smoking sign. is the gop headed for an old-fashioned broker convention? plus, the passion for a husband hunting secretary, three martini lunches and the ultimate boys club. "mad men" is back. and i take on nostalgia. the supreme court is about to make history, first. good morning, i'm mess lisa harris perry this morning, former vice president dick cheney is recovering following a heart transplant procedure. we wish him a speedy recovery. we'll have a discussion about trayvon martin with reverend al sharpton. first, after much anticipation, the moment has finally arrived. devoted fans have spent hours reading and debating about the event years in the making, staking out sidewalk spots overnight and waiting in long

lines, all to get their hands on that precious ticket to see the struggle for life and death in an arena no, i'm not talking about "the hunger games." that has nothing on what's about to go on in the nation's capitol. challengers to the nation's health care law will be brought before the highest court in the land. justices of the supreme court will hear arguments in three cases that will determine the fate of the patient protection and affordable care act, dubbed by critics and now by the president's advisers, as obama care. the law expands health care coverage to 30 million americans who are uninsured and increases protections for those who already have insurance. opponents of the affordable care act say it oversteps the bounds of the constitution. if the court agrees, it would mean the repeal of the signature legislation of president obama's first term. the hearings follow on the heels of the two-year anniversary of

the act, which the president signed into law february 23, 2010. the document he added his signature to that day was very different than the one he thought he would be signing when the white house released this video in july 2009. >> any plan i sign must include an insurance exchange. a one-stop shopping marketplace where you can compare the benefits, costs, and track records of a variety of plans. including a public option to increase competition and keep insurance companies honest. >> hear that? the president was a strong advocate for a public option. that is the plan that would have let you choose between two options for insurance. either purchase coverage from a private company, or from a taxpayer funded plan offered by the government that would have forced those private insurance companies to compete for your business. but by the fall of that year, the president was less confident about the option of a public option. by the time the bill passed the senate in december, progresses

had their dreams deferred when the public option became the boogieman of the health care debates. remember the pseudo hysteria of the death panel? it was stripped so it could pass with a filibuster proof 60 majority. where there was once a public option, there is now an individual mandate which gives you two different options, either you get insured by a private company or pay a small tax penalty. and where the insurance and pharmaceutical industries would have had to compete for your business, instead, they become the only game in town and if opponents manage to deliver a knockout punch, the individual mandate of president obama's law, i will be the first one standing up to cheer. hold on to your side eyes and let me explain. it seems to me a legal law for the president could do two things. one, bring the public option back into play, and, two, debate the biggest football that mitt romney or whoever the republican

nominee has to toss around in the general election. if passing health care legislation was the worst thing president oweobama ever did and is no longer the case, mitt romney has nothing to argue. joining me to breck break this down, are a constitutional law professor and rutgerses associate professor and reason magazine sed for. gentlemen, let's get to it. kenji, this is my best hope for an obama administration loss on the affordable health care act as a constitutional issue, relative to the individual mandate. if the individual mandate becomes unconstitutional, does that mean any attempt to do health care reform in the future can't include it, and, therefore, must include a public option? >> not necessarily.

so the individual mandate is being framed as an acumen under the commerce law. they say this is not a tax, this is a penalty. so congress could refurbish this as a tax and say we're not doing this under our commerce power, we're doing this under a general taxation power. plaintiffs are arguing that would be much more intellectually honest and harder to pass through congress. harder to pass, and more evidence that this is to raise revenue to fund the rest of the -- >> i want to pause everybody there for a second. one of the things we know, americans have a great deal of difficulty knowing what the affordable care act actually is. whether they think of it as health care reform. we have data showing us how difficult it has been for people to actually understand what the affordable care act is. if i can see that data, what we see there is that, in fact, when

it was passed, april of 2010, about 56% of folks saying that they don't you know how it will impact them. and now have you 59% saying you don't know how it will impact them. with that kind of data, we don't know what the commerce claus versus the taxation question is. can somebody take a moment and explain a little bit what that distinction is? kenji or anyone else who wants to jump in. >> under -- basically the administration is arguing that the commerce clause, which gives commerce large authority to regulate commerce within the states, gives them power to regulate the purchase of health insurance, or institute a small fine. there is also a necessary and proper clause issue. some more sort of technical details. i suspect you are right. most americans are following the technical constitutional arguments of this.

what they will follow in the end is whether or not the law is upheld, whether or not the mandates to purchase health insurance, least popular part of the law, a part president obama ran against in his campaign. use it to differentiate himself from hillary clinton. they will know that the law is either constitutional or not. they will know what the supreme court decides this summer. >> specifically, that section of the commerce laws gives congress the capacity to raise excises, to institute excise taxes. they were framing the idea that this is an exsis tax it, would be directly within congressional power. one of the other things we don't talk about here is what this mandate was meant to do. it was set up as a safeguard, meaning it was intended to prevent people from not having any coverage at all, until the last minute. so if you have a heart attack and then in the ambulance you say, okay, i want to sign up, this is a preexisting condition, they have to take me, and so

what we have lost track of in this conversation, we haven't discussed this was actually meant to be protective to insurance companies, to insurers. >> i want to talk about exactly that. insurance, we think about insurance on the car, mandated by states. if you are going to drive, you have to have insurance. insurance for your vehicle is for an accident, right? something catastrophic, big, and relatively unlikely to happen. you don't take out insurance for your oil change, right? so i've heard arguments and the arguments are, look, routine medical care is like an oil change. we shouldn't be sured for dental checkups, routine well child visits, those should be out of pocket expenses, we should bring down costs enough that an ordinary family could pay for it. we should only insure against the things that would be

catastroph catastrophic, like the heart attack, the car accident. is that reasonable? >> can i sttake a step back. the commerce clause may seem like we're getting into the weeds and people might not understand or care about it it's really important not to let go of the fundamental constitutional principle here, and that fundamental constitutional principle is how far the federal government can go in terms of legislation, so the basic argument here is an act of omission distinction, which says can the federal government force me as an individual to buy a good that i otherwise would not have bought? that is the $64 million question in this case. it gets translated into a commerce clause question. but that fundamental principal, can the federal government force me to buy something i otherwise wouldn't buy? that's the guts of this case and that would resonate with all americans. now going to your insurance question, i think it's unacceptable that any state

could force say state buy to car insurance. in fact, most states do. the issue is not about individual rights to be free of this kind of governmental control. it's whether or not the federal government can do it. most of the people who are plaintiffs in the affordable care act case would be plaintiffs in the government came out and said the federal government is now going to require to you buy car insurance. >> can i add something? >> one of the things i think is important to the distinction. important to say in terms of the car insurance analogy, we are looking at this as if we're talking about the car, maybe routine maintenance, but we know there is a point at which that car will break down. if there is a social cost associated with it. if you buy a brand new car in 2012, that in 2022, 2032, certainly that car will not be driving anymore. if there is a preexisting social cost to that car not being on the road, it becomes a social

issue. we are all one way or another paying for the dem ice of your automobile it becomes a very different kind of idea. >> most car insurance protections that you are required to have, simply require you to have insurance in case you get in an accident and cause someone else damage. not to fix your car unnecessarily, the requirement is just that i'm in an accident, caused $100,000. >> but, peter, you don't have insurance, are you causing damage to other people. >> the enno demological nature is that your ill health, even if it's not a contagious disease, your ill health has costs. >> i could opt, as a new yorker, not to drive. and many of my friends would say this is a great idea. i could opt to not drive the rest of my life. anything about the car insurance market is true times ten or 1,000 for the health care market, because none of us get

to opt out of doing this some of us will have a health issue, go to the emergency room, they are required to care for us. we get a catastrophic diagnosis like cancer and we have to pay out of pocket for that. when we come back, i want to talk about the fundamental constitutional question and the ways the civil rights act may be undone by this and talk about the justices themselves. that's next. [ donovan ] i hit a wall. and i thought "i can't do this, it's just too hard." then there was a moment. when i decided to find a way to keep going. go for olympic gold and go to college too. [ male announcer ] every day we help students earn their bachelor's or master's degree for tomorrow's careers. this is your moment. let nothing stand in your way. devry university, proud to support the education of our u.s. olympic team.

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today, we're talking about one of the most anticipated cases to come before the supreme court. this week's challenge to president obama's health care reform law is for me the thing that gives me tremendous

lingering concerns about this case, is i have heard, and some of my readings, it could have devastating consequences for a piece of landmark legislation that guarantees equal rights for many americans. let me connect the datz. the legality or constitutionality rests on article 1, section vii ekt collectively known as commerce law. it reads that commerce have the power to regulate interstate commerce. that is the same collection of awkward words that gave congress the power to enact the civil rights act of 1964 and forced states to end discrimination against african-americans and women in public accommodations. so if the supreme court overturns the individual mandate, my concern is it could open the door to challenges to that law and to a path that i think is actually much better left in the history books. so back with me, kenji, law

professor at nyu. jalani cobb of rutgers, and peter wright, and now vanessa butler, associate professor of religious studies. is this the civil rights act up for grabs? >> no, i feel glad i can actually reassure you. i bring good tidings. so, you know, the civil rights act of 1964 was enacted in 1961, as that date would suggest. it was challenged and defended under the commerce clause. this occurred in the halcyon period between 1937 and 1 995, where anything commerce did was justifiable under the commerce clause. and then we have the rehnquist revolution, and begins to chip away at congress' power to enact legislation under the commerce clause. another case involving 2000,

called the united states versus morrison, the violence against women act, which is also seen as a key part of the rehnquist revolution. i want to say with all due respect if this was a revolution, it was a pitiful revolution. by the time we get to the medical marijuana case, the court basically back pedals and says fiif it's a federal drug l, you can enact it under the federal commerce clause. i don't think anything in this case will endanger the federal rights act, and what's happening in the affordable care act case is can i be forced to buy something by the federal government. i'm not in the market, but i will be drawn in. if you go back to the civil rights cases, the way they justify the civil rights acts, the barbecue or heart of atlanta hotel are interstate commerce, because they are taking travelers out of state. people are already in the market and they can be regulated. here the basic point that plaintiffs are making somebody

is not in the market yet and the federal government is forcing them to enter. i don't agree with that, but i'm say even if the plaintiffs win, it won't happen with anything with the 1964 case. >> let me back up. mitt romney appeared before a banner that said relative to health care reform, repeal and replace. right? repeal and replace is what mitt romney is saying relative to this health care reform. repeal and replace obama care. the market sounds to me like a good, old fashioned way of engaging a political problem. we have a political problem, let's get the market on it. what am i missing on the politics? why is obama care not exactly what a republican would want to put into place? >> because the government wants running the market. and they want to run the marketplace. the part of the issue is for romney, and i'm thinking about the tea party rally that was yesterday, is they want the markets to run free, and the market can't run free if

government is involved that says you have to buy something. so, in other words, if you get that pushed on you, then that means that our marketplace isn't free. >> but do republicans really want -- think of a different position from libertarian versus republicans. public i had to make different choices. >> anyone in favor of free market health care, it's obvious why they won't support this. it creates insurance exchanges, highly regulated marketplaces and expands medicaid, which is a government-run program. health insurance program for the poor and disabled, it is not a -- a free market health care reform by any stretch of the imagination. what republicans want, i don't know. and i can't tell you. you look at what mitt romney did in massachusetts, basically the

same thing as what president obama has done for the nation. a state version of the federal reform. the administration has said that it served -- it was the model for the federal reform. mitt romney denies this. but if you look at the basic structure, mitt romney expanded medicaid. set up an exchange to corral exinsurers and corral them. it's the same bill. >> david bluff said he is the god father -- mitt romney is the god father of the obama care reform. i was looking to you, because i actually completely get how libertarians would not support this it's harder for me to understand why republicans do not support it. it is the move -- it's actually forcing more commerce into these insurance arena. let's ask about the politics, jelani. the supreme court justices deciding this case, one nominated by george bush, two by -- two by reagan, two by

george h.w. bush and two by president obama and president clinton is this politics or a constitutional question? >> well, one of the things i think that's -- that's wonderful about the supreme court is that they are not necessarily predictable in terms of who nominated them. if you recall when franklin roosevelt, one of the court packing stecheme in 1937, he wanted to add four supreme court justices to the court, specifically because the ones he upholded were not upholding aspects of the new deal. i don't think there is a 1-1 ratio on thousand these things go. to take you a step back and talk about the free market, if indeed mitt romney is god father of the health care plan, he's an absentee father, because he's run so far away from his political project plitt progoney. if we are talking about elect n

electrici electricity. we go thousandrough a full thir the country still in the dark. and a bill has to create in essence a mandate for people to provide electricity to small community. if we fast forward to health care, that's in essence what we're talking about now. >> so we're going to be wrapping this conversation for now, but not anywhere close to wrapping this conversation. so much more to be said about the constitutional questions here, bun undoubt deadly about the politics. glad you brought us to fdr. in part, if this is overturned, the end of the president's legacy, given this was his fundamental piece of legislation, or like fdr, is he able to deal with the court overturning his important legacy? up next, we'll give paul ryan a nerdland nod.

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this isn't just about numbers, not just about math. this is a cause. about reigniting the american idea. it's a cause about looking at the clear future of having a debt crisis that's about to hit us and preventing that from happening. >> that was republican representative paul ryan, chairman of the house budget committee, talking about the budget plan leased this week. he said it right there. budgets aren't just number mumbo-jumbo, they draw political lines in the sand. they are inherently moral documents, saying what those numbers add up to. let's run ryan's numbers. we get budget explained in a lean 99 pages, the path to

prosperity, a blueprint for american renewal. ryan could cut $5 trillion, relative to the president's budget proposal and $3 trillion reduced from the deficit over ten years. all while forking over $554 billion. that is the number of dollars he would allocate to defense spending in 2013, nearly $30 billion more than president obama's budget proposes, and over the next decade, he would spend on defense, $203 billion, more than the pentagon has asked for. ryan would like our country to be a place where 25% would be the corporate tax rate. down from the current 35%. and 2 is the number of tax brackets for all us private citizens, down from the current 6 brashgts. 25 and 10, that's what tax pa r payers would pay in percentages under the new man. where do the savings come from?

in ryan's word, preparing the safety net. 8$810 billion he would convert federal spending to block grant for states. same for food subsidies, which he could cut by $133 billion over ten years. that would mean billions of meals would be missed by struggling families. who doesn't lose out? that brings me to the number $187,000 that is how many dollars representative paul ryan's tax cuts would hand out to every millionaire. patching up the safety net? i guess he meant the golden parashut. coming up, speaking of bean counting, jelly beans are back, right after the break. ♪ we were skipping stones and letting go ♪

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louisiana held their presidential primary last night. rick santorum, winner in mississippi and alabama, finished his gulf state trifecta with a big win. that's ten more delegates for santorum and just five for mitt romney. speaking of delegates, remember when we used jelly beans to talk about romney's magic number of 1,144 delegates. he needs that many to avoid an open or brokered convention. yeah, so what's that? what say brokered convention? that is when the candidates, with the most delegates, but not a majority, isn't nominated in the first convention vote and when they are not nominated in the first convention vote, then all of these jelly beans, the ones we counted out, remember, they are free. the jelly beans, the delegates, become free, which as you can see, can create a bit of chaos. that may have begun as described recently by newt gingrich. far behind in the delegate

count, but looks forward to the possibility of a brokered convention. >> one of two things will happen. either someone will get a long winning streak and governor romney is best positioned by sheer money to do that, but he keeps bouncing into ceilings where people reject him. or we'll have a conversation about who could win and people generally agree, i could debate obama better than anybody else and have a better chance of defeating obama or we'll get to a broker ted the convention and all be in a room. >> that is not a room i want to be in. joining me now again is my guests.

the term is sort of a relic. no matter what happens this year, we won't have a true brokered convention. that say throwback to when delegates were controlled in the democratic party. illinois convention answered to richard daley, the mayor of chicago, and he would broker a deal for his delegation. we don't have leaders like that in the republic you will can party who can control big blocks of delegates. i think what we could have is a contested convention or dead locked convention. there are two distinctions to draw there. deadlocked convention, we get all the way to the convention, have the first ballot and nobody gets 1,144 on the ballot, and then every commitment blows up, and who knows? we've not had a true secretary ballot since 1956. what we have had since then and what's slightly more likely, you get to the end of the primary

process in june, when the last thing happens in utah, nobody has 1,144 then, have you two months of wrangling, romney trying to get the republican equivalent of superdelegates to come out. cut a deal with ron paul, gingrich something, to get him over the top. we've had attempts at mischief. 1976, '80, '84. it never got to a second ballot. it was resolved in the summer and that's still possible too. >> how is that likely to turn out? as a matter of political history, we don't have a powerful broker to come in and kind of get the jelly beans in line, right? we don't have a daley in that sense. but we have had some sort of brokered types of conventions in recent history. how has that turned out for candidates? >> not well. the short answer, it hasn't turned out well. steve is exactly right. once we get to august, we get to convention time, what will generally see is thee ratrics, everything will be worked out

beforehand, we know how it will play out. there are still smoke-filled rooms. they don't take place at the convention. they take place in june, july, beforehand. in 1976, we saw what happened wean reagan and ford and how ford lost subsequently to carter. 1980, the shoe on the other foot. there is the competition between edward kennedy, between ted kennedy and carter and carter loses. more than anything, the republican party doesn't want to go into this convention with the possibility of a brokered convention. they don't want to go to august with a divided convention. >> it feels like some folks in the party want that. newt gingrich still making his case he is the great debater that could beat president obama. >> look, the idea of a brokered convention that hope is the last refuge of an unpopular candidate. this is what ron paul was counting on, what ron paul

supporters counting on. we're not going to end up in a brokered convention. mitt romney, still likely to be the nominee, but what it tells you, is how little the republican party likes mitt romney and shows you how weak a likely nominee he is. he is on track to be perhaps the least popular major party nominee, in recorded history. and so -- >> given that dukakis was a major party nominee and john kerry and that's -- bob dole. pretty low bar. >> right. he's going to be nominated as republican. meaning democrats sure won't like him. republicans aren't big fans. he was never anyone's first choice candidate. right now, what you are seeing in the party, it is sort of settling on this idea, we're all going to end up with at best our second choice. >> isn't this dangerous for the president's re-election? they are sending out supporter e-mails in addition to the ones that say, heck yeah, i like

obama care. they are also sending out ones that don't think of mitt romney as a weak possible contender, this guy just might beat us. >> definitely, and counting on right now, people are saying we don't have to worry about this. mitt romney, nobody likes him. they have to bank on for the democratic side, there will be so much hatred of the current president. everyone will come out anyway. i want to tack on something you said. problem with republican can dates, but people on the outside trying to get in on the convention, like sarah palin. i'm willing to serve. i can do this. so that element is the element -- that fringe jelly bean right there, that red one. >> maybe even a grape. >> out there going, me, me, me, me, me! and hoping somehow she can mess this thing up in tampa at the end of august. >> explain that to us. is sarah palin -- people not currently on the ballot -- this

feels to me like the concern for democracy with a little "d." people who were not vetted by the primaries might actually end up somehow as part of this process? >> right, again, and that's the question -- the question is how far away from 1144 is romney going to be? and most likely i think he'll cross that number during the primary season, but if he's close. 1,120 out of 1,144. it's most likely a repeat with walter monday day dale. when he finished, he was 18 cinderella gates short. he got on the phone, called his buddies, superdelegates, got the commits, he went downstairs, said i got my numbers. that shut down the process. most likely to happen with romney if he's short. the republican superdelegates, republican national committee members and gets a dozen two dozen commitments and wins it right there. if romney is 100 delegates short of 1,144. then you start talking about

sarah palin and people who have some sway with the grassroots of the party and how they play this, and then you get into the scenario where you talk about, this is a real deadlock, can somebody else emerge. haven't seen that in a half century. >> up next, how this crop of gop candidates will do anything to survive in this race. this one's for all us lawn smiths. grass gurus. doers. here's to more saturdays in the sun. and budgets better spent. here's to turning rookies into experts, and shoppers into savers. here's to picking up. trading up. mixing it up. to well-earned muddy boots and a lot more spring per dollar. more saving. more doing. that the power of the home depot. break out the gardening gloves. miracle-gro garden soil is now 3 bags for 10 bucks. a living, breathing intelligence teaching data how to do more for business.

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was in front of a jarring lime green video screen, thanks to the folks putting up the wrong photo behind him. even with a pregnant teen and a green screen and a hurricane, that could be down right order until what we could see this year in the possibly brokered convention. joining me now are jelani, athena, peter, and part of what was going on is choosing between two candidates they liked a lot. and debates were who do we like more, who would be better? it got ugly at points and there was summertime anxiety about what would hillary supporters do come convention time? but this gop, as you point out, feels really different. it's not about who -- we can't decide because we love these candidates so much, but, rather, because they seem so

distasteful. so does that change what kind of a contested convention that this is likely to be? >> i think so. i think so. if you have candidates that nobody really likes and gels around, then that gives them the opportunity to try and figure out who do they have to please? and so i think for mitt romney, he goes into the convention with the sense that he has to get people on his side, even if he has 1,144, he has to bring people to his side. get people to like him. this is like a bad dodge ball game. romney is like the last to get picked, but he'll end up running the game. that's the kid you don't want to run the game. he has to do people to make people like him at convention. >> thank goodness, utah is the last kid that gets to pick. >> yeah, his kids. his kids. >> let me ask this question. is this really just about media wanting it to be brokered convention because it would be more interesting?

we got a great gift in media in sarah palin, despite gustav and the green screen, it became a fascinating convention because of sarah palin and the palin family. in this case, are we hoping for jelly beans all over the ground, even though it's unlikely. >> chaos makes a great story, fun to cover. but what it's really about is the confusion of the republican party. the republican party's identity crisis them are trying to figure out who they are post george bush, and what they stand for. i mean, this is -- look at what mitt romney is running on. i believe in america? that's not a platform. everybody believes in america. it exists. there is no such -- and so -- >> it's a real country. >> republican party trying to figure out who it is, what it stands for and going really? the person who best represents success mi

us is mitt romney, who stands for nothing. >> i took my daughter who is ten to see mary poppins last night, and we're watching the part with the evil banker guy and she goes, oh, it's mitt romney. the sense that he's the villain in mary poppins, for my 10-year-old who probably is over identified with the democratic party. >> we need to be mindful of the irrational content on the right. no matter how distasteful mitt romney may be, if we think back to what we saw during the health care debates, the muslim social communist kenyan, insert the conspiracy theory of your chis here kinds of ideas that people had about president obama, i'm not entirely certain that the biggest issue is romney's popularity or lack thereof, so much as the desire to have a new

occupant of the white house. >> the implicit suggestion that obama doesn't believe in america. it almost doesn't matter who the representative is. the one thing republican party is united in agreeing on is opposition to president obama and so they don't know what they stand for, but they are pretty sure what they stand against. >> they are sure about it. the thing is, they have to have somebody who can attack. this is the problem, that all of the attacks that have happened from each one of these candidates have been mixed. either been sort of racialized attacks or otherwise. i think what's missing from -- what we had in 2008, sarah palin knew how to get in and stick the shiv in. part what republicans have to do is get a stronger message if we dislike president obama, how are we going to put that dislike out there? that's what is missing right now. we have mixed messages, romney says i believe in america and rick santorum says i want to go back to 16th century, before

america happened, back in rome. you have to figure out what you want and the messages are all mixed up. that's part of the problem for republicans. you can't just go on we hate this guy. you have to have a cohive message. and right now they don't have it. >> steve, going back, would a defeat on health care give them that cohesive message. this guy had no major legislative action that was constitutional? would that he about the message? >> the crisis within the republican party, what do we define conservatism as in the obama era? it's helped romney in a way. there is the retroactive accountability, and the definition changed because of what obama did. obama had applied core republican principles. the market friendly approach, that became in 2009 when obama embraced it. romney, the conservative

candidate, nobody really talking about it, suddenly on the wrong side of that, and what's happened, every romney alternative who emerged faced the same problem. haunted by the ghosts of preobama conservatism. all sorts of crimes against current obama era conservatism. romney haunted by that and hurt him in this process, it's also shieldly him from having anybody rise up. >> thank you, steven. i started the broker convention conversation, i knew you would be excited. thank you for joining us. coming up, pleas, voices, and tears of the week that was. what a call to action looks like, that up next. or... we make it pink ! with these 4g lte tablets, you can do business at lightning-fast speeds. we'll take all the strawberries, dave. you got it, kid. we have a winner. we're definitely gonna need another one.

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i am trayvon martin. it's the cry heard around the country. trayvon was shot and killed on february 26th. and in the past week, this

17-year-old boy's wrongful death sparked outrage in community across the nation. take a listen. >> i want justice! >> i want justice! >> trayvon martin! >> trayvon, trayvon, tray-von! >> we can't get justice for a young black boy, that ain't right! >> trayvon martin. >> i am keenly aware of the emotions associated with the tragic death of a child. >> we will not allow trayvon to be undervalued. >> i have come to the decision that i must temporarily remove myself from the position as police chief for the city of sanford. >> since the chief has stepped down, it's a temporary relief, but we need a permanent relief. >> yeah. >> i still say we need an arrest. >> trayvon could have been any one of our sons. trayvon could have been any one

of us. trayvon represents a reckless disregard for our lives that we've seen too long. >> i'm not mistaken, he died in this area right over here. heard the cries for help. all i know is my kid is dead, he's not coming back. >> this is not about a black and white thing. this is about a right and wrong thing. >> yeah, yes, yes. >> i cry every day. there is a hole in my heart, because that was my baby. >> i will not stop fighting for justice for trayvon, until i die. >> my main message is to the parents of trayvon martin. you know, if i had a son, he would look like trayvon. >> if i had a son, he would look like trayvon. same is true for me. coming up, the road to justice

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to me, that's the membership effect. there is still much we don't know about the fateful evening that trayvon martin was killed. but we can look at the law and the culture that led to his death. stan your ground. florida was the first state to pass the stand your ground act, backed by the nra. one stand your ground passed, it was endorsed and promoted nationally by the american legislative exchange council, alec it is founded by big corporations and groups, including the nfrp nra and coke family foundations. then there is sanford, florida.

a history of racial tensions. 16-year-old travares mchill was killed by two security guards and in 2011, prees chief brian tooly resigned after itas charged with dragging its feet after a police officer's son was not arrested. billy lee temporarily steps down. speaks volumes of the track record of this particular police department. and it makes it more understandable why there is so much outrage and a call for action to trayvon. here to discuss the law, the connection, and the possibilities for justice for trayvon are the reverend al sharpton, president of the national action network and host of politics nation, and kenji yoshino, timwi weiss, and president of the southern poverty law center.

we tried to talk a lot about the culture and stereotypes. i want to talk about the culture and politics here. reverend sharpton, you have spent the most time with trayvon's parents. have you been at the forefront of this for our network and i think nationally. can you tell us whether or not they feel like we are beginning make progress toward justice? >> i think the feelings i've got from the parents and able attorney ben crump, they think it's a step in the right direction that the justice department has come in and there is a special prosecutor, the governor came down and met thursday before the big rally that we had. but that until zimmerman is arrested, they really don't see this moving in a firm way. there clearly was probable cause to arrest him. there is clearly some forces in the sanford police department that seems to be not abiding by

what is lawful, and there is conflicting reports, even in the police reports. you have the officer at the scene saying i never talked to zimmerman. the police chief saying zimmerman said this. all kinds of discrepancies, so when we met with the justice department and the u.s. attorney, we not only raised the question of a hate crime for zimmerman, but we also said there must be an investigation of how the police handled this case. >> some reviewers say why doesn't the justice department go and arrest zimmerman. the federal government can't just go in under all circumstances, right? i want to play a bit of audio here. because this audio may, in fact, be part of what determines whether or not the justice department can say that there is a potential hate crime here and therefore, have jurisdiction over this. there is a curse word in this that we have bleeped out. and there is also a part where we raise the audio because it was whispered. i have listened to it several

times. it sounds to me as though zimmerman is saying a word that rhymes with goons, but i can't swear to it, and it has not been confirmed by nbc news, and certainly only zimmerman knows and he's not a man in police custody. but i want to take a listen to this audio, which may be such a key. >> okay which entrance is that that he's heading wards. >> the back entrance. [ bleep ]. >> are you following him? >> yes. >> we don't need you to do that. >> all right. so am i right that if there is a racial slur there, then that racial slur become as a basis on which the justice department has jurisdiction over this act? >> right. so under the hate crimes statute, there has to be racial intent behind the action. so recording that you just played would be evidence for that discriminatory intent.

that would actually be the jurisdictional hook on which there would be the federal prosecution. i want to emphasize as important as it is that the doj is coming in investigating this, that is not the only recourse, and the state can engage in its own prosecution and make its own arrest. that's where the stand your ground law really comes into play, which is that it's being used as an affirmative defense. you said there was a lot of confusion around here. i want to agree with that. i want to add one dimension to the confusion. thinking of what i could add to this debate, given that you and others have covered it so ably. what i might be able to add, that the individuals who wrote that legislation, the stand your ground legislation in florida are insisting that the legislation was not intended to cover trayvon, and i just think that's slightly misleading, because it's not within their control once they enact it. >> once you enact the law, you sort of set it loose into the world. >> it seems initially like a

very benign thing. we want justice for trayvon, so we'll stand up for others who want it. but i think it's a more self-serving, calculated way of preserving the stand your ground law from being tainted by trayvon. we need to keep our eye on the ball and say it's not within your purview as a legislator to control what your legislation states and how it's going to be interpreted by others, so the police clearly interpreted that last piece of legislation to preclude actually arresting zimmerman. so it's very important that we not get too side tracked by the federal issues here and make sure that we get justice, not only for trayvon, but future people under the stand your ground law, to close it out, previously, the common law says a man's home is his castle this say castle doctrine. somebody comes after me in my house, and i'm under threat, i can shoot them. what the stand grower ground law does it create a bubble around

me. as long as i'm somewhere where i'm legally entitled to be, a very broad area, i can't break into someone else's home, but as long as i'm in a public place, and i perceive myself to be under threat, i can use deadly force. >> using that interpretation, the only one that could have even used that would have been trayvon. trayvon was at his father's girlfriend's house. zimmerman does not live there. and he's not a registered watchman there. so he had no castle. even extended castle. trayvon did. but i agree with him. i think that a lot of people are being self-serving that wants to protect the law and all of a sudden want to support the family and trayvon. and let me say this about the situation. if there is a pattern of racism on zimmerman, because if you

review all of his old 911 calls, they all refer to race. if it can be established that he had a certain profile in his mind that blacks were suspicious which is why i have said i love the drama and the innovation of the hoodie protest, but as a student of his, we cannot have a hoodie crime. it's a hate crime and he cannot be saying it could have been a white guy in a hoodie, i would have felt the same way. the pattern is racial, not hoodie. and that's where the feds have to go. but the collateral benefit of the federal government goes with what he said also. their presence makes the special state prosecutor have to take them more seriously. because, if, in fact, the federal government uncovers some things it puts tremendous pressure on the state prosecutor not to move forward, because they know as in the civil rights day, the feds know what they

know and they will not move forward. >> richard, no one knows this sort of relationship between the federal government and local southern governments than you. can you speak on this? >> the federal government clearly has jurisdiction here. they clearly have the right to go in there. because there is bodily injury, there was use of a firearm, and there is a predicate for the race. the race issue. but it's not so clear that they will be able to successfully prosecute this case. no question that race played a part in zimmerman's belief that trayvon was suspicious. but he didn't attack trayvon in the way that the bird killing went down or the shepherd killing went down, because of his race or sexual orientation. it was more complicated than that. it could pose a problem -- if we bring the case to trial. i agree with you, reverend sharpton. they can absolutely prosecute the case or investigate the case. one thing i would add. and it's important to add.

this law is not simply an affirmative defense. that's -- and i know you didn't mean it quite that way. it creates an immunitimmunity. an immunity that follows you at every stage of the prosecution, with the police, with the prosecutor, with the judge, pretrial, with the jury, it's really quite an ordinary thing and so i think you're right, the people who wrote the law, they are letting themselves off too easy, oh, my heavens, i didn't expect this to happen. they are reaping what they s sowed, and their effort to wash their hands of it is too convenient. >> tim, your writings around -- the way you talk about it the immunity that follows you, much around racial privilege, at points legally determined in this way, but the part of sociocultural mix. i keep asking myself, how do police officers arch on a scene and see an armed man and see a

dead, unarmed man and make no arrest? this does not happen in the world. >> they don't if the armed man is black and the dead man is white. that's the reality and putting aside the legal. very fascinating legal conversation. to me, as an antiracist educa educator, writer and activist. we don't get too caught up on the legalityity is there a slur on the tape or not? white folks sometimes looking for the slur, and if they don't hear it, they say, see, no harm, no foul. i want to us remember this is a pattern of institutional neglect on the part of a police department. not just there, all around the country this is not news of folks to color this is what happens and has happened for years. let's remember it's institutional and remember all of the research for the last 15 years, many of us harbor the same stereo typical prejudices that apparently animated george zimmerman. i don't want to separate us to

good people and bad people. the research has said not only white folks, lots of folks color, latino folks and glad folks have internalized biases against their own group. white folks can say i am trayvon martin. the reality is, for a lot of us, we're a lot more like george zimmerman and we have to be hon fest we're going to moe forward. >> the most important thing i heard this week, a lot of people trying to get in the weeds and not deal with the real problem. one, clearly the federal government has to get in the weeds if they are going to prosecute. but they clearly have a pattern here, and as he said, let's not let the police off the hook. i agree we can't let the legislators off the hook. the police would not have tried this in the station house, oh, this legislation gives zimmerman an out if he had been black. they would arrested him and said tell it to the judge. you fight the legislation in the courtroom. the only reason i believe

zimmerman was given this, oh, well, maybe it followed the law is because of who zimmerman was. they don't try other case as cording to legislation. the police see probable cause, you go to jail. you tell the judge and the jury your story. if the law covers you, fine. you do that in court. why didn't they do that here? and i think that is the reason the police department has a real problem here when you look at their actions. >> absolutely. thank you, reverend sharpton for taking time and covering thing. >> i'm on my way back to florida. >> i know you are. thank you, and i appreciate you coming forward. the rest of my panel is staying with me we have more to say about trayvon martin, we'll bring in some new voices. we'll be right back. [ male announcer ] for making cupcakes and deposits at the same time. for paying your friend back for lunch from your tablet. for 26 paydays triggered with a single tap.

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we're back and talking about the trayvon martin case. joining me are athena butler, jelani cobb, and back with us anti racist author, tim wise and richard cohen, president of southern poverty law center. i want to get into this so much to say relative to this case, and, tim, just before the break, you were making the point that there is -- the notion of anti black animus, or the sort of racialized feelings, they don't have to be associated with a decollartive statement, i don't like whatever. but a lot of times it's impli t implicit. over and over again on twitter, more than anything other place. it can't be racially motivated. zimmerman is self-identified as

latino. break that down. >> first of all, the evidence on research of implicit bias says anti black prejudice is widespread among white folks, latino folks, asian folks and a thirty black folks themselves. the defense that somehow a person of color can't be manifesting racism against another person of color if that's true, we would have to say the system of enslavement in this country wasn't really totally racist. there were some black slave owners. pratt operating on the same basis of white supremacy. i want us to understand that this isn't george zimmerman alone. research a few years back which shows when you hook white folks up to brain scan imagery and you flash an image of a black man, 85%, 90% has that part of the brain respond to fear and anxiety light up like a christmas tree. that's what we have to talk

about. >> things that light up like fear, a lot of discussions on the idea of self-defense and zimmerman is protecting himself. a self-defense discourse. whose self-defense should we be thinking about here? >> the unfortunately thing here is when it comes to black people, self-defense is a contradiction in terms. and it comes to white people, self-defense is a sacrament. any reasonable person saw someone following them down a street in a car and gets out of the car and pursues them, they would be in a defensive posture. somehow or another in this kind of weird unforce that we're in, we think of the person who is armed, the person who weighs 100 pounds more and the person 11 years older is the person who should be in fear, defending their life. i want to talk about this historically for a minute. we talk about this as if we're shocked, but we should be looking at this as part of a long continuum. in 1925, an african-american

fi physician by the name of ossian suite purcha sweet was attacked by a white mob. people came, attempted to burn the house down. he came to the door and fired out into the mob, striking and killing one person. dr. sweet was arrested and charged with murder. in 2006, a man by the name of john white in long island, surrounded by five hostile white teens who had said they were coming to attack his teenage son, and he fired, whether accidentally or not. he said it was accidentally. cunni one young man killed, and he was arrested, charged and convicted of manslaughter and went to jail for this. the idea that an african-american person has the right to defend -- >> their life, property. >> their life, family, property, and son, something still seen as a contradiction in terms. still 1857, that a black person has no whites and a white person

bound to respect. >> the idea of stopping and frisking. in new york, we had the stop and frisk law, held as constitutional. and nine out of ten people who have been stopped and frisked just happen to be people of color -- i'm sorry. nine out of ten of them have to be innocent. and the preponderance of those folks assume to be of color. being in a black body presumes you to be a criminal. >> zimmerman goes another step and says they always get away. so the suspicion turns from maybe he's up to no good, to he's done something wrong. really an incredible thing. i have sons, twin sons, alex and sam who are 22 years old. i worry about them every day. every day, especially when they are on a long road trip. one thing i don't worry about is

whether they are going to be shot by the police. and i cannot imagine the anxiety that parents of color must feel when their kids are just walking about. it's got to be a crushing burden. >> that is part of the conversation here. our sense that our kids aren't even safe in public space. >> i don't think we understand the mental cause it takes to be a young african-american man or young african-american woman. you have to constantly watch, do i have my i.d., do i look a certain way, how die hold myself? this is an immense amount of stress. when i was teaching intro to african-americ african-americana. they didn't understand at the beginning. this is just one proponent. >> the shock and awe lectures. >> exactly. but the shock is you have to in 2012 continue to walk a certain way and to make sure -- and i don't think that there is

anything that trayvon would have done. you come back with your skittles in your hand and a guy jumps out at you. >> and if you run, you're guilty, right? >> that's it. and that's the thing that hangs over all of us. i, as an african-american woman, if i see the cops, i tense up, because i know what happens if you do the wrong thing. you put your hands on the steering wheel. you make sure you don't make a sudden move, and i'm a professor at an ivy league school, and i know the rules. >> we'll be back how it feels like paper plead for a long time for of folks. [ male announcer ] this one goes out to all the allergy muddlers.

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it's lowest price ever. in here, the landscaping business grows with snow. to keep big winter jobs on track, at&t provided a mobile solution that lets everyone from field workers to accounting, initiate, bill, and track work in real time. you can't live under a dome in minnesota, that's why there's guys like me. [ male announcer ] it's a network of possibilities -- helping you do what you do... even better. ♪ >>. >> we are back talking about the trayvon martin case with athena, jelani, tim, and robert. i thought what you said before the break was very provocative. the idea we ought not be surprised, we ought to see this

as part of a longer -- and a much older and, yes very contemporary set of moments. you were involved with the jenna six. is there a reason for us to connect and think about this case in relationship to that one? >> a few. the country was outraged by the overzealous prosecutor in the jenna six case. 20,000 people came to jenna and marched in the name of justice. one of the questions we have to ask ourselves is how much better off we are today than we were five years ago when jenna six came about? the outrage over trayvon martin, translated into some kind of long-term change. in the jenna six case, there were ways to challenge the discretion of the prosecutor. he said with a stroke of my pen, i can make you disappear. and we helped organize the defense and told him he was wrong. george zimmerman had discretion that night in sanford, florida, and he made trayvon martin's life disappear with the pull of the trigger, and there was no

one there to help trayvon that night. >> which brings us to gun culture. i'm reading "dear white america," letter to the new minority. and it feels like addressing implicit racial bias, understanding racial privilege. the other piece that keeps feeling like addressing the gun culture. >> and what i talk about in the book, white america is, and has been for a long time. intensified for a long time. in a place of incredible anxiety and absurd in so many ways. the surveys, regardless of demographic shift, white folks think i won't be the norm anymore. in certain community, white folks are not the norm. they are saying things are changing. not real comfortable with how they are changing. the economy for the first time in three generations. white folks of double dij git inflation. it allows people who are already

engaged in the level of implicit bias to ramp up in a way that can turn deadly. is still problematic for political culture. i hear that, yes, it seems just right and just the thing that will get me on conservative websites later. they don't think it's the one individual madman, that they think this is about a broad call toure. we have historical reasons to think, it's happening in florida. states with political anxieties and as soon as you are saying that, i'm thinking yes, yes, yes, and the counter argument is no, no, no. it has to be george zimmerman individual behaviors here. >> there was a case in the 1940s, groveland, florida, which involved an african-american man who was accused -- falsely accused of attacking and killing a white woman, with no evidence. there was the 1950 death of harriet and harry t. and harriet

moore who naacp activists. there is a long history of injustice and long history of african-americans dying injustly and we can't look at this as simply something that happened outside of context. >> exactly. and i think that it brings back the issue of states rights and how they have constructed this law in such a way, you don't have to ask a question. if you feel it, it's okay to shoot someone. >> shoot first and ask later. >> shoot first and ask later and this goes to a collective culture of fear amongst white people. we have to protect ourselves. how do we do this? in the week after president obama was elected. gun sales went up 70%, some enormous number. the whole thing that carrying a gun will protect me from these evil brown and black people coming next to me, that has to stop. what makes me upset, it's always on the side of the people of color to fix something. and this is why i'm happy to see

you here today, tim. white people have to fix this. you can't go on in this psychosis every time you see a person of color. >> thank you, all, for joining me. i wanted to take back some words. i've been saying that i -- i was critical of those of us focused on the notions of racial anxiety primarily being about the mean things we say about president obama. and we have to focus on structure. but the trayvon martin feels like the notion that president was african-american that had to show his birth certificate and this young man, in supposedly being a? a place that's not allowed. it's complicated, and i appreciate you to talk to me about it. we'll have a three-martin elunch, lighten up a little bit on the other side of the break. [ leanne ] appliance park has been here since the early 50s.

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tonight, after a 17-month hiatus, amc's mad men returns for a fifty season. the influential '60s era drama has inspired a passionate and devoted following since its premiere in 2007. fans can finally get back to in dulging in a glossier simpler time when a daily three-martini lunch meant you were a prouer broker and not an alcoholic and a pack a day habit had no consequences for your lungs. you didn't have to be oppressed by the tyranny of a low-carb diet. and men were men and women knew their place. all in all, a dploruo uogloriou alive. that is only if you are white, hete

heterosexu heterosexual, and a male. no sta nostalgia has a tendency to color everyone the same. that's the same about mad men. not everything quite as it seems. whiteness suddenly looks a lot more colorful. no with me, anthea butler, susan douglas, chair of the department of communications studies at the university of michigan and back with us is author and anti racist activist tim wise. hi, everybody. >> hi. >> we had a pretty tough morning. we wanted to talk about this cultural phenomenon, this moment of mad men. are you watchers, do love it? why? >> i love it, and i've been watching it since the premiere. and i think what matt weinart has been so depth ft at, walkin

this line between the nostalgia, the clothes, cars, and an incredible relief that thank god we're not back there anymore and particularly a nostalgia for the privilege of white men and a disgust with those privileges. >> i love the way that white science managed. tim, this is why i wanted you at the table. in addition to encouraging you to be part of the three-martini lunch. the lead character is not quite what he seems. he appears to be sort of the very imposedment menmen menmem white male privilege. but it seems if he's donning that. and that makes it far more complicated and interesting. >> that may be true. i'm not a watcher of the show, but the thing about whiteness with regard to the show that i hear and this is the criticism i know is out there, and there is validity to it, it's not realistic because race was such obviously the background noise

of everything that happens in the '60s, to gloss over that or play it subtly is dishonest. and i would say the reality -- and i don't think we know this, we have this no stall gik view, the vast majority of americans were just as oblivious. in 1963, white folksly to gallup that black folks had just as much of a chance to get a job or house. and black children had an equal chance to get an education. >> there are laws on the books. >> height of the civil rights movement and most white folks were oblivious, the fact that these characters are is incredibly historically accurate. >> what do you think of the portrayals of blackness in the show? it has -- part of what the show is deeply disturbing and so enjoyable, right? how have you thought of that?

>> i remember the show that really set me off was the one where they go to kentucky and have the mammy singing and all this other stuff and i was stuck. i teach this all the time. why is this giving me such a visceral reaction? i and i think it was because it was set in this place with all of the whiteness around it and the privilege around it, and i think that it really does show this sense, there are little insertions of black people, but at the same time, what's happening is that you feel so just retched, because you know there has to be something else going on. people having to serve in this position, and they could get a check every day. and i feel -- it's made me feel uncomfortable when i watch it, but i watch it in the hope that i know something else is coming. i know the change is going to come. and -- >> i know what happens in 1965. >> susan, part of why i wanted you to be part of this panel, i teach one of your books on women and media and politics.

and the 195 0z, television shows, actually on air in the '50s and early '60s gave birth to the section wave feminist movies. how do young women growing up watching this turn to that? can we see the nacent feminist movement on mad men? >> absolutely. i think one of the reason he is focused so much on gender and sexism and this is a force that these women confront every day. the misogyny, harassment, dismissal, con desession, and what has done so well, while all the men do say sexist things, he shows how that is enacted and it's unspoken. hard to name. to pick a few appalling examples, betty starts to go see a shrink, and don calls the

shrink after the sessions utterly violating doctor/patient privilege and the shrink tells him everything betty said. >> basically at that moment, the husband and wife are one body. he owns, including her privacy, relative to her position. >> exactly. exactly. you know, peggy struggles to be one of the guys at work. she's constantly excluded from all of the after work stuff. where a lot of business takes place. so weinart very good at showing these often unspoken practices against which these women had to rail and could barely name what they were. >> absolutely. when we come back, we'll keep our rose colored cla eed glasse continue talking more about "mad men." to ca x. go ahead and take a sip, and then let me know what the baby thinks of it. four million drivers switched to this car insurance last year.

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important idea in advertising, is new. it creates an itch. you simply put your product in there, calamine lotion. he also talked having a deeper bond with the product. nostalgia. it's delicate. but potent. >> that, of course, was don draper, talking about nostalgia. self-reflective. we're indulging in anticipating tonight's premiere of amc's "mad men," a show wrapped in nostalgia. susan douglas, and author tim wise. i have on the table, the "newsweek," march 21st and april newsweek who has mad men on the cover. history, yes. i love history, we do a lot of

history on nerd land, but nostalgia makes me so nervous. >> that's the worst thing about it. it's not really a knock on the show. it's a knock on our larger culture. we have a lot of folks dpriped about nostalgia. saying they want their country back. we know what that means. we have mike huckabee saying that the comment, he doesn't understand america the way we do. he says while the president was living in indonesia, we were going to boy scout and rotary club meeting. who is we? not folks on the south side of chicago. that's a very specific thing. and so the problem isn't the show, my question, i'm just curious is why are people drawn to these kinds of things in the first places. >> why the pleasure of that moment? >> i think it's because you can mi misbehave. you can drink as much as you

want to, have sex without impunity, smoke. there aren you can do the things you want to do without having to be politically correct. this moment in "madmen" men rule the world, women have to be subservient and women are somewhere on the scale to what men do. >> the consequences of men who behave without restriction, was horrifying. >> absolutely. >> thus the rape, the moment where, in fact, we realize -- we see how much this struggle is not acute friendly, oh, girls know their place. >> to pick up what you were saying, knowledge is a burden, right. and people want to escape back to a time when the knowledge is that we have now, we don't -- you know, we can escape from, that smoking will kill you, that promise promi promisecuity leads to stds.

people want to crawl under that quilt for an hour. >> it's not like there is ever a moment when women don't thank, people of color don't know that. part of what i find fascinating, the show only has 3 million viewers or something, not a huge amount. but it has an outside impact. i was able to go pick this up dress, right? at willow, the boutique by my house. because there is this way it's having a broader cultural manifestation, and people of color are engaging it, despite there is no moment when we don't know those things. >> women, i think the show has a particular address for women, and it's double edged. women look at the show and they are like thank god it's not like that anymore. thank god you don't have these narrow choices of being a housewife like betty, being joan who has to use her sexuality to get ahead or peggy, boxed into the corner. thank god sexual harassment is now illegal. and yet -- >> but is it really --

>> that's my point. >> transvaginal ultrasound -- >> that's the flipside problem with the show. you can look at it and think that women have come much farther than they, in fact, have, and it can lead to a kind of complacency around feminist politics. it's a very double-edged sword. >> that's fascinating. it doesn't look like that anymore, so we forget what's happening in this moment can have equal oppression. >> i think that's true. i think my students in my class, teaching women and relinlon and they don't understand that things are getting worse for them right now, and just sort of remind them, they love it when i show old videos from the '60s and '70s to tie in on the "madmen" thing, but at the same time they think they have come really far. i don't have to be a feminist. i'm kind of post feminist. and the reality is you are the same place where these women in the '60s were, and you will have

to fight everything. >> everything is post feminist until you can't get the birth control thing anymore. we'll wrap this very my hopes a fears for our children. but first, it's time for a preview of weekends with alex wit. >> a couple of big developments, everyone, in the trayvon martin case to tell you about. one is whether florida officials know where george zimmerman is. we'll get some interesting thoughts from philadelphia's mayor michael nutter on that incident. and president obama in south korea. and one white house adviser hits mitt romney where it hurts. could this be a preview of the general election campaign? tim tebow on broadway, what did the new new york jets quarterback do on his first day at practice and we'll get a preview of tonight's "mad men" to preview what you're doing today. coming up, sometimes we want

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if i had a son, he would look like trayvon. with these words this week, president obama drew all of us into a circle of empathy with the parents of trayvon martin. he asked us to see trayvon as our own son. now, we spent this weekend talking about young people and talking to them. the affordable health care act and congressional budgeting which we discussed today will have disproportionate impact on the most vulnerable americans -- children and we are still a country at war. wars that shape the lives of millions of the world's children. so for my footnote i will leave you with the words of children's defense fund fonder, marion wright edelman who donned a hood in solidarity with trayvon martin. we pray for children who sneak

possible sickles before supper. who reace holes in math workbooks and who can never find their shoes. we pray for those who fare at faefrs from behind barbed wire. who are born in places we wouldn't be caught dead. we pray for children who bring us sticky kisses and fistfulls of dandy lions. we pray for those who watch their parents, watch them die. who can't find any bread to steal. who don't have any rooms to clean up, who is pictures aren't on anybody's dresser. who is monsters are real. we pray for children who grow tantrums in the grocery store and picket their food, who shove dirty clothes under the bed and never rinse out the tub. who don't like to be kissed in front of the carpool. who is tears we sometimes laugh at and who is smiles can make us cry. we pray for those whose

nightmares come in the daytime. who will eat anything. who have never seen a dentist, who aren't spoiled by anybody, who go to bed hungry and cry themselves to sleep. we pray for children who want to be carried and fos those who must. or for those we never give up on or for those who don't get a second chance, for those, we smother and for those who will grab the hand of anybody kind enough to offer it, we pray for those children. you can read edelman's entire prayer for children on our blog, mhpshow.com. and that's our show for today, thank you to tim wise and thea butler and susan douglas for sticking around and thanks to you at home for watching. i'll see you next saturday at 10:00 a.m. eastern. coming up, "weekends with alex whitt. .

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