then lead a double life! with new blast flipstick from covergirl. creamy color on one end, shimmery color on the other. so you can flip your look from demure, to daring. new blast flipstick from covergirl. social security, jobs and housing. how the mos successful american politician of all-time would shape the debate. and if you're home watching me instead of going to church, don't worry. my version of tv evangelism is coming right up. plus, the loving couple that changed my life. but first, i'm worried that many of my colleagues may be suffering from a most embarrassing affliction. and i'm about to tattletale.

good morning. i'm melissa harris-perry. today on the inaugural weekend of mhp, i'm proud to be joining industry that prides itself on always taking a measured and thoughtful approach to political coverage. in particular, when covering the gop primary season. that usually takes a measured and thoughtful approach. maybe that sometimes takes a measured and thoughtful approach. seriously, it's getting embarrassing. the truth is there's a dirty little secret that those of us who cover horse race politics, don't want you to know. we're suffering from premature speculation. headlines like these and these expose the media for its secret desire to skrip the foreplay and get to the main event. it's all left me very frustrated. what's the rush? why can't we just let democracy happen? now, i know we're servants to the insatiable appetite of the news monster. the beast demands its pound much

political flesh and there's no choice but to obey. we have to keep you watching and reading our lives and livelih d livelihoods depend on it. let be honest, a guy saying i have no idea who is going to win just isn't very engaging. and we've been nothing if not engaging in our coverage of the contest for the gop presidential nomination. after the florida primary, only four rounds into a 50-round fight, all the press pretty muc for a victory lap as though we were following a blueprint for covering a highly organized, well-funded political machine and pre-destined political dynasty. you think we would have learned a lesson from last time. by we, i mean me. back in 2008 i wrote an open letter to howard dean asking him a couple of questions. "mr. dean, how much do you love your party? it is time to start making the call. publicly and privately for

hillary clinton to exit the race." your party needs you. i'm tempted to hide behind my new name and say it wasn't me. but i said it. i too was once a premature speculator. and i too, was wrong. not about who would win. but about the effects of a long race. i worried in 2008 that the horse i was backing in that race would emerge from an extended primary broken and lame. but the fact is the 17-month primary slog expanded the ranks of newly registered democratic voters by tens of thousands and forced the obama campaign to get strong organizes on the ground in all 50 states and being battle tested in a long, hard fought primary prepared candidate obama to go the distance in the general election against senator mccain. it's a lesson i'm sure rick santorum has been happy to learn. because if he's paying attention to those headlines, he may never have had a chance to be in these headlines and he would never have become the man that mitt romney, let's face it, tim

pawlenty probably sees in his nightmares every night. with two improbable candidates behind newt gingrich we may have greatly exaggerated the rumors of his demise as well. a bunch of rich people calling themselves super pacs shouldn't be choosing our candidates but neither should the media. i'm remind fd a scene near the end of the dark knight when lieutenant gordon said batman is the hero gotham deserves. let the voters key decide. if they want rick santorum for president, they most certainly deserve to have him. joining me now is long time gingrich supporter kay ton dawson, the former chairman of the south carolina republican party and senior adviser to winning our futurement newt gingrich's super pac. he's also highly likely going to make me speak in nigh my southern accent. we share southern roots.

thanks for being here. >> thank you for having me. >> why do you think we in media and undoubtedly also in the republican establishment, why do we want this over? >> i get confused because the primaries and this one especially is like a nascar race, not just to put the fact that the daytona 500 and others in -- this is the republican establishment versus the conservative republicans watching a race and they're not there to watch the cars go around and around the track. they're looking for the crash. tim pawlenty, jon huntsman, rick perry. we're down to a couple there. it is a race that's been very fluid. right now, rick santorum is in jeremy lin's place. he's sitting there. now he's going to get full coverage from the best. >> newt gingrich is at the foul line and paul has the whistle in his mouth. that's what's going on here. >> you've gone nascar to nba for me. you know, you say this like a

nascar race. is it because they're going to boo an obama. is that what it's like? >> you mean going for the spectacular? >> absolutely. that's what happened here. it's not over yet. i as a republican activist all my life, encourage the race. it's like you said earlier, we deserve a long contested primary. did it hurt barack obama? it made him stronger. >> undoubtedly. the difference is the influence of the super pacs. you know, for me, i think a long primary is great because it means democracy is at work. means we have the voters deciding and not media and not an establishment. but when we have money coming from super pacs and there you are, leading winning our future, i understand and love for you to confirm if possible is it true that winning our future is about to get another $10 million from the republican donor -- >> i'm a part of the organization, not leading it. >> sure. >> that is yet to be seen.

at the end of the day, citizens united versus the -- the supreme court made that decision. that was a monumental case brought. it did change the landscape of modern politics and it is the wild wild west. the president will use that also to his advantage. it's a freedom of speech issue i'm sure we'll talk about later. it has changed the game of where people can come in and spend a lot of money. >> just before this one, the show up with chris hayes, they said hey, this may or may not be problematic for democracy. but it does make me nervous when i see this report that we have another $10 million coming if aid ellison. on the one hand, it means that newt gingrich not out. he may have time in fact, to make it to another debate, which is where gingrich does so well. >> i would tell you, whether it's gingrich or senator santorum or romney or

congressman paul. this race could run longer. it could be an exciting time for the republican party. they're mad. gas prices are moving up. deficit spending. the same issues that they started off and i'll go back to 2006, the republican party got kicked out for spending. that's why we lost power. 2008 -- >> there was another situation too. >> there was bush fatigue coming in 2008. i won't deny that. 2010, we gotta warded the congress. right now, i warned politicians that spending is an issue these people. i just traveled all over the south doing presidential politic and around the southeastern united states and people are hurting, melissa. it's bad out there. >> it's true. >> and they're patriotic. not just american democrats and republicans. this is a country that people love their country. and this is we're the only game in town. i think to the president's detriment because what made him so strong was a primary. now it's a different section for him. >> let me ask this question then. it feels to me like there's a

bit of a tension between what i absolutely agree with you on. people hurting in america. we're beginning to see some economic recovery. that's undoubted. but there's a lag between the economic recovery we see in the numbers and what people feel at their kitchen tables. >> there is. >> if i'm feeling this pain, living in south carolina, living in louisiana and feeling this pain and i go to the republicans and i say rick santorum, what are you going to do to help ease this pain? newt gingrich, what are you going to do to help ease this pain? and what i feel like i'm hearing from rick santorum right now is, well, i'm going to make sure that no one infringes on your religious rights. although that may be important and may be important to the people sitting at the kitchen table, in fact, the catholic bishops are not going to provide me a job or groceries. what is the answer then that any of the candidates need to be able to provide to the hurting americans noo. >> like the new york times this morning has high gas prices, give the gop a chance to attack

president obama. this will become personal. this election will come down to the price of gas, unemployment and who is going to offer some hope and opportunity and it's far from over right now. >> if it comes down to unemployment and who offers hope, awfully says awfully good for presidential reelection in this case. >> when you pull up your car to the gas pump and it costs 70 to $100 to fill up the gas tank, that makes a difference. others getaway deep in the weeds. you got to campaign with people and it's a humbling experience whether you take the dpof of texas who i worked for and walking a gymnasium with 70 people. it's a humbling experience when you listen to people's problems. >> it was one of the things when we first started putting together the staff for this show, one of the directives to each other, not all important politics happen between d.c. and new york. and so we -- this is part of our sort of making fun of media this morning. it would be easy for us, living between d.c. and new york, or those of us who do live there,

to call this. again, i live in louisiana. i live in a red state. when you travel around the country, i think it is humbling. because americans do want to be part of the democracy. i'm glad that you're going to be part of the conversation. we're going to bring more folks in. we're going to keep talking about this long republican primary. and sort of what happens when we settle on a front-runner too soon. i'm going to show you what i think may be a doomsday scenario. guess what? doomsday is today. stay with us. when it comes to paint... ...there's one brand that always tops the charts. so let's grab a few of those gallons- at a price that's now even lower. 'cause when we mix behr ultra paint and primer in one... ...with a few hours... ...we get more than just color... ...we get top-rated coverage. the kind wakes up walls, and reinvents rooms. more saving. more doing. that's the power of the home depot. behr ultra paint and primer in one now starts at just $29.38,

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so here's a fun exercise or a scary one depending o n where

you stand. imagine that the republican nomination process ended today. well ladies and gentlemen, here is what your current republican front-runner looks and sounds like. this is rick santorum in ohio within the last 24 hours. >> free prenatal testing in every insurance policy in america. why? because it saves money in healthcare. why? because free prenatal testing ends up in more abortion and therefore, less care that has to be done. because we call the ranks of the disabled in our society. that, too, is part of obama care. another hidden message as to what president obama thinks of those who are less able than the elites who want to govern our

country. back me now is katon dawson, newt gingrich supporter and former south carolina republican chair and joining him is an thee abut letter, professor of religious studies and graduate chair of religion at penn. thank you both for being here. >> good morning. >> i want to start with this language by rick santorum about the president's support of prenatal testing. counting as a kind of position over and against the disabled. getting information about one's pregnancy is necessarily in santorum's discourse here going to lead to abortions and therefore, we should not have coverage for this sort of information. this feels to me like an extreme position. >> absolutely. melissa, it's completely extreme. the part of the problem with santorum is he gets -- he overreaches, okay? what i mean by overreach is that

he's going into his own theological beliefs about this as opposed to what you could think of as a moderate belief about it. in other words, people do prenatal care all the time to see how they are, this is not about whether you want an abortion or not. it is disingenuous for him to say that president obama's policy as though it means this is another kind of death panel code word is what i think is going on. >> it did feel like that. in the last segment, you and i were talking about a long primary. providing more opportunities for democracy. for people to get in there and vote. right now, this is the guy that's leading. will republicans have hope that this wrapped up sooner it ends up being santorum? >> it's part of the process. whether you succeed or fail is part of your rhetoric. rick is speaking to the base, to the hard right and we'll see how this works out. i mean, the obama care issue is alive and well and one that's certainly been counterproductive to governor romney.

whether you pick parts out of it, we saw reversal of the catholic church, we've seen them done already. that's why we're having this process. the people would are going to elect the next president of the united states are watching some of this sort of. but we're picking our nominee and the republican base will pick it. they'll make the final choice and we'll see how it plays out. don't discount newt gingrich, don't discount governor o romney's machine, very well-organized. ron paul brings a unique excitement to a republican primary. it's game on. >> right. there's a tradition of pander and pivot. the fact is we now are in a age where anyone on television can give you a sound bite. you can see it again and again. can't say it in a quiet room of supporters. i do want to bring in a map because this is what we're doing in nerd-land. this is a map of the states controlled by republicans that have new voter i.d. laws,

considering or have adopted new voter i.d. laws. now, we're making a case here in part that we need the people to decide. but very strongly connected to that is the ability to actually get to the polls and make a decision. if republicans are going to make this claim that we want people to decide, then how do we square that with republicans also passing the restrictive voting? >> exactly. i don't think they want some people to make it to the polls. college students, you have to have your i.d. this is the new poll tax. this is problematic for us those in the educational system telling our students to be civically engaged, right? yet we have the republican party doing redistricting, the laws and now you will all of a sudden a 90-year-old woman in the statehouse can't vote because she doesn't have the right i.d. for them. i don't think it is about republicans wanting everybody to

o vote and wanting that base to be in. i think it's about you want to cross hatch everybody so that you can only get in the people you want to have vote as opposed to the people who actually might vote and might vote something different ln than what you think. >> how do we square it? the nice messy republican primary going on. >>let unpack some of that. elections have consequences and redistricting one of the crown jewels when you win a governor's mansion, the general assemblies. that's part of the process. i do think this is the most important right we have as americans is the right to vote. i do. i said i live at a street address and this is me. there were processes for fail safe ballots. those arguments gone, the laws are different. it is very important. 130 million of, what, 340 million people vote. that's how many voted in the last presidential election. certainly they're not all voting. certainly we want to encourage people to vote. but there are laws and regulations, rules. that's what we're trying to

address. that's -- not only did we address it in the state of south carolina. it's been brought against us. unanimously voted. went through a committee process for two years and got negotiated out. we want on i.d. you have to have one to go in a courtroom. we needed one to come into the station today. >> sure, sure. but you don't -- the very point about the value of voting, you don't have a fundamental right to come to 30 rock. right? >> that's an invitation. >> you have to have an invitation to come to 30 rock. but we do base our fundamental democratic rights in the idea of having a voice. i like this idea of okay, democracy is messy. sometimes we pick people who say prenatal care equals a borabort. elections have consequences. the problem is i don't want the consequence of an election to be the inability o vote in the next election. right? that for me, feels dangerous in

a fundamental way to our democratic system. >> absolutely. it's the whole history of this. where people have been denied the right to vote, african-americans. when we see these kind of things happening, it makes me wonder shall it's not just people of color. it's other people who don't get that right because you've cut everybody out. if you're say you play to a certain kind of base, let's say, the white, lower middle class, regular worker, some of those people don't have the same kinds of things either. so i'm wondering if the republican party isn't hurting themselves by doing what they're doing. that's the first part. i want to circle back to santorum. santorum said something else. >> it's that day. >> the front-runner. this is your point. the light is on you when you're the front-runner. >> the problem with santorum, he doesn't know how to pull on his blue collar white guy background. what he's doing is playing theologian in chief. he accuses president obama of not having the proper theology.

he's sounding like a pre vatican one catholic when what he wants. >> let's go back to rick. let's listen real quick to rick santorum talking about president obama's religion yesterday. >> this is what the president's a agenda. it's not about you. it's not about you. it's not about your quality of life. it's not about your jobs. it's about some phony ideal, some phony threology. not a theology based on the bible, but different. no less a theology. >> okay. so spotlight is on him. he is doing theologian in chief. if it's not based in the bible, what do you think is the claim that santorum is making there? >> this is a competition. rick is talking to a certain audience. that's his choice. we're not questioning the religion of the president. we're not. that's never gone on in the world i live in. but i'll tell you, when they're competing, they're trying to draw stark contrasts.

i do take exception to the background of where he's from. rick has always talked about that. he's talked about his heritage. he's proud of his family and his brothers. but it's his campaign to run. it's certainly newt gingrich's campaign to run and nobody discounted him because his background is deep and wide from a military family. and governor romney. >> tulane grad. >> there is a republican conservative revolution going on. it's why this race is going to go on further. and being in first place, it sometimes is not the most enviable place to be in a republican primary. >> let me ask you about this. we saw someone else really good at the ordinary folks relinl on and the working class common man thing and that was sarah palin. when she first came, she was undoubtedly as we've heard over the past couple of weeks, a game changer, right? all of that scrutiny came to her and early on had the election been held within three weeks of announcing her nomination as vice president, the mccain/palin

ticket very well may have won. but the longer that spotlight stayed and the more we've gotten to know sarah palin, these very folks who liked her so much were talking before the show that in south carolina, her approval ratings are pretty darn low at the moment. >> they were. but when you go back and look at that, i was chairman of a party where john mccain was sort of the establishment's pick. much like bob dole. there wasn't a lot of excitement. i honored john mccain's service. we didn't win. no question. sarah palin brought an enthusiasm and excitement. we needed 6,000 volunteers to do what the republicans did in south carolina. at the end of the day, that's history and now there's a new day. >> i'm going to have to stop us just for a bit here. up next, we're going to take a special trip back in time as we dig into our vault in honor of president's day. as we go to break, i wanted to leave you with this image. it's a photo my friend bernie took and that really speaks to me. people with a machine.

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happy president's day weekend everyone. as we honor our past leaders, we find often the cliche past is pro log proves accurate. from the vault this week, here is franklin roosevelt poking fun at his republican opponents for their stance on three of the most important issues of the day back in 1936. see if you notice any similarities to today's political debate. let's listen. >> we believe in social security. we believe in work for the unemployed. we believe in saving homes. cross our hearts and hope to die [ laughter ] we believe in all these things. but we do not like the way the present administration is doing

them. just turn them over to us. [ laughter ] we will do all of them. we will do more with them. we will do them better and most important of all, the doing of them will not cost anybody anything. >> democrats, take note. with delivery like that, is there any wonder he was elected four times. at the convention this summer in charlotte, north carolina, maybe give the speech writers a day off. play the fdr clip on the big screen and president obama can just say yeah, what he said. we'll be right back. of bad odors in a home. some aerosols may just mix with them. can febreze remove it. [ moderator ] describe the smell. it's very pleasant. some kind of flower maybe? awww, oh yuck! [ male announcer ] febreze air effects doesn't mix, it actually removes odors. so you can breathe happy.

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welcome back. next week on the show i'll have professor anita hill with me. be sure to tune in. i can't wait for that. but first, it's only my second day here with you as the host of

the mhp show. it may be premature for me to already be thinking about the day i'll sign off for the last time. but alas, that day and the day i hang up my professor's cap will come. when it does, i'd like to float off on a fluffy cloud of social security. president obama scored a political victory friday when he succeeded in renewing the 2% social security payroll tax cut for 160 million workers. critics of the cut are sounding the alarm about the extension of the payroll tax cut and its impact on social security. they want me to believe it equates to a slow leap from the social security cushion that i and millions of others like me are hoping to fall back on someday. social security is in crisis, they say. only it isn't, right? or at least it doesn't have to be. workers are taxed at 4.2% on earnings up to $110,000 to fund social security, right? $110,000 much the first $110,000

that you earned. every dollar over that amount is exempt from social security taxes. to me, it feels like a no brainer. as a solution to all of this, raise the cap on income subject to social security taxes and voila, social security is solvent. problem solved, right? joining me now back at the table is katon dawson, senior adviser to winning future. supporting newt gingrich of he's already the former chairman of the south carolina republican party and heather beau shea, senior economist at the center for american progress. heather, i said earlier, this is a legitimate question for me. i'm a political scientist. i can fix -- i would say don't call me a doctorment call me professor. i can't fix your medical problems. i can talk to you about all sorts of things. but this one i really want an economist to tell me. why don't we just raise the cap. why at 110, 100 why not at 200. why not 400. why not on all earning and it doesn't have to be 4.2%. it can be over the 110 cap.

we could be at 3% or 2.5%, right? and wouldn't that make social security solvent? >> it's a great question. i'm really glad you asked and i'm glad you asked within the context of the payroll tax cut that is being signed into law. so what we're doing is saying, okay, we're going to borrow a little bit, we're going to give people, put some money in their hands right now and take it out of the payroll tax system. were did we do that? because it is a very -- it's a regressive tax. it's going to put a lot of money in the hand of people who will spend it. that's good for the economy. but you're right. we're going to -- we're lowering that tax and that means that presumably we're not putting as much away into social security. that's not what's happening. >> because i've been making the argument we need that $40 in house holds, we were talking about people hurting in american households. let's not raise the tax. but then i'm also thinking, but i want to be able to retire on

the other end of this. >> what the treasury is doing is they're going to take some money from the general fund and they're going to put that into the social security fund. so the tax that you and i aren't paying last year or this year now, that money is going to be made up for from general revenues. you are very right to flag that we need to -- that tax needs to be bumped back up to where it used to be in the future. we might need to raise it a little bit like in the early 190s when we want to deal with the long-term challenges. you're also right that there's a cap on earnings. and why is it that we aren't tacking the earnings above $110,000 a year? one thing i'll add to your opening, it's on both the employer and the employee side. your employer doesn't pay that tax on very high earnings. >> right. >> if we change that and said okay, let's just blow apart that cap, then we could certainly solve all of social security's problems. there's a lot of other ways that we could solve some of the long-term problems. that would quite frankly, go a

long way in doing so. >> why don't we do it, katon? one of the things i love about you. you don't talk from the talking point. why aren't democrats and republicans in a bipartisan way going to solve social security? >> i owned a auto parts company and a public affairs company that does pay that match. it's expensive. at the end of the day, this is a philosophical argument about are we going to grow government? this is what the primary is about. do we continue to tax and spend, continue to raise the thresholds or do what the conservative argument is about between rick santorum and them about limiting government and deficit. this is what formed the tea party movement. spending, spending and i think that's what they're addressing. it was sort of a bipartisan deal. you know, a lot of democrats voted against it. >> the payroll tax? >> they did. they did, not just republicans. >> they're concerned about the solvency of social security. >> they did. i understand we're moving the money but we're borrowing from peter to pay paul in this.

this comes back to me in what is our definition. are we going to continue to grow the government and tax. >> i think wee want to be careful about this grow the government as though the government is some thing over there like it's some mean giant that's going to come and eat us in the night. in this case the government means my ability and the ability of every senior to literally have a sense of security going into the future. government ought to exist for certain kinds of things, right? we believe government ought to protect our borders, nobody is ready to go back to dirt roads. there's a a variety of reasons we think government should exist. i think this is one where in fact taking tax money at this moment from our work rs today in order to provide for the long-term security of our elders seems like a reasonable way to use the power of government. >> especially -- i mean, there's a couple of things. this is something that actually vast majority of americans like. people like their social

security. government hands off my social security. >> social security isn't just for the elderly. it's also for families who become disabled. it's also when a bread winner becomes deceased. it's one of the most important anti-poverty programs in america because children whose parents die, which unfortunately happens, they get the social security benefit. you become disabled, you get the benefits. it's there for you. this is an important program that people really, really like. so i mean, i take issue with his idea that this sort -- >> i agree it's a very important program. my mother gets a social security check. >> as does mine. >> i understand that. it's an important fabric of our society. but back to united states senator jim demint's argument. everybody is cup pabl of what happened to the money of spending social security funds. everybody. i go back to the definition -- this is what the selection comes down to, which is spending. and prioritizing where it is. it isn't a priority and everybody on both sides -- do

you think it needs to change? >> there are some things that are legitimate crises, the healthcare situation is legitimate. >> it is. >> if we don't address healthcare, we'll go bankrupt. social security doesn't feel like an actual crisis. this is why i'm thinking, am i missing something because it feels like a no-brainer. this is only a crisis of will. this is only a decision to make it a cap of 300 or 400,000 instead of $100,000. >> even if we did nothing, the system is volume sent through the late 2030s. >> 2036. >> it's halfway through the '30s. >> it depends on economic growth. if we grow faster, the date will go back into the future. the system right now, this is not the most urgent problem facing america as the long-term solvency of the system. one thing you said about privatization, we've done a great experiment on america. we've moved from a country where people got pensions, to a country where people get 401( 401(k)'s and those people getting them are in the pipeline to start retiring.

why are we talking about reducing their retirement. >> we got to retire the segment for just a second. we'll come up next in my category of no-brainers. i want to ask you guys about the keystone pipeline plan. it seems like an obvious jobs solution. maybe this is not. maybe my no-brainers require a lot more thought. stay right there. [ female announcer ] feeling that flu all over your body? immerse yourself in all over relief with alka seltzer plus. it's specially formulated to speed relief to every inch of you. liquidate your flu symptoms with alka seltzer plus. if you took the top down on a crossover? if there were buttons for this? wouldn't it be cool if your car could handle the kids... ♪ ...and the nurburgring? or what if you built a car in tennessee that could change the world? yeah, that would be cool.

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and you are. chase scene, netflix coming soon extra butter tickets, swoon penguin journey junior mints moviefone evil prince bollywood 3-d shark attack ned the head 5% cashback right now, get 5% cashback on movies. it pays to discover. welcome back. raise your hand if you've heard of the keystone pipeline. okay. now raise your hand if you understand the keystone pipeline. cue the super quick keystone primer. if you built the pipeline, would be 1,661 miles long and would transport oil from alberta, canada to the gulf coast here in the u.s. hi gulf coast. keystone will transport oil, different from the way we usually think of oil wells with

traditional drilling. it requires app extra refining process to get to the liquid form we think of, actually makes up to two trillion barrels of the world's oil supply. trans canada, the company that wants to build it would decrease dependence on middle east oil and create 138,000 direct and supportive jobs. yea, right? critics question the job numbers and have real concern about the environmental impact. still with me. to kickly talk about this are katon dawson, former south carolina gop chair and newt gingrich supporter. heather boushey senior economist. and althea butler is back with us from the university of pennsylvania. >> is this really going to create jobs and is this a no-brainer? did the president make a political choice here? >> not a no-brainer. not the key to jobs. on the one hand, you have a lot of environmental kefrns, an aquifer that will go through and provide water for agriculture.

that's a challenge. that's a serious environmental issue. on the job issue, though, you know, it's going to create some jobs, certainly there will be jobs created. they'll be temporary. and they're not going to be the kinds of good jobs that we could be creating in other kinds of energy. so we've had enormous success in the past few years moving forward in alternative energies. if we care about job creation, that's where we should focus our energy. >> so you're saying literally focusing our energy. >> althea? >> it's not just the aquifer. it's going to run through farmland, cattle land in texas this past week they had a big battle about this because they're -- trans canada is trying to take homes and land for people to build the pipeline. while there's a rhetoric about this is going to make more jobs, it's going to take things away from americans. i think that's really a huge issue. >> we've got different job creation estimates here. we have cornell university,

global labor institute saying 1400 and the state department saying 6,000. trans canada saying 138,000 and the u.s. chamber of commerce saying 250,000. pretty wide var indication. katon, is this the no brainer that the democratic party -- >> i disagree with both. in late august the state department came out with the study, said there was no significant risk to the states it would cut through. we as americans have to dee tien where to buy oil from. canadians will sell it to china or us. >> weren't we going to sell a lot of this oil. my understanding is it's not going to flow into our gas tanks but that it would flow to the gulf coast where we've had oil anxieties lately. >> flow through our economy, is what it's going to do. and right now, this is a jobs election. this is an election about creating jobs. we can all argue whether it's 22,000, 250,000 or what the impact is. whether a hundred billion. the canadians have it. talk to the ambassador to canada, from south carolina, davy wilkins, he said they're

going to sell it. they want the jobs. i live in south carolina where lexington, south carolina, makes 90% of the tires for that area. it is economic stimulus for us back home. but it is -- >> oil makes me nervous -- >> with venezuela who hates us and spend our money with canadians who share our values. >> there's another way do this. >> canadians share our values. they have -- i want to come back to this. >> i understand. >> did you just make a statement that you want canadian money? >> i would rather pick canada photographer venezuela. let me put it that way. >> okay. >> i think the bigger issue is about how you make those jobs. if you make the jobs on the back of other people losing something, that's not a job creation process. and if we're talking about a range of a thousand to 4,000 to whatever, you can't even decide a number, this is not the alaska pipeline in the '70s. this is a very different kind of pipeline. so i i think people need to

realize that you can't decide that something that happened in the '70s will have the same effect as it has now. that's the first thing. the second thing the slick thing that the senate is trying to do right now, to tie this on with a couple of other things so that we can't go into the oil reserves unless we pass the keystone thing. that's ridiculous. this is about corporations making a lot of money. this is not about brigt jobs to america. >> you made this point about it's americans losing. what about us losing something. isn't the big issue our consumption. we've heard a lot from republicans and democrats alike about our dependence on foreign oil. nobody ever asks us to just useless. like literally to turn down the heat and drive smaller cars. part of what this feels like to me sort of our unwillingness. whether it's canada or china or venezuela or anywhere. >> the president came in office. you asked was it $1.89 a gallon.

i am back to that. this is election politic. this is what this thing is going to be. it's going to define exactly -- we're getting ready to get $4 a gallon. >> you keep coming back to the gas price. >> an important part of this election. >> i love you guys getting excited about gas prices. katon thanks for coming up from south carolina today. i know it was to see your daughter not to hang out with me. i hope you come often. heather thanks for making the trip from d.c. what paul ryan said last week that was right on. that's up next. progresso. it fits!

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in the state of the union, i outlined a blueprint for an economy that is built to last. an economy built on new manufacturing and new sources of energy and new skills and education for the american people. today, we're releasing the

details of that blueprint in the form of next year's budget. and don't worry, i will not read it to you. [ laughter ] it's long and a lot of numbers. >> lot of numbers. that was president obama at the beginning of the week talking about his $3.8 trillion budget for the 2013 fiscal year. $3.8 trillion. you think there might be a few things in there worth talking about. yet somehow we ended up talking about aspirin between knees and old man humor. i'd like to bring you back to the budget for just a minute. republican congressman paul ryan criticized the president's proposal as a political plan to which i say, well, yeah. it's not just a political document. it's also a moral one. solet take a look inside. 2,447 is how many pages this year's budget proposal amounted to. 69.8 is how many billions of

dollars the president wants to provide the department of education. 2.5% increase. 476 is how many billions of dollars the president wants to pour into a new transportation package over the next six years. designed to create long-term economic growth. $61 billion is how much president obama proposes wall street pay back the american people for tarp. $1.5 trillion, trillion with a "t" that's how much the white house claims the deficit will shrink partially due to the expiration of the bush tax cuts for those making $250,000 a year. speaking of folks like that, hi mitt romney. what does your proposed budget do? 3.4%, that's the tax rate the lowest wage earners would pay. almost double what they would under president obama's. 25.9% is the rate at which romney would tax his fellow

1%ers. that's more than 10 percentage points less than obama's rate. it is political and chock full of numbers. the thing about budget proposals, when you add them up, you can learn a lot about what the author amounts to. coming up next, nerd-land goes to church right here in studio he 3a. don't go away. [ male announcer ] we asked real people if they'd help us with an experiment

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a republican house of representative that is so hostile to women's health that they didn't even think about having a person on there who was a female, nor did they have anyone on there that agreed that it's important that women have access to birth control. i have a 16-year-old grandson. i came home, i had this picture in my hand. i went up to him, he's not particularly political. i said, zack, what do you notice about this? and he said and i quote "it's all dudes." hi everyone.

i'm melissa harris-perry and that was senator barbara boxer on friday reacting to the all-male panel at an over jiet committee on contraception. when i heard her sentiment, i went yeah, where are the women? why is it that as soon as we have a conversation about women, their bodies or their health, it's had by male religious leaders. let's play a little game, shall we? if i say to you, think of an apple, what pops into your head? i'll give you a moment to think about it. okay. did you pick number one. number two or this last one? time is up. i bet most of you chose the last one. that's okay. that's part of our scheme a. >> it's someone who relates to the events. if you have an apple product, you may have chosen the third one. this could apply to religion too

and why people think of men as religious leaders. if i ask you to imagine god rather than an apple, most americans pick an old white man, a beard. the old white male picture pops into our heads even if we don't believe in god or if we don't believe god has race or gender. theologian carol chris says we take this image of god and apply it to religious institutions and families and even our politician. we picture god as male. so we think all leaders should be male in all realms. a first step to getting more women into positions of power is to change the pictures in our heads. and even though more women turn out to vote than men in american politic, it's pretty hard to get a different picture. if you don't believe me, let's. during the whole existence of the supreme court, there have been only four female justices. and three of them are serving right now. in congress, only 17% of senate seats are held by women. it's only 16.8% in the house.

now, true, there have been some good times. in 1992 a record breaking 24 women won election to the u.s. house of representatives and that was called the year of the woman. a decade of gains followed. but in 2010, things took a turn. the republicans won dozens of seats, took over the house but the number of women in the house flat lined. i am worried things could get worse this year if even one senator, like missouri's democrat claire mccaskill loses her seat that will negate the gains made over the last 20-plus years. yes, these strides have been made and in their lifetime, my students have only seen a diverse of for example secretary of state, madeleine albright, hillary clinton, condoleeza rice. our counterparts have elected women as prominent leaders. take margaret thatcher or angel merkel and ellen johnson sur

leave to name a few. how can we change this balance? what kind of world would it be if the number of women in power was greater or equal to that of men? who better to speak to me than the first female leader of union theological seminary in its existen existence. dr. serene jones. how is that for messing with your scheme-a imt thanks for being my new apple this morning. >> i thought for sure we'd see eve up there. >> look at you with the apple and eve. indeed. >> you have a invited thee loej a n to the table. i'm interested in the question of what we imagine in our heads, what we see in our heads impact our ability to imagine what our political landscape should look like. what is it that makes it so difficult for so many americans to perceive women as our leaders, as those who ought to be holding power? >> you nailed it. if you have an image of the most

ultimate power in the world being masculine, if you have a male god sitting on top of the entire cosmos, this is what you think truth and authority are about, then being, as it trickles down from that, you're not going to be able to imagine women actually stepping in to positions of power. what's interesting about that, though, is sometimes you have to see women in positions of power before you you can get back up to the big image and begin to open it up. so we could imagine god in female imagery. >> i love the practice of praying the lord's prayer, our father and mother. just something as simple as adding this kind of one little piece that ungenders god, that says, oh, imagine that this being to which we are praying is both father and mother. how much that shifts in a really radical, i don't necessarily mean politically radical. what we think that relationship to god and humanity is. >> just that little change and suddenly the world looks different. my daughter who is now 16, when

we started praying together out loud as soon as she could speak, i started doing the lord's prayer. i started saying our mother. i thought she gets that our father everywhere else. when she was seven and finally for the first time in church heard our father, she was completely confused. she was like mom, why would they stick father in there. i thought, this is the way we need to imagine our future. >> shifting the -- i'm going to give you back another good scheme-a for you. my niece who is a ball girl for the university of virginia women's basketball team as a young girl, saw an nba game for the first time when she was maybe eight or nine and she walks into the room that we're watching the playoffs and she said, boys play basketball? i thought, yes. right. exactly that same feeling >> men can be ministers? >> what is in craziness that we're dealing with? look, you're the first female leader of the seminary where did

you live disclosure i've done a great deal of study. i'm almost embarrassed to you here because i'm not making much progress toward my degree at the moment. when we look across the landscape of american christianity today, does it look like the landscape that rick santorum has been offering us over the past several weeks or is there a different way of imagining what this religious landscape is? >> in a large part of american religious life, the boundaries and borders are being broken down daily. we have at least half of our student body are women. i think that's true across the board in the traditional main line seminaries. that doesn't mean the women who graduate from union go out and encounter a church that is ready to receive them in the highest levels. but for the most part, they are going out to churches that are willing to accept them. not true for the far evangelical right. >> although, there is among this

sort of holiness and pentecostal tradition, there's been a tradition of women as preachers in that tradition as well. >> that's what's very interesting. because then the southern baptist evangelical world is very different from the pentecostal understanding of women's religious leadership which has been just full blown for centuries. >> so what would happen politically if -- barbara boxer says she gives us that great visual, light? and allows us to see what a panel of all men looks like and says, okay, what happens if we imagine even one or two or, say, all women's bodies in that space? what do you think would occur if in fact we had a congress that had the same partisan balance as the one we have right now but where half of its members were women? would the conversation be just the same because this is just about democrats and republicans, or would women even republican women in these positions make a difference? >> absolutely, they would make a difference. it's unavoidable to say that.

i draw back from making these big claims that women and men are inherently different in how they're going to do things, but we all know that women, as they engage in public life do so differently than men. they're more concerned about community. they are more risk averse. this has been shown statistically. they're not willing to take the kind of risks that we have seen went into the collapse of the present financial markets. they are much more concerned, i think, about care, particularly for children. and the negative impact policies can have on children and the list goes on. >> i was stomping around a floor that we call nerd-land where the uppers and the nerd landers hang out when the conception debate was going on. i was like, get me a nun. i know that nuns have a different perspective than the bishops. literally just the catholic part of the conversation had been driven by nuns on the ground

providing services and education and charitable work, i think we would have seen a different understanding of about what catholicism is. not that they have a different theology, but a difference in contraception in local communities. >> absolutely. if we had more nuns in all facets of the catholic church, it would be a much different church. talk about a picture of all dudes. if you watch the elevation of the new cardinals, elevation of the -- it's elevation of men and they all look just alike. i mean, what does that say about that segment of our world in which women are simply not allowed? >> we're going to let you talk about the elevation and more on these questions when we come back. god is going to join the conversation and she's going to sit maybe right there. don't go away. [ leanne ] appliance park has been here since the early 50s. my dad and grandfather spent their whole careers here. [ charlie ] we're the heartbeat of this place, the people on the line. we take pride in what we do.

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welcome back. it's sunday and we found a whole lot of religion up in here at the mhp show. we're not the only ones. yesterday, new york's own tim dolan was elevated from archbishop to cardinal. congratulations to him. thes that's where i want to go. to the catholic church. joining me now are reverend serene jones, president of union theological seminary and ken geoowe and religious study professor, althea butler. welcome to all of you. it's lovely to see all of you. serena, we were talking about the views and the image of god and therefore of leadership. we just saw with now cardinal dolan an elevation. i was saying i was stomping around the 8th floor, get me a nun. i feel like a nun's perspective would be a different way of

thinking of all we're talking about in terms of policy in the past couple of weeks. >> absolutely. the nuns would probably say to you that we wish the vatican would leave us alone and quit trying to investigate us. because you know we've done all the work and all the nuns do everything. so it's really sad to see all these cardinals sort of getting their beret as and everything. i'm a catholic. that's a disclaimer. being mostly western men, western white men, not representative of the rest of the world, nuns who are in many countries around the world doing the kinds of work on the ground with schools and everything else, healthcare, all of that that's really important, but yet we let men make these decisions. so i want to go back to obama care just for a second. >> affordable care act. >> you i have to say that because people need to recognize what it is. affordable care act. nuns played a big role in that. half of the catholic hospitals

would not exist if nuns weren't running them. they do the administrative work, they do everything. but yet, we have a ka dres of men who take the responsibility for trying to tell them what to do and how do it. this is where the disparity comes in. as someone who went to catholic school and had nuns, which is now -- doesn't happen, we're missing a big part of what the church can offer. we're missing the voices of women who dedicated their lives to god but don't get to make the big decisions that they can weigh in because they know what's going on on the ground. >> althea is catholic. i live in a kcatholic city and married to a catholic. this became critically important in law. i want to push on the law question because the contraception debate became a debate about whether or not the federal government was overstepping its boundaries relative to the catholic church. i want to real quickly play the president on the way he kind of

threaded the needle on this and come back to you to ask the question in terms of where are we in terms of separation of church an state. >> but if a woman's employer is a charity or hospital who has a religious objection to providing contraceptive services as part of their health plan, the insurance company, not the hospital, not the charity, will be required to reach out and offer the woman contraceptive carefree of charge without co-pays and without hassles. the result will be that religious organizations won't have to pay for these services and no religious institution will have to provide these services directly. >> all right. so is that the solution? have we as a matter of constitutional law, is that the right way to have fixed this anxiety? >> right. so i think as a first matter, it's really important to underscore that there is no constitutional right to a religious accommodation. justice skaly a in 1990 writes a

critical opinion called employment division versus smith. what he says is if you have a law of general applicability that is not exacted with religious animus, then the incidental effects that can happen in religion are not in and of themselves going to give rise to a free exercise claim. let me break that out a little bit. >> wow. this is why kenji is on my show. >> you're too kind. basically, if we break it down, the idea is, look, if you have something that was not enacted in order to persecute religious minorities or even with religious minority in mind as the affordable healthcare was. the fact that it has deleterious or negative effects on religious minorities isn't enough to raise a free exercise claim. >> this warm religion is not only a political overstatement, it's actually also a legal overstatement? >> exactly. the caveat being that for sure, legislatures can come in and

make legislative accommodations but i think we need to separate out the two issues as to whether or not the constitution will require such a come dags which is the rhetoric surrounding in an ambient way this discussion an the point about whether or not the constitution permits them. so the constitution does not require such accommodations. it does permit them. i think that what president obama has done has said the constitution permits me do this and make sure we do a run around around religious issues though institutions don't have to pay for them. >> i was pulling out my hair in part because i kept thinking, really contraception is the biggest problem? because i feel lieb the catholic church has not full a dressed publicly the issue of childhood sex abuse which was undoubtedly inflekted and injected into the male leadership of this church and their inability to address it. as a noncatholic, can i really

go there? it made me feel like, you know, certain anger about that. >> i have no problem going there and i'm not a catholic. i think it's an example in which you ask the question. what difference would women's religious leadership make. stat sts particularly women don't abuse children in the general public -- if there were women in the clergy, we would not see the incidence. it would be a different story. it's also the case that without women there, you get a kind of closed door culture that only allows particular kinds of conversations to happen. it's a club. >> it is a club. the club is called united states conference can of catholic bishops much this is their last stand. they know while fighting had constitutional battle and i put that in quotation mark, the other part is more serious. we have tremendous child abuse cases. first time that the authority will be on the stand, this

monsignor. archbishop has to deal with the fact that while he's talking approximate this is going to break the contusion, we need to fight this, he has to fight against his own person to be on trial for moving around pedophile priests. these two things are equal. they really are. it's disingenuous for them to act as though they're doing the high ground here when they have been so down in the ditch and not doing what they're supposed to do with these pedophile priests and all the other sex abusers they've hired in the church. they moved them around, hid them. did all sorts of things and now they have to pay. >> it's hard to hear a contraception conversation that did not engage that. >> absolutely. >> up next, i'll tell you why i fear for the place where i grew up and also a programming note. next week on the show, i'm going to have professor anita hill with me. be sure to tune in. very excited approximate that. we'll be right back. capital one's new cash rewards card gives you a 50% annual bonus! so you earn 50% more cash. according to research, everybody likes more cash. well, almost everybody...

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round. we take a few stories that caught our eye, bundle them in one theme and do a lightning fast take on the news. this week, virginia. i felt pride in the state where i grew up when it changed colors from red to blue after virginia voters picked a democratic president for the first time since 1964. this week, virginia, you are making me blue. lawmakers in the state are playing a twisted game of political poker in which women are dealt the losing han. they passed three bills tightening the choke-hold on reproductive rights. an ultrasound law making women to undergo a trans vaginal ultrasound. inside a woman's vagina would be inserted this probe. virginia governor mcdonnell voiced his support but plans to review it before deciding whether it becomes a law. guess they figured they were on a roll because legislators followed that with a measure

preventing low income women from using medicaid to terminate pregnanci pregnancies. that would cover women in cases of rape, incest or life-threatening pregnancies. it would force poor women to carry fetuses to delivery that have no chance of survival. the house of delegates showed their love on val tiens by approving a personhood legislation. according to the bill on the way to the senate, when the sperm meet the egg, a legal person is created. if it becomes a law, the measure could make criminals of any women who use contraception, receive infertility treatment or have abortions. the government granted personhood and it taketh away. as the men and women who endured 300 years of slavery on this continent know all too well. fortunately, one group in virginia is looking to give it back. the historical society, while poring over millions of document unearthed the identities of 3,200 previously unknown slaves.

they've published their findings on unknown no longer. a first of its kind online database listing the names of slaves from all over virginia. among those lifted from obscurity, a young girl named mary. according to this bill of sale, posted on the site, mary was sold by one richard lancaster to her new owner on november 10, 1798, in spotsylvania county, virginia. her worth according to this document, 60 poinds. the value of giving a name and a story to this once unknown person, priceless. coming up, how virginia became more loving. ok! who gets occasional constipation, diarrhea, gas or bloating? get ahead of it! one phillips' colon health probiotic cap a day helps defend against digestive issues with three strains of good bacteria. hit me! [ female announcer ] live the regular life. phillips'. i want to fix up old houses.

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i've been thinking a great deal about marriage this week. both about the changes which are beginning to take place to allow same sex couples to get married, but also how marriage has changed over the years.

in particular, one couple who paved the way for me. mildred and richard loving were two people, well, in love. it was the 1950s and interracial marriages were illegal in virginia. in the middle of night in july 11, 1958, police broke into their home and arrested them. the aclu took on their case and began the fight to overturn the ban on mixed marriages. this case is deeply personal to me. i'm the child of an interracial couple and raised in virginia less than a decade after the loving decision. when i heard that there was an exhibit of little seen photographs of of the lovings, i sent our camera and brilliant producer allison down to capture a bit of what the photographs tell us about the couple who changed marriage forever. >> he was able to capture a lot of their quietness. my name is erin barnett, i'm the assistant curator of the collections after the international center of photography. richard perry loving and mildred jeter were married in washington, d.c. in 1958.

when they returned to their home state in virginia they were prosecuted for their mixed race marriage. they contacted the aclu who continued their fight in 1967. there the supreme court ruled that race-based bans on marriages were unconstitutional. >> when i told my children about the laws that prohibited black women to get married in the south, they were shocked and sad and mad. some of them are products of interracial relationships. >> i don't see the reason why they can't be together if they both love each other. >> i never heard about the loving story. i never heard about these people. >> i knew it but i also got surprised by how hard the government worked to get them separated. >> you should at least be able to marry each other. >> if my parents couldn't be together, i wouldn't be here, be born. >> my favorite photo was when

mildred and richard kissed because it showed that they really loved each other. >> a south african born photographer. you can see some of his pictures behind me in the gallery. at the time. lifelike many other media outlets was afraid of dealing with the topic of interracial sex and marriage. >> i remember the life magazine pause our family subscribed to it. this was 1966. i was an eighth grader. >> we saw and read in the newspapers what was going on with this family, how they were being prosecuted. >> i remember being a teenager in the mid '60s and reading about and hearing about the story. i don't know if i realized the impact of this story. it went so beyond one little family. >> it's something to see these again. now that i live in virginia, it's hard to believe that this

was a way of life in america. >> it leads directly to what's going on today, the same struggles going on in the 50 states regarding gay marriage. >> loving versus virginia is is one of the court cases that supported of marriage equality are using as they take their battle through the supreme court. richard and mildred were not active in the civil rights movement however they became civil rights heroes when it overturned race-based bans. they won for love everywhere in 1967. >> the parallels between loving versus virginia and the fight for same sex marriage are undeniable. and marnl has already changed a great deal over the years. back with me now to discuss the changes ahead are serene jones of union theological seminary and kenji and an thee abut letter. i really love the children in that segment. >> irresistible. >> you wanted to just hug them or pinch them or something. you know, interestingly, one of

the teachers were saying, look, a lot of my students are the children of interracial marriages or relationships and we saw, because right along with what we're interested in these days. pew has research out this week that looks at interracial marriages and has found that they have increased by 15% in 2010. and interracial unions make up one in 12 american couples at this point. kenj irk, it seems like marriage has changed so much. what does this hold in store for the possibility of marriage equality for gay and lesbian couples? >> i think that's a really key point that you're making, melissa. i think that the opponents of same sex marriage often want to underscore that marriage has been one thing everywhere always. in fact, all we need to do is look back a few decades and the history of our own nation and see that marriage has been extraordinarily changeful institution. not just striking down bars on interracial marriage but also

the abolition of when a woman got married she became the property of her husband. >> when women can own their own cells, their own property and credit, marriage changes. it's not the same kind of marriage on the other side. >> exactly. i think what we need to be careful about is to just say well, either simply because tradition has been this way. i want to argue against type a little bit. we want to avoid the wiggish history that says history only goes forward, the world spins forward. >> don't worry, it will all be fine on the other side of this. >> yeah, exactly. because that's not the case. i hope no one at this table believes in that view. i think the history is cyclical. i think what we have to do is argue as the lovings themselves did on the merits and to make arguments that stand up in the public square that are not solely based in faith about why same sex marriage is the next step towards achieving the society. >> it's part of why i wanted to

have it coming out of our conversation around relinl on. so often what we've heard is not a set of legal claims about why there shouldn't be marriage equality, but a set of faith-based. >> always faith-based. i'm looking at serene, it's not adam and eve. it's not steve and eve or whatever it is. >> yes, thank you. >> i'm fine with that. you're right about that. i was thinking, if you start looking at, the biblical plan is in the bible, the family. you look at the families, they're all over the place. kr are we going to base this on one book and say this is the way. and the second thing is, that we're talking about something civil. when people always sort of link this as this is a holy institution, like it's not like the catholic church of a protestant. it's about a sacrament. stop making the claims about this in that certain way. i have trouble with this because i think about gay couples who really want to be together and want to get married. one of my friends yoex and says

let them have the same strain that we have. you want to have that union and that bond. why should we say this is not because. if i can have a bond with somebody white 30 or 40 years ago because of the laws. so it's the same kind of product. >> it's so interesting, if you look back historically 200 years ago, it would have been unheard of for someone to marry outside of their religion. >> the most narrow definition of that. >> the statistics today, 67% of the people married outside of their specific understanding of what their faith is. >> presbyterian marching a lutheran. >> if you look at data around marriage, i mean paul says we should get rid of it altogether. >> exactly. >> if you're going to press this, jesus doesn't argue for marriage. jesus says there's more important things in life to be worrying about. like the flourishing of the

whole community. if marriage is going to support that, it's a social social good that needs to be watered and nourished. >> i like this language. what it does is ask us to remember that richard and mildred loving are part of the whole community that gay, lesbian and transgendered members of our community are part of the whole community. flourishing means everybody gets some aspect of that question of love. >> if you look in the bible, most of the hebrew scripture and old testament marriages were marriages of communities. >> right. >> they weren't just married, two people falling in love and walking down the aisle together. >> exactly. we have such a broken thing about community now. i keep thinking that it makes a community better. i was in a parish when i lived in los angeles. we had gay couples. it was great. it made that community do something. they had adopted kids. it was a family situation. and the community could reach out and help each other. so when you start to see this more, i think, you know, this rhetoric that we have around not

being able -- we don't want gay couples to get married is just ridiculous. we're going to come back. i'm going to talk about why i oppose evolution and we're going -- you want to hear this. we're going to talk about in general the politics around this. i think chris christie and president obama gave us a lot to think about over the course of the last couple week. the employee of the month isss... the new spark card from capital one. spark miles gives me the most rewards of any small business credit card. the spark card earns double miles... so we really had to up our game. with spark, the boss earns double miles on every purchase, every day. that's setting the bar pretty high. owning my own business has never been more rewarding. coming through! [ male announcer ] introducing spark the small business credit cards from capital one. get more by choosing unlimited double miles or 2% cash back on every purchase, every day. what's in your wallet? crisp, clear, untouched.

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noooo. yeah! finding you the perfect place is all we do. welcome to hotels.com without the stuff that we make here, you wouldn't be able to walk in your house and flip on your lights. [ brad ] at ge we build turbines that power the world. they go into power plants which take some form of energy, harness it, and turn it into more efficient electricity. [ ron ] when i was a kid i wanted to work with my hands, that was my thing. i really enjoy building turbines. it's nice to know that what you're building is gonna do something for the world. when people think of ge, they typically don't think about beer. a lot of people may not realize that the power needed to keep their budweiser cold and even to make their beer comes from turbines made right here. wait, so you guys make the beer? no, we make the power that makes the beer. so without you there'd be no bud? that's right. well, we like you. [ laughter ] ♪ then lead a double life! with new blast flipstick from covergirl.

it's the lipstick with a flip side. you call this a flip side? creamy color on one end, shimmery color on the other. expertly matched so you can flip your look. from demure, to daring. you be demure! day to night, naughty to nice. get gorgeous lips not once, but twice! now your lips can lead a double life. new blast flipstick from easy, breezy, beautiful covergirl. what i believe is that marriage is between a man and a woman. but what i also believe is that we have an obligation to make sure that gays and lesbians have the rights of citizenship that afford them visitations to hospitals, that allow them to be -- to transfer property between partners to make certain that they're not discriminated on the job. >> welcome back. that was then senate hopeful barack obama in 2004 debating

allen keys in illinois. president obama supports civil unions granting all the rights afforded to toes who are married and but has never come out in favor of same sex marriage. 14 months ago, he said his position on the matter was evolving. evolution, it would appear takes time. while each of us needs the time to evolve into our own opinions, just as delayed is indeed justice denied. we were told to go slow on women's rights but going slow put our rights in quicksand. we've been talking about how marriage is about rights and about love. but it's also about status and insurance coverage and custody laws and social practice. it's also an institution where people have made enormous and sometimes unthinkable sacrifices in order to be part of it. i support marriage equality because it is unfair to deny people the privileges of marriage based on their identity. but also because it is immoral to forbid some human being from

opting into the emotional and sacred experiences they desire. mr. president, i truly, i do respect your spirit of reason and compromise. but i feel like this is one where we need a clear and unrelenting stance for equality. you cannot yun latry rally change these laws. but you can single handedly, change this debate. so let me bring back serene jones of union theological seminary, kenji and althea butter. before the break, althea, you were talking about chris christie who said he will, in fact he did veto the same sex marriage equality bill that came out of the new jersey legislature. >> i think this is a case of -- this is chris christie looking at his back and thinking i'm hopefully maybe i can be a vp candidate. he said something very interesting. i want to sort of put him in juxtaposition to mayor cory booker of newark. he wanted this to be a vote and cory booker said you can't vote

on somebody's civil rights. i thought, this is the best argument i have ever heard and booker was right. i don't want -- >> absolutely. if we had voted on civil right, you and i may not be here at this table. >> i think pretty much everybody at the table would not be at the table actually. >> i think this is one of the moments in which i think the president will have to think about that the motion is moving. and that will he move along, will he evolve quickly enough to meet with the rest of the states. i know that this is going to be a fight for several state. we had maryland approve this. >> right. >> all around new jersey, except for new jersey and pennsylvania incidentally, you can get married if you're a gay couple. i think this is something that i think in the next five years we'll see a -- with prop 8 it's going on to the next phase. this is a definitive time to do that. >> i want to go to maryland. it is at this intersection that we were just talking about. the pro marriage equality group

lobbied for african-american support here. part of it was interesting about the cory booker, chris christie is that he's making it a civil rights issue, he as an african-american mayor, booker is making it a civil rights issue. baltimore native monique is making her pitch for marriage equality. >> we'll move on. sorry. sure. >> i think that to let the people decide whether or not we're going to have people vote on this. if there's a little bit of refinement. i think we want to drive a sharp wedge in between legislative votes and votes by referenda or initiatives. i think there's a big difference there based on the establishment clause. the clause of the constitution says there has to be a secular purpose behind every piece of legislation. legislative purpose is always hard to discern but it's ease krer to discern if you're having

a floor debate. i'm more comfortable with legislatures like maryland voting for marriage equality. would prefer that to a judge handing it to us. i'm much more uncomfortable with the so-called direct democracy route. when people go into the closet of their voting booths, they can vote on whatever basis they want and the religious right has cottoned on to this. people can vote their religious beliefs. >> it also gives them a kind of turnout booth. so if you don't have an electorate very excited about, say, mitt romney or rick santorum as your nominee but they might be excited about reserving the right to marriage for only heterosexual couples it will show up in the states where they might not showed up to the polls. it gives a boost to that part as well. >> it's interesting to think about how we aligned relimg us belief with actual political vote. you often find people who go into the voting booth, vote, for

instance, against contraception because the catholic church when they themselves use it. the kind of way we even think about how religion in politics happens in the voting booth is much more complicated than tracing what people think. i think the support for gay marriage is much stronger than it would appear if you were asking people in public. do you support as a baptist gay marriage? they're going to say no. >> right. on how the secular purpose has been -- vindicated or not according to direct democracy. the idea is that ironically, direct democracy seems like a better form of democracy because the people themselves are directly voting. the irony is that that can often fail the madisonian virtues, transparency, accountability, debate. they're not being vindicated. >> we have all kind of virtues. welcome to nerd-land. >> when prop 8 was voted on,

there was all this hidden money and you found out that the mormon church was behind this. they started to blame the african-american church. i take on to your point what you're saying about this sort of false sense of democracy in a way by giving it to the voting booth. i think that a lot come in and they stack the deck. and when they stack the deck, you don't get the kinds of voices and you don't -- move that democracy. >> we have to wrap this and it is time for a preview for "weekends with alex witt." >> gop presidential contender rick santorum goes after president obama on religion in big old way. you are going to hear what he says. does he cross the line? in office politics, reverend al sharpton shares the story behind a picture of him with president bush. it is just one of the fascinating tales he has to tell. and coming up the remarkable run of surprise basketball star jeremy lin. there is an ugly side to this story. one incident is raising more questions. we will explain that ahead.

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for my footnote this week, i wanted to say thank you and make a personal appeal. first of all, thanks to you folks at home for spending your morning with me during my show debut. every like on this program we will strive to bring you insightful analysis, stories you don't hear anywhere else. if we succeed at one thing more than anything else makes you think. thank you also to my husband and daughters who patience and understanding allow me to host

this show. the three of us live in new orleans and without their willingness to fly up north every weekend, i could not be here in new york to spend the time with all of you. i spent my career searching and teaming issues of african-american political life, stereotypes that plague black women now today and i never would have imagined i would be hosting my own show. the folks at msnbc thought this would be good idea and i'm excited about it. hosting a show gives me chance to get to the national dialogue, speak my mind. it also gives me a chance to do this, beyonce, please come on my show. please. seriously, beyonce, i am putting you on notice, this is the beginning of my official campaign to do whatever i have to do to book you for an interview on mhp. we can talk about whether or not girls really do run the world and i want to ask you about how you play with ideas of gender and authority of your video "if i were a boy." i would be willing to dance the

single dance choreography. launching facebook page should start a social media campaign to draft beyonce to appear on the show. if any super pac wants to take on the challenge while i-can't legally coordinate with you about that. but beyonce, you can even bring jay-z if you want. he can wait in the green room. we have free pastries and coffee. if he is busy and wondering who will watch blue ivy, i have three sponsors drawing strauss for the honor to baby-sit. whenever you are ready i have a chair here waiting for you. just come on by, 30 rockefeller center. tell them you are here to see melissa. your name is already on the guest list. thank you for watching at home. i will see you next saturday at 10:00 a.m. eastern. be sure to tune in next sunday when i have anita hill here on the show with me. coming up, "weekends with alex

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