>> no, if not a puppet he'll go by himself. he is a lone wolf sort of speaking semitruth to nonpower like the bill hicks for people who would have beaten the crap out of bill hicks. i will say as awful as his comedy is sure to be even worse would be seeing him try to engage in some sort of comedy team banter like who's on first? why the heck would i know who's on first? the whole thing is asanine. >> though you're talking about two giant foreheads. you've got karl rove and joe the plumber and the guy who played in that one twilight zone, you know, the double sized -- >> yeah. it sounds very sci-fi. >> they could be like trying to stand up and just topple back all three of them. >> they'll actually lean their foreheads against each other and create some sort of like crossing the streams in ghost busters. >> also, this is just, i don't know how this happens. at the same event at the funniest celebrity in washington

this year senator ben nelson who of course is on the sort of dumb side of the health care debate will be receiving a lifetime achievement award for, quote, bringing good humor to congress. i assume in this case the joke is on us. >> yeah. do we really need this? hey, you know, sure. you totally torpedoed any chance of health reform in this country but have you heard that guy's christopher walken? it is hilarious. yeah. enough. enough. i don't want that. >> what was the name of the puppet? >> this would be pashtun hulk hogan. >> good night, pashtun hulk hogan. >> bye, keith. >> bye, christian finnegan. thanks very much. any time you have a bill hicks reference go for it, babe. all right. that's "countdown" for this the 2,297th day. keep bill alive. since the previous president declared mission accomplished in iraq. now let me see if i got this

straight. you got dick armey fired and you're on "meet the press" sunday with dick armey? ladies and gentlemen, here is rachel maddow. good evening. >> well, that's putting quite a blunt point on it. >> i'm dvring it already on three different televisions. >> it's a dramatic circumstance in which to make my "meet the press" debut i admit though i'm not going to claim any credit for getting anybody fired. >> well, separated? removed? distanced? >> thanks, keith. >> good evening, rachel. >> good evening, keith. thank you very much. thank aut home for staying with us for the next hour. we do begin tonight with a dramatic and unexpected development. in politics and in health reform. former republican house majority leader dick armey did resign today from the d.c. lobbying and legal services firm dla piper. we have talked about dick armey and dla piper a number of times on this show over the past few weeks including last night after we obtained a dla piper internal memo concerning our coverage of them recently.

before today, mr. armey served as senior policy advisor for dla piper while he simultaneously headed an organization called freedom works. freedom works of course has been actively campaigning against health care reform and helping organize the protestors who have disrupted town hall meetings and other discussions of health reform around the country. now, as we reported last night, dla piper sent an internal memo to its employees claiming that mr. armey's work at freedom works should not be associated with his work at the lobbying and law firm. the memo also said, quote, the firm strongly opposes any activities designed to disrupt the national debate about health care reform. on the contrary, dla piper encourages responsible national debate. we reported last night on dla piper's statement and then we invited further comment from them on how they square their firm's strong opposition to disrupting the debate on health care reform with the fact their senior policy advisor heads up an advocacy organization that

claims credit for doing just that. today dla piper and dick armey announced he would no longer be part of that firm. he has been employed there since he left congress more than six years ago and on the occasion of his resignation from dla piper mr. armey release this had statement. quote, it is painful and frustrated to see a good, decent, able and effective partnership of honorable men and women and their clients attacked for things in which they are not involved simply because of their association with me. one would expect a higher degree of competence and professionalism from members of the media than spurious attacks on innocent bystanders. he goes on. let me be perfectly clear about dla piper. it's a fine firm with good, competent people. it has been my privilege to be associated with them and i will miss them. i am leaving the firm with regret but also with anticipation of being more fully engaged in the nation's struggle and without having attacks on me being dren ining directed at ot. the threat to personal liberty in america is so serious and

imminent at this time that it requires the full commitment of my efforts. while i consider it a personal sacrifice to leave dla piper it is a sacrifice i must make in light of the important work i am committed to at freedom works. the dual employment of dick armey at freedom works and dla piper has led our show and others to question whether companies employing dick armey's law and lobbying firm also effectively were buying the services of what is purportedly a grass roots organization, freedom works. for example, when life insurance interests paid for representation from dla piper, did that influence the decision by freedom works to direct its membership to oppose life insurance regulations? or in fact to oppose health reform? some provisions of which are opposed by the life insurance industry. when mr. armey resigned from the firm today, the chairman of dla pipe erp released his own statement saying, quote, we are sorry to see dick armey leave but, he said, quote, we

appreciate his taking the initiative to clear up confusion surrounding freedom works. now, our reporting is not the first time that confusion has been reported about whether or not freedomworks is actually a grass roots front, an oz tense ibl grass roots front for corporate lobbying and pr. why this time has it resulted in this dramatic resignation? we honestly do not yet know. there are other signs that reporting on the increasingly extremist rhetoric that's being embraced by health care reform opponents is causing some consternation among those who are being linked to the protestors by the press. another report that we did on antihealth reform protestors last night on this show has provoked a double barreled response from the public relations firm of shirley and bannister. now, shirley and bannister currently list as clients on its website some very big names in the conservative movement, groups like the nra, the conservative news outlet, human events, conservative direct mail guru richard viguerie.

we reported shirley and bannister also represent a website called grass fire.org which funds resist net.com which is a hub for online organizing for antihealth reform protests. you can find there among other things a video entitled obama equals hitler. resist net.com bills itself as the online community for patriotic citizens who are opposing the obama-led socialist agenda. it appears to be one of the more radical online organizing houses for these protests. they have hosted some of the most extreme rhetoric and imagery we have seen in this era of very extreme antiobama rhetoric and imagery. today shirley and bannister wrote to us to let us know while they used to represent grass fire.org they no longer represent them. now i apologize for saying that they were still currently involved in representing grass fire. they are not. shirley and bannister did,

however, represent the group in 2004. back in 2004, grass fire was busy producing tv ads attacking democratic presidential candidate john kerry ahead of the 2004 election. which would of course be sort of normal and fine except for the fact that grass fire told the irs at the time that they weren't doing any work to influence the elections of 2004. now, again, shirley and bannister no longer represent grass fire but when they did, that's what grass fire was up to. currently shirleyy and bannister represents an organization called the bradley foundation. the bradley foundation is a major funder of -- wait for it -- freedom works. in 2008 the bradley foundation provided a $25,000 grant to the freedom works foundation. the same year the bradley foundation also gave a $25,000 grant to the organization americans for prosperity. we called the bradley foundation today to ask if those groups have also received funding this year in 2009. they told us that freedom works

has indeed received $75,000 so far this year. and they have another application pending to receive more. americans for prosperity has not received any money from the bradley foundation this year but they, too, have a grant application pending. these two organizations, freedom works and americans for prosperity are both visibly, observably responsible for organizing these protests at the health care reform events. and they're quite proud of it. here's the president and vice president of freedom works bragging about their efforts here on msnbc. >> the right thing to do is to get -- be aggressive. get to the microphone. express your opinion. right now you guys are killing these -- you're going to every town meeting blowing them apart. how many people are on your payroll, dream works, freedom works whatever it's called. >> 18. >> and how do you organize these meetings, where people do like the acorn type meetings where they show up -- >> mostly through the internet. >> that was freedom works.

americans for prosperity, who we have hosted on this show, they're the group that is currently driving buses around the country to campaign against health care reform any time you see the big, bloody red hand print and hands off my health care that's americans for prosperity. what can americans learn about health care reform from the speakers organized for the big, bloody hand print hands off my health care bus tour? >> it's this new obama care program, if it comes to fruition, when you reach 65, and every five years thereafter, you're going to have to have a counseling session with some federal airhead. part of this process is called end of life counseling and part of the end of life counseling can be an end of life order. adolph hitler ordered 6 million end of life orders. he called his program the final

solution. i kind of wonder what we're going to call ours. >> americans for prosperity. whose speaker you just saw there. and freedom works being funded in part by the bradley foundation. the bradley foundation is currently represented by shirley and bannister. who else does shirleyy and bannister represent? well, there is the group citizens united which is currently pushing the obama has an enemies list story on its website. there is conservative activist richard viguerie whose website features the image of president obama as the joker from batman next to the title "why so socialist?" when shirley and bannister came after us today they not only only requested a correction for us getting the timing wrong, which i am happy to provide, they also immediately threatened to sue us and then provided the e-mail they sent us to right wing websites to write stories about their demanded correction and their threatened lawsuit before we were even on the air again to get a chance to offer

the correction that they had demanded. this is the way they operate. in 2004 when shirley and bannister did represent grass fire.org and grass fire.org was producing the antijohn kerry tv ads, even while it was telling the irs it wasn't spending any money to influence the election, the good government watch dog group public citizen decided to look into who was representing this group grass fire. when public citizen discovered it was shirley and bannister, and they inquired about grass fire with a shirley and bannister employee, craig shirley, the shirley in shirley and bannister, fired off this e-mail to that employee and to public citizen. quote, public citizen is an ultra leftist, anticonservative, antibush organization. if they bother you one more time, please advise me soonest and i will have the lawyers alert the fbi and the virginia attorney general's office to investigate public citizen for any and all law they may have broke anne to prosecute the name of a specific public citizen

employee and public citizen to the fullest extent of the law. what do they do to deserve that? public citizen was asking for publicly available information. and shirley and bannister threatened to sic the fbi and state attorney general on them. for their part public citizen disputes the characterization of them as an ultra leftist, anticonservative group, telling us today that they are an independent public interest watch dog. i understand this is the way beltway pr works. specifically this is the way that beltway right wing pr works. it is threats and intimidation and ginning up an angry mob if you need to in order to get your way. we deal with the facts and correct the record when we need to but i will not and we will not be intimidated out of covering the news. enjoy yourself if you want to keep trying. on health care ref, derailing the debate with myths and scare tactics.

desperately trying to stop you from discovering that reform won't hurt medicare. it will actually strengthen it by eliminating billions of dollars in waste and lowering drug prices. tell congress not to let myths get in the way of fixing what's broken with health care. learn the facts at healthactionnow.org. programing alert. i am going to be a guest for the

first time ever on "meet the press" this weekend. my fellow panelists are former senator tom daschle, tom coburn and dick armey. sunday morning, nbc. should be fun. introducing a breakthrough from tums that can control your heartburn for hours all day or all night. it's called tums dual action, and it's the longest lasting tums ever. tums dual action works two ways to relieve heartburn: like all tums, it goes to work in seconds. plus, tums dual action has an effectivecid reducer that works for hours, all day or all night,

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after weeks of conservative talk show hosts comparing president obama to hitler, and antihealth care reform protestors across the country calling the president a nazi even in some cases calling for the president to be killed, one republican member of congress today came forward to say, enough. she is republican congresswoman kathy mcmorris rogers. she is the fifth ranking republican in the house and she offered this rebuke in the hill newspaper today.

quote, i certainly don't condone violence. i don't condone calling president obama hitler and painting swastikas on signs at town halls. the extremism in rhetoric and tactics and outlandish claims that has been displayed by antihealth reform protestors this summer appears to be causing some recoil on the right, right now. congresswoman rogers expressing her disapproval of the nazism claims, lobbying and law firm dla piper separating from its long-time advisor dick armey and therefore from freedom works the organization promoting the protests. even the very conservative pr firm shirley and bannister threatening to sue me for inadvertently exaggerating their relationship to another promoter of the protests. but even at these cracks appearing among republicans, among conservatives, over how the antihealth reform fight is being waged i challenge you to name a single republican member of congress who says he or she is looking forward or even

leaning toward voting for health reform. there is one man at least who has said that, congressman joseph gao of louisiana. he told his constituents at a fairly civil town hall meeting yesterday he is leaning toward voting for the reform bill with a few caveats and is also taking the president up on his offer to meet with any member of congress who wants to get together to talk about health care. the congressman represents a district in which 2/3 of the registered voters are democrats. his seat was previously held by ym jefferson who you might remember as the cash in the freezer congressman. joining us now from new orleans is republican congressman joseph gow. thank you so much for coming on the show. i appreciate it. >> thank you very much. >> at your town hall meeting yesterday i understand there were no major disruptions but there was a very dramatic moment when one of your constituents presented you with a stack of medical bills and then walked out. what did you take from that? >> well, i appreciate people

expressing their opinions concerning some of their disagreements. i appreciate people maybe even venting their anger, and i respect the people's opinion. however, we were able to keep the conversation very civil and we were able to look at the issues concerning the health care reform and how it will affect everyone. >> i know that you haven't totally made up your mind yet and there's no final bill to vote on yet but you did say you were leaning toward voting for health care reform. do you expect to get pressure from your republican colleagues in congress about that vote? is this going to be a vote where they encourage you to stick with the rest of your party if the rest of your party is mostly going to vote no? >> as you know, rachel, there will always be pressure in the congress whether one is a republican or one is a democrat. but at the end of the day we as leaders of this country have to

look at the problems of this country and rise -- arrive at real solutions. so i believe that we do need reform but the questions i have is how will this reform affect the economy. how will this reform affect the ability of the elderly to continue receiving benefits. how will this reform affect small businesses and, more importantly, how will this -- will this reform have strong language against federal funneleding for abortions? >> i know you are strongly pro life and that abortion issues are some of the issues that are driving your overall concerns about health care reform. do you feel it's possible to have a constructive debate even about hot button issues like abortion, like some of the other things that have attracted some of the most extreme rhetoric or do you feel like things have now been so heated for so long and there's been so many exaggerations that the prospects for civil discussion are dim? >> rachel, i'm a man of deep

hope and i know that we as a country, we as a people can come together and have a civil and intelligent discussion concerning this health care reform. and i hope that at the end of the day we will have a leadership that will reach out in a bipartisan way so that we as one congress can look at this serious problem and come to a real solution to the problem. >> one last brief question. i opened this discussion by talking about comments from congresswoman kathy mcmorris rogers saying it was inappropriate to hear allegations of nazism, swastikas turning up on signs. that's the far end of the extremist rhetoric we've seen in this debate. i want to give you a chance now to say if you also condemn the allegations of nazis and the use of the swastika, some of the other very extreme things we've seen around the country. >> absolutely, rachel.

i believe, you know, i respect the constitution protecting our right of free speech, our right of expression. but i believe that when we go to extremes like that, it disrupts dialogue and it causes conflicts which at the end of the day impede us from reaching a solution to a pressing problem. >> congressman joseph cao republican of louisiana, thank you very much for joining us tonight. nice to meet you. >> thank you very much, rachel. >> okay. the geneva convention just had a birthday. you will never guess who invited himself to the birthday party. awkward. coming up. stay with us. catering business but when i walked in here i wasn't sure what i needed. i'm not sure what i need. tom showed me how to use mifi to get my whole team working online, on location. i was like, "woah". woah ! only verizon wireless has small business specialists in every store to help you do business better.

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coming up the next group of innocent americans the antihealth reform sources are trying to scare into helping them out may just be veterans. congressman and senate candidate and retired vice admiral joe set beck will join us. plus there is a dot connecting revelation in a special report. and i have ended up in a christian broadcasting network news story. it goes about as well as you might expect. which is to say it goes very, very poorly. that is all coming up. but first time for a couple holy mackerel stories in today's news. as we have reported recently, many republican officials have enthusiastically embraced the

conspiracy theory that health care reform is a secret plot to kill old people. health reform isn't really a secret plot to kill old people. the part of the house bill cited by the conspiratists to supposedly prove their point actually says medicare will cover consultations about living wills, advanced directives. if patients want to talk to their own doctors about what they want to happen at the end of their own life. that's it. but that hasn't stopped people like republican senator chuck grassley of iowa, the top republican on health care in the senate, who said, quote, we should not have a government program that determines if you're going to pull the plug on grandma. then there was house minority leader john boehner who said, quote, this provision may start us down a treacherous path toward government encouraged euthanasia. and putting the exclamation point on ridiculous, florida representative john micah who said, quote, there are death counselors. there is authorization for reimburse the for those

counselors for medicare. you have a whole new cottage industry. as reported on "time" magazine's swamp log land today senator grassley and congressman boehner and john mica have another thing in common in addition to being deathers. they also voted for the 2003 medicare prescription drug bill. that bill in part provided funding for end of life counseling. and i quote, counseling the beneficiary with respect to end of life issues and care options and advising the ben fish yaefi regarding advanced claire planning or as these things are now known in republican circles, death panels. in all, 204 republicans in the house and 42 republicans in the senate voted for the death panels. and there was not a peep about then president bush having a secret plan to kill old people. bottom line? either republicans bike chuck grassley and john boehner and john mica have totally changed their minds about whether living

wills are really a secret plot to kill old people or they voted for something just a few years ago that they actually thought was a secret plot to kill old people. take your choice. next up the geneva conventions constitute the very core of international humanitarian law. the bush administration tried to argue the geneva convention didn't apply to people we captured in what used to be called the war on terror. the u.s. supreme court famously disagreed and forced the u.s. to rejoin the community of civilized nations that agrees to abide by these minimum human rights rules. after all that turmoil during the bush years it was with deserved fanfare that the international committee of the red cross held a reception in d.c. this week to honor the 60th anniversary of the geneva conventions. about 230 guests attended including staff from the department of state, from house and senate offices, from the national security council, and from the white house. gregory craig, the white house counsel was even there. and as first reported by "the washington post" so was this

man. he is john rizzo the outgoing general counsel of the cia. name sound familiar? he was the man who requested legal opinions from the department of justice's office of legal counsel about whether or not cia officers could torture people. those legal memos that were written to him gave rizzo's agency the go ahead to among other things waterboard abu zabaida 83 times which violated the birthday boy, the geneva convention. you know, i have long admitted my obscure, obsessive policy interests make me bad cocktail party guest. who really wants to chat about reliable replacement warheads around a big punch bowl of sangria, right? but no matter how bad a cocktail party guest i am i will never be

the torture guy at the geneva convention's birthday party. and finally, 2/3 of the world, roughly, drives on the right. the other third drives on the left. in the past 40 years or so, three countries have decided to change sides. sweden and iceland and burma all had been british style left side drivers and they all decided to switch to the right but no country has switched since burma did it way back in 1970 and no country in modern times as far as i can tell has ever switched in the other direction. nobody has tried to make right side american style drivers switch to driving on the left. until now. until samoa. samoa is way, way, way out in the middle of the south pacific. it's about 2500 miles southwest of hawaii. it is slightly closer, about 1900 miles from new zealand. and samoa has decided that it's going to switch from american style driving on the right to

british, japanese, australian, new zealand style driving on the left. the samoan prime minister whose name i admire very much but i will not attempt to pronounce it without a net, he has decided that even factoring in the cost of switching it would be cheaper for samoa to import cars with the steering wheel on the right from new zealand and australia rather than continuing to import cars with the steering wheel on the left from us. of course people on the island of american samoa will keep driving on the right as they do now. very complicated. in preparation for the switch the government has asked citizens to come drive around a course that they've set up at a sports stadium so people can practice driving on the left. samoans opposed to the switch have started a new political party called people against switching sides. the big contested switch is due to happen at 6:00 a.m. on the morning of monday, september 7th. and, you know, moving from the right to the left always takes practice.

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the current fight that has emerged from what was supposed to be a debate about reform in our broken health care system pits people who want to fix what is broken against people who want to see the fix-it people beaten. it's the idealists versus anilists it seems and part of the way the anilists are trying to get health care reform killed dead is by scaring different groups of americans that they see as susceptible to scaring into thinking health care reform is somehow out to get them. first we had the argument health care reform was a secret plot to kill old people. this conspiracy theory based on the government promoting living wills which it has done without controversy in a nonpartisan matter for 40, excuse me, for 20 years, this conspiracy theory was made up by antihealth reform special interests to scare the bejesus out of senior citizens. the next conspiracy theory peddled about health care came from former vice presidential candidate and former half-term alaska governor sarah palin who has used postings on her facebook page to try to scare parents into thinking health

care reform might be a secret plot to kill special needs children. and of course antihealth care reformers have worked to scare and mobilize the antiabortion movement into thinking health care reform includes provisions to encourage more abortions. the center piece, this completely inaccurate scare the seniors and antiabortion people one fell swoop message was cobbled together into a tv ad from the family research council. check it out. >> it won't pay for my surgery. what are we going to do? >> honey, you can't live this way. >> and to think that planned parenthood is included in the government run health care plan and spending tax dollars on abortions. they won't pay for my surgery but we're forced to pay for abortions. >> our greatest generation denied care. our future generation denied life. >> not at all true but it does neatly wrap up the government run health care kill the old people forced abortions conspiracy theories all in one convenient surly package.

the disprovable but nevertheless endlessly stoked conspiracy theories about health care have bullied their way to the table and they sit there loudly and obnoxiously next to actual concerns about health reform and across from ideas about how to actually fix what's broken. the next crazy disprovable conspiracy theory coming down the pike? the in exhibit of scare tactic politics based as far as i can tell in pure bull pucky appears to be scaring our veterans into thinking that their care will somehow be taken away if we reform health care in this country. cue congressman steve beyer. he is the ranking republican on the house committee on veterans affairs. mr. buyer today issued a press release stating, quote, the current democrat bill harms veterans. yes, the same reform ideas that seek to kill old people and kids with special needs and which mandate abortions is also a dastardly and unpatriotic move to harm the people who have fought to defend this country.

except of course it's not any of those things. the white house appears to have been prepared to bat this one down. they recently put out a short video by matt flavin the white house director of veterans and wounded warrior policy. he is also a veteran of bosnia and iraq and afghanistan. >> i'm here to tell you quite simply that if you are eligible for va health care you will remain eligible. there is no impact on va health care. so veterans, please be comforted in the fact that your health care will not change under health reform efforts. there is no effect. >> there is no effect. so says the white house director of veterans and wounded warrior policy. health care reform is not a plot to deprive veterans of the care that they have earned. that's apparently not going to stop the antireform crowd from trying to make them afraid that that is the case. joining us now is congressman joe sustech, a retired u.s. navy rear admiral, the highest

ranking former military officer to serve in congress and he is running against senator arlen spectrometry inner the democr specter. >> good to be back. >> we have already seen antihealth care reform people going after seniors trying to make senior citizens afraid about health care reform. >> yes. >> what is your reaction to the effort to try to target veterans? >> i'm very disappointed. that bill, that wonderful bill we've moved through my committee out of education and labor states very explicitly that tri care for active and retired military and that the veterans and their dependents that are in the va as well as those dependents in tri care, that remains a solid system with no changes. you know, not only that. but president obama's budget is going to also restore what we call the priority veterans to the va system. back in 2003 the bush administration kicked out over

265,000 veterans out of the veterans administration who happened to earn a bit over $34,000 for a family of two. now it ae's 500,000 that are denied. president obama's budget in the next four years brings them all back in. not only does it preserve the system for our veterans, it enhances the system for our veterans. >> it seems like the white house knew this was coming. we have seen congressman buyer making noise about this issue. the white house proactively put out that video from the white house veterans director. we see the president has on his schedule on monday he'll be addressing the vfw in arizona. the white house seems to expect that this is going to be politicized that veterans are going to be try to be frightened. we've seen a lot of veterans speaking out at health care reform events not necessarily about veterans issues but the other things used to scare people. does it take a certain type of person and politics to try to exploit veterans in particular

to be afraid here? >> it does. i'm quite frankly disappointed. anybody reads section 202 of this bill should know very comfortably that our veterans are taken care of. i'm so glad to see the white house is really on its game with this. i'm actually going to be having a veterans summit tomorrow here in philadelphia and fly to pittsburgh and have another one there where we're going to talk over this issue. this word has got to get out to those veterans that if this president is determined to do anything it's take care of vets. i'm not just saying that. he has got an 11% increase in the veterans administration over the next five years. that's the largest increase in the history of the veterans administration. we are very grateful to have him as our commander in chief. >> let's get down to the nitty gritty here. we hear from a lot of veterans who watch the show and we have a big veterans audience. we try to prioritize veterans issues on this show whenever we can. the nitty gritty here, the specific allegation is that

veterans getting va health care would be subjected to attacks that might be levied against people who were uninsured. and what the white house says is that the legislation that passed as you say through your committee exempts people who are covered under the va from having to meet that mandate. can you as somebody who is responsible for that bill passing, can you confirm that that's true? there's not going to be any tax on anybody for va benefits? >> i can absolutely confirm and the exact words are that the va health care plan meets the minimal, acceptable requirements, which means it's exempt from that 2.5% tax that they're talking about. it states it just like that. >> do you have advice for the president in terms of his address to the vfw on monday? he's going to be speaking at a relatively politicized group among veterans groups.

>> these men and women do believe in a commander in chief and mr. president, continue to fight because our va has been so under funded, $2 billion in 2003, $2 billion in 2004, $2 billion in 2005, $2 billion in 2006. and the veterans know that. i just think he needs to continue to pound away. that mr. president, just state the facts. veterans love this country and they respect the commander in chief when he just states the facts. >> congressman joe sestak running against senator arlen specter in the great state of pennsylvania, good luck with your veterans summits this weekend. thanks very much for your time tonight. >> thanks for having me. wondering where all the rage during the health care town hall protests is coming from? look no further than our friend kent jones. i mean, not kent as the cause per se but it turns out he knows what is causing it. a little surprising. coming up.

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♪ as the republican party searches for meaning in the political minority one georgia congressman is doing his best to close the gap between the off the kook and obama equals hitler fringe and the sort of main stream republicanism that is supposedly embodied by the party's elected officials. his name is paul brown. he is the missing link. he first got famous this past november when he told a rotary club in georgia that barack obama was a marxist and that he reminded congressman brown of hitler. you know, a hitler marxist. a couple weeks ago congressman brown made headlines again for becoming a charter member of the lying about health reform to scare old people, deathers club. >> a lot of people are going to die. this program of government

option is being touted as being this panacea, the savior of allowing people to have quality health care at an affordable price is going to kill people. >> since then congressman paul broun of georgia has outdone himself as a leadership role model of civility and decorum on the issue of health care. >> folks, this is obama-care. let me start this by telling you what i think of this bill and obama-care. [ cheering ] >> sorry. taken away by the moment there. carried off in the sympathy. that was tuesday night. today congressman paul broun of georgia maybe even topped that. he sent a letter to the mailing list of the american conservative union. it was obtained by talking points memo. the letter says if we reform health care, quote, when mama falls and breaks her hip, she'll

just lie in her bed in pain until she dies with pneumonia because her needed surgery is not cost efficient. republican congressman paul broun of georgia calling the president hitler, saying that obama-care is a nonmetaphorical object that should be dropped from a great height, and threatening to kill your mama. best of luck with all getting out of political exile thing.

i know there's ban lot of attention paid to some of the town hall meetings around the country especially when i know there's been a lot of attention paid to town hall meetings around the country especially when there's a ruck kous. >> i know there's been a ru ruckous. kept, i understand you have a special report for us. >> yes, i love a ruckous just for the record. watching i came to a realization that totally the way i looked at town hall meetings, all of politics. >> all: just say no. >> as i watched the town hall protest, i wondered where does all that come from? >> they don't have sophisticated language. >> why does it seem so familiar? and then it hits me -- -- >> all: jerry, jerry, jerry. >> here, this is where we learn to air our differences. forget high school.

this is america's civics class. we've turned into jerry nation only without the bodyguards. could it be that the number one influence on our political discourse has become daytime tv? take the birthers' phenomenon. >> american citizens. he is a citizen of kenya. >> with those seething conspiracy theorists be half as gung ho without years of watching maury. >> harry, you are the father! >> once you start looking, the fruit of daytime tv is ripening everywhere. look at mark sanford. >> i've been unfaithful to my wife. >> is this a state governor or a guest on a very special episode of "tyra." >> always what he said, what she said -- >> look, it's judge judy. >> i don't approve of congress. >> and "the price is right." >> $10,000.

>> $825 billion. >> $10,000. >> $10,000. >> and "sesame street." >> this is michelle obama. >> hi, everyone. >> this thing goes all the way to the top. it's a daytime woe. we just live in it. >> i admit it. i made liquor drinks with martha stewart at 10:00 in the morning. i'm part of the problem. >> of course. why wouldn't you. >> thank you very much, kent. i appreciate it. coming up on "countdown," howard dean joins keith to see how the president is faring in his proclaimed facts not fear battle against the forces against health care. next on this show, i'm sort of enjoying what turns out to be get maddow day on the right. christian conservatives are taking pot shots at me.

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cocktail moment for sflu oh, very good. >> this, i'm going to be on "meet the press" this weekend. >> yes, excellent. >> that means i've never done one of these shows. i have to go to d.c. and picked out my reading for the trip home because i'm dork ki like that. i make sure i have something to read. a giant new article on c street published by this christian magazine that's called "the world." there are two big relatively mainstream christian right magazines in the u.s. one is christianity today. one is called "the world." "the world" did a huge new cover on "c street." i haven't read the whole thing but interviews with people who left the family and have lots of criticism for it and an explanation of how they don't consider themself christians and dictators and how the guy has put 11 of his family members on the group's payroll. it is that story from the world is linked on our website in case

anybody else wants to do their homework with me on "c street." cocktail moment, the christian broadcasting network. >> oh, yes. >> they have also just done a big story on "c street." they like took a little shot at me hosting the coverage of it but check out what they -- what they say is the real story about "c street." they say the real story of it is not conservative politicians having affairs while they were supposedly being held accountable at "c" street. the real story is how many other affairs "c" street must have thwarted. how many others they would have been having if they hadn't have been kept so accountable by "c" street. >> what you ought to do if you want to do a real story on it is find out how many affairs were thwarted because of the accountability of this house. >> holding politicians accounbl