hungry for the full story we've got it first hand the biggest issues get a human voice face to face with the news make us. believe. ultimately.

more to say the dresser defends his recordings of the plane crash that killed poland's president as warsaw pleased with its throw. from arms reduction to a receptive view was a way for us going to school and minister gets his friend out of one intensive change clothes. and about her new us

reassuring step with patience to maintain despite the united arab prices still unfolding in the lead midst of. all those are the headlines it's over to our washington studio on the all you want to show now from our current affairs and opinion. welcome the a lot of show will get the real headlines with none of the mercy or come alive out of washington d.c. yesterday president obama traveled to tucson to deliver

a speech at the memorial service for those who died in this past weekend's tragedy it was a solemn speech there reminded many americans of the old obama the one from the campaign trail before he reached washington so we're going to break down that speech with matt welch next we'll continue our look at the war in afghanistan there's talk about changing the troop withdrawal timetable safety of afghan civilians and a u.s. deputy undersecretary playing matchmaker we're going to go over all of those confusing details with josh with ballast from the american security project then as media outlets continue coverage of the fourteen trillion dollar national debt ceiling we're going to ask another question should the general public even have a say in the debt ceiling at all or is that an issue that she left and should be left to analysts and politicians to hash out to discuss the national debt with joe weisenthal and i'll get his take on it typical americans really should have an opinion on an issue they probably don't understand and could the bush six finally be held responsible for torture the center for constitutional rights is encourage

spain to move forward of prosecuting the former top officials so we're going to speak with catherine gallagher from the center for constitutional rights about their involvement in this case and what they hope will come of the potential prosecution that's at the end of the show but now let's move on to our top story. last night brought. obama addressed the country out of a moral service for the victims of last saturday's shooting in tucson arizona the tact left six people dead fourteen wounded including democratic representative gabrielle giffords who was reported to open her eyes for the first time last night after being shot at point blank range in the head now in front of a capacity crowd at the university of arizona in tucson obama gave a thirty minute long speech talking about the victims quoting from the bible and setting a tone to remind americans that we have more that unites us than divides us i'm not going to lie i teared up a bit especially when obama spoke about the youngest victim in this attack nine

year old christina and he called for us to make this democracy as good as she imagined it it was solemn it was unified and obama showed us once again that he can give a good speech but will that really change anything here to discuss it with me is matt welch editor in chief of reason magazine matt thanks so much for being here now give me first of all your general impression on this speech from obama last night did you like it well you know it was a great it's a sensually i think is probably the best speech that he's given as president if you think about what obama does well in these moments when we need someone to kind of thread the needle of a sensitive national discussion like in the campaign when he talked about race which was a ninety percent great speech there's ten percent those kind of bad bashing china but still when he treats americans like adults and understanding that we have legitimate differences with one another they can't be papered over in some sort of big you know national song fast he understands that and respects that you saw that

respect in the way that he talked about the individual personalities of the victims of the shooting which was very empathetic and interesting and appropriate for the moment and he saw it also in his explicit rejection of this is not the result of rhetoric in civil right or a he yet made the speech about but celebrate our tone but he. broke that explicit connection that people have been trying to make and then arguing about over the last four or five very heated days and the way that he did that i thought was very skillful very appropriate very presidential was there anything not good was there at one percent two percent ten percent in this speech that you didn't agree. that's a difficult put your finger on the part of it was was the atmosphere of it which it's always difficult for anyone to judge outside of someone else's grieving but it's a little bit jarring as an outsider you know watching people cheer and in a very collegiate like atmosphere there are just sort of felt a little bit strange that's not under his control terms of what he actually said

you know if. he did make it about our civil tone ultimately and he trying to speak to the better angels of our nature that's all to the good any whisper from my point of view of trying to make an explicit connection is bad but again i don't i don't think that he really did that so i was you know maybe a little bit more god talk than i would like but. one thing i was about to bring up is first let's play we have a clip of some of the the god taqueria obama getting in fact quote scripture here. scripture tells us that there is evil in the world and that terrible things happen for reasons that defy human understanding in the words of job when i look for a white. then came darkness. now before we watch that you are saying that we are a religious nation yes so you still believe that we are a religious nation and i think that you know we were having conversations earlier

this morning in our editorial meetings and some people were thought it was a little too much god isn't the guy that we're used to seeing a lot of god from oh no we see a lot of government if you haven't you haven't seen god from obama you have been paying attention he's stressed religious or religious grounds that in his campaign in his memoirs he's always talked about this in many ways i think he's more of a god person george w. bush was we just don't associate that because it comes from the left. you know the you get quoted on that one there are a lot of people to pry will disagree with you i think it's true if you objective look the record entire ceremony was started with a native american ceremony which drove conservatives batty and then we had a we did you think what was the purpose of the native american ceremony gets arizona is another reason landing in arizona and i mean you're from the west of there is just a big presence of that in arizona much more than california and i think it's completely appropriate in a religious and yet not a state religion kind of country to have different religious sentiments and you

know it's odd to me to watch someone who is one of the top law enforcement officers in the nation quoting at length from the old testament to feel strange to me certainly but it's not i think. it's not inappropriate in the setting of grief to quote from two or three different strains of religion and now often what happens after you know moments of tragedy in a country and then we have a president who gives a great speech and people call these unifying moments and often approval ratings tend to skyrocket do you think this is actually going to change anything for obama i mean answer like you said conservatives were going bad over the fact that there was a native american speaker first and then they said it was seemed more like a concert and then it you know wasn't solemn enough for a memorial service but but they also was almost universally praised. should be i think as much praise from conservatives of the liberals on this speech and understandably so because they heard the dog whistle love we can't blame this

shooter on right wing rhetoric which is kind of what they want to hear in the long term what will affect i think i think in the short term it's going to dissuade people you paul of the world from continuously hitting this connection people to stand back from out a little bit and he's going to see more presidential for the moment unfortunately for all of us the presidency in modern terms is not just about a very nice and intelligent man making nice speeches a tough moments it's also about legislation coalitions it's also about making really bad speeches at very important legislative moments in which you're full of crap and unfortunately he will probably continue to do that because he's a president he's a politicians that that's what he does we still are a very divided country it doesn't take much at all to have people leap at each other's throats and it's only going to take until the next thing happens whatever that is and we will see again the same kind of divisive divisiveness i think but i think in the short term it's going to make people feel just a little bit better that he's the president not sarah palin and maybe somebody i

definitely think sarah pail and you know everyone says that she definitely never misses an opportunity to miss an opportunity and show it just as self obsessed not job i think she really is like a shadow you know that she also played to a fan base i mean that's the the strange magic of sarah palin is that even as she missteps which i think she kind of clearly did in this case she also becomes you know the victim of the lame stream media and so therefore the pale in diehards will rally around her even stronger but i i think a lot of people remember this kind of exchange and not feel necessarily well disposed towards her in a presidential setting well we'll see how long this lasts if he can use it because in the meantime there aren't really a whole bunch of republican stars or contenders that we necessarily see for the election that's well less than two years away so we'll see how long that makes so much for being here thank you. so to come on tonight's show we have our show and tell segment that we might be ten years into the war in afghanistan but what we have to show for civilians have nothing to live off of and yet military officials are trying to woo banks and businesses to invest in the country so will discuss the

contradictions with joshua ballsed and a british police officer switched sides after being under deep cover in the environmental activist community of the u.k. for over seventy years we're going to give you the details on this sort of scandal and ask if this could be happening right here in the u.s. . we'll. bring you the latest in science and technology from around the world. we've got this huge area covered.

right. from time to. me. don't come. all right so it's time for show and tell me last time on the second we told you about the lax gun laws in arizona many attribute the numerous desk the injured bystanders in tucson to the fact that twenty two year old jared loughner was able to purchase extended magazines for his weapon but in a society where many americans work very hard to uphold the second amendment and want to know what our viewers thought does the available availability of guns make us safer or put us at greater risk so here's what some of you had to say brian hash gave us his voice on facebook he said there are always going to be the minority of

people that screwed up for the rest of us it was that way in high school one kid doesn't shut up to the whole class gets homework just punish the few and not the rest of us i'm a texan i know how to be responsible with guns and if everyone were taught how to use a handle guns there would be less gun violence we also heard from stephan bor he said it is far far too easy to shop for guns and rifles and most united states and ricky one one four six tweeted his response to us saying safer by all means a second amendment was written for a reason by the founders now as always we appreciate your responses and of course this is just proof of how contentious the issue of the second amendment is in america so here we have our next question for you yesterday president obama gave a speech at the tucson. morial service his speech has gotten a lot of praise many claim that it reminded them of the old obama the one whose speech is connected with the people so we want to know if the election were tomorrow would you vote for obama to be president again you can respond to us on

facebook twitter and you tube and who knows your response just might make it on air . now our time out and detention things of the past that might be the case in texas where students who are acting up are receiving a new form of punishment misdemeanor tickets a social economic group name texas appleseed collected data over the course of the past five or six years which shows mounting evidence of students receiving actual tickets for behavioral problems things like leaving school early disrupting class fights on the playground all the grounds for students of getting it take it that i'm not just talking high school here the data shows over twelve hundred elementary school kids or ticketed as well and these aren't little handwritten tickets by teachers or principals the consequences of these tickets are very real very serious and the group's data shows that some of the tickets are as much as five hundred dollars for an elementary school kit that's almost double the cost of most speeding tickets out there but can we just hold on

a minute here is this really the best form of punishment is it really appropriate to give a ticket to a kid as young as six years old hello it's called childhood that's why it's so great because you don't deal with the real world responsibilities real punishments you get grounded you get the attention you do not have the police called on you so what the hell is happening in this world when i get it states need money but how about we cut down always told bureaucracy and programs and let kids be kids. almost ten years into the war in afghanistan the contradictions the questions keep piling up military military leaders keep telling us of recent games and breaking the taliban's momentum on. the evidence to back it up and it seems to be lacking a real withdrawal date two thousand and fourteen beyond who knows the admiral mike mullen chairman of the joint chiefs of staff did say yesterday to expect more violence more casualties in two thousand and eleven despite two thousand and ten

being the bloodiest year so far afghan civilians find themselves in a catch twenty two increasingly needing humanitarian aid but being faced with more danger if they accept it as it forces them to hew sides and all along we now find out that paul a brinkley a u.s. deputy undersecretary for defense is trying to woo investors and businesses to take a chance on this supposedly land of opportunity calling himself a matchmaker just like you harm me here to discuss it with me is joshua foulest fellow at the american security project joshua thanks so much for being here thank you let's go over i mean this entire situation sounds a little bit bizarre to me he described himself as a match maker he comparisons health to eat harmony is there anything romantic about taking a war stricken country that's been that way for the you know decades now so i'm going to argue centuries and trying to woo business like you're making them fall i mean there is something romantic about the idea of rebuilding somewhere that's been

devastated by war there's no denying that but when you're doing some of the devastating is that's going to go along with the other thing makes it somewhat ironic that we're busy trying to do that there's also i mean within the military there's a broader understanding that because we are responsible for a lot of the destruction that happened in afghanistan and we are an active participant in the war that the united states also bears some responsibility for fixing the mess and i think one of the ideas behind this task force is that because we have created this war in afghanistan i mean i'm not entirely but we are fighting this war in afghanistan therefore the government has to be a participant in its eventual reconstruction so that's kind of where this thinking process is coming from is that we're here we have to leave it in somewhat respectable shape so let's see what we can do to make that happen but we don't even know when we might. leaving a yes that's about it so that you can see behind me there let's talk about the companies that they're bringing here right they're bringing bankers they're being bring in guys from silicon valley are they seeing the real afghanistan when they're trying to sell them you know on this investment are they driving around in armored

vehicles you know they're not actually seeing the danger i mean one of the guys even quoted said i expected it to be a lot more hectic than that yeah i mean you're never going to get that touring especially with a senior administration official you are going to get a new gritty picture of what everyday life is for and that's one of the fundamental conceits of these v.i.p. tours of the country anyways is that you just can't get a realistic idea of what the country is like and that being said this guy brinkley seems to have been successful in at least attracting some investment he's been able to get i think it's kate speed new york to be investing in local afghan artisans building i mean trinkets jewelry some textiles to export and sell in their stores so i mean there is a possibility of actually creating a realistic commercial development here but as far as how appropriate it is i mean that's kind of up for debate at this point but how much of a land of opportunity is it really i mean it's one thing for a kate spade new york to have come in and have afghan women and you know scarves

but at the same time why are you bringing guys from silicon valley and the way that they're trying to sell them is by saying look half the population uses cell phones you can also say no half the population is unfortunately it literate they don't they live in tribal villages how much of a land of opportunity for the twenty first century isn't really at the moment it's actually more than half i mean afghanistan is largely illiterate so in that sense you run up into a bit of a barrier when it comes to manufacturing electronics there and good luck building a clean room anywhere i don't know anyone who's lived in afghanistan more than a couple of months that doesn't have respiratory problems from all the dust pollution everything that they breathe and i mean it's appalling we filthy so i agree there's a bit of a party in the sky imagineering behind this and when people try to evaluate the efforts of this task force in iraq they found that there is some did. in terms of measuring success is that they've had following up on small scale investment opportunities opportunities that they've had they've had a difficult time transitioning that into large capital projects so this is still a really early effort that isn't fully fleshed out and developed yet and it's

apparently something that general petraeus gets involved you know that's a big we don't just have the diplomats here. quoted you know in this business saying that he wants them to convey that it's not just about opening the door but he wants you to get to really get into it but you know one thing that afghanistan definitely has that we can talk about is natural resources the chinese are already hoping and when it comes to compromise. consultants are saying you know it's not going to be just america the benefits from this but then if we look at iraq and we look at you know the oil fields opening up you know it was in america the benefit there either here if it's not going to be america that's benefiting from the natural resources then why is america really footing the bill for a huge war that's lasted almost a decade i think there's probably two angles to this one and this is partly general petraeus is idea this doctrine of counterinsurgency that he helped create is that you have an income as a counter insurgent force you have an obligation to contribute to the economic stabilization of the area where you're doing operations so i think that's probably one of the starting points for where the strategy comes from and then on top of

that there's this idea that if you benefit afghanistan and afghanistan does benefit from foreign investment regardless of its source whether it's american frankly iranian that we don't like to talk about that very much chinese pakistani afghanistan benefits from that and ultimately if afghanistan does benefit from it then the united states will benefit too because it'll create the theory goes that it will create this steve will economic picture that will then allow us to withdraw our troops and eventually wind down the war so the thinking behind it at least is that this economic development is part of a larger push towards a sustainable peace i mean it would be very nice if this theory did turn into reality going to happen let's talk about another element here which is for the fact that you know for many afghan civilians this is a humanitarian crisis for them right i mean they're lacking of basic necessities they. food and at the same time there's this issue where you know if they receive that humanitarian aid if they if they take it from nato forces then they're seen as picking sides that they take it from and surgeons then they're also seen as picking sides and they ultimately end up in more danger at the point where these people are

not even accepting anything how do you fix that and how do you make a have a neutral body either isn't associated you know with the united states military to get people and that's one of the fundamental dilemma as it's happening right now in afghanistan there was an article written today in foreign policy by the former country representative of doctors without borders discussing this issue and he was talking about how his organization has had a difficult time maintaining its neutrality in the face of this war and doctors without borders withdrew from afghanistan in two thousand and four precisely because of concerns over these neutrality questions they felt that they could no longer maintain their independence at the time they eventually came back because they realized that they had some mechanism for making themselves separate from the coalition but no one has any real answers for this yet you have to have a sufficient donor base that will let you fund your own security and your own operations not a lot of n.g.o.s when the security is as bad as it is in afghanistan it's really hard to do things so if you can't protect your people if you can't guarantee that

so your doctors aren't going to be accosted on the road i mean let's not forget several months ago workers for a relief agency ten of them were ambushed in the woods in northern afghanistan and butchered and this was right after they had conducted a free medical clinic in the neighboring probably watch and they were just only on the roof is what makes me ask you know if it's not safe for civilians for doctors they can't even get food why is it going to be safe for business to invest their policy joshua thank you so much for being thank you. well there is quite a story coming out of the u.k. in the last few days mark kennedy a metropolitan police officer who infiltrated and lived in deep cover for seven years with environmental activist seems to have switched sides he first infiltrated with the fake identity of marc stone in two thousand and three with a fake passport he traveled to twenty two different countries participated in almost every major demonstration in the u.k. have relationships with supposedly more than one woman with this fake identity and then was found out and some members found his passport he quit the met he's

expressed no remorse for what he did saying it was wrong he even offered to a six to assist six campaigners who were due to face trial this week for conspiring to invade a power station until the trial collapsed after allegations emerged of kennedy acting as an agent provocateur before the demonstrations now there are since been a second officer who had infiltrated for four years has also been outed gurley not the first time that we've seen off the already expressed concern over environmental activists but we do have to wonder if it's not the first time they've gone this far and has it ever been done here in the u.s. here to discuss with me as well potter founder of the blog green is the new red well thanks so much for being here first starters i don't like this story i mean you know it just keeps getting more intricate now he's supposedly he switch sides and now there are women coming out which i don't like the fact that they feel like they may have been violated but are you into the story i mean it's kind of exciting it's refreshing in a way to see a couple things to see this cop say. you know realize the importance of the issues

he was working with the capacity you know he truly believes in them if that's true it also is refreshing to see the judge in this case with the prior group of activists who gave them very lenient sentences you know time served community service and things like that so he recognized the urgency of what they believed in haven said you know i think you are decent people which is you know let's talk about this kareen are they really these hard call. are extremist radical activists or are they just going by what judges what other public figures you know let's say al gore even politicians out there also subscribe to which is caring about climate change well in the scheme of environmental movement they're certainly not the most radical in terms of their tactics in the environmental movement the tactics that are paid most extreme haven't been very radical at all you know compared to other social justice movements these people were involved in nonviolent civil disobedience do publish new campaigns doing stunts to raise awareness of what's going on in the really the crisis facing the environment globally people are really

shocked that he could have switched sides of the end and felt bad about what he did which you know i can imagine it's got to be difficult to live your life as someone else for seven years and how could you not form bonds with these people but at the same time mean why wouldn't you want to be an environmental activist right every day get caught it sounds like fun is being an activist hippie whatever you want to call it all that bad well i mean we've seen some of that in the states too we've had this ever undercover agents that have infiltrated groups follow them around and because i don't know how they differentiate the two parts of their lives because they're so when matched they're involved in these groups they're organizing protests and it has to take a psychological toll on how many times have we seen the same thing happen in the united states quite a few i mean in the next hundred sixty is there is a national program called cointelpro that did all of these same things or worse with the so-called new left in the mirror comedian movement anti-war groups we're seeing the same things now as the story shows we're seeing internationally as well

so it's hard to know a specific number but like recently on christmas in the red i wrote about f.b.i. file that revealed an undercover informant in the animal rights movement who talked about the importance of spreading gossip to. disorient these activists and to make people turn against each other so these type of tactics are nothing new what do you think i mean we you and i have spoken a lot about the fact that you know people who are opposed to for. here may have seen the documentary gas land that they are being monitored to we have any kind of evidence you have any idea whether these people are being infiltrated as well in that specific case no but there have been dozens of examples like that around the country for instance the f.b.i. according to f.b.i. files tried to infiltrate the animal rights group on multiple occasions the same with greenpeace approaching in turns to get them to spy on the organization going through a working back door engel's to spy on these groups.