tweets @laurence. the rachel maddow show. good evening, thanks to you at home for staying with us for the next hour. happy monday. >> rick perry jockeying for the front-runner position. rick perry has never lost and elected race for office, not one. not because he hasn't had fights and serious high profile named challenges. just last year, he was challenged for governor by texas long serving popular republican senator, kay bailey hutchison. there were two things i found surprising the hutchinson for governor campaign tried to use against rick perry. the first was the morales famous rick perry gay hidden text in the kay bailey hutchison campaign website. remember this story? reporter for the austin american statesman found in the summer of 2009 that the kay bailey hutchison campaign website

included a huge long list of terms that seemed designed to make her website pop on search engines. know how sometimes you google something and click on one of the search results the website that comes up doesn't actually contain the terms you searched for? that sometimes happens because websites have this hidden text you don't see as a user but that hidden text does get read and indexed by search engines. search engines hate the hidden text trick on websites but people do it anyway. in the case of the kay bailey hutchison website when she was running for governor against rick perry, aening mo the hidden text she had hidden on her website was the phrase, rick perry gay. she actually had rick perry gay up on the hidden text of their website twice. when asked about this, they said they had not done it but because

of the computer resulted a lot of people were searching for the phrase, "rick perry gay," even saying it would be taken down right away, the many ca pain made sure to get this quote into the newspaper. we did not know these offensive word associations were being searched for by hundreds of thousands of texans everyday. nor do we condone the computer generated existence on our website. they will be removed promptly. in other words, we're not saying rick perry is gay. we would never say that. we find the whole idea offensive but apparently a lot of people want to know. it is not unheard of for candidates to launch whisper campaigns and insinuate their opponents are gay. it happened in 1994 when george w. bush ran stuck. ly against ann richards for texas in governor and happened in the senate primary last year in delaware when christine o'donnell weirdly tried to insinuate over and over again

mike castle was ga. insinuations a candidate is gay is not an unprecedented thing in american politics. even though it is not unprecedented, i think it was still a surprising gambit from the kay bailey hutchison campaign. another surprising thing she tried to use was the case of cameron todd willingham executed by the state of texas in 2004 despite a lot of rather troubling flaws in the evidence used to convict him and despite his protest stations to the end he was innocent of the crimes he was convicted. kay bailey hutchison is a supporter of the death penalty and raised in her campaign the fact rick perry intervened in a panel looking into the evidence against him. she said in messing with that panel rick perry made a mistake and trying to ram rod a covering up. this was not in the general election, not rick perry running against a democrat or running against somebody anti-death

penalty, this was a race of two vehemently republican pro death penalty candidates in texas which made it a surprising choice for the hutchison campaign they would go after the willing ham case and whether or not he should have been executed. neither of those cases worked out. she lost in the prime to rick perry by 20 points and neither seemed to have carried over to rick perry's next many ca pain the one he is in now trying to win the presidential nomination. the other candidates in this race are throwing a million things at rick perry in terms of his record. they are neither explicitly nor implicitly accusing him of being gay. the cameron todd willingham case, in that case, rick perry is all but wearing that one like a badge of honor. >> governor perry, question about texas. your state has executed 234

death row inmates more than any other governor in modern times. have you struggled to sleep at night with the idea that any one of those might have been innocent? >> no, sir, i've never struggle with that at all. the state of texas has a very thoughtful, a very clear process in place of which when someone commits the most heinous of crimes against our citizens. they get a fair hearing, they go through and appellate process, they go up to the supreme court of the united states, if that's required. but in this state of texas, if you come into our state and you kill one of our children, you kill a police officer, you're involved in another crime and you kill one of our citizens, you will face the ultimate justice in the state of texas. and that is, you will be executed. >> not only is governor perry not losing sleep over executing

prisoners, he rather expertly turns even a question about it around into an opportunity to get the crowd to root for him. to root for him essentially in unison against these kinds of monsters who are coming into texas and doing monstrous things to find themselves on death row. it's the same way governor perry handled it during the hutchison case when she brought up the willingham case. if you "oppose the death penalty for someone who murdered his three children and beat his wife and forced her to have an abortion and changed his story and confessed and last words was a tirade about this is ex-wife and it was held up nine times by federal courts, then they should just say so. the idea was, what are you, on his side, this monster? you're worried about this guy's execution? that means you're on this moen

ster's side. this is why it is hard for anybody to make political hey, get political traction out of alleged bad treatment of allegedly bad guys. this is why when politicians get involved in crime and justice issues, the policy always changes in one direction almost always becomes more conservative than when they got involved. political defense against claims you are badly treating criminals or suspects or protesters or prisoners has always been to point at those people and say, you're taking these guys' side? they're the bad guys. you will take their side? it always goes in this same direction and has always been true and may always been true nobody has ever lost a race for governor in texas or republican primary because they mistreated a bad guy never used successfully against somebody in american politics at least it very rarely is. that will be comforting to the governors of florida and georgia frankly. today in florida yet another delay in execution. there have been seven this month

nationwide. florida kills its prisoners with a lethal drug cocktail that includes a new drug called pen tobarbitol. makers of the previous drug topped making it so it could not be used to kill prisoners. the maker of the new drug, a danish company does not want their product to be used to kill people and have said so over and over again but the states ha of gone on killing their prisoners with it. they announced they would no longer sell pentobarbitol to prisons. florida has a stockpile. they were set to carry out an execution of this man, the execution was delayed from the supreme court be for a stay in part because his lawyers said the drug would cause him substantial harm. it was blocked and the state of florida went ahead with it. he was declared at 7:14 p.m. eastern. it was announced a memorial

service held friday and funeral friday in savannah, georgia for troy davis executed by the state of last week despite the fact seven of the nine witnesses against him reisn't caed their testimony and three jurors who voted to convict him have significant doubt in that verdict. today also the largest jail in the world, which naturally is in america, also ended up in the news. did you ever see the movie "the hangover"? i personally have not seen it. it is very popular among the rachel maddow state of florida staf -- maddow staff. and asked if they had clips. there was a giant fight. >> nobody's seen doug. >> y rng i've ever been this hung over. >> what's on your arm? >> you were in this hospital last night. ? the only important thing is we find doug. >> where's your car, officers? >> my god. >> one of the executive producers of that popular movie, "the hangover," is a man named

scott budnik, in addition to being a hollywood producer does something self-sacrificing and very cool, volunteers to teach going where to people in jail in. he has done it for years. five years ago he won los angeles volunteer of the year award in a district in l.a. in which he lives because he does this work. today in los angeles, mr. volunteer of the year, the man who is the producer of "the hangover" had a sworn legal declaration released by the aclu in which he describes the multiple times he was in los angeles jails and saw sheriff's deputies beating people up, people imprisoned there, not fighting, not resisting, not provoking anything, not doing anything to deserve getting beaten up and getting beaten up in some cases badly. he says in is declaration, i then saw the deputy grab the inmate's head and smash his head into the wall hard. it was so hard i could hear an

audible b crack when the deputy slammed his head against the wall. at no point did i see the inmate do anything to the prisoners or deputy. the inmate was very respectful to the deputy. after i saw this, i quickly went inside the classroom. >> the biggest jail in the recalled woened a country. it is now in trouble. the fbi has been investigating the l.a. jail system in secret. part of the reason the fbi found out the jail was investigating them in secret found a prisoner inside the jail had a cell phone. they're not supposed to have cell phones. turns out the fbi had paid a bribe to a sheriff's deputy 1500 bucks to give that cell phone to the fbi's inform ant inside the jail so the inform ant could use the phone to call out to the fbi to tell them what he was seeing there for their investigation. one local los angeles news station, ktla has done an

exclusive report earlier this year on a gang in that prison, not a gang of prisoners but a gang among the.jail guards, a gang among the prison sheriff's deputies and stands accused of assaulting this is prisoner, evan tuck beaten with flashlights and kicked repeatedly by deputies despite complying with their orders. >> reporter: at least three of the deputies involved in tu,'s case are part of a group called the 3,000 boys named after the 3,000 floor of central jail where they're assigned. the group works hard and play hard. as a symbol of their bond, they flash gang-like hand signs, three fingers for 3,000. they sport similar tattoos. one even has their number inked on to his neck. >> there was a distinct line drawn between inked and non-inked deputies. 92 the ink this current l.a. deputy is talking about are

tattoos worn by groups of deputies as symbols of allegiance to deputy affiliated gangs. >> they call them subgroups, secret societies. >> do you think these groups breed pro-tensity of violence? >> nlgts. >> they brag about it. they brag about kills. >> the sheriff in charge of the los angeles jail i system acknowledges this group exists within this is department but denies they are responsible for violence. because of what they call whuns hundreds of unprovoked assaults and beatings specifically on that 3,000 jail. the aclu is asking the attorney general and the federal justice department to get involved here. they're asking the justice department to bring a criminal investigation into how the largest jail in the country is being run. they're also asking for the sheriff, who is in charge of the facility to resign. his name is lee baca. whether or not sheriff baca does

resign or the sheriff department does turn this into a criminal investigation, if past is any prologue, no one else other than that sheriff is likely to win or lose an election because of this issue. this is politics but of a different kind. this is values politics, who we are as a country. it is a specific kind of political work to fix problems like this. to get attention to problems with the way we are doing the death penalty these days. sometimes to get attention to the death penalty as a problem itself. it is political work to raise enough of a ruckus to convince the catholic chaplains and people like hollywood producer visiting as a writing tutor to convince people like that to speak out against the jail therer working in even though they're definitely not there to make waves. the ruckus has to be loud enough to get people to care the biggest jail in the world probably ought to be torn down. even the sheriff admits that, to get people to notice and care the people they probably don't have too much sympathy still should not be beaten with

impunity. it is not about whether or not you like the person who the guy in the uniform is beating up. what this is about is the fact that the guy in the rmior is us. that is in our name. this is a democracy, government of, by and for the people. what sheriff's deputies did to this visitor, a visitor to the l.a. county jail, that's us. that's us. killing cameron todd willingham, that's us. no one really loses and election over stuff like this, true. especially on the right. there really is no compassionate conservative voting block holding politicians accountable on issues like this. kay bailey hutchison tried it against rick perry and lost to him by 20. these political fights do not decide elections be it these political fights every bit as much as who we elect in the next election will write what history says about who we are as a country.

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five months ago. we are building a website by ourselves. [ woman announcing ] there's an easier way. create your own small-business site... with intuit websites. just choose a style that suits your business, then customize, publish and get found... in three easy steps. [ bell dings ] sweet. [ announcer ] all from just $7.99 a month. get a 30-day free trial... at intuit.com. last week folks in clark county, kentucky, were woken up in the middle of the night by what sounded like an explosion. just east of lexington, kentucky. turned out to be a gas pipeline rupture. local news stations were flooded with calls about it. they sent the crews out to cover the incident overnight. according to the local news reports there had been another explosion in this same area along the same set of gas lines about four years ago. after last week's gas line scare

in central kentucky, we have word this week from the "associated press" that kentucky's junior senator is taking a principled stand now on gas pipeline safety. his stand is that he's against it. he's blocking gas pipeline safety measures. the safety bill the "ap" notes has support from both parties and from the gas industry, which after all, has been having a problem with its pipelines blows up. quoting the "ap," a deadly gas line explosion near san francisco last year and other gas explosions and oil pipeline spills has created consensus in congress as well as the industry that there are gaps in federal safety regulations. there is a consensus, consensus that something needs to be done. a consensus except for senator rand paul who is blocking it from being done. "officials familiar with senator paul's objections said he has told lobbyists and company officials that he's not opposed to any specific part of the bill, just to the notion of additional federal regulation." the notion.

gas pipeline safety equals government regulation. which according to rand paul is bad in the abstract even if it makes sense in the specific. a gas pipeline explosion in san bruno, california, in september of last year spit out a 300 foot tall flame that burned for an hour and a half until workers were able to shut off gas valves feeding the pipeline manually. that explosion killed eight people and destroyed dozens of homes. in december a gas line apparently exploded in wayne, michigan. it destroyed a furniture store and killed two people. in january of this year a gas pipeline exploded in philadelphia and killed a city utility worker and injured six people including two firefighters. about a week later several buildings were destroyed in fair port harbor, ohio, in a gas line explosion and series of fires. the gas line explosion, february in allentown, pennsylvania, leveled two row houses and killed five people including a 4-month-old child. the pipeline safety bill that's been supported right now by

democrats and republicans and the gas industry, itself, could mean things like automatic shutoff valves on new pipelines and confirmation that records about how much pressure pipelines can take are, in fact, accurate records. it could mean more inspections of old pipelines for safety. but even after the last year we've had with deadly -- with fatal, giant gas pipeline explosions in this country, even after last week in which rand paul's own constituents lived through a catastrophic gas pipeline rupture, rand paul is the one solitary u.s. senator who's willing to stand up and block gas pipeline safety for the whole country. he says it's on principle. president obama is now squaring off against republicans like he has never done before in his presidency. drawing out the contrast between himself and republicans. between he says the whole country and republicans. on issues like that principle. >> we should have no more

regulation than the health, safety and security of the american people requires. every rule should meet that common sense test. but what we can't do, what i will not do is let this economic crisis be used as an excuse to wipe out the basic protections that americans have counted on for decades. in fact, this larger notion that the only thing we can do to restore prosperity is just dismantle government, refund everybody's money and let everyone write their own rules and tell everyone they're on their own, it's not who we are. it's not the story of america. no single individual built america on their own. we built it together. we have been and always will be one nation under god, indivisible with liberty and justice for all.

a nation with responsibilities to ourselves and with responsibilities to one another. and members of congress, it is time for us to meet our responsibilities. >> to put it more succinctly and without the applause lines, government equals bad. not an answer to america's problems. and when one of america's problems is exploding gas pipelines, a certain junior senator from kentucky may have picked a fight against fixing those pipelines on principle, but the people on the other side of that fight are fighting on principle, too. and doing it out loud. the president's campaign for his jobs bill is happening alongside the beginnings of his campaign for re-election. and to make both cases for his re-election and for his jobs bill, the president is talking more and more now about principles, about values, more than ever he seems very happy to contrast his values and what he argues are american values with the values that the republican party is showing right now.

>> middle class families shouldn't pay higher tax rates than millionaires and billionaires. warren buffett's secretary shouldn't pay a higher tax rate than warren buffett. a teacher or a nurse or a construction worker making $50,000 a year shouldn't pay higher tax rates than somebody making $50 million. that's just common sense. and keep in mind, i'm not saying this because we should be punishing success. this is the land of opportunity, but what's also a quintessentially american idea is that those of us who have done well should pay our fair share to contribute to the upkeep of the nation that made our success possible. i've talked to, and most wealthy americans agree with this. of course the republicans in congress, they call this class warfare. you know what, if asking a millionaire to pay the same tax rate as a plumber makes me a

class warrior, a warrior for the working class, i will accept that. i will wear that charge as a badge of honor. >> you want to know why the president says he is willing to wear that charge? the charge of being a class warrior as a badge of honor? a warrior for the working class, a warrior for the middle class? it's because in this country what he's describing, what he is doing, what he is fighting for in these speeches is a very, very popular thing. a poll out this week from public policy polling shows 73% of americans agree with the president on the warren buffett rule that the president just laid out. changing the tax code so people who make more than 1 million bucks a year pay at least the same tax rates as people who make less than that. you should not have your taxes lower than everybody else because you're a zillionaire. 73% of americans support that. 73% of americans don't support the idea of puppies. that's a very, very popular idea. a mainstream idea.

conservatives like this. when you pull out republicans from the polling here, you have 66% support for the buffet rule. 66% of republicans are with the president on this one. social conservatives are always talking about wanting to make elections values elections. what they mean is that they want the election to be about gay rights and abortion and stuff like that. turns out it is democrats this year who want this to be a values election except the values they want to talk about are things like rich people shouldn't get special treatment and bridges shouldn't be left to rot and fall down. also gas pipeline explosions, bad. it's not as catchy as guns, god and gays, but it is something. joining us now is joe, founder and owner of the blog, barefoot and progressive and staff writer at "the leo" in louisville, kentucky. thanks for being here. >> thanks for having me on, rachel. >> is it resonating in kentucky after last week's pipeline

rupture and everything, is it resonating in kentucky that rand paul is holding up the pipeline safety bill here? >> well, the "ap" broke the news on tuesday and people are just now starting to realize what rand paul is doing. but that's basically what his tea party base wants. the tea party has a really strong base in kentucky and they elected rand paul to come in and dismantle government and shrink it as much as possible and that's exactly what he's doing this week, even on this pipeline safety bill which even the industry, itself, has no problem with and thinks it's reasonable. >> so you don't -- rand paul absolutely campaigned as an anti-government candidate. i had a very long awkward interview with him in which he was so anti-government he wouldn't say that he thought that government intervening in terms of civil rights laws even was necessarily a good thing. do you think that that kentuckians knew this is the kind of thing he meant by this, that pipeline safety would be one of the things that he'd be opposed to? do you think that isn't a surprise? >> i don't think it's much of a

surprise. if you consider during his senate campaign he was saying there should be less safety regulation from the federal government when it comes to mining, and he said if there's a mining accident and a bunch of miners die, well people can just take their labor and their rational self-interest over to another mine and work there. and i guess they would also hope that the lack of regulations also didn't kill them at that mine, too. so i think rand paul pretty much laid it out straight in the senate campaign that he was going to come to washington and get rid of as many regulations as he can and shrink government and apparently 55% of voters in kentucky went along with that. >> in terms of how rand paul's senate campaign is going to evolve over time, if at all, i wonder what you think about -- your vantage point being closer up to him and dealing with his constituents all the time, what do you think he's going to do about pressure from his own party? congressman charlie denton, a republican from pennsylvania,

said he was saddened but not surprised by senator paul putting this hold on the pipeline safety thing. do you think pressure from republicans will make difference to him either in the short run or over time? >> it's really fascinating his relationship with mitch mcconnell. rand paul ran basically against establishment republicans like mitch mcconnell blaming them for increasing the national debt and the bank bailout. what you've seen over the past year is mitch mcconnell doesn't really call out rand paul and rand paul doesn't really call out mitch mcconnell. so i don't think you're going to find it from mitch mcconnell because they seem to have a mutually beneficial relationship, but you could see other republicans pointing to rand paul and saying, hey, that's rand paul and the tea party, that's not necessarily me. but in terms of the tea party base here in kentucky, that's what rand paul really cares about. it's not just the base. he's a true believer. he comes from -- his intellectual heroes are

libertarians like lou rockwell and people from the mease institute and his father. he's a true believer when he comes to that and typically very stubborn. i'm not sure how much pressure from other republicans is going to do. >> in the meantime the whole country doesn't get improved gas pipelines. joe sonka. thanks very much for joining us. nice to have you here. >> thanks for having me on, rh. l. on last night's show we ran out of time because of the breaking non-chris christie news before we could show you our best new thing in the world. while i like the happy stories and the weird stories, the ones i really, really love are the stories that are happy and weird and also a little weepy. so i'm pleased to report we have a deluxe three hankie heart tugger coming up. right at the end of the show tonight. ♪ when your chain of supply ♪ goes from here to shanghai, that's logistics. ♪

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the latest episode in the free wheeling reality show called the state of florida is a battle over who should be forcibly tested for illegal drug use. people applying for welfare, state employees, yes. members of the florida legislature, no. apparently. the great carl hiasen is here for the interview. ♪ sent her back to college for her sophomore year ♪

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and here's what we did today: supported nearly 3 million steady jobs across our country... ... scientists, technicians, engineers, machinists... ... adding nearly 400 billion dollars to our economy... we're at work providing power to almost a quarter of our homes and businesses... ... and giving us cleaner rides to work and school... and tomorrow, we could do even more. cleaner, domestic, abundant and creating jobs now. we're america's natural gas. the smarter power, today. learn more at anga.us. today the great state of south carolina began leading america out of our long national funk. south carolina is leading by example and by the force of its paul meadow will. from charleston, long creek, from beaufort to columbia to greenville, every day is going to be a great day.

a doggone great day everyday and don't you forget it. from now on by order of south carolina governor nikki haley, your call to the state parks department or the prison system or any of the other fine south carolina agencies you might call for any reason will be answered by someone saying, by gubernatorial mandate, and i quote, "it's a great day in south carolina." not hello. you have to answer the day by saying "it's a great day in south carolina." order of the governor. governor is a rookie republican elected last year on a small government business-friendly platform. she says she needs all the positivity she can get in south carolina. this month at a local rotary club she repeated a story she said she's told a million times, that at one major r south carolina employer, half the people applying for a job failed a drug test. half the people. that's why the governor said she wants to drug test everyone who applies for unemployment benefits in the state. >> i do want drug testing. i so want it.

the problem is, i've got to make sure the numbers work. >> so wants drug testing. she says she just has to make sure the numbers work. like, say, those numbers she just mentioned about half the people applying for a particular job in south carolina being on drugs. turns out though numbers don't work. executives at the employer she cited by name say, in fact, they don't test all job applicants, only the ones that accept a job offer. of those the company says, "we have less than 1% of those hired test positive" which does not mean half. not even close. not even within 50. it looks so attractive when florida tried it, this mandatory drug testing thing. governor haley likes it anyway. her counterpart, rick scott, ran as a business friendly conservative and pushed for mandatory drug testing. in his case for anyone who applies for welfare. >> people that are on welfare are higher users of drugs than

people not on welfare. >> not true, sir. let's make sure those numbers work. we do have some data now because the florida legislature passed governor rick scott's bill and hi he signed it. the law went into effect in july. the "ap" reporting so far about 2.5% of welfare applicants failed the drug test. on top of that, 2% of all applicants declined to take the test. let's call that 4.5% at most all together. even if you damn everybody that didn't take the test. again, from "ap," quote, the justice department estimates 6% of americans 12 and older use illegal drugs which means florida welfare recipients hire some rather clean living folks by comparison to everybody else. not only are governor rick scott and the state lawmakers wrong about who uses drugs, they are costing the florida taxpayers money because the state pays the cost of every test that someone passes. in his most recent column at "the miami herald" author carl hiaasen noted the shortcomings of governor scott's plan,

saying, quote, the governor's pee in the cup mandate does not apply to the one bunch that whizzes away more tax dollars. the legislators that pass such useless laws. i say line up all 160 of them for a patriotic whiz fest at the capitol clinic. you think more than 2.5% might test positive? let's find out. i'll pay for it out of my own pocket. joining me for the interview, columnist carl hiaasen, bestselling author and the one person i most wanted to talk to about this tonight. thank you for being here. >> hi, rachel. how are you? it's a great night in florida, by the way. >> i was really worried that might spread and that you couldn't say hello to anybody from south carolina without them saying that back to you. that would be cause for a new civil war. in terms of your offering to pay

for state lawmakers to be drug tested, any reaction so far? anybody thinking about taking you up on it? >> i heard that two of them had agreed to do it so that only leaves i think 158 more. i'm holding my breath. >> what is the justification for testing welfare recipients and state employees but not anybody else who receives state funds? like lawmakers, as you suggest, like state contractors, lottery winners, why just people on welfare and state employees? >> it's an easy target. this is class warfare. this is picking on the folks who happen to be unemployed especially ones with children. they're testing at a lower rate than the general population. the most recent federal drug survey shows national drug use at 8.9%, almost 9%. these people are living like monks compared to them. it's very easy and it's very popular to go after the poor and the disabled and those who are struggling to get work right

now. and that's what they did. my point was that these legislators control $70 billion in -- that's the size of our state budget. they should be first in line for any drug testing. immediately. it would be a public service. >> in terms of how we got to this place, obviously rick scott campaigned in florida as a small government conservative. somebody who wanted to shrink both the role and the size of government. >> right. >> how do you -- why don't we have any sort of mental disconnect? any sort of, like, cognitive friction over the idea that government is now intrusive enough to be forcibly demanding urine samples or hair samples from anybody who wants to do something as simple as apply for benefits? >> and all you have to do is walk in the door. you don't have to show any signs of drug use. it's completely without suspicion without basis and

fact. these are the guys that preached small government. that ranted and raved about small -- about government reaching its hands into people's private lives and the first thing they do when they get into office is go after the poor and unemployed. it's full of hypocrisy. they were an easy target. obviously it's a condescending and presidential and prejudicial attitude. it's not, by the way, the first time rick scott has gotten his facts messed up and i'm sure it won't be the last. >> one of the things you've written about on this subject recently is the fact what rick scott is doing with the mandatory drug testing thing, however hard it is to justify and however screwed up his facts may be in explaining it, it's pretty popular. >> it is. >> go ahead, sir. >> well, i mean, the idea is that it sounds great. there's a very reasonable assumption that people who are struggling to find work and who are unemployed shouldn't be spending their money on dope. we can all say, yeah, that would

be a very bad idea. can you legislate that? no. is this helping or hurting the problem? and the big issue also is the cost to taxpayers. the expense of not just the drug test but administering this law and fighting all the legal battles to preserve the law which by the way has been challenged successfully in other states. in one case the u.s. supreme court in 1997 threw out a law that georgia briefly had saying that all candidates for political office had to undergo drug testing. by an 8-1 vote the u.s. supreme court said that was a violation of the fourth amendment. all these costs are accrued now to florida taxpayers, to all of us by a governor who promised us less expense, less government and now we have a whole other layer of bureaucracy thanks to him. and i should say the lawmakers who cheered and pushed this thing forward overwhelmingly. >> carl hiaasen, "miami herald" columnist, bestselling author

and offering to pay for the drug tests of all of florida's legislators. if you get a majority -- if we're getting close to a majority saying yes, i'd like to be there along with a camera crew if you don't mind. >> but the deal is all or nothing. this is what they do to the applicants for the welfare funds. it's all or nothing. everybody's got to do it. so all 160 of these folks have to stand there with their little cup and do the deed and if the lab sends me the bill, i'll send a check the next day. >> it's a deal. you will send a check and i will send a crew and i will be there. i promise. all right. thank you very much, carl. it's nice to see you. we have the best new thing in the world today coming up. abe development of natural gas, whether it can be done safely and responsibly. at exxonmobil we know the answer is yes. when we design any well, the groundwater's protected by multiple layers of steel and cement. most wells are over a mile and a half deep so there's a tremendous amount of protective rock between the fracking operation and the groundwater.

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chris christie is not running for president. that means for republicans unhappy with their choices, that means the last maybe candidate on the sidelines who might still get in is former alaska governor and former vice presidential nominee sarah palin. governor palin has been doing campaign-like things for months now, resulting in poll types of things even show she hasn't technically entered the race. there is so much snarling when anyone talks about governor palin doing anything now, it's hard to remember real news about her doing politics. i think real news happened here on this show last night.

in july 2008, steve schmitt took over running john mccain's presidential campaign. the following month, in august, the campaign announced sarah palin would be mr. mccain's running mate. steve smith steve schmitt last night on this program, described the choice of sarah palin as the vice presidential nominee as a mistake. as someone who took part in the decision, he said sarah palin as part of that decision was a failure of the vetting process to arrive at a nominee who was qualified to be president. >> i think there have been failures in the vice presidential vetting process, and i was involved in one of them. and i think both parties have had failures in the vetting process. john edwards, clearly, and the nominee in 2008. and i think, you know, that there is substantial room for improvement about how the vice president is selected. it's a process that is marked by, you know, fundamentally a lack of transparency in the selection. it's marked by, you know,

tactical considerations, it's too political, it's about how do we step out of bounds, how do we get a couple points here, how do we reshape the race? the first and foremost consideration should be is this person qualified to be president in chief. >> he ran the mccain-palin campaign saying sarah palin in 2008, as someone qualified to be commander in chief was a failure of the vetting process. is sarah palin thinking about running again this year? this seems like an important assertion from someone who should be in a position to know. also who sat here last night with steve schmitt was nicolle wallace, who worked closely with governor palin on that campaign. for contacts here, palin has just published a book about someone very much like sarah palin who is elected vice president and who then turns out to be very seriously mentally ill. here is nicole wallace of the mccain-palin campaign.

here is nicole wallace's take now on the thought of sarah palin getting into the race for president this year. >> my advice for anyone, but particularly for her, and she has a whole nest of problems that would -- you know, she would have to confront. but the first one would be to resist her most partisan and most polarizing instincts because that would make her the wrong candidate for the moment. i was inspired by her to write a book about someone who was cuckoo for cocoa puffs, so don't ask me. >> she is the inspiration for a terrifying book of fiction about someone who gets all the way into the white house before they are revealed to be seriously mentally ill. we are not usually a show that breaks important political news about sarah palin, but that is important political news about sarah palin.

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[ male announcer ] new bengay cold therapy. the same technology used by physical therapists. go to bengay.com for a $5 coupon. best new thing in the world has to do with the lights friday night of arkansas, which is in the northwest corner of the state. this was the scene at rogers heritage high school when the rogers heritage high school war eagle marching band made its season debut earlier this month. 85-year-old marty barrett lives in rogers, arkansas and she would have loved to be there. her grandson plays trumpet in the band. she was not in her regular seat in the bleachers that night to see the band play. that's because she has cancer. she is in hospice care at home and does not feel well enough to get to the games right now as as she wants to.

so these are pictures of two buses chock full of marching band members. unloading on to marty barrett's front lawn. her grandson anthony was front and center, naturally, so marty could see him from her window. watch. ♪ ♪ >> mrs. barrett loved it. she told our local nbc affiliate, quote, it was jazzy, and then she said this about her grandson. >> i'm very proud of this boy. i try to go wherever he's playing, and i'm not sure i'll be able to from now on. so i just mentioned i don't think i'll ever be able to hear him play again, and this happened. isn't that wonderful? it's like a miracle.