tv The Rachel Maddow Show MSNBC July 18, 2013 9:00pm-10:01pm PDT
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no. what we owe to everyone, and what we own a consumer market where people can walk away every year. >> kevin nazemi from oscar and msnbc policy analyst ezra klein. thank you both. that is "all in." the "rachel maddow show" starts right now. thanks, my friend. thanks to you at home for joining us this hour. have you seen this man? the guy in the middle holding the turtle. rick scott. republican governor of florida. rick scott reportedly has not shown up at the florida state capitol building for nine days. he reportedly has not been to his own office, the governor's office in tallahassee for at least three days. rick scott does not seem to be missing because of some kind of foul play or hike in the appalachian trial or anything like that. rather rick scott has seemed to be in hiding from this. a whole bunch of mostly young citizens in his state camped out at his office protesting.
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saying they want to meet with the governor and they want him to call the florida legislature back into session into a special legislative session to consider what they are calling the trayvon martin civil rights act. with that act they want lawmakers and governor scott to repeal florida's stand your ground law. the law that says who gets to shoot whom in florida and under what circumstances. these protesters marched into rick scott's office on tuesday of this week. they announced they would not leave until they got a meeting with the governor, himself. that first night, tuesday night, about 30 people spent the night in the governor's office. the second night, last night it went up to about 50 people spending the night in the governor's office. tonight, thursday night we are told it is closer to 70 people. rolling out sleeping bags and planning to stay all night. capitol police in tallahassee have so far said that these protesters are free to stay. as long as they do not interrupt official business. so they are staying. and their occupation is getting
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larger in rick scott's office. rick scott, meanwhile, has been traveling around the country and traveling around the state, traveling anywhere but his office. with all those people who are there who want to talk to him about the thing he desperately would like to stop talking about. today rick scott turned up in tampa, florida, and he told people who were traveling with him, told the reporters who were following him, that he would take some questions. naturally, when he went to take questions, the first one was about stand your ground. governor scott said the same thing he has been saying about stand your ground all these many months. he said that everybody should mourn trayvon martin's death. he said also that a task force that he commissioned to look into the stand your ground law has already made its ruling. it's already said that the state should keep it and he agrees. >> i put together a task force of 19 individuals, bipartisan. they traveled the state. they listened to ordinary citizens. they listened to experts. and they concluded that we didn't need to make a change to the law and i agree with their
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conclusion. >> thank you. >> yep. >> governor -- >> thanks, everybody. >> will you call a special session, governor, on civil rights? will you call a special session on civil rights? governor, why are you in such a hurry to leave? >> what's the rush, governor? just one question? really? as governor rick scott's grand tour of anywhere that is not his office continues, democrats have begun to call for governor rick scott to please come home. a pair of state lawmakers today challenged the governor to come home to his office. to talk to the protesters there. saying govern crist would have done that, governor bush would have done that, why can't governor scott do that? those lawmakers also said today that they are supporting the protesters' call for a special legislative session for that stand your ground law. quoting a governor today, florida likes to tout being first, we were at the front end of the line to implement this law. we were at the front to implement it, we should be the first to repeal it.
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you know, if is true florida was the first state in the country to pass the modern iteration of the stand your ground law. basically if somebody makes you feel afraid, you can shoot them. you don't have to bother to remove yourself from the situation or anything. if you feel afraid, go ahead and use force. you're good. florida passed that law in april 2005. it had been the nra's top priority that year. then florida governor jeb bush signed the bill with an nra lobbyist standing at his side. you can see that here. the lobbyist standing there in the blue jacket. marian hammer. stand your ground was her law. nra was proud of it once jeb bush signed it into law. from press accounts at the time, "wayne lapierre of the nra says his group will introduce the bill in every state. we will start with the red states and move to the blue states." the nra wanted to roll this law out everywhere and they prioritized it. so florida went first. but then in short order, 21 other states had passed some
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version of the stand your ground law. they started with florida in 2005 and look how far they got. the nra had incredible momentum on this, but as they moved along, along, winning in the states, those states were starting to feel the effect of those laws. of what living under laws like that means for the states. in florida, where they tried it first so they had the longest experience with it, the "tampa bay times" started studying stand your ground cases and found shocking outcomes. one man killed two people, unarmed, and got acquitted. under stand your ground, you could be acquitted if you shot somebody who is lying on the ground and be acquitted for shooting somebody in the back of the head. the tampa bay newspaper said it was impossible to know how many stand your ground cases florida had but appears to be several
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hundred and of the ones they could track, nearly 70% of accusers went free. that's lived experience of stand your ground in florida after the nra got the first new stand your ground laws on the books. nationwide, it looked like this. this is the number of legally determined justifiable homicides in the country. at the start of the nra's campaign. and here's what happened after the other states piled on. more people can shoot more people in this country with impunity. from 2005 on, on, on, on up. never mind, you know? it was full steam ahead for the nra and stand your ground. this is what they wanted. full steam ahead. keep passing those laws. almost february 26th, 2012. when they lost their momentum because a neighborhood watch volunteer shot and killed trayvon martin who had been walking home in the rain wearing a hoodie and carrying iced tea and a bag of skittles.
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there would be no arrest in the case for six weeks even though there was no doubt as to who had pulled the trigger. the shooter said he had acted in self-defense. and, of course, self-defense in florida now is stand your ground. a lot of the country was outraged about this case. outraged about the handling of this case in florida. outraged that the shooter was not being arrested. he's not being arrested, how can it be that he's not being arrested? we all learned quickly because florida had this law. this stand your ground law. the lady in the blue jacket. right. ah. oh. and it turns out it's not just florida. florida was first, but now basically everybody has this law. why does everybody all of a sudden have this law? this seems new. where did this law come from in all these states that not many people noticed before this marquee case in florida suddenly shocked everybody with its implications in this case? the law came from something called a.l.e.c., stand your ground, defend your castle laws
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may have been an nra priority. the way the nra pushed them was through the american legislative exchange council. a.l.e.c. for short. see the legislative scorecard from a.l.e.c. for model legislation. the castle doctrine, stand your ground, is right there on the a.l.e.c. list. this chilling marquee case in florida attracts enough outrage that the big mainstream corporate interests that belong to a.l.e.c. started to get embarrassed to be associated with the law, right? the uproar was not just about florida. once people realized what this law was and how it had spread, it was not just about the nra or the stand your ground law. it's about the way the law had been written as model legislation by this group that the nra and all of these corporations were part of. and the corporations, these other constituent members of a.l.e.c. beyond the nra, they started to get embarrassed about being associated with this. why on earth does kraft foods want to shoot first and ask questions later bill on its legislative agenda? so kraft foods, yeah, drops
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their membership from a.l.e.c. which had been pushing these stand your ground laws. pepsico drops their membership from a.l.e.c., coca cola drops their membership from a.l.e.c. companies stop dropping out of a.l.e.c. one after another after another and a.l.e.c. announced we're getting out of the stand your ground business. i mean, why would pepsi be working on gun laws? right? didn't make any sense. so a.l.e.c. when they got the pressure started to see the pressure manifest as its corporate sponsors dropping out and a.l.e.c. thereby dropped the issues. the laws do not go away. the nra stays as much a part of a.l.e.c. as ever. they kept on. the nra doing a trap shooting event with a.l.e.c. sponsored by the machine gun maker browning arms company. the nra remained very much a part of a.l.e.c. with the protesters camped out at rick scott's office and florida the birthplace of the stand your ground law, and with rick scott refusing thus far to go back to his office because apparently he does no want to
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talk about this stuff, the power of the nra is once again back at the center of american politics. the way it has been since december. since the mass shooting at that elementary school in newtown, connecticut. what happened in florida is a different tragedy from what happened in newtown, but it turns out that while the impetus might be different, the fight is the same. and the adversary is the same. and all of the anti-nra outrage, and anti-nra work that we have seen as a nation since the newtown tragedy, it matters all over again, right? i mean, the newtown families are continuing to lobby members of congress. continuing to lobby in the states. pushing on after even losing that big senate vote. just this week, newtown families, there's francine wheeler, taking her case to states like pennsylvania who are considering changing in their gun laws. changed by a new group, dresses up at one point in cow costumes saying it's time to stop being cowed by the nra. congresswoman gabby giffords and
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her husband, the astronaut, mark kelly, visiting seven states in seven states. the congressional black caucus saying they're ready to legislate against stand your ground, encouraging president obama to not give up on the issue despite the uphill fight. all of this work to organize against the nra since newtown. on the other side, the nra is standing there in the wake of the trayvon martin outrage saying, yeah, yeah, we're going to defend stand your grounds this is our law. the forces against the nra are stronger than they have ever been for a lot of reasons. are they strong enough now to make a difference? moments ago, on this network, a member of the group that is camped outside the florida governor's office said he just now got a phone call from the governor. he says the governor told him that he will finally meet with the protesters tonight. maybe the governor just wants his office back or maybe there is room here for something to change. joining us now is marc caputo
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for the "miami herald." thanks for being here. >> thanks for having me. >> you have written about the role of stand your ground in the overall trayvon martin/george zimmerman case. you've also written that regardless of the outrage and all the pressure, nobody should expect this law to change. are you at all surprised to hear the governor at least wants to talk to the protesters in his office about it tonight? >> no. i think they made it quite clear they're going to stay there for quite some time, so if they stay in his office and they increase in numbers, eventually he's going to have to address them. in 2006, a similar group, the kind of the forerunners of this group held a sit-in when george bush was a governor, involving the death of a young man named martin lee anderson. they stayed and stayed and jeb bush finally met with some of the folks and they went away. rick scott has gotten the message. >> in thinking about the power of the nra, when this initially passed, it was not at all a
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subtle thing, right? jeb bush, it was nra language, jeb bush signed the law with nra lobbyists standing next to him, touted this as something they not only got done in florida but they were going to get done all the way across the country. the authorship was very clear. has the political power of the nra changed at all relative to its opponents since newtown, since the sort of re-politicization of guns in this country after that tragedy in connecticut? >> well, we haven't seen any evidence of that changing in florida. understand, florida has very urban areas, miami, tampa, jacksonville, but it's still a southern state in many of its sympathies, and part of that is gun culture. florida was nicknamed the gunshine state for a reason. we like guns here. there's 1.15 million concealed weapon permit holders. so that's a pretty big constituency. that doesn't mean common sense gun reform is resisted by all gun owners or potential gun owners, but right now the economic interests are favoring the gun -- how would i say, the proponents of more gun rights. the folks who are pose gun
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rights or want to scale back gun rights or want to have more gun control, if you will, they really have an uphill battle. understand the legislature is overwhelmingly republican. democrats barely have about 36%, 37% of the seats on average in the house and the senate together. and the governor's office is controlled by a republican. the first thing is the democrats have to find a candidate and probably win the governor's office and slowly chip back and win in the legislature. even if they do that, there are going to be democrats who represent rural areas who probably won't want to change because a lot of their constituents favor having fewer gun restrictions and the last quinnipiac poll in florida showed that stand your ground was favored by a majority of florida voters, and a smaller percentage, obviously, favored repealing it or changing it.
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>> because of the national attention to this case, and because florida's pioneering stand your ground law ended up being copied and done in a lot of other states, two dozen other states around the country almost, a lot of people are looking at the george zimmerman verdict and the trayvon martin case in general and hearing very conflicted analysis as to whether or not stand your ground is important. was determinative, even, as to what happened in that case. having watched the case closely, is stand your ground effectively the definition of self-defense in florida? was it central to the case in way it was decided? >> yeah. remember this is that stand your ground is self-defense in florida. if you have a self-defense defense in florida, it's a stand your ground defense, especially in lethal force cases. this was a lethal force case. therefore, stand your ground has something to do with it. was it determinative? we can't know. we weren't in the jury room. we do know this. the jury instructions had almost word for word stand your ground language. juror b-37 told cnn that they had discussed stand your ground.
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in fact, she twice of her own accord mentioned stand your ground. so for anyone to say stand your ground had nothing to do with the case, it's strange. it's false. it's like, you know, on my end it's almost like describing a sphere to a flat earth society person. i just can't understand why they say it has absolutely nothing to do with it. it is an argument of degree, but we don't know the degree. it had something to do with it. also understand this about stand your ground, a big change it made. before it passed in 2005, florida had what many states have which is a duty to retreat when you're in a confrontation in public. if you're lawfully in an area and some guy comes up and picks a fight with you, you had a duty to retreat before using lethal force. you had a duty to retreat, quote, to the wall. they changed that and said you have a right to stand your ground and meet force with force anywhere in public. assume that you were lawfully there and engaged if lawful activity. again, stand your ground certainly had something to do with this case.
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how much? we don't know. it certainly had something to do with it. >> marc caputo, political columnist for the "miami herald." i'm going to send you a new ear piece as thanks for being here. >> sorry about that. i was smiling too much. i apologize. >> it's all right. i appreciate you being here. >> thanks. lots and lots and lots to come tonight, including the most important drip in the drip, drip, drip saga of skeeviness involving governor ultrasound. the biggest drip yet. stay with us. i think farmers care more about the land than probably anyone else. we've had this farm for 30 years. we raise black and red angus cattle. we also produce natural gas. that's how we make our living and that's how we can pass the land and water back to future generations. people should make up their own mind what's best for them. all i can say is it has worked well for us. should have disrupted man.
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and us...we're gonna get him back in fighting shape. ♪ [ male announcer ] see what's happening behind the scenes at aflac.com. a new line up that can keep up with whatever adventure. start fresh and finish sparkling 24/7 with new olay fresh effects. power on with va-va-vivid for a 400% better clean. hydrate up to 24 hours with long live moisture. and perfect with bb cream for radiant skin. catch them if you can at olayfresheffects.com. ♪ turns out there is a smoking gun in this case. you want to see it? dear jerry. this e-mail is to confirm a meeting between johnny williams and virginia health secretary bill hazel on thursday november 4th at 9:00 a.m. sincerely, monica. and who was monica?
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monica is scheduler, office of governor robert f. mcdonnell. ta-da. governor ultrasound, right? better known as the guy who says he gave nothing in exchange, he never did nothing officially as governor for the man who he, in fact, arranged this meeting for. >> the particular case of mr. williams and star scientific, that company has received no state benefit, no economic development grants, no targeted money out of the budget. no board appointments. they've really, they've received nothing. >> that's not true. actually, they received something. they received a lot from you. including now we know, you, the governor, having your scheduler intervene directly to set up a meeting for the company with virginia's secretary of health. the secretary further says, today, to the "washington post," that after the governor's scheduler directly set up that meeting, the governor, himself, followed up personally telling the virginia statehouse secretary that he really wanted him to take on this meeting with his friend at the company. when he says friend, he means the guy who has given him
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$145,000 in cash since he has been governor. not as political donations, but as gifts. loans? maybe loans but none that have been paid back. for now, gifts. $145,000 in cash to governor mcdonnell and his family. before today, we knew what we think are the basic details of how business has been working in virginia under governor bob mcdonnell's leadership. he and his family cashed $145,000 in checks from the ceo of this virginia company that's under federal investigation. the same ceo further bought the governor an engraved $6,000 rolex watch, bought the governor's wife a $10,000 suede jacket and designer clothes and shoes and handbags. paid for their lakeside home vacation. loaned the governor $190,000 white ferrari to drive. that was the flow of goods and services to bob mcdonnell and family in one direction. what flowed in the other direction from bob mcdonnell governor was a launch party for that ceo's product held at the governor's mansion.
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the governor's wife flying around the country as first lady of virginia to endorse the ceo's product. and at least two meetings arranged for the company ceo to directly lobby the top health officials in the state. on the recommendation of the first family. we did not know before today's story in the "washington post" that governor mcdonnell's office and governor mcdonnell personally arranged the delivery of that quo for the aforementioned quid, but thanks to the "washington post," we know, we have the actual e-mail. it's no crime for somebody to meet with the health secretary, but you know, it is a crime for a public official to, well, go to the supreme court here, it is a crime for a public official to obtain a payment to which he was not entitled knowing the payment was made in return for official acts. governor bob mcdonnell took $145,000 in cash and lots more in prizes from a guy whose company loses roughly $25 million a year and who wants the state of virginia to give his
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product a boost. governor bob mcdonnell then arranged meetings, he personally arranged the meetings for that guy to meet with state health officials to plead his case for how the state could help him. and that's why it seems like maybe bob mcdonnell is worried now about the prospect of going to federal prison. i mean, there is a reason why this guy needed the governor personally involved in order to get high-level meetings like this, yet alone product launch parties at the governor's mansion. i mean, google this guy. this guy used to sell something called lung guard. add lung guard to cigarettes and it keeps you from getting cancer but you can keep smoking. yeah, the fda had to get involved in that one and force him to stop selling it since there's nothing you can add to cigarettes to stop them from giving you cancer.
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then after that he had a magic wrinkle cream that he built a whole multimillion dollar company around, conning lots of investors out of lots of money saying he had found a cure for the wrinkle. actually started off saying the wrinkle cure was actually a cure for a whole family of eye diseases. he repurposed it and said, it doesn't cure eye diseases, it cures wrinkles. by the time he got to wrinkles, the s.e.c. sued him for false claims of the wrinkle magic and had to pay $300,000 plus a lot more at the state level. then he got the state of virginia to give him an economic development grant saying he had a new magic pill that could create tons of jobs in the state. he got the economic development grant from the state of virginia. turns out the pill wasn't magic and wasn't going to create any jobs so he had to pay the state back. as recently as january, the dude was still getting busted for selling snake oil. look at this. from lung guard to the eye
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cream, i think, the wrinkle cream, to the misleading relationship with johns hopkins. even with a google trail behind him like this, screwed over the state of virginia, itself, on the economic grant, one official being unable to discuss the company's obligations because he had to go to prison on bribery charges? did you say bribery? even with this very public, oh, god, don't go there google trail streaming behind this guy, doesn't matter. that ceo can still get one-on-one meetings with the health secretary for the state of virginia. he can get his launch party for his new magic pill held at the governor's mansion with the governor and the first lady in attendance. he can get a picture of the governor of the state holding his magic pill like the governor is vana white and the magic pill is is behind door number three tonight.
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he can get all of that despite his record because he has an in, he has an in with the governor who just cashed $145,000 worth of his checks. and who now makes calls to open doors for him. personally. governor ultrasound and the smoking gun turned up today by the "washington post." if you want to see the smoking gun, yourself, we have posted it at maddowblog.com. at farmers we make you smarter about insurance,
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waiting, generally speaking, stinks. it stinks to have to wait, right? i mean, you can, though, try to make waiting seem like a feature and not a bug. you can try to make waiting work for you. a certain national brand of ketchup figured out that strategy a long time ago for its ads. >> boy, some things are slow. >> you mean your mom doesn't buy you heinz? >> nope, why should she? wait until you taste it. ♪ anticipation ♪ anticipation ♪ is making me wait >> what do you think? >> can i stay over tomorrow night, too? >> think rich heinz ketchup. the taste is worth the wait. >> you can stay over, adorables 1970s child actor. yes, the longer you wait for certain things like, for example, ketchup, maybe the better they pay off. imagine waiting years. imagine sitting and waiting
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patiently and letting that anticipation stack up on top of itself for years, for decades, in fact. until in an instant, today, your hopes and dreams are finally realized. that moment would be the best new thing in the world today and it really happened and it was really great and that's coming up right at the end of the show. stay with us. [ female announcer ] we love when summer gets hot... but the instant frizz? not so much. so i'm taking pantene's 72-hour dare. [ female announcer ] beat humidity for a smooth 72 hours. get pantene smooth with moroccan argan oil in a pro-v system. help lock out humidity. keep frizz from forming. go 72-hour smooth. [ eva ] ditch the frizz... i dare you. [ female announcer ] get smooth from pantene, the world's no. 1 haircare brand. hair so healthy it shines. thto fight chronic. osteoarthritis pain.. to fight chronic low back pain. to take action. to take the next step. today, you will know you did something for your pain.
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cymbalta can help. cymbalta is a pain reliever fda-approved to manage chronic musculoskeletal pain. one non-narcotic pill a day, every day, can help reduce this pain. tell your doctor right away if your mood worsens, you have unusual changes in mood or behavior or thoughts of suicide. anti-depressants can increase these in children, teens, and young adults. cymbalta is not for children under 18. people taking maois, linezolid or thioridazine or with uncontrolled glaucoma should not take cymbalta. taking it with nsaid pain relievers, aspirin, or blood thinners may increase bleeding risk. severe liver problems, some fatal, were reported. signs include abdominal pain and yellowing skin or eyes. tell your doctor about all your medicines, including those for migraine and while on cymbalta, call right away if you have high fever, confusion and stiff muscles or serious allergic skin reactions like blisters, peeling rash, hives, or mouth sores to address possible life-threatening conditions. talk about your alcohol use, liver disease and before you reduce or stop cymbalta. dizziness or fainting may occur upon standing. take the next step. talk to your doctor.
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to talk about how much they all support women's health. >> thank you all for being here today. it is a very happy, celebratory day. you have been a very integral part of this very important day for all of us who support life, and for those who support the health of texas women. >> if there's something about this scene that seems familiar, you may be thinking about a similar scene that took place at man past man o'clock last man-th in ohio when republican governor john kasich signed a new huge state budget that was stuffed with changes to state law on rape and abortion. all these things added at the last minute in ohio without debate that passed on a party line vote. stuff put into the budget like a gag order on rape counselors, blocking them from counseling. stuff like a new mandated ultrasound for ohio women seeking abortion services. whether or not that ultra sound
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was medically necessary and whether or not the woman wanted it. and along with that mandated ultrasound, you also get a mandated speech from your doctor, whether or not your doctor actually believes what is in the speech the state is mandating that he or she has to say. they redefined the meaning of the word pregnancy in the ohio state budget. seriously. they stuffed the budget with all kinds of stuff that's now going to be the new norm for women in ohio. yeah, of course, it makes sense to sign all that into law with the guys. it's like last year's house hearing in d.c. about obama care's contraception coverage mandate. so, fellows, the birth control pill, the iud. tell me your stories. yeah. then last month the house judiciary committee pushing through a new federal 20-week abortion ban with hey, guys, surprise, surprise, an all male panel headed up by congressman trent franks.
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so the exile in guyville scene in texas this morning has become a pretty typical thing in republican politics of late. but so has the reaction to these kinds of bills outside of republicanland and outside of guyville. the new texas antiabortion bill to radically reduce access to abortion and women's health care in texas of course lit up state politics and a good part of national politics, too. the texas bill brought thousands of people to the state capitol in austin to protest and rally and give testimony. people filling the state capitol rotunda inside. spilling on to the lawn outside. all while senator, state senator wendy davis stood for 11 hours to filibuster the antiabortion t.r.a.p. law that had been shoved through in the first special legislative session called by governor perry for that purpose. when the bill's supporters were thus forced to explain themselves, the bill's own sponsor ended up saying things
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like this on the record. >> you have hospital emergency rooms. we have funded what's called rape kits that will help the woman, it's basically cleaning her out. and then hopefully that will alleviate that. >> that's not what a rape kit -- yeah. the bill got through. the republicans passed it in the second session and that was what became law today with rick perry and his guy friends. >> no one will ever have to ask you, where were you? when the babies' lives were being saved? >> this is how a bill becomes a law in texas. a bill that has changed the texas map forever, shrinking the number of facilities where women can go for abortion services and other health care needs from 42 clinics, which exists now, down to what's expected to be five clinics left. a map that the republican lieutenant governor who oversees
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the state senate wanted all along. he tweeted in the midst of this fight in texas that, in fact, reducing the number of places women could get an abortion in the state was exactly what the whole thing was all about. and today already started plan the parenthood in texas announcing today they're closing three facilities at the end of next month. each of the facilities provides health and family planning services to women in the gulf coast region of the state, and those facilities will be shutting their doors. many more facilities are not expected to be far behind. joining us now for the interview tonight, amy hagstrom miller, the founder of while women's health. she currently operates five clinics in texas. amy hagstrom miller, thank you for being with us tonight. it's nice to have you here. >> thank you, rachel. it's delightful to be here even under the circumstances. >> i cannot imagine that it was a huge surprise to hear the plan the parenthood announcement
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today about three clinics closing. do you expect we'll be hearing about a lot more clinic closures in texas in short order? >> yeah, i'm sorry to say that was the whole design of this law in the first place. i mean, they ran it under the guise of health and safety for women. really it was a strategy, very well thought out on their part to close down the vast majority of clinics in the state and curb women's access to safe abortion care. >> what is your most immediate concern for the five clinics now that you operate in texas? what do you think is going to happen next for you? >> well, you know, this law is, it's crafted to be really what's perfect storm. both with the hospital privileges requirement and restrictions on medication abortion, the 20-week ban and ambulatory. we're facing a big hiccup with the hospital privileges piece requiring physicians to have privileges within 30 miles of the clinic. for the vast majority of doctors who do out-patient surgery or
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office-based surgery, hospital privileges aren't something you need because your medical practice isn't based in the hospital. we're in the process now of trying to get some of our physicians who don't currently have privileges hospital privileges in a complicated medical system where a lot of the hospitals are owned by catholic institutions, baptist institutions. then we also have the hiccup of you've covered this in the past of the restrictions about medicaid and women's health care medicaid not being able to have any sort of association or affiliation with an abortion provider. the hospitals are in a situation right now if they grant privileges to a doctor who provides abortion, they may run risk of not being able to accept women's health care medicaid. it's really a perfect storm. that goes into effect in the first 90 days. a woman will have to come in for four visits for an abortion pill taken early in the pregnancy and the ban of abortions over 20 weeks. we're looking at the restrictions that are restrictive and are going to set down a set of clinics for regulations.
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all of these things together are going to combine to make it very difficult to maintain a practice that provides safe care for women in texas. >> in a number of states that have been pursuing similar strategy to this, where they're using new regulations that are very obviously designed just to shut down clinics, we've seen the court step down and block them from going into effect. most recently in wisconsin. i have not seen anything, that any litigation has been filed yet in texas, but do you expect these sorts of regulations that this new law would be blocked by a court if it went to court right away? >> you know, we have a couple of different sort of contingency planning we're doing in addition to trying to get privileges for the physicians and come up with sort of backup plans. i'm working very closely with the center for reproductive rights and looking at bringing suit against the state of texas, specifically for the first time around and also for the ambulatory surgical center. i think, you know, we're likely to get an injunction in the short run.
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what we're looking at in the long run is the fifth circuit which is not the ninth circuit that arizona got to go through. and we're, you know, understandably worried about the fifth circuit and i think that's part of the strategy of our opposition is that, you know, statedly, wide open, i was invited to be an expert witness in the senate committee hearing along with one of the antiabortion attorneys from notre dame and he was very forthright about we want this case to be challenged, we want it to go to the fifth circuit and end up in the supreme court. i think that's by design something our opposition is looking strategically to have happen in the state of texas. >> especially in a big state of texas and potentially facing losing such a huge proportion of the clinics that provide this service right now, do you think women will go to extreme measures to try to get abortions illegally or in mexico or through some other means if they can't get to the clinics they've been used to going to?
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>> absolutely. you know what i've always said, women started having safe abortion after roe. this law doesn't do anything to change the need for abortion or address unplanned pregnancy. whether or not women have access to safe abortion, the same amount of texas women are still going to need abortions and what we've already seen, even just since the last regulation passed about a year and a half ago that requires women to come in for two separate visits. in two of my clinic communities, i have a clinic on the border of texas and mexico and one on the border of texas and louisiana. we've seen women take matters into their own hands, not unlike pre roe. women trying to self-induce with medications they get at a flea market or in town, they heard through a grapevine that somebody's selling something. we're seeing women do things they did pre roe. beat their stomach. ask their partner to beat them to induce a miscarriage, an abortion.
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the simple two visits requirement with 24 hours between them is too much for some women to be able to handle because most patients are working mothers, it's difficult to get childcare and driving to the clinics. when we're looking at a law that's going to further restriction access and have the only clinics remaining in the big cities in texas, texas is a giant city. we have 4 of the top 11 cities in the country as far as population. we're talking about a lot of women affected by this legislation. >> amy hagstrom miller, whole women health clinics in the state of texas. please stay in touch as this moves forward. appreciate your time. >> thank you, rachel. >> thank you. best new thing is coming up. it was worth the wait. i promise. huh...fifteen minutes could save you fifteen percent or more on car insurance. mmmhmmm...everybody knows that. well, did you know that old macdonald was a really bad speller? your word is...cow.
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all right. it was just before noon in milan, italy, and a muslim cleric headed to the mosque for noon prayers. and out of nowhere, a policeman demanded in italian, show me your passport. the cleric handed over his passport and then things got weird. witnesses say somebody inside a nearby white van flung open the door, put the man in the van and later drove off. we later learned the man was taken to a u.s. base, then to germany, then to cairo where he said he was horribly tortured at the time. but at the time he was taken in
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italy, seemed like he was just kidnapped, just disappeared. and italy was very unhappy about it. so a chief deputy prosecutor who usually handled mafia investigations started to look into this matter, how did the guy just get snatched off the street? the prosecutor kept digging, and there was finally a break in the case in 2005. the prosecutor got 17 sets of cell phone records from the area and from the time that this man was taken off the streets. from those records the prosecutor was able to put together a list of people who he said must have been present when the guy as abducted. and on that list was the cia station chief for milan, a man named robert lady, omar was considered a suspect by the yourself, which is why the cia grabbed him as part of the extraordinary rendition program, where people were taken in one country and not taken back to the u.s., but instead taken to a third country, unrelated
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country, for torture, whatever. when the prosecutor named the local cia station chief in that case the chief claimed diplomatic immunity, but the judge didn't by buy it. by that time, the man had retired, and the judge said for a crime as serious as kidnapping, even an active diplomatic employee wouldn't get immunity. well, two years later, an arrest warrant was issued for him and 20 other people for kidnapping and seized without a warrant and taking the person to another country, also known as one to employ torture. but by the time the case had happened, they all had fled italy, including the former cia station chief guy. the judge went ahead with the trial anyway. that june in trial he read out loud the name of all 26 americans in the case, listing them all. fugitive, fugitive, fugitive, but while the trial was carried out in absentia, the station man became a wanted man, this is the interpol poster of him, in 2009, the verdict came down, the judge convicted them for the kidnapping of that cleric off
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the street in milan. it was touted as a landmark ruling, but only a symbolic one, since the defendants were not in the courtroom. robert lady was handed an eight-year sentence, they never thought he would serve it because he was in italy and they thought he would never go there again. but today, he was arrested. the italian justice ministry put out a statement saying the man has been detained and reportedly has been picked up near panama's border. so far they don't claim they even have him. as for the cia there is no comment, i don't know how long they can go on making no comment about this. we still don't know much about
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what happened here. but the lead prosecutor in the case, the guy that started the case in 2004 said the arrest in panama came after the arrest was requested by interpol, and no, i can't explain that, either. but it is important to know that there is no extradition treaty between panama and italy. so if the former station chief was in fact arrested in panama for an extraordinary rendition he participated in, in the bush years that snatched the guy off the streets, and italy wants revenge, if he in fact is wanted for that in panama, that doesn't necessarily mean he will get sent from panama back to italy to serve out the years in prison to which he has been sentenced. and what was he doing in panama anyway? way more questions than answers here as of yet. but this is an intense story and a potentially really explosive one. watch this space.
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the tide's coming in! this is my favorite one. it's upside down. oh, sorry. (woman vo) it takes him places he's always wanted to go. that's why we bought a subaru. (announcer) love. it's what makes a subaru, a subaru. okay, we have not done this in a long time, this is great. this is a funnel full of a substance called "pitch." tar pitch, super thick, almost solid goo. and what you are looking at here is a live camera trained on this goo 24/7. and people have been watching this live feed of this thing full of goo for years, for science. this is the oldest continually running laboratory experiment in the world. in 1927, a physics professor
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heated up this goo, until it melted a little bit, poured it into a funnel, put a beaker into the funnel and let the thing harden back up for three years. later, he opened it up to let the goo start to flow up and waited for gravity to do its work. he waited for eight years. over that time, one drop of goo formed at the end of the funnel, ever so slowly. and that drop finally fell and dripped out eight years later, in 1938. but here is the tragedy, nobody was watching when it happened. the experiment is still running. and in the last 83 years on the eight drops of tar pitch -- only eight drops of tar pitch have formed in the funnel. and not one person has been watching when the drop formed. not one time has anybody been in the room with their eyes fixed on the pitch at the right moment when it happened. in fact, for the most recent drip in november 2000, there was
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even a video camera trained on the experiment but something went wrong with the camera and they missed it. the camera was there and they -- but the so-called pitch drop experiment is not the only one going on in the world. besides australia, there is another one going on in the world. in 1974, a physics professor decided to try it, let it drip for 69 years, just like in australia nobody was watching, but the key moment until it actually dripped, until now. >> the scientists noticed a drip was forming, and they set up a web camera to film it. and last thursday as this shows, the drip finally dropped. >> are we finally going to see this thing that nobody saw happen in 83 years? can we see it? this is a time lapse, nine days worth of drip cam, but look -- oh, my god, we were waiting for this -- generations.
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oh -- best new thing in the world today. thank you, now it is time for "the last word" with lawrence o'donnell, have a great night. tonight, boston magazine has an answer to "rolling stone" magazine's treatment of the boston marathon bomber. photographs obtained today by the police sergeant who was there the moment dzhokhar tsarnaev came out of that boat in watertown. and tonight, trayvon martin's parents spoke to the man whose help they sought in the pursuit of justice, the reverend al sharpton, we will show you that interview and al sharpton will join me. >> this trial was not about trayvon martin, this trial was about george zimmerman and what he did that night. >> speaking out in live
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