all right gentlemen we're talking about this report that you have given over to congress that it's classified for now the unclassified version the dio do you hasn't released but something that could be kind of a risky thing if you're saying that the pentagon is lying to the american people they are lying to congress and so i'm just wondering if you think that there's going to be a backlash and wondering if anyone has already attacked you already said that you are putting national security at risk or being traitor well i got to say so for i mean i got it from the iraq's also going to give credit and so for the senior leaders in my chain of command in particular has said nothing bad is going to happen to you because of this you're not going to be you know your clearances are going to take away your continue to do your job every day so so for everything's been good to go with it continues on you know after shows like this come out and what not is going to be another matter but so far they've done pretty good so what's your guess. word for danny i mean he's putting his career on the line it's not like he's old to retire next week i mean he's got a few more years of service left and we have seen you know over break you brought

thomas drake who was the n.s.a. employee who blew the whistle and they persecuted him for years thomas tamm the justice department lawyer who blew the whistle on the war as wiretapping he was he had to undergo an investigation that took four or five years you know so i'm afraid the same thing happened to danny were because he provided classified information the congress which is his right to do so and he followed all the regulations it's easy to sort of witch hunt it's easy to investigate him to make sure he crossed all the t.'s and dotted all the ice and some afraid he's going to suffer what a lot of guys france gale the guy who who got us the m. raps in iraq who got us the vehicles that we need in iraq buck the system he went through years and years of best occasions when he did the right thing so this is the knowing of knowing that these are risks you know why did why did you do it there's a certain way this war needs to be remembered. there's no question it's it's not

about that it's about i could not morally allow myself to just say you know what don't say anything just finish out your career quietly and no problem knowing that there are men to go outside the wire every day who don't get that opportunity and they're going to risk their lives every day to do the very best they can to accomplish this mission and i think that we owe them to tell the truth about what's going on so that we better be for darn good so what is the truth there is no mission accomplished no there is no it's it's almost flatland there's been no progress i mean all the things you can measure since the start church started it's either worse or the same but nothing is better and i got to wrap it up but thank you both so much for joining us tonight thank you very much. guys it's time for show and talent tonight's program and last time we spoke about

the plan troop withdrawal in afghanistan we asked you why you think the u.s. chose to announce that the combat mission in afghanistan would end a full year before was the original plan to go to producer patrice and sente to find out what you have to say. the u.s. announce will be which writing a substantial number of troops from afghanistan by spring of two thousand and thirteen a full year ahead of schedule leaving behind a lot of questions are the afghan troops really ready to take on security alone is it another sign that the nato alliance is cracking or that president obama is just cracking under election year pressure well we asked our viewers why they thought the u.s. chose to announce the combat and the combat mission in afghanistan would end up a full year before its plan to hold miles said it's because it's an election year the president has promised to bring american forces home from afghanistan and chris carol agreed saying it is obama running scared at the polls it's time to buy some popularity but other people think it's much more serious than just politics i don't you brown he has said it is because troops are going to be needed somewhere else.

maybe iran or even the pacific region loni said more specifically it is because a war with iran will come a full year earlier than planned and whatever the reason a large withdrawal of u.s. combat troops from afghanistan is a step in the right direction for so many lives lost and billions spent with no signs of success in sight i would draw it may be the only tool left in the u.s. arsenal. now is always we appreciate your responses and here's our next question for you are on the show we spoke to chris hedges about the effect of the black bloc on the wall street occupy wall street movement so do you think that they are a cancer as has just described let us know you think on facebook twitter and you tube and it was your response just might make it on air. a federal reserve chairman ben bernanke he testified again on capitol hill today telling the senate banking committee that there is a still a long way to go before labor markets can be said to be operating normally as you said earlier this week despite what was a thought what was thought of as a positive jobs report for the month of january or the official unemployment rate

fell to eight point three percent and the economy added two hundred forty thousand jobs unusually high level of long term unemployment is what remains particularly troubling and we've also heard a chorus of conservative commentators this week saying that the b.l.s. numbers are fake misleading or fox news even the posited that the obama administration is cooking the books but in reality so everybody just waking up to the figures that have been there all along joining me to discuss it is edward harrison founder of the web site credit write downs dot com thanks so much for joining us tonight so. on capitol hill again basically what you said earlier this week was that the progress is frustratingly slow when it comes to the economy now is saying it's going to take a long time to get back to normal so we really need ben bernanke the to tell us that i think that stuff is kind of obvious and if you're going to have the you know chairman of the federal reserve come to capitol hill i want to hear a little more you do want to hear more but what more can you say because this is.

story that we've had for a long time but you know the on the the numbers being cooked and so forth oh well we'll get into that one you know that one one second but so you think that even he can't say more because because everything is just so uncertain definitely you know there's also the extra europe you know we're in a global synchronized growth slowdown i call which is meaning that you know things were doing ok in the summer but then growth slowed you see slowdowns in places like china india and brazil but you also see it definitely in europe europe's in a double dip recession right now so really it's not just the united states it's having the problem it's a global problem and so any of those things can affect what happens in the u.s. what do you say about figure that came out saying that in december consumer credit went up by nineteen billion i mean that's that's kind of insane right that just means americans are taking on a lot more debt. so it's a one off i think that in general if the economy is not sinking people will take on

debt what you really have to be thinking about is mortgage debt whether or not you know the credit will expand as a result of people being able to buy homes and whether you know house prices are going up i'm not really that concerned about you know credit actually increasing at this point because you know the united states has been the leader in terms of deliberate in the household sector if you look across all of the countries that have had a very difficult time in the developed economy from a housing bust the united states is leading in terms of the percentage decline in consumer credit all right so you're not concerned about that but there are a lot of people who are really concerned about these b.l.s. numbers that come out every month and so what's your take i mean you see every news channel out there report every single month on the thinkers that come out and my constant before them is that they don't talk about the you six right they rarely ring up the underemployed those that are marginally attached and. just give you

this official number but suddenly we hear this chorus of conservative commentators i guess a remembering that these six exist but not even only that they're going further and saying that these numbers are straight up fake. i mean that's completely partisan nonsense the reality is that they're used six is a great number because. we've had a systemically declining unemployment rate because they've been changing the way that the unemployment numbers are calculated if you calculate the numbers the old you know you'd probably have more eleven percent a lot of people going to be by the old way you know over time you know two or three times since the early eighty's we've we calculated the way that the unemployment numbers are doing so has legitimately lowered the unemployment rate every single time i see it legitimately i mean it has actually had a impact to lower the unemployment rate it doesn't lower it doesn't change the situation it just changes the number that gets reported and so what these

conservative commentators are saying basically is that not only is this a systemic problem where you know optically this number is lower but in this specific instance we have someone who's cooking the books and i agree with the first part that you know the systemically we're seeing lower numbers than they should be as calculated thirty years ago on the rig and carter but i don't agree that they're cooking the books i believe that the number is what it is because we've had two thousand and ten census data change and they've updated the numbers according to that if you actually look at the household survey you'll see that the numbers reflect what we've seen all along which is that unemployment is is actually are actually employment is is going up and so finally we're starting to see that reflected in this survey. i guess just interesting here because like i said they are part of these numbers all the time without question them and then suddenly when there's. something that might look positive really seems like there's

a political motivation behind it if you know the thing is the ridiculous part about this is the fact that this is january who cares about what happens in january if you really want to cook the books you've got to start doing it when there is the general election and now obama is not even in a primary for goodness sakes i mean if the republicans going off against one another why would they be cooking the books in january when they can actually cook the books as it makes no sense we're going to campaign. you know what that political strategy i know lastly to one of the things that we heard from this week was that uncontrollable deficit might be a huge problem for the u.s. and he went to so far as to signal that we might become the next greece what's your take. i think that deficits are you know they are not good i think that they're too high over the longer term in terms of the structural deficit but if you want to take a more nuanced perspective for us greece we're not going become the next greece because

we have our own currency greece is a completely separate problem if you look at greece compared to the u.k. the u.s. with their own currency is incredibly low rates there's no comparison whatsoever even countries like spain which have a lower debt to g.d.p. have much higher interest rates it's all about the euro it has nothing to do with the problem in the united states for bernanke you to say that is actually irresponsible because he knows that there's a complete difference between the u.s. and greece i would also say that when you talk about the deficit the deficit is the outcome it's not the same put you know we spend whatever you spend on the deficit happens as a result of that according to the unemployment rate the tax that you take in if you target the deficit specifically at the worst time in an economic cycle then what's going to happen is you have a pro cyclical approach it's going to make the cycle that much more. what's worse

you can actually use the euro zone in that particular case because being an example of. what's going to happen is just sucking money out of the economy in the deficit actually gets worse they're going to miss all their targets as a result you know i would think there are you know why would ben bernanke such a thing or a thanks so much for joining us tonight. i sort of come tonight sean hannity says that the end of the world is near that is if obama gets reelected we'll give you details. and happy hour the morning after pill could be coming to a vending machine near you and boehner has got support from fellow tanner's. but i'm. struck for some of the room. you know we're going to get your money. if you want to have sex go and have sex.

our guys it's time for tonight's tool time award and tonight we're giving it to one of fox news's finest sean hannity took time on his nightly program to talk about one of the most popular ads from sunday's big football game winning i sent a letter to a lot of downturns of my life times when we didn't understand each other seems to be flawed starter times for. discord and blame made it hard to see what lies ahead on the better salaries was a. compromise. not a return together now do we want. yeah clint eastwood has definitely had an

effect on a lot of viewers out there and the mainstream media now have a whole sort of discussion about the many metaphors that are hidden in this commercial he has guessed tamara holder and dinesh d'souza got on the topic of how fixing up the car industry has been a metaphor for fixing america's economic problems if asked me the ad was a straight up endorsement for the auto bailout. but of course have they took the time to bash obama by saying that the bailout was crap that it hurts the taxpayers in the long run because they have to foot the bill that cetera et cetera and then you decided to have fun with that other metaphor that clint eastwood made the ad when he says it's have time in america. so let's stop with the blame game let's talk about moving forward let's talk about halftime in america that's what this this is about that obama is really looking to the time and you want to. and time in america as we know it i mean come on you're really going to make the sound apocalyptic does the us fall off the map of obama gets the votes in november or

worse does that mean the doomsday is around the corner and is a strong word but because i can't say i'm really all that surprised fear mongering is a tried and true a political tactic no matter what the issue is and the president is no exception take for example erick erickson in a recent blog post the conservative wrote about his endorsement for the president saying we will be forced to hope for a deteriorating economy because while i will vote for romney and think he is vastly better than barack obama the fact is he has made no case for himself against barack obama except for that he can do a better job on the economy so erik's it is so anti obama that he's basically praying for the u.s. economy to completely crumble which will ensure that the president does doesn't come back for a second term kind of like that one time rush limbaugh said that he hoped this president would fail so here we go again conservative commentators want try to convince everybody that the world is going to end if obama returns i mean i knew the people said the world was going to end in two thousand and twelve but hell i don't know the mayans were aware of obama way back then and i should point out

we've modified doomsday to happen on election day november third because that's when those g.o.p. mouthpieces think that it's all going to be game over on our clock at least you know i thought that the media personalities were all about being patriotic doing with best for the country but openly saying that you hope the country and the people will suffer so that you can have a republican back in the white house that proves that you care more about politics than you do about people and sean hannity's attempts to be cute and terrifying at the same time but given his own football metaphor is saying that another term obama be game over for the us pretty lame in my book so for sean hannity doing is darn it is to scare the crap out of people he's tonight's tool time winner. our guide time for a happy hour is going to be deceiving lauren lyster host of the capital account here on r.t. and jim hansen retired special operations master sergeant and military blogger

a black. hey guys i'm good thanks for having me thanks for having me on your show to the you know i want to make in the round. but let's talk about i mean there's a lot of things you can get a vending machine these days right you can even get like i phones or something we have apple in the machine that likely will act that thing but maybe you never expected this one take a look. you know it's a verb university you could well get more than snacks from a vending machine in the college is now making the morning after pill available through a vending machine the plan b. emergency contraception can be obtained through a machine in the health center each dose cost twenty five dollars and the university will not make money from the sales. what do you think is the time that we loosened up a little. bit early that's brilliant that is way more valuable than i guarantee all of the other things combined that are in that vending machine of fritos and cheetos

or whatever at least plan b. is something that's actually valuable to have seventy two hours of the health centers closed it can ever be for everything our offering that you could get pregnant just cause they didn't open for an absolutely or the pharmacy right in to see the vending machine i'm going to tell you this whole minefield and i'm just going to say maybe if they sold sex toys in the vending machine they could avoid the need for. their. protection when it happens you know there's going to free people out this is going to cause it the right amount it's sold and pharmacies you don't need a prescription you have to be over there going to be ordered like cigarette machines or whatever you mean how you can make sure that it's control well i mean they have bigger fish to fry than vending machine and just have a plan b. i guess that means any place to sell a plan b. in a vending machine though it's college i think they should have been more proud i think they should roll them out more broadly and i think i think that building yeah the fact that you have them behind the counter and that you have to be over seventy i think is completely ludicrous i think that this should be the future. ok i can at

least disagree with that we can seventeen before you get by that i mean what are you twelve year old kids can then maybe a little control a modicum of control who gets to decide that you can't legislate morality parents for the world you know and you. know i know you are going to. work at pharmacies are here's another interesting thing for you guys we have data that we think about legislating morality think about twitter followers right if you work for a company and then you leave that company but you have like fifteen thousand twitter followers the you got during that time when you leave who do the twitter followers belong to we're seeing this happen in a certain case right now. let's move phone dog from his handle kept the seventeen thousand followers he had built up while at the company now phone dog has filed a lawsuit in california saying cravats followers should belong to the site the company wants two dollars and fifty cents a month per follower for months that makes three hundred forty thousand dollars. i

think that's b.s. the company owns the twitter followers it's completely b.s. i don't even get it you supposed to pay for the twitter followers the company will just lose all the twitter followers once that guy is not. who they're following anyway fortunately you guys are both completely wrong there is such a thing as intellectual property the company paid him to generate these twitter followers on their dime it's the same as stealing an email list or a customer list and taking it to a direct competitor it's wrong i've never thought i'd be opining on a tweet custody case the bottom line is the company paid him to do that the only the follow words and by taking that list and taking it to a rival he stole the intellectual property plain and simple i mean it was a spiritualist that's going to the bottom good idea that you know how do you make that is a good one i think good point if that's his you know not his personal life and that it was it was his company it's a company twitter handle and he's not in his followers under the only thing that is not yet is something that i don't even think i have like a theory or two number you're very aware of that it's

a stretch right it's not like you have somebody contacts that in their private personal contact it's just their twitter name which is public ok but it's the same thing if you have a customer list and you take that to your direct competitor these are people they generate advertising revenue from those twitter followers and by taking them to a direct competitor they cost his cost his company money it was stupid it wasn't probably. going to if they do that through forty thousand dollars and that we discussed the i hope he does i don't you just go get those twitter followers again if he's insane or send tweet to say i have a new twitter handle folks people are retarded well i mean take i take. this is necessarily mean that i let the that's true that they're all right dr following it is hard it is very very funny word a hit show they're valuable that they're going to be valuable and where ok we have quite a problem in this country when even our dogs. are you getting fat and need to lose weight i mean there is actually a show out there i think

a program to help dogs lose weight take a look. at joining us now is how do you see all the director of the doggie fat camp one of the first in the country you have changed the lives of hundreds of dogs have to meet a couple of them right now first up i want to everybody to look at this before a shot of lucky and let's see lucky did i come on how long. that's ridiculous and that makes me hate people that actually exist but so based on a new survey from nationwide half of all u.s. pets are dangerously overweight some forty one million dogs and forty seven million cats are so overweight or obese that they're high risk for diabetes arthritis some cancers and premature death this is not shock can't just do it to ourselves we've got to go to the well known fact that dogs and pets in their own little utah are not unlimited i mean because my ide this is only fitting this completely follows

everything we know about pets and their owners it's just so messed up but you know i think my parents dogs are overweight so. my dogs probably need a little well it is just an ill health it's a whole industry of people that can capitalize there's doggie diet pills there is obviously in fact hamps would really quickly let's john boehner speaker of the house we all know that he likes to tantalize think like. if you do when you become speaker will probably have the deepest hand of any speaker in american history there's actually been a poll out in your state of ohio saying thirty percent of the voters think you spent too much time on your ten and twenty seven percent don't like it is this something you have to or they probably weren't there yesterday when i was out cold in my group. mad well all jokes aside the indoor tanning industry is political action committees contribute five thousand dollars to speaker john major's campaign i like it they should you support them why wouldn't they support is there better for all of us that america right there may with the people paying money to congress

to keep that industry go yeah i think clearly agreed are you guys thanks so much for joining me tonight that's it for tonight so thanks for tuning in and make sure to come back tomorrow comedian tim young is going to be joining us for happy hour but in the meantime don't forget to become a fan of the launch on facebook you can follow us on twitter if there's anything you ever miss you tube dot com slash the lot of shell and coming up next. the official. pulled from the. video.

rusher insists an end to the bloodshed in syria will only be found if both government and opposition forces lay down their arms and talk that's why western gulf countries keep up regime change rhetoric and recall the ambassadors from damascus also. because system of law and order for many many years for the seach another part of. brussels can accommodate fury in the u.k. terror suspect spiritual leader in europe is going to back onto the streets of london after the european court of human rights forbids his deportation. and the first signs of a rift between the u.s. and post mubarak egypt says washington's threats to military aid won't change his position on the so-called crackdown on western n.g.o.s our top story this hour.

international news and comment live from moscow this is r.t. with you twenty four hours a day the syrian opposition say the city of homs has come under the heaviest attack yet in days of intensive fighting between armed groups and government forces and activists say hundreds of people have been killed by army shelling since friday the government denies the assault the local journalist done and says reports from homs difficult to verify. it seems like the situation hummus has been ask a lady who for the last five days with fear fierce fighting between know what they call themselves the free syrian army and the military forces by the syrian government the syrian government has a warning to its official sources has reported many casualties on.