tv Countdown With Keith Olbermann MSNBC December 14, 2010 11:00pm-12:00am EST
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but they want to see their rnc chair as a strong fund-raiser, a real rainmaker. michael steele hasn't proven to be that. >> should we stay quiet about and cross their fingers for a michael steele win? >> democrats are starting groups of their own and maybe we'll see rovian action to push steele to the forefront. >> alex, you get the last word. that's the last word. you can follow our blog at the last word@msnbc.com. which of these stories will you be talking about tomorrow? julian assange with our guest michael moore. assange is not contrite. we know they're instruments of u.s. foreign policy.
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it is not something we knew before. the blowback, the lunatic fringe calls for suppression of the free press. >> i think we also should be censoring the american news agencies which enabled him to be able to do this and then also supporting him and applauding him for the efforts. >> and assassination. >> i'm not for the death penalty. i'll illegally shoot the son of a -- >> on fox he says this. >> did i ever tell you how rupert murdoch's father made money, by leaking military secrets during world war i. the tax compromise. moody's says the tax cuts will p put it at risk. robert reich. and more death penanels in arizona. used stimulus money for
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transplant insurance now tells complaining arizonans -- >> i would ask them to send us stimulus dollars to support these transplants if that's what they want. >> does that sound crazy to you? not as crazy as this. this is how governor brewer sees herself. all the news and commentary and michael moor now on "countdown." good evening from new york. this is tuesday, 693 days until the 2012 presidential election. as wikileaks founder julian assange is granted bail and kept in jail. in our fifth story the epic evolving battle between leaks and secrets as old as time itself or between truth and war takes a new form. filmmaker michael moore posted
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part of the bond money for assange. he joins me in a moment. the equivalent of $316,000 american but kept him in custody while swedish prosecutors challenged the decision. the swedish government wants assange extradited for questioning for war crimes. they clearly will not spare any expense to keep mr. assange in jail. this is really turning into a show trial. part of the hearing, assange released a statement dictated to his mother christine after she visited her son in prison. my convictions are unfaltering. i remain true to the ideals i have expressed. this circumstance shall not shake them. it has increased my determination that they are true and correct. we now know that visa, mastercard, paypal and others are instruments of u.s. foreign policy. it is not something we knew before. i am calling for the world to protect my work and my people from these illegal and immoral attacks.
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the latter part of that statement refers to operation pay back in which online activists calling themes anonymous crashed website of mastercard and visa after those organizations cut business ties with wikileaks. assange's mother has expressed gratitude as well as obvious concern. >> i tell him we have people all over the world are standing up with placards and screaming out for his freedom and justice. i'm no different than any other mother. every time the news goes on, i'm still glued to it. is he okay? and massive forces have decided they're going to stop him and not play by the rules. >> assange's harshest critics in this country have called him a terrorist with the rest of the media being characterized as complicit. allen west of florida telling a conservative internet radio show that az sangy's journalism amounts to a cyberattack. >> regardless of whether or not you think this really doesn't
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cause any harm, the fact that here is an individual who is not an american citizen first and foremost, for whatever reason, you know, gotten his hands on classified american material and put it out there in the public domain. we also should be censoring the american news agencies which enabled him to be able to do this and then also supported him and applauded him for the efforts. that kind of aiding and abetting of a serious crime. >> tea party congressman elect one sanctity freedom of the press zero. a partial score. even more extreme statement perhaps about assange from walter mondale's former campaign manager, fox news pet exdemocrat bob beckel. >> i'm not for the death penalty. so if i'm not, only one way to do it. illegally shoot the son of a [ bleep ]. >> tonight the air force has confirmed that it blocked its computers from accessing "the new york times," the guardian
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and other documents who posted documents obtained by wicky leaks. they want computers clean of classified material, that this is not an attempt at censorship. back to the matter of assange's bail. howard riddle had set strict conditions in which assange would have worn an electronic monitor and he would have to report to british police every evening and observe two four-our curfews. the money was drawn from a guarantee of $380,000 put up by various supporters. our next guest gave $20,000 toward that effort. it was accompanied by the statement that i support julian who i see as a pioneer of free speech, transparent government and the digital revolution in journalism. he offers a chance for a greater society to protect itself from some of these follies. some aren't just follies. some are crimes. let's bring in michael moore. good evening. >> good evening, keith. >> you also offered the use of your website before assange or
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your servers. anything else you can do to keep wikileaks alive? what's the premise? >> the premise is that we really owe a debt to mr. assange and to wikileaks for turning on a big spotlight on those people who brought about, first of all, this war that we've been in for the better part of this decade. these people concocted lies. and they committed crimes. in order to send our young men and women off to war. and it has cost us not only the lives of our own people, but the lives of literally now tens of if not hundreds of thousands of iraqis and afghan citizens. and i just think that if in a free and open society if we aren't able to find out the truth, mistakes like this get repeated over and over and over again. i was thinking yesterday when i
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sent the bail money over to london, what if we had a wikileaks in august of 1964 when we were told that the north vietnamese fired on a u.s. ship, which in fact was a lie? it was a concocted lie at the pentagon. we didn't find out about that until daniel els brberg release the pentagon papers six, seven, eight years later. what if there had been a wikileaks? what if someone could have gotten that information out at the beginning of the vietnam war, my fellow americans, you're being lied to, this is all made up? how many lives could have been saved? so many other examples, whether it's -- imagine the dick cheney memos back and forth as he was pressuring the cia at the beginning just before this last iraq war started. what if those memos had been
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released in 2002 or 2003 so the american people could see he was trying to get the cia to gin up the evidence and sort the evidence and sort of fudge the facts so they could make their case for war? what if we'd had access to that? this is, to me, i just think an instrument like wikileaks is vital for a free and open society to exist. frankly, i think this is something that thomas jefferson or ben franklin, if they could have invented this if there was the internet back then, they saw the importance making sure the corrupt people in power, they knew the power corrupted, had a very -- it was necessary to have a very large light on them. and that's what wikileaks does. for me, anybody who supports wikileaks, they're committing an act of patriotism because it guarantees, i think, i hope, that we have a better shot next time the bad guys try to pull one off on us. >> does it matter that he hasn't had access to, and thus hasn't
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released dick cheney memos or some equivalent to the gulf of tonkin data from 1964? one of the arguments against this is it's not journalism because it's a massive essentially download of secret or hidden information. that 5it's not vetted in some way, not journalistically gone through in some way or sifted. does that matter at all? >> it has been. first of all, the news agencies from "the new york times" to the "guardian," to the papers in europe, they have spent a lot of time vetting it, going through it. i think they're very happy to have this access to it. right now we've been focusing on state department cables for the most part which have been, if anything, embarrassing. and even as defense secretary mr. gates said this does not put anyone's life in jeopardy, let's not make such a big deal about this. but the information that was released earlier this year about
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the iraq war and then the next drop on the war in afghanistan, there are some very serious items in there, and especially was heartbreaking to read those reports from our soldiers during the first wikileaks drop back earlier this year where if you read those things, what our own soldiers wrote up in their reports, what they were forced to do, the civilians that were killed, that they killed, and how sickened they were by this because they signed up for the u.s. army to defend the united states of america, not to go over and participate in this. it was, i think, incredible information to have. the video that was released that showed the execution by the helicopter of the reuters reporters. i think all of that stuff has been very important, and remember, of the 250,000 documents, the cables they say they're going it be releasing, they've only released 1,000 or 2,000 of them.
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there's a lot more to come from this organization. and i think -- i think it's a good thing. i say to the people who -- i've had people say to me, you know, i don't know if -- this is not good. you have to have some secrets. i can understand that. diplomacy, all that's necessary. you can't have everything on the front page of the paper. i would say that because our government behaved so badly in invading a country that was not a threat to us that this is the result. this is what you're going to have to put up with. the lights in the room have been turned on and now we're going to see everything from this point on. and maybe it's not right that we see everything, but i think i'd rather that than the alternative. and remember, it's not the leaks that are killing anyone. it's the secrets that have killed people. the secrets, here's a good example.
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i asked your producer, i don't know if you guys have the famous photo of mr. bush when he -- in august of 2001, one month before 9/11 -- >> there it is. >> there it is. okay. okay, now, he's being handed a secret memo and the memo just happens to say "bin laden determined to attack inside united states." and in the memo it talks about how he plans on hijacking airplanes. now, this is one month before 9/11. mr. bush took a look at that, as you can see, then he went fishing for four weeks. now, what if wikileaks had existed then and some person in the u.s. government who saw that the president wasn't going to deal with this threat put that out there and said, bin laden and al qaeda are planning to do something with airplanes and something very soon. you know, there's a wonderful essay that was written by the woman, colleen raleigh. she was "time's" person of the year for being a whistleblower. veteran of the fbi.
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she says it -- i think it was in the "l.a. times" this past week or so. she says, i think possibly had wikileaks existed in 2001 there would have been a chance that 9/11 wouldn't have happened because if that had been out there to the american people, if that had been out there to say even her office, her fbi, her field office, had she even known to look for these. if they had taken the call from the flight school where the guy, remember the guy who calls up and says, hey, i got these guys here and they don't want to know how to take off or land a plane. oh, that's a top secret. these things shouldn't be secret. this effects american lives. we should know about these things. and i think -- i think -- i think these leaks will save lives. these secrets that are kept. whether it's gulf of tonkin, whether it's 9/11, how we got into the iraq war. those secrets, those secrets, they kill people. they take lives. that's why i'm a huge supporter
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of what wikileaks is doing. >> all right. one complicating issue here. address the charges against assange in sweden. are they a ruse? are they a front for something else? and even if they are, indeed, something nefarious against him, you are still in essence participating in bailing out a man who has been charged with criminal sexual charges or will be charged under these circumstances. address that. >> that's the thing. he hasn't been charged. they brought no criminal charges against him. they want to talk to him about -- this whole thing stinks to the high heavens. i have to tell you. i mean, i wasn't born yesterday, but i've seen this enough times where governments and corporations go after individuals, geez, i think i was just on your show a couple weeks ago talking about this with my film and the health care industry. they go after people with this
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kind of lie and smear. daniel elsburg told you last week how they went after him. his guilt or innocence of this. what he said they did. the lawyer said this today in court in london, what they say he did and the charges, his condom broke during consensual sex. that is not a crime in britain, and so they're making the point how can we extradite him over this? this is all a bunch of huey as far as i'm concerned. the man at least has a right to be out of prison while awaiting the hearing, and i believe that -- this is why i participate in it. this is why i put up a chunk of the bail money, and you know, i'm proud to do it because i think this man and what he's doing, what his group is doing is going to save lives. >> filmmaker michael moore will join rachel maddow next week for her leadership series at the 92nd street y. great. sorry we didn't get to discuss your trade of the detroit
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tigers. thank you. >> i know. that's okay. next time. >> next time. it's in wikileaks, too. more news about the tax compromise, it may compromise this country's economic credit rating. moody's says any economic growth the tax cuts create will be wiped away by the added deficit. terrific. robert reich next. [ male announcer ] open up a cadillac during our season's best sales event and receive the gift of asphalt. experience the exhilarating cadillac cts with a direct injection v6. it's the one gift you can open up all year long. see your cadillac dealer for this attractive offer. backed by the peace of mind that only comes from cadillac premium care maintenance. the season's best sales event. from cadillac. if anything, i thought i'd get hit by a bus, but not a heart. all of a sudden, it's like an earthquake going off in your body. my doctor put me on an aspirin regimen
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former labor secretary says his old boss is wrong to support the tax cut deal. and moody's to cut the credit rating in response to the deal. high speed rail programs fall through in wisconsin and ohio causing 20,000 jobs. this tea port governor elect celebrates. the judge who ruled against part of health care reform may have bigger problems. right wing said he made an embarrassing legal mistake in the decision. no wonder arizona may increase death panels. this is the drawing governor brewer put up on her facebook page. f i wanted to change the world.
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i said "sure." "well, let's grow some algae." and that's what started it. exxonmobil and synthetic genomics have built a new facility to identify the most productive strains of algae. algae are amazing little critters. they secrete oil, which we could turn into biofuels. they also absorb co2. we're hoping to supplement the fuels that we use in our vehicles, and to do this at a large enough scale to someday help meet the world's energy demands. and to do this at a large enough scale holy sci-fi. steve. no, i know. it's great, right? but, dude, i've been thinking like, this is such a great opportunity for us to write at least an hour to two every single day. you can see this? of course i can see you. but, steve, i'm thinking-- it's like you're standing-- it's like you're standing right there. it's like i'm touching you. yeah. introducing cisco umi, together we are the human network. cisco. it's like i'm talking to you from the future.
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the u.s. senate is preparing to pass or tomorrow morning possibly as soon as that, but no earlier, a tax cut deal that's so bad for the u.s. deficit it rattled world financial markets. as we reported on this news hour last week, cutting taxes by a trillion dollars will require borrowing hundreds of billions from other countries although the obama administration continues to keep secret the details of our debt to saudi arabia and other middle eastern countries. these countries, not others, buy our debt though we don't pay much on it in way of interest because it's considered a safe investment. america's credit has always gotten the highest rating. aaa.
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moody's, one of the top three u.s. rating companies releasing a new report the deal, if passed, could threaten moody's outlook on u.s. credit which would make foreign investors demand higher interest payments to keep buying u.s. debt in the future. how much does the u.s. rely on foreign countries buying our debt? tim geithner pitched it to buyers in saudi arabia last summer, hillary clinton did the same in china last year. thanks to the tax cut deal, years from now our kids may have to pay more in interest on the money we're borrowing from china and others to finance tax cuts. moody's, quote, the deal will boost economic growth in the next two years but adversely affect the government budget deficit and debt level. keeping the existing tax rates would not provide an impetus to growth. more, it should have a positive effect on government revenues and reduce payments related to unemployment. the magnitude of this effect will be considerably less than the foregone revenue and increased spending resulting in substantially higher budget
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deficits than would have otherwise been the case. the likelihood of democrats caving again even factors in. quote, there is a risk the two-year extension may be renewed at the end of 2012 given that period coincides with the presidential election. moody's analyst steven hes wrote the report telling reuters, quote, we have long-term concerns about the outlook, waiting to see if they're going to be addressed. going further in a statement, quote, the outlook for positive action in the next couple years doesn't look good. concern about 2012 looking prophetic already. mitt romney previewing how he will attack president obama for the tax cut deal. so, too, mike spence pledging to kill it in the house. because the deal would increase the deficit. john ensign sounding a similar note when asked about borrowing from china. >> is this going to help the economy short term? yes. the longer term effects to the economy because of the extra borrowing, higher interest rates
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we're going to have to pay. moody's threatened today to downgrade the united states' bond rating. that means it will pay a higher borrowing government. >> let's bring in robert reich, labor secretary in the clinton administration. now at uc berkeley. author of "aftershock." thanks for your time. >> good evening, keith. >> what are the implications of moody's thinking about downgrading? >> it's a warning shot in terms of the debt that we are accumulating. it would be one thing, keith, as moody's said, if that debt was turned around into genuinely boosting the economy and growth. so much of that is going to people who are already very rich in the united states. that means that they, the rich, don't spend very much. they already -- what it means to be rich means you already have
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pretty much what you already need and want. and that, in turn, is not going to be much of a stimulus. so moody's is worried in effect that this is a lot of debt without very much of a push. very much -- we don't get very much out of it in terms of helping the economy. >> the presidential convention at the white house on friday on this topic after mr. clinton endorsed president obama's deal, you wrote that both of them are wrong. one of them you served. why do you think they're both wrong? >> well, a lot of people, including president clinton and the current president, believe that the current tax deal is sort of, now i guess to what bill clinton did politically, by triangulating and cooperating with republicans, getting the deficit down in the 1990s. supposedly that helped the economy. actually the analogy is wrong. that deficit and that original recession that bill clinton kind of got the tailwind of in 1992,
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1993, that recession was very, very narrow and small, and indeed, we had a jobless recovery. i was there. we could very, very easily come out of that recession environment in the 1990s, create a very, very fast growing economy. alan greenspan, remember, could lower interest rates. but right now it's an entirely different economy. this is not analogous to bill clinton's economy. we have had a great recession that came not out of the fed raising interest rates too high, but really out of a huge asset bubble. a housing bubble exploding. and that means that it's going to take years until consumers are out from under that deficit, consumers are able to borrow again. consumers are ready to buy as much as they were buying before. the analogy doesn't hold. potentially, this deal, this tax deal that obama is entering in with republicans is going to explode the deficit without any real gain for the economy at all. >> moody's pointed out that in the -- with the 2012
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presidential elections coming up that might make it impossible to prevent the republicans making the bush tax cuts permanent, again. does this president or do congressional democrats have plausible way out of that scenario? >> the only plausible way out, i think, keith, is to tell a very different story about how we got into the recession and how we are getting out of it and how we need to get out of it. the dominant story republicans are telling is it's all about big government. this is a story they'd been telling for 30 years. the problem is big government. we need to shrink government and everybody will be better off. well, that's simply not true. trickle-down economics never worked. if you take taxes off of the top and you shrink government, what do you have? well, you have a lot of very rich people at the top. right now about a quarter of all income in the united states is going to people in the top 1%, but average working people have not had a raise adjusted for inflation in years. we're seeing a continuation of that. the danger is just simply we're going to have more of the same.
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>> mr. trickle-down economics, david stockman, sat here at this desk and said it didn't work. to underscore your point. robert reich, former labor secretary under president clinton. thanks for your time. >> thanks, keith. if you're the governor-elect and your state lost jobs because a high speed rail stimulus project fell through, would your reaction be "a" solemn or angry distress or "b" celebration? the tea party governor of elect of wisconsin, there was no hesitation. let the party begin. yellowbook has always been good for business. but these days you need more than the book.
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wisconsin bails out of a stimulus high speed rail line costing the state 5,500 jobs. first the sanity break and the tweet of the day from chicodelainky. give me your wallet. no. give me your money. okay. see compromise. hey, they need you in washington, bub. let's play oddball. california, chris angel has nothing on this floating car. allegedly drunk driver drove his vehicle, careened off the road. the buildings were spaced not too wide, not too narrow but right to catch his car, suspending it five feet in the air. the driver escaped the floating car unharmed but will have plenty of time to figure out the building is not a hitching post for a car in the big house. the annual running of the santas. supposed to be santa running. this looks like santa
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sauntering. don't make me replace you with the frosty t. snowmen. that inspired them. the quick kriss kringles ran through the two-mile course to raise money for a local children's charity. no one was injured. something surprising, considering the diet consisting of milk and cookies. time marches on. tea party in wisconsin, kills off 5,500 jobs and governor of arizona on camera with her death panels. for three hours a week, i'm a coach. but when i was diagnosed with prostate cancer... i needed a coach. our doctor was great, but with so many tough decisions i felt lost. unitedhealthcare offered us a specially trained rn who helped us weigh and understand all our options. for me cancer was as scary as a fastball is to some of these kids. but my coach had hit that pitch before. turning data into useful answers. we're 78,000 people looking out for 70 million americans. that's health in numbers. unitedhealthcare.
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during his campaign to become governor of wisconsin, tea party republican scott walker pledged to add 250,000 jobs in his state by 2015. he's yet to take office and his job creation tally is at negative 5,500. our third story, two tea party republican governors-elect turned up their noses at federal money for high speed rail lines as their state's unemployed twist in the wind. the decision to rescind the high speed rail money came down last thursday. ray lahood announcing wisconsin and ohio would forfeit $1.2 billion that had been allocated
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to build high speed rail lines in the states. the money did not require state matching funds was requested. walker and kasich of ohio wanted to kill the rail projects. >> i'm governor. the 39ile an hour high speed passenger train is dead. >> the train travels up to 79 miles an hour, averaging over 50. before the $400 million in high speed rail money was pulled, ted strickland begged kasich to create 15,000 jobs. walker said his rejection to reject money for the high speed rail line was there was made because although the project would create jobs, 5,500 of them, it wouldn't be the right kind of jobs. >> to me the jobs i want are jobs that are sustainable. i'm talking to here and other groups representing small businesses because i don't just
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want jobs that are created short term based upon the government subsidy. >> the unemployment rate in wisconsin hovering around 8%. the state estimated the high speed rail line connecting milwaukee and madison could create 5,500 jobs by the third year of the project. to walker, this is a win. >> push came to shove. even if it meant it wasn't roads and bridges, i was not going to go forward with a train line between milwaukee and madison. that's a victory. >> let's turn to gene robson, "washington post" editor, pulitzer prize winning columnist. author of "disintegration: the splintering of black america." for those who got elected and said, what, do you think i was going to cut my nose off despite my face? we've had a couple of them that cut off their noses? >> we do. it's amazing. i can't believe they've done this.
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5,500 jobs. gee, no thanks, i won't take the jobs. it's amazing, but this is one of the consequences of this election, and you know, you elect these people and some of them might actually do what they say they're going to do. >> are the political consequences of this in these states as straightforward as you would expect? are people waking up and going, our governors-elect eliminated how many jobs? >> there is a very active discussion, debate about these governors-elect and what they're doing. there are a lot of voices saying, hold on a minute, wait a minute. fiscal restraint is one thing, but we had that money here. there was, in fact, a spanish company that set up in wisconsin to build new train cars and they said if there's not going to be high speed rail, there's no reason for us to have our factory here, so we're out of here. how in the world can that be
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good for the state? and people are asking that question. >> the koch brothers funded cato institute weighed in on this. the quote to abc news was, the federal government is like a crack dealer and giving states a free hit of crack to get them hooked and in the long run the cost of the crack gets worse. you want to leave the illusion of the president out of this for a second. the eisenhower interstate system would have gotten built with this kind of opposition? >> that's the analogy that came to my mind. we'd still be driving on two-lane highways. from coast to coast. if we had this. look, anyone who travels abroad knows that american infrastructure, which once was clearly the best and most advanced and sleekest and neatest in the world is no
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longer any of those things. i mean, in not just china, but go to france. go to places that we don't think of as having better infrastructure than we do. we're behind everybody in rail. and you know, the idea that we could ever do something as grand and as productive as the interstate highway system, right now, just kind of seems like a grim's fairytale. you can't imagine it with this total anti-government attitude that we're getting from scott walker. >> gene robinson of "washington post," as always, great, thanks. i'll meet you at the railroad depot. >> let's synchronize watches. >> thank you, gene. this man decided where to play baseball next year. because of that a reporter may have to cover spring training wearing a speedo. and there it is. actual video of the governor of
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to keep your kids full and focused all morning. oops. dude your eight layers are showing. [ female announcer ] mini-wheats® hot. keeps 'em full, keeps 'em focused. first this judge turned out to own part of the company that had taken money and filed the lawsuit against health care reform that the judge was judging. now the far right is saying the judge made an incredible legal mistake in his ruling. as the death panel expands in arizona governor jan brewer gets flattened on camera by a british interviewer. for strong bones, i take calcium.
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arizona contemplates more death panels. governor insists if people in her state want to fund transplants they should ask washington for more money. time for today's nominees for the worst person in the world. andy martino who eight days ago dared to question the technological god that is twitter. here's some of what we've gathered during the first day in florida, lots of information swirling around the twitter. some questionable. for example, in the phillies signed cliff lee, i'll cover spring training in a speedo. last night, cliff lee signed a five year $120 million contract with the phillies. speedo, speedo for mr. martino, please? the runner up, televangelist lonesome roads beck. listen to this. >> anybody within the sound of my voice that was a special ops person, anyone who has ever done any special ops for the united
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states military, you must inform your friends of the truth. this is the way it happens. whenever we have been in special ops, if you've ever been over in the collapse of the berlin wall or collapse of any other country, you know our special ops people are sent in at times just like this. and what is the instruction? be there to help pick up the pieces and push, nudge, just nudge it. push it. that's what they're doing. they know what point we're at, and they know whose hands it's going to fall into, and so they're pushing it into revolution. if you're in special ops, please, please tell your friends, wake them up. i know you probably have, but it's time for people to come out into the open and be vocal about it and tell people what we're up against. because nobody in the media is going to. >> during the same program, mr. beck announced he is now the mainstream media.
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i'm not saying he's lost his mind. i'm saying only that i wouldn't draft him in a sanity fantasy league. our winner, judge henry e. hudson, the district judge in virginia who yesterday ruled against part of health care reform after not recusing himself though he owns a firm that has nothing but republican clients one of whom the man who filed the suit in which judge hudson ruled. the conflict of interest equivalent of the marching band with 76 trombones was not necessary. he's been called on it by the far right. a right wing blog, warren kerr writes, had a chance to read judge hudson's opinion, and it seems to me it has a fairly obvious and quite significant error. hudson, if a person's decision not to purchase health care insurance at a particular point in time does not constitute the type of economic activity subject is equally offensive to the constitution.
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we're deep in the woods here. mr. kerr writes the necessary and proper clause of the constitution is what allows congress to take steps that are not specifically authorized by the constitution. like nearly all of them. if hudson were right, kerr says, he just erased a critical part of the constitution. judge henry hudson, today's worst person in the world. [ sneezes ] you're up next.
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saving people's lives don't ask her, ask washington for the money. you know, more money. beyond the money washington already gave her that she spent on arena roof repair. in another arizonan denied a heart transplant denied a heart transplant by brewer's panel will join us. brewer and the republican led state legislature are contemplating cutting medicare coverage for arizonans. the program called access remains the largest single state budget problem we're dealing with. brewer was at a public event when asked her her decision to deny 100 citizens organ transplants asked by sarah smith, a correspondent for great britain's channel 4. >> how many transplants patients in arizona have to actually die before you're prepared to reverse the decision not to fund their operations? >> that's a real difficult, unfair question in my opinion. you know? certainly we have made budget cuts. the bottom line is arizona doesn't have the money and -- >> it's only $5 million.
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you must be able to find it somewhere else. >> i wish that -- you know, i have a $1 billion deficit facing the state of arizona. the bottom line is we simply don't have the money. i would suggest that people would go to the federal government and ask them to send us stimulus dollars to support these transplants if that's what they want to do. >> they sent you nearly $200 million in stimulus dollars. why can't you use those? >> they were sent to arizona and have been expended in a proper manner. >> next question, please? >> what do you say to people who say this is a gop death panel? >> next question, please? the governor's office provide a list to the arizona "republic" newspaper as to how the federal money had been spent. a partial and unspecific list that includes $12 million dedicated to attracting new business. $10 million to border security and enhancement. $50 million to state prisons. as for brewer's suggestion her constituents should ask for more federal money, yesterday brewer applauded a judge's decision to
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declare the federal care act unconstitutional, the same hat that would pick up 100% of the tab to expand medicare to 2016. today the governor posting this heartfelt message and illustration on her facebook. wishing you and your family a rosy christmas, one that glows with warm blessings of the season and we can do it spirit throughout the new year. the we can do it spirit refers to those who are not living in jan brewer's arizona. joining me now as promised, douglas, who was denied money for a heart transplant by the state of arizona. donate to his fund or anyone else's at ntafund.org. thank you for your time tonight, sir. >> thank you, keith. >> how are you feeling? >> i feel weak and tired. >> it's cardiomyopathy you have, weakening of the muscles of the heart.
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explain that and your day-to-day activities. >> i have a disease, heart, it makes me extremely tired. i sleep a lot. i have trouble walking and breathing. i used to work 16 hours a day and that is -- my life has been taken away from me. i need a transplant. i need a heart. >> the doctors have you currently being treated with medication. is that working to any degree? >> it's making me weaker is what it's doing. it's creating anxiety. so no, i would say not. >> this year as we understand it, you've been hospitalized 11 times in a little over a 11 months. they laid you off from your job. if you don't get the transplant you accurately say you need, what happens? >> i will die, keith. >> when -- i'm sorry. when you hear that $50 million
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of federal money was given to state prisons in arizona instead of, say, you know, $45 million to state prisons and $5 million to organ transplants so people like you don't get knocked off this list. how does that fact make you feel? >> it hurts me. there's people out there, not just me, but other families that need organ transplants and we're good citizens. we are productive to society. and it's just wrong. >> we just watched the tape of governor brewer suggesting that people in arizona ask the federal government for more stimulus money and then giving that list of where this money went to and we mentioned the prisons and mentioned to attracting new businesses. are you satisfied with the response from that interview, that clip that we showed? >> not satisfied at all, keith. >> tell me why not. >> because i believe she has $30 million that she has in funds that she hasn't said what it's
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for, and for the small amount that each taxpayer would pay in this state for a transplant, it just seems unfair. >> anything else here as you have the floor, as we say, you'd like to say to governor brewer or members of the arizona legislature, particularly the republicans? >> i would like to say, i'd like to know how she sleeps at night to choose to decide whether i live or die and all the other families that are out there that need organ transplants. it's not right. i want to live, and i do not want to die. >> you're aware, politically, of the backlash within the state about this. that the democrats are hoping next month to undo what the republicans did in the state legislature. are you hopeful that this will happen in time for you? >> i don't believe so, but i have to keep hope. i don't believe so. >> how on earth do you go on if you don't believe so?
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>> day-to-day, keith, you know, i have good support system. i have my parents. i have family. and it's all positive around me. but again, i'm the one with the affliction. i'm going through the pain and the suffering. so i have a great support system. >> the -- the nature of how we treat each other in this country, and how some people are capable of not caring about other people because whatever the reason might be, have you seen that change in your lifetime? have you seen this country change to where we're not taking care of each other anymore? >> somewhat. i mean, that could be a touchy subject but, you know, i am being, you know, taken care of now as far as hospitalization, but i need the heart. if i don't get a heart, if i
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