vice chairman of national defense executed. it was likely execution by firing squad. still brutal. still authoritarian. still a terrifying story. still, the execution of a family member, right? just not as cartoon as real-life style. as much as it feels like you should, do not believe every insane-sounding thing about the person in charge of north korea. some of them really are made up. now it's time for "the last word" with lawrence o'donnell. have a great night. emergency unemployment benefits have run out, and the senate is trying to do something about it. and colorado is running out of pot. >> the big chill. >> the cold facts of unemployment insurance. >> the checks will not come this week for 1.3 million americans. >> dangerous deep freeze. >> what we're talking about is that senate vote on unemployment benefits. >> denying families that security is just plain cruel. >> bottom line, it's going to get even worse. everybody is feeling this. >> it's a great inequality

campaign of 2014. >> the year of action on fight be inequality on minimum wage. on unemployment. >> president obama is back and ready to go. >> he still has the problem of a republican house. >> but he is well rested and better armed. his plan is to focus on a core democratic message -- income inequality. >> first on the list, unemployment insurance. >> the senate is back at work today. >> harry reid delayed that critical test vote on extending jobless benefits. >> the proposal by republican senator dean heller and democrat jack reed extends benefits for only three months. >> will it be more partisan hsh and acrimony? >> even if it does come out of the senate -- >> the president is vowing to hold republicans' feet to the fire. >> probably dead on arrival in the house. >> all those people have to run for re-election next year. >> could this set the tone for 2014? >> the 2014 elections, now just 11 months away. >> bundle up. get used to hearing this populist message against growing inequality a lot. >> the gop doesn't get it.

>> they're happy to hurt the economy under barack obama. >> and we mean a lot. >> it's cold here, chris. it's so hard to even smile. the senior senator from nevada and the junior senator from nevada don't team up very often. the senators from nevada -- the senior senator from nevada is the majority leader of the democrats in the senate, and the junior senator is a conservative republican. today on the senate floor you couldn't tell them apart. >> it is difficult to stand here in the nation's capital, an area that has largely felt little negative impact of the recession, and describe just how tough times are for so many of my constituents. i hear about choices individuals are forced to make, whether to buy gas for their car, pay for heat in the frigid northern nevada weather, or to buy school supplies for their children or

perhaps save for the future. these are hard-working individuals who rely on these benefits. they are trying to find a job. they want to provide for their children. but for these benefits to simply vanish without giving families a time to plan or figure out alternatives to help them get by to me is just not right. >> instead of celebrating the beginning of the new year on january 1st, more than a million americans, including 20,000 veterans and about 20,000 nevadans, were left wondering how they would feed their families and make their mortgage payments while they continue to look for jobs. >> nevada's republican senator dean heller has teamed with rhode island democratic senator jack reed in co-sponsoring a bill to temporarily extend emergency unemployment benefits for three months. it is no coincidence that dean heller represents the state with the highest unemployment rate in the country, 9%, and it is no

coincidence that nevada is tied for the number one spot for unemployment with the state of rhode island, which his co-sponsor senator reed represents. here's harry reid yesterday on "face the nation" on the prospects of the passing of extension of emergency unemployment benefits in the senate. >> i think that there are five republicans, five republicans, dean heller plus four republicans -- remember, dean heller is not some maverick that is out spewing socialism. here's a guy who's really a conservative person. and he wants to extend unemployment benefits. i admire him for doing that. and can't we get four republicans to agree with the american people that we should do that? i would certainly hope so. >> today two republicans announced their support for the bill. alaska's lisa murkowski and maine's susan collins. joining me now, richard wolff, executive editor of msnbc.com and author of the new book "the

message: the reselling of president obama." and jared bernstein, a senior fellow at the center on budget and policy priorities, an msnbc contributor. richard, so the republican with the highest unemployment rate in the senate is on board for this. >> what a coincidence. >> big surprise. but the next one down, i believe, is mark kirk in illinois, which has awn employment rate that's above the 7% national average. he's not on board yet. and probably there's a very high unemployment rate in mississippi with two republican senators. it would seem that that's where you would try to get your support for this. >> right. and it's not surprising that the president's going to go out tomorrow and apply a lot of public pressure on these republicans. whenever you get the president out there with real people behind him, in this case people who are looking for unemployment benefits, to try and put pressure on the congress to do something, it's one of two things. either they are gettable, you have these vulnerable republicans who have high

unemployment in their states, or everything's broken down and we are in the game of very visible political theater in the run-up to the state of the union. it's both, right? in the senate there is room for something to happen. in the house it's politics. >> jared bernstein, the politics of this would have been easier in an earlier time in the senate and congress generally. this kind of thing wasn't controversial. they did it under president bush and these same people who did it under president bush are standing in the way now. >> well, actually, what's kind of interesting about this is in the past, even with partisan legislatures, they've increased these benefits. they've allowed for the extension when the number of long-term unemployed people was actually considerably lower than it is today. in fact, the share of long-term unemployed, people who have been without a job for at least half a year, is twice what it's been in the past when congresses of

all stripes and spots have allowed the program to expire. so i'm not saying it's a big surprise these folks aren't data driven. we knew that. but the extent of partisanship on the issue really is extreme. you kind of forget that these days because we're so used to this level of gridlock. but it is extreme. >> gene sperling talked about this this weekend, about speaking with senator heller about it. let's listen to that. >> i talked to senator heller on friday, and he said, you know, for him this was not ideology, this was being a senator in a state that had 9% unemployment, it was talking to constituents every day who are often in economic distress, who desperately wanted a job, and understanding that we're a country that has each other's back in these difficult times.

>> richard wolffee, this does highlight what for me is a republican phenomenon i've watched many, many times, which is they get it if it happens to them. so the republican with the highest unemployment rate in the country in his state is the republican who gets this. and the others are immune to it. >> i don't think that's unique to nevada or anywhere else. you know, we had a great story at msnbc.com today about the kinds of choices these individuals are having to make. people who've saved up for their pickup truck. people who are going to face selling their home today because they're not getting these benefits. and the economic impact of that. so republicans will say in general, when it's an abstract idea, people should just go and take whatever job's out there. but if you are long-term unemployed, so you've got a college education, going to flip burgers does not help your long-term employment. you may get a job in the short run, but it makes it much harder to get a job that you're qualified for later. when it's real, when it's

personal, it becomes much, much harder to dispute the need for these benefits and, by the way, for longer-term solutions. for training and everything else that you need to do to move these people off the long-term unemployed. >> and jared, i think that what richard just raised is something a lot of rich republicans and others don't understand. you're a rich republican if you're making a congressional salary. that puts you in the rich level in this country. that just how important these benefits are. they're very small. and i think that's what the republicans see. they go, hey, this is a small amount of money to these individuals, it can't make that much difference. but that is -- what they don't understand is life at the margins, as richard was just describing it, and how these hundreds of dollars can actually make that car payment or just keep the mortgage afloat. >> no question about it. i mean, the average benefit is about $300 a week. well, that's real money to the folks in the middle of the income scale.

and remember, these are not people who were doing great until the recession hit and they lost their job. many folks in the middle, lower end of the pay scale, have been struggling for quite a while. in fact, even over the expansion of the 2000s when the economy was growing before the big downturn. median income was flat. the wages of low-wage workers were flat or falling. so that's another dimension to this. folks don't have an asset portfolio or deep savings to fall back on. and i think you and richard are talking about a very deep thing here, which is this idea of not being able to sympathize or empathize with the other. you kind of harken back to a guy like bill clinton. i think he had a tangible feel for that sort of thing. >> and richard, the other area of life on the margin that the president is going to be pushing, democrats are going to be pushing, is an increase in the minimum wage, which presumably will run into a similar kind of lack of comprehension by republicans. >> they're going to play the same argument that they've done before, which is that this is a

disincentive. for companies making, by the way, record profits, a disincentive to economic activity. you know, when you look at the economic activity that's spurred by unemployment benefit, for instance, it has a big impact on the broader economy. economists are talking about .2%, .4% of economic growth that will disappear because unemployment benefits don't get paid. ask yourself, if you are a republican who cares about growth, and they all say they want growth, what's better for this country? for the money that corporations are hoarding right now to go directly into the pockets of people who will spend it or for that money to be salted overseas or sat on as some kind of cash reserve in case of another crisis? what would help people right now? >> jared quickly, before we go. >> quick point on that. .2% of gdp. that's what we shave off of gdp if we don't do this. that's about $30 billion. the cost of this is about $25 billion. i'm not saying it pays for itself. but boy, talk about shooting yourself in the foot. >> richard wolffe and jared bernstein, thank you both for

joining me tonight. >> thank you. >> thank you. >> coming up in the rewrite, william f. buckley jr., the intellectual father of modern conservatism, and the war on drugs. also, colorado's new marijuana stores are running out of marijuana. that's coming up. [ male announcer ] staples has everything you need to launch your big idea. adding thousands of products online every day. from hard hats and goggles. to tools and cleaning products... to state of the art computers, to coffee to keep you fueled. from the sign over the door to the boxes to get it out the door. yes, staples has everything you need to launch your big idea. except your big idea. so when you get an idea, we're ready with everything else. staples. make more happen.

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the yeas are 56. the nays are 26. the nomination is confirmed. >> tonight the senate voted 56-26 to confirm janet yellen as the head of the federal reserve. janet yellen will replace ben bernanke when his term expires at the end of this month. she will be the first woman head of the federal reserve. there were just 82 senators present to vote because weather is preventing some senators from returning to washington tonight. coming up next -- another

republican abandons ship in the house of representatives. ♪ we're gonna be late. ♪ ♪ ♪ oh are we early? [ male announcer ] commute your way with the bold, all-new nissan rogue. ♪

a ship of fools in the house of representatives. six-term republican congressman jim gur lak announced today he will not seek re-election. in his written statement he did not blame tea party madness for his premature retirement. instead the 58-year-old career politician offered the standard line of wanting to spend more time with his wife and family. gerlach is the fourth moderate republican to announce retirement since november, joining john runyon of new

jersey, tom latham of iowa, and frank wolf of va sprap join meg now nia malika henderson, political reporter for the "washington post" and sam stein, politics editor for the huffington post. and so nia ma'lika, another republican would like to spend more time with his family and a lot less time on the house floor with those crazy tea partiers. >> we are seeing something of a trend here. i think the question is whether or not it continues into 2014. you saw at the end of 2013 john boehner himself get fed up with the tea party and also moderate republicans say that they needed to speak up more, that they needed to band together. they of course were against the actions around the government shutdown that were led by the far right of the party. so this is an interesting thing. and i think if you look at what democrats need to do come 2014 to win back the house, you know, slim, slim, slim chance that they can, i think it's something like 1%, but when seats like this open up it certainly gives

democrats more of a chance to win back in-some seats in the house. >> well, sam stein, gerlach's seat looks interesting. mitt romney won that district with only 51% of the vote. that seems like it could be something the democrats could get. >> yeah. now, gerlach won his re-election by 57% of the vote. so it was trending away from democrats because of redistricting. however, one thing that is in the democrats' favor is the governor of pennsylvania, tom coburn, is up for re-election. widely unpopulated guy. there will be depressed republican turnout it's expected because of that and intensified democratic support. so it is one of these seats that democrats feel they have a legitimate shot to pick up a number. but nia-malika's right. they are starting from a deficit that's going to be very difficult to overcome. they're also forfeiting a seat in all likelihood with jim mathisen in utah retiring. the one democrat so far retiring. so it is still an uphill battle for democrats, but this is probably good news for them today. >> and nia, when this happens the tea partiers don't exactly stay quiet.

in new jersey steve lon gann, who lost to cory booker in the senate campaign, has announced that he's running for that seat that is currently held by that retiring moderate in new jersey, jon runyan. so we may in some of these instances, you could conceivably end up replacing a moderate with a tea partier. maybe not in new jersey but some other ones. >> that's right. remember lonegan. he got some endorsements from the likes of sarah palin. rand paul. had some pretty disparaging things to say about cory booker during that race. but we'll see what happens. i think the establishment part of the republican party very much wants to play it safe and put in candidates they think can help them maintain their lead in the house of representatives, if not expand it. so we'll see what happens there with that seat. i think also one of the things that you are seeing from moderate republicans is they have formed a super pact.

the defense of main street. they are looking at raising $8 million in targeting 10 or 12 races in 2014. so there is a sort of empire strikes back moderate republicans wanting to strike back. >> sam, the retirement phenomenon was always interesting to watch in congress, and usually there's more of a kind of rush to the door when you're in a minority body particularly in the house of representatives. and it looks hopeless. it looks like you'll never get out of the minority. it's watching the retirements from the majority party that is more interesting as we've seeing here. >> totally agree. you would think that in this current state with this current landscape the republicans would be more excited about the upcoming election than democrats. the generic congressional ballots have trended in republicans' favor since the launch of obamacare. they seem downright giddy to run another election on the affordable care act. and yet we're seeing more retirements on the republican side especially among moderate

members and the only real logical explanation i can come up with is they're just really fired of the business as usual. they don't like the constant government by crisis, they don't like to get basically led around by the more conservative members of their faction. and there's one other thing to look out for, which is speaker john boehner. some of these members who are retiring, specifically tom latham of iowa, are very close allies of the speaker, and there's been some rumors that speaker boehner is going to give up his speakership at the end of this term. the latham retirement in particular sort of piqued discussion and gossip that in fact he might step down after 2014. so that's another thing to look out for. >> nia, which we've already talked about here, boehner's kind of public demonstration of frustration and difficulty, it's kind of unique and certainly rare anyway in the history of speakerships to see a speaker out there complaining about what's going on within his own party, including with some of his own members in the house of

representatives. he kind of in that moment, in that press conference, personified the frustration that we're seeing expressed by some of these retirements. >> that's right. and you remember originally, he was swept into office by a tea party wave, and his philosophy back then in 2010 was dance with the one that brung you. and that was the tea party. it very much changed in the wake of the government shutdown. very stern words for these outside groups specifically and just the movement in general about lacking a strategy, essentially going on a fool's errand around the government shutdown and obamacare. so i think that was probably the most surprising development from boehner over this last year. and of course i think we'll have to look at what that means for the debt ceiling fight. that thing obviously happening now. and we'll hit the limit come february, next month. so you know, what this means for immigration. so so many issues i think are going to be determined by how boehner is feeling about the tea party, how moderate republicans are feeling about the tea party, and what they feel like they can

do. >> nia-malika henderson and sam stein, thank you both for joining me. >> thanks, lawrence. >> thank you. coming up in "the rewrite," conservatives versus conservatives on legalizing mayrijuana marijuana. and later, now that marijuana has been legal in colorado for six days, colorado is of course running out of marijuana. nounce] the new new york is open. open to innovation. open to ambition. open to bold ideas. that's why new york has a new plan -- dozens of tax free zones all across the state. move here, expand here, or start a new business here and pay no taxes for ten years... we're new york. if there's something that creates more jobs, and grows more businesses... we're open to it. start a tax-free business at startup-ny.com. [ male announcer ] what kind of energy is so abundant, it can help provide the power for all this? natural gas. ♪

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the other day i actually tried to get my son signed up through the kentucky exchange that the democrats have said are so good. and i have here my son's medicaid card. we didn't try to get him medicaid. i'm trying to pay for his insurance. but they automatically enrolled him in medicaid. for a month they wouldn't talk to us because they said they weren't sure if he existed. he had to go down to the welfare office, prove his existence. then the next thing we know we get a medicaid card. so really most of the people in kentucky are automatically being enrolled in medicaid. i'm trying to pay for insurance and can't pay for it. and i'm uncertain now whether i'm enrolled in d.c. and/or kentucky. and it's a mess. >> in the spotlight tonight the medicaid expansion under the affordable care act. we tried to reach rand paul's office today to find out more detail about how his son apparently received medicaid coverage in kentucky and why he

wasn't by rand paul's family policy, but we have received no reply yet about those questions. in the design of the affordable care act, medicaid was intended to be the single largest provider of coverage for the uninsured. but since medicaid eligibility is dependent on income levels, what happens when a worker's income level increases and makes that worker ineligible for medicaid? that is a process called churning as explained today in the "washington post." "typically people lose medicaid eligibility after their income spikes temporarily such as when they get a seasonal job or pick up extra hours at certain times of the year. they re-enroll and when their income drops. until now people who churn out of medicaid because of an income bump often wound up uninsured because they cannot afford private insurance. starting this month under the affordable care act many will become eligible for insurance and subsidies through the

exchanges. but that might not turn out to be as simple as it sounds. joining me now is jenny bergall, who is a reporter for kaiser health news, and ezra klein, a columnist at the "washington post" and msnbc policy analyst. jenny, you wrote this article that appeared in the "washington post" today about this new phenomenon, which will be churning out of medicaid but still within the affordable care act onto possibly private insurance. but that could be a very complicated churn. explain to us what's going on in that. >> well, what's going on is it is a difficult thing. what's going on is that in the past churning was very common with medicaid people. they would go up. they'd bow down in their income. and they'd churn in and out of medicaid. the bad news then was that when they churned out oftentimes they were uninsured. when they earned a little bit more money they became uninsured and had no insurance. now with the affordable care act

the good news is that they can move into an exchange if their income rises, goes up a little bit. however, it's up and down and up and down with a lot of these people and their income. they may move from medicaid onto the exchange and then their income may drop and they may have to go back to medicaid. so that's what the churning issue is. and it's kind of a nightmare. it will be somewhat of a nightmare for some of the states. >> ezra, this is one of the things, as you know, that single payer advocates like me and others -- one of the reasons we're single payer advocates is look at this thing and look how messy it can become. and there's also now going to be a churn on the private insurance end of this thing with the subsidies. people will be getting private insurance for some number of weeks, months, and then they will become eligible for medicaid and churn downward into the 34ed cade system.

is that how it's going to work on the churn out of the insurance part of it? >> this is what you get when you have a system that gives you one health care system for the poor and another one for everyone else, at least everyone else who can afford insurance. >> but there are two systems for the working poor because you have that subsidized component right above the medicaid income thresholds. you're still dealing with working poor people at the margins whose incomes shift a lot. >> yeah. and to be fair, the group of poor or working poor i'm more worried about are in the states where they don't actually have the medicaid expansion. so they would churn getting beneath 133% of poverty when they become poor essentially. there's nothing there to catch them. back when the aca was being designed in sort of our underlying health reform discussions, essentially two ways to solve this. right? one, we could have had some kind of single payer system but that was ruled off the table ideologically. the other is you could have had private insurance for everyone

but the problem is that is actually too expensive. the reason they didn't just do private insurance for the medicaid population in large part was to give poor folks insurance as comprehensive as what medicaid offers would just be much, much more because private insurance is a whole lot more expensive than medicaid. so you end up with a patchwork and the fundamental reality of having a patchwork health care system is people end up falling through the sort of edge cracks. and that's going to be particularly bad in the early years of the affordable care act when you have some sort of questions from the administration of the income subsidies and then it will be very, very bad, particularly in the states where you don't have the medicaid expansion because when they fall underneath the amount they get subsidies for in the private insurance system there's nothing there to catch them. >> and generjenni, there's also problem this means the most complicated area of the affordable care act is at the lowest ends of the income brackets in this country. those of us at the higher ends of the income brackets have no problem because we're not

involved in any of these subsidy issues involving our health insurance or any of that. and so we've tacken something complicated and then made it much, much more complicated for the working poor. >> yes. absolutely. and what's really bad about that situation is when people at that level lose their coverage or are in and out of coverage there are major consequences. some of them don't seek treatment. some of them aren't followed consistently with one doctor or one health care network. and so they just get lost. and it affects their health care. there was a study this year, i believe, that found that people on medicaid who churn in and out and in and out had significantly different health outcomes and were ending up not getting blood pressure screenings, were not getting prescriptions, were not getting the things that they needed. so it's a serious consequence.

>> ezra, one of the possibilities here is to simply say okay, once you qualify for medicaid you qualify for medicaid for the year and you don't have to get your income checked every few months as it is. but that's being considered way too expensive by the states and the federal government end of it. is there any practical solution to this? your qualification works for a year sounds to me like the smoothest kind of practical solution, but it's an expensive one. is there any other solution that you could see being applied to this kind of churning? >> yeah. or even to say you get it for three years after that. there are a lot of ways to offer that kind of continuity of khawr, and it's not a technically difficult problem to allow people to pay the difference between whatever they were going to get and what they're -- what they get because they have a sort of continuity of care arrangement. the problem, and this is a problem across all dimensions of the affordable care act, is that republicans in congress will not

allow any fix no matter how minor to pass. is places where you have very small technical tweaks that are needed to much larger questions about how to actually deliver the best care to people, as we learn what works and what doesn't in the program, as we see what gets people tripped up in the field and what doesn't, and as we see what is scuffle and needs to be scaled up and what is a failure and needs to be brought down, our ability to make changes in the program is completely gummed up in congress. there are many practical solutions to the problem, but there are no that -- there are none that can currently pass congress. >> jenni bergal and ezra klein, thank you both for joining he m tonight. >> thank you. >> thank you. >> coming up in "the rewrite," what the father of modern american conservatism had to say about legalizing marijuana. welcome back. how is everything?

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get medical help right away if you have symptoms of a heart attack or stroke. use caution when driving or operating machinery. common side effects include nausea, trouble sleeping and unusual dreams. i had to quit smoking to keep up with this guy. [ male announcer ] ask your doctor if chantix is right for you. drugs are a form of escapism and the damage in taking them is not by any means self-limited. it damages other people also. >> that was the intellectual father of modern american conservatism, william f. buckley jr., who by the way would be horrified by 21st century tea partiers hijacking thoughtful

conservatism and aiming it toward anarchy. bill buckley died in 2008 at the age of 82, and so was spared the horrors of the tea party takeover of the republican party. bill buckley burst onto the scene in 1951 with a best-seller about being a conservative undergraduate at yale. a few years later he was the founding editor of "the national review," instantly making it america's premier conservative journal. he became america's first politically conservative tv talk star with the long-running show "firing line," where he discussed the issues of the day, frequently debated liberals, and delighted in uninhibited displays of egotism which were frequently charming but could turn very ugly, as happened with his gay bashing of gore vidal on "dick cavett's" show. in that 1986 interview you just saw buckley was saying something we could all agree with -- drugs

are a form of escapism. david brooks, "the new york times" conservative columnist, said as much in his first column of the year, which might turn out to be his most controversial column of the year. david brooks began the column by confessing to fond memories of pot smoking during his teenage years before, as he put it, he graduated to more satisfying pleasures. he went on to say, "i think being stoned is not a particularly uplifting form of pleasure and should be discouraged more than encouraged. we now have a couple of states, colorado and washington, that have gone into the business of effectively encouraging drug use." david brooks's piece as usual has a few high-minded lines that seem to be an echo of buckley, but his opposition to the legalization of marijuana put him in direct opposition to bill buckley. >> my position on drugs is that they are -- the drug wars aren't

working and that more damage net is being done by their continuation on the books than would be done by withdrawing them from the books. >> in what may be william f. buckley jr.'s most valuable legacy, he led the "national review" to oppose the war on drugs 18 years ago and to favor legalization. and today in an editorial that is the perfect answer to david brooks's column but does not mention brooks or buckley, the editors of the "national review" have used the occasion of legalization in colorado to make their case brilliantly. "launching 17 million rocky mountain high jokes, colorado has become the first state to make the prudent choice of legalizing the consumption and sale of marijuana, thus dispensing with the charade of medical restrictions and recognizing the fact that, while some people smoke marijuana to

counter the effects of chemotherapy, most people smoke marijuana to get high. and that is not the worst thing in the world." the editorial went on to use a cost-benefit analysis of marijuana prohibition that buckley was the first to use in the "national review" 18 years ago. "the history of marijuana prohibition is a catalog of unprofitable trade-offs, billions in enforcement costs, and hundreds and thousands of arrests each year in a fruitless attempt to control a mostly benign drug, the use of which remains widespread despite our energetic attempts at prohibition. we make a lot of criminals while preventing very little crime." "the national review" editorial addressed a very important point that david brooks ignored. alcohol addiction.

"marijuana is a drug as abusable as any intoxicant is, and its long-term use is in some people associated with undesirable effects. but its effects are relatively mild. and while nearly half of american adults have smoked, few develop habits, much less habits that are lifelong. compared to binge drinking or alcohol addiction, marijuana use is a minor public health concern." alcohol has killed more people in cars and elsewhere than marijuana ever will, but alcohol remains legal and no doubt is sometimes served in david brooks's home. in the middle of the nexton administration, bill buckley revealed one of his greatest pleasures in an interview with "playboy" magazine.

he said, "i have discovered a new sensual treat, which appropriately, the readers of playboy should be the first to know about. it is to have the president of the united states take notes while you are speaking to him." we can only hope that republicans are still taking notes when william f. buckley jr. is speaking to them, as he did today through the editors of "the national review." my next guests will be the "denver post's" new marijuana report eer and one of the new legal sellers of recreational marijuana in colorado. pools... waffle bars... fancy robes... seems every hotel has something to love... so join the loyalty program that lets you earn free nights in any of them. plus, for a limited time, members can win a free night every day. only at hotels.com

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in florida they say they expect to submit enough

signatures this week to get that issue on the ballot in november. and in colorado after six days of full legalization of marijuana sales, stores are running out of pot. big surprise. the owner of a colorado marijuana store will join me next. asional have constipation, diarrhea, gas, bloating? yes! one phillips' colon health probiotic cap each day helps defend against these digestive issues... with three strains of good bacteria. [ phillips' lady ] live the regular life. phillips'.

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recreational marijuana use has only been legal in colorado for six days, but already some marijuana stores say they are running low on product. on day two one shop owner told the "colorado springs gazette," "we are going to run out. it's insane. this weekend will be just as crazy. if there is a mad rush, we will be out by monday." this despite the drug's steep price, according to "time" magazine. in some cases stores were charging $50 or even $70 for 1/8 of an ounce of pot that costs medical marijuana users just $25 the day before. and taxes add on an extra 20%. and so prices in legal pot shops have already risen to upwards of $400 an ounce. an illegal dealer in pueblo, colorado told a local paper that

short supply and high taxes just might work in his favor. he said, "people will get real tired of paying the taxes real fast when you can buy an ounce from me for $225 to $300. the state adds as much as $90 just for the tax." joining me now, robin hackett, co-owner of botanicare medical cannabis center in denver, colorado. and john ingold, a "denver post" reporter who covers marijuana. robin, i have not asked any guest on this program this question before, but do you have any weed? >> yes. we still have plenty of marijuana in our shop. >> well, plenty. so what is this talk about, you know, there's a run and by monday, which is today, some of the stores could run out? has that been happening? >> yeah. a lot of our competitors have run out of marijuana at this juncture, yes, sir. >> and john, did people see this coming, that there would be kind

of a huge surge starting first week of january? >> sure. i think there was a lot of expectation there was going to be lines on the first day, on january 1st. i mean, certainly there was a lot of interest among people being, you know, on the first day to be able to buy recreational marijuana in the united states. i think the sustained interest has caught some store owners by surprise. you know, there's been lines every day since january 1st. there were lines over the weekend. i drove by a place this weekend. it was sunday morning. it was 10:00 a.m. it was 10 degrees. and there was a line, probably 20 or 30 people long outside of it. so the sustained interest has i think really been a surprise. >> robin, where do you get your supply of marijuana? >> we grow our own marijuana. we have a warehouse that we grow in. >> and is it possible for you to get marijuana from some other method? is it required that you grow your own marijuana according to the law?

>> it is required that we grow our own marijuana until july of this year. in july they decouple it and we can purchase from other growers that are just doing nothing but grow marijuana. but until july we're going to have to grow enough to keep our store open. >> john, when i look at those images we just had up there of the long lines and i read from the illegal dealer, a street dealer, how he might be able to exploit this, i mean, there's a risk there for the state, isn't there, in seeing these very long lines and thereby provoking more interest in the illegal market? >> sure. i think that risk was always there. as you mentioned, there's taxes. the taxes are fairly hefty as far as other products would go. so there was always kind of that risk that people might choose to stay out of the legal market, stay in the black market, or there's also the possibility people will remain in the

medical market or even join the medical market. they'll get medical marijuana cards now. sure. >> and is the -- robin, is the price of medical marijuana in your store different from the other prices? >> yes. it's $10 an eighth or $10 a quarter cheaper on the medical side than it is on the recreational side. we really haven't upped our prices and started gouging folks. we are trying to maintain that same price level. we know it's important that the marijuana stays at a price level so that we can outperform the underground at some point. so our goal is to maintain a good price range so that folks will want to come to us as opposed to the underground. the one beauty is we have 45 types of marijuana to choose from and the underground has one or two types. so that's why folks tend to want to come to the more legal establishments.

>> and robin, are you seeing a different customer walking in there now? >> well, actually, the customers that we're seeing are 40, 45 and older. we're not really seeing any 20-year-olds. a few in their 30s. but mostly we're seeing folks from 40 to 70 years old, is what we're seeing in the stores. >> john, what were some of the worst fears that the opponents of this were expecting to see this week, and have they seen any of them? >> i think there was a lot of fear of there being chaos, you know, maybe there being trouble with the crowds or people causing trouble. i think there was a lot of fear of people consuming publicly, public consumption is still illegal. so you can't walk down the street and puff a joint in denver. i think there was a lot of worries about people taking their purchases out of the store and sort of celebrating with them in the parking lot or in the parks or on the streets. and that really did not happen. i think in denver at least the

city police department issued two citations for public consumption on january 1st and there wasn't any evidence that those were actually even connected to the sales. >> robin, is it possible that what we're seeing in the big lines is just kind of the end of prohibition and all the publicity about that and a certain excitement about that and that the customers that you have this week will not be regular customers? >> we're already seeing folks that are coming back. they've come -- you know, they were here the first or second day, and now they're starting to return. but we believe that there is already a huge marijuana market that exists, and i think we're going to see more folks coming in that aren't afraid of the lines because a lot of people didn't want to stand in these long lines. so i actually think we've got a lot more people coming that haven't shown up yet. >> okay. robin hackett, who does have weed, america. she has not run out. robin hackett and john ingold,

thank you both very much for joining me tonight. >> thanks for having me. >> thank you. >> chris hayes is up next. good evening from new york. i'm chris hayes. the first battle of the year, extending unemployment insurance will get a vote tomorrow at 10:00 a.m. and today the battle lines were being drawn. today congress is back in session with the first big fight of this election year. the issue, extending unemployment insurance to 1.3 million of the long-term unemployed who have lost their benefits just three days after christmas. democrats want the benefits extended.