it didn't cause too much of an impact on traffic but they promise to continue through the weekend. our newest nbc wall street journal poll is bringing the heat. before we show you numbers, look at how the lead pollster been at that far longer than krystal has described the results. >> you see this once or twice in a lifetime. >> here's why. a whopping 78% of americans believe we're headed in the wrong direction as a country. can you blame them? they blame congress, 6 in 10 say fire every single member, even if it includes the ones they like. more than half say congress is completely at fault for the crisis xs far fewer are blaming the president and real world effects are real. two thirds of those polled believe the impact is very hurtful to our country, close to a third saying they are directly impacted by it and they overwhelmingly believe

republicans are doing this for purely political purposes, not on principle. so clearly they are listening. which is why nearly half of the democrats who regained control in congress in 2010. mark murray has been living and breathing these poll numbers. americans are speaking loud and clear about the shutdown but senate republicans were otdly quiet after the meeting with the president today. >> well, one reason why is that at the end of the day, this is going to come down between the white house and house republicans. the senate republicans, many of them have been fuming privately. we've seen a lot of blind quotes from them. but there hasn't been a lot of pressure because the ball game is in the house republicans corner on how to move forward when it comes to the continuing resolution to end the government shutdown and also to raise the debt ceiling. that said, we did get some type of sound from susan collins, republican senator from maine. she was saying how today's meeting was cordial and everyone

was saying right things. the biggest takeaway in the last 24 hours, there has been a change in tone. i really wouldn't be surprised if we have a type of resolution in the next three or four days, particularly after more and more house republicans and senate republicans pore over the brand-new poll. >> mark, i want to dig into the numbers more and bring in perry bacon, political editor to the grio. it caught their attention, they figured they would shoulder the blame for it and it shouldn't stop them from doing the right thing. perry, i'm not sure whether that means the correct thing or the right wing thing. >> it's moving away from the right wing thing to be the right thing politically, always to do the right thing politically. >> indeed. >> let me touch on the polling that you brought out because we're seeing horrendous numbers for gop favorablety. the lowest --

>> and tour'e is taking every minute of it. >> and lower than thentire spanf abby's lunch. >> not that long. >> constituents are calling their congressmen and saying their positions are in line with what they want in their district. what's going on here? >> i think you raise a really good point. the parts of the conservative base, want this fight and happy with their member of congress and very red districts. so that's one thing that's going on. one of the reasons why we're seeing such low numbers for the republican party, why the republican party is being blamed so much more than the democratic party and president obama is that the gop is split. we are talking about that one red base, the tea party, they are fully behind the shutdown politics. they are fully behind ted cruz. then you have your nontea party types and they are against it. they are against ted cruz.

and always when you have these types of fights, whether it's in politics or whatever, it almost never ends up winning and you're seeing a unified democratic party and unified white house showing you the results we saw in the brand-new poll. >> which is why we're seeing a difference compared to 1995 where you have today republicans blaming republicans the reaction from the american people is actually the exact opposite of what they were hoping for. you have president obama's numbers going up slightly. obama care has become a little less unpopular and gop has taken the brunt of the blame. they should have done absolutely nothing here. i mean, you don't need me to tell you the glitches and problems with the exchanges launching has been an issue. so more than anything, this says to me that there really has not been any sort -- this has been clearly misguided. >> imagine the health care law without the shutdown, talking

all about how the website for obama care, doesn't work. >> a huge story. front pages everywhere. instead it's that obama care support has went up, overshadow and tells you how ineffective the strategy has been. >> a lot of them were -- they say we have no strategy and that's the entire problem and day by day -- ted cruz illustrated -- >> he has a media strategy. >> he zoomed up in the republican polls in 2016. this is worked for him but not the broader party. >> i also expected the president to cave which he has not done. >> i don't know -- 2011 the president debt ceiling approach forced the president to agree to sequester. republicans to date thought the president would again at some point concede to their demand and he's been extremely iron clad. the last officials said they want to set a new precedent, the

debt ceiling is no longer a tool for negotiating, even for president chris christie or hillary clinton o whoever is next. this is a broader fight than just today but next few years. >> if you look at that precedent, what you get here a lot of news conference that basically says this is a break through, this is progress. i have to dissent from that. i wonder if whether the coverage and mood in washington is sub consciously accepting a tea party premise that opening the government, which is a bear minimum functioning government or not defaulting and hurting ourselves for political reasons, that that is progress. >> ari, make a great point. if you told me in january that an obama win would be termed obama care stays in place and sequester is locked in and debt ceiling is increased, i don't know if i would determine that

as an obama win, not getting anything new. what we're hearing so far is going to be talks about deficit reduction that will invoke social security reduction and medicare cuts, the kind of thing democrats don't like. i'm not sure he's getting a long term victory except for maybe he restores this norm on the debt ceiling. the debt ceiling is no longer going to be a way to get other policy concessions for him. >> i certainly hope that is the norm that is reinforced here. but mark, i'm concerned. we're talking about a six-week debt ceiling extension. we're not talking about solving this problem. i saw a great idea from norm orren stein, instead of pushing the debt ceiling off, let's remove the threat of the debt ceiling and remove the ability for people to use the debt ceiling to take us hostage by using what mitch mcconnell proposed to get us out of the 2011 debt ceiling crisis and what he did and what's being called the mcconnell rule.

he allowed the president to unilaterally raise the debt ceiling and congress can vote to disapprove. if the president wants the debt ceiling to be raised, he has to veto that measure and it could be overridden by two thirds of both houses. is there any sort of talk or discussion of some way of actually taking away this debt ceiling threat for the longer term? >> i think it's a possibility that could be in the cards in the larger budget discussion that you'd end up having between republicans and democrats trying to craft something after a temporarily debt ceiling increase, a temporary extension of the u.s. government. but krystal, i don't think we know how long the debt ceiling will be increased for. house republicans yesterday were talking about a six-week extension. but it could be longer than that. we just don't know any kind of the details yet. i want to go back to the broader point that ari was talking

about, how is it just a win for democrats for the debt ceiling to be increased or for the government to be open? there was one big point in our poll was that the american public sees there is so much government dysfunction and people are so frustrated and congress can't do its job and people are angry. you are leading into all of the people who were so mad. at some point, even if the president has to give a concession or two, to be able to have a sense of government can work, both sides can come together, that actually concession or two from the president might be the price for something like that. if you are the party of government and wants to make government work, you have to be able to get the public back on your side and convinced that the government is working for them. >> the president might have to give something, some concessions to get out of this because republicans aren't going to be disrespected. on the current court, they want to think -- actually he is and president obama is leading,

protecting the rules the foundation of any healthy democracy and leading by not giving into the blackmail. >> i think that's an argument. he is leading and republicans are in a fight over this. the core problem is that there's a big divide in politics right now, the tea party, he complained that john boehner can't lead the republicans, they don't want to listen to him. >> he could have brought a clean rr to the floor and it could have passed with some republicans. i think there's a real -- i think we're right to blame the tea party republicans but there has been a real abdy indication of responsibility. >> if he brought that to the floor, he would no longer be speaker of the house. >> who cares. >> mark murray, perry bacon, krystal ball, thank you very much. are we on the verge of a deal? not if ted cruz has anything to say about it. it's friday, october 11th.

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values each and every one of us are defending are values every small town, every family, every small business has understood in this country for centuries. that's what we're defending. that's what we're defending. you know, at this point -- >> senator ted cruz, the poster boy for democrats pointing

fingers and blame for washington. this morning trying to speak at the voters summit but it is not just democrats and protesters and our poll who think the gop brand has been hurt and hurt bad by all of this. listen to columnist and republican charles kraut hammer on cruz. >> how exactly is he going to achieve abolition of obama care? explain that to me. has he ever explained it? where is he now? his side kick, senator lee, said we're past obama care, we've moved on. these are the -- that lead people into the battle of little big horn and go home and have lunch and leave the troops out there. where are they? where are the generals? what's their strategy to get abolition of obama care? >> that's pretty brutal. an inside washington reporter knows better than anyone what's

going on there. jackie, i want to get your response. we were just talking about the poll numbers in the last block that are absolutely abysmal for republicans. i wanted you to respond to this quote, if you're here to dismantle the federal government, if that is your idealogy and that is your concern, you don't care whether we've got a 9% approval rating or not or to put it another way, our having a 9% approval rating suits your purposes. people like ted cruz at all impressed or concerned by these poll numbers? >> i don't think ted cruz is concerned. a lot of his fellow republicans are. he's has a solid red state who doesn't have things to worry about like people like charlie dent, a republican from pennsylvania, they are looking at their districts and little bit more concerned. not ted cruz and his colleagues

in the house who are in conservative districts because their constituents are saying, shut down the government and make sure obama care is repealed. that's what they are hearing when they go home, which is different than other people in the country are hearing. >> sure, but you know a lot of those people you mentioned will vote against whatever the final deal is on both the shutdown and the debt ceiling, whenever it comes. at a certain point the country, republican party, we all have to move beyond their demand. i wonder on the debt ceiling, why should the white house accept anything less than a three-year extension given the politics and irresponsibility that have combined here to hurt the republicans? >> because a bill has to pass the house floor and republicans are in charge of the john boehner needs to bring something to the floor that -- pleases enough of them to pass it -- >> let me just jump in on the vote count. we've seen the house past debt ceiling extensions by large

margins previously. like i mentioned specifically, a lot of tea party people will vote against whatever comes down. can he do 18 and why doesn't the white house hold out for a long term extension? >> you'll have to ask the white house on that front. john boehner -- i think i heard perry bacon say this in the last segment, he risked his own political viblt if he brings something to the floor that enrages debate, which is what a clean -- at least last week a clean debt ceiling and clean cr would have done. >> jackie, there's no denying a stark divide in the gop today. when you look at our most recent polling, there really are two parties that exist underneath the republican umbrella. just one example is republican support around senator cruz, tea party in favor 5 2%, only 13% of non-tea party favor him.

6 in 10 americans want another party to form. i keep saying that the gop will have this head on collision, it's a matter of when that will happen. i want your thoughts of this idea of a third party, that a potential outcome? >> we always talk about a third party but there's never been the consolidation and drive to really make one work. there is so much institutionalism with the democrats and republicans and hasn't been that ground swell to bring the money and support of a third party would really need to be viable in this country. >> i think that's a good point. if you could have a third party that could raise a billion dollar every four years with the full expectation that maybe the billion dollar would go for knot, then you could have a third party -- >> in today's world, you only need one person for that. >> true way to get us out of this for the long term is for the voters to turn the house of

representatives blue in 2014. i want your thoughts on how likely that is. i'm thinking not that likely. we need -- the democrats would need 17 seats and really 11 really in play. charlie cook earlier saying the number of competitive districts right now at a lowest since charlie cook began first charting partisanship rating. there are too many state districts i think. what do you think? >> charlie cook is a smart man. there are not very competitive districts anymore. to make them very safe for one party or the other, the thing -- frankly the more moderate republicans are looking their shoulderses are primary challenges, they are more concerned coming from the right. at this point it doesn't look like it, but you never know. but you look at the map and in a state that we have now, it's almost like that feeling, one thing i should mention.

all of this debt ceiling stuff and government shutdown, the election is a really long time away. it is not october 2014. it's october 2013. you'd be surprised how quickly people would forget something like that. >> of course america has add, but if you're a shutdown republican, there's no room to the right of you? >> you think that? you never know, right? >> i'm sure paul ryan woke up to find out he is no longer conservative enough for the republican party. >> bob corker and whole list of people, exactly. there's tom coburn, whole list of people who weren't conservative enough because of this debate. >> jackie, before we let you go, we want to congratulate you for winning last weekend up against the clock hosted by steve cornacki. where does this rank? >> can it be an 11? >> it's an 11.

>> it was a special time and i hold it dear. >> i feel the same way and i'm looking forward to seeing your name engraved in sharpie in the gold cup. we'll see you on "up against the clock championship und. at 8:44 eastern time, he asked us to promote that exact time, the contestants will be politico's mj lee, todd zwillich and surprise mystery guest. we'll be watching. we'll be back with more "cycle" after this. [ male announcer ] when you have sinus pressure and pain,

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we're going to talk about facebook, who recently announced the removal of who can look up your timeline by name, which loosely translated means you can't hide from us. the option you have a facebook

page to keep control over who you see it, it gone people. according to facebook, the decision was made in order to simplify the search tool and because people weren't using it. we know the truth, the latest in an elaborate count of montty chris toe type plot, nobody in america can run for office except krystal ball. -- >> there's nothing worse. >> well, there's not. look -- >> you sound like my dad when you say the facebook. >> still thinks it's called the facebook. >> can i be governor of utah then? i'm disappointed in this maneuver largely and solely because i like to block ari on facebook and keep him out of my life as much as possible, the business casual was a strange choice, can't wear your jacket in seattle or something, i don't

know what's going on with that. so often facebook puts us in context with folks we don't want to be in contact, too few with people i want to be in contact. i'm growing day by day to hate facebook more and more. >> ari you've been looking into this closely, haven't you? >> i have. i mean, the reason why i like facebook, it allowed me to see some of tour'e's music artists. -- >> not true. it's just favorite artist. you've been waiting to use that for months. >> i wish it were a joke. i wish for you it were a joke. that's something i learned from facebook but krystal is right, i've written about this a lot. not just for people running for office or whether a job interview with vofl the facebook stuff, what it does to you as a

user or product. you signed a contract that said, you could xr this privacy control and not be searchable and now they ripped away because with facebook as people who saw the social network now, basically -- basically the biggest problem is the privacy policy will always be vetoed by the prophet policy. here's something i was writing about in 2007 when some of the features are being rolled out. facebook launched -- >> what are you talking about? >> you're putting us to sleep. what's going on here? >> i think we have an element but you're blowing it -- >> go ahead, ari. >> i'm sorry, i'll wait for tour'e. do you want to read the element? >> don't make him turn this car around. >> it lists users profiles on google, unless you opt out which you can't do and the move can

shift the site from a relatively closed social network to a public directly. when you think of students who join facebook as a private hub, it touts profile information to the world and the search function might make facebook a big part of kmer creating the google of people. it's fundamentally deceptive for them to take people including minors and say, here's a privacy policy and the way we'll protect you, click this box. then as we learn this week as they've done on a bunch of other features, they take that back and they are selling you. that's the bottom line. when the service is free, you're not the user, you're the product. >> let's break this down in english. i was in college when facebook came about. at that point it was created to be a safe community for friends to get to know people better, people that many times you already knew. and today if you try to make any of your settings private, it's

incredibly complicated to do. i think many people don't realize how public their photos actually are. while this only affects a small mersage of the population, there are situations where having an invisible account protects people from bullying and stalking. over 50% of it happens on facebook. you would think facebook would be trying to find ways to protect young people from bullying. youngste sisters that use the s he have day, it's hard to think there is nothing that's private. >> that's the piece that disturbs me too. having kids, earlier i had young relatives their family set up profiles for them. i would not do that for my daughter at all. would not want my kids to be on facebook at all. the settings are so complicated that even if you study what the various privacy settings are, and you think you're protected, not only can they just change

them at a whim and do you have to stay on top of what the latest is, but you never feel secure. back to your point, ari, about how they are using this as sort -- this a profit making incentive. i wonder if they are going to undermine that very profit making instead of -- to think they are benefitting from making these changes because i think they really have destroyed their brand. i used to be on facebook all the time. i don't use it at all anymore. people were cheering for them to fail because they have destroyed their brand and connection with the users on the site. i think they are right for someone else to do this better and have an experience and relationship with their customers where they feel like their privacy is valued. >> it sounds like an amazing manifesto for another site to do us better. so many people don't care and use the site passively and don't care about issues -- >> three letters for you, aol.

>> the number one -- the one number you need to know about the debt ceiling because it could impact you. it's friday, think we can lighten the mood. ari is business casual. let's have muppets, the story of jim hanson you haven't heard before.

with just under 30 minutes to the closing bell, markets continue to rally on hopes of a short term debt deal or is that relief? no other fact about the debt ceiling debate, if you don't get what it is, take a listen to this. americans risk losing 20% of their retirement saving if the u.s. defaults and that is all of us, even mill enials saving for

retirement as well. that's one of the disturbing findings by the american society of pension. here to talk about it, we have our extended cycle family members, jimmy williams, senior adviser to dick durbin and jonathan capehart. jimmy, there's no discussion that it will be a huge deal. but how did they come up with the 20% and that is really at stake for everyone from the boomers on down? >> first of all that's an estimate. we don't know obviously what would happen if we actually did go over. >> it could be worse. >> right, exactly. they went back and looked at august of 2011 and looked at three different things, consumer confidence, we know it dropped 170% during that debacle, they looked at job creation, april of 2011, job creation, 254,000 jobs a month. from may to september, which is during this when this whole thing ramped up to the end of the debacle, job creation left

100,000 jobs a month. also the s&p 500, dropped 23%. that's amazing. you put all of that together -- by the way, the urban institute told us, during the recession itself, the greatest since the great depression, the markets lost $1.7 trillion. we're already recovering from that and go into the august 2011 debate about the debt ceiling and fast forward and look to today, it's not going to be pretty by the way, it doesn't matter if it's 20%, 10%, 2%, the politicians are screwing with our retirement and it's not okay. >> jonathan, take a look at this chart from the report you were writing about which shows the bulk of people's retirement savings in equity funds, that big blue chunk. huge amount of money in the stock market. what does that tell us basically

about what people have at risk here? >> well, it shows that they have a lot at risk. most people -- most ip investors in the united states are involved in money markets and they are involved in the stock market and involved in bonds. but it's the stock market that people pay attention to because they can see what it does, day in and day out. yesterday everyone was euphoric. but we could all be crying in our soup by a week from today if the united states actually doesn't raise its debt ceiling. that's when people see the air kme completely go out of their retirement savings when the stock market crashes. >> i think people are starting to get very nervous about this. i think it's becoming real to them. jimmy was referencing the fact that last time around, even without going over the debt ceiling and actually defaulting, we saw job creation fall off a

cliff. there was 250,000 jobs created in april. then the very next month only 54,000. so the impact happened even if you don't actually default. >> right. see here's the thing that everyone needs to keep in mind. the market isn't backward looking. it is forward looking. it is trying to predict what's going to happen and trying to guard against any risk that they might be exposed to. so you know, the fact that we didn't default in 2011 but all of those horrible things happened, now that we're a week away from potential default and if it does happen, one of the concerns in the treasury department and in the white house is that the united states has never been through this before. they can't predict what could or might happen. that is a very scary place to be. >> jimmy williams, last question to you because you're not wearing a bow tie. >> i'm a little sad about that.

>> i'm sorry, guys. >> don't let it happen again. >> i like that. krystal pointed out we had a debt ceiling standoff in 2011, we just had a standoff over this and horrific things happens, stock market went to historic lows. it seems to me a bit strange now we have default or debt ceiling deniers when we have evidence of just threatening the thing is painful enough. >> listen, they can deny it all they want. happy people are birthers. what i do pay attention to are markets. i watch what markets do and like history. when apple looked at what happened in the markets in 2011 when we didn't go over but came close, that tells us something. there's a bigger problem here and that's something not being addressed, the issue of bonds. when you were young, if you're a

genx er or mill lennial, you're in high risk markets, stock markets, if you're getting closer to retirement, guess what most of yours is in, low risk, those are bonds. guess what happens if we default, this is a interest rates goes up and every time interest rates go up, bond markets follow. when they fall, they don't come back as quickly as the stock market. all of these old people about to retire, if we go over the cliff, a huge percentage of their retirement will go away, won't come back by the time they were supposed to retire. what are they supposeded to do? shelf off the retirement for 12 years because the republicans and democrats can't seem to have a conversation with each other about for first time not doing this. >> that's why i think it's so important we look not just at this crisis but how to -- all of the impacts you're talking about

remain hypothetical. jimmy williams, jonathan capehart, thank you both. >> thank you. >> all of the talk of a debt ceiling deal had us wondering, who the better negotiator, speaker of the hour john boehner on my 5-year-old daughter ella. let's head to the political playground as ella negotiates for compensation for her work. >> why should i pay you to do that when any kid would love to be on tv? >> because the web is part of nbc's key to the strategy. so maybe we should make political playground longer or trickier. >> how would we do that? >> by doing it like maybe we could make it trickier, just a little bit trickier. and we could make it a little bit longer. >> that's awesome. >> what do you think? like us on facebook where you

can see what happened from there and let us know who you think should be negotiating the debt deal. what would kermit do? you heard that right. [ female announcer ] take skincare to the next level with new roc® multi correxion® 5 in 1. proven to hydrate dryness, illuminate dullness lift sagging high performance skincare™ only from roc®. but chantix helped me do it. i told my doctor i think i'm... i'm ready. [ male announcer ] along with support, chantix (varenicline) is proven to help people quit smoking. it reduces the urge to smoke. i knew that i could smoke for the first 7 days. i knew that i wasn't putting nicotine back into my body to try to quit. [ male announcer ] some people had changes in behavior, thinking or mood, hostility, agitation,

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abcs. >> next time cookie monster -- i'm leaving. >> i love you. >> i love you too. >> thanks. >> just makes you smile. who does not love kermit. for moms and dads of all ages, the name jim hen son brings the soft spoken creator of the muppets. his quirky sense of humor and ambition and passion for life really revolutionized television and our guest today award winni winning biographer went into the life of jim henson and gives us a look of the creative genius that was jim henson. brian, i have to say, i'm a huge sesame street fan, i have a

5-year-old daughter. we bought all of the old original seasons of sesame street, watched them all. they are fantastic. you have this great quote from one of the co-founders of the children's television workshop, i think there was a kind of collective genius about the core group that created sesame street but there was only one real genius in our midst and that was jim. >> jim was so pivotal to sesame street when they were developing it that one of the other co-creators said if you cannot get him, you can do not puppets on sesame street. i think one thing people don't remember about his early contributions, did the number films and baker falling down the stairs, that's jim's voice dubbed in. he made all of those films. the little boy digging in the sand box with machines, that's his son brian in the film. one of the things attracted to him when he was doing that, he got to do these other little fun things as well apart from really fun things with the muppets. >> having grown up in asia, i

watched big bird in china, and it was helpful in understanding culture. my favorite muppet is miss piggy, kermit loving princess. in the book, jerry put it this way, it is based on this concept of family, pig gi demands things that are quite outside of the family. walking a fine line with her character. i want to show this clip of miss piggy to remind people. >> can i please have mineral water? not the sparkly sign. no sodium. i can't work that way. okay, wait, wait, stop. clair, i'm sorry, could you please leave? i'm sorry, nothing personal. out the door. you too, children. >> you write about the unlikely rise of miss piggy becoming a star when she originally wasn't supposed to be a star. >> she was originally a back

room character, background and even if the first episodes she was kind of passed back and forth between performers, frank oz was supposed to be fozzie and miss piggy using her in the early muppet shows and she was passed between frank oz and richard hunt. so if you watch, even her voice was off. but there was a stage direction when frank oz had her where it called for piggy to give kermit into a slap and he turned that into a karate chop and said the whole place went crazy, you knew you had to see it again. and that became frank's big character instead of fozzy. >> the unlikely duo, the frog and the diva. >> kermit is the center of this universe, first among equals. how did kermit, as a character, develop into this thing that we all sort of gravitate to? >> we have a personal connection. we feel like he's a real being. >> he started off as kermit the

thing, made out of jim's mother's coat with ping-pong balls for eyes and a member of the cast of sam and friends, these abstract characters. and over the course of the '60s, as jim put it, we eventually frog-ified him. and we can't watch that old footage without thinking of him as a frog. but the thing about kermit with jim, it's a very intimate kind of performance, not much between your hand and that puppet. so it's sort of hard to find out where the line ends between kermit and jim. because it is so -- you're putting yourself right into that puppet. >> but that's perhaps part of why it becomes so sort of fluid, he can make these incredible faces. >> yeah, you saw the footage. you would swear half the time kermit is doing a slow burn or frowning. kermit doesn't have eyebrows. it's just his jim's hand. >> is there anything that surprises you about jim as a person? >> there were two things that i found really, really intriguing about him. one, he was almost path logically conflict-averse. which i think is one of the

reasons why people love him and why you do think he's genuinely warm. but this is a guy who wouldn't fight with his wife. >> well, that's a good plan for life. >> and there are stories -- >> should learn from that. >> should. >> go into the room at his company where the lawyers would be in these big debates and turn to jim to resolve the conflict and jim would say, i've got to go to london. >> what did jim belushi call them? >> the mucking fuppets, first season of "saturday night live"s, the must-gets. albert brooks had to be on there. >> i just discovered there is a little piece of jim henson history right here in 30 rock. >> yeah. >> he was waiting for an appearance on actually the jack paar show. and they had hours. and they took these pipes -- i don't know how well you can see it, these dark pipes, and they decorated them like muppets. it's been preserved on the sixth floor. >> incredible. >> yeah, frank oz refers to that as the epitome of affectionate anarchy.

very jim. only he would open a closet and say let's paint this and make something crazy and fun. >> brian j. jones, thank you and thank you for the work. >> thank you. up next, toure is not -- not going to rant about ted cruz. but first a song to get stuck in your head for the rest of the day. ♪

there's a crisis going on, a real crisis, that has nothing to do with ted cruz and the tea party. i promise you. this is not about ted cruz.

it's about bees. [ speak in foreign language ] for years, tens of millions of the world's bees have been dying. for years, this has been happening. last winter, one-third of commercial bee colonies in america died. now, before you say, oh, good, it's less likely i'll get stung. remember this, bees pollinate a third of the world's crops and if you understand the interconnected nature of nature, then you'll see why millions of our little black and yellow friends dying could have a massive detrimental impact on our food supply. for years, scientists have been mystified by what they labeled colony collapse disorder to describe the rapid global loss of millions of hives. and i've seen how big some hives can get. >> the hive is 12 feet tall and 18 inches wide, with about 60,000 angry wee bees. >> we battled through the wall.

we found bees. it was the biggest hive i've ever seen. >> this week, a new study from the royal holloway university of london may have gotten to the root cause, and surprisingly, it has nothing to do with ted cruz. this whole rant has nothing to do with ted cruz. really. they found the cause of colony collapse disorder is stress on the bees. they encounter pesticides and parasites and diesel fumes in doses too small to kill them, but those things can cause stress, which makes bees behave ear i can't tellcally. dead bees get replaced but impaired bees do not. the hive stands behind them. over time, if enough bees feel enough stress and behave unprovocative actively, the whole colony becomes affected and the whole colony can perish or shut down. that's kind of how it is with any nation, special america nowadays, a social colony of

interdependent workers, a few of whom have grown extraordinarily stressed out, leading them to behave erratically, leading them to lurch about from crisis to crisis, driven by partisan triablism, scoring points against liberals is more important than instead of a true organizing ethos, they end up being the party of no to anything dems say and that sort of erratic behavior feud by any number of stressors to government helping people to america getting browner to liberals achieving anything. that stress leads to erratic, self defeating behavior that could put the entire colony known as the us of a at risk. because, hey, if you don't like some element of where the colony is going, then it totally makes sense to shut the whole thing down. as andy borough wits wrote, ted cruz's next sound bite will probably be something like i don't want my children and my children's children to live in a world with albuquerque,