passes paul ryan's 2013 budget plan. >> i applaud my colleagues for the tough decisions they have made to try to do the right thing for the country. >> the problem is we already now how this story will end. zero democrats voted for this budget which means it's dead on arrival in the senate. democrats say it ends medicare as we know it. as for the president's budget, it's a no-go too. it's a campaign document that raises taxes and doesn't rein in spending. here's the bottom line. america hasn't had a budget in 1,065 days. both sides say this is a tragedy but instead of compromising or embracing the revenue raising and the blueprint of the gang of six or the simpson-bowles commission, both sides put their own budgets out knowing full well they won't pass. the blame, they say, goes to the other side of the aisle. >> we don't think that the president's led on this issue by virtue he's given us four budgets with literally no proposal to prevent a debt crisis, to get this debt under control. >> this tea party republican budget that passed today is going to prevent students from going to college, that's clear, force seniors to decide between food and medicine and it's going to increase unemployment in the construction sector. that all happened today. >> i had a small glimmer of hope today when i heard that nancy pelosi had changed her mind about simpson-bowles. back when the commission's proposal came out she called it, quote, simply unacceptable in a press release. today she said she's on board with it. and i thought she was going to flip-flop the way politicians sometimes should. you admit you were wrong or you changed your mind, you step up and embrace that and you say it's best for the country. but no, the way she did it, she pretended she always liked simpson-bowl sglez as to what was in simpson-bowles, as i said, i felt fully ready to vote for that myself. >> there's a reason for all the stuttering and stammering there. by the way, she still voted against the bill based on simpson-bowles yesterday. sand box politics continue and one man who knows the san sandbox so well he's leaving washington at the end of his term because of it is the senate budget committee chairman, kent conrad of north dakota. i asked him if paul ryan's budget was dead on arrival in the senate. >> the budget that has passed the house is not a governing document, it's a political document and an ideological document. you know, it's a very curious thing because what it says is even though we have massive deficits and debt, the first thing we're going to do is cut taxes further on the wealthiest among us. not only extend permanently all the tax cuts from the bush administration, but add $200 billion more in tax cuts directed at the very wealthiest among us. that's really not a path to a balanced plan. >> it's interesting you say it's an ideological and political document. here's what he had to say about you and senate democrats overall. he took to twitter. paul ryan, and he said, quote, on the 1,065th day that@senate dems failed to pass a budget, the house met its legal and moral obligations. what is your response to the people responsible for putting out the democrats budget. >> he must not read the legislation he votes on because last year we passed not a budget resolution, but a budget law called the budget control act. the budget control act included the budget for the current year and next year. >> but most americans will say, look, we're supposed to have this done in the spring. we're supposed to have compromise. we're supposed to have a real budget and not have to rely on gimmicks or control acts or things like that, right? it's frustration. >> whoa, whoa, whoa, wait a minute, wait a minute. the control act is not a gimmick. the control act is the law of the land. it cut $900 billion of spending over the next ten years. >> it seems, though, that part of the problem here is, and i know you're saying that's law and that passed, but we're not getting a real budget because the two sides can't agree, which brings me to you and the gang of six. you are a leader there, you were the person that put forth simpson-bowles. you had $4.6 trillion of cuts in the gang of six. is there any way to push that again? >> the question is the longer term. and that's why i think bowles-simpson has some value and what the work of the group of six has such value because it would save over $4 trillion on our deficit and debt over the next ten years. and it's a longer term plan. that's what we really need. and right now the two sides are so far apart that there seems to be an unwillingness to come to the center. >> is there a chance that we can get some sort of a grand bargain, though? i know you try hard and you end up with these continuing budgets. but is there a chance we could get something real, something long term, something that tackles all these things? i mean you're leaving your job, right, because you said, at least my understanding is, the best way to serve your country and reduce the national debt, well, you're leaving the senate. so it seems like you're saying the best way to do that is not to be in the senate, not to be the chairman of the committee charged with setting up a budget. >> look, i can't make my colleagues drink. i can bring the horse to the water, i can't make them drink. and i'll have served 26 years, less than 5% of senators in history have served that long. i've done my level best to convince my colleagues. we have laid out a plan. i'm hopeful that before this year is over, i know it's not going to happen before the election, but i am hopeful that before this year is over that when congress is staring in the face the expiration of all the tax cuts and staring in the face the sequester that will cut over a trillion dollars out of defense and nondefense, that people will say now is the time, now is the time to have a long-term plan that really gets the country back on track. >> okay. if this all sounds like deja vu to you, you're not alone. remember last summer when there was a grand bargain debt deal in the works between the president and house speaker john boehner? they were going to do something big for the country? we all know what happened. it went down in fiery, fiery, fiery flames and "the new york times" magazine's chief political writer came out with a whopper of an article this week. really, really, you've got to read it, detailing all the secret negotiations, all the e-mails, subterfuge and the hope. lessons we learned from that superfail could help us on the road ahead. matt bye and john avalon is also here. let me start with you, john. there's something to me that is just unbelievable about the fact that the guy in charge of putting a budget out in the senate says he wants his legacy to be dealing with this fiscal crisis and the way to do it is to leave the senate and leave that job. >> that's right. that's how frustrated, that's how much of an impasse they're at. the responsible actors are leaving because we see over and over again this inability to compromise. everyone says there's 80% agreement and yet we get zero progress. today bowles-simpson got put back forward to a bill late last night. only 38 members of the house voted for it. >> and you have nancy pelosi, unbelievable i was there but then i was there but then i was that. >> this is profiles and cowardice, day after day they prove they deserve to have the lowest approval ratings in congressional history. they talk about the deficit, demagogue about the deficit and refuse to deal with it. it's disgusting. >> matt, you did an incredible piece of journalism. it is long and it is worth it. you wrote if we understand what really went on last july, we'll have a better sense of how difficult it will be for the two parties to stave off the coming political calamity and why too the situation may not be quite as hopeless as it seems. let's start with that, not quite as hopeless as it seems. give us some hope. >> i'm an optimist, erin. thank you for the kind words about the piece, i appreciate it. you know, if you read the piece, what you have to come away with and what i came away with is we have two principals here who were very, very committed to getting something done if they could find agreement. the president obviously had reason to do this and speaker, i think, i really feel certain was willing to risk his speakership and in fact, you know, he has said for all these months that once the president asks for more revenue, he had no choice but to walk away. we now know that isn't true. what i found out is actually that the speaker was interested in actually trying to find a way to meet the president at that higher revenue figure. he contemplated a higher offer and it was eric cantor speaking presumably for the house leadership who said we can't get this done and can't get it through the caucus. so you do have two guys who may well be in office at the end of the year who have a real commitment to get this done. they came about 80% of the way toward getting an agreement. there are significant on stacbs that remain. >> it's interesting reading your article and at one point john boehner was taking way too long to return the president's phone calls but they seem to have gotten over it. i only say that because of something that happened this week. when the president spoke on the open mic, it was john boehner who said leave him alone, he's overseas. i wonder if there's something we can read into that into their willingness to work together. >> john boehner is old school in the best sense. he's back in that tradition when people made deals in congress. the last thing he'd want is an open mic any time he was negotiating anything. the problem is if you listen to kent conrad carefully, members of congress are essentially kicking the can till after the election. they are saying maybe something will get done in the lame duck. the only thing they're responding to is the prospect of political pain. they're not week driven by what's best for the country or even what they know is in the best interests of the country. it's all partisan politics and the inmates are running the asylum. >> kent conrad says maybe at the end of the year that we could do a grand bargain. i want to be optimistic too. but given what they did with the payroll tax extension at the end of last year, do you think it's reasonable that we could hope for a grand bargain? >> well, i think it's reasonable. i don't know that it's incredibly likely. but there's a potential to have the president re-elected looking at maybe an 18-month window to solidify his legacy before the midterms and then another presidential campaign. the speaker with perhaps a slightly altered kaw cuss. we should not make the mistake of thinking that this has to be the only way to get out of this is a big transformative deal that radically alters the fiscal picture of the country. if you look actually at what the president and the speaker had agreed upon, despite their disagreements, in those talks last summer, what you find is that there is a real basis for incremental change, for a series of areas they can agree on that would actually take a first significant step toward putting the country on a different fiscal trajectory and a trajectory that fostered inquality to a lesser degree. and i think that's probably more likely and more doable than talking about something like simpson-bowles which would be presumably much more radical. >> let's leave it as a glass -- even a quarterful and that left me feeling better. thanks to matt and john. outfront next, the latest in the case of the soldier accused of murdering 17 afghan civilians. how his attorney plans to spare bales the death penalty. and we have new information about the pilot who was restrained during that jetblue flight this week and how pilots are dealing with depression. a lot of them have it. plus tony robbins talking about a way to get out of depression and stop feeling upset about the debt. he's outfront. you'd spot movement, gather intelligence with minimal collateral damage. but rather than neutralizing enemies in their sleep, you'd be targeting stocks to trade. well, that's what trade architect's heat maps do. they make you a trading assassin. trade architect. td ameritrade's empowering, web-based trading platform. trade commission-free for 60 days, and we'll throw in up to $600 when you open an account. trade commission-free for 60 days, we want to protect the house. right. but... home security systems can be really expensive. to save money, we actually just adopted a rescue panther. i think i'm goin-... shhh! we find that we don't need to sleep that much. there's an easier way to save. geico. fifteen minutes could save you fifteen percent or more. and then treats day after day... well, shoot, that's like checking on your burgers after they're burnt! 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here's what we know tonight. the u.s. military has not been back to the crime scene. they have not gathered dna evidence. but there is blood evidence on bales' clothing according to u.s. personnel. evidence has been collected by afghan investigators. u.s. officials also say that sergeant bales left the base and returned to tell fellow soldiers he had killed afghan men before he went out to kill a second time. bales' attorney, john henry brown, told me yesterday he had not confirmed those allegations, but if true, they would hurt his case. >> as far as this comment about -- >> they told people on the base. he told people on the base i shot -- >> he shot bad guys or something? >> i shot afghan men of military age. >> if the military prosecutors have said that, then it would be something i'd be very concerned about, but i have not heard that from anything other than unattributed sources. >> it seemed clear to me that brown is not counting on that remaining the case. he's moving ahead with the defense that he hopes explains why his client allegedly killed the civilians. brown told me ptsd is definitely an issue, but he's also looking at certain medications. he expects to have sergeant bales' medical records in hand in a few weeks. now, specifically we talked about the anti-malaria drug larium. >> i've never had a case involving it but i've been reading about it a lot and it certainly could be a factor if he was taking it. keep in mind, this is a man who everybody, even his commanders, said nothing but good things about him. you know, all the people that worked with him say nothing but good things about him. in a good way. that he was a good father, he was a good husband, he was a good soldier. so that's pretty interesting. >> but is larium a valid defense for someone accused of murdering 17 people? dr. ritchie is a forensic psychologist who investigated the effects of larium on american soldiers during a case where four servicemen inexplicably murdered their wives. doctor, i appreciate you taking the time. i want to talk to you about the case of william wright. i was reading about this this week. special forces soldier in afghanistan, of course sergeant bales was in special opes in afghanistan. wright killed his wife, buried her in the woods and ended up killing himself. do you see some similarities in these cases? >> i do. and, first of all, you should know that -- first of all, you should know that larium has had a long history of being associated with neuropsychiatric side effects. however, it's really only the last ten years since the ft. bragg cases that we've realized how significant those side effects are, and the military has actually made a number of attempts to stop or reduce the use of larium in afghanistan. but, yes, i was a member of the team that looked at the ft. bragg murder-suicides, and there are some disturbing similarities. >> it seemed also that, you know, we just heard john henry brown talking about sergeant bales saying that in the military at least, everyone had only good things to say about him as a husband, as a father, as a colleague, which sounds a lot like what you heard about william wright who then proceeded to do something truly horrific. >> that's absolutely true. sergeant first class wright was described in very, very positive terms. one of the things that didn't really make sense was the brutality of the crime and that he would do it. having said that, when we looked at all the cases, these were cases of marital infidelity, there was a lot of stress on the soldiers. they were going back and forth to afghanistan. but after the crime, and this i have secondhand, not firsthand, but wright's lawyer described him as being out of it, as not really seeming to know what was going on and to seem confused. he apparently said he thought there was a mouse in the dog bowl. he was pretty incoherent. now, this is secondhand, but again there's enough disturbing similarities that made me wonder. and i first posted this in a blog over a week ago. could the explanation be that sergeant bales was on larium. now, i don't know that he was, but i think it's something we really have to consider. >> now, the medical records, are you surprised why the d.o.d. hasn't released them? i would think that would be pretty easy for them to do. what else should we be looking at there? i'm particularly interested in steroids. >> first of all, it is measurable in the blood and measurable for a long time. it also can be found in the feces so there should have been a blood or other screen for it. sometimes the medical records reveal things and sometimes they don't, especially if someone is stationed in a remote outpost and might have gotten the medications locally. >> or something like steroids, which they're not supposed to be taking. >> or something like steroids. but i'll tell you, this to me is more than steroids. steroids can cause problems, no question. you've heard of roid rage. but to have go out and unprovoked gun down men, women and children and then walk back to the base, it just doesn't make sense. usually if there's a steroid rage, someone is angry at their wife or their brother and that's where the rage is. but this seems consistent with delusions, with hallucinations, with psychotic thinking. now, i wasn't there so it's speculation, but i wouldn't be at all surprised if lariam was not the source of some of this. >> dr. ritchie, thank you very much. we appreciate it. new details tonight about the jetblue pilot whose midair meltdown caused the emergency landing. we are ju