photo shop. i think they weren't thinking. an employee from the mail house in question read a state. in an effort to underscore the theme of voter fraud, edited a stock photo. our actions were merely to provide a visual context of the same person waiting in line to vote. it takes away from the subtle undertone intended by our artist. the subtle undertone. yes, before, more black people. after, less black people. wiz bang sluz solutions indeed. what a subtle undertone. amazing. now it's time for the last word with lawrence o'donnell. have an excellent night. >> the mother of the suspects in the boston marathon bombing has told nbc news that a man known as misha was a good front who visited their home in the united states. investigators now want to know how that good friend may have influenced the bombing suspects.

>> terrorism as a weapon is losing. >> vice president joe biden will head to cambridge, massachusetts later today. >> they can never defeat us, never overthrow us. >> for sean collier. >> a memorial service is held for sean collier. >> boston, you send a powerful message. >> boylston street reopens to the pubblocklic. >> they have turned it into a makeshift memorial. sdwr we have not yulded to our fears. >> there's also questions about the fbi's prior contact with the alleged bomber. >> that's the question that some members of congress are asking. >> how could we have missed all this? >> it's not working. >> serious concerns raise this morning. >> new details about communications between the russia and the u.s. >> about whether the u.s. agency shared information. >> the dots were not connected. >> it's not like they don't both know what the other has. in fact, they all know. >> russians contact the fbi.

questing information about tamerlan tsarnaev. >> the fbi checks it out, finds nothing negative. the russians send their same request to the cia. >> they both ask the russians several times for more information. they never get any. >> is this going to become a major political issue? >> terrorism as a weapon is losing. >> vice president joe biden insists they're driven by nothing but fear. >> this is a diverse campus. >> the vice president really describes not just m.i.t. campus, but america all over. >> it's black, it's white, it's muslim, it's christian, it's jewish, it's hindu. that's who we are. you are their worst nightmare. >> the mother of the bombing suspects spoke to nbc news today. she said both russian and u.s. authorities asked her about misha. they asked whether he was an extremist and whether he was part of any organization.

she confirm eed misha is, quotea good friend. he came to the house, end quote. he is in the u.s. she said he is a young man and has red hair. she thinks he may be armenian. she did not give a family name. she described him as a new believer and an intelligent man. the mother is not traveling to the u.s. anytime soon, according to this nbc report. previously, she has mentioned to nbc that she has financial difficulties. the father of the suspects is going to boston the day after tomorrow. that would be on friday, going to boston. the mother will be having a press conference tomorrow. today, the fbi interviewed the parents of the suspects in this boston marathon bombing case. that interview took place in a government building in dagestan.

russian television is reporting that the parents are cooperating with the fbi in their investigation. nbc news pete williams has developed the following chronology of the family's prior contact with the fbi, according to u.s. officials. in january 2011, the russian government asked the fbi for information about tamerlan, the older brother. saying he planned to visit russia and that both tamerlan and his mother may have become radicalized. the fbi asked the russians for more information, but the russians did not respond. the fbi checked their terror databases and found nothing. fbi agents interviewed tamerlan and his family in cambridge then, and the agent's conclusion was nothing negative found. that conclusion was then reported to russian officials. eight months later in september of 2011, russian officials asked the american government for information on tamerlan and his

mother again, but this time, they put their request directly to the cia. like the fbi before them, the cia asked the russians for more information. and the russians did not provide any more information. the answer back to russia from the cia was identical to the one given by the fbi months earlier. nothing negative found. but tamerlan's name was entered into the federal government's master terrorism database so u.s. officials kept a record of his travel to moscow in 2012. also under investigation tonight is that man known only as misha who reportedly steered the older brother toward religious extremi extremism. the associated press spoke to members of the suspect's family and report under the tutelage of a friend known to the tsarnaev family only as misha, tamerlan

gave up boxing and stopped studying music. he began opposing the wars in afghanistan and iraq. he turned to websites and literature claiming the ci was behind the terrorist attacks of september 11th and jews controlled the world. somehow, he just took his brain, said tamerlan's uncle who recalled conversations with tamerlan's father about misha's influence. the bombing suspects reportedly told a man whose car they hijacketed that they had just killed a police officer that night. that officer, sean collier, of the m.i.t. campus police, was honored in a memorial today on campus. vice president joe biden was among the speakers. >> there's al qaeda central out of the fatah or two twisted perverted cowardly knockoff jihadis here in boston. why do they do what they do?

i've come to the conclusion, which is not unique to me, but they do it to instill fear. it infuriates them that we refuse to bend, refuse to change, refuse to yield to fear. the doctrine of hate and oppression, they have found out, cannot compete. the values of openness and inclusiveness. that's why they're losing around the world. >> the vice president's wife dr. jill biden was among the first visitors today to the reopened section of boylston street at the finish line of the marathon where the bombing occurred. joining me now from boston, nbc news national investigative correspondent michael isikoff and terrorism analyst roger cressy. roger, i want to go to a phrase that the vice president used today just in the speech we saw

him give. he referred to them as knockoff jihadis. what do you make of his use of that phrase? >> lawrence, i think that's just a reference to they were not part of an organized part. they were not part of the broader network, self-radicalized, lone wolfs, or as brian jenkins, a longtime terrorism analyst would call them, stray dogs. i think he was trying to drive home the point, even if you have individuals who have done such heinous acts, while they may be part of a broader movement in a general sense, they pose a threat, but it's a threat we can deal with. and of course, resiliency in boston has been the key word since the attacks last monday. >> let's listen to what secretary of state john kerry said today in brussels. >> we just had a young person who went to russia and chechnya who blew people up in boston. so he didn't stay where he went,

but he learned something where he went and came back with a willingness to kill people. >> and that statement wasn't up for very long before the state department issued this adjustment to it. let's listen to that. >> the secretary was simply expressing broad concern about radicalism and not necessarily offering any more specific information about this case, but the context of how that came up is really radicalism broadly understand is how i understand it came up, but this isn't about any new information or conclusion about law enforcement details of the case. >> michael isikoff, state obviously had to issue that sort of response to what the secretary said, but he said very clearly that he learned something where he went, and he came back with a willingness to kill people. what is the likelihood that secretary kerry was working with inadequate information when he said that? >> well, i think the secretary

was reflecting the suspicions of a lot of law enforcement officials and others about just the mere fact that we know that tamerlan tsarnaev spent six months in russia, traveled to dagestan, traveled to chechnya, both hotbeds of radical islamism and it's not unreasonable to conclude there was some context there that would have fed his evolution towards jihadi thinking. but we also know that the russian report -- the russian request to the fbi came before he even made those -- that trip. and the russians already clearly had some information that gave them cause for concern. it is very likely if you read what we know exactly about what the fbi has said about the russian request, that he's changed. they said he's a different man. he's changed radically.

and he's now a father of radical islam. that does suggest they had some sort of informant, some direct information reported to the intelligence service that tamerlan tsarnaev had become a radical jihadi. we don't know for sure, but my point is that was before he even made the trip, so right now, here's what we know. we know that zor car tsarnaev said there was no one else involved, they were motivated to defend islam because of the wars in iraq and afghanistan. they learned to build the bombs over the internet, clearly, something, there was some radicalization here. somebody radicalized them. we have the comments from the family about this mysterious misha of armenian deskebt who was supposed to have an untoward

influence over tamerlan. we don't know who misha is. we don't know when this happened, how this took place. there are a lot of unanswered questions that as far as i can tell, the fbi is still trying to sort out and doesn't have real hard swbs at this point. >> roger cressy, is misha at this point in the investigation, the second most important character to the suspect in custody? >> lawrence, that's assuming misha exists. what the family tells us is important. it's one stream of data. but the bureau, the fbi is going to corroborate everything here that is claimed in interviews and try to paint a factual basis. to what mike just said, this is so early on in putting the pieces together that any statements we get right now, we have to take with a grain of salt. i do think the family dynamic here is particularly interesting, and how it led to the attacks last monday and who

was an influence on tamerlan and ultimately, how he was an influence on his younger brother. the role of the mother, as we talked about before, is fascinating. did she have some sort of role here? we'll have to find that out as well. when you look at what has been reported up to this stage and what the fbi had its possession, in terms of preliminary inquiry, they really could not go much further because the attorney general guidelines prevent anything more because of concern about civil liberties and a whole host of understandably -- understandable constraints based on the constitution, so the bureau did what it was supposed to do. the connecting the dots question which i still think is way too premature to draw conclusions on, is going to involve interagency coordination more than anything else. >> quickly, before we go, on your experience with these kinds of things, one of the spots here i think is of interest to viewers is the russians asked

for information on this guy from the fbi. then they do it again through the cia. each time, the fbi and the cia, each time, says back to the russians, could you give us more information about him before we try to find what it is you're looking for? and the russians do not respond to that. how strange is that to your ear? >> it's not strange because the dynamic between u.s./russian counterterrorism cooperation is uneven to be generous. because they did not provide that follow-up information, it prevented the fbi and local law enforcement from taking that next step. had the russians had something action bld and gave that to us when tamerlan returned, then when he started posting jihadi videos, they would have been in a position to do something about that. that's a significant gap in information we didn't get from the russians, lawrence. >> michael and roger, thank you for joining me tonight. >> thanks. >> coming up, republicans are pulling out their terrorism

scorecards. you knew they were going to do that. they said president bush kept us safer than president obama, but the republican scorecards have a very peculiar footnote on them. and hillary clinton went back to work tonight in the statement city where the george w. bush presidential library and museum will be dedicated tomorrow. and in the rewrite tonight, a graduate student rewrites the work of a cupper harvard professors and in the process up sets government leaders around the world, including more than a few in washington, d.c. [ beeping ] ♪ [ male announcer ] we don't just certify our pre-owned vehicles. we inspect, analyze and recondition each one, until it's nothing short of a genuine certified pre-owned... mercedes-benz for the next new owner. ♪ hurry in to your authorized mercedes-benz dealer for 1.99% financing

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it turns out there is some price for a senator to pay for voting against what the people want. in the first poll since voting against background checks on firearms in the united states senate, new hampshire's republican senator kelly ayotte has significantly pushed up her disapproval rating. public policy polling found in

october she had a 48% approval rating and a 35% disapproval rating. today, public policy polling shows her with a 44% approval rating and a 46% disapproval rating in new hampshire. 75% of new hampshire voters, including a majority of republicans, say they support background checks. and 50% of voters in that state say ayotte's no vote will make them less likely to support her in the future. big surprise. up next, the politics of terrorism. [ jackie ] 's just so frustrating... ♪

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from 9-12-01 to the time president obama raised his right hand january of '09, the man kept him safe. you certainly can't say that since president obama has taken the oath of office. >> the one thing the bush administration and the presidency did is it kept us safe, but not only in its own seven years. it established the entire infrastructure. it looks as if in this administration, it has all fallen apart. >> as was inevitable in republican world in the age of obama, some republicans are pulling out their terrorism scorecards and rating president obama much worse than george w. bush as protector in chief of the homeland. of course, all republican terrorism scorecards begin the day after the biggest and worst terrorist attack in our history. the day we lost 2,977 people at

the world trade center, the pentagon, and shanksville, pennsylvania. and on that day, the president of the united states was george w. bush. today, in the house of representatives, republican congressman tom cotton of arkansas produced his terrorism scorecard. >> and barely four years in office, five jihadists have reached their targets in the united states under barack obama. the boston marathon bomber, the underwear bomber, the time square bomber, the ft. hood shooter, and in my own straight, the little rock recruiting office shooter. in over seven years after 9/11, under george w. bush, how many terrorists reached their target in the united states? zero. >> joining me now, msnbc's richard rofl and former

democratic governor of vermont, howard dean. governor dean, i think we can all remember after 9/11 that no democrats, exactly no democrats, went to the floor of the house of representatives seven days later to assign blame to the president of the united states about what the country was going through. but after this boston marathon bombing, here they are. they're out there making this case. >> yeah, i mean, it's extraordinary, the decay of these people in congress who claim they represent anybody other than people who just hate the president. this is ridiculous. this is so childish, like ben zazi. it's silly. it's juvenile. it's not going to get them anywhere. you know, these people keep making the republican party -- they keep saying they want to rebrand it. there was a state legislator in new hampshire yesterday who claimed the government of the united states was responsible for the boston bombing. her name, i think, was betty

kelly, or something like that. these people aren't just mean spirited, they're crazy. and i don't know anything about mr. cotton, but he sure looked like a nut case on the floor saying all that stuff, didn't he? >> i want to listen to something that rudy giuliani and dana perino said, this was before this, this was a common chant among republicans. let's listen to this. >> we had no domestic attacks under bush. we had one under obama. >> we did not have a terrorist attack on our country during bush's term. >> richard, they would say this. they would say this repeatedly and they weren't putting in any clarifation about 9/11. they actually were saying it that way. and that's the thing they're trying to drill into the public. none under president bush. except the biggest one in history. >> they accept that. and you know, it's one thing to try and spin the public, as dana perino did pretty successfully, and know that it's spin and it's another thing to believe your own spin. just because you say something over and over again does not

mean it's true. and by the way, if they actually believed their own storyline, you couldn't just say that 9/11 came out of nothing. it wasn't a total surprise because in their narrative, bill clinton and by extension, all democrats, somehow lost the plot. they didn't take terrorism seriously because there was the "ucc cole" al qaeda was there and they didn't take it seriously because they were doing the loyalty stuff about respecting the rule of law and not torturing people, so president bush came on the scene and historically understood the danger, only he understood it after, after he ignored all of the warnings about al qaeda wanting to attack the homeland. so they don't understand their own story. they believe a certain selective piece of their own spin, and now they're projecting it on another president, who by the way, has a pretty good record when it comes to killing terrorists. >> i they think they're down right unpatriotic to to this to the president when he needs all

of the patriotism we need. our country has been attacked. and these people have forgotten they're supposed to be representing the united states of america and not the right wing of the republican party. that's a fact. and i want to listen to the way the argument is being made tonight on fox news by rudy giuliani. let's listen to that. >> this guy was an islamic jihad terrorist. >> why won't they say that? why, i don't get that? >> i don't understand why they say that. at least, before 9/11, you w were on notice. now we're on notice. you don't have the excuses that existed before 9/11 that you don't understand the full implication of this. >> richard wolffe, this guy is the mayor of new york. that was the second attack on the world trade center by this kind of terrorist. there was the bombing of the world trade center, which was a horrible disaster that occurred about eight years earlier. he doesn't seem to know that. >> like i said, they have

forgotten their own storyline. al qaeda was a present and clear danger. i don't know if he actually watches any news. even fox news at least recognized that the president called this man a terrorist. the white house has not been shy about calling the two brothers terrorists. they actually charged them with weapons of mass destruction. what more do they want? >> we've got to go, but before we do, the control room is telling me the name of the representative in new hampshire who said that crazy stuff is stella trembley. >> i apologize if there's a kelly in theapologize. i did it a lot faster than cnn -- >> we just want to make sure it's the right name. thank you both very much for joining me tonight. >> coming up, how the nra uses its money in politics. we'll show you how that money can defeat the wishes of 90% of the american public. changing the world is exhausting business.

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in the spotlight tonight, hillary clinton goes back to work. for a reporter $200,000, hillary clinton spoke to real estate executives who could easily afford that at a dinner in dallas tonight. her speech to the national multihousing counsel's board of directors was closed to the press. speaking in the same city today was another potential 2016

contender, jeb bush. >> looking for how do we create a legal system where young aspirational people of varying skills and to our country, learn our language, embrace our values and pursue their dreams with a vengeance. that ought to be the aspirati aspirational goal of the united states, and you don't have to be a visionary to understand what the benefits of that are because it is who we are. it's embedded in our dna. the american experience is the immigrant experience. it's what separates us from the rest of the world. it's what makes us truly extraordinary and exceptional, and it's not the time to be abandoning it. >> the clinton and bush dallas speeches today came on the eve of the dedication of the george w. bush presidential library and museum tomorrow in dallas. here's what the former president had to say about hillary clinton and his brother may be running in 2016. >> it would be a marvelous

candidate if he chooses to do so. he doesn't need my counsel because he knows what it is, which is run. >> your brother versus hillary clinton? >> it would be a fantastic photo. i'm fascinated by all of the gossip and stuff that goes on, but the field won't become clear until after the midterms. >> krystal ball. he's fascinated by all that goes on, so he's watching about the discussion that's going to happen here. what was your reaction to jeb bush's attempt to clarify his position today on immigration? >> well, it's good that he's come back to being in the right place, apparently. i think he really has done himself a disservice when he initially wrote this book about immigration, prior to that, he really was a leader in the republican party on this issue. he was a thought leader.

he was out in front in terms of what they should do. then he came out with this book that not only took a step back, but also felt very politically calculated, which is never a good thing. he sort of muddled his own message and messed things up. he no longer holds that plank and he also hasn't appeased the right wing if that was what he was trying to do with the book. >> jeb bush speaks to the world affairs council nonprofit, no word on whether he was paid or not. hillary clinton speaks to the national multihousing council's board. here is what they are. for $200,000. they are -- this is their own description of themselves. based in washington, d.c., oops right away. lobbying operation. mmhc is a national association representing the interests, i believe democrats call that special interests, representing the interests of the larger and most prominent apartment firms

in the u.s. these are big-money real estate people. big, wealthy, residential apartment developments all over the country. and that's the first place the democratic front runner goes to pick up a paycheck. which -- excuse me, she doesn't need. >> right, she doesn't need it in part because her husband -- >> he's out there. with checks from the same operation. >> he's had his share. maybe she wants to know what that experience is like. obviously, she is, to the extent she continues to do these and this is a staple of what she does for the next year or two years. if she does end up running in 2016, this becomes something her primary opponents will use against her. >> taking that check from those people sounds to me like we believe there will not be primary opponents because it won't be a big problem against a republican, but among democrats -- >> it could be a calculation of

sure, martin o'malley is going to say, you know, i cashed in when i stopped being secretary of state in 2013. sure, he'll say that. if that's the best he's got against me, i'm fine. >> i actually agree with that. i think they would try to use it. i don't know how much it would stick. i don't know how much it would resonate for voters even though it's an interest group. i don't think it sounds particularly scary to voters. in a way this is very safe for her because the environment is very controlled. she gets to say exactly what she wants to say. she doesn't have to let the press in. she can make news or not depending on how she wants to play it, and frankly, these are the people who have the ability to write those sorts of checks. >> this kind of interest group has more interests in more pages of the tax code than most. what they're in there trying to get on depreciation of buildings is nonstop. one of the interesting things is taking this kind of money is

okay as long as in your campaign, there isn't anything that is cleary something these people want. >> and by the way, she is doing this at a time in terms of fiscal policy, the debate in 2013, potentially 2014 in washington, is going to be involving tax reform. >> right, these guys got a bunch of loopholes in the code. >> she is right now on pace, i don't know what her timetable would be, but she's on pace to be able to duck out of this conversation and avoid having to answer, if obama makes a tax reform deal, right now, she could probably not weigh in on that hat all. she could be above all that. >> krystal ball and steve kornacki, thank you both for joining me. >> coming up, one of the most important economic theories of our time. our time being the last few years, was debunked last night on stephen colbert's show. that's coming up on the rewrite. [ rosa ] i'm rosa and i quit smoking with chantix.

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and they said, yeah, we'll publish this. here's my worry about you, young man. you realize you have upset some people in the austerity crowd, okay? you know that, right? >> it's true. >> okay. these are very important and sometimes very powerful people who are using the arguments of jekyll and hyde over there to, you know, make austerity measures all over the world. do you have someone starting your car for you right now? >> stevphen colbert is worried that 28-year-old graduate student at the university of massachusetts, thomas herndon, needs someone to start his car for him now because he rewrote the work of two harvard economist professors, work that until now has been the intellectual basis for the austerity drive in governments around the world, including this one. in a 2010 paper, growth in a time of debt, professors carmen

reinhardt and dennis rogoff reported they found the tipping point in the national debt, the spot where the size of the debt seems to harm economic growth, and that tipping point was 90%. a national debt of 90% of gdp seemed to reduce economic growth, according to their findings. therefore, policymakers said all no country should allow its debt to be greater than 90% of gdp. now, in home economic terms, this would mean no family should allow their debt to be more than 90% of annual income. so in a household with say two earners and a total income of $100,000. a debt above $90,000 would be a very serious problem. now, this is one of those rare instances in which the home economics example i just used is actually somewhat informative to the national economy that reinhardt and rogoff were

studying. and i remember thinking when this came out, this 90% came out, when they said the tipping point was 90%, i remember thinking the home economic example is so contrary to that. i realized what they were saying in effect was that a household is capable of carrying much, much more debt than a government. because it is not at all unusual in this country for households to have debt double or triple or quadruple their annual inkk, and still be economically healthy. they can carry that size debt in the form of mortgages. a family of $100,000 income can often very reasonably afford to buy a $400,000 home, depending obviously on what they other expenses are. i was surprised that the debt tipping point for government would be so much lower than it is in home economics, but i

didn't mention that to anyone because home economic examples for a million reasons usually have absolutely no application in national economic models. but the 90% thing just felt funny to me. i understood completely why politicians both democrat and republican instantly latched out to the 90% figure as the reason why we must get our national debt under control right now. depending on how you count our national debt, and that's a whole other subject, by the time this paper came out, debt to gdp was already at least 80% and approaching 90%. because this was the only paper out there that suggested a specific tipping point, and because it was produced by one of the leading if not the leading economist department in the world, it was immediately adopted in austerity talking points. >> i go back to the reinhardt

rogoff study. their conclusion, when you have a gross debt of over 90% of gdp, future economic growth is diminished. >> economists who have studied sovereign debt tell us letting dotel debt rise over 90% gdp intensified the risk of a debt fueled economic crisis. >> this is very dangerous territory according to economist carmen reinhardt and kenneth rogoff. public debt burdens above 90% of gdp are associated with 1% lower economic growth. >> huge dent cdebt can impact economic growth today. they say when your debt reaches 90% of gdp, your debt is that much that it can slow growth by 1% to 2%. do you think it's possible their study based on impempirical dat might be telling us that the debt right now because it

weakened confidence and drains investment capital, that our debt now could be slowing our economy? >> i think it's very clear. >> can you imagine how thrilling that is for social scientists to have their findings instantly adopted as truth in the ruling doctrine of governing? that never happens. and that 90% figure was the brick wall standing in the way of arguments by nobel prize winning economist paul krugman and others that the government should do more to spend its way out of the economic slump. krugman may have a nobel, but reinhardt and rogoff had a study. they had a number. they are the only economists who had numbers, the numbers on this question. and when you are the only economists who have run the numbers on any important policy question, you will probably get a lot more respect than you deserve because in order to

really base policy numbers -- base policy on numbers, we need a lot of people to run a lot of numbers. no matter how many times academies try to tell politicians they shouldn't base policy action on any one study in any area of social sciences or natural sciences, politicians refuse to learn that lesson. republicans loved the 90% number because for once they had some science behind what they were saying. it wasn't hard science. it wasn't organic chemistry or biology. it was the soft science of economics. the dismal science. and last week, that science collapsed because someone else ran the numbers, a graduate student at umass, thomas herndon, who you just saw with stephen colbert, actually used the same numbers that reinhardt and rogoff used, and the rest is history.

as delightfully told to stephen colbert last night. >> you went to replicate these findings and then what happened? >> well, you know, i tried to build the data myself from all of the publicly available sources, but i just couldn't replicate their negative average. >> did you try to reach out to these guys? >> yeah, i did. it took a couple e-mails, and they were finally polite enough to give me their spreadsheet. once i got the spreadsheet, i was able to identify the error pretty quickly. >> uh-huh, uh-huh. it was fine with them to have the spreadsheet? >> they told me i should feel free to publish the results i had. >> then you had the balls to publish the results you had. >> i thought it was a really important message and a really important story. i wanted the profession to hear about it. >> at first when you saw these, you thought, i got to be wrong, right? >> that's really exactly what i

thought. i couldn't really believe my eyes. i asked my girlfriend, kyla walters, who is also a researcher in socologist to look at the spreadsheet with me. >> why ask her? >> she's had a lot of statistical training as well and she's sharp. >> did she learn excel spreadsheets? >> that's standard. >> that seems like it would help. >> among the mistakes that herndon found in the professor's original paper is that they forgot to include the following countries, australia, austria, belgium, denmark, and a place called canada. now, forgetting to include canada in any study you do that you think is applicable to the united states is like a doctor forgetting to ask about your siblings in taking your family history. can daw is our biggest trading partner. canada is located very, very close to the united states. i mean, there are actually some places in this country where you really can see canada from your house.

it is the other place in the world that most looks like the united states of america in every way, including economically. canada is the other economic laboratory on this planet that most resembles our economic laboratory. and so with canada included in the spread sheet, and with the numbers run correctly, it turns out that economies with a debt of 90% were actually growing and not shrinking. and so now the definitive economic paper on this matter is actually a term paper that thomas herndon wrote for his econometrics class. it says contrary to the reinhardt rogoff average, gdp growth at public debt to gdp ratio of over 90% is not dramatically different than when debt to gdp ratios are lower.

and that is the economic term paper heard around the world.

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the hill reports that the national rifle association spent about $800,000 in lobbying efforts against gun legislation in the first quarter of the year. gun owners of america spent more than $313,000. the only gun safety group to come close to rivaling the gun lobby was michael bloomberg's mayors against illegal guns which spent $250,000. joining me, mike smyth, who is a contributor to msnbc.com. frank, the money seems really lopsided on lobbying. what about campaign contributions, that sort of thing? >> 80% of republicans in this congress have received money from the national rifle association at some point in their career. and 42 out of the 45 senators who recently voted against gun safety legislation have received nra money in their last election

cycle. so it's clear that these senators and other legislators in the house have been following the deckitatictates of the gun . what is different is mayor bloomberg has entered the field, and aupet by gabby giffords and her husband mark, and are raising money looking forward to the 2014 elections. the nra is already concerned about the 2014 elections and has made it clear, quoting president obama, that the fight has only begun. what we saw in the past few months in this debate about gun safety legislation that failed in congress will pick up again in the run-up to the 2014 elections and perhaps even beyond. >> frank, gabby giffords' group announced they're going to be running radio ads thanking john mccain for his vote and running ads against senator ayotte and mitch mcconnell. you did an assessment of the last, oh, it looks like 20 years of spending, and it looks like

the nra outspends gun safety people by about 10 to 1 on campaigning. >> 10 to 1, if not a great deal more. there are exponential differences good evening from new york.