today on our t.v. money sex and drugs as president obama prepares for his second inauguration a new report looks at profits of corporations during his first term remember he's the man accused of being anti-business but is this what the numbers say find out just ahead. crime figures the time many nine violent drug offenders are locked up for long prison terms thanks to the mandatory minimum sentences are to explore the sentences handed down and asked if the crime fits the punishment. plus it's award season in hollywood well we're not we're not going to cover that we'll tell you

about las vegas where the oscars of poor are being held this weekend will have a preview and take the pulse of america when it comes to the adult industry of entertainment. it's friday january eighteenth five pm in washington d.c. i'm maggie lopez and you're watching our take. well it's an argument we've heard time and again over these past four years in echo through the halls of congress by republicans when president obama was first sworn into office and it was once again reverberated on the two thousand and twelve campaign trail president obama is an enemy to business he's a socialist by nature and by practice that combative rhetoric was brought up again this week when c.e.o. of whole foods john mackey described the president's new health care law as downright fascist here's a few other examples of business business leaders taking shots at the president

every business guy know what the country is rocco and the way he thinks he wants reduce your vision of wealth in the he's a socialist or we have people running the show who seem to really not have the slightest idea how the world works frankly but here's the thing according to an analysis by bloomberg news corporate profits are the highest they've been under any president since world war two take a lot after tax profits are up one hundred seventy one percent the s. and p. five hundred index has gone up eighty percent since the president took office and here are a couple examples of how well corporations are doing caterpillar. profits grew thirty two percent since last year and yahoo earnings per share grew sixty seven percent since last year now whether these profits are because of the president's policies or in spite of them it's all in the eye of the holder for more on corporate profits i was joined earlier by r.c.

producer justin underhill as well as anthony around as though he's the director of economic policy at the reason foundation i first asked anthony if president obama based on the numbers is really that close to being a socialist. well it all depends on how you define socialism i think even the president that he's in favor of redistribution of wealth and that's a good things it's all about like the language the language that's used it whether or not it's positive or negative gets gets thrown around for some political reasons but i would say in answer to your question there at the top are these business results the results of the president's policies or in spite of them i think that they are a result of the president's policies we the bush administration and the obama administration bailed out large corporate financial institutions and the federal reserve has spent the past four years with its quantitative easing program providing cheap loans to large financial institutions these two things combined have allowed for corporations to make

a lot of money and that's not being realized on main street because all that money more or less just sits with those organizations they're not investing it they've got productivity up all unemployment stays down so i would say it's because of the president's policies but not necessarily in the ways that he may want to be and just saying i want to get your take we have heard. different corporate c.e.o.'s say that it is in spite of president obama's efforts that they are experiencing this one hundred seventy one percent profits what is your take about this the testicle and how president obama stacks up against them considering the stimulus and quantitative easing so corporate profits after taxes are at about one point seven trillion dollars as of two thousand and two and before the financial crisis they are out about one point three trillion after taxes so even even with the financial crisis in between corporations are doing just fine i would definitely say that financial the federal reserve quantitative easing has had an effect but it's also

important to consider things like unemployment and low wages as also another factor to consider as to why corporations are doing so well and we've also heard other things other other. kind of reasons why this tire profits is happening one of the things that people are attributing to this and they maybe i can pose this question to you is that only one third of the dodd frank act. requirements are being imposed tell me what type of a role that plays into it. well if you if you're going to look at the results of regulations directly affecting businesses we haven't seen that much of dodd frank actually be implemented and a lot of the final rules that he's been have been announced some some of them like the basel accounting requirements for banks are going to be fully implemented until two thousand and eighteen so in some sense there are certain regulations that there's concerns are being offered by the fears are for the future the environment

of there's going to be a lot of regulations there's a lot of smaller regulations state level regulations and fears about tax code or that's the the rhetoric that business leaders are largely focusing on and where i do think that today's data is nonce sort of reflecting the reality on the ground is that sure you've got a lot of profits at these large corporations but what we haven't been seeing is investment in the economy and that's the reason why the economy is weak that's the reason why important employment is still a significant problem as you can make a lot of money you can borrow money from the fed for basically free and then you can loan it back to the government and make a three percent profit on the free money that you got in the first place and you can rack up a lot of profits but that doesn't mean that we have a strong economy without actual investment in the economy itself we're not going to see economic growth so just to let's talk about this piggybacking off of what anthony is saying one of president obama's approach is to fix the economy that's

kind of the trickle down economics so we're seeing this huge growth in profits on top on the part of corporations is it trickling down and if it's not why not so you mentioned caterpillar had a record profits and what wasn't mentioned is that caterpillar also instituted wage freezes for a lot of its blue collar workers so even though they're making record profits it doesn't necessarily trickle down now there is there are expectations that there might be more hiring in the future so that still has yet to play out we don't know what this will look like and so. it might not it might be a positive thing in the future but we still have yet to see it play out that if companies don't hold on to their money as reserves that means that they need to be investing in the economy and hiring more workers and you brought up the. the i'm sorry you brought up that that the points as it were the future and how unemployment can affect profits in the future another thing that could really affect it is the new health care law is

a lot of people are saying that these taxes are going to play in effect do you think that there will play as they go fact slowing down profits well as of now so corporate taxes for obamacare in the fordable care act those don't come into effect until two thousand and fourteen so right now when you see complaining about it it hasn't taken effect yet what would be more of a concern is if there are more debt ceiling debates or more more uncertainty in congress that i would see as being a bigger factor than the health care i think the important to look at if you're the if you're a small business guy a middle business guy or even a large corporation and you're going to see a large tax hit your books in the next couple of years when you're looking at expanding your business or investing you are looking down the road so while the one sense i think that there's been a lot of businesses that have been complaining about the president from a political perspective they're conservatives and they're just going to complain about the president no matter what it doesn't it's doesn't deal with them eyes the

fears of businesses looking at increased regulatory cost or tax classes one two three four five years down the road and that limiting their investment decisions today and i think the other thing that's important to pay attention to here is when you see industry groups like the chamber of commerce saying the regulatory environment is hitting the economy look at small business and look at entrepreneurship over the last two presidents clinton and bush we saw a. eleven jobs per one thousand workers created by new businesses. every year and that number dropped to about seven point eight workers per thousand per year under the under the past four years now that's not necessarily all the president the economy has a lot to do with that but we've seen slumping entrepreneurship at the small business level that's that's a huge problem the economy and that is the regulatory environment is a huge reason why we're not seeing more small businesses can trying to compete with

the big guys that was anthony rand as our director of economic research at the reason foundation and our to producer justin underhill. moving on now richard has style though is no stranger to hardship on april twentieth one thousand nine hundred nine his life was forever changed by two fellow classmates at columbine high school in littleton colorado after being shot eight times and subsequently paralyzed richard became an advocate fighting against gun violence even appearing in films like michael moore's bowling for columbine now richard isn't broiled and get another fight want to save his house and the occupy movement is ready to help this survivor overcome once more arctic producer among the lindo takes us there. richard custodial may not be the largest occupy activists but his story makes him a very recognizable figure in the movement long before he started fighting against the american financial system which he sees as corrupt because there was fighting

for his life at columbine high school. and i think eight times or nine times i'm still still not even one hundred percent sure how many times or something like that i just said narrating along with my friend rachel who you know she died. died right next to me basically i was the last person to see her alive so it's pretty horrifying obviously castaldo is now partially paralyzed he left colorado to settle in california because of the thought buying a condo would be a smart investment and provide a good place to live with his cat instead he was caught up in the mortgage crisis now the company that owns his loan refuses to negotiate i think more than enough people that are on the street especially since you know i keep saying the banks can pretty much hand in everything which is i think that's going to change. you only free assistance because dollars are confined was with occupy activists

which have helped him get legal assistance richard lives here just a couple blocks away from hollywood famous sunset boulevard but the hardships he's had to endure are far from anything which could be scripted here in the capital of film after surviving an infamous mass shooting richard hopes that his new battle with the banks inspires other homeowners to also fight back i think it's time. for the american people to stay and not because they're not millions of other homeowners who are tempted to buy into deceptive loans just like a stall do according to court logic which tracks real estate four million foreclosures have been completed since the financial crisis of two thousand eight hundred one there's continued to struggle homeowners continue to lose their homes homeowners continue to big nor by even those people agencies that supposed to be helping them the national mortgage settlement has been criticized for not keeping people in their homes in awarding banks for providing help to homeowners even

though their services were actually just part of normal business practices i'm going to position where i can you know nice try and help shed some light i'm just kind of. you know show how you know pretty disgusted i am with the whole the whole system really from columbine to the mortgage meltdown because delta has experienced much suffering but if the fuse is to be victimized again and stick up for others like in scott a fire every day for justice. right next to me in los angeles remember lindo r.t. . if you thought the u.s. war in afghanistan was the longest in american history think again since the one nine hundred eighty s. the us has instituted a perpetual war on drugs one of the harshest laws was the anti drug abuse act of one thousand nine hundred eighty six which allowed prosecutors to use mandatory minimum sentences to send thousands of people to jail for years without a judge's approval but now democratic senator patrick leahy wants to scrap minimum

sentences altogether he says that this one size fits all crime strategy is a mistake or to correspondent liz wahl profiles one family who was caught in the crosshairs of this type of prosecution it didn't matter they still went to prison in spring of one thousand nine hundred ninety eight karen garrisons twin sons were top students about to graduate from howard university they had dreams of going to law school but that all changed. the informant claimed that they were at the light for ten weeks doing drug transaction the man that worked on their car was indicted for cocaine and crack distribution he told authorities the garrisons were involved in the conspiracy his sentence was reduced i think he did like. eleven months is something like they're going and when they were going in a few months later the investigator told me he was coming it was common. that eleven months paled in comparison to what the twins face fifteen and

a half years for lawrence and nineteen and a half years for lamont they were charged with conspiracy not possession neither man had prior crimes on their record and there was no other evidence against them to this day they say they were never involved with the drugs they were sentenced under mandatory minimum laws critics of such sentencing say a one size fits all approach means oftentimes the punishment doesn't fit the crime mandatory sentences are made by legislators whether it's members of congress or state legislators and they've never laid eyes on you they have no idea what you've done they have no idea how deeply involved you are the origin of mandatory minimum sentences can be traced to nine hundred eighty six when major laws in the war on drugs were passed president ronald reagan touted the drug abuse act as a way to clean up the streets at a time that crack and cocaine abuse was running rampant thirty seven federal agencies are working together in

a vigorous national effort and by next year they are spending for drug law enforcement will have more than tripled from its nine hundred eighty one levels decades later the war on drugs rages on with many saying it's done more harm than good as a country i mean we are paying for so many people to be welfare that used to be supported by the person who's now in prison so there's this sort of ripple effect that cost us not only to incarcerate the person but then to take care of the family that's left behind strict drug sentencing for mostly minor offenses floods us jails a disproportionate amount of those that land behind bars are minorities and never noticed that difference in white and black and two used in the criminal justice system and they don't hear. and it's with the do if mandatory sentences don't work what's the alternative advocates for reform say it's time to get rid of them because judges are in a better position to decide on fair sentences than congress when somebody goes to

prison and really the whole family goes to prison because they often lose their breadwinner. they lose a sign that you lose a daughter i mean it's such a deep impact on the entire family it's an impact the garrisons know all too well but i've tried to fight with. you dana. they want to have a woman my sons this past christmas was the first one to garrison family spent together and more than thirteen years the once aspiring attorneys say they no longer want to be part of a justice system they call corrupt in washington liz wall r.t. . this discussion of mandatory minimum sentencing has caught the attention of numerous human rights advocates and also caught the eye of documentary film producer david kuhn he recently made a film about mandatory minimum sentencing in relation to drug crimes title the house i live in the documentary recently won the two thousand and twelve grand jury

prize at the sundance film festival producer david kuhn joined me earlier to talk about his film and explain why mandatory sentencing is such a problem right now. well you heard julie stewart in the segment you around there say when you put someone in jail from a family you affect a whole family and part of what's happening is people are being put away for a long time for drug offenses we think it's a health problem more than a punishment problem when you have mandatory minimums you take away discretion from the court or the system itself and you remove the ability to treat it like a health problem and say well this person has to get ten years of this person has to get twenty years and they go away for a long time and we don't really fix the problem we just stuck with the result and it's not working ok so let's talk about for more on the people being sentenced are and also how long the sentences usually range from it can be any any number of duration but the problem with the long ones you know you can be put in jail for life for possessing drugs in california recently there was a change in the three strikes law it used to be before this recent election that

you could go to jail for life in prison for the rest you for a drug possession a nonviolent offense a petty offense now the laws change it has to be a bylane offense for your third offense to receive a life sentence at least that makes a little more sense you know so now the drug offenders are not in that category of life in prison that's a severe penalty for an addict so there must be a better solution and we have to find it ok and we know that the census the r. and disproportionately applying to people of color how. well originally drug was if you see the movie the house i live in the drug laws were targeted towards minorities recently and we didn't know about this until we researched the film in got into it and spent four years making the movie in twenty different states but you didn't directly learned that originally it was the chinese that were targeted for their use of opium and in california the chinese immigrants were coming in and they were a cheap labor pool and the people that were making the laws didn't like that and so

they said well how can we remove that cheap labor pool and we can arrest people for being chinese but we can arrest them for using a substance that is associated with the chinese and that was opium and so it went crack was associated with black people we know that forty percent of the crack users supporting percent of the drug use is in america are black people forty percent of the crack users are black people that means that by definition the majority of crack users are white people that's not a story that's been told in the media and that's not where law enforcement is targeted so there's been this racial bias from the beginning on how drug laws have been enforced ok and let's talk about what inspired you to connect that sound how did you come upon this data in the first place well eugene directly is a social issues documentary filmmaker so he makes movies about issues this issue was important to him because someone in his life nanny jetter which you see in the movie. is a black woman who was a caretaker in his home and eugene is very close to her it's like

a second mother to him and he learned of her experience and her family's experience and wanted to tell the story of black families in america a severe impact on black families in america are the drug policies of america and eugene saw a story much different than his own so he wanted to get at that and he delved into it for four years and as i said traveled across the country and met a lot of people and wanted to tell that story now apart from the argument that your documentary makes is against drug offenders minor drug offenders but obviously mandatory minimum sentences. base a lot of people for a very of writing of crimes are you one thing that you want to outlaw all mandatory minimum sentences or are you more focused on the drug sentencing in particular we're particularly concerned about drug sentencing i think that any time you remove discretion from a sentencing dialogue it's dangerous. i think it's important guidelines i think it's important to. guide ourselves in the right direction but to say that you can't use your judgment if you're

a judge which is supposed to be what you're there to do that's dangerous particularly when it comes to drugs so we're focused on drugs i think we could take a look at mandatory sentences in general though we're not against punishment for deserving cases but there needs to be some discretion ok so let's talk about we only have about a minute left but i have to ask you talk about the cost impact of minutes for a minimum mandatory sentencing you talk about it at the beginning a lot of it obviously it affects the family it does it also affect the present system a trillion dollars have been spent in the last forty years on incarcerating forty five million arrested people two and a half million people in prison that's a lot of money some of that money should be used towards rehabilitation it should be towards guiding these people back into a productive life back into their families back into communities where they can be contributing if you want to be across the taxpayer you know and that can help everybody we're spending a lot of money on incarceration and municipalities are going bankrupt so we need to direct that money towards rehabilitation and in the end spending a little towards it now saves a lot in the long run to have

a current producer of the house i live in i know that you're at your documentary is also available on i tunes on demand and on amazon and i know you're going to be a screening at the net at the shiloh baptist church thank you so much for taking a lot of time out of your day before the screening to come in to talk about this it's tomorrow and thinking several things thanks so much mark. well if you didn't get enough of the glitz and glamour making its way onto the red carpet at the globes golden globes get ready for round two avi and awards are just about to kick off this weekend in las vegas they are essentially the oscars of the adult entertainment industry r t correspondent ramona lindo is in las vegas right now and brings us a preview of what to expect sin city has definitely kicked it up a notch we are here at the hard rock hotel in las vegas for the thirtieth annual a.v.n. awards now things are a little empty tonight but just in a few hours this place will be packed water wall with the best and the bright is in

the adult film industry who's seen this year's awards will be us or keira and jesse jane and before things get started there will be a very stylish red carpet which compared to some of your more traditional hollywood red carpets will be quite risque you won't want to miss out on that in las vegas ramona lindo r t while the people of las vegas might be accustomed to the spectacle of the adult entertainment industry what does the rest of the country think while more harshness of the resident dot net took to the that question to the streets of new york to find out. porn this week let's talk about that you don't approve. i don't i don't disapprove i guess. whatever people want to check out that's fine you're turning

red i definitely think it's more mainstream yeah i definitely think it's maybe not fully socially acceptable but the acceptance is definitely improved do you think that's a good or bad thing. no comment well it's socially acceptable to some people and to some people it's not socially acceptable about you i think is deviant behavior and i don't deal with it so do you think that it's all deviant though or is there any part that's just natural sacks of people wanting to look well you see the thing about it is when you look at things you know if it can change the way one has an outlook i think there are degrees so i think it depends on the person who is watching and enjoying but i think there are probably some degrees like beastie ality bad by the way loving. yes like soccer girl porn probably five it depends who's watching it are you why did. you think more people

watch it and admit they do definitely yes so why do we feel so weird about it in society because it might be taboo because it's something that's kind of like unmentionables and it's being brought about in the forefront some some people might kind of feel to be exposed so that adds to the pleasure her definitely why is it so blacklisted i mean we all have sex right. like i said i mean for kids like i say make sure the kids are exposed to right away can they start being exposed. sixteen. happened totally against anything to do with pornography i have i have three girls and several grandchildren female so if it were something that were more loving and worth something them respected women why do you think that would be ok i don't see how productive you would ever respect women. that would be that's that's really contrasting statement

do you think that you're in the minority or the majority when you say you don't look at it. i bet it's fifty fifty yeah i would guess so you don't get it meaning you don't find it stimulating to start interesting even the weird stuff. probably especially the worst of whether you think porn is good or bad the bottom line is with an inexhaustible demand and a huge profit to be made porn is here to day. no pants no problem or at least that was the mentality of local subway riders across the country last weekend sanitarium issues aside an arctic correspondent honest. shows us how writers got cheeky despite the cold weather.

we are here for. the no pants subway ride and underwear extravaganza that a few friends kicked off in new york a decade ago now an annual celebration marked in dozens of cities across the world with thousands of participants in the big apple alone to be honest i didn't really know not it until i got on the subway and like that it was like you know it's you know what today is like like the. writers try to act as if nothing is speech pretending to have accidentally forgotten their parents at the book when it's the participants or something they don't know each other that nothing strange is going on so we're going to know that we're filming. they pop in and out of trains for maximum impact but most new yorkers are not jaded they've seen it all you know one way or another to try to get home and i think i do. because your cities are things like this all the time. after the ride participants flock

outside to celebrate out in the open winter air this year for the thirteenth time it's a friend now it's nice to feel like the beach is it me or are they are there really literally hundreds of people here without parents right now it is not just you and there are literally hundreds of people here and hundreds more coming where you started here i think it's funny i'm just keep looking at everybody's crotch it's like crap it just still feel free nothing to do with being perverted. so there's an adrenalin the happens with this thing how old are you under eighteen we're getting arrested by well there's a real interesting one over there but more like our ian today is opposed to. something it was just like our. well reactions to the i.d.r. mixed more p. .