overwhelming. can we just concede that we agree on this? new year's resolution for 2012, more art projects. less herman cain. thank you very much for being with us tonight. hope you have a merry christmas. that's from all of us here at the rachel maddow show. have a great night! good morning from new york. i'm chris hayes and this is a special edition of "up with chris hayes." a look back at 2011. a year filled with memories, highlights and gop frontrunners. we are going to look at the serious and urn serious today. we have an entire panel of comedians coming up later this hour for one thing. i want to start off with my story of the year. just over a year ago, on december 17th, a young man by the name of mohammed bu zazi set out on the streets of the

provincial capital in tunisia to sell fruits from his wheelbarrow. he bought the fruit for $200 u.s. he found himself harassed by local police who said he did not have a proper vendor's permit before confiscating his wares and the scales he used to weigh the fright. distraught, he went to the governor's office to complain and after being turned away, i bought a can of gasoline and stood in the middle of traffic and cried, how do you expect me to make a living, before setting himself on fire? imprisoned by despair, he could not have possibly known how widely the fire he sparked would burn. just a month later, the man who had ruled tunisia for 23 years was forced to step down amid massive street protests against his rule. on january 25th, the largest protest in egypt's history. after that hosni mubarak was forced out and libya and bahrain and yemen and syria. the region has been permanently

transformed. it wasn't just in the middle east this year where we saw massive mobilizations of dissent. in greece, spain and london, protesters took to the streets to fight back against austerity measures while in chi chile they protested the inequality of the education system. in israel, hundreds of thousands flooded tel-aviv, the largest economic protest to call for more affordable housing and protest that nations growing inequality between risch and poor. in india, people took to the streets of over 30 cities to protest corruptions filling up new delhi's prisons and sports stadiums with mass arrests. in russia, after elections that many say were rigged, protesters took to the streets in mass for the first time in a decade to shame the putin regime for its heavy-handed encroachments on what's left of democracy. here in the u.s. beginning with a few dozen kids in sleeping bags in a small plaza in the financial district, "occupy wall street" managed to capture the

national imagination and change our public conception about the central ill our democracy faces, extreme inequality. all this activity in one year was either coincidence or facilitated by the internet and social media an the bevy of new technologies that link each of us to each other all around the world. we know from history uprisings can be contagious, even without twitter. in 1848, revolutions spread across europe from italy, france, germany, poland, romaine yarks. in 1968, students, workers and activists took to the streets around the world from downtown chicago to paris to prague to tokyo. obviously, they weren't all confronting the same power structures. the students of paris lived in a sclerotic democracy inattentive to their needs. those in the u.s. lived in a country waging a bloody, senseless war while the dissidents in pragu remorseless auoritarian regime. the same hold true for the protests of 2011. the power structure they

confronted, the dangerous protesters they faced were wildly different in scale and danger. there is a xhocommon thread. so much of our politics in public life is habit and routine. we are thinking the confines of our politics, the sins of our elites and leaders are simply the way things must be. it takes a group of committed people to courageously call it all into question. to start the crowd murmuring and hooting until eventually everyone can see as if a squich has been flipped that the emperor is indeed naked. you can suddenly see that what is normal is constructed in permanent, even intolerable. once you see the world through that prison, it is very, very difficult to return to complacency. it was near the end of the last century that francis fukiyama wrote a famous book called "the end of history" where he argued we had reached the end of history. the world had come to a census market democracies were the best

model of government and the world was converging towards that point. the protesters in the streets from athens to cairo to zuccotti park have showed that the word democracy is not enough. the devils of representation are in its details. remember, those in the streets of tie rear lived in a country that was according to its rulers a democracy. it had elections and a parliament. the emergency laws under which the country had been ruled for decades meant it was a democracy in name only. people that put their lives on the line were doing it to turn the word into reality. democracy in name is not enough. without the agitation of ordinary citizens, without mass movements, democracy can so easily come to be an empty signifier, a streng of letters that points to nothing more than a status quo where power is concentrated in the hands of a few. for democracy to be real, it must be dynamic, ever-evolving, challenged to be more democratic

by its own citizens time and time again. the inner sha of oligarchy is difficult to resist. the complacency of stability and order encroaches slowly but implaquablely. we forget what ir radical concept democracy is. it asserts that each person is equal in his or her ability to make a determination about our collective destiny. that kind of radical egal tear nichl isn't particularly in fashion but a beacon of hope in troubled times, a faith from below that may just be the one thing that unites us across the continents. joining me now for a look back, we have liz win stead, cocreator of "the daily show," author of the upcoming essays live free or die. writer, activist, michaela angela davis formerly of "essence" magazine, sam seager, co-host of ring of fire and nancy giles, contributor of cbs

sunday morning and all veterans of "up with chris hayes." thanks for being here. i have the same idea as "time" magazine in thinking about what the story of the year was. this was one of the rare years where i agreed with time. they named the protester of the person of the year. we will talk about the fact they didn't name a single person. i think they got it right this year. i thought that the piece written by kurt anderson about it and evoked a lot of the same themes got it right. this was really the story of the year. sam, i know you have spend a lot of time down in occupy wall street. was that your feeling as well. >> oh, absolutely. i think you got this sense even in the spring with everything that was happening around the world and in madison in this country. also, one thing that sort of also is left out in thinking about it is what was also happening on line with wikileaks and then anonymous. you were starting to see a real

challenge to the establishment wherever that challenge was. this is one of those rare occasions that there was some value in what "time" had to say. >> i have been working on a book for a few years, the topic is the crisis of authority in american life, about how we have had this declining trust in our institutions in america and the way that that kind of structures our public life in ways we don't recognize. what is interesting to me is that this krcrisis of authority has a global moment. we are at some moment where the structures seem to be incredibly rusty. what we are seeing in europe, if you talk to people, they tell you very similar things to what people in athens might tell you about not trusting the establishment to do what's best in their best interest to guide the state through rocky waters. it is something pretty profound

about encountering some moment in our collective life on the planet when the structures we have built up for self-governance don't seem to be functioning in the way we would like them to be. >> it's fascinating. it is not just government structures. people aren't afraid of money anymore. with "occupy wall street" and the big banks, it is not enough. there are more bodies than dollars. when people run out of nothing to lose, it is a powerful moment. we have seen all these people with nothing to lose. an extraordinary moment where they are not afraid anymore. they are just going to keep coming. >> i think it is no accident within this movement that has happened the way the response has been is to massive amounts of voters and pressure. what these people have is their vote. what do we do? they are not getting paid. they don't have any special interest. they want democracy and freedom.

this is a thing that occupy speaks to. egypt was a democracy under hosni mubarak. it can take all these forms. rec nichl by the ways in which a country calls itself democratic can take many different forms. >> style. >> wait a minute. style has so much more credibility. >> even in 2000, how we had a democracy that somehow managed to suppress and election in a fair way. the other thing that kills me is how we have a lot of government haters in the government. so you are not getting people to really represent what the people want. their understanding of dismantling government and their own little special interests when the polls are showing that everyone in the country, a huge majority, have issues with income and equality. in congress, they don't care. >> i agree but also people distrust the government. that's the other thing.

what if people whether you come to the end of these here. we are also the end of the sort of decade that begins in 2001, if you take it that way, which is the technical way to do it. people my age, i'm 32. in the last ten years, the government, the biggest thing, the most memorable thing the people can remember the government doing is starting and bailing on the banks. it is not surprising that a lot of skepticism has been produced. >> if you look around the world, if there is some type of consistent theme, it is about money. democracy is an issue here but i think it is the implications of the loss of the democracy really. whether it was hosni mubarak's son going to dar voes and bringing that to egypt and the labor strikes that took place leading up to what happened in tahir, a guy not being able to feed his family, that is the

singular thread that runs through all of this. the democracy has broken down and it has done so in a very specific way to face of that. >> it is about money and about poverty. that's what that moment was when he set his self on fire. i can't afford to feed my children. the poverty in this country, in our country alone, is growing. for instance, black and hispanics have -- nonhispanic whites have 44.5% more wealth, times more wealth than black and hispanic people, 44.5 times more wealth. the people who are already poor are just getting poorer and more. >> then, to button this up, i think the one thing that you have seen is in the depths of the global contraction that happened in the wake of the financial crisis, despair was so intense there wasn't the energy to mobilize. in 2011, in some ways, is in

this sort of sub limb nal space in which growth has sort of restored. the crisis feels like it has past. the sense of unjustness remains. that's where you get this sort of middle space in which you see uprisings, because people are no longer quite ground down at the heels they were. we are going to talk about what president obama's moment of the year was. we took a poll. the results and our own answers after this. [ child ] it's so cool! you can put a force field on him and be invisible! [ child 2 ] i call first player. no. i already called it. [ dad ] nobody's playing anything until after we get our homework done. thank you. hello? test drive's not over yet. [ male announcer ] it's practically yours. [ louder ] hello? but we still need your signature. right now during sign then drive, it's never been easier to get the all-new passat, the 2012 motor trend car of the year, for practically just your signature. that's the power of german engineering. visit vwdealer.com. achoo!

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one thing i know about hosting this show is the constant interaction with our viewers. the conversation you see is part of an on going dialogue. we asked our viewers for their thoughts on the most memorable stories of 20116789 our first ever up with chris hayes poll, totally, completely unscientific. first, we asked, what was the moment of the year for barack obama, the speech he gave in tutu son after the shooting of

gabrielle giffords, which i think people had forgotten about, the death of osama bin laden, the repeal of don't ask don't tell or the end of the iraq war. i was surprised by the answer people gave. here is president obama during what our viewers felt was his moment of the year. >> good evening, tonight, i can report to the american people and to the world that the united states has conducted an operation that killed osama bin laden, the leader of all qaeda and a terrorist who is responsible for the murder of thousands of innocent men, women, and children. >> of course, that was president obama announcing the death of osama bin laden. >> i picked gabrielle giffords but let me talk about this. the thing about end of the year polls is, don't you notice that people always pick the thing that is most recent. they sort of forget anything that happened in the earlier part of the year.

i picked gabby giffords, because it encompassed so much, not only how we need gun control and how she was trying to be a politician meeting her constituents and communicating with them. at the speech, the president extended himself to republicans and invited boehner and some other people to come along and they wouldn't. if you can't even come together with something like that, you are idiots. >> let me show the results from the viewer poll so people can see what our viewers said about what the most important moments were. do we have that? there we go. the giffords speech got 11%, bin laden got the end of t 70%. >> bin laden was the boogie man for so long. our ninja president went and got him. i like what happened afterwards when they said he was no one.

he said ask osama bin laden. >> i didn't like that moment. it is the same reason i feel like i would not choose the moment of bin laden's death as his moment of the year. i was troubled by our national reaction to getting bin laden. i completely understand the emotion of it, completely, and the trauma of 9/11. osama bin laden was a self admitted war criminal. so was ikeman. a war crime trial was good enough for him. i think it was good enough for bin laden. the worst purveyors of war crimes and human hatred were tried at war crime tribunals. i think it was an incredible important time. there was zero appetite for it. >> if you look at what was the most obama moment, in some

respects, that may have been it only because we have showed we have been unable to have president obama as a candidate of change and one we anticipated who would establish some type of civil liberties or constitutional framework because of his past that we can't do that. you could draw a line that that is indicative of president obama in the same way don't ask don't tell is indicative because it is a capitulation for him to do the thing that is proper. >> i don't think that is true with don't ask, don't tell. >> i do think -- >> i think the president led on that. >> i disagree. it may have been on his agenda. the timing did not happen at the time because of what he wanted. it happened because there were people chaining themselves out in front of the white house and because there was a lot of push back. >> i absolutely am with you. when i looked at your poulos ll, and i saw don't ask, don't tell,

i thought, really. i did not see him leading on that at all. i saw activists leading on that. i saw pressure from congress and everybody else leading on that. i did not see that as a priority. >> i disagree. i think they did a pretty good job on that. the other thing i found interesting is if i transport myself back in time to watching barack obama in 2011, why did he beat hillary clinton? because he was against the iraq war. what was the thing that united the electorate and democrats? ending the iraq war is just sort of throw away. no one voted for it. we don't talk about it. the war was so traumatic that its end doesn't feel like the end of anything. >> don't you think it is the media reporting, the lack of that. your low info voters, not your viewers. >> they are high info. >> when you have that majority of people, i bet if you asked a bunch of "american idol" viewers, they would say, wasn't that already over?

>> i want to get your response and talk about the comeback of the year right after this. >> sorry. ♪ ♪ [ male announcer ] everyone deserves the gift of a pain free holiday. ♪ this season, discover aleve. all day pain relief with just two pills.

lrlt. we are going through our poll of moments of the year. i want to let you respond because we were talking about obama's moment of the year and the death of bin laden. >> and also the end of the war that has not been covered or have the same impact. part of me because i am a conspiracy theorist i think the media doesn't want him to get the win on his watch. it was a finite amount of people that kept fighting over and over again that we don't have a draft, that the country never made sacrifices. people aren't that interested. which is shocking. my mother was a veteran in world war ii. we were talking about seeing stephen colbert singing, i'll be home for christmas. it touched us so much. >> it's the economy.

>> tom brokaw has a book in which he coined this phrase before the "occupy wall street" movement when he talked about people serving as the 1%. they are a different 1%. it is remarkable when you go through and you look at the last, the decade of war that we have been in, how confined the sacrifice has been to such a snaul people who go again and again. how essentially the war for the rest of us doesn't touch our lives. so the end of it, i totally agree doesn't feel like that big of a deal. let's talk about come back of the year. our poll on come back of the year, we have beavis and butt-head. back on mtv. >> i didn't know that. >> i didn't either until my producer brought it to my attention. president obama suffering the setback of the mid-term losses and inheriting the republican congress. coming out somewhat better than going in. mr. peanut making a return as a logo and newt gingrich, who let's remember, newt gingrich was written off, left for dead

on this network and many other places. and newt gingrich came back. so here is who our viewers thought had the comeback of the year. this is john lifka leading a statement from the gingrich campaign manager on the colbert report. >> a lessor person could not have survived the first few minutes of the onslaught. but out of the billowing smoke and dust have tweets and trivia emerged gingrich. >> that was lithgow after it looked like the gingrich campaign was over before it began and his campaign managers wrote this his tree onic owe imagine to gingrich. out of the smoke of tweets and trivia, has emerged gingrich. i am sort of amazed by it. >> it is stunning that not only

he came back from losing his entire campaign apparatus after sort of campaigning in greece but it is also sort of amazing that he has been able, that people actually take him seriously ever again after the time he was speaker of the house. this guy is a lunatic and he is a shar la ton in my estimation, with all due respect. >> you put that on the air. >> it completely invalidates the first part of that. no offense but. >> with all due respect. >> this guy is like a p.t. bar fl num. >> when you think about how disgraced he was, remember the conditions under which he was forced to resign. the revelation of his own affair when he was going after bill clinton. $300,000 worth of ethic violations by his own party. >> i think the gift is we are early on here and when you see

the reel of newt gingrich sucks by coburn and sanunu and everybody -- >> more particularly -- >> you talk about leadership, his leadership was so incredibly awful that tom coburn is coming out. >> that's what's so remarkable. the memories of the people that he served with are longer than the memories of the voters particularly, because they all came out as soon as he reached front-runner status. they came out to be, maybe this is not the guy you want. >> my guests are all coming back. we are going to swap them out for a bunch of our favorite comedians and give them a chance to weigh in on the year in funny when we come back. in america, we believe in a future that is better than today.

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ballot in virginia. it seems they failed to gather the signatures. jon corzine has returned some political signatures. they sent back a total of $70,000. his former firm filed for bankruptcy in october. about $1.2 billion in client money is missing. i'll see you in one hour. the first time ever on up with chris hayes, everyone on our next panel has the same job. meet comedian kneel brennan, comedian judy goldstar, comedian john fugle sang, and comedian dean hobadala. welcome all of you. it is great to have you here. >> great to be here. >> we were going through our viewer poll. the last time we were going through a viewer poll, one more question i wanted to get to to make sure we got in, which was

the heated contest for loser of the year. the big loser of 2011. our selections were charlie sheen, anthony weiner. his was a strong category. the boston red sox, sarah palin and my own personal favorite who i was hoping would win, former italian prime minister, silvio berlusconi, finally forced to step down by essentially the italian government. >> the year they were embear rac rased by the morality of jersey shores. >> we will play a clip of what our voters saw. >> where paul revere hung out as a teenager, which was something new to learn and he who warned the british that they weren't going to be taking away our arms and making sure as he was riding his horse through town to send those warning shots and bells that we were going to be secure

and we were going to be free. >> oh, it's like jazz. >> i guess the reason i want to play this for you. sarah palin, she burned so brightly. i feel like she has really left our national discourse, probably for the better but i feel like for political comedians, for the worst. >> i would like her to write for me, because she is hilarious in so many levels. the fact she would take herself seriously as a politician. my kids know that. >> that's the funniest part. the people that take themselves seriously are exactly what that is. >> i like her. to me, she is like a female ann coulter. it is a loss for the american presidency. her loss is a loss to everyone at this table. >> did she win loser? >> she did. she beat out -- that's an interesting vote. i think anthony weiner had a tough year, charlie sheen had a rough year but senator palin at

the end of the day is sitting on, i don't know, $30 million. >> i think berlusconi is still rich. she is rich too. i stauted comedians for sarah palin. she was george bush with lipstick. we loved her. who is going to be a bigger loser? i think rick perry might be a bigger loser by the time it works out. >> except weiner. i don't know what his finances are. he doesn't have some big fox news contract. >> a lot of money on text, the texting package. >> she can see object liveian from her house. >> she has a reality show she is trying to pitch. >> is that true? >> i find this boom bust cycle really fascinating. we are all a little bit complicit in it. we covered sarah palin a ton in the media. we have seen the same thing continue in the republican field, which is this kind of

boom/bust frenzy. we lay it on the voters because the polling shows it. it is this kind of weird media industrial complex creation where we are all going to talk about donald trump and then the bubble burts. >> the short attention span is what allowed her to flourish and did her in. >> the media attention she got also did her in, because she is such an idiot. >> it is also a merger between politics and reality television. this has become one and the same. you say yes or no to washington, d.c. and you move on. you dispense with this. that's the situation. it is no longer about education. you much wa twatch the debates entertained. >> they are a trickle down "i doll." >> the fact she wants to do a reality show about her husband. i have never heard him speak. apparently, he is quite articulate. she wanted to be president of the united states and now a reality show. these are the dreams of our

people. >> she wanted to be famous. >> you make a lot more money as a reality star. i want to talk about what the theme of 2011 was. i was asking people on twitter, tweet the most uber 2011 moment. it had to do with the clip when she got paul revere story wrong on the paul revere entry to ed dit it reflect tifl. that was the ultimate in 2011. >> i was reflected by the sound of george orwell in his grave. i think the theme for me was, let's just get through this. everyone had a hard year. nobody had a good time. it got so bad, people went to live in tents to protest how back it is. new kids toured with back street boys. that's how bad it was. >> did they? >> i was in the front row. we should have had that on our

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our special comedian panel here talking about 2011, the theme of 2011. any entries? >> i think the theme of 2011 is, is it 2012 yet? i can't believe the amount of stuff that happened. i can't believe it is not over yet. we were just talking in break. gabrielle giffords, that happened this year. so much has gone on this year. it is just incredible. it needs to be over. >> it was a rough year. domestically, the economy continues to drag along. there is a real sense of -- >> doom. >> -- doom. good morning. how are you? >> can you remember more of an impatience and anger among the

average american than i have ever felt before. people wanted their voice heard with "occupy wall street." >> that, i'm glad for. what happened? what happened to us? we justed to protest and have e passion. now, the protesters are called lazy. >> and they need to take baths. >> once people realized they weren't going to get any more credit, they were like, all right, now, we are going to riot. >> that's an interesting point. once it was, the economy is busted, we are like, wait, this is a sham. >> elizabeth warren wrote this very, very prophetic book called the "two income trap." it was a book she published at the beginning of this decade or the late '90s. i can't remember. the basic thesis was, credit was making up for stagnating wages. people's cost went up. the thing that filled in the gab was credit.

at a certain point, the credit runs out. people couldn't get credit. if you were to curate the museum of 2011 and you could put an item or two in, what would you put in? >> i would put newt gingrich in and lock him in. i would stuff him. he is already stuffed. this is a whole different gingrich. this is a new one where i would lock him in, don't let him speak. i would make the movie on the museum where he is running around at night. i would love to lock him away and not have him speak begin. >> newt gingrich doesn't feel like very 2011 precisely because he is a retread where as rick perry has a more 2011 feel. >> i think i would put osama bin laden's eyeball in the museum. just thought -- i read so many articles about that. the eyeball. i was obsessed with that eyeball. it was so graphic. >> his eye fell out?

>> they shot him in it. they shot him in the eye. just to see things through that brain out of that eye, i don't know. there was something about his eyeball. >> that would be -- >> i have some bad news. the museum of 2011 has been shut down because of republican cuts in the budget. they cut it out. >> it was a shut-down. >> budget cuts. austerity. >> it went the way of our light bulb, the incandescent light bulb. >> it would have been great. >> i would have to put in the museum of 2011, the fukushima plant meltdown where no one would talk about it and forget about it. >> it is the story of the year everybody is too scared to talk about. >> it is so true how much that fell out of our consciousness. >> i wanted anthony weiner to send a penis picture to fukushima so the media would cover it.

>> i think it would shrink there. >> or would it? >> well, then, we are going to talk more about what the themes of 2011 are with our special comedian panel after this break. to pick up some accessories. a new belt. some nylons. and what girl wouldn't need new shoes? we talked about getting a diamond. but with all the thank you points i've been earning... ♪ ...i flew us to the rock i really had in mind. ♪ [ male announcer ] the citi thank you card. earn points you can use for travel on any airline, with no blackout dates. well, this necklace is awesome. honey, you're getting a necklace! see what i mean? i'll surprise you. please. [ male announcer ] the only place to go for last-minute christmas gifts. walmart. for last-minute christmas gifts. [ thunder crashes ] [ snoring ] [ thunder crashes ]

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end of the year is a good time to take a look back. someone had started a movement to do accountability blog posts, which i thought was a great tradition, writing about what you got wrong that year, what you were truly, madly and deeply wrong about, anything that you got really, really wrong this year. >> if you ask my kids, pretty much everything i did. >> are they teenagers? >> oh, please, 15, 15 and 10. it is not easy. but i have to say, i really thought newt would be out by no. i never thought obama would go for this morning after sort of thing. >> interesting. >> had you been tracking that? >> i tracked that. i feel like he has two daughters. >> who he invoked in explaining this. >> exactly. he has a wife who is obviously a feminist and has hot arms. i was kind of shocked.

he caved sometimes. i want him to get angry. i just thought he would be angry by now. >> the plan "b" decision if folks are not familiar with it was a decision that the over-t and then kathleen sebelius, head of the hhs, overrode the decision, saying science was inconclusi inconclusive. the president supported it saying he didn't are any direct role in making that decision. head of the fda issued a statement saying, it's safe for over-the-counter use. >> two quick things. one is, i thought the republicans in congress were going to put america first over helping rich people of the country, so i was shocked. >> wrong! >> do you really mean that? >> not at all. i thought we could work together and make things happen and make people proud of them instead of a 9% approval rating where herpes was more popular. the second thing i was shocked or surprised, apparently i'm invented because newt gingrich

said palestinians are invented, so being palestinian heritage my father was inventor. i thought he was a cook. >> the week he said it, we never got to talk about it. the irony is there is no more invented people in the world than americans. we are -- if anyone's invented, it's americans. you know what, it's awesome. it's awesome we invented ourselves. that doesn't mean we shouldn't have the right to democracy or human rights. i thought it was an american thing for an american to call someone else invented as if god himself reached down to the continent and created americans. >> it was a political statement to dehumanize palestinians saying you don't have the same rights, you don't have the same rights for democracy or anybody else because you don't exist. ta-da, you were invented. >> the subtext was, hi, can i get the jewish vote? >> i think it's less about the jewish vote which is small, demen democratic, it's about the politics of middle east, which are extremely confined and

very -- >> throwing the muslims under the bus as president shocked abbas when he argued against palestinian statehood. >> what were you wrong about? >> i was one of those who believed for many years that osama bin laden was already dead. >> were you really? >> really? >> you know what, the guy puts out two tapes a year. the only other guys who do that tupac and johnny cash. he has to be dead. now i admit, wow, he was really alive. all you conspiracy guys who thought he was dead are not allowed to join the osama bin laden is still alive conspiracy. >> you have to pick your con spir spi. >> i really thought he was dead. >> the details of how he was living were really shocking. >> i mean -- >> that is true. >> to think about the life. i got obsessed about this compound and thinking about what the -- what that world was in which you're the most wanted person -- >> is all that stuff true? >> what are -- are you asking this in a is tupac still alive way? >> no, tupac is a friend of mine.

that he smoked weed, had three wives -- >> pornography. >> then i was like, i'm kind of liking the guy. >> you're al qaeda, why are you -- >> i'm retired. >> no, i mean, that was -- the question afterwards when all the kind of statements came out about, what his lifestyle was, a question of whether this was american government syops or -- >> they always find porn on these guys -- >> then the fact that we do know as a documented fact the 9/11 hijackers were in florida, went to a strip club the night before. there's some very intense psychological thing happening, i think w your -- >> are you saying fundamentalist can be hypocrites? >> that's what i'm -- >> i always imagined him at a cave. >> that was the image -- >> with a machine gun -- >> that was the image he projected. >> there was in abbottabad, and then the weirdest moment was precipitated by the neighbor

tweeting, what's up with the helicopters? what's going on? >> it's noisy. i'm trying to sleep. >> i take that back. that to me was the most 2011 moment. the guy -- >> i said, bin laden, if you're using the facebook app, take it on -- >> will you show the tweets from the twitter user in pakistan who lives in abbottabad who was tweeting -- live tweeting virtual, helicopter hovering above abbottabad at 1 a.m. is a rare event. and then this guy, a huge window shaking bang here in abbottabad. i hope it's not the start of something nasty. one more from really virtual. now i'm the guy who live blogged the osama raid without knowing about it. he had this moment of -- >> lmf. >> yeah. bin laden and gadhafi dying in

the same year, i lost two twitter followers. rough year. >> you guys have a new year's resolution for 2012 or things you're looking forward to? particularly because it has been a rough year. things you're looking forward to in 2012? >> on a serious note, one thing is this whole controversy with tlc's all-american muslim and lowe's pulling their ads. the back lash being, over 32 congressmen wrote a letter saying, don't pull your ads. christians and jewish stood with the muslim saying, it's -- >> when you consider this was also the year of so-called ground zero mosque hysteria when -- >> what is that story about? >> muslims chilling out. >> was that last year? >> yeah. that wasn't -- >> right, this year it actually started. >> it was an election year so we heard about the mosque downtown but this was the year that lowe's became a mecca for people who hate meccas. >> new year's resolution? >> i have a personal resolution

of just wanting to slow down. i feel like i'm so keyed up by every pda -- >> i'm going to tweet that you just said that. >> oh, pda, is that correct? >> yeah, yeah, sure. it's a little old school. we call them smartphones now. >> ipad, my phone. i want to take a walk and i don't -- i don't want to be connected. >> the best thing about doing the show, the thing most about doing the show, i meet a lot of interesting people, and think about interesting thing, it's great to have you here. the betts thing is the two hours of unabated focus, intense focus and attention on the task at hand in a way that is incredibly rare in normal life now. my thanks to comedian neil brennan and judy gold, john and dean. "time" magazine said the protester in 2011 was the person of the year but that isn't a person so we're going to choose "up's" person of the year after this. just one phillips' colon health probiotic cap a day

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good morning from new york. i'm chris hayes and this is our special year-end look back at 2011. joining me although the table this morning, sam "ring of fire," nancy giles from cbs, and wrir writer/activist, michaela davis. "time" magazine puts the person of the year on the cover. this year is the protester but this is a thing "time" does every year, they set up -- i just -- it just frustrates me. they set up the convention and the convention is to choose a

person of the year and it feels like every year they choose someone who's not a person. protester is not an individual person. "you" which was the more der rided thing from a few years ago, is not a person. three different whistle-blowers, the american soldier. a lot of time perfectly deserving concepts but not actual flesh and blood people which seems -- >> seems lazy. >> yeah, right. so, do you have actual flesh and blood people, persons, nominees. sam? >> i'm going to -- the guy i think is the person of the year is who you started the program with, mohammed bazizi, the fruit vendor, who in many ways, the terrain was ripe for this, but he -- he started this. you know, with the revolution that spread throughout the arab world and then i think though it's not the exact daisht protests that took place in

europe and in this country and israel were not exactly for the same reason, i think people become emboldened when they see other people do it. you see that in the environmental movement when tim de christopher went to jail, you saw after that the environmental movement take more direction action. and i think you saw people willing to get themselves arrested and now we have over 5,000 people arrested through the occupy protests that have taken place in this country. >> do you think there is -- i don't know how to feel about self-emulation as protest. there's the very iconic image of the monk during vietnam which is probably the most -- >> iconic. >> -- most intense and iconic of that, of vietnamese monk burning himself in protest of the american war in vietnam. and it's such -- just a dreadful thing to contemplate and so horrific in some ways and it seems -- i think it produces a

real profound sense of moral confusion, actually, in many about whether it's something to celebrate -- >> something powerful that one human spirit is so passionate and so driven and so hungry for justice that their lives can go up in flames to inflame thousands of people. something about the intellect that is -- >> like a cry of help. >> despair. >> yeah, a real despair thing of this will get somebody to notice me. >> and i think that's it. in america it's hard -- we were talking off camera how america is one of the only countries where poor people are fat. so, when you talk about the level of despair where you're like i literally don't think i'm going to even maybe see it for myself, but for my children. >> yes. >> and i need to bring attention to the fact that our families are dying. >> right. >> that's it. >> to get to that place, i mean, i don't know that place, but

when someone does, people take notice. that's why i think it's -- >> and i don't know that celebrate is really the right term. i think it is -- >> memorialize. >> yeah, memorialize and notice and -- >> shock. >> -- and pay some measure of respect in that regard. >> there was one of the best youtube videos this year was what happened after mohammed lit himself on fire, there were other people, in ee giptd there were, and -- >> algeria. >> in algeria. there was this amazing youtube videotape by young egyptian woman looking at the camera saying, don't burn yourself, don't set yourself on fire, protest the government. go out and take that rage and anger, direct it outwards and that is what ended up happening. nancy, i'm -- >> you need a new show of what we say off camera and after the show because -- >> people have been asking for this. too hot for television, perhaps. no, people have been asking for the outtakes. >> behind the scenes. >> nancy -- >> i'm eating.

it helps keep me grounded. my person of the year, although i agree with the protester idea, too, but it's this guy named gene marks who's a contributor for "forbes" magazine -- >> we talked about him last week. >> horrific article. if i were a poor black kid. number one, okay, so rightly if i'm a dumb white guy, that will be the title of my book, and this article to me, it really point out -- >> this is your person of the year? >> yes. >> this is how much it got you. >> it got me this much because the disconnect between poverty and race and how that affects people in this country. i mean, this guy's solution was technology. there's millions of black kids that don't have access to that but -- >> wait. this guy can become a poor black kid? you can travel -- >> it's so clear that he doesn't know -- i mean, from 1983 black poverty or black wealth has decreased by 63%. >> oh, sure. >> because most blacks and

hispanics put their money in their homes and nothing else. >> if you lose your home, you're out of it. >> so it's so real. >> but, i think it -- it points to something dame i'm sorry. i think it does point to something profound about how we c conceptualize who we blame for this mess we find ourselves in. >> blame the victim. there's something about this article that tied into newt gingrich's incredible sensitivity for what it's like to grow up poor and i just -- it's -- >> the funny thing about that article is i think he taught he was being extremely sympathetic. >> he does. >> i think he -- i actually think -- i think he was trolling par excellence. we said this on the show last week. we had a discussion about this. >> really? >> that's horribly cynical. >> we have to go online and watch the show. >> he wrote a piece about steve jobs after he died what a jerk, and how women won't be ceos.

it's a trolling -- >> so, do you want another man of the year because -- >> no, i want to hear from you, too. liz, you have a person of the year? >> i -- you're going to hate me because i'm going with a group, but -- yeah. >> oh, my god. >> oh, that's not fair. >> i'll tell you why. >> no more of these for you. >> i'll tell you why. i did this planned parenthood tour for seven months. my person of the year would be the clinics worker because when i talk to these women every day, and when they tell me their stories of trying to provide health care and the assaults on their children and them and the climate that we're facing with reproductive health care and affordable health care, these women do god's work and they're starving for people to stand up with and for them so they can dot job, which is provide health care. so, i give it to them. >> i'm going to hear who your person of the year. >> wait, are you mad at me? >> no, go on with yourself.

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we're chuckling about a site called poorblackkid.com to saterize the column you're talking about. do you have a person of the year that fits within the narrow constraints we have given you or will you be a rule breaker as well? >> no, she's a person. she's not a new person but i think what she said was so profound that she's my person of the year. michele obama. when she responded to rush limbaugh who called her uppity, see, uppity, she said -- her

response was, i own my own happiness. and i thought, as an american where it's supposed to be life, liberty and the pursuit of -- she's not pursuing it. she's like, i own my happiness. so, as a feminist, as a black woman, as a human being, that was -- >> that is a great quote. >> i thought, we could all do that so michelle rocks hard. >> i own my own happiness. i don't think i knew that but -- >> that is good. >> you can't control what people say about you, but you can control what you think about -- how you react to what people say about you. i'm struck by how much in the age of the internet we are bombarded with constant sort of feedback about ourselves. that realities up and down the chain. doesn't matter -- i mean, i have a tv show, so there's this -- there's a different sort of issues there but even if you're on facebook getting into troll wars with people there's this constant conflict that happens, you get a lot of contentious

feedback. there's some deep wisdom. there's this great comic by this cartoonist who does skd in which a woman is saying to her husband, come to bed. he says, i can't, someone is wrong on the internet. and i think we've all been there. there's some deep -- there's some deep -- yeah, it is very funny, i know. there's some deep wisdom f we're going to navigate -- judy was just talking about, fine quiet and inner peace in a world in which we're constantly plugged into the internet, constantly getting feetback to find inner peace that says, we're going to own our own happiness. >> you can't really get in there. >> particularly when you think about what it would be like to be in public like under these circumstances up. think about what it's like to object facebook but to be the president of the united states or to be anyone, john boehner. people we make fun of. there are people on the other side of that, human beings, and john boehner cries -- >> when he talks about himself.

>> but everyone across the spectrum, anyone in public life is getting this level of sort of, you know -- >> there's a generation that's being born now that is going to grow up in a different type of universe because to a certain exte extent, our formative years here, the most part maybe you're younger than the rest of us, but none of this was there. and i think if you grow up with it, you know, i wonder how my daughter is going to sort of -- what her memories are going to be when she -- most of her life at this point has already been -- she's immediately coming to the other side of the video camera or the digital camera and her memories are going to be of the video. in a way that they were never for someone my age who waited for three weeks to get, you know, 24 pictures, eight of which didn't come out. >> the civility is kind of gone. we were talking backstage when people write us, don't agree with us, there's automatically this nasty thing about our appearance. noo my case, my hair. which i like to point out

michae michaela's hair is rocking. >> it's funny how there are these insidious sexist agreements that flare up. >> that's why this is a great shield and retort. it doesn't matter. i own this. i own my own happiness, so bye-bye. >> when you're being trolled. >> i also want to say, you know, coming out of this stand-up background, you had to -- once it's out of your mouth and the audience receives it, you can't predict whether or not they think it's funny and you should never write that way. you have to write to your own truth and believe it and be able to stand up for it. i tweet that way, i write that way. because i can't control -- there's people that don't like chocolate, so what are you going to do? >> who? >> so, have you to -- you have to love it and believe it. >> i wonder sometimes the way in which our political culture and particularly the way we interact through the internet really, sometimes remarkably cultivates

empat empathy. during arab spring, when i was reading andy carver and he retweets and i was watching in real time these people i don't know at all. i never met. i've never been to egypt. there were there in this way incredibly visceral, incredibly close and i was watching them in real time saying i'm getting tear gassed, beaten by the police and it felt like this human pinprick connection in a way that i couldn't -- and at the same time, the same vector of technology can produce the least amount of empathy, the most -- and i feel it in myself this hatred and vial sensation that the other person on the side of it is wrong and you suspect their motives. i really struggle with the degree in which we can have a political culture that stands up for a set of principle beliefs, that is, oh, everyone is the same, john boehner is a swell guy, no, he's doing things that are destructive but not be totally ven nous -- >> lose your humanity. >> that was the significance to me of the gabrielle giffords moments is that it woke

everybody up a little bit about the degree to which we do dehumanize each other. that's an important -- as human beings, that is a very important thing to think about. >> what i have done in twitter, which i never thought i would do, is i've revealed more of myself on a personal level than i ever have in certain situations i feel comfortable doing. my mom passed away this year. my sister and i talked about our experiences with her and going actually through the dying process and my mom said, sure, and we sort of relaid stories. hi at least 500 people write me and say, i didn't have anyone to share this with and i'm going through this with you. people politically who disagreed with me, fought with me. when you bring a humanity to it and however you feel comfortable revealing who you are and what you are, they can't take that away from you. i think that's really powerful. i think it's important. >> on this note of empathy and humanity, i'm going to tease the fact we're going to talk about republican candidates and make

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more than a dozen republican candidates officially declared they were running for the white house this year. some have led the republican field in at least one poll. accusations have ranged from flip-flopping to sexual hara harassment to being drunk during a campaign speech. for better or worse, they have captured our attention, if not our hearts. >> our cold, black heart. >> so, i want to start out with this because people -- slate did this thing this year that i thought was brilliant and cracked me up. people talk about horse race coverage where we in the media cover these races aas con tant-free horse races, up and

down. boy, do we do that. so, slate went ahead and took the polling for the republican field. you can start playing it now. he took the polling for the republican field and they actually generated a horse race. >> oh, i love it. >> it goes and shows you -- so what you see are different people will shoot up only to fall behind. it's been an exciting horse race. >> yes. >> what do you guys -- what's your takeaway from this year of gop presidential politics? >> i think it's possible that no one will win. it's possible there will be no winners. at the end of this process they'll all lose. and i think at the end of the day, i think that the biggest thing to come out of this is that president obama may be one of the most fortunate politicians in at least my lifetime in terms of opponents. because there was certainly an opportunity here for a generic republican. and they all seem to be

incredibly flawed in the minds of the republican base. >> well, i think mitt romney has the best chance of both winning the nomination and also will be the strongest candidate because i think he's -- because he can most plausibly project again eric republican. at the end of the day, what the republican candidate wants to do is turn this race into referendum on the xhig situation of the country to induce voters to go in and say, do you think things or good or bad? right? that's the question -- >> he's so generic that it's dangerous. i don't think people believe him at all. >> why should they? >> he keeps changing his mind. >> even though he's generic, he's hypergeneric, a super generic man. >> the real question with romney, in my mind, i don't think it can be overstated, is to what extent the republican base will stay at home because of his religion. i mean, i really do think if you look at his numbers in the south, that's where the problem is. >> i don't -- i don't think

that's going to be a problem for him. partly because the anger at barack obama is so profound and so powerful it will override. >> i think it's profound but what i really think is accidents i looked although it in reverse for me, and if the democratic front-runner was someone who four, six, eight years ago was anti-choice, anti-gay rights, was a climate science denier, and is in florida eight years, all of a sudden reversed his situation completely, i would be like, ah, ah, ah, too, and be like, he is a mormon. ah, ah. i think that can't be disregarded. >> here's just -- just as a sort of little flavor of the overwhelming enthusiasm that mitt romney induces among conservatives and republicans, the republican field. here's shep smith on fox announcing romney's presidential announcement he would be running for president. gives you a flavor of how they feel. >> there is breaking news now on

fox news. it's not that breaking. everybody knew they was going to happen. even i knew this was going to happen. mitt romney is running for president. he says it's time to restore america greatness. >> is that from the b-block? >> that was shep smith. but i think that was -- but here's the thing, and i made this comparison on "up" before but there's a lot -- there is more than a whiff of john kerry 2004 in mitt romney 2012. >> yeah, yeah. >> a lot of -- you sort of running the sort of through the looking glass experiment. i remember, stealing myself to get psyched about john kerry as a nominee and a lot of people did that. remember, it didn't -- i don't think it stopped people from working very hard to elect john kerry, because at the end of the day, for liberals, the 2004 election was about george w. bush and the iraq war. and the -- for conservatives, this election will be about

barack obama. so i think they're not going to suffer much enthusiasm gap even if the nominee is mitt romney. >> what i have a problem with the republicans is taking a long look and realizing they're really dumb. i mean, there's a dumbness. >> do you think that, though? i don't know. >> maybe not newt gingrich but -- >> well, newt gingrich will tell you how smart he is. >> of course he will. >> it's embarrassing to look at herman cain in any way being taken seriously. >> i don't know, though. i want to push back because i feel like we throw the word dumb around. i think there's ignorance, in the case of herman cain there was definite profound ignorance and -- ignorance -- >> that's the joy and the celebration -- >> becky, becky -- >> wait, there's a certain kind of pose -- there's a pose of -- that i think is popular, particularly among conservatives. i don't know sometimes if -- how much they're playing to an actual base and how much is an image people want that essentially says that -- that puts anti-intellectualism and authenticity in the same package.

>> that's what george bush was. if you want to sum up george bush it was the fact that he was anti-intellectual running against an egg head in al gore. and i'm a guy you can have a beer with. i think that is -- >> right. but the fact that newt gingrich has done as well as he does shows that there is actually an appetite for this sort of pseudointellectual -- >> i don't -- >> anti-obama, period. >> it's an anti-obama thing. i think it's because he's nasty, mean -- >> that's exactly what it is. >> a lot of people want him to get out there and say stuff. >> they're electing a pundit. >> call him -- >> i agree with you. >> they're electing a sharp-tongued pundit. that's why you had cain and gingrich and why sarah palin was so popular. until they completely discredit themselves and until rick perry showed he can't string together a proper insult, then there -- >> yeah, yeah, when you can only have the set-up and not the

punch line, rick perry was like and then -- >> two, three -- >> here's -- just a reminder of how far gingrich has come. here's classic gingrich. this is him in his element justifying his staff quitting back when it looked like he was basically dead in the water on fox, on hannity. >> i frankly feel liberated. with the exception of one person, all of my original team is still with me. and in every single state where we lost some people, we've actually gained new people who are excited by the idea that we could have a genuinely different grass roots campaign to change washington. >> his original team divorced him. i mean, what i think is so frightening, we were talking -- we keep saying we were talking about this off, but we were, is people look at smart people as somebody who's going to pull the wool over their eyes. and i think that is why they so gravitate towards these pit

bulls, is that they see language theyed understand, anger they understand and it's not the smart guy who's going to start saying something and what does that mean? i'm going to get screwed because i don't know what he's talking about. >> not realizing that guy is going to screw them also. >> right. i don't know -- i wonder how much -- i think we have a tendency sometimes to think that is something that is limited to the right in a way i don't think it is. i think there is -- i think there's a sort of strain of conservativism that is frankly intellectual -- frankly. i'm sounding like newt gingrich. but there is a suspicion of experts that is -- that spans the entire society. and i think it's -- and i don't -- i also don't think that suspicion of experts, which manifests itself in incredibly toxic ways like in climate change is necessarily unfounded given the expertise that was marshalled in the housing bubble and shenanigans and iraq war. let's talk more about this 2012 gop field after the break.

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for tomorrow's workforce in los angeles. because the more we can do in local neighborhoods and communities, the more we can help make opportunity possible. good morning, i'm alex witt -- britain's prince philip is recovering in the hospital following surgery. queen elizabeth's the 90-year-old hospitalized was taken to a cambridge hospital. he was treated for a blocked coronary artery. it's expected to be a busy shoplifting season. $1.8 billion merchandise will be stolen in the four weeks leading up to christmas, up 6% from last year. i'll see you at the top of the hour. stay with us. i want to go back to our viewer poll, because we've got two more categories we didn't get to in the first hour of the show. we polled our viewers on the moments of the year and had a

variety of categories. one was scandal of the year which ranged in the seriousen of the scandal. arnold schwarzenegger's marriage breaking up with maria shriver. >> and the love child. >> right, i forgot the love child. that's a weird, antiquated phrase. >> but a great song. >> i like to say it like the love child because that's how -- >> or maybe baby daddy. >> he's the baby daddy. >> and then -- throw that graphic back up. then there was the anthony weiner, of course -- >> embarrassing. >> less said the better. then there was serious scandals. the news corp. scandal, phone-hacking scandal for murdoch, which has -- captured american imagination has dropped our front page and radar screen but reverberates in england. so solyndra, which has been manufactured by fox news.

and penn state, one of the most, i think, shocking stories that i've encountered in a long time. and our viewers agreed. this is -- this is a moment that we played when we did our show on penn state in the week that the charges first came out. this is a student on penn state campus trying to convince fellow students that this sort of hero worship of joe paterno has to stop. check it out. >> i'm not saying we are to come out here and point fingers at paterno and say paterno must go. i'm saying hold our leaders accountable. as an institution, as a part of this family, we must hold our leaders accountable. and the paterno signs, we should get rid of them. i'm sorry. >> i agree. >> i agree. >> really intense moment. >> i watched that clip like -- when you watch a documentary and you know how it's going to end. it's like, oh, what are they going to do? >> you guys agree with view others this? sn. >> oh, yes, yes. >> i think it's tough to argue,

although in a similar vein what's happened with mf global to a certain extent -- >> that came too late for to us put on the poll. explain what happens. >> you have this big hedge fund that jon corzine was running -- >> former head of goldman sachs, former senator and governor of new jersey. >> yeah. >> huge democratic politician. >> a republic utibresentable gu firm made these debts -- >> european debt, greek debt. >> and when it look the like we had to ko, we'll take that pile of money over there, even though it was the client -- >> they allegedly, they allegedly -- >> no, no, my understanding is it is clear they did that the question is whether it was legal or not. and the notion that it could be legal is maybe even more scandalous than the idea that they would have done that. in many respects, it's not terribly different from the paterno thing in terms of the idea of the establishment doing certain things that they just are willing to not hold certain

other people accountable. >> they're are the results from our poll, so people can see how they came down on it. penn stated, clear winner, 55%. after the news corp./murdoch scandal. the thing that reverberates through scandals that are institutional in nature as opposed to personal, familial, is this question of accountabili accountability. what leads to institutional scandal and bad deeds is the fact that leadership is not held accountable. they feel they can fundamentally get away with it or pass the buck. >> they put other things ahead of protecting kids. for instance, wasn't it just the week before this story broke that joe paterno's wins -- it broke a record of consecutive wins. i forget what it was. >> yeah, the longest serving coach. >> but they didn't care. they were protecting that and not these kids. >> details kept coming out and it's so gruesome and so emotional. these are children in need. and everyone who has children,

everyone who's in college, it just hits people on so many levels that it's not surprising that this is the one. >> and you can watch it go up the chain of command. you know, you can see where this should have gone next, where it should have gone next. it's an easy thing to understand as well as get emotional. you look at too big to fail. college sports, man, it's really incredible when you see how much is at stake. >> you better believe it. >> too big to fail, in some ways, that concept is sort of the -- i think, the kind of concept of our times. i mean, it really -- it captures something profound and deep about who is subject to accountability, who has to pay for their sins and who does not. and i think that's why actually it continues the bailouts and too big to fail has the political resonance it does because for people on the left and right, across the political spectrum, anyone, it perfectly captures a sense that the playing field is not equal. is fund mentally skewed, fundamentally unjust. >> right. you wonder if that -- in the penn state thing, i mean, if

those kids had not been kids in need, i mean, if they had been, you know, the -- >> kids of privilege. >> privileged kid, would that have scandal been -- ended much, much earlier down the road? i suspect it would have been. >> you know, one of the aspects of that scandal that doesn't get enough attention is that the reason that all of this ended up coming to light and ending up in prosecution was the fact that jerry sandusky was also coaching in high school. and at that high school he allegedly did some of the same things he had done in penn state. and very courageous student came -- first of all, came forward, which is a tremendous act of bravery for a boy to do, a. b, told someone at the school. and the school has mandatory reporting. i mean, this is the most -- this is a perfect example of regulation working. right there. there are regulations on the behavior that those people -- there's mandatory, it's bureaucratic red tape up. don't give people the choice. they don't have discretion. mandatory reporting. to me it's a perfect example of

exactly that kind of thing working. you can think of mandatory reportings a kind of regulation and that's what ended up bringing this to light. >> and as i was hearing the story of the guy that walked in on the two of them, and his recounting and how he went through it -- >> and now he's backpedaling. >> assistant coach, mike mcqueary, in the original indictment and seen jerry sandusky allegedly raping a boy in the shower of penn state and told paterno yp about it. >> we hear that initially and then hear it again as the grand jury -- or it felt like when he was recounting his story, it feet like he was choosing his words so carefully as to get a reaction every step of the way of, how much trouble is sandusky going to get in? how much is he -- how much can i actually reveal? where is it going to go? it felt scary and the protection of sandusky felt scary. >> so, what do we know now we didn't know before this year? my answers after this. on my phone, i got internet! hotspot five dollars.

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so what do we know now that we didn't know when the year began in we know despite being buffeted by a terrible economy and arguably the most single-mindedly obstructional congressional opposition in history, president obama's most recent approval rating is 47%, according to an ipso/reuters poll. we know he faces an uphill battle toward re-election but we know he outperformed economic fundamentals all year. we know whatever criticism of his message and political performances last year of which i have many, he does remain a singularly talented communicator. we now know a number of things about the republican field of presidential candidates. we know conservative base of the republican party would sooner sign onto a national law mandating compulsory gay marriage than marshal enthusiasm for our ordained mitt romney. we know this is the most

conservative primary field in recent memory with nearly all of the gop candidates advancing tax plans that are wildly regresses ive, competing over how many federal agencies they would like to get rid of, and denying almost unanimously the clear scientific consensus on climate change, the most pressing global challenge of our time. we now know corporate profits and banker bonus are near all-time high while working people's wages are declining. we know the extreme inequality has been exacerbated and we know for the first time inequality started rising three decades ago we're having a national conversation about this central core movement, thanks to occupy movement. we know civil disobedience is not dead in america. we know it will require politics that continues to disrupt status quo and shakes our comatose institutions out of their collective come placency. we know what they wrote 2,000 years ago that imbalance between rich and poor is the oldest and

most fatal ailment of all republicans. we know the process of senatorial confirmation is officially broken. re know republicans wouldn't hold a hearing for one of the most most experts in the world on improving health carol quality and lowering costs. president obama has only had 75% as many judges confirmed as president george w. bush did at a similar point in his presidency. the white house was even forced to recess this man, william j. boreman, the printer of the united states. we know gays and lesbians serving openly in the military did not indication the cat clichl opponents would predicted and we have more to do to make sure our overextended troops are brought home from the many corners of the world in which they operate. we know the world with iraq actually had an end point but we also know we're leaving behind the u.s. biggest embassy in the world and over 5,000 private

contractors and means our story of involvement in iraq is not finished. many of us here in the u.s. who aren't in the 1% are in the world's 1%. resources and privileges that billions don't have. as we reach the end of the year we know that a relatively small amount of money to organizations like doctors without borders or partners in health can have a big effect in those parts of the world with people struggle to survive on less than $1 a day. most importantly, thanks to the courageous activists and citizens in tunisia and egypt and libya, we know that sometimes even the most vial and implaquable tyranny can be vanquished. we know what look it is like a dead end may just be a roadblock. we know change is possible even when it takes decades. we know the future can be better than the past. so what do my guests know they didn't know when the year began? laces? really? slip-on's the way to go. more people do that, security would be like -- there's no charge for the bag. thanks.

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i want to find out what my guests know that they did not know last year. it's a full year of knowledge that you have to give to our viewers in one minute, sam. >> i have three quick ones. >> go. >> one, we all know now there are half a dozen state attorney generals who are not going to let the ongoing mortgage fraud get swept under the rug. that will have implications next year. we know climate is getting worse in terms of climate change. and one thing i that learned this year is that the last general strike in this country was in 1946. it started with 400 women working as retail clerks in oakland. and it spread almost spontaneously. i think that will be relevant in 2012. >> fascinating. are you predicting a general strike in 2012? >> this is not prediction section. >> general strike is illegal under labor law, it should be noted. >> eight months before taft/hartley, but if it's spontaneous, it can happen. >> what do you now know? >> i didn't realize how actively

the republicans have been working on voter suppression and frightening the impact could be on next year's election. second thing is i didn't know newt gingrich's middle name is leroy. i think that's cute. and the third is personal. twitter never really appealed to me, although i'm on twitter, because i thought at 140 characters g would be glib and funny. what i've learned to like about it is that because you're only using 140 characters you have to think before you write something. >> absolutely. >> and it made me deliberate in what i put out there. >> the genius of twitter is that what the internet was lacking before twitter was an editor. everyone needs an editor. >> everyone. >> twitter provides an editor by saying that's as much room. i had a very brilliant mentor when i was a very young writer, first writing. he said something to me that's always stuck with me. when you're stuck on a piece, when a piece is not working, cut it by a third and see what happens. usually that does it. usually cutting something by a third, you cut down, pare down. i totally agree. genius to that.

>> i have two. one, there are two planned parenthoods in mississippi, largest is three motel rooms linked together in hattiesburg. the second thing i did not know is that the u.s. postal service is the largest employer of veterans and 30% of those veterans are disabled. >> wow. >> so, when we talk about the post office and wanting to, you know, cut it down and get out of it, they do -- that's -- i was amazed by that. >> i learned when i was -- when we did the -- we talked about the post office last week quite a bit and i what i learned during that show, in prepping for that show, if it were in the fortune 500 it would be number 29. it's a huge -- employs over half a million people. and this is the other thing i learned about the united states post office. since 1970 when there was a reorganization act that made it an independent entity, it does not take a dollar of taxpayer subsidy. i not know that. i just figured -- >> yes. >> how can it possibly cover the costs to get -- iconic examples they ride the donkeys down to a

navajo and -- >> amazed by them. >> what do you know now? >> i learned on your show watching about the postal service. what struck me so much in that show, to me the postal worker was the iconic black working person's job. like just growing up -- >> for years that's been the case. >> so, what struck me in watching your show, was that knowing -- and i said this earlier about how the black poverty is growing our how our wealth is shrinking and oprah and diddy are just smoke and mirrors. it's really getting worse. and then this was profound, this idea that this kind of bedrock of working class could be gone. so, learning that, we have lost poverty. like the average black person has $2,200 in wealth. versus nonblack that has something like $97,000. that's shocking. >> yeah. the income inequality is what we talk about a lot but racial

disparity in wealth, distinct from income. >> wealth is very different. >> that inequality is massive, massive. my thanks to sam, nancy giles, lizz winstead, writer, and michaela. thank you for letting us into your home. it an absolute privilege. coming up next is "weekends with alex witt." we will not be back tomorrow. it is christmas day. we'll return to our usual times next weekend. join us saturday at 7:00 and we'll talk to general ricardo sanchez, and on sunday at 8:00 we'll have dave weigel live from iowa to preview the iowa caucuses. you can get information at up.msnbc.com. my heartfelt thanks to all the people here behind the scenes to who made it possible for us to get "up."

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