cruise from hell are back on dry land. but will the ship's return bring on a flood of lawsuits? we'll talk with one passenger we followed throughout the ordeal. the shocking video. a high school basketball coach caught on tape whipping his players with a weight lifting belt. and cindy mccain butts heads with her senator husband over dad t. >> our government treats the lbgt like second class citizens. joining the discussion today, "the washington post" jonathan capeheart, democratic strategist todd webster. investigative reporter michelle sedona and senator-elect richard blumenthal of connecticut. good friday morning. i'm chris jansing. this is "jansing & company." the president's trip to asia was supposed to take him away from the political problems at home and back on the

international stage where he could rack up a couple of quick wins. instead he's coming home largely empty-handed. there's no agreement on two major deals -- a free trade agreement with south korea and overall economic strategy to help u.s. manufacturing. but here's how he sees this trip. >> sometimes i think naturally there's an instinct to focus on the disagreements, because otherwise these summits might not be very exciting. it's just a bunch of world leaders sitting around intervening. and so there's a search for drama. in each of these successive summits, we've actually made real progress. >> but how do you define progress? let's bring in our company, jonathan capeheart and john webster. the expectation he'll go over there and get mojo back, look presidential, show he has influence on the world stage and very importantly bring back some

jobs. jonathan, how did he do? >> well, didn't do so hot. he was going to south korea hoping that he would come back with a deal in hand, that they would be able -- he'd be standing with the south korean leader and say, voila, here's the deal. it did not happen. after the midterm elections we've seen this before. american presidents go abroad when things go south electorally at home. to leave south korea sort of empty-handed is bad. but there's still time to get this done. >> that's the art ugument he ma. >> it needed to be a quick win to change the narrative because the narrative now is obama lost the election because the economy is bad and he didn't have the solutions to fix it. this would have been a quick way to say we're going to bring tens of thousands of jobs particularly to the ought motic sector. particularly in the midwest is where they saw big losses. this would have been a great win for him and it's unfortunate for

the obama administration that it's going to take longer to get it. >> how much do you think this has to do with the election? a political scientist at harvard argued he's got essentially a fragile relationship with the senate and it would be too risky to compromise abroad, come home and then have to work to fold all of this in. so was it better essentially to come back with nothing than to make concessions? >> i think it should surprise nobody that these foreign leaders are not thrilled with the fact that the fed has pumped $600 billion into the united states economy, the effect of which will be to make u.s. products abroad less expensive. so if the net result of this is that we're selling more ipads and cadillac'g and chevy volts and more happy meals to foreign countries, i think that's good. it's good for american workers, good for detroit, good for seattle and boeing and silicon valley. so i think in the longer term and in the bigger picture here, it's not surprising that these

other countries were not thrilled about it and it's also something the chinese have been doing, manipulating their currency for decades. if the net benefit is to help american workers, help build more cars and airplanes, then i think that's good for the american economy and good for america's workers. >> i wonder big picture. americans worried about the jobs and economy. are they reading this as failure? are they saying, we thought you were coming back with jobs? >> remember the american people aren't generally speaking terribly interested in what other people think about us. but i bet if the president were able to -- >> it's funny. we can criticize us but don't you people get down on us. >> exactly. so the fact that the president is coming back empty-handed from south korea i doesn't think the american people care as much but they would care if the president were able to come back and say, hey look, i got this agreement and here's how many jobs it's going to create and isn't it -- hey, i'm working for you. >> so is the big push on now?

big push by the administration, let's try to get it done in the last couple of weeks in. >> they thought they would get it done before air force one landed? seoul and the fact it didn't -- >> even if it doesn't and it's two weeks from now and three weeks from now he still gets political advantage. it's not the win he wanted to bring home but a win is a win is a win? >> it will look good but he needs to focus in on the broader economic strategy, the idea he's trying to get the rest of the global community on board with the additional fiscal strategy and facing pushback in europe from folks like chancellor merkel in germany saying stimulus isn't necessarily what's going to make the economy better. we want to do austerity measures. that's another battle on the international stage, one he didn't do so well on the domestic stage. 65% of voters in this election said the stimulus either didn't work or hurt the country's economy. he has to fight that battle overseas. >> kristen, jonathan, todd, thank you. we'll see you back later on in this hour. meantime, that four-day

nightmare aboard the carnival "splend "splendor" is over. it lost power after an engine fire on monday 200 miles off the coast of california. this is how a few of the more than 3,000 passengers described the ordeal. >> it was great on sunday. but monday morning, that's when it happened. >> we knew right away something was going on. we smelled some smoke. >> then they announced that there was no fire. but it turned out there had been a fire. >> we had a cabin with windows, so we actually had light. but other people didn't have any light at all. >> all the free booze you could drink. all the free food you could eat. >> how was the honeymoon? >> it was fun. all things considered it was great. >> although maybe not the honeymoon she expected. northbound's miguel almaguer is there. you talked to so many coming off the "splendor." what was the number one thing they told you? >> reporter: good morning, chris. yeah, the number one complaint was probably the food.

they said everyone had signed up for this cruise. they paid hundreds of dollars per person and were expecting those elaborate all you can eat buffets but what they got after just the second day of the cruise was canned spam. they got canned meat. they got canned milk and bread and cereal, certainly not what they were expecting. so food was a big complaint for most of these passengers. some say it was a crew diet, that they actually were losing weight. so many say they had dieted before so they could splurge and go all out when they were on board but that of course didn't happen. the other big complaint were those rest rooms. these passengers lost hot water immediately after the fire in the aft generator room, so they weren't able to take warm showers. and then the toilets stopped working for a couple of days. so a lot of complaints, although some people were certainly happy about the free booze that was being handed out at the end of the cruise. >> that may have been the smartest move that they had. a lot looked happy.

it might not just have been because they were on solid ground. thanks so much. the fate of an ex-college student who hacked into the private e-mail account of sarah palin a couple of years ago is now in the hands of a judge. david kernel is being sentenced. prosecutors argue he was motivated by palin's fame. at the time she was running for vice president. his attorneys, however, are asking for probation. they say the 22-year-old former college student was just a prankster who was able to guess palin's e-mail by using information that was already available to the public. both palin and her daughter bristol testified in april that the incident caused her family emotional distress. is arizona's hispanic population on the wane? that's what a new study seems to suggest. u.s. researchers say there are about 100,000 fewer hispanics living in the state since arizona passed its tough new immigration law but arizona's stance against illegal immigrants is not the only

reason for the population drop. the general deterioration of the economy is also cited as a factor in people getting out of that area. u.s. census figures from 2008 say about 30% of the people living in arizona are hispanic, 1.9 million people. a long delayed marriage between "newsweek" and "the daily beast" has been consummated. the struggling weekly an upstart website said "i do" to a 50/50 merger. in the words of the beast editor tina brown, the engagement was fun but the prenup got too complex. it had been losing money before it was bought for the token price of one buck. high profile glossies "vanity fair," "new yorker." the twenl rockefeller center christmas has arrived in all its glory. this year it's 74 feet tall, a norway spruce donated by a fireman and his family about 50 miles north of new york city.

after being decorated with 50,000 multicolored l.e.d. lights there will be a ceremony live on nbc november 30th. that's always such a big deal. i don't know if you can see a little movement there. they're raising it even as we speak. it's no secret spouses don't always see eye to eye. but when it's john and cindy mccain who disagree about a topic like "don't ask, don't tell" it gets interesting. plus check out this video clearly out of bounds. a high school basketball coach in legal trouble after getting caught on camera whipping his players with a belt. i'll talk to the father who is suing. and the garfield comic strip that has some american veterans angry. he had everything he needed to be a leader in this company. [ william ] after a couple of months, i was promoted to department manager. like, wow, really? me? a year later, i was promoted again. walmart even gave me a grant for my education.

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just like college. incoming congressional freshmen in washington have a traditional orientation starting son sunday. but now word that freedom works, that organization that's led by former majority leader dick armey, will have an orientation of its own heavy on the tea party agenda. joined by political reporter patrick gavin. good to see you. good morning. >> how are you? >> what's going to go on? the tea party republicans are going to get a pep talk from dick armey? >> i think what you see playing out is that the tea party by nature sort of prides themselves on being outsiders and now a lot of the outsiders thanks to the tea party are going to become soon washington insiders. so there's a tough debate going on between how can they obviously be part of washington and do their day job as politicians while also true to a lot of the principles, which is what you see dick armey trying to do, educate as a former lawmaker himself, educate these incoming tea party republicans how they can stay true to those

principles. but it's going to be a very difficult thing for i think the republican caucus in the lahous to keep the factions together. you have sort of the old guard republican leadership that's been there a while versus the sort of insurgent base. >> i think there's an interesting dynamic even going on within the tea party because as i've interviewed various leaders of various tea party groups, they don't always have the same idea about exactly where they're going. they may want smaller government, fewer taxes, less government spending. when you start going into things like social issues, they'll disagree about whether even or not that should be what they're talking about. do you get the sense that what dick armey is doing is more strategic? or is he trying to focus on what the key issues are? >> well, i think two things. i think number one he's trying to sort of re-establish himself as sort of the great puba of the

tea party movement. so i think he has some selfish desires but at least trying to get them on the same page. you're right, i think on most fiscal issues, the tea party is pretty much in lockstep. but as we know, every political party has a lot of issues that they care about and social issues can be incredibly divisive. even though you might have a unified front in terms of the size of government, you throw issues in like gay marriage and abortion where not every republican agrees. and top of that, people feel very strongly about it. that presents a risk for that. so i do think -- i think for the tea party -- this is probably something you see dick armey try to communicate. i think their best option is to try as best as they can to simply focus on these primary principles of limited government, lower taxes, chipping away at obama's health care bill and try to ignore the social issues for now. >> and you mentioned this relationship that's going to develop. we'll watch it develop between tea partiers and more mainstream republicans.

after michelle bachmann lost her battle, they're going to create a new position? >> john boehner has not been viewed as a figurehead of the tea party but recognizes how crucial they were to both his success and the party's this time around. he's made a lot of forays and entrees to that community. he did a skype chat on election night with some tea party folks. one thing he's doing is essentially going to create a seat on the gop's leadership table for a freshman. that essentially means probably one of these new tea party lawmakers that very much is coming with this swell of enthusiasm. i think that is another gesture that boehner is trying to do to reach out. in terms of michelle bachmann, even though a lot of people thought it was her versus jeb

hen hensarling. and he got it. perhaps that was a snub to the tea party movement. this is what's interesting of the whole idea is that the tea party is naturally outsiders. so to a certain extent she wins by losing because if you have become too much establishment and too much in leadership positions, on committees, i think the tea party might view you as all of a sudden a part of washington and no longer this outsider status that's so coveted. >> interesting stuff. politico's patrick gavin. put our own rachel maddow in a room with comedy central's jon stewart and interesting conversations are sure to happen. take waterboarding and george w. bush. >> i think that the criticism of george bush on waterboarding is a precise criticism. i don't think it's this guy is an evil monster. i think it is, that was wrong for the country and he shouldn't be defending it. >> i don't get the sense that the argument is as passive as that but, okay, that's a fair point. i think that it's somewhere in between. i think that the argument generally has not been, this is

wrong for the country and it has overstepped a certain line. i think it was a little more -- >> it's impassioned certainty. this is wrong for the country! i'll scream it if that makes it less -- >> i would suggest it wasn't necessarily just this is wrong for the country but that you're a bad man. >> i don't think that -- i don't -- i think that you are -- i think that you are glossing over the gray areas in a way that isn't fair. >> maybe. >> you can watch rachel maddow week nights at 9:00 p.m. eastern on msnbc. let the lawsuits begin as lisa murkowski gets closer to victory in the alaska senate race tea party candidate joe miller says he is not going down without a fight. the prosecution abruptly rests in the chandra levy murder case. why nine years after her murder the state's case seems to be falling apart.

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in the words of one

detective, it was a solvability case. but today nine years after chandra levy was killed, prosecutors say in the case against a salvadoran immigrant the prosecutors are in trouble and this remains one of washington's most enduring murder mysteries. they abruptly rested their case, dropped two of the charges against the man accused of levy's murder. ingmar guandique. among the witness sls gary condit. his career was torpedoed after revelations that the then 52-year-old married congressman was having an affair with the intern. condit's son talked about the fallout on nbc's "today." >> it was too good of a story to pass up so to speak, a congressman, a disappearance, sex, murder. and people ran with that. but from day one, gary and my sister and i have said gary didn't do anything, had nothing to do with the disappearance of chandra levy. >> keith alexander is a reporter for "the washington post."

also with us susan fallin, former state prosecutor and msnbc legal analyst. good morning. keith, this was not the finish prosecutors had hoped for. not the finish but the end of their case that they had hoped for. what happened? >> well, as you said earlier, chris, it has been a very challenging case. keep in minds prosecution had no dna, no murder weapon, no eyewitnesses and honestly they don't really know how chandra levy even died. so given those accounts, they were going into this case -- behind the 8 ball if you will. then last week they were able to get an inmate to talk a little bit about how ingmar guandique con felsed to him while they were cell mates in a kentucky prison. that was the first time in nine days or eight days at the time that we heard a connection to ingmar guandique to chandra levy. we thought we were going to hear from other inmates who were

going to say the same thing. that's what the prosecution said they were going to do during preliminary hearings before the trial started. what happened when the trial started we didn't hear from the other inmates. instead we just heard from the one inmate. we just heard from one person who put ingmar guandique at the chandra levy murder scene. >> so here you have a situation, susan, where your one witness who can link the defendant to this crime is a convicted felon. did this case fall apart these >> the officer who looked at it

was not expert in computer so he accidentally messed up some of the history of that computer, right? >> they didn't capture that for a month, they they don't know exactly what she was looking at on the day she disappeared. then there was other critical evidence that wasn't gathered immediately. so stuff was botched right from the very beginning. not only that, but her body wasn't found right away, so we don't know how she died. critical forensic evidence was never gathered. so what it comes down to now is you've got one jail house snitch flipping on somebody else in jail and that's what this case comes down to. >> what are you hearing? where does the case go from here? one of the things i read i believe in the "washington post" -- which by the way did an extensive year-long research into this and has done a fantastic series that you can still find on the web about what happened to chandra levy. is it possible that this guandique might actually take the stand? because usually the last thing you want to do is put a defendant on the stand.

>> well, according to my sources, chris, the attorneys for guandique are talking to him about that very thing. you're right, it would be very surprising if we heard from guandique but he may very well want to tell his side of the story. he's been very quiet throughout this entire time. so we may very well hear from guandique. but on monday we will hear from another inmate or at least we're scheduled to hear from another inmate who is being put on by the defense who say he was in the cell with him and the other inmate and he never said what the inmate said that he said in regards to killing levy. so we're going to hear from that witness swlt. and this could actually go to the jury as early as wednesday and the jury will probably deliberate on wednesday. >> under what circumstances would you put a defendant on the stand? >> never. guandique, he's not going to testify. he has prior convictions. he's from el salvador.

you'll not hear it from him. better to let the snitches war it out. one convicted guy says he did say it, one says he didn't. don't put him on. >> thanks so much. >> thank you. if you can believe it, some parents are actually defending a high school basketball coach who whipped players with a weight lifting belt but we'll talk with one angry dad who says his son was hurt and definitely this is not okay. and one of the passengers from that carnival cruise from hell joins us next. will he and others sue now that the ordeal is over? plus cindy mccain strikes out against "don't ask, don't tell" blasting the military banl in a new ad as her husband, a senator fights to keep it alive.

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if anything, i thought i'd get hit by a bus, but not a heart. my doctor put me on an aspirin regimen to help protect my life. [ male announcer ] be sure to talk to your doctor before you begin an aspirin regimen. check with your doctor because it can happen to anybody. good morning. i'm chris jansing. joining me this hour "washington post" editorial writer jonathan cape hart, kristen soltys and democratic strategist todd

webster. a high school basketball coach is accused of whipping players with a weight belt. i'll talk to the father of one of the players as well as their attorney. stories making headlines opinion governor tim pawlenty is taking the president's health care law to court. the minnesota republican says the law allows washington to overreach its authority. san francisco's mayor gavin newsom could veto his city's anti-happy meal bid today, but the city's board of supervisors does have enough votes to override that veto. no happy meals. thinking about joining the police force? some police departments are now asking applicants for private passwords, text messages and e-mail logs as a way to vet their new recruits. three suspects crashed a car through a gun store window in kentucky, grabbed a couple of weapons and ran off. hours later police say the gun shop owner's wife who happened to be kentucky's miss latina.

she had recently pled guilty to assaulting a woman and ordered not to go near the store. yesterday's garfield strip ended with a teacher asking its class if they know why spiders celebrate national stupid day. jim davis says he didn't know the strip would run on veterans day. he apologized and they accepted the apology. four days at sea with no power, few comforts and plenty of that meat products known as spam. an engine fire early monday morning turned a luxury cruise into a holiday from hell. david zambrano is one of the passengers stranded aboard the carnival "splendor." good to see you. how are you doing this morning? >> thank you. i'm doing fine, chris. nice to be on dry land. >> happy to be off that ship, are you? >> yes. actually, yes, i am. >> whats was the worst of it? >> probably the worst of it was when the bathrooms were backing up. they started getting leaks on the floors below through the ceiling and they were having

buckets out there and towels and the buckets were starting to fill up a little bit with urine. >> oh, never a good thing. and maybe -- >> never a good thing. >> maybe it didn't matter that you didn't have the lovely buffets that we've come to associate with cruises. nevertheless, do you have a newfound appreciation for spam this morning? >> well, actually, in all honesty, i didn't get any spasm. >> are you disappointed about that? >> i actually love spam. >> there you go. see, the one thing he wanted, the spam. >> all i got was bread. and here's why. is because the people in the front of the line were actually taking the one slice of meat that was in there and stocking up on it. a lot of people were hoarding a lot in the beginning a lot of the meat -- >> this is the first i've heard of this. they were spam hoarding? >> well, they were hoarding whatever was in there. so by the time we got there we would see empty slices of bread with lettuce and tomato and say, this is it? >> a lettuce and tomato sand

witch. so then all you're eating is bread, lettuce and tomatoes and they open the bar, right? how did that work out? were there some happy people? were there some giddy people? were there some drunken people? >> you know for the most part people were fairly happy and fairly calm and kept us informed as much as they could. they were doing their best. they got creative with the salads. we had a lot of salads and for breakfast it was always slices of fruit, cereal or a small danish. what was interesting -- >> when you say creative, could you be a little more specific? >> there's only so much you can do with a salad. you mix the lettuce. >> true. >> they were throwing in tomatoes, fruit. they were throwing anything they could to make it interesting -- olives. but by the last day, you can see a lot of that stuff had been sitting for a while and it was getting old. so we stopped eating it. >> finally i have to ask you. are you going to take them up on their offer to take another cruise?

we've heard maybe some rumblings there are people who might want to sue. how do you feel about all of this now that you're back on dry land? >> i heard that too. i heard there were some people who were dissatisfied. a lot of first-time cruisers on this. for me personally and my girlfriend we will definitely take another cruise on carnival, yeah. >> i like your attitude and if we can we'd be happy to sends you spam or any kind of meat that you would prefer. thank you so much for coming on. >> you know what? a hot breakfast would be great because we went there for breakfast this morning. they had provided breakfast. it was fruit and pastries. >> not really carnival actually invited you back for breakfast and didn't have a hot breakfast? >> no. they had it set up in the grand ballroom but it was the same thing as on the ship. all of us there said, oh, no, we're not doing this. we want eggs and something substantial. >> i don't blame you for that one. you're a good sport. thanks for coming on. joe miller is one hard-nosed alaskan and he is ready for a

fight. an overwhelming majority of the write-in votes are being counted for incumbent lisa murkowski but miller is pushing back on everything from vote count to the security of alaska's ballot boxes. so ten days after the election, the senate race there goes on. nbc's kristen welker is here for the very latest. where does all this stand now? >> reporter: right now after two days of counting, chris, as you mentioned, lisa murkowski still doing prel wet. she's getting 89% of the write-in votes counted for her. about 8% of the votes counted are being counted for her. however, they're also being contested by the miller camp which essentially means that they thought there were some misspellings. but yesterday a bit of an afternoon surprise. a person who is describing himself as a strategist with joe miller's camp, a guy by the name of floyd brown, came forward and announced that they were filing suit in juneau today to get copies of the voter rolls. they essentially want to compare the voter rolls against the

ballots that were actually counted. he then went on to say that the miller camp has gotten a number of phone calls about possible voter fraud and voter intimidation. when we pushed him for more details, though, he couldn't give any actual names or examples of any actual real voter fraud that had occurred. here's what both candidates had to say about the issue yesterday. take a listen. >> at the base of this it's not this issue of fraud. it's the issue of whether or not we're going to follow the state statute in counting the ballots. that's really what that other lawsuit is all about. that's the main focus. but we are absolutely interested in maintaining the integrity of the process. >> the miller campaign realizes that they are not getting ahead in the absentees that they had hoped. they're not getting ahead with the challenged ballots as they had hoped and they're seeing that they cannot get on top of this. so this is an act of desperation. >> reporter: now, one more interesting point. floyd brown is also one of the people who's behind that

infamous 1988 willie horton ad that wound up derailing michael d dukakis's presidential bids. the counting will continue today and expect it to last through next week. >> lucky you. appreciate the update. >> reporter: sure. thank you. our political and religious leaders tell lgbt youth that they have no future. they can't serve our country openly. >> that is part of the new ad where cindy mccain openly disagrees with her husband. and it's not "don't ask, don't tell." she takes it a step further and pushes a link between that military policy and the recent string of bullying cases and suicides by gay teenagers. the ad points the finger at the government. >> our government treats the lgbt community like second class citizens. why shouldn't they? >> let's bring back our company, kristen soltis, jonathan cape

hart and todd webster. this is interesting. john mccain says we're waiting for the survey which we're hearing from the tens of thousands of people who took it say they support a repeal of that ban. but what does it tell you when you see this kind of essentially debate going on between a high profile veteran senator and his wife? >> you know where i want to be on thanksgiving? >> at their house? >> the mccain house. >> what do you suppose they're talking about there? >> clearly -- this has been terrific. cindy mccain is out there in this ad. cindy mccain and their daughter megan mccain did a no hate campaign of about -- opposing prop 8 a few months ago. what it says is that the country is shifting and that senator mccain is behind, meaning on the opposite side of that shift. the country is moving -- being more accepting, more open to gay

people and to allowing them to serve. and so for this to come out and especially now when congress is trying to figure out how they're going to figure out to pass a repeal of "don't ask, don't tell," the timing of this ad coming out or at least us talking about it is rather interesting and might put some pressure on senator mccain to not go ahead with his threat to filibuster. >> i'm curious as i watch this, if you think there's a shift, do you think it's generational? do you think this really is a right/left divide or is it more a younger/older divide in general? >> i mean, look, i think the -- first of all, i think it's the right policy. the chairman of the joint chiefs and many in the military brass have said it's more important that you can shoot straight than you are straight. we're fighting two wars abroad. we can't afford to lose soldiers so it's the right policy for the military. but i think for the american people we are a country -- our constitution, the first ten amendments were a bill of rights. we were supportive of individual

rights, individual freedoms and liberties, whether allowing women the right to vote in 1920 with the 19th amendment or the civil rights bill. that there is an evolution toward providing people more rights, more freedoms and more liberties rather than restricting them. when you look at how -- a slice of conservatives who try to use gays as a political tool in pushing a constitutional amendment to ban gay marriage, that vote in 2006 got 49 votes. it needed 66 as a constitutional amendments. so i think that the capacity for the american people to be a tolerant people, a small "l" libertarian people is what you're seeing now with "don't ask, don't tell." >> is it fear, though, kristen, do you think the ad goes too far to tie a person's view on "don't ask, don't tell" to gay bullying and gay suicides? >> i think it is a step too far but i think what you're seeing

is there is a big difference between the values of young people and other generations going to your earlier question. while it's tales a step too far to say people that have take a position on a military position are actively supporting the bullying that led to the tragedies i think there's a real debate and in both parties. this isn't just a partisan issue. it's young people in both parties having debate against older folks in both parties. it's something across the political spectrum it's a debate that needs to be had. >> i'm goaltending to disagree with my new pal kristen here in that i don't think it goes a step too far to link the two in that. if you tell a gay person that they're not good enough to serve, if you tell a gay person that someone bullying them is not a big deal, if you tell a gay person it's okay to fire you from your job because you're gay, that says something about your worth and value to society. so if you're a young teen and getting hit with all of those

messages sometimes sad things happen. >> you don't have that place in society where you can join, you can be part of this organization, you can progress inside that organization? >> exactly. and so that's why all of these things while they might seem to be unrelated and disconnected, in fact they're part of a whole. >> all right. thank you very much, jonathan, kristen, todd. great talking to all of you. >> thank you. out of bounds and out of line? three high school basketball players are suing their coach over what you see happening in this video. it appears the high school coach is whipping one of his players. in fact, he says he did it. we'll talk with one of the boys' fathers next. here's a myth:

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what was he thinking? a jackson, mississippi, basketball high school coach has been suspended without pay after a cell phone video caught him doing this. the six-second clip that shows the high school coach marlin dorsey apparently whipping a player with a heavyweightlifter's belt because the player didn't run a play the right way. now three basketball players are suing the coach and the school district. i'm joined by jason hubbard who is the father of one of the players.

thanks very much for joining us. how are you this morning? >> i'm doing fine. >> to be clear that is not your son in the video but you say you did witness a similar incident involving your son? >> yes, i did. on october the 22nd was the first time i witnessed him whipping my son. >> what exactly happened? can you tell us how that all came about? >> well, i was in that particular practice and one of the boys ran a play where the ball went out of bounds. and after that happened, he called him over and spanked him three times with the belt. and it happened to my son in that same day where he did the same thing almost. and he whipped him as well. >> and what was your reaction when you saw that? >> i was outraged. i was rather angry. but the other side of me was calm because i didn't want to get into an incident in front of the boys where it was -- didn't look good for a father to attack a coach. so i kind of had to calm down a

little bit. >> because there is a lawsuit pending and because it's a personnel issue, the school isn't talking. but i'm sure you know what coach dorsey did say to the local newspaper and i'm going to read it here. "i took it upon myself to save these young men from the destruction of self and what society has accepted and become silent to the issues our students are facing on a daily basis. i am deeply remorseful of my actions to help our students." i'm sure you know there are players and parents that want him to come back off of the suspension. some of the players who said, yes, they were hit but weren't hit that hard. essentially, the implication being that you have and the others who are complaining are overreacting. what would you say to them? >> there is no overreacting. being there visibly totally changes the way you think about it. even though the video shows what it shows. but just having the idea of being there is totally different

than what you can imagine. the frustration, the pain that you feel. even though my son when i saw him hit for the last time, he tiered up. and i knew my son wanted to cry. but he only wanted to be strong for his peers. so being there was totally different. >> well, i thank you very much, jason hubbard, for being with us. we'll continue to follow this story. thank you. >> you're welcome. a new twist in the saga of those russian spies sent to live deep undercover in the u.s. now the russian double agent who recruited them as a target on his back. and forget waiting for a day after thanksgiving. the deals are pretty good out there today. are the best deals happening now or should you wait a while like right before christmas? our expert vera gibbons is here with the answer. [ male announcer ] this is steven, a busy man.

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this is "jansing & company." joining the discussion, nicole kurokawa. ari melber of the nation, michelle sigona and senate elect richard blumenthal. president obama on the last leg of his ten-day tour in japan where he'll speak with business leaders, meet with japan's prime minister and attends ta forpump saul anuzis said michael steele should step out of the way. he lofs the national race for chairman two years ago. steele has repeatedly come under fire. he's not said if he'll run for another two-year term as healed of the rnc. new word this morning surrounding a decade-old murder mystery. it continues to make headlines today. the son of