after five days, one knock-knock jokes, 22 witnesses and hours of a contentious back and forth, it was testimony of the state s key witness that has sparked a national conversation. one i personally believe we need to have about race, class and equality. rachel jeantel. here s some sound from this week in court. pumps. these [ bleep ] holes always get away. knock-knock, who is there? you can can go. you can go. the persons on top in a mounted position. you don t think that creepy [ bleep ] is a racial comment? no. let s bring in our guest, jeff has covered the george zimmerman case from the very beginning for the orlando sentinel. and rich benjamin is a senior fellow at dimos.
country throughout america. the reality is what scientific studies show is that there s no actual single profile of a terrorist, just like all human behavior, violent conduct can result from a variety of factors, such as personal circumstances, external environmental factors, and yes, ideology might play a role, but this idea that somehow the muslim faith equates to terrorism is completely wrong. there s a scientific study that people should really look at. it s done by a think tank out of the united kingdom called dimos. what it found was that people who actually committed violence had a simple shallow understanding of islam, while people who actually had beliefs that people associate with violence rejected violence against civilians, and really were people who we should all look to to be a part of our
confusion and many unanswered questions. joining me today here in new york city, nbc news capitol hill correspondent luke russert, and misterrorism expert michael leiter, and bob herbert, a distinguished senior fellow at dimos. let s go to kristin welker for more. reporter: alex, good afternoon. here s what we know at this hour. this letter was received yesterday at an off-site mail facility. i want to emphasize that. it did not get close to the white house. it s typical for letters sent to this facility to undergo a screening. during that process, it was discovered that a letter addressed to president obama did contain a suspicious substance action as you mentioned, similar to the letter that was sent to senator wicker. so right now secret service is working in concert with the fbi, with the capitol police, to determine exactly who sent this
imagine amendments favored by gun rights advocates than amendments on things like renewing the assault weapons ban or limiting or outright banning high-capacity magazines. even if the senate imagines to emerge from the debacle with a solid bill, the bill must still pass in the house. surprising exactly no one, speaker john boehner didn t seem exactly eager to take up the legislation. i fully expect that the house will act. in some way, shape or form. but to make a blanket commitment without knowing what, what the underlying bill is, i think would be irresponsible on my part. joining me today, washington bureau chief at the the huffington post, ryan grimm, vanessa is a contributor at new york magazine, and bob herbert at dimos and ben smith from buzz feed is here.
are trying to be clever about how they re doing this. but it prolongs the cuts from happening. what you see are a lot of social programs getting hit hard. one of them that s getting hit the hardest is head start. head start gets hit the hardest because they don t operate during the summer. they have to make their cuts no. you see the low-income families having to cope with the fact that their child won t get coverage. they have to spring for baby sitting or child care services with money they don t have. or take off work so they can watch their child themselves and head start provides nutritional assistance for these kids as well. they have to account for that you re starting to see a drip, drip of the stories and starting to see a cumulative effect of political pressure that s building up. but nothing is getting debated in congress with respect to a replacement. heather, we talk a lot about the struggles of the poor and the working class and dimos, you guys do great research on this