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tv   The Rachel Maddow Show  MSNBC  January 17, 2015 3:00am-4:01am PST

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no details too small. american express open forum. this is what membership is. this is what membership does. >> the momentum has felt momentous the last couple of years. on the morning of june 26th 2013, there were 12 states in the country where it was legal for same-sex couples to get married. 12. it streubg down the bill clinton anti marriage act.
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it did contain the law showing animus towards gay people and being treated as second class citizens he was snuk. he said he not only disagreed with the ma ruling but said it was written so broadly and poorly. he said it arms well every challenger to a state law restricting marriage to its very definition. meant that as annan insult, as a bad thing. but to the delight of gay rights supporters everywhere justice scalia in that doom-laden pronouncement, he turned out to be right. on the morning before that decision came can out, it was legal for same-sex couples to get married in 12 states across the country. that was june 2013.
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since that morning you can add california, new jersey, hawaii, illinois, new mexico, oregon, pennsylvania, virginia, oklahoma, utah, wisconsin, indiana, colorado, nevada, west virginia, north carolina, alaska, wyoming, kansas, montana, south carolina, florida. this is what momentum feels like. state after state after state after state being told by the courts to recognize equal marriage rights. or the state's themselves reading the writing on the wall, watching that momentum across the country and deciding they would do it on their own terms. it has only been 18 months since eddi windsor's case. and it has gone from less than 20% of the population to 50%, to 70% of the population.
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we went from 12 states to 14, and on and on. up to 36 states. it was an inevitable tide. it was almost an unbroken string of political decisions and court victories going toward equal marriage rights in more and more and more states. it has been an exhilarating year and a half. it was all going one direction one state after the other, until it wasn't. until what seemed like an irreversible tide. until november. two days after the midterm elections when democrats just got it handed to them, two days after those results in the mid-term elections came in, an appeals court in ohio, federal appeals court, just one level blow the supreme court they went the other way.
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and that ruling in the sixth circuit court of appeals, that ruling upheld bans on gay marriage in four states. it all felt pretty inevitable before that. until that happened, everything was going the same direction. just the previous month before that sixth circuit decision. they declined to take up another case. that could have been a national test case for marriage. the liberal justice, the notorious rbg, she explained in a public interview at the time that as long as all of the lower courts were ruling in favor, there was no reason for the supreme court to come in and make a decision for the whole country. it was happening on it's own anyway, why would the supreme court interfere. it was happening on it's own until it wasn't. until that november decision by that one appeals court said it was constitutional for those four states to ban gay people
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from getting married. that was more than a fly in the ointment, more than a speed bump on the way to an inevitable destination. that november decision made the inevitability thing go away. it also created a split in the courts. one of the basic functions of the u.s. supreme court is to settle things in dispute. among the lower courts. now we have that dispute. all of the other courts said one thing, this one court, sixth circuit, said something else. who will decide? the supreme court. the supreme court decided to take that case. they're going to hear the cases from those four states, that their bans on gay marriage were constitutionally okay. the supreme court took up those cases today.
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they will happen in a couple months, april, and probably in june, the supreme court of the united states will issue what might be the biggest ga rights ruling ever. and maybe that ruling will be judge scalia's nightmare come true. maybe the sense of inevitability was for a reason. it was just a speed bump, maybe they really will rule that nationwide is it unconstitutional for any state to ban same-sex couples from marrying. in so doing, the court will ensure june tear national equal marriage rights in this country. that could happen. or, maybe with this conservative court, they have something else in mind. the national organization for marriage, an anti-gay marriage court.
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they cheered the supreme court's decision to take this up. they said they're very pleased the supreme court has chosen to review the sixth circuit's ruling to define marriage as one man and one woman. we're confident they are going to affirm the finding of that appeals court. the supreme court in deciding today they may want to make a national decision on same-sex marriage, they may decide to legalize same-sex marriage nationwide. they might also decide that state-wide bans on gay marriage are constitutional. and all of these lower court judges that say otherwise, they have been getting it all wrong. some of the states that legalized equal marriage rights have because they want today. in more than 20 states, it's only legal in those places right now. same sex couples are only married in those states right now because of the order of a federal judge.
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if this conservative supreme court decides to roll back what the other federal judges have been doing, this is the case. where at the stroke of a opinion, the supreme court of the united states could yank existing rights in dozens of states all at once there has been a lot of momentum on this issue. over a very short period of time these last couple of years. what the court decided today could mean that momentum is real, and it is going to keep going and sweep across the country and we will have an answer to the civil rights question once and for all. just as equally, the court could decide that all of that momentum, particularly in the last year and a half, it is all about to be thrown back. as elusory gains, too much too fast.
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when you look at this court, which do you think they're going to do? joining us now is a legal affairs correspondent with npr. thank you for being here. >> thank you, it's nice to be here. >> as a veteran court watcher, does the court's decision to take up these cases at this time in this way, does it afford any signal to you one way or the other about what you think they want to do on this issue? >> no, actually, it doesn't. they had to take this case. because, as you said, they have a conflict. the place they had to take it from was, in fact, the sixth circuit because that was the only case. they refused to hear all of the other impending cases. if there was a signal at all, i thought the signal was earlier in the year, or last year in october when they didn't take a case. and they didn't take any of those cases and they were perfectly happy to let these states go forward, let people
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get married in the thousands and the tens of thousands, and to wait. and if there is a signal to be seen, that is more likely the signal, not this time. >> if the supreme court does side effectively with the sixth circuit here, do people get unmarried? do gay marriage bans get reinstated? they may find themselves living in a wyoming that is less respectful of their marriage than it was a couple months ago. >> so, let's say for the sake of argument that you do not find a right to same sex marriage, then some states will seek to roll this back.
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i can't imagine that california will not put it on the ballot like in a nano second. and it would be gone. some states would try to put the genie back in the bottom. do you say we recognized your marijuana yesterday, because we had to, but today we don't. or say all right, every that got married gets to stay married but you can't get married in the future. there will be another lawsuit from people who can't get married now saying that is not equal protection of the law. those people you allowed to get married and you're not allowing us to get married. we're being denied equal protection of the law. that is why it is very, very difficult to put this genie back in the bottle. >> does this court tend to recognize those real world implications. one of the thing that's is fun, in terms of watching the court and reading the opinions is realizing the bubble they live
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in, the lives they lived, the difference in the outside world and the world inside the court. are they willing to be cognizant of these implications. >> those are legal implications and they certainly knew what they are and they knew then. it's a not to say that their five votes to legalize same sex marriage in all 50 states, justice kennedy, clearly the lynch pin here, written every major gay rights decision of the 21st century, and one in the 20th century, he has been very clear about his respect for the rights of states to define what the rules are for marriage in the confines of those states. but that doesn't get rid of some of the practical problems that now exist. the gay rights advocates have picked very carefully poster children for these lawsuits who are the best and most upstating
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and most wonderful citizens that you could ever imagine. they have not been married three times in three years. these are parents raising disabled children. one of the michigan couples, the two nurses that each work 12-hour shifts, they divide them up. they have disabled children they adopted. we have people who are living in and married in states where same-sex marriage is legal but adopted a child from a state where it's not legal like ohio, and they can't both be listed on the adoption certificate because ohio won't let them. we have widowers who the state won't put their names on the death certificate as a surviving spouse. that has all kinds of legal implications for taxes and all kinds of other things. we have people in the military, gone to afghanistan, been
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married in a state where it's legal, and now are assigned to a state where it's not legal and that has all other kinds of consequences, legal problems because that state, tennessee, for example, doesn't recognize the marriage of the state of new york. so these are all the most sympathetic plaintiffs imaginable. we will see a lot of them. and you won't be able to avoid seeing a lot of them. that is the best case, and that is what will be presented to the supreme court. >> thank you for helping us understand it, i appreciate it. >> thank you. >> it is fascinating. we look back at the windsor decision, can and it is famous and memorable not just for it's and memorable not just for its impact because it set up a tide of same sex marriage, like utah, wyoming, alaska, and the rest,
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it is famous because of edie windsor, her vision in her later years, she can't believe she is there. the person at the heart of that was such an important part of that case. i think nina is right, that's how we will think about that forthcoming landmark tonight. lots more tonight including a battleship where you let's expect to find it. please stay with us. with frog protection? yeah, we help with fraud protection. we monitor every purchase every day and alert you if anything looks unusual. wow! you're really looking out for us. we are. and if there are unauthorized purchases on your discover card, you're never held responsible. just to be clear you are saying "frog protection" right? yeah, fraud protection. frog protection. fraud protection. frog. fraud. fro-g. frau-d. i think we're on the same page. we're totally on the same page. at discover, we treat you like you'd treat you. fraud protection. get it at discover.com
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hello, it's friday. >> kelsey and i went through the closet and found stuff that we could give away. so well let's start with -- i found this by the copy machine. >> a blood pressure cuff? >> why do we have one? >> i don't know. >> have we used it on the show.
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>> it could be a personal medical device they need. >> they left it by the coffee machine. >> the copy machine. >> now i understand, it's a very stressful copy machine. >> wow, okay. >> think about that as a possibility. >> okay. another possibility is fake money. you did a segment recently where you through paper money in the air. these fake coins came in the kit. and a similar theme, i don't know why we have this, but i found a bucket entitled sea life in a storage bucket. it has a whale, a dolphin -- >> so give away one of these or the whole bucket. >> who would not want sea life in a storage bucket. >> is that the title? >> that's it.
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>> okay. >> thanks. also, i'll just, i'll hold on to this one. next. ♪♪ expected wait time: 55 minutes. your call is important to us. thank you for your patience. waiter! vo: in the nation, we know how it feels when you aren't treated like a priority. we do things differently. we'll take care of it. vo: we put members first... join the nation. thank you. ♪ nationwide is on your side ♪
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remember any of that stuff? those are just a few of the phrases made famous in the greatest television series of 2012, the long-running, nationally televised tragic comedy of the 2012 presidential primary debate. it is a little difficult to get the american people psyched about politics. but the republican debates of 2012, i don't think anyone would argue they were must see tv even if you didn't care about politics. there was spinoff republican debates that got added in later once people realized what nay got on their hands on here in terms of television cold. the mike huckabee presidential forum, there was three of those. there was also a newt gingrich, john huntsman, lincoln douglas debate, why not?
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it was just john huntsman versus newt gingrich. why not? they were free. >> there was the family leader television family forum that had gourds in iowa by the right-wing conservative leader. they spell in all caps. except a lower case i. there is no i in team but there is in family so they make it lower case and everything else in all caps. the republican debates of 2012 were engaging and illuminating and hard not to watch. and they were also an absolute strategic nightmare for the republican party. they came out of the 2012 election cycle and said essentially, whatever we do, let's never do that again. let's cancel that series. as all of these republican candidates now start to inch their way into the 2016
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presidential race, by my count there is between 15 and 20 republicans that may be running this year. as they all start jumping in for 2016, or pretending to think about it it, the republican party has gone about thinking that we the people will see as little of them as possible. they moved up their convention date. they moved it way up to shrink the amount of time their candidates get to fight each other for the nomination. they will force the nomination to happen more than a month earlier. also the matter of the debates. in 2012, there was more than 20 debating were more than 20 opportunities for republican candidates to get out there on national television and beat the heck out of each other, forget the department of energy,
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challenge someone to a $10,000 bet, or what have you. they also said they were going to try to hold their debates on friendlier territory. now, as of today, the republican party has kept their word on both counts. this is the official republican debate schedule for 2016. the 20 plus debates have turned into nine debates for 2016. there are three other potential debates they say are possible if the process drags out. they hope it doesn't, but these are the ones that we know for sure are going to happen. of the nine debates, you might notice that a full third of them will be on fox. surprise! the big story is just how few debates there will be at all. the party said today that any candidate that participates in a debate not on this sanctioned list will be kicked out of the sanctioned debates that come next.
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the republican party spoiled us in 2012 by letting us see their candidates on full display on more than 20 different occasions. it was one of the best periods of my life. they will not be making that same mistake again. anybody else sad about that? enthusiast. mmm, a perfect 177-degrees. and that's why this road warrior rents from national. i can bypass the counter and go straight to my car. and i don't have to talk to any humans, unless i want to. and i don't. and national lets me choose any car in the aisle. control. it's so, what's the word?... sexy. go national. go like a pro. alright, so this tylenol arthritis lasts 8 hours, but aleve can last 12 hours... and aleve is proven to work better on pain than tylenol arthritis. so why am i still thinking about this? how are you? aleve, proven better on pain. at ally bank no branches equals great rates. it's a fact. kind of like mute buttons equal danger.
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...that sound good? not being on this phone call sounds good. it's not muted. was that you jason? it was geoffrey! it was jason. it could've been brenda. thanks. ♪ ♪ [ male announcer ] fedex® has solutions to enable global commerce that can help your company grow steadily and quickly. great job. (mandarin) ♪ ♪ cut it out. >>see you tomorrow. ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ [ woman ] i will embrace change... everything life throws my way. except for frown lines. those i'm throwing back. [ female announcer ] olay total effects. nourishing vitamins, and seven beautiful benefits in one. for younger-looking skin. so while your life may be ever-changing...
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the loser of the 2002 election tried to stop global climate change. he did not run for president
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again. the loser of the 2004 presidential election kept his job in the united states senate, he is now secretary of state, he, too, did not run for president again. the loser of the 2008 also did not run again. the loser in the 2012 presidential election, very different story. he is becoming the least surprising, but most astonishing political news of 2015 so far. he is about to do something at 10:00 tonight, eastern time, on a friday night. which underlines the astonishing part of what he is doing right now. >> one thing i have learned. >> my philosophy is real simple. if you mess up, fess up. be your partners best partner. we built it for our members, but it's open for everyone. there's not one way to do something. no details too small. american express open forum.
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audible safety beeping the nissan rogue with safety shield technologies. the only thing left to fear is you imagination. nissan. innovation that excites. we come by almost every day to deliver your mail so if you have any packages you want to return you should just give them to us i mean, we're going to be there anyway why don't you just leave it for us to pick up? or you could always get in your car and take it back yourself yeah, us picking it up is probably your easiest option it's kind of a no brainer
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ok, well, good talk when mitt romney won the nomination in 2012, the next biggest thing he had to do was announce his running mate. it was an awkward start. >> join me in welcoming the next president of the united states, paul ryan. ♪ >> wow. hey, and right in front of the uss wisconsin, huh? man. >> every now and then i'm known
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to make a mistake. i did not make a mistake with this guy, but i can tell you this, he will be the next vice president of the united states. >> awkward starts. also, what were they doing on a battleship? that was uss wisconsin, he is from wisconsin, but it was never explained. the congressman from the ways and means committee would be his running mate. they discuss wanted to announce it on a battleship. because look -- it was just weird when it happened. now it's happening again been tonight in a little bit under a half hour, mitt romney is due to make his biggest public speech since putting out that he is going to run for president again.
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this is a live shot of the venue. he will be making his speech tonight at the republican national committee from inside an aircraft carrier that is parked at a dock in san diego. aircraft carrier. why not. maybe he will surprise everybody and announce he is joining the navy or something. until the speech starts at the top of the hour, we'll just have to wait and see. tonight at the white house, president obama was asked if he had any comment on the news that the man who he ran against and beat in the last presidential election is apparently going to run again. this was the president's reaction. >> we'll take a few questions and start with jonathan carl of abc. >> mr. president, i would like to hear your reaction to the news that mitt romney is thinking about running for president again. >> um -- on your last question, i have no comment.
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>> not at all? >> president obama giving the toothy grin enjoying his no comment. he is giving his first major speech tonight since telling people he is going to run again. it is in an aircraft carrier, we don't know why, but we'll keep you posted as we watch this. this is the live shot for the set up of his 10:00 p.m. speech. the dress up games continue in politics and there continues to be no real washington debate about national security policy issues. today, that joint press conference between president obama and british prime minister david cameron focus on follow up attacks after the attacks last week in france.
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the british prime minister says the terror threat in england has been raised to severe. they feel it is highly likely. they stepped up police control around jewish communities, businesses, and schools. they arrested an 18-year-old won at a london airport. the bbc saying she was arrested on suspicion of preparation of terrorist accounts and membership of a prescribed organization. in france, belgium, and germany, dozens of arrests today including 12 people detained overnight in paris in conjunction with last week's attacks. people say it provided logistical support to attackers. arrests came today after officers raided nearly a dozen different apartments, saying the raids came after months of tracking a group believed to be
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operating inside germany. ands germans may have been tracking that group for months. it doesn't seem like a coincidence they happened today. europe glows red from the threat of islamic terrorist groups right now. in the united states, this is being seen as a story for europe and not for us. late last night and this morning, headlines started to pop that the u.s. military is about to send hundreds more american troops into the middle east to train more rebels fighting in the syria civil war. despite those headlines popping this morning, president obama got zero questions about that at all at today's briefing. lots of questions about the threat of terrorism, no questions at all about whether
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the u.s. military strategy to fight isis makes any sense at all. thank you for being with us, nice to have you here. >> thank you for having me. >> what should we make of the timing of these raids that we have seen in the last couple days in belgium, france, germany, the word that we got about the threat level in britain. should we see these things as e as a coordinated situation? >> i think you can find them as situations and follow ups to the attacks. i don't think the suspects are necessarily all related. it's not one giant conspiracy. in fact, in britain, they didn't raise the terror level. it has been at severe since last summer. some of this is a little bit over eggs i think. >> in terms of what is stepped up and just now getting more
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attention, looking at the details of those arrests in germany, saying they have been following whoever these people are that they have been suspicious of for months. that is in keeping with what we heard yesterday from the belgians, the search warrants and planned raids were in the works. are we seeing them acting now on people who were in their sights anyway even if nothing new seems imminent? >> i think that is correct except my understanding is in the case of the belgium people who were raided yesterday, and got in a shootout, they believed they were about to do something. the authorities there believe that the fact that the suspects started shooting at them demonstrates they were going to do something. in france, they may be cleaning
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up associates of the shooters in paris. in england, in germany, my understanding is that these are people that they were watching out for. but that they may well have become more nervous about because of the pair of shootings. >> in terms of what's happening in the united states around this, you probably heard my frustration or my sarcasm that i feel like we have debate in our country about not the threat of terrorism, but the connection and what policies we should institute in order to deal with it. i'm frustrated by that in terms of our politics. in terms of how our own country and government is reacting to what happened in france, the prime minister of britain, do we expect that the united states and europe will be doing anything differently? that our relations will be different because of what
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happened in france or that we will treat anything differently. >> the one thing that the u.s. will step up vigilance on is the monitoring of europeans who come to the united states under a visa waiver program. they don't have to apply in advance and be vetted in advance of visa waivers. they start to pay more attention to people coming to the united states from europe. i just don't see that they are going to do things greatly different from before. the u.s. and european countries exchange information. and i don't, you know, maybe there are additional things they can do. i think they are cooperating pretty closely already. >> i just have to tell you that i read you religiously for years. everything that comes out with your by line on it, i make a point to read, you're a great reporter. thank you. >> thank you.
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>> ahead, a cool geek angle to some of the scariest news to the world.
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[ narrator ] mama sherman and the legion of super fans. wow! [ narrator ] on a mission to get richard to his campbell's chunky soup. it's new chunky beer-n-cheese with beef and bacon soup. i love it. and mama loves you. ♪ ♪ [ female announcer ] we help make secure financial tomorrows a reality for over 19 million people. [ alex ] transamerica helped provide a lifetime of retirement income. so i can focus on what matters most. [ female announcer ] everyone has a moment when tomorrow becomes real. transamerica. this is the equivalent of the sugar in one regular can of soda. and this is a soda a day for a year. over an average adult lifetime that's 221,314 cubes of sugar. but you can help change that with a simple choice. drink more water. filtered by brita. ♪
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and introducing our new advanced filter, now better than ever. all right, i will admit it, our prizes are terrible prizes but everything else about it is awesome. you don't do this for the loot, you do it for the glory and the pride. the friday night news dub is coming up. i get nervous every time we do it, but in a good way. what makes it an suv is what you can get into it. ♪ [container door closing] what makes it an nx is what you can get out of it. ♪ introducing the first-ever lexus nx turbo and hybrid. once you go beyond utility there's no going back.
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meet tide and gyre. they're identical super computers that collect data from satellites and weather balloons across the world to bring you the most accurate weather forecast possible. they're very good at their jobs. they do have some international competition. we look at two main models, the american model and the european model. right now on friday morning they very close together. the american model into the weekend moves it more toward bermuda. the european model keeps it hugging the coast and by early tuesday morning it is inland in the northeast. that is a 775 mile difference between the two systems. >> which one will happen? that was october 24, 2012.
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the following week, hurricane sandy made landfall on the southern coast of new jersey. the folks running the weather forecasting model in europe were right. a few days before super storm sandy hit, our national weather service did adjust their forecast to better match the european forecast, but the question remained, why was europe better at this than we were. why did they know where that tomorrow was going before we knew. why did it take us longer to get the answer right? the answer has two parts. the first is depressing. the european modeling is more sophisticated and has more data. not only is their forecasting model more sophisticated and uses more data, our other short coming is their super computers calculate forecasting data at a faster rate than ours.
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we're behind the curve, europe is better. when it comes to preparing for the next weather event, we can't be behind the curve. noaa announced here taking steps to keep up. their power has tripled. with this increased power, this upgrade, they can send out much better pictures days ahead of the old standard. the reason they can afford the big upgrades is congress approved it. after sandy, they passed a disaster relief bill that including $25 million to up noaa's computer power. we talk a lot about what congress fails to do, but here they did something and it will likely have a real effect in your life. it may be small potatoes, but it is also science. when we see the scariest news in
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the world about climate change, our congress being able to handle something scientific without it being a scandal is a signal green shoot of hope. out of 42 vehicles... based on 6 different criteria... why did a panel of 11 automotive experts... ... name the volkswagen golf motor trend's 2015 car of the year? we'll give you four good reasons the all-new volkswagen golf starting at $17,995. there's an award winning golf for everyone.
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now jump off the bridge. what? in 3...2...1... are you kidding me? go. right on time. right now, over 20,000 trains are running reliably. we call that predictable. thrillingly predictable. so 2015 is only a couple of weeks old, but it is already overflowing with way too much news. naturally, it's time to dump some of it on you. splat. kent jones is here tonight. >> good evening, rachel. how are you? >> i'm great. who is playing tonight? >> tonight, we have with us andy abrams from right here in new york city. he's a originally from wisconsin. he's a conductor, a vocal coach. there's nothing he cannot do. he's starting a new theater company in wisconsin.
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please meet andy abrams. >> very nice to meet you. >> wonderful to meet you, rachel. >> how is the theater business? >> i think it's booming. actually, i'm still reeling from learning yesterday that the moon is a star. >> well, the moon, if you listened carefully, might be a baseball. but that might come up in tonight's quiz. andy, as you know, i'm going to ask you three questions. if you get two or more right, what will andy win? >> the cocktail shaker, coveted. >> but that is the only special guest stars prize. if you only get one right and you get a consolation prize. we send you something random from our office. the thing we found in our office tonight is so great, it definitely outshines the cocktail shaker and i feel bad
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that it's the consolation prize. >> sea life in a storage bucket, all right? here we go. like this whale, for instance. >> it's like a whole bunch of other sea things. >> porpoise, nice. sea lion, in the storage bucket. >> the important thing is the title -- we have no idea why we have this or where we got it from. but the title of the item is, sea life in a storage bucket. >> there it is. >> i need that in my apartment. >> we also need to bring in the disembodied voice of steve benin, the man who determines whether or not you got the right answer. steve, meet andy. >> good evening, andy. >> hi, steve. >> are we ready to begin? >> we are. >> monday's show, on monday's show, we reported on one important consequence, andy, of oklahoma republican senator tom
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coburn leaving washington because tom coburn is gone from congress, one popular bill that he blocked last year single handedly looks like it might pass. what is the subject of that bill that we covered on monday night, is it a, a bill to close guantanamo? b, a bill to find a memorial to president ronald reagan? c, a bill to block obama care for congressional staffers. or d, a bill for veterans' suicide prevention. >> i'm going to enthusiastically say d. >> did he get the answer right? >> let's take a look at the segment from monday. >> before he left town, he made sure one of his final acts would be to block a veterans suicide prevention bill that was all but unanimously supported by every other member of congress. >> the correct answer is d.
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the bill will be taken up in committee this wednesday and expected to do pretty well. andy is 1 for 1. >> and extra news from steve. second question, remember, you have to get two right to win the undersized cocktail shaker. question two, on tuesday's show, we talked about the modern political phenomena of the loser beard. facial hair grown by male politicians grown by al gore or bill richardson as a way of signaling they were giving up on politics for a while. which current high profile current republican politician showed up in washington with a surprise beard, basically letting his facial hair announce for him he will not be running for president in 2016. was it texas governor rick perry? b, wisconsin congressman paul ryan. c, a senator from somewhere i can never remember where, rob portman.
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or d, uncle pat? our old friend multiple time presidential candidate pat buchanan. >> i have to say i feel like you chose this question specifically for me being originally from wisconsin. and i'm going to say b, mr. ryan. >> steve, what's the right answer? >> the correct answer is paul ryan, whose beard wasn't especially impressive. it looks like a 5:00 shadow. but it did exist and andy was correct, 2 for 2. >> i don't know, i feel like it was more of like an 8:00 shadow. all right. final question. andy, are you ready? this is the third question and this is from last night's show, and as we foreshadowed, it's actually from last night's "best new thing in the world."
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we watched last night a famous fashion designer and a qvc host argue heatedly about whether the moon is a planet or a star, or maybe the moment the rings are a baseball or maybe it's cheese. here's my question. who was the designer who insisted that the moon is a planet, in part, because he said, things live on it. was the designer, a, mark jacobs. b, isaac misrahi. c michael kors or d, zach posen. >> i'm going to go with b, mr. mizrahi. >> steve, do we know the answer? >> we do, but first, we need to watch the amazing video. >> go, go. >> come on, it's a planet. >> this could be real. the moon is what? the moon is a natural satellite.
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what does that mean? >> it's a planet, things live on it. >> i don't like that at all. i don't know what that means. >> i can watch that all day. but the correct answer is b, isaac mizrahi and andy was correct again. >> kent, did andy win? >> oh, yes. and the porpoise. and the porpoise. >> you needed only two to win the shaker. you got three. that means you get the shaker and the consolation prize, which means it isn't a consolation prize, but it's still a weird bucket of stuff. andy, thank you so much for playing. >> thank you. it's been a pleasure. >> thank you all for watching the show this week. and if you out there think like oh, that was easy, how come andy got the porpoise? if you think you have what it takes to survive the friday night news dump, e-mail us. just tell us who you are, where you're from, and why you want to play. you might be able to play.
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you might win a cheap pin. but before you do that, you have to meet your new cellmates. i hear they're very nice. >> "weekends with alex witt" starts now. historic move. the u.s. supreme court agrees to take up the question of same-sex marriage. why now and how will it rule. >> he walks like a candidate and talks like a candidate, but something is missing as mitt romney tries to drum up support for a third presidential run. pot growers in washington state are worried. and the oscar nominations. how the academies may or may not have played a role. hey there. good morning, everyone. welcome