russia and china vetoed the u.n. security council resolution on syria at a vote in new york moscow wanted all references to regime change taken out of the drop. more than two hundred thousand brave the bitter cold across russia to ensure their views on national politics are heard one group demanding fair elections march through the streets others rallies in support of the current leadership. europeans demand a free internet as people flood the streets in protest against an anti-piracy acne sign across the continent. a lot of shows up next stay with us.

welcome to the ilona show where we get the real headlines with none of the mercy or live out of washington d.c. now tonight we're going to take another look at a situation that's heating up between the u.s. and iran and israel and that is says that israel may strike iran within months but why would they want to make those kinds of statements what would be the u.s. position and is iran and is any of what we're hearing about iran's nuclear program even true prince the only is going to join us to hash it all out the jobs numbers came out for the month of january and the news was pretty good official unemployment went down to eight point three percent real unemployment down to fifteen point one percent so do we see any trends forming here richard esko is going to help us break down all those figures and florida's republicans are looking to privatizing prisons in the state so we're going to speak to an experience of the young turks about why this is a no good horrible idea we're not all that morphy tonight including it as of happy hour but first take a look what the mainstream media has decided to me. all

right so once again we hear this horrible drumming sound is getting louder and louder especially after report a reported statement by secretary of defense leon panetta that he believes there is a very strong likelihood that israel is going to strike iran in a matter of months israel is preparing to attack iraq and to carry out further attack within months strong warning from secretary of defense leon panetta israeli leaders are considering attacking a ronny a nuclear sites he is openly talking about israel's ambitions secretary of defense leon panetta who believes there's a strong likelihood writes that israel will strike iran in april may or june israel might carry out a unilateral strike on iran's nuclear sites. sometime in the spring this is a strategy to warn iran to back down or face consequences. now this is the kind of news that should make us all ask a lot of questions and that should make all of us feel very uneasy the last thing

that this world needs is another war any kind of military conflict for that matter it becomes all the more confusing when you think of how all over the place the statements are right when i release their report on iran's nuclear program late last year there was no sign that they're currently working on developing new nuclear weapons they said that the bulk of the work that could be weapons related was a halted in two thousand and three and they have some information that modeling design work was being done until two thousand and nine but that's it that we heard from leon panetta just last weekend when he was on sixty minutes that he believes iran could build and set off a nuclear weapon within two to three years if they decided to and the thing is when it james clapper the director of national intelligence testified before congress this week and released a report from this country sixteen intelligence agencies assessing threats to the u.s. he's pacifically said that they have no evidence that iran's leadership has decided to pursue a nuclear weapon so if there's no evidence that they've decided to do it should we be reminding people of that should reporters be cautioning that hey maybe this is

an important element to be brought into the debate now unfortunately what chuck todd over and n.b.c. did today was exactly the opposite he brought up a completely different part of this intelligence report that we heard this week and decided to see if there are any ties between the two. which are how did you interpret the intelligence report earlier this week and this is why where you sit here and you do you try to put sometimes one plus one together and see if if you are coming up with to when the intelligence report for the u.s. intelligence community to capitol hill to congress indicated that the iranians are planning a way to strike at the united states to strike at the united states militarily you put that out what are you trying to say. i think you're trying to warn the public and the u.s. is. it's communities been burned so many times i think they are going out of their way to tell the american people and tell members of congress what the potential risks are. arts of this is where the problem lies ok but instead of questioning

whether this report that said that iran is now the number one terror threat to the u.s. is a little over the top or whether it makes any sense richard just basically says that they're doing this just in case so they can have all their bases covered and he doesn't even blink when he says it like it's totally normal fare longer way just if you think that it might save your ass at some point in the future how this should bother journalists not be completely legitimate and unquestionable explanation and b. why do i get the distinct feeling that if anything does happen between israel and iran and the chorus for the u.s. to join in support israel of course which of course will be there either way is there currently but that course will become all the louder because people start pointing to this report and says that iran is the number one terror threat to the united states and the mainstream media is going to ask what exactly it is that we're getting ourselves into war over again is this a criminal act against the possibility of a small scale terror attack or is this preemptive act against iran developing a nuclear weapon which they haven't done yet neither one makes much sense and yet i

get the feeling what we saw today will only continue and will become fused together until all logic leaves this discussion and all the fear stoking all around much like we saw with the buildup to iraq and i hope that i'm wrong but if today is an example hell of the last couple of months are an example of how the mainstream media is approaching the issue breaking down the real facts in the logic figuring out what it is exactly would justify a war well sounds like all of that they're going to miss. all right so now let's try to see if we can piece any of this together break it down the washington post and others have reported that leon panetta believes that there is a strong likelihood that israel will strike iran in april may or. in the wall street journal is reporting that u.s. officials believe iran recently gave new freedoms and material aid to five top al qaeda operatives who had been under house arrest in the country u.s. intelligence agencies have now decided that iran is the number one terror threat

that the u.s. faces so does all of this seem rather familiar the buildup to iraq and how far do we think that this might really go here to discuss it with me is joseph cirincione president of the ploughshares fund a global security foundation just thanks so much for being here and i had a pleasure so i mean continuing on rate you just heard me totally read about this for a while but is this all just a preemptive move right i mean from everything that we're hearing there is no evidence that iran at the moment as a nuclear weapon or is necessarily working on one right this second to be ready any time soon there is nothing imminent nor inevitable in iranian nuclear weapons and that is the considered opinion of the u.s. intelligence agencies unanimous all sixteen intelligence agencies say iran has not yet decided to build a bomb and if they did decide to do it it would take them at least a year to make the material and perhaps two or three more to fashion a device so we would and we would see them doing it they would have to take the existing facilities convert them over to weapons production and then we'd have

plenty of time to take whatever actions diplomatic economic or military we want to there is no need for this rush to war so why do you think let's examine the rights of the statements made by the defense secretary first he said that in two to three years if they wanted to they could build and use a nuclear weapon and then also saying this about israel and putting this countdown clock type of scenario on it why would he make that kind of statement publicly it's pretty explosive i take the secretary's words very seriously and i talk a lot of people knew ministration and they take the threat of an israeli attack very seriously most could be clear about this poll show the majority of israelis do not want to go to war with iran even though they also think iran is going to get a nuclear weapon there is a split in the military and intelligence community and it is. many former intelligence officials heads of mossad for example my you're gone have said this would be disastrous he called it the stupidest thing he ever heard would set back israel's interest ten years but there is

a faction in the world could party held led by prime minister netanyahu that seems to believe that this is the time to strike iran you saying that one of two reasons one he really means it or to really try to pressure the united states and the west europe to take more economic sanctions more pressure on iran to try to crack the regime to try to force the regime apart the u.s. assessment is that there is a least a fifty fifty chance that the netanyahu means it and he will try to strike iran sometime in april may or june what's your take on sanctions do you think that sanctions are something that can crack iran as you said or quite the opposite is this something that only pushes the button even harder and makes them want to pursue a nuclear weapons program even more if the rest of the world is turning against them and since sanctions have never called worst a country into giving a nuclear weapon program or nuclear weapons but they are former pressure and they are very effective former pressure on iran you can feel it and the sanctions are getting deeper they're getting broader and the results are being felt by the man in

the street in iran right now families are suffering because of the sanctions the key isn't the sanctions the key is how do you use that pressure and this is where the u.s. doesn't seem to have a clear strategy the pressure is building military threats from israel sanctions pressure from the from the whole world what's your plan now that you put iran in a corner where is the door that gives them a face saving way out i don't see a diplomatic strategy emerging from this administration let's talk about the idea of you know if iran does indeed get a nuclear weapon we've heard certain people rick santorum presidential candidate in the debate say that the world would change overnight that this would be completely disastrous the same time we've heard people like ron paul say well you know if you look at the example around the world anything that iran should look to it's that when you acquire a new. weapon you suddenly get a whole lot more respect don't you i completely understand the view that it's a catastrophe and nonproliferation expert i've always felt that if one country gets a nuclear weapon the chances of their neighbors getting it increase saudi arabia

egypt turkey so you could end up with a middle east of not just one nuclear power israel but two three or four nuclear powers with the underlying tension still unresolved that's a recipe for a nuclear war but there's nothing automatic about that look at north korea they exploded a nuclear weapon in two thousand and six their neighbors have not followed suit there were ways to contain iran the same way we contain north korea in fact we could be should be communicating to iran that if you cross that line if you detonate a nuclear weapon if you acquire a nuclear weapon the pain is going to get worse your isolation is going to get worse that is not your salvation that's a ticket to permanent. status and i were just talking about this before the show you said that you just returned from iraq and that the attitudes the perceptions of what exactly it is that's going on are quite different than absolutely so why are you in washington and this is a sense of inevitability about a military conflict or you all people talk about is iran and the rest of the world particularly the middle east the nuclear issue is all about israel that's what they

want to talk about and you really mediately see if you have any hope of convincing the region to support your efforts to stop an iranian program you've got to show that it's not specific to a muslim state that you're also talking about a middle east where no one has nuclear weapons including israel you're talking about a world where the countries with nuclear weapons like the united states are giving them up and we're all moving in the same path together otherwise you have no hope of getting the international cooperation you need to stop new countries from getting weapons and so this is something that you and i have spoken about many times over in the past right in the big plan of the obama administration and renegotiating the new start treaty with russia is also to move towards a world without nuclear weapons and yet look at how we're really seeing that develop and you just read about this yesterday and you said the. in fact obama is coming up on a critical decision. in terms of in terms of whether we're actually going to scale it down and what congress wants to fund and what kind of scenarios where we have to

be prepared for i just wrote an article for foreign affairs up on their website where all this weekend obama got off to a fast start negotiated a new treaty with russia they both agreed to cut their deployed strategic forces by thirty percent he. started to put his policies into action in the administration but he ran into his stall his political opponents and a very resistant bureaucracy has stopped the progress on the president's nuclear agenda now is his chance to restart it he's just been handed options from the pentagon a six month study done by the pentagon and the other agencies on how he could further cut the nuclear weapons if we do not need a cold war force to anymore we do not need russia doesn't need fifteen hundred weapons ready to go with a moment's notice obama's going to be able to make decisions in the next couple of months they could just determine the course of the nuclear future of both our countries russia and the united states going to give us a few more details he could decide that he no longer needs to hold thousands of

targets at risk right now of a nuclear war plan requires that the military keep a thousand weapons ready to fire and twenty minutes notice why what military mission possible requires that just by eliminating that requirement he could reduce the number of nuclear weapons reduce the cost of the program right now the united states is starting to build the next generation of nuclear weapons new submarines new bombers new missiles why are we going to keep this force going on indefinitely for the next several decades the president doesn't want to do that but he's got to change the policy guidance he's got to tell the military that we can safeguard our nation with many many many fewer nuclear weapons hundreds not thousands are you know though if he does it or is this a secret decision well that's a very interesting question usually these decisions are. these are the most whole highly classified documents in the u.s. but they do show up in budget submissions they show up in program decisions but if the president really wants to capitalize on this particularly given the situation

with iran he should and should. say this is the time to come forth with a new nuclear posture a new nuclear plant and in so doing build the international cooperation he needs for countries like iran and north korea you know the republicans are going to love that one as fodder over coming up with the next election because the coming after him anyway you want to do what you want you going to tell of course they're going to talk and for everything we're going to talk to them still i just so just in regards to what we're hearing now from. what israel might be planning if you had to make a guess you really think that we're going to see something happen in the next couple of months that israel might strike no and i'll tell you why israel doesn't actually have the military force to stop their program it would be a prick it would be a pinprick on them that would delay for a little while but with the end result will be an acceleration of the iranian program the u.s. military does not want another war the u.s. intelligence services do not want another war the us the war i think those fundamental forces will prevail and stop this madness before it gets out of hand

you know it does seem like it's just a small handful of you know if you said there is a few hundred it's a few writers around here in washington d.c. that are being these dramas and hopefully we won't let them have their way joe thanks so much for being here and my pleasure thanks for having me. head on tonight show teams out the n.f.l. to make sure that nobody gets their hands on counterfeit goods and we're going to have january jobs numbers for you which seem to look like they're pretty good we're going to hash out what the latest data means with picture of ascalon for the. technology innovation. developments around russia.

well looks like ice is out of again scouring the internet and roping in all the websites of they deem as engaging in illegal activity not only were sixteen domains taken for allegedly engaging in unauthorized live sports streaming but another two hundred and ninety one domains have also been shut down for selling fake professional sports merchandise and it's all part of operation in our sites a program that's been active since june of two thousand and ten which has been responsible for over six hundred fifty site seizures since the project began if you remember back in october i says he finds a bill for taking down over one hundred and thirty sites and gauging infringing activity at that time they call the project cyber monday crackdown it was considered the biggest operation ever but in the spirit of super bowl sunday it looks like ice decided to go balls to the wall in their latest massive shutdown and they even sent out a cute little press release explaining their plants it reads while most people are

focusing on whether the patriots or giants will win on sunday when i have our sights on a different type of victory defeating the international counterfeiting rings that illegally profit off of this event that f l its players and sports fans to all looks like some of the fads like to have a little play on words there really a different type of victory let's take a minute to define victory here is the sites that were taken down allegedly were selling fake jerseys caps shirts jackets taken up all goods worth and allegedly four point eight million dollars that's i like a lot to you well to put it all perspective here first of all let's point out the obvious reason that people turn to these sites for fake sporting gear because the authentic stuff is ridiculously expensive now for the sake of the big game on sunday let's say that you wanted to buy a tom brady or another patriots tours. see from the official an f l site you're going to be paying anywhere between one hundred fifty to three hundred dollars this is a money making monster you guys it's not about sports fans but ice reminds us that

no matter how expensive you've got to play by the rules in their press release they went on to say in sports players must abide by rules of the game and in life individuals must follow the laws of the land are you guys i've had enough i'm crying foul here better yet a flag on the play ice claims that they're protecting the n.f.l. and the fans you see according to forbes each n.f.l. team is worth about one point zero four billion dollars and there are thirty two teams in the league so if you do the math that comes out to about thirty three point two billion and that does not even include the money that they make off of contracts for all four networks to broadcast the games and that's just during the regular season remember that super bowl technically is post season so that's just more money for a special commercials gear and such all filling in the n.f.l. money vault so not only is that f.l. committing a major price interference against its fans as a whole by taking away their opportunity to show off their team spirit but they're also committing a personal foul against your wallet now the league just wants to see if they can get away with roughing the consumer but hopefully there are enough refs out there

to make sure that doesn't happen like that i guess we could be cute till it's all over a little puns about football and combating paraphernalia but in all seriousness the n.f.l. is just call it ice begged them pretty please to remove any of their competitors from the web we already make billions but we really can't afford to lose a couple million dollars in this process so please help us government now listen before you take this the wrong way i'm not supporting counterfeit goods all i'm saying is that it's very obvious that some industries in this country which are massive money making industries like the n.f.l. gets take advantage of fans and all those consumers three hundred dollars for real jersey is absurd and the fact that they can obviously call up the feds have them host a super bowl themed crackdown just reminds us how awfully close to big business and big government really have become. all right so jobs numbers were released today for the month of january and compared to what we've seen in the last few years signs are pretty positive official unemployment fell to eight point three percent

the lowest since february of two thousand and nine the economy is said to have added two hundred forty three thousand workers with numbers for december and november also being revised up now they use six measurement which includes discouraged and marginally attached workers also fell to fifteen point one percent however long term unemployment remains a major issue with the share of the jobless who have been out of work for more than six months currently at forty three percent also that a whopping one point two million people dropped out of the labor force in just the past month so how do you break us all down joining me from our studio in los angeles is richard esko senior fellow with the campaign for america's future richard thanks so much for joining us tonight and like i said i mean overall these numbers are pretty positive do you think that we should look at this as a a one off we had one good month with who or are we finally seeing some kind of a steady trend. well it's too early to tell i think look first of all they are

positive there's no doubt about it they're certainly positive in comparison to the numbers we've been seeing for quite a long time now but we have to be very careful to make sure that we don't mistake a better month for the kind of month we need i mean let's put this in in a little perspective in order to keep up with population growth and to get unemployment down to what we've always considered on except our rather acceptable levels we'd have to see four hundred thousand jobs a month for three years so i think that you know it's a delicate balancing act here because on the one hand the republicans are going to try to destroy the very measures that have caused this marginal improvement and will try to do things that will spike those numbers up even higher but on the other hand the democrats have got to be careful about thinking it's time to take a victory lap and have got to double down on the things that need to be done to get these numbers into an acceptable range i mean we're talking about projections that

show unemployment to be way over what's considered acceptable for at least several years going into two thousand and fifteen two thousand and sixteen and later so we have to really be talking about that we have to be talking about the long term unemployed which consists of millions of americans whose lives have been devastated we have to kind of do that a balancing act between saying yeah less bad news is way better than terrible news something's trending well and i think the other side of it is we have to say how much of this is at risk because of other forces that are going on the chance of europe you know hurting our performance or the chances of being know some other catastrophic event bank failure so it's complicated it goes in a lot of different directions but basically good a is only so-so. until we really get things moving again you know if you listen investment rich i mean i'm happy to mention they're into the long term unemployed

because while we have these positive figures right now on the surface there really is this entire shadow class that's forming and we have forty three percent of people that have been employed for more than six months it only becomes increasingly difficult to get a job after you've been unemployed for a long time and like i said one point two million people just dropped out just gave up and aren't even part of the workforce and aren't even counted in the government's figures one point two million in just one month so how do we properly talk about that. well and i think to add to that you have what's essentially a primarily white people's recovery right now we still have devastating unemployment in the african-american community in the hispanic community among young people so we have a whole segment of the population being sliced off and so we have to be careful first of all not to turn these numbers into an excuse for the kind of destruction the republicans want but also not to let democrats take

a victory lap when so much more needs to be done we really should be talking about serious government investment over the next couple years and putting people back to work what do you think that the government necessarily should be investing at right for example manufacturing sector gained jobs in the month of january we also know the president recently rolled out a new plan for manufacturing but then some people out there are asking whether that's really the right thing to do you do we necessarily want to get manufacturing back or should we learn how to diversify should we learn how to teach workers new skills so we can move forward and progress. you know there's a reason why manufacturing jobs are going offshore and the apple stories that have come out about the deaths and injuries that apple suppliers in china are great example of that one of the reasons why we're losing manual manufacturing jobs in this country is because companies like apple. all look the other way and tacitly encourage their contractors overseas to engage in unsafe work practices that cause

great harm to their employees so we should be looking at rebuilding manufacturing in this country which is an achievable goal we should be looking at making it impossible to look the other way if you're an american company while allowing tacitly encouraging your suppliers to cut costs by threatening them in life and safety that's doable we should stop believing this fifty thousand number fifty thousand new manufacturing jobs as a lot of people scratching their heads but it shows us one thing for sure that those of us who are saying we can have more manufacturing jobs in this country are right so we should do more to keep that momentum growing and then what are your thoughts today the president gave a speech in arlington where he talked about new initiatives for veterans he wants to set up a veterans corps he wants more communities to hire them as police and as firefighters you know wants to give grants to communities that do that as well as you know also

help them get new training so they can be entrepreneurs and set up small businesses i think that it's about time that we did that until. sure of course i mean something like that should be a slam dunk it shows how crazy our politics are that that's even controversial what of course republicans will vote it down now but the problem is that people will look at that and say that was the most we could possibly consider doing that proposal is great but it's very inadequate for the job it needs to be done if the president's and the democrats are going to lose on their proposals they've got a little learn to lose better by telling the american people exactly what we need to get back to the kind of employment this this country can and should be seeing all right so you say that it's not enough last question have me switch gears for one second new york times had an interesting report today because we've heard a lot of the obama administration that they're trying to be more vigilant about going after mortgage fraud and what not but new york times says that if you look at the as the feel it's like over the years they have always let the big firms go.

well i wouldn't say always but i would certainly say in the last decade for sure and the administration's record in terms of enforcing criminal or fraudulent behavior on par on the part of the big boys is really one it should be terribly embarrassed about and ashamed of and if it wants to go ahead and show the american people that it's serious i think the new york times is absolutely correct it provides a lot of valuable information to add on what we already knew and i think it's now time for the administration to show its serious by beginning some criminal investigations against some of the major banks and other institutions where there's overwhelming evidence to create what lawyers call reasonable suspicion suspicion and start an investigation as an action instead of just the rhetoric richard thanks so much for joining us tonight. you bet good to be here. coming up next the f.b.i. get schooled by an honest again going to give details in tonight's told time and

florida wants to cash in on crime after the break we're going to speak with an experience of the young turks to find out how the state might free records when. come out of prison at the same.