side effects. miralax is the only one. restore your body's natural rhythm with miralax. it's a days to go, and republicans are looking to ride a wave. but democrats are hoping to avoid a wipeout. we're handicapping the odds, analyzing the money trail and weighing the colbert/stewart effect on last-minute ground games. a shocking, new story for the girl who spent five weeks with the hiccups. winning worldwide attention after a today show appearance. now, in an astonishing twist, jennifer mee charged with fir

first-degree murder. a massive tornado cuts across a highway flipping observe cars like toys. where that storm is headed next. he goes, mom, i'll be fine. he goes, i'll give you a call when i get out. >> 19-year-old lucas ransom never made that call. instead, he died in a vicious shark attack. what surfs are should know today before getting back into the water. joining the discussion, election numbers cruncher nate silver, former congressman j.c. watts, the "the washington post" ezra klein, the nation correspondent, ari melburg and retires colonel jack jacobs. good monday morning. i'm chris jansing. this is "jansing & company." a lot going on politically, the feinle frenetic push to election day, eight days left. as many as 100 congressional seats are still considered to be in play, dozens of them really too close to call. democrats and republicans are making their closing arguments. president obama will be back on the trail later this afternoon in rhode island, after wrapping

up that five-state swing in minneapolis. >> in 2008 you said, yes, we can. in 2010, you've got to say, yes, we can. >> you fire pelosi, you retire r rreid and we put america on the right track. >> i believe in the house, the balance of power will shift. i like to say we're 38 seats and we need to get to 39 to get control. but i think we're more than there. >> from this point forward, it's all about turnout and ground game and we're seeing good early voting trends and we have got work to do but think we can do it. >> it would be a stunning upset for democrats to hold the house, but it does look, at least for now, they'll hold on to the senate. across the pond, oddsmakers are taking bets on the outcome. ireland's paddy power gives republicans 1 in 33 odds to control the house, democrats, odds on favorite to keep the senate. christine o'donnell on the board

over there, though the odds are 10-1 against her winning that delaware senate seat. numbers crunchers extraordinaire nate silver writes the 538 blog for "the new york times." good morning, nate. good to see you. >> good morning, chris. >> okay. let's stick with what we know as opposed to where we would be placing our bets you've been analyzing a myriad of polls out there. we mentioned that the battle ground is really 100 districts though dozens are seriously close. what's the battle for us? is this a game for the democrats to hold on? is there some way for them so hold on to power, or is it just about preventing a tsunami? >> no, they're going to lose a lot of seats new york matter what. but what's funny there aren't that many individual seats that you can say for sure they'll lose. maybe 20 democratic-held seats will become republican ones, right? another group of maybe 80 that might or might not. so on average we think the gop

will pick up about 50 seats, you have the election take place a million times bup democrats could hold on barely or lose 60, 70, 75 seats. >> is there one predictor here, early voting, the ground game, voter enthusiasm gap that we've talked about? >> well, we try to look at it as many indicators as possible. for example, we look at polls and each local district, the national polls like the generic ballot. i think the early voting data can be misleading because those numbers have bounced around a lot from year to year. 2008 it was an area where you had a massive democratic advantage, but in years before that it had been more republican leaning. no one knows what the right baseline is, right? what we do know is the polls haven't moved very much for the past few weeks. they suggest the gop advantage on election day. enough to probably pick up the house and probably not the senate. but there is a lot of uncertainty there where sometimes the indicators contradict, where some local polls are okay for democrats and

the national numbers are bad or vice versa. >> that's what obviously democrats are counting on, some of the volatility. nate, thanks for coming in. appreciate it. >> thank you, chris. >> let's bring in j.c. watts, ari. michael steele predicts an unprecedented wave of gop victories but you heard what nate just said. i mean there are only probably 20 seats that definitely, it looks like the democrats are going to lose. what are you looking for in the closing week to give us an indication of whether there's a shift here? >> i mean, one of the most interesting things to look at is early vote numbers on mail-in ballots because that's concrete. we get into turnout. and there are states like washington, where i grew up, where a significant chunk and sometimes the majority of votes come in there. we've seen washington and nevada, higher turnout in early voting states. that's just one indicator in some states that did go for obama last time. i think overall you can have high democratic mail-in and

still have the republican surge people are expecting on election day. >> the other thing that i've been interesting in, j.c., undecideds a new a.p. poll suggests a third of people, even those who have made up their mind, they are undecided or feel like they can change, compares in 2008 it was something like 15%. are you feeling confident or do you think there is a lot of volatility out there? >> well, chris, there is some volatility, but i think things are starting to solidify. when you look at undecided if i'm an incumbent and you've got, you know, 20-some percent undecided they're probably not going to break in favor of the incumbent because they know who he or she is and it's just not very favorable for them to think that most of those undecided or that, you know, 80%, 90% of undecided would fall in their favor. i think that speaks pretty well for the republicans or for the

challenges in these races that you've got that type of undecided with an incumbent. that should not be. >> you see situations where a long time incumbent, in particular, are suddenly having to defend their seats. ezra, we talk about the possibility of an october surprise except for youtube video somewhere, somebody slipping up in a debate, anything you see seismically shifting this? >> no, i mean, of course the thing about october surprise is it would have to be a surprise. but there isn't one at the moment that i can predict. >> true enough. >> i don't think you're looking at any gigantic change notice economy, certainly nothing new that congress is doing. this is an election in which the structural force is driving and has been in place for a long time. in the next week or so there's a lot of impulse to find little pieces and bits here that get in the way, that create a sense of competition and horse race. but it's a bad economy and it's a bad election for democrats.

>> i'm curious how much is about the money being thrown at this race. we've got to go but we'll talk to ezra, j.c. and ari. they'll talk about what's go on in the race. a lot of other news we want to get to. what can only be described as a shocking turn of events, a florida girl who got worldwide attention and sympathy for a five-week case of hiccups has now been charged with first-degree murder. police say jennifer mee has confessed to her involvement in a deadly armed robbery. the 19-year-old allegedly lured the victim to a house where two men were waiting to mug him. authorities believe the victim was shot during a struggle. coming up later in the half hour, we'll go live to florida for more details in this case. and check out the dramatic video from texas. over the weekend, powerful tornadoes tore through the city of rice, just south of dallas. this twister ripped cars off the highway. a railroad car was taken off the tracks. one school is closed, it was so

badly damaged. four people were taken to the hospital, their injuries fortunately are not serious. nbc meteorologist bill karins joins me now. how that is storm moving? >> thunderstorms are over the southeast. last night in alabama a couple of tornados that touched down, one in column, and that caused bricks and the infrastructure in the downtown to collapse. we're waiting for pictures to come in. tornado watches continue over the atlanta area, much of central georgia, down notice panhandle of florida, thankfully we haven't had many tornadoes in the last two or three hours. that storm's going to leave us. right behind it is a monster of a storm in the northern plains. people are comparing this to the big wind storm of 1998. that long since we had a storm this strong in minnesota. winds are going to howl. everybody in this kind of like the tannish-type color, peach-type color under a high wind watch. this is a widespread event. and the storm it self, the center line in the black is where the storm's located and then it's going head newspaper minnesota. and these are the wind gusts

that we're predicting. this is a two-day event, tuesday into wednesday. winds will be strong enough and last long enough we'll see scattered power outages. this is one of the most amazing things, chris. they're predicting waves on lake michigan to be up to 20 feet high with these winds. >> wow. you don't see that zblochb ca. >> calling for beach erosion on lake michigan. one that doesn't happen often. >> thanks so much. tropical storm richard, meantime, winds battered belize, that's when richard was ahurricane, winds topped 90 miles per hour. thousands took refuge in storm shelters. that storm is a tropical storm over the mexico/guatemala border. a race against time in haiti where health officials are desperately trying to control an outbreak of cholera that has killed more than 250 people. our own dr. nancy snyderman has the latest from haiti. >> reporter: for now, the epidemic is concentrated in the

rural areas of central haiti. hospital there's are inundated with the ill lying on floors, dehydrated children hooks up to i.v.s, and many too weak to move. cholera is a bacteria infection caused by ingesting contaminated water or food. it causes severe vomiting and diarrhea. cholera hasn't been seen in haiti for 50 years, but now that it's here, public health officials are concerned that people in the countryside will come to port-au-prince, and that's just going to make matters worse. people are dying, says this woman. she knows they aren't supposed to drink the untreated water from the faucets but she says it's all they have. >> if you put poor sanitation conditions, a lot of people in one place, it's a recipe for disasterer. >> with an estimated 1.3 million people living in tent camps, and hundreds of thousands concentrated here, preventing an outbreak like this has been a race against time. >> that is dr. nancy snyderman

in haiti for us. meantime the senate race in ak is looking to go to the wire. it's a dead heat between joe miller and the incumbent, senator lisa murkowski. lee cowan is live in anchorage with more on the showdown three-way debate. it got pretty heated at times. >> reporter: it did, chris. it was tense, to say the least, with senator murkowski going on the offensive. she's trying to seize on missteps that joe miller has made over last couple of days. the most recent over the weekend when a court ordered him to release personnel records when it came to he had used government computers for his own use. he admitted that he made that mistake but that wasn't enough for murkowski. take a listen. it is true, during lunch hour i did get on borough computers and participated in a private poll for five minutes. it was a mistake i made. i was suspended for three days, receives a dock of three days' pay and i've learned from that.

>> joe, your statement here this evening demonstrates, i think, again, the lack of fitness for the office. and so i decided the campaign and the primary was done and i was moving forward with a new campaign. >> now, chris, that was pretty much murkowski's take all along, suggesting that joe miller doesn't deserve to be in the senate. she said the democratic candidate in this race, scott mcadams, he doesn't deserve to be in the senate, not because of what he's done notice past because he hasn't done enough in the past according to her. both of the candidates object to that. miller, specifically, said that he thinks that some of these mistakes, making him more real to voters, warts and all. >> lee cowan, live in anchorage. there is a mock rally coming up, the democrats are taking it seriously. saturday, just three days before the election, comedy central's jon stewart and stephen colbert are going to stage the rally on the mall being called the rally

to restore sanity and/or fear. even oprah winfrey and arianna huffington are getting in on the act, providing transportation to the convenient. could the rally end up hurting the democrats' ground game in the final weekend before the vote? well, let's bring back in j.c., ezra and ari. let me read what brendan stein hauser, one of the big tea party groups, said about this. i'd rather have as many liberals in d.c. that weekend as possible because i don't want them out doing the phone calls and get out the vote. could this have the impact, do you think, of hurting the democrats? >> i don't think it's a big problem for the democrats. ultimately you've got a lot of local people in d.c. anyway going to it. i don think you're going to see people traveling from races in california or kansas out to the rally. but what it does do is interfere with message. you have reality elections and you have message elections. we're in more of a real election because of the pain notice economy.

to the extent the final thing that a lot of voters are seeing on tv that people like us end up talking about are comedians who still do a lot of on the one hand, on the other hand, stewart makes fun of everybody as opposed to a hard, closing message from the president. in terms of competing for message that is a problem. i don't think in term of the ground game it's a big issue. >> ezra, do you think there is a message problem? there a ground game problem? i think 200,000 people have said, on facebook, they're going to come to this. >> the democrats have 99 problems, i wouldn't say this one of the big ones. i think you're looking here at something that is fun for us to cover. it's going to be fun for a lot of people to go to, maybe it will help with getting some youth involved, maybe it will detract a couple of volunteers from the ground game. i think, in the end, this is a nonevent, so far as the election goes. it's one of the more interesting media story as we come in the run-up to it. i think as ari said, in reality, we're in an election and it's part of the tv. >> could it rally some of those young voters?

we know they came out in 2008, tla there's a big question whether tlel come back in 2010. could it get them fired up you don't know who they are or where they're from, talking about tight races if you get people energizes in the closing day, they grab their friends at college and drag then off to the polls, could it help the democrats? >> well, i think what's been said, it is pretty much the truth. i identify with those comments. i think you run the risk of it walking on your or stepping on your message. i think what the president's trying to do, on the other hand, is to troo, you know, get the african-american community, get young voters, try to appeal to women, to get them to turn out. maybe this helps that targeted demographic that he's looking for. but this close to an election, i think the elections have been

decided at this point, for the most part. i think people know who they're going to vote for. i think that's why you see michael steele and other republicans saying they are encouraged based on what they see a week out. i just don't think there's going to be a lot that's going to happen that's going to change people's minds, you know, a big shift one way or the other. >> all right. j.c., ari, ezra, stick around. we'll continue coverage of decision 2010. next hour, more on the mysterious money trail and how outside groups are stepping up their push to deliver congress to the gop. >> reporter: teenager who gains notoriety for having hiccups for more than a month is facing murder charges. more disturbing details. several california beaches reopening after a deadly shark attack. the victim, just 19 years old. and the latest wikileaks war documents and what they tell us about what could happen when u.s. troops pull out of iraq. back in the 80's, it was really tough for me and my family.

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does it hurt? when i get hiccups, sometimes it hurts. >> it hurts a lot. there's pointize will sit out of nowhere and break down crying. right now hurts so bad, you can tell that. >> what do you do for attention. >> that was jennifer mee in 2007 talking about her case of uncontrollable hiccups that ended up lasting more than a month. now, the 19-year-old is back in the headlines involved in a shocking crime. she was arrested late last night in st. petersburg, florida, charged with first-degree murder. nbc's mark potter is following the story for us from miami. what's the latest you're finding out, mark? >> reporter: well, hi, chris. police in st. petersburg say 19-year-old jennifer mee was involved with two young men in an armed robbery in which another young male was shot and killed. during the incident police say which occurred saturday night, mee lures the victim, 22-year-old shannon griffin to a

home where two other men then robbed him at gun point, trying to take away some unspecified items from him. there was a struggle during that robbery, and police say the victim was shot multiple times and was killed. jennifer mee and the two others are charged with first degree felony murder. police say that all three suspects have admitted their involvement in this case. jennifer mee and the two will now have their initial court appearance this afternoon at 1:30 p.m. eastern time at the county courthouse in clear water. >> this is so shocking. literally, we all gasped when we heard this this morning. do we know anything what she's been up to for the last several years or has she been in trouble with the law before? >> reporter: no indication of being in trouble with law. the only thing that has happens since her appearance on the "today" show is, one, she said that she was cured of the hiccupping problem, but, two, there were reports that she was

reported missing a couple of times, perhaps ran away, but she was always found to be unharmed. beyond that, we don't know what she was involved with. and there are a lot more details in the dice come out, we are hopeful that in the court hearing today we'll learn more and perhaps more from the police. but right now, those are basics. it seemed to be an armed robbery that went bad and three young people are charged with felny murder, because the murder occurred during the commission of another crime and first degree, it was the armed robbery was premeditated. >> thank you so much, mark. just days after a shark attack killed a 19-year-old in california, his family is talking about their loss and their fears, the fears they had about him going into the water. is president obama already in bunker mode? reports the white house is preparing for the event of a gop takeover of congress. (jennifer garner) there's a lot of beautiful makeup out there

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developing now, new numbers out this morning on existing home sales in september, and some good news. sales rising 10% last month. analysts are hopeful it's a sign that lower borrowing costs are helping to stabilize the market. so critical to the overall economy. also this morning the fed chairman, ben bernanke said federal banking regulators are intensively examining whether mortgage companies cut corners on for closure. it could be a while before the housing market improves since 20% of borrowers owe more than th their home is worth. 33% have equity cushions of 10% or less. wall street, good day so far with the dow up more than 100 point. the s&p and nasdaq in positive territory, too. show me the money, a trio of

senate candidates are doing just that. throwing massive amounts of their own cash at their race. wait until you hear how that's working out. brett favre admitting gilts to at least part of the cell phone controversy involving a former jets sideline reporter. 3q what's up ? ugh. my feet are killin' me. you should get some custom fit orthotics. dr. scholl's custom fit orthotic center. it recommends the custom fit orthotic that's best for your feet. and footcare scientists are behind it. you'll get immediate comfort... ... and, you could save a couple hundred bucks. for locations see drscholls.com

here are some of the top stories we're following on msnbc. npr apologizing for the way analysts juan williams was fires over remarks he said about muslims. the ceo, said, quote the process that followed the decision was unfortunate, including not meeting with juan williams in person, and i take full responsibility for that. i stand by my decision to end npr's decision with one williams but deeply regret the way i handled and explained it. no end to the horrific wave of violence in mexico. over the weekend, gunmen entered two neighboring homes in juarez

during a 15-year-old's birthday party and opened fire. 14 teenagers were killed. controversy this morning over the death of a rising star of the u.s. national team of marathon swimmers. fran crippen reportedly died from heart failure during an open water race. other racers questioned whether the competition should have been held with water temperatures in the high to mid-80s. vikings quarterback brett favre now reportedly admitting he did leave voice mails for former nfl sideline hostess jenn sterger but denies he sent lewd pictures. he made those admissions to nfl officials who could suspend or fine him. favre threw three interceptions in a loss at green bay on sunday. a string of beaches north of santa barbara could reopen this morning but only after a terrifying tragedy. 19 lieu caucas ransom killed by

great white shark on friday. this is what. 's left of his body board. a friend with him in the water described a gruesome scene as lucas surfaced with a massive wound to his left leg. nbc's kristin welker is live. >> reporter: well, chris, this is certainly a tragedy, as you said, and this beach is still closed, as this sign behind me indicates. in fact, people have started to build a makeshift memorial here, bringing flowers. now this incident happened on friday. that's when lucas ransom and a friend went out to catch some waves. ransom was body boarding, his friend surfing. they were about 100 yards out that's when the friend reports seeing a shark, grabs ransom's leg, pull him under the water. amazingly, that friend was able to bring ransom's body back to shore. he tried to resuscitate him, bring him back to life, but it was too late. his leg had been badly mauled

and he lost too much blood. experts believe this is the work of a great white shark, in part but was of the nature of the attack and witnesses say they saw a shark 14 to 18 feet in length, anded that body board has a bite mark that is about a foot long. now we spoke with ransom's family earlier today on the "today" show. here's what they had to say. >> every surfer has that in the back of your head and it's in the very far back. you go out there to enjoy life and celebrate, and you don't really think about it. i know they joked about it, but it's something you joke about, never really hits home until something like this happens. >> reporter: now, two other area beaches are also closed. we expect all three beaches to reopen, that is pending approval by beach officials. surfers say they will go back in these waters. chris, back to you. >> kristin welker, thanks so

much. to give you an idea of how much money is being spend on midterms, how about the case of three candidates spending almost a quarter billion dollars on their races. that's more than the chamber of commerce, karl rove's american cross roads and afscme combined but we know where the money came from because in the case of meg whitman, rick scott, linda mcmahon, they're writing the checks. in the critical days of the campaign, the question is what about all of the money pouring in from unknown sources? j.c. watts, ezra and ari are back with us. ezra, i don't know if you were surprised as i was, michael steele differently than i've heard republicans before saying yesterday on "meet the press" he thought there should be transparency in the 527 money coming in which is easy to say because he points out the law does allow it. the democrats have pounded this story line that the gop is trying to buy this election.

is it working at all? any indication that it's resonating? >> everyone is always trying to buy every election and it's resonating in the sense we're talking about it. save them seat? s i don't think so. i wonder whether it will get the party behind the finance laws. but something more along the lines of fair elections now, which would create a pub politic funding mechanism so it would be easier for conditions who didn't want to take these donations to do it. make small donors more powerful. as of yet, there's been a lot of anger over this. i'd like to see it translate into post-election agenda to make the next election a cleaner process. >> any indication this will happen? >> the fair elections now act respon sponsors by durbin has passed out of the house committee. president obama, of course, initially talked about being a part of the public funding system and he opted out raising ultimately half a billion in those small donations primarily

online. i do think there's a problem here for people who want to sometimes complain about money but not get on board what ezra klein is talking about, the fairest reform, people worrying about power of different interest groups, transparency, you need to figure out whether we're going to have public funding of elections and that's something neither party is enthusiastic about and they need to be pressed on it. >> any change after this? i wonder, i've asked this question on this program before if there's a point of dim min e diminishing returns. in two of the three races it's clear the people who wrote all of those checks are not going to win. so it's not always certain that money buys races. on the other hand, you've been in the middle of these fights before, do you see this changing anything, the fact that these numbers are so out of control? >> chris, how do you change it without throwing the constitution out the window? i do believe that, you know

there are some problems, in terms of campaigns and the money that flows into these campaigns. i guarantee you somebody that can give $25,000, they're going to have a lot more influence with decisionmakers than someone that gives $250. but, you know, it's interesting. look at the polling numbers. usually the people that's complaining and belly aching are people that's down in the polls. and that's not a partisan shot. if republicans are down notice polls, then they're complaining about how much money is flowing in the campaigns. if democrats are down in the polls, they're complaining how much money's being poured into campaigns. it happens on both sides of the aisle. how do we do this in a way -- the challenge is -- how do you do it in a way that's constitutional and accomplishes what we want to accomplish? i do believe that people have a right to be involved in campaigns with their wallets.

>> all of you come back and we'll talk about this after the election. we'll see how much of a will there is. j.c., ezra, ari, thanks to all of you. next hour, we're going to look at how nancy pelosi has become the number one target in the final days of this campaign. even democrats now running against her in campaign ads. wait until you see some of those ads. they are interesting. meantime, the white house is reportedly bracing for the impact of a gop congress after one party rule for the past two years that was anything but easy. nbc news contributor richard wolffe live at the white house for us. what do we know, what's the buzz at 1600 pennsylvania avenue about the possibility there is going to be a major shift in power on capitol hill? >> reporter: well, chris, the white house certainly expecting to lose seats but they dispute to this day that the notion that they're going to lose the house, certainly they're going to lose the senate. and the difference between losing allot of seats and the houses a big one in washington. they're putting the president

out on the road in states where pundits have frankly thought they were going to lose it a long time ago, places like pennsylvania, ohio in that final weekend. they're also planning for what comes after, there's a big foreign trip they're gearing up for which will put the president in a presidential setting. that's not to say there haven't been frustrations, of course. if you take a look at what communications director dan pfeiffer told the daly beast recently, we can show the quote here, getting the message out here in his words like spitting into the ocean. it's been very difficult for white house officials to break through in a bad economy and at the time when a lot of the pundits are saying the house is gone, and maybe the senate, too, chris. >> thanks so much. always good to see you. >> reporter: thank you. 400,000 pages of secret documents published on the internet for all to see. straight ahead, we'll talk about what those mean for u.s. troops and the future of stability in iraq. google is admitting it accidentally grabbed personal information, including e-mails

and passwords from residents in more than 30 countries. the invasion of privacy happened while google's street view cars buzzed across the road filming streets. cars were inadvertently grabbing data from home wireless networks. google says none of the information is used for commercial purposes but faces fines and potential lawsuits from dozens of countries. ♪

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during checkups, pediatricians should start asking kids about how much time they spend in front of the tv and on the computer. the american academy of pediatrics links excessive screen time attention problems, obesity, sleep and eating disorders. experts say pediatricians should pay attention to kids' media habits and ask whether kids have access to a tv or internet in their bedrooms. new information from secret iraq war documents are raising concerns that after seven years of u.s. involvement, iraq could fall into chaos if mercury moves more troops next summer. the 400,000 war logs released by the whistle-blower wikileaks show the u.s. military has not

disclosed how unstable iraq and their new government might be. here with me now, nbc chuz chief foreign correspondent richard engel and retired military analyst jack jacobs. richard, where are 400,000 documents even from? >> they're not documents, per se. they're not like giant pieces of paper like you expect to -- >> not 400,000 books? >> no, or even folders. what they are, are pieces of data and ery time a patrol goes out or there's an incident in iraq, afghanistan, anywhere, this is the way the military gathers information and communicates. soldiers go out, there's an incident, a car bombing, shooting, whatever happens, the soldiers will talk to people on the scene and report back what they've learned. those reports, which are often sent by computer, sometimes sent over radio, are entered into a database. and this database was stolen.

and then released. >> the overall srt of story that's come out of this she show how unstable iraq and how unstable the new government is. what's the headline you got out of it? >> they -- i think that might be an overreaching. they don't -- it's not a report. they don't say anything. they are 400,000 data points, 400,000 incident reports. most of them about little events that happened a few years ago on a particular corner. when you look at them together, you see how very violent iraq was. and you see how corrupt iraqi officials are. how deeply involved iranian militias were. >> and it raises the natural question, jack, what does that mean for the future stability of the country. >> well, i think it means it's going to continue to be unstable and in fact if t. may get more unstable. the interesting thing about afteraction reports that were stolen is that it demonstrates

at a time when we and everybody else was saying that there is a civil war going on in iraq and the pentagon was saying, no, there's no civil war, there was a civil war go on in iraq. and, by and large, we stood aside and watched it happen. i think we're going to do it that again. i believe what's going to happen in baghdad is a single, unitary strong man will pop up and run the country and stop all of the vieence. you think so? >> i've said those before, i've spoken to many iraqis including yesterday, who are very concerned that unless this political deadlock is resolved, and not just have the current prime minister, maliki, who is there holding down the for the, even though his party didn't win the election, unless this is resolved to the satisfaction of the iraqi people, that there will be another round of civil war. >> that's how they were governed, by the way. since biblical times. this is a brief interlude between strong men, i think.

>> jack, richard, thanks to both of you. this election season, no

dad? >> oh, no not the baby! >> perfect time of year for a horror flick.

"paranormal activity 2" topping the weekend box office a sequel to the 2007 movie of the same name. cost $3 million, that's all to make that sequel. rent is too damn high and it was spoofed on snl and i just hurt myself. jimmy mcmillan made headlines last week for his catchy campaign mantra and his personal sense of style. here's how "saturday night live's" keenan thompson portrayed mcmillan. >> mr. mcmillan what about these reports that you, yourself, haven't paid rent since the '80s? >> you know why i don't pay my rent? >> if i had to guess -- >> the rent is too damn high. >> let's bring in j.c. watts, ezra klein and ari melbur. here what happens high eye think, it's hard too spoof because the real thing is so funny, right? >> rent is too damn high parties a wonderful party of new york politics. they had to change the two to

the digit 2 because the name of the party was too long. it looks like a text message. go to therentistoodamnhigh.org. it plays a rap song with rapping by the gubernatorial candidate when you log on. >> flashing things on the website. what do you think, j.c.? did keenan thompson nail it? >> let me tell you, mr. mcmillan had to be pretty flattered with that because it was pretty good. >> spot on. >> i tell you, chris, i think paladino a republican candidate i think i pronounced his name right, you know, the attorney general cuomo, they need to be concerned. i think they've got real competition on their hand here. >> maybe at least on the speaking circuit. ezra, what do you think his future holds? >> i think like ari does, the man has a wonderful sing voice.

i'm looking for the rent is too damn high remaximix, rent is to damn high cell phone ring, a bright future. >> i wonder, do you think there are rent is too damn high costumes out already? almost every other street corner in new york city they've opened up a costume shop now. got to be somebody moving fast. >> costumes, internet, this is big. though now the question is, are you going as the parody or mcmillan. >> aren't they the same thing? >> close. they're merging. merging. >> hard to tell the difference. thank you for your insights and commentary this hour. thank you so much. >> thank you. >> msnbc is the place for politics. does a mom make a better candidate? it's the topic taking center stage in the race between two women trying to become oklahoma's first female governor. how apple might have effectively killed the cd. matt pinfeel joins me next hour.

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house speaker nancy pelosi, the tar get of republicans looking to their democratic opponents to the unpopular leader of house. markey votes the pelosi party line on spend, on our economy, on 94% of all votes she cast. too far. too fast. in the absolute wrong direction. put the brakes on pelosi. >> will the attack pelosi strategy win back the house for the gop? it can only be described as a shocking turn of events a florida girl who gained international fame with a five-week case of hiccups has been arrested and charged with first degree mur. and on the other side of the pond, prifrns wince william and middleton make their first appearance together in months at a weekend wedding. rumors of a royal wedding are running rampant.