Latest Breaking News On - Brent benjamin - Page 1 : vimarsana.com

Transcripts For CSPAN Justice For All March 20141214

have a bone in my body, i will not fail my son. i promise him i'm going to fight -- stand for him and speak for him because he is no longer there to speak for himself. this is something we demand. we paid a horrible price to be here. [indiscernible] that eric garner was killed. i am so sorry for that. michael brown, i'm sorry that it has to end like this. but this is not the end because of the sea of people who said we -- who stood up and said we need justice. we cannot close the book. we have to carry on until justice for all, equal justice for all the victims. despite where you are coming from. whether sean bell or leslie work or gwen, we are all here. please do not forget us. don't forget that our sons died. so that we can open up the book and review what is happening, so that we can open up conversation around the nation, so that we can start building communities, community relations, and finally, when that happens, when we have strong laws, good cops policing our neighborhoods, then we can heal because we want to heal. we need healing, america. thank you. god bless you. [applause] >> we must here and we -- must hear and are going to hear from our partners in leadership. but we must hear from the mother who has symbolized the challenge of our time. the mother of trayvon martin. sabrina fulton. [applause] >> we love you! >> first of all, i love you guys, too. from my family to your family, from all of these families up here, you guys mean the world to us. and if we don't know how to express it all the time, we can -- if we can't touch you all the time and take pictures all the time, just know that our hearts and our minds are with you. we have a few things to talk about. since i have the mic. first thing, this guy right here to my left. reverend sharpton, where would we be without him? [applause] people don't quite get it. they don't quite understand. they want to talk about we are not together. look around. >> amen. >> look around. take a look around. we are together. we are united. we are standing and we are going to fight this fight, together. together. it hurts me to my heart to know that so many men are getting away with shooting and killing our young people. and not being held accountable for it. but i truly believe by us being here together and united that god sits high and looks low and the light is absolutely shining on what's going on. this is not something new that just started. this is something that has been happening. this is something that has been going on. it is just that some folks just woke up. some folks just woke up and realized, hey, this race of people is being treated a little differently. we want to make sure we not only are talking to ourselves and our own groups and organizations, but we have to make sure they understand what we are going through. because some people don't quite get it. don't preach to the choir. because they get it, they understand. i don't have to tell one single african-american about racial profiling because you guys know. so what i challenge you to do is talk to somebody that does not know. talk to somebody and make somebody else knowledgeable and make somebody else aware and educate somebody else about what you are going through. because as long as we stay to ourselves, we are going to stay in our same circle. and we have to get out of the circle and make positive change. the last thing i want to say is, don't just come to the rally and then go home. the numbers look nice and look good. you guys look good out there. and we are very proud to stand here. but it cannot stop here. i want to challenge you to also commit yourselves with a nonprofit organization, somebody that has purpose and meaning. something that -- an organization that supports the same ideas that you have and the same goals you have. we are going to fight this together. god bless you all. thank you. [applause] >> sabrina fulton. give her a hand. [applause] thank the families as they step down. i want to thank the black eagle, that is hosting us at our request. and then he will bring on the national bar association and brooks,book -- brother who co-convened this. judge mathis is in the house. we will hear from the judge. and then reverend jamaal ryan will send us home. hold on. don't leave us. hold your bus. totally the luster not charge over time. -- tell the boss to not charge over time. >> i have the pleasure of introducing one more family member. the daughter of eric garner. where is she? are you here? please, ladies and gentlemen, thank you. >> i just want to start by thanking everyone for coming out and supporting our families. [indiscernible] >> hands up. >> don't shoot. >> no justice. >> no peace. >> no justice. >> no peace. >> i just wanted to stop by and take my new family on the stage. -- think my new family on the stage. i joined a national action network after the march in staten island. i go every sunday and monday to the house of justice to figure out what i can do to make the policing better in our communities. i have come up with a list -- i can't find it right now but -- i have it. i came up with a few pointers i want to outline so that we can work together to get these policies enforced. public protests are important because we all have to come out and get our voices heard. and if we don't make our voices heard, they won't listen. so we have to make them listen. we have to go out there and protest together, peacefully. today was so peaceful, i cried the whole way from down pennsylvania avenue until i was right here. all the love and support being given. we have to learn how to speak to each other. if you don't know somebody and they are going through something, give them a hug. go to a young person and tell them, you don't have to riot and lived and flip cars. that is not what my father did. he wanted young men to take care of their kids. my father took care of his kids until his last dying breath. when he said, i can't breathe, he is saying, i can't feed my family. hands. >> don't shoot. >> i can't breathe. i can't breathe. i can't breathe. if there is no justice? >> no peace! >> no justice? >> no peace! >> thank you all for coming out and supporting me. [applause] >> let's bring now -- and we're near the end with our speakers. i have judge mathis here, spike lee is here, the naacp is the urban league. we know it's cold and just cuddle up and warm up and we're going to get it right and everybody, archie elliot, 14 times they shot him in prince george's county. ladies and gentlemen, bringing to the podium now, melanie campbell, president of the national coalition on black civic participation. >> no justice! >> no peace! >> no justice! >> no peace! >> i can't breathe! >> i can't breathe! >> we can't breathe! >> we can't breathe! >> black lives matter! >> black lives matter! >> all lives matter! >> all lives matter! >> i want to thank reverend sharpton for your leadership and your leaf time commitment to justice -- your lifetime commitment to justice for all people, for our people. you have been there for the families of the victims of police killings and brutalities for decades. i'm going to age myself, but i can remember way back in the 1990's you were there for the family of philip pinel from englewood, new jersey. any new jerseyans in the house? [cheering] he was killed unjustly by police. you have always been there for our community. when the cameras were off more times than when the cameras were on. you are our go-to guy. you fight to the end and we love you. i want you to repeat after me. we love you, reverend sharpton! we love you right now! all i want to say, when we stand here today we can look behind and we can see the congress. you see that white building back there? we are here today with all the families representing the black vote. we're here to pledge to our families to stand in solidarity with you until justice is served. we need congress to do their job. president obama, attorney general eric holder, they're doing their jobs. but they can't do it alone from a federal level. we need congress to act. there needs to be an end to police brutality and excessive force. i have two brothers standing before me, reverend tony lee and my brother sherman justice who spoke earlier to close us out. thank you. i love you. tony? >> i've come today to tell you that we have to call this united states of america into a sense of repentance. you've got to understand the word says that what does the lord require of you but to do justly and love mercy and walk humbley with your god. we have got to call this nation not just to talk justice but to do justice, not just to act justice but to do justice, not just to fake justice but to do justice. and if it won't do justice, we'll shut this sucker down. is there anybody here who says this nation will do justice so we cannot stop until justice rules. no justice? >> no peace! >> no justice? >> no peace! >> all right. we're rolling on, ladies and gentlemen. please, now, welcome the head of the national urban league, my main man, mark morial. >> no justice? >> no peace. >> no justice? >> no peace. >> i want to thank reverend sharpton and the entire team of the national action network but also thank the labor organizations, civil rights organizations, the young people, a big round of applause, the young people who stood up. this day has been a day when some will ask why do we march? we march because of trayvon martin, eric garner, michael brown, tamir rice, john crawford, lavar jones, and marlene pinak. we also march today for the many people not named today who have been victims of pleas violence across the nation. we march today because it is our right as americans. we march today because we are united, black and white and brown and asian. we are united, young and old. we are united to say, it is time for change. we want justice and we want it now. a generation ago, or many generations ago, the death of emmitt till, the bombing of the four girls in birmingham in the 16th street baptist church, the death of schwerner, goodman, and cheney, young people down in mississippi gone to help people register to vote, awakened the conscience of a nation. that awakening spurred a people's movement of unprecedented proportions, and that people's movement knocked down the walls of segregation, passed a civil rights act of 1964, and the voting rights act of 1965. i am outraged by the grand jury decisions in ferguson and staten island but i'm even more outraged by the -- and that is why -- that is why this movement cannot be a movement without objectives. so i want to just share with you 10 action steps for police reform and police accountability that each of you must bring back to your local community and we will advocate for in all 50 states of the nation. number one, we want widespread use of body cameras and dash board cameras in every police department in this nation. we want an end to broken windows, police strategies, and the implementation of 21st century community policing strategies. we want a uniform, deadly force policy that's transparent and understood by all police departments across the nation. we want all police officers to be comprehensively retrained to learn how community policing should work to develop relationships between police and the communities they serve. we want, where appropriate, special prosecutors to be appointed to investigate police misconduct, because the relationship between local police and local prosecutors is too close for them to always be fair and impartial. we want the f.b.i. to create a clear and transparent reporting system for lethal force incidents involving all law enforcement anywhere in the nation. and we want a national data base of citizens complaints against the police. we also want a national police accreditation system, which for those departments that don't meet this accreditation, they are ineligible to receive federal dollars. we want -- we want this congress -- this congress that meets behind us to pass a national antiracial profiling law. no one based on race, color, creed, religion, national origin, or gender or gender orientation should be profiled by the police. so we've come today to rally, we've come today to stand with these families. brothers and sisters, we've come because today is a beginning, a new beginning for justice in this nation. no justice? >> no peace. >> no justice? >> no peace. >> the next speaker is the new president of the naacp. >> no justice. >> no peace. >> no justice. >> no peace. , we leftle while ago stones on a plaza marching towards polished -- the polished marble of the u.s. capitol. over a mile,little we marched together. jew and gentile, black and white, catholic and protestant, gay and straight, latino and asian. when we march together, we the people marched together. the distance between these two points is a measure of determination. it is a measure of our commitment. it is a measure of our resolve because we believe all lives matter. every child matters. every citizen matters. all of our children matter [applause] we have been asked a question. why march? why us? march because when we see our children go out day in and day we march because when you have one out of every men african-american young being mistreated at the hands of the police at any given month, we march. we march when african-american men are 21 more times likely to lose their lives at the hands of police. inmarch because we believe our children. we care for our children. yes, we will protect our children. you asked, why march? from michael brown's hometown to the hometown of governor jay nixon, 134 miles across missouri, we marched. we marched because all of our children matter. we marched, and we will yet march again. when you ask, why do we march? i answer in the words of the civil rights leader from the said, we willho march until hell freezes over. we will march on the ice. [applause] why us? it is not your children being profiled. it's not your children born suspect. you that if to you've ever held a child in your arms, if you've ever held a baby in your arms, you know that that child's name is not democrat or republican. called by theot name of the urban league or naacp. that child's name is known by god, and every child matters. we march together because we care about our children. when i came to the naacp, my youngest son was the same age as emmett till when he was killed, 14 years of age, and my older thewas 17 years of age, same age as trayvon martin when he was killed. i march because of my children. we march because of our children. we stand together because of our children. afternoon, you this as we march, let us be mindful of that great hymn of freedom. lift every voice and sang. ring with the harmonies of liberty. let our rejoicing rise high as the lifting sky. let it resound loud as the rolling sea. sing a song. sing a song full of the hope that the president has brought us. let us march on. let us march on. let us march on. on till victory is won. one for every child. one for every member of this republic. let us march for our children. [applause] upi am going to now bring the legal arm of this demonstration. three of the baddest folks that ever worked to the bar. ladies and gentlemen, first, you know him as the judge, judge greg mathis. [applause] reverend sharpton, the family of our fallen boys who are changing this world, and you all here today, very quickly, i want to comment on what justice looks like or what it should look like. justice should look like federal intervention with federal and state legislation amending the laws on secret grand jury's. we want grand juries to be open and transparent. justice should look like using the police data that we gather around the country, the same police oversight. theant justice to look like police and our community touching us and loving us. to love us is to be a part of us. we want justice to look like choosing employment and education for our black youth rather than last incarceration -- mass incarceration. we want justice to look like the stopping of guns and drugs being dumped in our communities for our young people to kill themselves with. finally, we want justice to look likeyou, like me, like he, she, like they. we want justice to look like all of us so that we can get equal protection under the law. god bless. stay strong. we love you. >> reverend sharpton once said, i wish johnny cochran was alive. he's not. attorney crump is the attorney of our generation. darren park is the attorney of our generation. mike brown, trayvon martin, and tamir rice -- ladies and gentlemen, the attorneys of our generation. >> when trayvon martin's killer profiled, pursued, and shot him in the heart, we said that was bad. was when oure criminal justice system profiled trayvon martin while he was laying on the ground. [indiscernible] didn't they profile us all? for thele who came out killer of an unarmed teenager theyg dead on the ground, called them supporters, and when all of you cannot for the black teenager laying dead on the ground, they called us protesters. when the people came out for the police officer, they got police protection. when we came up on michael brown junior, we got police enforcement. --thers and sisters, [indiscernible] you know, they demonize our children. they profiled trayvon, and they demonized trayvon, 17 years old. michael brown, they profiled and demonized michael brown. 18 years old. brothers and sisters, now we come to tamir rice. ohio.rs old, cleveland, are they going to demonize and profile this face? it don't matter what they say about our children. we believe in our children. we love our children. are going to continue to speak up for our children. children.ur we are going to stand up for our children here on the nation's capital and in every courtroom in america. brothers and sisters, without -- ado, i want to introduce our president of our national bar association, the largest association of lawyers of color, who are going to make sure we get due process in missouri, staten island, cleveland ohio, and your neighborhood wherever you are from. we are going to represent. people got water hoses turned on them. we can be safe and go make a lot of money. those sacrifices for us to represent our people. give it up for our president. >> who said an african-american lawyer is either a social engineer or a parasite? reverend al sharpton, families of america, i came to let you know that the lawyers of the areonal bar association social engineers. we are not parasites. we should ensure that not another black brother or sister is laying dead in the streets. them, when we have lawyers and when we have police officers that escalate force in communities in white communities like they do it in the black communities, we will stop speaking out. when another brother in a fights with a police officer, tries to take his gun three times, but he's white and he lives, i say, give me the police officer. when they apprehend a brother like they did the white boy that walked into a theater and shot --14 people [indiscernible] when they apprehend a brother similar to the man that went in for people and a , they didn't shoot him down. they called him down. when they start doing that in the black community, we will start -- stop telling them our system is broken. association,al bar we are going to tell you as legal scholars the system is broken. some of y'all say, take it back to the grand jury. as a great scholar, i'm going to tell you, i don't go back to something that is broken. i fixed that which is broken. implement state laws that say, health much -- must be care infrastructure. when an officer sees a demon in somebody, there is something wrong with that brother. there must be diversity training not at the start, but in the middle, the middle, and at the end. most of y'all were surprised that there was -- [indiscernible] black lawyers, we were not. we understood that in 1982, the if the court said opposite or felt his life is in jeopardy he could elevate force to the level that he deems reasonable. we call that the law of capricious standards. , put someing definition to excessive force. put some definition to what it means to elevate force, and then train your officers did the escalate force and of escalating force in black communities. you get a little sensitive when we paint you with a brush that says, all caps are bad. i challenge you to stop painting us with a brush that says all black people are bad. we want you to make it a felony -- [indiscernible] crime if i go in a store with a brother, and i know nothing about him. you call that felony murder. i say, you should go to jail with him. [applause] [indiscernible] we are social engineers. >> warmed this crowd up. we were supposed to have a performance. becausetime factor c-span and other networks are going to close out, and we just want to say thank you for coming out. stacy francis of the x factor, thank you so much for being here. give her a round of applause. she is here, folks. that is the most important thing. hold on a second. bring the president of voters latino, maria teresa kumar. [applause] >> shot because he was holding a toy gun. no questions asked. his community organized. they marched to city hall, asking for justice. with policeved snipers on their rooftop. this is my hometown of santa rosa, california. this is what it feels like. this is an epidemic in our country that knows no color, latino or brown or asian. it's an epidemic that they are too afraid to address. what gives me pleasure and what gives me excitement is to know when you look around the room night -- right now in the halls we are out here, all colors and creed. [indiscernible] i asked today for our latino brothers and sisters who are afraid to come out and voice their pain. two out of three latinos are afraid of police harassment. two out of three. they are embarrassed to come out. theked them today to take strength of the mothers of trayvon martin, the strength of mother, the strength of eric garner's mother, the strength of michael brown's mother, to come forth and unify with the african-american community so we can be strung together. -- strong together! [applause] not one more. come together. we are bigger together. we are unified together. no justice, no peace! >> no peace! new york congressional representative congresswoman carolyn maloney, united states congress of new york. >> thank you. thank you all for coming up, activists, union leaders, civil rights. not far from where we stand is the supreme court building, and engraved in stone above the entrance is one of the greatest promises ever made. equal justice under the law. we make that promise of equal justice to everyone, not some, not most, but all. let's be clear. this march today is not against the police. it's against unfair police brutality. it is not against enforcing the law. it's for preserving that great promise, equal justice, impartial justice, for all. weare here today because have ample and heartbreaking reason to believe that some do not have equal justice. eric garner died because he was suspected of selling cigarettes on the street. guilty,he was found there is no jail time. it is just a fine. yet eric garner was arrested. eric garner was restrained. eric garner was wrestled to the ground, and eric garner is dead. dead, and he was not even charged with a crime. wrong withmething so that. to red and blue, democrat and republican, libertarian and liberal alike, to tell us all that there has come to be a terrible disconnect between what is just and what has become just business as usual. the corrosive effect of applied and justice denied. it's a problem that is too big, too widespread, and too dangerous to ignore. it has shaken many citizens' beliefs in our judicial system. a recent report by the new york attorney general looked at the result of the 2.4 million stops that were made during the stop and frisk year. only 16% of those stops resulted in arrests, and about half of those arrests did not result in convictions. peopleans over 2,300,000 , mostly black young men, were stopped for nothing. justiceise of equal engraved above the supreme court is fulfilled as long as men like eric garner can die for selling cigarettes. as long as children like tamir rice can die in a playground, as long as innocents like a tiny ,irl he can die on a stairway and as long as men like michael brown can die on street. accountable.d this has got to change. >> if we could now come together , to give at -- i learned in sunday school that a benediction .s not the end it is when you stand up and turn -- hold on a out second. one change. our councilman from new york city -- one more, and then we will get to the benediction. >> how are you doing? i've only got 60 seconds. everybody keeps asking me, what kind of protest is it going to be? that is the wrong question. it should be, why are they protesting? if you ask that first and you fix that, you no longer have to ask, why are they protesting? the last thing i want to say, we are spending a lot of time on police reform, which we absolutely should, but i don't want it to get lost. they say the police are there because the community asks for them. that is true. but those very same communities ask for better housing. those same communities ask for better jobs. those very same communities ask for a better school system just for the building not to be crumbling. those same communities ask for clean streets. the very same communities ask for economic justice. why can we only hear one cry but not hear the cry of all of it? this is about generational, institutional oppression of communities in this country. we aren't going to talk about all of this. talk about all institutions. i'm happy to see everybody out there, black, white, brown, jews, muslims. keep marching for justice. keep marching for equality. they marched before us, and we are now. keep on. keep strong. peace. from adelaide to ohio, from ferguson to staten island, they are going to hear us. we are marching on righteousness and correctness. >> power to the people. man,e missing a young lynwood jones. you are missing. we are looking for you. please meet us at the corner left of the stage, my left, you're right. meet us right here at the corner to the right of the stage. we are looking for you. thank you. we are going to close out with stacy. do you mind? is everybody happy? ladies and gentlemen, please finalistthe x factor" stacy francis. say, we allnt to have to go back to who we know, and that is christ. anytime we have a problem, we go back to god. i just want to sing a little something for you to be reminded of who lifts us up, who keeps a strong, and who can keep us going no matter what. lift ♪rd i will ♪ my eyes to the hills is comingmy help from you ♪ the peace you give me ♪ storm ♪mes of the ♪ hands ♪ my lift your hands out here, y'all. we have to lift our hands for the right reasons. you ♪ray to amen ♪ amen, thank you. peace. [applause] >> ladies and gentlemen, if we for thenow -- benediction, it is not the end. you turn and go out to do the work that needs to be done. headw turn us around and us out on the right direction, the outstanding reverend jamaal bryant. nobody's said the road was going to be easy. i don't believe he has brought us this far to leave us now. would you take your neighbor by the hand? everybody, make sure somebody's hand is in your hand. we come as a family. we are leaving as a family. how in the world are we going to get victory? you don't have the money or the koch brothers? we don't have the backing of the republican party? how are we going to find triumphant victory while it is we are working but congress is on vacation? how in the world are we going to get justice when families are crying? it looks like the senate is just laughing. we believe we are going to prevail. god has never failed us. he has never forsaken us. you want to know whether god still works? on brock friday when we boycotted, and they saw a hit 11%1 been percent -- because we kept our black dollars in our black pocket. they want to know whether god still works. ferguson. we are in oakland. we are giving a major shot out to those in new york right now. would you shout to them? [cheering] this is not the end. it is the beginning. tomorrow is black solidarity sunday. every black denomination is church of godus, and christ, the progressive baptist, global united fellowship, all of them, black you, black catholics. tomorrow, go to church wearing black. i don't want to to just go to church wearing black. when you leave church, still be black. jesus is black. i need you to please make sure that tomorrow we stand shoulder to shoulder and arm to arm. would you bow your head? god of our silent tears, the one who has brought us thus far, we thank you because you know what it's like. you remember when jesus was born. they tried to kill black boys. you had one so there would be a leader. theyemember in exit this tried to kill black boys, but you had one so a leader could come forth. we thank you because sons are being burped right now who are going to lead our generation to the next level. dispatch angels right now of protection around our sons from psychopathic, sociopathic police officers. i pray right now you will convict prosecutors who have given up the law for popularity. we pray that you will disrobe judges who are elected but have not been appointed by your glory. we thank you right now for new registered voters who are going to march in 2016 until we have righteous congresspeople, righteous senators, and a righteous president. we don't want just black elected officials. we want a black agenda. we want to make sure that our lives matter is not a slogan but a lifestyle. let us march on. for every person who opposes justice, who opposes righteousness, we came to remind them, we know when they are sleeping, we know when they are awake, we know when they've been good or bad, and because they've please send black jesus for goodness sake. amen, and god bless you. [applause] >> your calls and comments next on washington general after - t, on "newsmakers" then john brennan talks about the report on the interrogation tactics of the cia. this week and "q and a." in 2010campaign started after he so what happened in the republican primary for rand paul. be mitch mcconnell's handpicked guy in that primary. at that point, mcconnell realized he had to recalibrate everything i know about republican primary politics in my home state and he started to make changes and hired key staff and started to build this very sophisticated infrastructure knowing this would be the most difficult race in his campaign. >> they knew they were going to spend a lot of money on campaigny as the obama had done in 2008 and 2012 and had watched harry reid's election and they knew they needed to go for this. in an interview in 2013, he said he was going to build the most thorough senate campaign ever. >> in american history. probably >> got there. tonight at 8:00 eastern on c-span's "q and day." to mark tenures of "q and a," we are airing one program from each program. >> this morning, american university law professor stephen rose of thesteven heritage foundation discuss the intelligence committee report on cia interrogation techniques. then pennsylvania congressman tim murphy who cochairs the mental health caucus talks about mental health care access two years after the newtown, connecticut shootings. of thejonathan lowey brady center to prevent gun violence reviews efforts by congress and advocacy groups to tighten gun laws. we will take her calls and you can join the conversation at facebook and twitter. "washington journal" is next. have 50, the nays have 40, the motion to concur have passed. with that announcement from patrick leahy, the senate passed a $1.1 trillion spending governmentfund the for the next nine months. but not before hours of contentious debate and frustration from lawmakers. it was a rare saturday session for the senate. the senate returns tomorrow, trying to move ahead on the president's nominations before moving out of town, this week, the christmas holidays. meanwhile the white house is waking up to this headline from "the washington post." obama, you had the worst year in washington again." we want to hear about your comments -- you want to hear your comments on this article. who did have the worst year in washington? was of the president? congress in general, a particular member? or someone else? the worstn, who had year in washington. you can also join us on facebook -- begin with, let's this latest spending package that was approved in a late-night session by the senate. "the senate passes the $1.1 trillion spending bill, after moments of high drama and acrimony the senate passed a sweeping 1.1 dollar trillion spending package on saturday night, ending days of chaotic legislative maneuvers and clearing the way for the president to sign the bill." from politico.com, this here:ne, "deal done "republicans had thought -- fought harry reid for months to block a number of nominees moving forward, and then ted cruz and mike lee took to the floor to call for a vote on the president's executive action on immigration, demanding that their colleagues stay through the weekend to do so rather than .djourn on monday in the end, lawmakers by a vote of 56 to 40 moved ahead on this -- on the spending package. who had the worst year in washington? jeffrey, democratic line, virginia, good morning. caller: the house and the senate , democrats and republicans, are not doing their job and needs ofing the americans. to make it worse, now we have this divide between law enforcement and the public. thatll see if they address . i have not heard anyone but the president speak on that. thank you, thank you so much. host: thank you for the call. this is the headline. alyssa points out that what tied together for all of the 2014 failures and stumbles and necessary evils was a growing sense among the public that the president simply isn't up to the job, despite being twice reelected. "consider -- consider this poll from 2008, three quarters of , only 43% said the same before the problem at the .epartment of veterans affairs debra is next. good morning, who had the worst year in washington? you are calling from the republican line. caller: i guess they both had the worst year. host: when you say both, you mean the president and congress? caller: republicans and democrats. they both -- i think they are both on the same team, but what really bothers me is they pass these bills and nobody knows what's in them. the people in the back rooms doing them. do you know what's in the bill, exactly? ift: as a matter of fact, you go to the hill.com, there is a breakdown of this pending package. they also have details online. who had the best year in washington, according to chris alyssa? the senate democratic leader, mitch mcconnell, who has the job of his dreams as he moves up to majority leader. next james from richmond, virginia. good morning. good morning. you have had the wrong question. people have had the worst year. i lost 50% of everything i had during the bush administration. the rich people bought as many politicians as they wanted, letting the banks do whatever they wanted with their money. i think we will be the suckers in the steel. caller: --host: thank you for the call. "the washington post." martha, good morning. -- caller: it is the people who have lost. you can have basic values and want to stick by those values, but what you are really sent to washington to do was the best for the people. all that i see you do is the best for your party. your partynot in will then suffer. if you are not going to washington to do the work of the people, of the united states of america, like you are asking your servicemen to do when they go and die for you, then you have done the worst. thank you. a really bad year? dan snyder, the redskins have only won three games this season . also a bad year, the secret service. a not so good year, chris christie, who is considering a 2016 presidential bid. a good year, elizabeth warren, front and center with the budget debate over the last several days. she voted against the 1.1. million dollars spending package -- $1.1 million spending package . south carolina, good morning. caller: good morning. the sad part about it is that we have not only lost focus of why -- well, i will say any politician is there, and that is to give the greatest advantage to the people. we are going backwards. the caller earlier -- i don't know from what state or city or whatever, but he's right, we are going backwards. this is all coming back to haunt us. the sad part about it is that we social and economic gaps between the rich and the poor, the republicans and the democrats, or even independence. it is frightening. every advertised, each time a little bit more of the sand leaves the shore. call.thank you for the townhall.com is also writing, giving president obama the worst year in washington. florida, democratic line, welcome to the conversation. caller: good morning. i really agree with what the lady said earlier, we are really going backwards. if you look at all the cartoon drawings of president obama, i have never seen that of any other president as far as being on the tv right now. that is offensive. that is almost like the racist cartoons that they used to do way back before civil rights happened. as far as the republicans and the democrats, the question that you have asked this morning is definitely dividing this country. you are saying who had the best, president obama? you are not working towards the american citizens, you are working against this president. that puts you alongside people of aave the thinking racist. that is my comment this morning. from day one when we do this program we often base our questions by lifting them from other publications. the question today is from chris elizabeth, in "the washington post. out this is something the washington post gives out annually. we wanted to ask you whether you agree or disagree with what they are saying, or perhaps you would put someone else on the list. that is why we are asking the question. we are getting a lot of comments on our facebook page, including this from kathleen stevens -- host: well, actually, no. we are basic that -- basing it on "the washington post." what do you think? caller: the guy from virginia was right. the american voter. creeping back into the rack? we lost it to isis, here we are bombing syria. don't even know what war we are fighting anymore. leading 5 million people, taking jobs that are very well needed. the self-destruction of the constitution. everything that our forefathers fought for, it seems like it is going away in front of our eyes. the washing -- "the washington post," comparing the president to his predecessor. you can see that in the house, the president has lost 69 democratic seats, 11 senate seats. george washington -- george bush, 17 in the house, one senate. bill clinton, 47 house seats, 12 senate seats. ronald reagan, lost 16 house seats, eight senate seats. losing 49 house seats and six senate seats during his nearly six years in the white house. jeannette joins us next from fairfax, virginia. good morning. the democrats had the worst year. where was the pr machine? what about the benefits of the policies of this administration? for instance, there is a ton of americans across the country who got to stay on their parents insurance policy until they were 26. examples like that. to your point about articles answering this question, paul krugman has an article in "rolling stone" magazine that talks about some of the gains that americans do not even appreciate have occurred. how the stimulus package did actually revive the economy and the good things that happened. i think that from a pr standpoint the democrats lost. now the policies are going to change under a new administration and congress. the the american voter is the ultimate loser. aboutpaul kane is writing , beginning bybill saying "this omnibus bill cobbles together a lot of last and negotiations from barbara mikulski in a single bill and in a single week, congress attempting to fund the entire federal government, rewrite wall street regulations, expand political contributions, and among other things override the district new marijuana law -- newspaper hill" stating that four senators decided not to show up for the vote on saturday. may all missed the saturday vote. the session took most senators by surprise late on friday evening, most believed that the deal have been worked out to move the votes to monday evening , but senator mike lee and ted cruz said that none of the saturday votes were close enough that those senators would have made a difference." linda, jefferson, missouri, who had the worst year in washington? good morning. the people. the people absolutely are having the worst year. like you just read a few minutes in about them doing more eight days than they did all year? neednot understand why we -- why we, the people, keep putting are having these same people up there. all the time. all the time. they don't get voted out. the same people in washington. it is the same story about money. the same story that they don't work for us, but they are still there and nothing changes. the other things that the people lose on, minimum wage. the arguments that are put forth for a lot of this stuff are just -- i don't know who they are for . they definitely don't help the people. ok, linda. thank you for the call. the front page of "the new york times," this controversial measure getting a lot of press over the last two days, the piece points out that the secret negotiations led to one of the most significant expansion is of campaign contributions in recent years. the talks were bipartisan, led between harry reid and john boehner. the parties are not accepting federal dollars to fund their campaigns and worried about how they will operate political conventions, republicans meeting in cleveland, democrats have yet to finalize their city, allowing heavy donors to contribute to the political parties to fund those conventions. more details inside of "the new york times," "gop angst leading to big money in the house bill." who had the worst year in washington? hal is joining us from georgia, democratic line. good morning. caller: good morning. the people at the worst deal that they could possibly get. the representatives that they sent to washington to represent them are representing the money fromhas been given to them those who fund their campaigns. that is what i think. i hope that the american people will wake up and that the president will remember that he has veto power. i hope that he will dam well use it. you for the call. roll call, writing about the proxy vote against the residence executive action, ending in an overwhelming defeat, splitting the gop in half. the point of order failing by a vote of 22 to 74, 20 republicans joining to oppose it, including mitch mcconnell and his fellow texan, john cornyn. there is this from bob corker of tennessee -- while the president's executive actions on immigration are reprehensible and deserve a strong response, i value the earth -- the oath that i took to defend the constitution too much to exploited for political expediency." he went on to say "the constitution gives risk the power to fund the government. to assert that this is unconstitutional is not inaccurate, but irresponsible. a sense of the divide in the republican party over the actions from ted cruz that failed. cori, fort lauderdale, florida, who had the worst year in washington? we appear to be proclaiming victory for one party or another, but the fact is that all we have seen is a transfer of power. i don't think we have yet seen victory. victory and winning is ultimately going to come in the form of government being more efficient, more effective, and the majority of the people that elect these people in this representative form of government having confidence in the people that serve them and the people that are in d.c.. so, i think that if we look at all the polls and we talk about the confidence of the people that are represented, across the we have nosee that confidence in them. thank you for the call. also in "the washington post," $1.1 chilean push to keep it all going." the house has artie recessed, they will be in during pro forma sessions, but are essentially out now for the christmas holidays. also writing about what chris alyssa has posted, you can read the goldberg take online. marion, north las vegas, nevada, good morning. hello? -- caller: hello? my name is marion. the air of the republicans in , iir small glue flex plans think that this was the worst year. thank you. thank you for the call. next, kenyatta, california, good morning. who had the worst year in washington, that would be the people. we would have had the worst, not knowing the government, the judicial system are following our constitutional rights, the bill of rights, it is like there is no such thing as the constitution or the bill of rights. they are not being followed by anyone. thank you for: the call. two years ago this month we heard about the shooting and newtown, connecticut. we will be hearing more about the gun issue and more from members of congress coming up later here on "the washington journal." james, wilsonville, alabama, independent line, good morning. caller: i think that the president had the worst year. he just didn't do what i thought he would do. the people also have the worst, as well, i think. obamacare, i think you messed up on that. especially on disability. ok, thank youost: for the call. bayonne, new jersey, good morning. caller: how are you today? host: good, thanks. caller: obviously, i would have to agree with the people who have not had such a great year. the main problem, i guess, is called narcissism, the reason we are not getting anywhere. congress is full of narcissists. thank you very much. host: thank you. spending bill, more money was provided by wealthy donors to fund the political party conventions. "who wants to fund these conventions," that is the question. indicted executive of massey, energy, history of donating a lot of money to west virginia politicians, spending $3 million in the support of an election of a lawyer named brent benjamin to the supreme court, notably more than three times the amount spent by benjamin's own campaign, for blankenship it appeared to be a beneficial investment, once seated he cast the deciding vote to overturn a withillion verdict, spending of election campaigns long considered a good way for people with companies that have money to influence politicians who need it, which is why the government spent the better part of the century restricting such spending, but in recent years they have knocked down many of those barriers." more details inside of the sunday magazine. good morning. thank you for taking my call. to answer your question, who had the worst year in congress or the government? i think you start with the president and you go all the way through the halls of congress. because they are supposed to be a representative of we, the people, and from everything i have seen the only thing that they care about is themselves. thank you for the call. forde of --host: thank you the call. inside of "the new york times," the many faces of jeb. and a look at governor chris christie, as well as a look at other republican candidates, including rick perry, texas, taking aim at hillary clinton for her possible presidential bid. the story from yesterday looks at whether she will be beginning an exploratory committee or moving ahead later this spring or early summer. susan, from austin. caller: good morning. i want to agree with the majority of callers and say that it is the people who are the big losers this year and many years prior. that as we have had a consistent falloff in this country in the midterms and in the national elections. caller: www.c-span.org --host: this midterm was the lowest in 70 years. democracy was on cruise control. to give an example, the african-american voting rate was 8%. so, you don't have any municipal influence or power. you get a police force that is 100% white. of residents in public housing, the people that demand the most services, they are hispanic, yet there is no hispanic representation in our local and regional governments. that is because they don't vote. is, across voting the board, hurting everyone of every political persuasion and bringing down our democracy. caller: you would say democracy would? you would say that democracy had the worst year? a lack it all stems from of civic participation. i think that national and regional civic leaders really have to make an encouragement of voting front and center. crazyow, k street ideologues like ted cruz and those on the left are the ones whose voice we hear. thank you for the call. "this function in washington, the new normal." "there is minimal confidence that things will change for the better any time soon." next is robin, from old forge, pennsylvania, good morning. good morning. listening to your callers. the president and his administration, the way that he turned around and lied to the american people, we were hurt by his policies. one more thing about this march in washington? be in jail for not paying taxes. what is going on here? inc. you. did -- thankt: we you. we did coverhost: that march year. this is the scene from the streets of washington, many with the signs -- i can't breathe, referencing eric garner. also, "black lives matter." the full event is on c-span.org. good morning. i want to say that the people have the worst year. vote.ad to organize and host: i miss the last part? lost the call. "the washington post" is launching an extensive story on the middle class. "most americans believe the best days are behind them." you can see the breakdown, county by county, from inside page 12 of "the washington post." john is joining us from houston, texas. who had the worst year in washington? in my view it was "the american voters -- it was the american voters. we learn from previous elections that some of these people were not doing the right thing -- or anything. i think that at this point i am looking forward to 2015 and seeing what will happen with these people, one sees midterm people are actually sworn in and put in office. i wanted to bring up one more point, really quick, to you, c-span, and everyone else, the fact that the people of detroit -- i am originally from detroit. legendary broadcaster passed away yesterday by the name of bill bonds. talk about someone who affected change in the greater detroit area and throughout shaken? you don't see people like him on the air anymore in these markets that were actually out there, dealing with orrin hatch -- if he would do so, dealing with the , whoeverthe carl evans it was, such mediocre anchors across the country, that is part of the reason why they look at what social media is doing instead of actually going over the news of the day. you know as well as i do, obviously you aren't broadcasting, most of those people are all gone and yesterday we lost another one, bill bonds. he was great. he really stood up for the people and for politics. thank you so much. especially has -- as detroit has been going through so much in the last 10 to 15 years. theident barack obama, worst year? the best year, incoming majority leader,"-- majority mitch mcconnell. sally, good morning. you on the air, go ahead. caller: [inaudible] good morning? we will try one more time. caller: the worst week, or the worst year? host: the worst year. caller: ok. all the people in this country have the worst year. all the people who are willing to work, who have worked all their life, they have had the worst year. as far as an individual politician? they all had great years. they have all the money. a little feedback, going to stop you there. again, i'm not so great year, chris christie. elizabeth warren of massachusetts. democratic line, good morning. caller: the people are suffering. host: we are getting some feed again. turned on the volume. go ahead. caller: ok. the people are suffering. the government up there is not for us. self.re out for their they are selfish. they are out for nobody else but their self. that is what i think. the people are the ones who are suffering. they need to get rid of all of that up there and put all new in there for the people. thank you, again. if you do get through, turn the volume down on your television. you will get through much better. "republicans working for the big banks and against obama, equals treason." next is marie, from iraq, new york. -- from l myra, new york. myra -- elmyra, new york. caller: here he go again, loosening the restrictions on the banks, giving us a taste of what the republicans will do once they have total control. i think that the worst is yet to come, unfortunately. i think that the people that need these services the most don't vote, unfortunately. i agree with the ladies from massachusetts, this is a sad state we are in, we forgot what happens when we have to bail out wall street and the middle class suffers for it. thank you. host: thank you. from otis johnson -- next, fromt is california. had the worst year in washington, robert? caller: ironically, i think all the parties had the worst year, but in time we will see the republicans have the worst year. now that they are in control of seeing with we are this omnibus bill what they really care about. it is big spending for their campaigns, not because they are therefore ordinary folk. they are not there for the ordinary folk. this will probably wind up being the worst year for the republicans. finally they get the power they want and we will see exactly what their priorities are -- which are spending for their campaigns. thank you for the call. the worst year washed -- worst year in washington this year. one of our viewers saying that this year's biggest loser is the crazy liberals. you can continue the conversation online or send us a tweet. we will continue the conversation on that cia report from the u.s. senate intelligence committee called the so-called torture report. two different perspectives on what is in the report and what it means for the u.s.. later, tim murphy, from pennsylvania, trained psychologist and cochair of the mental health caucus. on the second anniversary of the shooting that took place in newtown, connecticut. first, last week at the wilson is now aohn allen special presidential envoy coordinating the international effort to combat isis. his perspective? the event is available on our website. [video clip] >> this is one that really is essential to the success of the imagegy, dealing with the . it is a two-sided coin. first, go about the business of delegitimizing the organization, exposing it for what it is, supposing the massive flaws, it in the context that they exist to thatt contravention which it stands for. it is not just important that we do live -- delegitimize them, it is equally as important that we celebrate the values of this marvelous faith and values inherent to the cultures of the natureand, the inherent of the complementary effort that seeks alternately to do away with or diminish the idea of it at the same time. host: general allen, speaking on isis, part of our ever-growing video library. you can check out every program going back to 1989. to focus on the cia report issued this last weekend what it means for the u.s. and we have two experts on this topic with two different perspectives. lawyer and constitutional law professor here in washington, d.c., stephen i. vladeck, and steven groves of the heritage foundation, good morning to you. that may begin, should the report have been released in the first place? is that itonclusion should not, primarily because we did not learn anything new, with the notable recto rehydration procedure. we know that these have been used for about 10 years now. you wonder what was gained by releasing the report at this than possibly handing some propaganda victories to our enemies. host: yet the president said that he supported the release of this report. i disagree, i think that we learned quite a lot that we did not learn -- did not know before tuesday. from we learn the full extent of their interrogation program. think weimportantly i learned the extent to which the cia affirmatively misled different agencies in the government, kept some of these disclosures from congress over time. it is hard to look at this report and said that we learned nothing. unless you think the american people don't have the right to know about the abuses carried out in the name, i think the real question is -- why did it take so long? this is from this morning, from senator mark udall. he has been on the senate floor and has been saying that the cia is lying. those are his words. aest: i think you will get difference of opinion from mr. brennan, mr. hayden, and other heads of the cia, and the officers themselves. unfortunately we will never really know that because senator feinstein and her staff decided that they would not interview any of the officials, operators, analysts, or professionals who carried out the interrogations to find out why they did it and whether they gleaned useful information from it. senator udall going to the floor on his way out the door calling our professional intelligence agents liars, that is untoward. i think that that's why we needed to see this report. we need to make this decision for ourselves. on the primary evidence. if you look at the footnote in the executive summary, there are some 3000 notes replete with references to e-mails, to live communications, to what was actually happening on the ground 2006.1, 2002, 2003, and this is all the more reason to get that information out there, so that the american people can make their own assessments and whether in fact senior cia officials were misleading congress. host: we are learning a new , enhancedew term, eit interrogation techniques. they did not use the word torture. last thursday, an unusual event, news conference open to cameras. --[video clip] >> our reviews indicate that these programs produce useful intelligence that helped the united states capture terrorists and save lives. have note be clear, we concluded that it was the use of eit within the program that allowed us to obtain useful information from detainees subjected to them. the cause-and-effect relationship between the use of eit's and useful information subsequently provided by the detainee is, in my opinion, unknowable. irrespective of the role that yeah i.t.'s might play -- eit's might play, i think that these methods are available to elicit such information. methods that do not have a counterproductive impact on the national security and on our international standing. it is for these reasons that i fully support the president's decision to prohibit the use of eit's. john comments from brennan's news conference. is it torture? guest: that is the big question. if i was on the jury and you gave me the elements of this crime -- severe mental or physical pain and suffering? to theu have to look methods themselves. perhaps if you just waterboarded someone one time, april might not consider it torture. if you did it 20 times within an hour, maybe that crosses the threshold. ofend to fall back on the sanity case opinion from many years ago, paraphrasing him -- i don't know if i can define torture, but i will know it when i see it. guest: i think that many if not most of the interrogations conducted were not torture, but enough work, we should all be able to agree on that point, that we should not the debating which ones were at which ones were not. there is no question that the u.s. did in fact engage in torture of some detainees in some circumstances. there is also no question that often times that torture produced inaccurate intelligence. the report is pretty clear on this. the cia has itself concluded that 26 of the 119 men that they subjected to these were not completely innocent. some of them are there because of tips they got through prior uses of these methods. there was torture. we can disagree about the widespread nature of how much. casesrture was in many counterproductive and ineffective. the question is, what do we do going forward? there is a reason why u.s. law has categorically forgotten torture. how do weon now is -- learn from this going forward? anddo we take the report manipulate it into usable policy reform? senator feinstein was live tweeting, really rebutting everything he was saying as he was saying it. how unusual is that? --guest: senator feinstein has been an interesting player in this whole thing. she feels that her staff was misled by the cia. this report that she was principally responsible for, she thought it was much nastier and longer than it needed to be. she things it reinforces the perspective of by many members of congress that they were not told enough at the right times about what was going on, so they were not able to perform their constitutional oversight the way we would have liked them to. guest: in her tweets advising people to read the public report? she said ?ost: steven groves order the president bush to the agency was to go out and find who was responsible for 9/11, capture them and prevent them from having a follow-up attack, to track down the actual terrorists who carried it out and, implicit in that, once you have them captured you have to question them, but the problem at the time was that there was no playbook that the cia could pull off the shelf and say -- once we get khalid shaikh mohammed, this is how we interrogate them. early on, as the cia admits, it was a difficult program to set up and follow. mistakes were made when they were trying to implement it in those early months and years. worth pointing out that there was the 1994 the-torture statute from 1996 war crimes act they call it a grave breach of the geneva convention, then a stream and of those held during wartime, as the detainees were. no one questions that we were in a difficult position in the days after 9/11, that resources were brought to bear and we can totally understand why individual officers may have overstepped their bounds. the problem we learn from the executive summary in this report is that it was not just a , thisl of rogue officers was a systematic program sanctioned at the highest levels of the cia, perhaps even the white house. that is the question. it is entirely predictable and understandable that the most zealous government officers are going to push the boundaries after a terrorist attack like 9/11. that is not the problem. the problem is when months and years after that he are engaged in a systematic and pain to not only go past the envelope, to not only violate the laws that have been on the books for so many years, but to mislead congress about what is actually being done. is a stephen i. vladeck graduate of your law school and a professor here in d.c.. steven groves is a graduate from the ohio university college of law. we will get your calls in the moment. let me show you what dianne feinstein had to say on the floor, responding to criticism that the intelligence committee did not interview members of the cia. [video clip] true, we did not conduct our own interviews. let me tell you why. in 2009 there was an ongoing review by the department of justice special prosecutor, john donne. on august 24, attorney general holder expanded the review. this occurred six months after our study had begun. during the original investigation of the cia destruction of interrogation videotapes, it was broad and to include possible criminal actions of cia employees in the course of cia detention and interrogation activities. at the time the vice chairman of the committee withdrew the minority participation in the study, citing the attorney general's expanded investigation as the reason. the department of justice refuse to coordinate its investigation with the intelligence committee review. as a result, possible interviewees could be subject to additional liability if they were interviewed. cia, citing the attorney general's investigation, would not instruct its employees to participate in interviews. that was senator feinstein on the senate floor. --guest: this is perhaps the lamest excuse we have heard from her. i was on the senate investigations subcommittee coverage. we investigated cases where the justice department had an interest. our investigations always proceeded onto tracks and we cooperated with the justice department, finding a way to do it together. we would call witnesses to hearings that had to take the fifth amendment because the justice department investigation was going on. there was simply investigatory malpractice, putting together this big of a report on the sensitive of a topic without talking to the men, women, and professionals of our intelligence committee that engaged in these practices and got the information that we needed to prevent follow-up attacks. host: you can join in on the conversation by calling or sending us a tweet or on facebook. "the washington post," 20 key findings on the cia report. among them, "damaged the united states resting on the inaccurate claims of the effectiveness, brutal and far worse than represented." sparta,t to richard of new jersey, democratic line, good morning. the best thing about the report is we get to see who is our country is a torture. you know who is pro-torture? nazis. these people who are pro-torture, they would make rate nazis, that's how i feel about it. of course, the bigger crime was how the bush administration was willing to, over and over again, mount an attack and do absolutely less than nothing and use that as an excuse to attack iraq. that crime has never been punished. host: let's get a response. very resistant to comparing anyone to do not seize. that is a good rule of debate. but i do think that it is worth saying, and response to what they pointed out about the investigation, what were those perspectives years after the abuses took place? online, ifk it out you look at the footnotes you can see thousands and thousands of citations to e-mails and communications that took place at the time. those communications speak for themselves. it is important to note that a lot of the agency engagement had post-rationalization on conduct that was clearly illegal, which is why clearly we should not be alarmed, not everyone was behind the actions in this report. this is a discussion document to educate americans about what happened in 2001, 2002, 2 thousand three, 2000 four. what officials have to say about this eight years later doesn't change what happened. maybe it says that we will change things after-the-fact, but it does not say that in the moment that what we did was illegal. just like driving a sick family member to the hospital while running a red light, we don't go back after the fact and say -- it was not illegal but we ran the red light, we say that we don't care. there was a difference between whether these things were morally justified or legally justified. the facsimile report speak for themselves, what we did was illegal. host: this is the sunday roundtable with stephen i. .ladeck and steven groves maria is joining us from woodbridge, new jersey. good morning. good morning, steve. i wanted to ask the gentleman -- thead in a editorial that order that president obama gave against torture is going to expire at the end of his term. i was wondering if that was one of the reasons that senator feinstein released it. host: on day number two, the president did sign the executive order. will it continue? unless specifically risk -- removed by the incoming president, it will continue. i don't see a situation where an incoming president, though they do review all the executive orders, would specifically withdraw that order. fry disagree the possibility that additional legislation could possibly come out of this report. nothing will come out of this report. this report made no recommendations as to what could be done and in fact most of the things that would be in place to stop what happened in the report have been implemented in many years now, including the president's order, including restricting interrogation techniques in the army field manual. that is why, going back to your first question, why release the report at all? that really haunts me. thereguest: --host: is any reason that congress cannot follow up with hearings now? keeping in mind the republicans will have the majority next year? very small have a window, this is the tail end of the lame-duck session. filledve their airplanes with gas, ready to head home for the holidays. that said, even if they were still in control the senate, i doubt that there would be any additional hearings on this report. host: berea, back to you. was,r: i second question if we signed on to the geneva convention, why should we not hand over bush, cheney, and others to the hague to be tried for war crimes? iraq when they had nothing to do with it? we have to get up with globalization, bring the troops home again. thank you. it is worth stressing that legally the united states is not even part of the strategy of the criminal court. we are not generally subject to that. some of the other states that are named, that we know were a part of the torture program -- poland and romania, for example, are part of the icc, so it is theoretically possible that the icc could try to assert jurisdiction over those responsible for torture in those countries. it may have the same kind of fraud consequences that we had seen in the united states. there is insufficient appetite nationally, insufficient consensus to prosecute those responsible. i want to go back to the point about why we released the report . the fact that we are having this conversation at all is a welcome development. whether or not republicans continue to investigate it once they take over. otherwise we would just he sitting out there with other folks denying that these things that ever happened, which is most of what had gone on for the last 10 years. a very different question as to whether republicans should hold sway or if anyone should be prosecuted. we should know what has been done in our name. when we heart: callers refer to war crimes against president bush or vice president cheney cap -- right president cheney, if they travel overseas with a ever faced the risk of these charges? caller: there have --guest: there have been attempts in other countries to establish things like universal budget -- jurisdiction statute, but so far those attempts of all fallen flat. for political and geopolitical reasons. i do not expect either president bush or vice president cheney to be traveling to questionable countries anytime soon, the likelihood that a case could be successfully brought against any of our top officials is very, very low indeed. guest: it is worth pointing out that the u.s. has been at the forefront of the movement of international criminal justice, since the 1940's, to enshrine the principles of individual accountability and reject the notion of just following orders. while i think that stephen is correct, i do think that this will undermine our credibility as leaders when it comes to eating other leaders around the world. -- oh, but we are above this? we are not above this. we have a different truck sure, hopefully a more accountable structure, and i think we should be worried about our ability to stay with this criteria. that charles taylor and other leaders should be called to account for abuses committed under their regime when we think there should be no liability here. to prosecute is a complicated question, but we should all be agreeing that laws were broken and those laws mean something and should be enforced going forward. host: your earlier point, this is from jan -- guest: guest: i'm not a suspected terrorist so i'm sure they won't be used only but that being said, i go back to my original description of torture -- if any of the particular methods may be used individually, it might not amount to torture. if you make me stand in place for 18 hours without food, that might not be torture. if you use all of the techniques and a combination over an extended. of time. of time, that would be different. senator feinstein's report does not use the word "torture." soars our credibility around the world being affected of these methods which the world knew about already come our credibility is going to be destroyed with the other intelligence agencies around the world who are our allies who have to work with who we have to get information from. how willing are they going to be to share information with our intelligence committee knowing a couple of years later someone like senator feinstein is going to show the family jewels, the crown jewels to the rest of the world. that's where the real credibility problem is. it if youould love can tell us what information in the executive summary is disclosed on foreign intelligence. guest: i did not say we are disclosing any particular intelligence options for it i said intelligence agencies in those countries where we had black sites will not be very to get involved with our intelligence committee -- community. they will not get burnt again like they did after 9/11 when senator feinstein and her colleagues, her democratic colleagues on the committee without even talking to our cia officials showed the groundrules to the rest of the world. poland and romania and other countries have nothing to do with intelligence officials in those countries that their secrets have been disclosed. the backlash has been all about the public in those countries finding out the governments were secretly complicit from our report. guest: yes, that's how they found out. guest: i think that's not a problem from the perspective of revealing the crown jewels. as we have a right to know what our government is up to an hour name, i think the people of poland and romania have a right to know what their government is up to. it's not -- it's not fair to us to object to the disclosure of this report and the grounds it might harm another country's ability. that's the agreement these countries made when they participated in this program for those governments did so even under far more aggressive regimes. it makes in which clear that these actions are illegal in europe compared to the slightly murkier laws under u.s. laws. i set our credibility will hurt with foreign intelligence services. what impact this will have an foreign policies for the next few years -- we will have the editor at large to get hisic" perspective on the effect of the president and secretary john kerry and foreign policy in general. tom, republican line, welcome to the conversation. sayer: thank you, i want to c-span should be ashamed of themselves for putting on al sharpton on yesterday. he is respective -- he is despicable and racist. as far as the interrogations go, i don't think they were too bad. i don't think they were brutal. uncomfortable and i think dianne feinstein is a to cut -- is a disgrace to put these things out all over the place for the public and to jeopardize some of the people who were involved. thank you. i think there are cia officials who thought it was disgraceful and brittle and that comes out in the summary as well and some individuals were to -- were directly involved who were deeply affected by what they were doing. there were medical professionals who realized it was unethical of not illegal. we have to get past the debate about whether we crossed the line. we crossed the line. the question is what do we do about it now? that's why the release of this report is useful even if it took longer than it should have. to spark the conversation about how we make sure in the future that these things don't happen again. that is the real imperative. led tohat experiences your views on this issue guest:? myst:primarily, it's professional experience in the senate. working for senator coleman at the time of senator levin of michigan, a democrat on the other side, and working with their staff and working on exceedingly sensitive issues, issues that would lead to criminal liability for the people we are investigating and knowing the justice department was out there, working in a bipartisan way to put together comprehensive reports of our investigative findings and then comparing my experience as a senate investigator to what we are seeing with senator feinstein's report, her inability to work with her public son her committee and her staff's inability to work with staff on the republican side to come up with a consensus report that we could really put forward to the world as a consensus document on what happened and perhaps what should be done. i never wrote a report in the senate right in not include a series of recommendations on what should be done as a result findings. and yet we have this multithousand page report without a single recommendation of what should be done next. i have been working on detailing litigation from guantanamo since 2002. one thing you see when you work on these cases is that the government has very little evidence against the men they are holding for the better part of 13 years. 1079 detainees down to 76. there are at least 26 out of 100 who were completely innocent. what shaped my view on this is the likelihood, the inevitability, that these kind of interrogation techniques produce bad information. host: 3000 people lost their lives on september 11 and as we are from john brennan, they did not know what they did not know and needed to get information and were dealing in a black hole. vice president dick cheney at the time said they had to do what they had to do to protect america and lives. guest: i think there is no way to doubt that sentiment or that these people really meant to act in the best interest of the united states. deviate -- detainee is one of the masterminds of 9/11. he provided actionable information when he was being the established techniques. it was only when we switch to more aggressive methods to torture him that he started --ducing information that we the cia admits is false and implicated two or three different individuals who are in turn tortured under this program. no one disputes that the government has to have all tools , legal tools in its arsenal. what i think has become clear from this report is that torture should not be one of them not just because it is immoral but it also is not as effective as people think it is. was providing useful information until we started torturing him. once we started torturing him, he talked about people who had nothing to do with the attacks. stephenadeck and steven gross, let's go to john who has been waiting from camden, missouri. caller: good morning, i have a quick statement and a question. how can anybody question the effectiveness of torture? throughout history, we have seen how effective it is. take the spanish inquisition. tens of thousands of heretics exposed and killed. and right here in the united states, we had the salem witch trials. very effectively, they give up their friends and neighbors as witches. they were all executed. -- that torture or the release of this report? guest: if you assume as you do that everything that is wasained in this report torture, then of course, torture is worse than what's in the report. however, senator feinstein never use the word "torture" and neither does john brennan. the question is whether the eit amount to torture. my friend steve believes they do or in some cases they do. i don't know whether they do or not. the release of the report did not advance the ball at all. we knew about these techniques for years, we knew who they were used on, we knew the three people were waterboarded. released more details about it. what the report is going to do is give terrorists one more tool to rally around to recruit more terrorists to their fold. i would not be surprised if the neck's american you see in an orange jumpsuit about to be slaughtered on video, the killing is done by a jihadist waving a copy of this report over his head. the release of the report looking forward is pretty bad stuff even if you think what they did was torture. something amr edited torture may well depend on the frequency and the duration and intensity of the episode. we cannot dispute that we have learned a lot more from the summary of the report not just been those who have waterboarded but about how much more widespread these techniques were and how many people they were used against. we heard about rectal rehydration. the intensity,at duration, and frequency matters, i think the report speaks for itself and is important by finally telling the american people what those things where and how often these techniques were used against our many men and for what reason. host: the president released a statement on the release of the report saying " i have consistently supported the release of the report. that's the other argument on the table is by releasing it, it makes it public and would put pressure on a future congress or a future president not to use these techniques. guest: these techniques were public already. but youe more details put 6000 pages of document together and you will get more details. what we don't know is what happens when another 9/11 happens and whether this report goes out the window and whether senator feinstein says things like she said when she was asked about these techniques from the beginning, whether guys like rockefeller say we are not going to take anything off the table it comes to enemy combatants. it's fine to look back with 20/20 hindsight and say these techniques did not work and they should be banished by let's have another 9/11 attack in this country and see if the american people would support enhanced interrogation techniques again. host: we welcome our listeners on c-span radio. if you're listening on radio, we're focusing on the cia report called the torture report although the word "torture" is not used in the document itself. will go to mike and butler, pennsylvania, good morning. caller: i agree with a number of statements that both of you have made. i personally have experienced much more aggressive techniques than the cia has used at least as far as we know. my important point that i am ising is that this report political theater. manyra boxer was briefed times and claim she does not remember any of them, shame on her. she also admitted she released a report now because we are going to lose control in one month. that is the fact. is we, as the united states of america, should not get anywhere near the threshold of torture. we are either on the side of the angels were we are not. guest: i certainly agree with the second point. it's worth stressing we have heard a lot this week from former director brennan and hagan about this program. when they say congress, they mean that the chair and ranking members of the house and senate intelligence committees were briefed. that's four people out of 535. is it true that those four members of a bleak should have done more along the way to try to raise alarms about this? absolutely. is it fair that congress acquiesced to what was going on? the answer would be no. most of the members were in the dark about what was happening and can only learn details from leaked stories in "the washington post" and "the new york times." that is not meaningful oversight. that is the flaw in the system. host: st. petersburg, florida, good morning. look atwhen i constitutional lawyers, i want to throw up. why don't you get real men who have strapped on boots? get some vietnam era vets. waterboarding, sleep deprivation. we did it to ourselves to train us to resist. this is all baloney. i want to throw up. host: did you hear senator john mccain who is passionate about this as a 5.5 year veteran of the vietnam war? like dick cheney said, they had a warehouse of information. you get a little bit here and a little bit there. this is all baloney. it's all political theater. let's get some lawyers out there on the front line and see how they like it. this is ridiculous. you mentioned senator mccain. peoples of what these talk about. if you want a member of congress who has first and experience being tortured during wartime, it's him. senator mccain is no great friend of this resident. he is not exactly the leading spokesperson for transparency. his statement this week was remarkable in the sense of the report and criticism of what happened and about the importance of learning about these things that we don't commit the same mistakes. i'm willing to accept that john mccain knows more about this than i do. said thetor mccain release of this report was a good thing and we should learn our lessons. he offered the senator mccain amendment in 2005 which was passed. folks can criticize constitutional law professors all they want. you want to set -- criticize senator mccain, i would like to hear what he's would say in response. host: should these individuals be prosecuted? guest: this is where i get in trouble with my friends. i think the answer is no. it would make sense to prosecute them but the american public is deeply divided about this. they would largely be viewed as politics and not the prosecutions of the work crimes they are. like the japanese internment camp during world war ii were we did not prosecute the people even though we now accept it was , the agencylegal misled the justice department and congress for the real answer is to tell a complete story where we cannot continue to deny what happened and we know 30 years from now how to avoid these mistakes if there is another 9/11. a place in this role for constitutional lawyers, i am a fan of constitutional lawyers. cia was not out there willy-nilly torturing people as a masochist. they went to the lawyers and they went to the justice department and said we've got guidelines -- we need guidelines and guidance. what is the definition of torture? constitutional lawyers at the justice department wrote extensive memos, memos that have been criticize and are probably the subject of an entirely different show but at least there were constitutional lawyers there to try to define these terms and give our professionals with a needed to do their job. this would be something that be interesting to read about in senator feinstein's report but none of these people were ever interviewed. this was a desk review. this is malpractice. you asked earlier about my experiences and how they form my opinion. as a litigator in a law firm, i know it's like to review thousands and thousands of documents as i did as a senate investigator. that's half the story for you then have to go and talk to the people who wrote those e-mails or memos and letters and asking them -- what did you mean by this? what did you do when you wrote this e-mail? what exactly did you glean from this investigation? that is the fundamental flaw of senator feinstein's report. they did not go and ask the professionals themselves and they have depicted them as a bunch of masochists running around torturing people for no good reason. host: the report says the cia used brutal interrogation techniques and that's our focus on this sunday. michael from bakersfield, california, good morning. caller: good morning. g mr. i'm a former united states marineross,. i know all about these techniques. we were not trained under those type of techniques. something you are not paying this analto is technique is not a technique. the stuff that was going on with the cia is not only illegal and unconstitutional but you should be brought up on war crimes. pretendto sit here and like this was about waterboarding, that's a fallacy. i have read that report and it is sickening. guest:. thank you very much that was the one technique we learned about that was new. rectal rehydration. first of all, thank you for your service in the core. when michael hayden was asked about this pointedly about this particular method which was performed on only five detainees, he was very adamant that this was not part of an interrogation technique. he said it was not meant to soften up the detainees. in fact, he said it was done for medical reasons. it would have been nice if the committee had interviewed michael hayden or any of the people whether they were physicians or other operatives who engaged in this rehydration and asked them why they did that. of the interrogation? who did you do it too? gastric tubessing or not? we don't know the answers to any of those questions. thank you again for your service and i wish we had better answers for you but senator feinstein did not see fit to track down those answers. host: let's go to gilbert in fresno, california, republican line. caller: yes, this is to stephen groves - my concern is that you keep mentioning dianne feinstein's report. however, you will not say or respond to the fact that her explanation on the floor, that she gave you a perfect explanation to the fact that the boss of the cia refused to allow to even interview with them. they were blocked. guest: thank you for your question. as a former senate investigator, i am familiar with something called the subpoena. the cia director come as much as he would have liked, cannot stop congressional oversight if senator feinstein had really wanted to speak to these officials. she could have subpoenaed them and brought them in. that's a big red herring. things worked way when i worked in the senate as an investigator. basically did not want any information that was contrary to the conclusions they had already come to. this is why the republicans would not even cooperate with them in the first place. the justice department investigation ended in 2012 giving senator feinstein and her staff two additional years before the release of this report to bring in these officials and bring in these operatives and ask them why did you do this and what did you learn? the doj investigation ended in 2012 but most of the investigation was done by then. they had the report done and they did not need any additional information. that's the point. guest: it took the better part of two years to get the report declassified partly because of these fights between the senate and the cia which included no allegations from the cia and operativeslligence had stolen documents but it was the cia that was spying on the set in intelligence committee. there is a lot of dirty laundry that cannot be thrown at senator feinstein. everyone has a little blood on their hands on this one. is ifst important point steve believes there is more information we need to know to make a full assessment of what actually happened, fine, let's hear it. let's have more disclosure per let's have this conversation if you believe that. verythis report is salutary. host: how much bad blood is there between the cia director and the chairman -- the outgoing chairman of the senate intelligence committee? neithert's safe to say is on each other's holiday card list. this is a sad case study in how dysfunctional oversight is. the subpoena power and the power to provide oversight but when you have the cia claiming that senate intelligence committee staffers stole documents from the cia and claimsrsight committee the cia was illegally spying on staffers, that is not a healthy way to conduct oversight. whatever the underlying facts are come i there is a larger conversation about how we fix this oversight process going forward and how we ensure that the intelligence committees are able to do their job which is not to rubberstamp what the intelligence committee is doing. it's to be the meaningful oversight behind the scenes we don't need to have public conversations every time an intelligence community officer crosses the line probably because that oversight has been so broken. we are left to this kind of public debate and we are left to having this conversation happen on the pages of national newspapers as opposed to behind the scenes. host: a quick follow up -- it's not clear from the executive summary whether they were involved in administering the techniques themselves. wasink the role they played in a lot of the planning of the techniques and how they should be carried out, perhaps supervising them. an interesting finding of the report that is a problem is that they were called upon to judge the efficacy of the techniques which creates a conflict of interest between the people who designed the techniques and them judging whether they were effective or not. the agency and the contractors made mistakes in the early months and years following 9/11. i think another thing we can look into as a result of this ofort is how these types contractors should be used and whether they should be hired in the future if an event happens in contractors need to be hired again. brian inwill go to dallas, texas, independent line. caller: about the pictures that came out of abba grabe, -- abhu grab. the terrorists know that the torture was going on. they did not need memos. they used it for recruiting tools. i wonder how many terrorists have killed americans that would not have been terrorists had it not been for our actions. abu ghraibously, the photos can a long time ago and those were photos that may have been necessary to come out to which no oneacts says are justified in any way, shape, or form. everyone agrees the personnel who did that were undertrained and should not have been engaging in those activities. most, if not all of them, have been prosecuted and some of them sentenced to prison time. you cannot dispute the fact that it is used as a recruiting tool just awake guantanamo bay is used as a recruiting tool and just as this set senator feinstein report will be used as a recruiting tool. that is where the balance comes in. senator feinstein should have balanced the release of this report on what could possibly be gained by releasing it. she should have weighed those against what could possibly have be used by others of this report and how it could hurt our relationship with other intelligence committees and other countries and how it could be used as a recruiting tool for isis and other terrorist groups. senator calls these comparable to work crimes, is he on target? guest: i don't believe so. work crimes are usually much more systematic and widespread -- war crimes. legally, he is going under common article three of the cap -- geneva conventions. his argument would be that these detainees were tortured and treated inhumanely under common article three of the geneva conventions. whether that rises to the level of a war crime, that would be up for a prosecutor to decide. professorladeck said, we are not party to any treaty that would allow were crimes charges to be brought against us in any international forum. guest: that's not quite what i said -- we cannot be charged directly but if there were offenses that took place in the soil of a country that is party to the rolling statute like poland or romania, in theory, the itc could exercise jurisdiction over an american officer if it was done in their soil. to be a war crime, there has to be some intensity and systematic ness. the more important point is it does not matter if torture is a war crime, it's illegal even if it happens once. what cannot be denied about this report is that we should all agree wherever you draw the line was notwhat was or torture, there was some torture committed by the cia against detainees after 9/11. that is an indisputable fact. the question is what do we do about it? first, anthony, our last call from st. paul, minnesota, welcome to the program. caller: good morning, i want to talk about the torture. first off, i want to say we have to look at when we tell our children that we don't want any bullying and then we support countries that kill people. to be the people that lead. we are supposed to be the land of the free and the proud. let's start doing things that are proud, not supporting things like this for let's stop making enemies. why do we have so many anomie's? it's because of our policies. let's make friends instead of having to torture people. we are doing the same thing the terrorists are doing. time.cruit every you see over in israel. when we don't stand up and say that is wrong and do something about it instead of flapping her gums, we continue to make more terrorists. i don't think anyone would say that these are techniques that we set out to do with a great deal of gusto. these are not as we do here at home when we investigate crimes.our fbi and police do not do it. i would've liked to have known what your opinion was on september 12, 2011. it's one thing to look back and say all of this was terrible and torture but the vast majority of americans would disagree with you. the united states cannot condone torture, will not make it a part of their official policy. the question is whether these eit's were torture. we might disagree on that. were out.techniques whoever was not our enemy before this report is still going to be our enemy after this report. i just don't know what we are really gaining by the release of it. host: we sat down with a former deputy assistant attorney general during the bush administration on the "newsmakers" program and he explained why the torture techniques were different because he said there was the pressure of time. here's john yoo. [video clip] familiar on the show because all americans, we all know the law enforcement system and your right to maranda because it's on "law and order" which is on tv. the thing about these kind of interrogations, we needed information but with law enforcement come you have the ability to wait and you don't have the pressure of time. that's the thing that was striking to me. when you're talking about between wendy's for these -- these questions risk them up which was in march and we eventually answered questions which is in august, we basically worked on this one issue all the time, round-the-clock, for all of those months and i would be the first to admit i wish we had more time. our guest on "newsmakers." he served as a deputy assistant attorney general in the office of legal counsel during the first two or three years of the bush administration. guest: i think it's worth correcting the timeline. the first reaction by cia after 9/11 and the first reaction was -- wasow to inherit gate how to interrogate detainees. it was only eight months later we had cia officers go to the justice department and provide maranda and why these techniques could be justified. the ticking bomb hypothetical was not present at 9/11. torture is not effective. even if you accept the narrative that time is of the essence, do you want to abuse the detailed for the sake of his dignity or do you want actionable intelligence information? what we have learned over the last 13 years is if your goal is actionable intelligence, torture is not the most effective way to do that. it's counterproductive and illegal and it stains or moral reputation. that really was the .entral issue in this report dianne feinstein, i believe, and her staff decided early on that they would write a report saying enhanced interrogation techniques to not work and they do not provide actionable intelligence. i think the reason why we are talking about this today is that there are a lot of people including former directors of the cia who disagree with senator feinstein. there are people who have written op-ed's and cia operatives who have commented on helpedport who say eit's is gather information that got ando osama bin laden thwarted other terrorist attacks. senator feinstein and her staff happened to disagree with them. i wish maybe they had interviewed them like any good lawyer would do in order to find out why they believe what they believe. will behat i think we talking about going forward is what can possibly be gained from are theort, what intelligence professionals going to be exposed to show the have to travel around the world? what will be the problem with other intelligence agencies around the world and our cooperation with them? at the end of the day, releasing the report did more harm than good. stephen grosses with the heritage foundation and stephen americanith university, thank you for being with us. on this date two years ago, the tragedy in newtown, connecticut, the shooting at sandy hook elementary school and want to turn our attention to the issue of mental health. joining us in a couple of minutes is congressman tim murphy from pennsylvania, a trained psychologist and the cochair of the congressional mental health caucus. he will talk about some of the changes he says need to be done in mental health care across the country and later, jonathan lowy from the brady center to prevent gun violence. that's just ahead on "washington journal" as we continue on this sunday morning. we are back in a moment. ♪ ♪ ♪ a,"his week on "q and political reporters share stories about being on the campaign trail with senator mitch mcconnell. >> he had planned for four years this campaign. this started in 2010 right after he so what happened in the republican primary with rand paul. rand paul be mitch mcconnell's handpicked guy in that primary. mcconnellint, realized i have to recalibrate everything i know about republican primary politics in my home state and he started to make changes and hired key staff and started to build this very sophisticated infrastructure knowing this would be the most difficult race in his campaign. >> they knew they were going to spend a lot of money on technology and had watched the obama campaign in 2008 and 2012. they had watched harry reid's reelection in 2010. they knew that they needed to do this. he was going to have the latest technology. in 2013 andterview he said he was going to build the most thorough senate campaign ever -- >> in american history. >> in american history, and he probably got there. at 8:00 eastern on c-span's "q and a perko to mark 10 years of "q and a," >> "washington journal" continues. york ishnny us from new republican congressman tim murphy a pennsylvania come a train psychologist and on the state two years ago, 20 schoolchildren were gunned down by adam lanza and we want to talk about that and the issue of mental health. thanks for much for being with us. guest: good morning. host: are we doing enough as a society to deal with mental health or is this still an ongoing stigma? guest: we are not doing enough. what has happened is there has been a transition and how we have dealt with mental illness and quite frankly, i think a lot of what we has done has helped a to aas contributed continuation of the syndrome of the stigma. approachhe 1950's, the was put people in an institution and lock them up. times, it was brutal even though it was meant to be helpful. the large institutions housing the people were places where before the era of medication and treatments, people might have been straitjacketed or chained to the bed or electroshock or lobotomies and other approaches which were ineffective but in many ways were harmful. 555,000 hospital beds in the 1950's. now we have less than 40,000 psychiatric hospital beds for a population of 306 2 million people. medication,nt and in many cases, people don't need to be in the institution so we don't want to go back to those days. int was supposed to be there having a sufficient number of psychiatrists and psychologists and people who can provide treatment, it decline so much is hospitalssaw closed and presence filled up and homelessness increased. they were problems in many levels with untreated severe mental illness grew. now we have a vision that society has about people with severe mental illness that people see it as a continuing problem and they were these folks can't get better. government has set many barriers like with medicaid. with early signs of severe mental illness cannot see do talk -- to doctors in the same day. that's ridiculous. there is new rules that say you cannot have more than 16 beds in a hospital for psychiatric patients when you may need many more. several of the bills, we have helped create the problem and the stigma and those things need to change. host: this is a photograph from "usa today" looking at how new town is doing two years after the shooting. 20 children were killed. i asked members of congress to look at those new town families in the eye and tell them what"? >> to tell them we cannot forget. of thei keep photographs children and the adults from newtown on a table in my office next to my chair. it reminds me on a daily basis that we cannot forget that they have the right to grow up. they had the right to grow up fully and complete and happy lives. those lives were snuffed out. what we have to remember is that we have to reform the mental health system. every day that goes by, there were other tragedies not only in schools and public places but but 40,000nd -- suicide deaths in the last year. inintroduced legislation and these two years, 80,000 suicides. that's more people than have died in vietnam and desert storm and iraq combined and then some. i don't want to forget anybody but at least the faces of those children from sandy hook elementary school and the awful to work we want vigorously to say we need to fix this. host: we have a phone line set aside for those who are mental health workers. later, we will share with you a one 800 national suicide prevention hotline. an mentioned suicide and at early age, you told cnn you had a first-hand experience with suicide, explain. boy ofwhen i was young eight or nine, there was a new york central railroad line that went past our house. go by andthe trains you could predict when the trains would go by. one day the train did not go by and i looked down the track and you saw the train sitting there for hours. i found it later the reason why a second who had left after hospital late down the tracks and committed suicide. daysruck me for several that i did not understand that this was my first brush with suicide. why would someone do this? what was the state of their mind that they would give up? it was one of those things that continues on today when we think of the sadness and brutality of suicide, when someone gives up and the depression is so deep or their mind is so disturbed maybe the voice they here are the delusions they have, that they are willing to take their own life. we have to ask if we could have done ceiling about it and the answer is absolutely yes. look among veterans alone. there is a suicide every 65 minutes. why is this happening? suicidee resources like hotlines but we need more counselors and medication when necessary, pierce support. a message of hope instead of a message of abandonment which is what we too often do with those who are mentally ill. host: you and your officer put this in terms of numbers so let me share some numbers which may surprise some people especially when you look at the amount of money we spend on mental health issues. an estimated 11 million americans have severe schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, and or major depression. the federal government spends 125 billion dollars annually on mental health issues. the u.s. had about 500,000 inpatient psychiatric beds back in 1964. less than 40,000 beds in 2014. half of thet, inmates now in prison have mental illness. guest: isn't that an awful statistic? bed ford the hospital the jail cell and traded it for the gurney in the hall because there is no place for the patient to go. forraded for the flophouse the blanket on some subway grate somewhere. how inhumane. unfortunately, we are satisfied with that. if someone is mentally ill and the commit a crime, do they need to be in jail? sure, but what about the many people in the county jail who are hearing voices and hallucinating? sometimes the police picked him up and put them in jail for their own safety or maybe they have shoplifted something. i talked with a policewoman yesterday and she told me on a cold winter day in the city that she would tell one to the mentally disturbed persons who are homeless, can you do something like jump up and down so we can put you in jail for the night so you are not freezing. early, couldpeople we have prevented a lot of this jail time? the answer is yes. in states like new york and others which have assisted outpatient treatment, they found instead of locking people in jail, instead of saying you will be long term hospital, if we get to them on an outpatient basis you judge may be saying will be gravely disabled without medication -- to get that person help. what they found in new york state is they found and over 80% reduction in incarceration, over 70% reduction in homelessness and hospital emergency room boarding. almost a 50% cost savings. as we help people with mental illness and -- severe mental illness, we don't have to lock them in jail. we don't have to be burying them and we don't have to see them lying on the street for those who are not treated. if you want to get more information or have a loved one that needs assistance, we want to give you a phone number which is toll-free. -800-273-talk which is the national suicide prevention hotline. we will have that number on the bottom of the screen. let's get to your phone calls. washington, d.c., good morning. caller: good morning. i'm a physician here in town. i know that representative murphy is a psychologist, not a medical doctor but as we come upon the anniversary of new town tomorrow, one of the issues that needs to be raised is the nexus in these mass shooting such as new town, sandy hook, between mental illness and the rich availability of guns to this small but dangerous vulnerable segment of the mentally ill in the u.s. the problem has been that supporters of let's say liberal gun availability have attempted to replace such availability with the issue of mental health and the problem is that if you have people who are severely mentally ill and are highly symptomatic with these serious psychotic disorders or rather disorders that make them prone to mash shootings and they have easy access to guns, it is that lethal combination as we have seen and the secret service study done of mass shootings over 20 years, that is the critical nexus that is the cause of these mass shootings. --resentative merchant, murphy, unfortunately, you can have your own opinions but you cannot have your own facts, has not emphasized the gun part of this nexus. i don't know what kind of physician he is. at franklin regional high school, we had a young high school student bring a kitchen knife to school and step several people. there was an incident in new york were a man with a knife was killed by police officers. the incident in santa barbara at the college, that person killed his roommates with a knife. will we talk about knife control? or will we talk about mental illness? access, the gun most restrictive gun laws in the country in washington, d.c. but would you walk through parts of the city at night because the gun laws are keeping guns out of people's hands? absolutely not. that is distracting us from the issue. can you imagine if with heart disease we said let's not talk about treating heart attacks. areant to heart transplants doing cholesterol issues because instead, we want to talk about vending machines. it would be absurd. as far as theing neck's is with mental illness, we have a country that has made tremendous strides in what can be done with mental illness in psychiatric and psychological dre and peter support --an support when someone is sopeer delusional and incapacity by their own mental illness that they need some respite in a hospital bed for a few days what we get them better again. why aren't we doing that? every day we delay, more people die. more people suffer and even worse than what we are talking about here in terms of people who have uncontrolled mental illness who are involved in homicide, those are rare. what's more common is why is it we tolerate that a child who is mentally ill is 3-4 times more likely to be sexually abused. illnessesith mental for-10 times more likely to be taken advantage of. shouldn't all of those motivated us to say our society is operating almost on a third world status. we are blind to this and we get caught up in this one section. millioning about 60 americans have some level of diagnosable mental illness from very minor to very severe. the 11 million people, half were not in treatment. of those who are not in treatment, who got a propensity toward hallucinations or severe problems, if they are in treatment, they are far less likely to be victims or perpetrators of violence. why don't we focus on that treatment? i am laser focused on that because i'm not going to let go of this. to go through another session of congress without dealing with this is intolerable. i would hope americans would voice this to the members of congress and say stop arguing about these other issues. get to the root cause and help people who are mental health crises. host: congressman tim murphy represents pennsylvania's 18th congressional district. he is the cochair of the mental health caucus in entering his seventh term. we will go todj from new york city, good morning. you, i have a seriously mentally ill relative and there are thousands of us who support what congressman murphy is doing and are frankly ashamed that nami which is to advocate for the seriously ill know longer does. help thessed laws to seriously mentally ill like assistant outpatient treatment only to find that federally funded programs are coming in to oppose the states and families of the seriously mentally ill. i am talking about the substance abuse and mental health services administration and also the federally funded protection and advocacy organization3 . we welcome your call for more money but what can you do to get these federal agencies from getting in the way? first of all, i think there is a lot of confusion among people who are approaching how we handle mental illness. the persons who have full capacities and are aware of their illness can get help and find that they can do that sometimes with peer support or other treatment. better andd do get we want them to live rich and independent lives fo. there are those who are not aware of their mental illness. don'tare persons who think the fbi is after them, they know it. under those circumstances, when a person is not even aware of who they are, under those circumstances, think there are times when you have to say if that person is fundamentally disabled and cannot care for themselves, do we step in and do more? say actuallytions not prevail array to be homeless and refuse treatment and live a level of misery because they are making a choice. i don't believe they are making a conscious choice. it's similar to someone with alzheimer's disease. if our grandmother is walking down the street in subzero sheher because she believes had to get to school the next morning as she is only seven years old, would we say that as ok? we would say that person has a brain disease. we need to step in and help them. similar to this is understanding that severe mental illness is a brain disease. some groups will say we don't want to do that. we think it has to do with the system itself causes problems. some organizations will use and lobby onrs legislation for or against. i don't think they should be doing that with federal dollars. what they should be doing is say that the person who is dumped by the system and is not care for and who is let go out of prison with no follow-up treatment should be advocating to make sure that person gets better and that person has the right to treatment and the right to get better. people who are victimized have a right not to be victimized. i propose when these federal dollars for this, there is a confusion among many when it comes to mental illness that someone with mental illness wants to be that way. that's absurd. saying that iff they got better by treatment -- i talked to many people who are consumers and former patients of mental illness, they say for years i refuse this because i thought the world was real and when they get better, they appreciate it because they can get back to a life that is enriched and fulfilling. host: let's go to anchorage, alaska, welcome to the program. are you with us? ? caller: yes. i think he is missing the forest for the trees. a lot of people are not adjudicated mentally ill but they have anger issues, there are too many americans that cannot control her impulses, too many americans armed. we have cases in florida with road rage. we had a fireman and a policeman recently that actually shot at each other with their families in the car. guns givens too many to too many people and before you get a license, he should have a psychological test, doctor. host: thanks for the call. on the issue of guns, we will deal with that later in the program. we have to be talking about the issue of myth -- mental illness here. not all people who are involved in shootings are mentally ill. we are talking about a small subset of the population of those we can help and prevent these kind of problems. quite frankly, there are laws out there that people who have been put in the hospitals against their will are not allowed to purchase them. guns. there are many strong was on this. in connecticut, we are dealing with the second anniversary of sandy hook elementary school, they cannot bring guns o on to school properties for there are laws in place. that does not prevent the person with mental illness from harming themselves or someone else. to be thinking is how we prevent these things from happening by getting the person treatment. federal laws often times get in the way of the state laws from getting people to treatment they need. host: we will go to tom from harrisburg, pennsylvania, welcome to the program. sorry, representative murphy, everybody is right and you and your political units are wrong. 60 million people, two years and it's easier this country to get guns. guest: what's really sad about ist close minded approach its really hard for people with mental illness to get treatment. it's people like you and others to maintain this stigma that someone with mental illness will go out and kill somebody. someone with severe mental treatmento cannot get ends up dying 25 years sooner3 . they end up with more chronic illnesses. they end up being in a society that wants to pretend they are not there. we've got to take off the blinders. we need a society that is not governed by lipservice but one that is compassionate by services that are accessible to the mentally ill. look at the reports that have been written about some of these tragic cases. one of the common factors among them is that these are individuals that did not fall between the cracks. they crawled into the cracks. the signs were there. the parents wanted them to get help. cases which tragically we know by the name of the perpetrator and not the names of the victims, parent struggled to get them help. caseat the heartbreaking of i meant taking his son to the hospital and tries to get help for his son and's -- and they say there is no bed. what is a parent supposed to do? tragically, we also have laws based upon some misguided philosophy the problems are caused by parents. a loving, caring parent who has an adult child with severe mental illness and wants to help them is told we cannot tell you anything. they are told the cannot do anything unless your son or daughter or brother or sister or someone else. that is the tragedy. that is the issue we need to stop being blind to. why is that the case? when we do the same thing in the person was in an auto accident and unconscious? we would not say we cannot take treat this person until they are fully awake. we would not say to a person who has just pays that we are not going to help you until you threaten to kill somebody. or until your unconscious from your heart attack. we hold a double standard with mental illness.

Speaking of transparency and honesty

Our leaders continually tell us they’re looking out for us and have our best interests at heart. But anyone who looks around at the real state of the State of West Virginia knows that simply isn’t true.

Report leads to retirement of Bluefield State president Capehart | News, Sports, Jobs

CHARLESTON — For the second time in eight years, Moundsville native Robin Capehart has resigned as president of one of West Virginia’s four-year universitie

Capehart resigns post after report | News, Sports, Jobs

CHARLESTON — For the second time in eight years, Moundsville native Robin Capehart has resigned as president of one of West Virginia’s four-year universit

Scathing Report Preceded Capehart's Resignation as Bluefield State University President | News, Sports, Jobs

CHARLESTON — For the second time in eight years, Moundsville native Robin Capehart has resigned as president of one of West Virginia’s four-year universities, this time after issues were discovered at Bluefield State University. According to an October report based on a focused visit in September by representatives of the Higher Learning Commission, a regional […]

Emergency WI Supreme Court Petition Seeks to Block Threatened Impeachment Proceedings

Emergency WI Supreme Court Petition Seeks to Block Threatened Impeachment Proceedings

Emergency WI Supreme Court Petition Seeks to Block Threatened Impeachment Proceedings

Emergency WI Supreme Court Petition Seeks to Block Threatened Impeachment Proceedings

Former West Virginia Supreme Court Justice Warren McGraw dies at 84

Former West Virginia Supreme Court Justice Warren McGraw has died at age 84. McGraw spent five decades in public service. McGraw was elected as a Democrat to fill an unexpired

Former Justice, Senate President Warren McGraw dies at 84

Former West Virginia Supreme Court Justice Warren McGraw dies at 84