joining me this morning is john fuglesang, host of "viewpoint" every night at 8:00 p.m. urrent tv. john, this is terrible. >> john: good morning bill. it is a really sad day for political comedy. i wore a black armband on "viewpoint" last night. all of the political comedians i know are like over the grey today. you mentioned it. michele bachmann is leaving congress to spend more time with her husband marcus and his new chauffeur scott thorsen. were you surprised mr. press? >> bill: surprised at the liberace movie? she joins sarah palin in the ranks of g.o.p. quitters. they want to run for president but they can't hold a job. what i love is she says this has nothing to do with the fact that i'm being investigated by agencies. >> john: or the fact that the guy she only beat by 1% in a heavily g.o.p. district is leading her right now. didn't -- did you watch that video? i thought it was a seminar on house flipping. >> bill: she's in russia, touring russia and she releases this video back in the united states. classic michele bachmann. >> john: it is sad. i love michele bach

i'm john fuglesang. this is current tv. we're still here. good night mom. >> joy: he secretly had lap band surgery. the surgery went so well, next month, chris christie is going back for seconds. plus, i'll talk with marilu henner, one of the only people in the country with autobiographical memory. she remembers everything. who was i talking about? oh yeah, marilu henner. i'll go inside the cutthroat world of new york real estate with the million dollar listing new york. all of that and more next.

." >> john: i'm john fuglesang. this is "viewpoint." good evening. last resort of the powerless prisoner, a hunger strike. since february, a major hunger strike has been building momentum at the military detention center at guantanamo bay. the hunger strike began as a response to what the detainees described as raids by guards where copies of the koran were mishandled. it has grown into a protest against the obama administration's policy of holding the vast majority of detainees indefinitely while doing nothing to arrange transfer to their own countries. of the 166 detainees held at guantanamo 86 have been cleared for release. yet continue to rot in can jail while only six are facing military commissions. right now, there are around 100 detainees on hunger strike, including 23 who are now being force-fed twice a day. on monday, the pentagon sent around 40 additional medical personnel to guantanamo to help with this force-feeding. i'm going to explain what this is because your taxes are paying for it. it requires strapping prisoners to a chair so a tu

i'm john fuglesang. we're current. we're still here.good night mom. >> joy: tonight, nba center jason collins shocks the world. the sports world anyway, by coming out as gay. he's become a household name and he didn't have to marry a kardashian to do it. plus the westside's yelp is now posting reviews of our country's prisons. i find that very disturbing. why did ryker's island only get two stars? i don't get it. an australian company is marketing men's lawner -- lingerie because what's sexier than a transit worker in a thong?

if you have a comment tweet us at john fuglesang. use the hashtag "viewpoint" or post it on our facebook page. >>> this was another day of who knew what when in the scandalous matter of the i.r.s.'s targeting of conservatives groups. today, the former head of the i.r.s. bush appointee douglas shulman, the man at the helm when this activity took place was grilled before the senate finance committee and asked to apologize. mr. shulman refused. >> so it's not your responsibility. the buck doesn't stop with you. >> um, i certainly um am not personally responsible for creating a list that had inappropriate criteria. >> john: joining me now is mark everson former i.r.s., now the vice-chairman at the alliance group. welcome to "viewpoint." >> thanks for having me, john. >> john: thank you. we just heard former i.r.s. commissioner shulman getting the full treatment on the hill today. what's your take on how this is playing out sir? should mr. shulman have apologized? doesn't the buck stop with him? >> i'll come to that point john. let me sta

." >> john: good evening i'm john fuglesang. this is "viewpoint." thank you so much for joining us tonight. if you think medical bills in this country are insane, you my friend are correct. but just how crazy really began coming into focus this week after a massive data dump from washington's center for medicaid services. now nobody is disputing the life saving health enhancing work that medical professionals here in america perform or their remarkable drugs technologies and techniques they use in hospitals every day. no one's criticizing the quality of care. but any attempt anyone who can count up to ten on their fingers has to be blown away by the out-of-control, beyond belief cost disparities between different hospitals and that's revealed in the data which these hospitals have also kept secret up until now. or as white house press secretary jay carney put it on wednesday... >> it is a question that i think consumers justifiably ask. why is that hospital charging three times more for the same service that a hospital, in the next town over may be

john fuglesang has a lot to say about the issues of the day. fuglesang or he will join us, whatever, on the "full court press." >> announcer: like politics, then like the "bill press show" on facebook. this is the "bill press show." (vo) current tv gets the converstion started next. >> i'm a slutty bob hope. >> you are. >> the troops love me. the sweatshirt is nice and all but i could use a golden lasso. (vo) only on current tv. >> announcer: heard around the country and seen on current tv this is the "bill press show." >> bill: 13 minutes before the top of the hour. you know we do our best to get things started here in the morning. but you really want to know what's going on, the man who wraps it up every night does an excellent job with a great group of guests, our good friend john fuglesang, host of "viewpoint" at 8:00 p.m. on current tv. joining us this morning on our news line. hey, john, how you doing? >> john: good morning mr. press, how are you? >> bill: nice that you're burning the candle at both ends. >> john: i have a baby so i don't

. >> john: i'm john fuglesang. this is "viewpoint." thank you so much for joining us this evening. call it tea party christmas. call it the scandalous week ever. call the apocalypse. this week was definitely one the president and his administration would like to soon forget but that won't be the case for republicans and their base who would like nothing more than to keep this week very fresh in your memories and their campaign coffers all the way through 2014. it began with new congressional hearings on the benghazi attacks and an abc news report that seemed to suggest more of a cover-up than had previously been uncovered. before that could be debunked which it subsequently has inspector general report revealed the i.r.s. has been targeting the tax-exempt status of tea party and conservative-leaning groups, forcing president obama to confront both charges head-on. >> obama: who executes some sort of cover-up or effort to tamp things down for three days? the fact that this keeps on getting churned out frankly has a lot to do with political motivations. if you've got the i.r.s. opera

." >> john: good evening i'm john fuglesang. this is "viewpoint." thank you so much for joining us tonight. as the fate of the defense of marriage act hangs in the balance awaiting a decision from the u.s. supreme court those directly impacted by this discriminatory law continues to feel the repercussions including the spouses of military veterans in same-sex marriages. that is the case for karen morgan who is featured here in a video for the organization freedom to marry and whose wife and coparent, charlie morgan, passed away from breast cancer after returning from a tour of duty in iraq. because of doma, ms. morgan has been unable to receive any benefits from the military on behalf of her spouse to help care for their 5-year-old daughter an injustice she has vowed to fight as long as it takes. >> my name is karen morgan and my wife was cw2 charlie morgan of the new hampshire national guard. doma basically has created a culture of two separate types of family within the military now. these soldiers put in equal time equal effort and their families

. >> john: good evening, i'm john fuglesang and this is "viewpoint." let the party begin. study and debate president obama used a speech at the national defense university thursday to try to reset key elements of the war on terror. the president announced a scaled back use of aerial drones to target and kill alleged terrorists and plans to begin transferring low-level

. >> john: good evening, i'm john fuglesang and this is "viewpoint." let the party begin. after months of study and debate president obama used a speech at the national defense university thursday to try to reset key elements of the war on terror. the president announced a scaled back use of aerial drones to target and kill alleged terrorists and plans to begin transferring low-level inmates from the prison at guantanamo bay. neither change satisfied critics on the right in congress or on the left while he was speaking. >> why don't you sit down and i will tell you exactly what i'm going to do. thank you ma'am. ma'am, thank you. >> the second voice you heard there was code pink's medea benjamin, less than impressed with president obama's new drone policy or his plans for prisoners at guantanamo. >> there are 102 people on a hunger strike. desperate people. you are the commander in chief. you can release guantanamo today. >> john: medea benjamin was escorted out of the event. we welcome her back. she's dough director of code pink and cofounder of global exchange. her latest

did john fuglesang warn you how creepy i am about you? >> yeah.be hugged and kissed. >> stephanie: listen, i honestly love your stuff in the "daily beast." you hit stuff that a lot of people miss. i love this new piece. for the first time black turnout exceeded white turnout in 2012. meanwhile, republicans continue to alienate black voters. it really is incredible. what they're trying to do nationwide while saying they're engaging in minority outreach, right? >> it is amazing. the reason i wrote that piece stephanie, is that i saw, in most of the coverage of that analysis, it was an analysis "the associated press" did the black turnout for the first time was higher by some measures than white turnout. you know, most of the pieces that wrote this up, ascribed it to simply to obama's presence on the ticket. obviously there's a lot of truth to that, you know. there is no denying that. but i thought that's not the only reason here. black people understand -- africans and latinos understand republicans, you know, voter suppression efforts in half the s

john fuglesang on there is hilarious. >> stephanie: thank you. >> caller: i took a few seconds to watchoks great. >> caller: it does. >> you lost a lot of weight. >> stephanie: kept your girlish figure. >> caller: disgusting. i noticed a couple of things that are indicative of the election period and that is when there is a small audience, there are no cameras that are set from the presenter's perspective or from the stage. it is always set toward the stage. at the convention. the nra convention. and when there was an applause for as large as a national convention as that should be, the audience -- the applause wasn't that robust. so, to me, if there would have been a huge gathering of thousands and thousands of people, they would have had a camera showing that audience. to show how big they look. >> stephanie: i can explain that. they don't want you to see that there are no black people. anywhere. okay. 46 minutes after the hour. right back. rick overton live in studio on "the stephanie miller show." >> i got her number off the men's room stall 1-800-steph-12. (vo) she gets the comedia

. >> stephanie: other sexy liberal john fuglesang saying michele bachmann is leaving congress to spend: no. wow. >> i think that's one of the most dusted over aspects of the entire bush years. >> stephanie: jeff gannon using the back door? >> the washington press corps reporter right wing web site reporter guy/male prostitute who who -- came and went after 10:00 at the white house a lot. during the bush administration. and that's amazing how you're like oh, yeah. you tell that to anybody. you run into a reporter, oh, yeah. why don't we talk about that more? because you were afraid? >> like robert patrick. >> just slid in under the door. >> stephanie: hal let's relive the horror. this is michele bachmann, complete with string section. >> at 2:30 this morning. >> my good friends after a great deal of thought and deliberation i have decide next year i will not seek a fifth congressional term to represent the wonderful people of the sixth district of minnesota. after serious consideration, i am confident that this is the right decision. ♪ >> running across the beach in white shorts. or was

i'm john fuglesang. you're watching "viewpoint." >> john: good evening, i'm john fuglesang. this is "viewpoint." thank you so much for joining us. a very busy day for attorney general eric holder and presidential press secretary jay carney as the white house struggled with two scandals that threatened to help define president obama's second term. the first cuts to the core of the first amendment. "associated press" seen your vice president kathleen carroll explained what exactly happened. >> we got a notice from the justice department that they had seized the records of 20 of our telephone lines work and personal lines belonging to a.p. journalists and connecting to a.p. bureaus. >> john: the d.o.j. fishing expedition was triggered by a story last may about an alleged terrorist plot to bomb a u.s.-bound jetliner from yemen. eric holder explained he recused himself from this case after an fbi interview that was part of the original investigation. and he also insisted the fishing expedition had been necessary. >> this was a very serious -- a very serious leak. a very, very ser