it's. coming up on r.t.e. on capitol hill republicans and democrats push forward on a budget deal but even with a budget this is still shaping up to be the worst congress in history and in-depth look just ahead. and forget the get out of jail free card in california the deadline to reduce the state's prison population has been delayed they're operating at one hundred fifty percent over capacity and for the foreseeable future they will stay that way the latest on the state's overcrowded prison system coming up and philadelphia schools are taking a class in fund raising the city council will allow school buses ad buildings to be plastered with ads warning to attempt to drive the city out of debt later in the

show. it's thursday december twelfth by meghan lopez in washington d.c. and you are watching r.t. well starting off this hour for the first time since two thousand and nine it looks like congress was finally able to cross over party lines and come up with a budget deal for the next two years no neither party got exactly what they wanted so no one is really happy about this but hey that's compromise for you here's a glimpse at what the agreement looks like the eighty five billion dollars budget deal was cooked up by the senate and house budget committee chairs representative paul ryan and senator patty murray ever verses sixty three billion dollars an automatic spending cuts known as the quest ration plan for twenty fourteen it also reduces the deficit. by another twenty three billion dollars over the next ten

years now the total budget for fiscal year two thousand and fourteen is one point zero one two trillion dollars which is split evenly between the military and nonmilitary spending or it's split anyway so who made out on the deal or oil drillers certainly did the proposal would allow development of an area in the gulf of mexico previously closed for drilling and the spending for the pentagon has increased by more than twenty billion dollars from its current levels but to trim the deficits americans are going to have to pitch in a bit more liberals trying to push for an extension to one point three million americans unemployment benefits that were set to expire at the end of the month but to no avail that is not in the deal federal workers will have to contribute more to their pensions and airline travelers will have to pay higher security fees but before you start thinking that political gridlock in the nation's capitol is over

and lawmakers are sitting in a circle singing kumbaya allat one another keep this in mind the one hundred thirteenth congress is the least productive group of people in decades they have passed seven times if you're bills than that of harry truman's do nothing congress in one nine hundred forty eight and twenty two fewer than last year so what are they doing with their time if they aren't passing legislation are to correspondent perry and boring finds out. we are almost halfway through the hundred thirteenth congress and it's a well on its way to becoming the least productive in the history of the united states this friday marks the last legislative day of the year for the house of representatives so far there have only been fifty bills and acted and so law a stork low for even modern day congress it is in two thousand and eleven the first year of the hundred twelfth congress eighty one bills were signed into law by the president capitol hill picked up steam in two thousand and twelve passed another

two hundred two bills this gave the hundred twelve congress two hundred eighty three total was making it the biggest do nothing congress thus far however with the fifty six bills passed into law this year it looks as though the one hundred thirteenth congress could break this record here's how i presented it judy chu feels about this. i think it's a crying shame when i first got here we were the most productive congress ever we passed the affordable care act frank and the biggest increase to college scholarships ever but this has been a do nothing congress and we have so many important things to do including extending unemployment benefits i'm just really distressed by the state of things. so let's talk about what the legislative priorities of the hundred thirteenth congress are the republican controlled house has passed forty six different bills to repeal the affordable care act fifty two jobs bills and a budget the senate has passed a comprehensive immigration reform bill

a so-called nuclear option which changes the rules to make it significantly easier to pass executive branch nominees and a totally different budget despite the house and senate both passing separate budgets we still haven't agreed upon one or several key measures including a farm bill a permit doc fix to medicare and fourteen of the eighteen key appropriations bills in the past these have been nonpartisan measures but some people prefer their congress doing nothing including representative ileana rossley in who i spoke with earlier this week. well some people say that we do our best work when we don't pass any more loans and we don't pass any more regulations and we don't hike anybody's taxes so i guess it depends on what one's version or definition of productive is if you don't like congress you don't want to passing any more laws than then you probably pretty happy with the record so what are some of the bill that have passed both chambers they include an amendment to the national baseball hall of fame

commemorative coin act to specify the dimensions it should be made and then we also have the no budget no pay act however despite the fact there is still no budget and everyone can tell you used to get paid there is the helping heroes to fly act to make it easier for injured veterans to pass through airport security for example people and seniors still have to navigate their way their t.s.a. screenings and the helium stewardship act which revises the requirements for crude helium sales on federal land it was mark twain who told us actions speak louder than words but not nearly as often when i was leaving the capitol earlier this week i snapped this photo of a few hill stoppers going through security they were wheeling in a blanket covered cart and ensure would do nothing fashion as they approached the metal detectors they unveiled an assortment of beers to be due to the capitol although we've yet to pass a water bill we can at least be assured that someone's paying their beer bills in washington d.c. perry and boring are to. well this morning the senate banking committee drafted a bill that would introduce a new sanctions against iran this comes less than

a month after the obama administration announced a temporary deal with the country to ease sanctions in return for iran curtailing its nuclear program of course if the u.s. does follow through on these new sanctions it violates the terms of the agreement senate banking committee chairman tim johnson said the bill will not move forward unless iran chooses not to follow through with its end of the deal but the obama administration is anxious to prove that it will remain tough on iran until i'm more per minute. deal is reached to that in the white house announced it would be blocking the trading activities of an expanded list of iranian individuals and companies operating around the world there are these are companies that are associated with iran's oil sector and they will remain sanctioned under the new agreement meanwhile iranian regime and russian officials are meeting in tehran artie's maria cino she is there and she brings us more from that visit. this is the

highest level russian delegation to visit iran since president hassan rouhani took power bringing with him an approach that has led to a real significant diplomatic movement of the just several months in power at the breakthrough talks in geneva early. the new administration in taiwan agreed to either freeze or curb parts of its nuclear program the payback was limited relieve from the international sanctions which have severely hampered the country's economy already we know that a group of international inspectors has been allowed to visit the iraq plant here in iran which is at the center of suspicions about iran's motives for have a nuclear program it's been shut down so far for at least six months occlusion to geneva deal russia's massive is that good will is key to hold in these together it once foreign minister has already warned that if the u.s. senate decides to introduce new sanctions and this is something that is now being

discussed in america all diplomatic achievements already reached between the signs will be done and this is very dangerous sergei lavrov russia's foreign minister will seek assurance that iran is keeping its end of the deal to the next. rehabilitation of the international media could include syria in just a month's time diplomats had back to switzerland to participate in geneva two syria peace talks and at this stage all the major powers involved in the protective crisis in this list country will be there but not iran and this is something most who is very concerned about and wants to change it wants to get to run involved too that will be another important part of the discussions here integrand today. that was our tears marina you know sheena. while russian president vladimir putin delivered his annual state of the nation address today and he focused on the

economy and said the main slowdown for growth in the country comes from internal factors he also addressed the situations in ukraine and syria r.t. is igor piskun office in moscow with more. it's traditionally become the place to be to find out the president's vision of the president and his plans for the future every year russia's top politicians businessmen economists and elites gather at the kremlin to listen to his idle address first head of just returned from there as well and here are some of the key points why the world had to make russia isn't looking and dominating the rules but that doesn't mean it has to stop protecting its sovereignty and traditional values. because we know that there are even more people around the globe who support our position in terms of ensuring traditional values these are the values of traditional family and the value of human life including religious life that is not only material life but also spiritual of course this is a conservative position but the point of conservatism is not that it hinders the

movement forward and upward but that it precludes the movement backwards downwards back towards chaos and a barbaric state. diplomacy was another point in the president's speech or specifically recent breakthroughs with syrian chemical weapons and the rein in nuclear program and many animals to greet these are examples that diplomacy still works by the time when russia. suggested. the process of chemical disarmament stars and syria. very few countries in the world were keen to support the so-called obama option which would have been yet another bombing of the at another country so i think that this is a very important lesson. lesson on how prices of this stuff should be sold u.s. plans to build an anti missile defense system in europe one of the biggest sticking points in moscow's relationship with washington was of course also talked about the

president's message was simple without a threat from iran what's the point of building it. moscow does see the shield as a threat to its national security and putin says powering up russia's military is one of the ways to protect against it. because you know when you look at use it unless it was more sinister that it's a no country should harbor illusions of achieving military dominance over russia we will never let it happen russia is ready to meet those challenges both political and technological that we've got all the potential needed our military doctrine as well as our military equipment allow us without a doubt to ensure russia's security finally admitting their relations with europe and former soviet countries are not easy to clearly referring to the current situation in ukraine which you said moscow respects the desire of those partners who want to be closer to the you as long as decisions aren't made by potheads and are based on dialogue and what's going on fourteen moscow. and israel people are breathing a little easier these days ever since syria agreed to hand over its chemical

stockpiles to the international community for months as syria's civil war raged on in the country israelis have been preparing for the possible. already of violence spilling over into their country or worse yet a chemical weapons attack but those fears are finally easing artie's policy or reports this could soon be a thing of the past is radius queuing for gas masks in the pipeline a recommendation to the cabinet to stop manufacturing them for civilians so is dismantling of its chemical weapons also seems to have lifted the edge of israeli fears of a chemical strike where is a few months ago kids were spilling into the streets today the paranoia has died down. it comes after syria destroyed all of its chemical weapons production facilities the country is on track to eliminate its entire stock power by the middle of next year the chemical weapons are among the most of or of weapons ever known to man and we the masons of the world are well except for syria had agreed to

abandon that weaponry a long time ago only two countries in the middle east haven't come on board with egypt and israel tell of it was actually signed but not ratified the chemical weapons convention that outlaws the production stockpiling and use of chemical weapons the reason that one there is still some chemical weapons in the region and also does not want again from reasons of deterrence to reveal and to discover its capabilities tel aviv has always been vague on the topic of chemical weapons according to foreign media reports israel has a stockpile of various weapons but the israeli public spoils shied away from asking too many questions the same reason all the time if it's security issue we don't have to deal with it we have the differences. there nor the doing we don't have to

do anything about it but with syria out of the picture israel's argument is weaker . and the organization that controls chemical weapons is keeping up the pressure we regularly. sand letters to the non-state parties including israel and burns you withdraw without joining conventional means you see god has no legal mandate to undertake verification activities to verify that but as another chemical weapons arsenal in the middle east is dismantled with the power of diplomacy the israeli government is facing growing international pressure to come on board policy on t. television. still ahead here on r t california's prisons the summer means way overcrowded and now the state's deadline to reduce the present population has been delayed more on that after the break.

last month we told you about california's plan to reduce its prison population significantly by january and three judge federal panel has now extended that

deadline to april to give the state time to figure out how to go about reducing the population right now there are over one hundred nineteen thousand inmates in california causing the prison system to operate at one hundred fifty percent overcapacity inmate advocates say that this overpopulation is a violation of constitutional standards and leads to poor prison conditions the courts say that the population needs to drop by nine thousand six hundred inmates by april rather than january here to bring us the latest is our chief correspondent ramon galindo ramona hi there can you go into a little bit more detail about what this extension is about. sure and this isn't the first time that the extension of this deadline has been extended we have to remember that the corps initially ordered the state of california to reduce its prison population to about one hundred ten thousand people or about one hundred

thirty seven point five percent of its capacity by june of two thousand and thirteen that has been extended until april and this also gives a little bit more time for for the attorneys representing the prisoners themselves to help negotiate new solutions in order to deal with california's prison overcrowding before this it was just the governor's office and legislators who are trying to come up with ideas but this has helped to bring in attorneys for the prisoners to try to come up with some ideas to help reduce this issue of overcrowding well let's talk about some of those ideas what kind of long term solutions have been proposed sure the ideas coming from this day really have to do mostly with reducing the rate of recidivism here in the state of california now that means spending more money on education of inmates and spending more money on mental health funding instead of the prisons as well however attorneys for

attorneys for the inmates themselves say that more needs to be done to really address the immediate issue of just plain overcrowding inside of the prisons and as i had spoke about that the attorneys for these men as and women say that the overall population is a violation of constitutional standards as well as and leads to these really poor prison conditions can you go out and tell us about those conditions what it's currently like in these overcrowded prisons. no you're absolutely right i mean the health care system inside of california prisons was ruled to be unconstitutional and this really stems from a couple of lawsuits involving inmates suffering from mental illness illness and just regular inmates who weren't really getting the proper care because there are just so many people stacked up on top of each other attorneys representing. some of the mentally ill inmates describe some of the conditions let's hear from

something like twenty five to thirty percent of state prisoners in california are people who are severe mental illness and those people were in you know horrific conditions they would be very symptomatic to compensate committed suicide and be in sounds where they're basically losing touch with reality smearing themselves with their own ways and there just wasn't enough capacity to care for them the other compounding series is it is a me as a medical case where you just sent people with medical conditions range ranging from infections to cancer who also were not getting minimal care and they're in prison. or call nine one one the only cure they can get is the care that the prison system gives them right and some of the judges that ruled the health care system in california prisons to be unconstitutional even suggested that the change and they're led to deaths and in the most recent extension of the negotiations for this

prisoner release deadline some judges express a lot of concern over the fact that hundreds of mentally ill inmates are being kept in solitary confinement with what appears to be no sort of cause all ramon i have to ask you why does california's present population so much higher than the rest of the u.s. do you guys just have more prevalent. well this is a problem that didn't happen overnight this is decades in the making just for a little bit of perspective back in the one nine hundred seventy s. there are about twenty thousand total inmates in all of california is prison system at its peak in two thousand and seven there were nearly one hundred seventy five thousand inmates that's an increase that but of about seven hundred percent so and a lot of this does have to do with tougher drug laws stricter sentencing guidelines laws such as three strikes and what we see is a lot of coverage of high profile crimes in the news and then that really created a string of lawmakers who were tough on crime really compete to see who could

create tougher sentencing guidelines and years and years of those sort of policies unfortunately ended up with this overcrowding this inside of the prison system now one of the reasons state officials say that they want to extend the deadline is to give the rehabilitation programs in the state time to to be able to work well have to see how those rehabilitation systems work or if the deadline is going to be punted once again artie corresponding remodelling now reporting for us in los angeles thank you so much you bet. well say goodbye to the iconic yellow school bus children have gone to school in for decades upon decades city council members in philadelphia approved a bill this month that would allow the school districts to raise money by selling get this advertisement on their buses and also on their school buildings the council approved the bill with only one no vote the cash strapped district is following in the footsteps of several other suburban areas with selling advertising

space on its buildings and buses to help dig the city out of debt the move could raise hundreds of thousands of dollars and council members say they will not be allowed to advertise tobacco or alcohol products on the buses or the schools and the bill doesn't guarantee one hundred percent that the district will actually follow through on the us but here's our artistic interpretation of what the buses could look like one day in the future now the lone dissenter in the vote councilman dennis o'brien says children are already too bombarded with advertising and the city should try to find another way to raise money but for now it looks like when the wheels on the bus go round and round the city's bank account will go. a sexual desire drug for females hit another snag this week when the food and drug administration turned down the medicine for widespread distribution fills the flip

of sarin is the non-hormonal pill that is not like an antidepressant in that it lowers the level of chemical serotonin in the brain and boosts dopamine or that happy go lucky feeling in the brain the pill which was created by sprout pharmaceuticals would have been the first of its kind to hit the market however the f.d.a. says that the drug is only has a effect on women in the company claims that in clinical trials the drug it was actually dug. old women sexual experiences over the women who had received a placebo pill for pharmaceuticals has appealed the f.d.a. decision so there might be hope yet for women. well i spoke with my little eyes someone on facebook or someone watching porn or tonight's resident looks at how the f.b.i. can spy on you through your websites computer or through your webcam anyway without

you knowing about it at all and how you can protect yourself take a look. you know where i'm at surveillance techniques revealed that the f.b.i. can covertly turn on your computers webcam and watch you play you're sitting at your computer doing god knows what they can watch you while you're watching porn that for all your eye ruins and worst nightmare and they can do this without triggering a warning light so you'll have no way of knowing that they are literally watching you the record confirms a terrifying fact that many people have always thought was possible three years

people have been covering up the computer camera sensors with post it notes or duct tape effectively blocking the government's hypothetical view of you at your computer but now that it's been confirmed and we know the f.b.i. can commandeer our cameras it might be time to make that makeshift camera cover a little more official and of course where there's a need that there is consumer is that many companies are now manufacturing computer camera covers some are just stickers like the electronic frontier foundation cynthia that is all about defending people's rights in the digital world their cameras cover stickers with their logo on it are both functional and promotion and then there are some fancier ones little plastic things where you can manipulate a slider back and forth this allows you to use your webcam when you want to like when you're studying with mom and to flag it when you don't want anyone to see you like what you're watching for and of course there's a hello kitty webcam cover there's

a republican elephant webcam puppet for surveillance hitting conservatives there's a sky. all in crossbones web cam cover for i guess there's a hand crocheted goes to web cam cover with little googly eyes on it i hope the f.b.i. can take over those eyes too seriously people are actually making all of these camera covers because the f.b.i. has the flight to actually watch you through your computer camera without knowing it how sorry is that fate of affairs i mean some of them are funny but stop and think about it these covers are true testament to the fact that we're living in a poll on surveillance world right now and it's not going to go away so we might as well all go get ourselves camera covers now or else with having the f.b.i. know what are over he says look like tonight let's talk about that by following me on twitter at the resident.

all right that doesn't for now from on stories we covered go to youtube dot com slash r t america and check out our website archie dot com slash usa. play was terrible they weren't very hard to make out plots against someone here there's a plug in that that was the perfect there are no lines let's. just.

play if you. look at the play. there's a medium leave us so we leave that maybe. by the same motion security play your party there's a goal to wear shoes that no one is asking with the guests that you deserve answers from it's all on politics only on our t.v. . please. please. please. please.

please. please. please. crosstalk rules in effect that means you can jump in anytime you want. to. live. there i marinated and this is boom bust and here are the stories we're tracking for you today. first up a deal has been to reach it only took over four years in a government shutdown but now a bipartisan budget deal has been struck we'll tell you what's in it coming right up and wondering where to go for dinner tonight perhaps.