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tv   The Rachel Maddow Show  MSNBC  September 27, 2014 3:00am-4:01am PDT

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no details too small. american express open forum. this is what membership is. this is what membership does. an experienced journalist just printed something about what is not supposed to happen between congress and the military. on tuesday this week, this man was speaking at a campaign forum held in the basement of a bar if colorado springs, colorado. we have tape of it. we wanted to make sure it really happened. we did not want to go without one source, we also got
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audiotape and it turns out the two tapes the best we can tell, they match exactly, so we think this really did happen as it appears to have happened. it's in response to a question about the military, and whether doug lambborne accepts the military. he and others were trying to get multiple generals from the military to resign from the military. he's on the subcommittee on readiness about u.s. military training and being prepared for war. he's on the subcommittee for
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working to get u.s. generals to quit the military in what he calls a blaze of glory. >> this starts with a question from the audience. but then congressman lanborn gives his answer. watch. >> please, it's important to support the generals and the truths in this country despite the fact that there's no leadership from the white house. >> i can't add anything to that. a lot of us are talking to the general behind the scenes, saying, hey, if you disagree with the policy the white house is giving you, let's have a resignation a. public resignati resignation, and state your protest and let's go out in a
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blaze of glory. >> this is a member of the armed services committee in the house and he made those remarks this week, and the tape emerged today, and he said he and others are talking to generals trying to persuade them to quit the military. not incidentally, he is saying he is doing that while we are at war in three countries. there are about 29,000 americans serving in afghanistan, and 1,500 are serving in iraq, where pirates and aircraft have flown more than 200 air strikes in iraq in recent weeks, and dozens of air strikes as well in syria, and a new air war that spapbdz tho both of those countries, and among that congressmen are trying to get u.s. generals to quit because that would be a blaze of glory.
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key contacted that congressman's office to get comment. which generals has he been trying to get to quit the military. are any of those generals actively involved right now in actively fighting in the war we are in in afghanistan right now. congressman lanborn says a lot of us are talking to quitting. telling them to resign. what do you mean by a lot of us? we're working on this plan. is there other members of the armed services committee? is it republicans and democrats? is it just republicans? congressman lanborn, do you believe it would be good for the military. especially for lots of generals
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to start quitting right now. apparently, for political reasons. we were not able to reach the congressman himself today but we did speak to his office and what the congressman's communication director told us today was this, he told us, quote, what the congressman was saying there, he was not referring to any current actions. he told us when the congressman said he was contacting u.s. generals to try to get them to quit he was not describing any kind of active or habitual or organized endeavor. we asked specifically is congressman had encouraged generals to resign and when he did that, and the spokesman said i can't speak to that, but that is referring to things in the past. to be clear again, the congressman said this on tuesday. >> a lot of us are talking to the generals behind the scenes
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saying if you disagree with the policy that the white house is giving you, let's have a resignation. >> because the god of politics is also the god of irony, it should be noted that although this congressman is not a conservative leading republican, he does have a strong opponent. it turns out his apoepb supbt a retired air force major general that spent 32 years in the service, and he is a conservative democrat. he has put out a response to congressman lamborn. the statement shows his immaturity and lack of understanding to the american armed forces. now, at one level, maybe this is
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just a misstatement. maybe this is just a gaffe. i don't know his track record in politics well enough to know if he is the kind of guy that would be expected to say something that is totally nuclear, but he doesn't believe it and didn't mean to say it. we don't know much about it in the national stage, and the only way he was natalie recognize san diego when he tried to get congress to defund mpr. who knows? maybe the congressman didn't mean it or maybe republicans in the committee are trying to insight mutiny in the military. this deserves a little elaboration, and a lot of people may have follow-up questions in these matters. that's the depth of the republican news from this side of the war. and the brits are having a
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debate and binding vote about whether the british military will start to participate in this strike in syria. today, after a very good and entertaining debate, the parliament voted by a large margin that they would give that military authorization. >> how long will this war last and when will mission creek start? >> let me answer that very directly. this is going to be a mission that will take not just months, but years. >> killing extremists doesn't kill their ideas. >> how much stronger will they be before we decide we need to take action as well?
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>> look at what it's creating, iraq, afghanistan, misgovernment in libya, none have success stories. >> whether we like it or not they already declared war on us. the government has well domed other arab countries 234 syria in recent days. if it is to be welcomed by others, why is it not welcome and right for us? >> the words on the motion are about bombing iraq. there's a consensus in here that we're going to be soon bombing syria. doesn't mention boots on the ground but there's a consensus here, there will be boots on the ground and the only question is whose boots are they? >> after that a robust debate.
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they took a vote and the parliament voted overwhelmingly, 524-43. it was very specific. it's air war only and no ground troops and iraq only and not syria. that line was drawn essentially as a legal matter rather than a matter of strategy. an air war in iraq would be legal because it was at the request of the iraqi government. the syrian government doesn't want other countries launching in their environment. no war in syria would be legal without authorization from the united nations, and of course that does not exist.
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our congress is not debating whether or not to authorize these wars. we are just doing these wars without any pesky politics getting in the way, except in colorado with where one member of a committee is trying to get the generals to quit. in oklahoma, yesterday, there was an instant of workplace violence. he decided to kill one of his fellow co-workers and then tried to kill ood. he had a long, criminal history and was killed in oklahoma by that huge tornado in may of last year. it was previously hit by another devastating tornado in may of 1999, and now moore, oklahoma, is the site of the workplace
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killing that has rez erez eug nated across the country across the country. in a fatal attack he cut off his victim's head. moore, oklahoma, police called the fbi for assistance in the dealing with this case. he was shot by a reserve deputy, but he survived. trying to convert people in the workplace. beheadings of the hostage terrorist group isis in syria. this week by a group of pledges allegiance to isis in algeria as
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well. the man killed in algeria was a tourists, and france was already on board against isis in iraq but not in syria, and in the wake of the beheading of their own citizen in nigeria, france is expanding its national authorization to have air strikes in syria and iraq. the fired employee who went on this rampage in moore, oklahoma, and killed one of his co-workers by beheading her, there is no link to a terrorists group. but behead something a tactic that screams not murder, but terrorism. no matter where it's done or whatever insane or mundane
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reason. in that mix, the worry now is what happens to a national debate that so far has been either inane, or nonexistent or in the case of one congressman, unbelievable. does the continuing influence of terror, just the feeling of being scared, does that threaten to make our decisions and debates this these issues worse and worse and worse before they have a chance of getting better. joining us now is our guest. i am not going to ask you to talk about congressman doug lanborn. the british parliament voted to join the air strikes inside iraq but not syria, and france is already in iraq and they may be willing to go to syria now, too, and the belgians and the dutch, others are joining in. the european countries are
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deciding to join or get further into the involvement. >> from a military perspective, the answer is that the u.s. could have gone this alone, they have the military capability to astain the operation. quite frankly the presence of the european allies is important symbolically and will alleviate pressure on the u.s. and they will not make the difference in the fight, but it's a coalition and shows an international willingness and there's a diplomatic support behind it and that's the more important part of what is going to be brought to the table by their presence. >> the more potent presence is not the european allies but the arab countries participating. what kind of risks are those countries running? >> they are going to make themselves targets to sympathizers of isis, and in algeria there was a group that are sympathizers and sympathetic
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to what isis has done and that could wreak havoc inside these countries. the concern is that now they are going to say, okay, we are participating in the coalition and that's going to draw the anger of their domestic constituents and these guys could crack down and demonstrate a more abusive human rights. >> the u.s. says we are looking at a year's long effort, which is astonishing that congress is not weighing in on it at all, and if it's a year's long military effort, what should we watch for with countries like odd saudi arabia, and the imrunts. >> as a u.s. citizen what i want to see is are these countries
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doing something beyond the military cooperation. their military cooperation is, as i said, symbolic. it's not going to make or break the fight. what is important are these countries going to do something to reform societies and show isis, you know, we are going to drain this ideology, and we reject this ideology, and countries like saudi arabia that have a religious in the role, what are they doing publicly to condemn it, and i am not talking about a press release, what are they doing to reform the education system and what goes on the air spread across the muslim world. americans are not going to see that stuff and this is the behind-the-scenes stuff. this is going to over a generation, and not a year -- the operation may be a year, but isis is a generational problem. look at where we were in 2001 when we went to war against al qaeda in afghanistan, and today in 2014, al qaeda has spread to
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north africa, yemen, and syria, iraq. >> and more directly to the point, there are reports of isis or isis-type militants embedding with the taliban for multiple beheading attacks. we think of this as a separate war but it may be turn into one. great to see you. >> pleasure. thank you. we have lots more ahead, including me stepping off the podium and letting somebody else do it better for a moment. stay with us.
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and launch their dreams. go to legalzoom.com today and make your business dream a reality. at legalzoom.com we put the law on your side. it's friday, happy friday. there's no cocktail moment tonight, i'm not in the mood for a drink. but we do have the best new thing in the world which is delightfully good news to set you up for the weekend. we also got a star for an oil company that nobody else is reporting in tv news at least. it will curl your hair. it's amazing. we've also got some news on politics and elections going on. there's a lot going on, there's a lot ahead. but it is friday. i'm going to take a point of personal privilege here. over the course of this week there was one story that was really, really widely covered in the news and we didn't touch it
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here, and the reason we did not touch it here and it's everything everybody was talking about in the beltway, and the reason is because it's a really stupid story. and you know the story i am talking about. it's exactly the thing that our media is wired to chew on like cud so it could make its daily patties for the pasture. it is an absolute nonsense story. so we made an overt decision to ignore it. but it turns out there is another responsible way to ignore a fake story like that. you can destroy it. it's what john stewart did on "the daily show." but what they did with this story was something on another
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level. one thing they did was a lot of laugh out loud laugh lines in it. instead, he just wrongly emoted about it. it can turn people away for you to just emote. but when you do it right, it can achieve perfection. just watch it. >> now, i might have given the president salutes with a coffee cup story an espresso size, the news coverage goes for the full double venti with one network going especially deep. >> earn the proper respected of the salute. >> insensitive. >> what's the meaning of it? that's it. >> it's terrible. >> it's outlandish. our commander in chief showed complete disrespect for the men and women in uniform.
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>> shut up. we don't really care. we don't really care about this. you have no principle about this. you are just trying to score points in a game nobody else is playing. here is how we know. >> it's an arrogance he shows. >> so the principle here is show respect for the people who are putting their lives on the line for this fight. here's that very same episode. >> the first female pilot piloting for the uae dropped the bombs on isis on monday night. >> would that be considered boobs on the ground or no? >> first of all, forget the sexism. second of all, she's a pilot. whatever gender-specific equipment she might be carrying,
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it [ bleep ] matter! when bush took us to war, people were shouted down as treason. this president isn't as american as you are. would president bush ever do that? >> yeah, are we surprised? i mean, after all, we've got a golf playing, basketball trash-talking, leading from bin laden is dead, gm is alive, a community organizing commander in chief, how disrespectful was that? >> while palin in a ball cap was feeding us, he drinks chai.
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but in their haste they forgot to answer the question would go president bush ever do this? the answer is no, because his hands were filled with dog. his hands were too filled with dog, a scottie out of respect. so here we've got two presidents. both sending the united states to war. both without any seeming exit strategy. both holding [ bleep ] in their hands because of their troops. >> we'll be right back. >> we'll be right back, too. but with great humility and thanks for the john stuart show and giving the stupidest bemtway nonsense story of the week the ending it properly deserved. all hail. well done. enough said, at last.
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and now, here's the thing.
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>> those truly prejudice folks, just remember this. they scream racism are just to end debate. well, don't retreat. you reload with truth, which i know is an endangered species at 1400 pennsylvania avenue, anyway. truth. >> don't retreat. you reload with truth, which i know is an endangered species at 1400 pennsylvania avenue, anyway. truth. >> that is a thing that happened today. we'll be right back. >> i love this segment.
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way, they lost the seat to brown. a big part of the reason is that she didn't cover scott brown in the women's vote. she did win it by three-points and that was not enough to conquer the giant man slide of men voting back on the ballot with the democratic no, ma'am for governor this year. and the republican guy was charli baker. he's trying to compete with women voters to at least suppress the margin for women for the democrat running against him. don't let martha appeal to too many women, stay competitive with the ladies, or don't, don't do that at all. >> even though they show the race in dead heat, they're trailing by double digits. his commercials featuring his daughter and his wife target women.
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monday, baker did shake up the media strategy. he says it was just over a disagreement. when i tried asking one last question about how democrats believe it could start the negative ads -- >> this is going to be the last one, sweetheart. >> she is asking him about his bad image with voters, and he says, this is going to be the last one, sweetheart. but then watch how she responds. >> sometimes they just put out an e-mail. >> i'm kidding. charlie baker, he kids. he also loses very badly among women voters. and if old scott brown has the voters that baker is going to come from, charlie brown -- excuse me, charlie baker.
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after losing massachusetts, scott brown decided to move to new hampshire. he wanted to win a senate seat there instead. in new hampshire, brown trails, and really trailing her when it comes to women. he is trying to pump up his numbers. that means he tends not to remember anti-abortion legislation. now, when he gets asked about that stuff, he's resorting to the all-time great response. sorry? what? huh? >> i wanted to ask you about your sponsorship a couple years back. it would require a woman to wait 24 hours before getting an abortion and review pictures and information about her fetus and why did you think it was a good approach?
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>> i'm not sure of the information you're referring to. >> i must have wrong information. >> i've just voted on probably 8,000 bills that i've taken in my lifetime. >> yeah. >> yeah. so many bills i couldn't possibly remember. not great argumentative ground for brown, and he was bestowed one title of a magazine, and cosmo wrote his policy position were not as solid as his abs were in the 1980s. charlie baker, one, and scott brown, two. the two of them were easy with cory gardener. this week, just one line. quote n. colorado's senate race
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were a movie the set would be a gynecologist office complete with an exam table and a set of stirrups. it's fairly reputable anti-abortion clinic and they've rejected it because in addition to banning all abortion and all circumstance the proponents would likely concede. gardener supported that for years in colorado. even his colorado voters turned it down, and he was collecting ballots for it, and he championed it across as federal legislation for the whole country. now that he's running for senate, corey gardener has changed his mind. oh, i'm sorry, i was wrong about that for years now. here's the problem he has has
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now. he still is a co-sponsor at the personhood thing. now, among the many consequences of congress is that gardener literally cannot take his name off the personhood legislation. in order to unsponsor something in congress, you have to make a speech on the floor of the house when the house is in session. that's how you take your name off a bill that you sponsored. cory gardener forgot to do that before congress left and now congress will not be back until after the election whereupon presumably it will be too late for him. republicans hate what democrats call their war on women. they hate it. but in the case of the charlie baker gubernatorial run and the
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brown run, this is what we have. >> thank you for having me. >> it there clear data about how much of a motivating issue things are like abortion rights and birth control and personhood legislation for women voters in the mid-term year? >> yes, it's very clear and it's a two for because it influences the late-deciding women, and it also motivates women to turn out to vote and there are tens of millions of women voters who voted in 2012 who are not planning to show up in 2014. this could get them out. >> where is it most resonate. their policies differences like i just described in other races,
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but can you tell where in the country the resonance is strongest on these issues for voters and might have the biggest affect? >> i think first of all i can say that women in the gender gap will determine the control of the national, and you said it well when you said the key is for tkepls to win women more than we lose men by, and that's the battle right now. republicans are not trying to win women, they are trying to keep the yack down. places that women are candidates, the baker and the brown races are against women candidates, and the other i would add is the gillespie and warner race in virginia where terry mccalla was elected because of women voters, and it was said they don't want government intrusion in women's
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lives and women doesn't want that either, but a lot of women would like to have government on their side to make sure they are paid the same and make sure the insurance company doesn't gouge them, and to make sure the food they serve to their family is safe, and they are trying to turn the intrusion theme against the democrats. >> the republican chief against mark warner, the incumbent there. and he has been a maestro in a behind-the-scenes way. not only is he getting clobbered by warner, but he is getting a bad showing. thank you very much for being with us. nice to see you.
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cursed, but if it's possible this thing might be cursed. it's a drilling ship called "the noble discoverer." it's job is to sail out in the ocean and drill for oil. a few years ago the giant oil company shell, and it was given the okay to start drilling the arctic, and shell said they were the best in the world and really excited to do it, and they sent "the noble discoverer" up there, and it ran a ground. the anchor did not take hold and it started to drift and drift out of control towards shore and then it crashed. four months after that incident, it briefly caught fire while in port in alaska, and there had been some kind of explosion on board the ship. the next stop was the port city of steward, alaska, and members
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of the u.s. coast guard boarded it to check it out and found more than a dozen violations including the safety and pollution equipment, and the main engine piston cooling water was contaminated with sludge and oil, and the way the crew was dealing with that is skimming the oil off with a ladel and bucket. shell has had a disastrous run in the arctic when they were allowed in, and that ship was part of the reason why shell had to pull out of the arctic entirely without drilling a drop. but now they want back in. shell has submitted a formal request to start drilling up to six different wells in the arctic and one of the ships they want to use to that that drilling is, oh, yeah, "the noble discoverer." why not? what could go wrong? it has been there before.
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shell is not embarrassed about this. not only are they trying to get that specific nightmare rig back up to the pristine arctic, they are also actively lobbying the obama administration to weaken the rules about what they have to do once they get there. just released documents, these are incredible, show that shell has been pleading with the obama administration in private meetings to try and insure that new rules governor ring drilling in the arctic do not force them to stash emergency equipment nearby. shell says having all that stuff around, that would be too expensive. the world's skwraoeupbl oil companies for decades now have been trying and mostly failing to uncork that part of the world's fossil fuels. as the obama administration
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explore jupiter and saturn. but after that, "voyager 1" kept going and going and going and going as designed. and now "voyager 1" has traveled farther away from earth than any other object ever made by humans. last year, nasa announced that voyager 1 is finally in interstellar space. which means for all intents and purposes, it has left our solar system. that's our system, right? our sun can no longer count voyager 1 as part of its collection of satellites. voyager 1 is out there now. and that's kind of mind blowing, right? even if you're not a space person. if you sit and think about it, your mind is trying to wrap itself behind such vast amounts of space into the galaxy and universe. it can also be a little unsettling. and for a very smart 5-year-old boy in canada those thoughts about a spacecraft traveling on and on and on and on and never coming back home, he has found those thoughts to be upsetting. and this is what his mom wrote
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in a letter to a canadian radio show. for the past year and a half, my 5-year-old son goes to bed worried, sometimes in tears. he's worried about the voyager 1 interstel spacecraft. he wants it to come home and be safe. what do we tell him? first of all, aww. second of all, when you need to hear something reassuring about space, what you do is call in this guy, commander chris hatfield. he's the astronaut who on his last trip in space had the most fun of anyone on or off planet. you may remember his series of youtube videos showing us how astronauts wash their hands or what happens when you squeeze a wash cloth on the international space station. it's so cool. then of course, there is his music video where he performed "space odyssey." so he's kind of the unofficial ambassador from space to the
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earthbound right now. and he called the scared canadian kid. he called to see if he as an astronaut could answer some of these questions that the 5-year-old had about voyager that were making him so anxious. and that conversation between the two of them is really the best new thing in the world today. let this wash over you. >> what if something goes wrong and there's nothing to fix it out there? what happens if it runs into a planet? what if it gets lost? what if it gets broken out of our solar system and there's nothing to fix it? >> well, i think the real question is, is voyager happy or not? is voyager a happy machine or a sad machine? machines really like to do something. they like to do what they're built for. a tractor is happy when it's pulling a plow. and working a field. and to me, voyager is because
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it's so happy because it's the bravest satellite of all. it has gone the furthest, and it's not lonely because it's talking to us. it phones home and it tells us all about the wonderful things it's seeing. i think it's as happy as it can possibly be. timor, i hear you whispering with your mom. do you have another question? >> he was worried there are no people around it. who would fix it if it gets broken down? >> it's been going for a long, long time. almost my whole life. it's a very tough little spaceship and it knows what it's doing. and it's not worried about breaking down and having somebody fixing it. it's worried about exploring. the purpose of exploring is not to worry about being maybe breaking down and being fixed. the purpose of exploring is finding new things. and discovering and then telling people what you saw. and that's what voyager is doing. it's loving life. it might have been safer for it
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to just stay home and stay inside a building, but then it would have been sad forever. because it never would have done its purpose. it never would have discovered things. it's all a wonderful story of great discovery and success. and it couldn't have happened if voyager hadn't been brave. did you understand what i said? >> yes. >> does it make you happier? >> not really. >> well, it's just sort of part of life timor. >> does it make you happier? not really. commander hatfield did the best job anybody could do to make this vast, scary idea comprehensible to a smart kindergartener, right? but you know what, that's not the best new thing in the world. the best new thing is timor's answer. honest, brave, adventurous and
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perfectly 5 years old. does it make you happier? not really. best new thing in the world today. yay. that does it for us tonight. we will see you again on monday. "weekends with alex witt" starts now. new alarm. the top aviation official delivers a fresh warning about potential terror in the skies. on the frontlines, a dramatic scene between isis and the kurds, but it's exchange of words and not firepower most surprising. an analysis ahead about u.s. security. and then apple, what does it say about its products bending under pressure.