movement on the west bank now that is non-violently been protesting for years the exact root of the wall that separates israel from the west bank and is asking now peacefully for their statehood and freedom and independence. it's in line with the arab spring and awakening and it's unlikely the movement towards independence and freedom happening in the arab world is going to stop in israel. >> jeremy ben-ami, thank you for joining me tonight. you can have the last word online, follow my tweets @chrislhayes. >> listen to the words of my mouth?show" is next. good evening. >> listen to the words of my mouth. >> listen to the words of my mouth. >> i think just the words of my mouth, listen, might be a noncopyright infringing way to do that and i would endorse that. >> i'll bring it up at the next meeting. >> i said the new reverend al sharpton show should be called revved up, so don't trust me on show names. >> it looks like you lost that battle, based on the press release. >> that's why the naming of my own show was taken out of my hands. appreciate it. >> thank you for staying with us. >> one of the weirdest visuals

from the east coast earthquake yesterday was this short of the united states senate. we showed this on the show last night and i sort of have not been able to get it off my mind. this is technically the united states senate, just doesn't look like any other picture you've seen of the senate, because this was the united states senate in session at the postal square building, not the u.s. capitol. at a building four blocks away from the actual senate. the white house, capitol, pentagon, were all evacuated yesterday afternoon. so when the senate wanted to convene, their pro form ma we're only here for a minute or two session, they had to find some other place to do it. they tried to make this random room in the postal square building look as senatorial as possible, hence the flag, senate seal and delaware senator chris coons proceeding. an event was cancelled tonight at national building museum in washington because of quake

damage. most of all the other d.c. landmarks and memorials and office buildings seemed to be reopening after experiencing only cosmetic damage from the quake, if any. but chris coons himself may be a good marker of something else that's going on in washington that's not really getting very much attention even as the big quake is. the senate seat that chris coons holds was an open seat when he ran for it, it was vice president biden's seat in delaware. the election to fill the seat was held last november, november 2010. november 2010 was a deep, deep, deep red election day, right? republicans just ran the board last november, they won almost everything in 2010. and even though delaware is a pretty blue state, republicans expected to be able to win that biden seat too, because they thought they had a candidate who could not have been more perfect for the job, long time centrist republican congressman mike

cassel, what happened, mike cassel got defeated by a tea party-backed challenger named christine o'donnell, who is not a witch, and we all know how that worked out. >> without objection, the senate will come to order. the clerk will read a communication to the senate. >> senator chris coons, democrat of delaware, thank you, christine o'donnell. the same thing happened in connecticut where rob simmons, who might have had a good shot at winning a senate seat, got defeated by the tea party-backed linda mcmahon, wrestling executive. linda mcmahon lost and we have blumenthal of connecticut. in nevada where it looked like harry reid's political career was not long for this world until a tea party backed candidate named sharron angle defeated more normal republican candidates in the primary. and of course we still have democratic senate majority

leader harry reid. for example, in utah, arguably the most republican state in the country, in utah incumbent senator bob bennet was not renominated by his republican state party. they picked a tea party guy instead named mike lee. he was retired as incumbent senator and mike lee did go on to win that seat. >> you're robert bennet, you are one of the most conservative members of the united states senate. how is it that you get tossed out by this tea party movement or whatever it was in utah, how does that happen? >> they don't really care. you can win an election screaming in anger, but you cannot hold and govern for a significant period of time on screaming and anger. >> even while hurdling through the subway system, bob bennet upset and visibly disappointed when his own party gave him the

boot last year. i have to say, don't feel too bad for bob bennet, he worked for a d.c. firm, i'm sure he's doing fine. bob bennett getting kicked out of the senate like that was seen as a shot across the bow. any republican with any hint of moderation -- actually, no, bob was not an conservative. he had an american conservative rating of 84% but that wasn't enough for tea party. bob bennett was their victim. their mess alittle to the country. normal republicans, conservative republicans that seem mainstream or moderate, you are going to be replaced. the tea party is taking over. in fact, the next senator in line for that treatment is the other utah republican senator, orrin hatch, with a 90% rating from conservative union. orrin hatch is, in fact, a very conservative senator but perhaps not conservative enough. tea party supporting extremely conservative republican

congressman jason chaffetz of utah has been making noise all year long that he was going to go after orrin hatch next. he was going to primary hatch from the right, take that deep red republican utah senate seat and make it even deeper red. this week he finally made his big announcement about challenging hatch and he's not doing it. now, he hadn't just been hinting at this. he was telling everybody he was likely to do this. he was very open that he was going to kick orrin hatch out of the senate but he's decided not to run against him. this is not going to happen in utah. after orrin hatch, the other senator was olympia snowe of maine, up for re-election in 2012. the warning is she'll be replaced by hard right tea party challenger. well, there are some activist guys running against her, but frankly nobody who's making a dent, no offense intended, one

of her challengers has made news by conditionally demanding olympia snowe resign. another man running against her is described by "the washington post" as an all-black wearing music columnist and cyber punk. maybe maine is ready for a cyber punk republican senator, but it just doesn't seem like the same phenomenon that drove last year's republican politics is still driving them now. at least the state level. now add to that what we know about the tea party's role not just among republicans but in national politics. the latest new york times/cbs poll says the tea party is the most unpopular it has been since they started polling on the tea party's favorability in april last year. the percentage of americans who think the tea party movement has too much influence within the republican party is the highest it has ever been. this knock "times" polls squares with other polling out there.

a cnn poll released at the same time shows the unfavorability rating of the tea party although the highest it's ever been since they started polling on the tea party last year. the tea party is not just really unpopular as a political group. they are among the least popular groups of any kind of americans in politics and culture right now. according to data compiled recently by a pair of professors, one from notre dame, one from harvard, the tea party rank lowest in popularity of any of the 24 separate groups of americans or individuals who they polled on. all of these groups you see here are more popular than the tea party with americans broadly speaking. the tea party is more unpopular than muslims. nothing against muslims, of course. the tea party is more unpopular than atheists as a group, again, nothing against atheists, of all the groups in american politics you could conceivably think to ask about, republicans, democrats, gay people, conservatives, muslims,

atheists, all of them, the tea party is the single least respected, least liked group in the entire country. i do not mean that as an insult. i'm reading you the data. if you asked america would you want a muslim president or a tea party president, the data shows that america would pick a muslim president, not a fake muslim president, but an actual muslim president. we'll have one of the researchers behind that data on the show tomorrow, which i'm very much looking forward to. but it does bring us to this question, and it's an open question because i don't know the answer to it. 1 if you were the republican party and were going to give one of these groups veto power over who was going to be your presidential nominee. there could not be a republican nominee unless it got these people's approvals first, which of these groups would -- i mean, really? you would give that power to the one at the very, very bottom underneath the atheists? really? did you hear the big joke going around today, the laugh line in

all the presidential politics? the big joke is that george pataki is about to announce he's running for president. it's all a joke. the idea of george pataki getting into the race so hilarious that it alone elicits laughter from anybody paying attention to this year's republican politics. a new gallup poll put the guy in the republican field who is seen as a non-tea party guy, john huntsman, 1%. i guess george pataki, get in there to split up the 1% maybe, try to get a piece of that? you cannot go anywhere in national republican politics, certainly not in republican presidential politics as anything remotely centrists. you cannot go anywhere unless you pledge feelty to the tea party. who are these guys? the guy as the bottom of the list. why is that? mathematically why is that? the tea party is such a new phenomenon and so unprecedent,

nobody has dealt with anything like this. so maybe there's just a fear factor among politicians. even though they may be small and unpopular and getting less popular all the time of, even though they're getting more disrespected by the american people, politicians are scared of the tea party because it's such a new thing. but if you care to look at the data about it instead of just listening to the beltway jabber about it, the only other thing that's as unclear about the tea party is how unpopular and disliked they are, the only thing as clear is that is how not new they are. when the people who have been studying these folks over time, and i quote, early on tea partiers were often described as nonpartisan political neofights. actually, the tea party srts were highly partisan republicans long before the tea party was born. past republican affiliation is the single strongest support today. next to being a republican, the strongest predictor of being a tea party supporter today is a desire in 2006 to see religion

play a prominent role in politics. in other words, the tea party is the same old same old republican base it has always been. it's the social conservative movement. that we have known about for a very long time. nothing new here. republicans have been handling the issue of their base and dealing with this problem effectively for years. why are they so flummoxed by it this year? joining me now, nicolle wallace. someone i enjoy disagreeing about with politics. senior advisor to the mccain-palin campaign, also author of the novel "eighteen acres," which is out in paperback. and the new book, "it's classified" due out next month. great to see you again. >> you managed to tie my brain in a knot and make me wish there were something stronger than water here all at the same time. >> this can be arranged. this is the one show that can be arranged at the drop of a hat. why is jon huntman at 1%?

why is george pataki joining the race as a laugh line? why is centrism seen as impossible in? >> i think our party is experiencing something david axelrod described after the outcome in 2008. every presidential race is a reaction to the one that came before it. i think the reaction on the right to obama's presidency is this almost correction, i think, this purification of the conservative movement. and i found that fascinating for a lot of reasons. but i think the reason they're relevant, and the reason the white house yielded to them on the debt ceiling debate, isn't because of the attributes described in that op-ed to the self-described card-carrying, bumper sticker on the back of the suv or whatever they drive, it's not just them, the reason that the white house yielded to

them, the reason all the republicans in congress are listening to them is that there are a whole lot of voters acting like tea party members. and that's the graver threat, i think, to the democrats. it's not that this, you know, 26% of what you just described as wildly unpopular people are going to hijack the country, impossible. impossible. >> but don't republicans look at the christine o'donnell, sharron angle, linda mcmahon, joe miller phenomenon of those tea party candidacies really taking over the republican party in 2010 and saying, wow, in a huge republican year, we lost those seats we might have otherwise won. the country is not utah where it worked with mike lee. the country is much more delaware or somewhere in between those two. >> not just a country, but a national election, the big enchilada is someone who needs to win more than utah. so i think you're starting to

see some of the most-respected voices in the republican party speak to this. jeb bush did a national interview yesterday and was talking about how it's noble to be proud of your conservative, you know, attributes and beliefs and ideology, but, you know, and i don't to want paraphrase here, but basically saying you have to be able to speak to the whole country. >> you can't just -- he was saying you can't just say no to the president. have you to have something affirmative to offer. >> exactly. not just because it's the right thing to do but that's how you win elections. >> that's why i wanted to talk to you about this. we've got mitt romney now for the first national poll not leading. he's not only not leading but rick perry is ahead of him by 12 points in the gallup poll that came out today. and we've got geared to make jon huntsman a 1 percenter.

i mean, to have ron paul polling at 13%, and huntsman at 1%, all of the republican dynamics working in that direction makes it hard for me to believe that the adults in the republican party are not thinking that you guys are about to do a christine o'donnell. >> makes a lot of people was in because you see stories in the wall street journal and conservatives press of paul ryan, who's shut down the rumors and governor christie of new jersey and others stepping in, so it does make people nervous. but i think i think the reason perry has surged ahead is because there was a feeling that the field wasn't complete. i don't know if his lead over romney is one he can sustain, but he certainly has generated a lot of excitement, and it's not just from tea party-like voters. >> what way was the field complete then complete with rick perry. somebody who didn't believe in evolution or global warming, the only thing you get with him is

he's not a woman. you've already got michele bachmann taking on this position. >> let me give you -- howard dean was very exciting to democratic primary voters in 2004. >> yeah. >> and he ended his own candidacy with the dean scream in iowa. rick perry is pretty exciting to republican primary voters. he's a straight talker, which was enough to really endear john mccain and help him win the nomination. he's plain spoken at a time when distrust for every elected -- not just republicans. every level of the federal government. there are no more arbitors of truth in washington. they were saying if we were to default on our debt, that's horrible for america. people didn't believe him, a lot of americans felt duped. there is an historic level of distrust for every institution in this country. and i think rick perry kind of

flofs in as a fresh breath of air to a lot of voters. >> the parallel with howard dean, his extremism is he was against the iraq war. >> but it's more than this ideology. >> not i want to lynch the fed chairman. he wants to treat them ugly down in texas, wink, wink. >> you saw texan karl rove really come down hard on him. >> rick perry wouldn't want to treat karl rove ugly in texas, too. >> that's another story. >> we don't have time for more stories. nicolle wallace, thank you so much. white house communications director under george w. bush, and no matter what you think about that campaign or presidency, nicolle is a nice person to talk to, get off my back. we'll be right back.

okay, graph feeder, we have not done this in a while. this edition is called if you think you're sick of this lousy economy now, just wait until 2017. the chart on your careen is new today from the congressional budget office, the yellow brown line, who picks these, anyway? yellow/brown lines shows prosperity america could be enjoying if the economy were working right right now. the blue lines show where we are and where we are going from now until 2017. six years from now, unless we do something about this economy, we are going to stay stuck for a long time. yet the common wisdom in washington, d.c. is that nothing

can be done to get us unstuck. that republicans will never agree to help the economy, or to another economic stimulus. even if the stimulus was possible, the common wisdom says you can't really get real projects off the ground. want to build a bridge, the "the wall street journal" said today? it requires at least five years assuming no complications. house speaker john boehner's office flat turned down the idea of having the new budget super committee look at deficit reduction and job creation and getting the economy going again at the same time. boehner staffer telling us, quote, my concern would be this is some sort of new window dressing for the same tired, old, discredited washington stimulus spending proposals. okay, so john boehner is not into the government helping the economy, which means it's just not going to happen. you want to see who thinks it can happen?

wall street. wall street believes. the dow jones jumped more than 300 points yesterday. call them crazy, but these guys believe there is a real reason for optimism. the economy is so bad that, quote, what investors are reading is that the fed has got to do something. by the fed they mean the federal reserve, chairman ben bernanke scheduled to give a speech friday. the rumor is he might, might, might, might say the fed will take stimulative action to try to help the economy. even though the fed shows little sign of actually being ready to do that, and even though i am the most most pet mesic person on planet earth, even i am beginning to believe we not only can, not only should, but might even do some kind of stimulus, the kind of stimulus specifically where you build thing. exhibit a, florida senator marco rubio who has been auditioning as the republican party's favorite vice presidential possibility in 2012. in a speech at reagan presidential library last night he made the case the government needs to spend money on this

stuff. >> and it is the proper role of government to invest in infrastructure, yes, government should build roads and bridges, but it should do so as part of economic development, as part of infrastructure, not as a job's program. >> i'll take it. we should build roads and bridges. marco rubio, darling of the republican party, darling vp pick of 2012, making the case with his own lips. imagine a few jobs get moderately created on the side, would he mind if that happened? if we didn't say it was the point? if another economic stimulus can, should and might even actually happen, if it might suddenly be possible instead of impossible, then you are going to need a good pitch for it because if you think what you're trying to do is never going to happen, you don't really have to worry about how good your idea for it is. but if you believe you really have a chance, if you believe it might succeed, you really have to get the pitch right. like maybe this pitch. for fix america's schools today,

acronymed as f.a.s.t., they say we could end tax subsidies for profitable oil companies and use those savings to, instead, fix the school buildings themselves. our schools are on average more than 40 years old. they need better plumbing, heating, new paint so they don't look like prisons, ending tax breaks for oil companies so help public schools. public schools made more energy efficient can run on leaner budgets in the future. and maybe create a few jobs by accident, marco rubio. who could say no to do that? i'm joined by jarod bernstein and economic adviser to vice president biden and one of the thinkers behind this f.a.s.t. proceed postal as well as an msnbc contributor. thank you for being here. >> thank you for inviting me. >> did i fairly characterize the idea behind the f.a.s.t. infrastructure budget proposal? >> absolutely. you heard mr. rubio talking

about roads and bridges. one of the things that recommends f.a.s.t., and i was there during the recovery act. i traveled around the country with the vice president and went -- going to work sites. we saw lots of great roads and bridge projects. but one of the things we saw there is that work has become considerably more capital-intensive. it used to be more labor-intensive. right now we want to make sure are we're creating jobs for people, not for machines. f.a.s.t., fix america's schools today, would repair backlog in hundreds of thousands of public schools across the nation, that work is very labor-intensive. insulation, repair work to structures, replacing windows, boilers, maybe even greening up some schools with solar panels. that kind of work puts a lot -- a lot of folks back on the job. don't tell mark rubio about that but it does work. >> this is a scaleable problem. you could do this on as small a level as one school or a big

level of all the schools in the country, depending on what political resources were freed up for it. is that how you arrived at the very politically convenient idea of paying for this with the oil companies' price subsidies? >> very much so. that and the fact that one of the goals of f.a.s.t., this repair and modernization of school s generate energy-efficiency savings. we thought there was a connection there. if you look at the ten-year price tag, about $50 billion for oil companies. that's a relatively small share of the maybe $300 billion backlog in repairs. but let's take this as a program that could last for a year or two, at $50 billion, create 500,000 jobs. we think that's kind of a marriage of a big problem, the backlog and repairs and the well over million construction folks put out of work when the housing bubble went bust. >> are there parallels from american history of these sorts of initiatives that you're

recommending the president pursue here? >> not only are there parallels but you use aid word earlier in the show i'll take here, normalsville, back in normalsville time, and rubio's quote is relevant, infrastructure programs like this were supported in a bipartisan manner. republicans generally feel pretty good about this american institution called public schools. but if you look at the state of disrepair, and this is something i field -- i happen to be a parent who drops kids off at public schools. i live in a affluent part of the world here and even in my area you see the condition of the schools. i really, frankly, kind of worry about the message we're sending to our kids. i mean, at one level we talk about education being really important and another level we send kids, especially in hard hit districts, to schools that are falling apart and are unhealthy and are unsafe. i think that's a bipartisan sentiment. >> jared bernstein, senior

fellow, and msnbc contributor, good to see you. thanks for joining us. >> my pleasure. today i sent an e-mail to two of the producers on this show, to cory and to bill wonderful. i was asked cory and bill together a question. you send an e-mail, cc, or put them both in the "to" line but the answer came back from cory. his reply, and i quote, at the moment bill is playing the part of a mflamingo. he really was. it's actually a news-worthy story coming up. well, sort of. [ female announcer ] we always try to save you even more money

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candidates like rick scott were elected in last year's election year, those candidates were commonly described as favoring smaller government since that's the ideological brand that has been ascribed to the tea party. despite that saw some branding, it turns out smaller government is not actually what these guys favor. at least not the way they governed. across the country the election of tea party republicans has resulted in expanded role for government, expanded role in deciding what happens to your pregnancy. an unprecedented rollback of individual rights on the issue of abortion. in rick scott's florida, his brand of tea party republican big intrusive government has also expanded the role of the state to include mass

examination of floridians' body fluids. florida republicans this year at governor scott's, instituted mandatory drug tests for florida residents receiving public assistance, not public assistance and suspected of drug abuse for any reason, just anyone who's getting assistance. if you're getting public assistance, you have to submit urine, blood, or hair samples to rick scott. here's governor scott explaining why this is such a priority for florida republicans. >> studies show that people on welfare are higher users of drugs than people not on welfare. but the bottom line is this. you know -- >> sir, to that point -- >> we don't have an issue -- >> that would stop people in their tracks. i don't have whatever study you're referring to. you're saying people out there who need this assistance, lost jobs, on welfare, have a higher tendency to use drugs? >> absolutely. >> absolutely. florida governor rick scott in june defending his drug test poor people plan on the grounds that poor people do more drugs

than rich people. rick scott's forced drug testing plan did go into effect last month, tampa tribune reporting today the state's own numbers from the new program show that about 2% of welfare applicants are failing the drug test so far. hey, look, a study by the office of national drug control policy showing just over 8% of floridaens use illegal drugs. so why was it again rick scott thought it was so important to drug test everybody on welfare? >> people that are on welfare are higher users of drugs than people not on welfare. >> not according to figures being gathered as a result of your forced drug tests. as the aclu of florida argued today, we're not testing the population at large that receives government money. we're not testing people on scholarships or state contractors. so, why these people? it's obvious. because they're poor. this is just punishing people for being poor. really, really, really big intrusive government tea party style.

republican presidential hopeful rick santorum has a google problem in that he sort of can't be google pd because if you put the word "santorum" into the google search engine you get information. you get vivid, vivid information. but you don't get what you are almost certainly looking for about rick santorum. you know who else has a google

problem? moammar gadhafi. not for the same reason as rick santorum, thank god. the reason it's hard to google moammar gadhafi, at least in english, is because no two american news organizations spell his name the same way. here's gadhafi's name in arabic. according to only one way to spell it in arabic but in english. the state department spells it with a q. the associated press stelz it with a "g" although they replace an h in the middle with a d. if you surf around cable news channels they are different. msnbc and cnbc have decided to spell it with a "k" and a "y," cnn spells it with a "g." fox spells it with a "q" but a different "q" spelling with two ds in it. we found 112 variant spellings of the name gadhafi, which makes

him hard to google, among other things. but now copy editors and news rejoice, roman alphabet may have a answer of how to you spell gadhafi? max fisher rote about a video that shows the diplomatic passport of one of gadhafi's son, mohammed, looted from the presidential compound. passport is partly written in arabic and some pages in english. if you squint really hard you can see his name is spelled out officially on that passport, gadhafi, g-a-t-h-a-f-i. seriously? that's the answer? i thought our verse was the weirdest one. so, if this diplomatic passport is authentic we now have the solution to one of the great writer style book questions of all time. the other more important question of where is mr mr. g-h-a-t-a-f-i remains

unanswered at this hour, as does the question if anyone knows where his weapons of mass destruction are. roots are bringing you down!

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behold, we have found moammar gadhafi's nuclear program. we have found it. it's here. this is it. this is moammar gadhafi's entire

nuclear program. if you are thinking, that does not look at all like libya. that looks actually like tennessee. that's because this is tennessee. that's where gadhafi's nuclear program is. in 2003, libya allowed u.s. and u.n. and british officials to inspect ten previously illicit facilities. gadhafi becoming less of an international pir rye ya and western companies being able to do business in libya. but the cost to him is that his weapons facilities were not only inspected, the officials who did the inspecting left libya with 55,000 pounds of documents and nuclear components with the blueprints of a nuclear bomb with sent tri funlgs, thousands of them, with scud missiles and most importantly with highly-enriched uranium. gadhafi's entire nuclear program was moved, basically whole, to the oak ridge national laboratory in tennessee, with are we still have it. one thing gadhafi did not give up, however, was a bunch of raw

uranium and chemical weapons. he did sign on to an agreement which forbids making or using chemical weapons but what about his existing stockpiles not yet destroyed? who guards them? quote, there are still some 500 to 900 metric tons of raw uranium yellow cake stored in drums at libya's lone nuclear reactor east of tripoli. and, quote, the scheduled destruction of some 23 tons of mustard gas. didn't start until last year and only was halfway used when the system used in the destruction broke. the remaining is stored in a domed concrete bunker south of tripoli. one official quoted as saying that facility contains also more than 1300 tons of precursor chemicals that could be combined to make toxic agents. after what the bush administration sold us in the leadup to the iraq war, americans are pretty much inherently skeptical about this stuff.

>> the british government has learned that saddam hussein recently sought significant quantities of uranium from africa. >> from africa. when it comes to hearing about the risk of wmds falling in the wrong hands and the risk of uranium in africa the american public is understandably a little scarred maybe by that experience, but in this case, really? wmds may be falling into the wrong hands, uranium in africa, joining us now is member of secretary of state hillary clinton's international security advisory board and council on foreign relations. thank you for joining us tonight. >> my pleasure, racial. do we know what's still in libya? what didn't get removed as part of that deal in '03. do we know how dangerous what's left is? >> we have a pretty good idea. we have this yellow cake, which is one of the components used to

enrich uranium. that is probably the least of our worries, because it requires a complex manufacturing process to turn it into anything close to a weapon. we have this mustard gas you spoke of. about ten tons of it. fortunately, under the program that gadhafi negotiated, we destroyed almost all his weapons delivery capability for that mustard gas, about 3,000 rockets and shells, so it's difficult to weaponenize and it's deteriorating. it has a certain shelf life and the mustard gas is aging but still dangerous. the thing that people are probably most worried about is the radioactive isotopes that are at this research reactor. these are the byproducts of the fission process. these could be used as a dirty bomb, a high terror value in that, and very easy to make. and the thing we're actually most worried about is somewhere around 20,000 to 30,000 shoulder-fired anti-aircraft

weapons called man pads, or sa-7s. most of these are russian-made sa-7s. we don't know exactly where they are. very portable, very dangerous. >> in terms of the nonconventional weapons there, radioactive isotopes which are themselves are not weapons but could be used to make dirty bombs, and the mustard gas in the form it's in, in terms of where those are in the country, are we monitoring those right now? is nato monitoring them? is anyone? is there any plans to secure that material? >> we're monitoring all this from a distance. we've had international inspectors there since the 2003 deal as you noted, looking at this, cataloging it, and now since the hostilities have broken out over the last six months we've been using british, french other assets to monitor the chemical weapons which are stored in the concrete facility some 200 miles south of tripoli. we have a good idea of course where the radioactive material

is, and we've been assured by state department and defense department officials that are watching for any suspicious activity. it's the shoulder weapons we don't have a good handle on. we've had allied and american -- allied forces in the area destroying those that they found in rebel-controlled territory, but they haven't gotten into the hot combat zones yet. >> to be clear, the type of shoulder fired surface to air missiles you're describing here, that's the kind of weapon that took down that chinook helicopter, such a tremendous loss of life in afghanistan not long ago? >> that's exactly right anyone who's seen "syriana" knows these are portable weapons, they can move them in sort of guitar-sized cases and extremely dangerous. what you're worried about is the large supply. we're talking about thousands of these and the known large demand for these weapons by a variety of groups around the world. >> does the united states have a strategy to overall reduce the

number and availability of weapons like that which as you say are not going to be covered by any weapons of mass destruction treaty or protocol of any sort, do have the potential to cause real damage in a very low tech way. >> no international agreements for these kinds of shoulder fired weapons. in this case in libya, we have been working closely with the rebel forces to search any areas that the rebels have controlled to destroy these weapons about 30 so far have been destroyed. but of course the problem is much larger than we've been able to deal with so far. >> 30 out of 30,000 is not a good percentage. joe, you always know these things and deliver them in a way i can understand, even when they're terrifying, and for that i thank you. >> thank you, rachel. we will be back with the best new thing in the world today. frafrpgl frankly, it is sorely needed.

two things to note tonight about the earthquake that hit the east coast yesterday. the washington monument is still closed after three or four significant cracks were found on the top of the obelisk. they found some cracks yesterday. they found more today. the monument will remain closed until further notice, while structural engineers examine the damage. the second thing to note about the impact of the east coast quake, particularly in d.c., is also our best news thing in the world. if you've ever wondered whether animals really can sense earthquakes before they happen, a press release from the national zoo in washington, d.c., should help. it offers spectacular detail about what the national zoo's animals did before, during and after the earthquake. like the fact that the red roughed lemur sounded an alarm call about 15 minutes before the quake and then again just after it occurred.

the black giant elephant shrew hit in his habitat and refused to come out for afternoon feeding. and murphy, the zoo's komodo dragon sought shelter inside. we have no video of these animals doing these things because the web cameras set up around the zoo only stream video. we spoke to the zoo and they told us sadly they were not recording any of the streaming footage when the earthquake hit. so we have no video, but we do have these descriptions. and you know what else we have? we have people in work here in august. we also have a green screen and very little pride. we cannot promise this has any degree of accuracy, but here's what we think happened at the zoo yesterday, based on the press release. the earthquake hit the great a house and think tank exhibit during afternoon feeding time. about five to ten seconds before the quake, many of the apes,

including kyle, and kojo abandoned their food and climbed to the top of the tree like structure in the exhibit. about three seconds before the -- about three seconds before the quake, a gorilla let out a shriek and collected her baby and moved to the top of the tree structure as well. as you can see here. iris began belch vocalizing an unhappy/upset noise normally reserved for extreme irritation before the quake continued -- and -- before the quake and continued this vocalization following screams. the howler monkeys sounded an alarm call just after the earthquake. all the snakes began writhing during the quake.

copper heads, et cetera, normally they remain inactive during the day. one of the volunteers at the invert brit exhibit was feeding the cuddle fish and it was not responsive. water is normally very calm in the tank but the quake caused the tank to create waves which distracted the cuddle fish as you can see here during feeding. a female sumatran tiger jumped at the start of the earthquake in a startled fashion. her behavior returned to normal after the quake. the zoo has a flock of 64 flamingos. just before the quake the birds rushed about and grouped themselves together. they remained huddled during the quake. during the quake, all deer ran out of the barns and appeared agitated immediately after the quake. the female deer began