abortion might technically be legal in texas, but texas republicans are going to make it so texas women difference in the end. today the sponsor of the texas bill rejected amendments that would try to achieve the stated aims of her bill without closing down all the clinics. she rejected all proposed amendments. the point is bluntly to close the clinics. a new poll out today from ppp shows among voters in texas who have formed an opinion about the bill, more people oppose it than support it by eight points. but just over half of texas voters say they don't have any opinion on it at all. if you're a texas democrat or somebody who supports reproductive rights in texas, that high no opinion number, that is where you really have room to work. tonight we can report exclusively that that work is beginning in a very specific way. planned parenthood and naral and texas democrats tell us they're starting a texas bus tour next week that's all about the republicans' antiabortion bill. the legislature is going to be on recess next week so opponents of the abortion ban are going to use next week, use

[bleeped], texas. >> [bleeped], texas. >> no, no, no, no texas. >> rick perry, you are a schmuck. >>ember the alamo? neither do we. [bleeped] texas. >> [speaking chinese] >> [speaking italian] >> [speaking foreign languages] >> don't mess with texas? no, don't [bleeped] with new york. [cheering and applause] i'm lewis black. and i approved this message. john? >> john: thank you, lewis. lewis black, everybody. we'll be right back. [cheering and applause] >> john: welcome back. my guest tonight, a bestselling author whose new book is called "zealot: the life and times of jesus christ." please welcome back to the show the fantastic reza alsan. [applause] reza, reza, reza, reza, reza... >> john, john, john, john, john. >> john: talk about jesus. >> you've heard of jesus? >> john: i think everybody has heard of jesus. i think everyone in the world has a relationship with jesus whether they want one or not. this book is about jesus the man, not so much jesus the christ. >> it's about the historical jesus, not the christ of faith. but, i mean, the fact of the matter is whether you believe t

to support our request in the texas court, that texas be put under continuing supervision under the votinghts act. it's sorely needed. texas is the poster child for why we continue to need the protections of the voting rights act. and i hope that d.o.j.'s effort is just the beginning of. econtinued involvement in voting rights in texas. >> woodruff: soreliy needed. what's your reaction? >> i'm not sure that's true. it shows the critics of the supreme court decision that knocked out section 5 of the voting rights acts are wrong. this shows there are still very powerful tools in the voting rights act that the attorney general can use. in fact, this is the right way to do it. rather than having just blanket coverage of a number of states based on 40-year-old data, the justice department is going to have to go to court, convince a court and produce evidence that texas has engaged in discriminatory conduct, and should be put under supervision based on current conditions. and that's the way it should be. >> woodruff: you're suggesting that's a harder pull, a harder argument to make than it was b

there's still 50 states in it, including, including texas. texas is still in the union.can state. it did not secede, which is actually news that was not a

not even in texas. but there is more than one way to skin a health care reform law, and so the right, and activists on the right and the republican party, itself, they set out to try and defeat the president on this by just getting it voted down. first they tried to prevent it from happening. all fake grassroots organizations like freedom works and americans for prosperity. they organized and paid for rallies and bus tours with fancy, cool, customized buses that had their logos all over this. >> this rally organized by a collection of conservative and libertarian groups. >> too much power, too little freedom. it is time to restore constitutional government. >> almost all echoing a common theme. >> we must stop this government takeover of health care. >> and coming after a summer of heated town hall meetings and congressman joe wilson's outburst at president obama during wednesday's address to congress. >> you lie! >> among today's organizers, former house majority leader dick armey, now the chairman of

what does the university of texas, the university of texas think about those questions?is the critical mass for the university of texas dependent on the breakdown of the population of texas? >> no. it's not at all. it's not at all. it's looking to the education benefits of diversity on campus. i think we actually agree on what that means and what grutter said it meant -- >> could you explain, i think you were trying to before, it seems to me the critical question in this case, why idn't the 10% solution suffice ? there are a substantial number of minority members admitted as a result of the 10% solution. for sn't that enough diversity. >> let me make a couple points, your honor. first, if you look at the numbers, we don't think it's the numbers, but if you looked at the numbers after seven years, it had remained stagnant or worse. 2002 african-american enrollment had actually dropped to 3%. that's one part of it. the other part of it is if you look at the admissions under the top 10% plan, taking the top 10% of a racially identifiable high school may get you diversity th

we went to texas city to investigate further.ve us a tour of the refinery, but they declined our request for an interview. they referred us to their own report on the explosion, which concluded... but when we spoke to the chief government official who has been investigating the explosion, she told us that's not true. >> the problems that existed at bp texas city were neither momentary nor superficial. they ran deep through that operation of a risk denial and a risk blindness that was not being addressed anywhere in the organization. carolyn merritt, appointed by president bush to chair of the u.s. chemical safety board, has led an 18-month investigation into what happened at texas city. >> these things do not have to happen. they are preventable. they are predictable, and people do not have to die because they're earning a living. >> you think this accident could have been easily prevented? >> absolutely. >> merritt's investigators found problems at texas city just about everywhere they looked: antiquated equipment, corroded pipe

back in 1960, this texas ranger memorandum says you expressed guilt to the texas rangers about killing this true? do you ever have trouble sleeping at night? can you just answer that question? the mcallen police and texas rangers believe you killed irene garza. are you worried about that, sir? are you concerned? feit would not answer our questions, but when we interviewed him five years ago, feit had more to say. >> did you commit the murder of irene garza? >> interesting question. the answer is no. >> he also told us what he thought of dale tacheny, the former monk who says feit admitted murdering irene. >> he says you committed the murder. >> i think he's demented. >> what about the priest, father o'brien. he says you committed the murder too and knew you well. [ speaking latin ] >> what does that mean, sir? >> look it up. >> he was speaking latin with a reference to the late father o'brien. it means do not speak ill of the dead. now 80 years old, feit has done volunteer work at this local catholic food bank. >> i don't care what type of person he's become nowadays. he's helping the

there's still 50 states in it, including, including texas. texas is still in the union.not secede, which is actually news that was not a foregone conclusion a couple years ago. back in 20as

delayed, remember, the texas primary election?hat case is now about to be thrown out because it was based on the entire voting rights act which the supreme court has now weakened so that case probably goes away. out in justice department joins this other one. >> pete williams, thank you so much. >>> new polling out just today shows support for anthony weiner's mayoral bid in new york plummeting among new york city democrats but that is not keeping the disgraced former congressman off the campaign trail today. >> all the time i get questions how you going to overcome it? that's impossible. headlines made jokes about my name. what i said is all i can do is go out every single day, if there's one pad or 50 cameras, try to talk about issues that i think are important and i am waging this campaign on a bet and the bet is at the end of the day citizens care more about their own future than about my past with my wife and my embarrassing things. and if i turn out to be wrong, you're going to find out in 45 days or so. >> is he going to wi

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and we can stand up for texas. >> this morning rick perry made the rounds of texas conservative radiotack the people standing with wendy. >> never in the history of texas have we had such a response from the gallery, where they literally took over the process. they stopped the democratic process of voting and debate. >> the votes are still there. nothing's changed on this. the question is are you going to let a small group of people take over the process, an unruly mob, to keep democracy from occurring? >> not only are we on the right side of this issue, we're on the vast majority of the people of the state of texas support this, and that's the reason that i called this special session, to address this issue. and a couple others that were killed because of the turmoil and the mob rule antics that we saw. and you know, listen, filibuster is part of the rules. i get that. but the absolute anarchy that we saw in the last 15 minutes out of the senate chamber was not appropriate nor normal. >> today in kansas a law signed by governor sam brownback which declares that life begins at fertili

about texas tech versus yale and texas tech always beats yale which make sense.rite about how obama, obviously a national democratic figure has people down there trying to do battle in texas. >> jeremy bird, his great field organizer in 2008 and 2012 has organized a group, coming out of his organizing for america. obama organization called battleground texas with the objective of turning texas blue over time. now what they're mainly doing is trying to register more voters. trying to recruit more volunteers. trying the raise more money and hopefully, along the way, make a landscape more attractive for strong candidates to run. in the democratic party. they won't say when precisely they'll be able to turn the state blue. i would not count them out begin their experience before. but at the same time, over in texas, they're a bit challenged. they raised in the first four months, really only $900,000. and it is far less than a lot of us figured they would raise. and as for candidates, we'll see. no one has really declared. >> before i let you go, i want to get out wen

back in 1960, this texas ranger memorandum says you expressed guilt to the texas rangers about killing irene garza. is this true? do you ever have trouble sleeping at night? can you just answer that question? the mcallen police and texas rangers believe you killed irene garza. are you worried about that, sir? are you concerned? feit would not answer our questions, but when we interviewed him five years ago, feit had more to say. >> did you commit the murder of irene garza? >> interesting question. the answer is no. >> he also told us what he thought of dale tacheny, the former monk who says feit admitted murdering irene. >> he says you committed the murder. >> i think he's demented. >> what about the priest, father o'brien. he says you committed the murder too and he knew you very well. [ speaking latin ] >> what does that mean, sir? >> look it up. >> he was speaking latin with a reference to the late father o'brien. it means "do not speak ill of the dead." now 80 years old, feit has done volunteer work at this local catholic food bank. >> i don't care what type of person he's become n

of texas and louisiana.n women take matters into their own hands, not unlike pre roe. women trying to self-induce with medications they get at a flea market or in town, they heard through a grapevine that somebody's selling something. we're seeing women do things they did pre roe. beat their stomach. ask their partner to beat them to induce a miscarriage, an abortion. the simple two visits requirement with 24 hours between them is too much for some women to be able to handle because most patients are working mothers, it's difficult to get childcare and driving to the clinics. when we're looking at a law that's going to further restriction access and have the only clinics remaining in the big cities in texas, texas is a giant city. we have 4 of the top 11 cities in the country as far as population. we're talking about a lot of women affected by this legislation. >> amy hagstrom miller, whole women health clinics in the state of texas. please stay in touch as this moves forward. appreciate your time. >> thank

is scared that they're losing texas or will lose texas? >> sure, they have to be.s not going to happen very fast. it's not going to happen in in 2016. maybe '20, '24 at the earliest. i did see a study that came out today that showed interestingly for the first time we saw the hispanic numbers in texas before the 2012 election, and obama beat romney, and ted cruz lost to his democratic challenger, whom i can't even name, and i bet you can't, either, by a similar margin, like 60-40 now bear in mind that romney and cruz won in 20/12, both by 20-something points. so these were walk aways yet they got hammered in the latino community. >> michael: it's a shame when ron kirk is no longer the losing democrat because he was the right answer to that every year. let's talk--let's talk a little bit about the nsa but listening to what you just said it's not a surprise that they want to build a huge fence on the border to mexico. it just dawned on me, all these texans all these texan republicans are so consumeed with it when you see that 39-53 number. the nsa hearing we'll get t

back in 1960, this texas ranger memorandum says you expressed guilt to the texas rangers about killing, is this true? do you ever have trouble sleeping at night? can you just answer that question? the mcallen police and texas rangers believe you killed irene garza. are you worried about that sir? are you concerned? >> feit would not answer our questions, but when we interviewed him five years ago feit had more to say. did you commit the murder of irene garza. >> interesting question. the answer is no. >> he also told us what he thought 0 dale tacheny, the former monk who says feit admitted murdering irene. he says you told him you committed the murder. >> i think he's demented. >> what about the priest, father o'brien. he says you committed the murder too and knew you well. [ speaking latin ] >> what does that mean, sir? >> look it up. >> he was speaking latin. with a reference to the late father o'brien. it means do not speak ill of the dead. now 80 years old, feit has done volunteer work at this local catholic food bank. >> i don't care what type of person he has become nowadays. he'

night at the texas state house.ay long filibuster ending with a controversial vote on abortion restrictions. >> democrat wendy davis took the senate floor at 11:18 in the morning. the goal: filibuster for some 13 hours until midnight when the special session of the legislature would expire. >> john: it's just like the plot of frank capra's classic movie "mrs. smith wants an abortion." what exactly is at stake? >> at stake, a ban on abortions after 20 weeks and a requirement that all procedures be done at surgical centers. that would reduce the number of available abortion clinics in the state from 47 to 5. >> john: hold on. is five abortion clinics in 269,000 square miles really so bad? think about it. texas will still have three more abortion clinks than it has six flags amusement parks. let's be fair. when we're talking about math. if senator davis can talk 13 hours, texas women won't have to drive 13 hours to get an abortion. okay. how hard can that be? >> you can't trade off with a colleague to get any relief. y

and serve in the texas senate. it's just unfortunate that she hasn't learned from her own example that every life must be given a chance to realize its full potential, and that every life matters. >> your comments, governor, were very popular among the audience in attendance, but even republican house speaker took, he said he damages himself and damages the republican party. do you think that those comments could hurt you with independent women? >> actually, those comments were meant to be a compliment to her for what she had accomplished in her life, and you think about where she came from, what she's accomplished. and as a matter of fact, i would think that she's very proud of that as well. my point was that saving a life and letting that life come to its fulfillment and all the good things that happened, you never know when who's going to be considered to be an extraordinary individual who's going to make that real impact and life. and that was our point thatty were making, and nothing else. nothing more. >> so.

the texas democratic state senator who last week filibustered an antiabortion bill in texas until thelock ran out on the special session. and even though texas' majority republicans are back again this week as of today trying to pass that same bill, the scene outside the texas state capitol in austin today, at least for opponents of that bill, it was kind of a party today. it was kind of a party. a righteous texas party in the heat. thousands of people on the steps of the state capitol spilling out onto the capitol grounds. inside the capitol, inside the legislature, so everybody could see what they were doing with that bill, the legislature opened a live feed of the house debate. it worked fine. the live feed of the senate did not work fine. you could not really hear what the texas senate was saying. the crazy thing about it was how many people complained about that on youtube because people were online trying to watch the texas state senate. a lot of people were online trying to watch. they got really annoyed when the feed didn't work. so everybody was complaining all over youtube a

is texas really changing? that, we turn to two lone star experts: james henson, director of the texas politics project at the university of texas at austin; and cal jillson, professor of political science at southern methodist university in dallas. james henson, given the push in the poll we've been seeing back and forth in the last several weeks in the texas state legislature, is change really afoot? >> well, there's a lot of thrashing and there's possibly some change afoot around the edges, but it's hard to see a long-term change in the underlying patterns here. republicans have enjoyed a significant advantage in statewide races in the range of eight to 12 points. they have a big advantage among the voting population. that said, we're seeing a mobilization at the capital and we've seem son institutional breakdowns, particularly the night of the filibuster, that are pretty new for texas politics and at least things we haven't seen in quite a while. >> ifill: so cal jillson, everything i read tells me that thi

we are going to pass some restrictions on abortion in texas so that texas is a place where we defend life. that is the powerful message here. and that is what we are focused on. and politics will h take care of itself. >> john: you do have the big special exciting announcement about your future tomorrow that i want to come back to in a second. let's talk about the special session and abortion bill coming up again. we all know what happened to that when it was filibustered by state senator wendy davis in the closing hours of the special session. what are you doing this time around to ensure that that doesn't happen again? a lot of conservatives were very angry about the way that was handled. >> you know, it never happened before. when you look at texas history, people had relayed to me that never in the history of texas have they seen that type of a mob rule come in and discome bobbulate a legislative session. texans want to protect life and that is the bottom line here. calling another special session we can be in and out in ten days and get work done and transportation bill that was

. >> texas, well, and we can talk about texas because there's a lot of cases out there. but having somebody, allowing somebody to have a concealed weapon is like having a toddler with a machete. >> when you watch all this, the other thing that kept coming up to me is i just wish we could go back in time and take the fun gun out of this equation. more than anything. more than any single magic wand that i could wave. it would be to just -- >> that's the reason why he felt comfortable pursuing him. >> yes. >> at the end of the day, when the cop says why are you out of your car? if you think about it, with all the other witnesses, everybody has said, i didn't want to get involved. >> everyone's staying inside. >> i didn't want to -- i didn't even want to call the cops. i didn't want to have anything to do with this. for some reason, george zimmerman is the only person out of everybody in this community who felt comfortable pursuing this suspicious individual. >> because he had a gun on him. >> and here's the point, you can be in the wrong, you can pursue somebody. the cops t

taking on texas governor rick perry.he joins me live. >>> plus, the president in south africa yet meeting with the children and grandchildren of the ailing nelson mandela. he and the first lady swoek with [ larry ] you know throughout history, folks have suffered from frequent heartburn but now, thanks to treating with prilosec otc, we don't have to suffer like they used to. [ bell dings ] ♪ [ horse whinnies ] getting heartburn and then treating day after day is a thing of the past. block the acid with prilosec otc, and don't get heartburn in the first place. we've sure come a long way. ♪ [ male announcer ] one pill each morning. 24 hours. zero heartburn. but i feel skinnier, you know? not really. aaah! jessica! whoa! your friend's a rate sucker. her bad driving makes car insurance more expensive for the rest of us. try snapshot from progressive. snap it in and get a discount based on your good driving. [pop!] stop paying for rate suckers! try snapshot free at progressive.com. >>> abortion rights a big issue around the c

greg abbot, attorney general of texas.hank you for joining us. >> and a boston cop reacted by the rock star treatment of a terrorist by showing the bomber how he was when he was fast. >> you are watching fox. back to huckabee. ♪ (applause) >> well, there is a lot of out rage over the current rolling stone mag zone cover. many claim it glamorizes the bombing suspect. dzhokhar tsarnaev and giving him rock star treatment. he is not a rock star. we'll not she the cover. this is when jim morrison was on the cover. by the way jim morrison was a rock star. dzhokhar tsarnaev is not a rock star. he is a murderer and monster. sergeant shawn murphy was so enraged by the rolling stone cover. he released the photos of tsarnaev's capture. what rolling stones did was wrong. this guy is evil. this is the real boaston bomber. not someone fluffed in rolling stone magzon. sergeant murphy got in a little trouble. faces some you know disciplinary hearing and been suspended with pay. but to most people in boston, sergeant murphy is a hero becau

that affects juries even in texas. >> john: you're right. it is cheaper to keep someone alive in prison for the rest of their life than to execute them. i do have to ask you sister because our time grows short there are a lot of catholics as you know, who are opposed to abortion personally but who support abortion rights because they don't want to go back to the days of coat hanger abortions. where do you come down on an issue like that? are you opposed to abortion across the board or do you favor people having that choice? >> the thing about abortion is we're talking about a life that's on the way and a child doesn't have a voice. and i'm always going to tend to listen carefully to the vulnerable and the voiceless. in a way, make a comparison, people on death row are considered, well, we can't even listen to them. they have no points. they don't deserve to be heard. and when you are delving into a moral issue always the dignity of life so i want to stand firmly on the dignity of life of the child seeking to be born but also the dignity of t

how novel, how anomalous is this in texas state politics?ll, it's enormously surprising to have seen one side take the lead on this. the other side was caught flatfooted. i think as we sit here tonight, chris, there's an antiabortion rally at the capitol. mike huckabee and the duggars and a bunch of people associated with the pro-life side are rallying. the numbers are not as great. when i left my office they were not as great as the numbers last monday when the pro-choice people were rallying. look, there's going to be another rally in favor of abortion rights tomorrow. i think it's anomalous in a sense we haven't seen these kinds of numbers of people come from all over the state and march on the capitol on any issue in a very, very long time. in my 20-plus years of watching capitol, i can't quite remember this many people mobilized on this kind of issue ever before. in that respect, maybe you're right but it was surprising perry didn't make more hay of it today. >> this is my read of the perry thing, it's the republican party in microcosm.