>> that is it for tonight. "the rachel maddow show" starts right now. >> you are buttering me up with the air america ref rentss. it worked. >> it was all senator franken. >> flattery will get you everywhere. >> we have only had male presidents in this country. that may change. and that may change sometime soon. >> it is kind of funny that every presidency at a certain point has hit what you might call a sort of men pause, a sort of presidential men pause.

these guys are, you might say, are putting the men in men pause. it happens in the last two years of their presidency. and it happens like clock work. they're still president. they have all the powers to become the presidency. fwu in the modern era, the last five presidents, back to the '80s, have all had to spend their last two years in office with a congress in which both the house and the senate are held by the opposite party. so reagan and his iran contra years, poppy bush, bill clinton and his impeachment years, with the financial catastrophe, since reagan, the last two years of every presidency have been in what one might call the legislative menopause. for not actually having to worry about the burden of legislating anymore. no legislation will come out of

washington with that sharp a partisan divide. at least not in this washington. that is what president obama is about to embark upon. it is about to start. as he starts this home stretch of this presidency, particularly because everybody knows there's not going to be made legislation. there's not going to be anymore passed into congress and signed into law. this president's overall legacy. president obama has, thus far, been able to name two justices to the united states supreme court. and they will both, obviously,

serve for life terms. beyond mayor and kagan, president obama has appointed many dozens of federal judges whom you've never heard of. and in the very last minutes of the senate still being under democratic control right now. this issue is basically what they're working on. senate democrats have 12 more open seats on the federal courts that they're trying to fill with obama nominees. if they succeed in confirming those 12 more judges, that will bring the total number of judges that the senate has confirmed this year until 88. if they get through all 12 that they've got on the docket, that will be the most judges have confirmed in a single year since 1994.

and if they're able to get those 12 judges confirmed, that means this big year for confirming judges will put president obama's legacy in pretty good shape, at least this part of it. will put it in really good shape in terms of how many judges he has been able to nominate over the course of his presidency and how he will shape the judiciary for decades to come. at this point in the george w. bush presidency, he had confirmed 253 federal judges. at this point in the bill clinton presidency, he had confirmed 298 judges. by the end of this week, president obama will have confirmed 303 judges over the entire course of his presidency thus far. that's federal appeals court judges and district court judges and those folks, they are not household names. and you do not recognize them if you pass them on the street. but those folks are really important part of any president's legacy. these are lifetime appointments. and, no, judges don't, you know,

pledge feelty to the president who apointed them for the whole time. but, for the most part, these judges are the on going way that a president has forduoing influence. influence moving forward in time. this is the on going way that a president's values get reflected in a governing structure for years. for president obama in particular, in terms of who they are. he has appointed more diverse judges. and in particular, more fell mail judges than any president by a mile. 42% have been women. 19% have been african american. 11% have been hispanic. particularly, in terms of women and hispanic nominees. president obama's nominations are just way more diverse than either of the presidents who proceeded him. and, so, even as president obama moves in to this last prt of his

presidency, this part of his presidency that will be, shall we say, less fertile in terms of expectations for legislation. this barts of e part of his legacy is mostly overlooked. the reason he's been able to do that, now and for decades to come, the reason he's been able to get so many judges confirmed is because of whaped in november of last year. the united states senate was able to very rachdly pick up the pace in terms of how many judges they were confirming after what happened in november of last year. they didn't just pick up the pace last year. in november of last year, the senate democrats changed the rules about how people get confirmed. last november, democrats changed the rules so president obama's nominees, both federal judges and nominees for the administration, they could no longer be filibustered by a minority of republican senators

anymore. republicans had basically set it up so you didn't get confirmed with 50 votes anymore. you needed 60 votes and they were thereby blocking all of president obama's nominees. but the rules changed. anybody who can get a majority vote? 59 votes in the senate can be confirmed. and since the democrats made that change, that is how they have been able to fill so many judicial vacancies. that is how they've been able to secure this really big, really important, will-be very long stabding part of president obama's legacy. when the senate democrats changed that rule, republicans lost their minds. they said that the procedural rules changed was a crisis. senator ted cruz said they poisoned the senate. at the time, republicans said it was a crisis. now that republicans control the senate, they sound a little

different on this mat e matter. one day after, the same senator who said that was a constitutional crisis, one day after republicans controlled the crisis, oren hatch said it would damage the senate to change the rules back. senator ted cruz said we should not go back to the old rule. we're told off the record that he is not exactly urging his fellow republicans to flip back that rule k4 he said was such a disaster. senator ted cruz said we should not go back to the old rule. we're told off the record that he is not exactly urging his

fellow republicans to flip back that rule k4 he said was such a disaster. now they have this chance to dress this did he recallable wrong, undo this horrible nuclear explosion the republicans have decided that they don't think the idea is so bad anymore. what this means for american politic social security that over the next couple years, nothing is going to get done that has to happen through the congress. the republicans are not taking a principled stand. the republicans are not going to allow their own members to support an advanced legislation that president obama might agree with them on.

they're not going to be passing bills that president obama signs. they're only going to ask president obama to veto. so we can expect president obama to veto a lot more legislation. they can make sure that president obama's vetoes are sustained and not overturned. it will just sort of be kinetic activity for the sake of kinetic activity. lots of noise that produces nothing. the last opportunity for anything substantive happening, anything to happen in interinternational poll tings, the last chance for that is not going to happen in the next two years.

the last chance for it is tonight. this is it. i mean, with the gnat e senate in sense e session yesterday, we finally got a surgeon general. we've got a top-ranking state department. over the next 24 hours, we're going to likely get another dozen federal judges. now, that said, according to the up-to-date tally that they keep posted. there are more than 12 pending nominees. democrats only have plans to vote on 12 of them. why is that? why not do them all? the democrats could say they want to want to stay longer. but, apparently, they are not planning on it. and the plan is to leave tomorrow. think about this for a second.

not only does everyone want to go home for christmas, but the sooner this session is over, the less stuff democrats can do with control of the senate they are about to lose. i understand why republicans are leaving. but why are the democrats? if it's your choice, would you really leave town on december 17th? i know everybody likes christmas and stuff? and senators really, really like having timeoff and are used to having a lot of it off. why are the democrats leaving? this is they're last chance to do anything. >> it's not just the nominees.

why are the democrats leaving? this is they're last chance to do anything. >> it's not just the nominees. and senators really, really like having timeoff and are used to having a lot of it off. if i were a democratics snack xx, i'd lobby for sticking around. why are the democrats leaving? this is they're last chance to do anything. >> it's not just the nominees. there's also a bunch of policy. there's a terrorism snumpbs bill

being held up by oklahoma senator tom coburn. there's the veteran's suicide bill. so, yeah, they could go home, chop wood, do whatever it is you guys decide to do. take some more time off. just hope that the republicans want to get all of that stuff done. i'm sure there's a lot of overlap in your priorities. couldn't you just wait the dude out?

habit half an hour after that dinner start, might be a time for a good vote. in the grand scheme of things, it costs virtually nothing. if they dd they want to do the work, it would take 30 more days. they're willing to watch the door since it's his objection and his objection alone. if he leaves, they're looking for a senator, any senator who would bring the suicide bill up again, knowing that tom coburrn would bt be there. it's kind of a cut throat way to do it.

but you know what, tom coburn has been pretty cut throat himself, even as everybody else in congress supports everybody else. if come coburrn doesn't leave, it would be 30 hours of floor time. it sounds like a huge drag, doesn't it? the house has already gone home. the president is about to be on his way to hawaii. hanukkah starts tonight. everyone wants to get their christmas shopping done. i'm sure another 30 hours of floor time sounds like a drag. but if they take it, that will be the last 30 hours that they get to do anything substantive with for years to come.

this is your last chance to do anything constructive. we're about to do the last two legislative years of this presidency and this congress. are you eager to get that started? i know why republicans want to go home right now. for the life of me, i cannot figure out why democrats want to go home. not when there is still stuff they can do. i know it's a drag. but, you guys, cancel christmas. get stuff done. this is your last chance to get anything done for two years at least. if you care to try. tick tok. it's not a biological clock, but it is ticking. e softness in our comfort cushions. we all go. why not enjoy the go with charmin ultra soft? over 200,000 people are hwith flu complications.

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at the emd of the summer, 2004, for the national convention, tom brokaw was in new york reporting from the

convention. and on the third night of the convention, the big news of the night, was supposed to be that president bush just accepted his party's nomination to run for a second term. and that that night, dick cheney was going to address the crowd in new york. that was supposed to be the big news. but, instead, the breaking lead story on "nightly news" and around the world, came from russia, came from a school in russia. >> 400 people, including at least a hundred children, are being held hos tang in a southern province right on the border of check knee ya, the islamic area in a long-running war with moscow. >> reporter: all day, parents watched, wept and waited. it was the day when militants stormed the building. a managed to escape as russian police and troops circled the building. inside, more than a dozen

heavily armed men and women, some said to be strapped with exploes. >> translator: ats first, i thought it was a joke. but then they started shooting. these men doing all we could to rescue the children. that standoff at the school went on for three days. chechen revels took over a thou sabd hostage in the school. that siege went onto a full day. it was on day three when they stormed the scoot. 186 children killed. that unimaginable attack was ten

years ago. it was started with a car bomb set off as a diversion. it was a a school called the army public school and degree college. pakistani personnel send their kids there. using guns and grenades and explosives and suicide vests,

the attackers basically methodically moved through the school. they were not trying to take hostages. they tried to kill as many as they could kill. in the end, 132 kids were killed. some were not just killed, but purposely burned. in addition to the 140 deaths, nearly as many were wounded, more than 120 of them. pakistan and afghanistan share a long border.

the pakistanial ban is the same group that should be noted on the shooting for the peace prize winner. the pakistan taliban is not supported. they are more or less at war right now. this unimaginable school attack today, this was the

today, this was the pakistani talibans revengs on the pakistani military. >> tonight, in response, the pakistani military says it has launched numerous attacks. >> this is the kind of the news that feels like the end of the world. in terms of trying to make sense of it, is what i said basically the understanding of why the school was targeted? >> look we know that this was several across the country.

>> look we know that this was several across the country. >> in terms of the timing of

this, is this about the timing? >> launching an offensive and being very deliberate. it's sort of the last of the atempts.

>> this was something different. >> they have had such trouble in the rest of the country to support them in this fight. there's never been a national consensus between the military and the civilian leadership about this is the way we should

be fighting and these are the people we should be going after. and when the leadership can't agree, how do you get the rest of the country behind you, too. this might with the thing that swings public sentiment that says we're behind you. we need to do this and now is the time. >> the editor at nbc asia america, now former correspondent in here great to see you. we've got lots more to come. stay with us. get rid of my mucusy congestion. i'm good all day. [announcer:] mucinex keeps working. not 4, not 6, but 12 hours. let's end this

so dogs go to heaven under paul, dogs don't go to heaven under john paul 1. dogs don't go to help under benedict. dogs might go to heaven under francis, but we haven't heard yet. >> do we realize john paul 1, was he in there long enough to make a decision? >> 34 days. [ laughter ] oh, i love game night. ooh, it's a house and a car! so far, you're horrible at this, flo. yeah, no talent for drawing, flo.

house! car! oh, raise the roof! no one? remember when we used to raise the roof, diane? oh, quiet, richard, i'm trying to make sense of flo's terrible drawing. i'll draw the pants off that thing. oh, oh, hats on hamburgers! dancing! drive-in movie theater! home and auto. lamp! squares. stupid, dumb. lines. [ alarm rings ] no! home and auto bundle from progressive. saves you money. yay, game night, so much fun.

so dogs go to heaven under nine years ago today, december 16th, 2005, the c.i.a. was preparing a top-secret intelligence briefing for the president. every day, the president gets something called the presidential daily brief. it's a round up of the most important american intelligence 23468g9s on that particular day. the substance caused a bit of a backlash. he was being tortured by interrogators.

a draft of the briefing that day said that the president was being subjected to these aggressive interrogations, provided "almost no information that could be used to locate former colleagues or disrupt attack plots. so we've been torturing that guy, but they've got nothing from him. that section of the daily brief needed to be changed immediately. >> ultimately, that line was

taken out. we know about that little bit of behind-the-scenes deception because it was included on the torture report that was just released last week. and that report also tells us exactly what sorts of methods br being used to try to extract

information out of that specific c.i.a. prisoner. he was subject to nudity, dietary information and attention grasps, facial holes, walling, stress positions, water dousing with 44 degrees fahrenheit water for 18 minutes. shackled in the standing position for 15 hours as part of sleep deprivation. after the swelling was subsided, he was returned to the standing position. the sleep deprivation was then extended to 102 hours. he was subjected to an additional 52 hours of sleep deprivation.

that interrogation was being conducted in late 2005. we know from the senate report most of the c.i.a.'s harsh interrogations were a pair of psychologists who basically had reversed engineered a military training program that's supposed to help survive torture. they turned survive into inflict. and right around the time that he was involved and inflicted upon the detainee who was in 2005, if one who is requiring blood thinner to stand him back up again. james mitchell got a phone call from the new yorker named jane mayor. he has e had discovered reverse engineering in the u.s. mail tear's survival tactics to be used against prisoners. she called him and asked him questions about what he was

doing. he said he does not currently work with the defense department. asked if he has worked with the c.i.a. conducting interrogations, he said, "if that was true, i couldn't say anything about it." not only was it true, but we now know when he spoke to jane mayor was just preparing to advise the c.i.a. about the interrogation of the prisoner who would go on to need blood thinner just to stand. later hidden from the president in that daily brief that some people at the c.i.a. were apparently deeply invested in maintaining, even though they were not working. james mitchell is now on a media tour. everyone from reuters to a.p. to vice news.

and now, the fox news channel is giving him four straight nights bragging about how torture really works and he's one of the good guys. but it was jane mayor who tracked him down nearly a decade ago. he was tight-lipped, in part, because he was still right in between the middle of his interrogation schedule. joining us now is jane mayor. staff writer of the new yorker. she broke some of the first stories and conducted what we think is the first interview with james mitchell nine years ago. jane, thanks very much for being with us. appreciate it. >> glad to be with you. >> can i ask you? and i know you're not going to give up any sources and i'm not asking you, but can i ask you if

you can tell us what led you to james mitchell in the first place back then? he was not on everybody's radar at that point. >> it was just really curiosity about what was going on in the dark side at that point. what i could see was that all over the world, there seem to be similar kinds of abuse taking place where the american government was holding detainees. at that point, the government was telling us that there was no program. and that if there was abuse, it was just a few rotten apples who had inflicted this. yet, the same kinds of abuse were popping up. they were being subjected to loud uz music and strange psychological torment. it didn't make sense that there was no program. i went to my editor at the new yorker trying to tig your out what was going on. and i interviewed people and got to the pentagon where somebody said to me, one of the top people at the pentagon, and said oh, there's a program. it's run by psychologists and it has something to do with

survival. and i went back and i googled and up popped this program called sere, survival, evasion, resistance, eviction, escape. it's kind of a torture that america has put together over the years to learn about the most illegal and immoral kinds of torture that could be inflicted on u.s. soldiers. there are people who are experts in this. those people are experts, who the c.i.a. turned to for advice. that was james mitchell. so one thing led to another and i remember them calling him out of the blue and saying i have nothing to hide.

when you see what's in this report, you realize how much there was to hide and what's still out there about what this program contained. >> one of the reasons i wanted to talk to you now that the report has come out, you broke so many of the details about the torture program over the years. i wondered if there was things that came as news to you or if you wondered if this was a different angle write-up. >> i think the narrative remains the same. i'm glad that we're able to tell the american public what was going on years before the government got around to being able to do it. but there's so much more detail here because of the ability to see the c.i.a. talking to itself in this report. i think it is a first-rate

report with amazing reporting and any american who's interested in this should just go take a look at it. you are eavesdropping, basically, on the c.i.a. when you look at this report. and the details are still shocking to me nine years later, i have to say. there's always something new and something terrible to learn. for me, one of the most interesting new angles, really, was just to see the level of deception that the agency practiced and how grizzly and horrible this program really was. they would just whitewash it and say, oh, it what he says we do to people in our own training. it was far worse. and these weren't volunteers. these were people in america where we didn't do this kind of thing to people.

>> thank you for helping us understand this. and we now know, correctly, years in advance, jane. >> thanks, rachel. >> still ahead, we have to go to department of corrections. stay with us.

we're now going to give you a picture that may help you with the next segment. this is an aspirational dog. this dog is dressed up like the pope. please hold that thought.

department of corrections. a few weeks ago, november 26th, pope francis made a public appearance that caused a big stir, particularly among dogs and the people who love dogs and the people who worry about their everlasting dog souls. as the story went, pope francis in rome met a little boy who was distraught because his beloved dog had died. he reportedly consoled the little guy by saying one day we will see our animals again in the eternity of christ. news flash. dogs go to heaven! of course you go to heaven, good boy. so naturally, it made the front page of the new york times. here's their page one headline. dogs in heaven? pope francis leaves pearly gates open.

the daily news says pope says dogs go to heaven. here's "time" magazine, pope francis says there's a place for pets in paradise. the story was picked up everywhere. seriously, lots of headlines. as a nation, we are dog people. and whether or not you're catholic, there's something satisfying about hearing the pope say your dead dog is doing great in the afterlife. also the one you've got now is definitely northward bound at the end of his life with you. it's a very appealing story, but there's only a slight problem with this very appealing news flash. a slight problem which forced "the new york times" to issue one of its longest corrections in recent memory. it's a four-paragraph long correction. turns out about the dogs go to heaven thing. the pope was not consoling a little boy. he also didn't say one day we'll see our animals again, paradise is each to all creatures. the source of that was pope paul vi who died in 1978. the mistake happen because an italian yup compare to what pope francis did say to what pope paul vi said back in the day and they were con flated when

everyone translated the current article. what pope francis said was more like this. holy scripture teaches us that the fulfillment of this wonderful design also affects everything around us. which is a nice thing to say. it's just not you'll see your dog in heaven. it was just wishful thinking on the front page of the new york times. wishful thinking. >> first thing you need to know

>> first thing you need to know about this story is this -- mazel tov. that's hebrew for congratulations. so like you get a job promotion or birthday, mazel tov can also mean good luck. so mazel tov 101. a few days ago, a letter surfaced written by scott walker back when he was a county executive.

it was a letter he wrote in response to a request that the county host a menorah lighting ceremony outside the milwaukee courthouse for hanukka. and scott walker wrote in reply in this letter, thank you for your letter regarding the menorah display. yes, we would be happy to celebrate the eight days of hanukka here at the courthouse. then he told the guy who he should contact to organize the lighting of the menorah. yay. a happy and festive hanukkah in milwaukee. then scott walker politely signed the letter, thank you again and molotov. molotov? maybe it was just his computer autocorrecting? but let it be known on this night of all nights even if he did mean mazel tov, granting the hanukkah celebration, is it's not really a mazel tov situation.

it's more of a happy holidays thing, not mazel tov. but still, nice try. and tonight is the first night of the festival of lights. . good morning, up now on "first look," the department of homeland security aware of the 9-11 references, new details on the interview and the sony hacking scandal. the unspeakable murder of over 140 students. now, will there be retribution against the taliban neighborhood, spreading panic, passengers on a flight forced to make an emergency landing. >> that and a whole lot more on this wednesday, december 17th. good morning, everyone, stirring up fear by using -11