we're dedicated to the full repeal and we ask you to join us to oppose its implementation. a quick note on that letter. that's not really how i remember the supreme court ruling because i remember them ruling the mandate is constitutional and the medicaid expansion is constitutional. but that the federal government can't take away all of the state's medicaid money if they don't participate in the new program. but it sounded different the way they put it. less constitutional and more it would make george washington cry a thousand tears. republicans are asking them to do in the letter doesn't amount to much at all. they're saying don't set up the health insurance exchanges which are the plaszs you go to buy the insurance, but if states don't set them up, the law said the federal government will set them up instead. don't set up the exchanges. let the obama administration do

it for you, which is maybe a pain for the obama administration, but eh, i have a hard time getting worked up about it. the one i do get worked up about is to get gop governors to refuse to participate in the medicaid expansion. now, they can do this. states don't to have participate in medicaid. it took arizona 20 years after the original medicaid program was set up to join in. and some gop governors have already said they're going to try to sit this one out, too. >> every governor has two critical decisions to make, one is do we set up the exchanges and secondly, do we expand medicaid. in louisiana, we're not doing either. >> that's bobby jindal saying his state is going to pass up on a sweet, sweet deal. worth spending a moment on this because it's important to understand why. there's something weird in the design of the affordable care act. something you wouldn't expect from the political care act. it's way nicer to red states than blue states.

the reason is the medicaid part. the medicaid part of the bill works like this. right now, states have a ton of leeway to decide who is and who isn't eligible for medicaid. texas, the they only cover adults at 26% of the poverty line. it's $11,170 a year. so you could be a single person making $3,000 a year and you're not poor enough to qualify for medicaid. that's part of the reason texas has the highest uninsured rate in the entire nation. in massachusetts, by contrast, they cover working adults up to 133% of the poverty level. this is due to a former governor whose name rhymed with smitt sromney. everyone making up to 133% of the poverty line, they get

medicaid automatically. right now, the federal government pays about 57% of medicaid's costs. states pick up the rest. and that's a good enough deal that every single state participates. in the affordable care act for the first three acts, the feds will cover 100% of the difference between wherever the state is now and where the law wants them to go 100%. after 2020, that drops a bit, but only drops to 90%. for every dollar the state puts in, the feds will put in $9. it's an incredible deal. the less you have been doing on medicaid so far, the more the federal government will pay on your behalf going forward. that gets to the irony of the health care law. they have done less than blue stalts to cover their residents, so they're going to get a sweeter deal under the terms of the affordable care act. a state like texas, they get a ton of money because there's a ton of gap to make up. a state like massachusetts, they get very little.

in fact, if you look at the ten states that will benefit the most from the medicate expansion, nine went for john mccain in 2008. if you look at the states that will see the smallest bumps in coverage, eight went for obama in 2008. one of the states that has promised to sit the medicate expansion out is south carolina. rob godfrey spokesman for nicky haley said, quote, we're not going to shove more south carolinians into a broken system that further ties our hands when we know the best way to find south carolina solutions for south carolina health programs is through flexibility that block grants provide. how are those working out? 19% of south carolina's residents are uninsured. that's well above the national average. the medicaid expansion in the new law would cut south carolina's insurance rate for those making less than 133% of poverty by 56%. wiped out in one go.

that's the fourth best deal any state in the entire nation would get under the affordable care act. the cost of that for the federal government between 2014 and 2019 is siggant, almost $11 billion. for south carolina, they'll pay less than $5 billion. in the short term, a rising star lie haley may have a reason to repeal that. one way to build a national profile is to win the gop's on-going, no, i'm the most antiobamacare politician contest. but that's not going to last forever, and governors have to answer to nonrepublican voters who don't want to miss out on billings and federal dollars and they have to answer to the hospitals who don't want to pay for the uninsurd patients who end up in the emergency room when the government is offering to pick up the tab, and they have to answer to the patients who have to compensate to pay for the people who the feds are willing to pay for instead. so if mitt romney loses this

election and republicans lose their last chance to repeal obamacare, their governors aren't going to hold this line for very long. they can't afford to. and when they finally do decide on the issue, they're going to have an easy argument with which to do it. say it's a way to stick it to the blue states thatobama back in office. joining us is former governor of vermont and a physical himself, howard dean. thank you for being here tonight. >> thank you for having me on. >> you state, vermont, has one of the highest rates of coverage in the nation, in large part due to lines you signed when you were governor and in part due to the medicaid provisions in the laws. so is this medicaid bill a good deal for vermont? >> not particularly, but we think universal health care is a human right. we had it for children for about 20 years using medicaid. but bill clinton gave us a waiver so we could do that, and

we also had guaranteed writing for about 20 years. we're pretty far ahead of the curb. massachusetts is the only state ahead of us thanks to governor romney. >> one thing i think about when we watch some of the fights from the outside is we tend to see party politics belter than interest group politics because it plays out in politics. we see governor nikki haley go on tv, but presumary, they're going to have health care providers streaming into their offices and particularly the hospitals, you have to take the money. you can't leave us out in the cold, right? >> souths carolina, when i was campaigning for president, i said this yesterday, when i was campaigning for president, we figured south carolina's gross domestic product would increase by 2% if they just had the same program that vermont did. not on lane does it insure a lot of people, but it boosts their gross domestic product. it raises every aspect of the state's economy.

texas, i don't care who the governor in texas is, they're going to take the money. $52 billion, and they have a really sophisticated network of hospitals, probably the third or fourth most sophisticated in the whole country. they're one of the real meccas of american medicine. if you think the governor, whoever it is, republican or democrat, is going to turn down $52 billion and not be eaten alive, you have another thing coming. there's a payment called a disproportionate share program that is made to statsz to help them pay for uncompensated care. with every state except louisiana, that payment disappears. these hospitals are going to take it on the chin and face a great medical establishes like texas are gointo be left to be second class citizens if the governor doesn't take the money and i think they will. >> i think they will. one argument they have made is sure, the law said it will match it 100%, but in two decades,

they could vote it down to 85% or 75%, and then the state is left holding the bag. how likely do you think that would be? >> look, in two decades, every nuclear power plant in texas could blow up. i don't see them getting rid of their nuclear power plants. if that happens. they deal with it when it happens. the truth is the governors when they pull together, which they used to do before 1994 and the republican revolution, governors are a powerful force in the country and the match has been very good. south carolina gets an 80% match. for nikki haley not to take that is gubernatorial malpractice. it is. that's a hell of a lot of money coming into a state that's not doing so well. the same with louisiana and mississippi and all of the states in the 40s and all of the indicators of child health and adult health and so on. it's a ridiculous thing to da. no reason for them to be in the position they're in, and with

the leadership in the governor's office, they wouldn't have to be with this program. i wallsant a big supporter of obama's bill, but it's the law of the land. we might as will work with it, and i'm willing to work with the parts i don't like. i think it's time the republicans grow up and start working with the parts they don't like. >> governor of vermont, howard dean, thank you for being here. >> thank you. ahead, the behind the scenes drama that led to last week's supreme court decision. we'll be joined with all of the details next. plus, because we don't mess around with small stuff here, we have a moment at the geek feemperring nothing less than the secret of the cosmos. at's still ahead. [ female announcer ] so how long have you been living flake-free with head & shoulders? since i should have been engaged...three christmases ago. since before...texting. since my grunge days. remember them? trying not to. [ female announcer ] head & shoulders. live flake free.

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so how are governor chris christie and bruce springston aleak. they're both from new jersey, that's one thing, and they're -- they're both -- they're -- this is coming up, but i'll keep thinking.

when supreme court justice john paul stevens retired in 2010 at the age of 90, the court lost its grand liberal leader. its republican appointed liberal leader. you see, justice stevens was appointed by president ford, and he did not become the leader by becoming liberal, by changing his opinions. the court moved so far right in his tenure that by the end of it, his moderate republican philosophy was liberal by comparison to everybody else serving with him. court watchers have been arguing recently that the skourlt is moving to the right.

and they have been documenting the shift literally for years now. the folks at mother jones did it in short form which is my favorite form. here's a really handy and dramatic one. the red line at the top, that shows conservative justices becoming more conservative over the years. that middle line in yellow, that's moderate justices also becoming more conservative or the years. and finally, that blue line at the bottom, that's liberal justices becoming more conservative or the years. and then last week happened. this super conservative court including the super conservative chief justice john roberts upheld a law that was unpopular among conservatives and suddenly everything seemed possible. the court watching pundit class thought maybe the court hasn't moved that far to the right. well, today, conrvatives from inside the court proved that it has. now, you need to know that leaks from the supreme court just about never happen. ever.

never, never ever, never ever ever. it's a notoriously secret institution. in fact, my colleague at bloomberg view is steven carter, was writing about how amazingly leak proof the supreme court is and how wouldn't it be better if there were more institutions like the supreme court where people didn't blab to the media all the time for political gain. right on cue, massive blabbing to the media from conservatives inside the supreme court justice. in fact, just about the first thing conservatives did after the ruling came down was leak to a reporter details of the decision making process, breaking the code of silence to tell cbs news that chief justice roberts initially really did want to overturn reform suggesting he may have bowed to pressure and changed his mind deciding to uphold the law and revealing, quote, at least one conservative justice tried to get him to explain his switch but was unsatisfied with the response. it was the conservatives' way of saying that no, no, we really

are that far right, and just so everyone is clear, john roberts totally agreed with us on everything and he didn't want to uphold the legislation and then he became a giant chicken and let the law stand. even in his opinion, he took painstaking care to say he agreed with the kifrbatives on everything except for a teeny, tiny, very narrow technicality on which he decided to uphold it, the question of whether it's a penalty or a tax, but he sided with the conservatives in terms of the big legal questions, the commerce clause and the unnecessary powers. he did about want to sdriek down entirely the most moving piece of social policy legislation to be enacted in this country in 40 years. now, this should not have been a 5-4 decision that was almost a 4-5. it should have been 7-2 or 8-1. before the oral arguments who argued before the court found only 35% expected the court to strike the mandate down.

after the oral arguments based on the line of questioning coming from the bench, it looked like the law would go down and there was a feeling in the professional court watching community that holy crap, we can't believer this is happening. a clearly constitutional law is going to be struck down based on politics. now, a survey of top constitutional law scholars found that 19 of 21 found the law was constitutional and should be upheld by the court. 19 of 21, but only 8 of 21 were confident that it would be upheld by the court. all that freaking out before the decision was handed down about how partisan and political and conservative the court has become, that is still a totally valid reaction to the court because the truth is it barely upheld health care reform and it only upheld it on really narrow ground, and the court's conservatives seem to be arguing by way of catty political leaking that it almost wasn't narrowly uphel that it was nearly struck down on a 5-4 vote and it would have been if john

roberts hadn't been such a scaredy cat. they didn't just want to strike down the mandate, they wanted to overturn the whole law based on the mandate. so no more affordable care act entirely, the entire thing goes. the maximalest option, no judicial restraint. they were going for it. the bottom line is if you were worried about the court before the health reform ruling, you should be worried about the cower today. joining us now is dolly elizabeth. thank you so much for joining us. >> hi there, thanks for having me. >> this report that pulls back the curtain on the supreme court's internal decision making built on leaks, this is pretty rare. were you surprised by the fact it came out at all? >> yeah, this was jaw dropping. i think almost everyone who reacted to this had the same reaction you did, which is this never, ever, ever, exponentially more ever happens.

there's a big, big story about the back room dealings of bush v. gore, but it happened four years later. for it to happen three days later is truly unprecedented. and as you said, quite extraordinary. >> now, this report is somewhat unique. it's an op ed. the reporter has a wonderful reputation, but you know the court very well. did the report ring true to you? >> it did. and jan crawford who wrote it for cbs is a phenomenal reporter. i don't doubt that what she said is true. the locution is interesting. she has access to quote sources with specific knowledge of the deliberations. so the locution is really fascinating. what rings true rings true. i do have the sense that only part of the story is bei told here, and any story that's being told by folks who quite palpbly have an ax to grind, one wants to hear what the other side has

to say. it's likely that chief justice john roberts assigned himself the opinion immediately after deliberations and the idea that he just started cooking up this opinion, you know, weeks into the case, just doesn't make sense because he didn't assign himself another opinion from that sitting. so i think that he was thinking all along he was either going to write for himself and the four conservatives over he was going to write something else, but the notion, as you said, he just chickened out, i don't think that's the whole story. >> and there was one thing that was really fascinating about it, a weird locution in justice scalia's dissent. they talk about roberts in a weird way or they don't talk about him at all. they don't refer to him in the majority. what they reported is that it wasn't a mistake and it wasn't because he flipped at the last minute. it was because they were so mad at himhey wanted it to appear

they stopped engaging. it was almost, they didn't think him worthy of debate and they didn't want to sign on to the parts they agreed with him. it was kind of a diss from the four on the right side of the court to roberts. >> that's right. and that part also was a head scratcher. you have the opportunity to have five votes to get together and get behind the chief justice's commerce clause necessarily and proper findings where. the idea that you put your hands over your ears and stomp your feet and say i'm going to deny him this because i'm so darn mad doesn't seem right. there are pieces we're not getting, and more fundamentally this is the problem, that we're having the conversation is the problem, because it is entirely speculative. it does have the effect of undermining the integrity of the court. we should be talking about the holding, and not about colonel mustard in the library with the lead pipe. >> dahlia, thank you for joining us tonight, and sharing your

wisdom on the court. >> thanks, ezra. the universe can be divided into two groups. those that know what the higs baas nn is and care whether humanity is locate it and those who do not. i will attempt to reconcile those two groups in a remarkable moment of geek coming up united states of america upheld the

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united states of america upheld the largest tax increase in american history. >> the largest tax increase in the history of the country. >> obamacare is the biggest tax increase in american history. >> what we now have is the biggest tax increase in the history of the world. >> in the history of the univer. >> you heard the parade of republicans calling the health reform law some variation of the largest tax increase in the history of life as we know it and every and the world and the universe. while we don't have the data to rule specifically on the history of the universe claim, who does? tonight, in chart imitates life, we could show you that it's not the biggest tax increase even in american history. not even close, really. the individual mandate which got republicans started on this whole kick is a tiny, tiny, tiny part of the health care bill. even when you're looking at the tax section, it's not the biggest or the second biggest or the third biggest tax increase in the health care bill. much less the biggest tax increase in the history of the

earth, but it has other taxes, a tax on costly insurance plans. let's say you add all of those together. where does it add up? here is the chart. it was drawn up by an economist. i have put it on my blog at the shington post this morning. it ranks the 15 biggest tax increases since 1950. the biggest increases are at the bottom. they're the long blue lines. the smaller tax increases are at the top. so counting up from the bottom, president obama's affordable care act also known as obamacare, comes in tenth. only the tenth biggest tax increase since 1950 in this one country that we live in. and it's about equal in size to president clinton's 1993 tax increase. and oh, here's something interesting, it's also about equal in size to george h.w. bush's 1990 tax increase.

and whoa, you know who signed an even bigger tax increase into law, president ronald reagan. his 1982 tax increase was about 42% bigger. reagan also cut taxes and indeed he did, he cut them big. much like obama did in the stimulus and then again in 2010 when he extended all of the bush tax cuts for two years and added more on top of that, and like he's promising to do again in 2012 when he said he would extend most of the bush tax cuts permanently. i n't think this is great. to be fiscally responsible in the country, we're going to need to do more than let the bush tax cuts expire. we have to get deficits under control, taxes have to stop being a dirty word and start being a part of budgeting. we need to have the numbers straight. the affordable care act is not the largest tax hike in history, in 50 years, 40 years, 30 years,

even 20 years and if you count the scheduled expiration in 2010 of the bush tax cuts, it's not even the largest tax hike written into law in the last ten years. while it does have some big tax hikes in it, the individual mandate, not one of them. multi-policy discount. paperless discount. paid-in-full discount. [yawning] homeowner's discount. safe driver discount. chipmunk family reunion. someone stole the nuts. squirrel jail.

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there is a pretty good chance that if you're watching this show tonight from a state like ohio or pennsylvania or iowa or florida, you just got done watching this ad during the past commercial break. >> running for governor, mitt romney campaigned as a job creator. >> i know how jobs are created, but as a corporate raider, he shipped jobs to china and mexico. as governor, he did the same thing. outsourcing state jobs to india. now, he's making the exact same pitch. >> i know why jobs come and why they go. >> outsourcing jobs. romney economics. it didn't work then and it won't work now. gr that is an ad being run in battle ground states across the country by the obama came pain. it's a reason they're running that particular ad and not some other ad.

the obama campaign more than any other campaign that has come before it prides itself not on priding itself on intuition. they rely on cold hard data. what that was telling them was hit romney on bain. sasha described the analytics process they go through when it comes to campaign advertising. >> they rely on an extensive ongoing marketing operation to discover which sliverers are the most responsive and to what messages. it offers imperically minded election ears an upgrade over the current regime of approaching voters based on hunches. they determined the bain attack would be the most effective thing they could do. they had nod counted on it would trigger such a backlash among democratic elites who live and fund raise around new york city and washington, d.c. they know private equity guys,

they know investors. they're their friends, their funders their campaign backers. so you may remember that about a month and a half ago, there was this great uproar in the democratic party about whether it was rise to attack him on his record an bain capital. cory booker and ed rendell began voicing their opinions publicly. that got a lot of media attention. the media began wondering and reporting about why the obama campaign couldn't get its message right. but there was always this question. were they tactically correct? there could be a big difference between what democratic elites want to hear and what resonates with actual voters in battleground states. so team obama had a genuinely important strategic decision to make. do they go with the feedback they were getting from the democrat, elites on this? do they back off the bain attacks? or do they go with their data?

the obama campaign decided to double down on their data and on the attacks. >> president romney's first 100 days for the people of iowa, fewer worries about their future. >> fewer wries the washington post has just revealed that romney's companies were pioneers in shipping u.s. jobs overseas. investing in firms that specialized in relocated jobs done by american workers to new facilities in low-wage countries like china and india. does iowa really want an outsourcer in chief in the white house? >> that decision now appears to be paying dividends. in battleground states across the country, the bain attacks appear to be taking hold. two months ago, romney held a slim 1-point lead. now, it's barack obama leading by four points. here's how the race looked in the great state of ohio two months ago. president obama was leading there but by a razor thin two point margin.

he has blown it open to a nine-point margin. what accounts for the sudden movement in swing states? here's the analysis from rick klein. over the last two weeks, even as the national polls have shown little movement in the race, something different has been happening in the battleground states. president obama has been pulling ahead. the gaps aren't huge, but taken together, the numbers strongly suggest the democratics' relentless attacks on romney's business record at bain capital have been taking a toll. a recent poll showed the same thing. when voters were asked if his record at bain capal made them feel more positive or more negative about him, 28% said it made them feel more negative compared to 23% who said it made them feel more positive. the numbers were much worse among voters in swing states. 33% said they felt more negative about mr. romney after learning about his record at bain compared to 18% who felt more

positive about him. according to the "new york times," even republicans feel the strategy is working. despite doubts among some democrats about the wisdom of attacking mr. romney's business career, obama commercials painting him as a ruthless executive who pursued profits at the expense of jobs are starting to make an impact on some undecided voters. they have indicated they have seen the ads or charges and they have raised questions inheir minds about mr. romney's experience. the obama campaign had a big decision to make about a month and a half ago when they faced the elites in their own party. stick with the bain attacks or back off. they decided to stick with them. so far, at least, they have been proven right. joining us now is my friend and colleague, the host of the aptly named alyssa harris parry show. also a professor at tulane and a columnist for the nation.

thank you for being here. >> nice to join you. >> i'm always struck by how quickly the campaign narratives shift. a month ago, all anyone seemed to be talking about whauz the strategic incompetence of the obama campaign. then the polls didn't go down for obama and now they seem to be going up, and now the strategy was brillant and was working and was a great idea all along. what's your take away here? >> everybody loves a winner. last week was a big winning week for president obama and for the obama administration, even bracketing the holder situion. the affordable care decision on the part of the supreme court gives president obama and the campaign a bit more swagger going into sort of midsummer here. i think the other part of it is it was always sort of the incomp tnls of the surrogates and in some ways, that story, the idea of surrogates not being able to stay on message is not the same thing of whether or not the campaign itself has the right

message. >> you know, the thing i think people figured was going to happen, the surrogates were getting the media coverage, and i quasi-thinking about it today. a poll showed that 41% of americans had no idea the supreme court ruled on health care. they didn't know. it didn't cross their radar? >> what world do you and i live in? >> that's my concern. it made me think about, you know, is anybody actually less well qualified to say what might work or not work with swing voters than the people who sit in chairs like this one who are following every piece and movement in the presidential campaign? it doesn't seem to me the gaffes and stories that obsess us in washington matter to ordinary voters at all. >> that's a critically important point. our job is to filter the news and try to think about all of the small elements that will impact the election, but you know, folks who are in the swing states, one of the things that is going on in the swing states is that unemployment rates are

not as bad as the national unemployment rate. hitting president obama on are you better off today than four years ago is not going to work for the romney campaign in those states in the way it will in the much harder hit states. and conversely, president obama being able to stay, look, this guy isn't going to do for you what i have done, kind of make things better in your home state. he's going to make things worse. he's going to take the jobs you finally started to see recovery and take them and send them out outsourcing narrative. but we have to remember that it's still a long way until both the conventions and ultimately the fall. i think the real issue isn't what goes on on television, it's what happens in the head-to-head debates where they ged to make their case and really sort of stand up in front of the american people and explain why they think the other guy is no good. >> right, i think it's always important to remember at this time in 1992, bill clinton was

behind both george h.w. bush and ross perot. melissa harris-perry, host of the melissa harris-perry show right here on msnbc, thank you for being here. >> thank you. >> one downside to being a rock star if there is a downside to being a rock star, and they can't choose their fans. for every bruce springsteen, there are thousands of chris christies. who is really the boss in new jersey?

on friday, the show reported the state of mississippi was on the verge of effectively banning abortion by way of a new law about to shut down the only clinic in the entire state. the law added reg ygzs for the one clinic that other types of clinics do not have to follow. in particular, they required doctors at the clinic to have admitting privileges to the hospital. the owner of the clinic told us her doctors have applied but not one has said yes. with the law taking effect on

sunday, the clinic faced a choice of shutting down or breaking the law. unless the federal court stepped in. hours before the clinic was supposed to open this morning, a federal judge blocked the law. he issued a temporary restraining order until july 11th when they hear arguments for a permanent injukz. he wrote, plaintiff has offered evidence that the act's purpose is to eliminate abortions in mississippi. no safety or health concerns motivated the passage. because it is on videotape. >> we're going to continue to try to work to end abortion in mississippi, and this is an historic day to begin that process. >> our goal needs to be to end all abortions in mississippi.

i believe the admitting privileges bill gives us the best chance to do that. >> we have literally stopped abortion in the state of mississippi. and of course on the other side, they're like poor, pitiful women. and that's what we've decided to do. >> have to start somewhere. the federal government, meanwhile, decided that roe versus wade still applies in mississippi, at least for now.

it's hot outside on the east coast, it's really hot, actually, and you could understand people being a little short tempered. if it's new jersey governor chris christie, you could more or less set your watch by it. >> on monday, are you going to be addressing the legislature? >> did i say on topic? are you stupid? on topic. on topic. next question. good. thank you -- thank you all very much. and i'm sorry for the idiot over there. take care. >> whoo. for those of you keeping track at home, that was republican governor chris christie's umpteenth public fit since taking off. youtube is peppered with the new jersey governor telling people off, informing people that he is the governor and they can shut up while he talks. he's gone after teachers like that, a student like that, a policeman. it's also very macho and brusque and christie loves doing it and his supporters love doing it. this is christie's other great love, bruce springsteen, the dirt farmer of the garden state.

from his early days as a republican contender, christie's love of springsteen has been a way of showing people that he, chris christie, is just like the rest of yous, with dozens and dozens and dozens of springsteen ticket stubs to prove it. but he says he was meditating on the deep the meaning of springsteen's music. you know what, i believe that. christie is a true springsteen fan. he probably was meditating on it. but the sad part, the part with pathos in it is that christie does love springsteen an awful lot, but springsteen does not love christie back. jeffrey goldberg writes about it in this month's "atlantic." despite heroic efforts by christie, springsteen, who is still a new jersey resident, will not talk to him, at concerts, even concerts at club-sized venues, springsteen will not acknowledge the governor. when christie leaves a springtine concert in a large

arena, he walks within feet of the stage and of the dressing rooms. he's never been invited in to say hello. so sad chris christie. this spring, christie begged bruce to meet him in atlantic city. he's begging springsteen to come play there to celebrate the opening of a new casino. tell me this sounds like anything other than kind of injured begging with an overlay of rationalizing and bargaining. >> i would make a direct plea to bruce right now, i think, you know, he's missed out on the opportunity to open this place, because beyonce has picked up the mantle on that. but i really think, you know, when he gets off of the summer part of his tour, he doesn't have anything announced yet for labor day weekend. i think labor day weekend at revel for bruce springsteen would be an incredible show of support by bruce for his home state. >> bruce springsteen is not listening to governor christie. and for all that governor christie tries to guilt trip his unrequited love and say the boss

should play at atlantic city for the middle class, for all that springsteen's rejection is grounded in mr. christie's politics. springsteen's hero is a person who says the first kick he took was when he took the ground and he ends up like a dog that's been beat too much, until he spends half of his life just covering up. springsteen gave us the world, born in the usa, and also the streets of philadelphia. springsteen has been calling for new jersey to legalize marriage equality for years now. and when the legislature finally voted to do that, christie vetoed it and said the state should hold a referendum instead. last year christie stripped union rights and cut the benefits of state workers, and last week, governor christie cut tax credits for the working poor along with aid to cities and schools and health care. bruce springsteen is not the guy who is impressed with the guy who berates teachers and students and reporters and policemen at town halls. using your power to bravely stand up to the little guy is not really a major springsteen theme.

so no, governor christie, mr. springsteen seems unlikely to go down to the river with you, or the shore, or raise a that la la for your cause. but if you see the ghost of old tom joy around the governor's mansion, perhaps you'd get his autograph. it's worth asking.

here's a joke. a higs works into a catholic church. the priest says, we don't allow higs in here. he says, without me, how can you have mass? get it? he says, without me, how can you have -- get it? no. the joke there is a play on the two different means of mass. that's a bad way to start this. let's start over. right now physicists are trying to explain the universe by using what is called the standard model. this equation is a standard model.

you can learn more about it on an invaluable youtube channel called minute physics. but because fist physicists work with teeny, tiny, itty-bitty stuff, it's hard to confirm their ideas. some of you went on to learn about corks, that have the best name of all the particles. but there are lots more of the teeny, tiny, itty-bitty thing out there and they can only be predicted by mass. this is how physicists work now. physicists come up with equations that seem to describe the way we know the world works, and inside those equations, we learn about the parts of the world that we didn't know were there and how they work and then we hope that some day, some future group of humans with machinery more impressive than what we have will be able to check whether we were right. in 1964, a physicist by the name of peter higgs came up with the idea that there was a kind of cosmic molasses in the universe that we, of course, cannot see, but helps matter stick together

to form things like atoms. how it does that, theoretically, mas for terrible television, so i'm not going to tell you. but the particle they're interested in is called the higgs bozon, which has a fancy nickname, the god particle. but some physicists call it the goddamn particle, because as they say, it is so goddamned hard to find. some physicists are trying to recreate the conditions that existed right after the big bang what now upnto even ittier and bittier particles. scientists are creating millions of collisions a second and analyzing crazy amounts of data for evidence that the higgs bozon is alive and well.

this weekend, the scientists heading the two biggest hunt for the higgs bozon will present their latest findings, and today work is leeking out in every corner of the internet that they are going to say that they have found it, or at least they found something that could be it. so while for most of us the fourth of july means fireworks, for a physicist and their physics friendly, the fun will be oohing and awing over a very different kind of spark. that does it for us tonight. you can check out my work at wonkblog.com or follow me on twitter at twitter.com/ezraklein, and on facebook, facebookom/ezraklein. now it is time for "the last more than a million people without power. there she blows. a world war ii naval ship is sent to its final resting place

off the coast of florida. >> and rockets red glare. the sun unleashes a solar display just in time for the fourth of july. good morning to you. this is "first look" on msnbc. we begin this morning with a mid-atlantic meltdown. in the middle of a stifling heat wave more than a million people are still without power this morning. crews are working feverishly to restore electricity. officials warn it may still be out for several more days raising fears the death toll now at 22 could continue to rise. >> reporter: washington, d.c. on day three of the massive power outage. it's another scorcher. and still no air conditioning for a million households