>> michael: coming up republicans are right. the keystone pipeline is a no-brainer. in fact it's entirely thoughtless hah another round of oil spills prove it. i'm michael shure. this is "the war room." [♪ theme music ♪] >> michael: ts elliott calls it the cruellest month and perhaps he was right. april comes in promising spring but more often just brings rainy weather and worse like exploding

oil pipelines and run away freight trains. first pipelines in arkansas and minnesota burst last week, blanketing entire neighborhoods in crude oil. exxon mobil initially claimed just a few thousand barrels of oil spilled but it turned out to be more like 10,000. >> i mean look. incredible. and that is oil. >> michael: it's just unbelievable when you look at that. and that's not the only spill that happened last week either. this minnesota a train carrying tar sands oil was going 150 miles an hour when it derailed and spilled oil. these spills are happening again and again. there have been 102 in just the

last ten years. and the senate approved a non-binding bill to approve the keystone pipeline. jay carney said the pipeline isn't even on the president's agenda, but the republicans are keeping up the pressure. >> the keystone xl pipeline is a no-brainer no-brainer. it has passed muster through several environmental reviews. >> lee terry might be a no-brainer. several of those reviews he talked about was the one committed by a state department and sponsored by oil companies that will benefit from the pipeline. joining me now is anthony swift for the national resources defense council. he comes us to from washington, d.c. welcome inside "the war room," anthony. >> it's good to be here.

thank you. >> michael: could these spills change the dialogue about the pipeline at all? >> i think they could. we have been talking about the risk of tar sands moving across sensitive areas in the united states for quite sometime now. i think this arkansas spill is a small sample of the sort of thing you could expect with keystone xl. and it is not the only oil spill we have had in the u.s. in recent years. >> michael: when you are a see this it's hard to think this is like a dress rehearsal for key sense to. so why wouldn't people who are opposed to it saying look this could happen all over the country. >> i would say it's a tragic warning with the sort of things you can expect with keystone xl.

this pipeline was 96,000 barrels a day, keystone is twice that size. and tar sands are not only dirty to produce, but it is dramatically different and poses different risks when moves it in pipelines. >> michael: i shouldn't say it's great that has happened. this is as you say tragic but some good could come out of it. there have been 16 times as many pipeline spills in canada as there has been in the united states. scientists say that is partly because tar sands oils is so corrosive. this tar sands oil more dangerous to transport than other oil? >> i don't think most people would recognize tar sands if they saw it or recognize it as oil. it's a semisolid tarsy

substance, that you can't noift a pipeline without refining it or mixing it with toxic volatile chemicals, and that's what they are increasingly looking, taking this tarsy substance, mixing it with volatile chemicals and then moving it down the type line. it is much thicker than conventional crude, and moving it in pipelines creates friction as it moves down the pipeline, and that increases the pipeline's temperature. ordinary crude pipeline operates at about room temperature. tar sands pipeline operates between 130 and 160 degrees fahrenheit >> michael: that's so interesting.

so it makes it more come bestable, i would guess. is that right? >> that's right. and it increases -- when you increase the temperature, you increase all of the speed at which chemical reactions happen so at 130 degrees pipelines corrode much faster. there was a small pipeline in california that is another warning sign of what -- you know, what we can expect with this dramatic expansion of high temperature tar sands moving down new and aging pipe lines. we haven't seen it in our pipeline systems for very long. it started moving down in the

mid-1990s, mostly in the midwest. and they have spilled 3.6 times as much crude per pipeline mile as the over oil pipelines. now this is another significanting can't warning signs of what we can expect from these tar sands pipelines. >> michael: and what happened is may flower arkansas is similar to what happened in kalamazoo, michigan about three years ago. tell us about the cleanup there, and what that entailed? >> there was a spill about two kilometers from the river of 830,000 gallons of tar sands. that -- what spill responders found is that tar sands dehaifed

dramatically different than conventional crude. it actually -- the light stuff -- the light toxic diluents gassed off. and that caused the heavier items to sink into the water. so conventional spill response techniques weren't able to contain the ail once it sunk into the water body and they have spent billions of dollars in cleanup. the epa has given up on trying to clean it up the spill and are just focusing on stopping new disasters. the saddest part is we haven't actually learned from that spill

how to deal with tar sands in water bodies. >> michael: maybe in fact what we will learn from this spill that we didn't learn from that spill is that we should don't be away with keystone if these things are so likely to happen. anthony swift for the national resources defense council, thanks so much for being here in "the war room." appreciate your time. >> thank you for having me. >> michael: now from leaky pipelines to lawmakers plugging the gaping knolls our immigration system. the gang of eight working on reform are close to a deal. >> we are encouraged by the continuing signs of progress that we are seeing in the senate as the group of eight and the senate more broadly works on comprehensive immigration reform. >> michael: he said continuing progress but nothing tangible get.

chuck schumer said he thinks we could see a deal as early as next week. >> with the agreement between business and labor, every major policy issue has been resolved on the gang of eight. we have all agreed that we're not going to come to a final agreement until we see draft legislative language and agree on that. we have drafted some of it already. the rest will be drafted this week. >> michael: how tough is a gang if chuck schumer is in it? some republicans said they wouldn't agree to anything until the boarder is absolutely secure. >> people still get threw, but we have a reasonable expectation of catching them. we don't need a saled border we need a secure border.

>> michael: where there is a flicker of bipartisan agreement there is a republican ready to douse it with a big budget of cold water. and in this case marco rubio is holding the bucket of water in his case. he urged the senate to slow the whole thing down by just having hearings rather than a vote. and finally to the massive holes in our gun safety laws. texas district attorney john mccain clel land and his wife were assassinated at their home on saturday. and this comes after his assistant district attorney was killed in january. both shootings are thought to be part of a conspiracy of white spup -- supremacists. following the killing republican senator lindsey graham told cnn that he would be behind new

efforts to keep law enforcement safe as long as they come from local authorityies, not the federal government. >> anything that would make our law enforcement safer, obviously this is some criminal enterprise, and anything the local community can do to make life safer for those that carry out the law on our behalf, count me in. >> michael: but as far as what he can do as a federal legislator, he is not offering much. he will not vote for a bill if it includes background checks. without such legislation the deaths continue to mount. already in 2013 12 law enforcement officers have been killed by gunfire.

coming up we'll hash thingser out with jim warren and joe williams, of the new york daley news. and before it started civil rights was dischargely a local issue, before it was over, the entire world was watching. and later, two teenagers, a youtube video, and struggle for civil rights every be it as important as the one 50 years ago.

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you know who is coming on to me now? you know the kind of guys that do reverse mortgage commercials? those types are coming on to me all the time now. (vo) she gets the comedians laughing and the thinkers thinking. >>ok, so there's wiggle room in the ten commandments, that's what you're saying. you would rather deal with ahmadinejad than me. >>absolutely. >> and so would mitt romney. (vo) she's joy behar. >>and the best part is that current will let me say anything. what the hell were they thinking? ♪ >> michael: >> as the conversation about immigration and gun rights continues, it isn't easy to say where this will go, sure there is progress, but dialogue implies that both sides are engaging. on guns that is sadly not true. the pathetic intransigent exhibited by republicans and some democrats on this issue is

nothing if not discouraging. but folks i will play the optimist, i do think in the end background checks will be law. on immigration, i do think progress on immigration will arrive in the form of a path stoit sinship. not because the gop wants it but because president obama won hispanic voters on a marge of 3 to 1. when it comes to guns and human decency, i sometimes wonder what is wrong with the whole friggin' country. now we go to jim warren, and joe williams. welcome back inside "the war room" both of you. james the afl-cio and chambers of congress reached an agreement on visas. why are these outside groups so

it is call to congress? >> i think it's because in each case they play to different coin pensies on the left and the right. and that will give the gang of 8 essentially cover. and on the right they don't even want to call it a guest worker program. i guess they are talking about it being tagged a w visa but there are some notions in place which lead to several hundred thousand w-workers coming in, and also getting some basic agreement, when it comes to not basically, you know, screwing their -- many of their members, particularly in the building

trades, where these workers are getting paid at substantially lower rates than a union carpenter a mile down the lane. >> michael: and also i think it really highlights the influence that these special interest groups have in washington. i mean they can't move forward on this bill without that support. joe, i want to go to you now, marco rubio seems to really be taking the wind out of the sail the gang of 8 is making. what is his long game here? >> it seems to me his long game is to set himself up as the alternative conservative for the republican party in 2016. his speech at cpac a couple of weeks ago, this was one of his central issues. the fact that immigration status has to be formed but a path

stoit senship to him is a non-starter, and that is the perfect of him becoming the next great candidate for the republican party, and i find it completely ironic that you have one of the highest profile latino politicians in the nation who is going against the polls of the latino voters. he has street credibility with the republican on the right. it is playing at odds purposes here, but marco rubio at bottom is playing the establishment game here to try to set himself up as the presidential nominee for 2016. >> michael: jim what joe was just saying about street credibility it made me think of

congressman don young. the republican apologized for using the term wetbacks for immigrant workers on his own farm. how do they keep missing the mark on immigration? >> well, it has been blinded by ideology, and they also were way, way, way too late as some democrats were too, in seeing see changes going on. in the case of rubio, i wonder -- and this is pure rank speculation of whether he thinks he is playing sort of both an ideas and an outside game. you ultimately see the train is out of the station. schumer and the democrats are going to come up with a deal. your other republicans are probably going to sign off on one. so you signal that you fought the good fight, but you have got to throw up the surrender flag because all of these other guys have come to this agreement, so

that allows you to claim in wonderfully political two-faced fashion down the road that you -- you did both. you fought the fight and you didn't want a lot of this stuff, but it came through, and then in maybe a general nomination you say i was part of the gang of eight. look at this photo of me. one happy family. >> you have got to wonder about that, though. because the latino vote and voters at large are a lot smarter than that. mitt romney tried the same tactic, where i was governor of massachusetts before i was against what massachusetts represents, and people were able to see through that specifically the very same voters that the republican party says they want to include in their big ten. >> michael: yeah those are both excellent points and it

underscores how difficult it is to be a senator and run for the presidency, because on jeb bush on this very same issue was flip flopping just a few weeks ago. he doesn't have to be a part of this at all, and can still come in and be a powerful force in florida specialsly. gun safety legislation is moving forfwhard the senate. are democrats confident harry reid can get quick votes and victories on both? >> not at all. harry reid is from a red state that very much favors loose restrictions on firearms that very much favors the assault weapon's ban, it is going to be a tough bridging of the gap for him either way. >> michael: jim on guns almost every recent opinion poll has

found wide-spread support for background checks. you wrote about this. is the nra now losing relevancy with being so out of touch with what the american people want? >> not necessarily with their own base. i think they are still pandering to their constituents fairly effectively. which is why i think there are still a lot of nervous legislators. i'm not so sure particularly on background checks maybe something on straw purchases, but when senator coburn the gynecologist personed politician seems to have drawn his line in the sand on the government keeping a quote registry or keeping anything for more than a nano second, that raises a lot

of questions on whether the other folks can come up with a deal. so i'm not as confident as you that that is going to come about. >> michael: it strikes me that if the send all that comes out of all of this is a restriction on straw purchases, which most people in america couldn't even tell you what it is now, and certainly didn't know about it before. joe the nra is planning to release deal -- details on the national gun support now. >> it seems like a way out for a lot of republicans, but if you look at it broodly, it's a ludicrous suggestion, because that's assuming that everything will go right in a situation that you have a school shooter involved. remember columbine, they had

armed officers there, even in newtown, the -- the -- the shooter there came loaded for bare and would have had a bloody impact one way or another at in no means keep people safe. it's a security blanket to give people cover to say they did something rather than nothing. >> michael: i agree. thank you both for stopping by. up next to the civil rights movement, it wasn't even the beginning of the end, but it was the end of the beginning. we'll revisit martin luther king's birmingham campaign 50 years later. a store i have next and one you'll only find here in "the war room."

♪ >> michael: your eyes are not deceiving you, and this is not historic footage from 1963. this is the kluwe -- kkk held a

rally to protest the changing of three confederate parks. the march incident that lead to ugly and violent confrontations brought nationwide at attention to disenfranchised southern blacks. and that lead to local governments finally change their jim crow laws. our next guest, diane mcwhorter's new book "carry me home". her 2001 historical book won depulitzer prize. she joins us from cambridge

massachusetts tonight. diane welcome inside "the war room." >> thank you so much, michael. >> michael: tell me something, you were about the same age as the four little girls -- they weren't all the same age -- but in that ballpark who died in the church bombings. how did that affect you at the time? >> one of the reasons i was moved to write my book is i never hear about the church bombings, and then i realized that president kennedy was assassinated only two months later, and i vividly recall that. so i had to sort of ask myself why did this catastrophe, this calamity that took place in my backyard not make an impression on me? and that was one of the motivations for my writing the

book. >> michael: because from a far, it seems hard to imagine that something like this is something that someone who is growing up there doesn't even remember is amazing. do you remember about birmingham? a lot that comes out in your book is your family and your involvement in white society at that time. how much of that went into why you wrote the book? and how much has changed on the white side in birmingham? >> within less than 24 hours after the bombing the white mayor made a public statement saying all of us are victims and most of us are innocent victims. and when i read about that, that to me sort of captured the attitude of the white people at the time that the civil rights problems were something being

inflicted upon them, rather than a condition they created and benefited from. so it's partly that mindset that i grow up in was a reflection of that we wanted to explore. we considered martin luther king as an outside agitator. and he was, but i didn't realize at the time that that was a good thing. so i -- so i grew up in that atmosphere, and it wasn't until i was in my late 20s that i came to see this as something having to do with me. one of the negotiations with king to make the demonstrations stop were so controversial and unpopular that there was only one white businessman who would allow his name to be used. and i found out this man was a

cousin on mine. and that really set me on the path back to try to figure out what my people had to do with all of this. >> michael: i remember charles morgan who said this is not who we are and then he was kind of run out of town. isn't that -- you were either with the white establishment in birmingham or you weren't. is that hot it was? >> he was sort of the rear toic to the mayor. chuck morgan after the church bombing stood up and gave a speech saying that all of us are guilty. now my father was a close friend of chuck morgans and when i found this out i couldn't believe that my father was an outspokengy -- by giot. i said it must be a different

person? and he said we ran it out of town. it was like nothing personal it's just business. >> michael: today we consider the klan a marginalized group but back then they were part of the southern power structure. how was that possible? >> they were the vigilantlies for the status quo. there was a direct conspiracy between the police and the klan orchestrated in some instances by bull conner the public safety commissioner who was the long long-standing dictator of city hall, really albeit an elected official. so villainties generally are engaged in order to enforce the

status quo, but often the very violence that they used to achieve that starts being -- starts undermining the very mission that they were supposed to do. so this started being bad for business. birmingham couldn't get companies to locate there, managers to move there and so that was sort of the beginning, and it was because of not only the actions of the civil rights movement to provoke this blowback, but also the klansmen who were unrestrained for decades were finally creating a bad business climate. >> michael: and the racists they were divided into two classes, the normals and the extremists. tell me what the difference is? and is that how we are today in

some respects as well? >> yeah, the ku klux klan we try to paint them as marginal lunatic fringe, but they were actually considered good americans. was also a neo-nazi organization, and they were considered nut cases, and there was conflict between them and the ku klux klan. they were more anti-seminettic than latest even those their rhetoric was quite similar. the klansmen were aware that they weren't one of them. a lot of the neo-nazis came from backgrounds of privilege, and on

some levels the klansmen were wondering why they were hanging out with them. >> michael: all right. diane, you talk about fred troublesworth. i recommend to anybody who wants to know more about this important part of american his, that they read this book "carry me home." thanks so much for being in "the war room." up next from the birmingham of 50 years ago, to the birmingham of today, a new fight and a new set of leaders.

♪ >> michael: last week the supreme court considered a pair of laws preventing same-sex marriage. some believe marriage' quality is just over the horizon. the latest abc "washington post"

poll show 58% of americans support legalizing it. 31 states still have constitutional amendments banning same-sex marriage. but people are fighting back. in alabama, 1992 law actually requires public schools to teach that homosexuality is criminal and an unacceptable lifestyle. that's in their sex education classes. patricia todd plans to interview a bill to strike that language from the law. two birmingham high school students have launched an online petition supporting her effort. they have collected over 80,000 signatures so far. they join me tonight to talk about how members of the lbgt community are treated in their

own state. welcome into "the war room," adam pratt, and sarah noone. >> thank you. >> hi. >> michael: what made you decide to start this online petition? >> well, when we found out that representative todd was going through this bill it was definitely something we wanted to do anything we could to help. >> michael: yeah. >> so when -- >> michael: no tell me. so you thought a petition would be the best way to get started? and did you have any idea it would grow like this? >> we had no idea. our original hope was 5,000, and we had hoped that several thousand would draw at attention to the issue and send a message to legislators that this was something that we cared about, the extra 82,000 have been really amazing.

>> michael: that's a great way of talking about it. adam what kind of feedback have you been getting from your peers? it is a state where it's illegal and there are people who are not in favorite of it? >> it's actually mostly been positive in regards to the petition. there has been a little bit of feedback on the national level in comments on the petition and other postings about the petition of people basically like hating on alabama, saying we're not an accepting state, which in reality, any state could have the same issues. >> the only real negativity that we have received at all has been from people outside the state saying, like, oh you should leave, or oh why do you even bother you are such a lost cause? >> michael: and they are probably anonymous when they say

it, and here you are being courageous, so already you are better than they are. you describe yourself as queer in our petition. what has experience with bullying been like as an lbgt teen? >> personally my experience has been wonderful. it has been a non-issue. i'm lucky to go to a school where it's not a problem at all. now we work with a lot of people for whom that is not the case but for us our experiences as activists in this movement have been very positive. >> michael: and as your family been supportive of your fight? >> they have. they have been very supportive. i'm very lucky. >> michael: yeah, you are. because there are people who don't experience things in the same way. a recent pew pole shows 18 to 29

people support same-sex marriage. you are 17. is this something that people your age care about? >> yes i would say it has really become an issue that is really gaining wide support, and i think we're really hoping at this point to get more support for other categories within the lbgt community, like transgender rights, and rights for people of color, mostly. >> michael: were your classmates talking about the same-sex marriage cases in the supreme court last week? >> yeah, definitely and they all changed their facebook picture in protest, and it has definitely become a hot top nick school. >> michael: so you are kind of changing opinions about alabama. is that part of what this in addition is, sarah? >> i think it definitely would

be. when people think of alabama we want people to think about change that is happening, and the proud, grassroots movements that are making change in the state. we want people to look towards the future when they think of us. >> michael: and it's a happy accident that the segment before yours on this show talked about birmingham in the 1960s and the changes they made. sarah you say the law is unconstitutional in your petition. what do you mean by that? >> in the supreme court decision in [ inaudible ] versus texas it makes it clear that that law is not legal. but what we hope for in removing this piece of law is that it will be a message to all of the administrators, teachers, and

students, that it's not okay to pick on lbgts, and school should be a safe place for everyone. >> michael: i want to ask you quickly before i let you both go. what is next now? what is the next stop for the two of you? i'll ask you first adam? >> probably just keeping up with my school's gsa, making -- keeping up a voice for ourselves and making sure we have a good legacy that keeps up the good tradition so far. >> michael: and sarah? >> yeah, that sounds about right. i'm involved with a lot of different lbgt groups in birmingham that are involved in different purposes and i want to stay involved in that and bring more of an awareness to [ inaudible ] especially.

>> michael: thank you so much for being here in "the war room" and telling us about the fight you are fighting in birmingham. up next here in "the war room," sequester be dammed. the white easter roll had a little bit of everything today. frankly it was kind of like what a republican would see on a bad acid trip. that's next here in "the war room." stick around. ♪ >> has the time finally come for real immigration reform? >> with a distinctly satirical point of view. if you believe in state's rights but still believe in the drug war you must be high. >> only on current tv.

♪ >> michael: play ball. i love that sound. it's baseball's opening day, and it's a tail of two sandies. first to commemorate the victims of sandy hook, all personnel

will wear a ribbon patch with one star for all 26 victims. at yankees state um the scoreboard also rolled out each victim's name. and 500 first responders to hurricane sandy, lined up in the outfield. the team donate 1,000 tickets to strangers who went out of their way to help. next up president obama stepped into the comforter in chief role after the horrors in newtown, and also check this out at the white house easter egg roll.

[ sobing ] >> you want an egg? >> you want an egg buddy? >> all right. there you your egg. >> shake it off. there you go. >> michael: they don't call him cool under pressure for nothing. there is one kid who never needs cheering up, though. the white house drafted youtube sensation, kidd president for an april fool's day prank. ♪ >> it looks like you were expecting somebody else. [ laughter ] >> michael: is that kid ever going to get old? with all of the talk about easter egg rolls our own brett went online to find out more about the easter bunny, but

quickly got disinstructed. >> hello joshgs everybody, i hope you had a splendid easter, i celebrated by. watching my favorite tv show about resurrection the walking dead. and google is celebrating too, and they chose to commemorate the other holiday that happened yesterday, caesar chavez day. dana prinoo tweeted . . . others decided that google was going to hell. says solid sloth 11. even more hilarious were the tweets of zealous rage which

thought they were commemorating hugo chavez. that is just wrong. and do you want me to run through the other religious holidays? there are pages of christmas-themed holiday doodles. then there's st. nicholas day, st. nicholas eve, st. george st. david st. lucy and st. andrew. so get off googled back. they are a search engine they are all about things that you didn't know existed. otherwise you wouldn't even use a search engine. i'm done talk now. ♪ >> michael: thanks for joining us here in "the war room." my friend cenk uygur is next with "the young turks." have a great evening.

we'll see you back here in "the war room" tomorrow night. ♪ question whether i'm right, but i think that the audience gets that this guy, to the best of his ability, is trying to look out for us.