legislative priority. brown along with a few other republicans voted for the senate's version of wall street reform earlier. but when the conference committee added in a $19 billion tax on the largest hedge funds and banks, he balked. now, keep in mind, this $19 billion fee was to make sure the reform bill didn't increase the deficit, take note deficit hawks and it also had the added benefit of providing a disincentive for financial institutions to grow too big. brown, however, said he wouldn't support it. so yesterday, the conference reconvened and they got rid of the tax replacing the money with some funds taken from remaining t.a.r.p. money and higher fdic bank fees. okay, let's be clear what just happened. the t.a.r.p. money is taxpayer money. it's not some magical golden lamp that spitz out doubloons. what brown has succeeded in doing is transferring the burden of paying for reform from the big banks and hedge funds to you, the citizen. writing for the atlantic david invoguelyio says it's harded to see how pushing the tax to average americans and smaller banks helps matters. well, indeed it is. there are two ways of understanding his actions i think. a, he really wants to transfer wealth from american taxpayers and small banks to the same large reckless financial institutions that create the crisis or b, he wants to kill wall street reform as just searching for an excuse. as evidence of the latter, he wrote a letter to dodd and frank today asking for more time to consider his support even after they gave him what he said he wanted. but maybe like his house republican colleague john boehner, what brown really wants is to maintain the status quo. today president obama in a town hall meeting in racine, wisconsin fired back at boehner's comments from yesterday. >> the leader of the republicans in the house said that financial reform was like, i'm quoting here, using a nuclear weapon to target an ant. that's what he said. he compared the financial crisis to an ant. of this is the same financial crisis that led to the loss of nearly 8 million jobs. same crisis that cost people their homes, their life savings, maybe i'm confused. do you think that the financial crisis was an ant and we just need a little ant swatter to fix this thing or do you think that we need to restructure how we regulate the financial system so you aren't on the hook again and we don't have this kind of crisis again? >> get your cell phones out. we want to know what you think. tonight's text survey question is do you think senator scott brown is trying to kill financial reform. text a nor yes, and b for know. we'll bring you the results later in the show. joining me now the other senator brown, democratic.senator sherrod brown of ohio. thanks so much for coming on. >> good to be back with you. >> i guess my first question is, what's your feeling what they did in conference committee late yesterday told appease senator brown? do you think that was the right direction to go? >> i don't like it. i wish that -- i don't get it. people like scott brown have this kind of impact in writing this bill. i understand 60 votes and all of that, but you know, i start with scott brown said, scott brown yesterday broke his no new taxes pledge. he said he wouldn't vote for taxes. he doesn't want a tax on big banks but wants tax on other american taxpayers and a tax on the medium and smaller banks. i start with that. you know, i'm tired of hearing republicans preach this fiscal responsibility when ten years ago, we had a bunch of surplus and then there was billions of dollars for the war in iraq charged to our grandchildren, billions of dollars for the bush tax cuts for the rich charged to our grandchildren, billions of dollars in giveaways to the drug and insurance companies, a bailout for them in the name of medicare privatization and now they only care about.balancing the budget when it comes to workers and when it comes to the health care bill and all of that. so i guess i'm just tired that have hypocrisy more than anything, chris. >> what do you think, obviously, massachusetts is quite a more deeply democratic liberal state than the ohio you represent. i imagine what are the politics of this bill look like to you? what do you hear from your constituents about what the politics of voting for or against this wall street reform package are? >> i don't think anybody in ohio looks at this financial crisis the way the ohio republican leader does. john boehner, that it's an ant and we're killing it with a nuclear weapon. i think people see -- just go around ohio, go to middletown, mansfield, lima and see the number of people who lost their jobs, then they lose their insurance. then their homes are foreclosed on and in this crowd, wants to deny them unemployment compensation and wants to take away the assistance we've provide the last year and a half so that people can keep their health insurance. i just don't get it. i just wonder if my colleagues really talk to people who have lost their homes who, have lost their jobs who, have lost their insurance. i think they need to get out a little more and talk to real people that face these problems. you've got to explain to your kid, to your son or daughter, honey, we have to leave our home because we can't pay for it anymore. i don't know what school you're going to go to. there's nothing we can do about it. they need to talk to people like that. i don't think they would be casting no votes and doing what scott brown did yesterday or do what so many of my colleagues are doing on extending unemployment benefits. >> well, i wonder about that. i mean, given how the politics look to shake out and given the amount of pain that's out there, and i agree there's a tremendous disconnect what, do you think the determining factor is to get those votes and make the extension happen or to push over wall street reform over the final hurd? what do you see as the think thing that citizens can do or can happen in the next window of time that's going to make the difference on those votes? >> i think it's the president of the united states with the loudest microphone in the country saying up and saying who's side are you on, on the side of wall street banks or main street, these people that don't care about unemployment benefits or are you on the side of ohioans and virginians and montanans who have lost their jobs through no doing of their own. i think it's important the president of the united states use that is very loud microphone to say to the public, which side are you on and i think then republicans are going to not want to be on the wrong side of history like they have been so many times in the last couple of years. >> senator sherrod brown of ohio, thank you so much for joining us. i appreciate it. >> thanks. >> up with me now is heather mcgee, the washington office director for dimos, a nonpartisan public policy and advocacy organization. she's been following financial reform as closely as anyone. thanks for coming on. >> thanks for having me. >> i want to talk to you but senator russ feingold. he has announced he's voting against the bill. he wrote on "huffington post" today about his opposition to it. i think there's progressives who look at senator feingold and think to themselves is, is it true what he's saying which is basically this doesn't fix the problem enough. it's going to give us false security, ergo i'm not going to vote for it. what do you think of that argument? >> i'm as cynical about the power of wall street to get around whatever regulations we try to put up, whatever fire walls we try to erect. this bill i think really passes the test of strength in two ways. first politically. for the past 30 years, the banks on wall street have been writing the laws in this town. whether it's credit card, the bankruptcy bill, whether it's the repeal of glass/steagall, every single regulation that's come down has had the real thumb print of the big lobbyists on wall street. and the major banks. so the fact that this is for the first time in really i would say since in my lifetime and in your lifetime that the bill has actually been written to protect consumers to protect investors to give shareholders a say on pay and corporate governance and actually to say, regulators hey, it's your job to rein in bank risk, no one was saying that was even possible three years ago. so i think politically, it's strong and i think we need to pass it because the alternative is to say wall street, you won yet again. >> so tell me what you think the sort of biggest victory is coming out of this piece of legislation. there's been intense hand to hand comment between dimos and a new way forward and other coalitions have done a lot of the work on this. what do you think the biggest victories are, the things you're proudest about and the biggest tarnishes on it. >> that's a great question. i can start with the consumer agency but i feel like people understand we've now got someone in washington watching out for the consumer and credit cards and mortgages and payday loans and things like that. what hasn't gotten enough attention are the structural issues that i have been working on. it's been very challenging to really go at glass zeigle and the way that will wall street operates. i didn't have a lot of optimism at all going on in this process particularly around drifts, the $600 trillion market that caused the gas price spike in 2008 that cost world hunger to spike around the world because of speculation in commodities and then of course, was at the center of the aig debacle and turned a housing crisis into a global financial crisis. that's where the money is made. $600 trillion in derivatives and we won that. we've gotten 90% of the derivatives market that's going to be not in the shadows anymore. that's amazing to me and frankly i think everyone who was looking at this bill a year ago who looked at what came out of the house, even what came out of the senate didn't think we were going to end up this strong. >> i'm going to save your worst thing about the bill till after the bill passes so we can have a conversation about what the next fight is. >> absolutely. >> great. heather mcgee, thanks so much. i really appreciate it. >> thank you, chris. all right. coming up, bp's latest fight. hurricane alex winds and waves are ripping up in the gulf and impacting clean-up. alex could hit land tonight. jeff corwin joins me live. and day three of the kagan hearings where some of the most noteworthy developments came from the questions rather than the answers. democrats using the day to lay out what's wrong with the roberts court. senator cardin joins me in a moment. all that, plus harry reid won't give up the fight and sharron angle wants to cut all unemployment benefits. shocking stuff. you're watching "the ed show" on msnbc. coming up, the colorado senate primary has divide bill clinton and president obama. clinton endorsing andrew romanoff against obama backed candidate michael bennett. but this is really about loyalty. clinton and romanov go way back. who is the candidate progressives should be supporting? andrew responds at the bottom of the hour. stay with us. whoo! ♪ ♪ well, if you come from the hood ♪ ♪ or ya come from the burbs ♪ got the fellas up in here tonight ♪ ♪ this is my generation ♪ my own congratulation ♪ we at the block party having fun ♪ [ dog barking ] [ sniffing ] [ male announcer ] missing something? like 2 pairs of glasses for $99.99 at sears optical, with bifocal lenses for just $25 more per pair. hurry in to sears optical today and don't miss a thing. welcome back. just moments ago, an the senate judiciary committee wrapped up its questioning of supreme court nominee elena kagan. i'll say it again, full disclosure, my wife works in the white house counsel's office. you know, republicans have a knack for taking a word and simply through incessant repetition transforming it into an insult like liberal or in the context of the court activist or hide the children, a liberal activist judge. the technical definition of an activist court is one eager to strike down or invalidate federal or state statutes if they don't jive with jurisprudence. it's a word to degrade justice who's don't do what republicans want. no one has a problem with an activist who's acting on their behalf of. the court roberts court which has overturned precedent and struck down local laws in the recent gun cases is a conservative activist court and democrats on the judiciary committee have decided to pull back the curtain. during questioning, they have been vocal about the problems with the current court particularly its consistent privileging of corporate interests over citizens interest interests. >> five conservative justices rejected the court's own precedent, rejected the bipartisan law enact bid congress, rejected 100 years of legal development, in order to open the door for massive corporate spending on elections was such a jolt to the system. >> joining me now is senator ben cardin of maryland. senator card is on the judiciary committee. senator, thanks so much for taking the time. >> my pleasure. good to be with you. >> senator, i wonder watching the hearing today, it seemed like the members of the committee were having a debate about what constitutes activism and elena kagan was kind of the reason for it. i wonder if you can give a definition of what you see as activist and whether you think it's a really relevant or clear distinction to make. >> i think my republican colleagues believe activism is when the court reaches a decision they don't like. activism is when are you creative on your law where you don't follow precedent where you use it to restrict constitutional rights for individuals, where you allow government to have more power and special interests to have more power. that's what this activist conservative court has done. by the narrowest of margins 5 oil 4, they have reversed legal precedent, have ignored congressional action. and they have restricted the rights of individuals against the abuses of government and against the abuses of special corporate interests. that's a very activist court but it's a very conservative activist court. >> i thought it was interesting because there was a very strange theme the first few days around justice thurgood marshall. you were quite spirited in defense of him. we have a piece of tape i'd like to roll and get your response to it. >> justice marshall's judicial philosophy, however is not what i would consider to be mainstream. as he once explained, you do what you think is right and let the law catch up. he might be the epitome of a results-orient the judge. >> miss kagan has associated herself with well yoen activist judges who have used their power to redefine the meaning of words of our constitution and laws in ways that not surprisingly have the result of advancing that judge's preferred social policies. and agendas. >> aside from sticking up for a local hero from baltimore, i wonder what you make of the strategic reasoning behind the republicans seeming attempts to want to kind of rewrite the history of justice marshall? >> as a senator from maryland i take this personal because as you know, justice marshall was born in baltimore. i also take it personal because bron v board of education. i attended a seg gra gatd public school in baltimore city as millions of children benefitted from his brown v. board of education successful arguing that case before the supreme court. justice thurgood marshall was one of the great americans, one of the great jurists, one of the great legal scholars and he certainly represented what mainstream america needed, and that is a person who would stick up for the rights of ordinary americans so that everyone could vance in our society. >> we finally come to a close here. i think there's been a general consensus that elena kagan has acquitted herself quite well. that quote in 1995 from the article called the proceedings vapid and hollow. how would you characterize these three days of testimony? do you feel like you got a better substantive sense? was it really a kind of debate between the members of the committee about the roberts court? >> no, i think that slistder general elena kagan really got the american people got to know her. she's a very bright person, she has a great sense of humor. she's extremely capable and she was responsive to our questions. we learned a lot about her views in education and election laws on the religion, on privacy. i thought she was very forthcoming to the committee. more so than in recent confirmation hearings and the american people know that they have a person who will give them a fair shake. she's made that a key part of her opening statement and it's something that i believe in and something we need on the supreme court. >> senator ben cardin from maryland on the senate judiciary committee, thank you so much for taking time with us tonight. >> thank you. coming up, the latest mess bp is dealing with. this one not cause bid them. hurricane alex is threatening to make it worse. nbc's science and environment expert jeff corwin joins me live from pensacola up next. ♪ [ folk rock ] - ♪ hey, what you doin' today - [ phone rings ] - [ horn honking ] - [ tires squealing ] ♪ i'm ridin' down the highway i'm just rollin' ♪ [ announcer ] without the right auto insurance, a crash might impact more than your car. 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[ cat yowls ] hurricane alex is barreling across the gulf toward mexico and south texas with winds up to 90 miles per hour. the storm is expected to hit land later today as a strong category one or even a category two hurricane. the eye of the storm is 500 miles away from the oil spill in the gulf but it is still reeking havoc on containment efforts. bp says so far, they have been able to continue work on the relief wells but 12-foot waves and 25-mile-per-hour winds have forced the coast guard to stop skimming operations as well as dispersing chemicals and conducting controlled burns of oil on the surface. rough seas are also washing up more oil on coasts as far as away as florida. joining me now live from pensacola is he nbc's jeff corwin. thanks so much. what is the latest news down there about relief efforts? >> reporter: well, chris, good afternoon to you. here i am on the lovely famous ivory white sands of pensacola beach in florida. that is the gulf of mexico behind me. now normally, chris, can you see my hand? >> yeah. >> can you see this? this is what the sand should look like. this beautiful postcard perfect sand. unfortunately, this is what it really looks like this. can you see that? >> yeah? >> >> reporter: this is what is now glazing this entire beach, chris, as far as my eyes can see for hundreds of miles along this coastline, we're seeing the kiss of death coming from the deep water horizon. and what is really spooky is just hours ago, they cleaned this beach. but unfortunately the tide's come in being pushed by that will storm surge and every time a wave laps in the sand, it brings more oil. >> jeff corwin, thank you so much. that is disturbing report from the gulf. coming up, bill clinton and president obama on different sides in the colorado senate race. the white house is quiet. clinton backed andrew romanoff joins me ahead and john boehner defends himself for his antd comment. the dnc has a new ad slamming him for it. is this the fundamentals of the economy are strong moment of 2010? plus putin rips the u.s. on the russian spy story. have i proof that oil and booze don't mix. i'll explain. you're watching "the ed show" on pl snbc. 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