month when the president led romney by eight points in the swing states. today, mitt romney made presidential campaign history. he is the very first vietnam war draft dodger who urged other men his age to go to vietnam instead of him. he is the first one of that particular rare species of vietnam draft dodger to speak to the veterans of foreign wars as a presidential candidate. romney did not begin his speech with an apology or explanation for his draft dodging, nor did he include an apology to the veterans of foreign wars for saying that his sons didn't need to consider joining the military during wartime because they were serving their country by hanging around with dad while he campaigned for president in 2008. instead, mitt romney simply lied about the commander in chief. >> in dealings with other

nations, he has given trust where it is not earned, insult where it was not deserved, and apology where it is not due. i am an unapologetic believer in the greatness of america. >> foreign policy happens to be one of the six issues that president obama leads mitt romney on, according to the new nbc news poll. the president also leads romney on which candidate would better handle afghanistan, as well as health care, medicare, taxes, and immigration. mitt romney does have a lead over the president on one of the seven issues polled, dealing with the economy. today, the republican party continued its campaign of lies against the president. >> if you've got a business, that -- you didn't build that. somebody else made that happen. >> the republican national committee is responsible for the content of this advertising. >> here, once again, and

possible not for the last time, is what the president actually said. >> somebody helped to create this unbelievable american system that we have, that allowed you to thrive. somebody invested in roads and bridges. if you've got a business, that -- you didn't build that. somebody else made that happen. >> today, team obama released this ad in six swing states. >> those ads, taking my words about small business out of context, they're flat-out wrong. of course americans build their own businesses. every day hardworking people sacrifice to meet a payroll, create jobs, and make our economy run. and what i said was that we need to stand behind them, as america always has, by investing in education and training, roads and bridges, research and technology. >> joining me now, msnbc's krystal ball and chris cillizza. he is the author of request "the gospel according to the fix: an

insider's guide to a less than holy world of politics". that's in stores now. let's listen to rush limbaugh's take on taking president obama out of context. >> there's no taking obama out of context. in context, obama's mad. in context, he's mad -- you didn't do anything on your own! who do you think you are! you're no smarter than anybody else! there's a resentment for achievement. there is a resentment for success. it is a resentment for success and achievement that all intellectuals feel toward capitalism. >> krystal, there's a very mad rush limbaugh accusing the never-mad barack obama of being mad about, i don't know what, exactly. but that the republican party has aligned itself with the rush interpretation of, hey, you never need context, just use any words you want at any time. >>, grab anything you can

possibly use in a political context, no matter if it's what he actually said, no matter if he was quoting john mccain, it really doesn't matter if it benefits us political. i mean, that's the mentality. and the thing that i think is strange here is the concept that we benefit as a nation from our institutions, from our infrastructure, from having an education system. that's not a particularly controversial concept. but i feel like republicans have taken a sort of basic understanding that we used to have in this country about the fact that those things are good, about the fact that when we pledge, when we decide to spend money and we have to increase the debt ceiling, that's what we're going to do. about the fact that, yes, we should have a department of education. they've taken all those things that we used to kind of have a common understanding about, and said, you know, we don't agree with that, and just sort of thrown out that old understanding. and that's what's so strange to me about this, is, we're all scratching our heads going, yes, tax cuts decrease revenue.

this basic understanding seems to be lost among them. >> okay, let's dig deeper into the nbc news poll that's just been released, especially the positive negatives. we have president obama with a 49 positive rating and a 43 negative. that's his highest negative so far. mitt romney a 35 positive and a 40 negative. >> ouch. >> that is a net negative. chris cillizza, the republicans have never had a nominee that has had a net negative rating like this. that means bob dole's rating was better than this, john mccain's rating was better than this. here's mitt romney with a rating that we've literally -- we've never seen this in our politics before. >> lawrence, and i would also add, it's not new. romney, since becoming the nominee, even before becoming the nominee, has struggled with the fact that his unfavorable ratings were higher than his favorable ratings. i would point at that poll, though, both of them with unfavorable ratings in the 40s.

look, people always say, this campaign, these negative ads, they don't work. they do, in fact work. you can see it by those numbers. 43% of the public views the president of the united states unfavorably. 40% views mitt romney unfavorably. negative ads do work. what we have seen over the last 2 1/2 months is basically a political slap fight, for lack of a better word. i would like to think that after aurora, colorado, we might see something different, but i don't want to sound the cynical note, but we will not. this will be business as usual, again. i will sound cynical. >> pause it works! >> it does, in fact, work. i think what we're headed toward here, looking at those numbers and looking at the tenor of the campaign over the last 2 1/2, 3 months, i think we're looking toward a kind of lowest common denominator, you know, race to the bottom campaign, where it's similar to '04, where you're going to see a very narrow margin no matter who wins, and both sides are going to come out of this with voters really having a bad taste in their

mouth about them, which is about the worst thing possible for democracy, but i think where we are looking at that poll and looking at where i think it tells you where we're going to had, that's where we're headed. >> and it's also a campaign about energizing the base, which i think is another parallel there, where these sorts of nasty campaigns tend to turn off more independent voters, and they're really about energizing your side, and going back to that rush limbaugh clip that you played earlier, lawrence, i me, that's feeding into that same get people riled up, so that they'll turn out. >> and just very quickly, lawrence and crystal. one other thing to note is just the tiny sliver of people, an nbc/"wall street journal" poll, a tiny sliver of people are actually undecided. you're going to see $2 billion, probably more, spent at the end of the day on 5% to 6%, maybe, of the population. it's not even that much, because we're talking about eight to ten swing states where all that money's going to be spent. i would like to see how much money is ultimately spent

per-undecided voter. >> chris, i always watch the negatives in polls. i feel that they usually tell you more than what the positives do about the polls, and that's why i've been so fixated on mitt romney's negatives and the fact that he's in a net negative position, which is something we've never seen before. i mean, it's a worse condition than anything we've seen. it's pretty normal in our past elections for the candidates to the each have a negative about 40 by the time you get down to that general election voting, but we've run them up this time around sooner than we have in the past. they haven't reached these levels quite this early in the campaign before. and i guess that's because we haven't seen all of this kind of negative campaigning this early in the campaign. but is it possible, i mean, just as a math exercise, would you ever bet on a candidate who had a net negative, where his positive was 35 and his negative was 40? there's nothing that could get me to bet on one of those

candidates. >> i understand that calculation. i think it's worth noting. but let me just postulate this, lawrence, i would not, in any campaign, if you gave me two candidates and you said one is under water, in the parlance of kind of politics, that their unfavorable is higher than their favorable, i would say that person normally loses, except when there is a single dominant issue on which the other candidate is is struggling. at some point, mitt romney has to make an affirmative case for himself. there is no question about that. the likes of eric cantor, john boehner. they have all said, he can't just win by saying he's not barack obama. but i would say that he can get darned close to winning in an economy like this, where you have a majority of people who don't believe president obama has handled the economy well. he can get darned close to winning with a pure negative message, because it's about barack obama, not about lawrence -- not about lawrence o'donnell? >> it's really about lawrence o'donnell, is the bottom line. >> -- not about president obama. >> krystal, do you think it's possible for someone with a net negative like that to win the presidency in november?

>> i don't. and the other thing here is, yes, it's about the economy, no question about it, but there's also another piece here, which is concern about the middle class. and one thing that also came out in this poll is a lot of deep concern about the middle class and the future of the middle class and on that issue, president obama is very strong. and just quickly, one other thing that sort of grabbed me is they asked the the question, do you -- is there anyone out there who doesn't like the president, but likes his policies? there was nobody who fell into that camp, essentially, for the president. but there were quite a few people, 12%, who said they don't like mitt romney, but they like his policies. and it's just hard for -- it seems like a very strange place for a human to be, to be pulling the lever on election day with a guy that they really actually don't like. >> chris cillizza, author of "the gospel according to the fix" and krystal ball, thank you both for joining me tonight. >> thanks, lawrence. coming up, it's the bat crap crazy wing of the republican

party against what's left of the establishment wing of the republican party. michele bachmann versus john mccain. and newt gingrich has picked his side. and later, you'll meet the man trying to bring sanity to the sixth congressional district in minnesota by running against michele bachmann. and in the "rewrite," the biggest lie the nra tells is about freedom. whoa, look at all those toys.

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the campaign of secrets and lies has a lot more secrets than we thought. it turns out the records of mitt romney's period running the olympic games have been destroyed. big, big surprise, huh? well, now we might never know exactly how much work he was doing for bain while he was running the olympics. the reporter who broke that story joins me next. and a "last word" exclusive. the anti-bachmann. the candidate who's trying to end the reign of crazy in the

sixth congressional district in minnesota. that's coming up. you know what i love about this country? trick question. i love everything about this country! including prilosec otc. you know one pill each morning treats your frequent heartburn so you can enjoy all this great land of ours has to offer like demolition derbies. and drive thru weddings. so if you're one of those people who gets heartburn and then treats day after day,

block the acid with prilosec otc and don't get heartburn in the first place. [ male announcer ] one pill each morning. 24 hours. zero heartburn. in addition to his secret tax returns, foreign bank accounts, and his questionable retirement for bain capital, mitt romney is now hiding the facts about something else. he used to claim to be proud of that something else. "the boston globe" headlined today, romney's '02 olympics short on transparency, despite pledge, records destroyed. the article says mitt romney

promised complete transparency when he took charge of the olympic olympics, a pledge that included access to his own correspondence and plans for extensive public archive of documents related to the games, but now archivists say now most key records about the games internal workings were destroyed under the supervision of a staffer shortly after the flame was extinguished at olympic caldron park, after romney had returned to massachusetts. of course, when the romney campaign was asked to explain, once again, it all came down to when did mitt resign? "mitt romney resigned from sloc in early 2002 to run for governor of massachusetts and was not involved in the decision making regarding the final can disposition of records." joining me now, cal borger is one of the writers of the "boston globe" article and david corn, washington bureau chief for "mother jones" magazine and

an msnbc contributor. cal, what could we have expected to learn from the records of the olympics that would be somehow helpful to the presidential campaign, helpful to our understanding of mitt romney's resume, helpful to our understanding of his interaction with bain, when he was at the olympics? >> well, the biggest thing was one that you mentioned, lawrence, which would give us maybe some idea of whether he retained some more involvement with bain capital than what we know right now. something like his personal calendar, or some of his personal correspondence, e-mails, those sorts of things. it might have given us some idea of whether he was sort of juggling two positions or whether he was really focused entirely on the olympics, as he has claimed. >> david corn, a big surprise, another mitt romney enterprise, and all the records that we'd like to look at tonight are missing. >> it's shocking, isn't it? who would have thought? who could have guessed? who would have speculated?

in your wildest est est imagination, you could not conceive of this, right, lawrence? well, it happens that just a few days ago, we at mother jones put together a list of things that mitt romney is hiding. and that includes not just the olympic records, but also his bundler s s s bundlers. his e-mails and correspondence while he was governor. they were destroyed. in fact, he had his own people buy their own hard drives and put them god knows where so there was though way you could access them afterwards. even letters s s between him and his dad seem to be missing from the george romney archives. and of course, don't forget those tax returns, his offshore tax havens, and his i.r.a. so there's a lot that he's hide hiding. so the olympic flame doesn't cast much light anywhere on mitt romney's past. >> and then there's the question of, who profited from the olympics? there's a lot of contractors, there was a lot of money made in the olympics. there's a lot of money raised for it. and they attack -- you know, they like to attack president

obama for what they call crony capitalism, but the state of utah spent $59 million, the federal government spent $342 million in direct aid, another $1 billion in indirect aid, infrastructure, city improvements, road building, road improvements. and we now, cal, those e-mails, those, you know, thank you, mitt, for the contract e-mails, would be awfully interesting to look at today. >> yeah, potentially. i mean, obviously, mitt romney's connections that he had at bain capital was one of the reasons why he was such a good ceo for the olympics. i mean, remember, they were really embroiled in this huge bidding scandal, in which members of the salt lake city bid committee had given cash bribes among other things to ioc members, to try to lure the games to salt lake in the first place. that was a big clout and a lot of sponsors were either backing out or unwilling to chip in some money in the first place, so mitt romney was able to use some

of his business connections to make that happen. the question that some folks have, though, is whether some of the companies that signed on as sponsors then got business after the fact, and if mitt romney was on the board, did he benefit personally from that? does that constitute a conflict of interest? some of those relationships may have gained a little bit extra light if these documents had not been destroyed. >> and david corn, mitt romney has said that as he was gazing out at the mountains in utah, he was thinking about, where should i run for office? should i run in utah? should i run in massachusetts? and here he is, dealing with these contractors doling out millions of dollars to them. surely, he might be thinking about, oh, what about fund-raising for these campaigns? who among these contractors might want to contribute to me? >> there could be lots of -- i'm not saying anything illegal, but shady connections. there are stories that have come out about no-bid agreements that he pushed through, you know, there's the question whether

some of that infrastructure money was taken advantage of for people, for not -- for purposes that went beyond the olympics. and, of course, he has said in the past that he didn't take any advantage, he only took -- he only sought federal funds for terrorism and anti-terrorism and security measures, after 9/11. but it really seems like he was going, you know, the whole hog in trying to get the federal government to come in and pay for a lot of this stuff, some of which might not have been used entirely properly. >> before we go, we have to listen to this promise mitt romney made in 2000. he said this at the national press club, talking about exactly these records. >> our board meetings and committee meetings are open. the press attends all of them. and for that matter, all the documents inside our organization are available to the public. is simply submit a form saying which documents you want. for instance, i want to see all the letters written by mr. romney to mr. samarage. you'll get them all. it takes us about 20 days to have the people go through and

get those things, but we collect them and provide them to any citizen who wants to have them. ethical conduct. >> cal, you tried to get them and they weren't there. how surprised were you when you started digging on this one? >> well, what we found, lawrence, were some correspondence between the salt lake organizing committee and some reporters at the time, who were trying to get their hands on some documents. many of their requests were accommodated just fine, but in other cases they were denied access to documents that they believe should have been covered by the open records policy. now, remember, this was not a public body, so they're not actually subject to public records laws. the organizing committee could withhold legally anything they chose, but mitt romney had promised to operate wide out in the open. and another thing too that a lot of reporters seem to have had some trouble with was the cost associated. so when you wanted to look up some documents, it cost $25 per hour for a researcher, so that became quite an expense in some cases.

>> cal borchers and david corn, thanks for joining me tonight. >> sure thing. >> a pleasure. coming up, michele bachmann has gone too far for the republican establishment and now it's bachmann versus john mccain. and guess whose side newt gingrich is on? and in the "rewrite" tonight, the nra continues to fight for freedom. the freedom for american mass murderers to not have to reload before firing a hundred bullets. [ man ] ever year, sophia and i

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>> tonight's episode of "off the cliff cliff!" stars jackie in santa clarita, california, calling into c-span to talk to congressman chris van hollen. >> my biggest question is, with the grover norquist tax thing and going over the cliff, if he's ever watched lawrence o'donnell on msnbc, he's encouraging everyone to go over the cliff, because that will do away with the bush tax cuts and then everybody will be able to vote to lower the tax rates like grover norquist likes. could you talk about the idea of

going over the cliff, as being a good idea? >> with respect to the fiscal cliff, what we've said is that we prefer to act now, but republicans hold the keys to this lock in their hands. as soon as they decide not to hold the 98% hostage to the 2%, we can move forward. it's true that at the end of this year, by law, all those tax cuts expire. and so you'd be sort of starting from a new base line. you'd be starting from scratch. but i should just emphasize, again, we hope we don't get to that point. >> great work by jackie in santa clara, calling c-span this morning. and we have some new designs for our off the cliff campaign buttons. nicholas smith from glendale, california sent us two versions of his button. benjamin pendleton from

spotswood, new jersey, sent us these. and john of albany, new york, sent us this one with the thelma and louise touch. for an explanation of what happens if our government goes off the cliff on new year's eve, you can go to our website, thelastword.msnbc.com. coming up, team bachmann calls john mccain numbnuts. the republican party's having some big problems uniting before their convention. whose side is mitt romney on? numbnuts or the bat crap crazy side? and in the "rewrite," how wayne lapierre and the national rifle association support the freedom of american mass murderers to use the weapons of their choice over your freedom to pursue life, liberty, and happiness. [ kyle ] my bad.

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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. look at the skirmishes with these five members of congress, who ask a very practical question. what is the impact of the muslim brotherhood in the u.s. government?

>> do you share that concern? >> absolutely. >> and so newt gingrich has once again decided to align himself with the bat crap crazy wing of the republican party and its out-of-control leader, michele bachmann. so far, it's newt, michelle, and four republican house members, trent franks, louie gohmert, and lynn westmoreland against the speaker of the house of representatives, john boehner, the house intelligence committee chairman, mike rogers, and senators john mccain, lindsey graham, marco rubio, and a number of other republican lawmakers. here's senator mccain speaking for the establishment republicans. republicans. >> to say that the accusations made in both documents are not substantiated by the evidence they offer is to be overly polite and diplomatic about it. it is far better and more accurate to talk straight. these allegations about huma abedin and the report from which

they are drawn are nothing less than an unwarranted and unfounded attack on an honorable citizen, a dedicated american, and a loyal public servant. >> joining me now, karen finney, former dnc communications director and msnbc political analyst, and sam stein, political editor and white house correspondent for the "huffington post." karen, this is the time when the republican party comes together, where they hold hands and sound united and sing the same tunes on the way to their convention, except, of course, for former presidential candidate, who actually thought she was going to be the nominee of that convention, michele bachmann. and then crazy former candidate newt gingrich sides with the crazies, and things are looking messy for that convention. >> yes, indeed, they are. and i have to tell you, lawrence, it's good to see some of these republicans come out and be very forceful against

what michele bachmann has had to say, but i am going to enjoy watching other republicans have to distance themselves from those remarks, or associate themselves with those remarks, because, i mean, as you said, i mean, it is really out of line, what she said. and particularly, to make that kind of comment about someone who is in a position where she can't really fight back for herself, not to mention, as i mentioned in a column that i wrote this week, it actually has now spread to -- i mean, this is part of the reason that the secretary of state's motorcade was pelted with shoes and tomatoes. so it's not just playing nasty otherness, you know, xenophobic politics here in the united states. but there's now also an implication abroad and it's a danger to the united states. >> well, crazy louis goemert was on a radio show today. >> well, it's obviously that john mccain didn't even read the letter because of what he said in accusing michelle and us of making these horrible allegations. well, no, there were five

letters and there were many things that are stated that are facts in each letter. and i wish that some of these numbnuts would go out there and read the letter before they make these horrible allegations about the horrible accusations we're making. >> sam stein, whose side is mitt romney going to pick? numbnuts' side or those, louis gom earth's side. >> this is clearly one of those distractions that the mitt romney campaign would love nothing more than just to go away. the problem is, there is a faction within the republican party, including some respected names within republican circles. i mean, newt gingrich is a little bit dated, but he still was a possible presidential candidate. i mean, these people are latching on to the theory.

i read john bolton, an informal adviser to the romney campaign, gave it a little credence today. so it's not like these are just strictly, you know, fringe conservatives lack latching on here, we're having some legitimate names. and if you're mitt romney, you have to go out and they will these people, please, let this recede into the sunset, let's not talk about this. and it doesn't help my campaign at all. >> karen, who of those who lost to mitt romney can be allowed near a microphone at the republican convention? >> not a single one. because as we know, donald trump is in bat crap crazy camp, because he, as you know, is mr. birther, which is the same kind of otherness, silliness that we see here. i can't think of anyone who's

not going to have something crazy to say, or something that as sam points out, is going to be a real distraction from what mitt romney wants to say. but on a serious note on some of thesis comments with with, i mean, remember that newt gingrich was also talking about the fear of the spread of that sharia law in this country. and we've seen a number of states that have actually, thanks to frank gaffney's madness, introduce laws banning sharia laws in their state. so there is a part of the republican party and conservative who akin to believe some of these things. so we all think it's crazy, but there is a real dog whistle element to this that i think we should not let these guys off the hook on. because it's just completely inappropriate. >> i think of the former candidates, tim pawlenty can still stand up there without embarrassing them. and if they'd keep rick perry on the prompter, come on, that can work. karen finney and sam stein, thank you both very much for joining me tonight. >> thanks, lawrence. coming up, in a "last word" exclusive, the man who's running against one of the craze iest

members of congress in history. can he beat michele bachmann? and the head of the nra supports a mass murderer's freedom to shoot over your right to life. that's in the "rewrite." hey, babe. got the jetta. i wiped the floor with the guy! not really. i would've been fine with 0% for 36 months, but i demanded 60. no...i didn't do that. it was like taking candy from a baby. you're a grown man. alright, see you at home. [ male announcer ] the volkswagen autobahn for all event. we good? we're good. [ male announcer ] at 0% apr for 60 months, no one needs to know how easy it was to get your new volkswagen. that's the power of german engineering. with the spark cash card from capital one,

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in tonight's "rewrite," freedom. the defenders of movie theater mass murderers' right to use 100-round ammunition clips on their assault rifles, insist that the hundred-round clip is the very definition of american freedom. wayne lapierre, the blood-drenched lobbyist who diverts $1 million of national rifle association dues to his own income every year never mentions hundreds-round ammo clips in his stirring speeches, but does mention freedom a lot. >> we, the majority, see the soul of the nation, of our individual freedom, and we see it on the brink of being destroyed, and gun owners are answering the call, all across this country, to fight back. to save america.

>> the nra's mouthpieces in congress insist that it's all about freedom. >> it's really an issue of freedom. >> and you know that whenever someone brings up the hundred-round ammo clip that was used in our most recent mass murder murder, the defenders of mass murderers' right to use hundred-round ammo clips will talk about freedom. >> let me ask you, i mean, we're not talking about handguns. does something that would limit magazines that can carry a hundred rounds, would that in infringe on the constitutional right? >> i believe so. people will talk about lethal weapons, that could be the discussion you could have. but there are 30-round magazines that are just common all over the place. you simply can't keep these weapons out of the hands of sick, demonstrated individual who is want to do harm. and when you try to do it, you restrict our freedoms.

>> you restrict our freedoms. this from a guy who obeaded diently removing his shoes at airports to prove he's not going to blow up an airplane, even though he can also prove to all those tsa agents that he is a united states senator. the hundred-round clip is not about freedom. that, senator, doesn't care about freedom. wayne lapierre and every senator member have their freedoms restricted by government every day. >> when you try to do it, you restrict our firemen reedoms. >> wayne lapierre and senator johnson and every nra member are told by government where they can and cannot park their cars. they are told by government how fast they can drive their cars. they are told by government where they can and cannot smoke cigarettes and they are told by government that they cannot smoke marijuana. we take off our shoes at

airports for the flimsiest of reasons. a crazy, incompetent al qaeda loser wanted to blow up an airplane with something in his shoe that could not have actually blown up the airplane, even if had worked. the crazy, incompetent al qaeda loser got caught and every day since then, all of us, every american boarding an airplane has to take off our shoes, in deference, in honor of that crazy incompetent al qaeda loser and senator johnson has never complained about restricting our freedom to keep our shoes on. the freedom lovers at the nra don't complain that the "take off your shoes" rule restricts our freedom, even though it does restrict our freedom. our government has enacted and this country has accepted the "take off your shoes" rule as a reasonable reaction to exactly one, one incident in our history. one incident of a crazy, incompetent person thinking,

imagining that he could blow up an airplane with something in his shoe. exactly one incident that hurt no one. exactly one incident that killed no one. that one incident has changed all of our lives. has restricted all of our freedom. that crazy incompetent person who has us now in our tenth year of taking off our shoes at the airport did not kill 12 people, he did not injure and wound 59 people. he didn't shoot a baby. he did next to nothing. and still our government, with the general agreement of its traveling public, believes that it is perfectly reasonable, every day at american airports, to take off our shoes, because of that one incident that did no damage and could have done no real damage. in the same country, when a mass

murderer uses a hundred-round ammunition clip to kill and wound as many people as he possibly can, our government believes that we should do nothing. wayne lapierre and senator johnson believe we should do nothing but wait for the next mass murderer to enter the next public place and see if the score is higher or lower than 12 killed and 59 wounded. because to do anything else would restrict our freedoms. >> when you try and do it, you restrict our freedoms. >> california has made the sale of hundred-round clips illegal. california restricts those magazines to ten bullets. and so if you're an aspiring mass murderer here in california and you decide tonight to obtain your killing tools legally, as

our most recent mass murderers have done, you will be forced to reload after your first ten bullets, and if you try doing that in a packed movie theater, i promise you, you will not finish reloading. you will be taken down by the freedom of the people in that theater to attack you the second you have to stop firing and reload. the ten-bullet clip is about the freedom to stop mass murderers after they've fired ten shots, instead of a hundred. wayne lapierre doesn't want you to have that freedom. wayne lapierre wants you to be stuck in your theater seats, while the mass murderer fires another 90 bullets at you. wayne lapierre thinks people like me who don't think anyone should be able to buy hundred-round magazines are more dangerous than people who empty hundred-round magazines in

crowded movie theaters. wayne lapierre scares people. i know he scares some of you with his relentless determination to make sure american mass murderers are the very best equipped mass murderers in the world, but he scares the simple-minded members of the nra even more. he scares them into actually thinking and believing that someone is coming to take their freedom away. he needs them to believe that. so he can continue to siphon $1 million off their dues money every year to stuff into his blood-drenched pockets. ♪

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now, they've called me to run for the united states congress. i wish the american media would take a great look at the views of the people in congress and find out, are they pro-america or anti-america. the lord says, with submissive. wives, you are to be submissive to your husband. as president, would you be submissive to your husband. [ audience boos ] >> understand, barbarians need to be educated. they need to be disciplined. >> it's a very sad life. it's part of satan, i think, to say that this is gay, it's anything but gay. it is personal bondage. i think my views are clear. i will not vote to increase the debt ceiling. there isn't even one study that

can be produced that shows that carbon dioxide is a harmful gas. >> congresswoman michele bachmann, what a powerful leader in our party she is. >> mitt romney is the big government candidate. that's not what we want in our nominee. >> oh, my goodness! yes! >> michele bachmann described herself as an average minnesotan when she first ran for congress in 2006. after what she says was a calling by god to the campaign. she has won re-election in minnesota's sixth district, in the suburbs of minneapolis twice. joining me now is the candidate running against michele bachmann, jim graves. jim, tell me what the campaign looks like, what the polls might indicate and what the issues are you think you can win on. >> lawrence, it looks really positive. our polling is extremely favorable. we're neck and neck as we speak right now, and this is before these last outrageous comments

she's made about the muslim brotherhood. michele bachmann has lost traction in the district. there's people, the democrats, independents, even the republicans are coming over to our side. she's just lost track of what's going on, in reality, basically. she's just out there. and lawrence, it's ridiculous, what she's saying now. it's just -- i mean, she's -- her modus operandi has always been talking ridiculous, but this is just outrageous. >> she ran for president, and sometimes that hurts candidates when they try to go back and run for their old jobs. there's this sense that they've neglected the job while running for president. is that a factor in her district? >> no question about it. she's forgotten where she came from, when she's representing the the district. she doesn't represent the district, she's not there. the people are sick and tired of it. they want a change. they really want a change and we're seeing it in the polling. things are just going really, really favorably in our direction. >> one of the famous sons of

minnesota, garrison keeler, has weighed in. let's listen to him. bye, bye bachmann take a job on fox news if you choose, you're going to lose bye, bye bachmann there's a guy from st. cloud, maine jim graves he will take your place in 200 days >> that is quite a campaign supporter to have, i would think, in minnesota, garrison keeler? >> he's a good guy, a good guy. he knows what's going on in the district, he knows what's going on in minnesota and everybody's ready for a change. and they're looking for somebody like me. >> jim graves, the democrat, running against michele bachmann to save america from more bachmann mania. thank you very much for joining us tonight. >> lawrence, thank you very much for having me on.

bugle boy. let's play "hardball." good evening, i'm chris matthews in washington. let me start with general mitt romney. i use that term sarcastically because general in this case is an armchair general. the man that spoke today to the affairs of war could not be more foreign to foreign wars. even venezuela had no match in his resume. only in his plans. how many countries does he want to fight in the next four years? does he want to outdo bush i with one war or bush ii with two more? there he was reading a speech by the same neo-kinds that took us into iraq and always seem to have the next war on his agenda.

does this guy have any idea the words of war have meaning and dead and wounded, no meaning in the stupidity and deceit we went through under bush and cheney? backed up by cheney in this election speak of leaks? national security leaks as we f we never heard what the w. crowd led by chainy and his fall guy libby did when they had their hands in there. michael steele, chairman of the republican national committee and msnbc political analyst. joe, editor-in-chief of the nationalmemo.com. let's take a look at romney's speech before the vfw members today. let's listen. >> i am an unapologetic believer in the greatness of america. i am not ashamed of american power. i'm guided by one overwhelming conviction and passion. this century must be an american century.