Transcripts For MSNBC MSNBC Live 20110404 : vimarsana.com

appropriate chairs of committees to the white house. 9 big problem is the tea party. republicans can t get past them, they re not big on compromising, so one of the ways the gop may be trying to appease them is to give them a preview of the giant cuts they re prepared for fight for next year. tomorrow congressman paul ryan is rolling out his plan for that budget. he wants to cut, are you ready for it? $4 trillion over ten years. now, we ll talk about the specific cuts in a minute, but first i have to tell you what the whole point of this exercise is the tax cuts. of course ryan wants to continue to extend the bush tax cuts, that s a given, no question about that, but that s not nearly enough. his plan lowers the top tax rate by ten points, from 35% to 25%. the richest people in the country would be paying 25 percent. that s a giant quut. you know what that is? redistribution of wealth right to the top. you remember in his first road map, to oblivion, in my opinion, he proposed a national sales tax. that would have increased taxes on the bottom 9 on% of the american people. he actually doesn t mind raising taxes, as long as it s on you, aen not the top 10%. right now the top 1% of the country controls 40% of the wealth. 25 years ago, they controlled only 33%, so the share of the top 1% has gone up dramatically, 1% owning 40%. how did they do that? they did that with the republicans giving them tax cut after tax cut, and subsidy after subsidy, and it goes on and on. what was it supposed to do? trickle down? has it trickled down to you yet? i don t think so. so let s get to the spending cuts. they love the spending cuts. so we ve got medicare, medicaid, social security, they re all top targets, of course, so, for example, people 55 and younger medicare would become a premium support system. i love this euphemism. instead of guarantees benefits, medicare would give beneficiaries a sum of money to use to purchase private insurance. what a wonderful coincidence. that happens to be some of the top donors for the republicans, 3r50i69 insurance companies, so you would get less money and private insurance wouldn t even have to deliver a set of minimum benefits. how is that for premium support system? i mean, they are downright or we well-ian in this. how about medicaid? paul ryan wants to cut $1 trillion from medicaid ace budget by giving states lump sums to fund their own programs. republicans say this molest provides more flexibility, but with a fixed sum from the federal government, that flexibility would mean states could and would lift enrollment. how do you like that for flexibility? house minority leader nancy pelosi today put it pretty bluntly. putting medicaid into block grants is one way to put it in a box, tie it with a ribbon and throw it in the deep blue sea. this is the beginning of the end for medicaid once you block grant it. that s true. that s k35ek9ly what the goal is. they ve been coming for medicare and medicaid for decades and they re on the doorstep. on the other hand, the rich would get their tax cuts. you didn t think about that, did you? that makes it all better. how about social security? all we know so far is ryan s budget calls for significant cuts. it doesn t provide any of the details, of course, he says we re going to leave it up to various committees to figure all that out, but once thing we know for sure is the rich would get their tax cuts. joining me now is independent senator bernie sanders of vermont, and member of the budget commit aye. senator sanders, they ve been trying this for decades. i think they re on the doorstep i think they re real close. my top question, the most important question today, how are you going to stop them? well, we ve got to get the american people to stand up and say, it is absolutely immoral, it is insane that we give tax breaks to the very richest people in the country who are doing phenomenally well and we sock it to the middle class and working families seeing a decline in their standard of living. this is robin hood in reverse. cenk, this year some 45,000 americans are going to die because they don t get to a doctor on time. if you block grant medicaid, if you voucherize medicare, that number is going to soar. what you are talking about a life-and-death issue for millions of the american people. what i have been disturbed about, in terms of the whole budget debate, whether it s the continuing resolution or fiscal year 12 is we have not stalked about enough is the need to bring revenue into the picture and say we are not going to extend bush s tax breaks for the very richest people. what we need is a surtax on millionaires. last week we announced ten corporations, ten of the largest corporations in this country who not only paid nothing in taxes, they got substantial rebates. so the idea of cutting programs for the weakest, the most vulnerable to give tax breaks to the richest and largest corporations is totally grotesque. now, senator sanders, i agree, and i know you re a progressive guy. no question about that. i follow this stuff closely. that s my job, right? but i also know, and i m going to be blunt with you, democrats have been terrible at defending their ground, terrible. yeah. i ve got to be honest. i have no faith, i have no truth. right now if you said to me $4 trillion, i don t think they ll get $4 trillion, but if president obama and the senate democrats play the usual games, i ll make a prediction, 2391 to 2.5 in cuts they ll agree to. what they haven t done is made the case to the american people that the american people already support. there was a wall street journal poll maybe three weeks ago, 81% of the american people thought the best way to address deficit reduction is a surtax on millionaires. they want to do away with the loopholes to allow corporations not to pay any taxes. but senator, you ve got to tell me, look, you re right, i know that, okay? but you re right there in the senate. what s stopping you guys? don t say you guys, cenk. i am, i have introduced legislation i know, and i ve given you credit for that legislation. you ve got to ask the president. there you go. you ve got to say, president obama, take the case to the american people, whether we ask billionaires to pay more in taxes or we destroy the lives of millions of working families. i think we win that fight overwhelmingly. unfortunately, as you well know, this place is dominated by lobbyists who represent the wealthy and the powerful. i wish president obama would not only enter the fray, but enter the fray on the side of working families. i think it s good public policy, 340r8ly the right thing to do, and it s good politics. we win that fight. unfortunately, unfortunately, money speaks very loudly around here. you re 100% right about that. so final question what are you going to do if the president, as usual, comes out and says i m going to split the difference, i m going to agree with the republicans, i m not going to make our case, i m going to say look at me, i m centrist, i ve gone three quarters in their direction, what are you going to do about it? how are you going to rally progressives? i m not putting it all on you. i m doing my best. time after time, we try to defend social security from some democrats who actually want to cut it. how do we get the president on our side? i think it s not it s millions of people saying, mr. president, we voted for you, because you told us you would defend working americans. now is the time to stand up to the big-money interests, ask for shared sacrifice, don t balance the budget on the backs of the e8derly, poor and sick. i would lie hundreds of thousands coming to washington and saying hello, do not balance the budget on the backs of those who are if we can rally ordinary people into this fight, we will win it. look, before we go, i want the audience to know i m not saying this because bernie sanders is the guy that s on the air with us. he s the one that s introduced the right legislation. i want everybody to be clear on that. senator sanders, godspeed, i hope you can represent the progressives well in this upcoming fight. let me brej in e.j. dionne, let me start it this way. i don t think the countries should take republicans seriously. they say they care about balancing the budget, but when you say, how about taking out oil subsidies, farm subsidies, people leeching off the government, they should agree, but they don t. it s about enriching their rich friends. how do we get washington to say, yes, cenk, you guys are right, this is nonsense, they re not being honest. i think you have to be up front by real choices here. $4 trillion is what the ryan budget is supposed to save over ten years. there s another $4 trillion, the amount of money you would raise if you simply restored the tax rates that existed when bill clinton was present. remember 22 million jobs? bob rubin treasury secretary the not a socialist last time i looked, so i think it is a trade-off here, but here s the reason why i think he may finally get engaged after the rye yak budget comes out, because this budget strikes at the heart of his proudest achievement, which is the health care reform. a lot of the expansions he proposes. he covers a lot more people through medicaid. if you cut the hard out of medicaid, you are cutting the heart out of the obama health care plan. that s why i don t think he has any alternative but to fight on this. i certainly hope he does. the dang us of putting people on the private insurance market i don t think is something the country wants to do. so now he s got to turn around and fight for this? it s crazy not only the medication is part of health care, that s a great point, but they ve been trying to kill this thing for how many how does he resolve that? how do you finally saying i m not going for this? so far i haven t seen that turn yet. i think i don t think they made the right choice, but i think they figured the first round of budget cuts, they can get by. they can get by with some cuts that may not go to the heart of important programs, and they were saving their fire for later. how much later? if it s later like 3, 4, 5 months from now, then i think he s in trouble and anyone who cares about progressive government is in trouble. if, however, they re saying the bigot fight starts with congressman ryan s budget, he doesn t have to sound extreme to say, well, look, we have medicaid and medicare for a reason, and a lot of if you cut medicaid that much, you re going to hurt a lot of seniors, a lot of disabled people. i think you can make a case by yelling. you can also make a very quiet reasonable case that says the same thing. bill clinton won his budget fight talking about medicare, medicaid, education and the environment. those are popular causes in 2011 just like they were back in 1995. e.j., lastly, i ve heard my whole life about democrats keeping their powder dry. it s so dry. it s like the sahara desert, and i always hear, a couple months from now, a couple years from now they re going to start fighting. it never happens. my last question to you is, can we agree if president obama does not fight for medicare and instead agrees to some sort of so-called compromise, to chop it off or do this kind of premium support system, that he is a disaster as a progressive, if he does? i don t know that i would jump there, but i do agree that democrats do have this habit of delays the fight until it s too late. you can t fight in the tenth inning if the game ends in the ninth. and i guess i m focused especially on the medicaid cuts, because if he doesn t really put up a battle on those, then i don t see how the rest of his achievement holds together i think we ll see tomorrow when congressman ryan issues the budget, i think it s a real moment of truth for him. thank you so much for your time. still ahead, fascinating new numbers that may hold the key to reelection chances. and actions of one anti-muslim pastor has led to days of protests in afghanistan. i ve got a controversial take on that. i m gooding to share that next. how are you getting to a happier place? running there? dancing there? how about eating soup to get there? campbell s soups fill you with good nutrition, farm-grown ingredients, and can help you keep a healthy weight. campbell s. it s amazing what soup can do. in florida we have a crazy pastor who burned a coran, then crazy protesters in afghanistan? who s more at fault? i have a strong opinion of that. and we have a state official will join us, coming right up. [ groans ] [ marge ] psst. constipated? phillips caplets use magnesium, an ingredient that works more naturally with your colon than stimulant laxatives, for effective relief of constipation without cramps. thanks. good morning, students. today we re gonna continue. two nato soldiers were shot today in afghanistan, as deadly protests in that country continued for the fourth day. what are the afghans so upset about? last month in florida, the anti-muslim pastor decided to put the coran on trial. what an absurd idea. he claimed to be an impartial judge, though he had previously threatened to burn a pile of sentencing options included burning, shredding, drowning and firing squad. firing squad is pretty absurd for a book. only thing more absurd is drowning. anyway, soaking the koran in kerosene and burning it apparently won out. and now he s considering putting the prophet mohammed on trial, as if the first didn t go we ve seen four straight days of protests in afghanistan, some very violent. the protests started on friday with attack on a u.n. compound which kill seven u.n. staff members. all told, at least 20 people have been killed during the protests, and almost 150 people have been wounded. pastor jones is a nut job, was that a stupid idea? everybody tried to talk him out it, including pe traez, even president obama made a comment about it. we told him it was dumb, but you know who s crazier? people who kill others based on a book burning. i m going to say something that s apparently controversial. who cares? for example, i believe in science, so i think biology is the answer. if you burn a biology book, i wouldn t lose a minute of sleep over it. you re an ideo. so what? look, my beliefs are independent of what you think about them. my beliefs don t get their feelings hurt. how weak are your beliefs that you re like, my god, somebody offended me, i have to kill somebody else. that makes no sense. i know pastor jones is a loon, but in this country you get to be a loon. if the afghans don t like that, that s too bad for them. we live in a free country and 24eshd figure that out, but apparently we have wasted over ten years in that country, because they can t begin to understand that concept. in your world view, if you disagree with someone, you kill them, or kill some random u.n. officials. that s not. i don t know what the hell we ve been doing in afghanistan. apparently we ve made no progress whatsoever, but somebody s going to try to explain it to me. matt hose, he resigned in protest in the war in afghanistan. matt is now the director of the afghanistan study group. matt, look, i say look at the protests, and two things jump out, first, let s be realistic about this. this isn t just because of the a koran burning. this has to do with our presence and occupation for the last ten years, right? yeah, absolutely, cenk. thanks for having me on. i don t know if i m the best person to answer what the hell are we doing there? i as well as many others have argued we should be de-escalating is the conflict. this is the afghan people who have been at war for 30 years, who have seen most of mouse 30 years include foreign occupation democrat stralting they re tired of it. they re tired of the occupation, they re tired of the war, they re tired of a select elite getting rich off foreign aid money. so what you saw in reaction to and again no better word for the guy in florida than a jerk, was outrage over an occupation and a war that s gone on for 30 years. them burning the people in effigy, that s totally fine, my mind doesn t comprehend it, but that s the problem. we re trying to put our form of democracy on folks who apparently have no interest in it quu imagine how would they take that? cenk, you re right. it s a different country. we re involved in somebody else s civil war there. we sxlated this conflict two years ago in march of 09, president obama sent 20,000 more troops to afghanistan. and in december of 09 he sent 30,000 more troops. all we ve seen is the war get worse. we don t understand what we re doing there. we don t understand its society. we don t understand the root cause. we don t understand a whole host of things. what happens and what you re seeing is our young guys and gals over there, who are getting killed still in report numbers are getting caught in the midst of a tribal or ethnic conflict, they re call in between stuff that resembles hatfield and mccoy type violence, and it s cost us us not just our lives, but about $120 billion a year. i can t tell you what we re doing there. it s pointless and crazy. matt, we re out of time. but matthew hoh, thank you for joining us. thanks, cenk. up next, wisconsin voters head to the polls in what appeared tore a referendum on scott walker s collective bargaining bill. how the supreme court race could shift the balance of power in that state and how important that outcome is. it s positive. positive? 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[ frog croaking ] ram. how can expedia now save me even more on my hotel? well, hotels know they can t fill every room every day. like this one. and this one. and oops, my bad. so, they give expedia ginormous discounts with these: unpublished rates. which means i get an even more rockin hotel, for less. my brain didn t even break a sweat. where you book matters. expedia. her morning begins with arthritis pain. that s a coffee and two pills. the afternoon tour begins with more pain and more pills. the evening guests arrive. back to sore knees. back to more pills. the day is done but hang on. her doctor recommended aleve. just 2 pills can keep arthritis pain away all day with fewer pills than tylenol. this is lara who chose 2 aleve and fewer pills for a day free of pain. and get the all day pain relief of aleve in liquid gels. barack obama s reelection campaign officially launched today, and one of the unspoken themes is the big role that minority voters will play in the upcoming election. everybody knows that minority voters are important, but you ll see with the new data, they re even more important. the latest census data shows non-hispanic whites make up 66%, as compared to 200 when they were 69%, so the white percentage of the population has had a huge drop in just the last ten years, meaning voters and particularly latinos, are much more important. and when it comes to the impact of future elections, check this out. of those that are 18 and younger, just over 46% are minorities now. in 2000, only 39% were minorities. the national journal s ron brownstein has an in-depth analysis of these shifts. brownstein points out, quote, at the current rate of growth, nonwhites will comprise a majority of children in the united states by 2015. that s only four years from now. now, the driving force behind the population shift, latinos. 50 million in 2010. that s a 47% gain. now, here s the bottom line. obama won overwhelming support of minorities in 2008, by 80%, a huge number. if he can maintain that support in 2012 or anywhere near it, he ll have a shot of winning states he lost in 2008, and obviously keeping ahold of the swing states he won, you ll see support from whoit voters. obama could take georgia with just 25% of the white vote. that s a stunning number. nevada with 35%, florida with just under 40% and arizona with 46.7% of the white vote president obama would carry. so the ad he released today was dull, lacked some energy, but did most of his talking with who was on the ad rather than what they said, and it was chock-full of young voters, a young black activist, a latino woman in arizona. they hit the swing states, so they get it. obviously they ll make a concerted effort to get those demographic numbers. with me is ron brown steed editorial director of and msnbc analyst pat buchanan. great to have both of you here. ron, those percentage of white voters is so tiny, georgia, i can t believe that s all he needs. he can t get 25% in georgia? well, you re not guaranty tide. the basic dynamic is that the minority share of the population is increasing more than people expected minority share will rise in 2012. other, the democrats and obama have suffered an erosion of the support. republicans want a than they have won in any election since the advent of modern polling, so can they hold enough of the white support versus the gains they re going to see in the minority committee. don t forget the democratic support fell off somewhat in 2010, still until about if they hold that, it puts a lot of pressure on republicans to replicate what was extraordinary success. it s not just the people going out to vote, but the people trying to decide whether they should vote, but pat, i want to go to you, as you look at those numbers, if the republican party keeps demonizing latinos with rhetor rhetoric, aren t they killing themselves? no, i think in 2008 it was about the fifth or sixth most important for hispanics. no doubt ultimately the republican party has a hellish problem, but ron is exactly right, cenk. in 2008, 74% of the vote, i don t care the population, was white, and the obama has had a horrible falling off, especially among the white working class. he s not going to win north carolina this time. i don t think he s going to win virginia. i don t think he s going to win indiana. i think he ll be stronger in colorado and nevada, but i think this election is up for grabs, but let me say, on the long term, given the immigration and birth patterns, quite frankly the republican party as i ve known it, as we put it together in the nixon and reagan years, is ultimately doomed. you made a choice. it was called the southern strategy and it was to get white votes. now that the demographic shift has happens, it seems you re on the bad end of that strategy, doesn t it? look, i came into politics in 1966, we ve had a pretty good run of it, but the truth is every election or the republicans have been in, 90% of the republican vote or 89% is white voters, as that diminishes, undoubtedly you have to get higher percentage. nixon and reagan got about 64%, 67%. 67% is good, but ultimately they ll have to do better, or they ll have to get hispanic votes, and the problem is his spangs believe in government. they re big government people. ron, let s go to the idea of the power that latino activists might have. when you look at it, not only is the latino numbers rising, but there s a big gulf between that and the voters registration. if they can get people to vote, that would make an enormous difference. does that give them more clout? that was a really good analysis by pat of the past 45 years of american politics. there s an enormous gulf between 14% of the adult population, only 9% of the vote. partially some people are here illegally. even people here legally, they have not become citizens. those who are citizens, they ve not registered to vote. even with all of those hurdles, the weight of the demography is inexoshl. when bill clinton was first elected, it was only 12%. this is a slow and steady change. this was not a sudden jump with barack obama. it probably will be somewhere around 28%, and it does move states like virginia, north carolina, florida, i would disagree with pat, i think thoses states that obama really doesn t want to win, because they are diverse states. if he can t hold those, it starts getting problematic to get up to 270. not so much florida, but certainly have a vaismt had e ll have trouble. he needs to hold some of those states that kind of look like him. they are diverse and they are well educated. cenk, let me give you some numbers from 2008. 74% of the vote was white vote, only 70.4 was his spang even though they were about 15% of the population and now 16%. you ve touched on their problem. a lot of some of them are very young, there s not a great interest in politics on the part of 24e78, unlike african-americans who are very political and frankly voting their percentages in national elkz. that s the problem for the democratic party, can you get these people excited and enenthused when, after four years, they aren t as excited about barack obama in libya and barack obama going back to guantanamo as they were. pat, the challenge for republicans, on the other hand is under-18 population, they are citizens, the vast majority of them, they were born in the u.s., they ll be eligible to vote when they re 18. the delta, the gap is probably going to narrow at an accelerating rate. that does change the dynamic. you know, there are 18 house republicans, for example, who are in districts that are a minority majority. those are the places that 9 democrats will have to take back. that s one of the reason that they won districts. in 2012, the obama campaign will put a lot of efforts on expanding the electorate on bringing out those voters. north carolina, colorado, nevada, they have an eye on this diverse electorate. pat, last question here. look, obviously that s the case, they re going to go ahead and put up immigration reform. they re going to do it to try to get latino votes. i think that s fairly obvious. if they don t do it, i wee sprited what will be the republican reaction? you said it yourself, they re in a world of trouble if they keep demonizing latinos. i don t think they demonize latinos. they have a problem because of demography. here s the situation, basically, look, if we re looking at 7% unemployment and things are getting better in michigan and ohio, obama is a clear favorite. if he sitting up close to 9%, i think obama will be perceived to have failed, and michigan, enormous gains but pat, you re going to go off the cliff. none of us lives forever, cenk. well, there you go. pat buchanan and ron brownstein, great conversation. thank you. buckle up for what could be a smackdown, michele bachmann, president yap election 2012, all right. let s see who s stronger. that s who we re going to talk about. 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[ male announcer ] visit ameriprise.com and put a confident retirement more within reach. republican primaries mish bachman or tim pawlenty? everybody seems to be saying pawlenty, i think that is totally wrong. i m going to show you why when we come back. also, did the obama administration cave on gitmo? or did they have no choice? we ll discuss that as well. [ male announcer ] they are our future leaders. explorers. great thinkers. they re the future of america, so let s build them up strong, and give them our cheese. kraft singles american cheese. we re always made with milk. and more kids get their calcium from us than any other american cheese. the future of our country is in their hands. hey look it s the future senator from wisconsin. kraft singles. the american cheese. [ female announcer ] pads have been made with the same fluff for years. today there s always infinity, the most amazing pad ever, made of an innovative material called infinicel, not used before in other pads, with a unique foam-like core that molds to fit your body so you hardly know it s there. plus it keeps its shape better. and absorbs up to 60% more. always infinity. created by women for you. while president obama officially launches campaign for 2012 today, the top republican contenders have not formally entered the race there. they re still exploring, exploratory committees to do further exploration, all right, but today tim pawlenty did release his own snazzy video. i ve got a question for you. how can america win the future when we re losing the present? in order for america to take a new direction, it s going to take a new president. what kind of video was that? i guess since he s so dull, he s trying to make it exciting, but i don t think it s working. he s supposed to be the exciting candidate? i have no idea why anybody thinks that, but there s another contender, mish bachman. she raised more money than any other republican this year, and that s after raising a record 13 million last year for her congressional campaign. bachmann also just hired huckabee s political director from when he ran in 2008. so does she have a real shot? i think the answer might be yet. let s talk to a.b. stoddard to see if i m right. who s better, pawlenty or bachmann? pawlenty is the blandest guy. i think michele bachmann has a ten times better chance. tell me if i m wrong. i think she has the early advantage with the wow factor. she has the un-wow factor, but i think he has a little more staying power for the way this primary is going to be run. much different from 2008, a much longer slog. it is going to be a numbers game. not an erty knockout, and determines a winner early. i think it s going and i think that s what theyisms ifr. can you someone tell me de he was the governor of minnesota. so what? why is he interesting? he s very good on television. what republicans tend to say is he s good on television, very smart, very articulate, knows the issues, knows foreign policies. but when you get him in a speech, when e had s trying to travel the country and wow the crowds, he doesn t have the energy. as you know, michele bachmann has made a huge splash in the trips she s been making. obviously as you mentioned before, a real fund-raising powerhouse, so it s something for tim pawlenty to contend with. he s been laying the groundwork, but she s jumped in all of a sudden. she was born and raised in iowa before her family moved to minnesota, and they love her there. and she has much better jackets. look i m going to show you a clip of her buttering up the crowd. she s a classic politician. she knows what she s doing. i am an iowaen, i was born in waterl waterloo, iowa. i m a seventh generation iowaen. iowans are very intelligence, iowa is the land of milk and honey. but look, she gets the crowd revved up. she s got the numbers, why wouldn t chef a chance? it s not just iowa. when you think about it, you go to new hampshire now, led by the tea party, she s tea party, you go down toic is second quarter, i think she does, she s doing pretty well in the polls there, too. there is 134 polls among primary voters so far showing the same results for michele bachmann that they did for sarah pal palin, that could change. she really is hot in iowa. we don t know hoch of a bump that will give her, but remember, mike huckabee won iowa, john mccain did not. with the contest changing the way it s going to, there will be other people who have stronger clgz than michele bachmann has. fill cal policy, domestic policy, and social conservatives. he s an evangelical christian himself. he s going to make sure there s no stone uncovered. if you look at a long, protracted race, it s very hard to imagine she ends sup taking over one who s a two-term governor. a.b. stoddard, we appreciate it. thank you. eric holder announced that khalid shaikh mohammed and other spakts will be tried by a my tail commission. do they really not have a choice? we ll discuss that when we come back. it moves effortlessly, breathes easily. it flows with clean water. it makes its skyline greener and its population healthier. all to become the kind of city people want to live and work in. somewhere in america, we ve already answered some of the nation s toughest questions. and the over sixty thousand people of siemens are ready to do it again. siemens. answers. how are you getting to a happier place? running there? dancing there? how about eating soup to get there? campbell s soups fill you with good nutrition, farm-grown ingredients, and can help you keep a healthy weight. campbell s. it s amazing what soup can do. [ male announcer ] isn t some optional pursuit. a privilege for the ultra-wealthy. it s a necessity. find investments with e-trade s top 5 lists. quickly. easily. use pre-defined screeners and insightful trading ideas to dig deeper. work smarter. not harder. depend on yourself the one person you should trust to take charge of your financial future. e-trade. investing unleashed. immediately pop taken office in 2009, president obama signed a executive order to close guantanamo bay cuba detention center. in order to effect the appropriate disposition of individuals kirchtly detained by the department of defense at guantanamo, i hereby order and will then provide the process whereby guantanamo will be closed no later than one year from now. those are the good old days back in 2009. two years later gitmo is still open for business. that s not all president obama s fault. congress took away some of his options in a vote that was very clear. today eric holder reluctantly announced that khalid shaikh mohammed and other suspects will be tried by a military commission at guantanamo bay. i was surprised to see eric holder insist that civilian trials would have been better. there was some chance he would come out and 1i6r7ly adopt the republican position as if it were his own, but it is frustrating that the administration seems to concede at the first sign of trouble. if you believe civilian trials are better and guantanamo should be closed, you should fight for it. you can t convince us it s the case if you never make it. joining muss is david track, he defended an afghan teenager held at guantanamo bay, and also a professor of law. why not just try them there? well, there s several problems with the military commissions. they have improved them with the act of 2009, but you still have the possibility of the administration of coerced evidence. you still have the appearance of command influence, of its military judges, military jury, it s more secretive, far less open and transparent than a federal trial would be. why does the appearance matter? well, you know, we entered this war as part of a broad international coalition, and over time our partners have gradually melted away because of the dissatisfaction with our unwillingness to take into consideration international opinion and prevailing standards of international law. so i think the perception really matters. we also have to worry about the perception in the muslim world. this is a time when we re trying to curry favors in the middle east and show that muslims that we re on their side and this will just feed the perception that we re hypocritical. professor here s the thing i m most concerned about, is that we don t believe in our own justice system. what does it tell the american people? don t trust the american justice system, so let s use a new system in a dark prison down on an island that s out of sight. i mean, aren t you teaching your kids, for example, your students to believe in the american justice system? what does that tell them? it sends absolutely the wrong message when we saw we have one standard for americans and we have another standard for