>> yeah. you know, i didn't have time to get that together. i was busy. it's going to be all kanye for me today. we had to use the clean version obviously because this is a family show. welcome, everybody. our panelist this morning. mark lamont hill is back, professor at columbia university. and livingston is back as well. conservative commentator and the daughter of governor -- oh, my gosh, the long island just came out here. the daughter of governor huntsman. you are on long high eye laisla. and will cain is here. "starting point" this morning is details about this u.s. army soldier who is accused of killing 16 afghan civilians as afghan president karzai has been meeting with the family members of those victims. senior u.s. official said he just snapped. a k06r7 nation of stress, alcohol, and marital problems. now, that's according to a u.s. military official. the shooter now has a lawyer and he is contesting some of those things. the lawyer, by the way, is this renowned seattle defense attorney, john henry brown. brown says the suspect is a highly decorated soldier. should never return to combat after injured twice on three tours in iraq. suffered a traumatic brain injury, which we talked about earlier in the week. also apparently he lost a part of his foot as well. and then as we mentioned a friend was gravely wounded a day before the massacre. that could be the first hint at a possible motive. john henry brown announced that he wants his public to know about his client and this is what he said. >> tragedy all of the way around. no question about that. i think it's of interest that we had a soldier who has an exemplary record, decorated soldier who was injured in iraq, to his brain and to his body, and then despite that setback, i think that's an issue. i think that's a concern. i think the message for the public in general is is he's one of our boys, they need to treat him fairly. >> you get a sense from how he's going to be approaching his defense of his client. i believe he also represented ted bundy and i believe he also represented the barefoot bandit who was that kid who, you know, steal planes and things like that. interesting background. i don't know too much about military trials. it will be interesting to learn a lot as we go through this. a couple of things that stick out to me is trying to create the mindset of the soldier. he said he was injured before. he says marital spobs is what the u.s. military is spaying and problems after being deployed. that's going to be a big strategy for them, multiple deployments. >> how the incident reflects on the war at large. it will note at who sat fault here, the trial aspect. have two different sides essentially. this guy and his lawyer's side will be this is a product of four deployments to iraq and afghanistan, the product of the war and of this injury that he apparently suffered to his head at some point in his deployment. versus the military. you can see this in our quotes, you will talk about his personal issues. supposedly drinking the night it happened, that he had marital problems. it will be set up that he is a deviant. he is an aberration. these are the stories your hear. aberration, product at large. >> when you send someone on four deployments, iraq four times, and significant brain injury and the trauma of war alone. >> but wouldn't the argument then say if it's something that happens to a lot of people. if everything that you lied is not particularly unusual you don't see mass killings. they're very unusual in and of themselves. >> evidence of this being an aberrati aberration. >> if that is the case, take a stronger look at soldiers that go through injuries before you send them out and carry a machine gun? is that something that with should take a harder look at that? >> the lawyer -- the first thing the lawyer does is to start painting the picture of the soldier as a human being versus the things that we knew. here's what he said about sort of the soldier's background in the military. listen. >> he was told that he was not going to be redeployed. his family was kourcounting on not being redeployed. he and his family were told that his tours in the middle east were over and that literally overnight that changed. so i think that it will be fair to say that he and the family were not happy that he was going back. i think it's of interest that we have a soldier who has an exemplary record, decorated soldier who was injured in iraq, to his brin aain and to his bodd despite having that setback. >> later he said that he was decorated many times over. he's trying to flesh out that picture. interesting, i have a friend who has served in the military recently and he said one of the things -- he actually -- and many have said this, he's surprised it doesn't happen more. he said when he had traumatic speernss, the death of someone very close to you, he said there's nowhere to go out in the field. you come back. you're treated for ptsd, which he was. you come back and people analyze how you're doing. but out in the field they send you to the chaplain, the priest, who is in the military and that he saw that was one of the biggest issues is that you just didn't have, in the field, a real psychological help. >> i was going to say the hardest thing about this is that he was under the influence. and how do you work with someone with that issue? you know, how do you really know whoofs going on in his brain at the time because he was under the influence. >> many soldier do that, too. >> he was drinking apparently -- military office shials say that information comes from two of his buddies drinking with him at night. and you say those two did not go out and do anything. >> that's the thing, all of these circumstances we keep talking about, he's knot going to be the only one who suffered an injury, not the only one to have drank in the field, not the only one deployed after the injury but he seems to be the only one who went on a shooting rampage. i think it is important to see, the when we see this lawyer talk, you're beginning to see the defense of a month long process. we're going to see a month long trial play out. >> i think much longer than a month. i think it's going to be -- where do you hold the trial? he's obviously right now being held in kuwait. they believe that they're going to bring him to leavenworth in kansas. apparently the kuwaiti officials were surprised hfs brought to kuwait, which surprise is never a good thing, i think, in international affairs in some ways. the question becomes, if you have massacred citizen or alleged massacred citizens in afghanistan and the witnesses are afghan villagers and you're holding a trial in kansas, how do those logistics work out? >> uprising will it cost in afghanistan? that's going to be an issue. they've already expressed -- >> they're demanding it happens in afghanistan. they may have a strong case. >> that is never going to happen. >> never going to happen. >> strong case. >> if that trial is held in afghanistan. >> i think that's the weight, isn't it? you're trying to manage between do you have a trial in afghanistan and deal with the security issues around that or do you have a trial in leavenworth, kansas, or somewhere in the midwest or wherever they end upholding the trial in the united states and have the issues with witnesses and the fallout from that? those are things we're going to be looking at this morning. we're going to talk later this morning with military officials who have experienced with these military trials. that's fascinatinfascinating. bring in military lawyers in addition to civilian lawyer. john browne is a civilian lawyer p. first i head, christine romans has those headlines. >> another developing story out of afghanistan this morning, a nato helicopter crashing in the capital city of kabul. the coalition says 12 troops were killed but they did not say their nationalities. chopper reportedly crashed into a home after experiencing technical problems. there were no immediate reports of civilian casualties. north korean nounsing plans to blast a satellite into space on the back of a long-range rocket. it's a move that could jeopardize a new agreement with the united states that calls for a moratorium on all nuclear activities in exchange for food. the north arguing this satellite launch is part of a peaceful separations program. homes torn apart, more than 200 people forced to get out as a rare march tornado touches down in michigan. amateur video of the funnel cloud just outside ann harbor. a tornado ripping through that community. reports of three funnel clouds in the area. the storm damaging or demolishing many homes and downing trees and power lines and sparking fires. the twisters were part of a nasty storm system that stretched down through the south. heavy rains caved in the roof of a commercial building in kentucky. seven people were hurt. reports say the drainage system were clogged. u.s. stock futures are trading just slightly upwards this morning ahead of today's market open. that after a week of solid gains and positive economic news. the s&p 500 stock index is by far, by the way, the broadest measure of major u.s. listed companies and best reflection of americans retirement investments. it closed thursday above 1400 for the first time in four years. just one more hour until a brand new ipad goes on sale. tech heads lined up all over the world this morning. here in new york city people are camped out at apple's flagship store. the price for this new ipad starts at $499. those are live pictures of the apple store on fifth avenue in manhattan. all this anticipation sending apple shares even higher. for the first time ever apple shares topped $600 at the opening of the stock market yesterday. the company roared past $560 billion in value just a month oi go that it soared past $500 a share. imagine that. $100 in a month. post things about your bosses online? you might pay. american airlines flight attendant learned that the hard way. a 24-year veteran of american airlines was fired and he's fighting back. he was pretty well-known in some flier circles for his videos poking fun at american's financial trouble. one of his characters, the aluminum lady like margaret thatcher's the iron lady. >> people on the ramp creep me out. >> madam, regional managers, who is the weakest link? >> well, i tell you right now the woman that's running the flight attendant in miami is probably the most ineffective person i have in the whole company. >> fire her? >> no, don't fire her. i like it like that. >> american filed for bankruptcy a few months ago, said it needed to get rid of 13 you ,000 worke. american's spokesperson didn't mention this videos were talked about the firing told nbc miami told private details of american passengers and promoted the competitors on his website. >> i'm always surprised that people are surprised when they get 2350ifired when they bash t company. they get fired from the company when you bash the company, which is your god-given right, but you're going to get fired. you have a right to do so on video or on youyoutube, yes. >> and they have a right to subordination clauses. >> i'm always surprised by the surprise. all right. christine, thank you. still ahead this morning on "starting point," talk about dining and dashing. we'll tell you how four customers skipped out on their check from 55 floors up. and rick santorum says english before statehood for puerto rico. we'll talk about that because he says it a couple of times a couple of different ways. our get real this morning is march sadness. subjected to taunts during the ncaa basketball game while he was trying to make misfree throws. he was absolutely cool. lamont hill's playout play us out to the break. more from "starting point." back in just a moment. this at&t 4g network is fast. hey, heard any updates on the game? 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>> i think english, english and spanish -- obviously spanish is going to be spoken here on the island but this needs to be a bilingual country. >> the tap dancing is going in full force because now he's saying english and spanish has to be spoken. in that same interview he was kind of pressed about the comments earlier about, you know, is it a requirement. here's what he said. >> for the -- except they don't engli english. >> i think that will be a condition. i think it's important. >> so he says that's a condition. that is a condition of statehood in his mind. he thinks it's important. and then we had, of course, mitt romney weighing in through his people and this is andrea saul. said this, puerto rico currently recognizes both epg glish and spanish as the official languages of the common wealth. governor romney believes that english is the language of opportunity and supports efforts to expand english proficiency in puerto rico and across america. however, he would not, as a prerequisite for statehood, require that people of puerto rico cease using spanish. >> former secretary under george wr bush and he's supporting governor romney for the presidency. so you've heard kind of all of this back and forth. what do you make of the conversation in general? >> i think, first of all, it shows that we don't know as much about puerto rico as we should, which doesn't surprise me. i was born in cuba and i have to keep reminding people, it's 90 miles south from the southern most tip of florida, et cetera, et cetera. i think puerto rico today is probably one of the most bilingual areas in the caribbean, countries in the caribbean. so they don't have this problem i don't know why we're talking about this in puerto rico. governor romney, i believe, hit it right on. english is the language of prosperi prosperity, it's the language of opportunity. we want everyone to learn english but we don't want to give people the impression that there's something wrong about speaking a second language. the chinese could read our plans, we can't read theirs. we should be having a major national program to get people to speak a second language. >> so in the spokesperson's comments though, responding to this whole kerfuffle that he brought upon himself, he said he would not as a prerequisite, this is romney, require that the people of puerto rico cease using spanish. senator an santorum had never had any point said they should not speaking spanish. >> that's true, he did not say that. but there is an attitude and impact that you have on children if all of a sudden you have to speak english, he doesn't speak english, i have to speak better, then spanish becomes something that people don't want to speak. i've seen it. i believe children who started speaking spanish, english, you can't tell people that you would prefer them to speak english because after a while what you will have is a society that begins to lose its spanish. >> i think that's an unfair extrapolation of what senator santorum said. the dozens of people that keep up with everything i say on this program will know that i am not a senator santorum supporter orphan. that being said i'm also someone who is fair. i understand this. when he makes that statement he's you draing upon a philosophical argument which says it has a central cohesion, ties us together. english or any language for that matter is part of that process. if you do your official business in a common language, it brings us together. i think that is the instinct behind what he is saying. not a culture phobia. >> the way it sounds to me is that either he doesn't know puerto rico. >> especially when there are conversations about, in order to be part of america, it's like puerto ricans are americans. we haven't even started quoting it. >> no statehood. it's unfair. like my sinking fairness in this conversation. >> i think that governor romney is using this to his advantage. romney is dancing around the issue and sounding a lot better about it. >> that's right. >> one at a time. >> explain the difference between romney's position because to me they're exactly the same. >> difference and there's attitude and there's law. governor romney saying, of course, learn english. you should learn english. it's important. we will encourage you to learn english. santorum said you have to learn english before becoming a state. one person. when you say let's make english the official language of government, which some people ha have. >> 31 states. >> what happens is if you go and fill out a form, a driver's license form or you go to a passport agency, whatever it is that you want to do with the government, you get one language i think today is a good gesture that we have, for example, the census, i think, is in 13 languages because we have some korean citizens, because we have -- because we are a multi-cultural society of hopefully multi-language society. >> romney doesn't support the idea of english as the official language? >> he has not come out in favor of that. there was one debate where he says,