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tv   The Last Word  MSNBC  March 1, 2013 7:00pm-8:00pm PST

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country. i mean, how do you go about regulating the gun if everybody can make one themselves at home alone, one that can shoot a thousand rounds. there is no serial number on that receiver, and obviously, nobody bought it or sold it. it is homemade, how is law enforcement in this country going to grapple with homemade high-powered weapons. what will they do when they print the 3-d fully automatic machine gun? the government agency that will have to deal with the challenges of this new technology when it happens is the atf. last month when president obama unveiled his proposed gun reforms at the white house, one thing he asked congress to do was confirm the nominee to run atf, a man named todd jones who has been acting as deputy director of the atf for five years. president obama asked congress to stop hindering law enforcement, and he called congress out for allowing anybody to be confirmed as
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director of the atf for six years now. this week we got news that even that part of what president obama confirmed on guns, even just asking the director of the law enforcement agency that is concerned with federal gun laws, yeah, republicans in congress may just oppose that too. they don't want anybody running that after six years. republicans increasingly make the case that we should not have any knew gun laws, even after sandy hook because we do not need new gun laws, what we need is better enforcement of the laws we have. we don't do a good job of enforcing for gun laws we have. they have made that case over and over again, they made it again at the public hearings. at the same time the continued unwillingness to confirm anybody to run the agency that is enforcing the gun laws we have.
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they have been stopping anyone from running the agency since 2006, they still think that is the right thing to do for the count country. maybe watching this 3-d image of it spewing out some 600 rounds, that does it for us. now it is time for "the last word," have a great weekend. tonight is not a normal night. tonight is the night that washington truly and finally failed. that we did not manage to avert the crisis at the last minute. tonight is the night when we saw that washington is genuinely broken. and tonight is the night we'll tell you how to fix it. >> sequester day is here. >> every indication is it is too late. >> too late for a fix. >> republicans say we're not going to agree to any new taxes. >> we cannot do any revenue. that is a choice they're making. >> this discussion about revenue is over. >> we've gone through this before. >> this discussion about revenue
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is over. our stand on the debt limit is clear, there can be no tax hikes, tax hikes destroy jobs. >> how did the grand bargain fail? >> i wasn't going to be for higher taxes. >> if this super committee recommends increasing revenues. >> we don't need higher taxes. >> can you support that? >> that would be a stretch. >> it is another washington failure. >> raising tax rates would hurt the economy. >> we have you gone through this before. >> this discussion about revenue is over. >> no revenues, no revenues, no revenues. >> our position is very clear, we have outlined it. >> no taxes coming out of the house. >> why are we here? >> the republicans refuse to compromise. >> politically they can't make a deal that includes some tax increases and keep their jobs. >> i was not going to be for higher taxes. >> another washington failure.
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>> there can be no tax hikes. >> raising tax rates will hurt the economy. >> so why are we here? >> the republicans refuse to compromise. >> i say we suspend monkey above the floor of congress. they do not reach a budget deal, the rope is cut and it is meal time in the monkey house. >> you could call that the monkey quester. you may have heard the urban legend speaking of animals. if you put a frog in the pan of hot water and turn up the heat, it will not jump out, but just get used to it heat. that is not true, of course. frogs have evolved for millions of years to not die in the water. if you have try to boil it, it will try to jump to safety and save itself. that is true for frogs. what it is not clear it is for,
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is the american political system. we have stopped knowing how to jump out of the boiling water. the sequester begins tonight. but i don't want the talk to you about the spending cuts or the way they're made. we get so obsessed with the individual manufacturing crises that we lose sight of the whole issue. we have done it five times in three years. we have created crises that don't need to exist, because the republicans want to use them as leverage, as a hostage, to get policies they couldn't get in any other way. but this is different, in every one of the last four ones, we didn't shut the government down or breach the debt ceiling in august 2011. or go over the fiscal cliff in january of 2012. and we delayed the debt ceiling fight that we're supposed to be having right about now. but today, this sequester, this really bad thing that all sides agree is a really bad thing is happening. even though all sides agree it shouldn't happen.
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and president obama and speaker boehner publicly say they don't want it to happen. this is the first time we actually let one of these happen. what is stopping the sequester from being stopped? there is one thing, one single policy decision that lies at the heart of the washington crises. it is the same thing that made the super committee fail and the grand bargain fail and that led to this debacle that led to this sequester. it is the republicans' insistence, combined with the utter refusal to make it part of a deal. it is true, house republicans did declare to let them raise the taxes by 6 billion, grover norquist agreed to score that one as a tax cut. before that happened, they rejected that one as a debt reduction. in the last four years we cut about 1.4 trillion in spending and raised about 50 billion in taxes.
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taxes have been about a quarter of our total debt reduction. but this is no more. the tax debate is completely over. they prefer the sequester to replacement that includes even a dollar, even a hint, a shadow of revenue. in 2011, when the sequester was created there were two ideas for keeping it from happening. one, the super committee, which could maybe come to a deficit deal before this sequester hit. the other idea, and this was the big one, was the election would decide the tax issue. the american people would decide the tax issue. here is eric cantor, speaking about the failed grand bargain, which would have finished all of this in 2011 with a deal that had both taxes and spending cuts in a recent interview. >> the reason why we said no, in that meeting don't do this deal, because what that deal was, was basically going along with the sense that you had to increase taxes. you had to give on the question of you know, middle class tax
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cuts prior to the election. and you knew that they had said they were not given on health care. so that is why we said no. i mean, let's just get what we can now. abide by our commitment of a dollar for dollar. and you know, we'll have it out as the president said on these two issues in the election. >> so it passed on the bargain, president obama signed a debt ceiling bill that gave us a super committee which failed because the republicans wouldn't move very far on tax revenue. and that failure led to the sequester, the sequester that was not scheduled to take effect until after the election. and by design, the election in which the tax question would be decided. here is john boehner on taxes the day after president obama won that election. >> and for the purposes of forging a bipartisan agreement that begins to solve the problem, we're willing to accept new revenue under the right conditions. tax reform done in a manner in which i have described will result in additional revenue that the president seeks.
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we're closer than many think to the critical mass that is needed legislatively to get tax reform done. >> the president remembers that boehner press conference well and remembered it today in the briefing room. >> speaker boehner just a couple of months ago identified these tax loopholes and tax breaks and said we should close them and raise revenue. so it is not as if it is not possible to do. they, themselves suggested that it is possible to do. >> the problem we are having in washington right now, the problem leading to these crises is simple. republicans have an agenda that is not popular enough to win them elections. but that they're also not willing to compromise on in a significant way after losing elections. now, normally the way that would work itself out in our system is they would lose elections, and they would then, and this is crucial, lose power. and the democrats would simply move forward on their agenda alone. but even though house republicans got 1.5 million
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fewer votes than the democrats, the house republicans kept the house because of the way districts are drawn. so now you have a political party with an agenda that is not working at the polls but that won't for political reasons or can't for political reasons, compromise on that agenda. and so the only leverage they have, the only thing they can do is use their control of the house, not to pass legislation. it is not what they're doing. but to create crises around the moments when action would be needed from them to stop something terrible from happening if we do nothing. this is a very dangerous way for political systems to work or for a political party to willpower. the sequester is bad policy but it is not the end of the world. it will just hurt growth. but remember, the sequester is bad enough that both sides swore it would never happen. both sides said the sequester was a punishment that would be so severe that it would force them into a compromise. the definition of crisis in this town of what is so bad that it
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cannot be allowed to happen is weakening. and that is genuinely dangerous. because at the same time we are getting used to crises, we are getting blase about them. and the republican party is getting used to causing crises, and decides they prefer them to compromise, and its shrinking base prefers it to compromise. so now, we're experimenting. once crises become okay, how long until a political party that can't compromise actually cause a catastrophe? jared bernstein, good to see you. >> thank you, nice to be here. >> so what made this different? tonight, my friday night would be ruined because i would be calling the hill to figure out what was happening. >> first of all, i'm glad you're here with me, and first of all,
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technically, republicans wouldn't compromise on revenues, i would say from the economic perspective, you have made this point before, if you actually line them up from severity. if you talk about -- i'll do it in order from worst to best, the breach of security, fiscal cliff, and then sequester. the sequester as you just mentioned, i don't think it takes the economy from growth to recession. i think it takes the economy from current slog to even sloggier slog, and gdp growth is already too slow. so taking the air out of a bicycle that is too wobbly. now that is bad, but perhaps not as bad as some of the other crises were, in terms of its dimension. >> the sequester was an enormous political failure. the things it was meant to do. i was talking to a committee
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republican the other day. he said the sequester was a problem in the committee because it was not bad enough that it made people want to compromise. it was not swarthy enough. now people can do something without sacrificing for it. but we do have a possible government shutdown coming in a month, and a debt ceiling coming in a month. we have a 10% chance of getting it wrong, let's say, if we do it three times a year for ten years, we'll get a bunch of them wrong. i mean, there is that, first of all we should not minimize the impact of the sequester. i think it it a role problem, perhaps the white house somehow overplayed the sky is falling, that is not going to happen. but the congressional budget office said the unemployment rate would stay at 8.9 for the first part of the year, and 8.7,
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so stuck where it is. i think it is pretty terrible when you consider an alternative, of when instead of screwing things up we actually could be making them better. so that is part one, part two, this comes from your analysis a second ago. as we continue to become inured to these crises, i really do think they wear not only on the political system, on the credibility of the political system, on the u.s. and the global economy, but to be able to be a functional democracy to diagnose problems and correct them. and the crises we created, the budgetary crisis, the other one that we become generally inured to, the job crisis, we're at 7.9% unemployment. may go up now as you say from the congressional budget estimates up to 8%. and what we're doing is not just not helping, it is hurting. it is a complete opposite. we're doing sort of the anti-job
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s, anti-austerity programs. and ben bernanke, saying you guys did this all wrong, if you hurt the sequester and hurt these jobs now it will be harder in the long-term. >> at a time like this, one of the best ways to actually contribute to your revenues is to get the economy growing quicker so more people are back to work paying taxes. when you have ben bernanke, who is no radical, in fact, i think he is a republican. >> appointed by george w. bush. >> making these points, you know we're in upside down land. and where you are is where i kind of landed now. people say what should we do? even members of congress ask me that. the first thing that comes to my mind, stop digging. stop making it worse, take an oath, go home, work on immigration reform. guns, there is lots for you to do. if you can't help the economy, stop whacking at it. >> i think that would be a good
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idea. jared bernstein, thank you for joining us on friday. sure. >> coming up, what does it mean when republicans say the president is not leading? i actually don't quite know at this point, except it is a funny thing to say from people who then wax poetic about the constitution. that is next. and what does the harlem shake video have to do with the sequester? more than you think. you name it...i've hooked it. but there's one... one that's always eluded me. thought i had it in the blizzard of '93. ha! never even came close. sometimes, i actually think it's mocking me. [ engine revs ] what?! quattro!!!!! ♪
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i know that this has been some of the conventional wisdom that that is been floating around washington, that somehow, even though most people agree that i'm being reasonable, that most people agree i'm presenting a fair deal, the fact that they don't take it means that i should somehow you know, do a jedi mind melt with these folks and convince them to do what is right. >> did you catch that -- listen
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again. >> i should somehow you know, do a jedi mind meld with these folks and convince them to do what is right. >> the first nerd is wrong, i fear. jedi mind meld, it is a trick, and there is a vulcan mind trick, i was prepared to take away his nerd card for that. but if he could do mind tricks, john boehner would want to keep it a secret, with perhaps making a mistaken quote in the press conference. answer this, the white house got in on the fun with this, they tweeted we must bring balance to the force. and they messed up two very important fonts from my chi childhood. this is the segment you have been looking for and it is next. [ female announcer ] with secret outlast clear gel, there's no white marks or worries.
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how do you think the president has handled the sequester? the $85 billion in spending cuts. >> well, no one can think that was a success for the president. he didn't think it would happen, backup it is happening. to date, what we've seen is the president out campaigning to the american people, doing rallies, flying around the country and blaming republicans. and pointing. now what does it do? that causes the republicans to re-trench and put up a wall and fight back. it is a very natural human emotion. the president has the opportunity to lead the nation and bring the republicans and democrats together. it is a job he has got to do and
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a job only the president can do. >> among the republicans, the media, the democrats often the answer for what we need to do next. the answer to try to fix the city and get beyond the sequester. get congress working again is very simple. the president, the president should step up and lead. >> we need real presidential leadership here. the president needs to stand up to the plate. >> it is time for him to lead this effort at the commander-in-chief of the country. >> it is time for leadership. it is time for him to engage and come down one mile, deal with the senate, if he really wants to lead. >> here is a tip, if you are reckless enough to create a crisis for the nation, you had better know how to fix it. >> all the while pretending he is somehow powerless to stop. >> sadly, this is the "leadership" in the age of obama. >> mr. president, why wouldn't you lead? in fact, president obama got this exact question a couple of
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times at his press conference today. here is his explanation. >> mr. president, to your question, what could you do? first of all couldn't you just have them down here and refuse to let them leave the room until you have a deal? >> you know, the -- i mean, jessica, i am not a dictator. i'm the president, so ultimately, if mitch mcconnell or john boehner say we need to go to catch a plane, i can't have secret service block the doorway, right? so -- >> i'm sorry -- >> i understand. and i -- i know that this has been some of the conventional wisdom that has been floating around washington that somehow, even though most people agree that i am being reasonable, that most people agree i'm presenting a fair deal, the fact that they don't take it means that i
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should somehow you know, do a jedi mind meld with these folks and convince them to do what is right. well, you know, they're elected. we have a constitutional system of government. the speaker of the house, and the leader of the senate, all of those folks have responsibilities. what i can do is i can make the best possible case for why we need to do the right thing. i can speak to the american people about the consequences of the decisions that congress is making or the lack of decisions-making by congress. >> it is not pro-obama or anti-obama to say this cut of presidential leadership, this idea that whatever is happening in washington is happening because either the president is leading or whatever is not happening is not happening because the president just is not leading quite hard enough. it is not too much to say that
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this is the single most toxic and per pursavive myth, they decided to make the president weak in the constitution. section one is not about the president and how he needs to lead. it is about congress, and that is not an accident. congress is where the primary power in our political simpyste lies. what does the president get to do? he gets to sign or veto a bill that congress passes. and what happens if he vetoes it? congress can overturn his veto. and yet in this town, we have this myth that the president can use his special president ray gun or his secret president ibeams to resolve opposition to his agenda. like he could be some kind of
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monarch, and the only thing standing between him and a truly powerful president to get his agenda done, is a training montage. and the reason you hear is that he could just use the bully pulpit. the president can move congress directly or he can move the american people to get them to get the congress to move. the mind meld is from star trek, mr. president. the fact that half of washington thinks he does have a jedi mind trick, i dock them ten points, we actually have the evidence on this, political scientist after political scientist has studied it. and here is the truth. the bully pulpit mostly doesn't work. there are just about no examples of a president using speeches to build public support for something the american people deal with.
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think about george w. bush on social security, or ronald reagan on social security cuts. even if it was not true, even if it was not the case and the bully pulpit is generally ineffective when tried, on occasion the president has used the bully pulpit, and the american people do generally agree with him. a huge majority, 76%, 76 feel a combination of both spending and tax increases should be a part of the next step in talking about the federal budget deficit. essentially agree with the president. 76%, but the public doesn't care, they don't want tax increases and really don't want them to compromise with this
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socialist, marxist guy. francis lee looked at this historically, and found that when any president takes a position on something he makes it more likely the other party will vote against it, even if it is a totally nonpartisan issue, like going to mars. whatever he says to them is less persuasive, because he is the president of the other party. remember when president obama adopted the mandate, the thing in response to president clinton's health care bill and that mitt romney had passed as governor of massachusetts in 2005. and remember then, when republicans decided the individual mandate just wasn't -- wasn't just bad, but was literally an unconstitutional policy, that is what happens when the president takes a strong stand. so what else is left? one really unusual option was implied or joked about by
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national journal editor ron fournier. so obama should dispatch the navy seals to shoot john boehner? that seems like a bad idea. and it is not, of course, what fournier meant, but the idea that terrorists or others are under the president's control if he just tries hard enough. and the political scientist calls it a green lantern theory, that just as the ring allows him to do anything if he has enough will power, so too, can the president do anything if he just shows enough will power. john boehner is speaker of the house. and he is a grown man with his own ideas and his own consistency. the point of the constitution and of our electoral system is that the president can't tell him what to do.
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he said he is willing to sign some compromise proposal between the two parties. he has gone on the road to tell the american people what he thinks they need to hear. we don't need more leadership from the white house. we need more leadership from the house, we need house republicans willing to compromise with senate democrats. and if that is not happening, if they're paralyzed because they can't move from an extreme position, then we need a media to hold them accountable for it. if we don't have that, then there is nothing the president can do but fold in the face of unreasonable demands. to do that would not be showing leadership either. [ male announcer ] this is kevin.
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this is the part of the show, my favorite part of the show where i have two minutes to tell you about anything i want to tell you about. and i am confident today i can do it. i am excited to do it. i am optimistic about the future. and that is terrible news for me. you want to know why? well, let's get the clock. all right, a new study shows that sad people tend to live longer, specifically like the older guy that tells you to get off his lawn, not only do they live longer, they're healthier living longer. this comes from the study that shows 11,000 people, who every year inform the keepers of the economic data base of their current level of happiness. and then they predict how happy they will be in five years.
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now, personally, i don't like that five-year plan question. but turns out young people, tend to over estimate their happiness. people between 35 and 69 guess about right. they know about how happy they will be in five years. but people over 65 often predict misery in their future. so when the study checked back, what they found was that for every one standard deviation increase in over-estimating their future happiness, that correlated to a 10% increase in their risk of death. the more confident you would be happy in the future, the more likely you would be dead by then. now, you can't do this without charts. so here we go, this tracks it for 12 years. the top line, the pessimists who think doom and gloom is in their future, they're more likely to be alive.
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than the bottom line optimists, after turning that line upside down, this deals with age and gender and self assessed health. this could have something to do with if you think the future will be bad, you can change it. or maybe there is something wrong with the study. but for now, it appears to be okay to be a downer. when you said i told you so to all the happy people o-- there may not be -- oh, no, i lost the two-minute challenge. i should not have been so confident in my future. oh well. coming up, everybody talked about what scalia said in the case before the supreme court. but there were many clues on how the supreme court would rule than what everyone else had to say. that is next.
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scalia in person, it is weird. >> does he -- i object read some of the transcripts that he was saying, saying we have to get rid of this because it is one of the last vestiges of racial profiling, the voting rights act. >> not that you can see, oh, be he is a troll, he is saying it for effect. >> in the spotlight, we have the audio, not just the transcript tonight. we have the just released audio of what justice scalia said that upset rachel maddow and jon stewart, regarding this element before the court before changing the voting laws. so let's listen to justice scalia referring to the voting rights act as a "racial entitlement". >> and this last enactment, not a single vote in the senate against it. and the house is pretty much the same. now, i don't think that that is
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attributable to the fact that it is so much clearer now that we need it, i think it is very likely attributable to a phenomenon that is called perpetuation of racial entitlement. it has been written about, whenever a society adopts racial entitlements, it is very difficult to get out of them through the normal political processes. i don't think there is anything to be gained by any senator to vote against continuation of this act. and i am fairly confident it will be re-enacted in perpetuity, unless a court can say it does not comport with the constitution. >> well, if it has been written about, well, what more is there to discuss? this is some theory of judicial
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a activism here. talk about a jedi mind melt, but justice scalia alone can't decide the voting rights act is unconstitutional. if you're worried about the future of the law and whether the five justices will vote to nullify the law on the minorities, then there was a lot more audio you needed to hear, because there was a lot more said beyond scalia's very novel judicial theory, that will help us see how the other justices will vote. joining me, he has been through the whole transcript of the proceedings, and who helped us pick through it and figure out what we needed to hear. so corey, thank you for joining us, and thanks for your help. >> thank you, ezra. >> so let's play the first clip. >> assuming i accept your premise, and there is some question about that that some portions of the south have changed, your county pretty much has not.
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in the period we're talking about, it has many more discriminating -- 2420 discriminatory voting laws that were blocked by section five objections. there were numerous remedy by section two litigation. you may be the wrong party bringing this. >> what caught your ear there, or eye there? >> well, yeah, both. for starters, i thought it was interesting that sotomayor started in on the plaintiffs, he was into his third sentence before she interrupted him with that question. and what she is basically saying, if in fact, you -- >> shelby county brought this suit. >> shelby county, the plaintiff from alabama brought this suit saying if in fact you don't discriminate against minorities, explain these numerous, more than 200 instances, where the
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justice department has used section five to disqualify whole areas of the election which you opposed. >> so this is to move other justices, to show that this is not a hypothetical issue, to there are real injustices going on. a key player here, chief justice john roberts. >> do you know which states has the worst ratio of white to african voter turn out? >> i do not. >> massachusetts. >> do you know what has the best? where african-american turnout actually exceeds white turnout? mississippi, which state has the greatest disparity? massachusetts. >> i do not -- >> third, is mississippi, where again, the african-american registration rate is higher than the white registration rate. >> so that is pointed. >> right, a little bit of gotcha here. he is bringing the point that for every community that is
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covered that has a history of discrimination, covered by section five, there is perhaps a parallel state or jurisdiction that has racial disparities in registration or turnout. but what he doesn't say there is that the 2006 reauthorization of the voting rights act, the goal of that was not to increase minority voting, representation or registration. that had been done across the south in previous iterations of the law. the goal of this reauthorization was to get to what is sort of called o-- what civil rights leaders and activists and scholars called the second generation forms of discrimination. so voter id laws, laws that scale back early voting, the laws we saw being debated last year. so those are the second generation discrimination methods that are perhaps more difficult to see than just looking at minority voting registration. >> and so i want to get in this last piece from justice kennedy,
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the other major swing vote here, which has been a bit more technical. >> can you tell me? it seems to me the government can very easily bring a section two suit, and as part of that asked for bail in, under section three. are those expensive, time consuming suits? do we have anything in the record that tells us, or anything in the bar's experience that you could advise us? >> well -- it is just an effective remedy. >> i am confused, help me. >> the question is far more important than the answer in this transcript. what kennedy is setting up is the idea that if we were to strike down section five, do the existing permanent provisions within the law, including particularly section two actually give sufficient protection for minorities? and across the board, legal scholars point to the fact in their case, in their minds that it doesn't. the difference between section five and section two is that section five puts the burden of
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proof on the jurisdictions that have a racist history in elections. whereas section two shifts that burden of proof to the plaintiff. so if you feel that you have been discriminated against, you have a higher bar to reach. and the success rate for those laws is much lower. >> thank you, corey for helping to walk us through this. >> my pleasure. up next, actual good news that came out of washington this week. i am not even kidding. ut. this is awesome! whoooo! you're crazy. go faster! go faster! go faster! go faster! no! stop...stop... (mom) i raised my son to be careful... hi, sweetie. hi, mom. (mom) but just to be safe... i got a subaru. (announcer) love. it's what makes a subaru a subaru. will restore even skin tone? think again. introducing olay professional even skin tone.
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[ lasers zapping ] ♪ yep. we make a pretty good team. [ male announcer ] call 1-800-lifelock or go to lifelock.com today. [ breathes deeply, wind blows ] [ male announcer ] halls. let the cool in. politics suck sometimes, i mean, this week for instance, politics have been terrible, they are just figuring out how to make america worse. but it was not all gloom and doom in the capitol. something happened that received bipartisan support. they reauthorized the violence
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against women act by a vote of 286 to 138. all house democrats voted for it. the senate passed the same bill last month, so now it moves to president obama's desk to be signed into law. >> i was pleased to see that the house passed the violence against women act yesterday. that is a big win for not just women, but for families and for the american people. it is a law that is going to save lives and help more americans live free from fear. it is something that we have been pushing on for a long time. i was glad to see that done. and it is an example of how we can still get important bipartisan legislation through this congress, even though there is still these fiscal arguments taking place. >> as its name suggests, the violence against women act's funds program to help domestic violence victims, also this
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helps the lgbt community, and undocumented women and native american women. erin, good to see you. >> hey, ezra. >> so walk me through it. what has changed here? what do the expansions in the violence against women's act actually do? >> well, ezra, i want to start out by killing your buzz, i hate to do it on a friday night. it is great that congress came together, to pass this in the house after the long delay. it is certainly great that it finally passed. but that said, we're talking about real moved goal posts here. it has been re-authorized twice, just about every time unanimously, since 1984 where it was written. so now we're celebrating small victories here, i know that is what we have. >> but wasn't the issue on this one that there were expansions holding it up in the house? they said they wanted to do the old version and not the new version. >> yes, but i would love it if the expanded version was like
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the second coming of bell hooks -- >> no capital letters in it at all. >> and only justice for native americans. it is true there are significant and important expansions this time around. they have been over-hyped mostly by house republicans. they were especially worried about the provision that applies to the nonnative men on native american reservations, that can be prosecuted now by the tribal courts, that is the issue that definitely has the most impact. basically what has been happening, unfortunately, american native women are subject to abuse at higher rates than the general population. there is a culture of impunity because they only have jurisdiction over their members. specifically, you have nonnative, white men, who are married or partnered with native american women, and they basically know they can get away with it.
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they're under the federal government's jurisdiction. often the attorney general's office, and the fbi are many miles away. often they can't enforce a protection order when something happens because it is out of their hands. so it is really important that the new vowa includes the provisions to prosecute those men. and it includes inserted language that when it comes to gender and sexual identity. there are grants called stop grants given by the state. now, some people that claim because of gender and sexual identities were not noted, now they have no excuse to do those resources. >> thank you. coming up, what this harlem shake video has to do with the sequester and with saving federal dollars. [ kitt ] you know what's impressive?
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i think it is safe to say
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that the harlem shake peaked with a version of what i'm about to show you. a family of six at home cooking dinner, a family freaking out, a toddler, another on the fridge, another dancing with a toy horse, and one of the daughters repeatedly punching her toy doll. it is kind of amazing. ♪ ♪ ♪ >> so given all the different versions that exist, again, few of them as good as that one. each group who did the harlem shake video had to up the ante. so enter the frisbee team. this is what they pulled off with the permission of a frontier air flight crew on the way to san diego. the mile-high harlem shake. ♪