reform. this is just one sliver of it. one aspect of it. >> the fact of the matter is, there are not the votes in the united states senate for the public option. there never have been. >> you know, when you have a weekend like that, it's no real surprise when monday turns out to be a great day for health insurance stock prices. how did we get here? how did we get to the foretold death of the public option and united health awesome monday on wall street? we got here through a collapse of political ambition and the resultant downgrading of expectations for this once in a lifetime, stars alined political shot at fixing this system that accounts for 1/6 of our economy. a system that is so broken that a majority of personal bankruptcies in this country are caused by medical costs and a majority of those people who are going bankrupt because of their medical costs actually have health insurance. trying to meet the health care needs of our nation of 300 million people by just hoping

the private sector will provide has been a disaster. check that. actually it's been a disaster for the american people and the economy but great for the insurance companies and the other big health corporations who have made health care for profit a better modern corporate racket than anything other than being a defense contractor in the rumsfeld era. however we got to the system we have now, it doesn't have to stay this way. this isn't the way other countries do it. and there are even long-standing pilot projects that have worked out pretty well thank you in this country for basing a health care system on the needs of patients rather than on corporations' needs for a fat bottom line. the veterans administration, for example, offers one big long american pilot project for how to change health care. the veterans administration is a nationalized health care system. it's a totally public system. the government runs the hospitals. the health care professionals who work at the system work for the government. it's the same kind of system that the general public uses in england.

well, here in the u.s. a right wing group opposed to health care reform called conservatives for patients' rights has tried to convince americans that british people hate their health care system. they've produced ads like this one purporting to show real british people warning americans about how bad their british nhs is. the actual british people who ended up in those ads now say they were duped. they say they actually support the nhs and they're horrified to learn they are being used to discredit it. another big long-standing american pilot project for how to change health care is medicare. medicare is single payor health care. in medicare the doctors and nurses don't work for the government. the hospitals can still be private, even for profit, but the government provides the health insurance. they are the single payor. it essentially takes a huge bulk of administrative costs for all the private insurance companies out of the system and you end up with medicare. you end up with a system that americans have a much higher

degree of satisfaction with than they do for private insurance. most industrialized countries have single payor or national health care. and they spend less. and they have better health outcomes than we do with our big experiment in hoping the private sector will provide. president truman in 1948 through kennedy and carter and clinton have all tried to reshape, to reform the american health care system, all to no avail. and by the closing years of the george w. bush administration, the number of uninsured americans was approaching 50 million and the ceos of the ten largest health insurance companies were taking home an average compensation of $11.9 million each every year. in 2008, all changed. not only did the democrats take the white house but they did so with a candidate who explicitly campaigned on a health care reform promise. they won a more than 70-seat majority in the house. they won a filibuster-proof 60-seat majority in the senate.

if health care reform is ever going to be possible, it's never going to be more possible than it is this year. but from the very, very beginning single payor health care and national health care were completely off the table. as matt taibbi writes in his gut-wrenching article for rolling stone when max bachus convened the first roundtable discussions on health care reform last may senator bachus invited 41 witnesses to capitol hill to share their perspective on what ought to happen with health care reform. 41 witnesses over three days, not a single witness was scheduled to speak in favor of single payor. because single payor was inexplicably, totally beyond the realm of consideration, democrats ended up instead proposing something called a public option, a medicare-like plan that at least some americans could choose to buy into instead of buying private insurance. now apparently even that is off the table, too. we know that the president both

when he was a candidate and well into the current debate as president said that a public option was a must. >> that's why any plan i sign must include an insurance exchange, including a public option to increase competition and keep insurance companies honest. and choose what's best for your family. >> must, he said. must. he has changed his mind on that now apparently. even max bachus, the won't even consider single payor conservative senator from montana who leads the committee that is now dropping the public option, even max bachus was in favor of the public option as recently as last november when he published his big hundred-page health care proposal that called for, quote, a new public option, a new public plan option similar to medicare. so if max baucus was in favor of a public option and president obama was in favor of a public

option, and a public option survived through three house committees and one senate committee that passed bills on health care reform so far, why is the public option dying now? it's dying because of a collapse of political ambition. the democrats are too scared of their own shadow to use the majority the american people elected them to in november to actually pass something they said they favored. senator baucus has decided to take decision making about health care reform out of the full committee on which democrats have a huge majority and instead he wants it to be decided by a mini committee that he made up that's three senators from each party, as if the american people elected a half and half republican and democratic senate this year. which we did not. we elected a big democratic majority. but then democrats decided to wield that majority by giving the republicans control over what kind of health care reform we get. so we get no public option. we get no public option. no single payor. no national health plan. maybe some insurance reform. maybe not. depends on what else the republicans want probably.

joining us now is matt taibbi, contributing editor at "rolling stone" magazine whose article appears in the next issue of "rolling stone" out on friday. great to have you back on the show. you are very smart and very depressing simultaneously. this is a brutal assessment of what you think is possible out of this process. >> yeah. i think it's just going to be a very low moment for the democratic party. this health care thing if it turns into the debacle it looks like it's going to might be an albatross around the neck of the party the same way the iraq war was for the republicans i think. >> if the white house and senate democrats are now saying no public option, that has caused liberal democrats in the house and bernie sanders in the senate to say, okay. then no health reform at all. anthony weiner of new york out in front on that today saying if there isn't a public option it will not pass the house. i can get a hundred democrats to vote against it if it doesn't have a public option.

is dropping the public option a disgusting enough political surrender that it might actually sort of wake up the liberal base here? >> i think actually it might be. you know, when nancy pelosi was asked the question when she was asked if it was possible that the progressives might end up not voting for the bill if the public option was watered down she laughed out loud about a month ago but in speaking to members of congress both in the house and the senate, i think this is kind of a line in the sand issue for them. i think there are lots of people who are seriously considering not voting for this thing and if there is no public option, i think you probably will see that revolt among the progressives in both houses. >> i was surprised to learn today, and it was a posting today is the reason i know it. i didn't know it before. i was surprised to learn max baucus had been explicitly on record in his health care report from november as being in favor of the public option.

it seems like even the most conservative democrats, until quite recently, were in favor of the public option. do you think it went away because they ceded power to the republicans or did they change their minds? >> they bargained away a single payor from the very start. i mean, there was absolutely no discussion of it throughout the entire process. a lot of people i talked to seemed to think this was really a handshake deal between the white house and the insurance industry and the pharmaceutical industry. basically there was a quid pro quo. we'll take single payor off the table at the start. you promise not to hammer us the way you hammered bill clinton when he tried to push through health care reform. this was something they never intended to do throughout this entire process i think. this was really a dog-and-pony show where they entertained the notion of maybe doing a public option but the more serious reform was never viable. >> that gets you to we're not considering single payor. how do we get from barack obama saying there must be a public option, even max baucus saying there has to be a public option, to now all of a sudden no public option. what changed? >> this is a complete and total

mystery to me because it's not like they're going to get any republican votes by dropping the public option. >> ding! >> you know, this is an option where there's only one person in the audience. you don't have to keep bidding higher. you're the only person there and you'll get the painting in the end, you know? it doesn't make any sense what they're doing and indicates to me that this is really what they want. they really wanted to pass something that doesn't have any meaningful effect on the insurance industry. >> it's not too late. they could change their minds. i mean, we passed three committees in the house. one committee in the senate still has to get out of baucus' committee, if the argument is they're going to get republican votes. >> right. >> if they drop the public option couldn't republicans just make it all the more patently obvious that none of them are going to vote for this thing no matter what they do and then democrats can drop their hands and say fine. we'll do what we want and do a public option? >> that absolutely could happen and that might end up being the course they'll pursue. but right now it looks like

they'll cowtow to republicans and drop this thing. it doesn't make any sense why. >> democrats, when -- when senator grassley says health care reform is a plot to pull the plug on grandma, that's your signal that he's not going to vote for anything. stop giving stuff up to woo him. sorry. sorry. matt, thanks for letting me do that. contributing editor of "rolling stone" your article is really helpful. thanks as always. okay. a big city mayor starts behaving like a super hero and has the injuries to show for it. and since when did a public appearance by the president turn into a gun show? and by that i do not mean the kind of gun show that's just a euphemism for nice biceps. i mean actual guns. that's next. reading about washington these days... i gotta ask,

what's in it for me? i'm not looking for a bailout, just a good paying job. that's why i like this clean energy idea. now that works for our whole family. for the kids, a better environment. for my wife, who commutes, no more gettin' jerked around on gas prices... and for me, well, it wouldn't be so bad if this breadwinner brought home a little more bread. repower america. i hope our senators are listening.

today, president obama addressed the veterans of foreign wars convention in phoenix. outside the convention hall, one man wore an ar-15 semiautomatic assault rifle strapped to his shoulder as well as a pistol on his hip. no, he was not a police officer. no, he was not a secret service officer. he was just a guy showing up strapped to an event featuring the president of the united states. the associated press reports that in total about a dozen people were on site outside the convention hall today visibly carrying firearms. again, not police officers, not secret service officers. just regular citizens turning up

to be seen carrying weapons near the president. yet again. last week there was this man in new hampshire waiting for president obama to arrive at a town hall event there. the man had a loaded handgun strapped to his leg. he was holding a sign that read, it is time to water the tree of liberty. of course, it's a reference to thomas jefferson's famous words worn on a t-shirt by timothy mcveigh on the day he bombed the murrah building in oklahoma city. the tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants. at the same event for president obama in portsmouth, new hampshire a 62-year-old man named richard terry young was arrested and charged with two misdemeanors after sneaking past security officials and into portsmouth high school a few hours before president obama was due to arrive. mr. young was found inside the school. he was allegedly carrying a knife. when officers searched his pickup truck they found a 38 caliber semiautomatic pistol

hidden inside a bag with a round in the chamber. i'm sensing a theme here. one that requires some explanation. as far as i understand it, he can't even fly a small plane into the air space over the white house. in fact, the faa often bans aircraft anywhere near the president's destination when he travels outside of d.c. but it's kosher to bring your ar-15 to an event featuring the president of the united states? really? joining us now is joseph petrow who served for 23 years as a special agent and executive in the secret service and is also author of the book "standing next to history, an agent's life inside the secret service." thanks very much for being here. >> rachel, my pleasure. >> today according to the ap there were a dozen people who weren't security officers or police carrying firearms at this event where the president was. i don't know if the guns were loaded. there is no reason to assume they weren't. how does the secret service plan protection for that type of situation? >> well, it's not something the

secret service often encounters. you know, the secret service is protecting presidents for a long time and there are a whole series of processes and procedures they go through to create perimeters and each of those perimeters become more and more difficult to penetrate up right to the end where the agents are actually around the president. but i think this is less a secret service issue and moraine issue for all of us. you know, you said a few days ago that the possibility of american politics turning to violence or terrorism at the fringe is not all that theoretical. i would argue that the vitriolic political rhetoric we're hearing from some seemingly responsible people is stimulating a lot of these foolish stunts and they're not very helpful. and i think they're dangerous actually. and i think they're dangerous for two reasons.

one is it's hard enough to protect the president. the secret service and the local police are being distracted from that duty to keep our president safe. and i think the second reason, maybe even more serious, is the fact that it could incite or encourage one of those individuals at the fringe that you mentioned from doing something really dangerous and perhaps violent against the president or some other person. so i think it's -- this is not a helpful situation and maybe the politicians should look at lowering some of the rhetoric to try to create a more positive atmosphere. >> i understand that depending on the state people have a range of rights to cary and display weaponry. at what point does the secret service have the right to say actually the threat of an assassination attempt preempts

those rights so they could remove someone or at least confiscate the weapon? >> well, i mentioned the perimeters. we could expand -- the secret service could expand those perimeters even further. >> right. >> i mean, a mile away. theoretically that's possible. and the secret service would have a right then to take and prevent anyone from entering that perimeter with a weapon. >> okay. >> but i think just to do this at all as a stunt is just irresponsible. >> i think whether or not these individuals posed an individual threat to the president, it does seem clear that, i mean, as you say it's a stunt. it certainly seems like an implied threat of force and when you make strategic decisions about security, protecting a high value target like the president, do you factor in the sort of material consequences of a dangerous atmosphere, of an atmosphere in which the threat of course issen democraticic? >> i think it's one of the fundamental principles of the secret service to create an atmosphere of calm and quiet around the president. i mean, that's really what the secret service tries to do, so that anything that happens

that's out of character to that quiet atmosphere is noticed. it's not in the secret service's interest to have this kind of theatrics going on around. clearly, those people are not dangerous to the president at that moment. you know, they're outside the building. they're a block away or not going to -- not an immediate danger to the president. what they're creating is an atmosphere that could become dangerous for the president. and that's what would concern me and i'm sure it concerns the secret service. >> joseph petro served for 23 years as special agent and executive in the secret service. the book is called "standing next to history, an agent's life inside the secret service." this is really invaluable insight. thanks for coming in. nice to meet you. >> nice to meet you. >> thanks. how do you know when the scandals surrounding "c" street and the secretive religious group that runs it have reached critical mass? you know it when a "c" street expose is published in a major christian magazine. author jeff sharlet joins us with the latest. ever worn your clothes in the shower?

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still ahead the latest news about the family and "c" street from jeff sharlet plus following up on what they've done to the health care fight. corporate sponsored, professional debate disturbers have a new target. plus, my friend kent jones takes a look at the new movie "district 9" and has determined that space aliens are people, too. all that coming up. but first it's time for a few holy mackerel stories in today's news. wisconsin's democratic governor

jim doyle announced today that he will not seek re-election next year. and as these things always do in politics the announcement ignited a little orgy of political speculation. who is the next likely governor of the badger state? it could be congressman ron kind. it could be former congressman mark newman. it could be lieutenant governor barb lawton who just today announced she's joining the race. these are some of the potential contenders. if i were a betting tv show host, i would bet the bell cow that milwaukee mayor tom barrett's personal approval ratings just skyrocketed into lifetime appointment territory. on saturday night, mayor barrett was leaving the wisconsin state fair with his sister, his niece and his two young daughters when he heard a scream. barrett told his sister to take the children out of harm's way and went to confront a young man allegedly threatening his ex-girlfriend's mother and his own 1-year-old daughter.

the mayor said the young man should cool down. the mayor took out his cell phone to call 911 whereupon the young man apparently hit the mayor in the torso and over the head with a pipe. the mayor fought back, apparently fracturing his hand when he punched the guy. the young man ran off and the mayor was left in a pool of blood. his niece called 911. the mayor was rushed to the hospital. the mayor's brother john barrett spoke with reporters about the incident yesterday. >> tom stepped up and did the right thing. he called 911 and tried to calm the situation, protect a grandmother and her grandchild. we are extremely proud of tom's selflessness and courage. >> the young man who allegedly beat up the mayor was arrested 13 hours later at a friend's house and is being held on suspicion of felony battery. mayor barrett had surgery on his broken hand. he was treated for a number of cuts on his head and face that required stitches. he was released from the hospital today and reportedly received a get well card from president obama.

now, as much as i enjoy the occasional bratwurst i am no expert on wisconsin politics so i don't know actually if mayor barrett of milwaukee should be the next governor of wisconsin. but i am a huge comic book fan. mr. mayor just totally made it through the first two standard chapters of man becomes super hero. if he doesn't get elected governor he should at least get a cape and mask out of this. also we have a correction. on friday in a report on the trend of antihealth reform protestors across the country calling the president a nazi, we reported that one republican member of congress had that day called bull pucky and said the nazi references should stop. she is washington state republican congresswoman cathy mcmorris-rodgers the fifth ranking republican in the house and offered this rebuke in "the hill" newspaper. she said, quote i certainly don't condone violence. i don't condone calling president obama hitler and painting swastikas on signs at town halls.

all that was true and i said it right on the air but unfortunately we bungled the visual. we showed you representative cathy mcmorris-rodger but incorrectly labeled her on screen as a democrat. she is a republican. i very much apologize for the error. finally, you might remember that back in june the obama justice department filed a brief defending the defense of marriage act. that was passed during the clinton administration. the obama administration brief contained some very jerry falwell like language stating not only that the defense of marriage act was constitutional but that consensual, same sex marriage between two adults was legally comparable to the marriage of an uncle to his niece or to underage marriage. nice. well, today the justice department filed another brief. again, defending doma because the administration says it's standard practice for the department to defend all federal laws, even the ones it doesn't agree with. but this time there has been a remarkable change in tone. quote, this administration does not support doma as a matter of

policy, believes it is discriminatory and supports its repeal. oh, nothing about the uncle. huh. in conjunction with this tone shift from the justice department president obama also released a statement today saying, quote, this brief makes clear that my administration believes that the act is discriminatory and should be repealed by congress. i have long held that doma prevents lgbt couples from being granted equal rights and benefits. if only we had some sort of simple way to sort this stuff out. something like, constitutional amendment or something, like maybe kind of after the 13th amendment and before the 15th amendment and could like make crystal clear whether the federal government could deny people equal protection under the law? that would be awesome. ah, well, tv show host can dream. achoo!

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you get esurance's "fast 5 (tm) discount" just for getting an instant online quote. - thanks, professor. - don't forget the good student discount. and there's even more discounts! it's no "secret" that you can save hundreds with esurance. make it your "mission" to click or call esurance today. one of the strangest political connections of the whole summer has been the linkage between three, count them, three conservative christian republican sex scandals and a house in washington called "c" street. it's run by a secretive religious organization called

"the family" and because its "c" street house has been implicated in the sex scandals of senator ensign, governor sanford and the alleged affair of former congressman chip pickering the family has been getting a lot of unwanted scrutiny this summer. now it's coming from an unlikely direction. as we reported on this show on friday, the current cover story in the christian magazine "world" is an investigation into the family and "c" street. in the past, "world" has expressed what could be described as hostility to untoward discussion of the secretive organization but now the family is on the front page and not in a good way. the article exposes the mysterious money trail and describes the "c" street scandals using the word "scandal" and argues the family subscribes to a, quote, muddy theology and harbors, quote, a disdain for the established church. perhaps even more significantly "world" magazine quotes several relatively well known and important figures on the

religious right willing to go on the record stating their own misgivings about the family. for example the article quotes a man named rob schenk. who is rob schenk? he's the man in this video we first aired last month joining republican senator jim inhofe of oklahoma as senator inhofe bragged about family funded trips he had taken to africa. now reverend schenk says of "c" street that the, quote, the lack of church discipline and structure is, quote, a serious missing element in this whole thing. both in the lives of the individuals involved and in the fellowship organization as a whole. the magazine also talked to charles colson, who after becoming a watergate felon, went on to become a very controversial but influential figure on the religious right. quote, colson now has concerns about politicians using the "c" street group as a replacement for church. it's a mistake, he said. a leading figure ought to belong to a church. when jeff sharlet's book about

the family was first released in hard cover in 2008, the reaction from "world" magazine was essentially to call him a conspiracy theorist. the review of mr. sharlet's book in september of last year from "world" editor-in-chief marvin olasky argued that jeff sharlet, quote, reflects a growing paranoia about evangelical influence in american politics. the folks at "world" magazine may be changing their minds about that now because it's not paranoia if they really are out to get you. joining us now is jeff sharlet. he of course is author of the book "the family, the secret fundamentalism at the heart of american power" which is now out in paperback. thanks very much for coming back on the show. nice to see you. >> hi, rachel. glad to be here. >> what's significant about this particular magazine running this type of story about the family? >> i think it's even bigger than a schism. this is a moment of reckoning for the family and the kind of elite fundamentalism it represents.

on the one hand you see sort of the christian right trying to save itself by cutting off a limb but on the other hand even looking in response to the article, so many readers of "world" magazine saying why did it take you so long to expose this? you see pressure from honest conservatives who are saying, you know, we may disagree with liberals but we agree with democracy. we don't believe in this kind of cult of power and wealth for a chosen few. >> one of the major points of investigation in the article deals with money and you and i have talked about that a little bit but this is the most that i have ever seen in contemporary post your book reporting on the subject by anybody other than you. this article reports on one family affiliated charity organization that's called the wilbur force foundation. it says the wilbur force foundation has no employees but transacts thousands of dollars back and forth with the family. how does this square up with what you know about their money trail? >> perfectly. in fact, when i lived with the family, the story i tell in the beginning, i paid my rent check

to the wilbur force foundation. what's really important is not just the wilbur force foundation but the linkage of so many different nonprofit groups that the family uses. one defender of the group says it's like a star fish. cut off one arm, another grows back. and an example, the scandal has opened up for us, is working with a group called military religious freedom foundation we discovered that the pentagon had assigned a board member of one family member organization to investigate seven senior officers who had violated military regulations in association with another family organization. i mean, it's really one arm of the family investigating the other. perfectly illustrates what the family means when they call themselves the christian mafia. >> in terms of the sources for this article, the people willing to talk on the record, the type of information they had access to, what else here should we be drawn to in this article? >> what's particularly striking to me is, first of all, this christiane right magazine

"world" did what "the new york times" and "the washington post" haven't. it went to all the politicians involved and asked, what's going on here? what was striking is that these politicians who would normally love to be featured in "world" magazine suddenly are saying i can't speak on the record. no comment. please, no questions. you see them stonewalling. they understand that they have crossed a line and i think what's significant about this is a lot of christian conservatives out there are going to say, hey. i don't support a group that teaches that jesus had a set of secret messages for powerful people and a different message for everybody else. the damage this goings to do to the family is impossible to over estimate and i'm so glad it's coming from a christian right source. >> one thing that struck me was the tone of the article being so focused on the issue of theology, describing the theology of the group as muddy, going into detail about the fact that none of the leaders of this purportedly religious organization actually have any formal religious training of any

kind and then the litany of criticism from chuck colson and others that this group has been essentially -- has essentially taken on the role of superseding the church, of replacing the church in these ostensibly religious politicians' lives. how much does the policy -- how much does the family count on support from main stream christians in terms of its multimillion dollar revenue sources? how much does it need to count on main stream christians and evangelicals in order to get its work done and could this pose a problem moving forward just on the theological terms? >> yeah, those relationships are very old and deep. for instance the "c" street house deed is actually owned by a christian right group called youth with a mission. the family has had linkages to all of these organizations over the years. and on friday while "world" magazine was taking on the family and doing a good job of it, pat robertson's christian broadcasting network as you noted on friday was defending the family, even saying, i believe the anchor said i

applaud the family leader for what he does and i applaud him for his secrecy. but in the face of what "world" is reporting about the money, about the strange theology, the idea that within the family the word "christian" is taboo. that comes from a former family leader. i think that's going to make it very difficult for the family to continue those relationships as it has in the past. >> as you've reported, jeff, the family has been around 80 years, the year 2009 is very different than every other year they have ever been through. i still don't know how this is all going to end up but it sure has been a big deal this year. jeff sharlet author of the book "the family" the secret fundamentalism at the heart of american power. it's always great to see you, jeff. thank you very much. >> thank you, rachel. coming up on "countdown", barely months into their new massive majority, new math from election savant nate silver suggests democrats may be in danger of losing in 2010. keith assesses the democratic threat level with his special guest, former democratic party chairman howard dean.

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in may of last year as the government tried to cope with the subprime mortgage crisis that was sucking the world into the great depression act two, one of the things that congress was debating was whether or not struggling homeowners would get government assistance, whether congress would provide some insurance to homeowners who wanted to refinance their troubled mortgages. while congress was debating that, up popped a new website weighing in on the issue and it had a very, very grass rootsy feel to it. it was called angry renter.com. and it looked like it was put together by a not so web savvy genuinely angry group of americans who were presumably renters, hence the name, angry renter. the angle was that people who rent apartments or houses from other americans were for some reason vehemently opposed to their landlords getting saved by the government or something. that seemed to be the idea. the website included lines like we are millions of renters standing up for our rights.

we are the class that has been ignored in this debate. we don't have lobbyists in washington, d.c. now here's where grass roots becomes grass roots-ish or grass roots-y or not at all grass roots. you see, technically the folks behind angry renters.com, they may not have had lobbyists in washington, d.c. but that's mainly because the folks behind angry renters.com were lobbyists in washington, d.c. if you scroll down to the very bottom of the page you will see that angry renter.com is a project of the organization freedom works. the group we have discussed many times on this show. who are the sort of renters at freedom works who were so angry they felt compelled to launch angry renter.com? well, meet steve forbes, a director of freedom works, former presidential candidate, and according to "the wall street journal" proud resident of a $2.78 million estate in central new jersey which i'm

pretty sure he doesn't rent. that said, again, according to "the journal" quote the forbes family did sell off its private island in fiji and palace in morocco but still own a chateau in france. perhaps angry chateau owner.com was too hard to spell. another one of the millions of renters standing up for our rights? of course, the head of freedom works, former republican house leader dick armey. not a renter, at least i don't think so at his 90-acre or so ranch in texas. those are your angry renters. big credit for the "wall street journal" exposing that astro turfing outrage last year. this is why angryrenter.com remains relevant and instructive. this is a template. this is what corporate pr designed not to look like

corporate pr looks like. all the outward appearances of grassroots outrage but fueled by corporate pr. remember that group patients first which is americans for prosperity? same deal, same template, same grassrootsy look. because of the way that organizations like freedom works and americans for prosperity are structured, they don't have to disclose who gives money to them. if you are able to figure it out, there do appear to be some patterns. according to "the washington post," freedom works received major funding from the tobacco company philip morris. lo and behold on the freedom works website you'll find, "raising the cigarette tax is bad policy." according to the national journal in 2005 freedom works received funding from the phone companies sbc and verizon. around the same time, freedom works launched their, "choose your cable" campaign which argued it should be easier for phone companies to get into the cable tv business. it's not just freedom works.

it's groups like the 60 plus association, a seniors advocacy group we talked about on this show before. according to an investigation by the aarp, an actual seniors advocacy organization, seniors plus was taking pharmaceutical money while opposing pharmaceutical reform in states like new mexico and minnesota. this smells like an ad. once you recognize this pattern, it's sort of easy to see what's coming next. thanks to a document obtained by greenpeace and reported by talking points memo, we have the game plan how the corporate interests in the oil and gas industry are planning to try to stop climate change legislation. it's an internal memo from the american petroleum institute which represents about 400 oil and gas companies. the memo urges its member oil companies to recruit their own employees to take part in anti-climate change legislation rallies being held around the country. the objective, they say, is to, "put a human face on the impact

of unsound energy policy." who is organizing this campaign? something referred to in the memo as the energy citizens alliance. what sort of citizens are part of the energy citizens alliance? it's a coalition of industry groups and conservative advocacy groups and freedom works and the 60 plus organization. the president of 60 plus happens to be on the board of advisor for the consumer energy alliance. ta-da! this stuff isn't hard to figure out. you can do it at home. they do the same thing over and over again depending on whatever threat to corporate profits currently exists. this is part of how washington

works. these groups have every right, of course, to do what they are doing. this is part of free speech, even corporate free speech. we have a right to tell you who they are and to tell you what interests they are representing when they speak in the political marketplace. every time you see a website like angryrenter.com or energy citizens.net, go to the bottom of the page, poke around at the "about us" section of the website and see who runs it and ask yourself why. these are not spontaneous uprisings of average americans. this is industry-led, corporation-sponsored pr. say it with me now, it should be reported as such.

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we turn to our alien affairs correspondent kent jones. hi, kent. >> hi, rachel. the new movie "district nine" was number one at box office

this weekend. as it turns out, it's great. very encouraging, america. well done. check it out. remember the end of "close encounters?" the adorable big-eyed aliens taught us their musical language? ♪ picked up richard dreyfus, then soared off into the heavens in a gorgeous flying disco. such friendly aliens. such beautiful manners. come back any time. "district nine" imagines a close encounter of a different kind with hulking, hard to understand aliens that come to earth and stay and have kids. e.t., go home. seriously. get out. the earthlings hire a scary

military contractor to herd them into a shantytown called district nine. you can guess how well that works out. this is urban planning by tom tancredo. "district nine" is a smart, tart, alagory how we treat each other which isn't pretty, which is how we treat creatures not like us. cute aliens? ah. ugly aliens? blast them. makes me wonder, would the humans have accepted the aliens if they looked like this? of course to them, we would look better like this. point of view is everything. >> excellent, kent. i have a quick cocktail moment for you. check out this clip from yesterday. >> we bang into rocks. >> there is a rock made out of cool lava. what's that called again? >> igneous rock.

>> one more. >> this one is going to be hard. >> metamorphic. so cool. to be or not to be. let's play "hardball." >> good evening. i'm chris matthews in washington. leading off tonight, death to the public option. is it dead? over the weekend president obama said the pub lib option, quote, is not the entirety of health care reform. he had two of his lieutenants, his secretary of health and his press spokesperson both imply it was dead. then he wrote a 1,200 word op-ed piece for the times and never once said public option. so what happens now? senate republicans won't vote for a plan with a public option.

will enough house democrats vote for one without one? that's the to be or not to be question right now. will there be a health care bill or won't there? august has been a cruel mon for president obama. republicans are making the case he's going too far in expanding the role of government in our lives. liberal democrats and the folks on the net roots say he's not going far enough. the party in power generally loses many seats in the midterm elections, and nate silver, owe who is a pretty smart by on 538.com. he's saying there's ample reason for democrats to be very worried about next year's elections, perhaps deeply so about those 2020 results.