also tonight, a different take on repealing don't ask, don't tell. some of the military service chiefs raising concerns, all of them saying they'll make the change if the senate acts. one big name republican skeptic changing his views on lifting the law. and later the town that disney built, white picket fences and now yellow crime scene tape. why there is no celebration in celebration, florida, tonight. we begin as always keeping them honest. tonight politicians on both sides of the aisle fighting over extending tax cuts for the wealthy. some say playing games over it, while americans pound the pavement looking for a paycheck. a whole lot of americans. new numbers, the jobless rate climbing tonight actually from 9.6% in october to 9.8% in november. the economy adding 39,000 jobs, down from 172,000 in october. in all, more than 15 million americans are unemployed, more than 6 million have been unemployed for more than six months. so what are the people you sent to washington doing about it? well, democrats and republicans appear to be bickering over tax cuts. this, while a bill to extend unemployment benefits is stalled. democratic senator tom harkin today, slamming republicans for obstructing the bill but also taking a shot at president obama for not doing more. >> have republicans lost all sense of what's right and what's wrong? they can fight for the -- for their tax breaks for the wealthy and stuff accident fine. that's what they're fighting for. fine. i understand that. but to say we cannot extend unemployment benefits for people out of work because we haven't yet given the tax breaks to the wealthy, i -- that's a moral outrage. and i ask, where is our outrage at something like this. where's the president's outrage at this. the president ought to be out there saying, this is morally outrageous that we're going to deny unemployment benefits to people this time of the year especially. >> president obama was in afghanistan talking to troops which presidents traditionally do around the holidays and sometimes when the domestic picture gets just too grim. but back to the point about jobless benefits being held hostage, according to the senator for american progress, a liberal think tank, in the last 40 years congress has never failed to extend emergency benefits when the jobless rate was above 7.2%. four decades of bipartisan agreement. that's what voters say they want and what top democrats and republicans seem to commit themselves to this week at the white house, to working better together and reaching across the aisle. yet just a day later, every senate republican signed a letter vowing to block any and all legislation until the tax cut issue is settled. this provoked democratic outrage. >> but the senate republican caucus is willing to put all of that in jeopardy. hold hostage tax cuts needed by people working people, middle class families, small businesses. if they can't get a bonus tax cut for millionaires and billionaires. >> then, house democrats passed a tax cut extension for all income below a quarter million dollars and that provoked republican outrage. >> trying to catch my breath so i don't refer to this -- this maneuver going on today as chicken crap. all right? but this is nonsense. all right? >> republicans charging game playing, democrats charging obstructionism and never mind the barn yard waste, how do you like these chickens? >> it's almost like the question of do you negotiate with terrorists. >> democratic senator robert menendez accusing senate republicans of holding everything hostage to tax cuts. an aide later saying he was talking about the negotiations, not republicans personally. still, whatever you think of the outcome of those negotiations, it's hard to argue that anyone of any political stripe likes what's going on in washington. in poll after poll, americans rank congress right down there with, well, what congressman boehner said. oh, and if you thought lawmakers are only wasting their time bickering over taxes while americans lose their jobs and the s.t.a.r.t. treaty is waiting to be ratified and don't ask don't tell is on the table, get this. senator harry reid is also using the lame duck session to push legislation, supporting the online poker industry. yes. go figure. joining us from the left and right respectively roland martin and erick erickson. editor in chief of redstate.com. erick, you heard senator tom harkin a moment ago saying, look, how can republicans be focused on extending tax cuts for roughly the wealthiest 2% of the country when you've got unemployment benefits for millions of americans set to expire. doesn't that seem on the surface unfair? >> not at all because they're going to pass. this is all political theater on the floor of the senate. the unemployment benefits will be extended. whether or not they should is an entirely separate question, but let's keep in mind the job creators in this country come from the 2% that the tax cuts are going to being expanded to and those are going to be expanded as well. >> roland, does eric have a valid point? it might not seem to be in the holiday spirit but is it just a fiscal reality that they have to be allowed to expire? >> first of all i won't call it a fiscal reality, it could very well not be extended, especially if you have one side or the other draw a line in the sand. here's the fundamental problem that i see with this. and that is we don't have to have the political theater. the letter republicans sent out wasn't necessary. when you look at the comments of menendez, not necessary. but when you have two people in terms of two parties actually, republicans and democrats, who actually say, yes, we can find compromise, then you can see two sides coming together. but as long as one side says we're not going to do anything until these two things are dealt with, then it makes no sense whatsoever. so that, to me, what is crazy about this -- and when you have nearly 4 million americans who are going to lose unemployment benefits, that is a serious, fundamental issue and the people who have jobs, they seem not to really care. >> would you like to respond? >> i think the issue is if the government's not going to stay open for business there's going to be no one to print the checks anyway so we've got to figure out some way to keep the government going. this idea of continuing to pass continuing resolutions all along, we should have automatic resolution so we don't have this fight tieing the other issues up. >> it's not the issue of the continuing resolution. again, what you have here is -- and look. when i hear the argument that can we give 95% of folks who are middle class, those making under $250,000 allowing the tax cuts to continue, it's not like that is somehow a foreign or crazy argument. but i do think it is nuts to say we're going to hold up everything unless that is dealt with first. that to me makes no sense. >> actually, i think it makes a tremendous amount of sense because if these aren't extended by december 15th we're going to see the bottom fall out of the market because so many stock options come up for renewal that day. you'll have investors, small businessmen, large businessmen, individual americans having to sell stock based on the uncertainty. so they have to get that resolved first, otherwise december 15th we'll see very bad things happen. >> what about the argument that if you don't extended tax breaks to small business owner who's make more than $250,000 you're never going to see the job creation necessary to get the economy back on track. >> first of all, that is a nonsensical argument because it's not as if those are the only individuals who are out there also creating jobs. also when you look at the people out there who own small businesses, many of them don't have revenues in terms of their companies that even exceed $250,000. okay? also, the people who make more -- people who earn more than $250,000 on the top 2% in terms of earners in this country, so when you also have people who make less than that, you're dealing with people who are likely families, kids in college, those who are also spending. they're the ones who need those cuts more than anybody else. and again, that's 98% of the people who earn money in the country, under $250,000. 98%. >> yeah, but roland, the independent businesses, more than 60% of small business people, would be affected by this 2% cut. those are the people in that 2%. let's not pretend that it's some anomaly of people up there. there are a great deal of people up there who don't necessarily need the tax cut but 60% of small business people in the country according to the national federation of independent businesses are in there and would be impacted. we can't pick and choose. >> don't make the argument that all the people who are $250,000 and above are small business owners. they are not. >> they're not, but 60% of small business owners are. so if we're going to punish them all and not give it to them we're also going to be affecting their ability to create jobs in this country and also the bigger issue is we've been pursuing these democratic strategies for more than a year and they haven't improved unemployment. >> actually, here's the point randi, when you talk about unemployment, i do recall in march of 2009, we -- every time ali velshi came on cnn he was doom and gloom when it came to the stock market. people were talking about their 401(k)s and their pensions. but because of the very financial solutions we're talking about, we are seeing the stock market stabilize, we've seen those very same people, firefighters, teachers and others with pensions and 401(k)s, they're actually stabilized there so this one segment of the economy has gotten better. so, erick, don't try to sit here and act as if nothing -- erick, erick, allow me to finish. allow me to finish. don't try to make the argument that nothing worked. in fact, it did work. we also have seen 1.2 million private sector jobs created. do we need more than that? absolutely. >> i think 9.8 unemployment speaks for itself. >> even with the unemployment today you still saw an increase of private sector jobs. >> 31,000 really isn't -- >> final word, then we have to go. >> i say an increase of 31,000 is better than a loss of 500,000. >> we've got to create 400,000 a quarter and we're not doing it. the bigger picture is all the firefighters and people benefitting from the stock market, they're going to be devastated on december 15th because the market will crash when people try to take their capital gains at 15% instead of 20%. >> all right, guys. we'll leave it there. roland martin, erick erickson, thank you so much for joining us. join the live chat under way at ac360.com. top military brass and their concerns about lifting don't ask, don't tell. why they don't all agree. we'll tell you which skeptic is changing the law, changed his mind after reading the pentagon study on the issue and hear from one of the study's authors. later president obama's trip to afghanistan and the dire picture those wikileak state department cables paint of the corrupt afghan partners. at northern trust, we understand... that while you may come from the same family... you know, son, you should take up something more strenuous. you have different needs and desires. - i'm reading a book. - what's a book? 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that's a political question. for more on the policy, i spoke earlier with pentagon general counsel jay johnson who co-authored this week's report on gays in the military. mr. johnson, thank you so much for being with us. let me ask you, both the marine corps commandant and air force saying there is some risk to troops in the field if the ban is repealed right now. now, that is half the service chiefs with big concerns about repeal. is the data in your report strong enough to counter that criticism? >> well, first of all, everyone should understand that the chiefs -- it would not be a surprise that, on this complex issue you have differing points of view. our analysis over a ten-month period involved conversations with tens and tens of thousands of service members. it was one of the largest surveys ever, 115,000 respondents, and it was the judgment and is the judgment of general hamm and myself that the overall risk to military effectiveness of repeal is low. now, a large part of that assessment encompassed the war fighting units, which general amos, general casey, general schwartz were they concerned about. what we saw is while the predictions for negative consequences in war fighting units were higher than the overall force, one has to remember that predictions are reflective of attitudes and predictions are very often a poor indicator of future actual behavior. >> let's get to senator john mccain's comments. he had a few problems with your report yesterday. i'm interested in hearing what you thought of his biggest critique. let's listen and we'll get your response. >> what i want to know and what it is is congress's duty to determine is not can our armed forces implement a repeal of this law, but whether the law should be repealed. unfortunately, that key issue was not the focus of this study. >> and he's been saying that for a few months now. is that fair criticism? why didn't the report examine that direct question, should this be repealed? >> well, it was not our task to determine whether the law should be repealed. that is a matter for the congress and the president. what we in effect looked at is whether we can accept repeal in the military right now, and we determined that we could. >> some people have said, and i know that you've heard this before, look, the president, the secretary of defense, the chairman of the joint chiefs, they all backed repeal heading into this. months before the results came in, the house actually even voted for repeal. so how do you convince people that politics didn't actually play a role in this, and this was an unbiased study? >> well, first of all, i guarantee you that in the course of talking to tens of thousands of service members, we heard a wide range of views. people were very, very candid, virtually everyone has an opinion in the military about don't ask, don't tell. and we heard across the board, there was no indication to us that the views of the president or the chairman or the secretary in any way infected or slanted the views we heard. and i was frankly surprised and pleased that we got such candor in the course of our review. >> i know in carrying out this study you went on dozens of trips to military bases. you held what you might call town halls, soliciting opinions from the troops. i wonder, heading into this, did the idea of those meetings make you nervous at all? >> well, as a matte