jews making money by taking advantage of their students but the worst part of it is that kaplan is owned by the washington post company so does this destroy the legacy of a once respected newspaper or news we're going to discuss the investigation with an editor from the huffington post next is the holiday season merry or merciless while some people like wall street have a lot to be thankful for many others out there like the unemployed can't really say the same artes lauren lyster we'll have more on the two extremes that people are facing this holiday season and is a really the most wonderful time of the year statistics show that divorce and separation rates actually increase right after the holiday season so we're going to speak with a divorce attorney to find out why why that is and then we'll ask is there a war on christmas going on the mainstream media seems to think so debating whether or not religion should play a role in the holiday season but we want to know what about the real issues at hand is anybody going to focus on the wars that we're actually fighting professor christopher chambers will join me with his take on the issue and we know that it's

not friday but we're still bring in our resident comedian seton smith we'll go over some of our favorite stories of the year like antwan dodson's bed intruder song and the sexy russian spy anna chapman that's all the end of the show but now let's move on to our top story. for profit colleges have been in the news all throughout this year and roman has soared from under nine hundred thousand students a decade ago to two point eight million students only the academic year of two thousand and two thousand and nine alone they accept any what they offer specialized degree programs including online courses they make the case they're just here to offer everybody a chance to have a higher education especially in these tough economic times when a degree could give you the upper hand but the truth behind this profit business is well it's just that it's all business but all they want is your money for profit colleges receive between eighty five and ninety percent of their red. new federal

student aid dollars aka your tax dollars i have students are charged high fees leading to more than twenty percent of them defaulting on their loans and now huffington post investigation has a look specifically at kaplan university the for profit educational arm own by the washington post company the investigation details guerilla registration tactics were students often aren't rolled in classes without their knowledge there are e-mails hacked by advisors who use their passwords to do so and then come all the bills it's a widespread epidemic that lawmakers are looking to contain but many see the washington post involvement as the greatest of concerns that a company it once considered a beacon of journalistic integrity has given it all up just to make a lot of money well you're discussing with me is peter goodman executive business editor of the huffington post peter thank you so much for joining us now i know that the initial investigation piece here was written by another huffington post writer chris kirkham but did you have any idea of the magnitude of how you know how

much kaplan university really was ripping students often using these guerrilla recruiting tactics. well we do know that really recruitment i mean we had serious concerns going in about the whole for profit college industry and this is something i had written about my last year at the new york times on some other schools that mostly did the ubiquitous university of phoenix we sit we see an awful lot of their ads i can't plan it has kind of come out of nowhere i mean i think most americans when they hear kaplan they think of the courses people take their prepare for the s.a.t.'s you know that the test you have to take to get into college with in recent years i can't win which as you correctly point out is owned by the washington post company has expanded dramatically on anwar and courses to actual college campuses and their marketing and recruitment has picked up enormously i and there had been some other stories in the new york times prominent we had a story back in november moving at some of the over promising and the under

delivering where your students come in with the expectation that they're going to take a lot of dead weather and end up with is really valuable credential and they and then most of them discover they just can't get a job that paid anywhere near enough to enable them to pay their loans back and a lot of these went out like double the rate of students coming out of traditional nonprofit colleges community colleges traditional campuses i do de fall so that was no what we found out in this is really stunning investigation is that there is this process going kaplan that widely known within the company known as you know as grill registration so students will even withdraw and we spoke to a woman in this story who had been in school for less than two weeks from on a got diagnosed with a serious illness needed surgery that was going to require several months recuperation and this this woman said well i'm going to have to leave school they told her kaplan no problem just fill out this form you know you're off the hook

other than the modest registration fees you've already pay and a couple years later she starts your. and collection agencies and it turns out that kaplan according to her understanding it and backed up by the arguments we've seen went into her account and enroll her in classes without her knowledge without her say so and she was effectively on the hook because once in this we heard from a financial aid officer once students get to sixty percent of the length of the course they get to keep around the b. college gets to keep all of this student aid money that they are on the hook for and then they get a cruise to the chaplain of the other for profit colleges you keep keep the money so this is going to happen to you know be known to suit you all up to do but peter you know i think that a lot of people might say well you know businesses that's the way they function

right they're greedy they might not have the students welfare in their best interest but what a lot of people have been shocked about here is that the washington post this is a paper that you used to work for you worked there for ten years i mean are you shocked that you know something that was once looked at as a beacon of journalistic integrity of really looking out for the people is trying to give them the truth you know give them the information that they're involved in that's. why i'm sad and most of the people i know who are either still at the post or many of us have worked here or are you know let's stop and acknowledge that the washer is still open a great used paper and i mean it does terrific work and there are an awful lot of talented people here what's really sad is that you know we're talking about institution that in the american conversation is properly known as the newspaper that uncover waters that published the pentagon papers these classified documents out of the pentagon showing extent of the deception and miscalculation that went

into the vietnam war and even after a barrel judge said that the new york times which got me started for could publish them the post under katharine graham i think that i would say and i'm not alone the most courageous always or in history of america. which. i think that unfortunately we've lost connection with peter there we will try to get back to the story when we return after the holidays but let's move on right we're just two days away from christmas and if you were to walk the streets of new york you would see a city decorated and holiday cheer but not everybody can celebrate this holiday season while wall street is living the high life once again millions of americans are unemployed and they feel like they have nothing to show for their hears of hard work lauren lyster reports. in the u.s.

to use the season for holiday cheer charity and this year for some of millions of jobless americans despair now why did i work all of those christmases why did i give up that time with my family if now i have nothing and all of the work that i've done in my life for no reason for theresa this used to be her busy season at work but she was laid off from her job in the gas and heating business more than two years ago and has been unable to find any steady work since i look for work every single day i feel. amazing the companies the lawmakers reached a deal this month to extend unemployment benefits world not just a holiday has been lost in this story are the jobless americans like teresa who don't even qualify for this health anymore benefits expire at ninety nine weeks but a job doesn't magically appear by their own accounts and activists buying on their

behalf these americans no longer count in this economy left out in the cold and out of the statistical surveys when for many for example their phones are cut off once you you stop. claiming benefits you go into the into the ether and people can guess and people a lot smarter than me a lot of time into it and with all respect to that work they are not counted and no one can say that they are but they're struggling arguably the most to get by. merry christmas you're fired there people like sixty one year old gabrielle a laid off veterinary nurse like a record one in seven americans eat she now relies on food stamps it's very hard i mean. the truth of matters are really nothing out there despite the tough financial situation so many are facing these will be happy holidays for some wall street banks for one the lavish christmas decor is just the tip of the iceberg big banks like this one are expected to post their second highest near profitability ever

recorded second only to last year and still the average beggar bonus may come out higher that means the average year end bonus would exceed last year's of more than one hundred twenty four thousand dollars a person but if banks are in this money what's so wrong with that many of the banks that are doing well are only doing well because the public bailed them out so we're seeing is a transfer of wealth from in a way the needy to the greedy is unemployment soars last quarter american companies posted their largest corporate profits ever recorded in u.s. history and while the rich may be taking those earnings to the glitz of new york's fifth avenue for holiday shopping in the shadows are those struggling to see a little light at the end of the tunnel we've been cut off and we've been practically ignored by almost everyone that's out here the people in our government and the people you know we're in the media they're looking for any hope despite a system they see is sympathetic to business and banks but stacked against them

we're really living in a society where we don't count this is really marie antoinette. at the balls while the french people starved and that's not different and they're fighting in that society to have holidays that count as anything resembling happy there's a sense of joy that's supposed to be here and it's not here lauren lyster. r t new york. i'm joined live now from our studios in new york by r.t. correspondent oren lister now laurent congress members of course are patting themselves on the back right now they had a successful lame duck session where thanks to a compromise on tax cuts they also did extend unemployment benefits but there's this entire part of the population the they didn't get included and they're right these people who have been unemployed for more than ninety nine weeks i mean how many of them are there that would like to receive you spoke to. yeah you're

absolutely right there are an estimated five million people in this situation and the others in my story that has been unemployed for more than two years that are they call themselves ninety nine er's and these people they don't they don't believe they're counted in the unemployment statistics and there's reasons to believe that they're not you know nine point eight percent is what is that number of unemployment that we always throw out and then the broader measure which is more realistic according to many is that seventeen percent of the population these are people that are working part time because they can't find full time work or that are considered discouraged workers because they are looking for work they want work but they haven't applied in the last four weeks because either they are discriminated against or feel discriminated against or their skills no longer apply but in a situation of people that have been unemployed for a very long time all of these ninety nine ers will say the first thing to go is the landline telephone something as simple as that but that's how these surveys these unemployment surveys are conducted they're conducted by

a sample survey calling households so these ninety nine ers just feel like they're completely off the grid and yet it seems like like politicians like the obama administration especially don't really want to talk about these people right they only want to talk about their successes so far and find her stand didn't robert gibbs essentially skirt a question about the ninety nine er's recently. well he basically made it sound like you know this is not an issue that this is ministration is going to address after that deal was made just a few days ago he was asked about the ninety nine er's and about the fact that unemployment insurance does not apply to them anymore that this extension doesn't apply to them and basically he said hey you know what it's up to job creation it's up to jobs they're just going to have to get jobs saying that this was a tough political issue that the administration and congress tackled was able to reach this agreement and basically that there is no hope of getting anything else in that they're not going to tackle that you know but when you talk about job creation and not being the solution we've seen such minimal job creation in the

last several months and since this recession really started i mean eight million jobs have been lost but just a million have been given big created have been brought back so if we're relying on job creation that doesn't give anybody that i spoke to any hope because all they do is apply for jobs and they don't get me there aren't jobs available and there's nothing that they're really above the people that i spoke to you know they will apply for anything they have worked you know they'll do piecemeal work they've done cashier work for nine dollars an hour in their situation what they say they run up against a lot is age discrimination some of the women i spoke to were you know in their sixty's and they said that that's the biggest thing that they feel they face yeah definitely it's very sad to hear them say they feel like they've they've worked all their lives and now they have absolutely nothing to show for all of that hard work and you know i can't help but feel like we've spoken about this so much you were just in portugal recently in lisbon for the nato summit and there we saw thousands hundreds of thousands of people taking to the streets to protest we're seeing this all across europe and quite frankly i'm shocked you know that in

a city like new york where it is right there and you have so many people that are unemployed living in the exact same city that there have been more demonstrations more protests more vandalism you know it's really just something that we haven't seen come to the us yet but there definitely seem to be a lot of discouraged people out there and it's always sad of course during the holiday season lauren things. so much. like. well there's still much more to come on our show we'll bring you some viewer responses on our show in tell segment and there's a really the most wonderful time of the year statistics show the divorce and separation rates actually increase right after the holiday season so we're going to speak with a divorce attorney to find out why that is. down the official location to go on the phone on called talk show from the top story. the geology life.

video on demand all keys money the old cars. and all residents feeds now in the palm of your. question on the altie dot com. look. the. teeth. all right guys it's time for show and tell now on monday we told you that britain is considering changing its policies on pornography all in order to save the children they want to block new the sites make it to the you have to opt in if you want to view them so we want to know what you thought of britain's proposed pornography ban and if that would really protect the kids as they set so here's

some of your responses on twitter someone responded on that show responded to a porn ban now that is truly martial law and on our facebook page lloyd watson who is living in britain said it won't make a difference here in the u.k. unless parents take responsibility for what their kids view online stop passing the buck get off their arses and do some parenting folks lorenzo l.a. architect thinks the porn ban needs a stronger argument he says sorry but i laugh every time children are used in any political argument it's a worthless crutch used by many and brandon sank so actually disagrees that he says good for britain children must be protected as always we appreciate your responses and we have another question for you there's a new video game out there called sunder a commando revolt with a very controversial objective for players this is a first person shooter game and it's set in world war two so the player is an escaped prisoner who essentially has to go around to different parts of

a concentration camp killing nazi soldiers and unfortunately a large part of this game is for the player to walk through shooting ranges gas chambers other areas where nazis have already killed jewish people and you can see the corpses there here's a little glimpse of what it looks like. now some organising. are already calling out saying this is incredibly offensive but don't forget i mean there's been a lot of anger over video games before right a video game where players have the option to play as the taliban a video game where there is an entire level called no russian where you could come into an airport and massacre russian civilians so we want to know what you think is this video game about the holocaust too offensive to release to the public or is it just a game you can respond to us on facebook twitter and whew hew and who knows your

response just might make it on air. now just before lawmakers to offer christmas vacation the senate passed a huge defense spending bill they approved defense authorization bill is going to cost seven hundred and twenty five billion dollars and this is only for the year two thousand and eleven the fiscal year but where are those hundreds of billions of dollars going to go well we decided to break it down for you the bill authorizes the pentagon to spend nearly one hundred sixty billion dollars on the wars in iraq and afghanistan without any major restrictions on the conduct of operations seventy five million dollars will go towards training and equipping yemeni counterterrorism forces two hundred and five million will be dedicated to a program with israel to help them get develop their defense system called iron dome eleven point six billion for developing afghan security forces and one point five billion for developing iraqi security forces there's also money in the budget

to help troops and their families there's a one point four percent pay raise for the troops although was initially supposed to be one point nine before senators decided well we should be careful about how much money we're spending and new provisions guarantee that children of service members can stay covered under the military's health care program until they turn twenty six so those are the technical details surrounding this bill but let's talk about the big picture here this bill got broad bipartisan support meaning all those anti-war democrats the ones that usually might say something about ongoing. military efforts well they just seem to completely accept the current strategy something that we discussed earlier this week when the bill first passed the house now in the past democrats have attempted to use defense spending as a way to push to bring troops home sooner but this time around there were no rebuttals no requests to switch up the current timeline know nothing and for the record that means the both sides the aisle have accepted the fact that the war in

afghanistan could continue for years that our shadow wars abroad in countries like yemen are only increasing in size and budget so here's two more years in afghanistan and of funding more secret wars we hardly know about merry christmas america. now we have another result of a bad economy one that seems not so bad at first divorce rates they went down but it's not because everybody is changing their minds and falling back in love unfortunately many couples have chosen to postpone divorce to continue living in the same house because they can't afford to do otherwise however if we look at a trend of recent years right after the holidays divorce rates usually tend to rise so how do we expect this year to look sure it's the holidays but it's also a recession well joining me to discuss it from our studio in new york is divorce attorney douglas as kapan is with the kapan us law firm douglas thank you so much for joining us now what you're hearing very much is this going to be the regular

post holiday season are you going to get a million calls in your office again couples that have recently decided to get divorced or you know will will the recession somehow counter that. you know live last year you know is going to be a predictor of this year calls are going to increase in january and february just as they decrease between hala we in new year's no one wants to start a divorce around the holidays you don't need to summon served on your spouse while they're passing you the turkey on thanksgiving do you think that in general the fact that so many couples have chosen. free holiday season but just because of the economy to not get divorced to perhaps postpone it or to keep living together because that's a cheaper thing to do does that help out a marriage sometimes or can it only make it worse. i think it can help if there's no abuse if there's abuse then you've got to file no matter what but if you can spend some time and be around the holidays or maybe rekindle some of the old sort of magic around the holidays but some i keep seeing increases in january come in

regardless of the year regardless of the economy i guess the reason the reason discussing this right is because divorce is looked at as a negative thing people think you know the higher the divorce rates in your society well that means that something's gone awry i know that you obviously make money off of people getting divorced but is divorce necessarily such a bad thing. i don't think it's a bad thing i've seen a lot of couples actually become friendly and actually a better part of their children's lives after divorce because they couldn't be in the same room the kids felt all the tension they couldn't even go to the the soccer game the ballet recital whatever it was without being on opposite sides of the room and scowling at each other and the kids and anybody else there picks up on that tension and you just can't have that and then when they separate go through the divorce they actually can become friends because they don't have to be there twenty four seven on each other's back you know just fighting all the time so perhaps some of the stress is lifted but you know there's another interesting trend that we've

seen across america which is that fewer people are getting married and we especially see this happening in lower income communities in minority communities it is his marriage always just been easier for people if you're rich then people are more willing to jump into you know to to spend money on a wedding. i think as far as i don't know if marriage is easier if you're rich because you do have all the additional financial sort of problems that investments things like that i think it's yours if you want to have a wedding it's much easier if you're wealthy than if you're poor you know to throw a lavish i mean new york city you're going to spend a hundred grand on a wedding so if you're in a lower economic status you're really not going to do that you may just get married for c. some sort of tax benefit or to get your child in a different school district it's a lot of different criteria as to why you're getting married than to throw a giant party for all your friends what advice do you have for people that feel like they might be on the brink of a divorce you know is there is there

a right way to do it is there a wrong way to do it should you wait until the holidays are over. i would definitely wait til the holidays or if you can you know like i said if there's abuse get out if not get through the holidays make sure your kids have some good holiday memories if you're mad at your mother in law father in law put that aside just get through. and then on january second if you're going to call my office call my office but don't do it on christmas morning but of course call your office not any other divorce attorney's office right now. of course of course c'mon nothing like a little shameless self promotion i'm with you there do you think in general though that americans are perhaps starting to wise up you know i mean a lot of americans are getting married later in life these days a lot of women are trying to start a career first they're waiting until they're older so is that a good thing is that we were somehow progressing maturing as a society i think it is that you see

a lot of people waiting because you're more financially stable you know what you want the only downside is you sort of set in your ways and if you don't live with that person or you don't know their little quirks and you know that they snore or god knows what you may end up regretting it but i think once you're more financially stable and know what you want getting married later can help stave off a divorce what's the number one reason that you often see couples getting divorced or i mean is it something as serious as abuse. money always money definitely makes the of the world go around does it. ok so you're predicting you're going to get a lot of calls this january and they are going to get a lot of calls probably because of money even though times are tight for the economy. yeah it's you know overspending whole maxed out the credit cards and i've always gotten tons of calls in january i can't see it being any different this year i will thank you so much for joining us and well you know and i hope you're wrong

because like i said you know that's a little sad to think about but this will be good for you at least have a good holiday thank you. are coming up tonight one conservative group thinks that president obama wants to give all of the u.s. landmass back to the native americans and he's not very happy about it why have more on this in arch nice tool time segment and is there really one christmas going on the media talks about the public's conception about christmas but we can't help but wonder if this is just an excuse not to discuss the real problems that our country's facing we're going to speak with christopher chambers after the break. wealthy british style. time to.

market why not. find out what's really happening to the global economy with mike stronger for a no holds barred look at the global financial headlines tune in to conjure reports on our. broadcasting live from our studios in central moscow this is our t.v. and we're certainly glad to have you with us russian lawmakers prepared to approve the start nuclear arms reduction treaty with washington after the u.s. senate go ahead president obama a new bed of have spoken. by phone praising the developments as cementing a year of improved relations. north korea says it will wage a nuclear war on the south if its sole makes the first move tensions are once again

soaring on the korean peninsula just after pyongyang had earlier said it would not respond militarily to souls' latest war games near a disputed maritime border. as millions of americans that live off of food stamps are struggling to make ends meet wall street's five biggest firms have put aside nearly ninety billion dollars for bonuses this year as the gap between rich and poor increases in the u.s. . i'll be back with a full look at your news in about half an hour but first it's the second part of the only on the show that's coming up next right here on our team. all the time for tonight's tool time wart and we have a previous winner who is making a comeback bryan fischer he's the director.