this particular mining company, something that we have seen in the past when these accidents take place. we ll bring you more information as soon as we get it. jon: rick, thanks. jane: back room deals, sex scandals, corruption investigations. do we have your attention? hollywood builds movie plots around themes like those, but this is not a movie. those are just some of the political scandals making headlines in just one state in this country, and it s not even blago s state. we ll take you there. we ve also got amazing new video of that volcano that s caused such chaos in iceland. national geographic camera crews captured incredible sights and sounds for a documentary they ve got coming up. the directer will be here, and he s bringing along his pictures.
opponent by double digits right now. of course, it s a long time until november. so could those three seats actually go gop? let s talk about it with one of the experts out there, larry sabato, the directer for the center of politics at the university of west virginia. sorry for butchering your name, larry. thanks for being with us. i m used to it, jon, no problem. [laughter] jon: all right. let s get to president obama s old senate seat. the state treasurer in illinois is running for that seat. he s even had the backing of the president himself in the past. take a look at this ad from 2006. in. alexei is one of the most outstanding young men that i could ever hope to meet. he s somebody who cares deeply about people. he got that from his family. they really exemplify and embody the american dream. jon: and yet the family-owned bank was seized by federal
these highly dangerous people in new york city when it s not necessary and actually makes it more difficult for us to protect national secrets and makes it more difficult for us to obtain intelligence that could prevent a new attack. we have a responsibility to object to this policy. jane: senator jeff sessions, ranking member of the judiciary committee. senator, thanks for your time. thank you. jon: arizona s lower house passes a drastic new bill that would put police on the front lines of the battle to stop illegal immigration. it would force foreign nationals to carry proof of legal residency and give officers the power to stop and check anyone they suspect is an illegal immigrant. is this the best way to secure our borders, or does it just offer a false sense of security? steven is the directer of research at the center for immigration studies. francisco hernandez also joins
country as well as the restaurant industry, both sit-down restaurants and fast food restaurants who may be looking at this for their employees before they go to make you a burger or a steak, better go wash your hands. jon: coming from my co-anchor who isn t going to let me come on set. [laughter] thanks. jane: do you know if your food on the table is safe to seat? the eat? the fda may not necessarily know either. there s a disturbing new report out today saying the food and drug administration has significantly dropped the number of inspections allowing a majority of the food facilities in this country to go unchecked for years. jean hall ran is directer of the food safety campaign. good to see you. the officials say the situation really is because of inadequate staffing and resources, it comes down to money. is that a valid excuse? well, there is a lot to that. the number of inspectors has been declining year after year
richard goodstein was an adviser to the clinton/gore campaign, and david avel la is directer of an organization for training republican candidates. great to see both of you, thanks so much for joining us. hi, jamie. thank you. jamie: david, you first. let me show you a poll about independents, i want to ask you how important they are because they do show up. look at the difference, a stunning difference in terms of approval and disapproval of the president among independents. as late as march 2010, 54% disapprove. how important is this voting bloc, david, and what do you think they ll make if these are the numbers? sure. independent voters are ultimately going to have a huge impact and probably make the difference in this election, and the problem for the president is a year after the stimulus, we re still just short of 10% unemployment. he just nationalized the health care system. all policies that independent voters don t want.