>> i think these congressional plebs know what nay are doing and they got to be called on it. no question about it. great to have you with us. that's "the ed show." "the rachel maddow show" starts now. good evening. i could only get out ten seconds early. >> you have a great weekend. thanks to you at home for staying with us for the next hour. watch this. this is from nbc news from 1979. it's 33 years ago but it's really uncanny. >> in the gulf of mexico they are trying to handle larger spill. airplanesç are to be used to dp chemical ons the oil but there's a shortage of aviation fuel. they are putting it into place and trying to contain the oil slick in the gulf of mexico. >> oil skimming vessels are put into service to catch any

patches of oil which may get through. about five miles offshore another team of private oil containment workers is prepared to intercept drifting oil but it gets to hand. >> those were the pitiful means by which we had to respond to a giant oil spill in the gulf of mexico more than 30 years ago. that was it. that's all we had. we had boom. we had skimmers and chemical disper sant dropped by air. 31 years after that oil spill and those pitiful means of responding to it, 31 years after that big spill and we had a new spill. it was like time had not passed. >> at this time crews are in the air and on boats looking for oil at the mouth of the mississippi river. >> u.s. military officials tell nbc news a list of options are being put together that could include sending additional plane, boats, skimmers and booms. >> planes, boat, skimmers and booms. boom and skimmers and chemicals

dropped by air. same in 2010 as it was in 1979. the bp oil spill stargted two years ago today. one of the shock things about that disaster is it made us realize over the course of 30 years, cleanup technology, what is available for us to respond s hasn't progressed at all. we were trying toç wipe the oi up with jumbo versions of paper towels. the bp disaster was a real wake up call. it started today back in 2010 when the initial explosion killed 11 oil workers. the spill went on and on out of control for three months. >> over the past couple of decades as the oil industry p n turns profits that industry has

made an overt choice. they could have spent that on developing new clean up technology for spills. they can say they did if they want to, but who cares what they says. if they had, the response wouldn't be o so pitiful be p bamboo pickets to hold the boom this place that doesn't hold the boom in place at the first sign of a slight wind. diversion barriers that don't divert the wind. >> the oil industry had not made any progress at all in 30 years. that sort of shocked the country. it was a shock to our collective psyche as a nation. >> our culture is threatened. everything that i know and love is at risk. even though this marsh lies

along coastal louisiana, these are america'sç wetlands. excuse me. gist want to submit for the record. >> the bp disaster was devastating. how would it be that after 30 years of progress in drilling, there had been zero progress in cleaning up the disasters created by spilling. how could it be the only tools we had were the same old ineffective 30-year-old technology, boom and skimmers and chemicals dropped by air. now in 2012, now that it's been two years since that big wake up call, the oil industry today

wants to assure the nation that they are now fully prepared for any future oil spill because they've got lots and lots of boom and skimmers and chemical dispersants dropped by air. seriously. today on the second anniversary, the oil industry is crowing about how prepared they are if something this big ever happens again. in particular, the industry funded marine spill response corporation wants you to know they have 17 skimming vessels up from seven before the 2010 gulf spill. they now have 65,000 total feet of boom. they now have two dedicated aircraft for spraying chemical dispersants on the spill. it's the exact same stuff that

the fact that the oil industry has just invested in more of the same old 30-year-old technology, that is pretty much the good news. at least they are doing something. you may remember that after the bp disaster president obama announced. getting a blue ribbon commission to tell us what went wrong. in washington it's way to make stories go away for a while. on anniversaries of disasters they come back. the blue ribbon report two years after that disaster today, says that actually the oil industry has done a lot more than the united states congress has. the oil industry which is essentially done nothing has done more than congress, which has done nothing. the co-chair of the bioil commission says in the two years

since the bp disaster congress has yet to enact one piece of legislation to make drilling any safer. the oil industry went out and bought more boom. congress did nothing. there's an asterisks on the nothing that they did. this week john boehner passed his long awaited highway bill through the house. there was something related inside that bill. tucked inside the highway bill was there, the federal energy regulatory commission shall not later than 30ç days after set an application issue a permit without additional conditions for the construction, operation and maintenance of the keystone oil pipeline. the keystone pipeline would transport something called tar sands throughout the midwest. as bad as we are of cleaning up crude oil, we have no idea how to clean up spills of tar sands oil. congress's role is to do nothing

to improve the safety of drilling. they are trying to force new oil projects to be approved even when we know overtly that they are not safe. they are insisting that the safety concerns be overridden. that is sort of reflective of the overall politics on this issue. it's as if bp never happened. the biggest offshore spill in american history that continues to leave those along with gulf coast with what appears to be lifelong health problems. the fight in this year's presidential election is the republican side accusing president obama of waging a war on oil. accusing president obama of being too anti-drilling and the democratic response to that has been we're drilling way more than the last administration. we've opened up more territory to drilling off the atlantic coast. when these are the terms of the debate, which party is more prodrilling when that's the fight, i'm more pro-drilling. when that's the terms of the

political debate, it's not like we're progressing in leaps bounds toward making things safe. you can see that in the total lack of action by congress. you can seeç it in the behavio of the administration. about year after the bp oil spill we had the top offshore drilling regulator from the obama administration, a guestsh. that interview did not go well. he appeared on the show in order to defend new rules his agency put in place in the wake of bp disaster. a new rule is the oil company states which containment systems that will have at the ready in the event of a blow out. this is an emergency system to cap a leak. you have to say what you use. one of the containment systems was something called helix. listen. >> we now have a very different set of containment equipment and

plans than we did then. that should make the american people and you feel much differently about deep water drilling opinion. >> i felt better and then i started looking into the basis on which you were issuing them. let's talk about this helix well containment group. five of the eight new permits you had give ount went to companies that contracted with helix well containment group. they operate the helix fast response system which you have been bragging about the newest containment. this week, helix revealed that by their own assessment it could take them 17 days to contain a spill. 17 day s the new fast response that we're supposed to feel better about in terms of containing a disaster that's already happened. that doesn't feel like a great advance that would justify the type$# rash issuing of permits. >> these haven't been the rash u

issuance of permits. we were criticized for not issuing any permits. the ron the containment capabilities were not yet ready. you're right, 17 days is not fabulous. 17 day s a lot better than 87 days, which is what it took to contain mccondo well. >> 17 days. not fabulous but not being able to stop an underwater oil gusher for two and a half weeks. that was good enough? full steam ahead. today that same agency published an editorial in the houston chronicle talking about the lessons learned from the bp disaster. they describe all of their strong new safety standards that the oil industry is required to

meet. you may note that the head is no longer mike approximaeverappene? he's landed a brand new gig. he's left the administration and is now working for the oil industry. he's now pitching services like crisis management and strategic advising to the same oil company he was tasked with regulating in the wake of the bp disaster. he's pledgedç to not directly lobby the offshore drilling agencies that he created. this is what our oil politics is like now. this is the sense of urgency we have around safety and oil spills. two years after the worst oil spill in all of recorded history. would our politics have been worse if we hasn't had that spill? is it possible it could be

worse. it's great to see you. thank you for being here. >> great to be with you. >> in that explaination of what happened, a brief overview of what's happened, did i get anything wrong there? >> you're pretty much right down the middle. it makes me want to bang my head on my desk when i've watched what's not happened over the last few years. >> congress has not done anything in terms of safety regulations since the bp disaster? in terms of following the law and drilling legally, things have not gotten better at all? >> that's precisely correct. in fact, it's worse than that. the house actually passed three bills this last year that luckily didn't go through the senate. the bills that pay passed reduced the amount of environmental review for new offshore leases.

they cloaked it in a mantle of jobs, new jobs. by eliminating the environmental review time. >> in terms of what the oilç companies have the offer, you expect that the companies will pursue what's best for their bottom line and they are constrained by the government telling them it won't be best for your bottom line but you got to do this in terms of safety an protecting the country. have the oil companies come up with anything new in terms of, i'll ask you specifically about cleaning up oil on the water, are we any better at it? >> we're actually not. there's really been no advancing in surface remediation, surface clean up. they may have more skimmers, but

skimmers don't work in ocean waves. they only work in flat water. oil that does come to the surface does end up in the wetlands and on the beach. keep in mind in deep water, when you have a spill like this, almost 90% of the oil never comes to the surface. it's damaging the sea sea life and could be there for months and years. >> is there any progress to report in terms of shutting down deep water spills? terms of dealing with deep water emergencies? you hear people talk about this is equivalent to doing engineering on the moon, trying to get convict to operate where humans don't have experience operating. are we any better in terms of dealing with deep water emergencies? >> you know, the challenge we have here in deep waterç is

control the well itself. we have done nothing to improve the primary control device which is the blow out preventer. we still have that almost 50% failure rate that you and i have talked about before in deep water. if something does go wrong, there's a chance the well will lose control. there's a couple of well containment organizations that you mentioned in your introduction that is in place. the thing that everyone ignores is the fact that there's a massive drilling rig that sits above these wells in 5 or 10,000 feet of pipe that goes from the rig to the ocean floor. that has to go somewhere if it sinks. generally, it's going to be on top of the well head. i think that 17-day number is a wild number. you don't know how you can get on top of that well head if you have a rig laying on top of it. that's something the industry hasn't dealt with. >> in terms of the overall

politics and response in terms of the country, you've written a book about this. we have talked about the political response and the response by the companies, what do you think it would take? would it take anything in order to get us to mobilize as a country on the safety side of this? i don't know what else could urge us toward progress in that direction, if not this. >> unfortunately, rachel, i think the only thing that will motivate the politiciansç to d something is another catastrophe. there's already been three other incidents in the last year. not nearly as serious as a deep water horizon, but potentially that serious. i'm afraid to get the american public's attention, it's going to take another incident where oil is coming onto people's

beaches and they will say i thought the industry fixed this two years ago or three years ago. until that happens, it's clear to me there's going to be no leadership from the government regulators or the politicians. it's going to have to come from us to make it, to fix this particular situation. >> bob, it's good to have you here. thank you very much. i appreciate it. >> great to be with you. thank you very much. on one important reproductive rights issue, the mitt romney came pain has decided decide campaign has decided it wants to be to the right. a magnificent best new thing in the world tonight. great shot. how did the nba become the hottest league on the planet? by building on the cisco intelligent network

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who matters most to you says the most about you. massmutual is owned by our policyholders so they matter most to us. massmutual. we'll help you get there. as of today, republicans in the great state of wisconsin have succeeded in all but out lawing one kind of abortion in that state. congratulations, wisconsin. you can't just out law abortion in america. it's a constitutionally protected right, but what you can do is target doctors with new just for them regulations that are designed to intimidate doctors into no longer providing abortion çservices. republicans have targeted medical abortion. you don't have to always have surgery in order to get an abortion. in lots of cases, particularly early cases, you can take medication instead of having surgery. as of today, you can no longer get a medication abortion this

wisconsin, at least not from planned parenthood which accounts for a majority of the state's providers. planned parenthood suspended nonsurgical abortions in the state as new state law took effect. it establishes criminal penalties including prison time for doctors. the new law signed by scott walker sets up requirements how a doctor needs to talk to a patient and requirements for specific exams and doctors visits before and after the medication is prescribed. a woman seeking a nonsurgical medication abortion in wisconsin would be required to see the same doctor a total of three times. if the woman doesn't want to do that, if she wants to do the post abortion follow up, not at all or with her regular doctor, for example, instead of doctor that provided the abortion

medication to her, that first doctor who provided the abortion medication would face felony charges. could be sent to prison for three and a half years. planned parenthood decided that was an insane risk to put doctors through. they are suspended nonsurgical abortions. the state's largest medical association, the wisconsin medical society asked scott walker to veto the bill lastç month saying it would infringe on the doctor-patient relationship. he did not take that advice. he did not veto the bill targeting nonsurgical abortions. he sign id it into law and a bill and removing contraception from the state's sex ed curriculum. that will help. today the president of the wisconsin society called it an unnecessary intrusion arguing it requires doctors to follow procedures that are not best

medical practices. inother words doctors are being forced to choose between providing best medical care for their patients or going to prison or doing what the legislatures tell them to do even if it's not what the doctor thinks is best for his or her patient. we asked planned parenthood if they plan to sue the state over this new law. they told us that all options are on the table right now. in oklahoma abortion rights advocates are suing. it would restrict what kind of drugs thai can use. a judge in oklahoma overturned a new law that would require doctors to not just perform state mandated ultrasounds but force a woman seeking an abortion to view the image. the republican led legislature in oklahoma has so far been undeterred. yesterday they sent the state's

governor a bill that would require doctors to tell women they can listen to a fetal heartbeat before an abortion. oklahoma, is something of a unique case. remember it wasç oklahoma that voted to ban sharia law back in 2010. last year they passed a bill to make cooking hash punishable by life in prison. the oklahoma legislature passed a birther bill last year. it passed by a landslide, 77-13 in the oklahoma house on the same day that president obama release d his long form birth certificate. nothing is too radical for oklahoma legislature. it turns out person hood is too radical for them. the bill to ban all birts control by defining a fertilized bill has been kick around the legislature in oklahoma. it was derailed yesterday. the republican house speaker saying the bill will not get a

hearing because the majority of the republican caucus privately voted against hearing it. they voiced a variety of concerns saying it would ban in vitro fertilization and birth control. we know that the whole person hood jd is too radical for mississippi voters. perhaps the most anti-abortion electorate in the country voted down a personhood measure by double digits. too radical for mississippi voters, makes it all the more amazing that personhood is not too radical for the likely republican nominee for president this year. >> would you have supported the constitutional amendment thatç would establish the definition of life at conception? >> absolutely. >> mitt romney's position on abortion and contraception was already to the right of the

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mitt romney got some good news in the polls today. the former massachusetts governor bumped along for most of the republican primary season with overall national support in the low 20s. now that he's vanquished his challengers and pretty much on to the general election, how does he do now in a head to head match up against presidentç obama? the answer according to a new poll is not too badly. he's trailed be president by just four points. it's close. that's the good news. he's now in 45%. if you look deeper, you'll see he received some bad news. these are the results among women voters under the age of 50. mitt romney losing women under the age of 50 by 18 points. women voters age 50 and up, so

older women voters, mr. romney loses that group by seven points to president obama. how about men under 50? mitt romney loses just barely but he loses men under 50 by one point. now look at this. men over 50, let's call them the silver backs. men over 50, way there he is. mitt romney finally wins one. he finally finds his club. among men over the age of 50, mitt romney is the clear choice. an 11 point favorite. mitt romney over barack obama. he's losing every other age and gender demographic. when it comes to the older men, he's winning. there's one for him. one out of four. his advantage in his lone demographic cot goir is a little more than half mr. obama's advantage in the strongest of his winning three categories. romney's best among older men. his best is only half as good as

obama's best. that's bad news for mr. romney. if only men were voting in the next election, if the race were being held a century ago, mr. romney would be delighted. in 2012, sadly for him women vote a lot. charlie cook spelling this out. mr. cook writing quote, given that women make up 51 to 52% of the electorate, when ever than lose women by men, they can skip ordering champagne on election night. it's great that they are winning among older machine and men overall because they are winning so much among older men just as they are winning among white voters. the campaign has been staring into certain doom with latino voters. they lost all the ground that president bush gained and then

some they do need to win some of the college crowd. most importantly, given that they are a majority of the electorate, they must improve their standing among women. if they don't improve among women, it will not matter if he pledges to sign the dream act on the first day of residency. it won't matter if he offers to pay off every student loan in america, and maybe he could. if he cannot convince more women to vote for him, he has no path to the white house. you want to see what the romney campaign did today. they hired a new spokesman. they hired a man named richard grenell. he's a veteran of the second bush administration. he's also a veteran of theç twitters from january 22nd. if newt does one, would we call callista, the first lady, second mistress or the third wife. michelle williams looks like

callista gingrich before she puts on the wipg. do you think her hair snaps on? callista stands there like she's wife number one. he said of the secretary of state, hillary is starting to look like mad line albright. also note to children, when your mom is a grandmother, do not let her wear backless dresses. there's some nice stuff about me, which is weird. forced to watch msnbc on jim tv. the rachel maddow commercials can't attract any viewers aside from justin bieber fans. i look like a boy. rachel needs to take a breath and put on a necklace. here is one that he deleted even before today. this one was about the first lady. sweating on the east room carpet. that's nice. after politico.com broke the

story he wrote to say that he apologized for his twooeting. he said they were meant to be tongue and cheek and humorous and he would now remove them from twitter. he did do an enthusiastic scrubbing after he was announced as the spokesman. now the romney campaign can get back to their prime cam tan goal, which is to improve with women the perceptionç of the candidate who just hired this new guy as his spokesman. it's nice to see you mr. dionne. >> i assume i'm here for my expertise to older white guy. how dare he say anything bad about you. >> what he said about me is the at least of my worries. i've got to wonder if the romney campaign, if we see any sign

that if you're just talking about the callista gingrich ones, that they see any sign of nasty sexist tweets about her appearance might be ail nating to people who might consider voting for mr. romney? >> apparently, not. i find it astonishing that given their problem among women they didn't look at that stuff. you ask the question, what can romney do with women? they could fire this guy or put mitt romney on your show to personally apologize to you for this? i think that would be -- >> i'd endorse that. >> it would be fun to see him on this show. the obvious thing for him to do is start talking a lot more to older working women where he may have a way to get at it. he kind of tried to talk to working women the other day and he insulted the cookies. that got rid of the whole story.

it's really surprising so far how flat footed they are on this question. they had a few good days when they areplaying off hilary rosen comments but those that didn't get them far especially when ann romney said that was the best day of her life. she is his best asset, by the way. i guess i would use her more. sg >> on the other side of this and you're looking at those roughly scheduled demographics, do they have an old white guy strategy? >> i think they have some potential because mitt romney is who he is. barack obama lost working class white men by a lot and democrats in 2010 lost them by even more. they lost by 30 points along working class white men. romney's class profile and his i

like to fire people, i think that gives obama potential. i think you've seen obama, particularly, in oo and also in michigan, but right through the midwest trying to emphasis how his policies have been good for those folks, the auto bail out being number one. i think what he's got to do with those older white men is play the class card a little bit against romney. i think liberals in general have to learn how to talk to older white working class guys because they have a lot to be angry about. their wages have gone down a lot in the last 20, 25 years. liberals ought to be able to talk about that. i think obama is going to have to talk about that. >> do you thinkç the medicare issue factors in there? talking about the romney-ryan budget ideas about medicare, this idea of turning medicare into a coupon program?

does that work as a bigger pitch to older voters in way that might be more successful in a typical democrat year? >> it does to some degree. republican the republicans are playing very careful politics with this. they are saying none of these cuts are going to affect you because this older generation in general and men in particular are one of their best constituencies. remember all the old new dealers, most of them have gone to their eternal reward. this particular cohert is a more conservative cohert than the one that came before. the republicans know they've got to pitch to them. i do think that health care issues and medicare give him some potential and the ryan budget is a wide opening. women tend to be more for safety net than men. >> e.j.dionne, thank you for springing to my defense. >> my pleasure. any time. >> if mitt romney ever does say

yes to being on this show, i will send you a bouquet of something. >> thank you. good luck on the book tour. best new thing in the world is still ahead. it's a musical addition. stay tuned. everything that i've gained in life has been because of the teachers and the education that i had. they're just part of who i am. she convinced me that there was no limit to what we could learn. i don't think i'd be here today had i not had a wonderful science teacher. a teacher can make a huge difference in a child's life. he would never give up on any of us. thank you dr. newfield. you had a big impact on me. mine was earned off vietnam in 1968. over the south pacific in 1943. i got mine in iraq, 2003. usaa auto insurance is often handed down from generation to generation. because it offers a superior level of protection, and because usaa's commitment to serve

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today, we know more about that army black hawk helicopter that went down in afghanistan yesterday. we know that all four americans on board the helicopter were killed in the crash. according to the u.s. military the four were on their site to . the black hawk was a med devak helicopter and the americans were on their way to provide aid to the wounded. we still don't know what brought the helicopter down but we're told bad weather is the most likely cause. now, the taliban posted a claim for responsibility. they said they shot down the black hawk with a rocket propelled grenade. the taliban has been known to claim responsibility for things they did not do in the past. back here at home, u.s. service members who served in iraq at the tail end of that war are continuing to trickle home months after the war ended in december. this was the scene this week in minnesota, with 80 u.s. soldiers coming home from kuwait. they were responsible for escorting the convoys of

supplies and thousand of american troops leaving iraq and crossing over into kuwait. over the next few weeks, nearly 3,000 of the troops from the red bulls will be coming home in minnesota. they were all part of the state's single largest deployment since world war ii. and it's because of those minnesotans returning home, we have news to report on txeç nationwide grassroots. eventually. the twin cities, minneapolis, st. paul, their parade to end the mark of the iraq wark and say welcome home and thank you to the troops, it was planned for tomorrow, this saturday. but because minnesota is right in the middle of this big rotation of return of troops from kuwait, they have decided to postpone it. they were con exacted by both the military and family of the red bulls who basically said,

you guys, we are almost home. we all want to go. wait for us. so there's no specific new date set yet for the end of the iraq war parade but they are aiming for late july. we will let you know when we know more. also, richmond, virginia. richmond, virginia, end of the iraq war is set for may 19th. there had been worry that richmond wouldn't be able to pull it off. they needed to raise money for the costs, particularly the police costs, needing to raise $50,000 for the parade by today. today was their deadline and they hit it. so the parade is on. again, may 19th, richmond, virginia. they need to raise some more money for costs of the event but at least they now now they can cover the cost of the police support for the parade and it's on the calendar in pen. the first of these parades was in st. louis. then there was a big one in tucson. there was another big one in houston. last weekend this was the scene at melbourn, florida.

thousands of people in downtown melbourn, florida, for theç welcome home veterans parade. melbourn is about an hour from orlando and every member was given a ticket to disney parks the next one is set for april 28th, a week from tomorrow. des moines, iowa, will host one in june. and then in new york city, apparently never. because even though new york city is where we civilians traditionally have welcomed home the troops at the end of the wars, the pentagon does not want that for iraq veterans in new york. everywhere else in the country they think it's fine. not new york city for some reason. new york veterans of the iraq war do not get a public welcome home and the country does not get a chance to say welcome home and thank you and we're glad the war is over in a traditional kind of way for some reason.

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happy friday. the boston red sox first played their game at fenway on april 20th as a marijuana joke. no, i'm kidding. that first game back in 1912, the red sox played the new york highlanders, a team that would become the dreaded new york yankees. and in that first game, boston won. today, this afternoon, fenway hosted a centennial rematch complete with old school uniforms that matched what they wore 100 years ago. if you have a plain, white baseball cap, you are now a red sox fan because that's what they wore in there's first ever

fenway game now, today, the yankees wonç the game against e highlanders. the thing that is, something i have frankly been wait are for for weeks, ever since the red sox put out a teaser about it. composure john williams composed the music from "star wars." john williams is also the guy who composed the music for -- ♪ -- jaws. little known john williams fact, he also wrote the theme to a little something we like to call nbc news. basically, if you have hummed it, john williams wrote it. and john williams has just written a little something for the red sox. it's called fanfare for fenway. they released a 20-second

excerpt. the red sox got us all worked up by inviting 214 former red sox players, managers, and coaches on to the field. they took the field in wheelchairs. that was just the warmup. then came the pitch. john williams playing fanfare for fenway. ♪ç ♪ somebody is cutting up onio