127 monday throughfriday, noon to 3:00 p.m. and following on twitter. the rachel maddow show starts now. good evening, rachel. >> good evening. thanks to you at home for staying with us for the next hour. newt gingrich is ahead in the race for the republican nomination for president of the united states. pinch yourself, america. it is really, really happening. >> whoo-hoo. >> i don't think there's anybody else in the race. i don't mean this in the negative either. i don't think there's anybody else in the race with the background. i've been doing this for 23 years and i wrote 24 books and made 7 document ril films. >> newt gingrich has made 7 documentary films and written 24 books and in the process of letting you know where to buy all the items and why you ought to buy them maybe in multiple copies, newt gingrich seems to be inadvertently surpassed mitt rom my and herman cain in the race for the republican nomination for president. a new ppp poll shows a national

lead for newt gingrich. he's at 28% in the new poll. herman cain at 25%, mitt romney in third at 18. a new cnn polls shows mitt romney in the lead but newt gingrich in a statistic tie in 22%. he's within the poll's margin of error here in terms of the top spot. a private poll for a republican pollster in iowa shows herman cain and newt gingrich statistically deadlocked at the top of the heap among iowa republicans. this is the best day of newt gingrich's life. for newt gingrich this is a 13-point surge just since june when his entire senior staff quit en masse saying he wanted to sell books and dvds, and the staffers didn't think they were to help hulk ster his products and they walked. these poll results are a slap in the face, right?

mr. gingrich celebrating his new top position in the polls tonight by doing a dvd screening in iowa. quote, newt and calista screen nine days that changed the world in carroll, iowa, at 7:00 tonight. this is newt's dvd about the pope. if you look at the events tab, you see lots of things like that. tomorrow night calista gingrich will hold a book signing at webster city, iowa. later that day both newt and calista screen a documentary in massachusetts, because that's such an important republican swing state, massachusetts is. on saturday calista will be signing books at the hooray for kids book sfor and they sign

books at books amillion in naples florida. this is what newt gingrich lists as hi campaign events. the beltway line on newt gingrich now is now na he's surging in the polls, his campaign is getting more serious now. politi politico.com is reporting today mr. gingrich is making fewer stops to promote his books and movies rather than stumping. the new and improved newt gingrich now with ples huck sterism, the new campaign seriously running, not just hocking books and dvds. newt is doing more than a third of upcoming events as book signings and dvd signings. running for president it turns out is a great way to sell your stuff. the whole idea behind newt's stuff is you should want to buy newt gingrich books and dvds and

you should want to pay thousands of dollars to pay awards because he's an important and serious man. that's the whole marketing concept behind newt gingrich incorporated and that dove tails nicely with running for president. it sort of gives you a justification to talk about yourself in grandiose terms. for example, last week mr. gingrich was asked about judges. dave wiigle at slate.com was at the event. if you go it newt.org you see an entire paper on rebalancing the judiciary. it's the most common statement written by a political figure since lincoln's first inaugural in 1861. now, this is not somebody else's awesome paper that newt found

somewhere and he's publicizing since the first naul ral. he's talking about himself. the most thorough statement of the constitution and balance of power since lincoln's first inaugural? when he was republican speaker of the house he was quoted in the "new york times" telling an audience, quote, people like me are what stand between us and auschwitz. america, do you want to vote for that man for president, the guy that things about himself that way. this is the pregnant pause? how about buying one of his books instead? >> i don't think there's anybody else with the range of experience, the range of background and the willingness to take the beating that i've exhibited in 53 years. i find it very formidable to think that i might and that with

your help we might go through eight very difficult years. >> a, newt gingrich promising if you elect him eight very difficult years. where do i sign? b, he finds it formidable to think of himself winning. c, he keeps talking about 53 years. what's this 53-year thing he keeps talking about? >> i don't think there's anybody else with this background. i've done it for 53 years. i don't think there's anybody with the range of background and the willingness to take the beating that i've exhibited in 53 years. >> newt gingrich says he's been preparing for the job of president for 53 years. what does the 53 yoerz thing? i'm a bad judge of how old people look, but newt gingrich is older than 53. he's not saying he's preparing for this his whole life. according to his biography, mr. gingrich is 68 years old.

he talks about his campaign for the presidency having started 53 years ago, which would mean when he was 15 years old. delving into the mythology of newt gingrich, it's easier than with most candidates because he's wrote so many books about him. dealing with this puzzle just involves delving into books about his own career. his political career started when he was 15 years old. his political career started when he was 15 years old and his family took a vacation in france. naets where it started. that's when he started to prepare for president, on vacation in france at the age of 15. when he was at the height of his powers in congress in 1996 roughly, the pbs program "front line" did a big in depth biography on mr. gingrich. in that biography mr. gingrich's stepfather, who was with him on that family trip in france at the time, said that newt never mentioned anything about that

trip was all that important to him at the time. quote, he never said anything about if it. he never discussed it. this whole my political career started in france on vacation at the age of 15. that's part of newt gingrich's myth-making? building himself up into an important guy by the book. he told other orthopedic engine myths about himself where he ended up in politics reluctantly after abandoning his dream to be a zoologist. that's what he tells when he's photographed near adorable animals or when he was trying to sell himself as an environmentalist. do you remember when he was an environmentalist? one of his two dozen books has that title. it's called "a contract with the earth." you can get one for 9.99. newt gingrich will tell you whatever story you like to hear about him. whatever is most likely to motivate you to buy one of his

books or dvds. right now he's at the top of the polls. newt gingrich and herman cain are trading front-runner position with mitt romney. these are the top tier candidates. herman cain is an art project, which is a fact we got further efrd to support today. >> i do not agree with the way he handled it for the following reason. no, that's a different line. >> i got to go back and see. i got all this stuff twirling around in my head. specific al specifically when you ask me did i agree or not disagree with obama? >> that was from his appearance today where he was tripped up

by, quote, all this stuff twirling around in my head. we'll have more later on in the show. herman cain, a brilliant art performance project. and a performance art project about how -- what do you call it? how that you can be while still doing quite well in the race for the republican nomination for president? the herman cain tape is amazing. we have have mother coming up. one of the ways we knew that herman cain was a satire and an art project and the not a real candidacy is when all of the different republican candidates kept trading the lead in the polls, and herman cain was asked about being the latest flavor of the month. rather than criticizing the question and criticizing the rather disparaging idea of being a flavor the month, herman cain owned it, right? he not only owned it, he named what flavor he was. >> if you're black walnut, you don't go away. some of these other flavors of the month have no substance.

black walnut has staying power. >> herman cain declaring himself to be the flavor hagen daz black walnut or the staying power. it no longer exists as a flavor. that's how we first knew herman cain wanlt an art project but a good one. a really funny juan rather than being a campaign. this weekend he tripled down on the flavor mean thing daring us all it to unmask him once and all. now he's riffing on the black walnut player but he's asinge the other candidates flavors as well. mitt romney is just plain vanilla. rick perry is rocky road. and michele bachmann is tutti-frutti. according to herman cain. he's an art project. herman cain is an art project. okay. the whole beltway evaluation of the herman cain sexual harassment allegations is how it affects his standing in the polls, right?

i have a hint for my comrades inside the beltway. it may be more useful to note whether or not the herman cain sexual harassment accusations cause him to hire any staff to handle these allegations and the other responsibilities of campaigning. as far as we can tell, herman cain still has no campaign staff to speak of in early states or nationally beyond the americans for prosperity koch books. this lack of a campaign strushlgt made it hard to get over the sexual harassment abuse allegations, it's showing itself in some ugly new ways. one of the things that a campaign does for better or worse is raise money off a candidate's popularity. taking the brand or likeness and turning it into campaign dollars. the fact he does not have a real campaign to do that has not left him completely unable to to raise money, but it has left him mostly unable to capitalize on how much republican voters have liked him. that has left a void for other

people to do that on his behalf in his name except not to give the money to the herman cain. the washington times calmed draft herman cain. they were formed after he was in the race. they raise tons of money and putting that money into their own poktss. the group is run by two men, one of whom is a felon in prison for fraud. essentially they raise money off herman cain fans out there, the gullible ones. they redirect the money raised in the name of herman cain, stations just affiliated with themselves. quote, the donors are not political power houses but middle class tea partiers. this is the second touch group that is fund-raising off herman cain's name but not giching it to him. he doesn't have a real campaign apparatus to defend himself against that thing or to get to

the gullible donors first. this is what happens when herman cain is your front-runner. and those are the other two contenders for the republican nomination who are not mitt prom any right now. those guys and mitt romney are the top tier. with that competition mitt romney still cannot move the needle on his poll numbers. at this time last year mitt romney was at 22%. right now mitt romney is at, yeah, still 22%. so romney averaging over time 22%. he's never been higher at all than 25%. right now newt gingrich is polling at 28%. mitt romney wakes up in the middle of the night in a cold sweat dreaming of a number like newt gingrich has it right now. he's never gotten to it. he's lost to donald trump and michele bachmann and the art project guy and the gingrich productions dvd commercial. that's what we have for the republican party picking it's naum notice to run against

barack obama. it has never been more clear that mitt romney will get the nomination, and it has never been more clear that republican voters prefer almost anyone over him. not rick santorum, obviously, but astid from that really anyone. >> i recently wrote a book called "a nation like no other" designed with deal with american history. i made a move spree called "a city on a hill." brief commercial. calista couldn't be here because she's at a book sfor in dubuque signing her new book for 4 to 8-year-olds. breathe robert, out of your mouth.

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here's what happened when herman cain sat down to talk with the "milwaukee journal sentinel" editorial board today. just watch. >> so you agree with president obama on libya, or not?

>> okay. libya. >> the important thing to realize here is that is not the mistake. the mistake is what happened after that when he -- actually started talking. in the category of hard to watch but also impossible not to watch, herman cain coming up. americans are always ready to work hard for a better future. since ameriprise financial was founded back in 1894, they've been committed to putting clients first. helping generations through tough times. good times. never taking a bailout. there when you need them.

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the arab league suspended syria, thrown them out for using its military against its own people. five former secretaries of state wrote a joint letter and said this is not the time to cut the budget further and not scale back on the diplomacy and international involvement. not with the world in this situation. these are not people that normally do things together either. look at this letter. it's from condoleezza rice, colin powell, madeleine albright, george schultz and henry kissinger pleading for us not to cut the state department any further. no matter how much or how much attention the u.s. media pays to international stuff and to america's role in the world, we're having one of those moments in the world when america's role in among the rest of the countries in the world, it just feels very, very important. when you really want there to be serious people who know what they're talking about, dealing with all these historically incredibly serious issues all over the world. it's just one of those times.

>> so you agreed with president obama on libya, or not? >> okay. libya. president obama supported the uprising, correct? president obama called for the removal of gadhafi. just want to make sure we're talking about the same thing before i say, yes, i agree, or no, i didn't agree. i do not agree with the way he handled it for the following reason. that's a different one. i got to go back.

got all this stuff twirling around in my head. specifically, what are you asking me, did i agree or not disagree with obama? it's not a simple yes/no, because there are different pieces and i would have gone about assessing the situation differently which might have caused us to end up at the same place, but where i think more could have been done was what's the nature of the obligation? >> so you would have sent ground troops or -- >> i said i would have done a better job of assessing the situation before i made decisions about what we would do. >> many republicans supported -- congratulated him. for how he handled that. you would not have been among that group? >> i'm not criticizing him. i don't think enough was done relative to assessing the opposition before everything exploded. that's what i'm saying.

i'm a much more deliberate problem -- decision maker is a point i keep coming back to. some people want to say as president you're supposed to know everything. no, you don't. i believe in having all of the information, as much of it as i possibly can, rather than making a decision or making a statement about whether i totally agreed or didn't agree. when i wasn't privy to the entire situation. there might be some things there that might have caused me to feel differently. so i'm not trying to hedge on the questions. it's just that that's my nature as a businessman. i need to know the facts as much as possible. i need to hear all of the alternatives. for example, someone just -- you might have mentioned that even within the administration, there were different views. i would want to hear all those views. look at all the information. and then i make the decision as the commander in chief.

so this is the only point i'm trying to make. >> it's one thing not to be able to tell libya from liberia from listerine, but what would be awesome if there was some expectation that you had to be able to tell libya from liberia from listerine in order to compete for a major party nomination for president of the united states in 2011. that would be awesome. joining us now is josh rogin, staff writer for "foreign policy" magazine and author of the blog "the cable." thanks for your time. >> thank you. >> i was watching your face while you were watching the herman cain tape. i know a little bit about what you think about this. the cain campaign this afternoon said mr. cain was just tired. he described himself as making no errors, he just paused. what is your response to that? >> well, within that -- that whole tape was sort of like a car crash. you want to like away, but you

just can't. and i think perhaps the most devastating/humorous part of that five-minute clip was when herman cain actually asked the interviewers to confirm the basic facts. obama was against gadhafi, is that right? i mean, it's worse than not having a position or state it clearly, it shows a complete lack of grasp of the basic facts that happened in one of the major military interventions of our era and after that it continually got worse and worse and worse. to be fair to herman cain, the libya issue was a tricky one for all the candidates, our new gop front-runner newt gingrich was for a libya no fly zone until barack obama did it. then he was against it. mitt romney was reported to have five different positions on libya and michele bachmann believes the whole arab spring was a negative development caused by obama's mistreatment of benjamin netanyahu. you can't make this stuff up. >> in terms of what happens next among republicans and foreign policy, we all knew heading into

this jon huntsman was the only candidate who had any foreign policy experience to speak of. he's a three-time ambassador and did a lot of business for his dad's company abroad. he's the only one who has foreign policy experience as well. the question has been, whether or not anyone is going to care whether or not foreign policy is something these guys are going to use the win the nomination or foreign policy ignorance or extremism is going to be the way one of these guys loses the nomination. do you have a sense of how that is playing out? >> sure. i would say rick santorum has plenty of foreign policy experience but the thing that's common amongst jon huntsman and rick santorum, neither of them have a chance of making it through the primary process. let's deal with the candidates who are serious contenders. it's basically been the race to the right. to get to the right of barack obama who's a hawkish democrat on foreign policy. that requires them to adhere to these very simplistic and watered down positions that are

just about american toughness and american individuality and american unilateralism and we need to be tough on iran and be friends with israel. without a lot of specifics about what exactly they would do differently than what has been done. i mean, the basic idea here is that you don't win elections on foreign policy. very few people go to the polls and say, oh, i'm going to vote for candidate "x" because of his position on libya. it's what we call the commander in chief test. if you can't perform the basic function of the president which is to lead the nation's military and foreign policy which is an executive function, then you can't be president. i think that's what we're seeing now is that candidates like herman cain just don't have the credibility or the knowledge to meet that test. that's a real problem. >> josh rogin, staff writer for "foreign policy" magazine and author of the blog "the cable." thank you for your time. appreciate it. >> thank you. the latest hero in the occupy movement is shelby, a border collie mix. her story and much more occupy news just ahead.

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this past week in ohio, the republican bill to strip union rights in the state, senior achievement of john kasich and ohio republicans was repealed by ohio voters, overwhelmingly by a 23 point margin. the poll that predicted that result exactly in ohio and predicted it would lose and would lose by the 23-point margin also said if john kasich, himself, had been on the ballot,

if there was a rematch of the election that put john kasich in office in the first place last year, john kasich would lose his seat in ohio by another huge margin, by 18 points. john kasich, lucky devil, was not on the ohio ballot for recall last week, but his twin, wisconsin republican governor scott walker, is. or at least he could be. starting momentarily. there have been some misconceptions about the scott walker recall floating around recently. we'll clear those up on debunktion junction, that is straight ahead. ♪ ♪ let's go ♪

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therefore, by the property of politics, you get the idea. but if elizabeth warren is occupy wall street, right, scott brown really is wall street, itself. out of 100 senators, scott brown is number one in campaign contributors from hedge funds. he's also the senator who has received the most campaign money from the -- investment industry overall. wall street seems pretty desperate to hold on to scott brown in any circumstances. if he's running against elizabeth warren of all people, you can imagine how desperate they are to hold on to him. elizabeth warren's response to the attack ad from karl rove's group came in the form of her first political ad, which was released today. >> i'm elizabeth warren. i'm running for the united states senate. before you hear ridiculous attack ads, i want to tell you who i am. like a lot of you, i came up the hard way.

my dad sold carpet. when he had a heart attack, my mom went to work so we could keep our house. we all worked. my three brothers joined the military. i got married at 19, had two kids. worked my way through college, taught elementary school. i went to law school. for years, i worked to expose how wall street and the big banks are crushing middle class families. it just isn't right. i stood up to the big banks and their army of washington lobbyists. i worked to hold them accountable. i led a fight for a new agency to protect consumers, and we got it, but washington is still rigged for the big guys and that's got to change. >> elizabeth warren in her first campaign ad speaking the language of economic populism in a way that shows you why she is as popular as she is. if the democrats are going to make any sort of claim to being the party of the 99%, elizabeth warren is part of the reason why. she's provided them with part of the vocabulary to do that.

occupy wall street is being used as an epithet. that's one level in which occupy wall street is playing out in electoral politics. the other political place, though, occupy wall street is playing out is in the streets. all day, every day. these are not marches or individual contained demonstrations. the idea of the occupy protests is that people stay. that's the occupy part of it, right? you don't go anywhere. like hoovervilles. these are supposed to be semipermanent living reminders of what's wrong with the economy and the political system. the permanence is part of the pressure. city officials around the nation frankly are not handling this well at all. across the country this weekend, six different cities shut down six different occupy protest camps including burlington, vermont, also st. louis, where there were 27 arrests. portland, oregon, 50 arrests last night. salt lake city, 19 arrested. denver, 17 people were arrested. in a denver arrest, talk to a border collie mix, named shelby,

elected the leader of occupy denver last week because as one occupier put it, "shelby has more human traits than any corporation. she can bleed, she can breed and show emotion." in this is the way the corporate world continues to do business, let's apply the same rule. there were a lot of arrests at occupy oakland. before dawn this morning, hundreds of police officers armed with batons entered the site and arrested people and took down tents. jean quan who ordered the park to be cleared toured the site. this raid was far less confrontational than on october 25th. police saw a mass revulsion at their tactics. there were a number of injuries including the serious wounding of an iraq war veteran, a marine named scott olson, whose skull was fractured by a blunt object, allegedly by a projectile fired by police officers.

scott olson was released from the hospital this weekend. he posted this picture of himself online as of last night. occupy oakland protests came back from that october police action bigger than they had been before. this right now is a shot of what occupy oakland looked like moments ago. reports of 500 to 1,000 people reconvenes after they were cleared out this morning, reconvening in downtown oakland. joining us for the interview, a man who resigned with jean quan in protest of the police action today at "occupy oakland." john segal. i appreciate the time tonight. >> my pleasure. >> why did you choose to resign at 2:00 a.m. this morning? >> you know, i was very unhappy with the police raid on the occupy oakland camp on october 25th, and in a conversation with some of the protesters after that raid, they challenged me about continuing to work for the city administration.

and i said i was really thinking about it, but i decided to stay and hope that the policy of allowing the camp to resume would be followed. but when it became clear early this morning that 600 or 700 riot police were on their way to downtown oakland to take 100 people out of tents they'd been occupying, i wrote an e-mail to the mayor and said, i couldn't be part of that. >> obviously you disagree with the mayor's decision. having worked closely with her and having known her for many, many years, do you have any insight into why she believed that the protest must go? she said her words tonight, i'm paraphrasing, that the movement will continue but keep cannot sleep out in oakland anymore in order to make their point. >> the movement will continue. i certainly agree with that. i think people will sleep out, if not in city hall plaza, in some place elsewhere they choose to stay. i think that's really where i disagree with mayor quan and other city officials.

they just don't see, in my opinion, the scope of this movement. this is a tremendous movement. it's a productive movement. it's a progressive movement of people who have been passive for years in the face of economic attacks. homelessness, joblessness, foreclosures, crushing student debt and so on. i think it has the potential to really remake american society. and if that's true, then people who run cities and particularly cities like oakland, where the 99% live and face all the problems i mentioned, should be supportive of those movements and should not think that they can control them. you know, the other piece, rachel, is beyond just the politics of whose side are you on. to me it seems like a totally useful and futile activity to spend millions of dollars to take people out of tents, to create situations where there was bloodshed in our streets and lots of chaos for days because they're going to come back. this is a movement that can't be

stopped. i think it makes no sense to waste the meager budgets that we have in places like oakland in fighting with folks who are trying to make things better. >> what can you imagine, as somebody who helped try to take responsibility for the way that oakland is governed, and your advisory role with the mayor, until you resigned, what can you imagine in terms of a reasonable accommodation that the city could make to stop confronting the protesters and instead to allow them to stay? >> you know, i think the first thing is that people in city hall have to get to know the protesters. i spent many, many hours with them at the general assemblies and other activities and the vast majority of them are incredibly reasonable, intelligent, thoughtful, tolerant people. and i believe that if there had been more of an effort on the part of the city government to actually get to know them, they would have been successful in

persuading the occupiers to meet the city's demands in terms of making sure that the park was clean and the sanitation was maintained and the police and fire departments would be allowed access when it was necessary for them to come in. i think there was just an attitude that got created very early on of people stereotyping each other. i think that's what created the problem. and then in the last week, there was tremendous pressure, unfortunately, on mayor quan from some of the more conservative members of the oakland city council and from people in the chamber of commerce and others who used the fact that there was a shooting near the camp last friday as, in my view, an excuse to demand it be shut down. at the end of the day, the mayor was just unable to stand up in the face of that kind of hostility. >> dan, city mayors and authorities around the country

look to the experience of oakland to make their own decisions about what to do with their own occupy encampments. there are a thousand of these across the country. obviously you advocate local officials get to know the protesters, so they're not making decisions based on stereotypes. from what you've done and what you think oakland has done wrong, is there advice you have for local authorities, local police departments, local mayors in making decisions on what to do about this movement? >> i think people do have to understand that this movement is the 99% and that the goals are really important goals that we should all be working for. and i think there has to be a spirit of compromise. go to the general assemblies. wait your turn to speak. address the people who were there and spend time with them. because at the end of the day, we should be making common cause with the occupy movement to make the sorts of changes that are necessary to have a fair taxation system, to curb the power of the big banks, to deal with student loans and foreclosures and so on.

>> dan siegel, civil rights attorney who was a volunteer legal adviser to the oakland mayor before his resignation early this morning. mr. siegel, thanks for taking time to explain this to us. appreciate your time, sir. >> thank you for having me on. >> when bunk needs debunking, we have debunktion junction, starring governor scott walker and pajama parties. that's coming up right at the end of the show. please stick around. attacked a. ♪ give your customers the added feeling of security a printed statement or receipt provides... ...with mail. it's good for your business. ♪ and even better for your customers. ♪ for safe and secure ways to stay connected, visit usps.com/mail

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this is senator michael bennett of colorado. watch this. >> some people up here think that congress has always been unpopular. it's just an institution, an unpopular place. not so. look at this, mr. president. here's congress' approve rating today. 9%. we're almost at the margin of error for zero. we did some research, mr. president, it to find out what else is at 9%. we couldn't find virtually anything in public polls taken all across this country. my goodness, the internal revenue service has a 40% approval rating compared to our 9%. bp had a 16% approval rating at the height of the oil spill.

and we're at 9%. there's an actress who is at 15%. more people support the united states becoming communist. i don't, for the record, at 11% than approve of the job that we're doing. i guess we can take some comfort that fidel castro is at 5%. >> democratic senator michael bennett of colorado making the case in congress that congress is very, very unpopular. for the record when he talked about the actress, the one he said is more popular than congress as he can't bring himself to say her name. the actress poling at 15% he was referencing, that would be paris hilton, who might be more heiress than actress, but anyway is significantly more popular than the united states congress. today the republican controlled house of representatives named a lot of post offices after

special people, plus they named a court hois and wildfire refuge. maybe naming those things turn things around for congress in terms of hating the guts of them as an institution. in the house of representatives that means you have zero power in the institution. well, today democrats used their zero power in that institution to hold a forum. not a hearing. they can't do that. the no power democrats held a forum in the house about the rollback of voting rights in states controlled by republicans across the country this year. that was a key consequence, of course, of the 2010 elections when republicans took chrome of so many state legislatures. republicans in the states moving to curtail early voting andvote. meanwhile, nearly obscured among the news of so many high profile wins for democrats and for progressive causes in last

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de bunktion junction what's my function. true or false? afghan officials announced today that they had made a big catch, one of the chief spokesmen for the taliban in afghanistan. afghan officials say they nabbed him in a raid near the pakistan border. true or false, is taliban spokesman zab la in custody? false. he is not. at least as far as journalists can tell. face-to-face contact between him and the media is rare. the only time he was on camera was here in 2009. he kept his head covered and his back to the camera the whole time. he talks to journalists on on the phone all the time. when "the new york times" heard he was captured today, they did what you would do. they called him on his cell phone, and he answered. the told the reporter he was not in custody, saying, quote, i'm

talking to you on the foin rut now. they say the guy they arrested is the taliban spokesman, which maybe the taliban strategy. "the new york times" says that american military officials say that they of him as a team of taliban operatives pretending to be the same man, which is a complicated idea. whether or not they got the one guy, the real taliban spokesman today in afghan, whether they got him or not, functionally speaking we know from "the new york times" that there is still a guy answering the taliban cell phone and doing the spokesman job. next up, true or false? the campaign to recall wisconsin governor scott walker, that campaign starts tomorrow. false, sort of. the campaign to collect signatures to recall wisconsin republican governor scott walker starts just after mitt night.

technically that is tomorrow. the party has already started. the wisconsin democratic party which bills itself as the official scott walker headquarters is koording parties around the state of wisconsin tonight. some are gatherings of packers fans that want to recall scott walker. some are pajama parties and some ask attendees to come up with scott walker recall themed pajamas. all hit the party peak at 12:01 a.m. tonight when the party-goers can sign the first petitions to recall governor walker from office. they're going to need a lot of them and need more than a half million signatures by recall election of scottwalker. in wisconsin that's a lot. part of the reason there's confusion is because ten days ago a scott walker supporter filed papers to recall him. why? th