advances because it's brick by brick and with mortar, we know that we build upon the results of others and that science goes forward. but it's three steps forward, one step back. four steps forward, one step back. any individual asked can get undone, because of that self correcting process in science, it is still a process that takes us to discovery of the laws of nature. >> all right. thank you both for joining us. >> that is all for this evening. the "rachel mad do you" show starts now. >> good evening for you at home for joining us this hour. we have a thick outreach, excuse me, outrage-ometer or ometer. we have a fake one. we will see if it works tonight. here we go. all right.

neither side wanted cameras in the courtroom. both the prosecution and the defense argued vigorously to the judge the protects should be closed to the press, closed to the public, no cameras. the prosecution and defense both lost and the judge allowed a camera to record the proceedings in the murder trial of this man, james holmes, the man accused of opening fire in a crowded movie theater in awe roar ra, colorado in a midnight showing of the movie "the dark knight rises" in july 2012. he is 27-years-old. he has a long history of severe mental illness. in preparation for that alleged shooting pre, almost three years ago, james holmes bought four guns, including a semi automatic rifle and a magazine that held 100 bullets at once. he bought 6,000 rounds from internet dealers and bought tear gas grenades, body armor. with that arsenal and wearing the body armor, james holmes went into that movie theater and shot and killed 12 people and wounded 70 others. now he is on trial for those murders.

and because of that judge's ruling about cameras being allowed in the court, it's eerie, right. but you can watch that trial unfold as people describe the details of what they experienced that night in that movie theater. the camera angle is a little bit of a weird shot. you can't see people's faces up close, for example. but it is honestly very moving to be able to see and hear the testimony for yourself. we don't get this in very many court cases in this country. in this case you see people bravely taking the stand and describing being shot that night or describing trying to save themselves or loved one or failing to save a loved one. you watch them describe minute by minute details while they are sitting directly across from the defendant in a not very big room. one of the people who testified

yesterday was a young man named brent lowack. he was shot and injured, himself. he described going to a movie theater with an old friend, a 24-year-old woman a. beautiful, vivacious aspiring sports reporter, jessica gowie. in court yesterday, brent described what it was like to watch his friend die that night. >> as soon as the first shot rang out, it was a loud bang and then a pause and then a bang and bang and it just continued. as soon as i saw that jessie had been shot, my focus transition was taking care of her. so the shots continued and i at that point had gotten out my phone and i fumbled around to call 911 as soon as i could. i had noticed at this point that the screaming had stopped and jessie had sustained a shot to the head in which case brain matter was exposed. it was at that point i crawled a little closer to her and i prayed over her. i didn't know what to do.

it felt right. i just gave her the best sendoff i could. >> sandy philips, jessica gowie's mom. she was in court yesterday to hear that testimony describing her daughter's last moments. sandy philip, she wears a green scarf to court every day, it belonged to her daughter. there is one other thing you should know about sandy philips. one of the things she is dealing with right now. she is not just dealing with, listening to the testimony about her 24 hour-year-old daughter

and how is she died and her daughter's friends tried to say a prayer over her, sandy philips and her husband have also just been ordered by a judge in colorado to pay hundreds of thousands of dollars to the people who sold james holmes the ammunition and the cartridges and the tear gas that he used the night he allegedly murdered their daughter. no, no, you heard right. it's not a typo. i didn't transpose the subject and the object in the sentence. the mother and father of the victim who died in the aurora mass shooting have just been ordered to pay a quarter million dollars to the gun retailers who sold the bullets that were used in the aurora mass shooting. the parents of the girl who was killed. last year sandy philips and her husband filed lawsuit against four of the online retailers who sold james holmes vast portions of his 6,000 rounds of ammunition and tear gas grenades and body armor. that lawsuit was litigated in colorado. the philips lost their lute.

but not only that, they were also ordered by the judge and by the laws on the books in colorado, which were written explicitly to protect gun and ammunition manufacturers, they were ordered to pay the legal fees of the online ammunition retailers. it's colorado revised statute 14-21-504.5 it states when it comes to guns and ammunitions sellers, guns and ammo. that's the only industry. if you dare to sue them, you will you have to pay their legal fees if you lose your lawsuit. this is not true of most types of lawsuits. this is not true of most lawsuits in this country. but in colorado, home to several very high profile mass shootings, if you as a victim dare sue anyone having to do with the making or selling of guns and for whatever reason you lose that lawsuit, will you have to pay big. it only goes that one direction, too. it's only the victims having to

pay the guns and ammo manufacturers. so in the case of sandy philips, showing up to court on behalf of her then 24-year-old daughter, wearing her daughter's scarf, this means having to pay a quarter million dollars to a place called lucky gunner, at a place called sportsman's guide, lucky gunner sold james holmes more than 4,000 rounds of ammunition through a website they operate him the philips are in the process of appealing that verdict. in case you are not reeling in disbelief, note this one final thing. sandy philips and her husband are as far as anybody can tell they are the first people to ever be punished under that specific colorado statute. they are going to be the first family ever ordered to pay the legal fees under that colorado statute to the gun industry, because they had a daughter who died in one of the worst mass shootings in the state of colorado. they decided to say something about it. so again i don't know if you

pronounce it outrage-o-meter or out rage-o-meter. but it seems to me that there are just things that come up in the news every once in a while that are designed by the news gods to test whether your outrage-o-meter is working. some fundamental am thing in you is no longer firing as it should be. so maybe today it is the story of the parents of the aurora movie theater victim told to pay a quarter million to the companies that sold the ammo. maybe that cam brights your outrage-o-meter or maybe it's laporte, texas. we covered this laporte, texas story back in november when it first happened. you may remember. it was a dupont chemical plant in laporte, texas, in that sort of chemical alley along the houston ship channel. this is a company, a plant specifically that had dozens of safety violations over a period of years. this plant made pesticides, along with other chemicals.

at 4:00 in the morning last year, a worker tried to on up a vent line for one particularly poisonous chemical that they handle. now the lines apparently getting clogged over and over again at that plant. workers kept having to open up new vent lines and drains to keep the chemicals moving. this time the woman opened up that vent line. she knew it was wrong. she called for help. it was too late. she had breathed in a fatal dose of an active ingredient in a heavy duty pesticide. when she called for help, nobody knew exactly what had happened. there were no detection systems that went off to let anybody know about that chemical leak. there weren't any in that part of the plant. there were big fans installed in the ceiling that were supposed to clear the air in case something like that happened. but you know what, those fans hadn't actually worked in months. the woman's supervisor and another worker ran in to try to

help her when they heard her cries for help. but because they didn't know what had hurt her and in fact killed her, they ran in trying to save her, wearing no protective equipment of their own. they too breathed in the fatal chemical. they, too, were killed. another employee working in the control room, he knew that one of the people who had rushed in to help was his brother. and when he couldn't raise anybody from the accident site on the radio, he decided from the control room that he would grab some masks, grab some ventilation masks and then he would run in there, too, to try to save his brother and the other workers, but he died, too. >> my son called me. he said, dad, there has been an accident at the plant and they are involved. >> a horrifying phone call, two of his sons killed during a chemical leak at the dupont facility in laporte. >> my heart stopped beating. >> gilbert and his family would soon learn the leak had killed four people and injured a fifth. >> the things that come to your mind are the first time you held

them, the first words they said, the first steps they took. >> the family says bobby ran into the plant when the leak happened to help another employee inside. his brother ran in after him when he didn't return and put his face mask on bobby when he saw his brother down. >> it's a terrible loss. it puts a hole in your heart. >> so one worker who was exposed to that poison leak that day in laporte, texas. one worker exposed to that leak today, that day, and survived, seems to have only survived because when he inhaled the gas in that room, he passed out. and when he passed out, he happened to fall out of the room where the leak was. he fell down a flight of stairs because he passed out. that's why he lived. the plant supervisor called 911 that night and told first responders, something was going on. he had no idea what happened. he had no idea if it was a chemical leak. he had no idea what leak it was.

he told the 911 dispatcher he was absolutely sure there was definitely no danger to the public. so with no information about what had happened, first responders turned up to the plant with no idea of the death chamber they were opening. they had to leave the dead bodies where they lay until the following day before they had the right equipment to be able to enter that plant safely without killing themselves, too. and that was a close call. so, that was just a horrific disaster. right. this decrepit decades old chemical plant in laporte, texas, with no alarms, no gas detection systems. big exhaust fans that hadn't been working for months. no training for employees, all working with incredibly poisonous chemicals. they killed four employees and almost killed several more. they almost killed a gods chunk of the town's fire department. but you know what, if you want to be bad in your next life, you

want to be bad and you really want to get away with it. see what you can do about coming back to life as a corporation. then you'll do fine, no matter what you do. here's dupont chemical. one of the largest chemical companies on earth. a company worth over $60 billion that had $35 billion in revenue last year, dupont chemical has now been found, 100% responsible for killing its workers that day in laporte, texas. quote, four people lost their lives and their families lost loved ones because dupont did not have proper safety procedures in place. this multiple fatality disaster after years of safety violations an repeat safety violations at that plant, a six-month federal investigation has just concluded. they decided to throw the book at dupont chemical. they said the disaster, these deaths are absolutely on dupont chemical. you want to know what their fine is? $99,000. total. for four dead people. a $60 billion company fined $99,000 total.

they will be paying slightly less than the median cost of a new hyundai for each of the people they killed. and according to houston chronicle, dupont chemical is likely to contest this egregious just fine. and so maybe it's the $60 billion company taking offense as being find less than $25,000 life per that they took. maybe that pins the old outrage-o-meter, maybe it's the aurora family being told to pay the ammo company that supplied the man that killed their daughter or the man that forcibly raped them and accepted rape and sexual assault for rent on a trailer on his farm and one of his alleged victims says she was either 15 or 16 when the assaults started. this senator has been charged. he's out on bond.

he is still a vermont state senator and apparently has plans to stay in office despite these charges with vermont taxpayers paying his continuing salary. so, maybe it's the aurora story. maybe it's the dupont chemical, laporte, texas story. maybe it's senator norm mcallister in vermont. it depends on how you are wired. what red lines the outrage meter for any one of us, it depends. in this week's news, you might also be partial to the republicans in the kansas state legislature, moving a bill that directs, prescribes, the exact ruling that they want from a particular state court in a particular case and if the court rules the other way, this bill would then as a consequence of that ruling completely defund the entire kansas state court system. you rule one way, you're fine. you rule the other way, we will abolish the courts. so go ahead and consider that

case, kansas judges, enjoy your judicial independence. that happened in this week's news. that might reasonably get you going. or there's the texas legislature. which the day after the waco biker massacre in which nine people were shot to death. they have now recovered, i kid you not. 118 different handguns from the crime scene. the day after that shooting gallery bloodbath the texas state legislature had a debate on how important texas is to relax its gun laws to get more guns onto the streets in texas. so maybe that gets you going. maybe that hits peak rpms on your outrage-o-meter. there is reasonable upset today over fast track authority for the big asia trade deal passing, without the public being allowed to know what is in the big asia trade deal. if you are a united states senator, you might also have reasonable upset if not outrage today over rand paul's long speech last night doing nothing to change anything about the nsa or the patriot act except

potentially making all senators stay at work until saturday, a memorial day weekend, instead of getting home tomorrow, even though they are doing the same thing either way. maybe that upset you. if you are a senator. it probably doesn't upset the rest of us. there is reasonable upset in some quarters. they are moving back the extra point in the nfl. everybody calibrates their outrage-o-meter in their own way. the news for whatever reason are our right now in things that might reasonably scream any of us right up the scale from peeved to steam to sputtering to coniption. but even in that world of just you know sample stories that might outrage you, no story does that so much as the report we are going to bring you next on this show along with the pictures that we got from at our news desk today.

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these pictures were taken on the beach in the santa barbara coast about two miles from ruffigio beach and state park. what's wrong with these pictures? these are plastic orange five gallon buckets full of oil. as you can see, there is a lot of them filled up with oil. in fact, there's tons of them. this is oil from the spill on the santa barbara coast this week. do you want to know how these orange buckets got so full of oil? well, this is the clean-up

effort that filled them. here is how they filled those buckets. and if you are getting a sense that these are just regular folks taking it upon themselves to clean up the oil spill, you are correct, sir. that is how those buckets of oil got shovelled up off the beach. it was people locally not properly outfitted at all. not as you can see, not wearing any gear at all. not being paid or excplicetly organized in anyway, turning up on their own terms with their garden tools to try to shovel this stuff up themselves. because it wasn't getting cleaned up otherwise. this is not how an oil spill clean-up effort is supposed to look in this country. i mean, god bless these folks, but, no, this is not supposed to happen and, yes, the stuff they are shoveling up is really toxic. but the reason these folks did

it, the reason they took it upon themselves is because they were apparently horrified that it needed to be done and it wasn't being done. at least not for a long while. it's not like this was some stunt either. it's not that they were showing off, trying to help. look at what they did. these pictures are from the santa barbara independent, a local newspaper which has been doing really great work covering this very large oil spill that has taken place in their back yard. this oil spill, honestly has been really downplayed from the very beginning when we first discovered it on tuesday, including these reports that no wild life was affected even after we started getting in pictures of wild life, that was definitely affected. >> that is not a black pelican. even after we were told by all official-dom and told the pipeline burst that everything was under control, the cleanup

was well under way, the cleanup was totally in hand. it was the santa barbara independent that actually local residents were so outraged be i the pace of the supposed clean-up effort that they really did start to take matters into their own hands. the clean-up does seem to be ramping up now. the official clean-up, after the spill estimate was up from 20,000 gallons to 5 times that much. but this spill started off at four miles of otherwise pristine coastline the first day. it was nine miles of coastline by the second day, yesterday. it is still moving. and the waves are black and we are basically counting on the company whose pipeline burst to tell us what went wrong so far and to tell us how much was spilled and also apparently to tell us how excellent they are on safety issues. >> we are questioning the safety record of pipeline that you guys have three times the safety infraction on the national average. are you comfortable with that safety record? >> i don't have that information, but what i can tell

you is we are committed to continuously improve our safety and excellence program across all claims. >> more companies have claims than all american, what kind of changes should the company with making? >> we continue to reassess. we are constantly working on programs to improve our safety and environment excellence program. >> a spokesman for plains all american, which is in charge of the busted pipeline talking to the press today about his company's safety and environmental excellence. joining us now is tyler hayden. thank you very much for your time. i appreciate you being here. >> sure. thanks for having me. >> i am stunned by these images of local volunteers who felt like things weren't moving fast enough and decided to take matters into their own hands. i can imagine that feeling among people that live nearby. i can't believe they would be able to produce dozens and dozens of buckets of oil because they were able to help with the

cleanup compared to its official pace. can you explain at all what was going on there? >> yeah. as you said, right after we heard the spill had occurred around noon on tuesday, we went out there and just as a lot of other santa barbara residents did and saw the crude lapping up on the shore and immediately people sort opened jumped down there with buckets and shovels and tried to help because what we noticed pretty quickly, there wasn't any major organized response right off the bat. also you said, there has been at this point now, but right up front, it was surprising that there wasn't sort of the massive organized effort that you might have expect for something like this, and it was encouraging but disturbing so see people in shorts and flip-flops with shovels and buckets to try to do what they could to save the beach. >> when you talk about that initial slow response, as far as we understand the first responders, the first discovery that it was the pipeline and then how big the spill appeared to be.

it happened on tuesday about mid-day. how long did it take before there was any official response of a substantial size? what was it like that first day, for example? you know i would say by the evening time, let's say, there was definitely mobilization at least on the local level. county fire engines and some of the local environmental agencies that have resources to help, they were here by the evening time. it was only about 24 hours later i would say maybe less than 24 hours, 12 to 14 hours we started seeing the big response from the coast guard, from the sort of bigger clean-up crew. >> in terms of getting information about this, obviously, it was a big news story when the estimate of the amount spilled jumped fivefold, jumped from 20,000 gallons to 100,000 gallons. it's my impression that officials generally at least at these press briefings have been deferring to the company, deferring to plains all american to explain what happened, how it happened and how big a problem this is. have they been forthcoming

enough? have they been true in their assessments thus far? >> well, it was a little interesting off the bat when we heard the 20,000 number. that's what everyone ran with. to learn not long after that was the number supplied by plains to the coast guard. that's what was being dispersed around. to see it jump up to 100,000 was surprising. as far as how forthright they have been, i know the county officials in town says plains working with them, well, we have been trying to find out which we discovered recently is the pipeline that ruptured is the only pipe in the county that isn't under santa barbara's jurisdiction. because of that, it doesn't have an automatic shutoff system. that was surprising to hear. that's something we were trying to ask them about and get answers. so far, we haven't had much luck. >> tyler hayden, news editor for the santa barbara independent, i commend you in the paper for what good work you have done thus far. i feel a lot of the national reporting, in particular, has

sort of taken the company's word for it and a lot of what we know nationwide of what's happening is because you guys have been able to show it and get so close to the story. so good luck and thanks, for what you have done so far. a lot coming up, including richard engel with us live. stay with us. ♪ roundup ♪ ♪ i'm a loving husband and a real good dad ♪ ♪ but weeds just make me rattlesnake mad ♪ ♪ well roundup has a sharp-shootin' wand ♪ ♪ i'm sendin' them weeds to the great beyond ♪ ♪ roundup ♪ yeha! [ whip cracks ] ♪ ♪ ♪ no need to pump just point and shoot ♪ ♪ hit 'em in the leaves and it kills to the root ♪ ♪ 'round fences, trees, even mulched beds ♪ ♪ 'cause the only good weed is a weed that's dead ♪ ♪ roundup ♪ yeha! [ whip cracks ] [ male announcer ] roundup... [ whip cracks ] with a one-touch

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the good news is now it's broken and luckily there is news or washington of all places that will absolutely happily help us all blow off a whole bunch of steam. that is coming up right at the end of the show tonight. it is very happy making. i can't wait. please stay with us. 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 ♪ you can call me shallow... but, i have a wandering eye. i mean, come on. national gives me the control to choose any car in the aisle i want. i could choose you... or i could choose her if i like her more. and i do. oh, the silent treatment.

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if you are a republican running for president in 2016, chances are you have recently trained yourself to say that the george w. bush administration went to war in iraq mistakenly but the only reason they made that mistake is because they

were given bad intelligence. it wasn't their faults. had they just been given the best intelligence, they never would have invaded iraq. that, of course, is total bullpucky but it's one thing to hear that from some random jerk working as a morning show dj at the time of the iraq invasion. it's another thing to hear it with unexpected and maybe unwanted candor from someone who was there, someone who was a leading intelligence figure at the time. specifically, he was the guy who was president bush's daily briefer during the run-up to iraq. what i'm going to show you who has got an little attention this week, honestly not enough. my colleague chris matthews this week had a stunning conversation with deputy director mike morrel. he was the briefer up to the war. watch this ask him about dig cheney saying saddam hussein had reconstituted nuclear weapons. watch how this went. >> if you are the briefer of the

president intelligence, you are the top person, you see cheney make this charge. he had the capability. nobody reached in and said, no, that's not what we told him. >> chris, chris, it wasn't my job. my job. >> to tell the truth. >> no, as the briefer? as the briefer, my job is to carry cia's best information a best analysis to the president he understands it. right. my job is to not watch what they're saying ob tv and say -- >> you think it's a joke? >> what? you think it's a joke? >> that's not my job. i wasn't paying attention. i was studying. >> you are briefing the president on the reasons for war. they're selling the war, using your stuff saying you made that case when you didn't. so they're using your credibility to make the case for war dishonestly as just admitted?

>> look, i'm just telling you. >> you admitted. they gave a false presentation on what you said earlier? >> on some also suspects. >> nuclear weapons, that's a big deal. do you agree? it's a big deal to explain they had a weapon when you knew they didn't. >> that's a big deal. and, no, the right answer to the iraq wore question is not that the administration was fed bad intelligence. so to my friend, chris, three cheers for that interview, for clearing that up for the record. there is more to clear up next with nbc's richard engel, stay with us. if you suffer from a dry mouth then you'll know how uncomfortable it can be. but did you know that the lack of saliva can also lead to tooth decay and bad breath? well, there is biotene specially formulated with moisturizers and lubricants... biotene can provide soothing relief

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so queen zinobia, the queen of the palmarine empire. in this painting she is overlooking palmyra and yes the 3rd century was a long time ago. the city of palmyra was around long before queen zinobia's reign in the middle of the desert when it came under roman rule in the 1st century ad. it became an important trading group to the roman empire. palmyra is a globally amazing place. it's home to a whole lot of ruins, including the great colonade of palmyra, basically an avenue of giant columns

built. they stretch for more than half a mile. they link to this, the temple of bell. which was a main place of warship and there is this roman theater. look at that. it was built in the 2nd century, never fully completed. palmyra is just full of very, very notable pieces of great archeological significance and great beauty. giant structures that you immediately spot as you approach the city. it's in syria, it's 130 miles northeast of damascus. a city of epic ruins on an epic scale. before the start of the civil war in syria, the ancient city of palmyra was syria's top tourist attraction. drawing thousands of people to its oasis and arclogical sites this year. earlier this week, there were reports isis made it towards palmyra. yesterday, there were reports they entered palmyra. today we got the news isis has taken control of the city. both the modern part and the ancient part.

palmyra was overrun by isis militants. there are reports in the city still has a large civilian population that is still present even though isis has arrived. militants are reportedly going door-to-door, they say looking for syrian soldier the notable thing about this particular takeover is this seals to be the first time that isis has seized control of a significant size city from the syrian government, from president bashar al assad's troops. previous takeovers in syria have been from other rebel groups or contested areas. but this was a city protected by the army. the official army of syria and bashar al assad. with this gain, arguably, isis controls something like half of syria, including large portions of its oil fields. there are no reports of the damaged archeological sites so far, given isis' previous experience with other archeologically sensitive things the destruction of antiquities in the grand museum in mosul and iraq, for obvious reason, there is a lot of global consternation about palmyra being in the hands

of people taking pleasure in destroying what's left of the ancient world. today they called the possible destruction a war crime. >> any destruction to palmyra, it's not just the war crime, but it will mean an enormous loss for humanity. it is important because we are speaking of the work of human civilization. we are speaking of something that belongs to the whole of humanity. >> isis has done a lot of damage all over iraq and syria. they have destroyed many large archeological sites. questions have been raised as to whether or not they are in some cases trying to make it look like they are destroying more than they are. while actually some of what they're doing is looting antiquities and selling them for cash on the black market.

succeeding as far as they have they have a huge economy. they've taken great pains to make sure they have money taking it from banks and operating in all sorts of different major economies. that's why it was seen as a valuable target when delta force commandos went into syria and killed one isis leader this past weekend. he was not the top leader the self practice claimed caliph or perceived to be an important leader. he was basically their money guy, their treasury secretary, their cfo. he was the guy organizing a lot of their income particularly from the oil sector. less than a week after isis seized control of ramadi in iraq's anbar province, isis has taken palmyra to help us understand the importance of this richard engel, it's nice to see you. thanks, for being here.

>> it's nice to be here. >> palmyra. >> well, look at it this way. you mentioned queen zinobia. women in the ancient world tend to not be remembered very well. you have helen of troy the tempt tres who led the empire to war. the character of eve. another temptress. queen zinobia from palmyra was considered the rebel queen. 3rd century. she takes over palmyra, then takes over egypt, becomes the queen of egypt and then is recaptured by the romans and either dies under torture or dies of a hunger strike in rome or lives out the rest of her life in luxury. but is revered as this legendary character oz a strong woman who led an army an author wrote about her. they painted her, addressing her

troops and she was from palmyra. this is an important city. this is a part of the western civilization. it's a part of all of our cultural heritage. now it's in the hands of isis. >> how intact is palmyra? how much is there to see in palmyra when you go now? or when you went before last week, right? >> well, it is breathtaking. it's one of the most beautiful sights in the ancient world. i have been as to palmyra. i have always wanted to go back. it is like walking through time and i feel bad for all of your viewers who never got the chance to go there and i hope it is not destroyed and they will be able to go there again. but it's like walking through time. it's walking through a preserved roman-era city that has this legendary past. >> do you think it's just wishful thinking, this reporting and speculation, argument that's perhaps isis is overstating just for the purpose of terror its willing inside to destroy stuff

like this and really they're mostly interested if stealing it and turns it into cash? >> i think that's wishful thinking. i think they regard these objects as distractions from the truth and in islam, anything in this interpretation of islam, anything that came before islam is considered the age of darkness, which means it is bad. it's a distraction. it is something that should be destroyed. >> and if it's small enough and you can carry it, sell it. why not? but i don't think they're trying to overplay their hand to terrorize people. i think they want to destroy these things and will destroy them, if possible and will sell them if they can carry them away. this is not new. there has been tens, there has been a tendency you know in many religions to have these moments of iconoclastic violence. but it was the kind of thing you saw in the early christian era, hundreds if not thousands of years ago. if you go to museums now, any

museum, you see a lot of statues don't have heads and arms on them. that's because they were broken by people. but they were broken by people hundreds or thousands of years ago. not today and tomorrow. >> on more pedestrian terms, is it strategically important either, should we look at it strategically important that isis has now taken a city from bashar al-assad's troops and is it strategically important that they do seem to control ever more oil and gas infrastructure inside syria? >> yes and yes. i think the fact that they are taking territory directly away from the syrian government is a problem. it's showing how weak the syrian government has now become after four years roughly of constant fighting in the country.

the syrian government has been backed up a long time by iran, by hezbollah. but those groups are stretched a little thin, too. and the strategy that is in place right now, the u.s.-led strategy the iranian strategy, the hezbollah strategy doesn't seem to be working very effectively to stop this group. so i think, yes, that is significant. the fact that they have more oil and gas, they have a state. they have a local economy. they can smuggle oil and gas. they can sell antiquities, loot government buildings, sell weapons. once you control territory and population, we're talking of a population of millions that are now under their control. you can raise money. >> richard engel, chief correspondent for nbc news, it is always great to see you even when we talk about truly terrible things. all right. still ahead, honestly, i promised it. i mean it. very viscerally, happy news out of washington, d.c.

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okay. so ireland is about to vote in just a few hours on a referendum on gay marriage. it's a referendum passes, ireland will become the first country in the world to legalize same-sex marriage by popular vote. lots of countries have marriage equality at this point, but ireland would be the first to extend those rights by a nationwide popular vote by everyone. now, the polls look really good for the pro marriage equality side so far. polls out this weekend show the referendum support as high at 69%. but you know what? the polls also looked really good to defeat the anti-gay marriage called prop 8 in election night 2008. but on election night, 2008, even as the country elected our even as the country elected our

first african-american president and lots of democrats everywhere and it was a great night for progressive webs that same night, people in very blue california voted to approve prop 8. they voted to overturn marriage rights even though the polls said it was going to go the other way. so at least in this country, polling does not give you a very good idea about how things are going to go, specifically on the issue of gay rights. we will find out if that holds in true in ireland, as well, in just a few hours.

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i take these out... ...to put in dr. scholl's active series insoles. they help reduce wear and tear on my legs, becuase they have triple zone protection. ... and reduce shock by 40%. so i feel like i'm ready to take on anything. december 1983. "parade" magazine wrote an article on personal health and tips on how to stay fit. overall, it's unremarkable except for the author. it was written by then president ronald reagan. there he is, working on those quads. he says in my view, every exercise program should have an outdoor element to it, which is fascinating. and then he proves it with

presidential pumping firewood. and we've got president george bush who was an avid runner. and then we have president clinton who was running around flanked and trailed by the secret service. also seen working out was the national security adviser and secretary of state. >> i'll go with kind of a workout on the elliptical or a treadmill which i have at home. i put in a gym at my apartment. i'll go every morning for 40 minutes or so on that. >> first lady laura bush did some public working out, explaining her workout was not as intense as secretary rice's. she walked and liked to lift weights of 3 to 5 pounds. in this white house, everybody has heard about president

obama's jump shot and his pickup basketball games. we've seen joe biden curling weights like it's no big deal. but pushing fitness and health in this white house is the first lady. behold this and wonder. >> you want to make sure you keep your elbows tucked in. you don't want to use a whole arm swing. just nice and easy turns of the wrist. and it is very good for hand and eye coordination. really love to use boxing for conditioning, for hand and eye coordination, for transference of power, learning how to move from point a to point b and bring your power with you and because it's fun. it's also great to learn to incorporate kicks with it. in this particular thing, we're going to do a jab cross and then we do a round house kick. >> don't forget, always drink up. >> okay. so there's the footwork and the jump rope routine. there's her form on the incline bench press.

those are 35 pound dumbbells, one in each hand. the round house kick while boxing. nine years ago, laura bush was talking about long walks and three pound weights. now the first lady is doing >> the "new york times" has obtained over 300 pages of hillary clinton's e-mails and posted all of them online and clinton critics could not be more disappointed. also in the news tonight, something david chase and the sopranos writers never thought of, a new jersey strip joint secretly owned by federal agents