it says, quote, senator reid has always and continues to support the public option as a way to drive down costs and create competition. that is why he included the measure in his original health care proposal. if a decision is made to use reconciliation to advance health care, senator reid will work with the white house, the house and members of his caucus in an effort to craft a public option that can overcome procedural obstacles and secure enough votes. again, that statement from senator harry reid's office tonight, comes on the heels of news made on this show last night, one health and human services secretary kathleen sebelius said the obama administration, in her words, is absolutely willing to fight for the public option if the senate puts it back on the table. >> the private insurance company hasn't done a great job. that's why we want a public option to compete with them. these 18 democratic senators want to bring that back. if that happens, will the administration fight for it? >> certainly, if it's part of

the decision. absolutely. >> and taken together with senator reid's news of support, we are seeing a real trend here. the white house and senate majority leader and specter, 19 other senators all signing on to a letter, all lining up behind the strategy for actually, finally after all of this time, passing health reform. a strategy that includes using budget reconciliation rules so that the democratic majority could get around the republican filibuster. a strategy that says, in effect, if we go around the filibuster, we might be able to put the idea of the public option for health insurance back into the bill. the idea of public insurance option to compete with private insurance had seemed like it was off the table. that's because it had been traded away in the senate in search of conservative votes. don't forget, there is still a public option in the health reform bill that passed the house. well, now it may be back in the senate, too. the day seems very different today, at the end of the day in

terms of what is possible and likely in health reform. at this point at least it looks like the game is on. joining me now is matt iglesias, a fellow at the certain terre for american progress. how significant is senate majority leader harry reid's statement on this? >> it's fairly significant. it shows that no one in the leadership, nor the white house or the senate, wants to rule out a public option. but of course, the question has been the centrist democratic senators. that was the problem the last time around with the public option. and it is still the problem today. you have 20 senators signing on to a letter but need at least 50. >> what was the count in terms of senators supporting a public option before it was traded away? how many votes did they think it could get before? >> well, this is what no one is quite clear on. there were two to four senators who took the fall for killing the public option. there's always been a suspicion

among people who report on this, who cover it, that the broader number of democratic senators weren't thrilled with the idea. they were happy to have it be joe lieberman's fault. now the question is how many are there that want to take responsibility for blocking this. i'm not clear that there are but i'm not clear that there are 50 that wanted it in. >> let's say that there are 50 democrats who wanted it. what happen are the other obstacles they need to worry about? >> the main obstacles is that there are a number other issues in play between the house and the senate. there's a question of abortion, which is contentious in the house bill. it looks like bart stupack and pro life democrats jumping ship. they are going to have to make those votes up. there was questions about taxes. will this be financed through a tax on rich people or a tax on health insurance plans? there's a lot of different components in the air. the public option gets a lot of attention, but it's not the only one. >> it does seem, though, even if they are not going to get the public option in the end, it does sort of seem like a good

move to put it back on the table right now, even if only for the purpose of negotiation. at this point, if they are going to use reconciliation, they should put everything on the table that they want and then once the negotiation among the democratic caucus starts, you should trade things away. shouldn't concede that they're gone from the beginning, right? >> i think that's why it's curious that they didn't have reconciliation as an option for forcefully six months ago, nine months ago. now, you can say to republicans, as a bargaining tactic, maybe if you want to come on board you can get some of these ideas out that you don't like. but if you guys want to obstruct, you have to pay a price. we go much further. we do more progressive things, cater to what our base is interested in. in the case of public option, it's something that the american people are interested in. it's been more popular with the voters than the senators. >> and that's, i think, so important. i keep saying and all sorts of

public venues, the public option is very popular. i described it's a very popular option. we get this blow back from the right. the public option, are you kidding? it's a horrible idea. and it became a political football. joe lieberman made sure that it was kicked out of the senate bill. when you actually ask people if they want that from health reform, it is still consistently all over the country does very well. >> it's a paradox in health reform. some of the ideas that hold the best, that people like the best, and generally are supportive of expanding them but it's very little -- interest groups don't like it. a lot of senator don't like it. it makes a lot of people nervous here in d.c. >> heaven forbid the people like it and it is a tried and true program that has already been shown to work. >> you know, that gets very tricky. >> yes, very, very ideologically

awkward. the president expected to release his health care on monday, briefly, matt, given the recent developments, are you expecting that when we hear what's in the plan on monday, the public option will be in it? >> no, the expectation is that it won't be in it. and then i think the plan will be sort of 50% based on the compromise democrats had before scott brown came in, and 50% to kind of last chance to save republicans, this is a reasonable idea, shouldn't you sign on? they want to keep the public option off this initiative because they want to say coming forward to this conference, you know, we're looking for compromise, we're looking to reach out. the public option is definitely a killer as far as republicans are concerned. but at the same time, you and i and i hope barack obama all realize that republicans aren't going to join with them. >> a initial foray to seem like republicans had the chance to jump on board, they'll all say no, inevitably 100%, and then democrats will get down to the real work. >> exactly. >> matt iglesias, nice to see you. thanks for coming in on a friday

night. he's with think progress and he's somebody who i read every day. it is mandatory. one of the fun activities at day two of cpac, the annual convention of conservatives near washington is the nancy pelosi pinata. take your best swing, everybody. at the speaker of the house. that's coming up. and later, since it was tiger woods' apology day, i thought we should hear from somebody other than me about this. one of the smartest people about sports there is. max kellerman joins us shortly. please stay tuned. y coat of pai? a list of features? what about the strength of the steel? the integrity of its design... or how it responds... in extreme situations? the deeper you look, the more you see the real differences. and the more you understand what it means to own a mercedes-benz. the c-class. see your authorized mercedes-benz dealer for special offers through mercedes-benz financial. ♪

through mercedes-benz financial. ♪ well, look who's here. it's ellen. hey, mayor white. how you doing? great. come on in. would you like to see our new police department? yeah, all right. this way. and here it is. completely networked. so, anything happening, suz? she's all good. oh, my gosh. is that my car? [ whirring ] [ female announcer ] the new community. see it. live it. share it. on the human network. cisco. speakers at cpac this week want you to know that fiscal irresponsibility is a very, very bad thing. earmarks, very, very bad. >> we will ban the practice of air dropping earmarks into bills at the last minute so nobody knows that it's really there. and we'll outlaw monuments to me.

this is what lawmakers earmark money for projects that have their name on them. >> it's hard for me to believe that congressmen and senators that continue their addiction to parochial earmarks and their support for almost every new spending program have read the same constitution i have. >> of the anti-earmark red meat you've been hearing at cpac this week. earmarks are the scourge of conservative politicos. and to get the real deal on earmarks, you need to ask the republicans, because they're really the ones that know. a new report says the top earmarkers are both republicans. bill young of florida and thad cochran of mississippi. decide from that awkward detail, we can now resume our regularly scheduled blaming of the democrats for everything. asted d the $700 cream! for under $30 regenerist micro-sculpting cream hydrates better than 32 of the world's most expensive creams. fantastic. phenomenal.

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i want to say to each of you simply and directly i am deeply sorry for my irresponsible and selfish behavior i engaged in. some people have speculated that elin somehow hurt or attacked me on thanksgiving night. it angers me that people would fabricate a story like that. elin never hit me that night or any other night. there has never been an episode of domestic violence in our marriage. >> i think we can learn a lot from that situation. not from tiger but from his wife. so she said i've had enough.

she said, no more. i think we should take a page out of her playbook and take a nine iron and smash a window out of the big government in this country. >> that would have been a weird enough statement coming from anyone. coming from someone as ostentatiously mild mannered as tim pawlenty, that was positively -- i do understand, though, that to fit in with the cool wids on the right these days, like mr. pawlenty is trying furiously to do, you've got to put a little violence in your rhetoric. all your best jokes should mention the threat of force. for example, people at the cpac will have a chance to take a whack at a nancy pelosi pinata. or at a harry reid punching bag. there is a gender divide here. only women will be able to hit mrs. pelosi, only men will be able to hit harry reid.

we're trying to find out whether they really would deny a conservative woman, the opportunity to hit harry reid when they would make that opportunity available to a man, not shockingly they didn't call us back. it has been a palpable undercurrent in conservative politics this year including now at cpac. awkwardly even the suicide attack on an irs building became fodder for jokes at cpac today. here's how grover norquist was introduced. >> let me say, i'm happy to see grover today. he was getting a little testy in the past couple of weeks and i was just really, really glad it was not him identified as flying that airplane into the irs building. >> i don't know. maybe wait until the building is not smoking anymore. maybe wait until after the funeral. an ill-timed joke is not the end of the world.

it is not humorous misfires. it's the deep consistency of how much we are seeing about violence against the government on the right now. here is how patty murray was name checked at a tea party event over the weekend. >> how many of you have watched the movie lonesome dove? what happened to jake when he ran to the wrong crowd? what happened to jake when he ran with the wrong crowd? he got hung. well, that's what i want to do with patty murray. >> you can sort of hear the shock in the audience and response to that, right? after initially denying that she said that at all, the tea party organizer who made the remark later clarified that nobody had any rope on hand to do the hanging of senator murray anyway. if this is reminding you of something, it may be the incident in july. that immediately brought the

sea of people bringing guns to protests over the summer. and what is defined as normal among conservative protesters is being tried on for size by candidates running for office. >> i believe we have one last opportunity and i believe 2010 is it. >> yes. >> all right. we can do it with our vote. and we can get new faces in. whether it's my face or not, i pray to god i see new faces, because if we don't see new faces, i'm cleaning my guns and getting ready for the big show. >> if i don't see new faces and after the 2010 election, i'm cleaning my guns and getting ready for the big show. what do you think the big show is in this case? that man, the speaker from that clip, the cleaning the guns for the the big show guy is a republican candidate for the

senate in the state of indiana. we are a free country and that means fringe folks doing fringe things. even making threats from the fringe all over all the time. that's not new and that's not the point. the point is on the occasion of the cpac conference in washington is the mainstreaming of this stuff. the weak and not encouragement from political figures. the dog whistles. >> if we don't see new faces, i'm cleaning my guns and getting ready for the big show. >> the vote is happening right now. i need your vote right now. please stand with me. thank you for standing. >> the republican party would be really smart to start trying to absorb as much of the tea party movement as possible because this is the future of our country. the tea party movement is the future of politics. >> why did you bring a gun to a meeting with the president of the united states given the violent history of this country?

>> clearly i'm not advocating violence. >> would you discourage americans not to come armed to public meetings? would you discourage them from doing that? >> my answer is yes. >> no, i would not. >> congressman cooper, he says a moderate. by today's terminology, a moderate is somebody that says please don't come armed to public meetings. your opportunity. you can say what you want. do you think people could come armed to discuss health care or not? >> i would think that they should exercise their rights under the second amendment. >> if i weren't doing this job, i would be out there with the tea -- >> one of the co-sponsors of cpac is the john birch society. it was considered to extreme and so conspiratorial in the '60s that conservatives kicked them out and demanding

denuncation of the society as the price of admission for any leader who wanted to be taken seriously in the conservative movement. now that he is dead, the society is back. actually sponsoring cpac this year. who in the conservative movement will say what's gone too far, what's dangerous? joining us now is chris hayes. aka lambchop, editor of "the nation." thanks for coming in. >> thanks for having me. >> do you see anything wrong with issues like this here? >> there are lines that have been drawn. one of the things that happened was the interview with deborah medina with glenn beck. on 9/11 truth. >> she's a sort of tea party inflected candidate for -- in the republican primary for governor of texas? >> exactly. and she had an interview with glenn beck and said i'm concerned about you running with 9/11 troopers and she said there's a lot of questions opened and beck denounced her

and they are banning truthers and birthers from their comment section. the problem isn't the fringe views. it's the inflection of violence. there's two phenomena here. there are views really cooky here. you want to kind of patrol that just for the sake of the mainstream movement. the more dangerous thing is really the loaded violent rhetoric and i don't see anyone standing up to that. >> the reason i was so shocked by tim pawlenty's comments, he's cultivated this reputation as sort of the friendly mainstream moderate, though conservative politician. that's sort of the -- that's the political capital he takes into his attempt at the presidency and to have him get up there and say, let's take a nine iron and put it through the window of big government as his laugh line. he's not good at telling jokes. b, you're tim pawlenty. it gets redder and redder from there. i wonder if that's the price of admission with regard to conservative activists. >> they understand where the energy is. one thing that primary

candidates do is chase the energy and it's in the angriest part of the republican base and angriest part of the conservative movement and the people that are most ticked open and standing up at town hall meetings, those are the people that come to lick envelopes, the people that give you money and will show autopsy the caucuses in iowa. those are the people you're courting. they understand very well who they are playing to for their political future. >> michael steele in particular has really aggressively tried to figure out some comfortable merger between the tea party and republican party. until this week, the rnc had a website that was teaparty.gop.com, where you could accepted republican branded tea bags to your favorite democrats. when you do that, are you accountable for the, you know, i want to hang patty murray rhetoric? are you responsible for the more extreme rhetoric that happens at

the tea parties? >> that's a really good question. i guess i get really worried because i remember back during the bush years when reporters on the right would go and find some crowd of 200,000 people that were protesting a war and say, you guys are maoists. >> but there's a difference. there's the republican party and there was the democratic party saying, it's us and code pink. >> that's right. >> was the democratic party saying, it's us and answer. >> to the degree that you invite them in, that's the degree to which you were held accountable. >> that's right. >> that's the issue that the republican party was facing this week. with the republican right now saying, everybody talking about an incredible mainstream and coming in how close they are, nobody is coming to the difficult question there, which is that they are then responsible for what happens to the people they align themselves with. >> that's right. no one else is putting up -- the whole thing is a hustle. tim pawlenty's not going to shrink government. none of these people are going to do what the tea partiers want. the entire thing is a joke. they are manipulating and using them on the other end.

>> in terms of their small claims about government. >> they never deliver. it's a total hustle. they're going to go back to their lobbying jobs when everybody leaves town. >> can i -- one totally different note about cpac, with our bobby jindal -- >> not on the ballot. >> i know. >> i had to beg, plead, and cajole, and haley barbour, newt gingrich, sarah palin, tim pawlenty, mitt romney, john thune, no bobby jindal. i am very upset on behalf of jindal. >> that was a rough state of the union address. >> he's supposed to be their guy. >> he should start introducing himself, i'm bobby jindal and used to be the future of the republican party. >> chris hayes. thank you so much. good to see you here. >> thank you. today is the day, rename the filibuster problem contest. the competition has been fierce

and today a golfer ceases the attention of the world. the apology heard around the world with my guest max kellerman, that's up next. first, one more thing. about the john birch society, these are the folks that said that president eisenhower was a conscious agent of the soviet union while he was president of the united states. they also said putting floride in drinking water was a secret communist plot. and i got a chance to speak with the john birch society president at cpac. the john birch society caught our exchange on tape. >> i'm remembering the show you did.

>> it turns out those guys don't drink the water any way. i asked. for the record, we actually called the d.c. hotel that is hosting the cpac this year and we asked them about the fluoride in the water and the hotel confirmed for us that they don't do anything to filter out the communist flouride they put in the water, but said they soften the water in-house.

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i am deeply sorry for my irresponsible and selfish behavior i engaged in. i was unfaithful. i had affairs. i cheated. what i did is not acceptable and i am the only person to blame. >> that is the world's greatest golfer, tiger woods who confesses, since after thanksgiving, the personal stuff and the details about his marriage that we really have no business knowing. "the rachel maddow show" has bypassed the story almost entirely, but no one else did and as much as i've tried, i've found that being this willfully ignorant about something so many are talk about is an overrated place to be. mr. woods' statement was made to

en invitation only crowd. it was shown on every cable news channel and all four broadcasts broke into it. businessweek.com reports that trading on the new york stock exchange fell to about a million shares as the speech began. it's lowest level of the day. then surged to 6 million when it ended. in other words, everyone was watching this. the news here is that in 13.5 minutes, mr. woods apologized to his wife, his friends, his family, his fans. he announced he would return to in-patient rehab for sex addiction starting tomorrow. he repeatedly asked that his family be left alone. he did not announce a date for his return to golf. also, the other news is that i hope this next part of the statement made brit hume at fox news feel really creepy about telling mr. woods that only christianity could help him through this. >> i have a lot of work to do and i intend to dedicate myself to doing it.

part of following this path for me is buddhism, which my mother taught me at a young age. people probably don't realize it, but i was raised a buddhist and i actively practiced my faith from childhood until i drifted away from it in recent years. buddhism teaches that a craving for things outside ourselves causes an unhappy and pointless search for security. it teaches me to stop following every impulse and to learn restraint. obviously, i lost track of what i was taught. >> joining us now, one of the only people on earth whose opinion on this subject i'm curious about, it's my old pal, hbo sports broadcaster max kellerman. mr. kellerman, thank you very much for being here.

>> a pleasure to be here, rachel. >> all right. you know me enough to know that i don't think we should know any of this about this person. i don't think any of this is our business. but we do all know and given how much everyone cares about this, what is the most important thing that happened today? >> well, first of all, you're right about it. this is honestly why this is my favorite show on tv, this and yo gabba gabba, my daughter's favorite show. it's really a self-fulfilling -- it's why when everybody else is talking about sarah palin bickering with ashley judd, and you're talking about gays and the ghanda bill, there's a young fenom who was not white in a predominately white sport but he was an incredible golfer but the kind of media attention that he drew was out of proportion -- it was disproportional even to his

enormous talent and i think that's because a lot of people in the media, in charge of making editorial decisions like golf, they golfed themselves. they follow golf and personal preference certainly influences what gets covered and that goes for the same for people who dole out corporate sponsorships. so this name was everywhere and became one of the most recognizable people on earth and then when he's scandalized, there's even more media attention. and so it becomes this self-fulfilling media prophesy. it's the story. >> but i feel like the sort of -- it's not exactly ethics. it's not the taste -- whether or not it's tasteful for us to know about all of this, whether or not we should all feel uncomfortable about knowing this stuff about him, is whether he made any claims to be anything other than what he's been proven to be. did we just imbue him with this

great character, or do he make that case for himself? i'm happy to go after him if he seems like a hypocrite. but he doesn't seem like a hypocrite to me. >> you could argue that he owes an apology to his corporate sponsorships because now suddenly the image is not right and they suffer as a result. they suffer as a result. but, no, i'm not really interested in what he does in his private life. he doesn't really owe an apology to his fans, who he did apologize to. although i guess if you think about your private life, the most embarrassing part of your private life were revealed publicly and they disappointed people you care about, you don't necessarily owe them an apology, but might make you feel good to apologize. and say, hey, i'd like to be t better than this. i think that's what he did. there was enormous cynicism

heading into this and in recent years oftentimes it is baseball players doing some kind of mea culpa in a prepared statement, which clearly a pr firm wrote, right, and they don't want to open themselves up to gez right away. they have to talk about what happened and they already misld or continued to lie. that really wasn't the case here. tiger was -- seemed to me, i know he's played mixed reviews but he seemed to me to be genuine about what he was saying. you heard him reference buddhism. i thought that was significant for a couple of reasons. he's a global brand, not just an american brand. if you're just trying to say what you think people want to you say you have to kowtow to jesus. and he didn't do that. he highlighted something about himself that i think lent an air of authenticity, at least emotional you then tis ty to the proceedings and i was impressed. >> max kellerman introducing to this show for the first time ever, it's hard to believe, the

phrase kowtowing to jesus. and for that i owe you very much, sir. thank you. good to see you, max. >> pleasure, rachel. thanks for having me. coming up, keith is going to do something amazing. he's going to tick down the most cringe-worthy moments ever on television. you have to see this. post-obama patriotism. from the state government of south carolina. one official there wants to ban american currency. we will be using a oujia board to contact president davis and robert e. lee for comment. ♪ ♪ spread a little joy and see ♪ need a little happiness to be ♪ ♪ living the life with me ♪ ♪ spread a little joy and see ♪ need a little happiness to be ♪ ♪ living the life with me ♪

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still ahead, the results are in and we have a winner in the first and hopefully only ever "rachel maddow show" filibuster challenge. we also have some filibuster performing arts. hard to explain. we'll let that be a surprise. first, we have a few stories in today's news. president obama spoke in denver. first senator michael bennett. nothing too unusual there. the president usually supports congressional incumbents in his party. there was one tweak to this normal presidential pageantry surrounding the events. want to see what is missing here? notice anything missing there? the presidential seal is not on the podium. nbc's chief white house

correspondent chuck todd reports that the missing seal is not so much missing as it has been removed on purpose -- according to chuck -- i have no idea. you can count down to it as being denounced as a communist plot in three, two -- something to expect from the experience of modern american airline security. the transportation security administration is announcing it will start randomly schwabing travelers' hands to search for traces of explosives. you may have seen these swabs that they use to test already. screeners use them to check bags and shoes. the new gimme five policy where they check your hands has received a provisional thumbs up from the american civil liberties union provided the policy is not implemented in a zram natory fashion, the aclu says this is the right security

measure that is not an invasion of privacy. we contacted security expert bruce schneider to get his take. he's very critical of tsa measures that he calls security theater. he told us about the testing and quote -- so you can file that under faint praise, damming whiff. the tsa already has about 7,000 explosive trace detection machines. many from the federal stimulus bill will provide for about 400 more. which you should probably keep in mind if you hear someone who voted against the stimulus bill taking credit for the 400 new explosive detections machines. if you live in south carolina, you may want to think about trading in your wallet for something more sturdier. michael pitts introduced a bill that would ban american currency in the state of south carolina. no paper currency. no nickels, dimes or quarters. forget that whole legal tender

thing. michael pitts, if he has his way, you'll only be able to buy things in the state of south carolina with gold or silver. he explained his reasoning saying, quote, something that i can hold tangible in my hand, put more value in, especially under the current rate of inflation. in the case of total economic collapse, a barter tool is going to be worth a whole lot more value than paper with ink on it. that said, one of the nice things about pap we are ink on it is that its value doesn't fluctuate every minute of every day that there is an exchange somewhere in the world with people trading gold and silver as a commodity. so buying eggs would be like 1.98, 2.01, 1.96. the good news is, though, you could in a pinch pay with fillings. national car rental? that's my choice.

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the new name takes effect september 1st by which time troop levels are to have fallen to around 50,000. operation new dawn is supposed to make you think of a shining new day in iraq. it's not supposed to make you think of the marine offensive that nearly leveled the city of fallujah in 2004. that was also called operation new dawn. that's awkward. new dawn is the name of something that bills itself as the world's most unusual magazine. the current issue promising to reveal quote, who really runs the world and the plan for world government. new dawn, also the name of a christian rock band from oregon. also, there's the new dawn singers, the glee club that plays school assemblies, holiday shows and gospel concerts. they seem to be very good. it's also the name of an industrial company that makes big industrial peanut grinders like this one, based in swa edd swaziland.

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our interns are exhausted. julia, rachel, you guys have done great work. thank you. it's starting to pay off. so far, 16 senators and the president of the senate, also known as the vice president, have responded to our calls or otherwise gone on the record about whether they support the

idea of reforming the filibuster. the republicans are using it in a way that's never been used before. they are using it to require 60 votes on everything. a result so far, nine senators and joe biden say that they are for the idea of changing the filibuster rules and democratic senator maria cantwell of washington is joining the other six who say they do not support the rules. that leaves 84 senators who have yet to get back to us with a definitive position. senator, senate staffers this is not a trick or a trap. we want to know where to put you on our chart. in the hope of inspiring you to respond to these calls from our very nice hard working interns, we are topping the considerable talents today of "newsweek" contributor jerry adler. every week he turns a story from the news into verse for "newsweek." now without further adieu, we present jerry adler reading his latest now, we present jerry adler reading his latest, 59-41. with a special assist from our own kent jones.

>> the urgent business of the people now must shuffle limp and creeple, three steps forward, three steps back -- iran, afghanistan, iraq, 30 million uninsured, giant loans going unsecured, unemployment unabated, bankers unabashd, unwanting to be regulated, greenhouse gases in the air, bad news for the polar bear. no, no, no, no, no, no, no. no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no -- olympia snowe.

>> that's -- sort of can't believe we did that. that was so awesome. ladies and gentlemen, that was the news verse of jerry adler and a big thanks to the show's official bongo boy. kent jones. wow! we have been trying to come up for a new name for the filibuster problem. makes people sleepy. we have enjoyed reading through the suggestions you have made at our website, but now, it is friday and it is time to unveil the finalists and tell you who we picked. here are our honorable mentions. you made the finals. first is invoking the gridlock

rule. the nomination failed. also, pass interference, as in the bill earned a majority of yes votes, but failed because of pass interference. catch 41. as in catch 2 but for 42 votes. republicans could not muster a majority, but did so because of catch 41. this is a good one. la la la la la. as in extending unemployment's got a majority vote but failed because of la la la la la. think that would be hard to translate to print. there's also minority override. had a majority and would have passed if not for the minority override. minority rule, this one is very popular. it would have passed except for the senate's minority rule. just one more finalist before

the winner. the word snagcloddle, which we would be making up for the purpose of describing this problem. i like that one. all the finalists were very good and there were lots more good ones besides. our winner is our best hope of picking something that actually sticks. can we get a drum roll? the winner is -- the tarantino because it kills bills. here's how it works in sentence. extending unemployment earned a majority of yes votes, but failed to pass any way because of the tarantino. they could not stop the nomination but they were able to

stop it anyway because of the tarantino. the real question is whether climate change legislation could pass now even if there weren't a tarantino. it's the haren teen no tarantino as if i need to say this. i even need to say this. this is meant as an homage. and i will tell you, the filibuster problem is very, very, very nearly the uma thurman instead. we think the tarantino is it. the mug and sweatshirt goes to alan a. waldman. congratulations. the mug and a sweatshirt and the thanks of a grateful nation are on their way to you. 'll be right back. and the startup-capital- for-barbers business. and the this-won't- hurt-a-bit business.

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apparently, in parts of north america between the months of november and march, frozen white precipitation sometimes falls from the sky and coats the earth. meteorologists call this period winter. and washington, d.c. seems surprised when it happens every year. last week, when our nation's capitol got slammed with up 40 inches, the response was, close everything down. fortunately, other cities have better planning. they wisely reached out to, among other places, boston. eight days ago, a team of boston-area drivers drove their dump trucks down to d.c. they've been plowing non-stop ever since. houing projects, schools, sidewalks, you name it.

in the process, those became rock stars here in d.c. "boston globe" reporting today how grateful the people of washington have been for the help up north, even inviting the drivers inside for something to eat. one quoted -- it's just another day. people hug us and say, thank you, i can finally get out of my house which is, face it, wicked nice. what would be really awesome is if washington had its own snow removing rock stars. i know that senator brown has a pick up truck. that does it for

welcome to beautiful vancouver, british columbia. and the 21st olympic winter games. it's men's hockey. finland and germany and the long-time star of the finnish team, 39-year-old teemu selanne is on the verge of history with one more point, selanne will become the all-time leadi ining scorer in the olympics. and saku koivu would love to add a gold to his silver and bronze. >> and we welcome you to canada hockey place, our home for these vancouver olympics. and hi again, everybody. bill patrick with