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tv   [untitled]    June 26, 2012 2:00pm-2:30pm EDT

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the un's peacekeeping chief says they'll be no resumption of the observer mission in syria this is nato condemns damascus for shooting down a turkish fighter jet stopping short of naming it an attack against its members lead a lot of airborne calls for a diplomatic resolution on a nuclear iran but says tehran should still prove its ambitions are peaceful russia's president was speaking on the last leg of his middle east tour. arab spring countries shouldn't return could be turning to militant training ground yuki's top spy warns of a new terror threat. yellow to show is next stay with us. welcome
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to the a loaner so we'll get the real headlines with none of the mersey we're coming live out of washington d.c. i'm christine building in for alona well she takes a well and well deserved time off so they on the show will take a closer look at some of the rulings issued by the supreme court today arizona's immigration law as b ten seventy was decided upon and betting on what you read or where you watch it was either up held or gutted we'll break it all down plus the bradley manning case continues and his defense is making it clear the government is doing everything in its power to prevent the accused wiki leak or of receiving a fair trial i'll have all that and more for you tonight including a dose of happy hour but first let's take a look at what the mainstream media decided to miss.
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so it's monday funday here in washington and just like last week the outside of the supreme court looked more like a circus as the fourth estate waited with bated breath for the ruling on the affordable care act known to many as obamacare the excruciating waiting game may almost be over any minute we could get a major decision from the supreme court on health care or immigration to nine justices to landmark decision starting in an hour the supreme court could release its ruling on the sweeping health care law and we are awaiting a supreme court ruling on the constitutionality of the president's health care overhaul the supreme court this week on the president's signature legislative achievement the twenty seven health care law the u.s. supreme court could be just minutes away from issuing some of its most important decisions in decades and of course president obama's health care law they are still yet to be rendered at issue whether the government can force you to buy health insurance and the big question we'll we get answers are two high profile cases that
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could affect millions and millions of americans come november we may very well look back on this week as the five days. on the illinois supreme decisions on health care and immigration. all right many of those media outlets soon found out there was no ruling on health care at least not today what the court did rule on was arizona's controversial law on immigration s.b. ten seventy signed into law in two thousand and ten by governor jan brewer and challenged by president obama and the law was called by some the show me your papers law and essentially required state law enforcement to assist federal law enforcement in cracking down on those who are in the united states and more specifically in arizona illegally so if police suspected someone was undocumented they were to arrest them it required police to check the immigration status of anyone they have already detained or arrested if they have reasonable suspicion that the person is in the country illegally and made it a crime also for undocumented immigrants to do a couple of things apply for
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a job or be in the state without proper documents so three out of four of those provisions were struck down the immigration status check once a person is arrested being the only part upheld well as you can imagine this ruling was spun every which way depending on the media outlet. breaking news from the u.s. supreme court which is just struck down three out of four provisions in the arizona immigration law stand there has been a decision five three in favor of the u.s. government decision him down by the supreme is about twenty minutes ago upholds the quote show me your papers provision for the moment what the supreme court said is that most of the law that was challenge here is unconstitutional so this is a victory for the obama administration the court has ruled parts of arizona's controversial immigration law s.b. ten seventy are unconstitutional before provisions the court looked at s b ten seventy arizona's tough illegal immigration law one stands politically this is the
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probably the worst of all outcomes if you're mitt romney the justices just upheld a key part of arizona's tough immigration law that requires police to check the immigration status of somebody they suspect might be here illegally the justices striking down three provisions supreme court ruling on arizona's tough immigration law the court struck down three key provisions of the law it's basically a win for the federal government here. all right now this is an important ruling i'll give you that and it's important news but several other cases were also ruled on today and you barely heard a peep about them first the high court overruled the state of montana supreme court ruling that the state's distinct history and political landscape made it so that state did not have to abide by the two thousand and ten citizens united case decided by the u.s. supreme court now that case of course made it so the government cannot restrict political expenditures by corporations and unions montana's high court said that
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doesn't work for us but guess what today the supreme court said sorry you're going to follow our rules this was a century old law in montana and with today's ruling any state that wishes to challenge citizens united at least for now is silenced and no matter where you live or what what. will be voting for an upcoming elections whether president mayor or even school board president there will no longer be any limits on the financing of those campaigns opponents of the citizens united case hopes the montana case would give the supreme court an opportunity to come to its senses to reopen a case they say has been detrimental to democracy about alas that won't be happening another ruling also came down and we'll be talking about it a little later in the show much more in depth and that is that states may no longer impose mandatory life sentences without parole on juveniles no matter what crime they may have committed or they may have been convicted in taking part in so the mainstream media will give
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a wall to wall coverage on arizona's immigration law and on thursday we do expect they'll do the same when the ruling on health care comes down as for these other rulings which albeit are a little less sexy but impact every state in this country these are the issues the mainstream media has decided to miss. all right it's monday and there's want to talk about to talk about today as we just mentioned it was a big day when it comes to all of us getting a better understanding of what holds water and what doesn't when it comes to the laws of the land and in particular how they're defined by our nation's highest court today the supreme court struck down a three out of four parts of arizona's immigration law s.b. ten seventy and as we just showed you a few minutes ago various media outlets interpreted the ruling in various ways but we want to delve a little bit deeper into into this then than just the sound bites so grab your pain
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pills because our monday hangover panel is here to hash it all out. particularly. when. all right joining me is eleanor pelzer the president of the american immigration lawyers association and michael dorf a professor at cornell university law school. all right guys thanks so much for being on the so a lot of different angles to talk about eleanor let me start with you i just want to get your take on today's ruling and how it impacts immigration policy in this country looking ahead well we think that it's a broad and positive ruling in terms of. its strong language on the predominance of the federal government and its role in immigration policy it basically says that the federal government has intended to occupy this field and that the state governments with their laws cannot encroach on the federal
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government's right to set immigration policy and so in that respect it's a very strong decision and with respect to the one provision that was allowed to remain standing i think that it was allowed to remain standing on fairly narrow grounds that it didn't directly conflict that there was a congressional interest in the sharing of information between states and congress about immigration status and that the court was going to leave the door open to some challenges. regarding how the law would be applied in specific factual circumstances and just like we saw the different media outlets sort of spinning this a different way we also saw people closely involved in putting together this law also sort of spinning it we did hear from governor jan brewer later in the afternoon and i want to play just a part of what she said for a moment. the day is
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a day when the key components of our efforts to protect the citizens of arizona to take up the fight against illegal immigration in a balanced in constitutional way has unanimously been vindicated by the highest court in the land. so michael i want to go to you i know you have written about this extensively and one of the things you wrote about today in response to the ruling was sort of about the constitutionality of this and also the like the opinion said on the role of congress and the role of states give me the nuts and bolts of your take. so the the basic premise here is the supremacy clause of the constitution says that when federal law and state law conflict federal law prevails and everybody accepts that so in some sense this case was only ever about what did congress intend to congress intend for states to be invited in to add their own force that measures or did congress intend for it to be just congress
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here or just the federal government or something in between now the answer we get is something in between but very close to exclusive federal authority here i think governor brewer there was engaged in either creative spinning or she didn't read the opinion because three of the provisions are upheld charges are struck down as clearly preempted by federal law the one that there is some controversy over section two b. which is the one that requires arizona enforcement officers to ascertain using reasonable efforts whether someone who has been stopped on reasonable suspicion of being an undocumented immigrant is in fact lawfully present that one provision was upheld but only because the supreme court said the challenge to that provision was premature given that the state courts hadn't yet had an opportunity to construe it
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so i read this as almost a slam dunk for the obama administration which is quite surprising given the tone of the oral argument during the oral argument it looked like it could have gone very differently for the administration well as we know sometimes the tone of the our oral argument doesn't always coincide directly sometimes these justices spend so much time poring over some of the legal documents associated with the case i want to talk to you and i know we've had you on the cell before talking about other similar laws around the country arizona certainly the most famous one but alabama for. ample has another law that's even more strict that law punish is not only not only employers who hire undocumented immigrants but employers or people who assist them for example giving them transportation talk about today's ruling and how it impacts sort of these other states laws well i think that there are certain specific provisions of the alabama law that are essentially nala fied by this decision and there are other provisions that i think will very easily be challenged
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and struck down. so i think that. those who support and try to replicate in different states these state laws with respect to immigration really ought to be studying this case rather carefully and states that are looking to kind of let these people into the their legislatures and let let them convince them to pass laws like this ought to be thinking twice too because it's a very costly to take a case like this and defend a law like this all the way up to the supreme court and arizona isn't done yet there is going to be a challenge to the stop and show me your papers provision as applied and it may go well go back up to the supreme court in arizona is going to have to deal with that as well so you states ought to be thinking about what this decision means and
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whether they really ought to spend their time and money more wisely on other kinds of of legislation and let the federal government deal with immigration as it should and as we know there are so many specifics regarding this case but i want to take this out and broaden it a little bit and michael i know you recently wrote an article called the supreme leader political court it turns out many americans believe that the supreme court decides cases not just through legal analysis i mean we're talking about human beings nine human beings who have you know they're educated they have opinions they have personal opinions talk about what else is at play here especially here we are in two thousand and twelve with today's supreme court. so it's no secret that the court is as you say composed of human beings political scientists and lawyers and law professors have known for decades that the court is influenced by things other than narrow legal arguments and the legal system has more or less made its peace
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with that fact the part of our government that hasn't really made its peace with that is the confirmation process so every few years when there is a nominee to the supreme court that nominee has to go up there and say no i'm just going to apply the law i'm not going to be influenced by my personal background by anything i may have read in the newspaper by my spouse's political activities anything like that at all i'm just going to narrow my block put on blinders and democratic as well as republican nominees say this because they think that the public believes this but this relatively new new york times c.b.s. poll found that actually the overwhelming majority of americans understand that there is a place for politics and values to enter into the court's decisions they didn't say that they approve of that but on the other hand they more people approve of the court job than approve than disapprove and that suggests that people are relatively
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comfortable with that role now does that mean you can reduce any particular case to politics of course not right here in this particular case the majority consists of democratic appointees as well as q justice roberts and justice kennedy who is they were both republican appointees of the place where you may see some political influence in the arizona case as in justice scalia's partial dissent in which he extraordinarily brings in and he did this and when he was reading from the bench today as well he brings in the recent decision by the obama administration to withhold deportation proceedings against children or were illegally present but came here. or with their parents when they were young as if this is somehow relevant to the case now it's true it could it's politically relevant but it's hard to see the legal relevance of that particular fact and so i think that's a case of a particular justice. letting is views on policy go
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a little bit too far nobody do noise these days that people's values are going to enter into the way they make these decisions that question is when they're actually deciding cases can they at least put that out of their conscious minds and i think the majority did pretty good job of that i think also that justice thomas and justice alito who wrote separate opinions did that as well in the case of justice scalia today you saw that you saw the votes of politics entering directly and that's a bit ironic because he's often held up as an example of somebody held up by the right as an example of somebody who is highly principled and you know i think the principle is something other than a legal principle and really quick we're almost out of time in our just wanted you to add to that a little bit in terms of this recent announcement by obama by the president a new change to his immigration policy something a lot of people in this country have been waiting to hear for a long time does this case impact that decision does it i mean how do you think if this all plays together well i don't think this case specifically impacts that
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decision but that decision was a proper exercise of the administration's authority it's something that. the executive branch has done in the past there are other examples of granting us special deferred action to different groups who were worthy of that and i think to the extent that this decision today confirms that the power to control immigration rests you know within the federal government it kind of both genders what obama did but there's no specific direct relationship i will say it's been a great couple of weeks for the immigration bar and we would we consider both. these developments incredibly positive well certainly something a lot of people have been waiting on some would even say for four years thank you both for joining me a really interesting discussion eleanor pelter president of the in the american immigration lawyers association and michael door for a professor at cornell university law school thanks guys. thank you. all right
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we've got to take a quick break but out next we'll talk about another scotus rolling and talk about how two of the high court's rulings might have implications for the private prison industry. with. technology innovation all the developments around russia we've got the future covered.
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let's talk now about another ruling by the supreme court one that was pretty contentious it seems the supreme court ruled that states may not impose mandatory life sentences without parole on juveniles even if they have been convicted of taking part in a murder it was a five to four decision and those in the majority said this type of sentencing for those under eighteen years old violated the eighth amendment ban on cruel and unusual punishment now we should be clear here a life imprisonment without parole sentencing of juveniles is still possible in individual circumstances but no longer can state laws automatically impose these sentences this case and this ruling both the majority and the dissent is worth taking a look at and talking about for a number reasons joining me now is an iq is foreign co-host of the young turks we are having a little bit of problems with anna's audio so we will come back to this really interesting ruling but for now all eyes have been on egypt since its revolution
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catapulted the arab spring movement and there's been a bloody battle in the country ever since in a tight election muslim brotherhood candidate mohamed morsi was declared egypt's first freely elected president over the weekend artie's marina looks at how the leadership in egypt could mean a delicate diplomacy to dance for washington. egypt's revolution began with tens of thousands into here square and it became a success shortly after washington sided with the anti-government opposition by stepping down presumably responding to the egyptian people's hunger for change america's indorsement of change has paved the way for the muslim brotherhood one of the world's largest islamist movements to become egypt's strongest political force their candidate mohamed morsi just won the presidential race morsi has reportedly called for a constitution that is based on the koran and sharia law in the case of egypt we're taking a piece of the board that was one of our pieces this is what the internet was one
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of the strongest american assets in the middle east and for many years we've removed that piece and brought in some people who i do not think will be friendly to us. in this video film last month and egyptian cleric rally support for the brotherhood's presidential candidate so that there can know. and we are yet to hear that. is that. really shallow the muslim brotherhood has many different factions many different elements they are a political organization but they also have ties to terrorism they're also directly intertwined with what's going on in syria according to the new york times cia officers secretly stationed in turkey are currently working with syria's muslim brotherhood to smuggle automatic rifles grenades and ammunition into the country it
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didn't work out in afghanistan i don't want to see me you know it would be. oh it's not going to work out. his bike you know sort of have you been here. we go is the syrian opposition seen here waving al-qaeda flanks has received public support from the terrorist network and created what some call a defacto alliance between america and its number one enemy. critics saying america's campaign for regime change comes with the consequence of empowering more radical and extreme leaders in the arab world let's not forget that assad and his government is a secular government just as khadafi is government was a secular government if you get rid of that and you create the power vacuum al qaeda or another force that is as organized and as strong will take its place continued political instability in cairo has raised questions about the so-called success attributed to the arab spring governments in egypt and libya were toppled
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with a u.s. stamp of approval but with new regimes leaning towards extreme islam many believe america could eventually find itself in a circumstance it hardly ever wanted very important i.r.t. new york. all right now before this report on egypt's new ruling party we told you about another ruling by the u.s. supreme court that found that states could no longer impose mandatory life sentences without parole for juveniles and we had a little audio problem but we're happy to say and a co-host of the young turks is with us and let's talk a little bit about today's ruling on one hand of course of victory for human rights advocates but i think we need to point out that the united states was the only country the only civilized country that had such harsh penalties to begin with for juveniles talk a little bit about all of this well if we have a ridiculous prison system here in the united states in fact louisiana the state of
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louisiana is the prison capital of the world and part of the reason for that is because we have this emergence of for profit prisons that work with organizations such as alec to pass these tough on crime laws so they also work with states like arizona to pass and. immigration laws like s.b. ten seventy so we are living in a country where we no longer focus on recidivism we no longer focus on rehabilitating these inmates we just focus on keeping them in jail as long as possible so companies like for profit prisons can profit from it so it's a really big issue here and i was actually pretty surprised with the supreme court's ruling on this juvenile issue i really didn't think that they would. rule against it but i am happy that they did however keep in mind that we still have citizens united in place which means for profit prisons to continue contributing large loads of money to our legislators and i know i know what do you say that both
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of both of today's rulings both the one on juvenile. sentencing and the one on immigration was sort of bad for the private prison industry. you know if you really take a look at their and my immigration stance in arizona you'll see that ok they struck down three key parts of that legislation but they're still in favor of having police enforcement check the immigration status of these individuals when they're forcing other laws so in reality it didn't really do much to change the immigration legislation in arizona so it isn't that big of a deal for for profit prisons but i would argue that for profit colleges and juvenile detention centers are in favor of locking up these kids for as long as possible and if they can get these kids life sentence life sentences without the chance of parole they would very much be in favor of that they make so much money off of that especially since these children are healthy they aren't going to cost
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these for profit prisons much money when it comes to health care so it is something that is negative for the for profit prison system i'm surprised that they passed that or the supreme court rules against these sentences but we'll see what happens in the future i don't think that it would be unheard of for a different supreme court to come out in favor of what the for profit prisons would want and as i mentioned before this still leaves the door open for individual cases do you think that it's just going to be one of those things that the individual cases are then prosecuted more specifically post this ruling. i wouldn't be surprised you know i always go back to the case of judge mark ciavarella and he was basically getting paid under the table by these for profit juvenile detention centers to sentence these kids from high schools and middle schools to these ridiculous jail sentences because they would bring like paprika to school i mean that case was so egregious and i wouldn't be surprised to see cases like that more
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often especially when it comes to murder but you know the supreme court in this particular ruling was absolutely correct you cannot imprison teenagers for something that they've done when they were young i mean you have to give these people a chance or these kids a chance to change their lives you know an incredible statistic that i was reading about today there are about twenty five hundred people in prison right now for murder that they committed when they were under the age of eighteen and about seventy nine percent of that seventy nine percent of those prisoners actually committed the crime when they were under the age of fourteen wow so is it really fair to put these people in prison for the rest of their lives for a horrible thing that they did when they were teenagers we need to give them a chance to change their lives you know give them the chance to. do good in society but we don't believe in that anymore we don't use our prison system to rehabilitate people so that's
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a real problem especially when these kids are putting put and being put in jail for life without the chance of parole. and co-host of the young turks always good to have you on the show sorry we lost your audio there a little bit have a good day thanks so much thank you. time now for another break but up next it looks like there might actually be checks and balances when it comes to the u.s. drone program and the pretrial hearings of bradley manning's case continue with the prosecution lying to the judge we'll talk to kevin costner. the the in .

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