at least that's what it seemed like when congressional democrats held an event at the capitol this morning that was essentially their prebuttal of the court's decision to remember. they have begun fund-raising off the court's as yet to be announced ruling. they started asking for donations to fight for universal health care in the event the court strikes down the health care reform law tomorrow. that's was on the democratic side. on the republican side, the republicans sort of picked their team captain today for who will be speaking for congressional democrats in response to the ruling tomorrow. republican congresswoman cathy mcmorris rogers and tom price will be inside the supreme court tomorrow to hear the ruling, which is not the kind of thing i'm sure you plan for if you think you're getting bad news. they will then exit the court and leave the immediately response for them afterwards.

john boehner had previously said there will be no spiking of the ball if it goes the republicans' way. we'll see how restrained they can be if that is the case. at the executive level, the white house went out of its way to say where the president will be when the decision comes down tomorrow morning. >> you might not be able to answer this, but do you know where the president will be when he finds out about the decision tomorrow? i know jeremy had to find out like everyone else does. >> he'll be in the room in my office. we'll all await the decision and learn of it at the same time you do. >> whether or not jay carney was kidding, at least maybe president obama is there to watch the ruling come down on tv in his press secretary's office. the mitt romney campaign is doing a fund-raiser with donald trump tomorrow. it's another win a dinner with donald and mitt event. they scheduled that for that day. donald trump announced in a

tweet yesterday, looking forward to the dine with mitt and donald this thursday, thursday as in tomorrow. the romney campaign for their part is not confirming or denying that this event is happening even though donald trump says it is. quote, romney spokesman rick gorka told the associated press there would be no meeting with donald trump this week, but he refused to say whether they would appear together at the manhattan fund-raiser whether they expect it will be upheld or struck down and millions of americans are going to lose their health insurance, either way, it's strange to think they thought it would be good messaging to put mitt romney with donald trump that day, with the birther guy again. we will see if he follows through with this planned event tomorrow. but also tomorrow, and i think it's not coincidental that it's happening tomorrow, is the day the republican controlled house is going to hold a contempt of

congress vote against eric holder. a contempt vote that is based on the conservative conspiracy theory at the obama justice department conspired to secretly foment gun violence in mexico so you would feel bad about gun violence so you wouldn't feel bad when they got on with their plan to abolish the second amendment and take away everybody's guns. this has motivated the whole fast and furious attack on eric holder. the vote tomorrow is as far as this thing is ever going to go. there's not going to be a contempt of congress vote that goes against eric holder ithe senate, and when the house recommendation gets forwarded along so the attorney general can be prosecuted, it will be this justice department that will decide whether or not to proceed with this. those thin aren't going to happen. the apex of the fast and furious thing, the last thing that is going to happen on this politically is tomorrow. and republicans have scheduled that vote for the day everybody

knows is going to be supreme court health reform ruling day. they could have scheduled -- excuse me, i'm going to do that again. hold on. excuse me. speaking of conspiracy theories. i'm going to have to cough for about five minutes. we have to go to break. it's a conspiracy, i'm sure. is there any evidence that fast and furious was essentially to promote a longer gun control initiative? what's the evidence? >> i never indicated that was the case. i don't know if that's the case because we don't have the documents. >> john boehner did not have to schedule the fast and furious vote tomorrow on health reform day. he did not have to schedule this vote to happen on the day it was going to be totally buried by other news. but if like john boehner

apparently, you do not believe in the conspiracy theory that it's a secret plot to get rid of the second amendment and take away everyone's guns, there's not much to this scandal. if he does not believe in that conspiracy theory, perhaps it's not a coincidence he has scheduled this vote to happen on a day where it wilbe overshadowed by a much bigger story. it's also getting pushed back in the right as well. today, the national review which is a hard core conservative fairly influential publication on the right ran a scathing takedown on the obsession and the conspiracy theory it was based. the theory that it was devised to promote gun control does not withstand scrutiny. unless he has a considerable amount of evidence he has not shared with the public. so even as the speaker of the house is not buying it, even as the right is getting shy about house republicans going so far with this idea, frankly, the gun lobby believes it and maybe that's all they need.

the nra believes the conspiracy theory. they wake up and yell they're coming for our guns before they open their eyes to see what room they are in and whether they're still naked, and it gun lobby being so into this is part of why the vote is going to be so overwhelming against eric holder in the house tomorrow. the nra does a report card on every election in the country to say whether or not the candidates are pro gun to their satisfaction or not, and they have decided the vote on eric holder tomorrow on this conspiracy theory is key to how you get rated by the nra for re-election this year. and that is pretty obviously why even a handful of democrats today said they would plan to go along with the republicans on this vote. they can't afford have a bad rating by the nra, and the nra rating on this vote is about the conspiracy theory. that's hot they think fast and furious is. >> an attempt to blame the second amendment, blame american gun owners and get more gun

legislation here in the united states. i mean, that sound more like a south american dictatorship than what we expect from our department of justice in the united states of america. >> there's this cognitive dissonance in the reporting on this because republicans realize their conspiracy theory about fast and furious sounds crazy in mixed company. as they have tried to mainstream this thing, they have tried to make it sound like at least some of it could be scandal is not about the conspiracy theory at all. they have tried to create a mainstream impression what this could be about is also the federal government allowing inappropriate gun sales to go through and that itself is scandalous. it's about the government not seizing enough guns from people who are trying to buy guns in this country. if that were really the scandal here, you really think the nra would be all for it?

you think the nra would be saying, oh, yeah, this is really important to us, that the federal government crack down and block more gun sales. we insist you vote on that. that would be insane. this whole scandal and this whole vote tomorrow is about the conspiracy theory that president obama purposely wanted there be gun violence so he could steal your guns. to the extent that anybody in the mainstream media politics fell for this that the was something other than that motivating all of that, today, that all fell apart, too. the effort to mainstream this story involved sidelining the conspiracy theory and talking about how really if you don't believe the conspiracy theory, you still have to admit it was egregious and offensive and stupid for the atf to let the gun sales go ahead. why would they purposely allow 2,000 guns to be purchased illegally and trafficked into mexico when they could have stopped them. they could have stepped in. even if you don't believe the conspiracy theory, at least you can see how wrong that is.

that was the non-conspiracy theory part of this would-be scandal. today, fortune magazine blew that out of the water. the investigator reporter who is going to be joining us reviewed more than 2,000 pages of confidential documents. she interviewed people with the case and decimated that part of the fast and furious case, the part about atf agents supposedly knowingly allowing illegal guns to be trafficked into mexico. she said, quote, quite simply, there's a misconception at the heart of the fast and furious scandal. nobody disputes that straw purchases under surveillance repeatedly bought guns that fell into criminal hands. darrell issa and others charge that the atf intentionally allowed guns to walk as an operational tactic, but five agents tell fortune that atf had no such tactic. they insist they never purposefully allowed guns to be trafficked. they said they seized weapons whenever they could but were hamstrung by prosecutors and

weak laws that stymied them at every turn. it's not let's allow these guns to flow freely into mexico. it was the opposite, let's monitor the gun sales, arrest all of the people buying the guns. as atf discovered, there wasn't anything they could do because the purchase of the guns in arizona was seen by prosecutors as legal. as they report, customers can legally buy as many weapons as they want in arizona as long as they're 18 years or older and pass a criminal background check. there are no waiting periods and no need for permits and buyers are allowed to resell the guns. all a buyer in arizona has to do is certify he's buying the guns for himself. certify it. a buyer who certified the guns were for himself then handed them off to somebody else minutes later, had not necessarily lied and was free to change his mind. so in other word you can walk into an arizona gun shop, buy 100 guns, tell the gun shop you're buying them for yourself,

then walk into the parking lot and hand them over. you just changed your mind between the store and parking lot. you can do that. the gun laws in arizona made it near impossible for the atf to make any arrests or stop. they were essentially powerless to stop them. they were held back. from the piece, their greatest difficulty by far was convincing prosecutors they had significant proof to seize guns and arrest straw perchers. by june 2010, the agents had sent the office a list of 31 people they wanted to arrest. for the next seven months, prosecutors did not indict a single suspect. none of the agents doubted the fast and furious guns were being purchased to commit crimes in mexico, but that was nearly impossible to prove, and they

couldn't arrest suspects after being directed not to do so by a prosecutor. because of what our gun laws are and how they're enforced in our country, the atf wasn't letting the guns walk. they were frustrated observers being blocked from stopping the gun sales they thought were nuts. that's what happened, according to this rather devastating piece of new reporter from fortune, but this vote is going to happen tomorrow in the house, and john boehner has buried it on health reform ruling day. the republican and nra case for that vote against eric holder today relies on a conspiracy theory cooked up frankly by the militia blogger who told people to break the windows of democratic office windows after health care reform passed in the first place. and why they're pursuing the vote seems to have fallen all the way apart. if you want to experience in

your home an appropriate metaphor for what happened to the story in politics, what you should do is this, go to your kitchen, take your silverware drawer out of the cabinet, hold it over your head and turn it upside down and shake it. that sharp, clattering disaster in your kitchen is an appropriate metaphor for what has just become of the fast and furious scandal in house of representatives. joining us now is the author of the article "the truth about the fast and furious scandal." thank you for being here. >> thank you for having me. it's a pleasure. >> you know a lot more about this than i do. i have been coveng it for a few days. can you tell me what i got wrong? >> the only thing you got wrong is i'm contributor for fortune, not forbes. and everything you said was absolutely accurate. >> that's a very humiliating thing to get wrong. i quit, i'm sorry.

>> please don't. >> did agents intentionally walk guns across the border? you tell the story of one instance, one gun, or a handful of guns in that one instance being walked, but that was not part of the fast and furious program. >> no, and let's set that aside for a moment. in the fast and furious case which was one investigation into a group of straw purchasers, there was no operational tactic by atf to walk guns. what there was was a protracted struggle to arrest kids, not even old enough to buy beer, who were obviously straw purchasers, and there was a continual struggle with prosecutors because as they interpreted the laws, the sales were legal, the transfers were legal, and the agents did not have grounds to make seizures or arrests. >> you write about sort of incredible anecdotal stories about the straw purchasers. a person low income enough to be on food stamps, nevertheless, spending hundreds of thousands

of dollars on weaponry. a young unemployed person spending five figures on a 50 caliber sniper rifle on a tripod. is it illegal to be a straw purchaser, and if it is, why didn't they get arrested? >> that's a great question. it's illegal to be a straw purchasers, but how do you make that case? prosecutors made it almost impossible to make those arrests and to seize those guns. they were continually determining in their analysis of the law that the sales and the transfers were legal. atf did not agree. there is copious evidence that atf agents demanded we want to seize these guns. we want to make these arrests, but prosecutors blocked them. we're a nation of laws. atf agents can under decide that they're going to make arrests or seize guns without prosecutors' okay. if they have asked and prosecutors have answered and the answer is no, that's it. >> is this a prosecutor scandal? were the prosecutors' decisions in these cases wild departures

from the law? were they making prosecutorial discretion decisions that were wildly incompatible with what had previously bun done or are the gun laws really, really lax. >> that's a hard time to answer and i spend a lot of time and energy in my reporting trying to determine just that. that's enormous differences in prosecution styles and prosecutorial interpretation of laws in each jurisdiction. now, dave vogt, the group's supervisor of phoenix group seven in his frustration and despair was actually writing in prosecutors in other jurisdictions. they were going as far as new york to see if they could find prosecutors who would take tease cases. and that was described in some congressional testimony by an

atf agent named pete forcelli. it's hard to say. i think what you have is a perfect storm of incredibly weak laws in arizona, prosecutors who did not seem particularly eager to enforce the law, and an absolute river of iron onslaught of guns being purchased and pouring across the border. i mean, just to put this in perspective. in arizona where you have 853 licensed fire arms dealer in maricopa county, there's a firearms dealer who has a note on his door which says one ak-47 per customer per day. those are the limits that are being set by responsible gun dealers. otherwise, it's perfect acceptable for an 18-year-old kid to go into a store, put down cash, and buy 50 ak-47s. >> to the bottom line here in terms of the way the mainstream media is going to covethis tomorrow.

the way this is short-handed by every reputable journalistic association in the country is a program in which agents knowingly let weapons walk. according to your reporting, that fundamental description of this program and therefore this scandal is untrue and people should describe as how? >> people need to describe this as a very tough effort to crack down on straw purchasers and seize guns that they were unable to do for an array of reasons. and guns therefore went across the border and reached criminals. >> katherine eban, fortune magazine reporter, investigative reporter who blew this out of the water before the vote in the house. i'm sorry for screwing up your introduction and having a coughing fit which you have to sit through. >> thank you. >> tonight for the interview,

massachusetts senate candidate elizabeth warren is here. and best new thing in the world has been dually trumpeted. we did a good thing, it ended up. it ended up being a good thing. that's coming up. [ male announcer ] we imagined a vehicle that could adapt to changing road conditions. one that continually monitors and corrects for wheel slip. we imagined a vehicle that can increase emergency braking power when you need it most. and we imagined it looking like nothing else on the road today. then...we built it. the 2012 glk. see your authorized mercedes-benz dealer for exceptional offers through mercedes-benz financial services. how math and science kind of makes the world work. in high school, i had a physics teacher by the name of mr. davies. he made physics more than theoretical,

he made it real for me. we built a guitar, we did things with electronics and mother boards. that's where the interest in engineering came from. so now, as an engineer, i have a career that speaks to that passion. thank you, mr. davies.

olaf's pizza palace gets the most rewards of any small business credit card! pizza!!!!! [ garth ] olaf's small business earns 2% cash back on every purchase, every day! put it on my spark card! [ high-pitched ] nice doin' business with you!

[ garth ] why settle for less? great businesses deserve the most rewards! awesome!!! [ male announcer ] t spark business card from capital one. choose unlimited rewards with 2% cash back or double miles on every purchase, every day! what's in your wallet? well, last we checked in on massachusetts republican senator scott brown, he had just stubbed his tongue while trying to convince a radio interviewer he's working on a lot of serious

and important matters all the time. >> each and every day i have been in a u.s. senator i have been discussing issues meeting on issues in secret meetings with kings and queens and prime ministers and business leaders and military leaders, talking and voting and working on issues. >> secret meetings with kings and queens. that seems weird. didn't make him look like a bad guy. just made him seem sort of in over his head like someone who isn't really sure about what he's doing, trying to sound the way he thinks people who are sure of what they're doing sound when they're talking about things they're sure of. his communications team was kick quick to apply a soothing ointment to that. they offered a clarification. quote, senator brown was speaking generally about private meetings he has had with foreign and domestic leaders.

private meetings, not secret meetings. not secret meetings with kings and queens but private meetings with kings and queens. who are those kings and queens? later on that day, another missive from the senator's office. the second clarification, he misspoke when he said kings and queens. some days i bet being a spokes person is a really bad job. so no secret meeting, no kings and queens. massachusetts democrats did not let this go. and it turns out that it's not just pure partisan pleasure they're taking in mocking senator brown for this one wrong thing he misspoke about this one time. i mean, they're definitely taking partisan pleasure because they have set their ad to "dancing queen" by abba. but they're making a factual point that was frankly missed by everybody else including me who reported on the kings and queens thing. the thing they're bringing to the fore here is that he didn't

just say the kings and queens thing that one time when his office said he misspoke. scott brown says this all the time. >> kings and queens. >> the world leaders and business leaders, kings and queens. >> the kings and queens. >> so he didn't just misspeak and say the kings and queens thing once. he says it a lot. what's that about? i would love to ask him. i would love to interview senator brown and ask him about the kings and the queens and the lot of other stuff, but the senator does not share my desire for us to speak together. senator brown's opponent in this year's big election is elizabeth warren in massachusetts. and while where wait for the call that i fear will never come from the senator himself, the woman who could be in that senate seat as of next year, elizabeth warren, will be joining us for an interview

next. the president from interview: i talk to folks on rope lines and in coffee shops. people who have been out of work. you can tell it wears on them. narrator: he's fought to pull us out of economic crisis for three years. and he still is. president obama's plan keeps taxes down for the middle class, invests in education and asks the wealthy to pay their fair share. mitt romney and his billionaire allies can spend milions to distort the president's words. but they're not interested in rebuilding the middle class. he is. i'm barack obama and i constipated? phillips' caplets use magnesium, an ingredient that works more naturally with your colon than stimulant laxatives, for effective relief of constipation without cramps. thanks. good morning, students. today we're gonna continue...

new venus & olay. olay moisture bars help lock in moisture... while five blades get venus close. revealing smooth and goddess skin begins. only from venus & olay. like a ramen noodle- every-night budget. she thought allstate car insurance was out of her reach. until she heard about the value plan. see how much you could save with allstate. are you in good hands?

you walk into a conventional mattress store, it's really not about you. they say, "well, if you wanted a firm bed you can lie on one of those. we provide the exact individualization that your body needs. wow, that feels really good! once you experience it, there's no going back. hurry in now for our lowest prices of the season. save $300 to $1000 on selected sleep number bed sets. sale ends july 8th. only at the sleep number store, where queen mattresses start at just $699. this was a debate held in this year's republican presidential primary in new hampshire two days before they voted in their primary. it was sponsored by the manchester union leader newspaper. that same newspaper hosting the debate endorsed one of these candidates in the race, newt gingrich for the republican nomination. technically, while they were sponsoring this debate.

they had a horse in the race, they had endorsed one of the candidates. nobody much cared because that's kind of a normal thing about debates. here's a debate a couple months ago in the austin, texas, mayor's race. sponsored by the austin american statesman newspaper, which endorsed the older guy on the right there, the current mayor, the guy you just saw a second ago, him. this was a debate held in the 1994 massachusetts senate race between ted kennedy and a guy you might have heard of named mitt romney. that was sponsored by the boston globe and the boston herald. the boston globe endorsed ted kennedy that year. the boston herald endorsed mitt romney that year. the organizations that sponsor debates sometimes also endorse one of the candidates in the debates. it happens all the time. at every level of debating. this year in massachusetts, u.s. senator scott brown is running for re-election against elizabeth warren. before scott brown, the skeet in

the senate he currently holds now was held for decades by ted kennedy. asked to participate in a debate sponsored by the edward m. kennedy institute, scott brown decided there's a new rule for debates. he said he would not participate in that kennedy institute debate if anybody associated with the kennedy institute was going to make an endorsement in the race. now, he didn't just mean somebody who was going to be moderating the debate and asking the questions or anything like that. what republican senator scott brown insisted on rather is that the widow of ted kennedy personally be banned from making an endorsement in the senate race because she has an association with her late husband's institute. to be clear, there was never any indication she was going to be participating in the debate in any way or asking the questions or anything like that. just because she's associated with the institute named for her late husband, scott brown said he forbid her from making any endorsement in the election before the debate, after the debate, ever. all the way through to the

election. scott brown's condition for accepting that debate was a personal endorsement ban on the late ted kennedy's wife. if you didn't get that, he said that debate just wouldn't be fair. when ted kennedy's widow responded the way you think somebody would respond to something like that, scott brown said he would not participate in the debate, but he said he would like to do a debate on a conservative talk radio show in boston hosted by a man who said he is a personal friend of scott brown and his wife. so that's where scott brown is tonight. he's having a debate on a conservative talk radio show in boston hosted by his friend. and he's having that debate alone. joining us here now without scott brown is his opponent, elizabeth warren. she was scheduled for this interview before it was clear he would be debating himself alone tonight. so the timing, this frankly is all just a fun coincidence. thank you for being with us tonight. i appreciate it.

>> thanks, it's good to be here. >> has your campaign been able to sit down with senator brown's campaign and hammer out terms for debates? normally it doesn't happen in public. it's worked out out of the spotlight? >> i don't get how this would have worked out, but after i got the nomination three weeks ago, for the democratic nomination to run for the senate, the next monday morning, we sent e-mail to scott brown's office and said we got a lot of invitations for debates, let's sort them out, talk them through, and let's figure out how many debates we can do, where they'll be. let's be sure we get diversity all around the state, and they said, no. in i really mean this, they called me back and said no, i said, what do you mean, no? they said no, they won't talk about it. they won't even talk about the debates. so then scott brown's campaign manager started accepting some debates like this one you just

mentioned. and refusing others, and so the whole thing has been three weeks of kind of this public thing over debates. including the business around the kennedy institute. and including now two regional debates, one in worcester and one in new bedford that would involve important issues and he's said, no, not doing them. that's where we are. we have four television debates which i think is good, but it took a lot of effort to get them there, and i really genuinely wish we had more because there are a lot of issues we should be talking about. i genuinely wish we were going to be in central mass in and southern mass, and i think it's a mistake not to do that, but i think it's hard to debate alone. so there we are. >> scott brown attempted it tonight on his friend's radio show. and we listened in on the interview, and one of the things he said, he made some news, do we have the sound? we have the sound of this. he was asked about the vote -- due to happen tomorrow in the

house about attorney general eric holder. he called for eric holder's resignation. listen. >> attorney general holder, you can't effectively serve the president anymore. and for the best interest of the country, i feel he should step down and resign. and it's really -- he's lost the confidence of the american people. >> this is the first time i believe that scott brown has called for the attorney general to resign. what's your response to that and what's your take on that same issue? >> you know, just one more politician. i mean, this is really all about politics and playing this game in washington. and the republicans think they've got something here, and he's just seeing if he can turn up the temperature on it. i think this is why people get disgusted by politics. i think this is why people say, i don't want anything to do with it. you know, i go around the commonwealth here in

massachusetts and i meet with people, big groups of people, i ask, how many people in here are another out of work or have someone in your family, someone you love, care about, who is out of work. someone you know. hands go up all over the room. there were three jobs bills last fall, three jobs bills that would have supported jobs here in the commonwealth of massachusetts. scott brown voted against all three of them. we should be talking about that. we should be talking about why that happens. not playing political games. we should be talking about how kids are going to pay for college education. we should talk about accountability on wall street and whether or not jpmorgan and the kind of practices it still engages in put our economy at risk. there's really serious stuff on the table. and that's what it is we should be talking about. >> right now, in massachusetts, home sales are up. they're up for five straight

months now. they're up 35% over this time last year. is massachusetts into a solid recovery, and what is the most urgent federal policy matter that would help massachusetts further? >> well, home sales are up, but foreclosures are also up. there are a lot of people who are under water on their mortgages here in massachusetts. we had 47,000 people who have lost their homes since the beginning of the crisis in 2008. i look at it this way. massachusetts is recovering better than much of the rest of the country. and that's partly because we have made a lot of investments. in our people here in massachusetts. and trying to keep our infrastructure going so businesses can flourish and trying to help our kids get educated, but we can't do this alone. the country is in trouble and massachusetts still has a lot of work to do on the jobs front, on the education front.

on the infrastructure front. there's a lot we have to do here. >> in terms of national politics right now and the way that your candidacy has captured the imagination of a lot of progressives around the country, liberals have been excited about your candidacy, about the way you have talked about some economic issues, fairness on the tax code and things like that. one of the things everybody is on their seats about is what the supreme court is going to do tomorrow. it seems like the republicans think the supreme court is going to strike down health care reform and democrats seem to be worried that is going to happen. do you have a prediction, and how do you think the country should greet the potential striking down of health reform? what should we do next if that's what the supreme court does tomorrow? >> no, i don't have a prediction. i don't know what they'll do tomorrow. i have my own view that based on the legal precedence, it's clear that the affordable care act is constitutional. but whether or not five justices in the supreme court will decide that that's the case, i don't know.

you know, i want to use this, we're going to have to see what happens on affordable care before we figure out what the right thing to do is by way of response. but we need to use this moment to reflect on the importance of the supreme court and who sits on the supreme court. it's not so long ago that we had the citizens united opinion and saw just this week see it re-enforced that the same five justices are saying, hey, corporate interests can just take the electoral process by the throat and squeeze as hard as they want. you know, the supreme court is wading into really deep waters and they're doing it in ways that are -- i think that worries all, and it's a reminder that who sits in the united states senate to review those nominations to vote on those nominations, really does matter. and so i think this is -- it will be about the affordable care act tomorrow, but it will also be about the supreme court

tomorrow. >> elizabeth warren, there democratic candidate for senate in massachusetts. thank you for being with us tonight and good luck working out the debate schedule with your opponent. i appreciate your time. >> thank you. >> all right. >> scott brown, anytime. rachel@msnbc.com is my e-mail address. raise your right hand, repeat after me, i, state your name, pledge allegiance to mitt romney. you can do it with me now asking or with a republican official demanding it. that story is next. i, state your name -- i don't spend money on gasoline.

i don't have to use gas. i am probably going to the gas station about once a month. drive around town all the time doing errands and never ever have to fill up gas in the city. very rarely put gas in my chevy volt. last time i was at a gas station was about...i would say... two months ago. the last time i went to the gas station must have been about three months ago. i go to the gas station such a small amount that i forget how to put gas in my car. ♪ that i forget how to put gas this is new york state. we built the first railway, the first trade route to the west, the greatest empires. then, some said, we lost our edge. well today, there's a new new york state. one that's working to attract businesses and create jobs. a place where innovation meets determination... and businesses lead the world. the new new york works for business. find out how it can work for yours at thenewny.com.

sfx: sounds of marching band and crowd cheering sfx: sounds of marching band and crowd cheering so, i'm walking down the street, sfx: sounds of marching band and crowd cheering just you know walking, sfx: sounds of marching band and crowd cheering and i found myself in the middle of this parade honoring america's troops. which is actually quite fitting because geico has been serving the military for over 75 years. aawh no, look, i know this is about the troops and not about me. right, but i don't look like that. who can i write a letter to about this? geico. fifteen minutes could save you fifteen percent or more on car insurance.

what happens when classroom teachers get the training... ...and support they need? schools flourish and students blossom. that's why programs like... ...the mickelson exxonmobil teachers academy... ...and astronaut sallyide's science academy are helping our educators improve student success in math and science. let's shoot for the stars. let's invest in our teachers and inspire our students. let's solve this. >> we have a best new thing in the world coming up. [ male announcer ] every day, thousands of people

are choosing advil®. here's one story. i'm keith baraka and i'm a fire fighter. it's an honor to be a fire fighter. my job involves life or death situations and it's very physically demanding. if i'm sore, i have a headache, i'm not at my best. advil® is my go to. it's my number one pain reliever. advil® just works for me. [ male announcer ] make the switch. take action. take advil®. and if pain keeps you up, sleep better with advil pm®. [♪...] >> i've been training all year for the big race in chicago, but i can only afford one trip. and i just found out my best friend is getting married in l.a. there's no way i'm missing that. then i heard about hotwire and i realized i could actually afford both trips. see, when really nice hotels have unsold rooms, they use hotwire to fill them. so i got my four-star hotels for half-price!

>> men: ♪ h-o-t-w-i-r-e ♪ hotwire.com >> announcer: save big on car rentals too, from $12.95 a day. in november, most of the smart money says president obama should win new mexico with relative ease. but eight years ago in 2004 when george w. bush was running for re-election, new mexico was a battle ground.

as part of the republican effort of 2004 to win that swing state, then vice president dick cheney scheduled a big speech in albuquerque just a few months before election day. the point was to encouge them to come out and hear their president's message. you had to jump through one strange hoop. in order to get a ticket to attend that dick cheney event, you first had to sign a loyalty oath. an oath of loyalty not to the united states of america, but to george w. bush. the oath read, i, full name, do hereby endorse george w. bush for re-election of the united states. the grammatically challenged form warned anyone who signed the pledge they were consenting to use and release your name by bush/cheney as an endorsing of president bush.

what if you didn't want to sign it? what if you just wanted to hear what your vice president said? too bad. a couple months later in 2004 at a republican event in florida, a party official asked everybody in attendance to stand, raise their right hands, and recite a pledge of allegiance to george w. bush, not to the country but to that one person. in this loyalty oath, they were told to say i care about freedom and liberty, i care about my family, i care for my country. because i care, i promise to work hard to re-elect george w. bush. what do you think if democrats asked them to stand and pledge allegiance to barack obama. after the bush/cheney team left office, loyalty oaths have kept popping up with kind of surprising frequency. i know it sounds strange but it's true. just three months ago in april, the kansas republican party told

every republican in the legislature to sign a loyalty oath to their legislature's republican leadership. what the republicans have done is pledge an oath to a particular republican politician by name, by pledge allegiance to mitt romney. the most striking one of these was reported in massachusetts. they have seen the full mix of what to do with ronny supporters that took over the delegation to the national republican convention. massachusetts may be written on the's home state, t they took

that delegation over just as easily as they took it over in minnesota, nevada, iowa and all the other places. the ron paul takeover in massachusetts ruling republican party plans. not only exciting to have one of their own as the presidential nominee, but the republican leaders wanted to send a big group of big shots, candidates, former elected officials, cheering on the former massachusetts governor, mitt romney. those plants went away when it came time to choose the massachusetts delegates. it was the wrong paul disciples that did the work and got the votes. what is the massachusetts republican going to do? how can they replace these revolution with real republicans? two words, loyalty oaths. for the first time ever, they

demanded that they swear under penalty of perjury that they would support mitt romney's presidential nomination. take that ron pohl supporters. sure enough, the tactic worked. some were so horrified of what they were asking them to do that they said no, and that was how they cut some of the ron paul phillips, by using a pledge of louis legions. according to "the boston globe," they never mention the rules and have never been required of delegates in the past. no time like the present, right? you young people that decided to get engaged in public affairs for the first time, you may have gone and worked hard, and what you were not what the party had in mind. sole loyalty oath, pledge allegiance to your door -- dear leader were moved outf a way for those who will.

that's inspiring, right? shut the front door. right? woop-woop! franklin delano! [ male announcer ] hey! there's oreo creme under that fudge! oreo fudge cremes. indescribably good. but they can also hold you back. unless you ask, "what's next?" introducing the all-new rx f sport. this is the pursuit of perfection. yep. the longer you stay with us, the more you save.

and when you switch from another company to us, we even reward you for the time you spent there. genius. yeah, genius. you guys must have your own loyalty program, right? well, we have something. show her, tom. huh? you should see november! oh, yeah? giving you more. now that's progressive. call or click today. every communications provider is different but centurylink is committed to being a different kind of communications company. ♪ we link people and fortune 500 companies nationwide and around the world. and we will continue to free you to do more and focus on what matters.

thought they were dead. huh? [ male announcer ] should've used roundup. it kills weeds to the root, so they don't come back. roundup. no root. no weed. no problem. roundup. recently, students from 31 countries took part in a science test. the top academic performers surprised some people. so did the country that came in 17thlace. let's raise the bar and elevate our academic standards. let's do what's best for our students-by investing in our teachers. let's solve this.

thor's couture gets the most rewards of any small business credit card. your boa! [ garth ] thor's small business earns double miles on every purchase, every day! ahh, the new fabrics, put it on my sparkard. [ garth ] why settle for less? the spiked heels are working. wait! [ garth ] great businesses deserve the most rewards! [ male announcer ] the spark business card from capital one. choose unlimited rewards with double miles or 2% cash back on every purchase, every day! what's in your wallet? [ cheers and applause ]

like a ramen noodle- every-night budget. she thoughallstate car insurance was out of her reach. until she heard about the value plan. see how much you could save with allstate. are you in good hands? best new thing in the world today. all right. something that was wrong has been made right. two years ago, we went to louisiana so we could cover the deepwater horizon oil catastrophe. while we were there, i noticed that the website for the city of new orleans was cityofno.com, no., as in no. new orleans, if you went by the

web address, was the city of no.com. come on! anyone can see that new orleans is the city of yes. yes, we can recover from the oil spill. yes, sugar, we don't care where you're from, you must have a sazerac once in your life. sit down, read the label, put your show up until you are not afraid to dance, and then get up and dance and have a good time. dancing in the street, allowed and encouraged. new orleans is not the city of no. new orleans is the city of yes. now, by way of disclaimer, i should tell you that our show motto is that we try to increase the amou of useful information in the world. we are not out being activists, trying to fix everything in the world. we are just trying to explain the world. but because this whole show has an unnatural love for the city of new orleans, we decided that the city of no thing is a totally inappropriate web address for such a wonderful city. this thing, we decided, this wing, we could actually fix. so we bought the domain name, cityofyes.yes, and offered it to the city of new orleans free for

the taking. we bought the address cityofyes and we redirected to it their lousy web address at cityofno. it was the best we could do. a few months ago, new orleans got a new website with a new address, nola.gov, so city of no, no more. so it looks really cool. but we still had the matteof new orleans still being the city of yes, and us holding the web address for cityofyes. but the new orleans city web manager got in touch with us and asked if the city could please have it. they could bring it home to the rightful city of yes. and the answer is, yes, of course, yes, you can have it. beloved city of new orleans, you know own cityofyes.us, as you should. it is our gift. for the record, just to be safe, i should also tell you that we also still have

cityofheckyeah.com, and also have getyouroiloffourcoast.com, and we have set both of those to redirect to the city's website. and also, all right, there's one more, we also bought cityofhellno.com in case there's ever needed in new orleans. new orleans, if you want any of those, just holler, we are at your service and we've got your back online. but just having new orleans officially become the city of yes, which it has always been in the world and now is online, honestly, best new thing in the world today, and having been part of it, even bester. that does it for us tonight. we'll see you again tomorrow night. tomorrow will be a huge day in now it's time for "the last word with lawrence o'donnell." have a great night. tonight, no democrats are

complaining anymore about team obama using bain capital against mitt romney, because it's working. >> the american people understand, we're not going to make progress by going backwards. we need to go forwards. >> this morning, we've got a new poll. >> a new nbc news/"wall street journal" poll. >> the new nbc news/"wall street journal" poll -- >> where it's all about swing states and the base. >> president obama is ahea 47 to 34%. >> mitt romney can not get over that hump. >> his negative rating is back to his all-time high of 39%. >> what matters is the margin in those swing states. >> do you watch those swing states. >> colorado, florida, michigan. new hampshire, new mexico, north carolina. >> in those states, the president has widened his lead to eight points. >> 50 to 42%. >> the president is doing quite well. >> everybody thought mitt romney had a great june. according to this poll, he didn't have a great june. >> that's just like your opinion, man. >> excuse me, dude, i just want to point out, that is the nbc