provide the exposition and i would encourage viewers to stay with you as we go forward. >> appreciate it, martin. our show begins right now. well, the big story, who is the boss when it comes to our economy, our schizophrenic stock market, it's just a thursday in new york. i don't see what the big deal is. i am dylan ratigan, nice to see you. terrible economic numbers racking up, top of the economy, bottom of the economy, any number you look at, here or around the world, just today, as we mentioned, the stock market tumbling again. the dow wrapping up its biggest two-day slide since december of '08. at one point in time, the central concern today going to the default risk in europe, where, again, they're playing the same guy we are. it is a race to the bottom. the s&p 500, the lowest close of the year. the market's perceived risk of

default on western european nations, specifically not greece, not italy, the default perception for france and for germany at a high for the year. many of us wonder who was calling the economic shots at the white house, why are they not dealing with actually the accounting fraud and the base fraud in the financial system, the need to cancel debt, the need to restructure the banking system. meanwhile, while they ignore those things, which, by the way, perpetuate the extraction, they just use rhetoric. the president in ohio today talking, hard on jobs. >> so my question is, what's congress waiting for? part of the reason i came here is because mr. boehner and mr. mcconnell, those are the two most powerful republicans in government. they can either kill this jobs bill or they can help pass this jobs bill. >> top republicans, meanwhile, from the two states ironically that bridge behind obama connects, calling obama's rhetoric a campaign stunt.

>> the time for the president to go into campaign mode. >> well, i would suggest, mr. president, that you'd think about ways to actually help the people of kentucky and ohio instead of how you can use their roads and bridges as a backdrop for making a political point. >> the interesting thing is, as awful as the democratic plans for our economy and our banking system have been since they came into power, the republican plans tend to be worse. which goes to tell you that the financial system controls both parties. none of this political grandstanding and pro wrestling create jobs, none of it realigns our interests, and none of it will bring us back to prosperity. there is, however, a new book out, written by our suskind, ca men." it is about exactly the failure to reform the financial system we were just discussing with martin bashir. perhaps because of his direct assertions on barack obama and his team's failure to address

these issues, they are now trying to assassinate his character. in it, suskind said the washington world, even inside the white house, simply don't think barack obama is the boss. we all have our own opinions on that, but let's find out what the author is arguing. you say, and you were saying to me as you were listening to me talking to martin bashir about the markets today, you wrote 500 pages on what i was talking to martin bashir about. what do you mean? >> the fact of the matter is, dylan, who's the boss? barack obama had a chance to be the boss in march of 2009 and he blinked. that's the core of the book. he came to office on a wave, i'm going to reform -- he was ahead on wall street. >> i remember! >> he got there, larry and tim were his right and left hands, rahm was managing the middle. he had -- and he stepped up. that's what the book shows. obama kind of got it. he says, i can do this. 2 million people are weeping on the mall at inauguration day, i got a 70% approval rating. >> reform the swaps market, recapitalize the banks, get the ratings agencies.

let's finish this thing and get capitalism back to america. >> the whole package, obama was ready to go. he said, look, in the beginning of 2009, we've got to do this and do it now. >> what is this? he said we were going to cancel debt, recapitalize the banks, reform the ratings agencies, the whole thing? >> take down the banks. >> we don't need to take down the banks, restructure the banks so they are aligned with our interests. >> absolutely. >> taking down the banks is emotionally gratifying and moronic. restructuring and realigning the banks is our only choice. >> they'll be resolved and restructured and come out of it clean. >> and you're saying obama asserted that in march of 2009 to who? >> in a meeting to everyone of confidence. tim geithner was the lone man standing on behalf of, just be cautious and push money towards wall street as best you can. and geithner wins. >> why? >> the president said, i want a plan first to resolve and reopen citibank. let's start with them. once we do that right, we'll kill off fear. so it won't be a fear of another

lehman-style -- >> you'll restructure citi, show how it can be done surgically? >> exactly. i want a plan for this and i want it now so i can see how it looks. that's middle of march. that's where the meeting ends. >> so what happens? >> geithner likes the stress test, that's just a preferred thing. >> stress test is just an accounting fraud. >> and that's clear to summers and romer? >> or anyone else on wall street watching it. >> they're delighted. a month later in the oval office, they're all there, except geithner. the president says, a huge month -- >> april '09. i left cnbc march '09 coming out of this whole thing fast money, expecting him -- >> everybody did. what about that citibank resolution plan? we're going to deal with it head on. christine romer looks at larry summers, oh, goodness, what should we say? said, mr. president, excuse me, there is no citibank resolution plan. >> geithner's not at the meeting. >> no. the president says, there better be. right there, outraged.

after the immediating, rahm huddles with larry summers and says, i can't believe christine said that in the meeting. >> said what? there's no plan. >> and summers says, but rahm, she's right. after that, i talked to geithner about it and the president doesn't deny any of it. he goes through exactly what he felt. ultimately, that's -- >> so what's your argument? >> well, barack obama, at this point, was overwhelmed and he did not take control of the white house in his historical moment. and a big part of it, as the point books out, letter and verse, is he was gamed by skilled senior advisers with affinity for wall street. >> let me ask you a couple of questions. because i'm still a little skeptical of the last few things that you said. >> right. >> are you saying eric holder runs the justice department, clear evidence, in dipstick tests, inside -- excuse me -- of collateralized debt obligations that were noncompliant with lending standards to be funded and insured and bought by the u.s. government.

dipstick tests that show one out of five of the bonds in that portfolio -- >> fraud. >> -- were completely noncompliant. >> right. >> you're saying eric holder was rolled by these people to not prosecute any of the fraud? >> the entire system was set up to preserve the existing system, period. >> but to that end, is that not barack obama's decision to do that? >> ultimate -- >> i feel like you're letting him off the hook. my only place where i -- i feel like you're letting him off the hook a little bit, in the sense that, even today, we have a massive foreclosure and housing crisis in this country. >> right. >> as we sit here today, the u.s. stock market is at an all-time low for this year. there is an all-time high for default risk in europe, and we're going to end up using, what, u.s. credit default swap lines to fund the european central banks clearing of the totality of the swaps market in central europe, the vast majority of which is garbage. >> barack obama's historical moment, he had the chance to reform the credit system, and he blinked. that's what this book says. and it goes through letter and

verse, blaming obama in many cases. he had -- >> so you're not letting him off the book. you're saying, you're trying to explain why he -- >> that's right. >> why he committed what i say to be his original sin and basically it's been downhill ever since for the guy. >> absolutely. and the downhill is where he had other chances along the way. >> health care, the drug companies. >> look at gary gentzler, he's a one-man show. >> he needs all of our help -- >> he's a hero in the book. >> let's cut to this then. how many books have you written? >> this is my fifth book. >> what'd you win the pulitzer prize for? >> feature writing at t"the wal street journal" in the mid-90s. >> congratulations on that. >> thank you. >> this book was written with to explain, as i understand it, wy obama committed the original sin, and we are still dealing with the snake that is serpent around the earth, sucking money out of pinpoint and this book explains why he did that. >> why, how it happened, and

what can be done going forward. and ultimately, there's no better day to look at what the book says than today. this was exactly -- >> swap lines are open to europe as we speak. >> this was the day everybody said, please do it so we don't have another day like this. paul volcker's in the book. pete peterson. everybody's in the book, telling obama in '08, even in '09, you've got one shot at this -- >> you've got to restructure this thing. >> -- please do it. tim and larry said, no, no. hippocratic risk, you'll love this, first, do no harm. >> do no harm to the banking system -- >> exactly! >> but do lots of harm to the poor people and the middle class. >> a strategic error. >> strategic error?! tell that to the people who don't have food. >> not separating wall street from american business and main street at the beginning, lumping them together, who was thinking? >> very quickly, is there a double standard in the media where the darling president of the liberal media, when you indict him in a book like this as being, as blowing it when it came to the fundamental problem in the global economy, which is

the structure of the credit markets, meanwhile, you indict george bush and you're a hero? >> absolutely. absolutely. and the thing is, i'm sitting here saying, i'm a reporter, this is my job. i'm not on one team or the other. they didn't believe it. now they believe it. ultimately, though, this is a book about a battle between new york and washington, a titanic struggle for the future of the country. new york one and the country lost. >> new york won because our government is bought by money and politics and it was impossible for that system to work by betraying the amount of money that is being extracted in new york and then funneled back to washington, d.c. fair? >> fair enough. book has it all. >> we're going to launch an amendment next week to get the money out of politics. i would love to get you involved with that. >> i'm here all week. >> congrats on the book. don't let them get you down. >> look, i'm just a reporter, old style. >> i like it. >> ron suskind, the book, "confidence men," i need to read this. i've been wondering for years why the heck our president didn't do the right thing and committed the original sin that really was the beginning of the decline of his presidency. coming up here on "the dr

show," the debate lives on. troy davis execution, stirring passions and sparking questions about america's ultimate form of punishment. but is the country ignoring the true injustice, the systemic incarceration of young black men in america. plus, after the storm, discovery storm chasers returning to the site of a catastrophic tornado in alabama. we're live from the scene six months later. and battle in the trenches. should college athletes get paid to play? we'll hear from both camps later. man: my electric bill was breaking the bank.

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it's a dark day for georgia and a darker day for america. >> i believe that an innocent man was just murdered tonight. >> supporters of troy davis outraged at his execution, claiming that an innocent man was put to death late last night. davis also maintained his innocence, right up until the final moments, with these words for the family of the victim. "i'm not the one who personally killed your son, your father, your brother. i am innocent." aside from all the talk about this man's guilt or innocence, which certainly i would never know, it cannot be ignored that troy davis represents a much larger conversation we need to be having about american prison systems. specifically the disproportionate number of young black men who populate them, a huge percentage for minor drug

offenses. why don't we talk about that? let's bring in our thursday megapanel. karen, susan and jimmy. let me rattle a couple of statistics off to you with guys. one in nine young black men are in prison. black adults four times as likely as whites. black men in prison make up 40% of the prison population. i can go on and on. you start to think to yourself, wow, black men are nothing but a bunch of criminals. and then you look underneath it and you're like, hang on a second, they arrest ten times more black men for minor marijuana possession than they do white men. the incarceration threshold for crack cocaine is 100 times higher than the incarceration threshold for regular cocaine. why is it that we are not arresting countless white people for marijuana possession and incarcerating them and why is it that when they are originally arrested, even if they are never convicted, they are then deprived of financial aid and all the other resources that we

provide to so many developing in our nation? i do not understand how the treatment of young black men in the context of drug-related -- minor, drug-related offenses as an incarceration rate, jimmy williams, is not as offensive to our nation as abu ghraib? >> well, it certainly is. i think it would be interesting, i always like to put the shoe on the other foot. what if a majority of the judges, both federal, state, and county judges were black? i bet you there would be a hell of a lot more white dudes in jail. and here's the thing -- and white women, by the way. when you put somebody in jail for peddling marijuana -- >> no, no, no, no. that's not what happens. they stop them in harlem, they pull out a joint, a single joint -- >> i know, i got it. >> -- which is illegal only if it's out of your hand. this is not possession. i'm not talking about dealers, i'm talking about tiny -- this much crack, this much marijuana, which gets anybody who's not

black a slap on the wrist, and puts a black man in jail. >> you and i agree. you and i agree. it's pathetic that you put people in jail for smoking marijuana or whatever it is. i mean, look, it's simple. i mean, you kill somebody, i get it. you ought to go away for the rest of your life and you shouldn't -- i've said this before. >> we get it. i'm talking about the percentages for these minor drug offenses that are systemically young black men. go ahead, karen. >> sorry. i think there are a couple things. dylan, i'm going to do what you normally do and go meta on you, on this one. because i think what we're talking about are the systemic inqualities. it's not just about the justice system. it goes to the economic conditions, it goes to education, it goes to once you are part of the juvenile justice system, your opportunity to be rehabilitated is actually decreased. >> even available food. even the food resources. >> and as we saw with troy davis, and you know, it is absolutely disproportionately

african-american men, but also latinos and people of color, and poor people. because part of what happens is you are less likely to get the kind of legal attention and the kind of legal expertise that we saw troy davis get in the last ten years than he did in the first couple of years. so i think part of what we have to say to ourselves is unless we are willing to fundamentally change these systems, are we comfortable as a society, basically writing off about a third of our population and saying, we don't care? we're going to just lock them up. >> and specifically, a huge percentage of our young black men. you cannot get away from that very notable fact. go ahead, susan. >> and when you look at the unemployment rate among african-american men, there you have it. and my guess is that the numbers of people going to jail has increased as the unemployment rate has increased. >> and as you add together the food deserts in the inner cities, the education that's based on reverse hot spotting, where we're providing less resources to people who need it the most. and you layer on all the other aspects of the propensity to

arrest people, black men especially, for minor drug offenses, you have a system, this is beyond race -- this is systemic racism. or at least classism. >> i'm sorry, guys, one thing i would point out that was shown in the troy davis case specifically, at a number of key junctures along the legal process, there were african-americans. so i think part of the problem we're talking about here when we talk about systemic inequalities, it is about a culture that's reinforcing stereotypes, women on women, black on black, latino on latino. it is a much, much deeper problem. >> and even beyond the race issues, there's a class issues, which is the systemic treatment of poor people as morally less valid than rich people. go ahead, susan. >> i was going to say, as karen was talking about earlier, they also do not get the representation that the white people or others may get, whether it's black on black or women, like karen was saying.

i think that's a big part of it. >> yeah. but dylan, there's another problem here, y'all, and that is that you have these mandatory sentencing -- >> bingo. >> -- procedures. and i'm sorry, i get -- so you get smoke -- get caught smoking pot three times and you two to jail 20 years, but you murder somebody and you get out on good behavior in 16? i mean, who in the hell is coming up with these crap? >> those are the rockefeller laws in new york working for you. >> well, they don't work! and by the way, it costs the taxpayer billions of dollars to incarcerate people for smoking pot. >> thank you. >> who gives a crap?! >> thank you, thank you. we keep the panel. straight ahead, if it's thursday, it's ahmadinejad, people. the iranian leader getting his one day a year on the floor of the u.n. typical walkout of delegations, you know the routine. who is this guy, really, and what really is the power dynamic in iran, and who really is in charge? in the garage, while i took refuge from the pollen that made me sneeze.

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well, palestinians are pressing ahead with a push for statehood at the united nations, and things do not look good for our president's call to restart direct talks between israel and palestine. there is no talk of a settlement freeze, which is the major palestinian condition to initiate talks. u.s. mediators still working behind the scenes, as clashes and protests continue to emerge along the west bank. also today, at the u.n., the annual tradition. the u.s. and western nations walk out on iranian president ahmadinejad. rayva baala, director of analyst at stratford, give us your insight, rayva, to the dynamic of power. you've educated us already to the cold war, or sometimes hot war, between northern middle east, iran, feeling the iraqi power vacuum, et cetera, and saudi arabia, as the sort of dynamic of power that is playing out. give us what -- give us the latest, if you will. the context of both what's going on with palestine, israel, and

iran. >> well, in the iranian arena, this is a huge moment for iran, especially if you look at the next three months. we're creeping up to the dead deadline for u.s. forces to withdraw from iraq. and iran knows that all the surrounding gcc states are watching this happen and are feeling extremely vulnerable. iran is feeling confident right now, and for good reason. they know they have the upper hand in iraq. so their goal right now is to not only consolidate influence there, but to intimidate their neighbors and to coerce the united states in many ways to reach some sort of accommodation that would be on iran's terms. you know, everything from recognition of iran's fear of influence to concessions on everything from energy rights to military sales and things like that. so, iran wants to reshape the politics of the region. it's certainly going to the try, but, you know, that takes a very coherent foreign policy. there's some question as to whether the iranian are internally coherent enough to do so, but you know, this is their

moment. so right now we should expect to see a very aggressive iran in terms of trying to drive that negotiation. on the palestinian front, you have a much bigger issue -- >> let's stay on iran for one issue, and we'll come back for palestine, because this is big enough chunks of meat to chew on one at a time. go ahead, susan. >> my question is, we see iran and they are looking to expand their power basin. it looks like they've been trying to go to egypt in order to do that. and that should probably have israel even more concerned than they already are. how likely are they able to forge a good relationship with egypt at this point? >> well, the iranians have been trying to restore their relationship with egypt bit by bit, but, you know, the egyptians belong in that arab consensus that's very weary of iran right now. so still a lot of distrust remains. there's concern of iran's links to certain factions within the palestinian militant landscape, including hamas, the palestinian

islamic jihad, and of course there's hezbollah and lebanon that all the states continue to be concerned about. but, you know, iran's links into the palestinian territories are nowhere near as strong as they are in, say, iraq, and say, in lebanon. but, you know, hezbollah right now is very distracted with what's going on with syria and that's -- the effect that that's having within the lebanese political landscape. so they're pretty preoccupied right now, but we also see unrest rising again in bahrain. and the iranians would love to exploit that. but they're also operating under pretty heavy constraints there. still, the gcc states are still very worried that the u.s. is not going to be there for them. that the u.s. is going to be leaving -- >> and who are the gcc states? >> well, really, the critical player in the gcc is going to be saudi arabia. and then the surrounding gulf arab states. so kuwait, bahrain, and so on. so all of these states are looking at a situation where, you know, especially saudi arabia, which has in its

oil-rich eastern province, that's also a shiite majority province, where they really do not want to see shia unrest spread from bahrain to that region. so we have elections coming up, parliamentary elections coming up in bahrain on september 24th. the protesters are starting to rise up again, but, again, they're operating under pretty heavy constraints. >> go ahead, jimmy. >> reva, i'm glad that you have wufb pinpoi , you have pinpointed the problem in the middle east, which is iran. i was just in israel in april and we met with the palestinian authority, and i sat there and listened to them and i thought, you don't have any power. you don't have any money. you don't even have your own, quote, state, per se. why in the hell are the israelis and anybody else in the middle east running around -- this is my question to you, because this is my question to them. why is anyone having a conversation with the palestinians? shouldn't we be putting so much pressure on iran? i mean, aren't they trying to build a nuclear weapon? aren't they the ones that

everybody's concerned about? i just heard you say that. >> well, for the united states, if you're looking at it from that perspective, yes. iran and its expansion of iraq is the biggest strategic issue for the u.s. to be concerned about, but it's far too distracted to really deal effectively with that. but on the palestinian issue, you know, the israeli/palestinian issue, that's something that's going to keep going on. that conflict will continue, but the bigger issue in play there -- >> it has been for 40 years, yes. >> absolutely. but the bigger issue in play there is between egypt and israel, and that's where we see a crisis developing. and that certainly has the u.s.'s attention right now. >> that's water issues, yeah. >> karen? >> thanks, dylan. so here's one question. we've heard a lot about, in terms of the -- just from a procedural standpoint, what is happening this week at the united nations, so if they're not recognized as a state, the palestinians could be sort of have a different kind of form of recognition that would enable them to have certain legal rights in terms of prosecutions

against the israelis. what kind of an impact would that have on the peace process and on the ability to get people back to the table to actually try to come up with a two-state solution. >> it certainly lifts and builds the political pressure on israel. this doesn't put israel in a very comfortable position at all. but, this is a process that could drag on very, very easily. so if the pna pushes for full statehood at the u.n., they're going to have to go through a u.n. sc vote. that's exactly what the united states, france, and others want to avoid altogether. so to put that into perspective, it took south sudan three days to get statehood recognition at the u.n. on the other hand, it took georgia four years. and you can bet there are a lot of different parties that want to delay this process. it's important to remember, it's one thing to declare a state, it's an entirely different issue to create a state. and there are fundamental divisions within the palestinian landscape between islamists,

hamas-controlled gaza strip, and secular fatah-controlled west bank. and hamas, for example, does not want this vote to go through. they do not want fatah to take the glory. what hamas wants is to shift the politics in the region, particularly in egypt, to allow it to become more powerful and to fundamentally change egypt's foreign policy orientation towards israel. that's the u.s.'s main concern. >> is it me, reva, or is there a myriad of misaligned interests at work in the middle east? >> it's a region full of contradictions, but that's what keeps me busy. >> i bet it does. and you are so busy, and yet so incredibly clear and informative for us, it truly enhances, i think, the quality off our journalism and we benefit from your work. so thanks for taking the time and thanks for strathmore for making you available to educate us. thank you, reva.

>> thank you. >> reva bhal lrkbhalla, worth c out online. as we take a momentary break here, we take a look at a new face to tonight's gop debate, oh, and by the way, we say farewell to our lovely panel. thank you, guys. this candidate's for cutting taxes, slashing the debt and ending the wars right now and he's in the next debate. who is it? we come back. a vacation on a budget with expedia. make it work.

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sun life financialrating should be famous.d bad, we're working on it. so you're seriously proposing we change our name to sun life valley. do we still get to go skiing? sooner or later, you'll know our name. sun life financial. one person we did not hear from, however, is our next guest, the former governor of the state of new mexico and a declared gop presidential candidate, gary johnson. and governor, it's a pleasure to see you again. how are you today? >> mad as hell. i don't want to take it anymore, dylan. >> well, gary johnson need not be quite as mad anymore, at least not about his treatment, just our country's treatment, after being snubbed for most of the gop debates, the former new

mexico governor will finally take the stage with the other republican hopefuls this evening in florida. johnson ultimately scored an invite after cracking the 1% mark in five recent national polls. and if that doesn't sound like much, you should know, that was not last place in those polls either. check out the latest cnn opinion research poll. there are your front-runners, and further down the risk, you can see johnson is actually ahead of both jon huntsman and rick santorum. of course, johnson is not your normal gop candidate. he does not agree with the wars in the middle east, he thinks pot should be legal, and if elected, he promises to change the tax code to a fair tax. now, we are not hear to endorse any candidate, but what we'll always endorse is an open debate with new and divergent ideas on how to get this country back on track. straight ahead, with college football back in gear, we're asking, should ncaa athletes get paid like the pros? they sure make enough for their

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you had me at "probiotic." fresher less processed foods introducing freshpet recipes so fresh the only preservative we use is the fridge freshpet fresh food for fido last year, the southeastern conference became the first to crack the billion-dollar mark, ladies and gentlemen. that is their college athletic programs, from football to tennis, scored over $1 billion in revenue. the big ten, a close second on the money trail, and it's money drummed u eme emed up by essent

selling the athletes who perform the entertainment, their performances, their stories, their likenesses. but how much of that money do the players get for all their time and sweat? zero, of course. because college athletes, we are always told, have always been, and will always be, amateurs. but the business around the entertainment provided by their performances is anything but amateur. as the university scrambled to set up super conferences, ditching decades of legacy for more exposure, bigger tv money, are we really supposed to continue holding the kids performing this high-value entertainment to amateur status? joining us to discuss the matter, two men with considerable expertise in the subject, taylor branch, who's scathing piece for "the atlantic" is being held as a water mark moment for the ncaa, and donny jones, whose know show

provides october 3rd. dehoney, shall we say, is a man of the world. taylor, what is the most essential points of your scathing thesis? >> the ncaa is coming apart for practical reasons, because they're squabbling over the money. but underneath, and unbeknownst to me and a surprise, it's unjustified in principle. there's nobody else in our whole society that we impose amateurism without benefit of law or anything else other than a cartel and custom. >> dehoney, you've obviously walked into a room with people of a certain point of view. you were explaining to me during the commercial break that this is a point of view that's very relatable to you, but for you, you hold the line on the need to protect the purity of the amateur competition, which quite honestly, resonates with me. that makes sense. i can see the appeal of that. i just would like to hear your thesis. >> i think something definitely changes when money enters the

equation. regardless of what you're talking about, in any sport, in any business, in any type of unique endeavor that you have, once money hits the table, something changes. and of course, you look at the universities and it's a billion dollar industry, and you first think, there is so much money going to the university, but this is a big business. this is a business that someone built over years. university of michigan established in 1870. think about the amount of years it's took to build that university into a business institution. you made the choice to come to that school, you've made that choice to gain that scholarship. they've chosen you and you've chosen them and you've been given $40,000 in education over a four-year period of time. that's your due diligence, that's your payment to the school for them allowing you to be there. >> taylor, a fairly rational case for protection of amateurism. how do you respond to that? >> well, it's pretty easy. i mean, to say that getting your scholarship is all the pay you'll ever need is like telling somebody like because they've

got medical insurance, they don't need a salary or they're not entitled to a salary. it begs the question. i'm not saying that any school or college must or should pay athletes. all i'm saying is that it's not fair to ban and prohibit them to band together in a cartel and say we're not going to do it so we can keep the money. and no college is allowed to offer money to a player and no player is allowed to receive any or even sell his jersey for cash, you know, for spare money to go on spring break. nowhere else in our society do we impose amateurism on somebody else without their consent. athletes are not members of the ncaa, they're excluded from membership, these rules are imposed on them without their consent or participation, and any adult, anywhere else in this society would reject these terms. and, you know, i think one day we'll look back on it and be embarrassed that we were so pretentious as to say, it's up to us to decide what these

college athletes should be satisfied with. >> but i think the question is, where does amateurism and professionalism start? i mean -- >> where else is there any amateurism in the -- amateurism is -- >> well, amateurism starts from when you're a young child and you step on a peewee football field and all of a sudden you start to play, just for the love of the game, because your parents or your father's fathers or whomever decided to say to you, why don't you try football, and you say, look, i want to try football. you know, these young kids are also being branded, high school students. you look at texas, you look at ohio, you look at california, these are big business. they also don't get paid as well. they also don't get anything for their services, if you will, as labor, as you guys are speaking, as possibly free labor. but they get the opportunity, they get the education, they get to participate in the game that they love. and i think there's a certain purity of that, as we've talked about before, that -- >> that's emotionally appealing. >> exactly. >> and taylor, i see where dhani is coming from. i can appreciate the emotional appeal and the sort of, the

preciousness of the honest engagement in competition between young men and women as a sport. i guess what you're saying is that honest engagement is being exploited by a cartel? >> it is exploited by a car -- look, i was a little league coach for ten years. i love these sports, i think they're great. i was emotionally attached to amateurism in college, until i started thinking about it. i wanted to drain some of the money out of it and restore kind of socrates at the university and pure sport. but these -- amateurism is something you should feel. it's like religion. it's not something you should impose on someone else. and these athletes in college are 18 years old. they're the same age as soldiers who are dying in afghanistan and iraq. and to tell them that we should decide the terms of their service. they're maintaining two careers, like any -- like the toughest -- >> but they're -- >> what about the cartel? he makes an interesting issue, which is that at last cthere's

cartel you can't negotiate with. >> there's certain rules and stipulations in college that obviously you're going to buy into as you attend the university. you know this up-front. >> but what if you have no other university you can go to? >> once you decide -- >> but every university has same cartel rule rules, right? >> if you don't want to play the game of football, you don't want to participate within the rules, so be it. there's a lot of people who haven't had the opportunity to go to college or that university, because there's something to be said about playing in the game and playing the sport and playing it well and having an opportunity maybe to go to college that you may have been a little bit on the fence about going to because they may not have provided the opportunity academically wise. >> a great conversation. it's not going anywhere. i appreciate you coming in to have it, taylor. keep beating the drum and we'll spin this debate until we solve it, one way or the other. thank you, gentleman. check out dhani's show next

month? >> october 3rd. >> man, this man, he's a man of the world. >> live big! >> i know what you're all about. we'll figure it all out. but you have something to say and want to tell us what you are about. head over to, among other places, your facebook page. let your fingers do the talking, dylan-msnbc is the profile name there. of course, you can always hit us up on the twitter or post a comment to our website at dylanratigan.com. meanwhile, coming up on "hardball" here, president obama taking aim at gop rivals. chris matthews asking whether the tough guy act will translate to action. but, next -- >> that's thunder! >> no, it keeps going. >> is that a roar? >> that's a roar. >> oh, my god, there's debris! it hit something. this is a deadly situation. we're not getting anywhere near this thing. look at the debris! >> a devastating tornado caught on camera by discovery storm chasers. they're returning to the scene to rebuild the community they saw destroyed six months ago. we go live to alabama after this.

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you can hear the roar. this thing is an extremely violent tornado. there are large chunks of debris getting thrown up high into the air. we've called into 911 twice and they're aware of this thing on the ground. it's very dangerous. we're trying to get people out of here. >> that video from april 27th, four massive and powerful one-mile-wide tornadoes ripping through alabama and most of the south. overall, 350 killed and injured, well, thousands. it was one day out of a month which saw more than 750 twisters, the most active most ever. and hot on their trail,

discovery channel's storm chasers. today they have returned to a very different scene in alabama. instead of rubble, cleanup and rebuilding with volunteers from all over the country helping residents in those areas get their lives back to normal. and joining us now, the host of discovery storm chasers, reid timer, along with habitat for humanity's johnny roberts, who's rebuild his own home that was destroyed in the tornadoes. it's nice to see you guys. how many people are out working and what's the state of repair? >> well, there's probably 150 people out here working right now. and we've put up the walls of a couple houses already, and everything's going up really fast. >> what's the timetable for completion, johnny? >> we're probably looking at about three to furry months to get both of these houses completed. >> and give us a sense of how much progress -- how bad the damage was in april and how much

has been repaired since. and not just in this town, but in all the towns hit. is the status of where you are similar to other villages? >> it pretty much is. we're slowly beginning to rebuild, and there's a lot of houses we've helped repair and are beginning to rebuild some. it's slow and there's still a lot more to do. right here on the street where we're at, we're building two out of about six lots that there are still empty ones in between us. so we've still got a long way to go. >> reid, what are folks doing in the interim who obviously are without homes? >> well, i'm not sure right now, but i mean, coming upon this damage here, i mean, they still have a long way to go and it's sad to see it. we were chasing these storms back in april and we did search and rescue right after, and it's some destruction i've never seen it in 14 years of storm chasing. and they need all the exposure they can get. they need all the help they can get out here. and it feels good to get out of

the storm chasing vehicle and sweat it out and try to help these people in the recovery effort. >> as folks learn about this ongoing effort this fall to repair the tragic damage done this spring, if they want to help, how can they be helpful? >> well, they can certainly get involved with habitat for humanity. also, unit wade here in central alabama is taking a leading role in helping a long-term disaster recovery. >> reid, why was it so important to you? your day job is chasing these things, not chasing their aftermath. why did you make the decision to do follow-up work like this? >> well, i am a storm chaser and we chase these things down and try to help out the warning process with the national weather service and relay those reports. but i feel like this kind of puts closure on our chasing. i mean, you know, we chased them down and then we do search and rescue. and coming back here to help out, it just feels good to do.

>> johnny, how has community life been since the disaster? are people more connected to each other, less connected to each other? have they left, have people come? what's going on? >> some have left and found houses elsewhere, but i'll tell you, there is a bigger sense of community. i think we've noticed, we've talked more with our neighbors since the storm than we ever did before, just because you just have that bond of something you've been through together. >> and reid, does this give you a different perspective? storm chasing's kind of an adrenaline-driven activity. this is a different experience. how do you compare the two? >> well, for us, it's about science and calling in those reports and, you know, there is an adrenaline rush. i can't lie to you there, and you'll see us chasing down these storms next sunday on discovery, and we look fired up. but then coming back here and seeing the damage and helping

out is something that i think all storm chasers should do. because the damage is the dark side of storm chasing, but it's also what we're trying to solve out here, directly through helping out the warning process and indirectly through recording measurements inside and trying to better understand these things, to some day town the road increase warning lead times even further. >> what are warning lead times now, reid? >> well, for this storm -- for these tornadoes on april 27th, they are sometimes over a half an hour. and we need to increase those further. and i think if we better understand the wind circulations inside tornadoes, we can better build structures to withstand these types of winds. and it's still such a huge mystery of meteorology, especially what happens right near the ground and how fast those wind speeds can get. and that's the most important, because those wind speeds right near the ground are what caused the damage. >> and then johnny, tell us just a little bit about rebuilding your own house. >> well, it's really exciting, especially having so many people come from all over the country to help us. so we've gotten started today.

had a great turnout and are getting a lot of the walls built. one of the things we're doing, of course, is adding a storm shelter in our house. so we'll be definitely safe next time. >> fantastic. maybe you can convince somebody to add a hot tub or something. you know, maybe a couple of extra bathrooms. take advantage of the situation. >> sure. that'd be great. >> all right, guys. thank you for helping us better understand what's going on down there. you can check out reid's show this sunday on the discovery channel. and if you want to offer a hand vehicle to seek out on the internet to help johnny, reid, and the gang recover from those tornados in april. that's going to do it for us today. iam dylan ratigan. thanks for spending a slice of your afternoon with us. "hardball with chris matthews" kicks off right now. bad numbers. let's play "hardball."