>> we've had 20 xon raise involving bite marks. >> peter neufeld, thank you. >> my pleasure "the rachel maddow show starts right now." >> thanks, man isis has released another new very disturbing video showing members beheading and shooting dozens of people. what's the difference about this laters video is that it compares to combine the home base in iraq and syria with new execution footage which appears to have been very shot far away in the nation of libya. terrorist groups all over the world have pledged allegiance, but it's not always been clear that there was an operational relationship between isis headquarters in iraq and syria and the far-flung groups in places like nigeria or somalia or libya or anywhere else, but in this latest propaganda film,

the footage of these murders in libya, this massacre of people in libya is not only interspersed with other footage that seems like it was clearly shot in syria and iraq, the whole thing also appears to have been produced by the same isis media production team that has made all of the other scarily slick videos we have seen from them. so somehow the libyan branch of isis got their execution footage to the guys in iraq and syria to produce this movie. so this is not just some random group of fighter in libya calling themselves isis, because it's a cool new thing. it actually appears to be an operational wing of isis working with isis headquarters, but in a totally separate noncontiguous country. in the video, the narrator explains that the dozens of men who are shown being killed were targeted by isis, because they are christians.

it was reporting over the weekend that the men in the video are ethiopians, the eet onian government confirmed today that its citizens were among the men killed in the video. even though libya is for all intents and purposes a war zone, libya still does attract large number of migrants from, because they come looking for work in the libyan oil industry, or they maybe their way for another reason. libya has become a place from which human smugglers pack up ships of desperate refugees to take them on a very dangerous sea crossing from libya across the mediterranean sea into europe. the closest european lan they're trying to get to is the tiny italian island of lampadusa. it's seen hundreds of thousands risk that i lives to set foot on that tiny island as a way of getting themselves into europe. well, that human struggle

produced maybe the deadliest single incident of human smuggling. nobody knows exactly how many hundreds were crammed onto a fishing vessel that rolled over and sunk about 120 miles from lampedusa, but it's feared that there's 700 to 900 people who have died. a commercial ship said the rollover might have been caused when people on deck all ran to one side to try to signal for the passing commercial vessel that they needed help. when all of those people moved to one side and all of that weight shifted that reportedly is when the boat went over.

so far only a couple dozen people have been found alive, and a couple dozen bodies. the italian coast guard and every ship in the region has been called in to try to help find any survivors. that just overwhelming search and rescue was under way starting saturday night, the italian coast guard and coast cigar of the nation of malta were also called out, while that rescue effort was under way, they were to responsibility to two other distressed boats that were also dalles prattly overloaded. simultaneously in that same area, the coast guard from italy and malta moved in to rescue people on an inflatable raft that had been packed with 150 to 200 people. another distress call from a separate vessel that had something like 300 people on it. simultaneous to that, further east in greece, in the aegean sea, this rescue effort was

mounted, it's near an island called rhodes, in a wooden sailbot overloaded, crashed into the rocks, and local people and the greek coast guard waded in to rescue people off the rocks after the boat they were in grounded and then broke up in the sea. as you can see the footage is just incredible. people holding on to the wreckage as the boat is sinks. there's tons of kids. they rescued more than 90 people. this is not a new problem, but this is a problem that is getting worse. until last year the italian coast guard maintained a large and pretty effective serve-and-rescue operation in the mediterranean, actively searching to try to reduce the loss of life as people would try to do anything to get to europe. that effective effort counter

intuitively led to criticism that making it was making the problem work that maybe the italian coast guard was too effective and thereby emboldening the smugglers to take more and more people out in more and more dangerous conditions, baurp they were starting to be convinced that the coast guard would rescue them. that let to domestic pressure in italy, that italy should stop that program last year simply because of its effectiveness. that proactive italian coast guard effort was disbanded last fall. now today european cunning are considering trying to basically restart it, maybe a joint beefed-up effort to replace what the italians stopped doing last year. so there's this question, right, of whether or not you can keep people alived once the smugglers have shoved them out into the

mediterranean on these rickety overloaded boats. the question is whether your efforts to keep them alive might inadvertently put more at risk. there's also the morse fundamental question of whether or not the human smuggling industry can be stopped. today, after what looks like it may end up being the deadliest disaster of its kind ever, with 700 or 900 people on board, many of them women and children. after that and the simultaneous twin rescues of more than 400 people on the two boats off the coast of libya, and the terrifying rescue on the rocks on greece, as they all happened essentially all at one, the prime ministers of italy and malta proposed to do something add what "new york times" described targeted nonmilitary intervention against the traffickers. targeted but nonmilitary, a crackdown on the human smugglers in libya somehow, as the demand is higher than ever, right?

as migrants and refugees flood into libya from all over africa, from all over the middle east, from all over that part of the world, using libya as a launching point to try to get themselves into europe to save themselves and their families. how would you crack down on that try if you wanted to? unless you were physically going to stop the mugglers, unless you're filly going to stop them, which would effectively by a military action, it's hard to imagine how you would do it. there are no authorities in libya to crack down. libya doesn't have a government that controls its whole territory. it has a few competing groups that say they govern specific places, but there is no governing authority in libya, let alone one that is capable of taking apart a big lucrative criminal syndicate that may be handling hundreds of thousands of people for year. just for scale here.

in the first 17 days of this month, more than 11,000 people were rescued while trying to make that crossing from libya. how many more got through? so this is a huge international humanitarian crisis made all more different to solve, because it has been to be solved in the one of the world's ungoverned spaces -- libya. but that's where the largest humanitarian disasters seem to emerge these day, ungoverned and undergoverned spaces are also increasingly where we tend to have our wars. this is some remarkable footage, a very short piece of tape. this was the capital city of sanaa earlier today. [ speaking foreign language ] [ explosion ]

>> what was apparently a saudi air strike on the capital city of sanaa in yemen today had an unexpected huge blast. it's not exactly clear why that explosion was so big. whoever was filming this, the reason the camera gets all shaky at the end is because the debris from that blast hits the camera. nobody exactly nose why that was so big. it may have hit a munition dump or something, but that bomb today in sanaa is said to have flattened multiple buildingses in that country's capital city. saudi arabia has been bombing yemen, including its capital city for about four weeks. the u.s. has been providing logistical and intelligence support to the saudis, though personnel have not been flying bombing raids alongside the saudi pilots. there are reports today, though, that the u.s. military has become increasingly concerned that the saudi jets dropping bombs on yemen might be at risk of getting shot down over yemen "wall street journal" reports today that the u.s. military, quote, is especially concerned about the possibility that iran might ship into yemen surface to air missiles that are ca if th civ bombs on yemen might be at risk of getting shot down over yemen

"wall street journal" reports today that the u.s. military, quote, is especially concerned about the possibility that iran might ship into yemen surface to air missiles that are capable of shooting down those saudi bombers. iran is siding with the houthi rebels, we're with the saudis in this one. "usa today" reports since last week. pentagon has been tracking the progress of a convoy of iranian ships headed toward yemen, specifically toward the gulf of aden, and the pentagon believes that might be a shipment of weapons for those houthi fighter in yemen that iran is supporting. if that's true and a big cache of weapons and they can successfully delivered them to the hughs in yemen, and if it includes game-changing technology like surface to air missiles, that could seriously affect both of course of the civil war inside yemen and the international war on and around

yemen of which the u.s. is now a part. as those eight or nine iranian ships steam, what they will find is a crowded neighborhood. the saudis have ships in the gulf of aden. egypt has ships there off the coast to essentially impose a blockade to prevent weapons from being brought in to help the side that they are fighting. the u.s. is also participating in that blockade. the u.s. already has seven navy vessels in the gulf of aden right now. two destroyers, the "uss forrest sherman" and the "winston churchill." two mine sweepers, three amphibious ships, collectively carrying about 2200 u.s. marines. if you add up the navy personnel on board the other ships they

have about 750 u.s. sailors on board roughly. that means already right now in the gulf of aden, the u.s. has about 3,000 u.s. sailors and marines already there, as that convoy of eight or nine iranian ships heads right for them. those 3,000 or so u.s. sailors and marines already in the gulf of aden, they are about to get a very large influx of friendly neighbors into this crowded neighborhood. and the egyptians already having their ships there, and the seven u.s. navy vessels already there, in addition to all of that, the navy has now decided to send as well, a guided missile cruiser called the "uss normandy" which has about 400 u.s. navy personnel on board, and also this little guy. the "uss theodore roosevelt" which is an aircraft carrier. that guy has approximately 6,000

u.s. personnel on board. the full complement of whatever we're calling this off the coast of yemen, in ballpark roughly 9,000 u.s. personnel. the pentagon and white house thus far are declining to state what exactly this is besides a show of force. what will happen when the iranian boats get there? what's the interact going to be like with the iranian flotilla the u.s. thinking is probably carries weapons and the aircraft carrier. if it's determined they are full of weapons that iran is planning to deliver to the houthis, and the u.s. is participating in a weapons blockade, where nobody is allowed to give weapons to the houthis, is the u.s. going to stop delivery by force? and then is that war with iran? in order to get this aircraft carrier "the uss theodore roosevelt" the military had to

take it out of the where it had been, the persian gulf. since early march the "roosevelt" has been in there in support of the u.s. air war against isis and iraq and syria. that is leaving the theater where we're at war in iraq and syria, to go to yemen instead. we're about eight months into it, the pentagon said about 3400 air strikes in that campaign in total. today in washington this letter was sent to house speaker boehner calling for a congressional vote to authorize that war eight months after it started. for the first time it's actually a bipartisan call. for the first time a republican has said we ought to vote on that. schiff, who's been trying to get

a vote on the war, but also by a republican, by tom cole, who is not only a republican congressman, but also a close ally of house speaker john boehner. that could politically be important. this is the first time a republican has joined in the calls for congress to vote on authorizing that air war in the house. i don't know if that makes that debate and potentially vote more likely or not, but it's becoming increasingly clear by the time congress does get around to it, if they do get around to it, it's entirely possible by then, we will be involved in a whole new war all together, one in which we've got 9,000 personnel deployed already, in another part of the world that is basically a hole in the map where the u.s. is involved without any domestic debate whatsoever, in a complicated fight, not against any recognizable government, but with a complicated set of allies fighting against what emerges when governments disappear.

i appreciate having you here. >> thanks for having me. >> in terms of the u.s. show of forts in the gulf of aden, we expect we'll be looking at nine u.s. vessels there, and about 9,000 u.s. personnel? is that your understanding? >> yeah, well, the navy tells me there's up to a dozen ships heading there. chef some resupply ships, but obviously the big one is the "roosevelt" they're hoping that will send a message to iran. they want to put in an aircraft carrier. they want that to be a deer terrence to say to iran, if you want to bring in weapons, we're here, and we want you to stop and to ratchet down the tensions here, and let's get to the peace negotiations, and not have things get out of control in the gulf of aden. >> is that an empty threat? there actually a plan wherein

u.s. navy personnel or marines would actually board those iranian ships if it came to that? >> i don't think you're going to see u.s. navy personnel board any iranian ships. you know, that's probably out of the question. but you do have saudi ships there, and you do have egyptian ships there. they're the wujz that are really taking the lead here in enforcing this blockade. i think they want a u.s. carrier there to support them. if there was going to be some kind of provocative showdown in the gulf, i think you would see the saudis and the egyptians take the lead. but they're really hoping this flotilla will go by and there's not going to be a showdown this is pretty serious. >> it's a ratcheting up of the u.s. presence that's likely to be quite temporary? is it specifically about this flotilla and if they do pass by or they're deterred from doing something they might have otherwise done that that aircraft carrier and some of the other vessels will leave?

>> yeah, certainly the aircraft carrier moving throughout that region. some pentagon officials were trying to downplay this move early on, saying look this is just a normal rotation moving from the persian gulf to the med. they do this all the time. they transit back and forth. this is the kind of thing they're there to do. they are watching what the iranians are doing here. this is a provocative step. if they need to camp there for a while, they're certainly ready to do that. this is, you know, as the u.s. military likes to say, the enemy has a vote in this, and so what iran does is going to really affect what happens over the next few days. >> in terms of timing, how quickly do these ships move? and when do we expect that this encounter, of whatever kind is going to happen might happen? >> it could happen over several days. they think it could happen as soon as this week, but the coast

of yemen is long. it runs up through the red sea, so they could try to put those weapons aboard any of those places. so there's going to be several days of watching the ships as it's along the coast. >> dion nissenbaum, thank you for helping us understand it. fascinating stuff. >> thank you it's weird there's all this political debate technically about foreign policy and whether or not president obama is a strong leader. all the stuff that's going on around 2016 politicking and republican candidates in particular trying to position themselves as the new strong guy on policy issues. the debate is really not about the super-strategic, complicated, undebated stuff that's happening right now, not hypothetically, but really in foreign policy. this thing in yemen is on. there's 9,000 personnel there. congress hasn't said beep about it. the afghanistan war has just

been ramped up again. they're going to keep 10,000 person they there through the end of the year. the talk in american domestic politics is about things that might happen. someday we'll have a debate about the things that are. we'll be right back. neosporin plus pain relief starts relieving pain faster and kills more types of infectious bacteria. neosporin plus pain relief kills the germs. fights the pain.

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while we're talking aircraft carriers, just one more thing. in 1946, the u.s. government gathered over 90 ships in the middle of the pacific ocean and dropped an atomic bomb on them. the u.s. military had, of course, destroyed two japanese city with his nuclear weapons the year before, but they still wanted to know what effect atomic bombs would have in the ocean dropped on war ships. so we gathered together dozens of our old ships and we nuked them. one of the ships that was nuclear bombed was an aircraft carrier called the "uss independence." the "uss independence" had

recently returned from service. this is what it looks like after it was nuked in all its radioactive glory. after that experiment, the beleaguered "as you see independence" was moved to a naval shipyard in san francisco, where the military studied how to decontaminate submission like that. but then in 1951, so five years after they nuked it. they hauled it out to sea and sunk in a location off the northern california coast that until now has been secret. last month the u.s. government teamed up with the boeing corporation to try to map the wreck of the "as you see independence" using a little submersible craft. they found is sitting upright about a half mile below the surface of the ocean, and that it's amazingly impact.

believe it or not, there may even be a plane still sitting on the flight deck. beef posted a link to the sonar images. if you want to check it out. pretty amazing b. it's also a pretty amazing ship. this guy did hard combat in the pacific, then we nuked it, then we sump it and now sitting upright, still basically intact and proud.

would you like to see what

new jersey governor chris christie looked like in 1994? oh, hello. that's a screen shot from a 1994 campaign ad that chris christie ran in new jersey when he was running for local office there. this is a picture of rand paul back in his college days in texas wearing a nice hat. ready for this one? that's wisconsin governor scott walker in high school with his beautiful loan many of enviable black hair. welcome to the world of opo research. all of those pictures and more are contained in a whole book about the 2016 rep contenders that was put out recently by the liberal group american bridge. they called it their scouting report on the candidates. what it actually is is opposition research, a collection of dirt and unflattering angles that they've been able to find on any of these other guys dating back to their college days, sometimes dating into back to high school,

good hair days and bat hair days. opo-research is a thing that political parties and organization do. they have for a long time. it's not, however, usually a [crowd booing] well, he can do that. we show our progressive direct rate and the rates of our competitors even if progressive isn't the lowest. it looks like progressive is not the lowest! ohhhh! when we return we'll find out whether doug is the father. wait, what?

in the september before the 2012 election, karl rove's super pac released this damning ad. >> a president who skips half of his intelligence briefings, but

finds time to play more than 100 rounds of golf. >> no. half of his intelligence briefings? before it appeared in that attack ad, the same thing appeared in the op-ed of "the washington post." it was not long before it made its way to the whole universe. the president playing hookie, the president doesn't do hi daily intelligence briefings, he plays golf instead, and then just as your crazy great uncle was e-mails about it with the caps lock key on it and posting all about it. "the washington post" fact-checked their own piece on this matter and ended up setting the record straight. it turns out president obama did not miss more than half his intelligence briefings. he does get the daily briefings every day, every single day. the scandal is that sometimes he reads them. i know, reading, very suspicious

in a leader. it turns south that breathless, but not exactly factual bit of reporting with all the that political purchase which "the washington post" had to debunk from its own page, that bit of news came from a right-leaning research group called the government accountability institute, called daily briefs complete with not accurate thoughts, showing how president obama was having fewer and fewer briefings by the year, except he wasn't. the guy that heads up that research group that wrote that report is named peter schweizer. that auld happened with the briefing stuff, that was 2012. the following year he researched in this column for politico.com, showcasing his reporting, something else he group had discovered, another damning bit of news about president no-bama. this time what his group says they uncovered from july 2010 and november 2013, president obama had zero one-on-one meetings with kathleen sebelius, which is right in the mid of

this roll-out of obamacare, that's a terrible scandal. they delved into his schedule, and found that he saw her only once, and it was a joint meeting with tim geithner. gosh, president obama didn't even care what was going on with obamacare. wrong again. turns out cabinet secretaries who regularly visit the white house do not always appear on a visitors log or get listed in public schedules. kathleen sebelius did visit the white house tons of time during that time period, despite what peter schweizer and his institute made up and convinced oftentimes reasonable outlets to print as if it were fact. so that's peter system chweizer and his research institute they're back in the news. he's releasing a new book on may 5th called "clinton cash" the untold story of how and why foreign governments and businesses helped to make bill and hillary clinton rich. the book reportedly delves into the donations giving to the

businesses helped to make bill and hillary clinton rich. the book reportedly delves into the donations giving to the clinton was secretary of states and looks into whether she did any resulting favors for the people making those donations. the odds thor's conservative research group is already calling it their new book. you kind of see how this fits into a pattern of things, right? this is not a surprising turn. when you take a closer look at the organization and who is backing him, it is a who's who of big right-wing funders, including one of the guys behind the media site breitbart.com, for which he has previously written. the billionaire family that's currently bank rolls ted cruz'

presidential run. none of this is particularly surprising. he previously served as an adviser for sarah palin, also a speech writing consulting to president george w. bush, if you were expecting where the new tell-all book was going to come from, this is where you pick, a new citizen united stylebook length attack on hillary clinton. no real surprise that before this book hits the shelves, none other than the fox news channel has an exclusive television deal to report on the explosive contents of the book. tonight the host at fox news who is called bret bahr had a special report. if that's not enough for you, this friday an hour-long special on it, the tangled clinton web. all right. so that's all exactly what you would expect, right? all par for the court, what is not par for the course is surprising along with the fox

news channel having some sort of exclusive deal to advance hype this anti-clinton book from this conservative activist who has a history of doing stuff like this, we are also now learning that "new york times" and "the washington post" have also entered into some kind of arrangement with the author with peter schweizer to pursue the information in the book. so fox news channel, "new york times" and "the washington post"? running with this guy's thesis and an arrangement they made with him in advance of the book being published? we reached out to the news outlets to get information, they told us they stand behind the agreements. they told us there was no

payments involved or no financial aspect. they said they were taken material from the book to further their own reporting on the clintons, but it is strange or at least striking, given this particular author's history with inaccurately reporting things in the past, but reporting them in a way that is appealingly exclam tory, and he gets stuff in print and the outlets have to correct him later. while "new york times" and "the washington post" seem to be working with the author, there's an effort on the other side to -- to undercut the author's credibility, i guess we could say? to promote this guy's past? to put this guy in context? it's headed up by a media watch dog on the left called media matters. we have more on that fight next. stay with us.

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if you have play dates at your house. be ready to clean up the mess. the kids have fun, but it's pretty gross. (doorbell) what's that? it's a swiffer wetjet. i can just grab this and just go right to the mess. that comes from my floor? now that's disgusting. i want friends over! you want friends over?

i know that that comes unfortunately with the territory. it is, i think worth noting that group led by a guy who does this stuff and has for a long time. the family bankrolling the ted cruz campaign are on the board of his organization. the surprising twist, the whole shopping the opo-research story, the, is in the midst of celebrating the -- the two most esteemed newspapers in america, "new york times" and "the washington post," both outlets today said they have made

agreements with the author of that oppo-research group that they will follow up on his reporting. joining us is a combatant on the other side. david brock, with -- and a considered an amount on republican presidential hopefuls. some brock's group has put out a dossier on peter schweizer. thanks for joining us. >> thanks for having me on. >> it's not unusual for campaigns or part sans who support or oppose campaigns to try to shop oppo-research to try to get it to cover it as news. do you think this is different? >> i don't know if it's different, about you i would say it's disappointing that the "new york times" is chasing the same story as fox news. i think what we have here that might be unique is a convergence of millions of dollars being

spent by republicans on opposition research, and a press corps that's so competitive on the clinton beat that they're looking for any anti-clinton crumb. what happens in the situation, which may be happening here, is that, i have no problem with the times vetting books. i've written books. that's not really unusual, but i think they didn't set the bar particularly high here, into you this author has a rap sheet, as you have already set up, as long as my arm. we did a 7,000-word report for media matters today. we found ten instances of really seriously botched journalism, corrections, media getting burned by picking up this material and these weren't our words, but people saying sources that don't exist and facts that don't check out, and not meeting the standards of journalism 101. so i think you have the journalistic story, and then you have the political story that you've covered, which is to say

this is much more of a coordinated political attack than a typical book tour. >> in terms of the way this -- the way this campaign is shaping up, it is very unusual to have a de facto nominee pre-primary on the democratic side. that may change, but for right now it looks like with a 50-point lead, she is the de facto nominee. this weekend in new hampshire, there were, i kid you not, 21 republican candidates in appearance at one of the republican forums, there are so many of them. how is that going to drive the part of this process that is paying for opposition research? i mean, back in your conservative days, you were were hired hands on the anti-clinton oppo-research side. how do you think it will work with this dynamic? >> that's right. i was once involved in what was correctly called the vast right-wing conspiracies, but "atlantic" grip graded it to a right-wing conglomerate. i think that's what we have now. they do this all the time.

they take the good works of someone, in this case the good works of the clinten foundation and try to turn it into a liability. what we are seeing is swiftboats docking early. this is a political campaign, very sophisticated. they have briefed marco rubio and rand paul, but i would say if those folks think that a winning political strategy is attacking a foundation that's done so many things like -- let's have at it. >> david brock, founder of media matters, thanks for your time. >> thank you we'll be right back. stay with us.

this is an exciting programming note. tomorrow night on this very network, my colleague chris matthews as a big exclusive interview, the big exclusive interview that everybody wants. tomorrow night he will be interviewing president obama, a one on one sit-down. mr. matthew will sit down with president obama tomorrow. you can catch the full interview tomorrow night on "hardball" at

7:00 eastern time, again tomorrow night at 7:00. doth miss it, huge deal. we'll be right back.

do you have any friends that are active in republican politics? your friends are probably very excited right now. there's news tonight about what everybody considers to be the very important invisible primary this year. it's not for real voters. it's for the love and affection

and money of the billionaire koch brothers. the billionaires of them all in republican politics appear to have chosen their candidate for 2016 and it is wisconsin governor scott walker. that's the reporting from the "new york times." they both spoke at a gathering of top republican donors in new york city today. according to two people who were there, he told the group of donors, we will support whoever the candidate is, but it should be scott walker. the sound you are hearing is champagne corks popping in every corner of scott walker-ville. might be time to get on that. we'll be right back. my cut hurts. mine hurt more. mine stopped hurting faster! neosporin plus pain relief starts relieving pain faster and kills more types of infectious

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here's something to watch. next week, the supreme court's going to hear a couple of blockbuster cases. the one about same-sex marriage. that could result in marriage equality all across the country. or the opposite. the court hears that case on tuesday. but then the very next day, wednesday of next week, the court's going to hear a second blockbuster case on the death penalty. they're going to hear a challenge about the way states kill prisoners now. heading into that case, a few states have put the breaks on the death penalty and stopped killing prisoners for the time being. they've all put executions on hold ahead of this big case next week. even among states that want to keep executing people ahead of that court case, they're finding they can't get the drugs they want to use for lethal injections. it's getting desperate. first it was the companies that make the drugs. they stopped shipping them to prisons saying they were deliberately misusing those

chemicals. some turned to compounding pharmacies. they're used to make drugs for patients who might need particular medicine but maybe you have some allergy to one of the ingredients. so maybe they'll make you a batch of the drug without that filling in it. but compounding drugs is a delicate business with life and death consequences. there has been trouble in that industry over the past few years. in 2012, there was a huge problem. a pharmacy in massachusetts sent out contaminated batches of steroids that were meant for spinal injections. it gave hundreds of people spinal meningitis. dozens of people died. in december, they arrested 14 people associated with that compounding pharmacy. they charged the two top executives from the firm with

murder. yeah, that massachusetts case, other recent instances of them running into the sharpened of the law, has made for a bad patch for the compounding pharmacy industry. perhaps sensing they were in need of an image upgrade, late last month, the leading trade group announced that just like the drug industry had stopped providing prisons with drugs to kill people, compounding pharmacies should opt out of that process too. that was the new message. stop making drugs for killing prisoners. so the states are really up against it now. they can't buy drugs to kill prisoners, increasingly, they can't go with the plan b either. states that want to kill their prisoners by injecting them with pharmaceuticals, they're getting to be out of options here. almost. but look at this.

this is amazing. this is an inventory of the drugs on hand at the mississippi execution chamber. you can see right there. it's one of the drugs they use to kill prisoners for lethal injection, but not as a powder. it has to be liquid, right? mississippi for some reason has it on hand in powder form. but if you wanted to inject it into somebody to kill them, you have to get it mixed into injectable form by a pharmacy. with pharmacies getting out of that kind of business, what's going to cook them up that drug and why do they have the active ingredient on hand in a different form? today, we learned about a new court filing raising a prospect about making their own execution drugs.

this new legal challenge says the state either intends to mix the stuff up itself for the next prisoner were there does not appear to be a compounding pharmacy, or maybe they plan to send that raw ingredient, maybe they're going to send that raw ingredient to god knows what pharmacy if the state can find one that's still willing to do that work. so prisoners challenging mississippi plan has been able to figure out that mississippi has raw drug making ingredients stashed at the prison but not the drugs themselves. the prospect is therefore raised that mississippi is going to make home brewed lethal injection drugs. as the supreme court gets ready to hear a case that could get rid of the system of lethal injection, that apparently is the one way that one state is trying to get rid of the hurdles. we're going to have an exclusive report on something even more radical, something no other state has done ever. one pioneering state has cooked up something even more intense than mississippi trying to home make their own injectable drugs. it's strange, it's exclusive and

it will be here tomorrow night on a little show we call the rachel maddow show. "the rachel maddow show." "first look" is up next. good tuesday morning. right now a developing story in the middle'. u.s. warships on the move preparing to intercept a convoy of iranian ships suspected to carrying weapons to yemen. and dzhokhar tsarnaev prepared to fight for his life as the trial moves into the penalty phase. and a popular ice cream maker pulls all of their ice cream off the shelves. and a live update on the royal baby watch and jon stewart reveals the date of his last daily show. right now tensions are building in a high stakes