The Rachel Maddow Show, Transcript 05/10/13

RACHEL MADDOW, MSNBC HOST: Good evening, Chris. Happy Friday. Thank you my friend. And thanks to you at home for joining us this hour. Happy Friday to you as well. President Barack Obama was elected president of the United States in November of 2008. He was sworn into office January of 2009. You might remember, and it was kind of a big deal, it was kind of a big day in Washington, the largest crowds ever to turn out to see a U.S. president sworn in. That was January 2009. By March 2009, the right wing in America just couldn`t take it anymore. (BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) UNIDENTIFIED MALE: What they`re doing right now is destroying this country. Everyone that I know of at least is very angry about it. We`re very upset. We want this guy out. We want him to be impeached. UNIDENTIFIED MALE: What I don`t like is that this guy is doing this by executive order one after the other and the American people are sitting like a bunch of smocks watching a dictatorship emerge right before their eyes. UNIDENTIFIED MALE: That`s right. I think it is time to talk about impeachment. Somebody has to get this guy under control. He`s out of control. Thank you for the call. (END VIDEO CLIP) MADDOW: Thank you for the call. I have to go. It was already time to start impeaching President Obama seven weeks into his presidency. By the fall of 2009, my friends at "Worldnet Daily" were just asking whether it was time to start whispering about impeaching President Obama. That`s when the impeach Obama campaign Web site and petition was started nine months into President Obama`s first term, nine months into President Obama`s first presidency. They didn`t want to impeach him for anything specific. They just liked the idea of impeaching him. By 2010, Tom Tancredo`s Republican campaign for Colorado governor was bracing itself for wanting President Obama to be impeached for something having to do with immigration. Congresswoman Michelle Bachmann by then was already calling for President Obama to be impeached for something, not quite clear what. Congressman Tim Walberg said as a candidate that year in 2010 that President Obama should be impeached as a means of trying to get his real birth certificate, not that fake one that says he was born in Hawaii. (BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) REP. TIM WALBERG (R), MICHIGAN: The executive has an awful lot of power to keep from showing certain things unless the courts stand up, or unless Congress or the majority will stand up to and including impeachment. (END VIDEO CLIP) MADDOW: Impeachment. It is 2010. President Obama has been president for a year that he should be impeached for his real birth certificate. But hen a year of that, it was Newt Gingrich saying we should impeach President Obama over the defense for marriage act. Yes, Mister Gingrich, what could possibly be wrong? Republican congressman Jim Sensenbrenner was saying President Obama should be impeached over fast and furious. Congressman then, Senator Tim Scott and congressman Steve King were both saying that President Obama should be impeached over the debt ceiling. Congressman Michael Burgess of Texas went to a town meeting in August, August 2011 and quickly found himself having this discussion with folks back home. (BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The issue of impeachment, 90 percent of the people here remember Nixon, remember what happened to him? If we could just tie his hands, remember what happened to Clinton. If we could just tie his hands cause I`m not convinced we`ve got the right one. (INAUDIBLE). (END VIDEO CLIP) MADDOW: So, that exchange through the congressman and his constituents and then a follow-up question from a local reporter led to this markedly restrained report in the four-worth star-telegram about just what happened at that town hall. When one attendee suggested that the House pushed for impeachment proceedings against the president to obstructs the president from push his agenda, Congressman Burgess was receptive. It needs to happen and I agree with you, it would tie things up, no question about that. When asked about the comment later, congressman Burgess said he was not sure whether the proper charges to bring up articles of impeachment against Obama were there, but he didn`t rule out pursuing such a course, anyway. I don`t know why we could impeach him or even try to, but yes, let`s plan on it, anyway. It would be so much fun. What`s the down side? That was all by 2011. That was by the first two years of Barack Obama being president of the United States. By 2012, though, to impeach Obama for something, anything movement really started to feel its oats. That was the year "Laruchi" said President Obama must be impeached or there will be thermal nuclear war with Russia. Only impeaching President Obama can stop that. At the same time, Grover Norquist, the tax guy, was saying President Obama should be impeached if he does not extend the Bush tax cuts. Sure, why not? Then this year, immediately upon being sworn in to congress, two brand new Republican congressmen, one from Florida, one from Texas, started off their brand new careers in Congress by saying they wanted to impeach President Obama over something having to do with guns. This is a satisfying enough exercise for the right that, again, my good friends at the "Worldnet Daily` conspiracy theory jumbo mumbo Web site, decide that they were just going to go hog this past Fenri. They round Robin-ed in this article all their favorite possibilities of maybe the ways we could conceivably try to impeach him. They went through fast and furious and drones and they went through recessed appointments, they went through czars, suing Arizona over the papers police law, the dreams act, to cap and trade, the defense of marriage act, Benghazi, going to war in Libya, gun control, and, of course, as you see there, his dastardly aiding and abetting of the new black panther party who, as we know, took over elections and turned us into a new party fascist dictatorship or whatever. We could put him on a chore wheel and try a new one each week. Surely one of those might work, right, to impeach him? Let`s try them all. There`s got to be a way to do it. Republicans on the right love talking about impeaching President Obama even when they`re not sure exactly why. It`s almost like an involuntary tic. They sneeze and a little impeach Obama squeezes out without them meaning to. They love the idea. Well today, it was Republican U.S. senator James Inhofe who got to do it. This is why he says we should impeach President Obama today. (BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) SEN. JAMES INHOFE (R), OKLAHOMA: Of all the great cover-ups in history, we`re talking the Pentagon papers, the Iran contra, Watergate and all the rest of them, this, I said back on November 28 on FOX, is going to go down as the most serious, most egregious cover-up in American history. People need to know how serious this is. To me -- it may be starting to use the "I" word before too long. UNIDENTIFIED MALE REPORTER: I word meaning impeachment? INHOFE: Yes. (END VIDEO CLIP) MADDOW: Yes. I don`t know why they have to spell it. I mean, they have been saying the "I" word since March of 2009. Why get all nervous about spelling it out now? The biggest cover-up in American history, the latest reason that must impeach President Obama, according to Senator Jim Inhofe in Oklahoma, is, of course, Benghazi. The attack on the U.S. diplomatic facility in Libya last fall in which the U.S. ambassador to Libya and three other Americans were killed. Now, there have been a lot of attacks on U.S. diplomatic series abroad over the years. There were about dozen attacks on the embassy abroad during the Bush administration, for example. So it`s not instantly obvious why an attack abroad should be grounds for impeaching this president but not any of the other presidents this happened to. Well, I`m here to help. Depending on the day, depending on which hour of FOX News you`re watching, there are a number of different ways the right has tried to make this into a political scandal and not just a tragedy. Sometimes they say, it was not a spontaneous attack, it was planned. Sometimes they say, who changed the talking points? Sometimes they say, hey, Obama! Why did you not call it an act of terror? Sometimes they say, why were you not better prepared for the attack? Sometimes they say, why did the military not respond? We know the answer to why now they said -- we know the answer now to why they said it was a spontaneous attack. And the answer to this one was that they were wrong when they said it was a spontaneous attack. But the intelligence community thought it was a spontaneous attack and said so in the talking points that they gave to administration officials. That was their initial assessment. It was wrong, and when they realized it wrong, they said so and the administration said so, so they stopped describing it as a spontaneous attack, even though they did initially. So this one is kind of done, right? We know when it happened. That all happened right away, it was over very quickly. The notes still say it was a spontaneous attack. They admit that was initially their assessment and it was wrong. On the terror one, why didn`t the president call it an act of terror? Remember when Mitt Romney tried to get you the president with this at the debates? The problem was that the president s did call it an act of terror right away. He called it an after terror the day after the attacks happened. He did it in public and on tape, which finally puts this one to rest. (BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) BARACK OBAMA, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: No act of terror should ever shake the resolve of this nation, alter that character, or clips the value that we all stand for. (END VIDEO CLIP) MADDOW: So, that`s one that answered to, right? They did it didn`t call it an act of terror right away. Why didn`t call you on that an act of terror. We did it call it terror right away, immediately. As for this one, as for why the military did not respond to stop the attack, the military themselves answered that one. The then, secretary of defense answered back that back in February. (BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) LEON PANETTA, FORMER DEFENSE SECRETARY: There was not enough time given the speed of the attack for armed military assets to respond. (END VIDEO CLIP) MADDOW: So that`s why the military did not respond. They could not get there in time, so says the military. So that leaves this one to change the talking points. The intelligence community talking points for the administration officials and the immediate of the attack, they were sent around to the FBI, the state department and the White House. The e-mail change showing the initial draft of those talking points and e-mail process, that e-mail chain was sent to members of Congress a couple months ago in February while they were considering the nomination of the new CIA director. So Congress has had the talking points and how they were changed and by whom for a couple months now, showing the revisions, showing how they happened. ABC published them today for the public as if they were a smoking gun, and all the Republicans in Congress who had these things had them for months reported to be outraged by what was in them, shock, impeach, impeach. But, they have had them for two and a half months now, and they never said anything about them before. Today they decided it was a smoking gun even though this has been long answered. So that leaves this. Why we were not prepared? Why were we not better prepared for this attack? This is a good question. And this was the point that was made damningly and unsparingly as the conclusion of the inquiry into what happened in Benghazi. The inquiry that was made headed up by former chairman of the joint chiefs, admiral Mike Mullen and Kenneth Pickering tasked with the review of what went wrong when our ambassador and fellow workers died in Libya, they had quote "a security posture that was inadequate for Benghazi and grossly inadequate to deal with the attack that took place. The report condemn to this stomach failure and there was inefficiencies at the senior level of the state department. It was a brutal report. And when that brutal report came out in September, secretary of state Hillary Clinton said she accepted all the report`s recommendations without reservation and she accepted full responsibility. (BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) HILLARY CLINTON, FORMER SECRETARY OF STATE: As I have said many times, I take responsibility, and nobody is more committed to getting this right. I am determined to leave the state department and our country safer, stronger and more secure. (END VIDEO CLIP) MADDOW: That was back in January after the official report came out cataloging the one actually outstanding and really important question from what happened in Benghazi. On the same question obviously could be and is asked of time one of our diplomatic facilities is attacked abroad. This is the outstanding matter. The administration accepted all the recommendations of the report on this as a problem. They are implementing those recommendations now. But today, all of a sudden, apparently, for some reason, impeach, impeach! We will figure out why later, let`s just impeach! Joining us now is Congresswoman Eleanor Holmes Norton. She represents the District of Columbia. She is a member oversight committee which held those hearings in to the Benghazi earlier this week. Congresswoman, it is a real pleasure to have. Thank you for being with us tonight. REP. ELEANOR HOLMES NORTON (D), DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA: Of course. MADDOW: The information making news today, so much news today about revisions to the talking points, these revisions as far as I can tell are something that Congress has known about for quite some time. Why is this a scandal today? NORTON: These were revisions Congress knew about, and our committee knew about most of them. This is an ongoing drama. You`ve got to have a central character. By the way, for a while there, I thought they were going to impeach Hillary Clinton before she decided to run for president, because that seems to have been a major goal of this hearing. And yet even with the talking points, they haven`t come close to Hillary Clinton. The state department official apparently said these talking points are for members of congress, there is an investigation still going on, don`t just read up on the state department. A statement came out today from Hillary Clinton saying, this state department official was not instructed by Hillary Clinton. So if the point was to get Hillary Clinton or President Obama, we failed. But what they have done is to revive preemptively, because they think Hillary Clinton may run for president, as the old Benghazi chapter, this time with a few flurries but essentially the same chapter rewritten. MADDOW: From all the testimony that has been presented to your committee, from everything that you have done in your oversight role and everything you`ve seen in your capacity in Congress, do you think that there was an effort to cover up what really happened in Benghazi for political purposes? Do you see that, bottom line? NORTON: Here`s the difference between this administration and their Watergate analogy. You talk about the talking points that came out today. Where did they get those talking points? From the administration. The administration turned all of that over. Yes, the administration is turning things over as they get it. They put no shame on them the moment that the attack occurred, where it was from, who did it. Notice that you have some of the same methodology used with Boston. The administration and others were reticent to say it was an attack that was a terrorist attack, because they didn`t have all the information, some of it is coming out now. It may be described as such an attack if they can link it to this Russian information. In the same way, the administration does not want to call a spade a spade until they are sure it`s a spade. And so, they dance around it, as well they should. And the president himself comes out and says acts of terror within days of the attack. This is hardly a cover-up. If it`s a cover-up, the president himself didn`t get the memo. MADDOW: Washington D.C. congressional delegate. Eleanor Holmes Norton, thank you for being with us tonight. It`s nice to have you here, ma`am. NORTON: Always a pleasure. Thank you. MADDOW: All right, a super busy news Friday today, including a new report that`s three million years in the making. Plenty of time for revisions. Stay with us. (COMMERCIAL BREAK) MADDOW: If you were a reporter on the scandal beat during the George W. Bush administration, you were a busy reporter. There was the vice president`s secret energy task force. Yes, we`re writing the nation`s energy policy. No, you are not allowed to know who is writing it, but take a guess. There were the "no bid multi-million-dollar" contracts. What could possibly go wrong? There was the Valerie Plame affair, the vice president`s chief of staff convicted after a covert CIA officer was ousted in political retaliation for her ambassador husband blowing the whistle on one of the Iraq war lies -- uranium from Africa. Scooter Libby convicted in that case but spared his time in prison when President Bush commuted his sentence. There was the Abu Ghraib scandal in Iraq. There was illegally wiretapping Americans without warrants. Who can forget the purge of U.S. attorneys to make room for prosecutors more in keeping with the political priorities of the administration? Perhaps the most fun scandal of the Bush administration was the snorting crystal meth off the toaster oven scandal. Employees at the Minerals Management Service accused of systemic corruption of kind of an exciting nature. Gifts from industry officials, sex with oil and gas company executives, and, of course, snorting crystal meth off the toaster oven. Paying pundits to tow the administration`s line without saying that they were on the payroll, selectively editing scientific reports to exaggerate the uncertainty around climate change. Karl Rove giving the one-finger salute to the Hatch Act, which says career government officials can`t be used for partisan political purposes. The Republican Party Political Briefings for Civil Servants were just too hard to give up so they kept them. There was still sort of ongoing mystery of how the hooker ended up with the press pass. Remember that? Conservative blogger and moderately expensive male prostitute Jeff Gannon, or J.D. Guckert, depending on how well you knew him. Did we ever find out how he got into the White House press briefings and got called on for all those presidential questions? Of course, there was Hurricane Katrina, almost 2,000 people killed, $100 billion worth of damage. The man President Bush appointed to head up the government`s horrible handling of that disaster and others had no experience in the field. He was the former commissioner of the International Arabian Horse Association. The Bush administration had a lot of scandals. That was just a partial list. We won`t even talk about the presidential adviser who ran the shoplifting scam at Target or the guy who President Bush put in charge of not giving any AIDS funding to anything having to do with sex workers and then he himself ended up on the phone list in the DC Madame case. We won`t even talk about those things. I could go on. The Bush era was a very rich-load of scandals large and small. And now in the post-Bush era the right has really, really wanted there to be lots of Obama administration scandals, too. Today`s heroic effort to finally try to get traction on Benghazi, notwithstanding, nothing much has stuck. Solyndra, Fast and Furious, ACORN, the New Black Panthers. Outside the FOX-verse everything has pretty much been a belly flop for them so far. But you know what? Now there is one. Seriously. It started out with a Tea Party group complaining in March of last year that they were being treated unfairly by the government. They said they were being unfairly targeted by the IRS. Tea party groups applied for tax exempt status and some of them got back letters from the IRS like this one addressed to the Waco, Texas Tea Party. "Dear sir or madam, we need more information before we can consider your application for exemption." The IRS wanted things like copies of current Web pages, blog posts, newsletters, bulletins, flyers, newsletter, any and all literature, copies of agendas and minutes from board meetings, an updated copy of board members and officers. In late March the Republican chair of the House Oversight Subcommittee asks the IRS commissioner about the seemingly extra attention that was being paid by the IRS specifically to these Tea Party groups. (BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) DAVE CAMP, HOUSE WAYS AND MEANS COMMITTEE CHAIRMAN: I`ve gotten a number of letters. Just recently we`ve seen some recent press allegations that the IRS is targeting certain Tea Party groups across the country -- requesting what have been described as owners` document requests, delaying approval for tax-exempt status and that kind of thing. Can you -- can you elaborate on what`s going on with that? I mean -- can you give us assurances that the IRS is not targeting particular groups based on political leanings? DOUGLAS SHULMAN, IRS COMMISSIONER: Let me start by saying, yes, I can give you assurances. As you know, we pride ourselves on being a non-political, non-partisan organization. What`s been happening has been the normal back and forth that happens with the IRS. There is absolutely no targeting. This is the kind of back and forth that happens when people apply for 501c4. (END VIDEO CLIP) MADDOW: It`s the IRS commissioner who was in the George W. Bush administration, also in the Obama administration. He may have believed that to be true when he said it, but that is not true. Earlier today, an otherwise innocuous conference sponsored by the American Bar Association, an IRS official admitted that actually yes, Tea Party groups were -- singled out, excuse me, by at least one low-level IRS employee at the IRS office in Cincinnati. Groups with names that included the words Tea Party and/or Patriots were singled out for extra scrutiny in their applications for tax-exempt status. According to the IRS, at least 75 Tea Party groups were given this unwanted special attention, although none of them was actually denied the tax exempt status that they were looking for. You cannot single our group for special scrutiny based on where you think they are on the ideological number line. You cannot do that to groups on the right, you cannot do that to groups on the left or vice versa. You cannot pick one side if you`re not picking the other, that`s nuts. And the IRS apparently now agrees. The agency has, as of today, issued an apology. They say they fixed the problem last year. They say there is an upcoming IRS inspector general audit that will look into the matter further. I mean, it`s not like outing a covert CIA operative or something, it`s not a heck of a job brownie, but it is legitimately a really bad move by the administration, and they better fix it. (COMMERCIAL BREAK) RACHEL MADDOW, MSNBC HOST: I will admit that we here at the Rachel Maddow Show are immature hoarders, but not in the way you may think. It has to be mostly with props. After we use any props in the show, we always store them in one of our super organized cabinets. Because, you just never know the next time you are going to need a fake plastic foot. Plastic foot seen here, origin Halloween store. We used that one on the show back in August of 2010 during a segment about shoes that were mysteriously washing up on Canadian shores. One of those Canadian shoes had a foot lodged inside and in order to explain that, we strove for accuracy in our reporting. That made everybody in my family really mad at me. And, the old rusty pipe that you can see on the right side to your screen there, I used that when we were covering the Fukushima disaster; trying to explain how the zirconium fuel rods were breaking down so quickly. Thanks to heat and oxidization. Also, in our filing cabinet, we found a found a bright green full- body spandex suit. And, I actually have no idea why we have that. I can`t remember as ever using it. But, it kind of looks like fun, and the price tag is still there. Chances are that you, too, have something rolling around in your junk drawer, origin and maybe even species unknown. If that is the case, tomorrow, I`m going to offer you an opportunity to sort some of that out. It is the best news thing in the world and that`s coming up right at the end of the show tonight. (COMMERCIAL BREAK) MADDOW: If you love the ocean. If you`ve got a favorite beach somewhere, you are probably used to the idea that the ocean you love sometimes takes away the beach you love. But, it doesn`t usually happen in this dramatica fashion. This is Popham Beach in Mid-Coast Maine, where the water has been stealing back the beach at an alarming rate. What we`re seeing here is not an unusually stormy day at Popham Beach. This is kind of regular. This is the way it goes. A local official telling the Bangor Paper that in some spots, quote, "There is no beach anymore at high water." Here we have Plum Island in Newbury, Massachusetts. This is what happened after a storm in February when the water came in. This was the headline for Plum Island the next month, move it or lose it and by that they mean your house. Move it or lose it because you can`t stay here. This is the Belt Parkway in New York City. Eighty years ago, the city felt confident enough to build this road along the coastal southern edge of Brooklyn, New York. But, now it floods in heavy rain and the ocean bay sweeps over it even in moderate storms. The ocean is not where we left it. It is moving on up. It turns out we are changing the climate. Ask me how. You could argue that any particular disappearing beach or flooded road results from factors that only belong to that one place. You can argue that for a lot of individual places, but ultimately they start to add up and ultimately realize ultimately that you cannot argue without assuming the mental of willful ignorance is that the earth is just getting warmer. It is getting warmer because of us. We burn fossil fuels in our cars and power plants and so on. That puts extra carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. That traps more heat in the sun than our little planet is used to. All that carbon dioxide settles around us like a heavy blanket in August, like the sweaty covers you want to kick away that you cannot. Because of all the carbons were adding in the atmosphere, the Earth has not been this warm in at least 4,000 years. How is that for a blunt headline? Global temperature highest in 4,000 years. That news arrived a few weeks ago from scientist to Oregon State. Ready for your additional scary numbers? This time from the Scripps Institution of Oceanography. This is the average amount of carbon dioxide in the Earth`s atmosphere. The chart starts with 1960. Go forward. As of April we were here -- way up here in scary, scary land about to set a new threshold for Carbon Dioxide. The scientist who drew this chart, Ralph Keeling, said at the time, "I wish it were not true." But, it looks like the world is going to blow through the 400 part per million level without losing a beat. And, here we go, we blew through that level, apparently, yesterday and we are on out way to making this the new normal in hurry. We may even be there now. We may already have more carbon dioxide in the Earth`s atmosphere for sustained lengths of time than at any time in history of humans as a species. Our planet has not been shrouded in that much carbon dioxide since the Pliocene of more than three million years ago, when there were no humans and there were still 8-foot-tall carnivorous birds like this guy running around at 65 miles an hour. Also the levels were 100 feet higher than they are now, instead of the merely 25 feet higher, which is what we would like to imagine when we think about climate change. The scientists who track this stuff say, "It is not time to give up yet. We can still do something." And, may be, actually, we are on the verge of doing something important. Mostly by circumstance, but a little by policy, emissions of carbon dioxide have been falling since President Obama took office. Now, the president may get a chance to do more, to do something big; to do something landmark that so far is not getting much public debate. Jonathan Chait writes about at this week in New York Magazine saying, quote, "This is the last best chance to deal with global warming in the Obama era." The prospect for environmentalists is exhilarating but also harrowing. The struggle will be lengthy, weighed largely behind closed doors and its outcome will not be known until the Obama presidency is nearly over. Drama! Joining us now is Jonathan Chait, writer at New York Magazine, someone with a hopeful eye on the politics of this sometimes hopeless subject. Mr. Chait, thank you very much for being here tonight. It`s nice to have you here. JONATHAN CHAIT, NEW YORK MAGAZINE WRITER: Thank you. MADDOW: So, can you describe for us what you mean about this last best chance for dealing with this problem? CHAIT: Right. Well, if the Obama Administration has had the power to regulate carbon. In fact, the Supreme Court ordered the administration to deal with carbon several years ago. They tried to use it in the first term as a stick to force the power companies to agree to cap-and-trade. And, they succeed, but they couldn`t get the republicans in the senate and the house to go along with it. So, this was sort of thought to be a dead letter for a while, but it`s become revived recently. The national resources defense council came out with a plan shortly after the election that was pretty practical for how they could use this carbon regulating authority; this power to regulate the existing power plants, which is 40% of carbon emissions. So, I think there are a lot of people within the environmental community, who are really focusing on this and really think it could happen, but it hasn`t really leached into the broader narrative. MADDOW: If this is something that the president could do through regulatory authority and the EPA`s authority alone without congress, does that mean that it ends up becoming endless litigation? That it ends up being something that just ends up in court for a generation? CHAIT: Not endless litigation. It will be litigated. There`s no doubt that someone on the right is going to file suit. But, if they put the rule into place, it gets to proceed even as it`s challenged in court, unless there are extraordinary circumstances. They don`t get to hold it up forever. So, we will -- If the Obama Administration goes through with this, we will know one way or another by the end of the term whether they manage to get it done. MADDOW: When you look at some of the things that the Obama Administration has already done, I mean in terms of working stuff out with congress, there is no record to speak of. And, in terms of the other things they have been able to do -- CHAIT: Right. MADDOW: -- What are the most important things they have done and how big a dent are those things likely to make in the enormity of this problem that we face? CHAIT: The stimulus had a lot of green energy spending and we weren`t focusing on it, because we were focusing on the economic crisis and we all freaked out about the economic crisis, understandably. But, there is a lot of green energy and that`s really starting to pay some dividends. When you saw the news about Tesla, the electric car firm earning a profit. Wind energy is up several times. A solar power, the prices coming way down and it`s really starting to take off. They have also had the EPA regulate other sources of carbon besides existing power plants. They announced regulations on automobiles. The miles per gallon standards way up from 29 miles an hour to 54 miles an hour. They eliminated mercury in power plants, appliances. So they have really used this authority piecemeal here and there, but it hasn`t gotten a lot of attention. There is no political drama to it. It doesn`t play out in congress over weeks or months. It just happens, you know, there is an announcement and then it`s a one-day story. MADDOW: Do you think that`s smart and do you think that`s by design? CHAIT: Yes. I do think it`s by design. Now, the thing is that it is a little tricky. People are kind of blase about the climate change. It is a little bit disturbing, right? Especially during a recession, they just care about their jobs. They don`t want anything that seems to come at the expensive jobs. On the other hand, people do strongly support regulation of carbon emissions even though they are against cap-and-trade and taxes. MADDOW: How does the republican denial of climate change as a problem play into this? Obviously, it creates the incentive for the administration to do stuff without having to talk to them about this. But, does that actually have to be defeated. Do they have to be advances against denialism in order to approve ahead for the EPA, in order to do even some of the regulatory work they want to? CHAIT: No. No, because the legislative track is hopeless. Now, Obama officially called for congress to act, but I think that`s just a way of showing that he`s not taking their authority away from them. He`s giving them one more chance to pass a bill even though nobody thinks it will happen. But, honestly, I think you can go around an interview. If you can get the regulation in place and if it stands up, you don`t need to deal with the wackos on the right. MADDOW: Jonathan Chait, writer for New York Magazine, and writer for New York Magazine, I think of uncommon clarity. I really enjoyed your work, Jonathan. CHAIT: Thank you. MADDOW: Thank you very much. Thanks a lot. CHAIT: Thanks. MADDOW: All right. Do you need a best new thing in the world today? I do, especially after that picture of the Jefferson Monument under water. I need the best new thing in the world today. But, hold on, we have one for you, coming up. (COMMERCIAL BREAK) MADDOW: Lots of updates tonight on a bunch of different stories that we have been watching closely both this week and over the last couple weeks. Earlier today, Texas law enforcement officials announced that they are launching a criminal investigation; a criminal investigation, into the deadly explosion that happened at the West Texas Fertilizer Plant last month. The director of the Texas Department of Public Safety says, "This disaster has severely impacted the community of west, and we want to ensure that no stone goes unturned and that all the facts related to this incident are uncovered." So, after weeks of reports claiming the blast had to have been some sort of industrial accidents, authorities are now officially opening up a criminal investigation into the cause. Now, that`s all I can tell you about that criminal investigation. That`s all we know. That said, also in West Texas today, a volunteer paramedic, who was one of the first people to arrive at the scene of that massive explosion, a paramedic was arrested today. He was charged with possession of a destructive device. That destructive device was a pipe bomb. Authorities responded to a home in Abbott, Texas, where they found sections of a pipe, end caps, fuses and explosive powder including potassium nitrates. Residents of the home told police that the materials belong to this paramedic, who had passed it on to them for some reason. If convicted in conjunction with the bomb, the paramedic faces 10 years in prison. So, both of these things happened today in Texas, and while it is weird that they happened within hours of each other, to be clear, we don`t know that these two developments are connected. So, far officials have not said that there is any evidence uncovered indicating any connection between this man`s arrest with the pipe bomb and the April 17th explosion that killed 14 people and injured around 200 people. Again, no connection being drawn, but it`s really weird that they happened within a couple hours of each other. Also, today, there is an on a strange story that developed in the days after the Boston marathon bombing last month. ABC News is now reporting on what they call "Forensic Hits" allegedly linking the Boston bombing suspects, both of them, to an unsolved triple murder that preceded the bombings by about a year and a half. The triple murder took place in the Boston suburb of Waltham. You may remember us reporting on this last month; something that is essentially looks like an eerie coincidence. It was an unsolved, brutal, strange, triple murder in which one of the victims had a reported social link to one of the alleged marathon bombers. Again, ABC News is now reporting that that investigation is heating up. But, as in the West, Texas reporting today, there is no concrete link established here between these two alleged crimes. The D.A.`s office that is investigating the murder tells us tonight that it remains a, quote, "Open and active investigation." And, if that`s not enough, it has been that kind of day in the news today. There is also this, we have been reporting on this story for the last couple of days. I guess you have to call it the "White Supremacist Scandal." That`s at the heart of the most important piece of legislation in D.C. right now, which, of course, is the immigration reform proposal. The conservative heritage foundation think tank has sort of taken the lead on the right in trying to get republicans in congress to oppose immigration reform. But, one of the co-authors of their study that trashes immigration reform and says, "It would be horrifically expensive", one of their co-authors of that report has turned out to be a real embarrassment for the heritage foundation. As his past work declaring the genetic inferiority of non-white immigrants to the United States, declaring the inherited low I.Q. of the Latino race has started to get widely publicized. That previous work has led the Heritage Foundation again. Probably, the leading conservative think tank in the country to try to distance themselves from this guy over the past few days. Well, today, that distancing themselves thing became much more concrete when they fired him -- Well, sorry, when he reigned from the Heritage Foundation. The other two shoes waiting to be dropped here are whether they are not -- whether not the Heritage Foundation is also going to resend the report that he co-wrote for them. And, whether or not the other major conservative think tank that this guy has worked for decides to denounce him as well. The other think tank is called the "American Enterprise Institute." AEI and the Heritage Foundation are the two biggest conservative think tanks in the country. Heritage was his employer until today. AEI was his previous employer. And, AEI today also tried to distance themselves from this guy, who has the white supremacist links. They said essentially that they know nothing about his controversial views, that he came highly recommended to them, and that`s the only reason they hired him. The problem AEI has here is that, again, their basic claims that they had no idea that this guy`s ideas were so creepy. But, while this guy was working for them at an AEI sponsored event, that was broadcast on CSPAN, in case you were at work that day and missed it, and had to watch it on T.V., while he was working for AEI, he wasn`t exactly hiding his white supremacist delight under a bushel. (BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) JASON RICHWINE, CO-AUTHOR OF HERITAGE FOUNDATION: Race is different in all sorts of ways, and probably the most important way is in IQ. Decades of psychometric testing has indicated that at least in America, you have Jews with the highest average IQ, usually followed by East Asians and then you have non-Jewish whites, Hispanics, and then blacks. These are real differences. They`re not going to go away tomorrow. And, for that reason we have to address them in our immigration discussions and our debates." (END VIDEO CLIP) MADDOW: I love when the camera just turns to David Frum, the conservative pundit and Bush administration guy, who`s moderating that panel, and he gets to the rankings of IQ biracial group. Everybody is like -- well, should I talk after this. Jews, Asians, non-Jewish whites, then you get down to the Hispanics, then you get down to the blacks, of course. Yes, that guy was fired by the Heritage Foundation -- sorry, he resigned from Heritage Foundation today. But, the American enterprise institute, who he was working for at that event while he was doing his racial hierarchy of IQ, they have so far pleased ignorance about having any idea what his horrific beliefs actually are. We will see how long that lasts. (COMMERCIAL BREAK) MADDOW: Best new thing in the world today, happy Friday. All right, there are two kinds of people in the world. The first kind of people, who finds something cool in their backyard or in camping trip, or in the side of the road or something. And, when they find something cool in the world, they collect it. They bring it inside, clean it up. Look at it. Study it. Try to figure out what it is and it becomes part of the things they own in the world. For example, Rachel Maddow Show producer, Laura Conaway, found this thing in a desert in Nevada. So, she took it home. She took it all the way home to Brooklyn from Nevada. She`s a studier and a collector. She would very much like to know what this thing is. The second kind of people in the world -- are people like me, who do not have a knack for finding things. Part of it is that I have no peripheral vision. I never notice anything. And, when I do, I tend to not pick things up or if I do pick things up, I tend to lose them. So, I never end up with cool stuff myself. But, I am interested in the stuff that everybody else finds. So, basically you can understand that dichotomy this way. When, I watch Antiques Roadshow, I want to see what you got. When Laura watches Antiques Roadshow, she wants to go there with all her stuff. Tell me where the next one is. But, you know what they do every year at the American Museum of natural history here in New York City? That`s the big museum that has the giant blue whale hanging from the ceiling and the big dinosaur skeletons in the big front hall. Arguably greatest treasure hidden in the museum, hidden behind the dinosaurs, tucked away out of sight of most tourists to visit. Their greatest treasure is their great collection of world class scientists. And, tomorrow, those folks are going to be on display for something that is called "Identification Day." Apparently, the first kind of people that I mentioned, the people who find stuff they`re curious about and collect it, and wonder what it is, used to just -- people like that used to show up at the American Museum of Natural History with stuff they found in the yard to try to get the museum scientists to look at them. Back in about 1979, because enough people were doing this that it was getting annoying, the museum started inviting people to come in all at once, to come in and save your stuff up, and come in one day a year when you can ask, "Hey, what is this thing anyway?" And, you could get a real answer from somebody who is likely to know. The New Yorker Magazine wrote about that first event and what the expert on rocks and fossils looked at in the span of a half hour, quote, "He then identified a snail fossil, fossils of brachiopods, a piece of lava, a piece of a Manhattan schist, a fossilized stem of a crinoid, a desert rosette, a slice of calcitonin, a heavily weathered piece of limestone, a piece of agate, some coral, some quartz, a piece of granite, schist with phlogopite mica, the fossil of an ammonites, and I am just going to stop there. You get the idea. It is Friday, it is hard to pronounce. Over the years, a lot of people have brought in stuff to "Identification Day" that they thought was important, and that didn`t actually turn out to be important. But, every now and again they really do find something amazing at "Identification Day" like this thing. A couple found it on a beach in Virginia. They thought, "Maybe, hey, it is a cow skull." It turned out to be a fossilized walrus skull from the ice age. And, it is now a part of the museum`s collection! The point is not to identify stuff with high dollar value. The point is not to identify what gemstone that might be in grandma`s ring. The point is really to celebrate curiosity and tomorrow there will be somebody to look at bugs and other invertebrates and plants and rocks and meteorites, and fossils, and cultural artifacts and birds and other vertebrates. The museum asks if you do have an animal you want to ask about, please just bring a picture, leave the carcass at home. Leave your ex- parrot where he rests. In return for you showing them your stuff, the museum will display its stuff including some of Teddy Roosevelt`s ornithology collection. Birds he stuffed himself when he was 12 years old, as you do. It`s basically Antiques Roadshow for science. Whether or not you are the person with the junk or whether you are the person who is amazed by the people, who kept the junk. It turns out sometimes the junk needs to be in the museum. And, the only way you can find out is by taking it there tomorrow. Amazing! The best new thing in the world today, tomorrow. That does it for us tonight. We`ll see you, again, Monday. And, now you know what time it is. You have been good but you still have to go to prison. THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED. END <Copy: Content and programming copyright 2013 MSNBC. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. Copyright 2013 CQ-Roll Call, Inc. All materials herein are protected by United States copyright law and may not be reproduced, distributed, transmitted, displayed, published or broadcast without the prior written permission of CQ-Roll Call. You may not alter or remove any trademark, copyright or other notice from copies of the content.>