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tv   The Cycle  MSNBC  December 17, 2013 12:00pm-1:01pm PST

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if you've had a heart attack, be sure to talk to your doctor before you begin an aspirin regimen. if it's 3:00, america is talking and so are we. holiday budget, we dole out the dollars for christmas presents, washington is working on a bigger gift. first real budget by divided congress in 27 years. i'm krystal ball. merry christmas. i'm not sure i'm ready to predetectivepr predict a happy new year on capitol hill. >> i'm tour'e, former house leader dennis hastert weighs in, ari will ask him about the hastert rule. >> and inside look at our world seen through sites like instagram, posting 55 million fophotos every day, we'll get a look at the social media giant
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with no filter. move over rotten tomatoes. which holiday films are worth your ten bucks and which will bring you a blue christmas? lights, camera, action. the show starts right now. ♪ >> the senate is all alone on christmas, working while the house goes home but turns out that christmas has come early in washington. because it is a holiday miracle that the least productive congress in generations is getting its act together to pass a budget. with 60 plus votes, the senate cleared a major hurdle to start final debate on the murray/ryan budget deal. it could last up to 30 hours. the final vote is expected late tonight or tomorrow. president obama has indicated his willingness to sign it. the two-year deal rolls back
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some of the ugly sweater -- i mean, sequester cuts, but some dems were annoyed the deal did not do enough -- doesn't do a thing to help the million plus americans who long-term unemployment benefits expire next week. talk about a lump of coal. i definitely agree with them on that. we start with nbc's luke russert on the hill. how does it look this vote will break down? >> reporter: it was interesting, krystal, you saw today the final cloture to move the vote forward. you have talked so wonder any about it. got 12 gop votes, we don't expect 12 gop votes on final passage but expect a few. it did come out of the house with over 390 or so. it's going to be interesting to see moving forward, krystal, this does give two years of budget peace, no shutdown talk for two years so we'll be focused on whether or not the debt limit will expire in early 2014 which we're looking so
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forward to. obviously a lot of folks don't like the deal on both sides and that's why they say it's the nature of a compromise. the .012, that's actually less than what paul ryan's initial budget was back in 2010, 2011 when the gop came to power. while some conservative members have been very angry about this, when it comes to number overall, the gop has won that spending fight. >> yeah. luke, on another topic, i hear that frank wolf, republican congressman in virginia is retiring. this could be a potential democratic pickup there? >> it could and democrats were giddy today because president obama in 2008 won that district 51-48 over mccain. only lost by a point to mitt romney last go around. in the last 20 minutes, jim mathison a democrat from utah, he announced he was retiring and that district is one that mitt
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romney won with over 67% of the vote. that will surely go republican more likely than not. could be mia love who is an african-american mayor from utah first african-american woman republican in the history of congress, but krystal, a lot of democrats are trying to find someone to run -- >> she's sitting right here. >> raise a lot of money, well liked by television audience. >> you would vote for her, wouldn't you, luke? >> reporter: i don't live there tour'e, but if i owned a hunting lodge. >> as much as fun it seems to be having in d.c. but abby is a utah native. >> a name is worth 100,000 votes at least. >> indeed. luke, thanks for setting the stage for us. i want to bring in howard fineman. thanks for being with us as always. >> hi, guys.
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>> howard, some of the chatter on the budget deal on the positive sign, a new era is dawning in the house. some people are saying maybe we could actually get immigration reform through now that john boehner has found a spine. are you optimistic about that? >> i don't know whether the speaker has found a spine or temporarily rented one. >> borrow paul ryan's maybe. >> for the christmas season -- i tend to doubt that this signals a new john boehner on newly resurgent moderate establishment. i don't think that's the case. this is more a commentary on the last year and a half or so than it is an indicator of where we're necessarily going in the future. i think the shutdown was a disaster for the republicans. i think republicans think if they can somehow -- this is in their minds, think if they can
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focus on obama care, that's the way to go in 2014. i don't see them entering a new era where they are going to give legislative accomplishments to the democrats and barack obama heading into the 2014 elections. and i still see the tea party as a major factor in disrupting republican unity and congressional budgsiness. >> the house acted so quickly on passing this budget deal. it seems less like they are proving to actually be able to function and get something done, it seems to be more about boehner. how much of this is a power play by speaker boehner to gain control of this caucus before they really have the ability to shut down the government again? >> well, i think it was -- it was an expression by john boehner of the rereality that i don't think the tea party people really can necessarily remove him from the speakership, nor do i think they want to remove him from the speakership.
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the tea party people are more about protesting the establishment than being part of one. and they prefer the outsider stance. it would kill them to have to be the leadership. and i think some of them understand that. i also think there's a vague sense among republicans that if they can quiet the open discord on things and focus on obamacare and the fact the president is not very popular right now, then they can just keep from destroying themselves, they've got a shot at doing very well in the mid-term elections. i think that's sort of dawning on them, but i don't think it means there's going to be all kinds of action and deals with the democrats on other side. >> obstruction sells very well at home. not compromising on principle sells very well at home for these folks. and on sunday when paul ryan signaled we're going to get something out of this next debt limit fight, that said to me, we have more of this hostage taking
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tactics ahead of us. >> right. i agree with you about the debt ceiling. yes, they've sort of taken the budgetary shutdown thing off the table for a couple of years. as luke russert very correctly and wisely pointed out, the republicans have made tremendous progress in clamping down on the growth of the federal government. and on government spending, they have. they don't want to admit it to themselves but they have. the democrats have lost a lot of ground as symbolized by the fact they couldn't get the extension of unemployment insurance in here. they basically threw 1.3 million under the bus here to get this agreement. but i do think that the debt ceiling is going to be tempting. and i think it's going to tempt the tea party and the tea party is going to try another round of this stuff. and i don't know that john boehner will once again make the same kind of speech he made the other day. i don't think this signals a new
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john boehner, in other words, this was him expressing his frustration and saying that we screwed up on the debt -- on the shutdown. this was him sort of repeating what mitch mcconnell said, which is there's no education in the second kick of a mule. that's really all it was. >> he's going to to return the spine at some point, right, it's rented? >> those are the rules are rentals. just a fact. the other dispute -- >> facts are facts. >> in washington, howard, an important one is over the limits of the nsa's power, an issue we visited before but never in the shadow of a judgment from a court that now outside of the secret spy court we have a court in washington basically saying this program is likely unconstitutional and the 60 minutes interview with unusual access to the nsa to me was really striking because we heard from nsa that doesn't think it reports to the president.
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take a listen to this statement from general alexander. >> and this is precisely the time we should not step back from the tools that we've given our analysts to detect these types of attacks. >> they are saying this is not a time to change these programs. the problem with that is it's not his job to decide the limits of these programs. that's the president's job and consultation with congress and the president as you know has convened a panel which is considering shrinking parts of the nsa. i was taken aback to hear and i don't want to sensationalize it, to hear a military commander say this is not the time to make a change when that's not traditionally his call. >> i felt like i was watching scandal, where they've got that whole tv show scandal where they've got the whole secret operation that the president doesn't even know everything about. and that's fantasy. this is reality. i think it is scary. and while the people at "60 minutes" have taken a lot of heat for that piece, just
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letting that guy talk in that way kind of assuming that he was among friends there while he was doing it, i thought was scary. i completely agree with you. and i think the president will have to be more assertive here. i think in one of the things that could dog the president in the last year or -- last two or three years of his presidency is this nsa issue more than he realizes because that goes to the heart of his constituency and goes to his roots and rising. that goes to his background as a constitutional law professor. what gives here? this is the kind of thing if that guy had said this during the bush administration, people would be going nuts. >> that's exactly right, howard. >> to paraphrase bob dole, where's the outrage? and i think the president and his people may be underestimating if this thing builds in the courts and if it builds in public opinion, just where we could be headed with this politically. >> i think that's a great point. it's not even so much about the issue itself as who is this
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president, is he a man of his word. it speaks to that piece of it. howard fineman, thank you so much. >> up next, it is the so called rule which house republicans use to bring nothing to the floor. so what does dennis hastert think of that hastert rule? we will ask him next as "the cycle" rolls on for tuesday, december 17th. [ fishing rod casting line, marching band playing ] [ male announcer ] the rhythm of life. [ whistle blowing ] where do you hear that beat? campbell's healthy request soup lets you hear it in your heart. [ basketball bouncing ] heart healthy. [ m'm... ] great taste. [ tapping ] sounds good. campbell's healthy request. m'm! m'm! good.® to help secure retirements and protect financial futures. to help communities recover and rebuild. for companies going from garage to global. on the ground, in the air, even into space. we repaid every dollar america lent us. and gave america back a profit. we're here to keep our promises.
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we are back now. if there's one thing everyone in politics has strong feelings
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about, how to run the house of representatives. old school republicans say it should only hold votes when there's a gop super minority and many say speaker boehner should let democracy decide what gets a vote on the house floor. today we talk with a man who knows more than most about running a house, dennis hastert, the last republican to hold the job before john boehner and fourth longest serving speaker ever. thanks for joining us today. >> good to be with you today. >> mr. speaker, i want to start with something you know is very big, attached to your name, called the hastert rule. take a listen. >> the so-called hastert rule, that the speaker won't bring a bill to the floor of the house unless it has the support of majority of the republican caucus. >> would you insist the hastert rule apply to any bill that comes out of conference? >> yes, i absolutely would. i think the speaker of the house has said the same that he would
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as well. >> i hope the speaker has learned his lesson from recent high profile figures of shortsided hastert rule. >> if a speaker violates the hastert rule -- >> my intention is to always pass bills with strong republican support. >> is there a hastert rule and is john boehner wrong to say he would only proceed with a ma joort of the majority. >> let's split the question. the hastert rule was an anomaly, never was a hastert rule. the real hastert rule, you didn't bring a bill to the floor unless you had 214 votes, depending on what the subject of the bill was. you got those in different places. sometimes bipartisan, sometimes it wasn't. the issue of hastert rule per se is a common sense thing. if you're a leader of the house and you need to go to the other side of the aisle to move injyo
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agen agenda, you give up a lot of power and leadership. so the hastert rule was coined when we were doing immigration a couple of years -- probably 19 -- 2006. and about that time. and what happened is that i didn't have majority of my party. and the press asked me one day, why don't you go and get a whole bunch of democrats to do this? look, it's common sense, you don't really want to move anything unless you have the solid base of your party along with you to understand what you're doing because you start to do that then you start to create real cracks in your leadership style. >> speaker, i want your thoughts on the tea party because you left office before they started to build momentum. did you see and anticipate this happening and how do you feel the tea party has impacted the party over the last few years? >> i don't see the tea party much difference than the people that followed ross perot in '92.
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they build up enough of a majority there, they denied first george bush the presidency and gave it to bill clinton. they were -- they came together, under the leadership of a leader, ross perot but when you talk to the perot people they were disgruntled with goflt, taxes too high, too much regulation, they had a dozen little different things that they were unhappy with. when you look at the tea party people, they came together under the whole issue of they are against the health care bill. but you really get down in the tea party folks, they have a lot of different things they are unhappy with. they are people that unhappy with taxes and unhappy with regulation and unhappy with too much government interference with their lives. it's a pushback, reaction. basically, it happens from time to time. it happened in '92.
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and it happened again. the question is that once ross perot left, once health care leaves, will the tea party people still stay amall ga mated? >> i think the heart of what abby was trying to get at, talking about the tea party, deals with john boehner. you understand what he's going through better than anyone alive. if you were in john boehner's shoes with this divided gop and tea party caucus moving the party in a different direction, talking about shutdown and these sort of tactics, how would you do things differently? >> i'm not going to be a monday morning quarterback on what john boehner does. that's not productive and he has to do his own thing. everybody has their own style. if i was there, my style was you have to engage these people and bring them in and talk and have lunch with them and listen to them and try to work with them. you have to bring both sides together. my whole view of this thing is
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probably a little bit different than most other people. i think that the mccain fine gold bill passed in 2000 or 2002, really, that was john mccain's v ven diktive action against george bush, because mccain was going to take state money out of the party. when they put the wall up between federal money and state money, they base he cically sta parties of having the means to do things. what happens is the party was obviously -- the group that homegenized people, they are pretty moderate people that came out of party politics. and you were able to work things. when you took the money out of the party, you pushed the money to the far edges. so with the koch brothers on one
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side, it created a huge gap. they don't fund the candidates but the ideas of politics. >> it's real interesting point about unintended consequence of campaign finance reform. speaker, are you concerned for the future of the republican party? there's a lot of talk about the demographic challenges that the republican party faces and the question of whether they'll be able to effectively reach out to growing young people and minority populations. are you concerned about that? >> you know, i am. but on the other hand, i watch things -- i watch the party's ebb and flow. i remember in '74 when people thought it was the end of the republican party. i also remember in '98 when newt lost a bunch of seats in the house and thought it was going to be the end of the party. the party comes back. but my view is you have to have -- you have to have a program. you have to have something to win. and what republicans really need
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to do is work on putting together good far-reaching part of programs that can capture people's imagination. you can't say no all the time. you have to have something to take to the people and say this is a better way to do it. >> they haven't home been saying no, but no way, and no way ever. >> i want to ask an important thing. one of the high points is the bipartisan work you did with people like john lewis and jim sen sen brener and president bush to renew the voting rights act. and it was a high mark of a huge consensus. we had a bipartisan vote that came to the floor. i understand you won't quarterback for john boehner. do you have a view on that law which you passed which the supreme court changed but said it can be renewed on the floor again, do you think that deserves a floor vote? >> my view yes, if you don't legs late, then the supreme
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court will do what they want to do with the issue. so if you're going to have an act of congress, an act of congress, you need to bring legislation to the floor to get it done. and that type of legislation, you have to have a really strong bipartisan support because it affects everybody in this country. >> all right, speaker dennis hastert, interesting points today, thank you for your time. >> nice to be with you. >> more snow? are you kidding me? a check on the weather and holiday folys, don't miss that. people join angie's list for all kinds of reasons. i go to angie's list to gauge whether or not the projects will be done in a timely fashion and within budget. angie's list members can tell you which provider is the best in town. you'll find reviews on everything from home repair to healthcare. now that we're expecting, i like the fact i can go onto angie's list and look for pediatricians. the service providers that i've found on angie's list
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breaking news, six american heroes have been killed in afghanistan, not because of insurgents but because of a freak accident with one of our choppers, went down in the southern part of the country. early estimates pointing to engine failure but officials are
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not completely sure. we're told one person on board did survive. now to the news cycle, the news is weather. sound familiar? try telling that to nbc meteorologist dylan dreyer. >> continuing to see snow move towards the boston area. new york city it was snow earlier and now you're getting a taste of freezing rain. numerous delays at the airports and as we continue to get through the evening hours, we're going to see the snow make its way northward and this storm system increasing. whenever you see these con sen trick circles here widen out like you throw a pebble in the pond and they continue to widen out, that means the storm is deepening. you'll see more wind, more snow coming up into the coastal regions of maine as we get through the afternoon and evening hours. 8 to 12 inches could fall there along some of the areas of maine. it's going to be much less back towards areas of new york state, 3 to 5 and 1 to 3 around new
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york city. we'll keep a close eye on this area, boston, 5 to 8 inches and coming right when everyone is trying to get home from work. back to you. >> the slippery conditions on the roads, especially the bridges and on and off ramps and sidewalks and side streets will be your biggest concern through the day today. it's one of those clipper systems, once it leaves here it goes in new england. the heaviest snow will hit at mid afternoon so their evening commute will be affected up that way -- >> all right, thank you, di dyl dreyer. before we let ari off, let's turn back the clock to past saturday morning when on up against the clock with guest host me, we saw this. >> this actress was nominated for a golden globe -- >> elizabeth --
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>> we're doing golden globes now. >> tied up. let's see the final tally, that means that jeff with 1900 points, you are the up against the clock champion and you are our new all-time high scoring champion. way to go. >> so, ari, the question for you, let me ask you this, what comes after -- >> yes -- >> is this happening right now? >> sorry, ari. ari, we have another question if you could -- >> jeff? >> i leave before the segment started. >> the question was, if you could, what would you have done five minutes ago? >> burn. >> you are very good. >> it was a lifelong dream, wasn't it, jeff? >> it was great. >> you are the all time high
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scorer, beating me and ari and tour'e. you both get your wish. you can both leave now. we'll see you at 4:00, ari and you jeff for our up against the clock winner spot. >> ari won't be there. >> ever. >> and we will be right back with something you may not know about instagram. ♪ [ car beeps ] ♪
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♪ ♪ ♪ >> the advent of smartphones has done a lot to let us know about the world around us and personal events and anyone you want to talk or text or e-mail is only a touch or swipe away and allowed anybody to become an amateur photographer, an array of editing techniques you can capture and enhance any moment that strikes you as potentially beautiful or add the lens to
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your morning oatmeal and pretend it's beautiful. the extent to which capturing these moments with our cameras actually shapes the way we remember them and impairs it. joining us now, emily badger, who wrote the piece about the study and photo taking impairment effect. i use instagram and i'm very much in the moment when i'm taking pictures, thinking about editing and posting out to friends and less about taking in what i'm actually seeing and that's what this study proved. tell us more about it. >> well, that's just a research study, fascinating piece of psychology from fair field university in connecticut. they were trying to figure out when we're preoccupied with photographing an object, does that make it longer to remember it in the long run and outsourcing our memory to the cameras and devices we carry around with us. and basically you're exactly right, that's what they found out. that people who are
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photographing objects with these digital cameras are actually less likely to remember that object later. they are less likely to remember details about it. and i think this has a lot of implications for the fact we all carry these types of devices around with all and photographing things that we were never photographing before. >> one of the things you write in the piece, it's also possible that we actively ought not to pay much attention to the scene we capture because we're counting on photos to record everything so we don't mentally have to. from insta gram has a much better memory than i do and in a lot of ways technology does a similar thing, more important that we know how to find it since google is going to have a much better memory and know more stuff than i do. >> well, instagram will only help you out in the long run story memories if you bother to go back and look at your
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instagram feed. i certainly do this. we walk around and photograph things not because we're trying to store memories for later but because we want other people to see something we just saw. and this study really sort of suggests if digital cameras are storing memories for us and we don't go back to access those memories the experience with surroundings around you, is altered, you're not going to remember what you saw. >> i wonder how something like snap chat changes the equation. because she knows that her phone or instagram will remember it for her -- >> i don't use snap shot either but we know it will disintegrate quickly so we have to commit it to memory before it's gone forever. would that change the whole equation here? >> that's a really great point. i don't use snap shot myself either. this never occurred to me before. if part of the idea is we're recording these memories with photography so we don't have to
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record them with our brains and you don't go back and look at it because the memory has disappeared, in that case technology has totally changed not just how you see the world around you but later can go back and access those memories. >> this seems like just the beginning, we're only going to use technology more and more. i don't even one telephone number memorized. what do you want people to take away from the study? maybe take the time to reflect on what they are looking at? >> well, to me what's so interesting about this research is that it sort of fits within a broader narrative of how technology, the smartphones we're carrying around in our pockets, how it changes the way we move through the world and how we observe the world around us and interact with other people. and we've seen this in a lot of other context, for instance, we don't have to know where we are or how we're going to get where we're going because we can count on google maps. we're seeing smartphones are
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sort of kind of eliminating people's ability to find their way around cities and find their way through complex environments because we can kind of outsource that knowledge to google maps, for instance. in the same way it sort of suggests that you don't need to pay attention because you can outsource that to camera phones as well. these two ideas are very related. the fact that i walk around the city carrying my smartphone in front of my face at all times alters the -- how i experience the environment around me and even sort of how i interact with other people on the streets so we're all simultaneously doing this at the same time. >> absolutely, it alters it and obliterates your interaction with people around you. quite often they are walking down the street or at a party or interaction looking at their phone and not paying attention to the people who are around them. >> yeah, to me these technology tools are awesome in so many different ways.
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google maps is absolutely essential to lots of people. it's extremely useful. insta gram is a sort of wonderful tool. what all of this research is starting to suggest is that maybe there are costs that come with using the technology all the time. not making eye contact with people around the street and we're preoccupied with photographing it. >> with the google maps, they will know how to get to lots of places i'll never know how to get to. to me it's a good tradeoff, but if we're outsourcing these function of our brain, we becoming smarter for other things, for some other part of our life? >> i think in this particular case i'm definitely using excess brain capacity to determine wlrnt it will be an artistic photo and whether that's a valuable tradeoff in the long run, i'm not sure.
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maybe in the long run i'll wish i had paid more attention to something i saw in the street instead of thinking you about how i was going to communicate that with all of my friends. >> or how much better our friends look in their pictures, comparing ourselves all the time. earlier this week instagram released its top locations of 2013, number one being a shopping mall in thailand. times square and disney land round out the top three. we want to know your favorites. follow us on instagram at the cycle, you can find photos of the staff. a holiday movevy guide cycle style. with unitedhealthcare, i get information on quality rated doctors, treatment options and cost estimates, so we can make better health decisions. that's health in numbers.
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♪ you're a mean one mr. grinch >> it isn't what gifts to ask for but what holiday movie to see first. this is when hollywood releases its best stuff and this year's choices make it pretty hard. >> you'd have to find a way to survive and you knew your choices were bad, but you had to survive. >> so successful for so long because we kept it just small enough. >> if we were that successful how come you end up in this room with me right now. >> i didn't know what to do with
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it. >> $26,000 for one dinner. >> dad, we're not poor anymore. >> tell him about the size -- >> did it cure cancer. >> that's why it was expensive. >> to the greatest metropolis on earth, they came to reclaim the glory they once knew. >> welcome to. >> the global news network. >> linda jackson, how are you my friend? >> american hustle, wolf of wall street and "anchorman." others are competing for your dollar in what some expect to be the biggest box office year ever that americans will have spent $11 billion on tickets when 2013 is all said and done. here's senior editor ra mean, i saw "american hustle" and it is extraordinary. >> it's hysterical.
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>> he had "the fighter" a few years ago and silver lining s playbook. it meshes them together so we have christian bale, amy adams and bradley cooper and jennifer lawrence, a scam about corrupt congressional dealings and fbi sting operation. and the movie is out there and weird but it all kind of comes together and people really love it. got seven golden globe nominations. >> you can't go wrong with that cast. >> let's talk "anchorman 2." if you haven't heard of it you're probably living under a rock. krystal is out of the loop on most everything. you've seen will ferrell popping up everywhere. my favorite was in north dakota. >> good evening. >> i'm ron burgundy. thanks for joining us tonight. >> getting home to see family can cause a lot of time and
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money if you're flying. >> and add the baggage fees and airport lines, it's enough to send any frequent flyer packing. >> he stays in character the entire time. it's so clever. it hits people in north dakota but gets press all around the world really. >> smart marketing. really smart marketing. i don't think i've seen anything like this. nothing something they can replicate, like other actors are going to be in character traveling around the country. >> sasha baron cohen does this to another level. >> will ferrell is really fiunn. i think we got tired of sasha doing mean things to ryan seacrest on the red carpet. >> there aren't many comedies but a lot of enthusiasm. i saw it last night, really funny. >> the one i'm excited about "the wolf of wall street" which is long and supposed to be funny. there's a populist message about wall street's excess --
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>> it's like wall street is terrible and they do terrible things in this movie and it's very corrupt. based on the memoir from jordan and it's the fifth time leo dicaprio and martin scorcese have worked together. >> phoenix is the star of this one, right? >> scarlet joe hanson is his love interest but not on camera. she's a computer and the premise sounds weird but it kind of makes sense for us, especially our generation that we're always on our iphone and twitter and having so many conversations with technology. it's not that far out. it's done in such a really smart intelligent way that it really works. >> what about "lone survivor", obviously a navy s.e.a.l. and many people have followed his life. tell us about that film? >> i've seen it. this is based on the memoir.
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it's an incredibly violent movie but like this year's "zero dark thirty." >> what about "the secret life of walter mitty?" >> this is ben stiller's directing, a lot of successful comedies but wants to be taken seriously as a director and does this remake based on the james thurber short story, and it's darker and dark themes and about a $90 million special effects movie. it's darker. it's not "meet the parents," deals with bigger themes. >> are there certain types of films that typically come out this time of year that people want to see around the holidays? or is there a common thread to films out now? >> i think it's an it interesting year because we have a lot of political films between "american hustle," "12 years a
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slave." >> what about for kids? >> for families, i would say "saving mr. binks" is really fun, about the making of mary poppins and how its author was really difficult when it came to the production of that film. >> do you think that "12 years a slave" will be able to do well when it we get into award season and the golden globes and as course? >> i think so. it's done well. over $30 million. and i think it will continue to do well as it wins awards. but i think it's going to be between "12 years a slave" and "american hustle." >> that the oscar race? >> i think so. we'll see both movies doing really well because they're both really good. >> if you have to see one film over the holidays, what would you recommend? >> that's a hard -- "american hustle" i think is the one to see. i think that's the one most fun. >> do you agree? >> i have to see "wolf of wall street" and "anchorman 2." >> i don't know how you do with this children. >> please, it's called babysitters. >> priority. i might get to see "frozen."
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that's my big night at the movies. >> wow. >> it's good. disney animated movie. do you like animated? >> yeah. >> you need adult time. you need to get away from the kids, get the babysitter, get the mother-in-law -- >> i know. >> and see a good movie. >> sure. but i can also see them in my apartment. which i also enjoy, like, just being in the sweatpants and hanging out. >> unless you're in the guild and you get -- you get a screener, what's coming out now. you're looking at films from months and months ago. >> that's okay. >> wow. >> i'm comfortable with being out-of-date. that's fine. >> thank you so much. do you have kids? >> i don't have kids. >> all right. that's why you get to see all the films. thank you very much. up next, chris t krystal with te perfect present for the person who has everything and folks who need help this holiday, too. [ male announcer ] this duracell truck has some very special power.
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♪ [ toys chattering ] it's filled with new duracell quantum batteries. [ toy meows ] [ dog whines ] [ toy meows ] these red batteries are so powerful... that this year they'll power all the hasbro toys donated to toys for tots. want to help power some smiles? duracell. trusted everywhere.
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are you still looking for that perfect gift for the hard-to-shop-for person on your li list or maybe for everyone if you haven't started shopping yet. look no further. now for a limited time only, you can have your very own scrooge mcduck style money swimming pool. included with your money swimming pool, 8 million swiss coins and apparently four attractive swiss citizens to shovel for you. the really tantalizing prospect, though, they just might change the world. they haven't just been sitting by basking in their golden beauty. on october 4th, all 8 million
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coins, one for each swiss citizen, were dumped outside the parliament building in switzerland to make a point about income inequality and to get support for what sounds like a radical idea, guaranteeing every citizen a monthly minimum income, or what some supporters call a minncome. the coins were delivered along with the signatures necessary to guarantee a vote on this novel proposal, an idea that has quietly migrated from switzerland to our on shores where the gulf between rich and poor has sparked a debate on how to ensure that everyone has a chance to benefit from the fruits of our capitalist society. the basic is simple. every nonincarcerated adult citizen gets a monthly check from the government. other safety net programs are jettisoned to pay, and poverty is eliminated. a cheaper but slightly more complicated version of the minncome would phase out payments as working income increases. i know what you're thinking. this is some crazy left wing u toni toni tonian idea that only pope
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francis could support. while the idea is popular on the left for its potential to guarantee every american a human standard of living, the minncome has also found support on the right. libertarian rider matthew feeney writes, instead of treating those who often through no fault of their own have fallen on hard times like children incapable of making the right choices about the food they eat or drugs they may or may not choose to take, why not give them cash? by giving out cash rather than administering a patchwork of safety net programs, government bureaucracy would go down and the ability of people to make their own life choices would be respected. i know what you're going to say next. sounds great, krystal, but next thing you know we're going to have a nation full of lazy takers living off the government dole. wait, i thought you already saw as a nation of lazy takers, 47%ers and such. i digress. in the '70s, residents in a small canadian town were given a minncome and economists studied the impact. not only was poverty eliminated,
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but economists found people made better choices and a whole range of things improved. hospitalization rates went down. according to one of the researchers, if you have a social program like, this community values themselves start to change. we tend to think of poverty, homelessness, despair as inevitable but minncome makes you realize, in a country as rich as ours, we allow those outcomes as a choice. we could decide to eliminate poverty and it wouldn't even take a christmas miracle to do it. all right. that does it for "the cycle." up next, the loser of up against the clock. it's the ari melber experience. >> oh, yeah. >> you know, krystal, you're never a taker in my book. >> thanks, ari. >> good afternoon, everyone. i'm ari melber, it's tuesday, december 17th. and a snowy day in the east. behold, the warmth of the holiday spirit on capitol hill. well, sort of.
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your favorite do-nothing congress. >> even in the senate's nuclear winter. >> is doing something today. >> the giant farm bill, giant defense bill and the small matter of a national budget. >> congress doesn't have its eye on the ball. >> final vote could cam as early as this evening. >> first steps toward rebuilding our broken budget process. >> the legislation should help break a terrible cycle of governing the crisis. >> what did ted cruz say about this? >> you put five red necks on a mower. >> the most important moment was when john boehner stood up to the right wing groups. >> are you kidding me? >> i don't know has his irish up. >> if you don't enjoy or want or support legislating. >> we have got to stop deal-making. >> he is an accountant, he is able to add and subtract. >> we've got to start legislating. >> sky in place, cats refuse to live in peace with dogs. everybody is okay.