Guest: Zachary Roth, Jeff Biggers
KEITH OLBERMANN, “COUNTDOWN” HOST: Good evening, Rachel.
RACHEL MADDOW, “THE RACHEL MADDOW SHOW” HOST: Good evening, Keith.
Thank you very much very for that.
And thanks to you at home for staying with us for the next hour. In
mid-February on this show, we aired this piece of tape of a tea party
leader in Washington State discussing Senator Patty Murray of Washington.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: How many of you watched the movie “Lonesome
Dove”? What happened to Jake when he ran with the wrong crowd? What
happened to Jake when he ran with the wrong crowd? He got hung. That‘s
what I want to do with Patty Murray.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
MADDOW: “What happened to Jake when he ran with the wrong crowd?
He got hung. That‘s what I want to do to with Patty Murray.”
That happened at a TEA Party event in Washington State in mid-
February. Now, a Washington State man was arrested for his threats to kill
Senator Patty Murray. He‘s a 63-year-old Yakima, Washington, man. He was
reportedly so enraged by his opposition to health care that his regular
litany of what were described as vulgar and abusive messages for Senator
Murray turned explicitly violent and threatening when health reform passed.
Quote, “There‘s a target on your back now. It only takes one piece
of lead. Kill the expletive senator. Now, that you passed your health
care bill, let the violence begin.”
Quote, “I hope somebody gets through your security and blows your
expletive brains out.”
Quote, “I hope somebody puts a expletive bullet between your
expletive eyes.”
Quote, “I want to expletive kill you.”
Quote, “I do believe that every one of you expletive socialist
Democratic progressive expletives needs to be taken out.”
The FBI managed to find and arrest the caller who left those
messages this morning. They are charging him with threatening a federal
official.
After getting a subpoena to trace the man‘s blocked telephone
number, an FBI called the man‘s phone number and pretended to be from the
anti-health reform group Patients United Now. You remember that Patients
United Now is part of Americans for Prosperity, the Koch Industry funded
group that spent a good deal of the last year organizing those “hands off
my health care” rallies.
Well, during that course of that call from the FBI agent, the
affidavit in this case says the suspect, quote, “repeatedly expressed his
strong dislike for the recent health care reform legislation,” and, quote,
“confirmed that he regularly placed calls to Senator Murray‘s and Senator
Maria Cantwell‘s offices.”
He also told the FBI agent that, quote, “I do pack,” as in I carry a
gun, “and I will not blink when I‘m confronted. And that is a guarantee.
It‘s not a threat, it‘s a guarantee. I pack a .38 and if somebody says, I
will not blink.” He will not blink.
The FBI determined that man did indeed have a .38 revolver that was
registered to him. He also had a valid concealed weapons permit.
Today also, Congressman John Lewis of Georgia released a sample of
what he has faced from opponents of health reform. This is a voicemail
that Congressman Lewis released today.
(BEGIN AUDIO CLIP)
CALLER: I ain‘t getting the (EXPLETIVE DELETED) health insurance,
that (EXPLETIVE DELETED). Don‘t tell me I got to get some (EXPLETIVE
DELETED) health insurance. I ain‘t paying no (EXPLETIVE DELETED) a fine.
Tell that (EXPLETIVE DELETED) he can come put my (EXPLETIVE DELETED) in
jail if he don‘t like it. (EXPLETIVE DELETED) worthless (EXPLETIVE
DELETED), all them other (EXPLETIVE DELETED) that voted for that (EXPLETIVE
DELETED) Obama and all them white trash honkies that voted for that
(EXPLETIVE DELETED) communist socialist stuff. Dumb mother (EXPLETIVE
DELETED).
I ain‘t getting the (EXPLETIVE DELETED) mandatory health insurance
son of a (EXPLETIVE DELETED) mother (EXPLETIVE DELETED) bunch of (EXPLETIVE
DELETED) white trash honkies, son of a (EXPLETIVE DELETED) communists
voting for this (EXPLETIVE DELETED).
I ain‘t going to fight no (EXPLETIVE DELETED) war, I‘m not going to
be forced to do something I don‘t want to do. So (EXPLETIVE DELETED) all
y‘all (EXPLETIVE DELETED). You, John Lewis, you (EXPLETIVE DELETED)
worthless, communist (EXPLETIVE DELETED).
(END AUDIO CLIP)
MADDOW: We also learned today of an arrest in Texas after a 27-
year-old man declared that he intended to use deadly force to stop
abortions from being provided at a specific named clinic that provides
abortions in Dallas, Texas. Oddly, the man made the threat in a court
filing. He was trying to file a complaint against the Supreme Court,
demanding that the Supreme Court make abortion illegal immediately.
In this hefty filing, the man said, quote, “I will try to stop an
abortion using oral words, and if words are not enough, I will use physical
force if necessary, and if anyone tries to physically stop me, I will
overcome that force, and if I must use deadly force to defend the innocent
life of another human being, I will.”
The man stated he was headed to this clinic in Dallas. He was
arrested. He has been charged with transmitting an interstate
communication containing a threat and using a threat of force to intimidate
the employees of a reproductive health services provider.
And that last one is a law that only exists because of the organized
and extreme longstanding anti-abortion movement in this country, a portion
of which preaches force and intimidation to get what they want.
In the midst of this climate right now in the country, conservative
gun rights advocates are organizing armed shows of force in state capitals
around the country. Culminating what they say they wish could be an armed
march on Washington on April 19th of this year.
April 19th of this year, of course, not only the anniversary of the
Waco disaster, not only the anniversary of the start of the American
Revolution, but most recently, the anniversary of the Oklahoma City bombing
by anti-government extremist, militia affiliated gun rights enthusiast,
Timothy McVeigh. That bombing was on April 19th, 1995.
There will be an armed group marching on April 19th of this year in
Virginia, just across the Potomac from downtown Washington, D.C. They say
they‘re getting as close as they legally can get to Washington with loaded
weapons.
Simultaneously, on the grounds of the Washington Monument, there
will be the Second Amendment March—unarmed but only reluctantly so. As
the lead-up to that event on the Oklahoma City anniversary, the Second
Amendment March group is holding an armed march in Virginia, at the state
capitol in Virginia. The featured speaker is Virginia‘s Attorney General
Ken Cuccinelli, who, of course, is the right-hand man of Virginia
Republican Governor Bob McDonnell, who today declared April to be
Confederate History Month in Virginia.
It is news days like this that remind me that when somebody says to
you, “May you live in interesting times,” they probably mean it as a curse.
Joining us now is Zachary Roth, senior reporter with “Talking Points
Memo.”
Zach, thanks very much for joining us.
ZACHARY ROTH, “TALKING POINTS MEMO”: Thanks for having me.
MADDOW: I want to ask you about an anti-abortion connection between
two of those events that I described today. There was guy arrested in
Texas, right? But then there‘s also the man arrested in Washington State.
One of his messages to Patty Murray is reported as having been, “Baby
killer, Murray, I hope somebody gets through your security and blows your
expletive brains out, you expletive baby killing expletive, expletive.”
Do we know how connected the radical anti-abortion movement is to
other forms of anti-government extremism?
ROTH: We don‘t know absolutely. But what we do is that when, for
instance, George Tiller was murdered last year by a radical anti-abortion
protester, many abortion rights groups were saying they‘ve noticed an
uptick in this kind of violent language and rhetoric and there seemed to be
this kind of increase in that type of activity. And, of course, that “baby
killer” phrase, as you know, relates presumably to a comment that was made
by a Republican member of Congress as the health care bill was passing,
where he yelled “baby killer” on the House, Texas Republican Randy
Neugebauer.
And this guy, as we saw in some of his other comments, was clearly
watching the news and paying attention to the health care reform bill. So,
it‘s certainly not a stretch to think he was picking up on that rhetoric
and sort of taking it a step further.
MADDOW: Certainly. Although he doesn‘t have to be—he doesn‘t
have to have been quoting Neugebauer in order to have said that. That‘s
the sort of thing that‘s been yelled by anti-abortion extremists for a long
time. I have been yelled at and called a baby killer myself for discussing
pro-choice views.
The Virginia attorney general is speaking at this armed rally,
Confederate History Month being declared in Virginia by the new Republican
governor there. Politicians, like Governor Bob McDonnell in Virginia is
being sort of touted as the face of the Republican Party.
Is there a political cost that politicians like him have to consider
when sort of trying to appeal to the edges in political terms?
ROTH: I mean, there is certainly a political cost if he, for
instance, chose to run for president, which some people in the Republican
Party think he might one day want to do. Maybe there‘s a cost in Virginia,
too, which, you know, voted for Obama and is an increasingly sort of
centrist and leaning Democratic state in recent years.
But there‘s also cost for him, it seems like, in not going to that
extreme. Increasingly what we‘ve seen with the Republican Party and polls
spell this out, is that Republican base voters now are so—the party is
so sort of shrunk down to its root, that in order to appeal to the people
who are going to come out and vote for Republicans, you have to kind of up
the crazy level a little bit.
And you‘ve seen that not just from McDonnell, but from Cuccinelli as
well, not only in speaking at this, you know, pro-gun march, but in trying
to repeal benefits or protections that universities have in place against
gay and lesbians, you know, this Confederate History Month that McDonnell
has instituted, a number of these things that seem like direct efforts to
appeal to that shrinking base.
MADDOW: It is also striking. And, again, this relates
specifically, this was one incident today in Washington State, the threat
against Patty Murray. The FBI used the name of an actual an anti-health
reform group to catch this guy. Strategically, I guess, both in a law
enforcement sense, does that make sense? Does that have difficult
implications for the relationship between law enforcement and politics?
ROTH: It might have difficult implications for this group to know
that they‘re the one that the FBI sort of chose successfully to think that
they would appeal to this kind of allegedly unhinged lunatic and that he
would want to get involved with them. If you read the transcript of sound
of the conversation, it sounds like he was very interested in talking to
them.
I mean, what else stood that out to me with him was how closely he
seems to have been picking up on Republican talking points and all of this
stuff. So, he talked about socialism. He talked about no bureaucrat is
going to determine my health care. He even sort of made an oblique
reference at one point to a comment that Eric Holder, the attorney general,
had made about Americans being cowardly in not talking about race.
So, he is—you know, it‘s like he‘s almost like a conservative
blogger, you know, or something like that, rather than your average
unhinged lunatic.
MADDOW: Or at least sounds like a conservative blogger.
Absolutely.
ROTH: Yes.
MADDOW: Zachary Roth, senior reporter of “Talking Points Memo”—
thanks very much for joining us. Appreciate it.
ROTH: Thanks for having me.
MADDOW: OK. There‘s a lot more to come this hour. We got the
latest on the mining disaster in West Virginia. We‘ve got news about the
bank bailout that throws the common wisdom about it out the window. And we
got an exclusive on ACORN, the videotape that destroyed that organization
and the new videotape that destroys the videotape that destroyed ACORN.
It‘s all coming up.
Please stay with us.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
MADDOW: We now know that 25 miners have died in Montcoal, West
Virginia. Another four are still missing, in what‘s now officially the
worst mine disaster in more than two decades in this country. The
explosion at the Upper Big Branch South mine yesterday after is still being
investigated. But experts believe it was caused by a buildup of methane
gas. That same cause also played a role in the Sago Mine explosion that
killed 12 West Virginia miners in 2006.
Rescuers were ordered out of the Big Branch Mine early this morning
when methane levels became dangerously high again. According to West
Virginia‘s governor, Joe Manchin, rescue workers had searched beyond the
point at which they were putting their own lives in danger when they were
finally pulled out.
Before the search effort can resume, crews must drill bore holes
into the mine to try to vent out this gas. It‘s expected to take until at
least tomorrow evening. So, the search for the four miners who remain
unaccounted for will not proceed for at least another day.
Governor Manchin giving updates today, alongside state and federal
officials. He promised to conduct a full investigation into what caused
the explosion and to hold a public hearing.
Now, the company that owns the Upper Big Branch South mine where
yesterday‘s explosion took place is a company called Massey Energy. Massey
Energy, one of the top five coal producers in the country.
“The Associated Press” describes Massey‘s safety record as spotty.
“The Washington Post” today reports that “Massey has been frequently
cited for safety violations, including 50 citations at the Upper Big Branch
mine in March alone.”
There have been three fatalities at this one mine over the past 12
years. In seven of the last 10 years, according to the “A.P.,” its
nonfatal injury rate has been worse than the national average for similar
operations.
Researchers at “Think Progress” have also been compiling safety
information on the Upper Big Branch mine. They found today that the mine
has been cited for more than 3,000 safety violations since 1995.
Now, the CEO of Massey Energy is a man named Don Blankenship. Mr.
Blankenship is on the board of directors of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce.
He‘s very politically active. In West Virginia, he spent more than $3
million on ads to defeat a Supreme Court justice, a state Supreme Court
justice who he expected would rule against him in a $50 million court case.
The new judge—after the guy who Blankenship wanted out was
defeated—the new judge, shockingly, became the deciding vote in the
ruling in Mr. Blankenship‘s favor in that case. In November of 2008,
apparently in response to a series of articles about mountain top removal
mining and a fatal fire in one of the company‘s mines and the “buying the
judge” controversy, Mr. Blankenship lashed out at the newspaper that was
covering him, the “Charleston Gazette.”
He said at the time, quote, “It is as great a pleasure for me to be
criticized by the communists and the atheists of the ‘Charleston Gazette‘
as to be applauded by my best friends. Because I know they are wrong.
People are cowering away from being criticized by people that are our
enemies. Would we be upset if Osama bin Laden was critical of us?”
“Charleston Gazette,” Osama bin Laden.
Here‘s what happened in April 2008 when ABC News tried to ask Mr.
Blankenship about the “buy a judge” controversy.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
DON BLANKENSHIP, MASSEY ENERGY CEO: If you‘re going to start taking
pictures of me, you‘re liable to get shot.
REPORTER: Hi. How are you doing, Mr. Blankenship? ABC News. Hey,
sir, don‘t touch my camera.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
MADDOW: He said at the beginning there, in case you missed it, “If
you‘re going to start taking pictures of me, you‘re liable to get shot.”
That‘s the head of Massey Energy, one of the largest coal producers
in the country.
Coal mining is the industry that lost 12 workers at Sago Mine in
2006, that lost five that same year in Millsboro, Kentucky, that lost
another six at the Crandall Canyon mine in Utah in 2001, that lost 13
miners in Brookwood, Alabama, in 2001.
Coal mining is a dangerous industry by its very nature, but there
are ways to make it less dangerous, less deadly.
A top official with the federal Mine Safety and Health
Administration said today, “All explosions are preventable.” Essentially,
the idea being, that mining is dangerous, but mining accidents like the one
that happened yesterday in Montcoal are preventable—if companies that
run these mines are forced to prevent them. Clearly, by their track
record, the mine companies are not going to do this on their own, which
means they are going to have to be forced to. In fact, they will probably
fight as hard as they can to not do what regulators tell them to do
because, of course, it will make them less profitable.
But you know what? Digging coal out of the ground is expensive and
there is the possibility that we ought to pay for that expense in something
other than the lives of the people who do the mining.
Joining us now is Jeff Biggers, author of the book “Reckoning at
Eagle Creek: The Secret Legacy of Coal in the Heartland.”
Mr. Biggers, thank you very much for coming on the show. It‘s nice
to see you.
JEFF BIGGERS, AUTHOR, “RECKONING AT EAGLE CREEK”: Thanks for having
me, Rachel.
MADDOW: There‘s been a lot of reporting today on this particular
mine owned by Massey Energy. It‘s racked up with what seems like a lot of
safety violations over the years.
Can you put Massey‘s safety record in perspective for us? How bad
are their violations considering the industry as a whole?
BIGGERS: You know, Massey not only had 500 violations in the last
year, but 10 percent of those violations are what we call unwarrantable
failure violations, which means serious life-and-death issues. You know,
at the same time, we really have to point out the issue of putting
production over safety, Rachel, because at the same time, they had an
increase of 500 violations, they tripled their coal production.
And this is really part of the coal industry and a large part of the
coal industry. I don‘t want to say all of the coal industry. But for the
most part, the idea that you can continue to operate a coal mine in a
continual state of violation and denial.
MADDOW: If these coal mine disasters are preventable, why do they
keep happening? Is—are the fines not tough enough? Are the regulations
not tight enough? Are the regulations not being enforced properly?
Are they defying findings against them? What‘s the problem?
BIGGERS: That‘s a great question. I mean, essentially, as a
historian, what I have found is we passed a century of regulated
manslaughter. Over 104,000 Americans have died in our coal mines and
thousands upon thousands of coal miners still die from black lung disease.
Every day, we lose three coal miners to black lung disease. Think
about it. In 2010, three coal miners daily die from black lung disease.
So, these regulations, what‘s happening? You know, for the most
part, it‘s more profitable for a coal company to be slapped on the wrist
and pay fines, even fines up to $1 million than to halt their production.
And I think that‘s ultimately what we‘re having to come to grips
with is, does this regulatory system work? Do we need to change it? Do we
need to have more visits, for example, instead of quarterly visits, which
we‘ve been stuck on since 1969? Perhaps we have to have six to eight
visits and inspections per year.
There are many ways to tackle this. But I think, more importantly,
it‘s a state of mind, that a crisis is not a crisis in this coal industry
until we have these horrific disasters.
MADDOW: One of the—one of the sort of ongoing stories about
mining in this country, coal mining in particular, but mining in general,
and the struggle of powerful mine owners like Don Blankenship at Massey
Energy and others who‘ve been so willing to throw their weight around in
the political arena. The other side of that story has been the struggle of
mine workers unions to try to not only get access to workers, to organize
workers who work in these mines, but also to try to play a role in safety
issues.
Right now, in 2010, this particular mine not a union mine.
Generally speaking, does the presence of unions make mines any safer?
BIGGERS: You know, that‘s a wonderful point to make. Virtually,
all the major accidents and disasters have taken place in non-union mines.
And really, Massey Energy is infamous not only for their state of
violations both with underground and but also surface mining, but the fact
that they really were part and parcel of being aggressive about breaking up
the unions in the 1980s and the 1990s. And this is ultimately what we‘re
paying for.
You know, in the old days, Rachel, or in a union mine, you had union
fire bosses who came in, who pointed out the violations. And it was a
brotherhood to really make sure that those violations were corrected and
you have a safer mine, because those were members of the union that were in
there.
Today, we have less than 20 percent of our coal miners, estimated,
who actually are with the United Mine Workers or any sort of union. And
ultimately now, we‘re paying the price.
You know, that‘s the problem. The coal companies and their
representatives who do any kind of inspections outside of federal
inspectors, they see regulations as just obstacles to production. They
don‘t realize that regulations are about human lives. It‘s about
protecting American citizens and the coal miners.
MADDOW: Jeff Biggers, author of “Reckoning at Eagle Creek: The
Secret Legacy of Coal in the Heartland”—Mr. Biggers, thanks very much
for joining us tonight. Thanks for being here.
BIGGERS: Thanks for having me.
MADDOW: So, do you remember the undercover pimp video that
supposedly blew the lid off the corruption at ACORN? The video that helped
shut down ACORN? We now have the unedited videotape of some of those
incidents, and the firestorm that destroyed ACORN turns out was fueled by
pure manure. That‘s next.
Stay with us.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
MADDOW: On October 7th last year, Republican congressman named Pete
Olson of Texas introduced a resolution in Congress to honor Hannah Giles
and James O‘Keefe III, who the resolution said, “filmed investigatory
videos uncovering the fraudulent and illegal practices of the Association
of Community Organization for Reform Now or ACORN.”
A few months earlier, of course, James O‘Keefe III and Hannah Giles
got the right wing of this country very excited when they released
supposedly incriminating undercover videos that they filmed at local ACORN
offices across the country. They claimed the video showed Mr. O‘Keefe and
Ms. Giles dressed as a pimp and prostitute, receiving assistance and advice
from ACORN about how to do stuff like smuggling underage girls into the
country and securing funding for their illegal prostitution business.
Now, James O‘Keefe and Hannah Giles were all over FOX News for this.
They were lauded as the right‘s answer to that biased, biased left-wing
profession known as journalism.
And this resolution that 32 House Republicans ultimately signed on
to was meant to commemorate their good work, said, quote, “Whereas Hannah
Giles and James O‘Keefe III have displayed exemplary actions as government
watchdogs and young journalists, Hannah Giles and James O‘Keefe III are
owed a debt of gratitude by the people of the United States.”
That resolution never passed the House. But six months after it was
introduced, California Attorney General Jerry Brown released details of his
investigation into the ACORN prostitution sting. And what he found
suggests that the conservative activists who brought down ACORN deserve
something other than just the nation‘s thanks, declaring that the tapes
that were aired on FOX News in a seemingly constant loop were, quote,
“severely edited,” in his words.
The attorney general released the unedited tapes that Mr. O‘Keefe
and Ms. Giles had shot at California ACORN offices. He said those unedited
tapes show that, quote, “Things are not always as partisan zealots portray
them through highly selective editing for reality. Sometimes, a fuller
truth is found on the cutting room floor.”
The thing that was supposed to be so shocking about this scandal in
the first place was the accusation that ACORN employees willingly helped a
pimp and a prostitute skirt the law, even though it was perfectly clear
that they were a pimp and prostitute.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: He‘s dressed exactly in the same outfit that he
wore to these ACORN offices.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
MADDOW: James O‘Keefe went to those offices dressed up as a pimp
and they still helped him.
Outrageous, right? Wrong.
Here is how Fox News viewers were shown Mr.O‘Keefe reportedly setting
up his stunt at the ACORN office in San Diego. Watch this.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
(MUSIC PLAYING)
(END VIDEO CLIP)
So the implication there that Mr. O‘Keefe walks into the ACORN office
dressed in the fur and the hat and everything as a superfly, black
exploitation-style 1970s pimp, but that is not actually what happened.
Check out the unedited tape. This is the very end of that visit to the
office in San Diego.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
O‘KEEFE: Thanks, Ma‘am.
VERA: OK. Nice to meet you.
O‘KEEFE: Nice to meet you.
MADDOW (voice-over): Wait it a second here. You see that dress shirt, the
pink stripes there. See that dress shirt that‘s visible as Mr. O‘Keefe
opens the door and exits the office. It is a dress shirt. What happened
to the fur and the 1970s superfly black exploitation outfit?
(END VIDEO CLIP)
MADDOW: The pimp outfit thing is just the start. If you watched the
footage these guys released, if you follow the wall-to-wall coverage on
Fox, if you read all the fun in mainstream media coverage of what these
guys did. If you are a member of Congress and voted to defund ACORN
because of the outrage portrayed in these tapes, you were had.
Consider this, during that same not-in-a-pimp suit trip to ACORN San
Diego office, Mr. O‘Keefe claimed that he caught an ACORN employee giving
him advice on how to smuggle underage girls into the country. This is from
the edited version of that trip that O‘Keefe released, and Fox News aired
over and over and over again. Watch.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Question, would ACORN employee, Juan Carlos, consult
his contacts in Mexico to find a way to help us smuggle the underage girls
into the United States from Tijuana?
What things do you need from me in terms of shipment information, like
what can I help you? What information would you further need would help
you in the advice you would give me.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The location.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The location?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yes.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Whereabouts like what type, like the city, the state,
what do you need?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The location they are going to take the girls.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Is it better if it is Tijuana? Is it better if it is
somewhere inland? Where is the best place? All these answers he wants
right away.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It‘s better if it‘s in Tijuana.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Tijuana?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yes.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Why?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Because I have a lot of contacts in Tijuana.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: OK and they might be able to assist crossing the
border.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yes.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: OK, there‘s like 12 of them. Is that OK?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Twelve girls.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: There are 12 girls, but they‘re like 13 to 15 years
old.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
MADDOW: Damning video, right? Billed by people like Fox News Host Sean
Hannity as cold, hard evidence of ACORN aiding and abetting this crime.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
SEAN HANNITY: This new, never before seen undercover footage shows the
great links than one ACORN official is willing to go in order to help set
up a prostitution ring once again involving underage girls. Now, the man
on this tape even offers to help smuggle underage illegal immigrants into
the U.S. for the purposes of prostitution.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
MADDOW: Actually, what you don‘t see in that Fox News report is the rest
of the video, which shows the ACORN employee pressing, pressing for as much
information as he could possibly get from these two people in his office.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
VERA: So the telephone number is 201? What area is that?
O‘KEEFE: It‘s from—I‘m from back East. I‘m actually originally from
New Jersey.
VERA: OK, so you don‘t know what date or day?
GILES: They‘re coming on Saturday, Saturday morning.
VERA: Saturday morning?
GILES: Yes, Friday night, Saturday morning.
VERA: Really late, in the middle of the night.
GILES: Secret. Like between 2:00 a.m. and 5:00 a.m.
VERA: So they‘re working on then?
GILES: They are working on the arrival.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
MADDOW: Why is he asking for stuff like phone numbers, dates of arrival,
specific locations, all these details? What is this ACORN guy going to do
with all that information? What does he do with all that information? He
calls the police and reports what they‘ve told him is going to be a crime.
Quoting from the attorney general‘s report, “Immediately after the couple
left, Mr. Vera telephoned his cousin, Detective Alejandro Hernandez at the
National City Police Department (and said) that a self- prostitute had been
to the office and was discussing human smuggling.”
Detective Hernandez contacted Detective Mark Haas at the San Diego
Police Department. Detective Haas works with cases involving human
smuggling. So that ACORN employee who by the way doesn‘t speak English all
that well, did the responsible thing. He elicited as much information as
he could get out of his supposed pimp and prostitute in his office and then
he immediately reported it to the police. For that he ended up getting
fired after fantastical interpretations of his actions like these aired on
Fox News.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: He told us that it would be best if we had them ship
into Tijuana because he had contacts there that could help us. It was
extremely unusual. He said, yes, my people have experienced bringing
people across the border.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
MADDOW: Yes, I remember when he said my people have experienced—that
was you that said that. The fact that the ACORN employee collected all
that information, including phone numbers and dates and passed that
information on to the police. That never made it into that Fox News report
on this outrage at the San Diego ACORN office.
If you watched the Fox News coverage of these undercover ACORN tapes, you
would have gotten the impression that every ACORN employee offered their
assistance in hiding what they were explosively told was a prostitution
business.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
HANNITY: It is almost inconceivable.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: You can‘t think that this is okay. You know that if it
were you and this couple came in and walked into your office, you wouldn‘t
sit there.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
MADDOW: You wouldn‘t sit there. You wouldn‘t sit there like these evil
ACORN employees did before they called the police. I know this may shock
you, but Fox News it turns out was not giving its viewers an accurate
portrayal of how exactly these two activists represented themselves when
they went into the ACORN offices.
The story Fox News told its viewers was that O‘Keefe and Giles went
into ACORN saying they wanted to start a child prostitution business,
right? ACORN employees like Lavell Stewart in Los Angeles were more than
eager to help them out with starting this child prostitution business.
Here is how it played on Fox.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
HANNITY: After telling Stewart they are looking to start a prostitution
business, Stewart is well pretty encouraging.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: You can do anything. OK. Never give up. Keep
pushing. Somebody will say yes.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
MADDOW: So that is how Fox News packaged and reported what happened in
that office. They reported that after this ACORN employee was told that
this pimp and prostitute wanted to start a prostitution business, she
encouraged them to go for it. Now that we have the unedited tapes, do you
want to see what actually happened?
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
O‘KEEFE: We have an interesting situation. My girlfriend here is from
Miami originally.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: OK.
O‘KEEFE: She came over to California. She is in a unique line of work.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: OK.
O‘KEEFE: It has been so much trouble trying to get a house because the
bankers—
UNIDENTIFED FEMALE: Yes.
O‘KEEFE: They want to see something official, and we don‘t have anything
like that. So that‘s why ACORN—
STEWART: You know what, when you go to them, tell them exactly what you
told me. Tell them your situation, because they can probably give you some
advice.
O‘KEEFE: Yes, they can probably help her out.
STEWART: They can help her.
O‘KEEFE: Because we have been to so many banks, and they‘re just like—
STEWART: Yes.
O‘KEEFE: We don‘t like to deal with prostitutes.
STEWART: Yes, you can do anything. OK, never give up, no matter who says
no. Somebody‘s going to say yes.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
MADDOW: See how she turns away from him and turns to her. What actually
happened is that O‘Keefe and Giles told this ACORN employee they couldn‘t
find housing because Ms. Giles was a prostitute, and that‘s when that
employee turned to her and encouraged her to keep trying to get housing for
herself. Not encouraging her to start a prostitution business, but
encouraging her keep trying in her effort to get housing.
But don‘t let that stop you, Mr. Hannity. Don‘t let that get in the
way of your great story. In criticizing this type of selective editing,
California attorney general Jerry Brown‘s office said, quote, “the video
releases were heavily edited to feature only the worst, almost
inappropriate, statements of the various ACORN employees and to omit some
of the most salient statements by O‘Keefe and Giles.
The unedited videotapes released by the California attorney general‘s
office last week clear ACORN employees in California of criminal
wrongdoing. They do not clear ACORN offices in other parts of the country.
We have talked about ACORN‘S real various misdeeds before on the show
including having an executive who embezzled funds and some other problems.
This is not meant to excuse what ACORN has done wrong in the past,
but the huge tide of negative publicity that followed these videotapes and
the coverage they‘ve got on Fox wall to wall (inaudible). It was
dishonest, political stunt that bears no resemblance to journalism and no
resemblance to the actual facts of what happened in those offices, but it
worked.
This big organization serving poor people, registering thousands of
low income voters, advocating for a higher minimum wage, this organization
has been shut down. Means be damned, in the end it worked. Who do you
think is next on their list?
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
Hey, it turns out the common wisdom is broken. The bank bail out is
making a profit. U.S. Treasury says from the 49 firms who have paid back
the money and exited the program, they have made or rather taxpayers have
made $10.5 billion profits. According to the Financial Research firm of
NSL Financial that‘s a tidy 8.5 percent return on the bail out investment.
Included in the bargain, the banking system appears to have survived
and most Americans do not live in cardboard boxes. Politically though,
don‘t forget bail out huge failure, the country is communist now and ACORN
is responsible for everything bad including that guy from Butler missing
that half court at the buzzer last night. They did. They did it. Don‘t
forget.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
MADDOW: Coming up on “COUNTDOWN,” Senator Tom Coburn, possibly the
most right wing member of the United States Senate goes after Fox News.
Really. The first a few holy mackerel stories in today‘s news, are you
ready for your does Michael Steele still have a job as head of the RNC
updates? Of course you are.
After the RNC was found to have spent donor money at a fake lesbian
nightclub, and after they paid $13,000 to the RNC co-chair‘s daughter and
they charged expenses at a fly-fishing shop and liquor store as meals and
office supplies. And after big wig formed their new group and told donors
to stop giving Michael Steel any money.
And after Sarah Palin demanded that her name be taken off an RNC
fund-raiser and after maybe these single biggest fund-raiser in the
Republican party quit the RNC and after the RNC chief of staff either quit
or was fired and Michael Steele replaced him with a reportedly widely hated
guy who run his not reportedly but actually disastrous and scandal ridden
failed Senate campaign.
After all that happened and Mr. Steele hired at his new finance guy
and then who was recently fined thousands of dollars in fines for misusing
donor‘s money, after of all that, today happened. In today‘s news, we
learn that an RNC member from New Hampshire has resigned in public protest
of Mr. Steele‘s leadership.
And we learned that the political consultants who helped Mr. Steele
get the RNC chairman gig in the first placed have quit him too. We have
learned that Mr. Steele has written to all of the remaining members of the
RNC saying the buck stops with him and he wants the RNC to buckle up and
hunker down with him that‘s the actual phrase he used.
Buckle up and hunker down, and Mr. Steele still has his job. For the
record, right now as I‘m speaking it is 9:47 p.m. Eastern time on Tuesday,
in case this needs to be timestamp.
In Nevada, the trials and tribulations of Senator John Ensign are
threatening to take a public turn. A source in the justice department
saying it is very likely John Ensign will be indicted and that charges
would include the allegations when Senator Ensign last year paid almost
$100,000 to his mistress. He did so in a way that was deliberately
designed to keep that payment from having to be reported.
Meanwhile, Mr. Ralston‘s paper, “The Las Vegas Sun”, Mr. Ensign‘s
hometown paper, has published perhaps the most scathing, brutal takedown of
a sitting as yet an indicted senator that I have ever read in any senator‘s
hometown paper ever in my entire life. They call him tone deaf, borderline
obtuse, increasingly arrogant, narcissistic, reckless, a detached self-
righteous figure oblivious to the collateral damaged caused by his actions.
Examples of Ensign‘s selfishness and arrogance they say are legion.
They use the word narcissism again. They say he has character defects. He
was an ass to his employees, he was a show horse not a workhorse, neither
knowledgeable nor interested in the gritty details of policy or politics.
He is uninformed.
These are all words used in the article in John Ensign‘s hometown
paper and most of these allegations again Ensign are sourced to Nevada
Republicans quite a few of them are willing to be quoted by name saying
these things about sitting Republican Senator John Ensign. No matter what
you think about John Ensign, this piece in the “Las Vegas Sun” is one of
the most remarkable hometown takedowns I have ever seen of any politician.
It is linked if you would like to cuddle up with it at
maddowblog.msnbc.com. We‘ll be right back.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
MADDOW: The video we are about to show you here is graphic and it may
be disturbing. Take a look if you want to a video released yesterday
reportedly taken during combat operations in Iraq. It was reportedly taken
from a U.S. attack helicopter.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: You‘re clear.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: All right, firing.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Let me know when you‘ve got them.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Light them all up.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Come on, fire.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Roger. Keep shooting. Keep shooting.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
MADDOW: That is just a small portion of a 38-minute video posted online by
whistle-blowing web site wikileaks.org. Wikileaks says it received the
classified video and supporting documents from anonymous military sources.
The video appears to depict the U.S. military attack helicopters shooting
at what the pilots appeared to believe are armed insurgents on the streets
of Baghdad.
After gunning down eight people, the helicopter then shoots at people
who emerged from a van to help the people who were wounded in the earlier
shooting barrage. But according to the context provided by Wikileaks, two
of the victims were actually not only not armed insurgents, they were
actually journalists for Reuters‘ news service.
The military‘s response to this has been not to deny the authenticity
of the video, but to defend the choices made by its troops in this war
zone. Here‘s what the military said after an internal investigation into
this incident in 2007. They said that the attack weapons team positively
identified the threat, established hostile intent, conducted a collateral
damage assessment and received clearance to fire. They also say after only
extensive review of the helicopter gun cam video did they realize that two
of the individuals killed may have been reporters.
Nearly three years later, the Wiki-leaks video surfaced on the same
day as the “New York Times” published another heart in your throat
description of an attack that killed civilians in a war zone. This time in
Afghanistan, it was this February, a couple of months ago during a
nighttime raid.
Special forces looking for Taliban insurgents fired on two armed men
who emerged from their home to investigate. They also shot and killed
three women who were standing near one of the men. An investigation by
Afghan authorities determined that not only did the U.S. Forces kill
innocent people in that incident, but they also tried to cover up the
deaths, one man claiming that U.S. troops dug bullets out of the women‘s
bodies.
Pentagon officials have admitted that the civilians were killed
inadvertently, but as to the specific allegation of a cover-up, they have
denied having attempted to retrieve any bullets from the bodies. The U.S.
military has opened another investigation into that Afghanistan incident to
try presumably to reconcile the widely different stories that are being
told about what happened there.
What‘s important about both of these incidents, in Iraq and
Afghanistan, is not just accountability for the individuals involved,
necessary, moral, legal and appropriate as that may be. What‘s also
important is what these incidents mean for Americans, for all of us and for
our national security policy as we contemplate the beginning of year 8 in
Iraq, and the middle of year 9 in Afghanistan. But the American government
is counting on to win these ongoing wars, the way out we have chosen is
counter insurgency.
That‘s the approach spearheaded by General David Petraeus since 2007,
and his protege and successor, General McChrystal in Afghanistan since
2008. What that strategy depends on for success is a lack of civilian
casualties. The point of counter-insurgency, like the old saw says, to win
the hearts and minds of the people, to shore up legitimate authority of the
local government, and then get the population to side with the government,
to side with authorities instead of siding with the insurgency.
That‘s why the exposure of these incidents is important, and
critically the response from the military is important. All eyes on the
Pentagon here for their response.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
MADDOW: Today President Obama unveiled his nuclear posture review,
which is about the most boring title ever assigned to something so
important and ambitious and actually fascinating. The president of the
United States says he wants to rid the world of nuclear weapons. He can‘t
just throw him on a barge in the Potomac and be done with it, but to begin,
Mr. Obama says the U.S. won‘t use nuclear weapons against nations that have
signed and are complying with the nuclear nonproliferation treaty.
Just saying that is a real change in policy and in practical terms,
it might foster unprecedented diplomatic capital at the cost of roughly
nothing to the United States. On Thursday, the president returns to Prague
to sign a new treaty with Russia that will reduce each country‘s nuclear
arsenal by about a third.
On Monday, the president will host world leaders on a conference on
safeguarding weapons and radioactive materials, so bombs and the stuff used
to make bombs don‘t end up floating around on the black market. So with
all these going on naturally we turn now to our countries with bad nuclear
posture correspondent, Mr. Kent Jones. Hi, Kent.
KENT JONES, BAD-NUCLEAR-POSTURE CORRESPONDENT: Hi, Rachel, you know, North
Korea‘s ambitions are not entirely nuclear. Their latest initiative is
ominously artistic. Take a look.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
JONES (voice-over): At a big inauguration ceremony this weekend, the
African nation of Senegal celebrated its 50th anniversary of its
independence by unveiling this statue, called the monument of African
renaissance. This copper sculpture depicts a family rising out of a
volcano, a really buff family. And at 160 feet tall, it‘s one foot taller
than the statue of liberty. So is everyone super-psyched about the giant
new artwork?
No. Forget that a giant statue may not be the first item on the list
of thing that a poor country like Senegal needs, critics are into the hole
hero of the people it doesn‘t say Africa so much as it says Stalin. If it
looks like something that belongs in North Korea, that‘s because the
workers who built it are from North Korea.
In exchange for $27 million to build the statue, North Korea received
a piece of land in Senegal. African renaissance, brought to you by Kim
Jong-il. No one likes a massive chunk of monumental art more than dear
leader, maybe he‘ll use that parcel of land in Senegal to build something
like this, or this, or this. So to recap, Senegal now has a really big
statue a lot of people don‘t like, and North Korea got part of an African
country thousands of miles away. Sculps locally, act globally.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
MADDOW: It‘s so weird, thank you, Kent. I appreciate it.
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY
BE UPDATED.
END
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