tv The Rachel Maddow Show MSNBC September 28, 2013 6:00am-7:00am EDT
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or up to 60 days to pay without interest, or both each month. i'm nelson gutierrez and i'm a member of the smarter money. this is what membership is. this is what membership does. >> thanks for joining us this hour. i should say not just happy friday, but happy crazy your government is shutting down and turning out the lights friday. the new just broke during chris' show that the u.n. security counsel has approved a resolution to relieve syria of its chemical weapons under a plan that will inspect them, secure them and destroy them. russia and china were among the countries voting unanimously for this resolution tonight on syria's chemical weapons. this is a previously unimaginable diplomatic resolution that had been seen as an intractable problem.
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syria didn't even admit they had chemical weapons until about 30 seconds ago, now, they're signed on to get rid of them and their closest allies in the world are going to make sure that happens. unimaginable. that coming on the same afternoon as another diplomatic breakthrough. the u.s. president speaking by telephone to the iranian president tonight for the first time since 1979. we're going to have more on both of those stories coming up this hour. this is a very, very big news day. but the domestic news of course is dominated by our own congress shutting down our own government for no externally imposed reason at all. just because one side has decided they maybe want to use this tactic to try to get what they want. the white house today posted a list of how the many agencies of government plan to shut down starting at midnight on monday. handily because republicans in
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congress spent the last couple of years threatening to shut down the government to get what they wanted. agencies like say the department of agriculture. they were able to go back and retrieve their old shutdown plans they had prepared for the last time we had a contest like this in 2011. the national parks service today said they are making plans to kick out the campers. the overnight visitors because the shutdown means the national parks will be closing. here's the parks service plan for furloughing its employees. 21,000 american workers is sent home. parks service plan is based in part on the planning that the agency did back in 2011, but also the agency's lived experience in the last big government shutdown, which was back in 1995. npr today ran this great slide show of what it looked like back then, including people being
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turned away from the statue of liberty. i'm sorry, she's closed. the museums, closed. liberty bell, closed. the shutdown in 1995 was the longest in our nation's history and we are beginning to get a sense of what a shutdown would like this time. crucial government functions, if not stopping all together, then at least powering down to a significant extent. the essential stuff like air traffic control and sending out social security checks and so on, that stuff will get done, but defining what's essential isn't that easy. in colorado right now, they are of course cleaning up from devastating flooding that killed eight people an swept away homes and washed out hundreds of miles of roads. as part of its recovery, colorado's been getting help from all over the place. for example, the utah national guard was planning to send 120 engineers to help rebuild a stretch of u.s. north 36 to rebuild a stretch. colorado's been racing to rebuild its roads before the
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winter sets in. now, as part of us all getting ready for a big government shutdown, more than half half of the utah engineer, they've been told to stand down. the colorado national guards men already working on the recovery are waiting to hear if they, too, are going to get pulled off the job and sent home in the middle of colorado trying to clean up the floods. with the clock ticking. we are starting to see what the shutdown would look like. what the cost will be, both in the states and in washington and with a knock on effects might be on the economy at large, but there's another way of looking at this. about looking at why this is happening. one of the things we're not getting done this washington because we are having this self-imposed shutdown fight is that we are not getting anything else done in washington and that is something that proceeded this crisis. the thing about not getting anything done. republicans in congress have had a bunch of their own bills for the kinds of bills that have to pass every year. not able to pass this year.
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these are their own bills, but they have not been able to pass them. republicans had a transportation and housing bill. they could not vote to pass their own transportation and housing bill. they had a bill to keep the government going, so we would not be facing this imminent shutdown. they could not pass their, they could not vote to pass their own bill. they had a bill called the farm bill that's always used in jokes in washington about what's the bare minimum thing you can do if you can't do anything else? this is supposed to be the easy one. the least controversial thing. they could not get the votes to pass it. not even in their own caucus. you might remember a little kerfuffle about this bill. michele bachmann is always reeling about the size of government, but her family had taken over a quarter million dollars in federal subsidies
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because they have a family farm, so it was that awkward sort of hypocrisy that she was willing to take federal money through the farm bill as payment from the government for her family having a farm, but she simultaneously wanted to cut money from the same bill who get money from that bill. not because they have a form, but because they have this problem. they need to eat. cut food stamps for other people, keep farm subsidies for myself and my family. it's a particularly obnoxious form of political hypocrisy. just for themselves, there's a whole bunch of them. james carter posted a spread sheet today with a ton of information on this. we're going to link to it tonight. but just looking at the ones who get these subsidies, look at congressman tom latham of iowa.
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he used to be co-owner of the latham seed company. a couple of farms that had his name on them, so back home, he was taking farm subsidies. hundreds of thousands of dollars from the federal government, but he voted to cut food subsidies for people who needed to eat. martha roby. congresswoman from alabama. she has a farm in montgomery, alabama. back home, she has been getting checks from the federal government from her farm, thank you very much, but in congress, she voted to keep the farm aid going to herself, but to cut the money for people who need help getting something to eat. same bill. wants specifically to keep the money going to her, but cut the money that goes to anybody else. call me a liberal, you do any way, but how do you vote that your family should be able to continue to be given federal money through this specific bill, but you cannot abide other americans, poor americans, getting money from the same bill so they can eat? how can you take it for yourself and move to block it for somebody else?
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apparently, it is not that hard to do something like that because we see it over and over and over again. it's part of what's going on in washington. hypocrisy isn't new in washington. washington didn't even invent it. at the very beginning of the obama administration for example, we saw it when every single house republican voted against the stimulus bill. remember the stimulus bill? then they went home to their home districts and started appearing at ribbon cutting events with card board checks to take credit for the funding, credit me for this thing, local residents. i want credit for this thing that i tried to block. at the end of last year, when hurricane sandy absolutely averaged the northeast, when it left parts of new jersey and new york almost unrecognizable, when it hit the most densely populated region in the nation, it left thousands of families
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homeless. the governors asked the federal government for help and they were told no by a sort of shocking number of members of congress. in the senate, it was 36 senate republicans who voted against relief after hurricane sandy. that's 77% of senate republicans who opposed hurricane relief for sandy. in the house, it was about the same. 78% of republicans in the house who told sandy victims no, the federal government would not and should not help you. among those house republicans saying no were all four republicans from the house delegation from colorado. they all voted no on sandy relief. this month when flood waters devastated colorado, those same four house republicans who voted no on disaster relief for families in new york and new jersey, publicly called on the federal government to help themselves help their state. federal disaster relief for sandy victims? they don't deserve it. federal government isn't in that kind of business, but hey, me over here, we need that.
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republican congressman bill flores of texas, ted cruz of texas, they both voted against federal aid for sandy victims. three months later when a fertilizer explosion levelled west texas, those same two asked for federal aid. james inhoff of oklahoma voted to block federal aid for victims of hurricane sandy, then when tornados ripped through moore, oklahoma, senator inhoff asked for that aid for residents in his own state. he said it was quote, totally different. than him traoeulg trying to block relief from sandy. it takes a particular galling sort of hypocrisy to talk that way and more importantly, to vote that way in congress when you are sent there to work for the good of the people. what you do in congress may seem it's theory or idealogical expression or just something people get to talk about on
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cable news and then clip up and turn into attack ads, but your actions have consequences when you're in congress and it's a lack of empathy. we think of it as saying one thing and doing the opposite, but it comes from a lack of feeling for anyone who is not you yourself. it comes from voting to make other people go hungry while you cash your government check from the same program. it means voting down disaster relief for anybody else right before you insist that the federal government send the disaster relief dollars to you because you can't imagine the problems that other people are having, but the problems that you're having, those, you feel. it means throwing the country into economic, governmental, living chaos because you didn't get your way and because you do not care how it affects ordinary americans or america until it affects you. this shutdown is going to hurt the country. it's already hurting the country.
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that was the message today from president obama who spoke today on short notice with palpable frustration. >> any republican in congress who's currently watching, i encourage you to think about who you're hurting. there are probably young people in your office right now who came to work for you, without much pay, because they believed that public service was noble. you're preparing to send them home without a paycheck. you've got families with kids back in your districts who serve their country in the federal government. and now, they might have to plan how they're going to get by if you shut the government down. past shutdowns have disrupted the economy and this shutdown would as well. it would throw a wrench into the gears of our economy at a time when those gears have gained some traction and that's why many republican senators and governors have urged republicans to knock it off, pass a budget and move on. let's get this done.
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>> joining us now is ezra klein. msnbc analyst and blogger for the "washington post". thanks for being here. been thinking today, trying to think today less about the marginal political developments of the moment. >> good for you. >> i'm trying to get focused on the stakes here, the cost. can you talk about what we know the economic impact or nuts an bolts impact would be of a shutdown and it would be a government shutdown first, then next of a default. >> so, a government shutdown is a bad thing. you do not want to have it happen and direct economic costs, the office of management and budget actually tried to look at the cost of the '95, '96 shutdowns. the two longest we have ever had. they calculated it at $2 billion. that's not great. of course during that time, you
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had a lot of pain from the families involved, but not a large impact on the economy the size of our own. it's just bad. a default is an economic storm of literally and i mean literally unimaginable proportions. we've never conceived of allowing it to happen before. the president put it well today. he said a shutdown is shutting down the government. a default is shutting down the economy. we've just been through a financial crisis and what happened there was you had these things called subprime bonds, securities. the housing market and wall street thought they were one thing. they thought the housing market was safe. and that uncertainty, not knowing what it was worth, it froze wall street. now, subprime bonds were a significant part of wall street. nothing like u.s. treasuries.
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nothing like our corner stone asset. if we go to the world and we say we are not worth what you thought we were worth, you have to reprice that. we have no idea what it looks like when the markets say we don't know what we have the worth. it is a potential to be much bigger than the one we had in '08. >> you wrote today on one blog, something that provoked a lot of people because on the surface, it seemed so scary, but i want to hear you make the argument and you said essentially, that you were rooting for the shutdown in the hopes, i'm going to paraphrase, that would mean the republicans got their yayas out and whatever was in them that was desiring to cause some form of chaos, that would be essentially exhausted by the government shutdown and while that would be bad, maybe then, we wouldn't have the default. does the yayas hypothesis have data to back it up or are you just hope something. >> i'm rooting for congress to do the smart thing.
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it is being said in the republican caucus and democratic caucus, is way republicans are thinking about this is that if they are forced by john boehner to give up leverage on the government shutdown, to accept a clean bill to fund the government, they will feel they gave up tho point of leverage and traded it for a much larger default. it would be such a terrible thing for the economy. >> pushing us off a skyscraper instead of a house. >> trading in the flu for septic shock is the way i like to put it. the issue is john boehner saying don't do it. let's just wait until the debt ceiling. once they've gone through the shutdown, if they've not used that, they've got nothing but the debt ceiling this their minds.
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what politico's reported, what goldman sachs has been saying, what i'm hearing from my sources on the hill, it is going to be harder to get republicans past the debt ceiling if they don't do the shutdown. it would be easier to do a shutdown that has some damage to the economy. >> but alleviate some of the pressure. >> it gives them a high drama place to have this fight. when they see the polls turn against them in 5 days, 10 days, we can get this done before october 17th. >> this is the most unnerving thing and trying to trade these ills against one another at this point means we are too close to the edge already. ezra klein, "washington post," guy who i think actually quite owned a whole narrative and discussion about this today, i think he really framed the way everybody's been thinking about it today. >> thank you. >> thanks. so many unprecedented and in fact wildly unpredictable things transpired this week between the united states and the rest of the world, but what happened today with a phone call that president obama made that nobody knew was coming topped it all
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limited availability in select markets. life could be hectic. as a working mom of two young boys angie's list saves me a lot of time. after reading all the reviews i know i'm making the right choice. online or on the phone, we help you hire right the first time. with honest reviews on over 720 local services. keeping up with these two is more than a full time job, and i don't have time for unreliable companies. angie's list definitely saves me time and money. for over 18 years we've helped people take care of the things that matter most. join today. i will admit this is something that will probably only mean something to you if you are a news dork. this is the front page of the "huffington post" tonight. look, there's two leads. as far as we can tell, they've never had to do that ever before. newspaper websites and other news sites, they divide up their pages regularly to show they're
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on multiple stories, but "huffington post" is the biggest of the online news sites and they followed the online convention of only picking one thing, but today, we think for the first time ever, they stacked them. with the government shutdown and the president talking to iran. we've got two stories tonight that are each two big to be upstaged so they both got the lead. if you are a news dork, an online news dork, that's like finding a golden ticket in your chocolate bar. today was a very, very big day in the news. a double day. hold on. more coming up. reality check: a lot of 4g lte coverage maps don't really look like much at all. i see the aleutian islands. looks like a duck. it looks like... america... ish. that's a map. that's a map of the united states. check the map. verizon's 4g lte is the most reliable, and in more places than any other 4g network. trade in your old device
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1979 was a really long time ago. this was an suv. this was how basketball players wore their shorts. this was a nice stereo. this was the collection of the greatest white guy hair on earth and if your computer machine in 1979 needed to be seen by your eyes, you had to hook it up to your tv to use as a monitor. 1979 was a very, very different time. i am old and i can barely remember 1979. i'm not even really sure that i can, but 1979 is the last time that there was direct contact between the leader of our country and the leader of iran. 1979 was the year of the revolution in iran which brought to power a new religious radical cod ray and when they took
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americans hostage for more than 14 months, relations between our two countries were broken off. there is no american embassy in iran. no iranian embassy here. if you're an american citizen and you travel to iran, the u.s. state department warns you before you go that america will not be able to help you if something goes wrong for you there. if an american citizen has a problem while in iran, say you lose your passport or you get arrested or there's a natural disaster and you need to get out of the country, actually, the embassy of switzerland may step in and try to help you, but what the swiss can do is limited because you are not a swiss citizen. so we have not had any
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diplomatic action with iran since 1979. there has been no contact, no official contact between the political leaders in iran and in the united states, so last night felt like a huge breakthrough when we were able to report this picture here on the air. when our secretary of state, john kerry, sat down yesterday for a meeting with his counterpart in the iranian government at the u.n. they spoke. shook hands. this development was something that had not happened in 34 years in our country. this was just a big freaking diplomatic deal. that was last night and then today, it was like the sky cracked open. >> just now, i spoke on the phone with president rowhani. >> you spoke to who now? seriously, what happened? >> the two of us discussed our ongoing efforts to reach an agreement over iran's nuclear program. i reiterated to president rowhani when i said new york, while there will surely be
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important obstacles to moving forward and successes by no means guaranteed, i believe that we can reach a solution. >> a phone call is a small thing in the great big world, but this particular phone call is of historic proportions. they reportedly talked for about 15 minutes this afternoon. these are two leaders countries whose leaders have not been able to talk since 1979. even though frankly they have had a lot they needed to talk about. one snippet of their conversation was tweeted out by the iranian president after the phone call ended. it said in a phone conversation, the president of iran concluded the conversation by saying in english, have a nice day and president obama then said, thank you and then he spoke in farsy. he said good-bye, god be with you and that according to a senior administration official was quote appreciated by the iranian. there's probably a big birther freakout where they're kicking
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themselves, he's secretly iranian. he speaks farcy. there are still huge differences between our countries. everything from iran's nuclear program to their support for terrorist groups, but today's direct contact between these two men for the first time since new cars looked like this, this direct contact is a sign we might make progress on the differences between us and we might do it without a war. how did this happen? how did we get to this point? ever since the relationship between the u.s. and the iran fell apart after the iranian revolution and hostage crisis. americans have used sanctions to put them on iran to try to get them to stop doing whatever it is they were doing. president carter banned oil imports. froze iranian assets.
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reagan banned the sale of anything to iran that could be used militarily. labeled iran as a state sponsor of terrorism, he did also ship missiles to iran, but we're not supposed to think of that when we think of reagan. president clinton also banned americans from investing money in iran. the point, every time these sanctions got stricter was to further isolate return, to hurt its economy and create a different climate over there within that country, to create intolerable internal pressure from the iranian people to make life so difficult for the average citizen they would turn against their own government whose policies were leading to these sanctions. to create domestic internal pressure in iran for iran to change its ways and every president since carter imposed more and more sanctions on iran, but the tactic never seemed to be doing anything, until now,
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all of a sudden, something has caused what has happened today. it was not until this president in this administration that the united states began imposing the harshest and most stringent sanctions they have ever seen. we have banned all iranian imports, we have sanctioned anyone doing business with iranian companies. maybe the biggest was when the u.s. and e.u. cut iran off from processing any financial transactions from its oil industry. for a brief moment, we even got china on board our sanctions. the obama administration has led the world on this effort to isolate iran's economy to a degree that had never been done before. last week, iran reported it had lost 60% of its oil revenue and if the intended affect was to make life so miserable for ordinary people in iran, as for them to put pressure on their
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own government for change, well, that happened. the sanctions have made life in iran very difficult. the iranian currency has lost two-thirds of its value since 2011. there have been food shortages of iran of basic staples. iranian hospitals have been unable to get the supplies they need because of the american sanctions. an iranian political figure said they don't have what they need to treat cancer and multiple sclerosis. whatever you think about that as a tactic, about leverages the misery of a civilian population, that's what sanctions were intended to do. to create pressure and that's what they did. when iran's new president was elected in august, it was a surprise. he was a moderate politician. not a front-runner in the election and then he won decisively. he got more than 50% of the vote.
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didn't even have to be a runoff. the guy in second place got 16% of the vote. the moderate president's victory was decisive. they chose the candidate who represented the biggest break from the hard line policies. and since he was elected, the new president has been saying he is clear that he has a mandate for moderation. that he has a mandate to change his country's place in the world. from the iranian people and from the behind the scenes unelected powers that be in iran, from the clerics who run everything. the new president has not be shy about having the power to make dramatic decisions about his country's feature. he has the power to do it and he's going to do it. so, after years of hostility and isolation, now, progress. the most seemingly intractable problem in diplomacy is moving and it's moving fast and the cost of getting here has been long and difficult, particularly for the iranian people. but the cost of getting here has not been war. and that is surely disappointing to all the american hawks who
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have thought war with iran would be an awesome idea. lindsey graham was authoring for force against iran last week. but things are moving without them. whether you are psyched or sad you didn't get another war out of it -- next month, secretary of state john kerry is set to meet again with his iranian counterpart to sketch out the first steps in moving forward to an agreement about iran's nuclear program. today was a historic day. [ female announcer ] we lowered her fever.
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of "the sopranos" with tony as working through the weekend on a bill that keeps the the government funded. the senate yesterday passed a funding bill that does not defund obama care the house republicans want in the bill. and planned parenthood suing texas over its tough abortion law. i'm veronica decruz. now back to the program. too big. too small. too soft. too tasty. [ both laugh ] [ male announcer ] introducing progresso's new creamy alfredo soup. inspired by perfection.
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cultural touch stone. the array and the arrangement of the apostles has basically become a meaning. so like there's the cast of the sopranos with tony as jesus. the role of judas terrifyingly depicted by his mother. oh, my god, that show is so great. it is a mean. sopranos as the last summer. here are are all the top chefs as the last supper. here's an american lesbian pop culture last supper, which i'm sure you knew was coming. jesus is ellen degeneres. wanda sykes looks stunned by ellen's news and then over on the left there, that's me, i believe, hanging out with the great sandra bernhardt. shocked by whatever ellen is saying. this is reason alone to take an art history course, so you can accurately array your last
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supper characters. in the positions of jesus and apostles. this will come in handy some day, even if it's only to recognize that every single time they pull it off on the simpsons. as we consider the swirling chaos and impending doom in washington right now, the issue of course is the house of representatives. the senate has got lots of noise and some senators got attention, but there was no real drama about what was going to happen in the senate. today, the senate did what they needed to do. to avoid the government shutting down. it heads back over to the place where chaos rains, which is the house. host gop of mixed minds on next move and yeah, you can see that from this amazing photo they ran to illustrate this point. lock at the photo they ran. does this remind you of anything?
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so, there's thomas massey, the guy in the stripey tie there. republican congressman from kentucky. i'm not going to compromise, but wait, did someone just say we're going to default on the debt? then tim griffin from arkansas, exclaiming dramatically, why not this course of action. there's steve southerland, florida republican congressman. none of this seems like a good
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idea. congressman tom cotton, does standing there with these guys mean i agree with them? steven fincher there in the classic orator's pose. can somebody explain that part to me again about the cloture thing? house republicans are a classical arare of stunned and mystified. this is a work of art. the senate has done its thing, but the government shutdown deadline is monday and privately or publicly, on the record or off, no one in house leadership seems to be able to say what the republicans will do and that appears to be because they do not know. robert costa writing at the national review today and speaking with chris hayes last hour, he says that john boehner had a plan for republicans to avert the shutdown threat as of yesterday, but then got on the phone with a republican who told them to kybash their own speaker's plan. person they were speaking to was ted cruz, telling them the defy their own leadership and they listened. last night, senator cruz met again quote, talking deep into the night about how to pressure john boehner. even if you are trying to figure out the chaos in the house, the chaotic stew there from which a plan to fund the government has to emerge by monday at the latest in order to avoid a government shutdown, if you are trying to figure out it, do not even bother trying to read the body language from actual republican members of the house because apparently, the dynamics that are driving the chaos there
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are best understood as emanating from some kind of higher power. joining us now is is peter welsh, democratic of vermont. organized 187 democrats to send a letter to the president supporting a clean debt ceiling extension. thank you very much for being with us tonight. >> thank you. >> from your close up perception, does it appear to you that things are as chaotic and unpredictable in the house as it seems from here? >> you're a master of understatement. bottom line, this is about health care and there's white hot anger that americans may have access to affordable health care if obama care goes into effect as it will very, very soon. what they've got to do is get real. they've got to sober up. they lost the fight on obama
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care in the house. they lost it in the supreme court. and then they lost it in the presidential election. so, what are they going to do? they're saying they're willing to blow up the country, debt default and government shutdown in order to save americans from having access to health care. that's literally what's going on and they're coming up with a sort of crack pot plan after another. the speaker's got to deal with, but it's all about using as leverage, the shutdown and default to defeat health care for all americans. >> in the short-term, it seems to me and tell me if i'm wrong, that if the speaker did bring to the floor a clean continuing resolution, something that didn't say anything about obama care, that did what the senate has done, which says we're going to continue to fund the government, it seems to me like every democrat in the house would probably vote for that and probably enough republicans would vote for it as well. is it just a question of whether or not john boehner will do that is this. >> that's exactly right.
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he's got the toughest job in washington because he's dealing with a caucus that is just going to blow up the country to avoid health care for all americans. what he has to do is decide when he's going to stop appeasing the tea party wing of his party and then come to the democrats in order to pass a continuing resolution to keep the lights on and to avoid default. this is astonishing that actually the premise of the republican position is that it's acceptable to shut government down, turn the lights off and default on our obligations, which would mean a million new veterans from iraq and afghanistan and reflects their opposition to having a health care plan that has a promise of working. that's where we're at.
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at a certain point, the speaker's going to have to make a tough decision. my view ultimately, we're going to pass the senate bill because it's the only way out. what's really kind of crack pot about the way republicans are proceeding is that it won't work. and the reason it won't work is if they use these tactics, shut down and default, there will be a violent market reaction on wall street that will pistol whip congress into paying our obligations and funding government. >> peter welch, a very crucial last point. thank you for your time. sorry you're going to be working through the weekend. all right. the list of groups who are for expanded background checks for gun purchasers just got longer, but much, much less predictable and this is a strange new story and the details are next. stay with us. begi [ male announcer ] this is brad.
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researchers at the university of california at davis did something fascinating. something that has never been done before. they started with an fbi database of people who are licensed gun dealers in this country. it's a list of almost 55,000 dealers, pawn brokers and gun smiths. these uc davis researchers contacted a random sample, all of whom were listed as selling 50 or more guns per year. surveys went out in 2011, before the mass shoot anything colorado, before the sikh temple, before newtown, the washington navy yard shooting. but now they have collected the data, done the analysis and releasing what they have found. it is fascinating. this is the first ever
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independent scientifically sound survey of people who sell guns for a living. nobody did this before. so that's amazing. but what they found when somebody finally bothered to ask these guys is even more amusing for context, we knew ex expanding background checks something supported by democrats by a large margin, by independents by a big margin, for gun sales supported by republicans by a large margin. self described tea partiers support expanded background checks, supported by members of the nra. people who pay to belong to the national rifle association want expanded background checks. gun owners broadly support expanded background checks by a large margin. now we can add the data by the researchers at uc davis. it turns out gun dealers support expanded background checks.
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the people conceivably burdened by this the most, democrats are in favor, independents are in favor, republicans are in favor. gun owners, tea partiers and gun dealers all this favor. on the other side, not in favor, the leadership of the nra. not even the members of the nra. just the leadership. they are the only ones against which means they win? nothing could never out weigh them? they get no matter what they want no matter if everyone, including their own constituency, agrees with them. how long does this last for? we posted that at maddow blog tonight. forgive me for this, but i want to say it. on the day of the worst school shooting in u.s. history, this past december in newtown, connecticut, on the day that it
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happened, the associated press, among other news organizations asked for the recordings of the 911 calls that were made that day during that crisis from the sandy hook elementary school. and now asking for the 911 calls that is a standard news gathering request. it is routinely done in all emergency situations that get done by the press. even though it is standard practice, in the case of newtown, they did not allow the tapes to be released. yesterday a state panel in connecticut overturned that decision and ordered the release of the 911 calls. i'm sort of a free speech purist. i work in the news, so i'm inclined in that direction anyway. but in general. i believe the answer to bad speech or troubling speech is more speech. that it is wrong and
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counterproductive to try to suppress information and access to information. but honestly, it breaks my heart to think about the audio of those calls being released. this is not a done deal yet. the ap does not have the tapes yet. they may very well never have them. the state is in the process of appealing the ruling. they show every sign of fighting this. but if the audio is is released, the sound of people being terrorized while they are in the act of being terrorized in the course of a mass murder of children, i hope the media collectively will have the, what do you call it, the good judgment, the reasonableness that no one sees fit to broadcast those tapes if they are ever made available. there is no legitimate purpose for the public to hear those. if they need to be public, put them in public record deposit others. if it has to be in th
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