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tv   The Last Word  MSNBC  October 4, 2010 10:00pm-11:00pm EDT

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what they were capable of doing when policy made sense. what would that look like? there are 29 days to find out. that does it for us. we'll see you tomorrow night from delaware where we'll talk with democratic nominee chr. >> i'm so jealous of this. >> there's a bus. >> i'll see what i can do. thanks, rachel. we begin with a multiple choice statement. which of these statements is correct. a, in washington, if you pick a fight, it should be about something you really care about. b, in washington, if you pick a fight, you should picture one you know you can win. or c, in washington, there is no such thing as fighting. tomorrow democrats will fight about which answer is right. democrats are back in the game 28 days until the election and democrats are finally gaining
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ground. >> conventional wisdom has been republicans will take control of the house. but well maybe not so fast. >> as much as 10 point advantage for republicans, that's collapsed. >> the president has found his voice. >> he's trying to mobilize his ba base. >> african-americans, young voters push the democratic party in their biggest fund-raising in two years, most from grassroots supporters. >> i think president obama is getting the base to go with him. >> some frustrated progress i was not there yet, still taking shots at president obama for not doing enough. >> the hostility toward him for not listening to them in their view is palpable. >> obama has the power today to suspend don't ask, don't tell discharges and he's not doing it. he could have passed the dream act when he first came in, the comprehensive immigration bill. >> the obama defense, don't blame me. >> first of all, congress on
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capitol hill. it's not all obama's fault. >> as obama gets hit from both sides. >> you can't be too far left and too far right at the same time. this guy is getting hammered by all sides. >> the white house message to the professional left is how do you like the sound of these two words. speaker boehner. >> maybe our guys haven't been perfect but do we really want these guys running the government. >> as voters start to look at the actual choice, of course the polls get close. >> if you sit on the sidelines, this will be partly your fault. >> i'll go to washington and do what you do. i'm tris teen o'donnell a-- chr o'donnell and i approved this message. >> i'm lawrence o'donnell. if you were watching this program closely last week and have a strong memory you already know my answer to multiple choice is c in washington there's no such thing as fighting. i said that in an interview with david axelrod while we were
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discussing complaints about president obama from his supporters. now, this might be just semantic confusion over the verb to fight. in my years as a senate i never saw a politician fight. i heard most of them lie during campaigns and promise they were going to fight. in presidential campaigns the press is always complicity in these lies pretending they are covering a campaign for king instead of the campaign for chief administrator of the co-equal branch of government that includes another branch populated by 535 independently and democratically elected members. instead of fighting elected officials in washington simply asked other politicians to support their positions. and those other politicians consider those requests based exclusively on their own political self-interest. candidate george w. bush promised to fight for tax cuts which turned out to be no fight at all since republicans and democrats were eager to vote for
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tax cuts. in president bush's 2004 election campaign he promised to fight for social security reform. and with his party in power in congress he very politely asked the chairman of the house ways and means committee and the senate finance committee to consider the matter. they refused. they never brought it to a vote in their committees or allowed it to be considered on the floor of the house or the senate because it was not in their political interest to do so. presidents are not legislative leaders. they are legislative beggers. that is the design of the government. the congress never, never gives presidents everything they ask for. it's members are virtually immune to presidential pressure. presidents always discover that the politics of governing are far more complex and contradictory to the politics of campaigning. and they also have trouble explaining that to the people they lied to in the campaign.
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joining me now are obama critics, the founder of fire dog,.com. adam green, founder of progressive change committee and intrepid defender ed rendell, pennsylvania. political efforts, the biggest problems -- wonder if you agree with me on this -- the biggest problems are with your friends. the other side, political party, they never disappoint you. you don't expect anything from them. it's trying to negotiate agreements with friends in your own party about how to go forward that are incredibly difficult. jane, i want to start with you. this is the president you supported, barack obama. you have been critical of him on health care and other policy issues as his presidency has
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gone on. i want to establish at the out set you do favor and support democrats in this congressional election, don't you? >> absolutely. i don't actually think that the characterization of critics and defenders is accurate in this situation because we all really wan the same thing. we want democrats to turn out this fall and we want campaigns to be a success. someone who every day try to get people motivated to donate money. we raised $40,000 for russ feingold, operating phone backs in arizona, south dakota, oregon over marijuana measures trying to get people out to vote. it gets difficult when they come back to you and they say, look, the president could be signing away don't ask, don't tell. he could change it so that don't ask, do not tell discharges weren't happening right now. himself. he doesn't need anybody else, no congress, anybody to do this. and he's not. you have to answer that.
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president obama, make it easier, please do these things. >> adam green, you work in the senate. you know what i'm talking about in terms of the difficulty of getting individual senators going your way. how do you see the multiple choice i outlined at the beginning of the show and which one would you pick? >> i would definitely say some cop nation of a and b. i think you can do what's right and agree with you. i agree with you if your point is you wouldn't pick a fight you could lose, but also only to win. you're not fighting hard enough. i was in the deep red state of south dakota in 2002 working for tim johnson. that was a year when democrats were under siege. 9/11 had just happened. i saw it with my own eyes. president bush used a bully pulpit, flew into south dakota and demanded he vote to not unionize the new department of
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security. he said if he voted to unionize it, he was sanctioning terrorists. i don't buy that line of attack, a lot of senators caved to that. a lot command attention and forced sanders to go along with you. that's what he did and that's what president obama needs to do. >> i think we have a spot of agreement. what i would say, example is an example of the president making it in the senator's interest to vote this way by going into a state and putting that pressure on. so i think we're looking at the same thing and probably describing it in almost the same terms. governor rendell, what do you have to say to obama critics. look, you can be a supporter and critic. the thing i hate in politics are robots who just will go along with anything and any kind of flip-flop or broken promise a politician does. vote for a politician, criticize
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them, then vote for them for re-election because that's better than the alternative. what do you have to say to the uninspired democratic base now. we're in polls that indicates they aren't showing the same enthusiasm about even showing up at the polls as they did in 2008. >> point number one, this isn't about president obama. i mean he's out there campaigning and i think lately has done a pretty good job of it. this isn't about him. it's about whether the democratic party not perfect bent on preserving government and practices are going to be encharge of the congress and the republican party. this not the republican party of old. this is a scary republican party. we ought to get over it. if we've got some issues with president obama, save them for another day. this is about the congress of the united states turning contr control, as you said, a co-equal branch, a group of people more
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and more influenced by what i call the wacko wing of the republican party. if that's not enough to motivate democrats, it ought to be. this could be an enormously destructive election for the united states. >> jane, i think the most intelligent, articulate and effective criticism of the democrats' health care legislation and obama's health care legislation was brought by you and dennis kucinich. it came from the left. i'm glad you entered them in the record because i think they will play true as this plays out. does there come a time in the politics of all this where the left should hold their fire at some point in the calendar and start to say we now have to unify around the democrats to keep them in power, you know, as dennis kucinich does. you don't hear dennis kucinich
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now launch any of the criticisms he did in the first year of the obama administration and health care criticisms. >> what happens in an election period, you go to your representatives and ask them, what do you intend to do after you're elected next time. that's what you base your vote on. that's the time when elected officials hope to be newly elected officials and they are subject to pressure from the voters. on december 1st, the cat food or deficit commission is going to come back with a series of recommendations. the members have said they intend to come back and cut social security benefits in order to cut the deficit. this actually is the last time before the election that people can go to their representatives and say, hey, do you intend to vote for this? this the democratic process. this is why we do it. that's why we hold elections. >> governor, adam green, as you might know, was part of the coalition that went down to arkansas to help run and fund and support a primary challenge
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to senator blanche lincoln. that challenge came up short. i think it did redefine democratic party politics in arkansas by showing there is a challenge that can be mounted on the left of a democratic elected official in arkansas. i've never seen that challenge mounted before. what do you say about that, do you think it weakened blanche lincoln going into the next in november? do you think it weakened the democratic party? do you think the left should have tactically held their fire to try to preserve that senate seat? >> no. i think primary challenges are fair game. if the left or moderate wing of our party wants to challenge somebody, i think it's fair game and in many ways makes the winner a little bit stronger. i know when bob casey and i squared off in 2002, people said this is going to wreck our chances. i came out of that election much stronger, much better known and the republican never had a
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chance looking back. i think that's fair and appropriate. that's all over. this is four weeks to go, maybe having a republican congress. with this republican party is a very frightening prospect. we need to all of us get over it, get out to vote. even if there's not a wildly enthusiastic vote, there's a saying, a tepid vote counts the same as a wildly enthusiastic vote. kevin, rahm emanuel has been a target of yours in the white house, the compromiser, makes deals with pharmaceutical companies, sells away the ideas of obama legislative efforts. you've already announced even before he formally announced his candidacy for mayor, you've announced opposition for his candidacy kind of chasing him out of the door of the white house. is this vengeance? are you opposing him in chicago because you have a better candidate you want to back or do you just want to stop a guy that
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did things you didn't like in the white house. >> first of all, rahm emanuel stepping down is good news. he's been one of the leading voices in the fight in the white house. voters want a chance to weigh in and reject him publicly. i want to say one thing to governor rendell, progress i was aren't only carping from the sidelines we're helping to get out the vote. just this past weekend people from our country went to our website and made over 10,000 phone calls to kentucky voters to help jack conway defeat tea party rand paul in a senate race. we raised $100,000 from 10,000 people for a key election in new hampshire. we're doing our part, governor. when you say get over it, you don't have to convince me or jane to get over it. we're going to vote. for the 20-year-old kid who voted for the first time in 2008
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and had his hopes really high and saw this white house not use the bully pulpit of their office to pressure people like olympia snowe whose constituents wanted something like a public option but instead cut back rooms deal, when that person is thinking about voting, get over isn't what they want to see. they need to see the president acknowledging the correct future is to fight, hold them responsible. if they come out and trust their vote, that's when we'll have a fighting democratic party. >> that's a view and i respect the view. i don't think it realistically takes into account what it is to get stuff passed. you can say all you want about the health care bill. i was for a public option, no ifs, ands or buts or making medicaid 55 years of age. i wanted either one of those thing. in pennsylvania we've seen 26 years old covered for the first
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time on their parents' health insurance. we've seen seniors get a check to cover the doughnut hole. we've seen 25 years old and others no longer eligible to be denied of courage because of pre-existing illness, tax coverage, terrific things from the health care bill, things that should have happened in this country years ago. is the health care bill perfect? no. we got something that's revolutionizing what insurance companies can or can't do to our people. it wasn't perfect. i would have been for a public option. a lot of great things happened a high-risk pool in pennsylvania that's going to have 4,000 people who might die if they don't, that's something to be proud of. >> governor, you're on the short list to be on the white house chief of staff. >> my term as governor ends in three and a half months. it's the only job in the federal government i'd consider. i don't think my makeup is a
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great chief of staff makeup. i said to al hunt over the weekend. i said if i were president ed rendell is one of the last people i'd want to be chief of staff. >> adam, ed rendell for white house chief of staff. with you okay with that? you want to think about it. >> i'll think about it. >> governor ed rendell of new hampshire, jane, and adam green of the progressive change and campaign committee. i want to thank you all for this family discussion tonight. i appreciate it. >> four weeks to go, guys. party in-fighting isn't the greatest challenge for barney frank he says it's combating lies spread about him from the right wing media. the evolution of lou dobbs from campaign anchor to tea party leader. we'll get his reaction to this late breaker from christine -- no relation -- o'donnell. >> i'm not a witch.
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okay, parents. if you're trying to talk your kid out of getting a tattoo, you need this video. >> can't take it. ouch! ow! >> don't move. >> ow! wait! ow! i'm sorry, it hurts. >> next time you move, you're going to mess up your tattoo. >> okay, okay, okay. >> ow! ow! wit, wait, wait! i can't take it. he's killing me. he's killing me. ow! oh, god. easy. ow! >> you can see the whole video if you can stand it on our blog. i'll be right back with congressman barney frank.
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what a party in conflict with itself needs is a peacemaker, preferably a senior statesman with serious credentials admired by all in that party. when it's the democratic party arguing with the left side all the better if he has democratic party credentials. let me check this list. looks like there is now one of those left in the democratic party and he joins me now from his district in massachusetts, chairman of the house financial
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services committee congressman barney frank. thanks for joining us attorney, barney. >> thank you. >> we've had this discussion in the show about obama critics, democratic party critics who supported passionately democrats in the last election in 2008 who are dissatisfied with outcomes in health care, dissatisfied with leaving guantanamo bay open, dissatisfied with don't ask, don't tell, many the financial regulation bill, you and chris dodd got out of your committees and signed by the president. what do you say when the democratic party needs them energized and passionate behind democrats in this election. >> we need them to be energetic and passionate. the thing i would say, i'll quote lyndon johnson in that cleaned up version of being able to walk and chew gum at the same time. it's very important for people to complain and vote at the same time. i wouldn't expect activists, liberals to stop complaining. i would be disappointed if they
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did. i wouldn't want anyone to be satisfied with legislative output. of course people should be satisfied, dissatisfied and pushing us. the question is what's the most effective way to do it. i believe having been there the problems we're talking about were not problems of will but having votes. if you look at the house, much of it is quite good. the filibuster, the senate. i would disagree with earlier panels, whether the president should pressure olympia snowe. the problem is moderate to mainstream republican with whom we used to be able to cooperate have been so terrified by the fate of a robert bennett or liz murkowski that the mainstream conservative wing of the republican party is in fear so we haven't been able to work with them. my basic point, yeah, you should be dissatisfied. what's the best way to push for more. not to sit home and let the
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people who blocked us get even more power to block us of the best way is to vote and complain at the same time to put people in there that agree with you and put pressure on them. as far as the financial reform bill is concerned, there was a lot of criticism why it was being done. i think right now frankly with elizabeth warren in charge of the most powerful set of consumer protections we've ever seen, warren buffett announcing he's probably going to get out of the derivative business because we've taken profit out of it with all the things done, i think on balance people as they have seen this now understand what we've done. even then, by the way, we had a problem. we need 60 votes. chris dodd and i had to help him scramble to get those last votes on the republican side. we didn't hold back. i would go back again. yes, i want liberals to keep complaining, keep pressing. that's why people are activists. at the same time you vote and keep pushing the people you vote for. >> in fact, from your strategic
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perspective, liberals complaining is frequently helpful for you in trying to wrangle votes in your direction, the more pressure they can put. but does there come a time in this process, both legislative and electoral where unity is the call of the day and the only way to get further success is by quieting the descent at least temporarily during this election campaign and as president obama says, buck up? >> i guess buck up doesn't mean shut up. we ought to be clear about that. no, i think, look, we didn't get enough done. we got some things done. ed rendell gave a good description of positive parts of the bill. i'm for single payer system. i think if we were able to accomplish what we accomplish and it works well, the way to accomplish it will go further. what we want to say to people, of course we're dissatisfied. we didn't get more. we'll get worse off if we allow the people who caused the
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problem to prosper. no, i'm not asking people to do anything other than keep pushing, keep pressing and understand you can vote at the same time. if unity suggests we all say the same thing, no. i would hope people get to the dissatisfaction and say we hope turn out and that's why they voted. >> you've been targeted by republican attackers from rush limbaugh on down that food chain. you're in a re-election race that has more action than you're accustomed to. do you feel that energy and funding from out of state or is this a local uprising? is this a mini version of scott brown in your district? >> this is clearly from outfit state. i would make one correction, you say from rush limbaugh on down. i think it's from rush limbaugh on up. valid measure. this vicious, homophobic attack.
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my opponent, who is running again me, told "the wall street journal" that he raised a lot of money out of state. he was explicit earlier this year. he said if i can't get help out of state i can't win this. he's helped by limbaugh, fox media news. it's a fascinating thing. they are blaming us, me as chairman of the committee, for their own errors. the republicans were the ones who, for example, resisted any effort to curtail predatory lending. we started in 2004 democrats on the committee that i serve on to get legislation adopted to top predatory loans. republicans said we were interfering with the market. tom delay ordered the committee not to do anything. when we took power in 2007 we did move for legislation to stop predatory loans. "the wall street journal" attacked us for interfering with the market. now they are blaming us for the
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loans we tried to stop. fannie mae and freddie mack, that's one they have thrown at me. from 1995 to 2006 did nothing. the house tried to do it and couldn't get it done. >> barney frank, that's for your time tonight, mr. chairman. >> thank you. >> christine o'donnell is trying to redefine herself in a tv ad. have you a whole lot of defining to do when you're trying to convince voters you're not a witch, which is the first line of her ad. >> the tae party versus republican party. we find out which side lou dobbs is on in our spotlight. i've bs over the span of 11 years. today, i'm a divisional learning and development manager. we can actually help people develop in their own careers. my job allows me to make a difference in the lives of almost 100,000 associates in the northeast. if you think about it, that's almost 8 times the size of my hometown. my name is nick and i work at walmart.
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ahead on the last word. delaware's tea party darling is out with her first commercial trying to redefine herself as not a you know what. up next, lou dobbs joins me to talk christine o'donnell, tea party jobs and maybe a little immigration. later sharron angle is a republican senate candidate who has real problems with the republican party. her tea party opponent records her stinging comments about republicans. and then the tape makes it into the hands of a reporter. that reporter joins us here on the last word. ♪ it's obvious that i like you ♪ i'd go anywhere to be near you ♪ ♪ you say
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♪ flip it over and replay ♪ we'll make everything okay ♪ walk together the right way ♪ do, do, do, do... ♪ i can't sleep ♪ do, do, do, do
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with the fall midterms less than a month away, the tea party seems to pick up high-powered
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fans every day. the group's newest high-powered fan will be speaking at a tea party rally in virginia along with texas congressman ron paul. he's also a familiar face to anyone who watches cable news and he steps into our spotlight tonight. joining me now, host of the nationally syndicated radio show, "the lou dobbs show." thanks for joining me tonight. >> thanks. congratulations on the new show. >> you know congratulations isn't exactly the right word being stuck at these desks every night. the tea party convention, you're on board with this whole tea party thing. i have something for you to try on the stage. you're of the generation, you remember burning draft cards during vietnam protests. did you burn yours, by the way? >> no, i didn't. >> i had a feeling you didn't. anyway, how about when you're up on the stage there, you take out your medicare card, which you
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just got, you just had your 65th birthday. you take out your medicare and you burn it because you want to kill those socialist programs like the tea partiers do, like medicare. burning draft cards killed the draft. you guys start burning medicare cards, who knows. >> i think first of all, your understanding of the causal relationship between burning draft cards and the outcome of the vietnam war leaves a lot to be desired. secondly, i don't have a card. that will take some time as things in government often do. i would suggest to you this weekend i'll have a few things to say that i hope you ultimately find interesting. i think that you'll hear a lot of people in richmond friday and saturday talking about issues that matter to people all over the country. you know, as i listen to your broadcast tonight, lawrence, which i find to be a terrific production, i find it about a
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horse race. right now with about a month to go to the election, i think one part has been left out of this. that is the reaction to the american people to the policies pursued by barack obama and the leadership of this country. as i listen to your guests and analysts i didn't hear much discussion of that. and that, of course, is reflected in polls, and it will be a very interesting day, i think, come november 2nd. >> well, i mean, the jurisdiction of the show isn't every single thing. we pick isolated topics to go after. >> i understand. >> we just looked at the conflict within the democratic party. we're going to be looking at conflict within republican party, tea party versus republican party. i want to take a look now at christine o'donnell's new television commercial. take a look at this, lou. >> i'm not a witch. i'm not you've heard. i'm you. none of us are perfect, but none of us can be happy with what we see all around us.
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politicians who think spending, trading favors, and back room deals are the ways to stay in office. i'll go to washington and do what you do. i'm christine o'donnell and i approved this message. i'm you. >> lou, is she you? >> yes. >> in what way? please explain. >> i would like to think we're all one in this country as americans and we have a view as american citizens that we're not a class bound or@÷p t orthodox- society. in that sense she could be. i think that's a voice, perhaps, we will see resonate come november 2nd with the american people. i think there's a certain let's say fatigue with elites that think they know better than the
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people that believe consent of the government isn't required for a centralized government to move ahead with governance by fiat, i think that's being rejected. >> lou, i want to get to a subject you've concerned yourself with over the years, immigration. on the colbert report back in july, arturo rodriguez, president of the united farm workers, he was on that show and he issued this challenge to out of works americans. listen to this. >> we're inviting americans throughout the united states to come and try to work in agriculture, if they don't believe -- or they believe immigrant farm workers are taking away good american jobs. >> how many people of everyone in america have taken you up on this? >> only three right now are actually working in the fields. >> three. >> three people. >> make that four. i'll do it. >> so lou, unemployment never
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higher couldn't ask for more pressure to send them into the fields to do this work and they won't do it. >> sure. >> what's going on there? why shouldn't we have immigrant labor come in and do this job for us if americans refuse to do it. >> as is so often the case in this debate on immigration and border security, lawrence, there is great fiction, great a artifice. i'm a man who worked in the fields, bean fields, produce fields, potato fields, hay fields. no one has more respect for those workers in those fields, many of whom, most of whom, were then illegal and now illegal. this is beside the point. the point, in terms of the issue of employment is leisure and hospitality, hotels, construction, landscaping in this country. those are the highest
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concentration of illegal laborers in this country. and interestingly each one of those industries wages have been declining over the past 10 years, declining, which reflects not a shortage of workers but rather a surplus. these, as you would suggest, are the facts that none of us can resist and they are right there in front of us and we have to figure out what they mean to us. migrant workers part of a guest worker program in this country for a very long time. i'm one of those people who has called for their -- to be paid far more. it will cost us more if the produce fields but we won't be exploiting that labor. >> lou, we have to wrap there. i wish we had more time. if you are going to announce a political candidacy, please do it on this show. >> i will certainly put that into consideration. i appreciate the offer. >> thanks for the consideration. lou dobbs. thanks for joining us tonight. >> thank you.
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coming up, republican candidate sharron angle's harsh words for her own party and what she offered to get one of her opponents out of the race. the reporter who broke the story gets the last word. supreme court returned to business without justice john paul stephens. in tonight's rewrite we learn his one regret from his many decades on the high court. it's a great place to see all the listings in thousands of cities and towns. with lots of houses to chose from and down-to-earth prices the dream of owning a home seems more attainable than ever. find out what an experienced re/max agent can do for you. nobody sells more real estate than re/max. visit remax.com today.
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and go. you can even take a full-size or above. and still pay the mid-size price. i deserve this. [ male announcer ] you do, business pro. you do. go national. go like a pro. began its new term for the first time there were three women sitting on the bench with elena kagan sitting on the far right replacing john paul stephens. justice stephens spent 25 years and this morning came news of his one regret about serving. justice stevens gets tonight's rewrite. sharron angle said her own party lost its principles. that's not all she had to say.
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when you use your card and enjoy a free night stay. so, before you know it, work time becomes well-deserved downtime. apply now at marriott.com/freenightstay. you've got staying power. time for tonight's rewrite. this one has been brewing for 34 years at least in the mind of the man who is asking for a rewrite. retired supreme court justice john paul stevens has decided there's only one opinion of his that he would like to rewrite, the 176 supreme court decision that by a vote of 7-2 reinstated the death penalty after a moratorium of four years. since that ruling 1,228 people have been executed in this country, another 3,361 are on
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death row right now. in an interview with npr justice stevens called that 1976 decision incorrect, adding that he did not foresee how it would be interpreted. you may be thinking the court decided this case 7-2, if justice stevens had ruled the other way the vote would have been 6-3 and nothing would have changed. but that isn't necessarily so. back in september 2007, "new york times" published a laud tore p tory profile. stevens himself, however, has been notably successful in building majorities by courting his fellow justices. his methods of persuasions are in electial rather than personal and closely tied to the courts procedure for cases. he graduated at the top of his class at northwestern university law school, his professor
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calling him the quickest and best balanced mind they had ever seen. in 2005, president gerald ford, who nominated justice stevens wrote in a letter, i am prepared to allow history's judgment of my term in office to rest, if necessary exclusively, on my nomination thirty years ago of justice john paul stevens to the u.s. supreme court. if that best balanced mind had been on the other side of this vote, if the justice that made president ford's career had foreseen the consequences of that decision, if justice stevens had voted the other way in 1976, he just might have been able to change enough minds on that court and that vote might have gone the other way and america could have retained its briefly held position among the ranks of the civilized countries of the world that ban capital punishment and john paul stevens
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could have earned a position among the enlightened justices of the 21st century who said what the death penalty had become, cruel and unusual punishment unfairly administered by infallible system capable of horrific, irreversible mistakes. what was sharron angle thinking? she had a private conversation with her tea party opponent to try and convince him to drop out of the race. that conversation is the most public private conversation she ever had. you're watching the last word on msnbc. i used to see the puddles, but now i see the splash. ♪ i wanted love, i needed love ♪
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candidate sharron angle may call herself a tea partier, but the official tea party senate candidate on the november ballot in nevada is scott ashjian. on wednesday evening the woman who deemed her opponent "let's make a deal" harry reid attempted to convince ashjian to drop his candidacy. unbeknownst to angle, ashjian recorded their conversation. >> now, anything i can deliver personally, i am glad to. >> i'm not looking for anything other than a public apology. >> ashjian wanted that apology from the tea party express who backed angle and attacked him. he it is wanted the immediate end of republican lawsuits designed to remove him from the ballot. instead, all he was offered was juice. >> that's really all i can offer to you is whatever juice i have, you have as well.
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you want to see demint, i have juice with demint. i go to washington, d.c. and i say, i wanna see jim demint, he's right there for me. ashjian left the meeting without making a deal but not before hearing, lucky for us, what angle really thought of republicans. >> the republicans have lost their standard, they have lost their principles. they have never really gone along with lower taxes and less government. >> woodward and bernstein one man who obtained the tapes john ralston. thanks for joining us tonight. >> hi, lawrence. >> angle says her offering is anything, i offer anything i can
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personally. is that legal? >> well, i think she was being figurative in the sense she wasn't offering him money. it showed a desperation. you played some of those clips there. it was basically please don't harm my chances to beat harry reid. what do you want from me? i'll take you. we can go arm in arm after the election and i'll get an apology from the tea party express. if you want to see jim demint, coburn, mitch mcconnell. have you me. can i get in those doors. i'm like you. i'm one of you. you just have to help me beat harry reid. we're the same person, it's just i'm working from the inside. you're an outsider. you can't win. >> she has a $500 per person fund-raiser in washington this week after these tapes are out, actually having at the republican senatorial headquarters. how does she walk in there after these tapes are played. >> that's going to be a little
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awkward. she's walking into a place she basically said was corrupt, lost standards, principles. that's who she really is. she was that way in the legislature. she was always throwing bombs at her own leaders saying i'm the pure one. of course what's ironic about that conversation is after saying i'm like you, scott ashjian, i'm an outsider, she acted like harry reid or some other establishment politician. let's make a deal. i can get you juice. i'll get you an apology. we'll get the lawsuits dropped. you have to get out of the race. she'll have some problems inside that meeting. you know that better than i do. those guys in the meeting want one thing and one thing only, that's to beat harry reid. they have an imperfect weapon against harry reid but she's the only one they got. >> the whole purity thing in these tapes doesn't come out. there's a spot where she talks about i'm pragmatic enough to know third parties can't get traction. i said, all right, i'll work with it. show me what the rules are.
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i'll work with it. that's not exactly tea party idealism. >> i think that's the one negative from this for her, and that is what goes throughout this, is that she's portrayed herself at least publicly at being this different kind of person. i was the tea party before the tea party was cool kind of person. now you see her acting like a conventional politics as you say. what can i do for you. what kind of deal can we make. this is essentially what her entire campaign, as you mentioned earlier, against harry reid has been. he's a guy who makes back room deals. i don't. then what does she gets caught trying to do? make a back room deal. there will be people who say, listen, they had to take a shot. it's a close race. a lot of people will say, wait a second. that's not the sharron angle i knew. >> can't thank you enough for shining a light on this one