this morning, my question -- should we be celebrating or mourning the budget deal in washington? plus the michigan law requiring what some people are calling rape insurance. and queen bee looks back at it. but first we knew we would be talking about a school shooting today. we just didn't know it would be breaking news. good morning. i'm melissa harris-perry. listen, we knew we were going to be talking about a school shooting this morning. we just thought we would be talking about a memorial for events that occurred one year

ago today in newtown, connecticut, when 20 children and six adults were shot and killed by a gunman at sandy hook elementary in the worst elementary school shooting in our nation's history. instead of remembrance, we are reporting on yet another fatal shooting incident at an american school. the shooting suspect now identified as 18-year-old carl pearson opened fire at arapahoe high school in denver at about 12:30 p.m. mountain time friday. he wounded a 15-year-old female student who underwent surgery last night. the shooter, pearson, was later found dead inside the school from an apparent self-inflicted gunshot wound. students throughout the school described hearing three shots. every one of the littleton public schools including arapahoe was put on lockdown. the gunman, a fellow student, allegedly was targeting a teacher who was able to escape. all this happened at a high school just about ten miles from columbine high school where in 1999 a gun massacre claimed the

lives of 12 students, one teacher, and the two gunmen. arapahoe was also only 15 miles from the movie theater in aurora, colorado, where last year 12 people were killed and 70 injured in a shooting incident during a midnight screening. joining me live from colorado is ron mott. ron, what is the latest from colora colorado? >> hey, there, melissa. good morning to you. still an obvious police presence here. you can see the crime scene tape. police have been here all night processing this crime scene and what they consider three other crime scenes, one being the student's car, which we think may still be in the parking lot with a lot of the other cars of students and teacher who is had to find other ways home yesterday. they were also seen outside his home and his father's home, which we believe is in the denver area. police are working four potential crime scenes. while a lot of dee tails are still unknown, the police are expected to brief the media late this afternoon. but a couple students have told nbc news that this is what they believe happened.

earlier in the week there was some sort of confrontation between this student and the teacher and as a result the student faced some sort of disciplinary action perhaps was suspended, so yesterday during the lunchtime hour he showed up with a shotgun, made no effort to conceal it according to police and obviously got the attention of the folks in the hallways right away, including a janitor who saw him, heard he was looking for this particular teacher, tripped the fire alarm. the school wept into lockdown and this janitor ran to that teacher. the teacher left the building hoping to draw that student out of the school and the sheriff yesterday said that was very key. take a listen. >> we know that the student that was armed with a shotgun, as he entered the west side of arapahoe high school, immediately asked for the location of this specific teacher and asked for that teacher by name. as soon as the teacher realized that, as i indicated in my initial comment, he departed the school. that was a very wise tactical decision. he took himself away from the

school with an effort to try to encourage the shooter to go with him. >> reporter: now, melissa, as you mentioned the student, carl pearson, was found dead. police believe he turned his weapon on himself. the student who was shot and injured is a 15-year-old at the school. she underwent surgery yesterday, at last report in critical condition. obviously a lot of thoughts and prayers with her and her family. classes will be canceled on monday. officials say in the next day or two they'll decide whether they need to continue to close clatszs throughout the early part of next week. for now, as you can imagine, this community is still in shock about what happened here yesterday afternoon. >> undoubtedly. thank you so much, ron mott, reporting for us from colorado. the newtown shooting one year ago today and yesterday's shooting in colorado leave us asking one question -- how can we be sure that our kids feel safe and are safe when they go to school? on nbc's "meet the press," shortly after the tragedy in newtown, we heard one proposal from the national rifle

association's wayne lapierre. >> if it's crazy to call for putting police in our schools to protect our chirp, then call me crazy. i'll tell you what, i think the american people think it's crazy not to do it. it's the one thing that would keep people safe. >> okay so, i don't want you to miss this because lapierre asserted that of course we want police in our schools, it would be crazy not to want police, police make all of us feel safer. right? decades of public opinion research show not all americans find police to be a comforting presence. having armed officers in school may be a different experience for elementary children in a small town in connecticut than it is for high school students say on the south side of chicago. what happens if the officer ends up policing students rather than protecting them? the people who might save court kids could be someone like that janitor at that colorado high school yesterday who says he saw the shooter enter the school and

he may have saved lives by alerting the staff immediately. >> well, i was turning the corner when i saw a kid running into the building on the north side of the building. he was kind of running side to side, kind of military kind of style. when i saw that, i double looked to see if it was a gun. it was a shotgun. so right away i got on the radio to alert everyone and the staff to -- and when he went in, and that's just when i heard the shots. >> joining me are john nichols of the nation magazine, also cbs sunday morning contributor nancy giles. gregory thomas, the former director of security at new york city schools, and jonathan mets el, professor of psychiatry at vanderbilt university. i want to start with you, because we have we had absolutely planned to talk about newtown and talk about school safety, and then this happens. and this shooting is very

different than what we saw a year ago in newtown. are there any common lessons we ought to take about school safety and ways to make schools safer? >> i bell the bearer of good news. despite the fact we are here again on a date of remembrance for the sandy hook shooting and after yesterday's shooting, schools still remain the best place to be for children during daytime hours. in in spite of that, we'll find this shooter was troubled in other way taos. it wasn't impulsive. he had a plan of action. the question would be did he tell anybody about the plan of action. i'm going to probably guess he did tell other students or they had some indicators along the way there would be concerns from this student at some point. >> let me ask you about this question of police because we do know that there has been an increase in the number of schools that have sort of a police presence. and the question in part for me is whether or not that police presence makes students safer or actually puts them at more risk of being policed.

>> well, let's go on the rnl side. there's no empirical data that show police in schools make schools safer or no day that that in genuine formed people make schools safer. the school climate does. >> the educators themselves. >> that's up to them. on that sense of whether or not this will get worse over time, i think since sandy hook there's going to be more push to want police in schools. my concern is as you've mentioned earlier more police and schools need more guns in schools. >> there's no data that shows more guns in schools makes schools safer. >> jonathan, i kept thinking, at one point they had all the young people lined up on the school field and were walking them through and patting them down at the end of it. at this point apparently the police knew the circumstance was safe and so they're havipatting the young people down. watching them come out with their hands up and being patted down, i kept wonderinging what's

happening here? these are young people in a moment of trauma and yet also having to be treated like suspects at the same time. >> a remarkable set of images. it almost looked like a prison yard riot photo or something like that with the students running out with their hands up. at that moment i thought there's this big debate about mental illness and mass shootings and we often focus on the mental illness of this shooter. but i kept thinking look at the culture we're creating here in which there's so much anxiety, so much traumatic repetition, all these issues in which students, you could tell students knew the drill. on one hand that's a good thing because people acted safely and probably saved some lives, shut the door, but also this culture of anxiety that's being caused by just the presence of guns that were producing a kind of mass paranoia and anxiety by just the repetition of this gun culture. >> but, i mean, not just that, but what jonathan just said was picked up by the local paper, whose headline this morning was

just really gets you in the gut, because the headline is just "again." it's just "again." that culture of repetition. no one wants to politicize the death of, but that lanl, again. >> yeah. to a sane person, how can you politicize this? this is violence and just thinking again i saw the kids lined up and the hands up and it's become normal. it's like the new normal. i went to new york city public schools, to jamaica high school, which is a huge inner city public school. after i graduated i remembered hearing they set up metal detectors. i remember my friends and i were like, metal detectors? already ha felt like a violation. but to see these kids that are basically scared and being stopped and frisked was really, really depressing and horrible. >> is there a way to talk about this, john, that captures our distress, that acknowledges that

there's something we have to do in spops to this? our camps of left and right, democrat and republican, pro and anti-gun. >> i think the first thing to say is it's actually wrong to say we shouldn't politicize this. it's fine to bring a political feeling, a political sensibility to it. bring what we know, bring what we value to this. don't do so in a way that is hard edged. but there's nothing wrong with saying, look, we just saw congress fly out of washington and they started, this year, started on the note of we're going deal with some of these issues. we're going to wrestle with them. they just flew out of washington and one of the many, many things they didn't deal with was this. i would just say i feel all the emotions we've heard around this table. i have a 10-year-old daugter who knows too much about these kinds of drills. but by the same token we in

media and we around politics should not kind of like shut that discussion down. we ought to invite it and invite it in a responsible way. >> i like that point. we'll come back to what your 10-year-old and my 11-year-old know around these questions because we'll talk about schools on lockdown and what it teaches students about safety and about fear. but first, earlier this morning, remembrance of the victims a year ago today in newtown, connecticut. president obama and first lady obama stood before 26 candles in the white house map room observing a moment of silence. a can of del monte green beans? ♪ ♪ if i was a flower growing wild and free ♪

♪ all i'd want is you to be my sweet honeybee ♪ ♪ and if was a tree growing tall and green ♪ ♪ all i'd want is you to shade me and be my leaves ♪ grown in america. picked & packed at the peak of ripeness. the same essential nutrients as fresh. del monte. bursting with life™.

the friday shooting at arapahoe high school in colorado affected more than just the school where the shots were fired. in fact, the entire littleton public school system went on lockdown. a scenario we've become a lot more familiar with, especially in the last year. "slate" writer dahlia liftwick te tallied more than 25 school lockdowns in a week's span earlier this month and stressed that doing nothing in the face of school shootings is not an option. but she said, we ask our kids to pile themselves silently into their classroom closets ale tell them this is what freedom looks like, maybe. maybe the real message is we are all huddled in the closet trying to be invisible and silent and hoping whatever is out there will just go away. so it's a metaphor for our politics but also i think,

jonathan, going to your point of a certain kind of trauma that the young people feel. that said, i think, yes, i don't want to teach these kids to be on lockdown. on the other hand, living in the seventh ward of new orleans, having lived on the south side of chicago, lots of young people live their whole lives in lockdown because they're in communities that are marked by such violence. >> absolutely. you know, i think it's certainly we wouldn't want to be in the position of saying we're not going to adapt to the reality of our moment. i'm sure people in the 1950s when they were teaching their kids to duck and coffer from the bomb, there's a motive of feeling a sense of empowerment for something that feels out of our control. in that sense, i think it's understandable. at the same time, i can't help but think of all the interactions that are being changed by the availability of guns. you know, elementary schools is one area, but, you know, in tennessee where i live you can have a loaded gun in a bar, for

example. how is that changing, you know, people's interactions in bars? i mean, on college campuses, there's a move to increase, you know, access to guns for students and how is that changing -- i just think what happened here is every educator's worst nightmare in a certain kind of way that a regular interaction about a conflict about a debate team or something leads to some kind of fatality. >> something so important, i want to go back to what you said, gregory, school leadership being the thing that makes schools safer. i was reminded of antoinette tuff who helped to talk down that shooter in georgia. right? we're reminded of the janitor who plays that key role on this day. i'm thinking maybe the best safety policy is high quality pay, you know, teachers unions, you know, the things that make educators be secure and safe and want to protect your kids. >> the studies show when the school has a proper climate, a proper tone in the building, everybody is involved in the process from the food service workers in the cafeteria to the

understand what is schools are built for. they're not built for defending against shooters. they're built for teaching children. unfortunately in lockdowns and we got this way from the beltway shootings in 2002, when one of the snipers went into a middle school in maryland, we started learning about lockdowns. fast forward to a point where it wasn't a threat from the outside, it's a threat from the inside, the student in the body. we have to have staff in the building having their ears on all the time. >> i can hear the voices that may be watching saying, well, that's all nice, but in the newtown case -- that may be true in this case, but in the newtown case what we should have had is someone standing there at the front desk with a gun who could have take than guy out before he took out these 26 individuals. >> or not take than guy out and, you know, missed a shot and shot one of the kids. that's why that whole idea is so i think messed up.

going back to a point that gregory's made, the teachers and the staff including janitors, cafeteria workers and others, they have this kind of like meeting of the mipds so that everybody is on the same page, which i think is so important. and it reminded me again of newt gingrich saying janitorial job, you could train kids to do that work, and the denigration of those kind of jobs is so unfair considering that these people are sometimes the line of, you know -- >> they literally might save our children's lives. >> absolutely. >> it made me realize when guy back to school at the end of the week before we go off on our holiday break, there's a lot of people i need to say thank you to at my daughter's school because you just don't know. i want to take a moment to highlight the reporting of

michelle at msnbc.com reporting all year on the lives of far too many young people that have been lost to gun violence across our nation. it is a truly powerful series online now at msnbc.com. up next, i want to talk about one of the most shocking images that we saw yesterday in colorado. i've got a question for john nichols, as if another school shooting wasn't shocking enough, we looked up on the vel vision and i saw this part of the response, i was simply stunned. [ female announcer ] arms were made for hugging. hands for holding.

feet, kicking. better things than the joint pain and swelling of moderate to severe rheumatoid arthritis. if you're trying to manage your ra, now may be the time to ask about xeljanz. xeljanz (tofacitinib) is a small pill for adults with moderate to severe ra for whom methotrexate did not work well. xeljanz can lower your ability to fight infections, including tuberculosis. serious, sometimes fatal infections and cancers have happened in patients taking xeljanz. don't start taking xeljanz if you have any kind of infection, unless ok with your doctor. tears in the stomach or intestines, low blood cell counts and higher liver tests and cholesterol levels have happened. your doctor should perform blood tests, including certain liver tests, before you start and while you are taking xeljanz. tell your doctor if you have been to a region where certain fungal infections are common and if you have had tb, hepatitis b or c, or are prone to infections. tell your doctor about all the medicines you take, and if you are pregnant, or plan to be.

taken twice daily, xeljanz can reduce the joint pain and swelling of moderate to severe ra, even without methotrexate. ask if xeljanz is right for you. for all those who sleep too hot or too cool, for all those who sleep now there's a solution. sleep number dual temp, the revolutionary temperature-balancing layer with active air technology that works on any mattress brand, including yours. it's only at a sleep number store, where this holiday season, the hottest sleep innovations make the coolest gifts - including sleep number dual temp. discover dual temp at one of our 425 sleep number stores nationwide. sleep number. comfort individualized. maestro of project management.

baron of the build-out. you need a permit... to be this awesome. and you...rent from national. because only national lets you choose any car in the aisle... and go. you can even take a full-size or above, and still pay the mid-size price. (aaron) purrrfect. (vo) meee-ow, business pro. meee-ow. go national. go like a pro. for me, one of the most stunning images from yesterday's shooting in colorado was this armored vehicle driving on to school grounds. it got me wondering how many small towns have humvees, tanks at their disposal to deal with local crises. john, i just -- what? i mean, at that point, the danger was over and i just -- i was so shocked to see this small colorado town had this.

>> you shouldn't be. in the aftermath of 9/11, as we developed the department of homeland security, one of the ways that local police departments could actually get a little money from the federal government was to put in applications for all sorts of equipment. i'm not saying that one came out of that, but what i am saying is is across this country we have poured immense amounts of resources into incredibly high-level responses to these crises, and this is a crisis. whenever there's violence in a school. and it does concern me because i think that this is a part of the rethink. one of the things we do in a moment like this is where's the legislation, the big fix we can do? what i would suggest is that there's also a point at which we ought to talk about our allocation of resources within the existing set of rules and what we ought to do. i will juxtapose it, hope i'm not leaping too far there, you have that tank or that armored vehicle, at the same time i see schools across this country

taking hits op their janitorial staff, on their -- on their -- but on the whole of the -- and what i would suggest to you is this. i think the best protection for a school is a community where people know each other well, where the same people have been there over generations sometimes, where a parent can say, yeah, i had that teacher or, yeah, i knew mr. such and such, because that sense of connection i think brings kids in, even kids who might otherwise not feel connected. and so i would hope that atz we pour resource into these schools and communities i absolutely hope we do what's necessary to keep them safe, but i also hope that we think about how do we reinforce a sense of community and part of that is keeping long-term staff well trained and frankly well compensated. >> so, greg, i want to ask you in part on, that one of the moments that broke my heart was this student talking about texting her parents in the moment as it was happening. i just want to listen for a moment to what she had to say

there. >> i texted my parents. fortunately, i had my phone. but i sent a text i had never wanted to send to my parents. >> i sent the text i never wanted to have to send to my parents. meaning she thought about -- it wasn't i sent an unthinkable text but one she thought about. i kept thinking does that armored vehicle, does this military grade equipment, how does that fit with living for her in a circumstance where she's thinking about the possibility she may have to send this kind of text? >> to lisa's point, it's the new normal now. we have to be careful how we go down this slippery slope. i was an outspoken critic putting officers in every school. first of all i've had this three-pronged test, what problem are you solving putting a police officer at the front door? that being said, can you afford to put a police officer in every school?

not just your school, my school, but every school. 125,000 schools in the country, how many cops, can you do that? if you can't do it, don't start it because you can't sustain it. the question is are we going to get to the point things are doable and sustainable rather than just knee-jerk reactions. >> you get the last word on this. >> we're still processing what happened here, but this is among other things an access to guns issue. in a way, the question of armed police the schools is guarding against the shoe bomber or something that's already happened. this is also an access to guns issue. we have tremendous research that shows that if we limit access we'll stop the problem before it even happens at this point. >> right. there may be questions of mental health and all these other sorts of thing bus in the end there's a fundamental access question. >> absolutely. >> gregory thomas and jonathan, thank you for being here this morning. before we go to break, i want to once again point our audience to a special project online at msnbc.com. it focuses on the lives of the people lost far before their

time. please take a look through this extraordinary piece of reporting at msnbc.com\tooyoungto die. up next, we'll talk about the big news out of washington this week and why the devil really is in the details. ♪ [ male announcer ] rocky had no idea why dawn was gone for so long... ...but he'd wait for her forever, and would always be there with the biggest welcome home. for a love this strong, dawn only feeds him iams. with 2x the meat of other leading brands...

...to help keep rocky's body as strong as a love that never fades. iams. keep love strong. with 2x the meat. love the iams difference or your money back.

the senate is expected to hold a vote on the budget deal next week. there's been plenty of self-congratulations on capitol hill. let's take a closer look. the del is, after all, in the details. the deal funds the government for two years and it cuts the deficit by $23 billion and ree stores $63 billion in sequester cuts. it is paid for not with any new tacks but by increasing security fees on air fares, cutting

pensions for military retirees, and keeping in place a 2% place in medicare payments to doctors. but it's a compromise. right? i mean, democrats managed to keep the republicans from slashing and burning medicare or medicaid or social security and republicans manage to give a few more billion in deficit reduction and no new taxes. the federal government won't be shut down. but is that really something to celebrate? i mean, i might be inclined to celebrate if the deal completely ended the sequester. but we're not fully restoring long-term funding to medical research and federal housing benefits and head start. the deal does not extend long-term unemployment benefits. $1.3 million people will lose their ben fifths on december 28th, and the budget does not save s.n.a.p. from the billions of dollars of cuts it will likely see in the next farm bill, which will probably pass in january. the budget does nothing to create jobs or strengthening the social safety net or stimulate the economy or anything that congress might actually need to do. just keeps the status quo.

in nerd land, can't say i'm surprised. this is a bit of a theme we've seen over and over and over again, the democrats and republicans date death e bait an issue, there's a compromise, we're told both sides win and lose, yet democrats seem to count it as a victory when they don't gain anything but manage not to lose everything. getting anything done is a win for the democrats, even the thing that benefits the republican interests almost exclusively. david kay johnson, contributing editor at "newsweek" and author of the fine print and robin farzad, a writer for businessweek.com. david, talk me down. i'm having this kind of -- this is terrible. is there anything good we should be feeling good about in terms of this deal? >> only that there's not a shutdown. >> which is good. >> which is a good thing, important thing. >> but why is that the new normal? >> it's a terrible result of this gerrymandering where the democrats got 1.4 million votes in the house more than the republicans but they're not in

control. and hopefully this will come to an end after the next election. we'll get some sensible government. after all, even john boehner is calling people ridiculous. >> it seems to you like in 2014 we might see a shift in house leadership? >> maybe the democrats running it possibly. but most importantly, this is a deal in which we're taking from poor children, 57,000 children out of head start. we're going to cut by a billion and a half dollars medical research that saves lyes. and we're going to add $20 billion to the pentagon, which as we all know is absolutely starved for money and can hardly put boots on soldiers' feet. >> the pentagon was an interesting one here because on the one hand we are going to add back some of the money that was cut from the sequester. but then we have military veterans and federal workers who are saying what you're doing is cutting our one percentage point cost of living increase that came with the pensions and off

bipartisan agreement to do that. we're saying you guys ree tire at 40 and go work other jobs so we're going to cut back on those pensions. is that a reasonable payway to think about those tradeoffs? >> a reasonable way of looking at this is we're going to be spared the fiscal cliff metaphor. it could have been monetary outcropping. budgetary butte. i was stoked for round three of this but it's not going to happen. people are realizing it's not black or white, not one party versus the other. even within this party you have this agreement where the tea party side of it is no surrender, no give, no take, just stick to this, no tax increases. within the republican party they realize it's going to subsume the entire party when congressional approval rate rgs at an all-time low. you almost have to split hairs, even looking at something as monolithic as defense spending. are veterans going to be orphaned if they don't get their cost of living adjust. it's showing you can't black and white things the way you used

to. you'll get called on it. >> let's listen to paul ryan talking about what xhond ground looks like and feels like for him. then i skeel you a question, john. >> to really do what we think needs to be done we veal to win some elections. and in the meantime, let's try and make this divided government work. i think our constituents are expecting a little more from us. they're expecting us to not keep shutting the government down. they're expecting us to pay the bills. they're expecting us to be accountable. they're expecting us to watch how their dollars are being spent. and they're expecting us to find common ground and that's what this does. >> that's interesting because constituents are expecting us to find common ground and hold the line. this is a big political shift from ryan. >> ak chuly, it's what you say when you went. you say, yeah, we found some common ground.i'm standing right on it. shoo interesting. >> paul ryan drew up this process.

>> along with patty murray. >> pat fi murray was present. and i think she -- as many other members were. remember, this is a broad committee. but i think it's fair to say that paul ryan was the person who came in with a very strong plan, came in with things he wanted, and what i would say about dloef process is paul ryan is a proponent of austerity. he believes in usausterity. this is an austerity budget. this budget says to federal employees, to military personnel, you've got to carry the burden of some deficit reduction because we will not cut taxes for billionaires, we will not close loopholes, and so i think rather than going into the nitty-gritty to the details of this thing, step back and look at what the stamp of approval was put on. it was put on a budget that says, you know, mr. paul ryan we used to give you almost no support when you came forward

with budgets. you were pushed to the side. you couldn't get co-sponsors. now you're at that microphone. you're the center of this thing. and what you like, which is a wall street-driven austerity agenda that redistributes wealth upward, you're winning. >> that's precisely what i want to come back on. you're right. the idea that paul ryan is now mr. common ground guy, when we look at congressional approval ratings we see them declining precipitously, and as part of that decline of congressional approval ratings is putting folks at the center who were always on the margins -- >> this is the common ground. >> this is the common ground, paul ryan. when we come back, nancy, i want to pick up on this question and about who's carrying the burden and talk a little bit about the long-term unemployed. also up next, the next hurdle for the budget deal. why it may be a close call many the senate. [ male announcer ] if you stash tissues

like a squirrel stashes nuts, you may be muddling through allergies. try zyrtec® liquid gels. nothing starts working faster than zyrtec® at relieving your allergy symptoms for 24 hours. zyrtec®. love the air. ladies... kitchen counselor. it's likely your detergent. cascade platinum's triple cleaning formula delivers brilliant shine finish gel can't beat. it even helps keep your dishwasher sparkling. cascade platinum is cascade's best. i can't believe your mom has a mom cave!

today i have new campbell's chunky spicy chicken quesadilla soup. she gives me chunky before every game. i'm very souperstitious. haha, that's a good one! haha! [ male announcer ] campbell's chunky soup. it fills you up right. in the nation, what's precious to you is precious to us. ♪ love is strange so when coverage really counts, count on nationwide insurance. we put members first. join the nation. ♪ nationwide is on your side ♪

every day we're working to and to keep our commitments. and we've made a big commitment to america. bp supports nearly 250,000 jobs here. through all of our energy operations, we invest more in the u.s. than any other place in the world. in fact, we've invested over $55 billion here in the last five years - making bp america's largest energy investor. our commitment has never been stronger. peoi go to angie's listt for all kinds of reasons. to gauge whether or not the projects will be done in a timely fashion and within budget. angie's list members can tell you which provider is the best in town. you'll find reviews on everything from home repair to healthcare. now that we're expecting, i like the fact i can go onto angie's list and look for pediatricians. the service providers that i've found on angie's list actually have blown me away. find out why more than two million members count on angie's list. angie's list -- reviews you can trust.

despite the lopsided support in the house, the senate vote is expected to be extremely close. but ultimately to escape a filibuster. the reluctant senators signing on to move it forward because to quote senator john mccain, i'm not okay with it but i think it's better than shutting down the government. so, nancy, this is our new normal. right? he's not wrong. much better to shoot it down. >> this congress has been awful. let's lay it out there. they've done nothing except this time not shut down the government. the last piece to take a shot at paul ryan, it looks like he's changing his posture and language and is rehearsing for presidential elections. what's getting me more than anything is more and more i see politicians as complete ideolog ideologues. i understand the break between the tea party and the less conservative republicans. i don't feel like they're speaking to any of their constituents. i think most people want jobs,

most people understand that by cutting out of long-term unemployment, they're hurting themselves. i don't think these guys are really representing their people. >> and part of what we know about that is people get disstressed and hate government and opt out, it shrinks the electorate, which is always good for the republican party. >> absolutely true. >> just sending people out in disgust. i want to talk specifically about the stimulative or lack of stimulative effect of this budget. specifically around what's going to happen with long-term unemployment and with these unemployment checks in three days after christmas. we've got cbo projections telling us that long-term unemployment benefits would create 200,000 jobs in 2014 and would grow the economy by 0.2%. we also know 4.1 million people have been unemployed longer than six months with an average length of unemployment at nine months. and we know the percent of unemployed out of work for six

months is at an all-time high. and part of the this deal is to end unemployment benefits. how bad is that not just for those folks but for our economy? >> it's misery for those people and their children, and when you combine especially with food stamp cuts and daycare and just economic idiocy. the larger problem is having this large number of unemployed people is driving down everybody's wages. it's at the lowest level since 1998, $500 a week. the share of worker who is make below average wages is growing. at the same time, the $5 million and up jobs of which there are about 8,000, 9,000, are exploding and the pay is exploding. >> that's that inequality. >> that's exactly right. so what's happening is here is these policies -- remember, we were promised in 1980, just cut taxes and provide business with incentives and we'll be in terrific shape. well, by golly, we should be

absolutely flooded with jobs and we're not. it doesn't work. and here in new york state, the state this year will give $1.7 billion in state tax credits and a new report by two very credible shows not a single job will be created. in fact, $10 billion over the last nine years, 200,000 fewer jobs in new york according to the state's own website. these programs are damaging the economy and most important we're not investing in the long-term future. we're cutting research that will make us wealthy in the future. >> to this point, and i believe i can only say it on this show, damn, it feels good to be a banker. >> right. >> it is really great because the bailout happened five years ago, the federal reserve, which has been stimulative as opposed to contracting the economy fiscally, which congress has been doing, has been a zero interest rate policy, $3.5 trillion of quantitative easing. the banks have never been this

proportionately -- they're enjoying another flush year where they're telling their workers don't go out there and put it on your goldman sachs credit card but it's been a gangbusters year. corporations are able to borrow at record low rates. they're not yet hiring people. >> so this is not a small point. my producer sends me a little factoid many the middle of the night and i wake up to it that says we've got fewer banks at this moment than we had at any time of the great depression. i was, like, come on. she said seriously. this is where we are. but then on this long-term unemployment question, in the context of that, what do we -- do we even have any ideas about what the strategies are to fix that? because the last time we had a few number of banks we had a big recession and massive unemployment, we had to fight a war with japan and germany, right? >> the tennessee valley authority. >> yeah. >> shovel ready? nobody ever handed mae shovel. >> so i love fdr and i love the new deal but isn't it really

that it was the war, not the -- >> the stars have to aslip in a unique way to get utous of the depression. >> let's bring us out of that right to now. the president is starting to talk about inequality a whole bunch more. i have a suggestion for him. abandon the trans-pacific partnership. >> yes. >> abandon these free trade deals or not get rid of free trade but start to rethink how we do this because the fact is deindustrialization is harming this country. >> when we come back, john is going to explain what those words meant and robin is going to explain what the volcker rule is. while we go out, i'm going to take inappropriately timed selfies. [ male announcer ] alka seltzer plus presents the cold truth. [ coughs, sneezes ]

[ sniffles ] i have a big meeting when we land, but i am so stuffed up, i can't rest. [ male announcer ] truth is, nyquil cold and flu liquid gels don't unstuff your nose.

they don't? [ male announcer ] nope. they don't have a decongestant. really? [ male announcer ] really. alka seltzer plus night fights your worst cold symptoms, plus has a fast-acting decongestant to relieve your stuffy nose. [ inhales deeply ] alka seltzer plus. oh. what a relief it is. [ male announcer ] can't find theraflu, try alka seltzer plus for fast liquid cold and flu relief.

the dreams of the financial sector preventing another bubble-fueled economic disaster. one of the most prominent controversial divisions of dodds frank known as the volcker rule was finalized this week. let me explain to you what it is. robin? >> very good. >> i tried to stop at barnes & noble and pick up the cliff notes. it's a 936-page document which in theory is supposed to prevent wall street from bringing down the entire system again by betting on taxpayer-backed deposits. in practice it's going to be kicked down the road. it's impossible to discern what is reckless risk taking versus legitimately protecting your klines and yourselves and limitations not going to happen until at least 2015 so it's not going to be on the obama administration's watch. and by then, look, they say, you

know, with what happened with respect to 2010 and 2008, the horse is already a mile away. this horse is dead. it has been converted to glue. >> glorified animal rights. >> we're trying to prevent the excesses that occurred in the middle of the last decade from happening again, meanwhile a whole different jig with happen in international finance. >> almost to point about guns and you hear folks say we're fighting, we're fighting the last war, protecting against the last terrorist threat. in this case are we protecting against the last economic threat? in other words, if the volcker rule protects against a set of practices, bankers are not dumb people. won't they just create a new set of risky practices? >> the volcker rule in a sense is banks are not allowed to gamble with your paycheck. we don't need the volcker rule with 900 pages if we go back to glass/steagall which says if you want to be in the business of underwriting stocks and

proprietary trading, make all the money you can but you're not in the bank business. >> bipartisanship instead of the dismantling of glass/steagall. larry summers, the clinton administration, republicans, hard to reassemble that. >> this gets to the heart of it, too, because the volcker rule was put in to dodd/frank and then it took three years of unbelievable negotiation, hundreds of meet, the lobbyists flooded clip. the fact of the matter is when you analyze is volcker rule as it's written in this big package, it's pretty good, but there are loopholes, areas that are weak, and the fact is we're not done and the dangerous thing in enacting a volcker rule is [ inaudible ]. the reality is we haven't restored glass/steagall so that firm line is not there. also the fact is sharon brown, senator from ohio, and david vitter, senator from louisiana, they've got a bill. >> mm-hmm. >> they have a too big to fail bill. you want to really get to the heart of the matter here? let's start moving on

legislation to say we can't just have a handful of banks that can tell us what to do. let's start telling them what to do. >> i said it's moved from too big to fail. too big to care. >> too big to prosecute. ? that's for sure. >> but how did it get this way? this is a naive question because i've never understood how banks, how money started running the government. i mean, i don't know. can you explain that? >> right, right, because -- >> i don't know what happened. >> this is the time of year where all of us are going to have that moment where we get to watch "it's a wonderful life" and see that lovely sort of conversation about, you know, here's what a bank is, i take some of your money and loan it to build your house. that's how we want to feel about what a savings -- >> if mr. potter ran the s.e.c. or treasury, we wouldn't be in this position. >> they do. they do. >> i'm just glad that the pope is talking about this. >> yes. >> you know, he is talking about this. >> exactly. >> fundamental issue. you ask how did money get to run things? there's an awful long answer to

that, but the biggest answer is we don't have a good discussion about the money power. >> you're right. >> in part because -- >> wasn't that about rooms -- >> there's not another voice with a similar kind of international powerful theme. the pope does provide that. and specifically challenges, right, paul ryan around that in "nerdland." >> here's the wild card domestically. sorry. >> please. >> elizabeth warren may not run for president in 2016. >> she can't. >> but she could be the or the mentor of the fipgs services industry, which begged incorrectly in forwarded her for appointment not realizing she could go and run for a senate position. >> we've got a pope and elizabeth warren. >> elizabeth warren, and david knows this, she knows how to volley the surge. she knows their vernacular. when they try to use terms and euphemism, she cuts through that. >> the pope and elizabeth warren weren't on the playing field years ago. right?

>> right. >> there was a pope on the playing field. he just was not that pope. this is our favorite pope. we've been working on a song in "nerdland." the lyrics include big pope and washington speak. >> i love when you call me big pope-a. >> john nichols, roben farzad. thank you very much. coming up, beyonce's new surprise. new videos, new music and a new perspective. what her life says about the lives of women everywhere.

welcome back. i'm melissa harris-perry. did you feel the tremor in "nerdland" because on thursday night the earth moved a little when out of nowhere queen b dropped a bomb.

instagram and saying surprise, she unleashed her fifth titled album on the world and the world may never be quite the same, or at least the music industry, because b managed to achieve the impossib impossible. in an industry where album links are almost as common as album releases, she managed to record 14 new songs and created a visual album of 17 videos all without nine finding out, which according to beyonce was exactly the point. >> i felt like i don't want anybody to give the message when my record is coming out. i just want this to come out when it's ready and from me to my fans. >> although if you were paying attention there were a few clues. earlier this year when we all thought she was changing up her new look for a haircut she was getting into one of the many characters she plays throughout the visual album. somehow while in the middle of world tour she managed to find time to shoot videos in at least two of her concert location, in

brazil and her hometown of houston. in july, she dropped a track entitled "bow down." it stirred up controversy for its repeated use of the b word and a command to bow down. now, that left some critics and some fans disappointed feeling like b had abandoned her girls run the world lady first philosophy. as it turns out the clip was only a sneak peek of "flawless," the song on her new album that is, in fact, her feminist manifesto. seriously, this is not just me trying to find feminism where it doesn't exist. this is beyonce explicitly framing her message on the song in a feminist context and responding to critiques of the earlier version of the track. for an entire verse, beyonce turns the mike over to a nigerian author who for an excerpt from her truly flawless ted talk on african feminism entitled "we should all be

feminists," with beyonce singing background vocals and giving full h-town attitude in the video, here's what the woman says in the song. >> we teach girls to shrink themselves, to make themselves smaller. we say to girls, you can have ambition but not too much. you should same to be successful but not too successful. otherwise you will threaten the man. because i am female i'm expected to aspire to marriage. i'm expected to make my life choices always keeping in mind that marriage is the most important. now, marriage can be a good thing, it can be a source of joy and love and mutual support. but why do we teach girls to aspire to marriage and we don't teach boys the same? >> in asking her fans to consider the answer to that question, it's clear beyonce is not telling her female flowers to bow down. she's inviting them to stand up. joining me now feminist author and columnist for the nation magazine jessica valente, nancy

giles, syracuse university college of law professor david kay johnston, who's always on beyonce panels, and professor of english and african-american studies at columbia university, farrah griffin. thanks for being here. so farrah, part of the reason i wanted you here this morning was because of your work around african-american women artists who at earlier times dealt with some of the same critiques that beyonce has dealt with as being oversexualized or somehow outside of what we think of as respectable and normal. and yet presented and generated a particular kind of feminism. do you see any connections between beyonce and the blues women that you study? >> absolutely. i think she's fully in tradition of the blues women and although she certainly has power and more control than they had. they struggled to have that kind of control. but they also had kind of an artistic autonomy and i think beyonce falls within that notion. >> that notion of artistic

autonomy, jessica, my best girlfriend sent me a text right away and she's also a cultural critic and historian, and she says beyonce is about running this life, isn't she. i thought that's exactly it. whatever else is happening in this visual album, she's like this is all me, you'll have to love it or hate it. is that a form of feminism? >> absolutely. i think it's about authorship. she's clearly the person in control of constructing and owning her own image, which is not something you see often when it comes to female pop singers and celebrities. i've been calling this album to launch is going to launch a thousand women's studies papers. >> absolutely. in addition to that, it probably did sort of change the game in a particular kind of economic way within the context of the music industry. right? we were all sitting around and when i say we i assume everyone who watches "nerdland" also watches scandal, which means we're all on twitter, scandal, scandal, scandal, and we're all angst because karrie is going away until february.

moments later beyonce drops this and, wait a minute, what? wait a minute, wait a minute. >> she knew, too. >> i felt like this is somebody who understands her audience, understands social media platforms and sort of produced in addition to whatever the context is, she produced something extraordinary in terms of the business side of this. >> she appears to be in control of this and none of this leaked tells you that her staff thinks well of her because contracts are one thing, respect is another. beyonce strikes me as someone who beyond the fact she has this incredible talent so she can be both an incredible singer and an incredible performer, we often get one or the other, i'm sorry, i always thought women's liberation about about getting to be who you wanted to be? you want to stay home and have 20 kids? that's okay. you want to be a ceo? that's okay. you want to do what she does? that's okay. i'm surprised at the criticism she's getting. but she's in a marketplace where her rewards are going to be determined by whether or not people want to shell out money for what she's doing. i suspect she's going to do really well. >> she is her own commodity in

that sense. that might be part of the angst people feel, right, because part of what feminism does is push back this idea of women's bodies as commodified so it can be a real challenge to see someone actively commodifying herself in this way. >> but to pick up on david's point, what's really incredible, what she's doing not om for women but artists is giving them the power and the tools and showing them that your music can go straight to your fans without record companies coming in between, without them trying to shape your image and without them taking part of the money. i mean, that is one incredible thing that's come of music on the internet is just the straightforward with no other interference. i think that's incredible. >> so i want to shift a little bit here. i'm going to stay on beyonce far while, but i wanted to ask about this one aspect of the feminist discourse in the piece where she says at one point we teach women to be competitors to one another, not for position but rather for men's attention. and, you know, i was thinking,

oh, yeah, that's like the team movies. but the moment when that really happened was selfie gate this week. right? you have the president taking these, you know, inappropriate selfies during mandela's funeral, but the story became about first lady obama's face and this idea that somehow she was jealous of or angry about the president. and i just kept thinking we're talking about the prime minister of denmark, the first lady, and we have to turn this into a cat fight situation. >> actually, to be specific, the danish prime minister was the one holding the camera so it was her selfie. >> her inappropriate selfie. >> and the photographer. i was so happy whoever it was went online and said moments before the first lady was smiling. it just happened to be a shot where she was sort of sitting there like that. >> we were told how to read that narrative. right? >> yes. >> and we were given instructions for how to read it without saying there's a whole

bunch that we really don't know what happened. ? and we're supposed to read it as women are competitors over a man. why would that have been the -- >> why are we supposed to care? >> i think ox ann had one of the best responses to this when she wrote the default way we see black women's emotions is anger. >> yep. >> and that's -- we have no idea what she was feeling in that moment but we immediately went to anger. >> angry black woman. >> and we live in the age of the internet. you know, the first lady is going to be in gifts, have means, that's fine, but we can't ignore the sort of racial enjengerred narratives that construct these images. >> my neutral face apparently looks angry to people all the time. what are you so mad about? nothing. i'm actually just sitting here. stay right there because up next beyonce and beyond. the images of women in 2013. the ones that we're going to cherish and a few that we might want to forget. [ woman ] too weak.

wears off. [ female announcer ] stop searching and start repairing. eucerin professional repair moisturizes while actually repairing very dry skin. the end of trial and error has arrived. try a free sample at eucerinus.com. ♪ ♪

[ male announcer ] everyone deserves the gift of all day pain relief. this season, discover aleve. all day pain relief with just two pills. yeah. i heard about progressive's "name your price" tool? i guess you can tell them how much you want to pay and it gives you a range of options to choose from. huh? i'm looking at it right now. oh, yeah? yeah. what's the... guest room situation? the "name your price" tool, making the world a little more progressive. because you can't beat zero heartburn. woo hoo! [ male announcer ] prilosec otc is the number one doctor recommended frequent heartburn medicine for 8 straight years. one pill each morning. 24 hours. zero heartburn.

frequent heartburn medicine for 8 straight years. sleep tris ending soon! interest-free for 3 event get 3 years interest-free financing on beautyrest black, stearns & foster, serta icomfort, even tempur-pedic. plus, get free delivery, free set-up, and free removal of your old mattress, and sleep train's 100-day low price guarantee. but hurry, sleep train's interest-free for 3 event is ending soon! superior service, best selection, lowest price, guaranteed! ♪ sleep train ♪ your ticket to a better night's sleep ♪

among the many gift that beyonce claus brought us with her surprise al sbum feminism multilayered and comfortable in its contra dick where is sh unapologetically reveals, yes, her body, but the full human being that goes with it. we have celebrated women as subjects, not objects, but those moments are still few and far between, the overwhelming misrepresentations of women's bodies in the media. if you have forgotten just how badly media failed women in 2013, a new video recapping the handful of highs and a whole lot of lows will remind you.

it's from the representation project, a san francisco based movement designed to critique and change the media depics of women. the 3:30 video gives us about 30 seconds to feel good about moments like these. ♪ >> and in the remaining three minutes hits you with the reality that as far as women have come, in this year it still isn't far enough. >> if you are female while you are also all those other things men who you defeat in argument will still respond to you by calling you hysterical and telling you to calm down. >> joining me now from san francisco is the founder of

the organization that put together that video, jennifer newsome, who is filmmaker and ceo the representation project. nice to have you. >> thanks for having me, melissa. >> tell me about this new video and how it fits into the general project of misrepresentation. >> sure. so we founded the organization out of making the documentary misrepresentation which explores the representation of women in positions of power and influence in america and challenges the media's limited portrayal of what it means to be a powerful woman. each year the film premiered at sundance in 2012 and premiered on the oprah winfrey network. each year since then we premiere these end of the year videos that are calling out sexism in the media and challenging our culture to take a look at this and change their behave and ultimately transform the larger culture. >> i want ta touk about one aspect of this because i use misrepresentations in my class and there is this incredible -- >> oh, good. >> i find it really useful. it sort of represents the

challenges but also gives us something to push back against in the class. >> right. >> so the visual correcting of the model's body through the computerized retouching is kind of a pretty astonishing example, it's inherently troubling to me, but i guess i'm a little less convinced that open displays of sexuality are inherently problematic. that's part of where this beyonce moment, which is extremely sexy visual album. so how do you challenge those two on the one hand saying, okay, you know, those altering images versus just we have a right to represent our real bodies, our sexy severals? >> totally. totally. really what we're trying to do with the representation project is expand the spectrum of humanity for boys and girls, men and women so, that we're not limited by think there's only one stereotype, one sexuality, one feminine ti. that's whareally what we're all act. the issue is complex and at the end of the day we need to have a

large national conversation around healthy sexuality, sense sensual ti, eroticism, clearly a larger sex education discourse amongst our youth, give than the media is sort of in their face 24/7. and then if you want to connect the dots with violence against women, clearly and i'm making a big leap here, but clearly there needs to be more of a national conversation, understanding amongst boys and men that no really means no. so i think the good news is that we're in the beginning of having these conversations and part of the reason we put out these videos and the success of beyonce really is that we can have these conversations and so, you know, good for you for bringing this all together today. >> so farrah, let me ask you about this. some of the images we saw while general for was talking were from the pretty video from this new album beyonce just dropped. and, you know, there were these moments in it when she is looking at the camera and she's

performing what we think of as the normal beyonce face, that kind of big, wide-eyed smile and suddenly i had this discomfort and thought, my gosh, she's always just performing that. the idea that pretty hurts. like she's telling us that. on the other hand, the woman is extraordinarily beautiful and so it's a little tough to hear this pretty hurts from someone who is that extraordinarily gorgeous. >> well, i think that, you know, it's the performance of pretty that hurts. right? i think, you know, so many women are naturally beautiful and don't realize how beautiful they are yet they're made to perform a certain notion, someone else's notion of beauty and it's a bind that young women particularly not just entertainers find themselves in but young women find themselves in all the time. natural beauty, no, that might not hurt, but the performance for someone else's desire can be painful. >> can be painful. >> this is my favorite video by far. you know, she starts the album off, and this is someone who's constructed sort of this iconic almost superhuman persona, but

she starts it off in this vulnerable place. you see her waxing her mustache, throwing up in a bathroom stall, getting botox sort of bringing herself down to this human level and not holding herself above the other women in the video pip think that way she's sort of acknowledging yes, she is held to patriarchal standards as well. >> there's a lot of beyonce vulnerability that we see here. i mean, you know, there's a moment she's looking back at it, like looking back at her own physical self but also looking back at her life. there are all of these citationa l moments as daphney brooks might say, looking back at her own early failures as a reminder to all of us that destiny's child didn't win the first talent contest yet here she is and that's something you can relate to. >> of course. pi they what'sly is in a way this to me was real example of empowerment. sometimes i see things that beyonce did as hypersexualized and i wasn't sure whether it was just something to be kind of

outrageous and sexy or whether it was a woman saying she owns and controls her own body. i've always been confused about that. but this was a -- >> she got real -- >> portrayal of all of it, warts and all. and you saw this whole thought of education, which i love. i love. >> stay with us. we have more on beyonce. jennifer newsome, thank you so much for joining us. when we come back, exactly nancy's point, this question about when you know someone is self-empowering. we'll talk about twerking to teach aless lest son about feminism. you want to stay with us and meet this young woman who is a twerking scholar, when we come back. if you've got copd like me, hey breathing's hard. know the feeling? copd includes emphysema and chronic bronchitis. spiriva is a once-daily inhaled copd maintenance treatment

that helps open my obstructed airways for a full 24 hours. spiriva helps me breathe easier. 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. these may worsen with spiriva. discuss all medicines you take, even eye drops. stop taking spiriva and seek immediate medical help if your breathing suddenly worsens, your throat or tongue swells, you get hives, vision changes or eye pain, or problems passing urine. other side effects include dry mouth and constipation. nothing can reverse copd. spiriva helps me breathe better. does breathing with copd weigh you down? don't wait to ask your doctor about spiriva.

see who does good work and compare costs. it doesn't usually work that way with health care. but with unitedhealthcare, i get information on quality rated doctors, treatment options and estimates for how much i'll pay. that helps me, and my guys, make better decisions. i don't like guesses with my business, and definitely not with our health. innovations that work for you. that's health in numbers. unitedhealthcare.

it's not the "fumbling around with rotating categories" card. it's not the "getting blindsided by limits" card. it's the no-game-playing, no-earning-limit-having, deep-bomb-throwing, give-me-the-ball-and-i'll-take- it-to-the-house, cash back card. this is the quicksilver cash card from capital one. unlimited 1.5% cash back on every purchase, everywhere, every single day. so let me ask you... what's in your wallet? you may remember oscar night

2006 when a group accepted the academy award for best original song for "it's hard out here for a pimp." from the film "hustle and flow." more recently he's fashioned himself a philanthropist of sorts when he offered a $50,000 college scholarship to a student. i had to admit i was disstressed about the application -- film a video of yourself twerking and send it to the juicy j song called "scholarship." but my distress turned to delight when at my gender sexuality and hip-hop conference last week a professor from ohio state university highlighted how one of those students used her video application to teach a lesson in feminism. and why she's not just a twerker but a twerk scholar. >> i'm not just a twerker. and i'm not just here for your hypersexual compunction. i am an intellectual. i am an artist. i'm a student. and i'm a teacher.

i'm a motivator and encourager and a community leader. >> the young woman who submitted that video twerk scholar and university of texas student is joining me now from austin, texas. nice to have you here. >> hi. thank you for having me. >> absolutely. tell me your story a little bit. why did you enter the juicy j twerk scholarship? >> well, i was coming back, returning from a study abroad program i got to do this summer in nicaragua where i studied politics and culture of afro caribbeans. and during that time i studied -- i did depth research along with studying the politics and culture of afro-caribbeans focusing on the ways that twerking can be empower iing. and it was an amazing experience because i got to see that they do twerk in another part of the

world and once i got back from that program and returned to the u.s. everywhere i looked all on the screens and the airports, miley cyrus twerking. i was, like, whoa, talk about culture shock. this is crazy. this is a revolution of twerking now. everybody knows about it. >> so i want to get in on this a little bit because you were talking about going and studying twerk in a foreign culture but part of what i was interested in hearing is you talked about the fact that in your own experience you'd had to do work as an exotic dancer in order to help to pay for college. and so this was you being empowered to do what you had to do to do for your schooling, but then were having trouble finding folks on campus to respect you as the intellectual and the feminist and the student leader that you are. >> right. i'm very active on the university of texas at austin in the black community because there's not a very large

percentage of black students at u.t. and coming from a majority black high school or not majority black environment and coming to u.t. i was very intimidated. and i had to -- i wanted to immerse myself in the community and make friends and be accepted by my peers like everybody would like to be. and when i fist got to u.t. a lot of students were hearing about me or -- >> yep. >> -- you know, hearing in rumors oh, so you're kimarii. i just felt like i had to prove myself and defend myself. and i became a part of every black organization at the university of texas and a really strong community leader. i was a political action chair of the black student alliance last year. and i just -- i participated in

everything. >> so -- >> when i heard about this opportunity i had to take it. >> pause for me real quick because i want to bring in farrah griffin for a moment. so much of your work is around -- so part of what we love about kimari's story, she's clearly talented and the video she made was extraordinary in her dancing skills and analytic skills, yet she was managing and coping with questions of shame. i wonder about how sort of how within our communities racialized or not we can make sure we're not shaming young women for being part of what is international cultural ways of presenting ourselves and our bodies. >> no one's more eloquent about shame than you have, melissa, but one of the things kimari says that is fascinating is she can educate us that twerking -- part of the problem is that twerking that became so pop you lawyer with miley cyrus is taken out of context.

i think most americans think of it as an oversexualized dance in a strip club. she's saying no there's this whole cultural context that goes meaning to it beyond its commodification. >> kimari in austin, texas, we've got to go but i want to suggest two things. first thing is you've got to watch, if you haven't seen it yet, beyonce's video "blue" because she's doing the same work that you were doing. >> i just watched hit the morning. >> dud you see it when she's in brazil learning the whole twerk culture? i did. >> so who knows maybe she'll send money far scholarship, but also i want you to know that your video became so central in our gender sexuality and feminism conference and my bet is that if you contact professor lindsey at ohio state maybe if you're at all interested in graduate study, i just know somebody who totally gets you there. >> okay. great. thank you so much. i appreciate that. >> thank you so much. kimari carter in austin, texas,

and farrah dprgriffin at the ta. thanks for being with us. everybody else is going to hang out with us a little longer. i still want to ask david kay johnson if sex sells, who is selling and what are they selling, and i also want to talk to jessica about this new thing they're selling in michigan called rape insurance. [ woman ] too weak. wears off. [ female announcer ] stop searching and start repairing. eucerin professional repair moisturizes while actually repairing very dry skin. the end of trial and error has arrived. try a free sample at eucerinus.com. ♪ through 12 ice storms brewing ♪ ♪ 10 straight days raining ♪ 9 hailstorms pounding ♪ 5 mysteriously heavy holiday fruitcakes ♪ ♪ 4 actual tree houses ♪ 3 blackouts ♪ 2 weird to mention ♪ and a roaming horde of carolers ♪ ♪ with my exact same route [ female announcer ] no one delivers the holidays like the u.s. postal service. priority mail flat rate is more reliable than ever. and with improved tracking up to 11 scans you can even watch us get it there. and look for our limited edition holiday stamps.

i have a cold with this annoying runny nose. [ sniffles ] i better take something. [ male announcer ] dayquil cold and flu doesn't treat all that. it doesn't? [ male announcer ] alka-seltzer plus fights your worst cold symptoms plus has a fast-acting antihistamine. oh, what a relief it is!

plus has a fast-acting antihistamine. discover card. hey! so i'm looking at my bill, and my fico® credit score's on here. yeah, you've got our discover it card, so you get your fico® score on your monthly statements now, for free! that's nice of you! it's a great way to stay on top of your credit, and make sure things look the way they should.

awesomesauce! huh! my twin sister always says that. wait...lisa? julie?! you sound really different on the phone. do i sound pleasant? for once in your life you sound very pleasant. at discover, we treat you like you'd treat you. free fico® credit score. get the it card at discover.com. now to rape insurance, coverage that would have to be allowed before, not after, if she decided to have the procedure done. the only exception is abortion to protect the life of the mother which means to obey the law women would have to plan for an unplanned pregnancy. the mu policy has been labeled by some as rape insurance because of the possibility of

needing to terminate unwanted pregnancy resulting from a sexual assault. after michigan's republican governor rick snyder vetoed similar legislation last year, the organization right to life of michigan reintroduced the bill to a citizens petition. according to michigan law, that means it can't be blocked by the governor's veto. and it can become law without his signature. the law is set to take effect 90 days after michigan's lawmakers adjourn for the year. jesds jessica, we've been talking about women's sexual empowerment and the cultural representation, but how can one be empowered with these kind of policies? >> i think it's really difficult and near impossible. the rape insurance bill i think is just one of the latest. it's worth pointing out that michigan is the ninth state to do this, to put these restrictions on private insurance companies and whether or not they can cover abortion. but i think -- and, you know, i wrote an article about this -- i have a real issue with the term rape insurance. you know, i understand why it's

taken off. it's very media friendly. the policy is, in fact, very terrible and awful for rape victims but i think when we focus on rape and the most extreme stories we really run the risk of creating this hierarchy of acceptable and unacceptable abortions and women who are deserving of care and coverage and women who are not. i think it just increases that. >> this point that even as we're trying to fight for women's reproductive rights we end up generating stigma. it's so present in this particular case. i want to listen to a michigan state legislator who was telling her story from the floor at this moment. let's take a listen. >> i'm about to tell you something i've not shared with many people in my life. but over 20 years ago i was a victim of rape. and thank god it didn't result in a pregnancy. because i can't imagine going through what i went through and then having to consider what to do about an unwanted pregnancy

from an attacker. >> so state senator whittemore is incredibly brave in that moment and yet there's a part of me that thinks why in the world would someone need to talk about their sexual assault in order to pass legislation? there's a part of me that also feels like we have just retraumatized, made her vulnerable again in that moment. >> so unfair. that's why i've been in therapy for many years is the issue of fairness. really. it comes up in so many different ways. why do women -- it's so private. this is private. this is a private decision a woman and her doctor should be able to make, period. i'm one of those people who can't understand -- i understand religious women who feel that -- won't go down that road, you know, but i just done understand the basic issue of privacy and making one's own decision. i feel like women are being punished, punished for having sex, and the hierarchy, you're right, in the exception of rape

or incest. just shut up about it. >> i like the language of privacy, david, and i want to play with it in connection to the things we've been talking about around popular culture and the representation of women's bodies which are off son not private. on the one hand we have way in which you can empower yourself through a beyonce moment or you're disempowered through the representation of women's bodies being very public and it feels almost like that publicness of women's bodies is is part of why people think they can then make policy about our bodies. >> i think it's deeper and more disturbing than that. you know, this is part of the republican promise of less government in your life? i mean, this is absurd. >> regulating a marketplace. >> and it reflects a profound misunderstanding of human beings and of their lives. and, you know, i'm somebody who's been confronted with these issues several times in my life, including, you know, if things go badly, who do you dsh what's your religious doctrine or view,

do you save the mother or the child? i assure you that anybody confronted with those decisions, no matter how shallow they are in life, has to think very deeply about them. and government has no place being here. and i don't care if the market out there for selling sexuality is distorting our understanding. people elected to office should know better than that. >> david, can i just say how much i appreciate what you just said? i was screaming and yelling yesterday saying, okay, i am so appreciative of this state senator, but why the hell are there no men talking about this? because men are intimate with women who are rape survivors, who have had abortion. they have made these kind of decisions. why is it the only women lawmakers making these personal claims? >> well, there are some men who talk about this, and they're hard to find. for example, the military officer who was raped by her superior, her husband was very eloquent about these issues, and there have been some legislators. the news media tends to pick women doing this.

and that's part of the exploitive rather than explanatory side of journalism. you know, that's one of the things we should be very concerned about is the kind of murdochian news that is designed to exploit rather than explain. but this development, you know, i covered the michigan legislator for three years when i worked for the "detroit free press" back in the '70s. if you had brought up this bill in the 70s i assure you it would have gotten zero to one vote. >> fascinating. >> it's a big change. >> in those 40 years actually now become easier to pass. jessica valenti, nancy giles and david kay johnston turning murdoch into a verb. thank you. up next, a little christmastime controversy that i'm going to take just a moment to weigh in on. it's my letter after the break.

[ female announcer ] we eased your back pain... ♪ ready or not. [ female announcer ] ...so you can be up there. here i come! [ female announcer ] ...down there, around there... and under there for him. tylenol® provides strong pain relief and won't irritate your stomach the way aleve® or even advil® can. but for everything we do, we know you do so much more. tylenol®. ♪ but for♪ i know they say, wyou can't go home again ♪e.

♪ ♪ i just had to come back one last time ♪ ♪ ♪ you leave home, you move on [ squeals ] ♪ and you do the best you can ♪ i got lost in this old world ♪ ♪ and forgot who i am

[ sniffles ] i have a big meeting when we land, but i am so stuffed up, i can't rest. [ male announcer ] truth is, nyquil cold and flu liquid gels don't unstuff your nose. they don't? [ male announcer ] nope. they don't have a decongestant. really? [ male announcer ] really. alka seltzer plus night fights your worst cold symptoms, plus has a fast-acting decongestant to relieve your stuffy nose. [ inhales deeply ] alka seltzer plus. oh. what a relief it is. [ male announcer ] can't find theraflu, try alka seltzer plus for fast liquid cold and flu relief.

this week the debate about santa got heated, not the existential discussion about the big man's existence, the other santa discussion, the one about his week. this week aisha harris called for us to reimagine santa claus, casting him not as a jolly white man but as a friendly deracialized penguin. then during a discussion about the column, megan kelly of fox news said this. >> by the way, for all you kids watching at home, santa just is white but this person is arguing that maybe we should also have a black santa. but, you know, santa is what he is, and just so you know, we're just debating this because someone wrote about it, kids. >> both harris' initial proposal and kelly racialized santa angst prompted enormous public backlash so, much so that last night kelly responded on air, pointing out that the segment was comedic and arguing that the over the top responses are reminds that even when we're

talking about the lighthearted, the satirical, the magical, and the admittedly imaginary, racial symbols are still powerful and provocative. yeah, i hear you on that one, megan. >> for me the fact that an offhand jest i made during a segment about whether santa should be replaced by a penguin has now become a national firestorm says two things -- race is still an incredibly volatile issue in this country and fox news and yours truly are big targets for many people. >> all right. so give than i know a little something about how awful it is to have a cable news host unwittingly launch an army of angry trolls in your direction, this is not a letter to megan kelly. i thought i'd address my letter to the man who's used to getting an awful lot of mail this time of year, dear santa, it's me, melissa. i'm not writing to appeal my placement on the naughty list but to make an early appeal. i think we're going need you before december 24th. i know it's a busy time of year but we need to settle a little

debate that's emerged asking are you white, are you black, when you come in from the norte pole do you have a legal visa or are you undocumented? your whole story which is supposed to be universal can leave plenty of kids feeling disstressed this time of year. can you find a kid if he lives in an apartment building not a house without a chimney? can you find her in a homeless she felter? why do you leave so many more trees under the big trees in the wealthy neighborhood and so few under the trees in the poor communities? are the kids with unemployed parents on the naughty list? growing up in a household with one white parent and one black parent and three siblings who were black and one who was white and me with a bit of both, no one made up stories about santa is the color of the people in the house he vi. i mean, you would have been technical rainbow at 413-b where i grew up. i know that when you put dolls under the tree you knew that i needed one that looked like me. and my big sister needed one that looked like her too. i know that you have inspired

cultural artists such as run-dmc. come to think of it, you're a lot like our country itself. you're as universal and encompassing or azzinaro and exclusionary as we imagine you to be. so if we cannot imagine you as racially different from ourselves it's because our minds are stunted by a history that still can't fathom benevolence and kindness and intimacy in the bodies of those who are not like us. if we still doubt that you can embody every possibility of racial being, it is because we do not yet believe that every racial body is capable of making our sugar plum dreams come true. if we can't imagine santa across the racial divide, no wonder we have trouble creating an america without a racial divide. so, santa, maybe this year you can leave just a little more racial imagination and tolerance in our christmas stockings. maybe you can gives us a little bit more sense of satire, help

us to be a little slower to judge, and give us the tools to have more empathy for one another. because if we as a nation can become polarized over you, we're going to need a lot more than candy canes this time of year. sincerely, melissa. oh, p.s., parker says she's waiting up for you this year. i can't always keep my kids' socks clean. but at least i can help keep their underwear clean. with charmin ultra strong. i'll take that. go get 'em, buddy! [ female announcer ] charmin ultra strong has a duraclean texture and its four times stronger than the leading bargain brand. enjoy the go with charmin ultra strong. does your mouth often feel dry? a dry mouth can be a side effect of many medications but it can also lead to tooth decay and bad breath. that's why there's biotene. available as an oral rinse, toothpaste, spray or gel, biotene can provide soothing relief, and it helps keep your mouth healthy, too.

remember, while your medication is doing you good, a dry mouth isn't. biotene -- for people who suffer from dry mouth. [ male announcer ] this december, experience the gift of true artistry and some of the best offers of the year at the lexus december to remember sales event. this is the pursuit of perfection.

here in new york city, nearly 4,000 kids ended up in prison last year, and by kids, i mean children under the age of 16. even when they get out in new york state, two-thirds of kids released will be rearrested within two years. eight out of every ten girls and nine of every ten boyce will be rearrested before they are 28. our foot soldier this week is taking a stand against those deplorable statistics. jordan lexton spent three years teaching teenagers in the rikers

adolescent facility. of the 13,000 students she taught during that time, over 600 cycled back into rikers. jornds shifted from the classroom to the kitchen to try to change that or more specifically to the food truck. her organization drive change is now training and employing formerly incarcerated youth in new york city, giving kids the chance at a job and a better future. jordan is here with me now along with her head chef roy waterman who is now the owner of his own catering company. thank you both for being here. >> such a pleasure. >> jordan, tell me why food trucks? of all the possibilities. >> so as a teacher on rikers iened la, i was working with adolescents who were treated as adults in the criminal justice system. new york is one of two states, north carolina the other, that automatically arrested 16-year-olds as adults. i watched my students recycle back into the system. there was a culinary arts class in one of the school programs.

there was this is amazing amount of pride young people had preparing their own food, serving food. it stuck with me. it really stuck with me the whole time i was teaching there. i thought i want to start a business where i can provide my students who are all too frequently recycle back into the system with the opportunities for employment and transferable skilled learning >> jordan, that point about food and where i want to come to you as a chef, that resonates absolutely with me. maybe because i live new orleans and we're a food city. that idea of taking particular pride in casting something that is beautiful, that is nourishing, that is maybe surprising for a young person to be able to make, is that why food connects for you? >> yes, pretty much. food transcends everything. race divide, any sort of discrimination, people have towards each other. food happens to bring everybody together. >> i mean, it's an interesting point. i think again about new orleans, right snlt people make different kinds of gumbo but when you eat someone's gumbo, you're part of their table. >> the shared meal.

it's a powerful thing. >> jordan, one of the things that i read about your goals for drive change is you said beyond the program itself, you want to change perceptions when people are thinking about what it means to be formally incarcerated. less what we think about the formally incarcerated than what they think about themselves. >> it's a combination of both really. it's the customer experience and also the experience of the young person in our program. food trucks are visible, they're mobile, they're out there. the idea of doing a food truck is such benefit to have that interaction with the community at large. we're giving people the opportunity to really interact with the young people in our program face to face. and to have that with the source of this beautiful food that you see in front of you as something that's going to hopefully dispel that preconceived notion of what it means to be a formally incarcerated young person. >> you're taking the young people to them. you're not waiting for the community to come in. >> exactly. >> when you are working with these young people, when you're training them in the culinary

arts, what are the biggest challenges that you run into? >> i think just basically to just understand that don't get caught in the here and now. i think as a whole, young people, we tend to fall into the here and now and not look at the big picture. we get caught up on seeing things, attracted to things, things sometimes that aren't good for us and then we do foolish things to then attain those things. i think it's always about keeping to the forefront, listen, understand, you're only 16, 17, 18 now, but ten years from now, you will be looking for a career. you'll be looking to get married. it's all about partnering with our young people to continue to just keep them focused and change society's perception of what formal incarcerated young people are or how they should act or carry themselves. >> all 16-year-olds have a hard time seeing the future, but the stakes are so much higher for young people incarcerated. >> the future is a daunting thing for anyone. it's a daunting i think it for me and i've had the access to opportunity my whole life.

just to think about how daunting the future is for somebody who at age 16 is already leaving with the possibility of having an adult criminal record, we really want to broaden those channels to access and broaden those channels to opportunity for youth so they can go on and live crime freel bright futures. >> jordan and roy, thank you not only for being here and your work as food soldiers but for bringing food. you undoubtedly get rebooked for bringing foods. that's our show for today. thanks to all of you at home today for watching. i'm going to see you again tomorrow morning 10:00 a.m. eastern. writer, poe evident, activist, the great nick kill giovanni is going to be here. now time for a preview of "weekends with alex witt." >> mice perk of the job. thank you so much. a teenager is found guilty of driving drunk killing four people and injuring two others. prosecutors ask for 20 years, but the judge gave him probation. schooling for the defense says he suffered from affluenza.

some are calling ta defense a get out of jail free card for the wealthy. take a look at a live picture of central park bob the high-rises. today nbc news has new and intriguing information about the ex-fbi agent who vanished in iran. also the reporter who first uncovered that whole story but was told he had to hold it. hollywood takes on washington, d.c. again in a film inspired by a huge 1970s scandal. one of the lead lines in this mean, some of this actually happened. we'll revisit what actually happened and while that film is getting some rave reviews, we'll take a look at it for you. don't go anywhere. [ female announcer ] stop searching and start repairing. eucerin professional repair moisturizes while actually repairing very dry skin. the end of trial and error has arrived. try a free sample at eucerinus.com. so i deserve a small business credit card with amazing rewards. with the spark cash card from capital one,

i get 2% cash back on every purchase, every day. i break my back around here. finally someone's recognizing me with unlimited rewards! meetings start at 11, cindy. [ male announcer ] get the spark business card from capital one. choose 2% cash back or double miles on every purchase, every day. what's in your wallet? i need your timesheets, larry! ♪ hark how the bells, sweet silver bells ♪ ♪ all seem to say throw care away ♪ ♪ from everywhere, filling the air ♪ [ female announcer ] chex party mix. easy 15-minute homemade recipes you just pop in a microwave. like caramel chocolate drizzles. happier holidays. chex party mix. happier holidays. and it feels like your lifeate revolves around your symptoms, ask your gastroenterologist about humira adalimumab. humira has been proven to work for adults who have tried other medications but still experience the symptoms of moderate to severe crohn's disease. in clinical studies, the majority of patients on humira saw significant symptom relief, and many achieved remission.

humira can lower your ability to fight infections, including tuberculosis. serious, sometimes fatal events, such as infections, lymphoma, or other types of cancer, have happened. blood, liver and nervous system problems, serious allergic reactions, and new or worsening heart failure have occurred. before starting humira, your doctor should test you for tb. ask your doctor if you live in or have been to a region where certain fungal infections are common. tell your doctor if you have had tb, hepatitis b, are prone to infections, or have symptoms such as fever, fatigue, cough, or sores. you should not start humira if you have any kind of infection. ask your gastroenterologist about humira today. remission is possible.

a somber moment of remembrance at the white house just a short time ago. that and new reflections on sandy hook one year later. political storm. the new budget deal has ignited a battle of a different kind, had one inside the gop. how will it end? how might an epic traffic

jam in one jersey city affect the 2016 freshl election? what he may or may not have been doing in iran. and this mystery deepens. an ex-fbi agent who vanished in iran more than 2400 days ago. what was he really doing there and where is he now? nbc news has new information. hello, everyone. it's high noon in the east 9:00 a.m. out west. we start with this developing news. right now the northeast is it getting slammed by a powerful winter-like storm bringing heavy snow, freezing rain and slick icy driving conditions with it. this was the scene in upstate new york as many there are still trying to dig out from friday's thick blanket of snow. >> buying shovels, salt, oil for our snow blower. >> you can complain all you want but it's not going t