the president -- >> i like ben stein to do just that, you know. very good. >> the white house is taking the nation as a whole down a road toward europe, more regulation, significantly higher taxes, bigger entitlement programs. instead, we should be looking to texas as a mode no personal income tax. wouldn't we love that? but very low tax burden among the states, the six lowest tax burden in the nation. a very friendly regulatory environment, one of the smallest governments based on the number of residents of the state. and they're actively luring businesses into the state from other burdensome states. >> i think he's a pretty clever guy, the president. i think he knew all of the above. that's why he was there and that's why he was more or less trying to use the state, even though its policies are different from his own to say hey, i'm leading thi parade. >> you know what? the president is a brilliant guy, but i'm not sure -- i think he might have made a mistake. i don't give them that kind of credit, althought worked in the election, these republi

ben stein, dagen mcdowell, adam, charles payne, what do you think? >> neil, look, it's about time, really before we start, someone in washington needs to start reminding americans how great this country is. every time i see these, it's like we're the 80 pound weak ling. the last thing that will hurt us is the government having fiscal restraint. you want to talk about what's hurt us, higher taxes. no one out there wants to hear about 2%, how ownerous this is when the american public, the household debt is $1.3 trillion the hard way. so it's about time. remind us how great we are. >> it is interesting that march and april, the two months for which the sequestration effects were in, not much pain at all. >> no. not at all. and for february and march,he jobs numbers were revised higher by a combined 114,000. there were 332,000 jobs created in the month of february. so it shows that democrats and republican politicians will say anything, even if they know it's not true, to get what they want, even when they don't, they're still going to suck their thumbs

sam stein, what did you learn?e is the most uncomfortable you'll shoot. >> yes. something like that. exactly. >> brian? >> the high life -- >> you want it. >> going golfing in london for a week? >> yes. >> sounds like the life i tried to push on mika. >> now, now. really. exactly. >> the south of france. >> usually i'm driving kids around. >> get the book. don't forget the book. she looks great. >> "way too early" and "morning joe" and now chuck todd is straight ahead. >> thank you. >>> we are watching developing news on capitol hill where outgoing acting irs commissioner steven miller will testify this hour to the house ways and means committee. this will be his first public comments since the story exploded about the agency singling out conservative groups for special scrutiny. miller resigned his post on wednesday after treur

to ben stein, charles payne, dagen mcdowell along with adam and charlie. charles payne. >> you know what? i'm not sure. it depends. the hearings this week started off with fireworks. they're going to continue. no doubt about that. if we look at some of these scandals, wate watergate, iran contra, monica lewinsky, the economies did well throughout all of those. >> neil: not watergate. >> well, the gdp wa was up for e most part. toward the end, it was a complete meltdown. that's what happens when the president leaves in that kind of disgrace. you know, i will say that there's a good side to this, too. the idea of stopping the anti-business agenda of this administration, i don't think the market is unhappy with that. >> neil: charlie? >> i think it's -- listen. watergate, as you know, was in the middle of stagfliation. monica was in the middle of the tech boom. i don't think this matters that much. i don't think this scandal imperils the presidency. the market doesn't care about the president, only the head of the fed. they're printing money. that's what this

welcome back to the kaiser report imax keyser time now to go to misfire stein author of planet ponzi and the website plan of ponzi dot com hero here's the book you know plan a ponzi now in paperback it makes an excellent gift it's welcome back to the kaiser report thanks for having me back max it's great to be here all right first question you are the chart man you bring charts today's charts is the vix the v.i.x. futures tell us what is the vix and why are we looking at this well i think what we need to talk about is credit risk overall globally and what's been going on with the central banking policy the central banks would like to promise to you they've built a lot of castles at low tide in the tides about to come in the vix is the volatility index in the u.s. stock market and for some reason as the volatility has gone down mysteriously from two thousand and nine the volume of these contracts has gone from about four thousand five hundred per day. to ninety five thousand per day which is an increase of about two thousand so no i was under the impression that sarbanes oxley dodd fr

the president -- >> i like ben stein to do just that, you kno

stein. and you say? >> oh i say that something is clearly wrong here. we don't have a top irs official taking the fifth amendment if there is no likelihood that a crime was committed. why bother inducting privilege self-incrimination unless there is some self-incrimination possibility there. also the idea that the president is not responsible for his top aids and is not responsible for the department of the treasury. it's just ridiculous. the idea that all this conspiring is going on and somehow he is kept out of the loop. look, i have been down this road before. i worked for mr. nixon. i have seen how it works. this is the nixon look again minus all the foreign policy achievements. >> bill: when you know about corporations and government, because you have worked in both as you pointed out, and the deniability factor, this is important for people to understand. it's not beyond comprehension that ms. ruemmler, mcdonough and all the president's men and women in the white house decided, you kno

my name is tony stein, and i have a ph.d. in environmental engineering and i work for the state of california in the department of general services and environmentally preferable purchasing. i worked three years in the department of public health and environmental quality. i'm here to tell you that it is so important for the local government that you are to be aligned with the federal government's work and the federal government ha on its own website, sec website, everything that is in the signage that is in the right to know. and we really need to pass the message along to the public for public health service, to provide them with the information that is aligned with our federal government. it is so important for us as local agencies to inform the public and what is the fcc puts right into the phone. here's my iphone which i safely use and follow. it's right in our own iphones. yet, if you don't know how to access that information, you won't know. most people don't know what i know and what you all now know. it's so importan

and editor in chief of buzzfeed, ben smith, who it must be noted, sam stein drew this to my attention yesterday, according to the "jerusalem post" ben smith is the 28th most important jew in the world. >> thanks for mentioning that on air. >> you're so welcome, it's a big title and congratulations. >> sam was actually 51. >> just saying. >> we'll get into the actual rankings. melissa i want to go to you first on this. i feel like -- there are some things that we should be talking about. including 501(c)4s, our tax code, embassy security, what it means to be a diplomat. intelligence-gathering. but we're actually kind of not really talking about any of that during the scandal week and i read "the new york times" editorial board's assessment of the situation. scandal machine, whatever cranky point republicans had been making against president obama for the last five years, dishonesty, socialism, jack-booted tyranny. they somehow found these incidents were actually the proof they had been seeking, no matter how inflated or distorted. your thoughts? >> so remember, what we are always headi

up next, alex wagner and sam stein will join me. lers. the act of soaring across an ocean in a three-hundred-ton rocket doesn't raise as much as an eyebrow for these veterans of the sky. however, seeing this little beauty over international waters is enough to bring a traveler to tears. we're putting the wonder back into air travel, one innovation at a time. the new american is arriving. we're not in london, are we? no. why? apparently my debit card is. what? i know. don't worry, we have cancelled your old card. great. thank you. in addition to us monitoring your accounts for unusual activity, you could also set up free account alerts. okay. [ female announcer ] at wells fargo we're working around the clock to help protect your money and financial information. here's your temporary card. welcome back. how was london? [ female announcer ] when people talk, great things happen. >>> the president himself, as you know, is a lawyer, and taught constitutional law. i'm not sure if he's read that word for word. i'm sure that some of the very high

sam stein covers the white house for the huffington post. let's focus on the hard news right now. but i also want to focus on the reaction we expect from the president. to me, this is the big news here. all of these officials, i'm reading from the ig report, stated that the criteria were not influenced by any individual or organization outside the irs. instead, the determination developed and implemented an inappropriate criteria. chuck, it was inside. it was in the bowels of the irs. they're accusing top level people of not watching closely and no influence from outside, including the white house. >> by the way, it also says this report has not been fully -- that the irs has not followed through on all of the recommendations that the inspector general has made. and, in fact, they continue this sort of an open audit, if you will. if they don't accept all of the different recommendations. the irs is pushing back. so there's an opening here if you're looking at sort of how to play -- if you want to play a leadership, there's an opening here to say the irs has got to accept all of th

up next, alex wagner and sam stein will join me. i've been taking a multivitamin for years. centrum silver. both of us actually. our pharmacist recommended it. and that makes me feel pretty good about it. and then i heard about a study looking at multivitamins and the long term health benefits. and what do you know? they used centrum silver in the study. makes me feel even better, that's what i take. sorry, we take. [ male announcer ] centrum. the most recommended. most preferred. most studied. centrum, always your most complete. >>> the president himself, as you know, is a lawyer, and taught constitutional law. i'm not sure if he's read that word for word. i'm sure that some of the very highly qualified lawyers who work in the white house counsel's office have. and that goes to this specific section of our tax code. i think experts should address that, not me. but if there need to be improvements in how that is -- adjudicated and applied, that's one thing. on the matter at hand here as the president has been very clear, the behavior articulated in the ig report is unaccepta

we just gave the passage to the 49ers and it's all due to silver stein and they got in their hands.g we traffic to bovtd our committee will be there in full force and we have 15 minutes to tell folks y why san francisco will be the best place to host the super bowl. so it gives me great honor to call up mayor ed lee (clapping) >> thank you, danielle i know you mean that in jest for raising $30.25 percent is going to the youth that's an incredible message. i want to thank former mayor willie brown and board president chiu and i want to add my thanks to the entire committee. when we take a worldwide event a sport we all love we're been celebrating for many, many years and going after the super bowl 51 or 51 with the committees leadership has been respectful and reflexive of our valuables. i want to thank the corporations that h have helped. i know the nfl owners are going to do be thankful. we know that what we put together with the cooperation of mayor matthews and the whole region and the reason we're here today at the foot of market street is this is where the nfl starts happening

vice president stein.[speaking spanish] >> one of the strategic elements that as a study group we wanted to put forward at the very beginning was how to move away from a gatekeeper's approach and go deeply into a network approach. because we could not tackle the problems and the complexities of migration agendas in this region with the sole perspective of how to control the flows. and also because we could not approach them, and that's another perspective in the richness of the report only from the perspective of migration specifically. what we needed to look at other issues as well. however, the other, quote-unquote, issues are so complex in themselves as well that it's like walking barefoot on broken glass. and that's why the efforts that the differential elevens that were -- different talents that were summoned to work at the study group tried to approach this whole set of perspectives from a very detailed study of what had happened in the region in the recent decades. secondly, what was changing in the

stein claims he knew nothing about it baud mitts. >> the truth is, what do you do with them if they can't there is a very real need for the disposal of horses that are no longer any chance of being an asset. they're liabilities. >> derrick disagrees. >> they are people that will bear the responsibility of caring for the horse or giving it a painful peaceful death. slaughter is not an alternative ever. >> i would not eat horse meat, not from the united states. >> the proposed ban comes at a time when several meat processors in the u.s. are petitioning to the usd to slaughter horses again. critics say it is just one more important for our domestic food supply to become tainted. >>> helping students stacked with dement how a new tool harnesses the power of the internet to lower loan rates. >>> why thousands of passengers aboard the nightmare carnival cruise might never have their cases heard in court. ♪ charges faster. and will charge. cool. and heat. from your phone. fact: leaf never needs gas. ever. good for the world. built in america. now, leaf's an easier choice than ever. ♪ shop at cho

the buddy cup or as it will soon be known at bars everywhere, the stalker stein. ( cheers and applause ) now, i've always suspected... i've always suspected that the answer to my loneliness was at the bottom of a beer glass. turns out i was right. these cups are wonderful, folks. just picture this. it's 2:00 a.m you're 12 pints deep propping yourself up on a pool cue screaming along with some stranger to chumbawumba. and you're just one cup clink away from a lifetime relationship with a man whose face you are otherwise too drunk to recall. you know, friendship. so, bravo! budweiser for pushing the envelope in beer delivery systems. it's about time you responded to coors' ingenius can that harnesses advanced thermo dynamics to alert you when your beer is cold. before that, you had to rely on thermal contact nodes or in layman's terms, your fingers. ( cheers and applause ) i look forward to more technological innovations that uphold the proud american tradition of putting far more effort into the container than the beer it holds. we'll be right back. bobby. did i get it right? >> you did

sam stein, al hunt, and kelly o'donnell.conference. not great reviews for the president. actually, jonathan coral i think asked a question and let's start the press conference with this and kel me what was going on. >> you still have the juice to get the rest of your agenda through this congress? >> if i put it that way, john, maybe i just pack up and go home. golly. as mark twain said are you mys of my demise may be exaggerated at this point. >> may be exaggerated but somehow to get congress mind bendings awful to do the stuff he they want him to do, it is leadership. they think he can do stuff from the wall loan and follow along and that's not how it works. howard fein men wrote the same thing. about the president admit yesterday he couldn't get in his agenda through congress, he is a lame duck. >> the back drop is the gun debate, the inability to get something through the senate and what happened with sequestration and the air traffic delays and the quick fix he did not want and admitted essentially the 60 vote hurdle in

joining us now, sam stein. sam, thanks very much for being with us tonight on this very, very busy day. >> thanks, rachel. i know i'm not niko the toddler. >> if you slicked your hair back, you could play it. >> you're going to have to pay more a little more money. >> or any. the acting commissioner of the irs got fired, asked to resign. he was not in charge of the irs when all of this happened. the guy who was in charge when all of this happened was the bush appointee who served until november 2012. why did the new guy's head have to roll? >> because someone's head had to roll, right? we're in a political climate where there was a premium accountability and very few people who the president could hold accountable. in addition to that, this man, steven miller, the acting commissioner of the irs, did go in front of congress on several occasions to testify that this targeting, the filtering of conservative groups was not taking place, now we know because of the i.g. report that was happening. so, he had lost some

. >> neil: ben stein, there are a lot of things affecting investors' moods. what do you think of the sequester cuts? >> investors are a buoyant upbeat mood. we love it when that happens. but we don't know what the jobs picture would have looked like without the sequestration. maybe there would have been more jobs. not so much of the jobs picture the defense picture, mccain all the heads of uniformed services they can't defend the country with the sequestration. if that is true, it's serious. >>>. >> i want to applaud charles' optimism. a huge pat on the back for me. >> i do point out things when bad as well. [ laughter ] >> neil: go ahead. >> ben stole some of my thunder because we have to be statistically fair here. if the sequestration hent happened there could be greater job creation but the point is the economy is doing fairly well. hurray for our economy. the sequestration has been terrible policy. remember, many of the effects have been on furloughs and not job eliminations so those wouldn't get counted as job losses. >> the real point, adam, we didn't

and i tried to tell stein that i was going to leave, and he simply didn't believe me. so finally i wrote a letter of resignation to the president and sent it and left a copy on stein's desk. and then he believed me, and he really did regard it as a personal betrayal. >> and did he tell you that personally? >> yeah, pretty much. uh-huh. it was clear, let's put it that way. >> many okay. you entitled that chapter in your book "the end of innocence. " why was that like that for you? >> well, because as i say, i had always, you know, sort of taken these institutions, like the presidency, at face value. and i had tried for as long as i could to evade recognizing the fact that there was a very dark side to this presidency which, as i say, had a lot of very exciting and progressive things going on. and it's in that sense that i meant the end of innocence. and, you know, ever since then i've tended to look at institutions, whatever institutions they are, a little more critically than i would have before. >> you move from there to years of incredible board service at some of bi

ben stein, what do you make of that? >> i make of it the fact that they are incentivizing her to keep her mouth shut by sayin you'reoing to get your paycheck as long as you keep your mouth shut. if they are to fire her and cut off her paychecks, she has nothing to do but sell a book or agazine o an interviw. they're incentivizing her to keep her mouth shut. >> i totally disagree with all of you. first of all, there's no accountability. we are hammering them. congress isammering them. >> why isn't -- why isn't anybody fired? >> my second point is -- hold on. let's be consistent. we all complain when the government does things too quickly. when tarp happened too quickly. adam, when the -- >> nobody had a chance to read. let's take the time to get it right. that's how -- >> john? >> even the fat cats on wall street act faster than these guys. this is what you get when you get big liberal government. you vote for bureaucracies you get this. layers upon layers of no accountability. >> adam, could i say this. i love you dearly

we'll have to see if that happens again this time. >> brown: all right, rob stein of npr, thanks so muchnks for >> woodruff: again, the major developments of the day: president obama made new efforts to calm a series of political storms. in particular, he promised to work with congress to prevent abuses at the i.r.s., as a second top agency official stepped down. the president also met with pentagon leaders and said they're ashamed at the military's failure to stop sexual assault in the ranks. and the town of granbury, texas, picked up the pieces after a night of tornadoes that leveled homes and killed six people. >> brown: and online today: for astronauts, returning to earth is more complicated than just making a safe landing. kwame holman explains. >> holman: canadian astronaut chris hadfield recently returned from a four-month stay at the international space station. on the rundown, we examine how his body changed in space and the challenges of reacclimating to life on earth. and on art beat, a look at life on the streets of the windy city, ray suarez talks with photographer jon lowen