thank you for your insight in joining us. >> thank you. >> as we look back at this summit, and we have discussed, there have been a lot of issues. issues like trade, climate change and global security. president's next topic is man mark. after that, on to the g-20 summit. we will continue to follow it for you. democrats will continue to control the senate through the lame duck period until the new congress is sworn in. anybody short of a supreme court justice can be confirmed with a simple majority vote in the senate. democrats have a majority.

there is no known democratic opposition to loretta lynch becoming the democratic attorney general. so if the democrats put her up now for nomination, she would be confirmed, in all likelihood. they're not going to do it. a top-ranking democratic aide telling nbc news today that they will not put loretta lynch up because, according to democrats, there just isn't enough time. the lame duck session is short. they say it's a lot of work to confirm somebody so they don't plan on doing it. they don't even plan on trying to do it. that puts the confirmation of obama's nomination in the hands of this nice man, mitch mcconnell, who will take over in january. who here thinks it bodes well to have mitch mcconnell in charge of whether they can confirm now? raise your hands.

i can't see them. republicans are going to happily confirm president obama's nominees, especially for really high profile, really controversial jobs. raise -- i can't see your hands. raise your hands up higher. i can't see any of your hands at all. anybody? that is apparently what democrats are going to do to loretta lynch and to this nomination for attorney general. they're going to hand it over to mitch mcconnell. as they say, there's no time to do it in the meantime. can't possibly be done. the lame duck session is very, very busy. example, when congress comes back tomorrow for day one of the lame duck session, the house put out this very imposing document about what they're going to be taking on in the lame duck. as you can see, there's the federal conveyance act. there's also, how could i

forget, reauthorizing the national estuary programs. now, i bow to no one in my appreciation for our nation's estuaries. but this is not actually a chop a block schedule. this is not actually them running full out. we know it's important, but there's just no time. it's not like the democrats don't realize how much time really is available in a lame duck session and how much you can get done if you try. after the first midterms in the 2010 elections, the democrats lost a chunk of their majority in the senate, they lost control of the house to the republicans. but, after that midterm election in 2010, they came back for the lame duck session. they couldn't get anything done. but they ran that short little lame duck session to congress like a whirlwind. they got more done than anybody would have guessed or anybody would have believed. >> the president thinks that only the government passing

unemployment insurance extensions, don't ask don't tell repeal, the dream act, tax cuts and stark all can be done in the next session? >> yes. >> yes. well, thank you. again, you'll have a lot to cover. >> he did have a lot to cover. we all had a lot to cover. the list of stuff that they passed in that lame duck session after the last midterm in 2010, didn't exactly match what that reporter did. but the list of stuff they did pass is actually longer and even more unbelievable. they kept that lame duck session going for 18 days and over the course of the 26 days, they passed a tax cut compromise, imagine that, they extended up employment insurance. they repealed don't ask, don't tell. that was in the lame duck act. still, that same day, they passed a big, broad, new food safety bill, landmark food

safety bill. and to put a cherry on top, they also found time to impeach a federal judge. so to have the same democratic party come back after the next midterm and say, you know, there isn't really time to do anything in the lame duck this year, maybe the estuary thing, but that's probably all. probably all we have time for. i mean, really? what about 1998? that was the republicans that time. they came back after that election and decided to handle the tiny little procedural matter of impeaching the president of the united states. after that, the republicans came back and did that in the lame duck session. and not before the guy who was supposed to replace newt gingrich as house speaker, all in the lame duck session. all in very, very dramatic fashion. >> i will vote to impeach the

president of the united states. and i ask that this case be considered by the united states senate and that other body of this great congress uphold their responsibility to render justice on these most serious charges. but to the president, sir, you have done great damage to this nation over this past year. and while your defenders are contending that further impeachment proceedings would only protract and exacerbate the damage to this country. i say you terminate that damage and heal the wounds that you have created. you, sir, may resign your post.

>> the house will be in order. and -- >> and -- >> the house will be in order. >> and i can only challenge you in such fashion if i am willing to heed my own words. to my colleagues, my friends and most especially my wife and family, i have hurt you all deeply and i beg your forgiveness. i was prepared to lead our narrow majority speaker and i believe i had in me to do a fine job. but i cannot do that job. or be the kind of leader that i would like to be under current circumstances. >> and so he resigned. >> so that was a rather jam-packed lame duck session. house speaker newt gingrich

resigning. newt gingrich resigned in the midst of those historical election losses. and he had this huge ethics problems looming over him, as well. he resigned after those elections. the new guy, bob livingston, he resigns, as well, in a surprise announcement on the floor of the house confessing to his own sexual misconduct and he resigns right then and there after calling for the president's resignation. at that point, they had to find another house speaker. deny hastard? who's he? hey, denny, you're the new speaker. guess what. stuff happens during the lame duck. and they're talking about there's only 15 days in the lame duck session before the end of the year. 15 working days for this

congress? that's like half their workdays for the whole year. that's kind of hyperbole, but not much hyperbole. they could move mountains compared to what they've been doing. for whatever reason, though, democrats in the senate have decided that this lame duck session, while they are in charge of the senate and the senate has some stuff to do, they will not even try. top of the list, they will not even try to get president obama's attorney general nominee confirmed while they have the power to do so. there have been no substantive objections raised to the nomination by anyone. but democrats not pushing the vote will give republicans plenty of time to come up with something. republicans, of course, have been insisting on this. republicans have been insisting ever since president obama nominated lynch that she not get a vote until they are in control of the senate. naturally, they don't want anything to happen until they're

in control. but democrats don't want to agree to that just because republicans are asking for it. they could say no. and then hold the confirmation hearings on loretta lynch, confirm her as attorney general and she would become attorney general. but they're not. so, instead, who knows? who knows what happens next. the republicans start off with a win before they're even in power. and the loretta lynch nomination is not the only substantive matter that's pending. today, as you know, is the 11th day of november. it's the marking of armistice day. we celebrate in this country, and i do mean celebrate it, as veteran's day. memorial day is the more somber day. veterans day is the day that we honor and recognize and say thank you to, and, yes, celebrate, yes, everybody who has served their country. this is the day that we

celebrate every veteran. tonight, there's a big concert on the national mall in washington which is a celebration of the troops and a salute to the troops in washington. lots of veterans get free stuff. they can get free pancakes at ihops and a free visit to the buffet at golden corral. vice president joe biden today was at arlington national cemetery and he spoke in moving terms about both veterans and military families. >> the english poet john milton once wrote they also serve who only stand and wait. they also serve who only stand and wait. when our son bo, a major in the delaware national guard was deployed to iraq for a year, my

wife, who is a professor, would leave early for school and i'd get up and i'd walk into this little kitchen in the vice president's home. and, without fail, i'd see her standing over the sink with a cup of coffee in her hand mouthing a prayer that the wife of the general of the delaware national guard gave her. you've all done that. you spouses. you moms. you dads. you children. when they were deployed, there wasn't three hours that went by that they didn't cross your mind. you all know what it's like. and we owe you. we owe you as much as we owe your sons and daughters, your husbands and wives. add every adversary in every age

who had earned. american warriors never bend, never break, never yield. [ applause ] >> and that's why, as i tell every foreign leader i encounter, there's never been a good bet to bet against the united states of america because we have you. god bless you all. and may god protect our troops. [ applause ] defense secretary chuck hegel is the first to serve as defense secretary. and he spoke today at the vietnam veterans memorial wall. secretary hegel's remarks were shorter and more to the point, as he always is.

watch. >> the wall reminds us to be honest in our telling history. there's nothing to be gained by glossing over the darker portions of war, the vietnam war. we must openly acknowledge pass mistakes. and we must learn from past mistakes. defense secretary today speaking at the vietnam memorial. >> one of the things that's pending before congress is a

formal request that president obama made of them on monday of this week. president obama wants to deploy another 1500 troops. he will not send them until congress votes on it. until congress finally weighs in on this military act against isis. he's also directly asked for congress to fund this military operation. it's been underway since august. so far, it's costing $8 million a day and they want to double that. since the president made his formal request yesterday, one republican senator has said so

far, the newly-elected senator tim scott who doesn't sound too positive about it. he sees this request from the president as a blank check. you're welcome to fill the check out, sir. you're welcomed to fill out the check, in fact, that's what you're being asked to do. they are back tomorrow. what will they do? joining us now is senator chris murphy of connecticut. senator murphy, nice to have you here. >> thanks for having me. >> you have said clearly that you want congress to have a

debate and hold a vote on military action against isis. do you think that will happen? >> i think it has to happen. and i think there's a growing recognition on both sides of the aisle that it must happen. in the lame duck session. mainly for two reasons. it's impossible at this point to ignore the constitutional imperative. it grants war-making power to the united states congress and the united states congress only. there is no existing authorization that permits this president to essentially deploy

another several thousand troops to fight an enemy that has not been named yet by the united states congress. and, so, we have a constitutional responsibility. but, second, secretary hagel referenced, it is not going into war divided. we have a responsibility as congress to debate this and to authorize it so that we're standing together flt if the executive is holding off because it's hard because that's the reason why it must come before congress. without the support of the congress, which is representing the american people. i think we're going to vote on this. i think we're going to start taking up on the foreign relations committee this week.

i agree with you, there's more that we could do, but this is pretty important. >> the point that you just made there, depending on how it's raised or what's specifically been authorized and funded, i think that's this really important black hole in this argument. the assumption is that congress might somehow divide people in a way that made one party look bad or a party that might split. it's not clear to me, at all, somebody who watches these things pretty closely, that there is any expected contour of how this vote would go. if i had to predict how this vote would go either in numbers or patching votes to personnel, specific personnel, i couldn't

do it. does it seem clear to you that you would know how the vote would go? >> no, i don't. in part because we don't know what the vote would be. but, listen, this is part of a large-scale, long term abdication of foreign policymaking by the president. it's easy for congress to punt and say if it doesn't go well, we'll criticize the president for it. it's not actually how the constitution says it's supposed to work. you know, what the president is likely going to ask for is an open ended authorization. he's only the president for two more years. i largely trust president obama when it comes to setting policy in confronting isis. but i'm not sure who the next president. if anything, is the reason why democrats should step up and put some constraints on this authorization.

this is a war that's likely going to out last this particular president and we don't know who comes next. >> senator chris murphy of connecticut who your comments on this are both news making and also very clarifying. thank you very much, sir. >> thanks, rachel. >> all right. we've got a lot more ahead tonight, including a strange vote counting process that is still going on in one big part of the country, some very unexpected numbers popping up from some still unresolved races. and lots more ahead. stay with us.

state prisons set state tax laws, fund the roads and the schools. they have to follow the constitution of the united states, for example. states can't do things that defy the federal constitution even if they want to as a state. but then there's arizona. there's the united state of arizona who does what they want. in gilbert arizona, on the out skirts of phoenix, is a very very conservative part of the state. we've been watching this controversy unfold. where the tea party majority decided that they wanted to rip pages out of the honors biology

textbooks that were being used. the crime those textbooks committed is that they mentioned the word abortion. the textbooks are just dry, clinical textbooks. they don't take a position, they simply say that it exists. so the conservatives decided they would fix that by tearing out the relevant pages. the cheapest, least disruptive way to solve this problem is to remove the page. but then an interesting thing happened on election day. gilbert, arizona, voters voted

to oust the tea party majority on that school board that had decided to rip out the pages of the textbook. the new majority is still conservative. but the new majority generally opposes ripping facts out of students' textbooks. since we first learned of this, a few things happened. first, i should tell you, we posted the pages online that the school board was planning on ripping out of the biology books. so you could see the pages they wanted to sensor. so at arizona honors biology.com was going to rip out and throw away from their books. second, as i mentioned, the local voters on election night decided to rip out the textbook pages. about whether or not the tea partiers will go ahead and do it

anyway before the new school board gets sworn in and seated in january. they wrote a letter to the school board basically warning them to not do that with their lame duck period. i'm warning them, that if they decide to go ahead and rip those pages out of the books, the aclu says they would be destroying public property and it would be against the law. there were local rumors that one of the tea party members, this week was going to personally start going after the textbooks. she denied the rumor. but the aclu has warned everyone off that kind of plan anyway. so now we're sort of on the edge of our seats. we're at the edge of our biology lab stools wondering what's going to be the fate of the textbooks with the majority wanting those pages ripped out and the incoming majority not wanting those pages ripped out.

now, in the meantime, new thing. we on the show have maintained and been able to preserve on line for eternity or until i for get to pay the bill one month, we have obtained and posted online the pages from the other textbooks. the other boring, normal, high school biology textbooks. the first pages we posted were from the first book we knew they wanted to tear apart. they're from the honors biology textbooks. that was the first one we knew the school board wanted to sensor. now we have obtained the pages from the ap biology textbooks which the school board also wants to sensor. you'll see the pages when you go to arizonabiology.com. they're lovely in their boring biologiness. if you want to brush up on how babies are made at a tenth grade level, be my guest. and if the arizona school board does decide to go ahead with a stealth plan to start ripping the pages out of science

textbooks, now i think we have got it covered. i think we have now covered online all of the books they want censored. so, the high school kids of arizona, if they do steel the stuff out of your books, arizona honors biology.com is where you can get it again. arizona may be conservative but, arizona, you are really still part of biology that don't exist because they make you feel uggie. you can try. but, really, you cannot get away with it. for my business. and i get a lot in return with ink plus from chase. like 50,000 bonus points when i spent $5,000 in the first 3 months after i opened my account. and i earn 5 times the rewards on internet, phone services and at office supply stores. with ink plus i can choose how to redeem my points. travel, gift cards, even cash back. and my rewards points won't expire. so you can make owning a business even more rewarding.

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he resigned in protest specifically at one of the performers at the benefit concert. >> my concern involves a fund raising event which was to take place this coming saturday at the fund raising event, the featured artist will be cheryl

crow. it is unacceptable to the church that it feature any person who is in such grave error regarding the natural moral law and the church's teaching. >> cheryl crow was too publicly, politically sinful for archbishop raymond burke. so when they refused to cut cheryl crow, archbishop burke resigned as chairman of the hospital's board. that was 2007. and then in 2008, president obama was elected. he was inaugurated in 2009. and a few months into his presidency, notre dame invited the new president to speak at graduation and to come receive an honorary degree. the archbishop reprimanded notre dame as a college saying that any honor they gave to president obama would be the greatest

scandal. and then, a few months late ere, denied ted kennedy a funeral in his faith because of what archbishop burke thought about ted kennedy's politics. now, at the time of all of this, the pope was the very conservative pope benedict. and pope benedict liked archbishop raymond burke. at least he reawarded him for his agro-conservative politics. he brought archbishop to rome to become the highest vat can official. he made him the chief judge of the vatican supreme court. pope benedict made him a cardinal. in his new roles and responsibilities, i should tell you, cardinal burke, one of the things he's known for is wearing all of the ceremonial garb that

his position entails. you don't have to wear it, but he showed the elaborate robes that they asked him to tone it down in terms of what he was wearing. cardinal burke rose to power by the guy who was willing to be if most interventionist in electoral politics from the conservative side. from here and in rome, he was rewarded by the church hierarchy for doing that. but, now, pope benedict has resigned. and since pope benedict unexpectedly resigned, the new pope, pope francis, has spent the past year and a half running things quite differently from his predecessor. now, those changes have come home to the highest-ranking american. pope francis has now removed cardinal burke from his post as the vatican's highest court. he is instead in a position

that's most notable for its lack of meaningful responsibilities. it was as if chief justin john roberts had been sent to call balls and strikes at a little league game. the catholic church is 1.2 billion members strong. it has been a remarkably political entity for most of the time that it has existed. cardinal burke has spent what's left of his career using conservative politics as the means of his advancement. does his very public demotion now signal upon plans to operate in american politics? or how he doesn't want to. joining us now is editor in chief for the religion news service. thanks very much for being here. i appreciate your time tonight. >> good to see you, rachel. >> so i'm a lifelong catholic. but i'm not sure i always understand the the church hierarchy and all of these

things. how big of a demotion was this for cardinal burke? >> as big as they get. this is like president obama coming in and telling john roberts, you know, i don't like your style. i don't like how you do things. and frankly, i don't like you very much. you're out of here. you're fired. it is as big a fall for somebody in cardinal burke's position as it probably possibly could be. >> what about the new job that they put him in? is it important? >> well, not really. they're a charitable organization that does good work and are important to the life of church. but, on a day-to-day level, there is no comparison. he's the patron. so you know how the prince of wales is the patron of all of these different charities of britain? that's basically what his job is now in rome. >> in terms of previous popes, is it a known thing? is it a thing that happens that

popes do stuff like this to cardinals, to the princes of the church, in a way that essentially functions as a public reprimand. so in a way, people who follow the secular news follow what's happened here. >> a pope gets to bring in his own cab gnat. but typically, they'll allow a cardinal to age out of position. or they'll transfer to another job or another semi-important post. but cardinal burke is only 66 years old. he's got another 14 years of power before he basically hits retirement age in the vatican. he's being pulled out of the game very, very early. and he's deemed very, very publicly. the great story of this is his demotion has been sort of rumored for weeks.

and a reporter caught up with him at the big senate they had in rome a couple weeks ago to talk about contraception and divorce and marriage. and the reporter asked cardinal burke, i hear you're about to be demoted, is that true? he said yes, it is. and they said who told you? bta[ think?kyq so this comes straight from theç pope himself, which i think adds even more significance. this was not a mid level management reshuffle. this was a very public firing. >> in terms of cardinal burke and i guess in terms of his career as archbishop in american politics as a conservative into american politics, should we read anything into this in terms of how pope francis wants the church to relate to electoral politics? is this a let's get out of this business? or is this a message that he wants to be in relation to this direction? >> it's a little bit all of that. he was, in someways, exiled from the american church because a lot of american bishops didn't

like his politics and didn't like his intervention with john kerry and cheryl crow and all the others. they thought he was giving a bad name to the church so they wanted him out of here. so they got him to -- they convinced the pope to send him to rome to get him out of their hair. it does send a subtle message about the church and politics. but what it really sends is from pope francis, he's going to get what he wants and it doesn't matter who he has to fire in order to get it. pope francis has been talking about opening up communion to divorced and re-married catholics. the one man standing in the way of all of this was cardinal burke. so what this is, this is a power play. and it's a very powerful power play by pope saying he's going to get what he wants and he'll do what he needs to do to get it done and it's a signal to every other bishop in the world that if you want to be a part of this administration, you've got to

learn how to play ball with this hope. >> editor in chief for the religion news service. usually, sports metaphors don't help me. but in this case, turns out that's exactly what i needed. thanks very much. i appreciate it. just ahead, a story i have been obsessed with for quite a while now and it keeps getting more and more mysterious over time and perhaps you can figure it out with me. that's ahead. stick with us.

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all that many people, it's not a few thousand votes they're waiting for. it's 50,000 ballots that they know of so far, might be more. there are 50,000 ballots that have yet to be counted in alaska. and that means nobody knows how these two big important races are going to turn out. and we may not for a while. but they've counted over 200,000 ballots. 50,000 still haven't been tallied. we spoke to the alaska division of elections, and they told us that they're going to continue to count. they're continuing counting until a week from tomorrow, november 19. but if they've got 50,000 at least still to co-this is going to be a long and tense process. watch this space. ♪

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>> this is an airboat. i have never been on an airboat, but i would love to someday. it lets you navigate through water in which you would otherwise definitely get stuck. the airboat propeller is all above water, so even in really shallow swampy water, turn on the fan, zip around wherever you want, wrestle the el gator and you're done. but then there's the airboat that lets you not just zip around the swamp, it lets you fly. because you strap the propeller to your body instead of a boat. you put on a parachute and hey look, you are flying without a plane. i saw these guys do it over a nuclear power plant in france. dude straps the propeller to his back, lays out his parachute,

runs for it and takes off into the sky. then he fly himself without an airplane all around over the top of the nuclear plant. and then he eventually lands inside the nuclear plant. but not before he drops a big scary smoke bomb on to the top of one of their reactors. this was to show they were not taking security seriously enough. now something else is going on that is less gee wiz and more spooky. for the past few week, at least 19 times, drones have reportedly been spotted flying over nuclear plants in france. small drones. the nuclear energy operator in france admits that more than a dozen times in the last month, unidentified drones have been seen flying over their facilities. and apparently it's not greenpeace. at least greenpeace says it isn't them this time. they're usually pretty happy to face the consequences and take responsibility for stunts like this. these new drone flights have apparently happened mostly at

night, at multiple nuclear sites, but no definitive list of where it's happened. maybe more than the 19 that's been reported. the government says the drone haven't done any harm, but there's reports that french police have been given authorization to shoot the drone downs if they can. it's kind of spooky enough on its own, right? so you think okay, there's an activist out there who's handy with a drone the way the greenpeace activist was with the paraglide, paramotor thing. at least once, "the guardian" newspaper reports there were four separate drone flights at four different nuclear facilities all at once. four simultaneously in different places. the independent also reports that the drones being used are not your typical toy drones. they're said to be more complex helicopter-style drones that have pretty powerful engines that can fly for miles. they've reportedly been fitted

with searchlights of a kind that can be linked to a camera. so the french government has so far tried to defect attention from this mystery by reiterating these drones don't pose any threat to security at plants, but the french parliament announced they're holding public hearings on this starting later this month. the police are investigating this as a criminal matter. a few days ago, it did seem there was a break in the case when three people got arrested near the nuclear plant in possession of a model airplane, but apparently the police cleared those three people of any connection to the other drone flights. they were just people with a model airplane in the wrong place at the wrong time. while the french police were desperately trying to figure out who's plying fleets of high-powered drone coptors. for weeks now, including four of them simultaneously at different sites with no clue as to who's doing it and what their intentions are. they're investigating this thing now. they're holding hearings, we'll let you know more as we learn

more. now it's time for "the last word" with lawrence o'donnell. good evening. >> shouldn't you and i maybe go >> thanks to you for joining us this hour. sourss now tell nbc news that president obama is nominated to be the new attorney general of the united states. loretta lynch, federal prosecutor, she will not get a confirmation vote any time soon. the democrats control the senate right now. democrats will continue to control the senate through the lame duck period until the new congress is sworn in. anybody short of a supreme court justice can be confirmed with a simple majority vote in the