test.

[ video clip ] i for 1 see this is in the headlines. here at ohio state, we spend a lot of time trying to educate our students about sexual assaults and i would say violent crimes in general for a good reason. ohio state is in an urban setting. there are approximately 1.8 million people in the columbus area and our campus sits right in the middle of this urban area just a couple of miles from downtown columbus. so what comes with this kind of a setting are crimes just like you would expect in any large american city. so we have a special duty i think, of educating students about violence and particularly sexual violence.

so we have spent time developing programs and making sure that we are doing a good job in this particular area. there was a report released about ohio state and applauded ohio state for what it's doing. we are moving forward with some criticisms from that report including streamlining and simplifying the instruction and really making sure that access is all that we can for this information, because it's a critical -- it's a critical issue. host: to our guest profitsor fou fouberg, anything you want to respond to there? guest: i found it a little odd that he kept saying the word "urban." there is violent crime in urban areas but we are talking about the subject of rape and rape on college campuses happens

overwhelmingly among students who know each other, wherever that college campus is located. so, he also made brief mention to them being applauded by the -- i believe the office of civil rights the u.s. department of education. you know to get a tension from the office of civil rights and the department of ed usually something has gone wrong. so they would issue a report and they any say here are some things the university is doing well. here are some things they are not doing well, that they need to change and if they don't change them, they could lose federal funding. so i don't think that necessarily sounded like something to trumpet to me. i think that university and all universities would do well to understand the nature of their campus culture, the culture among their students and to figure out how to adapt different rape prevention programs to that campus to help address it and just as important, how theo hold perpetrators accountable and expel them if they have committed rape.

host: we have a student on the line ron welcome to the program. caller: i have been listen can to the show. i feel like not any students have contributed you have been talking about the subject of victims is and forcing them to do something they didn't want to do. in my experience, i am a fraternity member and i am a single guy. i have a lot of sex with a lot of women. what i find a lot of times is these people they go out, try to get them as drunk as possible. i am not blaming any victims. i know you are going to call me out, john but they go out. they think they are a fun time. they try to be as edgy as possible. like the woman said they wear prove okayocative clothing. a lot of times they are looking to have sex. take the girls out on dates they get hammered. we go back to my place. thinks go my next morning. the next do they regret it? i don't know, man. a lot of times, you are focusing on the few minority of guys who go out and target women

specifically. they drug them or whatever the case happens and then they end up having non-consentual sex. host: let me jump in. which school are you attending out there? ron? are you still there? caller: yes, i am. host: which school are you at gest: t gest: (inaudible.) host: you described a scenariowhere when you are going out. what is ule role? what do you think your role is in that situation? caller: have you ever seen the james bond movie where he approaches the woman and he says something very suave and he is trying to get her into his bed. i don't think i am forcing anyone. i am not coercing them in any unlawful way. but it's kind of the part of the whole dating scene. you come out as that guy that they want to sleep with and you play that role and they love it. they absolutely love it. host: has your school put out any information of substance that you have been able to see that has helped counsel folks,

guide folks in this area? caller: yeah. yeah. we had a pretty big deal on campus about some basketball player, god knows what he did, but he was being called out for rape. look, i don't -- the university does just like every university out there. i don't think that that's really the problem. i think teaching your daughters, you know, the frat houses are swarmed with these girls getting out there getting as drunk as possible. why isn't alcohol usage taught by parents? why is it the university's program? host: professor reaction? guest: i have several reactions. one is, i will point back to data. you look at fraternity members, three times more likely to commit sexual violence than others on a college campus. part is they tend to be in cultures where they are supported for -- some tend to be in cultures where they tend to have support from their peers to act in ways that are violent towards women or take advantage

of them sexually. i think the caller mentioned, you know, the possibility of a woman being drugged. well the number one date rape drug in the united states is alcohol. and one of the things that we know about perpetrators from studying them for many many years is that they tend to use alcohol to lower a woman's defenses so that she is unable to physically resist the sexual advances of a man. and so i think that caller and certainly many others need to be very careful about their own behavior if they are around women who they wish to have intimate contact with theand if that person is physically helpless they need to stay away from that whom. if they decide they want to do something at a time when both are sober within their own moral framework, that's certainly their decision to make. and certainly, you know, i don't think it's a great decision to consume a lot of alcohol,

whether you are a a man or a woman. and be around a lot of people you don't necessarily know well where bad things can happen. the sad thing, though is that when women experience rape, it's often at the hands of someone that they do know. so, i think that the caller needs to take a closer look at his own behavior at the behavior of his friends. why is it, for example, that he feels like he needs to go out and have a lot of sex with a lot of women all of the time? in what ways does that put him at risk? and in what ways is that really healthy? and so i would just encourage looking at a whole lot of those issues. host: let's hear from. ory with winchester, ohio a parent. hey there. caller: yes. what about the parent that today, you have the conversation with your father which is my father's conversation he had with me he turned around one day and thought, oh, my god she is growing up and had to have the conversation even though my mom

had had the conversation with me to protecting yourself and respecting yourself and that your body is yours and nobody can take it unless you give it to them. host: thanks. role of parents there. do those conversations make a difference do you think? guest: i don't think we have good data on it but i do think parents need to talk to their children, both boys and girls, about how to establish physical boundaries how to say no how to say no firmly how to communicate your desires. and i think all of those can be very helpful. i am all for education at all levels and i do think that we have a missed opportunity in many cases of parents who don't talk to their children about sexual behavior or where our family believes that that's okay, and it could be in the context of marriage. it could be in other contexts, if people have other world views. i do believe that we should be educating our sons and daughters about how to respect someone's "no" and how to say, "no" firmly

and forcefully if something is happening you don't want to have happen. host: our last call from john, a students caller: thank you for accepting my call. i want to make sure when something happens, i want the person involved. if someone has to sometimes you see a lot of cover-up that the university may be covering up. they don't want it to get on there. something like that. we need girls to be safe no matter where they are. host: thanks john. professor fouberg, were you able to hear that? guest: only bits and pieces. host: the importance of police in all of this. guest: please i think need better training on rape trauma and how women tend to speak

after they experience a serious trauma like rape and it's not always linear and there are different parts of an experience that will appear in their memory later on down the line and sometimes something they say may seem to conflict in their story that. doesn't mean they are lying. >> often means that they are under the influence of a very serious trauma. so, i hope we get to the criminal court system for rape that occurs on campus. my primary emphasis is on working with colleges and in the military but in this case colleges to fairly and justly deal with rape on their campuses through prevention and, also through policy and to make sure that if someone is found responsible for rape that they are no longer part of that campus. host: joining us from oklahoma city is john fouberg, national president of the group called 1 in 4. he is also a professor of higher education and student affairs at

oklahoma state university. thanks a lot for your time. the statistics and the calls from our viewers. we appreciate it. guest: thank you for the opportunity. host: we have under a half hour left in the sunday edition of "washington journal." we will switch gears and talk with jack oman of the american editorial cartoonist and look back at the year 20s 14, editorial cartoons. we will be right back. ♪ >> tonight on q & a t john kessler on his bigestly pinocchios of 2014. he who he believes made the biggest false claims. >> democrats tend to get a little more upset at them because i think they have bought

into the myth of the liberal media where they think the media is on their sides. republicans believe the myth of the liberal media. so they kind of expect that they are going to be, you know oh, it's the "washington post" calling. they are not going to be fair to me. i kind of think -- i hope over the last four years i have done enough back and forth, treated both parties with equal fervor that people have now come to, you know grudgingly say, okay. you are someone we can do business with. i know that the senate majority pac, which is affiliated with harry reid they stopped answering my questions midway through campaign season because they felt they were not getting a fair shake from me. >> tonight at 8:00 eastern and

pacific on c-span's "q & a." monday night, on "the communicators" amy mitchel of the pew research center on political policyarization and where people get their news. >> until particular, they are still really the largest, you know, that the outlet that has the greatest percentage of the american public using it in terms of sites. about half of our respond events said that they got political news from facebook in the last week. >> said, social media facebook in particular, about on par with local television and some of the other top outlets. so we clearly know it plays a role how they are learning and who they are communicating with. what we found when we broke down the differences ideologically is that the consistent conservatives were much more likely to have circles of friends and see political posts that are more in line with their

own political thinking more so than those that are missed and more than consistent liberals. consistent liberals are more likely to de-friend someone if you will, drop someone because of their political views. >> om cspan-2, monday night, on "the communicators." "washington journal" continues. host: hard or soft /*. >> a shot of marchtin luther king back in 1963. in the bubble the caption, it says, "i have a dream but it's crossed out and it says, "i can't breathe." jack ohman drew that. he is president of association of american he hadtoral cartoonists. thank you for joining us from san francisco. what was the message you were sending in this cartoon?

guest: good morning, first of all. the message, the original optimism of 1963 and civil rights has been very much obscured by, you know the terrible events of the last couple of months where it seems like we have been making so much progress with the election of president obama and in 2008 and is it seems like our race conversation has turned into kind of a mobious strip that turns in on itself. we keep having the same conversation over and over again. so that was what i was getting at. host: what's 2014 been like for folks in your profession? what was the most important top issues folks were drawing about? guest: certainly rape is at the top. i did a lot of cartoons about polarization of american

politics and what's going on washington right now. so just the lack of, you know simply diplomacy between the parties it's been disturbing. i am 54 when i actually got started in cartooning in 1978, i had worked in politics prior to that and i was a driver for a congressional candidate. it seemed like back then there was just much more comi. y as opposed to comedy. jerry ford and ronald reagan and tip o'neill, they all talked to each other. now, it just seems like there is absolutely no real communication between the leadership and congress and the president. >> that's very troubling. it's great for cartooning. host: we will put phone numbers on the bottom of the screen for our guest. jack ohman of the association of american editorial cartoonists. we are talking about portraying

the new news cycle in terms of what these folks are drawing. so we look forward to your calls and your input. here is another cartoon that was drawn by our guest. it's sort of a takeoff on the three wise men called the three wi-fi men. one of the folks is saying i will mapquest this. another is saying we could order gold, frankincense and myrrh on al zon and another saying forget it. i lost the signal. i think north korea just hacked us. what do you decide to draw? guest: i had a friend once who i think very accurately portrayed editorial cartooning as editorial writing in hiku form. people think of cartooning as a drawing job. i think of myself primary as a writer in short form. so, i am looking for phrases

before -- in the actual execution of the idea. the first thing are you really looking for is the subject and there are so many things going on in the news. i remember senator howard basicallier saying what did he know and when did he know it? i am trying to decide what the reader knows and when he knew it. once i have established that i can work backwards from there. so, i am just looking for some small phrase and so, you know, in the case of this annual christmas cartoon 3 wise men, i just keep running praises through my -- phrases through my head all day. that's all i do. three wise men, three wise men, 3 wi-fi men. so, then i had first wise men saying, i will mapquest it. they are all on devices. and nobody uses mapquest anymore. it's google maps. i am 54.

i am obviously technologically challenged. i had a. sr-80. >> that's the job in a nutshell to be reductionist and to be quick. i have always said that there is, you know 100,000 people who can draw better than i can. but there are probably only 50 who can get it done by 4:00 o'clock every day. host: another one from our guest. tortured logic with dick cheney the shot of the former vice president, a drawing there reference to waterboarding it may not be who we are but it is who i am. tell us more about this one. guest: well, i have to say that cartoonists are -- they have favorite subjects and they have favorite characters and i would say that, you know cheney is certainly somebody who probably falls under my favorite subject,

and so in this particular case i am referring to his i think, over interest in having fun with waterboarding and again, i like to try to do simple concepts when i can and so i was -- i really like drawing cheney. host: what kind of responses do you get from readers about the cartoons that you draw? what do you hear most? guest: well, you know in the polarized society that we live in, you get either "you're my hero" or "your mvp the worst thing in journalism" i would say in sacramento i would say the majority of my responses have been positive, and, you know cartoons at their best provoke thought on both sides.

and i think that the people you hear from are probably the same people that congressmen hear from which is people have a very strong vested interest in one outcome or the other. so subsequently, you know i rarely hear from people in the middle. gu-i hear from people who are horribley offended or people who think i should be running for governor of california. host: we will get to calls in a moment here, jack ohman, but the role of the cartoonist how influential do you think cartoonists are to the political process in this country? guest: it's hard to say the i think it depends upon the market. i think, you know, somebody who is drawing cartoons in new york probably isn't as influential as somebody who is drawing cartoons in sacramento or dayton ohio, or someplace like that. i think, you know, particularly when you do a local cartoon, you can really get some things done

very quickly, and i recall in particular when i was a cartoonist at the oregon's nian and nike their world headquarters had their child day care center named the joe paterno child development center. so, i spent several minutes hammering on nike to get them to change the name of their day care center, and, you know, i think it worked. and they did it. now, when you are in washington, d.c. and there is this vast horn of information coming at you all the time, you know, i don't know how influential they are. i think in the media, which you always hear is oh, the cartoonists will have a field day with this. so, you know, there is a cumulative effect, i think of cartoons, whether there is a specific effect in a market like washington, i am not sure. i think back in the '50s when herb block did a cartoon, i think there was a huge effect. i think there are so many information sources now. when i started cartooning in

1978, there was no internet, no cell phone no c-span. there was nothing no no nothing. now, it's just there is just everybody has a rock in this flowing stream of information. so, it's hard to get used to it. as we go to calls for our guest, we will go first to lou in rich perlman, virginia. looking at cartoon while we take this call. beware of the cartoonists who dwell among you part of our guests recent work am we will hear from lou. hi lou. caller: how are you? thank you for taking my call. host: uh-huh. caller: the thing i would like to know is how does the gentleman keep his personal opinions out of the cartoon or or does he express his personal opinions because for me in my whole life -- i am 55 years old, the political cartoons have been very funny very engaging and

made a lot of points. even the stuff that was written and drawn before i was born make a lot of impact in a very poignant poignant, to the topics of the time. how do you keep your personal opinion out of it, or are you expressing your personal opinion when you make these wonderful drawings? host: which one is it jack ohman? guest: those are my personal opinions. >> that's what's good about political cartooning. it's an unvarnished, personal opinion. now, i think, you know, if you are one side or the other i think in my own case i feel like i got an obligation to be somewhat ecumenical in my commentary. >> doesn't mean i contrad i can't myself. i don't. but if i see a democrat is messing up i will call a democrat on that. if i see that a republican is messing up i will call them on that. but i mean you can't. you have to be partisan. you have to be opinionated.

otherwise, what do you have? tough a bowl of oa. meal. it's unobjectionable, and nobody is going to eat it. host: one of our guest's recent opinions, a cartoon, a picture of congress actually capitol hill, and in front of it is a sign immigration reform. it's pointing in one direction. but in the other direction is a fence. and the caption there says, "over the top with the g.o.p. congress." you can see them leaping over the fence saying things like obama's a dictator. obama's a king. ol and on and on. jack ohman, how much have you drawn about this immigration topic, and where did this come from? guest: well i have been in california i have done quite a bit and it's such an obvious subject where people have completely lost their minds, and i think when there is this collective mania in washington which seems to be more and more

prevalent about almost any given subject, when you have a situation where you have a congress where about a 5th of it is completely unreasonable and seems to be the rudder on a great ship then, you know immigration reform is one of those hot button subjects. and so i think it's very troubling to see the debate steered the way it's been steered. and so that's obviously one of the things that all canrtoonists have been commenting on. host: independent caller done a, calling. caller: my call is regarding the three wise men and the hacking incident. so many of our officials seem to have adopted this -- something i learned as a child, that if you

chant take it, don't dish it. so what i don't understand is: how come there is so much fuss about north korea hacking sony or entertainment system or corp? how come there is so much fuss about it when the united states are the kings and queens of hacking? host: thank you so much. jack ohman guest: all i know about hacking is my iphone. this is not my department but i would have to say that i notice that the north korean internet was shut down for nine hours. obviously we have some expertise in that area. i have no idea. i mean obviously, this is something where i think it's fascinating that, yes sony got hacked and, yet sony we have just been talking about sony pictures for the last week, and that's also

an interesting marketing opportunity for them. and now they've got, you know, the hottest movie in the united states because of it. so, you know i can't speak to, you know our culpability in hacking versus north korea's other than through cartoons. host: to politics, do you consider all political figures fair game? any concern over ruffling feathers over what you do? guest: this is the job. we are one of the few parts of the american journalism i think, where, you know, ruffling feathers is part of the job description. i think it's a key element to what we do. and if we don't do ruffling feathers and more we are not very effective. i think that political cartoons quite frankly are way more effective than they were 50 years ago because i think that it's a more pointed culture in a lot of ways and i think that we are able to say more in a lot of ways. i think that the -- our ability

to say those things illustrates our ability to make a clearer point. and that's really important. host: one of the other cartoons out there, from our ghost, from ken ca. alina, a picture of a new york police officer looking over a casket >> a coffin with a flag draped on it and it said: we have paul a republican, on with jack ohman from the association of american editorial cartoonists. caller: good morning, c-span. there was a comment that the gentleman made about cheney that was -- that i wanted to get my take on. he said cheney was having fun with waterboarding or something to that effect something,

something absolutely preposterous. cheney is about protecting the united states, and doing what's necessary to gain valuable intelligence from the extremetists action the imamis. who want to commit mass murder on a grandiose scale. okay? and moreover, many people would argue that waterboarding is not torture but it is an enhanced interrogation technique we use on a handful of high value terrorists. so it is pathetic. it just shows you how divorced he is from the reality of the threats that we face. host: let's get a response from our guest. guest: there is a ruffled feather right there. we speak pointedly and feathers get ruffled. i don't think that dick cheney's

interest in the waterboarding reflects american values. i really don't. and i am not the only one who thinks that. i think that when you have a situation where america is supposed to stand for something, that there are american values that are important and everybody, you know, any -- i have heard so many security experts say that this kind of torture is not enhanced interrogation method. it's torture. it doesn't really work. they say the buddy method works. i heard an interesting thing on npr a ku8 of weeks ago where an fbi interrogator said that younger trainees were coming in saying, okay. where is the waterboarding? where is the torture? and they said basically, well this isn't -- doesn't work. this isn't the way we do this. we get to know them. we work it out of them that way. i am fully aware of the threats the united states in case terrorism and i will tell the callers i was a naval officer candidate right after 9-11. so

i certainly am well aware of the security threat but i also don't think that pulling people's fingernails off or waterboarding them is a particularly effective method. host: as we take the next call from peter, a cartoon jeb bush, the gop obstacle course. you can see him looking to overcome any number of obstacles. there is a hurdle with some barbed wire on it. there is a hot bed of coal a snake coming down, a ring of fire and a crocodile at the end. tough road ahead, they are trying to say here for the candidate or potential candidate. peter, mount pleas ants south carolina. independent. hey there. caller: the cartoonist, whether he has ever made a cartoon marking sharia as he has knocked christian tradition with his

magi scene? host: guest: i think jesus had a sense of humor. i don't think i was mocking christian tradition using the three wise men which is thousands and thousands of cartoons have been drawn over the years by many many cartoonists where this was used as a me. aphor aphor host: someone via twitter do people ever not just get the joksz you are putting out? guest: get just on this show apparently. no. it happens. there is misinterpretation. one thing i don't want to do when i am drawing a cartoon is have, you know, make what i think is a clear point and then have some little problem with the cartoon that i miss somehow that makes that other problem the point, and so that's, you

know, it's important to be clear. host: back to paul several cartoons published in the "washington post" has a shot of an he feelelephan. tea party insurgents have been beaten back and the establishment won. those different lines get said the elephan. mofshz into a tea pot self from tom tos. we have another one to show you from mike lukevich a shot of the president and his daughter sasha, going to a middle school open house. and sasha is saying to the president, i am in a close race now for hall monitor. so we don't know each other. arlene pittsburgh republican good morning. caller: yes. i was just as disturbed by his remark about dick cheney as the last person.

and he called himself ecumenical, but all of the cartoons that i have seen prove him to be a veer much liberal, and this business before he came on you had a promo of your program tonight saying the myth of the liberal media. i mean come on. it's not a myth. and we all know it. and the only cartoon you did show that was really basically like a conservative or people who care about other people was the one with the police officer and the coffin. and then the rest of them were definitely like against the republicans in congress and as far as the religion goes, that last caller was right, christianity -- and i love that expression, it's a liberal expression that jesus had a sense of humor and i am sure he

did have a sense of humor, but let's get real. host: jack ohman? guest: this has been really fun. thanks steve. well look. i i think you have to look at not just my work in its totality but every cartoonist in its totality. so, i am drawing cartoons in sacramento, writing a column in sacramento and writing editorials in sacramento. you have to look at the sweep of what everybody is doing. what the caller is saying is, you know, some randomly selected cartoons over the course of 20 minutes. and so, you know if she is not seeing everything that i have done, she is not seeing everything that tom. olls has done so, you know, i do try to be ecumenical. i am not saying i don't have a point of view. i do have a point of view, and i get to express that. conservatives get to express theirs in my newspaper and on c-span and liberals get to express theirs on c-span and

c-span has democratic republican and independent callers alternating and to me, you know there is no essential fairness. i mean like john kennedy once said, life is unfair. it is kind of unfair. but i am sure that there will be lots of conservative voices coming up in the next, you know... host: one last call and cartoon from glen mccoy that came out december 22nd on a serious note. this is a cartoon. a picture of al sharpton and protesters behind him. what do we want they act as cops? when do we want it? now holding a bullhorn over a slain new york police officer. a call from charlotte, atlanta, georgia. democrat. good morning, sharcharlotte. caller: i called in listening to your program and scott. olls are great. what disturbs me is we have so much division in this country that we are totally can't even

see the truth and these cartoons are really telling what's going on this country, and it is just so sad that the people of this country are so divided that we can't seem to move forward against racism cops. it's just really sad. thank you for letting me have this time. host: any response from our guest in san francisco? guest: there is a great deal of division in this country. i suspect that, you know, when you look at the election returns, it's a very closely divided electorate. i think that the most important thing to remember is we are one kuntz try. >> that's the basic way to succeed is to keep lines of dialogue going. some of my best friends are

republicans, and when i say things and others say things, it can be disturbing to people. you know they do illustrate an essential truth. i think people need to see an essential truth or some version of somebody's essential truth and, you know, we are all human and we are all mortal and i think that what i have tried to do is at least be intellectually honest in my work. i know most of my other colleagues try to do that too. host: jack ohman, editorial cartoonist, thank you very much for your time this morning from california. guest: good to see you. thank you so much for having me. host: thank you for all of your questions. washington journal starts every day at 7 o'clock. here is a quick look at tomorrow's program the 29th of december. campaigns and political landscape. we will look ahead to 2015 with liz chadordon and phillip s.