r. >> 1:00 in roswell, new mexico, and high noon at alcatraz. what happens when america runs out of money? >> i'm s.e. cupp. we'll break down romney's bain freeze and let steve convince me why it might matter in november. >> we'll try and we'll succeed. i'm steve kornacki. are you scared yet? london is calling in the military for the olympic games. i'm krystal ball. by now you might have noticed our friday the 13th theme. we'll find out what the cyclist are freaking out about today. >> all that and i'll tell you why it's time to stop being scared about spending money in this election. you're immersed in "the cycle."

>> we start with something that might sound like a horror flick. american cities running out of money. we told you wednesday that some communities aren't able to support basic public safety needs. frightening reality. in san bernardino, california, where the city filed for bankruptcy this week, the local police chief is trying desperately to keep the public's faith in them. >> we'll continue to provide emergency services and do the best we can to provide those emergency services to our community. you'll continue to see police officers and firefighters responding to calls day and night. our priority will be it has been and it will always be to respond first to emergency calls for service and then do follow-up investigations on violent crimes and property crimes in that order. >> we start with kim ruben, senior fellow at the urban institute tax policy center. you write that one of

california's problems is that the three strikes law ballooned the inmate population and bumped the correctional budget up 3 billion from what it was. is this another example of why the war on drugs is failing and current approach of jailing addicts instead of treating them is unsustainable? >> part of it has to do with what guess on in california. a lot of things get passed by the initiative and it's not clear people understand how much it's going to cost. california is trying to move away and imprison fewer people especially nonviolent prisoners but they are hitting some problems with the courts. >> kim, one thing that i've been thinking about a lot lately is our division in this country not only in terms of income but in terms of have and have not communities. since the '70s we've seen a doubling in the rate of people living in very affluent or very poor neighborhoods. the rate of individuals living in middle income neighborhoods has plummeted.

that must be having an impact on these state and local budgets, too, right? >> well, i think there's part of that is going on especially in a place like san bernardino, california, that has a poor population. as property values have fallen, they don't have the same amount of money coming in. >> kim, let me ask you. you mention the initiatives in california. there are some other issues. there's a credit analysis who says what we're seeing at san bernardino may be a start of a trend. not so much nationally but in california because there are a certain specific conditions in california that are much more conducive i think to municipal bankruptcy. can you talk about what's unique to california that could allow for more san bernardinos? >> part of it is they allow bankruptcy. half of the states allow cities to declare bankruptcy. the other problem in california and a lot of this gets back to proposition 13, which limits property taxes, is cities don't

necessarily have that much control over their taxes. so as the state got into trouble, they actually start playing gapes a ining games and different revenue sources. as cities get into trouble, they don't have as many options to try to get out of trouble and they need voter approval to pass any new taxes. so it's kind of a california specific set of problems in that they don't control their revenues. they actually have pretty high expenditure costs in part because of labor contracts and it's not really clear when the housing bubble burst how they were going to make up that money that they no longer had. >> s.e., i know you care a lot about privatization of american cities. i think part of what's going on is america is economically exhausted from years of fighting multiple wars at the same time so the federal government can't give money to the cities and states that they would be able

to in a different economy and different situation. and you want to have more privatization of american cities, right? >> i think it's case by case. there are certainly examples. sandy spring, georgia, is one of those examples. it was incorporated in 2005. it's privatized almost every sector of the public traditionally public employees. think there are seven public employees in sandy springs. the mayor being one. and it's really working for them. they are in the black. people love living there. >> you can't privatize the police, right? >> they haven't. >> the fire department. >> you could. >> they're too expensive. >> there's a liability issue that's too big. but they privatized nearly everything else. i think police and fire -- >> what about our responsibility to each other? are we comfortable with a richer community sort of walling itself off economically and not participating with poor communities near it. >> sandy springs is an unusual

example. they separated themselves off from the rest of the county and sandy springs itself actually interesting fact herman cain lives there. it's like a wealthy enclave. >> growing 30% minority population. >> within this particular county. still, a wealthy enclave anyone would say. so it's a little bit of a unique circumstance. i would say we also have a lot of examples of prison privatization. arizona in particular has been very aggressive about privatizing their prisons in an attempt to control costs and they found that actually a lot of times they're paying more per prisoner and private prisons are cherry picking only the healthiest inmates. it hasn't worked out as well in the private prison industry. >> california is not doing well but texas is. cnbc just voted it the number one state to do business. it ranks highest in infrastructure. second highest in technology and innovation.

third in cost of living. it also bears pointing out that it has no property tax and zero percent corporate tax rate. >> it has a property tax. it has no income tax. >> that's what i mean. i'm sorry. no income tax and zero percent corporate tax rate. there's business friendly regulations. are there lessons here that you think california could learn and export from texas or are these cases of two completely different sort of societies? >> i think there are a lot of states and places that might be able to learn from texas. i think california is too different partly -- texas has the advantage of having some oil money so they actually don't necessarily need to rely on income taxes. the fact that california can only rely on property taxes in a very limited way means that they are more reliant on the income tax which also led to them being, you know, buffeted more as the economy turns down. texas actually did really well.

they didn't have the same increase in housing values during the boom period. they've actually had an easier recession than a lot of other states. california and i think a lot of it came about during the boom period where a lot of these places stockton for example, which is another city that's going bankrupt, they thought that they were going to have this huge boom and they saw their house prices expand. they saw a lot of investment and development and when it all dried up, they were sort of left holding the bag. they had increased costs and no money coming in to do it. in some ways the texas example is a place where your revenues are much more stable because it's based so much more on property and sales taxes. go on. >> i was going to thank you. we have to move on. thank you for your contribution. straight ahead, we're going to talk about romney, bain and the condy rice rumor mill.

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could it be condy? last night drudge report claimed the mitt romney short listed former secretary of state condoleezza rice has a potential vp pick. let's put this through the spin cycle. i want to spend as much time on

this as this story deserves. steve, is condoleezza rice going to be mitt romney's vice presidential pick? >> crystal? >> no. >> toure? >> no. >> i say hell no. let's move to a real story. the tenure at bain capital showed that romney was with the firm until 2002 and not 1999 as he claimed for years. since then other evidence has come to light by fortune magazine that supports romney's version of events of when and how he left the company. but bottom line is what does this story mean for the romney campaign? is it just another 2012 side show or a real reason for the campaign to be concerned? i have two points on this real quick. i don't know if romney was in charge quote/unquote of certain transactions we're looking at and when and frankly neither do you. we have conflicting reports. we might never know.

what i do think is terrible is stephanie cutter, obama's campaign spokesperson calling the republican nominee a criminal or potentially a liar. what i would like as a republican and someone who may decide to support and vote for mitt romney, is that candidate coming out and not through a surrogate or spokesperson and being outraged, visibly outraged at that insinuation. my second point, i don't think this is going to matter. i know steve will argue with me about it. that's fine. you might change hearts and minds today. you can really want it to matter but i think come november when you go into the voting booth, folks won't think about was mitt romney at bain in 1999 or did he show us enough tax returns? i really just don't think as good a story as it's been for a summer week, i don't think this is going to matter in november. prove me wrong. >> i would say two things.

on this specific story, i think it matters because, no, mitt romney was not running bain day-to-day between 1999 and 2002. he was busy doing the olympics. mitt romney's version of events was i had absolutely nothing to do with anything that bain did during that time and i'm not to be held responsible in any way for anything that bain did. there's a big gray area in between there and it's intentional that he's refused to grapple with this. when he returned from the olympics in 2002 to massachusetts, his claim, he was very open about this. i left in 1999 on a leave of absence, which would explain why he was listed as chairman of the company for all that time. he had taken leaves of absence before and was expected to return. the company behaved as if he was going to return. he got a political opportunity at the very end of his olympic tenure to run for governor and then while running for governor, it comes out that in 2001 bain shut down this plant in kansas city and hundreds of workers lost their jobs. romney is in a close race for governor. his opponent makes an issue of

it. that's when the story begins. wait a minute, i left and had nothing to do with bain from 1999 on. there's a discrepancy. >> do you think voters care about that? >> what i think is bain large, will voters be in the booth saying was it '99 or '02. of course not. bain is the centerpiece of what obama needs to do and is trying to do about mitt romney. romney is running in this race as a job creator. he's running as a successful businessman and the economy is down and stalled and i have competence because of my business expertise to turn it around. 5% of the electorate that is swingable in this thing that are inclined to agree with that. the obama challenge is to take his experience with bain and say wait a minute. let's look closely at what this guy was involved with. was it job creation or property making for shareholders and investors. what happened in bain between '99 and '02 is relevant to that. months of talking about bain and what it is and what romney did while he was at bain in those

three years, very relevant. >> it would be romney's fault if he allows this to be a month's long story. >> it already has been. >> i think that's a fair point. from a political perspective, i think the whole thing was avoidable. there aren't a lot of things that i feel confident that mitt romney actually really believes in but i think he really believes in the bain capital model. if he defended that business model as this is capitalism and it's tough sometimes but this is what we did and my job was to make the most money for my investors and i was really good at it and i'm going apply that kind of excellence to being the president, if he made that argument, instead of saying in effect, yeah, outsourcing is really bad. that didn't happen while i was there. because when he did that, that is an argument that's really easy to poke holes in. you can as david corn did say here is an outsourcing company that happened while you were there or you can do what boston globe did and say, well, it's

not so clear that you left at that time. i think they opened themselves up to this. >> i want to pull back a bit from the chattering class perspective on this because it's an inside the beltway story that people really care about politics are digging into. >> stop using my references. >> when i think about low information voters, one person i think about is my sister. she's brilliant. she's a doctor. she doesn't pay attention to this news. sometimes at the thanksgiving dinner table it sound like she ran past the radio while talking about the news and got bits and pieces and one time she said why is herman cain running for the senate and why does everyone love him so much? no. no. no. what would she take from this? romney is a liar and an evil rich guy. i can't trust him. he's a liar. that's all she would get from this. >> for the casual voter you say that -- >> i think it will be a character assassinating sort of thing when you combine it about i heard about switzerland and offshore accounts and he has all this money. >> it should be pointed out that

mitt romney bizarrely is going to be on all three of the networks tonight. that's not bizarre. it's just new for him. >> but we know why. >> maybe we'll see some of that outrage that i'm calling for tonight. i guess we'll have to talk about this on monday. >> he said if you're responding, you're losing. >> i want to play this clip actually. i think it's really good insight into the way that the romney campaign works. do we have that clip of romney talking? >> well, i of course respond to the attacks that come but they say in politics if you're responding, you're losing. >> it's funny. because the actual political statement is if you're explaining, you're losing. maybe this was a slip or maybe this was intentional insight into the way the romney campaign works. we're not going to respond to this stuff. >> now you are explaining for romney. >> sometimes he needs some explaining. >> it's also funny that -- >> i don't hear enough from him. i would like to hear more. >> he's responding on all of the

major networks today. >> we'll see what he's going to say tonight. i'll be watching. i want to see him a little more with a motive on this issue. enough politics for now. it's friday after all. up next, just in time for the summer olympic games, "sports illustrated" takes us inside the locker room. greatest sports team ever. think dream team. this is new york state. we built the first railway, the first trade route to the west, the greatest empires. then, some said, we lost our edge. well today, there's a new new york state. one that's working to attract businesses and create jobs. a place where innovation meets determination... and businesses lead the world. the new new york works for business. find out how it can work for yours at thenewny.com.

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>> we talking about practice. not a game. not a game. not a game. we're talking about practice. >> we got to talk about practice because according to michael jordan, the best basketball game he ever played in was practice. in barcelona in 1992, the olympic dream team that would go on to win gold. the first ever to include nba players assembled for a scrimmage for the ages. on one team, jordan, carl

malone, scotty pippen and larry byrd. on the other, what's his name from duke. christian something or other. whatever. few people saw that scrimmage but our next guest has seen videotape of it and discussed it with some of those involved for his book about the greatest sports team ever assembled. his book is called "dream team." how the greatest team of all-time conquered the world and changed the game forever. joining us today, jack mcclum. you say the dream team changed basketball forever. how? >> i think basically they changed it. we didn't see this coming but they changed it more overseas. we saw these 30 and 40-point defeats and we figured the opponents would be depressed and go back and play patsy klein on the jukebox or something. instead they demystified the game a little bit. they watched these guys play and

they said, okay, they're 20 times better than us. we get better coaching. we work. they'll be ten times better than us. maybe five times better than us and they really opened up the world for basketball. the advent of international players doing well in the nba ironically began with them losing by 40 and 50 points in barcelona. >> the olympics start in two weeks on nbc. and kobe says the current olympic team, which includes kobe, lebron, durant, carmelo, russell westbrook, chris paul. kobe says this team could meet the '92 dream team and jimmy fallon agrees. >> the new interview kobe bryant said this year's olympic basketball team could beat the 1992 dream team. >> boo! >> of course they could. all of the guys from '92 dream team are like 50 years old. >> he's right about those intergenerational competitions. it's nice to kobe to believe in himself. it's really cute.

that's a fanciful notion. the '92 dream team was way better than this current team, right? >> the idea that kobe would say our team will beat yours is the least surprising thing we could ever get into. i think if you took the main players on both teams, that is jordan, magic, byrd, and you matched them up kobe, lebron, kevin durant, i'm probably leaving someone out, that's not a bad matchup. it's the guys we don't talk about. patrick ewing, david robinson, carl malone, they would kill the 2012 team inside. i don't want to get too inside. once you were down around the basket, it's no contest and kobe is entitled to his opinion but he's wrong about this. inside he may know it too. >> i love talking about from baseball to basketball. >> i want to talk about how we got to the dream team in 1992. i remember watching the 1998

olympics in seoul and that's the last amateur olympics for u.s. basketball. that was a u.s. team that had real talent. david robbinson on was on it. it was a close game. they lost to the soviet union. the attitude in this country after that was we're never going to let that happen again. let's get the pros in. that pretty much how it came about? >> there was -- not really. that facilitated the idea in the united states that made it p acceptable that we should do something. the head of the international basketball organization came over here in the 1970s and says this is crap that our best guys in the world are not in our organization. boris was a far thinking guy who saw that the game overseas would not grow unless there was an exchange of competition with the best players and boris began to

plant this idea in the head of david stern and it looks like this was just a great marketing plan by the nba, which of course it turned into. it really was not david stern's idea. it became more acceptable after the loss to soviets but this idea came from boris. >> do you feel bad for cheering against the dream team based on that explanation? >> i'm asking steve. steve kornacki? >> i confessed to my co-host before the show that in 1988. i stayed up all hours watching the u.s. basketball team. heartbroken when they lost to the soviets. in 1992 i just felt bad for teams they played. the first game was 64-16 at halftime. i remember cheering for croatia then. i don't mean to be unpatriotic. >> these are american homegrown men.

>> the underdog. nothing wrong with that. >> not raised in the institutions that they have in russia and other places. grown up on the streets of america. they have become great. they get paid well. capital system. you're going to root against them? >> let me reign this in. over the past 10, 15 years, we've had a lot of nba players go overseas playing internationally in development leagues and other teams. do you think the olympics sort of helped facilitate that sense of we don't have to play basketball here in the united states? >> no question. i think pretty much the world opened up in 1992. whether it was good or bad, incidentally that opinion about wanting the americans to lose, the united states olympic committee was not real fans of the dream team. they hated this idea that these rich dudes are coming into the olympics and we're not paying attention to the gymnast and the swimmers.

i kind of get that in my own way. things change. and this is what happened to the game in 1992. this is what opened it up. it opened up international players to come over here. it opened up our players to go over there. and it enabled david stern to sell $4 billion worth of t-shirts in china which is not far off from what they're doing right now. >> the moment i'll never forget from that olympic games is when they went out for the gold medal ceremony and it seemed patriotic because they had the flags draped over their shoulder. ultimately the nike guys didn't want to be seen in reeboks logos. it's a corporate gesture. >> it's complicated. >> complicated. >> jack, thanks. congratulations on the book. >> thank you. are you freaking out about friday the 13th? our favorite skeptic talks about the ominous day next on "the cycle." they have names like idle time books and smash records

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it's friday the 13th. the question is are you scared? or maybe should we be scared to be on tv right now? to add to the creepiness, there are actually three friday the 13ths this year. that's the first time that happened since 1984. they are exactly 13 weeks apart. creepy. january 13th, april 13th and today, july 13th. so i am not particularly superstitious about friday the 13th. but i will admit that i have a few superstitions so i have a weird thing about the time 11:11. if something is happening in my life that's momentous or important and i happen to notice that it is 11:11 on the clock, it's either a good omen or a bad

omen but it's never neutral. i have a weird thing about that time. i don't know how to explain that. >> i used to have a thing about 4:20 but no more. that's entirely different. i have no superstitions at all. they are self-fulfilling prophecies and if i don't believe in that, i don't empower it. no. >> if it's a self-fulfilling prophecy couldn't you use that in a good way? if you told yourself that 11:11 was always awesome, it would always be awesome. >> absolutely. you can talk yourself into positive things believing it to be true, believing it before it is true. >> so you have no superstitions? >> isn't it like cheering for a sports team? isn't it a superstition in a way believing that has an impact? >> when you go to a play and you clap, you're not clapping for an outcome. >> do you have superstitions? >> would it surprise you to learn the atheist has no

superstiti superstitions? this is great opportunity for me to recall one of my favorite all-time met players. many people will remember his name because of his bizarre superstitions were memorable. i can't believe we're showing him in a cubs uniform. that's outrageous. he had to chew four pieces of black licorice while he was pitching. then run into the dugout and brush his teeth. he had to slam down the rosin bag on the pitcher's mound and wearing trophy teeth from his hunts and his contract figures had to end in 99. great guy. >> what you can't see underneath steve's shirt and tie there is his trophy teeth necklace that he always has to wear. >> every hunter has a trophy tooth necklace. his was spectacular. >> steve has a couple of things. >> no. i don't think -- i have

irrational fears and obsessive compulsive tendencies. i wouldn't call them superstitions. >> tell them about some of them? >> it depends. if you're getting off the subway at the nbc building, you come up the stairs to get in the building and you can go this way or that way and it's the same time to get up. if i'm walking to the left and i catch myself. wait a minute. when i went this way yesterday, something bad happen so i'll right over to the other one or something good happened over here, i make decisions like that. i will find myself if i'm walking by myself on the sidewalk or something, i will avoid cracks. i'll start focusing on it and keep score in my head how many cracks i stepped on, will i break my mother's back. there's that. when i was a kid i used to check under the bed not for monsters but for intruders. >> you still do that. >> i'm in my apartment alone -- >> you still do that. that's self-protection.

if i'm in my apartment alone and i get the thought in my head, i can't get the thought out until i check every space big enough to hold a human being. there are two closets and behind the shower and under the bed. i check that and go to sleep. >> adorable. it's adorable. you're adorable. >> as it turns out, i don't know how we managed this but we have an expert on this topic of superstitions. our resident skeptic is joining us, executive director of the skeptic society. nice to see you. >> hi. >> how common is it for humans to have superstitions? i mean, are steve and i weird for having some superstitions here? >> you're not weird in the general sense. superstitions are very common because our brains are wired up to find patterns. the tendency to find meaningful patterns and random noise like your example of the number 11. doesn't matter what the number is. i can tell you the number 23 and

start to notice how often it comes up in the next week and you will find it. it's really difficult not to find patterns. randomness does not fall well on the brain. we find some sort of meaningful pattern. friday the 13th is the same one. you mention the 13 weeks apart. we're on the 13th hour of this friday the 13th year. >> you just blew my mind. >> at least on pacific coast time any way. i'm in las vegas so that bodes well for my gambling tonight, right? naturally if i won, i would remember this and if i lost i would remember it. no matter what happens, it confirms the superstition once you have it in your head. it's all in your head. there's nothing to it out in nature or anything like that. this particular one is called paraskevidekatriaphobia, the fear of friday the 13th, which began as a myth that friday was a lucky day and then it was converted in christian middle ages to a negative one because christ was -- jesus was the last

supper there were 12 disciples and -- >> that's interesting that friday the 13th was a good thing before and then it became a bad thing. how was it a good thing? >> it was a good thing in mythology because friday was a lucky day for them and then that got converted. it got inverted in christian methology to a negative one. look at what happened to jesus as the 13th guest at the last supper, he was crucified so good friday gets reversed on friday the 13th to a negative day. this is all just part and parcel of the number 13 is yet another one of those numbers. a lot of hotels here in vegas do not have a 13th floor. they do have a 13th floor, it's called the 14th floor on the panel of buttons. >> if you're seriously afraid of the number 13, then you shouldn't be faked out that the developer has called it the 14th floor. you know it's the 13th floor. if you're really into this stuff. >> these are all self-fulfilling

professiv professies. he had to eat chicken before every game. he had so many recipes for chicken dishes he wrote a cookbook called foul tips. fielders are successful 90% of the time. you don't need superstitions. batting you fail even the best batters seven out of ten times. >> one used to urinate on his glove. i see your fielding reference. >> somehow i'm not surprised that s.e. knows that. >> superstitions are just part of the brain. we have to live with them. we live in the world of science and technology. we have to remember that it's science that got us where we are and not superstition. our mission at skeptic magazine is to combat these things and tell everyone you can have fun but don't take it seriously.

>> very good. we'll trust in the science. thank you for joining us. up next, wardrobe malfunction? uniforms made in china sparking a controversy here at home and brits are none too pleased with missile launchers on their roofs. let the olympic games begin. home protector plus, from liberty mutual insurance, where the costs to both repair your home and replace your possessions are covered. and we don't just cut a check for the depreciated value --

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>> i am so upset that i think the olympic committee should be ashamed of themselves. they should be embarrassed. they should take all of the uniforms, put them in a big pile and burn them. start all over again. >> torch them is what senate majority leader harry reid says should happen to the u.s. olympic teams official uniforms. politicians and americans are fired up that team america is set to sport uniforms made in china. gasp. china. i think that's happened before. this year we're getting upset about it. there's other problems with these uniforms too. there are so berets that people think don't scream usa, usa. veterans are upset about the placement of the ralph lauren logo versus the u.s. flag and company's logo is bigger than the flag. approximate you put your hand on your heart you cover the polo horse and not the flag. there is a lot of controversy and a lot to get outraged about. i think what i want to ask you guys, take a look at these uniforms. do they look good? >> you wouldn't define yourself

as a fashionista? >> everyone looks like a fashionista next to steve. >> i have a visceral negative reaction to these uniforms. they are so preppie. i can't take it. you know, that's a stylistic argument. i do have a problem with the made in china thing. i don't know why we can't make our olympic uniforms here. >> i agree with you that they are so preppie it looks like straight out of a ralph lauren ad and i don't understand why ralph lauren is constitutive of american. there are other designers in america who could give us americana besides ralph lauren. >> i'm digging these uniforms. >> she was fanning herself. >> to be honest, yes, this is right in my wheelhouse. i enjoy them. they look like military meets yacht. >> meets republican hill staffer. >> yes. >> but a beret? >> it's all working for me.

i believe there are green berets. we have red berets. beret can look military. >> it looks french military with red and white. >> the beret is probably my favorite part of my uniform. >> i vote no to the uniform. i want to get this in. i have one olympic uniform story i want to share with everyone. it goes back 20 years. in 1992, the basketball team that qualified for the olympics just got independence from the soviet union. they were dirt poor. they had no money to fund it. jerry garcia and grateful dead found out about the basketball team and put money up to get them to the olympics but also gave them the rights to use the logo and so the team put together a t-shirt that became an international bestseller that took colors and skeleton of the grateful dead and it became the

basketball game d shit-shirt. it's inspiring. >> it didn't happen. >> a picture of your bronze medal winning 1992 basketball team. those are my uncles and my cousin. but those are t-shirts. uncle joe is not wearing it. >> we have learned so much about steve today. >> peeling away the layers. >> i just wanted to share it. >> thank you. >> i do it for you folks. i want to get to another subject. fashion choices aren't the only thing making people spirited ahead of the olympic games. we're two weeks away from the start of the london olympics. we'll bring in duncan from london. i want to ask you first about security measures for this. i'm reading stories about the military being in london and missiles being stationed on top of apartment buildings. can you give us a sense of what security is like around there and how people in london are

reacting to it? >> sure. good afternoon. great to be joining you. the story here today really is that london is in lockdown. tonight is the royal navy's largest ship is sailing up and the military will have control of duration of the games. suddenly the games are very close abdomen very big. have a look at these numbers. london is expecting up to one million visitors. they'll be guarded by 17,000 troops and more than 12,000 police officers. the big controversy here this week is that the british government is having to send in more troops because a private security company admitted it might not meet its target. headlines like this one in the london evening standard saying, olympic crisis. to be honest, london is having a serious case of pre-show nerves. suddenly the biggest show on earth is very close and despite the venues being ready, london is having a bit of a grumble.

i have to say probably the reason for that is the weather. it seems to have rained nonstop here for two months. it's really affected the mood. guys, if you're coming over, pack your rain coats. >> isn't that the norm, the rain? isn't that to be expected in london? >> it's to be expected. i'm not sure we'll rise to the occasion. we were hoping for some sunshine in some games. >> better them than us. this could have been us in 2012. new york was expecting to get the olympics. >> i would love to have the olympics. >> no. what a headache. >> think of all the guys in the uniforms walking around. >> i'm sold. >> got to see the ralph lauren -- >> i changed my line. >> too bad we won't have that to look forward to in new york. duncan, in london, thanks for joining us. why to ditch principles and open wallets. i'm sure it will make sense when he says it. that's still to come on "the

cycle."

we begin with a joke that's very old. but very relevant to today's conversation. jesus and moses are playing golf. moses hits a nice drive down the middle of the fairway setting himself up to birdie. jesus slices off into the woods and he raises his arm to the heavens and it begins to rain so much that a river is formed and a fish swims up and grabs the ball in its mouth and a bird swoops down and inasmuch as the fish and flies off toward the hole into which the fish drops the hole. moses looks at jesus and says, are we going to play some golf

or are we going to screw around? that's what i want to say to the democratic party right now. are they going to play some golf? are they going to win this election or just screw around? i'm talking about the mother's bilk of politics. money. the world of campaign finance wa changed by the 2010 supreme court decision in citizens united allowing independent groups to raise and spend as much as they can leading up to the world of super pacs which guarantees it's the most expensive and negative campaign in history. in this world, the precious soul of the democratic party finds itself at a moral crossroads. a recent story about campaign finance said, "from the perspective of many democrats, this year's foray into citizens united campaigning an apocalypse journey into the mall of something darker than death itself. namely a morality-free zone in which republicans alone can survive." . the massive amounts of money being spent make us seem to be

far down the river nearing crazy colonel kerts. you can be against citizens united and refuse to lose a post citizens united world. i love principles, but in politics, the principle that matters most is victory. napalm smells like victory, money smells like victory. a philosophical aversion to donating big money smells like defeat taking the high brow on campaign finance smells like defeat. romney and the super pacs run by his mega wealthy friends are bigging a large financial advantage. they have no spiritual dilemma about the new rules. but toure, they have no rules. citizens united changed the world. what are we going to do about it? are we going to play some golf or are we going to screw around? >> i totally agree with you, personally. i mean, i think on this particular issue, you have to play by the rules of the game as they exist. >> yes. >> or else you're not really playing. >> the problem here, i think, is

you're having this much trouble if you're a democrat convincing wealthy donors to donate. i really believe i've said this before, obama can survive even if he's outspent, even if the super pacs are outspending them. if you can't get them to donate, what about the congressional level, what about senate races, what about house races and state legislative races. that's where the financial imbalance really is going to matter. again, i can still see the scenario where obama wins this year. maybe he does. but the republicans are buffetted down ticket. they have a financial advantage. they keep the house, take the senate and expand their strength. >> republicans always seem to have a better understanding of how much the local, the statehouse, the congressional, the down ballot ticket matters. both in terms of building a bench, but also in terms of legislative outcomes. i mean, we've seen a wave of identical legislation sweeping the country in republican state legislatures because they were smart about getting their people in place and pushing their

agenda. >> before we get out of here, a shameless plug. she can out my essay about the war of drugs shaped the development of hip hop. physical version on sunday. it's online right now. that does it for "the cycle." martin, what do you have to say? >> i've got to say thank you very much. that was an enjoyable essay that you wrote and also your commentary at the end. what did you say napalm smells like victory. thank you very much. nice work, guys. to all of you at our new hour of 4:00 p.m. it's friday, july 13th and be afraid, be very afraid. so who had the worst week ever? >> why? why? >> no. >> you can't -- >> not quite. ooh, not him. >> bain capital. >> bain capital. >> bain capital. >> bain. >> bain capital. >> bingo. >> the achilles heel of m