story. thanks for joining us. >> good evening, rachel. >> what's going to happen tomorrow in your committee with the public option amendments? >> well, tomorrow is the first fight. it won't be the last. we're going to offer senator rockefeller and myself two public option amendments and have the finance committee vote. your viewers should know, this is the beginning of the fight because the finance committee is more conservative than the senate as a whole. the finance democrats tend to come from rural and redder states. we'll then move to the floor of the senate where the public option has a better option than the finance committee. then we'll move to conference committee in the house where it has a better chance still because the house has been strong. it's my prediction at the end of the day we'll have some form of public option and good form of public option in the final bill. tomorrow's fight is uphill given the membership in the finance committee, but we want to start the debate because more the

public hear what is the public option really is, the more they like it. >> why do you think getting senators in the finance committee on the record starting tomorrow is a first step towards getting one in the final bill? do you think people voting right now is the best strategy? >> well, we do, because the way the public option is snuffed, we all know the insurance industry doesn't like it. it brings real competition to them in a way that no one else does. right now, in most markets you have two or three insurance dpaen companies and nobody else. and the public option, not having to make a profit, that's 10%, 12% of the income, not having to do all this advertising and merchandising, that's another 10% to 20% of the income, will have a real advantage. but the public doesn't know it, or propaganda from the right or from the insurance industry has convinced people they're going to be forced to get rid of their present health care and go to a, quote, government plan. the it's an option. and you have the option to go to a public option, even if you

stay in private insurance and you prefer that. the public option will make it better because it will force the insurance companies to bring the costs down. and so by having this discussion with the nation's eyes focused on the finance committee and on the debate, we're going to win this fight. if we just do one vote at the end of the day, the insurance industry would probably be able to snuff it out. but you keep doing it, building up support. we have a good chance of winning. >> your public option bill and senator rockefeller's public option bill are different. they're both for the public option but they have different approaches. will you vote for the amendments? >> yes, i will. senator rock feller is stronger, more like medicare. i would prefer it frankly, but my amendment, called a level playing field option is the one that proper has the chance of winning tomorrow in the finance committee and elsewhere. if we were to get a public option in the finance committee, as i said, it's an uphill, but

hardly a lost fight, that would guarantee that there would be a public option in the final bill because of the five committees that have dealt with health care, four have put public options in their bill. >> so since you're the senator from new york, i can make this lame joke. but if it can make it there, it can make it anywhere. >> you betcha. >> one last question for you. if at the end of the day, what does get voted on, what you're voting on with the full senate is a health reform bill that doesn't contain a public option, will you say now that you would vote against that? that would do a lot to add pressure to the forces that want a public option in the bill. >> right. those of us in the lead on health care aren't going to draw a line in the sand but we will say we won't vote for a bill without the public option. we'll fighting hard for the public option. you have to look at the overall bill. what are the affordability

provisions? how does it treat middle class workers? how does it treat the state with medicaid? how does it treat children? and make an overall judgment, but public option will be very important to me in deciding whether to vote for final passage. >> we'll know a lot more about whether that's going to happen based on what starts tomorrow. senator chuck schumer, thanks for your time tonight. i know you're very busy right now. >> bye-bye. >> republicans are a very, very, very, very, very small minority in both the house and the senate right now. and that's why it's ultimately democrats, liberal, moderate and conservative democrats who will decide what kind of health reform we get or if we get it at all. learning tomorrow who's going to be on record in these various options are going to be big in part of knowing what they're ultimately going to come up with. but that's not stopping republicans from stopping the health care process altogether. the way they're trying to stop the process is by slowing the process down so much that it just dies from sheer boredom.

consider the 564 amendments that have been filed in just this one version of the bill in one committee. 564 moment aemts that all have to be discussed and voted on. how long will that take? here's a sense of how the pacing was going as of yesterday. >> we voted on i think about 25 omit aemts and i look forward to an even more productive day. >> 25 amendments per day for 564 amendments, 23 work days to vote on all of them? and if today is the third day of hearings, at this pace, i think this thing doesn't get voted on until october 26. for just this one bill in just this one committee at this pace. and that is exactly the point. opponents are gung ho about waiting.

>> we need to give members of congress a chance to understand what they're going to be voting on. >> the reason for slowing it down is that in washington, the way you kill a bill is to slow walk it. and democrats know that. >> mr. cheryl, let me just complete my thought here. >> you have about one minute to complete your thought. we got to -- >> i'll complete my thought and make another point. >> you're delaying, senator. >> mr. chairman, i am not delaying. i am making an extremely important point. >> it's a very, very important point, but you're also delaying. >> the very, very, very important point is that the republicans are delaying. that's their tactic full stop. let's see if democrats can pick up the pace. we'll be right back.

when it came time for my student teaching, income could be a problem. it was the united states census bureau who solved that problem when i went to work in a permanent but part-time position three years ago. i then took the plunge into western governors in august 2005. my job was with fifth graders all day, doing census work for about 35 hours a month and keying track of my sen who was now 16. >> that was bill sparkman in salt lake city, utah, last year after getting his teaching degree there. we thank the school for making

that footage available to us. he was a single dad and a cancer survivor who held down two jobs while he pursued that degree. on september 12 of this year, mr. sparkman was found dead near a cemetery in the daniel boone national forest in rural southeastern kentucky. last night, that nearly two-week-old local news of mr. sparkman's mysterious death became breaking national news when an unnamed law enforcement source told the associated press that mr. sparkman was hanged and that the word fed, f-e-d, presumed to be federal government was scrawled on his chest when his body was found. no second source has come forward to confirm the fed allegation at this point. and a spokesman told us the ap's initial report on the death contained some errors but he would not give us specifics on what the errors are. so we're left with a still incomplete, still troubling story. here's what we know. mr. sparkman's body was found on

sarkd september 12. he reportedly had been dead since the morning previous, since the morning of friday september 11. a determination has still not been made by law enforcement as to whether his death was a homicide, a suicide or an accident, but police say it definitely was not natural causes. the cause of death is ruled to bes a -- asphyxia. whether he was hanged? that fact is complicated and hard to figure. those leading the investigation of mr. sparkman's death said sparkman had a rope around his neck that was attached to a tree but was not hanging in the traditional way that many people envision. the state police released a statement saying mr. sparkman was found with a rope around his neck that was tied to a tree but he was in contact with the ground. the fbi says it's working with the local law enforcement. and it's a federal crime to attack a federal worker on the

job. by and large, though, authorities are being tight lipped about this investigation. we are meanwhile learning more from area residents about what kind of risks mr. sparkman might have been exposed to going door door as a census field worker in that part of the country. and of course, the question of whether anti-government sentiment might be a plausible motive for violent crime there. the daniel boone state forest where mr. sparkman was found has been known to have a history of drug-related crime, including growing marijuana and trafficking in meth. dee davis who heads the center for rural strategies in kentucky told associated press today this is a dangerous time of year in that area because people who grow marijuana are harvesting their crop now. mr. davis told the ap, quote, there are places that you would not send a skren sus worker this time of year. also a local retired state trooper says that when mr. sparkman told him recently that he was going to be going door to door for the census, the state trooper told mr. sparkman to be

careful, elaborating to the lexington herald leader, quote, even though he was with the census bureau, sometimes people can view someone with any government agency as the government. well, joining us now? that retired kentucky state trooper. he knew bill sparkman for 12 years. he worked with him in an after-school program and was the first to report him missing. first of all, let me say i'm sorry for your loss and thanks for being with us here today. you were a friend of mr. sparkman -- >> no. >> is he able to hear me? are we having an audio issue? >> no. >> he can't hear me. he's with satellite truck in rural kentucky right now in front of a kentucky state police building. we're going to see if we can get our audio issues with him worked out. before or after the commercial? after the commercial. boy, things are going to be great after the commercial.

stay with us. we'll be right back. tdd# 1-800-345-2550 he neglected to mention tdd# 1-800-345-2550 he also makes money when i lose money, tdd# 1-800-345-2550 withdraw money or do nothing with my money. tdd# 1-800-345-2550 tdd# 1-800-345-2550

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as we continue our reporting on the death of a part-time u.s. census worker in rural kentucky earlier this month, we're joined now by a former kentucky state trooper. he's retired now. he knew the man who was killed in the daniel boone national forest, bill sparkman, for 12 years. he worked with him in an after-school program. he was the first to report mr. sparkman missing.

first of all, let me say i'm sorry for my technical issues and let me say i'm sorry for the loss of your friend and i'm thankful for you joining us here today. thank you, sir. >> thank you for having me. >> you told mr. sparkman to be careful when he was doing census work in the area in which he was eventually killed and where his body was found. what were you telling him to be careful about. >> well, he's used to the london area that's a little more populated. when he did do his census work, it's a lot more rural, isolated. a lot more places over there, you don't even have phone service. it was a general statement from a friend to a friend, hey, just be kargful when you're over there. >> were you worried about potential criminal activity in the area. were you worried about getting in a car accident and not having cell service? were you worried about people being specifically unhappy with him working for the census?

what in particular made you worry about him going to that part of the state? >> really just a couple of things. the road system over there is just a little bit -- they have smaller roads over there. i was just afraid for his safety on driving the roads. and i just -- i felt like he needed to -- when he did his home visits he needed to make sure that people knew he was there to collect statistics. >> did he ever express any concern to you about his work with the census bureau? any problems he'd ever had on the job? >> no. just the opposite. he really enjoyed his census work and he said people were really good to him. >> in terms of this part of kentucky and specifically those kocounties that you expressed concern about him traveling to, are folks in this area familiar with the census and its purpose? is there any fear that you're

aware of, that the census might be seen as a sort of government intrusion? >> no, i'm not aware. of course, it's been 12 years since i worked for the state police, and i wasn't aware of any problems then, and i'm not aware of any problems like that right now. >> in terms of mr. sparkman and your friendship with him and his state of mind, i understand that you saw him just a few days before he disappeared. can you shed any speculation, shed any light on the speculation that he might have killed himself? >> well, i can just tell you i did see him a couple of days before he disappeared and he had a smile on his face, as he always did, and he was just happy to be there. >> there's also been some speculation, in particular because daniel boone state forest has been known to have some marijuana growing, some meth trafficking, some other drug issues. there's been some speculation this might not have had anything

to do with thehis job. he might have stumbled on a drug-related scene. does that seem plausible to you? >> well, i think that's the big question that we have at school is, you know, what was the cause of death for mr. sparkman and what was he doing over in that area? i'm not even sure that he was doing census work. i don't think that's been confirmed. so the big question is what was he doing over there and what was the manner of death and the cause of death. >> gilbert acciardo, former state trooper in kentucky and friend of bill sparkman whose death in rural kentucky is receiving national attention now. thank you for your time today and again you have all of our condolences on the loss of your friend, sir. >> thank you. >> okay. so there are smear campaigns in politics, and then there's what's happening to a community organizing group called a.c.o.r.n. tonight a dash of truth about which seriously rich corporate

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it may seem like the only thing happening in congress these days is the never-ending fight over and of health reform, but if you happen to be watching the house floor at about 3:00 this afternoon, this is what you would have seen. >> who has consistently called for the clean-up of the corrupt a.c.o.r.n., the criminal enterprise a.c.o.r.n. and the affiliates? it's the people on the republican side of the aisle have done that. this is the star of a.c.o.r.n. he's the lead chief organizer. he's the person who told the people at a.c.o.r.n., i will invite you into the -- and we will be setting the agenda for america, even before he's inauguratinged as president of the united states. this is the man who worked for a.c.o.r.n. >> this is the star of a.c.o.r.n.

that was paranoid republican congressman steve king of iowa. today railing against the community organizing group a.c.o.r.n. and falsely accusing president obama of being a.c.o.r.n.'s lead chief organizer. this sort of animous towards a.c.o.r.n. has been percolating on the right for a long time now. but it's broken open recently as democrats in congress have decided to go along with efforts to demonize a.c.o.r.n. and some governors have defunded a.c.o.n. as well, despite the fact that they didn't fund them in the first place. a.c.o.r.n. has become america's most reliable trumped up boog giman. it was the sixth most covered story in the country last week. a.c.o.r.n. has been caricatured as a corrupt commercial enterprise that steals elections and turns a blind eye to prostitution.

what you might not know from all the breathless a.c.o.r.n. damnation coverage is what a.c.o.r.n. actually does. they do things like advocating for a higher minimum wage. they do things like helping low income families file their dfans they do things like help low-income families find jobs. registering people to vote. that sort of work, as you might expect, has the tendency to rile up industries that don't want minimum wage to go up and aren't that psyched about lots of poor people to be registered to vote. and as we discovered most recently in the health care debate, when industries sense a threat to their profits, they go into kill mode. they create corporate-funded purportedly grassroots organizations to derail and destroy whomever they believe to be the source of that threat. well in the case of a.c.o.r.n., i would like you to meet richard berman. he's a washington, d.c. based lobbyist who's essentially a hired gun for corporations. say you're a company that really

doesn't want the minimum wage to be raised but you also don't want to be seen fighting a.c.o.r.n. yourself. you hire richard berman and what you get is rotten acorn.com. it's dedicated to destroying a.c.o.r.n. and uh its political thugs for hire. if you go to the bottom of that website you'll see it's run by something called the employment policies institute. a nonprofit think tank that happens to be run by richard berman, who also happens to be the man behind grassroots-ish websites like the anti-labor one. unionfacts.com. also mercuryfacts.org that assures people there really isn't that much mercury in that fish. go ahead. because mr. berman's organizations are nonprofit, it's almost imfobl find out who pays him for his services. luckily for us, richard berman is a bit of a chatty cathy. >> businesses themselves don't

find it convenient to take on causes that might seem politically incorrect and i'm not afraid to do that. you're not going to get a lot of companies who want to say i'm funding rick berman to go after you. they're just not going to do it. >> but go after them, he does. richard berman heads a laundry list of more than a dozen front groups that take on causes for business interests like the food and beverage industry. and it's perfectly fine for him to head up all of these nonprofit purportedly grassroots organizations. anyone in america has the right to lobby on anything they want to at all. the problem in the case of a.c.o.r.n. is that the effect of corporate-funded pr efforts like rot tenacorn.com has been a jihad launched against a.c.o.r.n. by the right wing media which has since been joined by the mainstream media, minus any sort of real fact checking of these corporate organized facts about them. a new study just released by a

pair of university professors reveals the embarrassing extent to which the media has gotten the a.c.o.r.n. story really, really wrong. as groups like rot tenacorn.com bought full page ads, news outlets picked up the story and ran with it. according to this study, 80% of the reports failed to mention that a.c.o.r.n. was the group that reported the irregularities in the first place. about 72% failed to quote anyone from the organization at all responding to the charges against them. and 11% made the blatantly fall claim that barack obama once worked for a.c.o.r.n., a claim repeated on the house floor today by congressman steve king, a claim that is not true. the media coverage of a.c.o.r.n. has been driven by a right wing campaign against it. a corporate-funded, grassroots-ishpr effort to plant that a.c.o.r.n. is a cancer on democracy.

last week congress quote voeted to cut off all funding. the irs severed ties from them altogether. a.c.o.r.n. laid off all eight employees in the great state of north carolina. the people paying rick berman for his work, those people who think that their profits are threatened by what a.c.o.r.n. does, they're getting way more than their money's worth, whatever they're paying rick berman. joining us now is one of the authors of this new study, manipulating the public agenda -- why a.c.o.n. was in the news and what the news got wrong, professor dryer, thanks for coming on the show tonight. >> thank you, rachel. >> is there a connection you can discern between the type of work that a.c.o.r.n. does and the people that started this campaign against them? that mushroomed into a national event? >> you know, a.c.o.r.n. has made a lot of enemies in the four years it's been doing organizing work america's biggest cities.

low-wage companies that pay poverty wages. and companies that provide payday rip-off predatory loans. in fact, a.c.o.r.n. was the first group in the country to warn about the predatory lending. and if people had listened to a.c.o.r.n., if the policy members had been listening we wouldn't have had the mortgage meltdown we had the last couple of years. they made a lot of enemies. disproportionately, those people vote for democrats. so the republican party in a lot of the parts of the country has been against a.c.o.r.n. and they've been trying to destroy a.c.o.r.n. for many years. carl rove, as we now know was responsible for starting a campaign to try to get the u.s. attorneys to prosecute them for voter fraud.

and when they were told there was no voter fraud, he was fired. so the reality is there was absolutely no voter fraud that a.c.o.r.n. participated in, but you would never know that by reading the new york times or "the washington post" or "the wall street journal" or other mainstream media. >> give me some sense of the distance between the truth of what happened with a.c.o.r.n. and the charges that led to them being smeared as a voter fraud organization and the way that it's actually covered. what's the distance between the way the voter registration stuff is talked about and what actually happened. >> every story about a.c.o.r. in 15 mayor media outlets. in almost all of those story, voter fraud was the major theme. a.c.o.r.n. has been doing this grassroots organizing for 40 years, and they've gotten some attention, but the attention really peaked during the

presidential election last year when john mccain and sarah palin attacked a.c.o.r.n. for voter fraud. what really happened was that a.c.o.r.n. was registering voters in low-income neighborhoods. they would have people fill out voter registration forms. in a handful of cases people would write phony names, for example, mickey mouse or donald duck. whenever a.c.o.r.n. found one of those forms had a phony name on it, they did what they were required to do by law, to report the abuse, report the problem. so when a.c.o.r.n. did that, they weren't engaged in voter registration fraud, they were following the law. then what happened in many parts of the country, district attorney s would accuse a.c.o.r.n. of making those phony claims of making the phony names instead of saying that a.c.o.r.n. was, in fact, doing their job.

the main street media failed to report that a.c.o.r.n. was abiding by the law. it failed to report that not one person in this entire country voted who actually signed one of those forms in a misleading way. so there was absolutely no voter fraud. there was some voter registration problems which a.c.o.r.n. reported. but despite that, john mccain, sarah palin, rush limbaugh, glenn beck and the rest of the right wing media and the main street media unfortunately picked up on this foegs that a.c.o.r.n. is responsible for wide scale voter fraud. that's what you're say seeing on the house and senate this last week. you're seeing people basically following up on these misleading charges against a.c.o.r.n. >> the more that i look into the misleading nature of the charges against a.c.o.r.n., not just from people whom i expect misleading charges, but from reporters in mainstream media, people in the mainstream media

who ought to know better, the angrier i get, and i think that we're going to be covering this -- the lies about a.c.o.r.n. over a number of shows. over upcoming days, including talking specifically about this latest scandal about this entrapment video with people posing as a pitcher and a prostitute. professor, i hope you might be able to come back and join us again as we try to understand what went so off the rails in the next few days. >> i would be happy to. thank you. >> professor peter dryer at occidental college. he's the author of a study about a.c.o.r.n. oh, this story gets me mad. all right, okay. now for something nicer. baseball, jazz, the civil war. filmmaker ken burns doesn't mess around with the small stuff. his latest epic documentary is called the national parks and it will make you want to go to the grand canyon tomorrow. and it will make you think big thoughts about america and our national purpose.

and the big thoughts that we've had as a country that really no one else has had before we had them. he will be here in studio in just a few minutes.

. >> >> today president obama was the chairman, facilitator, pass me the talking pillow precider guy over the u.n. security council. today in new york. and for his trouble, he earned a 15-0 unanimous vote from the security council in favor of a little project he's got that he likes to think of as abolishing nuclear weapons worldwide. 15-0. now this doesn't mean that all nuclear weapons go away, but it does mean that when obama gave that big speech in prague saying america's vision, america's mission in the world was a world free of all nuclear weapons, he

just got russia and china and britain and france and mexico and japan and uganda and all the other security council countries to say they're onboard with that idea, too. not bad for a day's work. do you remember when george w. bush named a guy to be his u.n. ambassador who said he wanted to lop ten floors off the u.n. build snoog another secretary's building in new york has 38 stories. if you lost ten stories today, it wouldn't make a bit of difference. >> under george w. bush, that guy was america's man at the u.n. things are different now. very, very different. "i really liked the fresh scent, "but i didn't believe her when she said even the guys would notice." (sniffing) ahem... "they noticed." (indistinct chatter on tv)

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call or click today. so there's a state forest near where i live. i take my dogs on a walk there. now we have to walk past a big sign that says this state forest is closed for the whole year because massachusetts is so broke this year, they're just not paying to sdaf and maintain a bunch of the state forests and parks and ponds, including the one by my house. ironically, my little nearby state forest only exists today because of the last time that we were this broke. the great depression. when the goth of the franklin roosevelt decided that they wanted to put people to work and stimulate the economy by creating a civilian conservation corps that would hire people. they hired 100,000 people in massachusetts alone to build the roads and plant the forests and

construct the campgrounds and the dams and the bridges that gave the people of my state something great then that frankly is still really great now. generations later, even if we can't have rangers there this year. the documentary filmmaker ken burns puts this little piece of the creation of our national parks in perspective in his new beautiful miniseries called "the national parks -- america's best idea." check it out. over the course of the depression, more than 3 million men would find work at one time or another with the civilian conservation corps. they would build more than 97,000 miles of fire roads in national forests. combat soil erosion on 84 million acres of farm land, and plant 3 billion trees. more than one half the total reforestation established in the nation's history. during that time, some $218

million would be pumped into projects solely within the national parks, including trails and buildings that remain to this day. >> the depression is a golden age because the national park service is a fe ral agency and it's going to get all of franklin delano roosevelt's let's rebuild the nation dollars. and the budgets of the national park service soared. and as the national park service looks at projects that could put people to work, congress agrees and franklin delano roosevelt agrees and the park service suddenly finds itself swimming in money relative to what it had in the 1920s. >> we are definitely in an era of building today. the best kind of building. the building of great public projects for the benefit of the public and with the definite

objective of building human happiness at the same time. >> building human happiness at the same time. big tracts of beautiful land, set aside for private exploitation, not only for public use and for conservation, but as a repository, a preserve, a safe kept locket of what our country is and the fact that it belongs to all of us together. what a good idea. the national parks -- america's best idea" starts sunday on pbs. ken burns, congratulations and thank you so much for being here. i'm geeking out that you're here. >> other way around. >> oh, well, congratulations. you have to be very proud of this. >> we're very, very excited. we spent ten years working on it, six shooting. we're at places that i expect someone to tap on my shoulder and say hey, buddy, you're getting paid for doing this? come this way.

we're at a time when government is essentially bad. there was a time where the government made things better in every single way. that we could bring jobs and money and a sense of cohesion. and that's what the parks -- they thrive during the depression, not just because they got the first shovel-ready stimulus dollars, but because they brought americans together. and i think they still can do that. the idea is still durable. it's still flexible, still changing and evolving just like all american are created equal meant all men are property and free of debt. we saved natural scenery and now we've saved a lot more. shanksville, all these places that reflect a complicated past. a past that we're -- the screaming that goes on in talk radio, we ignore today. but it's in our national parks. they're the repository of us. not just the grand geological story. >> i think that expansion of what we preserve and protect and decide to pay for the upkeep of as a nation, that expanding to be not just the beautiful

places, not just expanding not just the beautiful places but also the places where we had the interment camps. what is the expanding of that idea that we protect? >> that's exactly right. we co-own all this land so therefore, we co-own the beautiful spots but we have to own our history well and own up to it as well. so central high school. still a working inner city high school in little rock, arkansas. the place where the 1957 desegregation crystallized. so was where the japanese citizens were interned. that places, all of these places that we were willing to include in our idea of who we are. i know of no other country on earth that is willing to look at that dark past. yet we reduce everything to sort of this preokay paying, it a red state or a blue state, black or white, male or female.

and the parks right there, our best idea. >> on the idea of building human happiness, one of the things that i think is interesting about this document of yours compared to the other ones, is that people are reading an ideological text into this and it is because we have very much romanticized and we sort of have come one this great fable that we tell ourselves but how we can pursue human happiness and our government should not restrict us from that. the other part of the american dream is that our government believes that policy can advance human happiness while protecting freedom. >> it always has. the homestead act. these national parks. this was an activist government going in and not intruding on individual rights, but expanding them. that's what the parks tell us about. this is a bottom up story of regular people who fell in love with the place from every conceivable background. it is the story of the richness of it. not hoarding the money in a greedy selfish way.

this is people saying, may god, we own beautiful scenery. shouldn't everyone have access to it in that's theodore roosevelt. that's steven mathers, the first director of the park service. these are the elite, the richest people in the nation who sort of downer intuitively say let's share it with everybody. this is a great story that is not only bottom up but top down. it meets in the middle in the most spectacular landscape on earth which we all co-own. think about what would happen if there were no national parks. the grand canyon would be lined with mansions and we would never see that view. the everglades would have long since been drained and be filled with tract housing and all sorts of ugly development. yosemite, one of the most beautiful valleys on earth would be a gated community. yellowstone would be geyser world. we're talking about the difference between pottersville and bedford falls. and we choose in it's a wonderful layoff to live in bedford falls.

we reject pottersville. but yet so much of the arguments today, that selfishness is very much what america is about. you know what? it is not what we're with. we're about sharing these things in common. it is about commonwealth which is a wonderful idea. and not socialism. if it is socialism, then the people you call at 3:00 a.m. when your house is on fire, that's socialism. and the people who are in afghanistan risking their lives, that's socialism. the people picking up your trash, that's socialism, too. >> we cannot talk constructively about government. we will get over having a national park system, i believe. ken burns, it is such an honor to have you here. thank you. the miniseries is called the national parks: america's best idea. it is a 12-hour long series. it is worth every single minute of your time. on pbs. coming up on "countdown," join kaeth to talk about his new

film, capitalism. a love story. up next, chuck norris. i don't understand the chuck norris against american flag phenomenon. that is next. stay with us. i hired him to speak. a lot of fortune 500 companies use him. but-- i'm your only employee. we're gonna start using fedex to ship globally-- that means billions of potential customers. we're gonna be huge. good morning! you know business is a lot like football... i just don't understand... i'm sorry dick butkus. (announcer) we understand. you want to grow internationally. fedex express caused by a completely blocked artery, a heart attack caused by a clot, one that could be fatal. but plavix helps save lives. plavix, taken with other heart medicines goes beyond what other heart medicines do alone to provide greater protection

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we turn now to our correspondent mr. ken jones. >> hay, rachel. the conservative protest knees leadership. fortunately a man has stepped forward. a texas ranger named walker. actor, martial artist, total jim spokesman, killer conservatism. chuck norris is a man of forceful opinions. so obviously when chuck norris proposes a new idea, my job is to shut my pay hole.

to keep the glorious 9/12 revolutionary movement charging forward, norris urges his fellow patriots to abandon the american flag in favor of the far more mavericky betsy ross flag. don't tread on me. that means you, affordable health care. >> it's over. >> hears the kicker. if you insist on posting a modern usa flag, too, then get one that is tea-stained to show your solidarity with our founders. he didn't specify whether the tea stain should be earl gray, oolong, just probably not english breakfast. far be it from me to disagree with lone wolf mcquaid, but i want to take his alternative flag idea one step further. how about old chucky? or the rattle chuck or the united states of chuck? final score?

chuck norris, 1. tyranny, 0. >> so weird. thank you. i have a weird update for out a story we've been covering the last couple days. mahmoud ahmadinejad, president of iran, here for the u.n. iranian protestors turning everything green. a mile-long banner down brooklyn bridge today, a protest. then there was this coincidence that they had asked for the empire state building to be turned green as part of the protest. the empire state building said no but happily it would be green anyway for the 70th anniversary of the wizard of oz. but it's not. that's a alive shot of it that we have. can we put that up there? it is red. >> not green. >> they say it is still for the wizard of oz but now it's red, not green. >> what about the wizard of oz people? ruby slippers?

we're looking into it. thank you. "hardball" with chris matthews is up next. the democrats have 60. let's play "hardball." good evening. i'm mike barnicle, in today for chris matthews. leading off tonight, filibuster proof. the democrats got their 60th senator today. massachusetts governor deval patrick named paul kirk, chief ally and former chairman of the democratic national committee to temporarily fill ted kennedy's seat until next year's special election. kirk is expected to be a reliable vote for the democrats' health care reform plan, which was ted kennedy's long-fought mission. and the man who appointed him, governor deval patrick, will be here tonight. next, president obama told the united nations general assembly that he is seeking a new era of engagement with the

world, but can an extended hand prompt world leaders to solve the same international problems that vexed the bush administration, like iran's nuclear ambitions, middle east peace and afghanistan? and playing the victim. new york governor david paterson sure has a strange way of pushing back on president obama's suggestion that he not run. first, his wife said it was, quote, very unfair, unquote, of the white house to discourage the first african-american governor of new york from running. and then governor paterson himself said he never really wanted this job and was hoping for hillary clinton's senate seat. is paterson any match for the obama machine? plus, president obama wasn't the only one who embarked in an all-out media blitz. bill clinton has been making the rounds himself, and he may be one of obama's best salesmen for health care reform. that's in the "politics fix." finally, the late-night reviews are in on sarah palin's first overseas speech in hon