neutrality built well discuss the ruling and what it means for the way that you use the internet with our broad ski then you know that our show brings you all of the latest information from the war in afghanistan but it seems like the mainstream media is doing the same and fact a new study shows that the media has only devoted four per cent of air time to this war even though it seems like there are daily updates ranging from casualties to policy changes coming from the obama administration so what's the deal and we're going to ask professor christopher chambers then analysts are warning that one hundred u.s. cities are facing defaults on their municipal bonds going to speak with anthony rand about what this morning warning could mean for the u.s. economy and we'll tell you about a very creative way the one town is fighting the economic crisis millinocket maine is facing a serious unemployment thanks to globalization and we're going to tell you how the local school system is thinking of bringing bringing the money back in by turning to china for help but discuss that at the end of the show but now let's move on to

our top story. the new start treaty passed a key procedural vote today with a sixty seven to twenty eight vote to pass a closure motion and enter into the final voting stage tomorrow eleven republicans joined in with fifty six democrats on the motion so it looks like we're almost there now you hear us talking about the start treaty on a regular basis but let us quickly remind you of what exactly is involved now the entire goal of the treaty is to create a bilateral effort between the u.s. and russia to reduce the amount of nuclear weapons in the world and there was a previous start treaty between the two countries signed in one thousand nine hundred one limiting both signatories to a mere five thousand strategic weapons not including any weapons attached to ballistic missiles but the new start treaty why have a new set of guidelines reducing the total arsenal for both parties by seventy four percent more than what was proposed in the original treaty so let's lay out what's involved in the new start both countries all reduce their nuclear warheads to one.

thousand five hundred and fifty within the next seven years the treaty also states the warheads on deployed intercontinental ballistic missiles and heavy bombers equipped for nuclear armament are included in that count and the treaty doesn't have any constraints on any currently planned u.s. missile defense programs despite what republicans might try to tell you the treaty also includes verification requirements with on site inspections that exchanges and providing notifications on any strategic arms and facilities and the treaty will last for ten years unless a new agreement is drawn up within that time frame and unless you're opposed to reducing the number of nuclear weapons in this world there really isn't that much that you can say to oppose this treaty hard as republicans tried so if all goes as planned tomorrow what could this mean for the world well here to discuss with me is max bergman nuclear nonproliferation policy analyst at the center for american progress thanks so much for being here thanks for having me well this is really exciting and we cover this all the time i know this is you know what you're focusing on lately so it looks like we're almost there do you think that tomorrow

they're going to have the necessary votes to finally seal the deal they should and it looks promising i mean unless a meteorite hits or some you wrote revelation comes out in the next twelve hours they're going to have the votes the as you said they had eleven republicans join them today looks like they're going after twelve when senator gregg from new hampshire he didn't vote today but if you vote tomorrow so they're going to have the votes to pass it and this is just a huge historic accomplishment for president obama this is been a very painful process to watch that i mean we've seen a lot of republican opposition and they've come up with every example basically to try to stop at the you know the every excuse they've said that well this is going to you know hurt our missile defense plans even though that language is only in the preamble it is not binding language at all they've also said you know this is going to hurt our national security but none of that is true they said that they haven't had enough time to work on this the treaty was signed in april by both presidents but i won. if you know this was all for political games because now we've heard

rumors that well in exchange the senate is going to vote on it banning any civilian trials for get no detainee and so is this just a careful game that they played no i think i really think it was and i think i think senator kyl the minority whip for the republicans tried to play a game in which he wanted to stall and stall and stall and essentially kick start into the next senate where he would have more votes have more leverage potentially get more extort more from the ministration in nuclear weapons funding or just kill the treaty quietly i think he they i don't think republicans anticipated the white house actually playing hardball with them and senate democrats playing hardball with them i mean what you saw you're exactly right that you know every every complaint they made about the treaty substantively got shot down again and again and again and then what we saw is that all they had at the end were procedural complaints complaints that you know you're doing this right before christmas we didn't have time to read it but you know there is this sort of an attack on

christian right is not interesting if you will there's also this contradiction where we didn't have time to read it yet then you're going to complain about the preamble attaching missiles and it's either one of the other either you've read it and you have a complaint or you didn't read it and were just lazy to you could read a sixteen page preview of the you know i think something was done though to sweeten the deal here when obama and hillary clinton were making phone calls i mean the white house tried aggressively to get senator kyl on board and they were sweeten the deal by giving more money to the nuclear weapons complex but when kyle pulled the plug on that deal the white house doubled down and said we're we're going going forward i think this was just a game of chicken and in the end the republicans swerved and lindsey graham today had a comment after the vote where he said senator majority majority leader harry reid ate the republicans lunch essentially saying that reid had bested them throughout the lame duck process so i think it was just the republicans play chicken with the treaty in the end there was enough republicans that were willing to do something stupid on national security. and we're willing to actually put politics ahead of

national security and will decide to vote for the treaty when we had all sounds fabulous you know if all goes as planned tomorrow and they vote on it then i mean that's a wonderful thing right reducing the number of nuclear weapons in the world but there are still more than fifteen hundred for each country i mean how many times over it can you still destroy the world with the weapons that are left well i i think you know this is a first step in the key you know part of the reason why obama won the nobel peace prize was because of his broader vision of saying that we want to reduce the role of nuclear weapons and eventually get to zero this is the this is a first step he's taken steps on global nuclear security with the nuclear security summit here in april the next step i think is going to be another round of talks with russia about tactical nuclear weapons about more cuts to strategic nuclear weapons and i think there are certain things u.s. can just do unilaterally we don't need as you said fifteen hundred fifty strategic nuclear weapons we can begin to reduce our nuclear arsenal unilaterally and send a message to the world that we don't need these things so you know i think there's

i think there's hope for action that the white house can take that isn't dependent on a republican congress and the hope is nice but looking at our congress looking at how much opposition there was to this treaty it doesn't give me much faith and this is another question i have let's say that something that let's say iran does get this nuclear weapon that you know the lawmakers are so scared of then can the treaty be changed can emerge and see measures be you know put in can they start building up their nuclear arsenal again you know i mean i think the thing about the treaty and why it's so important is partly because a wrong because it's solidifies the relationship that the u.s. has with russia and that's critical to containing iran and in applying sanctions to iran's nuclear regime but there's no emergency measures that if the united states feels that iran is developing enough nuclear weapons to overpower our fifteen hundred fifty nuclear weapons you know it's going to always just withdraw from the treaty so states have the right to cancel the treaty any time if they feel it's in the national spirit. interest it will that won't happen i mean there is no way that

iran is going to develop a nuclear arsenal to challenge us i think the broader question is are we going to move forward and strengthen the nonproliferation regime in move towards disarmament so countries like iran north korea or outliers in the international community in or in other countries do try to follow their lead let's hope so max thank you so much for joining us. now to the list of corporations to cut off wiki leaks in one way or another we can add apple the company has officially it removed its weekly leaks iphone app from its store that just days after initially approving the application that was originally approved on december eleventh and offered access to the latest documents on the wiki leaks website and the whistleblowers twitter feed for just two bucks now in that short amount of time the app generated over a thousand dollars but the status of the opposite officially changed to quote removed from sale when sites like tech crunch attempted to buy it a spokesperson for apple finally came forward to the new york times saying that it

violated developer guidelines because apps must comply with all local laws and may not put an individual or a group in harms way while apple doesn't really elaborate further on removing the wiki leaks up we can't help but wonder what they mean when they say quote it would put any individual or group in harms way so it seems that a pure computer company is joining the ranks with companies like these a master card and pay pal all of which have been denying donations to the whistle blowing web site whatever the real reason for moving the app many are speculating that it will put apple a risk for being attacked by hackers that are defending wiki leaks cause other websites have spoken out against wiki leaks found themselves vulnerable to hackers by groups like anonymous that wage cyber war with mastercard and amazon amongst other web sites but it also leads to a bigger question just a short while back where you expounder julian assange spoke out against corporations like these and pay pal saying that they are instruments of u.s. foreign policy. and with this latest jab from apple there definitely is more teeth

to that statement especially when apple originally approved and then suddenly changed its might who knows maybe they got a few calls from the government maybe just joe lieberman but we're going to continue to watch which companies fall in line with the government and against wiki leaks as it begins to look like corporations and foreign policy are more closely connected and we all thought. well today the f.c.c. voted on net neutrality the concept here is to maintain the internet as an open and equal opportunity for us to allow the government to create regulations so the internet users keep their freedom to choose rather than allowing broadband service providers to discriminate against rival content or services but is that what we got with this deal is a really net neutrality many critics are arguing that instead of helping to save internet freedom the f.c.c. has essentially placed it in jeopardy by leaving in loopholes and catering to corporations like arisan and eighteen t. so is the internet going to change as we know it well joining me to discuss it is

our communications director of public knowledge art thank you so much for joining me now before we get started i have a confession to make every time i learn that i'm going to talk about net neutrality on the show i get excited in the morning and i feel confident about it and then as the day goes on all read a million new articles a million new opinions and i'm completely lost by the end of i mean is the concept really so difficult to grasp or does everybody just have their own interpretation yes. yes which is why. well. at its base neutrality very simple concept people who supply the networks the cable companies the phone companies the wireless companies should play favorites and the rest is sort of a commentary that goes on from there then you get into all the various details. all right well the details i guess you know the devil's in the details they say because that's when i start becoming completely last throughout the day but let's talk about what i think the saga out what the f.c.c.

actually voted on today is this really going to keep the internet free the same as we know it or quite the opposite we don't think so for a couple of reasons this is an order that has a lot of interesting discussion of what is wrong but very few rules prohibit actions for example on prioritization to make one site go faster than another or specialized services so that you could slice off the art of the internet and offer just a movie channel that you paid extra for what we understand and we've not yet seen the order of that there's a lot of talk but no actual rules with say thou shalt not do this now why haven't we seen the actual order how can that hasn't been given to the public that's actually par for the course for the f.c.c. these are very long and complex orders they're probably negotiated up to the last minute and the staff piece to do a co do a comb over of them just to make sure that all the legal sides are right that all the commissioners are on board and everything is proper so probably be out in

a couple of days now as far as i understand one of the other complaints here is that this doesn't provide enough security for those people that are accessing the internet through you know their mobile devices through wire less networks and so who does that affect at the end of the day because i think a lot of people if they can't afford to get internet at home then they'll just use their phone for that that affects everyone i mean they're primarily people of color and those lower income use the internet to get through use wireless to get online but at the same time you've got a lot of high end users once you're i pads and similar tablets get into more of use and those people will be affected too now do you think that it's only a matter of time until we see this tier and system really take place until the internet becomes like t.v. when you have to pay for premium packages. that's what we'd like to avoid frankly this order will probably end up in court at the not too distant future so i doubt that the be much progress made and there is this little thing that other that we

call the heisenberg principle one physics which says that actions are changed just by being observed and the phone in the cable companies know that people are watching what they're doing so they're not likely to do anything real stupid at the moment what do you think of those phone and cable companies if we talk about companies like eighteen thousand horizon that they had a lot of sway over the members of the f.c.c. they totally do it particularly over the chairman he made a political calculation that he wanted a team to go on board and in order to get a team to support he had to agree to certain things so one of them as you pointed out was the very weak wireless provisions because eighteen tino's and for eyes and nose that's the future of internet access but that makes me wonder why we need the government involved here don we have if there's anything that we've learned about government regulation and what happens when we allow them to regulate things that they often you know income lobbyists income corporations who they start sweetening deals for so maybe we don't need them all here well it's the lesser of evils

required. i think that we have lost his audio unfortunately art ok we're well we lost our unfortunately but we'll try to continue the discussion now we're going to take a break but still to come on tonight's show as the year comes to a close like to honor those politicians who have made a fool of themselves we'll show you our favorite political meltdown of two thousand and ten and a study shows that most media outlets are not really paying attention to the war in afghanistan and fact they only devoted four percent of their coverage to it over the last year so i discussed that with georgetown university professor christopher chambers after the break.

we'll be. bringing you the latest in science and technology from around the world. we've got this huge earth covered. it's no secret that on this show we like to have some fun at the expense of politicians who take themselves too seriously and when a politician makes headlines for the wrong reason well i'm not going to lie it kind of makes our day who doesn't like a little bit of entertainment so as we close out two thousand and ten we decided to pick three of our favorite moments of the year and tonight in no particular order we have a stumble a scream and a yell all while the t.v. cameras were rolling our first clip tonight is janet brewer during the arizona governor's debate this fall and i must warn you again it is really really painful

to watch balance the budget and we are moving forward and we have done everything that we could possibly do. we have. i did what was right for arizona i will tell you that i have. god that was awkward as a governor i still find it hard to believe that you couldn't even remember her own accomplishments in office i understand being on t.v. can be a little bit scary but not if you're talking about yourself now remember jan brewer was the secretary of state and then became governor of arizona when janet apology resigned to join president obama's cabinet so maybe jan's just not ready for the governor's mansion our next political moment came from the future speaker of the house old orange man himself john boehner he took to the house floor when congress was about to vote on health care and he let it fly take

a look. can you say it was done openly. with transparency and accountability. without backwind deals or struck behind closed doors hidden from the people here don't you care to. classic john boehner i was best and you notice how his face got a different shade of orange what his blood pressure went up we later discovered why he was upset there was a ten percent tax on tanning in the health care bill and even though he denies that boehner has to use spray on tan i mean nobody nobody looks like that naturally and finally tonight's other political moment goes to new york congressman anthony weiner he was the live it over republicans in the house using procedural moves to block a vote of health care for nine eleven first responders and i agree with him on this one so here's his very memorable outburst. if you think this is a bad idea to provide health care. because we do.

the job we do not sit down i look up. to this person sitting. anthony weiner taking republicans to task that was good stuff and not something you see every day on the floor of the capitol passion. is a good thing and it makes for some great t.v. so there you have jan brewer john boehner and anthony weiner the top three who created the most buzz for their stumbles screams and rants here's looking forward in two thousand and eleven and what drama politicians will bring i'm pretty sure that with a fresh new batch of tea partiers coming to the capitol we're going to get our fill . now you know the r t and below to show give you extensive coverage of america's war in afghanistan and this year of the war especially has been one to talk about it was the deadliest year by far for u.s. troops and the entire coalition civilian casualties soar general stanley mcchrystal

was fired halfway through the year and replaced by general david petraeus wiki leaks dumped seventy seven thousand reports covering six years of the war and just last week the obama administration released a much anticipated strategy review and yet a new study by the pew research center has found that the mainstream media devoted only four percent of their coverage over the last year to this war four percent is that all but hundreds of billions of dollars and thousands of lives gets these days we are discussing with me is christopher chambers georgetown university professor and author of the blog not hers or venture chris thanks so much for being here if you have thank you to her and i really don't like to my own horn but i'm feeling pretty good right now about what we know we really do extensive coverage of the war in afghanistan this is something life feels so important but four percent that number really shocked me when it came to the world it doesn't shock me because i

look at this image in the pew research center dug down some details new york times certain other blogs dug down and what they were soon was it was you know it was the american public really couldn't handle it and so the networks were really going to put it in their faces i don't think that's true i think it is a combination of corporate media and willful ignorance of corporate media aspect of it should not be under played you have news departments cutting back left and right you have a quarter of reporters who are embedded over there who can't even speak to anything like this or they're not even cooking up with the proper stringers that can show them the stories so i mean you know when they're taking those resources and put. them towards the entertainment when a.b.c. is cutting their newsroom and putting the money towards dancing with the stars what do you think is going to happen now at the same time i mean you know you did the story on net neutrality you have a situation where what are the alternatives going to be well you're going to cut the internet in two and the rich people are going to get access to the best

information so then you have no choices to go to for people who can't find it on regular network news or in newspapers what are they going to do now. i think that we have to talk about the fact that the public unfortunately really doesn't seem to care i know that you mentioned the new york herald get into that how the public can't handle it but if it comes down to ratings these days which is what cable news is about and the public doesn't want to watch coverage of the we're in afghanistan then can you really blame all of these corporate media outlets. you can't if you accept the whole new paradigm of the whole marketing corporate media paradigm basically but that's not the way it should be i mean the media is very if yes i mean. and it's you know that another nation's us media outlet has to shed light on what the networks should be doing but that's what they should be doing but good journalism of course is bad business you know the

whole idea is to enlighten the public not give them the pablum and shovel what they want to be but look look at me for example it's a metaphor for what happened. very low ratings for the first two dumps of really kind of military and political policy changing information when the third comes out which is the carnival feeding cables that really have nothing to do with the war per se that's when everything explodes and that is you know the conflict the carnival atmosphere was very little diplomatic gotha just like here and a little in the letter to the little kids come out of the woodwork i mean the whole republican brain trust like sarah palin once you know him julia so. hunted down where was she when the first two dumps came out which we were looking at really why are we there what is going on there are we really harassing and harrying al qaida and again you don't have the alternatives now with net neutrality were people regular people who can't pay for premium service going to find this information but

even magazines are cutting back on me you know some of the longer form stuff that i do or sebastian younger who is embedded over there in afghanistan with a platoon wrote an article for vanity fair those magazines are cutting back now so we're the real information that comes out and you know the sandman a coverage of there is there used to be everything even if we look at the war in iraq exam much more coverage there but this is something that really drove me crazy as the new york times was trying to analyze right why this was happening and of course they talked about iraq that the public is just interested that their money is being cut and then at the end of the day they decided that you know maybe it's because this war is just so complex that they the media doesn't know how to how to properly you have to be kidding me just because something is complex that means that you shouldn't delve into it all you that have ignore it even buckled even even in the worst days of yellow journalism at the turn of the century hurston pulitzer at least they tried to enlighten the public to their side of what they wanted to do

but they were hearing again and again and again with as many stories as they could it's up to the press to enlighten the public not follow it around like a puppy dog you know and say are and when they when the public turns around and says we want this we want that that's not the way it should be so are they also are they following the public around or are they following the government around because it's a little i mean these days are so depending on the government to be giving you the news no one does it their own and you have a security analyst you're scared to you know to perhaps criticize this war over and i think this is where history is going to have to come back with the lens because with iraq there were some willful moves being made to buttress the policy here. it's more there's an undercurrent and i don't know i haven't quite porous where that is yet with iraq there was some definitely bad things going on from the top from the white house and complicity with the press let me ask you just one more thing let's say that the media did do extensive coverage on the war in afghanistan

let me say that they really show the fact that we spend a hundred sixty billion dollars a year here that thousands of lives have been lost that the war is going nowhere if it was in the public spaces right then might that change their minds might we see more of an outcry in new york times claims that there is there's just a baseline you know of interest you know just a certain number of stories beyond say foreign policy magazine and other outlets i don't believe that i think if it's in their faces i think if reporters are over there i think if the culture of the area is being parsed and exposed i think the interest will come i mean even from the families it's sad the families of people who are wounded dead shell shocked or you know they're kind of lost it's almost a weird it's almost like vietnam but in a vietnam era bizarro universe where well they're considered heroes but they're still in that kind of echo chamber that only their own voices that they can hear the media is not reverberating at the way it should be we need more of that you

know the way the ban on seeing the caskets is over maybe unfortunately we need more blood more body bags you know more wounded soldiers to really get more corruption and stuff you know exposed chris thanks so much for joining us. i don't go anywhere we start a lot more to come on tonight's show the conservative group citizens united has come out with a new ad about don't ask don't tell and it is so outrageous that it won our to full time work for tonight we'll have details on that in a moment and there's a warning today that as many as one hundred u.s. cities could default on the simple bonds so what does that mean for the economy i'll speak with anthony randolph after the break. culture is the shame of you are going to build already most of us want to settle something again on the brink after less than successful election and allegations organize current utility organ trafficking and.

again this is see it would trickle the headlines at home. ston debate me is the end of the u.s. senate expected to vote on the ratification of the stalled nuclear arms const treaty in the next forty eight hours it ends months of delays and efforts to amend the parts without sound the deal to reduce the russian and american nuclear arms by a third signed by both presidents in april. russia and india secure a multi-billion dollar deals and a trip to new delhi by president medvedev as two of the so-called bric nations

cement relations nuclear power trade and investment were just some of the agreements sealed. and prime minister putin made good both fine representatives and ones that helped to eliminate extremism following recent right wing violence after us talk moscow final was killed by rivals. last post and rejected small schools report into the april plane crash that killed the polish president and ninety five others but aviation experts say the russian probe was open and solid meanwhile the late leave his brother who's the former prime minister of the country claims the wrong body was buried. as the headlines up next there's the second part of the end of the show. hungry for the full story we've got it for. the biggest issues get a human voice face to face with the news makers.