do you remember michael brown? heck of a job brownie, michael brown? who was forced to resign after hurricane katrina. on monday, he criticized the president. he said obama may have acted too quickly. [ laughter ] instead of taking the wait and do nothing approach that worked so well during katrina. that is an interesting point coming from a former fema director and current applebee's employee of the week. [ laughter and applause ] things seem to be getting back on track here in new york. limited subway service is scheduled to resume tomorrow at 6:00 a.m. the mta is letting people ride the bus for free, which -- [ cheers and applause ] very good news. people don't have to be anywhere any time soon. make no mistake. no bus ride in new york is ever free. there is always a price that will be paid. [ laughter ] mayor bloomberg announced that all cars coming into new york city via the bridge must have a minimum of three people in them. unless one of the people is very, very fat, in which case, two people but no sodas. [ laughter ] to me, i think the best si

hours after both he and cantor said no problem they got the votes so should we have government michael brown by right wing talk radio you know i think it's a shame that the legislation didn't get there i thought it was a good piece of legislation and it cleared up a lot of our tax issues however i don't think that right wing radio or anything of the sort was making that decision for them i think there is a lot of other factors in there for example i think that a lot of people are worried about their primaries and and how those things are going to play back in the politics of ever in other words we're raising taxes on billionaires and those billionaires are going to nuke us in the primaries won't have primaries for i mean there was just an election i mean is there is no moment other than maybe two weeks ago or three weeks or a month ago in which they are less than the threat of a primary is less than it is right now i mean i think i think you cannot underestimate and this is something that people do because it sounds so insane that a right wing hosts like rush limbaugh who's not in any way lu

. >> brown: we debate the obama administration's enviromental record under jackson's tenure with michaelne, executive director of the sierra club, one of the oldest environmental groups in the country. and kenneth green, senior fellow on energy and natural resources for the fraser institute, a canadian based think tank. making brune, we start with you. a quick overview first. four years in as the obama administration -- has the obama administration achieved what you'd hoped for? >> four years in the obama administration has done a great job and they do have some unfinished business but when you look at doubling the vehicle efficiency in just four years, that's a remarkable achievement. taking the amount of mercury and arsenic and die i don't think serious bodily injurys and air toxics out of the atmosphere from coal-fired power plants, that's an amazing victory. when you add on top of that a rule that was just announced last month to limit the amount of soot coming from power plant facilities across the country, those are just three rules among dozens that have had a big impact on keepin

joining me with reaction, former governor of maryland, robert ehrlich and democratic strategist michael brownith you. would this legislation, if it hasn't passed, would it have done anything in this tragedy. >> probably not, shawn, and the issues here are very complex, obviously. mental illness is a major issue here, part of this entire story as is school security. the appropriate school security measures that need to be undertaken as is gun control. obviously the press is going to focus on gun control at this time. >> michael, do we really want to find an answer, or is this just exploiting as gerald nadler said a tragedy for political gain? if we really want to look for answers, shouldn't we be looking at parenting issues, mental health issues, widespread distribution of drugs, maybe values, god in the classroom, talking about these things in school? should we be looking at those if we want this national discussion? >> violent videos should be thrown in there, too, sean. >> i think we're probably going to agree on all of these issues. i don't think there's a silver bullet. i think all of the

. >> michael brown, you're a good guy. we're friends. it's the race card.any republican that wants to drag us all the way back to jim crow laws? do you know anybody that supports in a? >> well, i don't know if i will be able to name anyone that supports that, but i think. >think. >> sean: so it's a lie. >> i don't think it's a lie. >> sean: it's not a lie. they want to drag us back to jim crow laws? >> some folks make the argument that the republican party does want to turn the clock back. >> sean: who? who wants to do that? >> in the first part of my statement, i said i can't give you a name. there's a perception that your party wants to turn the clock back. you have problems within particular communities relative to the vote. there's a reason for that. >> it's you hav not just race. it's also women. women clearly believe you want to turn them the clocks back. pardon me? >> we want to drag them back to the 1950s, too, according to debbie wasserman schulz. >> and according to the voters. >> the reason debbie wasserman schulz was reappointed was not because

michael [inaudible] lynn brown, jerad bloomfield and others. we make trips to sacramento and we do what we could in the bay view. we put solar on all 58 homes and so on and so forth. in the beginning of this discussion i heard something about climate change and then i was paying attention to this conversation and there's a lot of fluff. so much fluff it gives you a headache. now, if you look at a map and some of you have done the outreach, whatever way you did the outreach, if you want to pay attention to the carbon footprint you have to do anything for the people that are impacted in district 10 and 11 and if you haven't done that to the best of your ability you have failed, so don't tell us in the areas that are green, which is where mostly the rich people live, where they send all their garbage, where they send all their sewage to which is in district 10 and you do service -- when it comes to outreach. that has to be ratified immediately. now, we need empirical data from this so-called consultants because sfpuc has this habit to have consult

vice president biden, hillary clinton, michael bennett jerry brown senator elect warren and governorey, former florida governor jeb bush and soon-to-be florida senator. our gaggle from msnbc, chris salizza and political editor, perry bacon. and kevin madden, was a senior advisor for governor romney's campaign. we asked all of you, first of all, hello. happy new year. we asked all of you to pick. i throw my dozen and all of you, i asked you to pick two that you're going to keep. we're not going to do the 2016 confers now, but we'll do it in a few minutes. >> so i'm a littler in day and focused on the downed ballot. so i did pick michael bennett, the colorado senator. he's tasked with, trying to, again, keep a democratic senate majority difficulty of 20 democratic seats. and they asked him two years ago, he said no. >> why pence up there? >> i think he's a guy who spernt time in congress and is now the governor of indiana. he's a guy we under rate. we've seen how particularly republican governors can have a fiscal conservativism. pence is going to force a political agenda. >> jerry bro

joining us on set michael brown, partner in a.t. kearney's retail practice.ow, you have a good number for me? is 2 1/2 the number, between 3 and 4, do we know? >> the numbers are all over the place depending on what time period you're looking at and who's numbers you're looking at. most of the consensus is going to be that 2.5%, 3% range where it was forecast at the beginning of the season. >> 3% to 4% would be better. >> it looks like it's going to be closer to the 3 number. >> every year we sweat this out and there's not a whole lot of deviation from the mean most years. is there more this year because of the cliff? >> yeah, i think the cliff is partially about it. but you have to look at where we come from. beginning of the season, we saw the economy turning around. we saw construction increasing. we saw consumer confidence being up. all of a sudden then, we had the impacts of sandy, a tragedy up in newtown, connecticut, and just a lot of other factors that just put a damper on the season. >> so, it is fair to say that it started better than it ended now.

in the next hour, senator sherrod brown fresh from re-election in the state of ohio is going to be joining us. michael as a "friend of bill" in the next hour. sherrod brown who had more super pac money spent against him than any other incumbent senator and handily won re-election in the state of ohio. lynn sweet is in studio with us as a "friend of bill." she's the washington bureau chief for the "chicago sun-times" and now a -- once again, a chicago cubs fan. we learned earlier in the hour. lynn, always good to have you here. nice to see you. >> thank you. >> bill: it has been -- we've been tracking -- ever since the mars rover landed in august, thanks to our good friend, dr. luther beagle at nasa, the progress with the mars rover some exciting things that have been discovered already. and a big announcement this week so we thought it was time to check in again with dr. luther beagle who joins us from -- today from san francisco. dr. beagle, good to talk to you again. >> hi, how you doing? >> bill: we're doing good. are you still on mars time even though you're in san francisco? >> no. i made it off

francisco public library, who killed pope john paul ii, the king of pop, michael jackson, president barack h. obama, mayor willie h. brown, dr. robert c. scott at ucs sf, academic dean keith c. wingate, assistant academic dean seana marshall, legal counsel -- leop adviser jan jamison and mammoth -- a circumcised foreign student from instandbull turkey at golden gate university. between november 2008 and december 2012, was it these hands? was it alcohol? was it drinking alcohol? was it brewing alcohol? or was it tobacco? i would like to use the rest of my time to pay tribute to the fallen. >> supervisor elsbernd: thank you very much. next speaker please. >> hey, ron austin, executive haven't -- workers union, it's been a long day. we're here to say a few words for the record to the board we received correspondence from sf mta for a service reduction on the day before christmas and the week after, and subsequently that week in between new year's and christmas. and we didn't know if the board or the city knew. and this is something that was attempted a couple of weeks back with the thanksgiving week, in which we disapproved

. >> michael, what's interesting about scott brown, if you watched his concession speech, this did notm like a man whofgs ready to leave politics. >> i'm not sure that pick-up truck of his could handle the mileage. >> remember, he's got that blue collar appeal. and that does play with many massachusetts voterst. >> hey, thank you, susan. thank you, robert. good to see you again. up next, a new poll finds a majority of americans think the republican party is too conservative. it's not just the messenger, it's also the message. you're watching, "hardball" the place for politics. >>> now that south carolina congressman tim scott is headed to the senate to replace jim demint, guess who's got his eye on scott's seat? mark sanford who infamously went missing while in office. his aides said he was hiking in the appalachian trail. but he was having an extramarital affair. we'll be right back. @ñ >>> we're back. our speaker john boehner's failed plan b efforts, another example of friction between republican establishment and tea party conservatives. we saw the blame game following mitt romney's

. >> brown: and gwen ifill sits down with michael beschloss, whose recent foray into the twitter-verse has opened up a new way to view history in the digital age. >> woodruff: that's all ahead on tonight's "newshour." major funding for the pbs newshour has been provided by: and with the ongoing support of these institutions and foundations. and... this program was made possible by the corporation for public broadcasting. and by contributions to your pbs station from viewers like you. thank you. >> brown: more people found work in november and more people stopped looking for work. as a result, the number of new jobs came in better than expected today and the rate of unemployment was the lowest since 2008. "newshour" economics correspondent paul solman begins our coverage. >> reporter: washington brightened yesterday when the annual switch was flipped; the white house christmas tree, relit. and this morning, more holiday cheer, it seemed, in the form of the monthly jobs numbers. 146,000 new jobs were created last month, according to the survey of employers; unemployment dropped again, to

. >> brown: and mark shields and michael gerson analyze the week's news. >> woodruff: that's all ahead on tonight's newshour. >> major funding for the pbs newshour has been provided by: >> bnsf railway. >> support also comes from carnegie corporation of new york, a foundation created to do what andrew carnegie called "real and permanent good." celebrating 100 years of philanthropy at carnegie.org. >> and with the ongoing support of these institutions and foundations. and friends of the newshour. and... >> this program was made possible by the corporation for public broadcasting. and by contributions to your pbs station from viewers like you. thank you. >> brown: the remaking of the obama administration's foreign policy team began today as the president nominated massachusetts senator john kerry to replace hilary clinton as secretary of state. the former presidential candidate who lost to george w. bush in 2004 got the nod after u.n. ambassador susan rice withdrew her name. she'd faced republican criticisms over the benghazi terrorist attack. president obama made the announcement this a