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tv   Countdown With Keith Olbermann  MSNBC  March 31, 2010 1:00am-2:00am EDT

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let me finish tonight with an account of grace under pressure. 29 years ago, shots rang out on a washington, d.c., sidewalk. the first hit jim brady. the second hit a d.c. police officer. the third hit a building across the street. the fourth hit secret service agent timothy mccarthy, the fifth hit ronald reagan, the president of the united states. the bullet that hit president reagan was now lodged an inch from his heart. the chief secret service agent in charge shoved the president into the car and jumped on top of him. he ordered the car to bolt for the white house. up t street then on to connecticut avenue, the limo sped only when the car went under the tunnel did reagan see
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his napkin from lunch was red, he was choking up blood. at this point neither parr nor reagan knew he was shot. but he told the driver to high tail it to george washington university hospital. they made it to the hospital in three minutes. the heros that day were the police officer shot in the line of duty, secret service agent, tim mccarthy who took a bullet aimed for the president or his chief agent, jerry parr. and jerry parr, who put his body between reagan and the gunman, and made the decision to get the car to the hospital. ronald reagan made it that day. no one would know for a long time, long after the country had settled down how close it had come. he lost half his blood supply that afternoon, with a bullet an inch from his heart.
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thanks to some really good grace under pressure, by a really good patriotic guy, jerry parr. i hope he's watching. that's "hardball" for now. catch us again tomorrow night at 5:00 and 7:00 eastern. "countdown with keith olbermann" starts right now. which of these stories will you be talking about tomorrow? the momentum at 1600 pennsylvania avenue. >> for a long time our student loan system worked for banks and financial institutions. today we're finally making our student loan system work for students and our families. >> and the other momentum the president still seeks. >> i will continually reach out to republicans. i will continue to incorporate their ideas even when they don't vote for the ideas i presented. >> the president on the bipartisan unicorn in the white house rose garden and on the tea party. >> they're still going be a group at their core to question
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my legitimacy. that group will probably not go further. >> the cornyn memo. the party of no becomes the party of no, we thought of it. another hutaree arrest. as the right wingers insist they are the real victims here, and we ask -- whatever did happen to all those left-wing militias? she's back. more correctly, baack. the candidate who brought you this -- >> fcino. fiscal conservative in name only. >> california senate hopeful carly fiorina's message for passover. and michael muss toe on the brands spanking new umbridg, a flunky fired over the 2,000 bucks spent at a hollywood bonda bondage-themed strip club.
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>> california strip club. >> sort of racy club, strip club, i guess you could call it. >> i guess you couldn't call it that. the latest outrages from the club. we are most certainly not a strip club, says its director of special events. we cater to a high-end, a-list clientele with live art installations with a voyeuristic theme. high end, did you say? all the news and commentary now on "countdown." >> no photos. good evening from new york. just as sweeping and just as fiercely lobbied against as the health care reform bill in which it was included, the revamping of the student loan program signed into law today by president obama, representing perhaps the biggest achievement in making college in this country affordable since the gi bill. and the president giving his first sitdown interview since the bill became law, insists
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those reforms were centrist and middle of the road. and that she was still seeking bipartisanship. much of that interview in a moment. a community college in virginia, today's signing of the health care reconciliation bill and doing away with a 45-year-old program that guaranteed federal subsidies to private banks to get them to lend money to students while the government assumed all of the risk. >> for almost two decades we've been trying to fix a sweetheart deal in federal law that essentially gave billions of dollars to banks to act as unnecessary middlemen in administering student loans. so those are billions of dollars that could have been spent helping more of our students attend and complete college. by cutting out the middleman we'll save american taxpayers $68 billion in the coming years. >> starting this summer those guaranteed loans will be offered directly by the department of education, leading republicans to call that another government takeover. never mind those federal subsidies have been government money all along, the kind of logic to lead some opponents to
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say keep your hands off my medicare. a steady diet of rhetoric. in his first interview since health care's passage with the "today" show's matt lauer, it was pointed out to the president he was promising bipartisan leadership and change the tone in washington. instead, it was premised, he signed into law health care law that did not receive a single republican vote. >> i think that the republican party made a calculated decision, a political decision that they would not support whatever we did. all right. there was a quote by a well-known republican senator who said this is going to be obama's waterloo. this is -- we're going to bring him down the same way we brought down bill clinton, by making sure that health care fails. and i think that's unfortunate because when you actually look at the bill itself, it incorporates all sorts of
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republican ideas. a lot of commentators said this is similar to the bill that mitt romney, the republican governor and now presidential candidate passed in massachusetts. a lot of the ideas in terms of the exchange, just being able to pool and improve the purchasing power of individuals in the insurance market. that originated from the heritage foundation. >> you are saying it is all politics? it is not about the inner workings of the bill, it's all politics? >> i will say that any objective observer looking at this bill would say that this is a middle-of-the road, centrist approach to providing coverage to people, and making sure that we are reducing costs. >> daniel had -- >> and so i -- i am frustrated that republicans who i think had an opportunity to help shape this bill declined that opportunity. that's not to say that on specific provisions there might
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be legitimate concerns that they had, philosophical concerns they had. some of them sincerely believed we should do more on this aspect of the bill or that aspect. the overall architecture was actually something that was right down the middle. >> let's talk about where we are politically right now many. i don't have to tell you passage of this bill and turning it into law has left this country as politically divided as i think it has been in a long time. you might be able to cite examples, but the vitriol, the rhetoric, the sniping, the threats, how are you possibly going to continue with any kind of legislative agenda when your opponents have said to you, i'm not going to cooperate with this president, with these democrats unless it is a matter of national security. how do you move on? >> yeah. well, first of all, i think a lot of the rhetoric has been overheated and overblown. this is what happens in washington when you have a big
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debate. suddenly the passage of this bill is armageddon. as i pointed out, the next day after i signed it, i looked around, no asteroids hit the planet, no cracks appeared in the earth. this is a bill that is going to help a lot of people and help to lower costs of health care. it is not a radical departure from what we've done in the past. >> the president carefully dividing the members of the tea party movement into those who have legitimate concerns about his administration, reform or both, and the birthers who are still questioning his american citizenship. >> we saw some of it leading up to my election where there are some folks who just, you know, weren't sure whether i was born in the united states, whether i was a socialist. right? so there's that segment of it, which i think is just dug in
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ideologically, and that strain has existed in american politics for a long time. then i think there's a broader circle around that core group of people who are legitimately concerned about the deficit, who are legitimately concerned that the federal government may be taking on too much and last year a bunch of the emergency measures we had to take in terms of dealing with the bank crisis, bailing out the auto industry fed that sense that things were out of control. my hope is that as we move forward and we're tackling things like the deficit and posing a freeze on domestic spending and taking steps that show we are sincere about dealing with our long-term problems, that some of that groupp dissipate. there is still going to be a group at their core that question my legitimacy or question the democratic party generally or question people who they consider to be against them
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in some way and that group we're probably not going to convince. >> it is remarkable to hear anyone speak with detachment about the insults, innuendo and outright lies that the president has faced, some of that from the faction of the tea party he mentioned, some sadly from sitting members of congress. if one were needed a reminder some of what has been said. >> we're on the hill asking republicans if they believe barack obama was born in the united states. it doesn't matter to you? >> we're all going to find out. >> what do you believe? >> i'd like to see the documents. >> we should not have a government program that determines you are going to pull the plug on grandma. >> do you think he is a terrorist? >> he is a one man terror cell. >> if we are able to stop obama on this it will be his waterloo. it will break him. >> do you have some evidence he is or isn't? >> chris matthews held up his birth certificate on "hardball" the other night. >> obviously, the constitution
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speaks for itself, and those requirements need to be met. it will be up to others to look into that. >> you won't say whether or not you believe he is born in the united states? >> we have a requirement for that. and that's up for others to determine and look into. >> there was a process that was going through -- and i think the process was -- >> you refuse to say what you believe. >> i told you what i believe. >> he is a terrorist. >> he's got the bloodlines. >> we are about 24 hours from armageddon. >> isn't it armageddon with a "g"? on a lighter note, the health care reform debate claiming one victim inside the white house. last year the president correctly predicted the winner of the men's ncaa tournament. this year he will have done nothing of the sort. >> how does your bracket look first of all? >> it is completely blown up. it is a sign that i was paying singular focus on health care. >> and it all started when he picked wisconsin to beat cornell. time now to call in our own
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jonathan alter for "newsweek" magazine. john, good evening. good to see you. >> hi, keith. >> the president says he is still going to reach out to republicans, incorporate their ideas whether or not they give him support. is this stoicism or credo? and if it's a creedo, what is the creedo? >> it is a credo, look for the better angels of our nature. you try to reach out. you get credit for reaching out. a lot of liberals want him to deck somebody. they want the satisfaction of him putting someone on the canvas. but that's not a good way to govern. you want to stay above the fray if you can. there are times you do need to come down and throw some punches. you saw him in the last six, eight months throw a lot of punches at the insurance industry. it doesn't do him any good to attack republicans or respond in kind to republicans that he may need on other votes. >> i'm sorry. go ahead. >> no. that's it.
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>> let me read something from the law lauer interview, another quote that pertains to this. if you look the president said historically what happens, a party that is out of power often times in the first few years end up reacting very negatively. their base ends up being very agitated, and it may take the next election or presidential election before things settle down. have we been misunderstanding his bipartisan message, looking for the unicorn in the rose garden? that it's not bipartisanship now, it is hoping that things can calm down in the next two to four years so you get bipartisanship at some later sanguine moment in american history? >> i mean, i just think he's wrong and underestimated the amount of venom. >> is that what he thinks he's doing? >> yeah. he is still hoping since he ran on this bridging the red/blue divide. that is how he got into national politics with that famous speech in 2004 at the democratic
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convention where he said we're not a red and blue nation. we're one nation. that's how we got barack obama. so since that's what brought him to the dance, he doesn't want to give up on that idea yet. but everything we've seen from this republican party suggests it has become an extraordinarily reactionary party. an extreme party. you know, the members of congress who you just showed who don't believe he was born in the country. nobody's heard of those guys, but it was actually the leadership, dick armey and tom delay who have been out peddling this. the leadership of that party with very, very few exceptions hold these very extreme views. i think it's the greatest disappointment in his presidency, when i interviewed him not too long ago, he said he really expected, perhaps naively, that is my word, not his, that when he got to
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washington, the other party would have some interest in governing. it turned out they did not have a shred of responsibility when it came to governing this country. >> does he think and was it reflected in the end game of health care thing, the recess appointments, has it been reflected he has gone from this idea that politics are still results driven. you didn't like the health care reform bill, wait until you see what happens in reality. some of you will support us. from the republican party. that is probably gone. we are probably post-bipartisan era at this moment, but does he still this as something if you go over the heads of the opposing party and the supporters and said this is what we did for you, we put this much in your pocket he can still get "x" amount of support? no matter what the leadership does and how obstinate and obstructionist they might be? >> absolutely. if he can go over the heads of the -- remember, a lot of these leaders of the republican party have been selected in super low turnout republican primaries. they don't represent the people of their districts.
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there is a lot of moderate republicans out there. some of them may even be watching tonight. if people of good will in the republican party who feel like the republican party has left them, has taken the sharp veer right and he can appeal to them. and as far as some others who have been very concerned about this bill, seniors for instance, they don't know it yet but later this year seniors are going to get a $250 check in the mail as a drug rebate to help pay for their prescription drug costs. that is going to change some of their views about this. they are going to find this doughnut hole which they understand what it is, that they start paying a lot more for prescription drugs over a certain threshold, that is not closed by law. that is going to save them thousands of dollars. when that starts to kind of sink in, then i think you are going to see a lot of independents and republicans who change their mind about this bill. >> how did the banks and the republicans let the student loan thing sweep by?
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he just put a hole in the banks. >> this was maybe the most inspired move of the last six weeks. congressman george miller deserves a lot of the credit for it. basically there was in this indie fencible system where the government was backing these loans, but the banks were taking a big chunk. you had republicans and some democrats defending that ridiculous status quo even though $68 billion has been saved by the taxpayers and it was central to the deal for reconciliation for health care. it brought down the cost of the health care bill and that is one of the only reasons it scored properly at the congressional budget office because of this student loan deal. not only does it greatly expand student loans, helps students, great for education, but without it we probably wouldn't have had the health care deal. >> it turns up quickly in practical realities. jonathan alter, "newsweek" and msnbc, thanks. >> thanks, keith.
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the republicans are changing tack on the health care reform. the internal memo from senator cornyn of texas directing the party of no to respond to it by claiming partial credit for it. also the woman who brought you the worst campaign commercial in political history is back with a special message for passover and only one word correctly applies. oy. 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 exceptional offers through mercedes-benz financial. ♪ that's right, 97%. which means you can talk, text, email or go online from almost anywhere. so whether you're in portland, oregon, or portland, maine...
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washington, d.c., or seattle, washington, or somewhere in between, at&t has the coverage you need. hopefully that sheds a little light on the subject. ♪
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the republicans will simultaneously repeal health care reform and take credit for health care reform. the right says it is victimized just as much by threats of violence from the left, so as another arrest is made in the hutaree militia case what happened to the left wing militias? two months removed from her red life eyed wolf in sheep's clothing, carly fiorina is back and the complaints about two grand
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a memo from the senator who used to lead gop campaign efforts for the senate where he urges republican candidates to take credit for key parts of health care reform while other republicans will run this summer and fall on a promise to repeal health care reform over a presidential veto merely by gaining a record 113 seats in the house and 26 more in the senate. also tonight, the latest polling on repeal misses the point and the insurance industry has just blinked in a stand-off covering children with pre-existing conditions. first, since it did so well for them on the stimulus, the
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national senatorial committee chairman senator john cornyn a memo to gop candidates urging them to take credit for the popular things in the bill and decry the other stuff. like the means to pay for it, quoting -- "on the trail it is critical we remind people of the fact it was republicans who fought to force insurance companies to compete with one another over state lines for americans' business. it was republicans who fought for policies that protected americans with pre-existing conditions, and it was republicans who proposed health care reforms that didn't cut ned medicare by $500 million and raise american taxes by $400 million. it is republicans who continue to believe we should focus on reforms which actually lower health care costs for americans first and foremost even though all of them did vote against every part of that. this tactic echos the shtick from senator grassley last week, taking credit for certain elements of the bill even though he voted against the bill and he was propagating the death panels are in the bill lie. in the meantime, a day after a
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health insurance industry attorney insisted it did not have to offer coverage to children with pre-existing conditions for four years, the industry backed down. karen ignani saying that the industry intends to fully comply, this in a letter to health and human services secretary kathleen sebelius. ms. sebelius stated her intention to create new regulations that would remove any doubt about kids with preexisting conditions 47% of respondents favoring appeal. ignored. 50% do not. that would be more. of that 50% more than half want more reform and more government involvement in health care. let's get back to mr. cornyn's memo and turn to the senior editor of "the atlantic" magazine, josh green. josh, thanks for your time tonight. >> good to be with you, keith. >> the republican line will be give us credit for the good stuff in the bill even though each and every one of us voted against it? >> that looks like what the strategy is going to be. the dilemma is broader than
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that. if you look at the new law, it is based on a central set of principles first introduced by republicans in the early 1990s to compete with hillary care. the problem republicans are facing with cornyn's new memo is they were for a lot of these reforms before they were against it before they are for them again. it is difficult to follow where the strategy is growing to come from. >> how well will whatever that strategy turns out to be work when the republican down the street is promising to repeal the whole thing? >> it is going to be a problem. we are already seeing this with mark kirk who is a republican senate candidate from illinois who ran on an issue of repeal in the republican primary in order to, i think, appeal to tea partiers and the hard right. as recently as two weeks ago, he was talking about repealing it if he made it to the senate.
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now he stopped saying that. he won't answer questions about repeal. so i think that points out the difficulty of, you know, if you pander to a hard right constituency it leaves you in a really difficult place in the general election because a lot of people -- older folks who hear repeal, aren't going to parse your talking points. they will hear the word repeal and be worried you are going to take away their health care. >> this i think goes back to the point that david fromm was talking about. before he got himself fired by conservatives everywhere, that there was no backup plan, no strategy in case they didn't succeed in tieing up health care reform forever or defeating it. clearly there was none because they came up with two self-contradictory ideas. there was no backup plan for the republicans? >> no. i don't think there was. i mean, seeing cornyn try and parse it the way he is in this memo i think exposes the weakness or downside to the always say no strategy that
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republicans had used all the way up until health care. if it had fallen apart, if it hadn't passed you can say the president and the democrats have no accomplishments, they can't govern and maybe that is a winning strategy at the polls. now this monumental new law has passed the only argument that follows consistently from the republican strategy is one of outright appeal. as you can see if you look at the polls, that is not going to be a winning strategy at the polling in november. >> speaking of opinion polls as opposed to the voting polls, the trend from cnn, 50/47 don't repeal. in fact 25% saying out of the whole group, expand. is that suggesting the longer the interval becomes since the bill was passed the more support the bill gets? >> i think you can make a good case for that being the likelihood. i think it is too early now for anybody to know for sure how most voters are going to feel about health care in november.
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but the problem with the strategy of calling it armageddon, worrying about death panels and such, is that seven, eight, nine months are going to lapse between now and november. we are a week into this new law and the total number of old people killed by death panels is zero and still going to be zero in november. meanwhile, you know, a lot of benefits from this bill are going to become apparent, $250 checks for seniors to buy prescription drugs, the fact that insurers cannot discriminate based on pre-existing conditions. the fact that you can stay on your parents' health care until you're 26. a lot will be exposed, the hyperbole is going to be shown to be fairly empty. >> it is armededdon. as the senator said. not armageddon. good to see you. >> thank you. >> the false equivalency of the right they are not threatening
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violence against the right, the left, or the government, but that they, the right are the true victims here. which does not explain the hutaree and the latest arrest in that case of domestic terrorism and how the country is seemingly devoid today of left wing militias, melissa harris lacewell ahead on "countdown." - marry me. - marry me. - marry me. - be my wife, please. ( bells tolling ) ( all cheering ) ha ha ha! announcer: introducing the kohler karbon faucet.
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is it perception or politics or reality? is nearly all the violent rhetoric and all the militias coming from the right. ahead. first, wow, that was some plug.
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last night i mentioned the publication of dirk hayhurst "the bullpen gospel." probably the best baseball book in 40 years, but far more a story of coming to terms with life's realities. today it hit number 12 on the amazon bestsellers list. number one among all biographies number one among all sports books. jayson stark says this is real life inside a baseball dugout laid out with honest eloquence with a man who lived that life, has no problem making fun of himself and not a ramboesque internal that sour thesaurus, but a brilliant way with words. number one sports book, who is this oprah winfrey book woman again? let's play "oddball." houston, hello. the domestic instance of what is a global struggle between news anchors and gravity. this is the abc station in
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houston, texas. your anchor is melanie lawson. you see her attempt to reach across the anchor desk to a report, and things go horribly wrong. >> lean over here just a second. no, further, further, stick your hand out. it's time to get your opinion. oh, well. so much for that. go on with the weather. go on. >> and so long until tomorrow. this just in. these chairs have wheels. she was fine and the weather looked pretty good, too. as i mentioned this is a global phenomenon. to helsinki, finland, where the anchor chairs also have finnish wheels. [ speaking foreign language ] >> and so long until tomorrow. that is finnish news anchor kirsi halm putting the sink in helsinki. the show's director just lingers on her and her co-host. note to my director, if that
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happens to me, go to commercial and get a new job. finally to mexico city. now presenting mexican prison theater. 11 convicted criminals having the time of their lives. what do you mean, he left the control room? that might be, i don't know who he is supposed to be. anyway, this theater troupe is fittingly called the panic cabaret. the inmates are supposed to be liberating themselves by acting out their own lives. they will hit the road to rave reviews as you saw. no chain gang for this bunch. don't give them razors. what are you thinking? they will tour other prison facilities. we open at leavenworth saturday night! upon return they rehearse for the next presentation shakespeare's richard iii. i'm not making that up. the latest arrest in the hutaree militia terrorism case begging the question -- whatever happened to all those left wing militias? [ children laughing ]
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as the final wanted member of the right wing christian
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militia group hutaree was arraigned on charges of sedicious conspiracy. not even to top the the government, was enough to get the far right to repudiate the group. 21-year-old joshua matthew stone taken into custody last night following a day long standoff. eight other group members arrested over the weekend. the purported plan to kill policemen and bomb the memorial service, somehow triggering an uprising against the federal government and the hutaree group would be able to defeat the anti-christ. doesn't sound too good when you say it aloud. on the right wing blogs, mitigation and the timing appears convinced the last time i looked wanting to start a civil war was not a crime, to is the administration taking after christian militias to get in
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good with the neo-communist left? the danger of political violence in this country comes overwhelmingly from one direction the right not the left. joining me here in new york, columnist for the nation magazine and msnbc contributor, melissa harris. thanks for being with us. good evening, professor. >> nice to have you back. everyone is thrilled to see you back. >> i'm thrilled to be here. are the militia really as starkly slanted to the right as gene suggests in his piece today? >> there is extremism on both sides. no doubt about that. if we want a long view of history there is extremisms on
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both sides. on the other hand, there was an instructive moment with the citizen attempt to arrest dick cheney which you might call sort of an extremist position on the left, and this citizen, a canadian citizen came with a pink furry hat on. the way in which the left come for you they come throwing flowers and what happens in this case is not the extremism of views, what we're worried about is the extremism that is also armed, or is prepared to come with guns and with bombs. >> to correct you, karl rove, the attempt on karl rove. >> i'm sorry. karl rove. they mush. >> i have never seen them in the same place together. so it is very possible. it would explain an awful lot, wouldn't it? but back to the point this idea, certainly nobody in our lives, who lived through the '60s or '70s or read about them could not know of the groups like the sds or 68 simbionese liberation sds or the simbionese liberation
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ar army. what did happen to all of the, militias that just were excuses to make money off of them. what did happen to all of the, you know, armed left wing militias in this country? >> the left got behind gun control is part of it. part of what happened is overwhelmingly the ideology became one that -- again, if we think about what happened in the civil rights movement the ways it gave way to the black power movement, a movement that talked about armed self-defense or a movement that talked about not simply taking the abuse of the state, but willingly standing up and yet what you saw overwhelmingly in the ways in which the right responds to that. when people on the left speak in that kind of language, take for example the language of hip-hop that sometimes talked about violence against the police it was immediately overwhelmingly denounced by people on the left and on the right. you can't talk about even in a musical form killing the police, but here we had an actual plot and we did not see the right
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come out and be appalled by it. >> exactly. where were they? because it's one thing to read bloggers on right-wing sites saying the convenience of timing or how wanting a civil war is not against the law, which i think you can despite in many ways, but where are the counter terrorists, the people who make their bones off this from leadership positions? i haven't heard a word from pete king. hoekstra in michigan supposedly being able to run -- his run for governor was enhanced by the fact that the underwear bomber was corralled in his state, silent on this. this is supposedly their forte. where is your denunciation or even comment on this? >> part of it is the language of terrorism has gotten wrapped up with a kind of ethnic and racial concept of who a terrorist can be. you know, even as long ago as 9/11/2001, i was saying, wait a minute, this is not the first act of domestic terrorism. you could look at the klan.
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in the south, they were committing terrorism against american citizens. >> absolutely. >> we have never used that language to talk about terrorism. terrorism are these ethnic others, people from these other places who come in and do bad things to american citizens rather than being willing to label this sort of activity potentially terrorist in its purposes. >> in previous decades and centuries, it was anarchists, communists, leftist, we found a different word, but it always implies someone external as opposed to someone in the mainstream as these people appear. melissa harris-lacewell from princeton and msnbc, great thanks. good to see you. >> good to see you. now you know who's angry about the republicans who spent two grand at the lesbian strip club story. the owners of the club, we are not, they insist, a strip club. she may not have brought back the fcino with her, but the woman behind the ad is back.
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the special tone deaf passover message. and when rachel joins you at the top of the hour, problems for the c-street gang, a good old family. rachel will talk to a minister accusing that group of tax and ethics violations.
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"worsts" and the state that accidentally authorized hate crimes against homophobes. you heard me. first tonight's quick comment. here we go again, carly fiorina, the fired hewlett-packard ceo still running for the senate nomination in california has put another foot in another mouth. she sent this mass e-mail best wishes for a safe and happy passover. paragraph two -- this week, as we break bread and spend time with our families and friends i hope we take time to say a word of thanks for our freedom and those who have given their lives in freedom's names. i'm not even jewish, and even i
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know it's the celebration of the unlevined bread. and every piece of bread is out of the home. remember fleeing from egypt before the bread could rise? the fiorina spokeswoman explains to the "los angeles times" we meant you will all bread leavened and unleavened. matzo is unleavened. that is what we meant. yeah. the only question is is that e-mail worse than carly fiorina's web ad? you've forgotten it? oh, no. the web ad, the attack on her republican rival? >> announcer: tom campbell. is he what he tells us? or is he what he's become over the years? a fcino fiscal conservative in name only. a wolf in sheep's clothing. a man who literally helped put the state of california on the path to bankruptcy and higher taxes.
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fiscal conservative or just another same old tale of tax and spend authored by a career politician who helped guide us into this fiscal mess in the first place. >> wait, the sheep in wolf's clothing from outer space with the red eyes. didn't i just see that sheep breaking bread? i've got an idea. or improvise? maxwell house custom-roasts each bean... for a full-flavored cup of coffee. so you can be good to the last drop. for a full-flavored cup of coffee. band now we're insuring overts do18 million drivers. gecko: quite impressive, yeah. boss: come a long way, that's for sure. and so have you since you started working here way back when.
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gecko: ah, i still have nightmares. anncr: geico. 15 minutes could save you 15% or more on car insurance. trugreen's taught me a lot. like how every lawn is different. some people want a place to play... others, a place to chill. yo, b. but i've learned from trugreen if you treat every lawn special, the sky's the limit. i'm gonna go public next summer. what's crackin, baby?! bobby! [ male announcer ] call 877-trugreen and get a customized plan for a healthy, green lawn, guaranteed. best lesson i've learned? mow on sunny days. lawn's looking good, bobby. my pleasure...really. [ male announcer ] trugreen. go greener. hackles continue to be raised about the republican national committee reimbursing two grand on the spending in the lesbian bondage club.
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the latest to be offended, the executive of the nightclub, saying it's been defamed. it caters to a high-end a-list clientele with a voiristic theme. michael musto on the republican party's new role as patrons of the arts, installation arts. today's worst persons in the world. bud day, retired colonel, endorsed charlie crist instead of marco rubio, saying you know, we just got through electing a politician who can run his mouth at mach 1, a black one. now we have a hispanic that can. run his mouth at mach 1. he expanded on obama calling him the black one with the reading thing. i put rubio in that same category except i don't know if he is using one of those readers. colonel day, of course, appeared in the infamous swiftboat ads against john kerry in 2004. you'll remember him, he was the white one with the racism thing.
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runner-up, ricky flowers, address not given who led police in ohio on a high-speed chase where he was wanted for failing to signal. it ended at garfield heights ohio, with mr. flowers ditching the car and scaling a fence. unfortunately, the fence was outside the ohio northeast prerelease center for women. when he landed back on the ground he was inside a prison yard surrounded by correction officers. our winner, oklahoma state senator russell, that body passed his horrific bigoted bill designed to reduce protections for gays by allowing oklahoma law enforcement agencies to ignore the definition of hate crimes passed by the u.s. congress a year ago in the matthew shepard act. on the grounds that it denied oklahoma churches the right to preach against homosexuality. the oklahoma bill permits prosecutors ignore title 18, u.s. code section 245, except the protections for gays are not in title 18 section 245 but 249.
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what did oklahoma nullify? when it said it attacked title 18 u.s. code section 245 title 18 u.s. code section 245 protects people against hate crimes based on race, color religion or national origin. the religion nuts wound up the religious nuts in oklahoma who tried to wind up stripping the rights from the religious nuts in oklahoma. oklahoma state senator steve, i wonder what hoist on his own pittard means, russell. today's worst person in the world. new purefitness from crystal light. ♪ the first crystal light with no artificial sweeteners, flavors, or preservatives. ♪ new purefitness from crystal light. a pure way to water your body.
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finally tonight, a correction. yesterday we told you about an embarrassing republican national committee visit to a lesbian bondage themed strip club. in west hollywood. it wasn't a simulated bondage themed strip club at all. it was a simulated lesbian
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bondage theme art club according to the lesbian bondage theme art club management, that is really upset the place was not recognized for artistic greatness. to correct the record the gop blew two grand on art. yesterday documents revealed that in february the republican national committee reimbursed $2,000 to erik brown after brown took some young republicans to a high-end l.a. bar called voyeur. today "the national journal's" hotline on call blog reports that alison myers approved the payout to brown and has since been terminated. today in an article titled a club with a hollywood tint, sara waldman, director of special events, complained about media depictions of her establishment to the times, claiming, we are most certainly not a strip club. we cater to a high-end, a-list
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clientele with live art installations with a voyeuristic theme. a half naked girl hanging from a net across the ceiling. according to this image from the voyeur website there is a half naked bartender who will artfully ignore your requests for extra limes. time to call in our own spoken word artist, michael musto, and his new blog. >> hi, keith i feel sorry for annette, the girl she is hanging from. it's got to hurt. >> that is enough for tonight. we can't get better than that. does this place match your definition of an art club and therefore is the gop supporting the arts? >> yeah. but i think planet hollywood is a museum. this is a great new direction for the republicans. next they will be buying up maple thorpes as if they were keen paintings. they'll be buying up biblical