skills really work you see the committee which works to get g.o.p. leaders elected has racked up a staggering twenty three million dollars in debt thanks to steal spending and poor fundraising but don't you worry because the new leader of the r. and c. has a plan previous has decided that the gipper should come to the rescue with ronald reagan's hundredth birthday just a few days away they've got a special section on the r. and c. website to hawk items with his picture on that you can get the reagan bobblehead for twenty five bucks there's a button marking his birthday on february sixth and t. shirts and bumper stickers saying i really miss reagan you could even side a birthday card to ronnie but to be honest i have absolutely no idea how that was going to be delivered that's right conservatives in this country just cannot let ronald reagan rest in peace they still long for the days when the great communicator was in charge here in d.c. when he was running up deficits granting amnesty to illegal immigrants and selling weapons to iran to fund contras in nicaragua yeah so now they seem to have forgot

about all that right i mean it's cracks me up that conservatives are still so obsessed with a figure that in many ways well he doesn't pass their own test of what it is to be a conservative these traits but if you want to buy a framed picture for four hundred dollars which is also available on the site go ahead just know that they aren't seeing is using you and that's why the r. and c. is can i was told so i went or for using a dead president to make their money. now we'd like to shed some light on a politician who seems to be working little too closely with corporations. california is the chairman of the house oversight and government reform committee and when the g.o.p. lawmaker first took over the position he sent out letters to over one hundred and fifty major oil companies drug companies interest groups asking them to respond with what regulations they'd like to see lifted you know those really annoying ones that are getting in the way of their business but here's the thing even though i said basically out. his own position he's refusing to share the responses that he

has with everyone not even people on his own committee democratic lawmaker allies or cummings has made attempts to get this information from isis now the group citizens for responsibility and ethics in washington is also making similar efforts and while some corporations refuse to respond to crew thirty three companies did volunteer to send their request when it comes to changing of those regulations and their responses ranged everywhere from you know changes to the current e.p.a. regulations to lead paint standards and keep in mind those are only a small little sampling of the more than one hundred and fifty corporations that gave ice of their two cents and what rules they don't like so now that you know the story because anyone else find this just a little bit fishy the lawmaker who's opposed to lay down the law is in a force regulations is getting input from those same corporations on which regulations to change and he doesn't want to share it with any what that doesn't sound too ethical or transparent of the chairman of the house oversight and

government reform committee personally i think i saw as the one who needs to be investigated. now some say the newspaper industry is a dying one and although some papers carry press treat prestige through the years they now find themselves in trouble and that includes the washington post but washington post has attached itself to a company that has turned out to be a lifesaver however it seems as if that company goes against everything that this once respected news organization stood for artie's christine for zell has more. it was once the center of journalistic excellence where reporters kept a watchful eye on those in power and what they discovered changed history i shall resign the presidency effective at noon tomorrow. vice president for. be sure and anybody at that hour and. the washington post was also hailed from the. wishing the

pentagon papers which revealed some difficulty truths about the vietnam war after the new york times was barred from doing so this is a company that was always about the newspaper and the newspaper was run by the graham family as it has really a public trust former washington post employ peter goodman now works for the huffington post and wrote an investigative piece detailing what the washington post company is now governed by its top revenue generator a for profit college called kaplan university. kaplan accepts almost anyone as long as they pay most of them rely on government funded loans and many never even graduate for those who do he says it's not much better their promise and an awful lot in terms of the value of their degrees they're going to get the end up with a lot of debt and then very rarely do they get jobs that came out leo out in terror to pay back the debt according to the department of education students at for

profit institutions represent eleven percent of all higher education students twenty six percent of student loans and forty three percent of all loan defaulters among the reasons why former kaplan employees say they often recruit students who have little chance of success in addition they often target men and women in the military who are charged penalties for missing class even if it's because they're deployed you know when you have students fighting in a war zones the last thing you know that they can be concerned with is you know turning in tuesday's assignment with no one to dodging bullets and digging thoughts holes sheldon cobbler works for kaplan for six years and says he felt more like a car salesman than in missions counsellor and that he and his colleagues were required to call some students every single day it just celt like you know the redundancy was just to really pressure in and you know make sure that.

captain kept getting a. sense that they can continue getting that federal aid money that money contributes to the growing for profit empire which in the case of kaplan keeps the washington post company afloat in the first three quarters of two thousand and ten washington post company's newspaper publishing division hemorrhaged nearly thirty million dollars while revenue for the education division in other words kaplan soared to more than two point two billion dollars most likely this is why c.e.o. donald graham now spends time and money lobbying in favor of keeping the rules for for profit universities as they are saying kaplan is simply serving poor people who would otherwise have no opportunities for him is to say here's a chance to live your lifetime if you want to get out of the circumstances you grew up and most of the students are quite low income students you can go to college and graduate college in the washington post editorial pages also put for similar

arguments much to the dismay of many there working for a start in the late ninety's as a place that would have prided itself on digging into this story of abuse of powerless people needing protection what happened behind these walls here at the watergate hotel is not what changed history if that one news organization stayed on the story long enough to bring what happened to light to hold those responsible even the president of the united states accountable well it turns out that same company that once thought to expose greed for the purpose of good has been preying on the good for the purpose of greed in washington christine for. our team. so should people be shocked that the washington post is ripping off students or is it just another sign that news these days is all about business and it's not just t.v. it's even the papers here this case that with me is christopher chambers. georgetown

university professor and author of the blog prevention chris thanks so much for being here i mean i can't even count how many times you and i have had the discussion about the news these days being a business but you know a lot of the time we focus on t.v. because it's just so much more apparent here it's newspapers that do it and here specifically with the washington post we this is a very dirty dirty business that they have their hands well i mean they are trying to prevent the hemorrhage you have a lot of multimedia companies you look at the tribune corporation which is mostly based on newspapers. they're trying to replace cost centers with profit centers newsgathering good journalism that kind of stuff that's a cost center this kind of stuff is a profit center i mean it sounds kind of counterintuitive but if they can diversify make that money back you know that's the name of the game it's not about quality it's not about investigative journalism it's not about news gathering it's about

closing bureaus it's about contraction and investment and stuff like this but i know we can look at for example the tribune company the new york times i mean a lot of these organizations have some kind of a stake in sports teams are you know i believe one of them the tribune company even has a stake in the food network and i mean those i guess seemed kind of harmless in a way by this kaplan universities for profit colleges i mean it took another news organization the huffington post to really do a deep investigation on to you know there is there you have the metaphor for the problem tribune has been hemorrhaging not just money but quality you know the l.a. times the chicago tribune i mean it's a study in the destruction of the modern american newspaper and you know be replaced with all kinds of tabloid crap while they're investing in these other properties and these other units so they can't do their job as journalists is responsible journalism the post can't do its job in investigating these proofs. for

profit universities and then all they really do is basically devolve you know say well we have this stake in capital and here's some light little news we might have on this and then we're not going to do anything and that's what's happened you have other news outlets breaking these stories because this is an embarrassment to them the student loan failure rates the lobbying that these people do especially with the republicans they lobby both parties but they have really been hitting hard on the republicans you know millions and millions of dollars and that money that they get from uncle sam which is ironic that the republicans trying to turn the faucet off except to the people who are lobbying them that haemorrhages out in defaulted loans and people who maybe should be in the community college setting or maybe shouldn't be in college at all or maybe you know should endeavor to work a little harder because some of our an elite four year institutions like the one i work for there is do is coming out there that we're not doing

a good job of educating kids they're spending more time texting and going to health spas and eating pizza rather than critical thinking and reading and researching and writing skills so there's a whole lot of stories out there that are not being covered but do you think that there is a chance and even are just talking about this not everybody can afford to go to university like georgia where you where you teach not everybody can be a full time student some people need to take night courses i mean what is the other alternative is this kind of bound to happen of things for profit college i don't want to come in like vultures yeah i think so i mean because whenever you have that that the profit motive as the primary motive of signing people up it's signing people up it's bodies it's phone call sam funneling in money i mean there are there are for profit universities or online universities that do do a good in specific career areas or generally for business. and things like that there are big unit. to such as university of maryland you see that does it very

good job of that georgetown is a continuing ed giant continuing component that is doing a great job but we're talking about the bottom feeders here and we're talking about people who will break into an industry and do some predatory practices just like with mortgages and that takes over the entire industry and that is what's happened here in the washington post has gotten bad with that as a profit center to make up for the loss centers which is real newsgathering if you think about so ironic that all the washington post like we said there once was all about exposing the breaker if even the president of the united states you know the whole you know cause you know richard nixon to resign yeah it is ironic and it's tragic but again it's about profit centers not cost centers good journalism is a cost center they cannot afford that they have to funnel resources into these other properties and this is what happens you don't have you know that i see my communalism and chris thanks so much for joining us well still to come on tonight's

show sign field and almost deliver the start treaty is just days away from taking now the us media is a little angry over the treaty signing while we come back and the g.o.p. says that they're making plans for the u.s. default on its debt thought as to plan over raising the debt ceiling but wait until you hear about their crazy idea that would basically leave everyday americans. well when one deals with wall street has to realize that this tremendous amounts of damage that are done not just human damage but damage to the physical environment in which the battlefield takes place tremendous amounts of damage done by these by . coming. whether it's a sonic boom say tractor. marine mammals or it's the burning oil field syria or

iraq or destroyed reefs in the pacific for landing purposes the list just goes on and on the geneva conventions of nineteen forty nine states that they are shall be taken in warm to protect involved against widespread long term and severe damage the united states although it is accepted almost all of the provisions of protocol one has taken exception to that. we. know that since requests.

ready for. what. became the. you know. well president barack obama signed documents today ratifying the new starch nuclear arms treaty with russia the move is seen as a very important component of the ministrations reset of relations with moscow under this treaty the two sides must reduce their deployed strategic nuclear warheads to no more than fifteen fifty in seven years and reduce deployed long

range missiles bombers snowboard seven hundred but you know it's something about this site has the white house press corps up in arms despite the great attention of the president devoted to this treaty the work of the white house put into getting the treaty passed during a lame duck session the fact that this is obama's greatest foreign policy success the media was allowed at the site to the white house refused to allow reporters or t.v. cameras into the room still photographers were the only representatives of the press permitted inside the ceremony to record this historic moment and the pictures showed obama signing the documents with several onlookers the vice president several members of his cabinet and four u.s. senators who played a key role in the treaty being ratified and the white house didn't respond as to why it was closed to the press but there are some rumors floating around there the most believable sumption being the they just want to keep high ranking officials away from the media because of the situation in egypt with a which they have been completely lost on how to properly address. so while it is incredibly unfortunate that this really big moment wasn't properly recorded because

the white house is scared of answering questions on egypt we're just happy it's done the treaty will formally come into force on saturday when secretary of state hillary clinton and russian foreign minister sergei lavrov exchange the ratification documents. now as our show winds down for the evening we'd like to give you a little update on other fun stories coming out of russia so let's start with russia's redheaded bombshell anna chapman is probably one of the most electric females to hit russian culture in recent years and she wants to make sure that there isn't anybody making money off her so she has trademarked her name until twenty twenty meaning that there cannot be another one like her for at least the next nine years reports say that chapman aka agent ninety six hundred ninety wants to trademark for lines of merchandise that she's working on things like vodka clothes and watches so i guess we say hats off to you had a chapman make all the money you can because i doubt there's going to be another

spy like you in the news for quite some time then at russia's prime minister vladimir putin had a photo op with one of the most notorious models in the industry they only cavil sat down for a one on one interview with putin for the latest installment of her series the only campbell interviews electorial the dubious leader x. and yes this is actually a real series for british t.q. so what is the nx driven model i ask who are you know only the most important questions things like his workout regiment his love for tigers and that sexy calendar honoring him and she definitely of course asked about his shirtless horse riding horseback riding pictures like i said only the most important questions from britain's g.q. to one of russia's top politicians but anyway that's enough let's move on to our next story. as if we needed more proof that the members of the republican party are full of horrible ideas that would hurt the american people but that they continue to push based on their principles. here comes another one since officials don't

expect the vote on raising the debt to be soon or until the spring at the moment we're hearing a lot of fear mongering republicans and tea party lexer flexing their muscles with the threat of letting the u.s. default on its debt which by all accounts would lead to catastrophic consequences but in case that doesn't happen senator pat toomey has come up with his idea of how to handle it he's announced that he would introduce legislation that would force the u.s. government to make interest payments on debt its first priority as in you know pay back china pay back japan first leave social security beneficiaries other american citizens who are owed money for last so how do you feel about your elected representatives now here's this guy with me is brian butler reporter for talking points memo brian thanks so much for being for having me now i would say this is the worst idea i've ever heard of but then again we have legislation you know coming out of the questions evolution things like forcing everyone to have a weapon but you've got to admit this is pretty damn bad it's the optics are

terrible i mean the thing to keep in mind is that america is a very wealthy country and in no way is in danger of actually defaulting on its debt it will default if there's a political problem and what senator toomey and others are saying is that our priority should be to they want to make they want to make corporations and foreign governments senior creditors to the united states and that would that would throw sort of social security beneficiaries better and center in the second place they'd have to wait longer to get the money that's owed to them and you know this will create a lot of political problems for them if if they go through and i think that that's probably why you'll see them actually raise the debt ceiling as opposed to well the funny thing too about this plan is that the treasury already said it wouldn't even help us when it comes to default thing on our debt so i mean i don't know what kids are all just a game it's a little bit of a game i mean what would you be forced the government to be forced to do is change social security law to. in order not to default to allow them to make their payments later or reduce the benefit or something like that and congress will know . do that i mean social security is to sacrosanct

a program for that and so. if there's evidence that it's a game it's that they're basically suggesting that they'd be willing to tell you know old people who vote in very high numbers that they're going to actually put them second place to china. which i think i mean personally i think that's really crazy that's quite a radical position to take and it feels like quite a dangerous game that they're playing you know that the fact that they're saying it out loud we think you can't last the russia now is that is that if america is actually at risk of default and then in the future would want to borrow money it makes sense to pay off creditors people who let us borrow in the future first and you know in senator to his defense i suppose that you know includes for one k.'s and some regular people but also you know it's sort of a bailout in essence to some of our wealthier creditors who could wait a few a few months for america's politics to resolve themselves and that's going to be raised now one of the words we can pairing to describe here if indeed they don't

vote to raise the debt ceiling is that it will have catastrophic consequences what does that actually mean i mean what what would really happen if the political process if there is there is sort of why disagreement in the worst case scenario of the people and you know the administration. puts forth the worst case scenario because it's sort of in their interest to make it seem like it would be terrible and in the worst case scenario would be terrible you see a huge loss in housing well you'd see america's credit rating tank it would be it would it would probably cause yet a deeper recession than the one we just saw. alternatively some people say the united states could sell off its gold holdings and take steps to actually forestall a real serious crisis nonetheless would be really disruptive to the markets and that's really what i think everybody on capitol hill wants to avoid because so what do we predict is going to happen as we come up on this possible vote in the spring do you think that it's going to be gridlock do you thing. that there actually might be some concessions made by democrats when it comes to areas of cutting spending i

think you'll see a lot of. among the parties you'll see a lot of back and forth yelling proposals for what to cut and then you know finally maybe at the last minute you know when when it's really sort of do it or don't come up with something that will involve. some spending cuts the republicans are demanding but it will also probably take the debt ceiling issue off the table for several months or or even longer than that so that you don't have to keep playing this fight over and over and over how do you think if anyone were to really vote against it just on principle because they know that it's never really going to have better never was going to go for it who are going to be the guys that stand out and say no i'm still voting against it would be really interesting because in the house the republicans control things and they'll be the ones who were held responsible there's a default in the senate it's the democrats who control things and so you need to find a solution that really does balance the demands of both parties so that you can't go too far to the right and you can't go too far out of left so i think what you'll actually see is a coalition of republicans and democrats that are sort of the establishment and

that and that tea party republicans on the one hand in very liberal democrats on the other will say this deal is not good enough for me and i'm not going to vote to do it but they'll structure that negotiation such that they know that they can get a majority in the senate in majority in the house so that they don't run into all of you are about that's what i was thinking for anybody if the tea party right they're going to try to pretend like they still stand out on this issue but at the end of the day we're having all these discussions right we're saying that it's really just used as a political game should we even have a debt ceiling i've had this conversation many times i've programmed what's the point is we know it's like there's you know in the constitution says that the basically that there is no the there's no calling into question of the u.s. that so why not take it up i think there's a lot of expert consensus that congress should just change the rules to say that rises automatically without without congress needing to intervene every time we run up to that limit and creating this political gridlock and leverage situation where all kinds of crazy decisions can be made. because of pressure but that would just

be no fun because it would matter to actually do it well it makes all of our jobs very interesting because then we have people you know to point fingers talk badly about when they make it all about politics brian thank you so much for joining us. well before we go tonight it's time for our tweeted today tea party wing that michele bachmann has announced her opposition to those t.s.a. full body scanners at airports she says that she's worried that naked pictures of herself could somehow show up on the internet so we think we know what the t.s.a. would tweet thanks but no thanks michelle i want to see that make it for tonight's show thanks for tuning in to make sure you come back tomorrow we'll be speaking to david house friend of p.f.c. bradley manning has been visiting manning over the past few months and just saw him over the past weekend so we'll get the latest on manning's treatment and his condition and the meantime don't forget to become a fan of the lower show on facebook and follow us on twitter if you missed any of tonight's show or any other night you can always catch it all you tube dot com slash the lower show post the interviews as well as the show in its entirety coming

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and raced on egypt streets join me in a few moments for more. also ripples from the turmoil in cairo are felt and you are up whether you care becoming a stage for radical groups ban even in egypt a call for the creation of a state. or a man to freely you and a bitter break up we take a look at the incredible links between we can weeks and the new york times. from weapons making traditions to state of the art and a bit of technologies archies close of series takes you to the stronghold of russia's defense manufacturing the city of records.

watching are you coming to life from moscow a.t.m. in the russian capital a marina joshua welcome to the program more have a gunfire has been heard and cairo's tahrir square were supporters of president mubarak have clashed with anti-government protesters demanding he steps down four people are reported to have been killed overnight following a day in which over a thousand were injured the country's braced for more trouble as it and its day of unrest for the very latest we're now joined live from cairo by artie's policy. paul it seems there is little sign of the situation letting up there what's going on. well it's been and winds have been tough here square in downtown cairo as those pro mubarak an anti mubarak supporters take on one another in front of the cairo museum there have been monitored cocktails thrown there have been people lifting road signs out of the road to use the poles to fight one another there are people that have formed almost some kind of system where one carries buckets of stones and then moves.