constitution, is clear. there shall be no religious test. that's "hardball" for now. thanks for being with us. "the last word with lawrence o'donnell" starts right now. good news for the democrats. the republican presidential candidates are trying to destroy each other. >> the race took an ugly turn. >> obfuscation and bewilderment. >> after this poor bastard loses i'll get a nice head start. >> i will not surrender. >> not just because of the mormon issue. >> there are a lot of reasons to elect me. >> i don't think mitt romney will energize evangelical voters. >> in iowa the evangelical vote is 35% to 50%. >> attack on romney's faith. >> the campaign accusing the candidate directly and through surrogates think people that attack mormons are being bigots. >> deplorable, deplorable statement. >> mormonism is not christianity. >> some moron can stand up and

make a comment like that. >> some people define it as a cult. >> it's always been considered a cult. >> you did rick perry no good, sir in what you had to say. >> joe scarborough, i refer to you derogatorily. >> a republican is attacking republicans for attacking the wall street protesters. >> growing mobs occupying wall street. >> protesters are filling the streets around wall street. >> wall street's connected to main street. >> i think this divisive rhetoric is fairly -- is divisive. >> it comes two years after the tea parties. >> i don't think they're similar to the tea party at all. >> the more than 25 million americans unemployed. >> herman cain says don't blame wall street. >> some of them are there because they don't have a job. >> finding someone to blame in my opinion isn't the right way to go. >> blue, red, you know, it doesn't matter. you're unemployed in this country. >> i tell you what they need. >> look out. >> a shower. >> there she goes.

while president obama's re-election campaign is busy raising the money it will need to do battle with a super-funded republican opponent who will be strongly backed up by super-pacs the republicanth s presidential candidates are doing battle in a way that can only help the president. in mit romney gets the nomination for president, it will only come to him after being battered like this by his chief rival rick perry. >> now, i'm a conservative businessman. >> time and again the white house pointed to the mt massachusetts model for its obama care. >> those who follow the path we pursue will find it's the best

path. >> i like mandates. >> i stand by what i wrote. >> noting that the line for doing the same thing for everybody in the country has been deleted. >> why if it's good for massachusetts and working for massachusetts you wouldn't apply it to the rest of the country. >> i would. >> romney flip-flopped on some of the issues. >> i didn't change my mind. there are a lot of reasons not to elect me. >> he's right. >> yes, that was chris hayes, co-starring in a rick perry anti-romney commercial. in response to that video, the romney campaign said, "rick perry is a desperate candidate who will say and do anything to prop up his sinking campaign. after a mere eight weeks on the trail, governor perry is poised to dethrone his one-time boss al gore as the most prolific exaggerator and truth fumbler in presidential campaign history."

if rick perry is to be the republican nominee, it will only come after attacks like that from mitt romney and after mitt romney has driven home the message to every republican voter that rick perry is an enemy of social security. >> the term ponzi scheme i think is over the top and unnecessary and frightful to many people. the real issue in writing his book, governor perry pointed out that in his view that social security is unconstitutional, that this is not something the federal government ought to be involved in. >> joining me now is howard fineman, editorial director for the aol "huffington post" media group. thanks for joining me tonight. >> hi, lawrence. >> the obama campaign has to be sitting back and looking at those videos and saying, oh, boy, they're doing the job for us. >> i think their only concern is the republicans are just going to use up all their ammunition on each other and in a couple weeks, it's gotten so nasty in the last few days. yeah. i think the white house, i know that the democratic strategists

and obama strategists around them are saying, you know, guys, on the republican side, you keep it up, we love the creativity and the edge of that perry ad. let's see more. let's see a lot of them on both sides. let's see more nasty comments from the romney spin doctor. let her rip. >> howard, it's interesting to watch those two, perry and romney, when you're considering what the ticket is going to look like. because with republicans, you can usually look at the top two or three and look at your whole ticket there somewhere. somewhere there's the presidential nominee and somewhere in there is the vice presidential nominee. but the shots they are throwing at each other seems to already be ruling out the possibility of a romney/perry ticket. >> well, lawrence, you and i have both been around a long time and you know that no matter how nasty it gets, there's always the possibility that desperation or circumstance will drive two people like romney and

perry together in the end. also having been around for a while, i can tell you, it's really unusual for things to be this nasty right now. you're talking stuff that is normally closer to, you know, the time of the actual voting. yes, the republican schedule has been moved up somewhat. voting is going to start maybe as early as january 3rd, maybe even earlier than that. but still to reach that level of intensity right now shows that, you know, some people are getting antsy. that would specifically be the perry campaign. >> and the perry campaign, let's take a look at the latest "washington post"/bloomberg poll. they're hosting tomorrow's debate among the candidates. 24% for romney. 16% for cain which is a surge. perry sinking like the romney campaign says. it is a desperate sinking campaign. they're down to 13% going into that debate tomorrow. which i think may have something to do with how hard hitting that video is. the perry campaign knows that it is very unlikely that now for

perry to land the kind of shots in the debates that they would like to see him land so they have to script those videos in order to have any kind of impact against romney. >> uh-huh. i think that's a good explanation, lawrence. i think the debate will matter. the thiother thing rick perry i trying to do is stay in the conversation as the main alternative to mitt romney. it has to be infuriating. i know it's infuriating to the perry campaign people, to the cain campaign people, to everybody else on the republican side. if you looked at that poll, lawrence, you saw mitt romney trails no opinion by 5 percentage points. so he's the weakest front-runner in modern history and yet none of the others seem to really be able to get much traction against him. and in talking to one of rick perry's top strategists the other da i said, look,are u guy with this? i mean, things are not going great. he said, look, howard, it's going to be -- the shape of this

race is mitt romney against a conservative. now, he didn't say mitt romney against his guy, rick perry. what he was saying is that the structure of the race is such that somebody on the republican side is going to emerge as the main competitor to mitt romney and we still don't know who that is. >> and there's one other drag on the romney candidacy as we saw emerge this weekend. it's something we've always known about. and it's talked about mostly off camera. but we saw pastor robert jeffress who was on with chris matthews earlier tonight, saying this, creating a big firestorm around romney's religion. >> i believe mormons are good people. i alluded to that in the introduction. but i don't believe that they are christians. when all other things are equal, we prefer competent christians to competent nonchristians who may be good moral people like mitt romney. >> howard, as we know, no matter what happens to that dialogue in

terms of its public presentation, in terms of television, how much more air time it gets, it absolutely is the background noise on the ground in iowa among republican evangelicals and all states among republican evangelicals. >> there's no question about it. though mitt romney calls it out as bigoted and bill bennett denounced jeffress and jon huntsman demanded rick perry repudiate the reverend, that is the background noise and it's especially important in the bible belt. in iowa, yes, but also in the southern states. and that's one reason why when the haley barbour didn't run and governor huckabee, mike huckabee didn't run and so forth that rick perry's sitting over there in texas says i've got an opportunity to get in this race because there's no way the southern bible belt republicans will vote for a mormon.

that was part of his calculation from the beginning even if he and his aides didn't say it. >> howard fineman, thank you for joining me tonight. >> thanks, lawrence. the occupy wall street protests are adding an unpredictable element to the 2012 presidential campaign. the protesters in lower manhattan won a big victory today when new york mayor michael bloomberg announced they will be allowed to protest peacefully indefinitely. the protests are also growing and spreading around the country. thousands of people were protesting today at occupy boston, occupy chicago, occupy philadelphia. there were protests all weekend in federal plaza in washington, d.c. republican majority leader eric cantor has called the protesters a mob who are, as he put it, pitting americans against americans. on "face the nation" yesterday, republican presidential candidate herman cain said the protesters are anti-american. >> it's anti-american because to protest wall street and the

bankers is basically saying that you're anti-capitalism. part of it is jealousy. i stand by that. here's why i don't have a lot of patience with that. my parents, they never played the victim card. my parents never said that we hope that the rich people lose something so we can get something. no. my dad's idea was, i want to work hard enough so i can buy a cadillac, not take somebody else's. and this is why i don't have a lot of patience for people who want to protest the success of somebody else. >> the ultra rich republican front-runner mitt romney, a former investment banker, who previously called the protests class warfare, said this today at a town hall in milford, new hampshire. >> one of the things, in my view, that has made america's economy the most powerful in the world is that we have a very capable financial services sector that makes loans and allows businesses to start and thrive. now, are there bad actors on wall street?

absolutely. are there bad actors on main street? absolutely. they have to be found and picked out and plucked out. to say somehow we should point and attack other americans or other regions of america or industries in america, i think would be a mistake. i think the idea of dividing our nation at a time of crisis is the wrong way to go. all the streets are connected. wall street is connected to main street. so finding a scapegoat, finding someone to blame in my opinion didn't the right way to go. >> joining me now from manchester, new hampshire, former louisiana governor buddy roamer, a republican candidate for president. thanks for joining me tonight, governor. >> great to be here. like your show. >> you've been struggling to get into the debates and not getting over the polling threshold required to get into the debates. if you were there on the stage with your fellow republicans, what would you have to say about the occupy wall street movement? >> i would ask produrepublican

candidates to remember how america got started. i would ask them to remember the times in our nation's history where young people stood and protested the status quo. i'm 68. i can remember the vietnam protest. i can remember the civil rights protest in the deep south. the young people made a difference. they weren't always right and didn't always have a mature agenda. they debated openly what the grown-ups wouldn't talk about. i'm hoping they'll talk about the fact that wall street money, special interest money owns washington, d.c. when you look at me, you think of a -- i don't take pac money, i don't take super pac money, i don't take anything over $100 and report every penny given. that's what they're talking about, young people. they don't have jobs, they don't have hopes. and these republican candidates would shut them up, would call

them anti-american? it's not right. this is america. and we have the obligation to debate who we are. >> governor, when did your party become the defenders of wall street? when you think of the southern republicans that have no real connection historically to wall street, how is it that you've allowed or your party has allowed the center of gravity -- you've got representatives like eric cantor who aren't from new york, aren't from that area, who seem to be very, very protective of these wall street billiona e billionaires. >> what about senator chuck schumer, lawrence? let's be honest here. both parties are in the bag. i was a democrat 20 years ago in the congress. working under tip o'neill as a bull evil democrat. working with ronald reagan to make good things happen in america. i wasn't perfect but i reached

across party lines and we built america. we ought to do the same thing now. i disagree with you. it's not the republican party. it's both parties. i mean, the president of the united states barely two years into a four-year term announces re-election and proudly says he's going to raise $1 billion. last week "the new york times" said, guess what? his small donations are drying up. he's getting his money from special interests, wall street, just like the republicans. they both are on the dole. >> governor, the chuck schumer and other senate democrats have authored an idea to raise taxes on those billionaires. a surtax on incomes over $1 million beginning only on incomes above $1 million, a surtax of 5%. that would also apply to capital gains taxes. is that something that you think

is a fair burden sharing that could be visited upon those massive incomes over $1 million? >> they're half right, lawrence. you ought to take that tax code written by lobbyists and special interests and throw it out the window. it doesn't work for america. when the average working guy pays more taxes than ge, something's wrong with america. we need it simple, simple, simple, fair, progressive and adequate at about 18% of gdp. i love the steve forbes idea of the first $40,000 of income being tax free, you can cover your costs then a flat tax and nobody escapes. look, we need to rebuild america. not afghanistan. america. and the way we do it is to pull together, lawrence. that's the way we do it. >> republican presidential candidate buddy roemer. thank you very much for joining me tonight. those republican debates need

your voice. good luck getting in there. >> thanks, lawrence. i hope to make it. coming up, the real voter fraud in america perpetuated by republican-led state legislatures across the country. and tomorrow the senate will take up the president's jobs bill. ezra klein joins me. i'm your blind spot. [ humming ] and my job is easy. hide big things. you're good... [ crash ] [ laughing ] [ screaming ] [ tires screech ] and if you named your own price on car insurance, you could be paying for this yourself. so get allstate, you could save money and be better protected from mayhem like me. [ dennis ] shop less, get more, make one call to an allstate agent. tle [ dennis ] shop less, get more, emotional hetlretl?tl aren't you getting a little industrial? okay, there's enough energy right here in america. yeah, over 100 years worth. okay, so you mean you just ignore the environment.

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coming up in the "rewrite," the senate will take a step closer to tax justice this week. harry reid has rewritten the american jobs act in ways that have improved it greatly. and when republicans say they want less government, do they mean that cities like topeka, kansas, should stop prosecuting domestic violence cases? that's a lot less governing. gom abigail higgins had...

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next week, the senate will vote on the american jobs act. so any senator out there who's thinking about voting against this jobs bill needs to explain why they would oppose something that we know would improve our economic situation. >> the president asked for it and he got it. the american jobs act will face its first procedural vote in the senate tomorrow night. and republicans are not happy about it. >> what's concerning about it is he put ideas in this jobs bill that have already proven to fail, instead of trying to get compromise, he's embracing conflict. he's running around the country campaigning on a bill he knows won't pass. he can't get out of the senate right now. rather than working with us on

ideas -- >> joining me now, "washington post" columnist and msnbc analyst ezra klein. thanks for joining me tonight, ezra. >> good evening. >> ezra, what is the state of play in the senate? are we going to get to a vote? what's happening? >> we'll get to a vote, we're not going to get much beyond a vote. as you mentioned, this is a procedural vote. the idea is to vote to see if we can have a vote. vote to see if we can break a filibuster vote. the republicans are going to filibuster the bill. that seems pretty clear. then we're sort of basically where we are now. >> it will take 60 votes for harry reid to proceed. he can't win this stage with 51. we've been to this party before. it's rough for the democrats. but the president has tried to put pressure on the republicans. the senate democrats have tried to put an additional pressure on the republicans by paying for this bill simply by isolating incomes over $1 million. getting rid of that grab bag of tax proposals the president had in the bill. is that a strategic improvement

on the bill in the senate? >> it certainly is a strategic improvement for the bill when democratic senators want to campaign on it in the coming year. one thing i think is actually important about the republicans' tax strategy where they say no to sort of everything that comes down the pike, in the long run this is what you're going to end up seeing. you're going to see democrats reverting to the crudest most popular, most aggressive types of tax policies. a very straightforward raise on essentially marginal rates for rich people as opposed to what barack obama, president obama suk suggested in the bill flattening out some reductions. a republican would much prefer the latter strategy. by refusing to consider anything serious on revenues, in the long run they're going to get the former. that's what's going to be easiest to explain to the american people and when democrats have more power than they have now, easiest to pass. >> let's listen to what mitt romney said this weekend about stimulus which essentially is one of the things this bill hopes to be. >> mr. president, we remember

your last stimulus. the one you promised would hold unemployment below 8%. it ended up costing over a quarter of a million dollars for every job you said it created or saved. a quarter of a million dollars a job. at the rate you're handing out in government money, every american will end up having to pay your millionaire's tax. >> ezra, is that a preview of what we're going to hear on the senate floor tomorrow? >> you'll hear a lot of that. he's referring to an old graph by christina romer. he said if you had the stimulus it go above 8%. they forecast that in december of 2008 when they were doing not work. we hoped the recession wasn't going to be that bad. the stimulus was way too small for what we actually have. we have unemployment high and an easy attack line for mitt romney and others. republicans tend to like the idea you actually pay for something real when you're doing spending. many support infrastructure

spending. when you have to build a bridge, have to pay for copper, have to pay for steel, have to pay for trucks to move around. it's not that you can divide by the amount of dollars you spend and see how much your jobs cost. if you want to give every american 50,000 bucks, we can to it and buy things. the stimulus was attempting to do things that were a little more worthwhile than that or seemed to be for folks in the political system. it cost more money and we also got bridges. >> ezra, we're out of time. we have to at some point discuss this whole economic forecasting thing about the stimulus. it's a little bit like physicians working on a cancer case saying, i think if we try this treatment in four or five months the patient might be better. and sometimes the patient is better and sometimes the patient isn't better. and, you know, it's not some pure science. they made a mistake i think politically, christina romer, in getting caught on that 8% prediction which they shouldn't have gone public with. >> i agree. we could talk about it later. the republican party's take on this, it's like the doctor

misdiagnosed the bad pneumonia as a bad flu and the republican party is doubting antibiotics. >> exactly. ezra klein, thank you for joining me tonight. >> thank you. coming up, the war on voting. harry berman joins me to discuss republican state legislature efforts to prevent millions of democrats from voting next year. and how far is too far in cutting government spending? a kansas district attorney says he doesn't have enough funding to continue to prosecute domestic violence. we're america's natural gas

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still to come on the program, the jobs bill will come to the senate tomorrow where harry reid is using it to try to write a more progressive tax code. that's in the "rewrite." and radical changes are being made to voting laws in many states that could prevent millions from participating in elections. and the millions of votes that would be blocked would probably be for democrats. [ whistle blows ] oh!

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with a retirement expert. like me. stop by my branch for a free retirement check-up. retirement hows and how-muches? whens... and what-ifs? bring 'em on. it's free. you're gonna retire. and we're gonna help. retirement answers at td ameritrade. roll over your old 401(k) and get up to $500. in the spotlight tonight, 96-year-old tennessee resident dorothy cooper has been voting since 1933. last spring, tennessee passed a new law requiring voters to have photo identification. cooper took a trip to the department of safety to get an i.d. but was turned away because she did not have her marriage license. >> stood in line for a while and we were thinking we were going to get it. then we found out i would have

to have my marriage certificate. i haven't had any problems at all until this time. this is the only time i've had any problems. i never thought it would be like this ever. >> dorothy cooper is not alone. according to the brennan center for justice, 5 million eligible voters may not be able to vote in 2012 because of new laws that require photo i.d., proof of citizenship and reduced early voting periods. 19 new laws and 2 executive actions have passed in 14 republican dominated states including texas where rick perry signed a law that allows voters to show concealed handgun permits but not student i.d.s. these laws passed mostly by republicans target voters who tend to vote for democrats. the young, the poor and minorities. many of the bills are supported by the american legislative exchange council, an arm funded

by the koch brothers machine. joining me now, ari berman, author of "the gop war on voting" and "rolling stone." author of "herding donkeys: the fight to rebuild the democratic party and american politics." if you want people to vote, if you want 100% turnout, we make it easier for them. we don't want that. the media doesn't want it. they want it contained in one little day where they can report it. they don't like this early voting. make it one national holiday if we want to make it easier for people to vote. >> republicans really didn't want people who might vote for barack obama to vote in 2012. that's why we saw 38 states primarily controlled by republicans introduce legislation and more than a dozen states pass legislation designed to impede voters at

every step of the process. as you mentioned, the voters that will be impeded, they're young voters, minorities, low income voters. they're the core of the obama coalition, they're the coalition of the ascendant as they call them. republicans don't want them to be ascendant anymore. bill clinton said it best, it's not rocket science. republicans want the 2012 electorate to look more like the 2010 electorate than the 2008 electorate. they want it to be older, whiter, more conservative, not younger, more diverse and more democratic. >> i just wish over time the democrats have been working to open up voting, instead of doing absolutely nothing while the republicans are studying exactly how we can play with these laws to trim the edges of it here and there, cut out 5 million and you have a republican win. >> republicans were very sophisticated when they launched this campaign. first thing it was a stealth campaign. people in 2010 thought they were voting on the economy. then all of a sudden all these bills sort of appeared out of nowhere to make it harder to vote and we saw the same

legislation being introduced state by state by state and what republicans did is looked at how the obama campaign won in 2008. by registering new voters, by turning out voters early, particularly african-american voters, by expanding the electorate. they said those are the very things that we're going to crack down on. it's no coincidence in states like florida and ohio they now don't have early voting on the sunday before the election when black voters historically mobilize their constituents. i don't think that's a coincidence. i think they looked exactly at what the obama campaign did and said we're not going to let this happen again. >> yeah. and sneaking up on -- with the democrats distracted by everything they've been trying to do in the last couple of years in federal legislation, that's where all the attention is. being able to sneak this in from the sidelines was really easy. >> it was really easy. first thing, they had huge majorities in a ton of states. they were able to just ram things through in states like texas. it was passed by emergency legislation. in states like florida, emergency legislation. legislation that was supposed to be designed for basically the

social welfare of the state. you're only supposed to do it in extreme circumstances. that's how some of the bills passed. it was done very quickly with huge majorities -- >> any counter to this the democrats can come up with? >> the strategic counter is number one, a lot of education. helping people get i.d.s and helping people know what's going on. number two, there's a justice department. the justice department has the authority under the voting rights act to look at the different states that fall under his purview. you're going to see a number of challenges. the justice department sent pointed questions to south carolina and texas, for example, asking for more information about how the lows affect minority voters in the states. >> ari berman, contributor writer for "the nation." thanks for joining me tonight. >> thanks, lawrence. the district attorney in topeka, kansas, found a new way to save money. the city will no longer prosecute domestic violence cases. [ shapiro ] at legalzoom, you can take care of virtually

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the message of republicans and libertarians is less government and more individual freedom. the latest example of this, repealing a local --

[ inaudible ] i'm serious. that's coming up. tomorrow the senate will vote on a bill that's meant to create jobs but it's also a step forward for tax justice in this country. that's ahead in the "rewrite." those first young men. the pioneers. the aviators. building superhighways in an unknown sky. their safety systems built of brain and heart, transforming strange names from tall tales

into pictures on postcards home. and the ones who followed them, who skimmed the edge of space, the edge of heaven, the edge of dreams. and we follow them up there to live by an unbreakable promise, stitched into every uniform of every captain who takes their command: to fly. to serve. time for tonight's "rewrite." tax justice will have its day in the united states senate. possibly as early as tomorrow. majority leader harry reid will try to bring president obama's american jobs act to a vote in

the senate after having rewritten the tax provisions in the bill that pay for it. the bill should now be called the american jobs and tax justice act because what harry reid has written into the bill is a more progressive and more fairly targeted tax proposal than what the white house had proposed to pay for the bill. where the president offered a small collection of tax proposals aimed at some corporations and individuals with incomes over $200,000. harry reid narrowed the focus to one tax proposal for people with net taxable incomes over $1 million. the reid proposal adds a 5.6% surtax on all income above $1 million, including, this is very important, it includes capital gains income which is taxed at a much lower rate than ordinary income. it is a sensible and practical

attempt to close the gap between the low capital gains tax rates billionaires pay and the higher income tax rates that working middle class families pay. now, let's just think about how much money this is. if you make $1 million, nothing happens to your taxes. if you make $1,100,000, you will pay an additional $5,600 in federal income tax. so a person making $1 million a year, nothing. no change. don't have to pay anything more. a person making $1,100,000 would pay an additional $5,600 in federal income tax. a person making $2 million would pay an additional $56,000 in federal income tax only on that second million dollars of income. the first million dollars of income would still be taxed

exactly as it is today. at 35%. if you were making $1 million and you had a chance to make another $1 million but on that second $1 million you knew you'd have to pay $56,000 of it in additional federal taxes, do you think you'd say, nah, i'll just hold it right here at $1 million? no one would make that choice. no one has ever made that choice. the brilliance of this surtax is that it goes where the money is. plenty of money. a wild excess of money that is capable of absorbing this very, very small additional tax responsibility without anyone who earned that kind of money ever noticing that they're sending in a little bit more to the federal government. 5.6% more only on incomes over $1 million. and that is all we need to pay for president obama's entire

american jobs act. 89 days ago the senate took its first important step toward tax justice. on a sense of the senate resolution, sense of the senate resolutions are not law. most of them are not controversial. a lot of them pass unanimously. many of them just sound like hallmark greeting cards and legislative language. like this one from january 11th. it is the sense of the senate that the people of the united states should observe and celebrate the 150th anniversary of the admittance of the state of kansas to the united states as the 34th state. typical sense of the senate resolution. but the sense of the senate resolution that harry reid introduced 89 days ago turned out to be sharply partisan. it was written by majority leader reid and contained this preamble. congress makes the following findings. "the wall street journal" reports median pay for chief financial officers of s&p 500 companies increased 19% to $2.9

million last year. over the past ten years, the median family income has declined by more than $2,500. 20% of all income earned in the united states is earned by the top 1% of individuals. over the past quarter century, four-fifths of the income gains accrued to the top 1% of individuals. then senator reid got to the point. it is the sense of the senate that any agreement to reduce the budget deficit should require that those earning $1 million or more per year make a more meaningful contribution to the deficit reduction effort. now, i wish we lived in a world where we could be surprised that every republican in the senate voted against that resolution. but we all know better by now. we know that most republicans in

the senate and the house took an oath to grover norquist before they took their oath of office. their signed oath to a republican lobbyist, grover norquist, is that they will never raise taxes in any way on anyone at any time under any circumstances. not ever. including taxes on millionaires. taxes on billionaires. and so, yes, every republican in the senate voted against harry reid's july resolution which we properly entitled, sense of the senate of shared sacrifice. senator reid got all republicans in the senate on record as being opposed to collecting anymore revenue in any way from the richest among us who earn more than $1 million a year. senate republicans put themselves on record as being against closing any kind of tax loophole that benefits the super rich or raising their income taxes even by $1. just by $1.

that was the genius of harry reid's resolution. it didn't specify how much more we should ask of the people making $1 million. making more than $1 million. just that it should be more. $100? $10? $1,000? $5? it didn't say. the resolution didn't say that. just more. and republicans voted against the very concept of even having people making over $1 million pay just a dollar more. anything more. senator reid got 51 democratic votes in favor of his shared sacrifice resolution. you couldn't ask for a clearer difference between the democratic party and the republican party. you couldn't ask for a clearer reason to vote democratic or if you think the richest income earners in this country shouldn't be asked to contribute one more nickel to this country, then, yes, you could not ask for a clearer reason to vote republican. when anyone tries to tell you there's not much difference between the two parties, when

anyone tries to tell you there's some sort of protect the rich conspiracy going on in washington run by the republicrat party, some ugly governing force that controls both parties, point to this vote. point to july 13th, 2011, in the united states senate. 51 democrats saying that those earning more than $1 million per year should make a more meaningful contribution and every, every republican voting against that. no difference between the parties? there's a $1 million-difference between the parties right there. we'll see that difference again this week. most democrats will vote for tax justice and every republican will vote against it. you name it.

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the fiscal crisis that has hit federal, state and local government is now having a shocking impact on life in america. we are seeing not just fewer police officers on patrol in this country and teacher/student ratios getting out of hand as we lay off teachers, but we're losing our ability to sustain some of the basic elements of a civilized society. witness topeka, kansas. tomorrow evening the city council in topeka will decide whether to repeal an ordinance outlawing domestic battery. it is in response to a decision by the district attorney of shawnee county, chad taylor, faced with a 10% cut to his budget. taylor has announced his office will no longer prosecute misdemeanor crimes including

domestic battery. since that decision was announced september 8th, police in topeka say at least 18 people have been arrested for domestic battery. arrested. but they have all been released because they were not charged. the repeal of topeka's city ordinance is a move designed to force the district attorney to resume prosecution since domestic battery is still a crime under kansas state law. it is the type of real world consequence to consider when you hear libertarians like congressman ron paul and his son, senator rand paul, declare war on government spending. >> this country is ready for more freedom and less government. >> i believe in limited government, i believe in individual liberty. there's no authority for them to run our schools. no authority to control our economy. and no authority to control us as individuals on what we do with our personal lives.

>> it's a message of limited, limited constitutional government and balanced budgets. >> joining me now, carrie ann rinker, state coordinator with national organization for women in kansas. thanks for joining me tonight. >> thank you so much for having me. >> could you just walk me through the strategy on what's going on in the city council on this vote? >> well, from what i hear, they feel that if they revoke the city ordinance that is for domestic violence that it will force the hand of the county d.a., that it will require him under the state statute to enforce domestic violence within the city once again. but the troubling thing that i have with the proposition of such a vote, the problem that i have with that is that it is not guaranteed. their own city attorneys have not been able to guarantee that this would be the end result.

i keep hearing words like "shall" and "probably" but when we're dealing with the issue that is life or death, such as domestic violence, there should be more guarantees before the city council even considers the revocation of a municipal ordinance protecting women in that community. >> kari, 18 arrests since the district attorney thought this was a good way to save money. no prosecutions off of 18 arrests. that starts to feel like a dangerous climate for at least the partners of those 18 people. >> of course. and, yeah, the judges in that community are letting these men go because they know that they will not be prosecuted and there's no way that you can hold someone if they are not to be prosecuted. and as a matter of fact, there is one case that we have had confirmed by the police chief in that community where we have had another offense. multiple offense.

we had someone that was picked up, that was held and then let go and then within 48 hours he committed another crime against his partner, was arrested and then he was again let go. and, you know, the end result could very well be with having a murder on the hands of these officials that refuse to get along with each other using the old-fashioned art of compromise. you know, you were discussing problems at the federal level and we have problems at our state level with people working together on issues. but certainly when we're talking about the basic safety of the individuals in your community, that is the most rudimentary level of protection that we can provide citizens and they are not providing them to the women of topeka. >> kari, i understand that tax revenues are down. they're down all over the country, but kansas has an average typical state income tax

structure, sales tax structure. why, why would they suddenly be in this prosecutorial strain that we don't see elsewhere? >> well, we have a governor, governor sam brownback, who is radically conservative and has put the clamp down on all sorts of spending throughout the state. i believe that this is it playing out at the local level. and quite simply. >> because the state could come in and supplement a county district attorney's need for funding of this kind, couldn't they? >> well, i would hope so. in my call, when i went in front of the county commission on thursday, my call to action was for them to all come together or for the state to come in for a temporary compromise. while the county d.a. is asking for a sum of