tv The Last Word MSNBC August 5, 2011 5:00pm-6:00pm PDT
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there and taking it. there it is, the chris matthews' jobs program, don't worry, mr. president, you don't have to post my name on the job site. your name will be on the job site. that's "hardball." thanks for being with us. "the last word with lawrence o'donnell" starts now. it gets better. in fact, it got better today. if you think 1/10 of 1% is better. >> a better than expected jobs report. >> things will get better. >> very, very, very slowly. >> the way washington does its job in america is making it hard to find a job in america. >> we cannot just cut right now. >> unemployment ticked down slightly to 9.1%. >> real unemployment is exactly double that number. >> it's amazing when we're in this rough of a world how much we are fooling around here at home. >> people in washington think they are playing a game. >> there is such grid lock. >> the problem is not the
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institution, it's the people. >> they'll continue to bash a bum. >> bureaucratic socialism controlled by bureaucrats. >> shiny economy. >> shiny balls of millionaires, billionaires. >> the job of presidential candidate is going to be harder for rick perry after his revival. >> prayer rally in houston. >> san antonio to dallas to jesus. >> calling on americans to pray and fast like jesus did. >> there's a lot of controversy. >> homosexual soldiers. >> receive the antichrist. oprah. >> red meat for the republican base. >> a special guest will do my job and rewrite the most powerful man in republican polit politics. >> politicians are a lot like diapers, they should be changed secretly and frequently.
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>> and as long as washington won't do its job, late-night comedy writers have easier jobs. >> during the debt ceiling debate nancy pelosi said "john boehner had gone over to the dark side," which for boehner meant he fell asleep in the tanning booth. good evening from new york. president obama's reelection got 1/10 of 1% easier today, which is to say not easier at all, when the labor department released its july jobs report showing the private sector added 154,000 jobs in july while the government lost 37,000 jobs for a net gain of 117,000 jobs. that number beat most expectations, but just to bring unemployment below 8% before the 2012 presidential election, the economy would have to create
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272,000 a month. unemployment dropped from 9.2% in june to 9.1% in july. no president since franklin delano roosevelt has won a second term with the rate more than 7.1%. president obama addressed the jobs report while speaking at navy yard. >> we have to create more jobs than that each month to make up for the more than eight million jobs the recession claimed. what i want our american people and our partners around the world to know is this, we are going to get through this, things are going to get better. we are going to get there together. >> the president then -- >> move quickly on things that will help create jobs right now.
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extend the payroll credit, extending unemployment insurance to help people get back on their feet. putting construction workers back to work rebuilding america. >> joining me now, "the washington post" columnist and msnbc contributor ezra klein, also jonathan alter, thank you both for joining me tonight. >> hi, lawrence. >> so, 1/10 of 1%. help me be optimistic. >> it ain't much. we need 120,000 to keep up with population. you're not keeping up, we very slightly, not by a measurable amount, but slightly fell behind catching up today. we're not recovering at the moment, that's a simple fact. >> jonathan, we're not keeping up with population growth, we're obviously not up to the number we'd have to be to get the unemployment rate down to a level of what we consider reelectability. what are the options here? do you believe this unemployment
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number is an electoral dictate, you can simply bet around no reelect if you're up in the 8s? >> no, those rules are made to be broken and there's not enough data to establish that. by the way, when franklin roosevelt had double digit unemployment, he carried all but two states, so there's a trend line, so if things don't seem like they are getting any better, which is the situation right now, then he's in terrible electoral peril. if they seem they are moving in the right direction if they are in the eight or nine percent range, it will be a close election but he'll have a decent chance to win. the question in terms of jobs programs is to distinguish between things that really might create jobs and could get through the republicans in congress and might actually add to some of the job creation totals and other things you could put in the category of
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posturing in an important way for the electorate, so he's laying down the gauntlet for the republicans, do you want to rebuild america? if you do, support me. that's smart politically. same with the veterans preference, you get a tax credit if you hire veterans. that's also a crowd pleaser. >> ezra, beyond the posturing, what can, jonathan said, you know, what can they do that the republicans would go along with. is there anything on the menu? >> there's very little that would work quickly. i'd become increasingly convinced the only thing that would actually work fast and in a durable way is increasing inflation. if you talk to -- they'll tell you. >> i would talk to them if i
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knew who they were. >> they'll tell you this is all about debt. the problem the administration had, we've all had, is we tried to treat this as a normal recession. quick recovery out of the business cycle and we're not. consumer debt when we began, now we're at 90%. it's a drop, not a huge drop. the question is how do you get it down? the inflation with the fed, what they need to get right and could have some aautonomous authority is the debt. if they can be bolder i think you might see action in the jobs numbers before 2012. >> that's the way fdr did it, he inflated the economy somewhat to bring down the unemployment numbers. >> we have a just released new york times poll which asked people what their priorities were. creating jobs, 62%, cutting
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spending, 29%, doing both if you can, magically, 8%. creating jobs, jonathan, 62%. the president today says he's looking forward getting to work on this when they come back to work, but they are not coming to work for five weeks. it sounds so hollow if you know he means in september, he means we're going to sit here, we're going to do nothing for the month of august on something that has this kind of urgency in the polls. >> that's right, and very possibly nothing until the election if the record of this republican house is any indication, but there are some other policy remedies, for instance, a proposal to essentially eliminate the payroll tax for a considerable period of time, which would add to the deficit, of course, but the problem right now is not cutting spending.
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this is why the debate of the last eight weeks has been so preposterous, we need to increase demand and that might include increasing spending in the short-term. if you can put money in people's pockets with another payroll tax holiday, you could spur demand somewhat and there's a series of other remedies, which the white house is going to begin to unfold, unveil over the next few weeks. i think they are creative. there's been an active gap in ideas but i'm glad they are finally pivoting to jobs. >> the poll has other good news for the president. it says that -- and who do you trust on doing the better job with the economy, 33% trust the republican congress, 47% trust president obama. ezra, what can he do with that knowing that he's got their attention, he's got more of
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their trust than anyone else in this game does, what can the president do with this in. >> this is the big mystery right now. his approval ratings given where the economy is just sort of sit there in the 40% range and don't seem to be going down. that's because people really hate congress and don't like the republicans. their poll numbers have plummeted since the election. >> is it also because they think this person, this man, who goes to work every day is doing his best? people understood hey, this is a worldwide depression, this is not just us, this is not something the president did, but the president is going to work on them. >> they do but his numbers aren't great, they are in the 40s, they are not 60 or 70, but this is the least productive congress since the 1948 do nothing, in some measures less productive than that. they don't say in a clear way we're not getting anything done not because we are not trying
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but because they are not moving anything. we are grid locked in a way we've never been grid locked. that strikes me as a not only fairly potent argument but a true one, yet they don't really make it. they don't seem to an an interest or an attention to fight with congress. >> jonathan, have they not made that argument because, in effect, the president has been locked into doing some kind of business with congress at every stage, meaning he was trapped in a tax rate negotiation with them last year, then he got trapped into -- not trapped into, it was his job. he was in a deficit reduction and debt ceiling negotiation with them and so when you're negotiating with them, u you can't be condemning them. they have another one coming up, a few big negotiations coming up. is there a moment he can just say i'm going to go out there, i'm going to talk about these people the way ezra is saying i
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should talk about them because it is true and let's just see what happens to negotiations? >> the problem is the senate is still controlled by democrats, so he has to be a little careful, has to work with them. but i think as the season heats up, he will go after the do-nothing congress. you will see this in the next 15 months before the election, and if we do get downgraded, if he has any horse sense at all, he'll work overtime blaming that on the republicans, and it will be justified. s&p is not considering downgrading the united states credit rating because congress is -- you must raise taxes. the refusal of the republicans, not congress, the republicans in particular, to have some revenue increases there shows they are not serious about deficit reduction, and that is what
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could lead to the downgrade. it's the seriousness with which they approach deficit reduction that is the standard that the credit ratings use. it's not how much you cut in the short-term or medium term. it's whether your basic plan for reducing the deficit has integrity at all. and anybody, including tom coburn knows it doesn't if there are no revenue increases, so he can't blame them being "banana republicans. >> and the polls show, the polling indicates the public relieves yes, you do need responsible evidence. jonathan alter and "the washington post"'s ezra klein. thank you both for joining me tonight. >> coming up, an oscar winner will take over this chair to rewrite -- i'm not going to tell you what he's going to talk
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about. he's going to do a guest rewrite but i think you see a picture of what might be a clue. it's a last word first. the very first guest rewrite. plus, governor rick perry's prayer meeting puts him at odds with the single largest religious group in the united states. catholics. and why is jerry lewis being let go from the telethon he created? that's coming up. n for pain rel. with new extra-strength bayer advanced aspirin. it has microparticles, enters the bloodstream faster and rushes relief to the site of pain. it's clinically proven to relieve pain twice as fast. new bayer advanced aspirin.
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and started earning loads of points. you got a weather balloon with points? yes i did. [ man ] points i could use for just about anything. ♪ ♪ there it is. [ man ] so i used mine to get a whole new perspective. ♪ [ male announcer ] the new citi thankyou premier card gives you more ways to earn points. what's your story? citi can help you write it. coming up, texas governor rick perry is thinking about jumping into the republican presidential primary, but this weekend's prayer meeting shows he doesn't have what it takes to play on the presidential campaign field. that's next. and in the rewrite tonight, our very first guest rewrite. i'll give the keys to the rewrite desk to someone who's not just an emmy winner, because frankly that wouldn't be an
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upgrade. tonight's rewriter is an oscar winner, that's right. us emmy winners get out of the way for oscar winners. a lot of times, things are right underneath our feet, and all we need to do is change the way we're thinking about them. a couple decades ago, we didn't even realize just how much natural gas was trapped in rocks thousands of feet below us. technology has made it possible to safely unlock this cleanly burning natural gas. this deposits can provide us with fuel for a hundred years, providing energy security and economic growth all across this country. it just takes somebody having the idea, and that's where the discovery comes from. it just takes somebody having the idea, diabetes testing? what else is new? you get the blood, hope it's enough, it's-- what's this? freestyle lite® blood glucose test strip.
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sure, i'll try it, but-- [beep] wow. yep, that's the patented freestyle zipwik™ design. it's like it-- [both] targets the blood. yeah, draws it right in. the test starts fast. you need just a third the blood of one touch.® okay. freestyle test strips. i'll take 'em. sure. call or click-- we'll send you strips and a meter, free. can't i just have these? freestyle lite test strips. call or click today. last night we told you why willard m. romney can't win. if you missed that segment, it's available on our website and will provide you not just with proof that romney can't win, but a lot of historical political facts that will help you win many a dinner table argument about this presidential campaign. today we'll tell you why texas governor rick perry shouldn't
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even consider getting into the race for the republican nomination. governor perry will take the stage tomorrow at houston's reliant stadium for a prayer event he called the response. he created that event. the event has been embroiled in controversy concerning everything from whether governor perry is violating the separation of church and state to the virtual exclusion of non-christian groups. but it's the inclusion of this man, san antonio megachurch pastor john haguer that clearly proves governor perry does not have what it takes to play on the field of presidential politics. in 2008 john mccain had to reject hagee's endorsement after the mega church lunatic and hater insisted that hitler was only fulfilling god's will. >> hitler was a hunter, and the
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bible says jeremiah writing, they shall hunt them out of the holes of the rocks, meaning there's no place to hide, and that would be offensive to people, well, dear heart, be offended. i didn't write it. it was the truth and it is the truth. how did it happen? god allowed it to happen. why did it happen? because god said my top priority for the jewish people is to get them to come back to the land of israel. >> yeah, he's right. that would be offensive to some people. so god decided hitler should make european life really uncomfortable for jewish people, which, of course, hitler did. big time. because rick perry has invited hagee to his prayer event, the idiotic governor of texas now owns that hagee quote. rick perry owns the idea that hitler's killing six million
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jews was god's idea. john hagee is actually not a member of any religion. he has a church, which would be better labeled a theater where he performs, and his website calls his performance art group "a non-denominational evangelical church." religiously, that means absolutely nothing. that means any fool, like hagee, can get up on his stage in his theater and say any foolish thing, because there is no religious doctrine to be observed in hagee's theater. the laws of gravity in that theater are whatever hagee says they are. southern fake preachers like hagee, vicious bigots like hagee, have problems with more religions than just judaism. hagee has said this about
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catholicism, which happens to be the single largest religion in the united states of america. he says catholicism is a false cult system, and that was just him warming up. that was just hagee taking batting practice against catholicism. he has also said catholicism is "a godless theology of hate." now, i'm not going to take time here to argue with hagee on that, the whole godless theology of hate, but catholic voters would certainly argue with rick perry for hanging with hagee and catholic voters are the single largest religious voting block in america. 27% of american voters are catholic, and the catholic vote has gone to the popular winner in every presidential election since 1972. ridiculous rick perry is now
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married to the idea that catholicism is a godless cult. i will see he stays married to that statement every day his hopeless campaign for president is underway. joining me now, national director of catholic democrats, steve kroouger, thank you for joining me tonight, steve. >> thank you. >> what does rick perry not understand about this little, little insignificant voting block in america called catholics? >> i'm not sure i could have said it any better than you did. one point of fact, catholics comprise about 25% of the population, and actually vote as a larger percentage than the overall population, so they comprise about 27% of the
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electorate and a small but important point, there's about 20 million so-called lapse catholics in the country that still have a catholic sensibility with a great appreciation for the catholic church. >> well, they definitely have a -- a catholic cultural tradition going. they have certainly a comprehension of what it means when some lunatic like hagee says what he says about catholicism. they know where that's coming from. >> that's right. and, you know, catholics have not forgotten the statement that he made, the statements that he made, and the affiliation that the mccain campaign had with him back in 2008. it took several months, but eventually john mccain had to distance himself from that, and at the time, you know, those
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statements really struck a very discordant tone with catholics, so i think -- one of the things that this shows, aside from however you may want to cast this as a political event in and of itself, this was a event being led by some of the most conservative ideologues with republican affiliations. for governor perry not to have the sensitivity to realize that this was going to not be well-received by catholics, i think really puts into question his judgment. and it calls into question what kind of a vetting process he would have when he was going to appoint judges, you know, as he's out on the campaign trail or, you know, for that matter
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when he's putting together a budget. so, you know, it was -- an event that i think is really going to leave a bad taste in the mouth of catholics. >> steve, i think navigating religious politics in america at the presidential level is easy, some pretty half-witted candidates have managed to do it. i think the whole point of this is if he can't get it straight at this point, he doesn't deserve to be in the presidential race. steve kruger, thank you very much for joining me tonight. >> thank you, lawrence. coming up, no matter what you think congress has done, it is not the end of the world, because whatever stupid thing congress does, it can undo. but jerry lewis being bumped off the telethon? that is the end of the world as we know it. jerry's friend richard belzer is here, and as usual this friday
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night, the late night comedians will get the last word. hair and mascara, a lethal combo. i'm jon haber of alto music. my business is all about getting music into people's hands. and the plum card from american express open helps me do that. you name it, i can buy it. and the savings that we get from the early pay discount has given us money to reinvest back into our business and help quadruple our floor space. how can the plum card's trade terms get your business booming? booming is putting more music in more people's hands. my son and i never missed opening day. but with copd making it hard to breathe, i thought those days might be over. so my doctor prescribed symbicort. it helps significantly improve my lung function, starting within 5 minutes. symbicort doesn't replace a rescue inhaler for sudden symptoms. with symbicort, today i'm breathing better, and that means... game on! symbicort is for copd, including chronic bronchitis and emphysema. it should not be taken more than twice a day.
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lower than bonds issued by the united kingdom, germany, france, and canada. joining me now is msnbc contributor ezra klein. ezra, i have refused to believe this was going to happen. i'm virtually speechless on this. what does it mean to the consumer out there and what does it mean to our politics? there's going to be a blame game played quickly. >> first thing, they did not downgrade our ability to pay. nothing changed, nothing significant. they downgraded our political system. congress just got downgraded is what happened here today and what it means for politics is the rumor is they would mention the resistance to republicans to revenue specifically, their willingness to put the default on the table to keep tax increases on the table. if that happens, people keep saying senate wants an opening to compromise. this would give them that opening. >> this is the one thing that we
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can see in our landscape that may shake up republican so lidty. >> they listen to markets, friends, and donors in markets. a lot of these guys like mitch mcconnell and john boehner begin hearing from managers of hedge funds and investment banks, what are you doing? we are now facing consequences, this is going to get more significant. remember too a lot of other types of bonds are linked to the municipalities, states, hospital bonds, a lot that relies on american federal payments. you could see this rippling down depending on how s&p decide to play. >> we're going to go to john harwood who's joining us by phone. john, has the administration acting to this yet? >> i got off the phone with an
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administration official who says it's amateur hour at s&p. because of the back and forth, the ratings agency informed the government this afternoon it intended to downgrade provided the computations that were underlying that decision. they were shown, officials showed computation errors in the debt to gdp ratio apparently involving the confusion about the proper baseline to use. s&p went back and reconsidered, now they are going back and downgrading. that is not sitting well with the administration. >> john, what do you expect to hear from the administration about this? they surely have to -- they've had some hours to anticipate it. they must have a position that they are going to stake out on it. >> i think what they are likely to say, lawrence, is that two of the three major agencies have maintained aaa, secondly, they'll say that u.s. treasury
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securities are the most familiar financial instruments in the world and so what the rating agencies themselves say doesn't matter because investors already know the product and i think they are also going to, in effect, say it's not going to make much difference. i talked to an administration official last week who said if you really look at how many institutions have to divest because of the decision by one rating agency is very small. so the projection that i've gotten is that the impact on interest rates, on u.s. borrowing costs is likely to be small on this so we'll see how the market reacts, and in a market with a psyche as fragile as this one, you don't know whether it would be a blow that's consequential. >> thanks for joining me on this breaking news event and ezra klein thank you for rejoining me this evening. thank you.
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>> in the rewrite tonight, our first ever guest rewriter. have i mentioned that it's an oscar winner? you want to know how you become a guest rewriter? first you win an oscar, and it's the end of show business as we know it, if not the world. jerry lewis, i repeat, will not do the telethon this year. the after shocks are still shaking all of us. jerry's friend, richard belzer joins me. [ man ] they said i couldn't win a fight. but i did. they said i couldn't fight above my weight class. but i did. they said i couldn't get elected to congress. but i did. now i'm trying to make it in music.
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who for 44 years hosted the only telethon worth watching, his labor day weekend muscular dystrophy telethon has ended. jerry's run as the king of telethons. jerry's telethon stage has played host from acts ranging from the jackson 5 to john lennon to jerry seinfeld. it was an occasional venue for the rat pack and it was where frank sinatra brokered the reunion of jerry lewis and dean martin, who started out as show business partners and hadn't spoken to each other in 20 years. >> would you send my friend out, please? where is he? come here. [ cheers and applause ]
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>> so how ya been? >> oh, let's just keep rolling that tape. i could watch that all night. but all of that has now come to a very abrupt end. after announcing in may that jerry would step down from hosting but still appear on the telethon, the 85-year-old louis has now been removed completely from the telethon after raising nearly $2.5 billion through the show, the muscular dystrophy association issued a two-paragraph statement saying lewis had "completed his run as its national chairman. he will not be appearing on the telethon." joining me now, actor, comedian, author, and co-star of "law and order:special victims unit" richard belzer. thank you for joining us
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tonight, over the announcement we have had your twitter picture up there of you and jerry. i have to say for the kids out there who don't know jerry's work or have not read a jerry lewis biography, that picture is pretty much all you need to know about jerry lewis. it was never about the comedian could fix his place in american comedy. >> it's not a hyperbole to say jerry lewis is clearly the greatest living performer -- maybe the greatest performer that lived in modern american show business by definition when you consider he went from a comedian up in the cat skills in atlantic city to becoming a film maker, writer, and an author, and a philosopher and philanthropist. he's a nobel prize nominee, he's got the jean hershol dos car.
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i don't think there's anyone in the business who has been so beloved and so vilified at the same time. >> there are people who hate his comedy, make fun of it, hate it. >> it's kind of an irrational, that's another discussion. the important thing now is the reverberations of what's happening to this great man, this man who is a force of nature. >> you talk to jerry all the time. what is it about? >> that's for him to say. he will make a statement. i greatly admire his restraint. certainly, this is a shock to the world. people are stopping me in the street, i'm getting phone calls from wire services and magazines, you know, because people know i'm close to him, but i know nothing about the kind of shakespearean event that went on. there are so many ways to say good-bye to someone. this could have been one of the greatest events in the history
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of the median. >> if they said it was the last appearance of jerry at the telethon, no way i'd miss that. they could have booked an amazing telethon. >> the indignity, the disrespect is so profound, and i'm still -- you know me, i'm a pretty cynical, tough guy. >> you are, really? >> no, i am so deeply, emotionally disturbed and heart broken that people would conspire to do this, not at the cost of the amazing charity, it's 40 different neuromuscular diseases, they have found cures, they have breakthroughs of identifying genes, i've been there, been at the telethon, seen what he knows, see how the people are afflicted. they have made more stronger by his very existence, and just to
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summarily issue a two-paragraph, one-paragraph statement is absolutely -- i'm speechless. >> in any criticism i've heard of jerry lewis, i have never heard anybody try to say he doesn't care, he doesn't care about those kids. this is the one thing where no one doubts that commitment, and there's never been a commitment like it in show business. >> in the history of show business. another thing about jerry -- >> can you show us your jerry tattoo as you're saying this? >> people of every age, people his age, 60, 70 come up to him hello and say i'm 11 again. everybody becomes -- i have a toot too. >> it's harder than i thought. we'll take a picture of it. there's jerry, right in there. let's just say this is the most
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beloved, most talented, most admired, every comedian whether they do him or not loves him, admires him and are in the business literally because of him. mpt we have to wrap this up. >> you have an oscar winner tonight that wouldn't be who he is without jerry. >> richard belzer, his latest cause is the push to ban large capacity ammunition. please, go to our website, lastword.msnbc.com to view richard's psa. richard belzer, thank you very much. coming up, i'll hand the rewrite honors over to an oscar winner. naturals from purina cat chow. delicious, real ingredients with no artificial flavors or preservatives. naturals from purina cat chow. share a better life. finally, there's a choice for my patients with an irregular heartbeat called atrial fibrillation, or afib, that's not caused
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if you have afib not caused by a heart valve problem, ask your doctor if pradaxa can reduce your risk of a stroke. one of our perennials is in the rewrite tonight, grover norquist, but that's not the only reason to keep watching tonight. the reason to watch, we have our very first guest rewriter. that's right, our first guest
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barry? >> thank you, lawrence. it's a daunting task. grover norquist is an old-fashioned name. sounds like something from "our town" by thornton wilder, but don't be mistaken, nothing old fashioned about grover norquist. no, he's a very modern man in a time where jobs are hard to come by, grover has invented a job for himself, his job is to make sure those in congress take a loyalty oath to say they'll never raise taxes ever. tonight enough remembers of congress to vote for or against a particular legislation, there needs to be an oath. he believes something for today when you can be against it forever. that's the brilliance of grover. he saw the need and where there's a need, there's a job to be had. not sure there's another job like that in the united states of america. i'm not sure who pays him, but let's not haggle over small
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details. a job is a job and grover is in the loyalty business. grover discovered a flaw in a thinking man's progress. sometimes we'll change your mind. sometimes we think one way and realize there's another way. he spotted the flaw and realized no one had come up with the idea to curb that behavior before. you only have to go back four or five centuries to the folks who believe the earth is flat and not round. if grover was around back then and had taken a loyalty oath, things would have been a lot different today and now we're stuck with the idea the world is round and there's people on the other side of the world, different people. if the flat-earth theorists only had a loyalty oath, everything would have been much simpler today. i swear to uphold the world is flat today, tomorrow, and forever. grover could have picked another
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time for his pledge. he could have done it during the clinton years or before the tax bush cuts, but he didn't feel the timing was right. he waited until taxes hit rock bott bottom. only then was congress ready of the after all, who's going to complain, poor people? they don't have anyone representing them anyway, they don't contribute to any political war chest. the middle class, too busy keeping homes off the foreclosure market or trying to find money to send their children to college or maybe trying to stay above water. may be a few nay sayers that say tax cuts don't help stimulate the economy, but a little controversy is only good, it helps grover's business. it's a fine business he's create. it's not a seasonal business as far as i can tell. you don't need to own a store. there's no inventory, so no walmart can come around and
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drive you out of the loyalty business. some may object and think, you know, that the loyalty oath business is, you know, caught up in a pledge to be against certain things. but we can always be against something. why, you know, if you give me about five minutes, i could come up with half a dozen loyalty oaths right off the top of my head. it wouldn't require much thinking, that's the beauty of the loyalty oath business. anybody could go down to kinko's and head over to congress and you're in business. it's that simple. never bet against american ingenuity. we can turn this recession around in no time. she's had these shoes a long time. they're kind of my thing. and they were looking... nasty. vile. but i used tide and tide booster, and look at them now! now they can be my thing forever. yay.
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that's my tide. what's yours? i use tide sport because it helps get odors out of athletic clothes. i mean, i wear my yoga pants for everything. hiking, biking, pilates... [ woman ] brooke... okay. i wear yoga pants because i am too lazy for real pants. that's my tide. what's yours? matter which position i am in i wake up feeling good. it fits you so perfectly... it fits you. you wake up and you're revived and rejuvenated. it's just like wow! tempur-pedic the most highly recommended bed in america. tempur-pedic is rated #1 in comfort. sleep satisfaction. and back support. it fits the curvature of your body but you don't sink in and it is firm. proprietary tempur material suppresses motion transfer. this means that when you get in or out of bed, you won't disturb your partner. that's amazing. that's amazing.
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the ugly fight over round one of the debt ceiling came to an end this week. the only winners, late night comedy writers and comedians. here's the week in economy. >> great news for american tax payers, president obama and congress have reached a deal. [ cheers and applause ] >> well, that was easy. >> oh, boy. >> oh, my god, it's a miracle. >> during the debt ceiling debate, nancy pelosi said john boehner had "gone over to the dark side." which for boehner means he fell asleep in the tanning booth. >> the bill got support from both side of the fence, neither side seems to be happy about it. liberals say it gives republicans everything they wanted and the democrats laid down and let the republicans
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roll over them. democrats disagree, they didn't lay down, they were planking. >> the president has got to be pretty upset about what's taken place here. >> i want to thank the american people. it's been your voices, your letters, your e-mails, your tweets, your phone calls that have compelled washington to act in the final days. >> let me just stop you right there. you're not pinning this turd on us. >> this is the best kind of deal, the kind democrats hate. >> this is a satan sandwich. >> yes. for the democrats, this is a satan sandwich. a bills blt. >> president obama signed the debt ceiling compromise and america narrowly avoided a catastrophe, giving the democrats anything they want. because the only way this bill was two-sided was that the dems had to take it at both ends.
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>> isn't it possible that our political leaders, whether they be democrat, whether they be republican, oh, yes, that they can come together in a shared -- no, what are you doing? no -- no! >> and tonight, a fond last word farewell to our class of 2011 summer intern team. pete, carroll, harry, deirdre, kanara and noor can't be here. she's off somewhere, right? so thanks for putting in such long hours for no pay. i really appreciate it. it leaves a lot more money for me, and i'm sure someone here will write you a recommendation to somewhere you want at one point. please, n
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