welcome the loner shell we'll get the real headlines with none of the mercy or can we live out of washington d.c. now it's never going to see my interview with representative keith ellison we're going to talk about everything from voter id laws to white house leagues and drones and syria and then senators ron wyden and their eyes are trying to get you to help them write an internet bill of rights but we're going to ask if we really need one and this week the supreme court kill havey as corpus for want of a detainee's were to have all of that and more free tonight including those of happy hour but first take a look with the mainstream media decided to miss. well

today attorney general eric holder had to testify on the hill and so the mainstream media was all over it eric holder on the hill in just minutes the nation's attorney general is scheduled to take tough questions from congress turning general heads to capitol hill for another round of grilling he is also facing a vote to hold him in contempt of congress contempt attorney general eric holder now facing a house vote on the investigation into the fast and furious gun operation the nation's top law enforcement official is getting ready to face some tough questions eric holder on the hot seat once again biggest issues for attorney general eric holder the bungled fast and furious gun smuggling sting it was revealed that sums us made arms weapons got into the hands of mexican drug cartels eric holder on the hot seat today eric holder is set to face some pretty tough questions. now i get it

in the sense that it's a pretty big deal of people want to hold the attorney general in contempt get him to step down from his position i mean tire fast and furious debacle is an embarrassing one but since fox news basically spends every day that it's not fear mongering and talking about terrorism talking about this then i'm going to pass and that's because quite honestly i think there's a much bigger scandal out there as a whole lot more about our federal government and our justice system than this story it is a member guantanamo bay right that prison in cuba where you've been detaining people for years that prison that this president promised to close down upon coming into office but which at this point thanks to a lack of political will congressional bullying and media fear mongering doesn't look like it's going to close anytime soon well there are still one hundred sixty eight hundred sixty nine detainees being held at the facility and what we've learned throughout the years since nine eleven although most americans probably aren't all that informed about it is that there were hundreds of people who were in fact innocent just scooped up or things as unfortunate as being at the wrong place

at the wrong time but that's not to say that every detainee doesn't deserve to be there that they're not a bad guy but if we're going to hold ourselves up as a beacon of democracy and justice in this world we can't just keep holding people in itself for ever and then not letting them see a courtroom because the government feels like it and because if they did let them see a courtroom they would have to admit that they messed up big time if they were to let them go and let's quickly go back to two thousand and eight where the supreme court ruled that guantanamo detainees had the right to challenge their detention in court that was a big deal and i was the right decision because we can't just create a giant black hole that's a terrorism exception when it comes to our laws but you see since that the d.c. circuit courts and the conservative justices well they've reinterpreted that ruling and they've refused to order the release of a single detainee now we're going to get more into the role that they played and one of our interviews tonight but so this week the supreme court made a decision on whether or not it would hear the appeals of seven of these. pending

cases and the highest court in the land the beacon of justice decided not to hear that they decided not to take any responsibility responsibility for the fact that the hay vs rights as they granted to these individuals are rights in name only there are many if they don't actually exist if not one single detainee can actually use them many of whom by the way have already been cleared for release by the government. so if you listen to journalists have been covering these cases for years or human rights organizations they will say that this ruling means that the remaining detainees have no hope of leaving get mo until their debt whatever happened to learning from our mistakes right writing our wrongs up holding justice we can't just pretend like these people don't exist and yet so many americans do so many of our politicians do our supreme court now does and unfortunately the mainstream media well they do the exact same thing if it's a scandal within the administration suddenly the cable networks care a lot about justice but when it comes to guantanamo bay they always choose to miss

. now a topic that we often at discuss on this show is voter fraud namely how republicans trump up its prevalence to disenfranchise voters nowhere is this more of an issue right now that in florida governor rick scott is attempting to scrub voter rolls of one hundred thousand non-citizens using some very sketchy methodology and some claim the move is designed to stop democrats from voting so yesterday the justice department threatened to sue the state if it isn't stopped the call and then florida responded by saying that they're going to sue the department of homeland security to access a citizenship database one that could help expedite this purge but even if scott succeeds in his expensive crusade i think it could have and of causing him some voters who probably won't be disenfranchised like conservatives because they're supposed to be against taxpayer weights and the scars of wasting money here because

this entire idea that voter fraud is an issue well that is a fraud in itself republicans and some local board of elections have even said that they will not help rick scott out officials like and that fall volusia county election supervisor today she told thing progress no i do not support the lawsuit it's about helping the governor and secretary of state improve their image and i'm not doing any further voter purge until after november twenty. well and today rolling stone reported on alleged cases of voter fraud parsing through a two thousand and seven study from the brennan center of justice and taking a look at those studies let's just say if the frequency of the crime is underwhelming for example in one suppose it missouri double voting epidemic from two thousand to two thousand and two there were only four cases a rate of zero point zero zero zero three percent it was also allege the five thousand four hundred and twelve votes were cast by dead people in georgia in the year two thousand but these are all examples of false alarms at the end of the day not a single case of bonafide fraud there but what about using pets to cheat the system

the nine people have been recorded registering dogs to protest the ease of registration risking lengthy prison sentences sentences in the process but the thing is that there's only been one instance of a dog actually voting and that was in a local election in california hardly a cause for panic and then how about non-citizen voters like the people that governor rick scott is up in arms about and washington in two thousand and five county officials looked into the eligibility of one thousand six hundred and sixty eight registered voters based on foreign sounding names but not a single one of them turned out to be a non citizen so i think it's appropriate that the brennan center claims one is more likely to be struck by lightning than to commit voter fraud most of the voting in justice it happened when governor governors are governments like the ones on rick scott go on these voter purge it's like when florida stripped twelve thousand legitimate voters of their right to vote in the two thousand elections that was more than twenty two times george bush's margin of victory so when i got

a chance to catch up with congressman keith ellison at netroots last week in providence i started by asking him what he thinks of all these republican backed voter laws. today we're joined by a special guest we have representative keith ellison congressman thanks so much for joining us and i have a range of issues that i'd like to discuss with you but first so. start with what we're seeing across the country in terms of voter id laws that passed in a number of states we've seen in florida recently where there are thousands of voters that could be taken off the rolls because they have a faulty system right there is making d.m.v. records the houston chronicle recently said that in the state of texas one point five million people might be kicked off a voter registration and so i want your take on this because we are to have a problem in this country of low voter turnout right why would they want to make it any more difficult why do lawmakers want it that will because it's about power the issue is power. if they can control the electorate by shrinking it and thereby

making it more manageable weeding out people who are unlikely to support their position then and they mean republicans yes they can get their policy agenda passed so it's really an issue of power if they can shrink the electorate get people out get students out seniors out who care about medicare so security get in you know the poor people out who need a hand. you know and stuff like that they will do that and that is exactly what's going on right now so the bottom line is if this is a power equation then the people have to come together and say no we're going to insist on our right to vote as members of the democratic side it's in that sense it's about messaging to you right because of one of the ways that you sell the need for voter i.d. laws as you say to voter fraud is rampant is voter fraud a problem in america no that is a false statement it's not true it's a lie but here's what is true these ideologues are very expensive even when they

say they're free they actually because a lot of money to issue this in the state has to show i'm right because of the free someone is going to pay for it who pay well the state governments usually sin this down to the local governments that whose property tax increases all over the country so it's expensive and bad for our budget and it's unnecessary so if you combine the fact that there is no fraud. and there with the fact that this is an expensive proposition and it's something that everyone should reject to think that it's something that we need to hear the white house the president himself be more vocal about and we know the source of the part of justice center letter to florida but that fit to the president come out and say himself that this is disenfranchisement on a math level yes i think the president should say that i think it's important obviously the people who want to suppress the vote are going to accuse him of playing politics while they want to accuse him of what they themselves are doing but i don't think that should dissuade him from being very strong and clear on the

need for every american to be able to cast a vote of their choice without regard to party right so i could minnesota they're trying to pass a voter i.d. one on that which is what's going to be on the ballot in the fall and we're working day and night to help convince people that this thing is not necessary it's expensive and it's going to lock people out and it would be great if the leaders not just the president but a whole range of leaders get up and say this is wrong i'd like to see some republican say too because the end of the day you know there is a there is a good government element you know we have same day voter registration in minnesota we've had jesse ventura an independent when we've had republicans with jim bullets it was a republican one would say be voting history which and now we have governor dayton democrat so it really doesn't it favors whoever's going to the mobilize of the. voting is a right but i'm talking about wisconsin to where i am where there is a big loss for democrats a big loss for labor unions and

a lot of people want to blame it on the money specifically the out of state money that was coming in for scott walker's campaign but what role do you think the money really plays in elections i mean how does that mean that people are so easily influenced if their boats are bought well people are influenced the whole premise of everett sizing is that you can influence people through messaging but i believe that our superior numbers can. overcome their dollars so we've got to mobilize people i think there it is important for progressive to sit back and do a post-mortem wisconsin so that we can figure out what's learnable here i think the bunny is without a doubt a problem that's why the next week we're the progressive caucus working with progressive groups all over the country to push something called resolution a week where we're asking miscible congress to pass resolutions asking congress to overturn this. but the money is a problem but also the voter id it's a problem of wisconsin you know you have gathered there are thousands of students that are. thousands of low income people just locked out of the system and

then you know this is in the seniors too because of course seniors are the strongest opponents of you know medicare medicaid social security republicans want to dismantle them and so voter id hurts seems quite a bit many of them born at home don't have a lot of these records you need to go get these i.d.'s and if you look at the program this case is so. disenfranchised many of them are scenes that are having a very much with what the older population with young people what do you think we've had a lot of bad economic news lately to not just the u.s. it's europe as well as the rest of the world but you know you recently said when you were on the hill that you're not here to say the republicans are sabotaging the economy but a lot of people think that's the case but do you think that's the case yes. i think in that i mean i think you know a one word answers an answer right that's a good advocate is the kind of answer i want to get how we can you know we know we

can move on to the next thing that the white house is also and we're in a bit of a scandal i guess you could say over leaks and whether they've been leaking stories to the press that you can think of but information about the kill list about stuxnet and so now we have investigations that are being launched into this but this is my problem and you know something that i cover on the show all the time is from a civil libertarian person. my real big problem with the back of the president of the place that he finds off on they've decided that due process is no longer something that has to be afforded to every american so why isn't congress investigating that rather than who spoke to the press well that's a great question many of us are very concerned about these issues look just a whole drone program i mean what is the quantum of proof needed to put somebody on a kill list what number of collateral how much collateral damage is tolerable is there a review i think i miss more vocal about this that congress has the part of congress approves the funding for this and congress should make

a stink these are people's rights this is our constitution look you're right about it but here's let me just be perfectly direct you know you have a situation where you know people don't want to question the fight against terrorism people don't want their own patriotism challenge and so you have us in also you don't have americans coming back in body bags although you do have you well you don't have with soldiers you know what you have is this is what this is the problem with the whole drone thing you could strike without being struck right now you're out of the doctrine of mutually assured destruction when during the whole soviet era we we wouldn't launch a nuclear attack on them because they might luck shit on us when we talk about drones we can hit them without anybody hit right after long we're not going to be the only ones with drones for a long time we think it's going to come back to bite us here it's going to make a book come back to bite us is bite mess now when you see drones basically take out

a wedding party this this inflames people and obviously it does we'd be inflamed right and it just makes it a nice for america so i mean the fact is we've got to get a handle of this thing we don't even understand it very well quite frankly and it's time it's high time and i agree with you one hundred say that congress does need to focus and sit you make a big deal out of this go back to the high. i think you should lead the charge then right if the courts won't do it because the administration uses the state secrets privilege and says that it's national security secret then what are the power to the people have to stop and abusive executive branch but see below you've got three or four problems not up here what problem is the issue. i agree that there are certain things that a government. which has a responsibility to protect the people should probably not have in the public domain i think we over classifying information but i do believe that there is some

information that should be classified. that's one problem the other problem is you know extra judicial execution that is that you think that should be classified no i think it's one thing you know we haven't even discussed it here's what here's what you may be surprised to know somebody in my position a more junior member. i'm not in on any conversations about this issue we'll discuss this kind of stuff now you soon will want to discuss it probably i will get myself ready before i start off enough about what i'm going to do they are what i hope i go i will very passionate about it but something that you have been outspoken about is syria and you said that you know we shouldn't be sitting on our hands that we're ready to do something but how do you really see that playing out you spoke about the idea of a safe cell or has diplomacy completely failed at this point the diplomacy has this has not worked and every day this in the atrocity the assad regime is now killing you when observers so i mean i think we're in

a tragic situation and our lack of action is sort of this is is first demoralizing syrians ok and it is involving the assad regime so i think we need to do more than we're doing i'm not saying that specifically because i mean like you know you mission creep is a problem right we didn't supposedly go into libya to get rid of moammar gadhafi and look what happened. well material i think the libya policy worked out good. libya is a mess right now you have people being tortured it was a mass killing or they were living it was a mess libya left was a complete police state people were being executed jail without any recourse at least now you know a great future for libya is not guaranteed but if they are in it but libyans are in a far better position to build a better future than they were under khadafi there's no question about that you have been the libyan you know i talked to libyans i mean libyan americans every day

and there is among the libyans. there there is there's no question that talk about the need to go and but so so again you know i so looking at that way i mean i think assad needs to go but but i think it b.c. he's to go with the hands of serious syrian lisa to cure that problem but where he is slaughtering people i think the world has an obligation to protect vulnerable populations just like in srebrenica or just like in rwanda or just like in in darfur i think the world has an obligation now rescuers are nervous and i'm glad they are because of mission like i said but fear of mission should not allow us to stand by while innocent people are being slaughtered and they are well i think people are nervous too that the u.s. is going to get itself in tango and yet another military conflict which is also the last thing of this country is it clearly it's something that. it is progressing

actually that elevate the situation and everyone has their eyes on syria thank you so much for joining us you've got to wrap it up but got thank you congressman ok. our we have to get quick break but up next now the supreme court has decided not to hear the cases of seven give no inmates either haiti is right that. wealthy british style. some time to cut. markets why not come to. find out what's really happening to the global economy with mike stronger for a no holds barred look at the global financial headlines tune in to kaiser report. download the official anti obligation to go on the phone all i pod touch from the

top story. one child's life on the go. video on demand all teasing minefield costs and already says feed now in the palm of your. question on the dot com. there hasn't been a thing yet on t.v. . it is to get the maximum political impact. before the source material is what helps keep journalism on a replay. we want to present. something else.

all right so let's continue our conversation tonight about the supreme court decision not to hear seven guantanamo cases is made for the d.c. circuit court will get their way and if that's the case do these detainees have no hope of a. and where and why did president obama flip flop on this legal issue here to discuss that with me is colonel morris davis former chief prosecutor for the military commissions at guantanamo thanks so much for joining us tonight leisure so i what do you think here i think that actually today is the day where four years ago the supreme court ruled on this initially and said that these detainees are allowed to question their detainment in court and so four years later now they've decided not to hear these appeals was i mean does that mean the corpus is is dead for these detainees for all practical purposes it is if you think back four years ago right now people were enthusiastic had meaning the detainees were going to get

an opportunity to get their day in court and here we are four years later and the supreme court has refused to hear the cases median is largely irrelevant are they shirking responsibility why would they not want to hear these cases i don't know it takes four votes to hear a case and apparently they could muster four votes to hear any of these seven cases over before them you know they can retrospect apparently the detainees should have formed a political action committee or of corporations maybe the supreme court would have been interested but they're not interested in detainees right now. could one you know tell me more about the d.c. circuit court and the role that they've played here because everyone says that they are not only incredibly conservative but they've also reinterpreted the original supreme court ruling and because of that not a single detainee has actually been set free the d.c. circuit which i was involved in the military commissions act was written back in two thousand and six they were picked because they are conservative and predictable

rather than using the military appellate courts where they've largely done is maybe maybe in irrelevant you know you have the lower courts the district court then the majority of the detainees cases ordered that the detainees be released and then every one of those cases was killed at the d.c. circuit and now the supreme court refused to review it so this is all been a effort for naught for the detainees and so in that sense i mean let's talk. about some of these cases as well out of the seven that were brought up because i think that unfortunately for a lot of americans if you think of guantanamo bay they immediately. immediately think of mohammad or just say well they're terrorists they deserve to be locked up there have been a lot of people have been set free from guantanamo bay as i said earlier in the show that just happen to have been scooped up because they were at the wrong place at the wrong time and so you know what was the case that really stood out to you here i think the one that a lot of folks really had hoped for was a case called the tooth was a d.c. circuit opinion or the lower court judge the district court judge ordered him release granted haber's others one statement an intelligence statement that

summarizes information that suggests that mr. was on the afghan pakistan border potentially seeking training from al qaida but the judge found at the district court level that that statement what incredible and then amazingly the d.c. circuit said that there was a presumption of regularity that this intelligence report where you can't really test the validity or who gave the information at a presumption of regularity that the judge not relying on that statement therefore they overturn the decision of mr wood still the one ton i'm you know if you look at that same standard used in a place this kind of questionable we had three americans that were hiking in iran in the midst of a war i mean by that standard they should still be in prison so you know we're going to complain when it's done to us we shouldn't sit back and relax when we do this to other people and so that's why candor stand the obama administration's position on this. you had some choice words for for the president came through not closing guantanamo bay the last time we were here on the show but here before long

before he was the president while he was still a candidate when this first supreme court ruling was made in two thousand and eight he supported that decision and yet here his justice department is actually urging the supreme court to say no to these appeals so what happened there it's amazing that i mean like as i said back then president obama's balls fell off apparently they're not at the supreme court because they didn't show any either in the decision they made yesterday. if you look president obama's got what a forty eight percent approval rating the supreme court's got a forty four percent approval rating congress has a fifteen percent approval rating so majority of americans don't approve of any of the three branches of government yet they're the ones that are supposed to be our government of the people by the people and for the people and the people trust those three branches so it's not a an optimistic place to be in june of two thousand and twelve if you believe in liberty and civil rights you know it's not i have some words later on in the show for mr david brooks but at the basically which is blaming us today that we have no right to really be so disenchanted with our institutions here but you know if we

just want to talk about this idea of justice the idea of a bay. i mean does everything just is it a myth is it a mockery of the system of justice is the supreme court makes one decision and yet none of these people actually get to see their day in court none of them are actually released we have a lot of other people too that have been cleared for release by by military commissions and reports that i've looked at this why aren't they calling home that's what i'm really disappointed president obama who i campaigned for in two thousand and eight because he should be using the bully pulpit to educate the american public i mean you mentioned a majority of the detainees at guantanamo eighty seven of the hundred sixty nine men that are there are men that have been cleared for release or transfer that we are government your d u d d c everybody has looked at and said they didn't commit a crime we're not going to charge them they're not a threat to us and we don't want to keep them yet they're in prison and some of been there for more than a decade solely because of their citizenship i would hope that if an american citizen was incarcerated for a decade because he was an american citizen our government would be upset about

that best exactly what we're condoning it one time because you know since you bring that up too there was one other thing that was being discussed yesterday in a separate case in terms of an american citizen which is jose padilla and said can you give us the update in terms of what happened there. has there are two separate cases there's the criminal case against him which is still in the appellate pipeline. this case involved his following a lawsuit against donald rumsfeld and others for his abuse while he was in u.s. custody he was seeking one dollar in damages it was really just the principle that an american citizen could be fruen and indefinite detention abused and tortured and he wanted to vindicate their principle there are a number of us that submitted for him to the court briefs a number of retired senior military officers who said look we're not saying who's a pretty is innocent but an american citizen ought to have his day in court and he's alleging that government officials abused him in the supreme court refused to hear. so i guess torture doesn't matter even what it's done to american citizens on

american soil any more than there thanks so much for joining us tonight a pleasure. also to come tonight we have ceiling fell and then in that regulation and so out of control that some people out there are calling for an internet bill of rights. you know sometimes you see a story and it seems so you think you understand it and then you glimpse something else you hear or see some other part of it and realized everything you thought you don't know i'm sorry it was a big.