hussein. in the south, the u.s.-supported shiite government under prime minister maliki, who has excluded sunnis from power, is struggling to survive. and in the north, the kurds, who have longed for independence for a century, are now taking it. today, kurdish troops seized kirkuk, home of one of the biggest oil fields in the world. this volatile patchwork nation the u.s. invaded and then stitched back together with the sweat and lives of thousands of american troops is rapidly coming undone. richard engel, nbc s chief foreign correspondent filed that dispatch today from northern iraq. richard now joins us live. richard, thanks for being with us. give us a sense of what you are seeing and where you think this is heading. well, i think we re seeing state collapse. and where this is heading is some sort of civil war. we are seeing now kurdistan, the kurdish region where i am right now, expanding.
mosul. they said they heard gunshots near their home and had enough. others were just on foot. what s happening to iraq? it s splitting apart into three warring pieces. in the west, the militants are taking over and being joined by those nostalgic for saddam hussein. in the south, the u.s.-supported shiite government under prime minister maliki, who has excluded sunnis from power, is struggling to survive. and in the north, the kurds, who have longed for independence for a century, are now taking it. today, kurdish troops seized kirkuk, home of one of the biggest oil fields in the world. this volatile patchwork nation the u.s. invaded and then stitched back together with the sweat and lives of thousands of american troops is rapidly coming undone. richard engel, nbc s chief foreign correspondent filed that dispatch today from northern iraq. richard now joins us live. richard, thanks for being with us. give us a sense of what you are
according to the director of the patchwork nation project he was on the show back in july and here is what he said about where the election would be won and lost. i can tell you right now with a pretty good degree of certainty how nine of the types are going to go in the fall. i mean, i know which ones are going to go democratic and republican. it isn t complicated. there are a couple but it is about the margins and whether or not you can paear a couple poins off the worker centers or if romney can take a couple points off. some tend to swing a little more. well, here they are. here s the three areas he was talking about. boom towns, service workers centers which are older, poorer, and rural, and the mondey suburbs. romney under performed and obama over performed in boom town. it was bush won by 17 points. and did you see here romney by just nine. we re really going to dig into
rebuild rebuild when you take a closer look. .at the best schools in the world. .you see they all have something very interesting in common. they have teachers. .with a deeper knowledge of their subjects. as a result, their students achieve at a higher level. let s develop more stars in education. let s invest in our teachers. .so they can inspire our students. let s solve this. republicans have talked a lot about losing minorities in 2012. but they may have a bigger problem, folks. they may be losing the political middle. today a deep dive into our patchwork nation. a look at how president obama
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