ezra klein, your speak for surprise speaker tonight? >> there was a period of time when mitt romney basically shut down bain to help a bain partner find his daughter who had gone missing in new york. i heard this from somebody else, not a source, but somebody -- >> pontificating. >> my bet is it's going to relate to that story, her or her father. shows mitt romney being human, doing something really, really admirable. >> richard wolffe? >> my pick since i have no idea, joe lieberman and zale miller as a double pick because davis fell flat. go back for the second time. >> i will say if anybody is interested in my pick -- >> i'm interested. >> -- the killers. the killers. they're a band. i will say a band that i enjoy. they're also led by a mormon singer, brandon flowers. mitt romney has said he's one of their favorite bands. >> let's go with it. >> they don't even have to be there. they could be a hologram on stage in, and i think, look, the killers are "k" on a playlist. paul rye wrap did not mention -- zeppelin led. >> it could just be

i think ezra's right. you put your best face forward with respect to the conventions but it doesn't really move the dial when your policy platform is offensive to that community. >> it's not just about sort of ensuring that white voters come out. it's also to a certain degree depressing or repressing the vote of minority voters. this is what was said regarding voter i.d. laws last night. let's take a listen. >> we said in south carolina that if you have to show a picture i.d. to buy sudafed, if you have to show a picture i.d. to set foot on an airplane, then you should have to show picture i.d. to protect the one of the most valuable, most central, sacred rights and blessings in america, the right to vote. and what happened? president obama stopped us. >> sudafed, catching a flight and voting. eric bates? >> that argument would hold water if in the voting booth there were addictive drugs or terrorists. as far as i'm aware, there aren't either and neither are there real problems so it doesn't make any sense

i love solving tough problems. >> ezra, mitt romney loves policy. are we actually going to see policy as outlined by team romney? >> yeah. i mean, i want to say to mitt romney's credit, in his career before he began running for president, the guy really did love policy. i reported a lot on the process by which he passed the forerunner to obama care, the massachusetts health care reforms. that was quite a policy process he ran. it was very impressive. what's so amazing about the ryan pick is it is a detonation of the romney strategy thus far. thus far the strategy has been do not tell people what your policy is. you release these kind of big grand principles, it will be a huge tax cut, we'll have balanced budgets, then people say how will you do that, mr. romney and he doesn't -- it's been amazing how little policy there's been. now he brings on ryan and suddenly he's got to answer for well, there are large holes in ryan's policies, too. the most specific policy thinker on the right, one way or the other. ryan has really taken pretty aggressive stand

ezra bunch was stabbed. bunch was where... ezra these two building baltimore between northwest it's here in northwest baltimore between these two building where... ezra bunch was stabbed. and you don't need to look far.... to find remants of that murder scene. take a look vo rollcue: take a look 3 here are pictures of four individuals ... police say may have been in the area when this crime occured. take close look... you may recognize one of them. i spoke with a man today.... who is often in this area and was actually here shortly after the killing. he said... it didn't surprise him. ((wipe-sot))roger- 8:22 it'' a rough area daytime and nighttime i don't come up here after dark being as old as i am :32 ((joy)) take a look around this place... it's busy. there are bus stops on two of the four corners here. police say here.the four corners here. police say someone saw what happened. detectives just forward. in northwest e baltimore joy lepola fox 45 news at 5:00. melvin morse and pauline morse of delaware... face felony charges

crystal as well as ezra. i notice you quoting ezra. isn't he the kind of guy you wish you had sitting next to you in school? let me say this, though, before i go. >> at least i can follow him on twitter now. >> let me say this. aside from the politics, i'm watching ryan tonight because i've been there where you had to walk on that big stage. and all your handlers, all your advisers, all your friends don't matter. you've got to walk out there alone. and he's tonight going to go somewhere he's never been. and i know one thing. he's sitting somewhere with his stomach in knots. because i don't care how long you've been in public, when you walk on that stage everyone will see you as champ or chump when you get finished. that's what mr. ryan is doing right now. >>> coming up, will paul ryan talk about his plan to end medicare as we know it tonight? is it a political death wish or an opportunity? steve smidt takes us in. >>> and the theme we are change it. oh, yeah right back to the failed bush policies. if you love soaring deficit and war, y

my family migrated to california because of my uncle ezra. a man with no formal education, but one brave enough to file a lawsuit during the frightening days of the depression. he filed a lawsuit against his employer, a major manufacturer after he was injured on the job. it took years for me to understand his bravery. i'm here because a young white lawyer filed that suit on his behalf. and a mysterious louisiana judge ruled in his favor. all seemingly impossible things for the era. but one day a check for $2,000 did arrive. and i went with my uncle and aunt to berkeley to pay for their house on ashby avenue. i saw the check. it was a miracle that he did not pay the price of being tarred and feathered as promised by the white men of monroe, louisiana. it was uncle ezra that led my immediate family on their exodus from the south. so no matter how hard i am willing to work to get into broadcasting, i was willing, it could not have happened without help. and in this case, again, someone we didn't know, the president of our country, lyndon johnson

david, you and ezra have been writing and talking about this. we're trying to get to the heart of what the differences are between these two approaches. you hear the claims, you hear the republicans, kevin madden on the program today saying that the president would cut $716 billion from current beneficiaries. what are the facts on that? >> well, the idea that the obama plan cuts medicare is true. obama care includes cuts to medicare in it. the basic problem we have here is that medicare is very popular and the only way to solve the deficit is to cut it, to change it, and so what both candidates are trying to do is accuse the other side of cutting medicare, when in fact there is no solution to the deficit that doesn't cut medicare. i think that explains a lot of the back and forth that you hear this week. >> ezra, what about the ryan plan and how it would change medicare as well as adapting $716 billion in the baseline as a reduction in the rate of increase? >> okay, i've got to tell you, i understood the ryan pick or thought i did. you pick paul

and ezra klein, a washington post columnist and msnbc policy analyst. thank you both for being here tonight. >> thank you. >> ezra, let me start with you. there's so much talk about the ryan plan. tell us exactly what it is. i mean, specifically what it does to medicare. let's start there. >> begin with medicare. so it changes medicare to something called premium support. right now you get it and it pays your health care costs. that's what it does. what happens in ryan ice plan is you get a coupon. and the coupon will get you essentially the lowest or second lowest price medicare like options. private options and whatever is cheapest and it could be cheapest because it's able to select for healthier people, there are concerns about how you handle that kind of risk problem. but whatever is cheapest, you can get that. and if you want something different, say traditional medicare is not cheapest, you have to pay the difference. i think it's important to say quick here that he has shifted a lot of the big cuts away from medicare and towards programs to the

ezra klein, let's get into the ryan plan, and what his stardom is based on. what is in the ryan plan and what is left out of the ryan plan. >> so what is in the ryan plan at this point is a somewhat softer, from its initial version, way of moving medicare over to private insurance, or retain the option to be a normal medicare, but you pick from a bunch of private insurers too. >> that's the latest -- that's the thing that -- >> that is the new version. that is ryan 2.0. >> that he worked out with ron wyden. >> exactly. >> but that was never voted on or put into legislative language in any way. >> no, no, it is in the latest budget, in the second iteration of the budget, this year's budget, that is the version of support that is in there, to my knowledge. >> okay. >> but the big cut wednesday to medicaid. >> go ahead, yeah. >> so it softened medicaid's cut. in the next ten years, nothing really happens to medicare. they keep obama's cuts. medicare takes $650 billion cut, you lose about 30 million people who had been covered by medicaid in addition to another 1

. >>> welcome to "the ed show," i'm ezra klein in for ed schultz tonight. we have an amazing show on tap. we'll tell you about the most amazing part of the romney/ryan budget that people aren't talking about, but need to be. and by the way, it's not medicare. and we'll also tell you how and why the president is getting outspent and out-raised this campaign and what it could mean this november. we've got some nice coup de graces on those. and you'll want to see them. and then there's todd akin, boy, is there todd akin. as ed would say, let's get to work. deadlines. deadlines are exciting in politics. they're just great. if you're a reporter, you're always just kind of waiting there for something to happen. it's a problem. it's my problem. deadlines mean something has to happen. it's great. but today we had a truly exciting and unlikely deadline on our hands. one we didn't expect even a week ago. by 5:00 p.m. central time, republican senate candidate todd akin, he had the theory that the female reproductive system includes some kind of spermacide. this is a r

i'm ezra klein, in for ed schultz tonight. we have an amazing show on tap. we'll tell you about the most important part of the romney/ryan budget that people aren't talking about but they need to. >> and we'll tell you how the president is being outspent and outraised this campaign and what it could mean in november. >> and of course, todd akin. oh, is there todd akin. as ed would say, let's get to work. >>> deadlines. deadlines are exciting in politics. they are just great. polls close, budgets are due, petitions are turned in. if you're a reporter, you're waiting there for something to happen. it's a problem, my problem. deadlines mean something has to happen. it's great. but today, we had a truly exciting and unlikely deadline on our hands, one we didn't expect even a week ago. by 5:00 p.m. central time, todd akin, he of the theory that the female reproductive center has a red spuricide behind a red glass case. had to decide if he would drop out of the race for the senate seat held by claire mccaskill. as my friend rachel maddow explained last night, if a

. >>> welcome to "the ed show," i'm ezra klein in for ed schultz tonight. we have an amazing show on tap. we'll tell you about the most amazing part of the romney/ryan budget that people aren't talking about, but need to be. and by the way, it's not medicare. and we'll also tell you how and why the president is getting outspent and out-raised this campaign and what it could mean this november. we've got some nice coup de graces on those. and you'll want to see them. and then there's todd akin, boy, is there todd akin. as ed would say, let's get to work. deadlines. deadlines are exciting in politics. they're just great. if you're a reporter, you're always just kind of waiting there for something to happen. it's a problem. it's my problem. deadlines mean something has to happen. it's great. but today we had a truly exciting and unlikely deadline on our hands. one we didn't expect even a week ago. by 5:00 p.m. central time, republican senate candidate todd akin, he had the theory that the female reproductive system includes some kind of special sper sper sperm

we also have, if i'm not mistaken we have ezra klein, a msnbc contributor. >> yes, you do. >> ezra klein, you have spent more than a little bit of time on the ryan budget, talking to paul ryan, looking at the facts and figures. does the -- what does the paul ryan budget do in sort of simplest broadest strokes? >> oak. there are two things here that are important to separate those. what the paul ryan budget does and then what it says it does because these are actually different things in important ways. the big things a paul ryan budget actually does is, one, it changes medicare dramatically. the first iteration of the paul ryan budget in 2010, i believe, essentially limited medicare, what most everybody in medicare is in now completely and it moved it to a vouter prach. you get private insurance and the way they were going to save money is get that. but the check was going to grow at a very slow rate. a year later, they were too big on that. they ended up with the new thing which mitt romney also supports. you can choose medicare, the normal one, in addition to the normal ones. the check

we'll crunch the numbers with david walker, also, ezra klein will join us. also ahead, the the science of sleep. one author tells us how we can avoid getting too little rest and why heavy doses of ambien isn't a solution. what do you do? wow. >> that puts you down. >> let's go to bill karins. >> good morning, everyone. we are watching a nice, quiet weather pattern to start our monday. much of the eastern seaboard is dry. the west is dry. we've kind of gotten rid on out of big heat wave, but we need a lot of rain. cool weather today. we love this in the ohio valley. only going to be in the 70s from indianapolis to chicago. thunderstorms this morning from hit l rock now just to the south of memphis and also crossing the mississippi and ohio rivers into areas of tennessee and kentucky. eventually, that will make its way to areas like louisville. 72. that's it for a high in chicago. you couldn't even buy a day in the 70s for the first two months of the sullivan mmer. still warm in areas in california. enjoy the low humidity on the east coast. tomorrow, that heat

we also have, if i'm not mistaken we have ezra klein, a msnbc contributor. >> yes, you do. >> ezra klein, you have spent more than a little bit of time on the ryan budget, talking to paul ryan, looking at the facts and figures. does the -- what does the paul ryan budget do in sort of simplest broadest strokes? >> oak. there are two things here that are important to separate those. what the paul ryan budget does and then what it says it does because these are actually different things in important ways. the big things a paul ryan budget actually does is, one, it changes medicare dramatically. the first iteration of the pl ryan budget in 2010, i believe, essentially limited medicare, what most everybody in medicare is in now completely and it moved it to a vouter prach. you get private insurance and the way they were going to save money is get that. but the check was going to grow at a very slow rate. a year later, they were too big on that. they ended up with the new thing which mitt romney also supports. you can choose medicare, the normal one, in addition to the normal ones. the check g

." >>> good evening, i'm ezra klein in for chris matthews and leading off tonight. you remember this? >> i, barack hussein obama, do solemnly swear. >> that was barack obama's inauguration less than four years ago now and it seemed for a shining moment like america had opened a new chapter in its difficult and frequently shameful history with race. but it wasn't true. even as obama took that oath, researchers were going back through the 2008 election, running through the numbers, running through the polls and finding that far from being a post-racial election, it was an usually racial election. this was tested in an interesting way. first he ranked areas of the country based on how often they entered racist search terms into google. then compared obama's share of the vote in those areas with john kerry's share of the vote from the '04 election. just an election cycle ago. is wult the result? he found that obama had lost 3% to 5% of the popular vote compared to what you would have expected from kerry's results or as he put it, obama's race, quote, gave his opponent t

." >>> good evening, i'm ezra klein in for chris matthews and leading off tonight. you remember this? >> i, barack hussein obama, do solemnly swear. >> that was barack obama's inauguration less than four years ago now and it seemed for a shining moment like america had opened a new chapter in its difficult and frequently shameful history with race. but it wasn't true. even as obama took that oath, researchers were going back through the 2008 election, running through the numbers, running through the polls and finding that far from being a post-racial election, it was an usually racial election. seth stevens davidowitz a researcher at harvard tested this in a very interesting way. first he ranked areas of the country based on how often they entered racist search terms into google. then compared obama's share of the vote in those areas with john kerry's share of the vote from the '04 election. just an election cycle ago. the result? he found that obama had lost 3% to 5% of the popular vote compared to what you would have expected from kerry's results. or, as he put it

ezra, msnbc policy analyst. thank you both for joining me. >> thank you. >> absolute. >> i melissa, let me start with you. it is a big night. >> yeah. >> but it is a big night for welfare-to-work debate. >> yeah. welfare-to-work debate that's bizarre and manufactured because there's no debate to be had here. look, the -- the attacks are simply fictitious in the sense they say the president obama fundamentally changed the current welfare requirements. faerm administration has not done so. in fact, if anything, what the bae obama administration did, what the gop claims it wants which is more localized control and more control at the level of states, away from the federal government saying this is exactly how it has to happen. >> two republican governors including sandoval speaking tonight requested the waivers. i just quoted one. >> exactly. as we know, states are having a tough time financially. a lot of reason they are having a tough time financially is because this do nothing congress has been unwilling to crea

thank you, dave and ezra klein. up next, why tomorrow may be the day president obama wraps up the latino vote. we've got a big story that has not been covered well. we're going to cover it pretty well right now. this is "hardball." the place for politics. >>> michelle obama has been waging a war against obesity. number five on the list of obese states, michigan, obesity rate of more than 33% of people are obese. after that, alabama. four, west virginia weighs in at the state with the third highest rate. the first runner up is louisiana and the state that tops the list is mississippi with an obesity rate of about 35%. four of those five states voted republican in 2008. whatever that means and about 80% of the top 15 states are red states, so red states are somewhat larger than blue states. we'll be right back. whatever that means. down here, folks measure commitment by what's getting done. the twenty billion dollars bp committed has helped fund economic and environmental recovery. long-term, bp's made a five hundred

joining us now is, ezra klein, columnist for "washington post" and msnbc policy analyst. ezra, great to see you. thanks for being here. >> good evening. >> which paul ryan is right? the private paul ryan who said stimulus money would help his home district, or the public paul ryan who said it was a waste of money at the time, and who now says looking back those letters were a mistake, it really was all a waste, it didn't help? >> look, i have no way of knowing how these letters were handled internally to his office. seems plausible to me. i just don't know. it's the second part of his statement, the one where it says, we know it failed, we know it didn't work. we know it is not true. we just know that. i mean, number one, just take the practical case. here's what the stimulus included in it, right? tax cuts. that was about a third of it. paul ryan, if he believes anything in this entire world, believes tax cuts create jobs. he's been very clear on that. another big part of it was infrastructure, getting people to build roads and bridges. i don't know what the theory of th

then three different women entering the 7-11 on reisterstown road in northwest baltimore.police say ezra bunch was assaulted and then stabbed by the man in the photos. he then stumbled out into the street where was hit by a car and died.police want anyone who knows these individuals to contact them. a man is being held without bond... charged with kidnapping and sexually abusing 2 young girls in prince georges county. county.police say 25 -year-old charles amofa of chillum confessed to both assaults. both happened at the value village thrift store in hyattsville.the first happened july 9th... when an 8-year-old girl managed to escape after being lured to a nearby vacant property.the second happened earlier this week.police say amofa lured a 6-year-old girl away from her father... took her to a nearby playground.... and assaulted her. that's when a police officer spotted her. "she seemed very desperate and the only thing coming out of her mouth was i want my daddy i want my daddy..... daddy..... the father of the 6-year-old girl released this statement warning parents to watch their child

ezra klein joins us now for more on that. ezra, how's life in the wonk box? >> it is incredibly wonky, rachel. we are hearing a weird amount about welfare. not just the convention, but in the election more generally. it is really weird that it's come up, like a strategy from 1992 went into a worm hole and popped up this year. welfare after '96, the reforms became the temporary assistance to needy families program. that's what it is now. and it is a shadow of its former self. you can see it on this graph here. during the clinton presidency in '96, in a great economy when you would expect relatively few people in welfare, it was helping 68 of every hundred families in poverty. by 2010, in a terrible economy, when you think welfare would have to expand to catch the people falling out of the work force, it helped only 27 of every 100 families in poverty. so that is less than half of the reach the program had back in '96. what's weirder, in '96, the conversation about work requirements for welfare came in the context of a really tight economy, when people could fi