unlike cable news columnists, you have the world reaching back out saying you're wrong. >> the evidence has a way of overcoming authorities and authoritarianism, has a way of overcoming ideology. >> congressman rush holt, thank you so much. >> thank you. that is "all in" for this evening. "the rachel maddow show" starts right now. good evening. >> good evening. thanks to you at home for joining us this hour. before he was elected to the united states senate, this man, richard burr of north carolina, he worked in the field of lawn mowers. he was a sales manager for a company called the carswell distributing company, which used to distribute cool things like the yazoo/kees commercial walk behind mower. that was richard burr's field of expertise before he came to the united states senate. now that mr. burr is in the united states senate, he is the ranking republican. so the top-ranked republican on the senate veterans committee. even though senator burr has never served in the military, he

himself is not a veteran, he does represent north carolina, which not only has lots of military bases, it has a disproportionate share of veterans in terms of that state's population. and so apparently, i guess, out of deference to where he is from, if not who he is, senator richard burr, who is not a veteran, is the top republican in the senate on veterans issues. and, you know, you don't have to be a veteran to do right by veterans or to care about veterans issues. but with senator richard burr in particular, his key role for the republicans on this issue, it has at times been an awkward thing. because senator richard burr has made some inexplicable decisions over the years on veterans issues. and i mean inexplicable in the technical sense, in the sense that he has done things he himself cannot explain. tammy duckworth through helicopters when insurgents

fired a rocket-propelled grenade at her blackhawk in november 2004. the resulting explosion and crash caused her to lose her entire right leg and her left leg below the knee. she almost also lost her right arm. when tammy duckworth returned to her home state of illinois after her rehabilitation, she was appointed director of the illinois state department of veterans affairs. and then in 2009, president obama nominated her for a post at the v.a. in washington. and then richard burr, senator lawnmower from north carolina, decided that he was going to block her nomination. she should not be at the v.a. senator burr would not say why. he never raised any specific objections to the war hero double amputee v.a. nominee. he just decided that he, richard burr was going to be the guy to stand in her way without ever explaining himself. he finally relented, only after weeks of blocking her nomination and being asked why he was

blocking her nomination and never being able to come up with any sort of substantive explanation whatsoever. that's richard burr. this past thursday, the veterans committee in the senate held a major and much publicized hearing about the v.a. and this nonsense that seems to be going on at v.a. medical centers around the country involving long wait times for veterans to get appointments and v.a. health centers essentially keeping two sets of books to disguise the facts that the wait times are really long. eric shinseki testified at the hearing. he testified alongside the v.a. executive who is in charge of v.a. health care. that official of course has since resigned. but then, that day, the day of that hearing, around lunch time, a bunch of different veterans organizations, they got their turns to testify as well. so it was shinseki first that day of the hearing, then the veterans organizations, and then later in the afternoon, it was the inspector general from the v.a. but as i say, it was kind of

around lunch time when the veterans groups themselves got to give their testimony on this issue. and senator richard burr got up and left while the veterans groups were talking. look, you can see with the arrow there? it happened sort of quick. senator burr was not the only senator who got up and left for some of that portion of the hearing. but he was gone for almost all of it. he really did not bother to be there, to hear what the veterans groups had to say. see, there is his empty seat. and when richard burr did return from wherever he was while the veterans groups were talking, did i mention it was lunch time when they were talking? wherever he was, senator burr had no questions at all when he returned for any of the veterans groups. he did make one comment about something that another senator had said at one point that day. but he had no questions for the veterans groups. he made one comment about something another senator had said. and this was the only comment he made. this was his only remark related to the veterans groups at all. this is all he said.

and it was basically him telling them to leave. >> not that i don't love you guys, but we're going to try to get the next panel in before we get into a series of votes that will bring a finality to this. so thank you. >> and when he says so thank you, he means go now. you can go. please leave. that was senator richard burr's whole interaction with the veterans groups, after he left for almost the entire time they were testifying at that hearing. and then thereafter, senator inexplicable struck again. after that hearing, senator richard burr wrote an open letter to the veterans organizations that had testified that day at the hearing that he did not bother staying for. now, why do you write an open letter instead of just a letter letter? i mean, he is a united states senator. if richard burr wanted to communicate something to these groups or get in touch with these groups for any reason, it's not like they wouldn't take his call. he is the ranking. he did it as an open letter

because he wanted this to be publicly consumed. he had a public statement to make that was ostensibly to the veterans groups. but it was an open letter. he wanted to make sure everybody knew he was saying it. and he wrote the open letter to condemn the veterans organizations and to tell them basically they're terrible at their jobs. and he knows they're terrible at their jobs because of how they testify at that hearing in the senate. remember, he didn't actually stay at the hearing to hear most of what they said. but nevertheless, he says it became clear to him at that hearing while they were testifying that these veterans organizations are just interested in his words, in defending the status quo and securing their access to secretary shinseki. richard burr says these veterans organizations whose testimony he walked out, he says they are doing a terrible job as veterans organizations because they did not call for eric shinseki to be fired the way that he, richard burr did. and obviously he, richard burr, he knows.

the response to the senator from the veterans group that he criticized in this open letter was pretty much what you would expect. just for a sample, a lot of the groups responded, and a lot of it sounded like this. but just for a little flavor, here is a little taste. dear senator burr, on behalf of paralyzed veterans of america and its members, i write to express our deepest disappointment with the actions that you look leading into the memorial day weekend. yes, he did this over the memorial day weekend. your open letter to all veterans clearly displays why the vast majority of the american public puts no faith in their officials to do what is right for this country. we clearly know more about what this holiday means than you do. every member of congress should be ashamed of your letter. only a politician would claim to know better what a veteran needs than veterans themselves. you clearly represent the worst of politics in this country. wow.

paralyzed veterans of america then go on to point out the senator's repeated recent votes against legislation to help veterans, including senator burr participating in a republican filibuster of the v.a. funding bill in february that would have expanded v.a. medical centers. so hey, maybe the wait time problem would have gotten a little bit better. senator richard burr of north carolina frankly has frequently stepped in it when it comes to dealing with veterans issues. it makes it all the more amazing that republicans have kept him as their top ranking authority on veterans issues in the united states senate. but him doing this weekend over the memorial day weekend, it's earning him a round of press that is about as bad as you can get in the absence of like a sex tape or an indictment or something. just, again, just for the flavor of how this is being received, look at this. the art of politics is scoring political points while at least maintaining a guise of trying to do what's best for the country. if senator burr was trying to do that, this wasn't his best

effort. burr is probably lucky he isn't up for reelection this year. that's from pbs. aside from senator lawnmower, north carolina's ineapplicable self-proclaimed authority on veterans issues, aside from him, mainstream politicians in our country have basically agreed to at least try to look like they're on veterans' side, at least try to look like you're doing your best for veterans. senator burr is like the exception that proves the rule. the reason richard burr's actions are so shocking over and over again is that nobody is that much of a jerk to veterans, right? but he is the exception that proves the rule there is an unspoken agreement in modern american politics in this era of long devastating wars where the general public does not sacrifice, but military families and veterans do time and time again, there is general agreement in our country that everybody is on veterans' side. that at least we take pains to be seen as pulling for them, even if we fight like cats and dogs over the policy decisions

that make veterans. even if we fight like crazy over issues of war and peace, at least we used to fight like crazy over issues of war and peace, even with all of the fighting we're willing to do on war and peace, we supposedly are all on veterans side. it is interesting we do not fight as much over war and peace as we very recently used to. since the end of the bush-cheney, the american public has not settled on a foreign policy perspective. the neo conservatives rose not only to prominence, but to power under bush and cheney. that's how we started our most recent two long wars. but since the lived experience of neo conservative foreign policy frankly dissecreted the whole idea of neo conservatism, nothing has bubbled up in republican politician to replace it. there was a moment when john mccain was the republican party's presidential nominee. so his old school interventionist never met a war he didn't like philosophy, that

might have become the new republican way had john mccain done better. but john mccain lost that election. nobody thinks he is going to run again. and now when he does his usual arm the rebels, let's bomb the new country speech every week or two, nobody really thinks that john mccain speaks for anything other than john mccain. and of course lindsey graham and occasionally kelly ayotte. but that's it. nobody thinks that they are the republican party on foreign policy. but who is? when the republican party had to nominate somebody for president after john mccain, they picked a ticket that made no pretense of having any interest in foreign policy or military issues whatsoever. while we were at war, mitt romney gave a speech accepting the republican party's nomination for president in which he never mentioned the fact that we were at war. not even a little lip service aside. it just didn't come up. that whooshing sound you hear whenever you open the international section of the newspaper, that is the vacuum

subbing sound of absence and nothingness where there used to be the republican contribution to the foreign policy debate in this country. and that absence has been going on for five plus years now. there is just nothing there in terms of what the republican party is offering on foreign policy. they're not participating in foreign policy debates. yes, they're trying to make a scandal out of benghazi. that doesn't count. today, though, the question was called as to how long we are going to keep not having a credible two-sided debate in this country about the use of military force and the wars and the foreign policy of this country. because today in a major announcement from the rose garden, president obama announced that the country is, in his words, turning a page when it comes to our role in the world since 9/11. >> it's time to turn the page on more than a decade in which so much of our foreign policy was focused on the wars in afghanistan and iraq. when i took office, we had

nearly 180,000 troops in harm's way. by the end of this year, we will have less than 10,000. >> president obama announcing today that america's combat mission in afghanistan will end this year, 2014. after the end of this year, the number of american troops in afghanistan will go next year to just under 10,000. it will go to 9,800. and then starting the year after that, it will go down to roughly half that number, about 5,000 troops. and those 5,000 troops, their job in that last year will basically be to make their way toward the exits. >> by the end of 2016, our military will draw down to a normal embassy presence in kabul with a security assistance component just as we've done in iraq. i think americans have learned that it's harder to end wars than it is to begin them. if this is how wars end in the 21st century, we have to recognize that afghanistan will

not be a perfect place. and it is not america's responsibility to make it one. the future of afghanistan must be decided by afghans. >> president obama will give the commencement address at west point tomorrow. and the white house is billing that as a major foreign policy address and as such, the president may yet give further details on this plan at that speech or his thinking in terms of the strategy behind it. but the basic details are the 32,000 americans who are serving in afghanistan right now, that number will go down to roughly 10,000 by next year, and 5,000 the year after that. and the plan is to have it go to basically zero, or zero in an embassy presence for 2016. 2016. what else is going to be going on at this point? the plan is to have the war in afghanistan actually over and americans gone by 2016. since the republican party has stopped talking about foreign policy, we have really not had a debate about our ongoing war in afghanistan.

but with this announcement today, president obama has set up a timeline in which the 2016 presidential election will be in full swing as american forces are supposed to be leaving afghanistan all together. ten years ago, that timing would have made the war in afghanistan the singular issue on which that election was conducted. with this announcement of the specific timing today, has president obama come up with a way to force both political parties once again to reckon with war? richard engel joins us in just a second. stay with us. marge: you know, there's a more enjoyable way to get your fiber. try phillips fiber good gummies. they're delicious, and an excellent source of fiber to help support regularity. wife: mmmm husband: these are good! marge: the tasty side of fiber. from phillips.

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by the end of 2016, our military will draw down to a normal embassy presence in kabul. with a security assistance component, just as we've done in iraq. i think americans have learned that it's harder to end wars than it is to begin them. yet this is how wars end in the 21st century. we have to recognize afghanistan will not be a perfect place. and it is not america's responsibility to make it one. the future of afghanistan must be decided by afghans. >> joining us now is richard engel, nbc news chief foreign correspondent. richard joins us now from moscow. richard, thanks very much for being here. i appreciate your time tonight, man. >> absolutely. how many times have we spoken about afghanistan and the war, and we went there. and now it seems like we have a bookend to the 9/11 era.

two and a half years, and then this war should be over. america's longest war. it's quite an amazing announcement when you think about it. >> and, yet, it is still two and a half years down the road. i mean, there will still be 10,000 americans in iraq this time next year. if it happens on the president's timetable, it's going to be a 15-year-long war. it's already the longest war in american history. in terms of this announcement today, how does this fit in to range of what you think was actually possible in terms of what the president could have done here? >> i know from afghans that this was on the shorter side that the afghan government, that the government that is due to come into office quite soon after the next round of elections wanted a longer glide period. they wanted u.s. troops to be on the ground for a lot longer than two years. the reason we've been talking about this for so many years, for so many months now is that they still have to have this bilateral security agreement.

under the terms of the bilateral security agreement, u.s. troops could be in the country for another 12 years or more. that was the possibility. so what i think you saw today was the president saying we're going to draw down, and we're going to draw down really quickly. so going down to 10,000 in the first year, first year after 2014, which is a little higher than some people expected. i think that's the number a lot of military officials had been pushing for. 10,000. okay. we can do something with that number. the country will won't totally fall apart. after the second year, it's over. that i think is a shorter time frame than a lot of people had been expecting. and we'll have to see if it works. i think what you saw today was this administration saying if it doesn't work, it doesn't work. but we're done. >> richard, i'm just thinking about the way that the iraq war ended, and it's very easy and i

think very hazardous to make two fascile comparisons. one of the things we saw is the war transitioned in terms of the end of the last year that u.s. troops were in iraq, the mission transitioned into a mission to leave that the logistical enterprise, is that going to be the only job that american troops can get done, especially over that last year that they're there? >> well, i think a lot of that is going to be much worse in afghanistan than it was in iraq. iraq is flat, and we have a very friendly neighbor to the south of iraq in kuwait. so all you had to do to get out of iraq is get on the highway and drive. afghanistan is land locked central asia with pakistan as the mainland border, which is not always cooperative, sometimes convoys are attacked.

otherwise you have to fly the material out. so right now, about 32,000 troops. he is talking about getting them down to 10,000 by the end of the year. that's not that many -- not much time to get 20,000 troops out of a land-locked central asian country. so certainly a lot of the effort between now and then is going to be involved in just ex-filling, as the military likes to say, never quite figured out why they use that term, exfill, but getting stuff out. they will be focused on. and then trying to maintain this training mission. right now u.s. troops mostly are on a training mission. about 90% of our time, they're on their bases in big control rooms with television screens telling afghans, giving them help, giving them advice, giving them satellite imagery when necessary. and i think that's going to be the mission going forward. but, yeah, a lot of the time over the next year is going to be getting this stuff out of that country.

>> richard, it strikes me that the time frame that the president laid out today involves the real leaving, the actual full exfill happening at the same time we're going to be having another presidential election in 2016. i have no idea what is going to happen in terms of partisan politics, in terms of whether or not the actual leaving of afghanistan is going to be something that two parties or the two candidates at that point are fighting about. in the shorter term for the politics, though, when you talk to intelligence sources or military sources about this announcement today or about what was what was expected in terms of the plan for getting out do, you expect there is going to be resistance, grumbling, upset on the part of the people who have actually been doing the work there in terms of the way this plan is shaping up? >> not so much there was a real panic in the military when karzai refused to sign this bilateral agreement, and all

troops were supposed to be gone by tend of this year. people that i've spoken to in the military thought if this happens, we really could have a complete collapse of afghanistan, and then what happens to the mission? what happened to all of these american lives that were lost, all the american troops that were wounded there, all the nato troops that lost their lives. would it have been completely in vain if they left and then the country descended quite rapidly into civil war. it seems highly unlikely that that's going to happen because the new government that is going to come in has said it will sign the new agreement. so at least have two and a half years. two and a half years is not a tremendous amount of time, but it is enough time to try to give the country -- to keep the country moving on what officials on the ground say is a more positive track. so it's -- they're a lot happier with this scenario than the scenario they were facing a few months. >> richard engel, nbc's chief

foreign correspondent joining us live from the middle of the god forsake endawn in moscow. you're always joining us from somewhere very inconvenient in terms of timing. >> well, i appreciate it. >> thanks. learn something new about noah's ark. stay with us. ♪ [ girl ] my mom, she makes underwater fans that are powered by the moon. ♪

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white house today, a field of science that is maybe more like science's long lost twice removed cousin's neighbor. and to learn more about that, today you would have to exit the white house and turn hard right at the news from kentucky. and that story is next. stay with us. (meow mix jingle) right on cue. it's more than just a meal, it's meow mix mealtime. with wholesome ingredients and irresistible taste, it's the only one cats ask for by name. hey there can i help you? (whispering) sorry. (whispering) hi, uh we need a new family plan. (whispering) how about 10 gigs of data to share and unlimited talk and text. (whispering) oh ten gigs sounds pretty good. (whispering) yeah really good (whispering) yeah and for a family of 4 it's a $160 a month.

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if you are a creationist, if you believe that god created the world in six days, the bible is a literal history, then fossils are an awkward thing for you. if the bible is the literal truth of the creation of the earth, and if everything that happened thereafter, then the earth is not very old. i mean, if taken literally the bible tells the story of an earth, a whole planet that is at most maybe 7,000 years old. and so if that's what you believe, fossils are an awkward thing. because fossils are the physical record of living things that died millions of years ago. but if you're a creationist, there is no such thing as millions of years ago. and so fossils are just this confounding thing. they mess up the whole story of the earth in six days and then adam and eve and the begetting and the begetting and begetting and then jesus and then us.

it only works if it's a few thousand years. creationists can't make sense of anything being more than a few thousand years old. it is a problem. now it is turning out to maybe be a public policy problem. four years ago in 2010, some creationists in kentucky announced that they were going to build a noah's ark theme park, a giant physical representation of the noah's ark story from the bible as they believe it literally happened on earth. and creationists do not believe that animals evolved slowly over millions of years. they think god created everything at the same time in that same week. so everyone was together on noah's boat. and that has to include dinosaurs. if there were ever dinosaurs on this earth, then those dinosaurs had to be there on the boat, with noah and the snow leopards and the parrots and the emus and the ponies all together, everybody on the boat. humans and dinosaurs together. and when the creationist group answers in genesis announced their plans to build their noah's ark theme park, the state

of kentucky offered them $43 million in tax incentives to build that theme park and that led to a question that kentucky's democratic governor did not want to answer. >> will there be dinosaurs on the ark? >> that would be a question for them. >> well, you know the position of genesis. you can probably answer that myself. we'll have the appropriate animals on the ark. >> can you get to pike t microphone when you speak, please? >> sure. i'm sure we'll have representative kinds of animals on the ark to include dinosaurs. >> kentucky, you are getting dinosaurs on the ark for your $43 million in taxpayer money. that was 2010. the creationists who were building the ark park said they would have this whole thing ready by this year, 2014. but honestly, they just held the groundbreaking ceremony last month. they are rung a little behind. the same group just did unveil a

marquee exhibit at their creation museum, which is just a few miles up the road. they say they will be showcasing at the creation museum a dinosaur. specifically, an alasaurus. world, meet pour ebb kneeser who did not make the boat. he was found 50% intact. the museum is displaying his bones and castings to fill in for the bones they did not find. the job at the creation museum is to show kids that evolution is not real. but the noah's ark story is real. and it turns out that ebenezer comes with a kind of fossil record of his own that is almost as amazing as the history they're trying to invent for him at this museum in kentucky. in may 2002, a group of fundamentalist christian home schoolers, they claimed that they dug him up. they dug up that dinosaur in colorado after a last-minute

prayer for help. >> thank you for guiding mark and guiding bruce to this spot. and lord, we ask a blessing on it, especially as we enter this dangerous time period or difficult time period. we ask this in christ's name, amen. >> amen. >> within moments of breaking dirt, a remarkable discovery is made. dr. bellamy has struck the neck vertebrae leading right up to the skull. they found their aloasur. >> and behold, ebenezer was found, just before the families who all paid for this trip had to go back home. at the time this is how they announced that their dinosaur discovery in colorado disproved the nutty idea that dinosaurs are millions of years old and actually proved the bible version of the planets a history instead. quote, the evidence strongly points to a relatively recent and catastrophic event similar to that described in the bible as the flood of noah's day. not only was this fully articulated dinosaur found

laying in a bed of leaves and plant debris, but there is wood from trees mixed in among the bones, some of which contains petrified and nonpetrified elements within the same piece of wood. if this creature were millions of years old, this creature would look quite different. they believe dinosaurs must have died in the flood and then they found a dinosaur that proves all dinosaurs died in the flood. they found a whole huge dinosaur laying there on a bed of leaves and plant debris. ebb kneeser the dinosaur was so young, he was practically garden fresh. he was making a nap on a bed of plants and debris and they stumbled upon him. just right there. overnight the kids and their fantastic press release became a sensation on to the paranoid fringe at worldnet daily. ho home schoolers find a intact dinosaur skeleton. the families paid a thousand dollars apiece to go on this

dinosaur digging adventure. now they starred in a new movie sold to other home schooled families so other families could pay not just for the movie but the chance to big up their own ebenezer. the video cost $18. for another 30 you could buy little johnny his own rock hammer. ebenezer turned out to be a moneymaker, at least he was supposed to be for the people who found him and marked him so aggressively. ultimately as part of a legal settlement over who found him and who had rights to try to make money off him, a few years ago that same dinosaur, that same alosauers got cup up for auction. he was bought by the man who ran as the presidential candidate in 2004 from the constitution party. you see confederate flags there. he is a neo confederate maryland debt collector named michael perutka. and he says laws passed by congress are not necessarily binding. he says when the south lost the

civil war, no earthly force remained that could stand against washington, the leviathon. the same year he ran for president, he bought at auction the creationist dinosaur that proves noah's flood. and now today i should tell you he is running for his local county council in maryland running on a quasi successist platform. >> the purpose is eto protect your god-given rights, not to make sure your seat belt is buckled or make sure you're wearing your helmet or take your money and give to it him because you've got it and he needs it and redistribute wealth. it's not the purpose of government. >> he also believes the idea of evolution is unamerican. last year after he bought that dinosaur, his foundation donated, donated it, donated the alosauers foss toll the museum so it could be used to help disprove evolution. that's where it came from. starting in that bed of leaves and plant debris where the creationist home schoolers just

stumbled upon him through the neo confederate guy on to the creationist museum located conveniently just off the freeway in greater cincinnati. these days the phone number for the group selling fossil adventures have been discontinued. they confessed last year to a long and inappropriate extramarital affair and his operation shut down. but thanks to this guy, kentucky's creation museum does have a dinosaur. we called the creation museum and noah's ark theme park folks today. and their director of research told us that he can't vouch for that part about the dinosaur being found just laying there in a layer of leaves and plant debris. he actually says the evidence of the dinosaur dying in noah's flood instead of millions of years ago is to be found in the position of the bones and the condition of the bones when they are found. but he said he welcomes other scientists having a look. meanwhile, the museum says several thousand people visited the new exhibit this weekend of the dinosaur at the creation museum. the dinosaur that they say died

in the flood at the time of noah's ark. they say thousands of people came this weekend, and they say they are still on track for many millions of dollars in kentucky tax incentives. and so, yes, kentucky, the answer to that public policy question first posed in 2010, now we know. there will be dinosaurs on the new noah's ark that is being built in kentucky along with all the other people and the animals as if they all live lived at the same time there will be animals on noah's ark, just as soon as the creationists finish pick up the dinosaurs they find in piles of leaves and plant debris and putting them there on the ark with a little assist from state government. $43 million in tax incentives. your tax dollars at work. amazing. music stops ♪music resumes music stops ♪music resumes [announcer] purina pro plan's bioavailable formulas

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but that would require wifi. switch to comcast business internet and get two wifi networks included. comcast business built for business. we are able to report exclusively tonight on a big new development in crime and punishment and the politics thereof. you may have seen some headlines today about the supreme court's latest ruling on capital punishment. the court today made it slightly tougher for states to execute people who are intellectually disabled. after today's ruling, states can no longer use just iq test results alone to establish whether somebody is intellectually disabled or not. they have to take a wider look at it. that ruling today at the supreme court was basically one small step for making it harder for states to kill their prisoners. outside the courts, though, at what is all of the sudden a really fast pace, what is making it harder for states to kill their prisoners right now is the

logistics of how states can do that. states started killing prisoners by injecting them with deliberately misused pharmaceuticals in the early 1980s. oklahoma was the first state to make that their official way of killing people. texas was the first state to actually do it. it was 2008 when the supreme court ruled that lethal injection was a constitutional way for states to kill prisoners. that ruling went into great detail about how lethal injection wasn't cruel and unusual because the sodium thiapental would anesthetize the person being killed so the procedure wasn't too cruel. the constitution bans cruel and unusual punishment. so the kindness essentially of that first drug, the sodium thiopental, after that ruling, all the sodium thiopental went away. the last facility in the united states shut down. so it was going to be made in italy. but the italians are really against the death penalty, and they didn't want to be making

something that would be supplying america's executioners. so in january 2011, the company that made sodium thiopental, they put out this statement saying because they couldn't figure out a way to prevent the drug from being diverted to criminal punishment procedures, they announced they were going to stop making that drug altogether. you can no longer get it in the united states. seeing this coming, fearful that their sodium thiopental supply was to be dry up, some states already started planning. they planned to switch to a different drug. a lot of states planned to switch to something called pentobarbital. after a few months after that first drug got pulled off the market because the company didn't want it used in executions, the same thing happened to the second as well. they adamantly oppose the distressing use of our product in capital punishment. and they announced a whole new distribution system for that drug designed to keep it away from ever getting into prisons. it cannot be used in places that plan to use to it kill people.

so january 2011, the first drug gets yanked off the market to keep it away from prisons. july 2011, the replacement drug gets yanked from prisons too. then in 2012, some prisons move toward a drug called propofol. that's the drug that is famous for its association with the death of michael jackson, you might remember. but in august 2012, the manufacturer of that drug as well also yanked their distribution system for that drug, specifically to make sure it couldn't get into prisons in the united states to be used in lethal injections. they limited their distributors for the drug and said none of their distribute worries be allowed to sell that drug to a prison system or to anybody else who would sell to it a prison system. then last year, 2013, it was reported that the arkansas department of corrections was able to get their hands on a dose of yet another different drug, one called phenobarbital. and in response, the company that sells that drug, phenobarbital, they flipped out as well. look. we strongly object to the use of

any of our products in capital punishment. the company is putting in place concrete steps to restrict the supply of its products for unintended uses. it has ceased the direct sell of phenobarbital to u.s. departments of correction and will work directly with distribution partners to add restrictions for unintended use to its distribution contacts. so for the past three years, over the past three years, that's four drugs, one right after the other that have been pulled by their manufacturers. the companies that make these drugs find out that states are using them to kill people, and the companies flip out. they don't want their drugs used for that. they try to get their drugs back from the prisons specifically. they stop sales to the prisons. they change their distribution systems and tell their distributors not to sell to anybody who is going to sell to the prisons. and the states keep scrambling. well, now today we can report exclusively it has happened again. last week the state of indiana announce they'd had found a new drug they were going to use to call their prisoners, a drug called brevital. it's been around for 50 years.

indiana announced last week they had obtained a sufficient supply of brevital and they plan to use it for a lethal injection. today we obtained this statement saying basically oh no you don't. the company says they object to it being used that way. they're yanking their distribution system for this drug to make sure it can never again get into a prison system to be used to kill someone. we called the indiana department of corrections today to ask if they are planning on sending the drug back, given that the company says they're intending to use it improperly. so far we have not heard back from the state of indiana. we'll let you know if we do. this has been sort of a technical back story to the ongoing and interminable debate in our country over whether or not we should kill prisoners. but this technical issue, the actual physical means by which states kill people, it's very quickly becoming a huge and real

logistical hurdle to the ability of the states to keep doing this. and, you know, maybe the states will all go back to hanging and gunfire and electrocution or behead organize whatever. that remains to be seen. but what is happening right now outside the court system, what is happening right now logistically is that the decision a generation ago to turn executions into something that seems vaguely medical, that has brought us to a point where the execution system in this country is basically being stopped by the actual profession and business of real medicine. joining us now is richard deiter. he is executive director of the death penalty information center. mr. deiter, thanks for being with us. it's nice to see you. >> thank you. >> it seems to me like we are fast headed toward a situation in which the only way states can legally get drugs to kill people with is if they have them made to order. specifically for the purpose of using those drugs to kill people. is that what is happening here? >> well, they are experimenting with new drugs. this would never be allowed if

this were prisons or mental hospitals or any other vulnerability population. we wouldn't allow experimentation. but states are looking to what they can find available on the shelf or having it made ad hoc just for a particular execution, not knowing if that will work well or be a disaster like what happened in oklahoma a few weeks ago. >> well, since what happened in oklahoma a few weeks ago, there have been at least three stays of execution just that we have reported on this show. we don't typically report stays of execution on this show as a national news story of national significance. what seems important about these stays that we have reported is since oklahoma, there has effectively been a moratorium nationwide on lethal injection since then. i don't know how long that's going to hold up. but with states looking for alternative methods to kill their prisoners and renewed worry over what happened in oklahoma do, you feel like the hole lethal injection system is sort of collapsing? >> it is right now.

but i think it doesn't mean the absolute end of capital punishment. i think there might be some drug out there that has been really tested and -- is available, is made or could be made in the u.s. this is certainly a period in which the whole system is in an experimental phase. and it's all done in secrecy. i think if this were more out in the open, maybe states could come to some collective agreement. but this is, you know, paying guards to travel at night with cash to go to get drugs for executions, it's a strange process right now. >> and right now in terms of the way what's happening legally is the best states can do to keep the sources of their drugs secret so nobody can learn more about how they're having to do it. this is a fascinating time in what seems like an unchanging story. but it's moving very fast right now. richard dieter, executive director of the death penalty information center, thanks for being with us. i appreciate your time. >> my pleasure. we have one more important bit of news for you tonight. some fresh election results,

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♪ my mom works at ge. ♪ it is election night tonight in texas. and for all the fascinating things that have happened so far in this year's primary elections, texas tonight is the first state in which a statewide elected official or a federal incumbent official has been turfed out of office. texas's incumbent republican lieutenant governor david dewhurst has lost his seat tonight to a tea party challenger named dan patrick who will now go on to the general election. but because of the makeup in texas, he is likely to become the new lieutenant governor in the state of texas. and another one to watch. this one is a congressional race. this is texas' fourth congressional district there is only 28% of the vote in right now. so this is worth watching

closely. but this is ralph hall, republican congressman 91 years old. the oldest serving member of congress. he is facing a challenger mr. hall, served 17 terms. no other member of congress has been thrown out of his office this year in a primary. but tonight, at least, 28% in. he is running two points behind. that's within to watch. last polls close in texas about an hour ago. some closed two hours ago. some closed an hour ago. results are still coming in. we'll let you know more here on msnbc tonight as we learn it. now time for "the last word." thank you for joining us. >> six dead. 13 wounded. one of the victim's parents joins me tonight with a message for congress and the nra. do something. >> day of mourning. classes canceled, uc santa barbara today. >> the community continues to mourn the loss of six students killed in a shooting rampage friday.