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tv   The Reid Report  MSNBC  May 22, 2014 11:00am-12:01pm PDT

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i really wasn't comfortable going there. i know how it should work. and it wasn't working. >> what will it take to fix the mess at veterans affairs? many in the past have tried and failed. it is time for a new plan to help america's war heroes. and will more u.s. involvement in nigeria help find the lost girls? the race to find them intensifies, as the group behind the mass kidnappings ratchets up their terror campaign. but first, with the house democrat decisions to join a select panel on agabenghazi, it could be the summer of benghazi. discussions with speaker john boehner went absolutely nowhere. house minority leader nancy pelosi decided if you can't beat them, you might as well keep an eye on them. elijah cummings will take the lead along with four other democrats appointed to the committee. adam smith, tammy duckworth and adam schiff and linda sanchez of
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california. congressman schiff spoke to my colleague this morning. >> the main role for democrats is to make sure this committee doesn't become a circus and mere fund-raising vehicle for the gop. but that serves some valid purpose, to try to keep this thing from going completely off the rails. >> coming to the podium on wednesday to defend the decision on the panel, instead of boycotting it or sending a token representative. today coming double down on that position was my colleague andrea mitchell. >> we have seen the abuse that mr. issa, the way he performed, not allowing us to have records, surprising us with witnesses and things of that nature. somebody has to be the defender of the truth. and somebody has to challenge the untruths. >> seven republicans will serve on the committee, including south carolina's trey gowdy who
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will chair the entire panel which he previously referred to as a trial. the statement reads in part, i look forward to an investigation and a process worthy of the american people. oh, yes, the american people. the ones who have decidedly not been clamoring for another benghazi investigation, except, of course, on the far right, where benghazi will go for a pet obsession of the gop base, to what they hope will be a summer blockbuster, complete with fund-raising at the box office and bankable stars on the witness stand. politico was reporting it was camp clinton who made the decision not to boycott the committee. claiming, clinton's emissaries contacted several house democratic lawmakers and aides to say they'd prefer democrats participate. because, quote, supporters feared the hearings would leave the potential 2016 candidate exposed to the enemy fire of
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house republicans. pelosi's staff said no such pressure occurred. but it does bring us to a salient point of this theater. the democrats are participating in what some call a kangaroo court. michael crowley said it will enable republicans to tell the bipartisan nature of the inquiry and any of its findings. crowley goes on to out the spectacle as almost entirely about the single most exciting topic in american politics. hillary clinton's 2016 presidential ambitions. so as lawmakers on both sides meet to discuss their strategies, the question is, did the democratic decision elevate republicans' benghazi circus to the big top. a congressman from california has been appointed to the house select committee on benghazi, also the ranking member on the house ethics committee. congresswoman sanchez, have democrats now legitimized what
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even fellow democrats such as yourself have called a kangaroo court? >> well, there have been obviously a split of opinions within the democratic caucus. but the overwhelming feeling is that with the select committee, you want to make sure you have people in the room that are trying to make sure that the process is fair and as transparent as can be. and i think mr. cummings summarized that by saying somebody has to be there to be the defender of the truth. we have to be there in order to protect the process from becoming just a complete circus that has gone off the deep end, and, you know, allowing unfettered power of republicans to utilize it for political gain and fund raise off of it, quite frankly. >> your statement that you made on your page said something slightly different than that. you mentioned the families who -- former speaker pelosi said a couple of them at least have contacted members,
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democratic members saying they don't want to go through this again. you said although i am disheartened, we are putting the families affected by this tragedy, i'm making decisions based on what the evidence shows. what evidence? there have been multiple reports, there have been four house reports on benghazi. what evidence showing what new information? >> well, that's actually the question of the day. and i know that mr. cummings is meeting with mr. gowdy to specifically ask, what is the mission of this select committee? because it's incumbent on mr. gowdy to define what information is it that they're searching for, that isn't already contained in the eight reports that have been produced about benghazi. what information is lacking? because i think the material has been thoroughly gone over. so i think that it's a question for the chairman of this committee, mr. gowdy, what information is it that he's seeking that has not already been provided. what questions need to be answered that have not already
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been asked and answered, not once, but multiple times, at great cost to american taxpayer. >> congresswoman, if that is your position, then why couldn't democrats ask those very questions from the sidelines? why sit on the panel and essentially allow republicans to call it bipartisan? haven't you essentially emboldened republicans, whatever fishing expedition you do, you're actually giving it legitimacy? >> i think that's not correct. if you allow unfettered power, there is nobody to be the defender of the truth, or to have the ability to question witnesses in a way that is fair and balanced. i think if you cut yourself completely out of the process, you have no say, and no voice. and where that process ultimately takes you, it's sort of like saying, i don't believe in any candidate, therefore i'll sit down and vote. at least if you had a seat at the table, you have an opportunity to impact what the
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ultimate decisions will be by that committee. >> i'm wondering, congresswoman, you have five members on the committee of 12 people. the democrats will not be able to shape the final report. the report is going to be the report of the majority. are you saying the democrats could walk out to a microphone at any time they wanted and said this committee with only republicans on it is illegitimate? and have that not be more effective than sitting there on the dais? i don't know how you can say walking out to a microphone every day and saying seven republicans in there is a kangaroo court. >> that may be what your purpose is. i don't prefer to allow witnesses to be harassed and intimidated during questioning when i'm trying to stand at a microphone saying a process is illegitimate. somebody to be in that room, trying to make that process as fair a process for the witnesses and for the people that will be participating as possible. i'm not about to allow witnesses
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to be bludgeoned and walk the other way and say, it's out of my hands because this is not a fair process. it certainly puts us at a great disadvantage. but i think we owe it to the american people to be the seekers of truth in that committee and to be keeping republicans in check at every step of the way, in whatever way possible we can to try to make sure that they're not shoe horning facts and evidence to fit their predetermined outcome. we're there to question and make them stop and reflect and justify why they continue to do what they do. >> thank you for coming on and making your case, congresswoman linda sanchez. i want to turn to you on this matter of whether or not democrats have legitimatated the process. the conservative media is going to town on this for a long time. will now all of media have to dine out on benghazi all summer? because now democrats are involved. >> they will dine out if there are any facts. going back to the '90s, there
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was a huge production of whitewater hearings. after a couple of months, the room was empty, he had nothing. i think the press will cover it, certainly in the first few days. if by some sort of miracle they're able to produce evidence that has not been produced in the eight previous reports, you know, we have a process where the questions have already been answered. they'll reinterview the people who have already been interviewed. the question about legitimizing it, it's not just this committee. if it was just this committee standing alone, you could say it's a kangaroo court. it's the entire right wing media complex. fox news is producing this hearing. fox news is hour after hour primetime every night, rush limbaugh, all the blogs. it's really tough for democrats, i think, not participate and say it is what it is, when you have this noise machine churning all the time. >> some of the people driving the conspiracy angle of it. you've written about the
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citizens commission on benghazi. some of the whom are berthers. one member was attacked, tammy duckworth, an iraq war veteran. left limbs behind in iraq. this is what allen west had to say about her. one of the members of the -- let's go on -- roll, roll, roll. tammy duckworth. dismissing the importance of benghazi during appearance on the broadcast of the janet menordinary show. you know for her, to have been a veteran, a wounded warrior for the united states army, she should know that this is not the right thing, and hopefully she will remember the oath of office that she took as an army officer and not the allegiance i guess she believes she has of the democrats' party. let's take a listen to elijah
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cummings' response with that with andrea mitchell. >> that doesn't even deserve a response. he should be ashamed of himself. i'll make that very clear. and if i see him, i'll tell him that. she comes in that hearing room in a wheelchair, and struggling, struggling just to get to her seat. and to have the audacity to say something like that upsets me to the nth degree. >> is this pretty much what we can look forward to? >> this is the preview of the ugliness and name calling. the democrats have been appointed, and allen west and others are putting them on notice, you are part of the smear campaign. you will be attacked. we'll question your loyalty if you come back from fighting in iraq. again, this is part of the entire movement. it's not a fact-finding mission. the questions have already been answered. go read the senate bipartisan report that just came out in january, if you want to know what the senate came up with. no, this is going to be name calling, ugliness, a lot of smears. and as you say, it's the summer of benghazi.
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but they have to produce some evidence. we haven't seen any evidence in 20 months of a white house cover-up. >> i'm sure we'll be watching it. thank you very much. right after the show, we are going to continue this conversation with you. join me for a twitter chat in which we'll dive into the fixation on benghazi, who's driving it and how it could impact the republican party and midterms, not to mention a certain potential presidential campaign by hillary clinton. you can also post your question to our reiders community page. i'll try to answer as many as i can. bipartisan outrage over the problem of backlogs and poor care at the va boils over. but history shows this is a problem that's been around for years. plus, the shocking but effective tactic that some states are using to slowly chip away at women's reproductive rights. anncr: right now, at the volkswagen memorial day event you can get a $500 bonus on top of all current offers on select volkswagen models
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i'm back in delay mode because of processes they used that don't create surgery in a timely manner. that request is on paperwork sitting at somebody's desk and will be approved hopefully. >> that is the voice of just one veteran who probably could have told washington what recent stories and internal reports are yet again spelling out. there was a va scandal long before there was a va scandal. today the president has dispatched a top aide to a va facility in phoenix, where some of the most recent stories of cooked books and long wait times began. while veterans affair secretary shinseki met with dick durbin a short time ago. this morning, a house committee expressed some bipartisan anger at what its chairman called stonewalling on the part of the va. all of that is great.
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so long as the national outrage doesn't peter out as outrage sometimes tends to do. the thing is, these stories are not new. not even slightly new. wait times, delayed care, questionable record keeping, all of those things are part of the va sometimes inglorious past. even the present scandal about cooked books isn't particularly new. just last march a governmental official told the house veterans affairs committee that, quote, staff at some clinics told us they changed medical appointments' desired dates to show clinic wait times within the performance goals. in fact, back in 2007, the va's inspector general's office found that the va repeatedly understated wait times for injured veterans seeking medical care. in many serious cases, forced them to wait more than 30 days. and that, despite warnings by the ig, in 2005, to more ak xratly report wait times. it also said that schedulers are not followed established procedures for making and
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recording medical appointments. yes, that's 2007. and yet, this is the week for bipartisan outrage. >> i've not called for general shinseki to resign, although i have to admit i'm getting a little close. >> i listened to the president today. and i was disappointed with president obama today. there was no urgency. mr. president, we need urgency. we need to roll up our sleeves and get into these hospitals. >> phillip carter is a center fellow at new american security. it focuses on issues facing veterans and military personnel. sir, thank you for being here. >> thank you. >> talk a little bit about the history of this. the national journal has a fascinating article that sets the timeline for problems at the va really back to the kennedy administration. it says that essentially, the current administration made it easier for veterans to get compensation for post-traumatic stress disorder and exposure to
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agent orange. the vietnam war era defoliant tied to a list of neurological disorders. they weren't matched by the va reforms needed to adequately address the new claims. agent orange alone took up 37% of the veterans benefits resources nationally from october 2010 to march of 2012. according to the gao. essentially, are what we're looking at is a bottleneck between a lot of vietnam veterans retiring and needing additional care because they're getting older, and veterans from the iraq and afghanistan war? >> it's both. soldiers have been griping since valley forge. this issue goes back quite a ways, too. right now what the va has got is the demographic crunch. it's got the median age of the veteran sitting at 64. so more than half of its population is retirement age. then it's got a ton of demand coming from my generation of iraq and afghanistan. that's putting enormous strain
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on the system. it's been building for 10 or 15 years, but it all lands on secretary shinseki's desk right now. >> what would be the most important fix? is it more money for the va? a change of leadership? >> the va spends more money now per veteran than it has in 15 years. that might not be the answer. what might be the answer is how decentralized the va system is. it's got 151 hospitals. the saying is, if you've been to one va, you've been to one va. they probably need better management to make sure they're doing the right thing across the massive system. congress polled some of the political appointees out of the system. they've got fewer political appointees for its size. that paradoxically makes it a lot less accountable, gives the secretary and congress many fewer levers to pull within the va system to move things along one way or another. >> one of the things that's come up as a result of this as i said
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in the open is around a long time, is hitting the fan now. is there some talk that maybe we should privatize the va. that health care for veterans should be in the hands of private carriers rather than this public system. what do you think about that? >> we've heard this before. privatization is probably not the answer. the va delivers the best care anywhere. that's true for all veterans. it's true survey after survey. and for some things like prosthetic care or mental health, the va does it better than any place in the private sector. some provide more capacity in some places, access to primary care in rural areas, but i don't think we ought to privatize the va, and certainly not in response to today's scandal du jour. >> one of the other things we heard including from the american legion, one of the things they would like to see is secretary shinseki, frankly, gone. essentially, relieving him of duty to run the va. do you think that a change of
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leadership would make a difference at this point? >> no. this is about good governance, and good governance says let's find out the facts first and then take action. it's going to take a long time to get someone up to speed at that agency. this is not the moment to throw out the baby, or in this case the secretary with the bath water. shinseki is a good man. he's got a lot of challenges on his plate, but we ought not fire him until we know what's going on inside the entire system. >> thank you very much for being here. >> thank you. pat sajak catches heat for his climate change tweet. but don't worry, he said it was all just a joke. but is the famous game show host just spinning his twitter wheels? oh my god! look. you need to see this. show 'em the curve. ♪ do you know what this means? the greater the curvature, the bigger the difference. [sci-fi tractor beam sound] ...sucked me right in...
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the tweeple. mark cuban is trending big-time proving he, too, can be a bigot. nba owners will decide on what will happen to donald sterling. he may be forced to sell after his racist musings became public. in a new video interview that aired at a conference yesterday, cuban had this to say. if i see a black kid in a hoodie late at night, i'm walking to the other side of the street. if on that side of the street there's a guy with tattoos all over his face, i'm walking back po the other side of the street. cuban also said it's better for us to admit our biases so we can combat them. some of you said, if more people were as real as mark cuban the world would be a better place. cuban says he knows how he'll vote on booting sterling, but he's not telling yet. now, in case you missed it, pat sajak, the "wheel of
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fortune" host tweeted, i now believe global warming alarmists are misleading for their own end. good night. it didn't take long for twitter to go in, making fun of explaining away global warming. in response, sajak clarified, tweeting, later today, i'll be tweeting my views on the subject of nuclear proliferation and free range chicken, followed by as most of you know original tweet was intended to par ohody name calling. who knew pat sajak was in to trolling, without being funny enough for people to understand the joke. i would like to buy a vowel, please. these iranian young people were jailed just for being happy. watch them dance to the pharrell williams hit. ♪
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♪ >> believe it or not, the kids were arrested after posting this video to youtube. in part, because women are required by law to cover their hair in public. even iran's president thought this was just too top. tweeting, happiness is our people's right. we shouldn't be too hard on behaviors caused by joy. like happiness, not by me. pharrell commented on his facebook on the support of his fans. many of you have similar pictures. the happy young people were just released by authorities. but the director remains in custody. according to reports, from iran. you can join in the conversation with fellow readers and keep telling us what maeks you happy. the military seizes power to restore stability in thailand.
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here's more on the political upheaval by the numbers. nc wt nc ] #2i evn t ar ies aratg ] ou kouy yo heat
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by medication. in passing the bill, stay lawmakers ignored testimony from doctors and experts who said its restrictions are not medically necessary and would force clinics to close. the louisiana bill has been delayed by court challenges. if all are upheld, the number of abortion clinics in the entire region could be reduced from 38 to 11. louisiana governor bobby jindal, a potential 2016 presidential candidate, also brushed off warnings that the law would be a setback to women's constitutional right to a safe and legal abortion. about an hour after it passed, he tweeted, looking forward to signing hd-388. this bill will give women health and safety protection they deserve. women in louisiana and across the south do deserve health and safety protection. yet politicians in five states have enacted laws that seem less like protection and more like a game of keepaway. creating a sort of growing zone of lack of access that would
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make it all but impossible for a woman wanting to terminate a pregnancy to have somewhere to go. is that an accurate way to portray it? if you look at the map, sort of see this growing kind of zone where if you live within it, there really is nowhere to go, even if you travel out of your state, you have to go pretty far in order to terminate a pregnancy. >> right. so when the texas version of this law was litigated, they said, women can go to other states, they can drive really, really fast. that is really just sort of a fraudulent argument. they know that's not true. they know that the next state over is passing the same laws. let's be very, very clear about what the intentions of these laws are. they are not intended to protect women's health, because the medical establishment said they actually hurt women's health. they do not do anything about the demand for abortion, because women are still in situations where they feel they need to end their pregnancies.
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you know, we're in a state where not only is there no medicaid expansion, they severely restrict sexual health education. what these laws are, they've been unable to convince women that they should not get abortions, by spreading this information, by forcing them to wait 24 hours. instead, they're taking away the supply of safe and legal abortion. and in places where this is already in effect, you are already seeing unsafe abortion on the border in texas. this is not, you know, women are going to harm themselves some day, it is already happening right now. >> people are not driving miles and miles finding somewhere to go, people are actually going back to what we had before, finding some other way to end a pregnancy that isn't safe. >> they're both happening. for the people who have to drive hundreds of miles, that means they have to wait longer in their pregnancy, which means higher risks, even though abortion is a very safe procedure, it means more money, the travel itself is something these people cannot afford.
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>> in this legislation that is each individual state coming up with it on their own or is there sort of a cookie cutter approach being applied? >> it isn't magic. but all these contiguous states just came up with their idea on their own. this is absolutely a coordinated assault. americans united for life in particular, national right to life committee is another one, they craft these model bills every year. americans for life has a handbook of laws, called misleading things like a woman's right to know act. they sound like they're about women's health. in reality, they go further and further to undo roe v. wade which is the ultimate plan here. >> you talk about the idea of undue burden. the roe v wade structure is that you cannot enact an undue burden broadly against women. you say it's a slippery slope, this idea of undue burden. are we getting to the point where a national case could be
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made that by making this big sort of amoebe like zone, that it can be done? >> underburden is driving 350 miles when you're an undocumented immigrant is not an undue burden, what is. that's precisely what the fifth circuit in texas said. women can drive really fast, texas is a big state. so eventually, i think the supreme court is going to have to reevaluate this. and it looks like justice breyer said there are four votes to thak one of these cases to say whether this violates women's rights. >> this is something actually accelerating after the 2010 election. we saw this marked jump in the number of -- you can see it on the chart there, that it goes along and really leaps after 2010. if we were to see, let's say the senate, go republican, you know, i assume we can anticipate sort of on a national scale maybe
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more of it. there have been a lot of house bills going to the senate. >> the senate is a firewall right now. the presidency is also a firewall. but if the presidency changes hands in 2016, if this fall we see the senate fall into the house, fall into the hands of republicans, we're likely to see these restrictions on a national level, starting with the 20-week ban and going to anything else they can get away with it. >> thank you so much. appreciate it. >> thank you, joy. coming up next, the story we should not lose sight of. the search for those kidnapped nigerian school girls, and how the u.s. is stepping up its role. all stations come over to mission a for a final go. this is for real this time. step seven point two one two. verify and lock. command is locked. five seconds. three, two, one.
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>> that was first lady michelle obama, talking about the struggles facing millions of girls around the world. a lack of access to education. she took the opportunity at today's event to highlight the weeks-long search for nearly 300 nigerian school girls kidnapped by boko haram nearly five weeks ago. the first lady's remarks come as the u.s. steps up its efforts. 80 u.s. troops have been sent to neighboring chad, the base of a drone that will aid in the search for the girls. drones already searching the region are based much farther away. which limits their search time in the sky. about half the team will provide maintenance for the drone, while the others will be providing security. but officials stress that these are not american troops on the ground. at a congressional hearing on wednesday, u.s. officials drove home the point that the search and the much more complex battle against the pervasive violence of boko haram is ultimately a job for nigeria to do.
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>> to be clear, immediate and long-term solutions to boko haram must be developed and implemented by the sovereign government of nigeria. >> today schools are closed across nigeria, as teachers went on strike, to demand the government do more to find the girls. but the question remains, is nigeria capable or even willing to do more? a news correspondent is a journalist and msnbc contributor. the specific question of what the nigerian government is doing or not doing in terms of trying to find these young women? >> you know, this is six weeks now, really, since these girls have been missing. and obviously, nigeria, obviously there was a lot of criticism about the government's lackluster response. you know, there's international intervention now, how things are now. the girls have still not be
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found. people are still very critical of the nigerian government. they say they want to do a lot, but nothing really tangible has happened to actually find these girls. >> there's a larger question here, number one about trafficking, which nigeria, one in seven young women trafficked around the world comes from nigeria. we were talking on the break about another issue, which is the targeting of girls in school. talk a little bit about that. >> girls that have access to education are a threat. in pakistan, a # 14-year-old girl was shot in the head by taliban because she was advocating for girls to go to school, especially in the south. if you see extremists, what is the biggest threat for them? more than the nigerian army or pakistani army? they're girls with books. they can become leaders. they're critical thinkers. if you think of the percentage of gdp in nigeria, education is
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1%, which is nothing. in that area, boko haram and his group thrive because simply poverty, unemployment, lack of education, it makes it -- it fosters extremism and makes it easy for them to recruit people. we need to intervene in multiple ways. i think the nigerian government cannot solve the problem alone. it took weeks to go to the village to visit the mothers of the girls who were kidnapped. most of the united states intelligence and most of the united states people that work in the defense, they can't cooperate with the nigerian army because most of them are accused of abuse of power, and torturing their own citizens. how can you work with them? how can they be the people that are part of the problem? >> talk about that issue a little bit, too. this is an issue of nigerian girls being targeted.
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there was a criticism of the first lady of nigeria for a lack of sympathy, for a lack of alarm, even within the nigerian government. and is that to do with sort of a systemic bias against girls essentially and girls' advancement? >> well, you know, you've got to realize in nigeria, it's a very divided country. you have the educated south and you obviously have the northerners as well. for the people in the south, you know, women have fairly equal rights. but in these kind of sites like boko haram, they don't really value girls. obviously they're very much working on the base of sharian law, which is unjust towards women. in these kinds of situations with boko haram, absolutely, women are not respected. i mean, you know, women are just not respected in boko haram. >> i have to ask about another instance of this.
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sudan is another situation, where you have a woman, jailed right now, threatened with execution, because she married a christian, and is not renouncing essentially christianity. it just gets worse and worse. >> i think this is part of what we were talking about, which is extremist islamists who take over and don't want freedom for women. people go out of islam, come in, it's in a liberal democratic society. everybody has the right to choose faith and belief that they want to. but for these kind of groups, they want women to live in the seventh century. i was raised as a muslim. there's nothing in the koran that is written that you need to kill a woman that she has sex out of marriage, or that she married a christian. it's their own backward interpretation of the sharia. if you look at how it's applied in jordan, libya, it's totally different. you have the highest execution
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for muslims. you have scholars who have said it clearly, whoever wants to leave islam has the right to leave it. but i go back to the same issue, it's about education, and it's about economic opportunities. the nigerian government needs to take responsibility for lack of action and for lack of development in their own country. >> i'm so glad you made that point because that is one of the points we do here a lot, first of all, there have been a lot of muslims who condemned this. you're making the point they're perverting a religious -- >> it has no basis in the koran. no basis whatsoever. >> thank you so much. thank you both for being here. up next on the "reid between the lines," the public controversy between privatizing a national memorial.
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we in the united states have an ongoing conversation, call it a struggle, between public and private things. this country fought epic battles over creating a public system of insurance for the elderly called social security. and one for the poor called medicaid. we're actually still having that debate, thank you paul ryan. the va scandal has revived the forces of privatization, too, with fresh revelations about the failure to get a handle on veterans' health care reigniting those who would really like to privatize the va. when it comes to memorials, specifically memorials to our dead, the question of privatization can be tricky. arlington national cemetery erected on robert e. lee's confiscated estate is free to the public funded by the taxpayer. same with the flight 93 national
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memorial in pennsylvania where the fourth hijacked plane crashed into the ground on september 11th, 2001. after 40 passengers fought what is believed to have been a planned kamikaze attack on the u.s. capitol. you can visit the memorial administered by the national park service for free. not so, the 9/11 memorial in new york city. which is administered by the national september 11 world trade center trade foundation center inc. a private foundation that operates the site of the initial 9/11 attacks on the world trade center. visitors to the museum railroad not 9/11 survivors, pay a $24 entrance fee which defrays the $63 million annual operating cost. according to joe daniels, the foundation's ceo, whose bio said he fielded donations from contributors in all 50 states and 28 countries. and under his leadership the memorial has raised more than $200 million. without state or federal funding since it's not a national park
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or monument, something some would like to change, the museum which boasts a cafe, run by famed restaurateur danny meyer, will play host to fund-raisers and galas, something the free museums on the national mall do little time with little fuss. but there's something really not cool about the recent kickoff fund-raiser for the 9/11 museum thrown by the 9/11 memorial foundation, featuring michael bloomberg. they dined and sipped wine on the site where the remains of more than 1,100 people are interred. meanwhile, some ordinary non-bloombergian people including some 9/11 first responders were reportedly turned away. i should point out that some victims' families were in attendance. michael frazier had this to say about the controversy. the small gathering was done respectfully and in recognition of our supporters, who helped to
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build this important institution. but if this is the brave new world of privatized memorials, i'm with senator jild ebrand, convince our tight-fisted congress and put the controversy to rest. bring on the public option. that wraps things up for e "the reid report." join us today at 3:15 eastern for the twitter chat live on benghazi. follow the conversation using #why benghazi. and the cycle comes up next. what you got going on today? >> hey, joy. >> a busy day. we have a 24-year-old candidate nick trayano running as an independent in the state of pennsylvania. it will be interesting to hear about his campaign. is he paving the way or trying to cause a little trouble? the budding relationship between russia and china. what is our strategy? we also have a gambling expert on to talk about the world of online gambling.
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i'll be ranting about why republicans shouldn't be so quick to celebrate. success will be defined on the national level, as we all know. >> yes, indeed. gambling, we're not going to say we're going to do it, but i'm definitely going to watch out. td nutrition...i'm no expert. that would be my daughter -- hi dad. she's a dietitian. and back when i wasn't eating right, she got me drinking boost. it's got a great taste, and it helps give me the nutrition i was missing. helping me stay more like me. [ female announcer ] boost complete nutritional drink has 26 essential vitamins and minerals, including calcium and vitamin d to support strong bones and 10 grams of protein to help maintain muscle. all with a delicious taste. grandpa! [ female announcer ] stay strong, stay active with boost. grandpa!
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so when my moderate to severe chronic plaque psoriasis them. was also on display, i'd had it. i finally had a serious talk with my dermatologist. this time, he prescribed humira-adalimumab. humira helps to clear the surface of my skin by actually working inside my body. in clinical trials, most adults with moderate to severe plaque psoriasis saw 75% skin clearance. and the majority of people were clear or almost clear in just 4 months. humira can lower your ability to fight infections, including tuberculosis. serious, sometimes fatal events, such as infections, lymphoma, or other types of cancer have happened. blood, liver and nervous system problems, serious allergic reactions, and new or worsening heart failure have occurred. before starting humira, your doctor should test you for tb. ask your doctor if you live in or have been to a region where certain fungal infections are common. tell your doctor if you have had tb, hepatitis b,
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thanks. clearly you are type e. you made it phil. welcome home. now what's our strategy with the fondue? diversifying your portfolio? e*trade gives you the tools and resources to get it right. are you type e*? it's 3:00. "the cycle" is looking ahead to the holiday weekend. we're already in holiday mode. the hot list, for the spring, summer is already here. i'm abby. we've got your everything guide to the season. hot politics, cool movies and must reads. aren't you ready for the summer shocker? >> indeed, i'll drink to that. russia's putin and china's president toast to a big money deal and new friendship. i'm luke russert. they're best buddies, where does that leave us? >> new predictions out for the hurricane season, while out west they could sure use some rain. i may be krystal ball, but i
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have a serious forecast for the weather. >> a poker expert in the guest spot going all in. the author who inspired the hit "21" calling allison's bluff. i'm toure. since we're talking about vegas, let's get ready to rumble! it's time for "the cycle." start your engines, memorial day travel rush is under way. 26 million will be traveling through the end of the weekend on monday. it's the unofficial start of summer, which doesn't actually happen until june 21st. by the way, when does spring start? memorial day is the first sign of lifeguards, boaters, picnickers, amateur barbecu