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this morning my question, who could think calling a 9-year-old girl the "c" word is funny. plus the real harlem shake. please, do not be fooled by those viral videos and vawa passes as the house republicans cave, but first three years after the disaster in the gulf and bp is finally on trial. good morning. i'm melissa harris-perry. everyone have a good week? i don't know how you all fared these past seven days, but down on wall street it got pretty wild. one of the worst single day plunges in months was followed by a near record high later in the week. on thursday afternoon the dow just about hit its highest point ever. a record that was set in the fall of 2007 before the crash of this great recession. we also learned this week that american factories expanded for

the third straight month, continuing what has been the biggest jump in manufacturing since the economy began to turn around. new analysis out this week further supported the positive signs that corporate america is on the mend. the s&p 500, that's the index that tracks the stock value of the country's 500 leading companies, is up more than 120% since march of 2009. heck, the dollar gained strength this week, and all just in time for wall street bankers to get the most out of their bonuses which on average increased nearly 10% this year. did your pay? yes, it is good to be a corporation these days doing business in america. unless perhaps you are british petroleum because this week bp executives found themselves in court in my hometown in new orleans on trial for gross negligence in causing one of the worst ecological disasters in written history which took 11 lives and soiled hundreds of

miles of beaches from louisiana to florida. for 87 days after the deep water horizon oil rig exploded 50 miles off the coast of louisiana, oil was spilling in to the gulf. the disaster would eventually release as much as 206 million gallons of oil, a devastating blow to the gulf's ecosystem, and to stem the tide-of-the-spill, 2 million gallons of chemical dispersants were dumped into the gulf causing still more unknown damage to the fragile coastal eco-systems. in the six months that followed the spill, 8,000 birds, sea turtles and marine mammals were found injured or dead, shellfish beds that gulf coast residents depend on their livelihood were decimated costing millions in economic damage, but, hey, bp paid out. just this past november the $1 billion corporation pled guilty to felony manslaughter and environmental crimes, agreeing to pay out $4.5 billion on top of nearly $8 billion in

settlement with those affected by the spill, and the company has already spent upwards of $14 billion on cleanup costs. and if you hear them tell it, things are now a-okay in the gulf. >> two years ago the people of bp made a commitment to the gulf and every day since we've worked hard to keep it. bp has paid over $23 billion to help people in businesses who were affected and to cover cleanup costs. today, the beaches and gulf are open for everyone to enjoy. >> all cleaned up, they say, pristine beaches for all to enjoy. in recent months oil slicks have been detected in the region of the original spill. that is 33 months and counting since the deep water horizon oil rig exploded. oil persists in the region, and as the louisiana attorney general said in his statement at monday's hearing the disaster has damaged louisiana people most importantly this.

disaster continues in various force. over 212 miles of louisiana coast are being polluted and continue to be oiled. many of those affected by the oil spill or the oil gusher will have their day in court in the coming weeks hoping to prove that bp was grossly negligent in this disaster and should be made to pay upwards of $20 billion. and while, yes, bp has shrunk as a corporation and is now the smallest of the big four oil companies, it still brought in nearly $4 billion in profit last quarter alone, and bp continues to operate 700 offshore drilling licenses. it makes me wonder if even $20 billion wouldn't simply be a small price to pay for the profit brought by big oil. joining me today. sarah gonzalez, senior policy specialist for the national wildlife federation. breton mach, investigative

reporter, political strategist l. joy williams and mike conseoul who is a fellow at the roosevelt institute. so nice to have you all here. okay. those of us living on the coast are watching this trial. remind people what this trial is and what the kind of central claims are here. >> right, this is the civil trial. >> right. >> where they are going to be determine who is responsible basically for the gusher, as you correctly identified it as, and right now there's a lot finger-pointing in that trial which started this week. bp, halliburton and transocean, thee were all operators of the rig, and they are all pointing fingers, saying, no, you can it. no, you did it, and it's kind of -- in the meanwhile the oil is still out there in the gulf. >> yeah. >> still about 1 million barrels of oil that's unaccounted for. tar balls are still washing up on to the coast so at the end of

this, like you said, they will try to figure out if $20 billion is the appropriate amount but advocates on the gulf say they need to pay upwards of $50 billion to really make it right. >> on the one hand i get the need for the commercials, the everything is fine, come back to the coast. it doesn't do us any good for those hotels to sit empty. it doesn't do any good for us economically for people to think that there is a continuing disaster, but there is a continuing disaster. >> that's correct, and that's a great point. do i hope the bp krergsales are working and people are going back to the gulf? absolutely. i want them to see it and fall in love with the gulf, but the american people are not buying it. in fact, a few weeks ago we hand delivered in other coalitions with other environmental organizations 133,000 petitions from all over the united states, not just gulf residents, to the department of justice asking them to hold bp fully accountable, and so the question is what is accountability? there's two pieces of accountability that will be fleshed out in this trial. first of all, bp is liable under

the oil pollution act for every single blade of sea grass that was oiled, every single gulf pelican that was harmed, and they are liable to us for our inability to use the gulf during that time. 37% of the federal waters in the gulf of mexico were closed to fishing in the middle of the disaster. >> i want to pause here for just a second because i want to sort of underline that point. on the one hand we have these fundamental questions of human suffering which we will get, to i promise, but i also don't want to miss that there is a responsibility to the earth itself as the earth, that they are responsible for the wild life, for the water, for the ecosystem, that that itself also has a standing in this case. >> certainly, and where that responsibility comes in it's to all of us, it's to the american people, and that's why the oil pollution act and the clean water act have two sets of liability here. first, bp has to pay for all the damage that they did to the environment, but in addition,

because these profits are enormous, and we're talking about multi-national corporations, you have to have a penalty in addition on top of the actual damage in order to deter future oil companies from taking these kinds of risky shortcuts and putting profits over safety >> i want to go to just that question of profits, mike. just sort of looking at where corporate profits are right now. they are up 171%. despite all of the discourse oh, we have this terrible so-called socialist president who is redistributing income, 171% is the profit margin that these companies, not just oil companies, but corporations in general. is there anything that can get them to behave in a way that is responsive to anything other than the bottom line? >> well, lawsuits like this are very important, so it's one thing, it's important to remember the point of this gross negligence charge that the civil courts are bringing forward. one thing for them to say there's all these damages and we're going to pay it out.

that's basic fairness. we need something that's puniti punitive, that punishes them and sends signals to other oil companies that are also building rigs and have to decide how much safety they are going to have and what their obligations are to the environment and to the people. you know, without a serious payout that is punitive and that actually deters future behavior, we're going to see more things like this. >> this is sort of torts 101, the class that all the law students not planning on doing this kind of law, now have to take towardrts, but it does for different set of business practices. some of the things bp is being charged with, withholding crucial information from the government, consistent patterns of misreporting and a false impression of what was happening on the drilling project, right. this isn't about, oops, we made a mistake. this is about a consistent pattern of discourse that was untrue. >> finally somebody is being put on trial in terms of a large corporation for doing something wrong and to harm the american people and our ecosystem, right?

and so in an age right now where we have corporations are too big to fail. we have to figure out how to help them so they don't destroy the rest of our economy is refreshing on one point to see that someone is actually going to trial and will have to answer a question in a courtroom who is responsible? what did you do and what didn't you do in response to this? >> elizabeth warren kept asking is when was the last time you took someone to trial in. >> and that trial helps to bring that information out, and it also helps to, as you said, hold them accountable so people won't do it again, but other part, the question that is definitely to those of you writing much more on it, is the difference in the penalties versus the fines, right, in terms of if they pay fines or penalties they get to write them off on their taxes. >> exactly. >> so that is something else that the american people don't know as well. yeah, you can pay on it, but then i get to write it off. >> but going back to the two pieces that bp will face, they

will face compensatory damages, and then they will face penalties, and there is a different differential tax treatment for fines versus penalties, but we believe and the american people believe, bp needs to be held fully accountable on both counts. >> yes. >> that's where you hear the figures of $45 billion is gross negligence results in a fine of about $17.6 billion. in addition, if you look back at the exxon "valdez" oil spill and what ecological restoration cost per barrel in that bill, you come to a number of about $45 billion. >> i mean, we've got this sense during the 2012 election, we kept hear mitt romney saying corporations are people, and i'm thinking, but, yeah, if i killed 11 people and destroyed a whole neighborhood, i would not be having, you know, $1 billion profits in my fourth quarter. the reality of them being not individuals, of them being not people i think it's very clear when we see the ways in which they are not held accountable. after the break, how

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this week was just the first phase in one of the largest environmental trials in u.s. history which is set to hear testimony for three months to determine the share of liability of bp and other companies involved in the 2010 deep water horizon oil rig explosion. even as we consider the enormous cost of that disaster, you can't ignore that the oil industry plays a big role in the economy of the gulf coast. and for the political leaders in the region this poses a quandary when trying to regulation a profit-driven industry that brings millions of jobs, to

well, their constituents. here's louisiana senator mary landrieu arguing against closing the tax loophole for the oil industry. >> these five large oil companies that everybody enjoys beating up on, and i understand that they are making a lot of money today, but this is no reason to go after them, singling them out, particularly because of the 9.2 million americans working in and around and for them and the thousands of independent companies and suppliers that work in partnership with them. >> and that is the tough position i want to ask my next guest about. joining me for a discussion from baton rouge, louisiana is buddy romer, chairman of the reformproject.org and former louisiana governor. hi, buddy, always nice to see you. >> hey, melissa, good to be with you. look, senator landrieu is not an all bad guy or all good guy in this. it seems to me that she, almost

like everyone else in louisiana and mississippi and alabama, all along the gulf coast, even into florida is facing this quandary. how do we expect responsible political leadership when so much of the -- of the economy is tied to these oil and gas industries? >> well, the industry was not regulated, melissa. they talk, talk, talk, but they don't take any action. i've been governor of louisiana. i've been a congressman from here. i have decent relationships with companies that work to gain energy for us. it's important for america. i don't dismiss this at all, but this speech by mary landrieu and others, and she's not the worst of them. >> right. >> i want to be fair to her, washington's not broken, melissa. it's bought. the money that -- that comes in contributions to politicians is a scandal. now, there is an economic

reality here. i think bp is one of the worst players in the gulf. i said that 25 years ago when i was governor of louisiana. i'm walking in downtown baton rouge the morning of this -- of this 5 million barrel spill and a member of the department of natural resources yells at me and says buddy, did you hear about the blowout in the gulf, i didn't know about it but i can tell you who is responsible. he said. who and i said british petroleum, and we both smiled. that's the way it is, and they ought to pay for the claims out there. they ought to pay for the damages. they ought to pay fines. they ought to pay penalties. they ought to put money set aside because we don't know what the effect on the wildlife is. look, i'm a businessman. i run a pretty large bank in the south, and the economic benefits of oil and gas energy is important to our area. >> sure. >> but we ought to ask a simple question. do we have the courage to

regulate them? do we have the courage to put our children and our animals and our land continues first? i think we do, melissa. i think this administration has done a good job the last two years of bringing this into focus for the first time in my life. >> and buddy, you know, this point about courage is a real one because as you point out about the boughtness of washington, oil lobbying, gas -- gas and oil lobbying dollars since 1990, $238.7 million. we know that about half a million dollars to mary landrieu herself since 2007. again, she's just one of many, many people getting this lobbying money, so it really is a question of whether or not you have the political capacity to say no to that money and to start talking about the regulation. >> we ought to eliminate lobbyist contributions. we ought to have tax reform, not

talking about raising the rates but doing away with all these loopholes. if you were to do away with these corporate loopholes, could you lower the marginal rate for every american, including the rich people, and they couldn't make a contribution to get a little loophole in the law. you know when the fiscal cliff thing that we did in december, obama and the congress finally did, big disaster. do you know buried in that bill, buried in that bill were hundreds of millions of dollars of additional loopholes for special corporations. it's not right, melissa. it's called corruption. >> buddy roam emer, you always e it place. >> thank you. >> when we come up, the cost to human life. more on that when we come back. [ rosa ] i'm rosa and i quit smoking with chantix.

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even before the bp oil spill became an environmental disaster, it was a human tragedy. the 11 men who were killed on april 20th, 2010 when the deep water horizon drilling rig exploded were more than just workers. to their families they were fathers and husbands and sons, and no trial or amount of money awarded can fill the void for their loved ones. back at the table, sarah and brentin, l.joy and mike. all right, folks. brentin, this is real. the 11 people died, but then also thousands of workers out of work. how do you replace or make reparation for that? >> well, there's no dollar that you can put on, you know, all that was lost in the gulf coast. no way you can put a dollar on lives lost, how that impacts

families and how that impacts communities. also, when you look at the greatest impact across the cost, let's talk about the fact that poverty jumped up 33% between the time of the disaster and all the way through 2011. this is an already impoverished region that just suffered a great deal of poverty across the gulf coast, so now what we're trying to transition to is a restoration economy, you know, where we get the money from bp, and this is right at $45 billion to $50 billion is so important, so that money comes back and those jobs can be creative for environmental restoration, and economists right now are saying that 36 jobs can be made for every $1 million invested in environmental restoration across the coast. this is a chance to real turn the coast around and restore beauty and health. >> this is not a small deal. i was looking at this letter to small state governors saying there were possibly as many as 78,000 new jobs but those jobs would be over the course of 50 years, and the fact is people in

the short term they have families to feed. they have got taxes to pay and all the things they have to do, and in the short term you say it's a lot of jobs and it's over 50 years. how could i right now create an economy that starts to put back to work all of these the folks, particularly if you start to pull out those oil and gas jobs, the deep water jobs. >> i mean, this is an excellent opportunity to really just start transitioning our economy to a green economy. we already see the disasters in the havoc that's been wreaked on the environment and the climate because of the oil and gas industry, so this is an excellent opportunity, you know, for money to be used to transition, you know, skills so that people can learn how to create the wind farms, the solar panel industries and really just start to restore the environment. this is long overdue. i mean, the environment has been completely devastated across the gulf going back decades, far before the bp oil disaster. >> that's one of the things, you know, for those of us who lived through, you know, isaac recently or the folks who were there for katrina.

this is not just -- it is about the edo koji, but that edo koji impacts human beings at all these different levels. >> you're talking about 640,000 jobs and $210 billion in wages for recreation and tourism al e alone, not talking about just the oil and gas industry. there's an opportunity to create a new environmentally beneficial economy because the environment in that region underlies the economy and every dime that bp pace that can go to environmental restoration should go to environmental restoration because that's economic recovery in the long run of the let me tell you why. the coast of louisiana every 38 minutes loses land the size of a football field to open water. >> yeah. >> so it's not about a choice between the economy and the environment. you have to have a strong, healthy resilient gulf in order to have a strong economy, and to

protect it from hurricanes like you talked about. isaac brought up 565,000 more pounds of oil material from the deep water horizon oil spill. >> yeah. >> so the impacts are there. they are real. you still have dolphins dying in an unusually high number. >> you have shrimp with tumors when the shrimping industry is a key aspect of sort of what sustains those gulf coast communities. >> that's right. but, you know, there is a silver lining to this. it's not like we should throw our hands up in the air and walk away from the give. we know the gulf is resilient, and if you restore it and restore the estuaries and create the barrier island and rebuild land rather than losing land, then you benefit the environment in the long term and the economy in the long term. >> when i hear this argument, it's one that i think the left, you know, the greens, they say, look, there is a new way to build corporate profits. there's a new way to build a strong and sustainable economy, but there's a lot of sort of

irate, eyebrow-raising and critique of that argument, particularly on the right, no, there's instuff jobs in this way. >> well, there's a huge amount of unemployment out there so this is a great way to get money off the sidelines and get it investing creating jobs. it's worth to going back to what buddy said in the difficulty of regulating this up front. a lot of capture and political money and why it's so important to watch this trial because this is ultimately the last form of regulation we have. we have weak enforcements and a lot of industry capture of a lot of regular industry industries and the laws themselves are derelaxed and dispersed across many states. however, tort laws you said earlier, but the civil court system is the last chance of redress, and the other thing is we're talking about, you know, $20 billion and so on and so forth, it's really difficult to get an accurate measure of the true cost of things. people will tally up things they can measure and human suffering, third offered of poverty that

has skyrocketed because of all the industry collapse that's very difficult to put a price tag on. no matter what number we put on, especially decades from now when we learn about the real health and environmental capacity it's probably too small. >> i don't want to move too quickly past this. explain again just for folks whom this might be a buzz phrase, what regulatory capture is, why that's a problem in had context. >> we have very weak laws in terms of regulating offshore drilling, and the other -- the laws need to be enforced so there's regulatory agencies and people accountable to the public, public employees to go out and enforce the laws. now, a lot of times there's really obvious what we call capture where the industries own up owning the regulators and telling them what to do. obvious things where there's a revolving door where people will go from a regular industry agency to the company. >> right. >> there's bags of cash issue which are real and very important, but there's a much more subtle capture, where regulators identify with the

people that they are identifying, more like their shareholders and supposed to be embodying the public. >> like regulatory stockholm syndrome and, therefore, the capture. i think part of what i want to come back to here is brentin's point about this sense of the human impact that goes on third order poverty, all of this. is there a way that we can start reimagining how we call or whether or not we call business successful on something other than the bottom lines but more on how they contribute to sort of the broader human community in which they find themselves. >> i think in society we have to value those corporations and those business owners who look beyond their profits, you know, and we have to hold them up, and this is a critique on our society, you know. we hold a poem that make a lot of money and make quick money and there's billions of dollars and they have, you know, jets, and we focus everything on how much money they make and how much power they wield as opposed to valuing the corporations and the small business owners who

not only make profit and successful in business but also our contributors to their local economy, to creating jobs, creating a safe work environment and being a real contributor to society and community, and we have to do a better job in saying that we value those corporations who see hem selves as more as just money-makers and how much money we can give our stockholders, and we are a holistic company that cares about our employees, cares about profits, yes, but also cares about our greatest society. >> give me a good idea. do the foot soldiers on saturday. make me want to do small foot soldiers. i like this idea that we need to re-imagine the corporations that we think of as valuable, and we're going to stay on exactly that topic, because there is another big economic narrative about what we need to do and what kinds of companies we should hold up, and it's about that xcel pipeline. remember that? have we learned nothing at all? ♪

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at the very end of the day on friday, even as most of us, even those of us who work in the media were getting ready to turn off the computers and head home, the state department issued their long-awaited draft of the environmental impact report of the excel keystone pipeline. after years of environmental activists and farmers and native americans pleading with the state department to consider the tremendous environmental impact involved in this nearly 2,000-mile long oil pipeline that would carry crude oil from canada to the gulf coast, a project that a leading american climate scientist has said would be game over for the climate, and the state department said, nah, project doesn't seem to pose much an impact on climate change. makes you wonder if we have learned anything at all. sarah, have we learned anything at all here? >> i hope so. i hope so. have we seen strong reforms or are we having amnesia? yeah, i think we're having

amnesia. not even three years after the spill and the media reports that there's been a recent study that suggests for that support for offshore drilling is about equivalent to what it was before the oil spill. if you remember right before the deep water horizon spill we were hearing this mantra drill, baby, drill and told by the oil companies, don't worry, it's safe. guess what? in august of 2009 there was a blowout, an explosion in the east timor sea that spilled for 74 days, so, you know, i hope our memories are a little longer this time. i hope that people learn to value our natural resources and recognize that we can't live without clean water. >> i mean, the memory piece is not small. 311 olympic-sized swimming pools worth of oil dumped into the gulf during the bp spill, and here we are saying we need this excel for jobs. >> yeah. >> i think also what the american people don't understand in this debate also is what is the right balance between

maintaining a clean environment and also the need for energy, need for oil and the american people don't understand what the balance is. you're on either side, you're drill, baby drill or against it all, and i don't think there's been a great argument about what is the middle ground. >> i'm going to push because i think we do understand, and i think we do understand that the thing we would have to do is consume less. the one thing -- >> but we haven't been asked to. >> granted we have not been asked to, but part of the reason we haven't been asked to because every politician from dog catcher to president who says the real solution here is you're going to have to less, have a smaller house, you'll need to drive a smaller car and make different kind of consumption choices and we'll have to do it collectively and we're like, whoa, no, that is the american way. we are bigger, better, bolder and go draw whatever natural resource it is. it all belongs to us and allowed to use as much as we want. >> we haven't been asked to.

there hasn't been a president or anyone to say we need to collectively as a society consume less in order to protect our environment, and we can do th this. >> tell us to consume more. >> exactly. >> and we're america and we can do this together and we can protect our land and create jobs and still have the energy we need. >> right. >> there's that large question and that punt to the american people has not been asked. >> we talk about regulations and fines and punitive charges, but ultimately if we want to prevent these kind of things can't have oil companies going to increasingly risky and dangerous types of drilling, you know. we want to prevent the catastrophes when they do happen but we need transitions to safer forms of energy and that's a larger strategy. >> there's a notion that these resources belong to us. guess what, they belong to all of the american people, and the

gulf of mexico is our backyard so you're allowing bp and other oil companies to drill in our backyard, and when they do it they better be as responsible as possible. i don't -- you know, i don't buy the argument that, well, we followed the baseline regulations. regulations are a rifrmt you have to follow all the rules all the time, and if you can't follow rules you shouldn't play the game but in addition since you're drilling in our backyard and the consequences can be so severe, you have to use the utmost care. >> there should be pre-clearance. i just got back from covering the shelby versus holder case with the voting rights act and states with a history of racial discrimination, they have to pre-clear any federal election laws with the federal government and same with the countries with a history violence and destruction. bp should have to clear every single decision, i don't care if it's moving a port-a-potty from one side of the bridge to the other. they need say is this going to be okay? will it cause harm, and if they

can prove up front that it will not cause harm, then maybe we'll consider it, but, you know, it can't just be this thing where they have like a blank slate to just do whatever they want, and then after the fact they go and try to pay for it. >> and i think we also are going to have to collectively more risk averse on this. i do think there's ways in which our focus on recycling makes us think we don't have to change consumption and tar sand oils makes us feel we don't have to make the cars smaller. if we don't to, that's fine. we're running into the face of the future generations. we're creating an environmental debt. thanks for joining me be angry with bp. starting to move forward. >> the surprising way that the momentum continues for marriage equality when we continue. with the spark miles card from capital one,

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nationally same-sex couples continue to be left out with the full benefits that come with the institution of marriage because some people want to keep marriage narrowly codified as a union between one man and one woman and in spite of the opposition there are big signs that support and momentum are building for marriage equality. 8, that is the number of california proposition that banned marriage for same-sex couples but was eventually overturned in 2010 and whose fate will ultimately be decided by the supreme court. 2 is the number of cases on marriage equality, one on proposition 8 and the other on the defense of marriage act that will be heard on back-to-back days by the supreme court this month. 23 is how many days remain until oral arguments begin in the first of those cases. hollingsworth v. perry which deals with whether overturning prop 8 in california was

constitutional. 212 is how many members of congress signed a brief asking the court to strike down doma or the defense of marriage act which narrowly defines marriage between a man and a woman. 131. that is the number of conservative leaders, yes, conservative leaders, that signed a brief asking the court to overturn california's prop 8. 61 is the percentage of california voters that now approve of same-sex marriage according to a recent field poll, and that is more than double the rate of california voters who supported same-sex marriage in 1977 when the question was first asked. 51 is the national percentage of american voters that support marriage equality in the latest national poll by nbc and the "wall street journal." that my friends, is a majority. 2 is the number of briefs that the obama administration has filed. one each, for the prop 8 and doma cases, and it's the first time that a u.s. president has

come out in support for the rights of same-sex couples to the supreme court. and 2 for the individuals that make up each of the same-sex couples who hope that the support and momentum continues all the way to the nine members of the supreme court so that they, too, can live and love like any other couple. coming up, we're going to switch gears. it's women's history month, and the legacy of the great ann richard is on our table. her daughter cecille joins us next. ready for spring. well let's get you ready. very nice. you see these various colors. we got workshops every saturday. yes, maybe a little bit over here. this spring, take on more lawn for less. not bad for our first spring. more saving. more doing. that's the power of the home depot. get ready for spring with this ryobi 18-volt trimmer, just ninety- nine bucks. ♪

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it's march, and in honor of women's history month we are highlighting some of the amazing women who helped shape our country this. morning we are remembering political pioneer ann richards who despite all of her accomplishment perhaps remains best remembered for this iconic member in the 1988 democratic national convention. >> poor george.

he can't help it. he was born with a silver foot in his mouth. >> still good all these years later this. thursday a new play aptly named "ann" opens on broadway at lincoln center starring actress holland taylor, and it captures the essence of the tough as nails texan. >> i'll tell you what though. if i got turned down over my concealed weapons veto, so be it and sayonara, more guns in people's pockets meant more people dead. there was no compromise to be. now i did tell them. i told them that i might consider a law that let guys carry guns hanging from a chain around their neck because that way -- that way we could say,

look out. he's got a gun! >> i am pleased to welcome ann richards daughter who is, of course, the president of the planned parenthood federation of america. lovely to have you here. >> great to be here, melissa. >> i spent some time reading a buy oefrks your mother last night, "let the people in." and hear it is a moment when we're remembering the feminine mystique and talking about the feminist movement, and i keep thinking it is impossible to imagine a woman like your mother as governor of texas today. what has changed in the world? >> well, actually, i mean, texas, you know, we've made a serious right turn, but things are coming back, as you've been reading, but i actually think mother would be thrilled to see so many incredible women in office. look at the last election. the women who came in who are each independent, feisty and heidi hide camp from north dakota to elizabeth warren in massachusetts to everything in between. i think it's a good time for women in politics.

>> the fascinating thing to me about who governor richard was was her focus -- on women certainly but also on women of color and people with disabilities, her sense of attachment to barbara jordan and to other women who had sort of paved the way for her. how do we take that message into this 113th congress that now has a record number of women? how do they be more than just women in office but women like governor richards in office? >> look, i do think women in office do reach -- reach back, and they carry other folks along with them, and i know when mom was governor, there were many things she was proud of, but certainly appointing more minorities, women, open gay and lesbian people to office and to positions of power was probably one of the most important things that she did because it did open up government. i see that happening with women in the senate, women in the house of representatives. they are -- they have an interest, both for their own political future and frankly for

the better of the country of getting more folks from different backgrounds in office. and each one who joins the congress makes a big difference i think. >> what would she have thought of the castro brothers in texas? >> loved them. >> would have loved them. >> in fact, it's interesting because they come from a strong family of social activists, a very, you know, committed public servants, and i think what mom would say is she sees in the castro brothers the future of the state of texas. i think a lot of us do. i think it's very exciting. >> it feels to me like that position that we just saw on gun control, saying, hey, i'm a texan. i'm a tough lady. i'm from a land where people understand guns, but this is ridiculous. >> right. >> is there something we can learn from that moment as we go into our own gun control policy debate? >> i think absolutely. one of the reasons why people related to mom is she was plain spoken and also used humor and talked about the reality of people's lives. i think we can do a lot more of, that less pontificating and more

down home honest to goodness talking, the way people talk at their dinner tables or the kitchen tables. >> it's interesting to hear you talk about governor richard as mom, and i think to myself that question of being able to be mom and be an elected official and do all of the things that she did, this is exactly what we're fighting for for young women today, that ability to make choices about reproductive moments. when are you going to have kids and control your fertility so that you can do fantastic things like being governor? >> actually mother, her path was not the same as i think a lot of women now. she was a house wife as we called them back in the day and she raised four of us before she ever got into public office. really the only reason she got to break in was because sarah weddington, a young woman lawyer, wanted to run for office and the frankly the men political establishment in texas weren't interested in running her campaign. it was a very different type back then. i think the struggles that women face going and running for

office are still pretty steep. >> there's no doubt, that you know, as we like to say on the show the struggle continues, and yet it was nice in this moment that is women's history month to pause and remember your mother, the fantastic ann richards and people should absolutely go see. >> it's really fantastic and there's nothing mother would have loved better than going to broadway. >> yes. >> and i hope she would have come to nerd land had nerd land been around at that time. >> coming up, otts car night tweet seen around the world. >> why would you ever call a 9-year-old the "c" word and how sojourner truth finally helped republicans see the light, and the real harlem shake. the real one. more at the top of the hour. oure has to face. face it with puffs ultra soft & strong. puffs has soft, air-fluffed pillows for 40% more cushiony thickness. face every day

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there's no subtext... just tacos. yeah, it's our job to make you want it. but honestly... it's not that hard. old el paso. when you gotta have mexican. welcome back. i'm melissa harris-perry. there we all were.

last sunday night collectively taking part in a national watch party. no, not talking about the oscars. i'm talking about watching our twitter time lines while watching the oscars. it wasn't so bad as far as parties go. there's lots of noisy conversation and boisterous back and forth about host seth mcfarlane's performance and red carpet fashions and acceptance fashion and the "jaws" theme music that cut many of those speeches short. like most parties there's that one funny guy who keeps everyone laughing, until he just takes one joke too far. this time that guy was the satirical news outlet the onion. unless you have been living under a rock you know that 9-year-old quvenzhane wallis whose poise and performance in "beast of the wild" earned her a best actress nomination and she game the youngest person ever to be nominated for an academy award for best actress.

it is an achievement for which she should be rightfully proud, and her joy on oscar night was palpable. there she was working the red carpet in her sparkly blue dress and pressing curl and her puppy pearl. just killing us with cuteness and most of us at the twitter party responded with an ah until someone at the onion decided that the 9-year-old was fair game for the funny. everyone else seems afraid to say it but that quvenzhane wallis is kind of a "c" word, right? wrong. because there is nothing right about it. no matter how much mansplaining about comedy and free speech tried to make it right, i understand perfectly well what the tweet was trying to do, i've followed the onion, but our petty hyper critical focus on celebrities and famous women certainly is ripe for steer cat

comedy but there's other envelope-pushing ways to accomplish that. here's what those of you defending it don't seem to understand. a sexualized hateful comment about a child is only funny if you see that child as the least likely target for that kind of attack. and if you're fortunate enough to wear the privilege of blinders, then that's probably what you saw and laughed at, but when the lens through which you view the world reveals that women of color and even little girls of color are regularly in the crosshairs for dehumanizing critiques it is neither funny nor ironic. it's just real. and now when quvenzhane wallis looks back or when history looks back on the best days of her life, on this historic moment for this little girl, you know what's going to be part of that story, the onion's tweet.

gee, thanks. at the table cecile richards who is president of the planned parenthood federation of america, l.joy williams, a political strategist and judy gold, emmy award winning actress and comedian and jill philip poefic who is a includenist for "the guardian and" also with us is an actress, singer, writer and, boy, on fire about this tweet. i'm going to start with you to draw you in here with us. tell me a little bit more about what your critique was of the onion's tweet. >> you said it perfectly i think so it only remains me not to remember to curse right now. >> yes, please. >> and not to say the word, but my critique was rough because the tweet was rough, and i personally have just had enough of sitting back and taking the joke. i've been in a position to make the joke. i've been the joke, and i've

made money being the joke, and i get it. i completely get it. i 1,000% get it and ha, ha, ha, ha, ha but i've had enough, and that was my critique. as you said, what we found is the jokesters and the pranksters and the defenders apparently were thoroughly unaware that black women have been denigrated very casually daily. >> yeah. >> i think judy one of the reasons we want you at the table. we've talked comedy on this show before, talked about rape jokes and race jokes and all kinds of things and consistently trying to push the envelope and say had a comedy like art have relative autonomy but like pia this felt like that was it, not funny. >> well, we know that the joke was supposed to be in the absurdity of it, the fact that it's so far beyond reality and so not true. it would be as if someone

tweeted other that mother teresa is like a selfish bitch. that is where the joke was coming from, and it's sad because all no jokes are funny and that word is very, very load, and -- and i don't think -- first of all, we're all assuming, i did as well, that this is a white guy that tweeted this. we have no idea. that's what i assume. >> his anonymity or her anonymity is part of what irritates me. the 9-year-old has no anonymity. >> exactly. i've heard every argument and every defense and i've really kicked through the teeth of all of them and i think one of the main defenses when people bring up examples like jon stewart making the same time of joke about glen hansard when he won that award and saying that guy is arrogant when he was really the most self-effacing person

ever. he was standing there in person. it was a joke made in the moment and that's what comedy is. that's what makes is magical. oopsy, i just made a mistake. it's not up to me to say what comedy is. it's entirely subjective and i get that but when you're not in the particular building and the sole building is for celebrating this young woman and performance in cinema, you're sitting in a remote location. what was her offense, that made you say that, it a made that even remotely appropriate? >> i know, cecile, also just been thinking about the very fact that the word, the "c" word is a word that can carry that kind of power with it. >> right. >> i want to show just a little piece from one of my new obsessions, "house of cards" where the "c" word shows up again. i want to ask you a question about this. >> i think you're an ungrateful self-entitled little -- >> little what?

little what, tom? >> say it. [ bleep ]. you're a [ bleep ]. >> okay. that -- the very fact that that word carries that meaning feels to me like part of the rape culture that we exist in as our general cultural soup. >> absolutely. it's interesting. i totally agree with what judy said and what pia said, and you. this is -- this is outrageous. there's nothing funny about it. it was beyond the pale. i think one of the things to kind of pull it back a little bit that's kind of interesting to me is whatever we think about the onion, they did at least recognize this was over the top, and they apologized and, again, i think in this land of tweeting when things go out and this is going to happen and people have to be held accountable, the extraordinary thing to me is the fact that this usually doesn't happen, so i think like a year ago when rush limbaugh was happy to sal sandra fluke a slut, i'm

not trying to compare the two, it's not the same thing. >> i'm not sure that this feels like it doesn't happen. recently, right, let's take gabby douglas, again, a young woman having a movement history, and now the historical record will always show there's gabby douglas winning the olympic gold medal and having consistent commentary about her hair and her body. it does feel like in fact it happens particularly to girls and women of color. >> that is why our reaction was so emotional was because for thousands of millions of women of color across the country we see all the time in our communities, on tv, in movies, we see that constant attack daily, and so to see we were so very happy that you have a 9-year-old person of color. she did not have the weight of

race on her shoulders. >> a puppy purse. >> and everybody thought she was adorable, not the adorable little black child. she was just an adorable child and then all of a sudden now we have this loaded word that's added to her, and so our reaction was one of protection because we finally have an opportunity to -- she's just a child, an adorable child and now we have to add that burden of race and that burden of sexism in everything to her in which she doesn't even have to understand, and i hope she doesn't have to understand or have that conversation right now, but that was the reason why it was such an emotional response. >> we're talking about a child. >> she was a child. >> and we sexualize women from the earliest of ages in this country. girls are sexualized from the minute, you know, i don't know, the pre-adolescent. it's ridiculous. >> not just in general. part of what was irritating to me i suppose is when we think about the particular context of the oscars, butterfly mcdwooen

queen from "gone with the wind" and the first time we had sort of a black child in an oscar-nominated film, the weight of race, as you're saying, l. joy, and here was this girl and then the -- it's not just the onion tweet, it was the defenders of the tweet. >> yes. >> that was so distressing for me. >> that was horrible to see. >> as someone who who has performed in comedy and loves comedy and worships comedy and loves raunchy come dishes by the way, the people who are defending to me would blush and pee their pants and watch what i watch for fun, "down and dirty" with jim northon. it's not that i'm scared of words or anything. when people attack comedians because they say you can't make a joke about cancer because i have cancer or all kinds of things, you know, that's not the comedian's responsibility. it's not anyone's responsibility to know anyone's personal history who is sitting in their audience, but anyone watching the oscars had to endure a joke about one day she might have sex with george clooney or

something. that was out there already. if you're tweeting about the oscars, i can only presume you're watching them, where's your defense? what is going on here? >> pia, hold for me. joy, i'll get you in when we come back and we'll take a quick break and show how this whole problem could have been avoided if everyone knew the rules of the apollo and that's next. look, if you have copd like me, you know it can be hard to breathe, and how that feels. copd includes chronic bronchitis and emphysema. spiriva helps control my copd symptoms by keeping my airways open for 24 hours. plus, it reduces copd flare-ups. spiriva is the only once-daily inhaled copd maintenance treatment that does both. spiriva handihaler tiotropium bromide inhalation powder does not replace fast-acting inhalers for sudden symptoms. tell your doctor if you have kidney problems, glaucoma, trouble urinating, or an enlarged prostate.

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when "the onion" tweeted about nominee quvenzhane wallis on oscar night they real he no excuse for not knowing they crossed the line because at the legendary amateur night at harlem's apollo theater that line had long ago been tehran in the sand or should i say the

sand man. at the apollo a single sour net or poorly landed punch line would get a performer booed and swiftly tap danced off the stage by the legendary sandman simms. the only exception, the one that "the onion" forget kids are always off limits. we don't boot babies. that is the rule. little baby children walking around being extraordinary and just get to do that. >> yeah. i think that's right, and part of the problem with "the onion's" tweet is quvenzhane wallis doesn't look like their babies. there's a great post on blackgirldangerous which i recommend all your viewers read which tends to say how white people view black children as small black adults, not children and they don't get the same kind of kind treatment that adult white people give to baby white children. >> this is not a cultural

question. this is a matter of public policy so in the context of enslavement, enslaved children did not have child hoods, they were workers and in the context of jim crowe little black babies were not allowed to sit at the front of the bus so when we think about what the social movements were about, they are about creating a world where the children did not have to experience that. i was in philadelphia on friday, and i just spoke with a woman whose name is laundra booker johnson, the founder of a company that makes hair products for african-american girls and i asked her about the tweet to see what a mom and entrepreneur would say. let's listen to that. >> the quvenzhane issue is particularly painful because that tweet was a symbol for a perception that is i think not necessarily prevailing but it's okay to talk about little brown

girls that way, and it is painful. it is physically painful. >> that idea that it's physically painful. this is why we don't boot babies. >> and her point is exactly what i said is that we -- we want to protect because we see so many times in our own communities because we do it to ourselves, we do it to our own kids and then society also does it to our kids. >> sure. >> so once we see someone sort of branch out and we just want them to be adorable and not have those pressures that the rest of the world puts on us as adults, right, as adults. we can take those on and even it gets heavy for us, but then to see a child have to suffer through that and still have no idea. she will have no idea and not be able to comprehend sort of what, you know, the loaded history that the "c" word contains, why it matters in terms of her race. she's not going to see any of that. we have to do that for her and prevent anybody from doing it again so anybody who is thinking about typing a tweet or any

corporation deciding to do be a article or something about that before, since black women are the new, you know, it thing, they will know that they will get fire and get response from the new it community. >> i am almost certain that the person that wrote this tweet has no idea of the history of that word and how it affects african-american girls and women. i'm sure to them it was just, hey, this is funny, you know. i'll tweet this. it was on for an hour, but the good thing is it did spur a discussion, and i think "the onion" does that, a satirical newspaper that's so far out, and we know it's a joke but some of the stuff really does facilitate a dialogue regarding things that we don't want to talk about. >> i actually think "the onion" has been relatively responsible here. >> i do, too. >> they offered a real apology, not an i'm sorry, i'm sorry you were offended and this is epic, the new headline, a new study

funds "the onion" has never been more respected or popular. thursday a straight real kind of apology and then when her recognizing about this. this is not beating up on "the onion," just someone where it's unacceptable that one would be ignorant of the conversation that we're having, the considered that you simply don't know it. >> pia, i'll give you the last word on this section. >> no, i agree. i don't ever begrudge anybody their innocent ignorance. if it truly is not your experience and you haven't encountered that, but if i tell you my experience, don't tell me i'm wrong, that i'm making it up or pulling it out of thin air or that i'm just looking to cause a problem because you create a world where my black choices as a black woman are to remain silent, or to be the angry black woman and i'm rolling my neck and i got problems and got things to say about it.

my neck can stay still and this is very real, my dears. >> so funny you say that. i was back and forth about whether to do this because i have been angry black woman it up all in the office, and, you know, i try to leave her my back pocket and not bring her to tv but this one was too much. stay there for me. up next, do i have a question for my feminist colleagues. where were you? max and penny kept our bookstore exciting and would always come to my rescue. but as time passed, i started to notice max just wasn't himself. and i knew he'd feel better if he lost a little weight. so i switched to purina cat chow healthy weight formula. i just fed the recommended amount... and they both loved the taste. after a few months max's "special powers" returned... and i got my hero back. purina cat chow healthy weight.

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the backlash from feminists on twitter to "the onion" tweet was fast and furious but not all united at "clutch" magazine editor noted recently. the arc of white feminist dialogue on social media in the wake of a barbaric mysogenous tweet evoked tepid awareness.

there's racism before curving towards the indefensively position of the whitetown the parts before coming to rest at dismiss a. again, not the first time we've seen. this one of the one that broke my hearts is the one from "hunger games" and when you heard folks -- saw folks tweeting that they just couldn't feel the same way about rue because she was black and why does rue have to be black, kind of ruined the movie for me. rue is black, i'm not watching. call me a racist but i didn't find her death to be so sad. it's not just a one-off, right? this makes you feel like you're constantly being bombarded. >> when you take away, the interesting thing for me is if people could look at each other as human beings or someone has died or someone has been offended and i should feel empathy and support you, and i think that's what i think in taking this over to feminists as

the larger community. a daughter has been offend and a young woman offended and let's all band together and protect her. opposite of race and trying and help us understand what satire means. someone has been fefnded, i may not see it personally because i don't have the historical context, i don't have the race context, but my sister is upset because someone has been offend so i'm going to support you. we don't get the same benefit in the feminist movement sometimes. >> isn't the tragedy of this whole event with kwaufnz y quve that it was not only this moment but imagine the rest of her life, that she will carry this around with her. we all know african women in this country face enormous obstacles in everything. that is the sad part about this. this is just the beginning of her life. >> right. >> and i'd love to say it's going to be a lot different when she gets older. obviously worse that she's a young -- this young beautiful

young woman but it's going to be tough all the way. >> people who have said that we are now the problem, that we would just shut up about it she might never know. they can have every seat in the ikea catalog because that is prepostous. the technology exists, screen shots. the internet is forever. internet stays with you but i'm a grown woman. i deal with that. don't put that on a 9-year-old >> there's ways to joke about kids and even ways to joke about kids and work. i love louis cd on leno doing this joke about his own kids and race. >> high kids are good. >> yeah. >> they are on paper they are great, two little white girls in america. i'm not trying to say that if you're white you can't complain. >> right. >> i'm just saying that if you're black you get to complain more. >> right. >> so it's not that kids are totally off the board, one of my -- i will watch bernie mack

in kings of comedy and does this riff where he pretends to have a fight with a 5-year-old. >> she gonna look at me like i'm short, you know. no, no, no. everybody in this room knows what that look means. that look means you wanna do something to me. so i backed up. and i told her bust a move. >> right, so child abuse is not funny, but it's not an actual kid there, right? he's riffing in this way that allows us to know what satire is. not sitting here seth setting rules, just trying to reflect how ugly this was and how bad this was. >> and hopefully the conversation will continue. i'm not trying to shut down "the onion," that would be ridiculous but this is foolish. i know some of my comedy brothers are very angry with me right now, and it's a risk that i take being here, you know. this is my job, but it's enough.

these are our people. this is me, and it cannot continue, and i tell you with all seriousnous, if they make me choose between being comedy and a black woman, there's only one of those i can stop, and it would break my heart but that's the truth. >> yeah, joy. >> the other point in seeing some of the defenders in twitter and other conversations is when is it okay to use the word, the "c" word, right, and we see the "c" word and then "the en"word. why can't i say it? why sante i say it when i feel like saying it as opposed to just evolving as a human being and realizing i will just not use it. >> okay, when is it that you wanted to use it? when people say can i use that. let me know and then i'll let you know whether or not i thought that was a good time to use the "n" word because maybe there are good times to use it but i'm just going to go with

9-year-old oscar nominee, not the right time. thank you for all your fire, pia glenn out in los angeles. if they make you choose be a black girl at table any time they want to and next, congress gwen moore say even how sometimes house republicans have to sometimes give in to common sense. p eliminate litter box odor. ♪ discover tidy cats pure nature. clumping litter with natural cedar, pine, and corn. i'm up next, but now i'm singing the heartburn blues. hold on, prilosec isn't for fast relief. cue up alka-seltzer. it stops heartburn fast. ♪ oh what a relief it is! how much is your current phone bill? it's $192 a month! time to save some money. alright! she can tell you about straight talk. sure! you get unlimited talk, text and data for only $45 a month per phone. can we still get the same cool phones? yeah -- the latest smartphones

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♪ and we'll be the best of friends ♪ [ male announcer ] introducing the reimagined 2013 chevrolet traverse. all set? all set. with spacious seating for up to eight. imagine that. chevrolet. find new roads. the renewal of the violence against women act has been more difficult than it should have been, that's because president obama and the democrats sought to expand those covered by the bill while republicans resisted and offered more of their own version of a very narrow bill this week. the democrats won, the more inclusive version passed the house with a vote of 286 to 138. 87 republicans joined 199 democrats to help send the reauthorization to the president's desk for signature. why did the republicans like house minority leader eric cantor who had been so obstinate

that they let the reauthorization die in the last congress, not only to relent but once again break the previously cherished hazard rule about bringing a bill up to vote that they knew would pass on a majority democratic vote? maybe my next guest had something to do with it. >> as i think about the lgbt victims not here, the native women who are not here, the immigrants who are not included in this bill, i would say as sojourner truth would say, ain't they women? they deserve protections, and we talk about the constitutional rights. don't women on tribal lands deserve the constitutional right of equal protect and not to be raped and battered and beaten and dragged back on to native lands because they know they can be raped with impunity. ain't they women? >> ain't they indeed. that reference is to the famed former slave and abolitionist sojourner truth and it came from

her ain't i a woman speech a decade before the civil war. as in this case as the declaration coming at the start of an even longer fight. joining our conversation from milwaukee congresswoman gwen moore from mississippi. so nice always to see you, representative. >> oh, it's great. i wish i could be there with you today. >> so tell me, what do you think finally turned the tide of vawa? >> let me tell you something, melissa. i can tell you that this is a real course in miracles, and it really demonstrates that our democracy, however flawed, really does work. there was a lot of momentum behind that leadership wall, eric cantor refusing to bring the bill to the floor. the 87 republicans there, tom cole, the only native american, a republican fighting to hard to get it to the floor on their side. the 1,300 groups, including law enforcement groups that

supported the senate version and my identical version in the house of representatives, you just cannot stonewall a bill like this. we had native american tribes, something i had never even heard of, crawling all over the hill, and, of course, the -- the gap in the last election, the gender gap really was very persuasive as well, and so i think that you saw a wall come down because of democracy. >> and so on that, let me ask a little bit about the politics of this because obviously they are looking at that gender gap. they are looking at this sort of continuing discourse about a war on women but boehner has broken that sacred rule twice, brought votes to the floor that he knew would pass but with only a minority of his party support.

is he going to keep his job? >> i can tell you that there are threats to his leadership about the sequester that's coming up if he were to break that rule. my own senator from wisconsin, senator johnson, was recently quoted as saying, hey, he should fear for his job if he were to give in on that. but i can tell you, it speaks volumes about the gerrymandering we've seen around redistricting. this is a flaw in their redistricting plan because the greater -- the greater public will out there is to do something about the sequester, is to do something about women's rights, lgbt rights, to keep our economy on an even keel, and i just think that the leadership in the house of representatives is mismatched with the general public will. >> jill, i want to ask you

something about something the congresswoman has brought up twice, the sequester. we're excited we finally passed vawa and now the sequester would take the law and they gate it because there's no money to do it. >> if the sequester lasts for a full ten month, that's 210,000 victims of violence that won't get the services they need. an ongoing problem with the republican problem, hostility towards women and if you look at the groups that the house vawa cut out of the bill, it reads like a who's who list of the groups the republican party has been increasingly hostile to, immigrants, lbgt people, native women, you know, low-income women in particular who are the main beneficiaries of vawa so, you know, the republican party, the strategy of only targeting their policies towards middle and upper class right straight men it rallies the base, but as that group wanes in number and

in power it's not a good electoral strategy going forward, and i do look forward to seeing them losing more elections. >> they definitely will. the way -- it is so -- it's -- eric cantor should be completely ashamed of himself and all of these people that vote against lbgt rights should not be able to have gay in their life. i'm not kidding, any songs by gay people, sorry, you can't listen to this. you can't -- you can't wear clothes that are designed by gay people, movies with gay people. do you understand that we are -- we're part of your -- and, you know, look at dick cheney. i mean, no gay kids. all these people, you know, god forbid they have gay kids and all of a sudden oh. >> i love the idea of a gay-free lifestyle and i love it because i hate the idea of a gay-free lifestyle. >> congresswoman moore, thank you so much for joining us and thank you even more for that for

bringing soju jer truth back to us and asking the question ain't i a woman. cecile have more to talk about with this panel when we come back. not only should we be celebrating vawa but we still need to be building that wall because they are going after planned parenthood, again. olay ultra moisture body wash can with more moisturizers than seven bottles of the leading body wash. with ultra moisture your body wash is anything but basic. soft, smooth skin with olay. ya. alright, another one just like that. right in the old bucket. good toss! see that's much better! that was good. you had your shoulder pointed, you kept your eyes on your target. let's do it again -- watch me. just like that one... [ male announcer ] the durability of the volkswagen passat. pass down something he will be grateful for. good arm. that's the power of german engineering. ♪

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and i formed my toffee company through legalzoom. i never really thought i would make money doing what i love. [ robert ] we created legalzoom to help people start their business and launch their dreams. go to legalzoom.com today and make your business dream a reality. at legalzoom.com we put the law on your side. . give us a day of the week that ends with "y" you'll see republicans in congress targeting planned parenthood. last monday was no different. dozens of republicans in the house and senate have asked the gao, the government accountability office, to examine how planned parenthood and other groups that provide aborti abortions with federal money. there is no accounting for how planned parenthood ensures that none of its federal funding goes

towards abortions. cecile, how are we always the boogiemen at this point? >> it speaks to the question we were talking about earlier. we had this incredible election, where the biggest gender gap ever in the history of gallup polling were about the attitudes of the republican party on women and yet we're seeing not only voting against vawa, again, we didn't even touch the service, mitch mcconnell, all of their stars, marco rubio going after planned parenthood and now they are going after birth control. this is what's incredible to me. >> i love that mitch mcconnell went after vawa and now ashley judd is going to go after mitch mcconnell. >> maybe. >> and even another good point on mcemergency conley is we actually have birth control coverage in america thanks to

president obama and women in the house and the senate but there's folks in congress fighting to keep that birth control benefit from folks, including mitch mcconnell who signed an amicus brief basically saying he thinks any employer should be able -- forget religion, they should be able to deny women birth control access because they don't want to. that is -- this is -- this is the 21st century. news flash. every woman in america uses birth control. this is incredible. >> you know what i find interesting is that they have this investigative spirit about what women are doing with their bodies, but we don't have the same investigative spirit for how banks are screwing us. >> that's right. >> don't you love it. >> there is an investigative spirit here, right, but the whole idea that we need to have an accounting of planned parenthood, wall street. >> what you're using the dollars on, how many times you're looking up there and doing something up there. >> and can i say, in serious answer to you. we're the most regulate d

publicly funded organization in the country. you're right. it's an absolute effort to get planned parenthood, it's not about abortion. it's to keep planned parenthood from providing birth control, well women visits and cancer screenings. >> that's what's so infuriating, the lies that they put across saying this is just an abortion drop-in, as if we all enjoy it. you know what? i'm not busy today. i'm going to have an abortion, you know. >> and the women aren't fully considered thinkers who are making decisions and even the fact that most women who have abortions, the majority of them already have children. it's not like women aren't making an informed decision. >> and not every woman is on birth control. i happen to be a lesbian. >> but i think that is -- i think the thing that jude sesaying is so important because we do more to provide birth control and help women provide

unintended pregnancy and literally it's everything single thing that benefits women. >> i do like the idea of lesbianism as a solution to the war on women. well, if i can't have birth control. >> come on over. >> it's going to have to be how it's going to be. >> look. it's not about abortion. it's not about lowering the abortion rate and not really about birth control. it's about this understanding that birth control, abortion rights, freedom from violence, these are all the things that allow women to succeed in life and to make independent decisions. >> right. >> and it's not that republicans are pro violence or conservatives are pro violence but a viewpoint that says women deserve full freedom to break free from gender roles to do whatever we want to with our body, that's in direct conflict with the conservative view that says the husband is the head of the household and women are secondary and servile. that's the view underlying all of this. >> the other part is that full freedom for women requires public policy intervention, like it can't be done with simply a

libertarian spirit of, okay, go be free because there's many decades of enforced public policy inequality for women so generating that equal playing field requires intervention on the part of females. >> let's not forget all of these men have mothers and many of them have daughters, and the fact that this is the way they lead their lives, it is just -- it is disgusting. >> that's right. >> and in general the -- the general conversation that the gop which is supposed to be the party of we want people to pursue their individual freedoms and pursue their individual causes except women in their individual bodies and what they are doing, who they are birthing and who they are sleeping with, whether or not they are gay or straight, sort of all of those things, to me it's contradictory to your standing. >> yeah. >> and even in the violence against women act in the discussion i asked on twitter, i asked republicans in person and people that were opposing the

act what, is it about it that you're against, you know, because from the spin and i'm taking myself from the spin, it seems that you're just against women and you're against poor people of color and immigrants and lbgt. is it a budget issue maybe? tell me something that's the reason why and no one could answer as to the reason why so now you continue to feed into that you are against people individually living their lives. >> but it's their philosophy that it's an entitlement. we all want entitlements, not human rights. >> all those free things. >> and would i say to the gop you want to be someone's pastor, you don't want to be someone's -- >> exactly to you all. so much not, so much more, but first a preview of "weekends with alex witt." >> i'm sorry, feel like i'm interrupting. >> big happening behind you. >> this is going to be so much fun.

former basketball star dennis rodman, he is back from north korea, and he's carrying a message from north koreian leader to president obama. rodman talked about that today. one group has put new jersey governor chris christie on notice. its members are going to wage a big fight against a very popular incumbent governor y.? plus, one former government official that's a republican is taking on her party over taxes and fighting for the middle class. she makes a very interesting case, and we're going to take you to selma, alabama where thousands are commemorating the historic civil rights march in 1965 from selma to montgomery. it's been 48 years. >> thank you so much. >> up next, do not miss this, because you think you have been seeing a thing called the harlem shake. it is not the harlem shake. turn off your youtube because we are bringing the real harlem shake to nerd land. do not miss this. it's happening. on sounds ] ♪ [ watch ticking ] [ engine revs ] come in.

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okay. i wasn't going to say anything about the mislabeled so-called harlem shake dance craze.

really, i wasn't. but look. the international viral video madness that is populating facebook and fill-in segments of the morning shows is fascinate ing. but it is not, i repeat not the harlem shake. feel free to hurl, jerk and toss yourself about to any old beat you want. even if you're the only one who can hear it. just don't call it to harlem shake. the harlem shake as a history and trajectory imbedded in the lived urban p. diddy brought the harlem shake to popular culture two decades ago. but in truth you have not seen the harlem shake unless you have seen kids on a new york subway performing the intricate, fast paced and on beat moves while maintaining balance on a moving train. this is about more than proper designation of a popular dance. it's about cultural appropriation. when communities create original art, they have a right to some

creative control over its definition. if you enter a ballroom dancing competition, you'd better not chacha during the waltz. creative interpretation is expected to respect certain boundaries. that's what conveys the respect. and the wholesale application of the term "harlem shake" to flash mob boogie downs that are most definitely not the harlem shake, let's say that's problematic. this is especially true within the long history of voyeurism and appropriation of harlem's artistic innovations. harlem has given birth to some of america's most distinctive and original art, music and literature. just as sure lly as harlem has innovated, it has been invaded. think of the original cotton club of the 1920s. there it sat on 142nd and lennox. home to betty smith, ella fitzgerald. but only white patrons were allowed. no member of the community could

sit and enjoy the music that the community itself created. the wound of that cultural theft is still fresh. and the new shake craze must be understood in that context. just check out these residents of harlem responding to the so-called new harlem shake. >> but it's not the harlem shake, like, at all. >> that's not the shake. oh, no good. >> that's not it. >> this is not what the harlem shake is. at all. >> so i'm asking members of the media to cease and desist in describing this as the harlem shake. i'm going to show you what you can call the harlem shake. as we leave you until next week let me introduce harlem's finest. the true performers of the harlem shake. the crazy boys and the harlem performers. take it away ♪ yes we got to problem, people trying to do that fake harlem shake ♪ ♪ let's shake to this, how much noise can you make to this ♪ ♪ now let's shake to this, now

let's shake to this ♪ ♪ show you how to do this, s son ♪ ♪ ♪ now let's shake to this, now let's shake to this ♪ ♪ now let's shake to this, now let's -- i'll show you how to do this, son ♪ ♪ harlem up, harlem up, harlem up, harlem up, harlem up, harlem up ♪ ♪ shake, shake, shake, shake, shake, shake, shake, shake ♪ ♪ shake, shake, shake, shake, shake, shake, shake ♪ ♪ shake, shake, shake, shake, shake, shake, shake, shake ♪ ♪ shake, shake, shake, shake, shake, shake, shake, shake ♪ ♪ shake, shake, shake, shake, shake, shake, shake, shake ♪

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