thank you, gentlemen. appreciate it. that is "all in" for this evening. "the rachel maddow show" begins now. thanks to you, my friend. thanks to you at home for joining us this hour. barney frank is with us in a minute. in 1985 a group called the parents music resource center tried to get congress to essentially come up with a labeling and/or censorship program for popular american music. we're having a bit of a moral panic at the time about kids these days and their degenerate music. so this parents group which was spearheaded by a bipartisan bunch including tipper gore and james baker's wife, susan baker, they formed this group and went after the music industry. there were these amazing congressional hearings in the '80s on this issue. where everybody from john denver, god bless him, to d. snyder of twisted sister turned out at these congressional hearings to talk about whether music really is pornography without the pictures and whether

it should be treated as such. frank zappa testified in congress in 1985, called it an ill conceived piece of nonsense which fails to deliver benefits to children and infringes on the civil liberties of people who are not children. he was very articulate in making his case. he was actually kind of the hit of those hearings. particularly because of this amazing exchange with a florida senator named paula hawkins. behold. >> senator hawkins. >> you say you have four children? >> yes. >> pardon me? >> four children. >> have you ever purchased toys for those children? >> no, my wife does. >> well, i might tell you that if you were to go in a toy store which is very educational for fathers, by the way, it's not a maternal responsibility to buy

toys for children, that you may look on the box and the box says, this is suitable for 5 to 7 years of age or 8 to 15 or 15 and above to give you some guidance for a toy for child. do you object to that? >> in a way, i do. because that means that somebody in an office someplace is making the decision about how smart my child is. >> i'd be interested to see what toys your kid's ever had. >> why would you be interested? >> just as a point of interest in this -- >> come on over to the house. i'll show them to you. really. >> i might do that. >> i don't think she ever did that. the greatest thing, though, that is kind of the end of it and the next witness was john denver. 1985.

where'd you go? actually when you watch that specific c-span clip on youtube, it auto populates with an ad where you can click to buy frank zappa's "porn wars deluxe." somebody will look back on 2014 and be very excited about that the way i'm excited about 1985 when i look back at paula hawkins. paula hawkins, the senator sparring there with frank zappa, remains to this day the only woman ever elected to the united states senate from the great state of florida. elected in 1980. she served for one term. she was republican. sadly, she passed away in 2009. in terms of her short and historic senate career, paula hawkins is remembered for obviously not really wanting to go over to frank zappa's house to see what dweezil and ahmet were playing with but she's also remembered for the record she still holds today in the united states senate. in february 1985, it was florida senator paula hawkins given the

honor of reading to the united states senate george washington's farewell address. one senator gets tapped to do that every year in the senate and when paula hawkins got her turn in 1985, she read that address to the senate faster than anyone else had ever read it in the whole history of reading that speech out loud. when george washington left office, he decided to not seek a third term as president, he wrote his farewell address to the nation. this is the original. he never intended it to be read out loud. he wrote it as a document that would be readily the eye, not spoken by the voice. he had it published in a philadelphia newspaper called the "daily american advertiser." they published in other papers after that. it's a great work of american statesmanship. it's beautiful in its own way but it's really dense. it's really dense. it's written to be read. it is nearly 8,000 words long. if you do read it out loud, it takes at least 45 minutes to read.

in 1962, the senate historian says one west virginia senator who was reading it to the senate that year actually took well over an hour to read it out loud. when paula hawkins did it, she broke the record. paula hawkins holds the record for the fastest reading of that speech in senate history. paula hawkins read that thing in 39 minutes and nobody else has ever done a more mathematically efficient reading of george washington's farewell address to the nation to congress ever. george washington wrote that speech in 1796. they started the tradition of reading it out loud in congress in the middle of the civil war, interestingly, 1862. because, yes, that speech is really dense and it's 8,000 words and takes an hour to read it out loud unless you're paula hawkins. it's also a really beautiful plea for the union. for how important it is that the united states stay together as a country. and so in the middle of the civil war in 1862, there was a

citizen petition out of philadelphia asking congress to please read that speech aloud to one another. please read it out loud in a joint session of congress in what would have been washington's 130th birthday that year. so they read it in 1862 during the civil war. and then they decided to read it again on the centennial of ratifying the constitution. then by 1896, congress decided that they were going to do this every single year in order of the united states senate now. and today, the honor fell to maine senator angus king. and honestly, it's kind of sad, but nowadays, not very many people show up for this annual tradition in the senate when somebody reads george washington's farewell address but they do it anyway every year to honor our first president and try to make his words from the farewell address sink in. senator angus king of maine is an independent which is particularly nice for this occasion because george washington's farewell address is where he famously warns about the baneful effects of political

parties. washington says in his farewell address that political parties enfeeble the public administration and agitate the community with ill found injealousies and false alarms, kindling the animosity of one part against another. hear hear, right? because of the sort of tirade against political parties, it is particularly nice to have an independent united states senator reading george washington's farewell address. but george washington's farewell address is also particularly apt for this day. because mr. washington's farewell address is also where he warns against the imperative need to avoid -- >> avoid the necessity of those overgrown military establishments which under any form of government are inauspicious to liberty, and which are to be regarded as particularly hostile to republican liberty. >> senator angus king of maine reading from george washington's

farewell address in the senate today. part where george washington warns that hopefully -- with an overgrown military. he says is inauspicious to liberty. today in washington, at the pentagon, our nation's 24th defense secretary, himself, a wounded combat veteran from the vietnam war, secretary of defense chuck hagan announced today the first post-afghanistan budget for the u.s. military. the first budget to reflect what we think we want for our military establishment in this country after the end of america's longest war ever which is still going on right now but is set to wind down this year. >> as we end our combat mission in afghanistan, this will be the first budget to fully reflect the transition d.o.d. is making for after 13 years of war. the longest conflict in our

nation's history. >> the question of what happens to our military after a war ends is the question that has changed a lot over time. the founding fathers fought over whether the united states should even have a standing army of any kind of whether we should call up civilians to fight in the event of a war, but not before. ahead of world war i the u.s. did have an active duty force. under 300,000 people before world war i. during world war i, the size of our forced swelled to more than 4 million. but then once world war i was over we drew down. we went right back down to 300,000 again. in world war ii, we called up triple the number from world war i. the size of the u.s. military swelled up to 12 million people by 1945. 83% of the federal budget was

being spent on the military by the end of world war ii. but of course when world war ii was over, the size of the force shrunk back down again. but look at this. look at this chart about the size of the military over time. on this, we marked the various war eras here. see what was going on over time. look at what happens at the end of our wars over the last 70 years or so. this is kind of like looking at the symptoms chart of a patient who's getting inoculated over time because of repeated exposure to the same bug. just don't get the same reaction they used to. sort of getting used to this war phenomenon. early on there's these big spikes in the size of the force when wars start and big drop-offs thereafter. as time goes on, the drawdown after each war gets less and less dramatic. the baseline peacetime number just sort of stays where it is. and eventually by the time we get to the war that we're still in right now, they don't really build up the overall size of the force all that much to fight these big, long new wars. we fought the longest war in u.s. history. we are currently still fighting the longest war in world history.

look at the overall size of the military. we cut the overall size of the active duty military. army, navy, marine corps, air force, full-time guard and reserve. we kept it basically flat while we fought this giant extended wars. which frankly is the defining nature of the relationship between us civilians and the troops and military families who have suffered through our generation's wars over these past 13 years. for the first time in u.s. history, they've really fought those wars alone without the rest of the country kicking in. there was no mobilization of the population to sign up and fight those wars the way there was for earlier wars. there was no draft. we kept the military the same size it had been overall, we just expected the people in it to do one, two, four, six, ten tours of duty. and that is not the way we have done big wars in the past. these long wars in iraq and afghanistan fought by less than 1% of the population, as a

country we have never waged wars exactly that way before. and now, today, was the first day where the military said how they want to stop waging those wars. and what they want for the size of the force and how much should be spent on it. and to be clear, the fact that we didn't upsize for the wars after 9/11 doesn't mean we didn't upsize what we were paying. this is from cnbc from the last year, comparative data, from 2012. on the right there, that solid block is our military spending. on the left is the military spending of china and russia and great britain, also japan, france, saudi arabia, italy, germany, india and brazil. those are the ten largest defense budgets in the world after ours. and ours is bigger than all of them combined. so it's not like we're starting from a position of weakness

here. just during the time of george w. bush was president, we more than doubled what we spend on the military. but today, pentagon proposed cutting that budget. sort of. by law, the size of the military and the military budget are both scheduled to shrink over the next few years and by a lot. congress already voted the army should shrink from 522,000 soldiers to 420,000. congress already voted that the marine corps should shrink from 190,000 marines to 175,000. that's already law. congress voted for that. scheduled to go into effect if nothing else happens. that's the sequester they voted for. what the military proposed today is reinstating some troops, holding on to 20,000, 30,000 more than congress voted to give them. money wise, it's the same deal. the military wants less of a cut. day want to add another $26 billion to their budget for next year. want to add over $100 billion to the year after that. over and above what congress voted to give them when they

voted for the sequester. now, this got headlined today at the pentagon proposing huge new cuts to the military. what actually happened today is the pentagon fighting congress so they don't get cut so much. when congress voted for the sequester, they were voting for something that no one thought they would ever go through with. it was supposed to impossible for the u.s. to cut defense spending alongside cuts of food stamps and education and all the other things congress is usually much happier to cut. it has become unimaginable to us that defense spending would really be cut significantly. and so now, today specifically, now, we are in this upsidedown world where a proposed drawdown after the longest wars in u.s. history is being greeted today both as a surprise and as kind of the end of the world. even after the end of the longest wars in u.s. history. the idea of a drawdown is somehow totally alien to us. and the fight by the military to reinstate their budget after it was cut by a congress that maybe didn't really understand that that's what they were doing, that fight that started today is a fight where both the military

and the congress now are fighting each other for the right to raise the defense budget. both sides of the fight want more spending on the military. that's the fight that we're about to have in washington. that's the two sides that were set up today. you want to cut defense, well i want to spend more on defense. oh, yeah, no, i want to spend more on defense, you're the one who wants to cut it. that's the fight we're now about to have in washington. and the question of whether there really will be ever a drawdown again, after an american war, that remains a question that is only discussed well outside of polite company. joining us, barney frank, former democratic congressman of massachusetts, longtime advocate for reducing american spending on the military. it's good to have you on the show. thank you for being here. >> thank you, rachel. i always enjoy this. >> what do you make of the pentagon's proposal today? >> i'm a little bit more -- yeah, it's in this context. i agree, chuck hagel wants to spend more than we need. if you take the deficit problems seriously.

on the other hand, it's a lot less than defense secretaries have pushed for in the past. so the time may have overrode it a little bit. i'm encouraged to have him talk about getting rid of some weapons systems and reducing the military. the biggest issue here is that he does seem to me to be agreeing at this notion of american intervention with significant military force in various parts of the world basically for geopolitical influence as opposed to a national defense, is a bad idea. i think it's a good thing that he wants to reduce the military to a point where we wouldn't be able to do some of these things. now, we need to continue to push for this. and what i'm afraid of is that members of congress are going to not only go on with him in the cuts but that they'll want to do even more.

so, yes, he's talking about more than we need to spend, can afford to spend, should wisely spend, but having the secretary of defense on the we can do less than we've been doing side is a good idea. and the sequester we know is a little unrealistic. it was put in there to threaten -- i think it's a good thing that -- even though i voted against it because i didn't think it was a wise way to make cuts. and i -- i think the key point, though, is this. he's done us a favor by raising this. everybody in america who wants to see the deficit reduced without cutting environmental protection, or local police, or aid to education, or food stamps, or housing for the elderly, or social security, literally everybody who believes any of this ought to jump in here and say, you know, mr. secretary, you're moving somewhat in the right direction

but not far enough. i think this is the opportunity for the american people to say what i think they want to say, we've been overspending on the military, we've been over-intervening elsewhere in the world to our disadvantage, and let's bring some of that money back into the domestic economy where it can do some good. >> the thing that strikes me as -- the thing that strikes me as strange about these developments today is because there is the sequester, which is deeper cuts than secretary hagel was talking about today, what he's arguing for is actually increases in the defense budget compared to sequester. congress doesn't seem ready to get rid of the sequester. so both sides of this fight are blaming the other for being too reckless and cutting defense too much and they're both arguing that defense ought to have more. i'm worried we just started a process that looks like it's starting with cuts but really it's all about people competing to add as much as they can to the budget. >> again, i would say the see sequester baseline was never really realistic. what i'm afraid of is congress

will outbid the secretary unless the american people step in and say, no, you don't intervene to protect the national guard size. and, you know, i think that's, by the way, what you talked about before about not increasing the size of the overall military before the wars. i think parent of that was a much greater use of the national guard overseas. there was a much greater deployment of the national guard in foreign wars, in some cases leaving them inadequately staffed to do some of the things they're supposed to do at home in times of disasters. but i -- the key point, though, i think is this. hagel is talking about reducing the military from where it now is. and that's the first time i can remember secretary of defense doing that in a long time. so i would -- i would take it at

that and say, okay, yeah, i'm glad you recognize that we are way overstaffed and are spending way too much, but let's go and follow the logic of this. and that's why i said within the context that we've had, hagel at this point, the first secretary of defense in a long time under democrats or republicans, they're talking about reducing the military budget he inherited and i'd like to work with that. >> yeah. and, see, having this be day one of the debate, i think it's a fascinating place to start. i honestly have no idea where it ends up. former democratic congressman -- >> the american people can influence this. they don't want to see everything we do to promote the quality of life at home, devastated on the deficit reduction, they have to say, you know what, this reduction in military that hagel is talking about at the current level is a good start, but it's only a start. that we can go a lot further and still be very safe. >> former democratic congressman

of massachusetts, barney frank. thank you for your time tonight. it's great to see you. if you're a longtime watcher of our show, thank you. also, you may remember a story we covered a lot which we called the kill the maze bill. the surprising thing is it was american activists behind that bill from the start. that story has just become a very big deal including the president weighing in on it. it's still a story that is very much about the american political right. stay with us. gives you more freshness than two sheets of the leading national store brand? who knew? so, how do you get your bounce? with more freshness in a single sheet.

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there's some suspense in the state of arizona right now.

as some republicans appear to have being second thoughts about whether or not arizona wants to be the first state in the country with the law in the books that tells businesses it is okay to declare yourself a straight people only establishment. not only in terms of who you hire, but whom you serve at your business. the arizona legislature on thursday passed a bill that would allow any arizona business basically to say they only serve straight people because of the religious beliefs of the businessowners. three of the republican senators who voted for that bill just a few days ago apparently were in a daze when they cast their votes because they now regret it. these three republicans including one who was a guest tonight on the chris hayes show, these three republicans say they wish they had not voted for the anti-gay bill and they've all sent a letter to governor jan brewer of arizona asking her today to veto it. arizona also has two republican u.s. senators, both of whom have also now weighed in and said that they hope the governor vetoes the bill. arizona chamber of commerce weighing in saying they, too, hope jan brewer vetoes the bill because arizona probably cannot

stand yet another nationwide boycott of their state for being a pariah on civil rights issues. governor jan brewer has until saturday to make her decision about what to do on this bill. if she does sign it, the state's economy would probably have to endure something similar to the treatment arizona got back in the 90s when it became notorious for rejecting the federal martin luther king jr. holiday, how arizona lost super bowl in 1993. that was all familiar to the state by 2010 when they became nationally famous, again, this time for the state's anti-immigrant papers please law. even with the papers please law now half gone thanks to a ruling by the u.s. supreme court, arizona and specifically the state government of jan brewer in arizona, they're still a major priority and a major focal point for immigration activists. like, for example, the immigration reform group, united we dream who held their annual national congress in phoenix bringing more than 500

immigration advocates there to strategize and lay the groundwork for actions this coming here. on the occasion of that big confab of immigration activists, this weekend, the arizona republic did some reporting on the prospects for any movement on the immigration reform nationally. the paper quoting the number two democrat in the house, steny hoyer saying the house democrats' idea for a discharge petition to get a vote on immigration reform even if john boehner doesn't want it. steny hoyer telling the paper that probably won't work but it's a way for democrats to keep the pressure on republicans on this issue. not so fast, though, because it's not just democrats in washington pressuring republicans in washington on this issue. it's not just members of congress pressuring each other. there's also a big movement here, a big and under-covered and very energized movement for immigration rights. and they're still very, very fired up and very, very ready to go. this is them in phoenix this

weekend. again, more than 500 people marching through the capital to the local detention facility demanding an end to deportations. this was them in tacoma outside seattle this morning. protesters chained together. their arms are to those big sleeves. they're chained together inside the pvc piping sitting in the pouring rain blocking entrances at a detention center calling for an end to detentions. this is them last week. this is them last week praying and getting arrested in front of the white house. a number of faith leaders getting arrested. today another immigration reform group kicked off a bus tour targeting individual members of the house of representatives. in a way that shows they are just not taking no for an answer. the way the discharge position works is this. you get a majority of members of the house to sign on, then it doesn't matter that the speaker doesn't want to vote on it. it gets voted on anyway. if the democrats could marshal every one of their votes for immigration reform, which it seems like they probably would be able, the way nancy pelosi has been able to whip her caucus on the important votes, if they could get the democrats, they

would need 17 republicans to be willing to side with them on this issue then they could get a vote on immigration reform using this discharge position as a way of getting around house speaker john boehner. they need to find 17 republicans willing to take the political hit themselves. to endure the anger from the republican base, right? the definition of that kind of house republican right now, frankly, is a house republican who's leaving. who's retiring. who doesn't have to worry about a primary or running for office again. if you only have to endure until november, right, maybe you can do it? on the first list of offices and districts where we know these activists are going on this bus tour where they're going to target individual house members to try to flip republican congressmen on this issue, six of the republican members of congress they have picked to visit in the next few weeks, specifically are republicans who are retiring. republicans who are leaving the house. you guys could cast this vote and never worry about how it's going to affect next run for office. part of figuring out if this

could happen, or if anything could happen, is figuring out how it works inside washington. what washington pressure groups are involved. what the parties think. what the president thinks. how different legislative groups are strategizing on this issue. but that's not all of politics. politics also happens on the street. and in front of buses trying to leave deportation centers and in jan brewer's way as she's trying to get to the arizona state capitol. the immigration movement is in a small sense a beltway phenomenon. are there enough places where they can put enough pressure on the ground, on the street around the country where they can make this happen even though the beltway thinks it can't? watch this space. i must begin my journey,

which will cause me to miss the end of the game. the x1 entertainment operating system lets your watch live tv anywhere. can i watch it in butterfly valley? sure. can i watch it in glimmering lake? yep. here, too. what about the dark castle?

you call that defense?! come on! [ female announcer ] watch live tv anywhere. the x1 entertainment operating system, only from xfinity. this is the world coney island hot dog eating contest. very famous. on national television every year. it's also sort of gross. competitive speed gluttony in brooklyn, new york, usa, every fourth of july. diet coke with that, sir? now imagine that the competitors in this contest were such prolific hot dog eaters that during the contest, the contest ran out of hot dogs. got that idea in your mind? hot dog eating contest has to end because the contestants ate all the hot dogs. no more hot dogs can be found. there are no more around so we can't keep competing. that happened except it wasn't with hot dogs and wasn't at all disgusting. in fact, it was amazing and it was on film and it was the best new thing in the world. and that story is coming up

tonight. it's a really, really good one. right at the end of the show. stay with us. [ male announcer ] are you so stuffed up, you feel like you're underwater?

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small blog in this country got a very big international scoop. it was february 2009, so that's just one month into the barack obama presidency. right? and while most people in this country were fixated on the free-falling global economy, and whether the new president and newly elected democrats would be able to arrest that free-fall and bring us back from the brink of depression, three activists here in the united states were making preparations for big overseas trip. the blog in question which is called the box turtle bulletin, they got advanced word about this trip. five years ago today, they posted this blog item. what they reported that day is three american evangelical activists had been invited to attend a three-day conference in uganda in march. that march. 2009. the conference was being organized by a ugandan anti-gay group and three american activists were scheduled to appear and speak at that

conference. it was unclear at the time what that conference was going to be all about exactly. in march of that year as expected, these three american evangelical activists traveled to uganda and spoke at that conference and participated in a number of follow-up meetings which reportedly included members of the ugandan parliament. eventually some undercover video recordings of the conference came out and it became clear what exactly these american activists were up to over there. they were there it turns out to give this ugandan group an american anti-gay perspective on the evils of homosexuality. >> they say gays are born that way and it's been proved, it's been proven they're born that way. that is a lie. that's what's called a lie. it is not true. there is no definitive scientific study that has ever proved that homosexuality -- >> these activists traveled to africa and urged the ugandans they met with including legislators to show, quote, zero tolerance for homosexuality. presented this quack evidence of how dangerous gay people are,

presented themselves as scientific experts on the subject. they claimed people can be cured of being gay and then they came back home. that trip to uganda, again, took place in march 2009. seven months later this bill appeared in the ugandan parliament. anti-homosexuality bill of 2009, known as kill the gays bill. called first for a sentence of life in prison just for being gay. called for a sentence of death by hanging for the death of being gay and hiv positive. could be sentenced for three years in prison for knowing somebody was gay and not reporting them to government. the kill the gays bill landed with a thud on the world stage and almost as soon as it did, the american activists who had been in uganda earlier that year urging zero tolerance for homosexuality were claiming they were shocked by this legislation, had nothing to do with it and opposed at least the capital punishment part of what was called for in the bill. we did lots of reporting on this at the time and learned that

even though these american activists were trying desperately to distance themselves from the kill the gays bill when it came out, prominent ugandans aware of how the bill came to be were crediting the same americans for helping with and inspiring the legislation. one priest we spoke with said members of the ugandan parliament present at the march conference left the meetings saying they needed to draft a new law to deal with the homosexuality issue. we learned it was not just the three american activists who had a front-row seat to what was happening in uganda. remember "c" street? a swanky town house in washington, d.c., run by a secretive religious group called the fellowship or the family. lots of conservative members of congress from both parties are believed to be members of the family. but they're pretty secretive. the family mostly operates off the radar. the one thing they do that everybody knows about is they run the national prayer breakfast every year in washington. other than that, they pretty much keep things as quiet as they can.

that group, that american religious group it turns out has ties to the specific ugandan legislator who introduced the anti-homosexuality bill. the man who introduced the kill the gays bill in uganda is a member of the family, yes? >> yes. a young member of parliament, david bahati, rising star who has been over to the united states for our national prayer breakfast and has taken something of an organizing role in the ugandan national prayer breakfast and has been involved in the family for some time. >> so the legislator in uganda who introduced the kill the gays bill had ties to the group and american anti-gay evangelical activists actively lobbying legislators in the country they needed to get tough on homosexuality in their society. both of them, "c" street and the activists swore they had nothing to do with the kill the gays bill. the bill in uganda died after a

wave of international outrage and condemnation. that 2009 bill was put on the shelf. it did not go away entirely. at the end of last year in december the parliament in uganda quietly took up the bill again. a revised version of the bill that doesn't include the sentence of death for being gay this time but does include lots of the other prison sentences that attracted so much international outrage years earlier. the ugandan parliament passed this bill in december and then earlier today, earlier this afternoon, you uganda's president signed the bill into law, calls for lifetime imprisonment for the crime of -- for being in a same-sex marriage, seven years in prison for attempting to commit homosexuality. this bill at various times over the last few years has appeared to be dead but today it officially became the law of the land in uganda. upon signing the bill, uganda's president announced homosexual behavior was learned and could

be unlearned which is after all something ugandan legislators have been told for years. five years in fact. exactly. hold on. there's more.

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for somebody to be a homosexual is a combination of some genetic but mainly external

factors, like influence and so on and so forth. we don't want anybody to interfere in our internal affairs. finished. >> that was the president of uganda earlier today signing into law an updated version of that country's kill the gays bill. this version does not call for homosexuality to be punishable by death but rather by lifetime imprisonment. so that's a nice improvement. after uganda's president signed that bill into law today, the u.s. government plans to review our nation's relationship with uganda including a review of foreign aid to that country. joining us now for the interview is jeff sharlet who's been reporting on the ugandan bill

and american evangelicals' role in it. he's a fellow at the nice institute. his latest article "inside the iron closet" about underground homosexuality in russia, in the february edition of "gq." jeff, mr. sharlet, it's great to see you. >> good to be with you, rachel. >> last month the president in uganda was calling this bill fascist. now he's signing it into law. what happened? >> it was an incredible act of sort of political jujitsu. he had been cornered by political rival who knew it was difficult for him to sign the bill because he risked the loss of foreign aid, especially u.s. foreign aid. we give over $400 million. and i think he read the u.s. right. he realized that we weren't going to actually take the money away, and that he only stood to gain from this bill as a political posture. so what the bill last month he called a fascist bill, today became the first platform of his 2016 re-election campaign. >> wow. when you say that the u.s. is definitely not going to take away that foreign aid money, even though the government put out a statement today saying

they would review it, we also saw president obama put out a statement in advance of the bill saying he hoped that president his latest article is called

a hero of the author of the bill, did not see fit to even mention it in his official conversation with president museveni. >> jeff, did it end up being important in the development of this law especially as it ended up getting closer to getting signed here? did it end up being an important factor that there were american activists involved in the genesis of this bill as you reported at the time? >> you know, in uganda the american activists have kind of dropped away. it's interesting. the bill sort of moved like a hot potato. and that's what's sort of really alarming is that this bill that began with some fringe american activists, then moved into, you know, more mainstream american politicians and their relationships with ugandan politicians, it has now been taken up by museveni. so it's moved from sort of the tea party of uganda to become the mainstream of uganda. and i think when you talk to ugandans about homosexuality

there's an idea that you here again and again, which is that homosexuality is a disease that comes from america. but they're quick to say but the cure comes from america, too. they see the cure in the form of these sort of right-wing ideas that they adopt whole cloth from american right-wing think tanks, american right-wing evangelical organizations. >> jeff, do you see parallels in the type of american activism that led to this in uganda and what's happened in russia? we know that some of the anti-gay legislation in russia, the propaganda law, for example, was also influenced in part by american anti-gay groups including the national organization for marriage going over there and encouraging them and offering expert advice. do you see similarities? >> yeah. i'm just back from russia. and what was astonishing, i've now reported on this firsthand in uganda, kenya, russia, and the united states. and i hear word for word the exact same language. speaking with russian right-wing activists who've been

instrumental in the passage of those laws, who didn't speak english except for a couple phrases, traditional values, family values, and they would tell me, they said the science upon which we are basing these laws comes from the american family association, the family research council, the very same places that david bahati turned to for the so-called science that supports the uganda law. >> jeff sharlet, contributing editor for harper and is a nations institute fellow joining us from dartmouth university tonight. thank you for helping us understand this. i appreciate it. thanks. >> thanks, rachel. coming up, we've got the best new thing in the world, and it's about time. stay with us. you've tried to forget your hepatitis c. it's slow moving, you tell yourself. i have time. after all there may be no symptoms for years. no wonder you try to push it to the back of your mind and forget it. but here's something you shouldn't forget. hepatitis c is a serious disease. if left untreated, it could lead to liver damage

and potentially even liver cancer. if you are one of the millions of people with hepatitis c, you haven't been forgotten. there's never been a better time to rethink your hep c. because people like you may benefit from scientific advances. advances that could help you move on from hep c. now is the time to rethink hep c and talk to your doctor. visit hepchope.com to find out about treatment options. and register for a personalized guide to help you prepare for a conversation with your doctor.

i'm standing. weird, right? best new thing in the world today is killer bees. the country was plagued with killer bees this weekend, particularly in malta, illinois. this is 13-year-old matthew rogers and 14-year-old keith mokry. they seem pretty harmless, right? except for the fact they're killer bees. they totally killed the de kalb county spelling bee this weekend. they were the last remaining

survivors of a spelling bee that went 74 rounds. but these two were the only two on stage for 66 of those rounds. they were spelling words like zeitgaber. which is an environmental agent or event that provides the stimulus setting or resetting a biological clock of an organism. zeitgeber. let us spell it together. z-e-i-t-g-e-b-e-r. zeitgeber? also tchotchke, a noun i say all the time but i have no idea how to spell. it means of course knickknack or trinket. t-c-h-o-t-c-h-k-e. matthew and keith are spelling these words like it was their job for hours until finally the judges were like, enough, we've gone on for more than 70 rounds. they scheduled a new spelloff between just those two boys in another couple of weeks.

the winner of that mini spelling bee is going to win an all expenses paid trip to the scripps national spelling bee in washington, d.c. in may. but here's where it gets even weirder than that. because while this was going on at the same time the word tchotchke was helping another kid take down another spelling bee, this one in kansas city, missouri, where 11-year-old sophia hoffman and her 13-year-old nemesis kush sharma blew through 47 rounds head to head just the two of them in the jackson county, missouri spelling bee. they went through so many rounds that the pronouncer and the judges ran out of words. they ran out of the approved words provided by scripps. so the judges took i lunch break, and then they enlisted the help of merriam webster to try to find some extra words. words like intaglio, which is an engraving or incised figure in stone or other hard material. can you spell intaglio? yeah, i had no idea that's what that word was. no idea. also, schadenfreude, another word i use but have no idea how

to spell. obviously it's the enjoyment obtained from the mishaps of others. s-c-h-a-d-e-n-f-r-e-u-d-e. what? there's no u up there? seriously? mow about mahout. a person who keeps and drives an elephant. spell mahout. m-a-h-o-u-t. okay. mahout. sure. sophia and kush did so well with these backup words the organizers had no choice but to call it a day and schedule again a rematch. a rematch. they ran out of words. they went to a second thing of words that they made up and they ran out of those too. by all accounts sophia and kush in kansas city were totally nice to each other the whole time.

they high fived. they cheered one another on. they were all smiles. and the best new thing in the world really could be the supernatural good sportsmanship and maturity of these kids. but come on! i mean, whatever you call the spelling bee equivalent of a sonic boom, that's what these . . good tuesday morning. the vortex returns and we prepare for another winter blast. military politics, the reasoning behind the pentagon's plan to shrink our armed forces arizona burning. the right to discriminate may become law but apple is speaking out. drama on day one of kerry kennedy's drugged driving trial. the comedius