this morning my question, just what is cruel and unusual punishment? plus, the end of the world as we know it has already begun. and to quote nina simone, mississippi got damn. but, first, what happens when the richest of the rich just keep on getting richer? good morning. i'm melissa harris-perry and one theme reins supreme in our nation's capital this week. money, money, money, money. not just any old money, but the kind of money that widens the wealth gap between the rich and

poor in this country. it's a theme as old as david and goliath, us versus them, or as it has come to be known in our recent political discourse, the 99% versus the 1%. a movement that began ahead of the 2012 election and seized control of presidential campaign messaging. that is, until republican candidate, former massachusetts governor mitt romney introduced another percentage into the political vernacular, 47%. as defined by governor romney, that was the group that was dependent on the government, thought of themselves as victims, paid no income tax and would vote for president obama no matter what. well, and vote they did. ensuring president obama was elected to his second term in the white house, though his 51% of the vote couldn't ensure that the president would gain any ground against the 233 republican members of the house or 45 republicans in the senate or the gop's unprecedented obstructionism against obama care, his judicial nominees, the

budget, you know, governing. so congressman paul ryan's house gop federal plan to cut spending by $5.1 trillion by 2024 by cutting essential programs came really not exactly as a surprise this week but the key numbers this week that could change the game for those in the 99% is 5 and 4. that is, 5 to 4 because that was how the supreme court voted in mrk c mccutchen versus the fec. but hold up. if you think that the 1% will be the ones benefitting from this ruling, i hate to break it to you, because it's actually the .1%. and even the .01% who are leaving all the rest of us in the dust. while the .1% has had its ups and downs with the u.s. wealth share in the last century, one

thing is for sure, things are looking pretty good for them lately. and when we look at this next chart in terms of distribution of wealth by class, the potential effects of mccutchen versus fec decision with regards to the political process become devastatingly clear. the washington post produced the following graphic which shows how much the campaign finance flood gates have been opened. before the mccutchen decision a single donor could contribute $5200 up to the limit of $48,600, however, the mcccurb chon decision determined that if a single donor gives $52 to every house senate candidate in a single party in a 468 race election cycle, that would amount to nearly $2.5 million. at a time when the american median income is a little more

than $52,000 a year. unemployment is holding steady at about 6.7%. the poverty rate is at 15% which translates to more than 46 million americans. and decisions like mccutchen versus fec make the political process of free for all for the top .01%. how could any american citizen feel like we the people includes them and their one little vote at all? at the table, heather mcghee who is the new president of think tank demos. david k. johnston a contributing editor to newsweek and author of "divided, the pearls of our growing market inequality." mark calibrio and alexis goldstein, the communications director for the other 98%. dedicated to removing corporate lobbyists from washington. thank you all for being here. heather, let me start with a little bit of devil's advocate and just say, all right.

seriously, how important is this mccutchen decision? hasn't it been the case that there has been an outsized impact for the wealthy relative to governing because they have money to bring to bear? does this really make that big of a difference? >> that's a good question, actually, melissa, because it's true. our system is so dramatically skewed already to the big donors that are able to write the massive checks and why that's important is that there's an actual difference in policy preferences between the very wealthy and the rest of us. take, for example, the minimum wage which was a vote that the republicans blocked on wednesday as well while the president was out there stumping for it. the idea that minimum wage workers should actually be able to work their way out of poverty because minimum wage should be that high gets majority support even among republican voters but it's actually a minority opinion among essentially the donor class, the wealthiest americans according to recent research.

you see where it's not just like horse races. oh, of course billionaires are always going to spend a lot of money in politics, but it ends up shaping who gets to run, who gets to win, and then what actually elected officials are doing after they get into office. >> this is useful. mark, i do think that an argument could be made, i'm not saying that i would necessarily make it, but i do think that an argument could be made, look, there's a patternism, the wealthy being that wealthy are no longer interested in gaining income. they are going to govern in a way that protects the public. i sometimes hear this about campaign finance reform. i'll hear what you need is people who are independently wealthy to run because then they won't be impacted by contributions to campaigns. >> we need more jon corzines or rockefellers. >> or bloomberg. >> i do think the world view of donors across the political spectrum incorporates into d.c. it's not just the money, of course. it's like we were at larry

summer's undergraduate class together. this is what we learned. they travel in the same circles, have the same world view. where i would disagree with heather is there are half the beliefs of the donor class i agree with, half i don't. it might come as a surprise that polls show that the american public largely do not believe in cansian stimulus spending. the donor class does which is, again, they took undergraduate economics with larry summers. i think there's a tremendous amount of group think in washington and i think it re234rek9s the group think of the donor class. >> i think it's important to codify what happened here. you do a good job in the interim in laying that out. this mccutchen ruling affects 1200 people. >> in terms of their capacity to give. >> there were 1219 people to

give that much and in the past have given up to the aggregate limit. if you take into account the whole two-year cycle $123,200. that is one in 4 million americans but it is 1 in 6 billionaires. the coch brothers and others are among that class. we were a country that was founded on, you know, let's remove tyranny, let's remove kings, but there used to be this concept of divine right of kings. now we have this divine right of corporations and divine right of the .01%. i don't think the american public agrees with that. >> this is useful. let me dig down on this a little bit. i like the idea that we were founded on this democratic ideal. we were founded on the democratic ideal penned by a slave owner. certainly at no point -- less than 100 years of women having full citizenship rights. we're always sort of striving towards this perfection. the question is whether this decision pushes this back. i like both of what you said

here. i want to get you to weigh in, david, because this is a suggestion that the issue is about the donor class as opposed toideological viewpoint. when you say larry summers, it says the democratic party may be equally impacted by the extent to which the super donors can contribute to just a few. >> all of the people who led the american revolution would be shocked at the suggestion that dollars equal speech. >> yes. well, yeah. >> which is at the core of what the radical, and he is a radical, john glover roberts is promoting here. democrats are going to have to go to the same pool -- >> tell people who john roberts is. >> chief justice of the united states. >> yes. >> so, you know, i've been rerepeated reading gordon wood on how we became the american people and throughout you see him in the publications that stirred up the public so we'll revolt against the british. there was a talk about common rights, concern about

aristocracy. aristotle told us you can have an ollie gashing can i or democracy but you can't have both. we're headed towards being an oligarchy, not a democracy. that's not good. >> i want to think about the extent to which in a very specified way they don't work out well. what kinds of impact we might expect to see as we see this growing inequality gap when we come back. up next, the budget proposal that could increase the wealth gap. first an update on the search for that missing malaysia airlines passenger jet. chinese state media, cctv news is reporting a chinese ship taking part in today's search efforts has detected a pulse signal in the south indian ocean, however, we have no confirmation that this is linked to flietd 370 at this point. a high level government official in malaysia tells nbc news the government is aware of the reports but cannot verify the information until it is corroborated. chinese state news agency also published photos it claimed show

unidentified objects in the south indian ocean. nbc news has not independently verified this report. we will continue to monitor the story and bring you the latest information as it becomes available and we'll also be right back. if you're living with moderate to severe crohn's disease, and it feels like your life 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

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the best thing for people out of work are jobs and economic growth. that's what this budget accomplishes. >> sure. >> on fighting poverty, let's not measure it by how much money we throw at programs. we should stop doing that and measure the effectiveness by how many people we get out of poverty. >> that was paul ryan speaking with fox news on wednesday the day after he released the updated house budget program which would raise no taxes, repeal president obama's health care law, alter medicare benefits for future retirees and

make steep cuts to medicaid and food stamps. according to ryan this roadmap would create a balanced budget by 2024 but i guess that depends on what you mean by what you mean by balanced. this is it. we have spent a lot of time in nerdland on it. david, nobody thinks this is going to become law. >> no. >> why does it matter? why so much coverage and why even -- this is a serious document, right? ryan's a smart guy. >> i don't think it's a serious document. one-sided math. this part of the problem is we have this intense coverage because there are people advocating for it for what amounts to let's cut programs to the poor, let's reduce access, let's stop investing in people so that they can get to a better place in life and very little discussion about all these programs i read about that take from the many very subtly and redistribute upward through regulatory policies and rules that almost nobody knows about and there are no statistics on that i've dug out of the public record. mark knows that the regulatory system is full of this. it is quashing competition, which is bad for consumers, and

it is reinforcing existing wealth. the real agenda of paul ryan and his program is to protect the existing wealthy, not to create new wealth. >> okay. all right. good. i love this. i want to listen to paul ryan speaking in his own words for msnbc's effort called in plain sight where we talk about poverty. want be to listen to paul ryan speaking for himself and have you respond to that, and david. >> we want to make sure that our poverty fighting programs are meant to get at the root cause of poverty to break "the cycle" of poverty, get people out of poverty. that's the concern we have which is a lot of these programs as well-intended as they are are not serving the purpose of getting people out of poverty on their feet again. >> he's talking about these root causes. then we have this path to prosperity which is very much cutting social programs. how do we connect the two things? >> let me say, i don't know a sitting politician in washington who's put forward a serious budget. let's be honest about that. we were facing long term fiscal

imbalanc imbalances. i think the recent deals have put us back. there are lots of places where we should cut. there are 12 nuclear aircraft carriers in the world, 11 out of the united states. do we not have enough? i think there are lots of places we should cut, like defense. there are lots of places we can -- >> this does increase the defense spending. >> i think that's a massive mistake. paul ryan, if you're not willing to come to the table -- >> i think it's fair to say there's no serious budget put forth. the progressive caucus has put one forward. >> i applaud them. i question the math. let me talk about the poverty issue. there are two separate issues on how much you spend on poverty and what you do on poverty. what i mean by the structured programs is most of our programs work so that an extra dollar of earnings, you lose a percentage in benefits. many programs punish work. >> right. right. which we've talked about repeatedly on the show that part of it is it brings you up to this marginal level. you start losing benefits and so there really is a cost/benefit

tradeoff. >> absolutely. >> typically, at least the progressive response to that is you need to hold that safety net a little bit longer so people aren't struggling above the water but are kind of clearly above it. this is a response to take the net away altogether. >> more importantly, let's talk about even besides what it does to the safety net, which is draconian cuts that are not supported by the american people, let's look at what it doesn't do to do what is the biggest challenge of our time which is invest in recreating the middle class. the middle class didn't just create itself. looking not -- >> are you trying to suggest we build that? >> looking not just at government transfer programs, but looking at the economy, what can people do to work and educate their way into the middle class. what about the g.i. bill, things in the labor market in terms of giving workers more security and bargaining power, the ability to form a union. these are all things that paul ryan either cuts against by doing the massive discretionary cuts that would be things like

infrastructure, pell grants he freezes. he makes it harder for people to get financial aid at a time when a college degree is the ticket. >> i want to connect the first and second for just a second. there was something extraordinary that happened in the 2008 race and that is owe bombing ma for america in the 2008 primaries and general election made sort of ordinary people into political donors for the first time. folks that had never thought about giving money to a campaign because they have 20 dozllars t give, 50 dollars to give. is there any way in the face of the mccutchen decision which allows a super class to have more political donation capacity to go back to these folks, to the folks who will be most impacted here and make them not just voters and not just folks interested in government policy but actually political donors who could impact who gets elected and who doesn't? >> absolutely there is. it's one of the bright spots in our politics right now is that much of the democratic caucus in the house has signed on to a new

bill called the government by the people act which would match small donors. it would do a system like we have in new york city like almost just passed in new york state and like connecticut has which would actually make it so that a waitress o are a nurse or a school teacher could give a modest donation. it would be matched by the taxpayers. taxpayers who would then be able to be calling the tune. and what we've seen is that in keshl connecticut in a place they have that, you see policies that reflect the policies. >> people at the table have a lot of emotions behind this. i'm going to allow those emotions to be articulated as soon as we come back. first an update on one of the 99%. last week we shared this story about shanisha taylor. a single homeless mother of two who was arrested on march 20th for two felony counts of child abuse after leaving her children in the car during a job interview. she said she had no access to child care. after hearing of the arrest, 24-year-old amanda bishop who says she is also a struggling

single woman established an online fund-raiser to finance her bail. set at $9,000. to date almost 3,000 people have donated amounts totaling more than $85,000. according to the fundraising website, a local arizona church also came to her aid gathering enough funds to post her bail on march 31st. all funds raised online will go towards her legal expenses. we're going to keep you updated as this story progresses. small donors, big change. in th, feed it, and care for it, don't we grow something more? we grow big celebrations, and personal victories. we grow new beginnings, and better endings. grand gestures, and perfect quiet. we grow escape, bragging rights, happier happy hours. so let's gro something greater with miracle-gro. what will you grow? share your story at miraclegro.com.

coming out with a budget that's a blueprint for a modern coch -- how would we say this, cochtopia. yeah, that's it. kochtopia. in fact, call it whatever you want. we might as well call it the coch budget because that's what they're -- they're protecting

the koch brothers. >> that was harry reed on fire. that was as he spoke on the senate floor. the senate majority leader slammed the koch brothers. harry reid tried to preemptively associate them with paul ryan's budget proposal even before it was released. if you thought the koch brothers would not respond to democratic attacks, think again. on wednesday charles koch pechbed an op ed where he wrote the central believe and the fatal con see the of the current administration is that you are incap panel of running your own life but those in power are capable of running it for you. this is the essence of big government and collectivism. instead of striving for -- i don't know senator reid but in this it seems like koch is

telling you and the democrats, game on. i want to go back to the question of donors, there's a clear democratic strategy. call the republicans puppets of kocr. make him the bad guy and is that good strategy? >> i don't think you have anything to run on. rather than taut here are all the great things we have -- >> 1 million people who signed up for obamacare. >> then why aren't they talking about that? why isn't that -- >> they're talking about it. >> well, there's far more -- i mean, i've gone to a few democratic fundraisers. they talk far more about all the evil koch brothers than they talk about obamacare. >> why would you preach to the converted. >> also in part because i'm talking pure strategy. bad guys can be a more motivating thing to run against than even the good guys no matter what you're on. >> big government is the boogie

man on the right. it seems like part of the left is using the koch brothers as the boogie man. the cato institute is part of the koch brothers. >> david is on the board. >> they are big donors for lots of other big groups like the heritage foundation, americans for prosperity. i think that is an effective tactic for the left to run against. so many people are upset about big money in politics and the koch brothers are the biggest money. >> i love the language of kochtopus. right? kochtopia. i suppose kochtopus is as good a name as any. they funnel dark money all over the country in 2010 and 2012 elections and now their kochtopus money man is heading up another group and coming straight after me. you can name it. this guy works for koch -- >> i don't work for koch.

>> no, but one can make this claim about the connections. the problem is if you get cancer treatment in new york, you're getting it from koch money. >> if you go to the theater. >> a lot of money to charity. i wonder if kochtopus is big and you're using it to smear, will the democrats soon have the mud back on them just because kochtopus is so big. >> back to the strategy question. without a doubt the 2012 election was one of the ugliest and to me one of the most negative campaign on both sides. i think the democrat strategy looked at it and said we won on 2012 by going negative early and often and it worked. i certainly think the party has convinced itself that negative is the way to go. i will certainly agree that the republicans think the same thing. i would love to see the broader debate become more about the issues. >> it would be really good if the democrats instead of just attacking the koch brothers

would stop being republican light and would promote things that really matter. you know, if you believe in market economics, bring back unions. use that on the republicans. unions are market economics. let's get universal health care. if portugal with half our income per capita can provides universal health care, 47 babies will die needlessly because of the american health care. that's part of my book "divided. compared to cuba. 15 babies will die unnecessarily because they do a better job than we do on infant mortality. those are the kinds of things the democrats should be promoting. the koch brothers plan, if you're a capitalist, it's a great plan. anybody else, they favor lower wages, fewer benefits. that's the -- >> and by capitalists you don't mean someone who believes in capitalism. by capitalist you mean someone who owns the means of production. >> here we go again. >> quickly respond to two points -- >> i promise i will let you.

one more break but i do want to ask about this. part of what president obama did this week was to get a little more like democrat on it in his discussion about minimum wage and actually calling the growing inequality in america the defining issue of our time. we'll take a look at this. first as we go to break, a change of tune with our foot soldier this week. 13-year-old aiden hornaday. we'll tell you how he's using his harmonica to help others. right now, let's listen to aiden. ♪ ♪ [ female announcer ] you get sick, you can't breathe through your nose... suddenly you're a mouthbreather. well, put on a breathe right strip and instantly open your nose up to 38% more than cold medicines alone. so you can breathe and sleep. shut your mouth and sleep right. breathe right.

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work and families or walk the walk and actually value hard work and families. you've got a choice. you can give america the shaft or you can give it a raise. >> that was president obama speaking to a crowd at university of michigan on wednesday. the president was there to praise michigan's ongoing efforts to raise the minimum wage and promote his plan to raise the federal minimum wage to $10.10. he did so by accusing republicans who oppose both of those efforts in michigan and in congress of standing in the way of prosperity for millions of americans. so i want to ask you a question about occupy. we started way back in the beginning of the show that occupy gave us the discourse of 99 versus 1. occupy shied away from specific policy proposals. it wanted to change the language of how we think about inequality. is it possible that occupy missed the chance to encapsulate this question and can occupy come back around and adopt this?

clearly the democratic party has. i'm wondering if there's a moment that can help to get behind it? >> in my opinion, occupy was more about how do we destroy hierarchies in any form. the message was, look, the power source is not washington, d.c. the power source is in new york city. these are the people calling the shots. i think in the wake of occupy it's shifted conversation and other groups have used that momentum to take up this struggle around minimum wage. i don't know that occupy is the group to do that. i think the momentum and spirit around direction action and occupations has spread. we see occupations with moral mondays, and we've seen it in atlanta and georgia where there was occupations there. i think sort of the tactic is more easily spread. i think the message of occupy was more about how do we dismantle hierarchies and less about particular policy points. >> let me ask whether or not since occupy as a movement was not thinking specifically around policy but obviously the democratic policy is around electoral strategy.

how powerful will minimum wage be to do the distinguishing work about being democrats? >> i think it's been pretty powerful. you need to remember that even though the republican elected officials are anti-raising the minimum wage. the base of the voters is a majority in support of it. this is a broad american proposition that someone who works full time shouldn't have to be in poverty. i think something that's really important to point to is how much low wage and minimum wage workers themselves are putting their daily wage on the line by standing up and striking. i think when we start to see that level of courage and audacity by people who have so much to lose, that is when we actually see the politics shift. i think it's going to be really, really hard for republicans to continue to actually when there's a spotlight oppose something that seems like common sense to basically every american. >> the democrats need to change this debate. this is not about raising the minimum wage -- >> i heard you scream this out earlier. >> -- restoring this. i was a minimum wage worker, a

wife and a child and with four jobs we managed to eat. it was not a good life. now i've done much better. >> yes. >> but if we had been a 2/3 of the minimum wage, which is where we are now effectively, i don't know what we would have done. i would never have been able to pay the rent or feed us or put gas in the car to go to work. >> i absolutely understand what you mean by the restoration and the question of 2/3. back up and explain for my viewers, what do you mean restoration? did it go down? >> the minimum wage in the 1960s was almost $11 an hour in today's dollars. >> you can pick any date. the minimum wage in '38 would be $4. >> that's the peak. >> pick a time of great share or prosperity. >> we have to be honest with ourselves. we increase the minimum wage t will cost jobs. it might not cost any of us jobs -- >> it does not ferret that out. >> the evidence does. >> so i think --

>> how many economists do we have at the table? >> but economists -- >> don't pull that. >> wait a minute. that's not fair though, mark. economists do disagree, right? it's a bit -- >> it's like climb ma toll low gists. they disagree. >> economists who are -- who are real economists disagree because it does depend on what you are looking at. if you give people who make the minimum wage marginally more income, we know that they spend the income. we know that is stimulative because it gets spent. economists who read the minimum wage narrative will say it is stimulative. those who read it from the top who talk about specifically whether or not corporate profits will bear a higher labor cost say it will cost jobs. i think the challenge for economists in this particular historical moment is we have enormous corporate profits that haven't led to a greater investment in labor costs. they're not hiring more people despite enormous -- >> we also have the teenage unemployment rate is 20%.

how many -- >> how many minimum wage workers are teenagers. mark, may i please respond? may i please speak? thank you. walmart. the biggest private employer in the country. we look at what they spend money on, right? they obviously don't spend enough in our opinion and in the opinion of many workers on labor costs. they spend $7.6 billion a year buying back their own stock in the market. we looked at what if that -- in terms of productivity, in terms of the customer experience, in terms of all of that pretty much useless practice. if that were redirected to the lowest wage workers it would give them a 5 -- almost a $6 an hour raise. >> and we know if we go back to the paul ryan budget that if you want to get people off of government programs and one way to do that is to not pay them subpar wages. we know that walmart benefits from food stamps multiple times because its employees then get food stamps which subsidizes their profits and then they spend those food stamps.

>> so does mcdonald's. about a billion a year. >> they're screaming at me upstairs. thank you to heather mcghee and mark. before we go to break, i'm going to take you to memphis, tennessee. the national civil rights museum is reopening. the museum is located on the site of the lorraine motel where martin luther king jr. was assassinated exactly 46 years ago yesterday while there for a labor strike. msnbc.com trumaine is there. tell us what's going on. >> reporter: this is the second day of a two-day event commemorating the life and death of dr. martin luther king but also in conjunction with the 50th anniversary of the signing of the civil rights act. coming from behind in 10 or 15 minutes, folks will gather. we have a drum circle. there will be speeches and other events. it's a blend of moments of

solitude and moments of honoring the life of dr. king. >> i wanted to make this point that he was there for a sanitation worker's strike. it was a labor strike. is there a kind of awareness of that connection between racial civil rights and labor rights? is that part of what is being emphasized in this reopening of the museum? >> i think undoubtedly it's part of the expansion of the exhibit, it's about five centuries of resistance and part of that resistance started here locally. the sanitation strike in which two workers were tragically killed. people in this community know the connection. that's what initially brought dr. king to memphis in the first place and undoubtedly the museum attempts to really broaden that idea that union workers and workers' rights and the community and the people are coming together to resist subjew gags on so many levels. >> msnbc.com's trumaine lee. thank you for reporting from memphis. up next, money ball. the ncaa's final four kicks off

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doctors recommend it. the final four men's college basketball teams left in the ncaa tournament meet in north texas tonight for the right to play in monday's championship game. the reason why one of them, kentucky, is still in the hunt is because of this shot last sunday by freshman aaron harrison, number 2. a three-pointer in the final seconds that gave his team a three-point win over michigan. such a good shot, in fact, that it landed him right here on the cover of "sports illustrated." now as for kentucky's head coach, john calipari, they collected a lot more than a trophy, hat and t-shirt thanks to that shot. try nearly $330,000 in final four bonuses according to their contracts as listed online. the other final four coaches are also cashing in. according to forbes, billy

donovan, the coach of the top seeded florida gators pocketed $100,000 for his team weechg the final four. wisconsin badgers coach, bo ryan, 50 grand. perhaps because it's only his secretary year, connecticut's coach kevin ollie receives only an extra $33,333. now the coaches are far from the only ones winning more than games during the final four. $572 is the average price of the ticket to tonight's semifinal. that's actually the cheapest it has been for a final four in four years. but don't think the ncaa just got generous. at&t stadium holds 105,000 fans, including standing room tickets which should break by just a little the previous final four record of 75,421 just three years ago. $275 million is what visitors to the two basketball games tonight and the one on monday are estimated to spend.

and as for the players who those fans are all there to see, the players coached by the guys who just got those big bonuses? well, all the men's and women's players in the tournament do receive a gift pack that includes a fossil brown watch, gear from athletic manufacturer wilson, some final four swag and be a johnston's commemorative ring according to "sports business daily." final four participants, both men and women, get a bonus gift pack worth an estimated $750 entire dollars plus a fancy ball karngs maybe a piece of that championship net that victorious players could collect gifts up to $370 over the course of their conference tournaments. put another way, slightly more than 1% of what four kentucky coaches and their athletic director will now collect because one freshman hit a serious jump shot. [ laughs ] whoo! ♪ oh! nice! great!

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on thursday at 6:27 p.m. central time the state of texas executed tommy sells. it was the state's fifth execution this year. it went forward despite a last-minute appeal to the supreme court to stay the execution after the state refused to disclose the name of the pharmacy providing the lethal injection drug. since 1982 the united states has been using a standard three-drug combination for lethal injections. the first of those drugs, the anesthetic, is sodium thypenitol which has been imported. in 2011 the european commission prohibited the export of products which could be used for the execution of human beings by means of lethal injection, including the first part of the execution cocktail. so now facing a shortage of that drug, states are working to find new ways to kill prisoners facing the death penalty. some states have been using untested drug combinations and

are turning to compounding pharmacies to make new drugs. many are refusing to disclose where they're obtaining their new drugs and that secrecy, that lack of trans parngs si about how our states are killing our citizens has led to multiple legal challenges, even halting executions in some states. there are concerns about how the new drug combinations work. on january 16th ohio tried out a new untested combination of drugs in the execution of dennis mcguire and it took him nearly 25 minutes to die. witnesses reported he was gasping for air. the state has now delayed their next execution until november in order to review what happened. joining me at the table now is tanya green, the advocacy and policy council at aclu who works on criminal justice and death penalty cases. thank you for being here. >> thank you for inviting me. the supreme court held in bays v. reese, is that right? >> reese. >> that it was not cruel and unusual punishment to kill someone by lethal injection but

that was based on this three-drug cocktail which we are not now using. does that mean there's a way to challenge it? >> absolutely. states that are currently engaged in executing their death row prisoners are engaging in human experimentation at this point using compounded drugs that are mixed in secrecy by shadow pharmacies. we have a real problem. we have all kinds of botched executions resulting. the prisoners who are facing execution now are appealing to the supreme court to be reviewed. >> tell me why we should care. when we look as cross the world at the map of countries that still execute citizens, we find ourselves in a group that we might not normally want to be in when you look at the other countries that still execute people. yet when you talk to many ordinary americans, if i say, you know, this may be a painful drug, it takes 25 minutes.

they say, well, who cared about that person's victim? so why should i care? >> right. we should care because we are a nation of laws and because our criminal justice system is ostensibly organized to be part of the u.s. constitution. it for bids pain and suffering during the execution. that's a violation of the constitution and prohibited. >> so, when we look overall at death penalty support, there's some big dramatic differences between party, and this was one of the ones that i found most dramatic, by race. >> right. >> white americans are much more likely to support the death penalty, 63% in favor, whereas, only about 1/3 of african-americans, only 40% of latinos supportive of the death penalty. why do you think that this race gap exists? >> well, i think people of color in this country are much more conscious and aware and often have our own experiences of the

failings of the criminal justice system and so are more likely to doubt its perfectness and its correctness and so when you are sentencing someone to the ultimate punishment and eliminating them from the human community, we need to be perfect. we have exonerated 144 individuals from death row. we're not perfect. >> yes. >> and so i'm not surprised that people who have experienced the imperfe imperfection of american society are against this. recent gallup polls have shown fewer people are in support of the death penalty ever since gallup began the assessment. things have changed. >> it's part of why we wanted to take a moment to tell the story about lethal injection. i think that people believe whatever else the death penalty is, lethal injection is the idea

of falling asleep. the fact that it takes 25 minutes for people to die and there are witnesses saying there was gasping for air and pain might, in fact, alter how we think about it. >> right. when we moved from the gas chamber to electrocution to lethal injection, we thought that this was going to be a more humane approach to killing, and it in fact has turned out to not be at all. the choking and gasping and turning blue and michael wilson in oklahoma earlier this year said he felt like his whole body was burning while he was dieing. dennis took almost 25 minutes to die and that was to suffocate to death. almost a half an hour of suffocating. this notion that what's happening is euthanasia like what happens with your pet is just not the reality. >> this is not who we are. thank you, tanya greene for joining us this morning. coming up next, the real life hunger games. a new report reads like the scariest futuristic novel except

it's happening right now. plus, my letter of the week. and as we go to break, here's more music from aiden, our youngest foot soldier. there's more nerdland at the top of the hour. ♪ ♪ if you wear a denture,

take this simple test. press your tongue against it, like this. it moves! do you feel it? it can happen with every denture.

these movements may irritate your gums. but you don't have to bear with it. you can try fixodent plus gum care. thanks to its formula, your gums become one with your denture. this helps stop movement and helps prevent gum irritation so you can keep enjoying life. [ apple crunches ] fixodent. and forget it. oh, are we on. welcome back. i'm melissa harris-perry. sorry, nerdland. i got so completely engrossed in this compelling read during the commercial break. i am going through a withdrawal. i've already devoured the entire hunger games, divergent series and then i went searching for

more dystopian series. i cannot put this down when i got my hands on this. this is so engrossing. spoiler alert. i can't help but to share some of the highlights. here's the story. sometime in the not so distant future man kind will have set planet earth on a collision course towards certain doom from which there may be no turning back. the relentless drive of human consumption has overwhelmed our world's ability to sustain civilization and in this story our negligence has completely transformed the planet and in turn our planet transforms us. having long passed the point of stopping the disaster, humanity is left with only one option. we have to adapt and no one is compared. there's a series of cataclysmic flads that eradicate coast lines, devastating cities, leaving many of us without the modern conveniences we took for granted. there's no more electricity, running water, no more emergency

services to come to the rescue. governments have failed to protect their most vulnerable. the poor, elderly are fenlding for themselves. drought have unpopulated regions unlivable. the inhabitants become displaced as masses leave in search of home they clash in conflicts over rapidly diminishing resources. amid the chaos, not a girl who is looking for this. she's looking to meet the most basic of human needs. there's just not enough food to go around. scared yet? ready to buy the movie rights? if not, then prepare yourselves to be terrified because that chilling story is actually not a fiction. it was a very a brebbreviated version of the consequences of this u.n. report titled "climate change 2014." in the report released this week the u.n. tells a story of how we

are quickly running out of time to reduce carbon emissions enough to avoid the catastrophic consequences of climate change. among a laundry list of bad news of what will happen if we do nothing. some of the reports of the most dire warnings are reserved to what happens to our food. a decrease in the yield of crop yields. global prices could increase anywhere from 3% to 84% by the year 2050. and warmer, more acidic oceans could make fish harder to catch and more difficult to feed those and eat the fish who survive. and, some crops could even become less nutritious and filling as a result of growing in an atmosphere with elevated c o2. in short, the primary way that most people on the planet will experience climate change is through food. what we eat, how much we pay for it, and how available it will be for our consumption. it is a bleak story that the u.n. is telling.

the good news is that we don't yet know precisely how it will end and it's not too late to write a new maybe more optimistic chapter, but what we do know is the u.n.'s climate change story is ultimately a cautionary tale about worsening hunger all around the planet. in that disattorney-client privilegian future, global hunger will not be a game. at the table now adriana canter who is the senior attorney for the natural resource defense council. david who is author of the new book "divided." and michael levy and bjorn lundberg who is the director of the copenhagen consensus center. he's one of the 50 people who could save the planet. also with us from boston is the head of the organization that prepared the report, oxfam president, ray oppenheiser.

>> i want to start with you. explain to me how food supply is the central piece in terms of how ordinary people are going to feel with climate change? >> well, thank you so much, melissa. delighted to be with you and join the panel here from boston. i think what's really important about this report is that it makes the link between climate change and food unequivocal. in the past the ipcc was a little ambivalent. this is a hard-hitting report which in some sense makes the impacts of climate change on our daily lives very, very real. i think it's important to recognize we already face what you could call a global food crisis in the sense that there are people on this earth that are experiencing malnutritionion and chronic hunger. i think the real issue for us now is that failure to act in the near term could actually set back the fight against hunger even more. >> all right. so hold on. i'm interested in what he just said here about the question of

in the near term. i'm wondering how near the near term is. i just had a baby. i want to know, are we talking in her lifetime, in her childhood, in her children's lifetime? how near is near? how soon will this dystopic novel become reality? >> it's starting to become reality now. we can see the changes happening right now. that's exactly what the ipcc pointed out. anywhere you look we're seeing the changes. what we all expect is like you're saying, something really dramatic, some cataclysmic event that will bring it all to bear right away, but that's not the reality. the reality is we're already seeing droughts. we're already seeing unpredictable rainfall, temperature spikes. we're seeing unpredictability in our agricultural system. that's terrible for us. we need to act now. we have an opportunity now. we should have acted long ago but we keep fighting about whether or not this is true. we need to just move forward. >> i want to ask you a little bit about this question of sort of this possibility of acting particularly around food. we were looking at the u.s. and

sort of where the u.s. sits in the world in terms of food, in terms of our energy consumption, right? the u.s. has 5% of the world population but we use 25% of the world's coal, 27% of the world's gas, right? we are the great consumers of the world's energy. but we also basically eat all the food, right? when you look at global calorie intake, the u.s. is the highest global calorie intake. we're using all the coal. we're eating all the food. is that why we don't act? because we feel well fed and like there's plenty of resources? >> two parts to the question. remember, most countries would love to get to the same level. i mean, if you look at china, they are now the biggest emitter of c o2 but at the same time while they use much more coal, very polluting, much climate impact, it's lifted 680 million people out of poverty. unheard in history.

most countries want to do the same thing. if we can manage to deal with that, we need to find clean energy that will be so cheap that eventually everyone and also china will want to use it. i also think though that when we're talking about what are we going to do about the fact that we want more food in the future. we have to recognize some things that i was very disappointed about. they took it out of the main chapter, that we subsidize bio fuels. essentially burning food in our cars. remember, the u.s. alone uses so much biofuel ethanol essentially that you are destroying about 5% of the world's calories. taking 5% away from the world and burning it in your car. >> we're putting our corn in our car and that's a bad idea? >> well, we have all sorts of awful policies that are driven by short-run economic terms here. in ethical terms, where we're sitting in new york city is going to be under half a mile of ice again some day.

none of us will be here. it will be in the distant future. we're speeding it up, but it's still going to happen barring some technological break through. in terms of energy, we don't have a shortage of energy, we have a shortage of technologies. gasoline, we can transport. if we can figure out how to get a battery that will take your car not the 40 miles my wife's volt goes but 100 miles or 200 miles, then we can make a different use of power. if we could put a solar device on every roof, the architectural community is going crazy. we could stop burning a lot of fossil fuels. we have to make changes. >> but part of what happens when i hear you start saying that, i hear, oh, okay, we're going to do these sort of futuristic things, then i get the eyes glazed over, dystopic novel moment again. that's not going to happen. but if you say to me, if we don't do precisely this by this year, then your food will cost this and there will not be enough, suddenly that feels like, oh, wait a minute. that i need to know because my

grocery bill feels real. solar panels feel less real. >> part of what ray is saying, while climate change is going to intensify the challenges in the future, they're with us today. people around the world have enormous challenges with food. for decades the big challenge around food was it was too cheap. farmers were having enormous problems. that's part of what generated policies. we saw in 2007, 2008 this return of a volatile food system. big price spikes. big reactions, instability in countries around the world and people being pushed back into poverty who have been lifted out of it before. we have a challenge now to tackle. if we tackle effectively, it will help us deal with climate pressures that will affect the food system. >> stay with us. we'll do more on this and on the report that says neither rich nor poor countries are ready for this coming food crisis. first, the latest news on missing malaysia flight 370. they're reporting that a ship

participating in the search has detected a pulse signal in the southern indian ocean. there is no confirmation that it's connected to flight 370. they also published photos it claims shows unidentified objects in the south indian ocean. nbc news has not independently verified this report. the search for the missing plane is entering its fifth week. the batteries and the black boxes locator beacons could run out any day now. we're going to continue to monitor the story and bring you the latest information as it becomes available. we'll be right back. polar vortexes, road construction, and gaping potholes. so with all that behind you, you might want to make sure you're safe and in control. ford technicians are ready to find the right tires for your vehicle. get up to $120 in mail-in rebates on four select tires when you use the ford service credit card at the big tire event. see what the ford experts think about your tires. at your ford dealer.

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a global food shortage brought on by climate change may be decades away, but a report from oxfam america is reporting that governments are nowhere near ready to prevent that

hunger shortage from happening. a paper said countries are not prepared to protect their populations. the president of that group that issued the paper, ray is with us. ray, i want to ask you about this big take away. i live in a place that is a disaster prone place. i live in new orleans. we talk a lot about disaster preparedness, but it tends to be like disaster meaning the flood, right, the hurricane. how should governments be thinking about disaster more broadly, specifically around sort of this food security question? >> i think what we're trying to say in the report is that food is going to be the real challenge for populations around the world, not only in the long term but actually in the near term. i think some of your panelists have already indicated in various parts of the world the climate effects are already being felt and our argument is that governments need to be taking action in a variety of different areas. what the report tries to do is set out in some sense a framework looking at basically ten areas of policy advocacy.

it's in a position where they can deal with what will be the looming crisis around the food question. >> are any countries doing it well? >> yeah, actually, as we looked at -- and we began to map investments by governments and the kind of the political will that we're seeing of governments to take action, we saw countries like ghana, for example, vietnam, malawi that actually increased their investments in agriculture, increased their investments in agricultural research looking at what kind of crops they might have to be growing if there were climatic changes in their particular national environments, putting in place crop insurance systems, for example, to deal with periodic drought phenomenon. increasing weather forecasting in the country where we have a lot of weather forecasting technology in the united states. every 2,000 square kilometers. in the rest of the world it doesn't exist.

investing more in their ability to manage disasters on the scale of the experience you all have had in new orleans but thinking about what that might mean in a bangladesh or subsaharan nation. and finally the whole question of looking at what the donor responsibility is for helping countries invest in those investments. >> get appropriations now for a crises. how do you build a political group after these people are not no office. >> you need to help countries plan for the long term. if you get all of these players access to the information, to the forecasts, they're not going to be perfect, but they're certainly better than being blind. they're smart people. they can think over the long term. they know they'll have their farm for a lot longer than current members of congress are

in power. they can use that to plan more effectively. >> so is there a long-term/short-term horizon problem when we're thinking about the food question? i'm wondering if i'm hungry today, do i want the investment dollars to be in making sure that i have a pack of food to eat today or do i want the investment dollars to be in climate change mitigation ensuring that there is food to eat ten years from now? >> i don't -- fortunately i don't think we have to make that choice because in reality obviously as was mentioned before, there's a billion people who are starving right now. that's mostly not about global warming. that's about getting the people out of poverty. in a slightly longer run it's about increasing yields because if we can increase yields, we can both help all the people who are poor and starving not because of global warming, we can mitigate the problems of global warming in the medium term and it will have a lot of other impacts.

partly we know if you can grow food on the existing cultural land, you don't have to cut down more forests. that's good for biodiversity, good for global warming. >> when i hear you say that, the thing that starts ringing in my head is the segment that we did several months ago on gmos. we had a table of people critiquing genetically modified food, particularly monsanto and the policies in the u.s. to support it. yet that is what they say they're doing, they're creating higher yield food organisms that are going to change the question of world hunger. >> well, i certainly think it should be on the table. in some way it's one of those triggers that get people annoyed and worried. i think much more we should focus on the fact that investing in research and development into more high yields, whether that's conventional or gmo is an incredibly cheap way to do a lot of good in the future. we investigate that every dollar spent, we need to spend $8 billion a year more globally, which is a small amount, that

could actually do -- for every dollar spent, that could bring in 30 and $40 worth of good. it would preserve biodiversity and help global warming. >> we have 30 seconds, ray, but i want you to -- if i had the ear of congress for 30 seconds and there was one take away from the oxfam report, what would you want the u.s. congress to do about this international issue? >> i think the u.s. has a particular responsibility to think about the fact that we are, as you said earlier, a major emitter of this. we have a moral and political responsibility to think about this and what it means for our national security and for security around the world. i think investing in mitigation strategies of the sort mentioned by some of your panelists, also in enabling countries to have effecttive adaptation strategies largely focused on i think as the last panelist said investing in agriculture, increasing

productivity, i think one of the things i'd say is we need to be thinking about increasing our ability to grow crops on marginal lands. i think what will change in the future is where we can grow food and under what circumstances. >> thank you, ray. up next, a rarity for nerdland. a report on the royal family. prince william and kate middleton and what it tells us about global responsibility. first, as we go to break, some more music from aiden, our foot soldier of the week. ♪ ♪ aflac. ♪ aflac, aflac, aflac! ♪ [ both sigh ] ♪ ugh! ♪ you told me he was good, dude.

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last month prince william and kate middleton got away from

a holiday in maldives. they left baby george at home. white sands, waving palm trees, crystal clear waters, only for the people who actually live in maldives, all of that water isn't a paradise, it's an impending problem. as the lowest country in the world, the maldives is a test case for the energy crisis. it's having rising sea levels and temperatures. their predicament shows how this global crisis has the most severe outcomes. i'm sure i'm hating on the fact that the middletons get to get away and go do something fun, but it does feel maybe like there is a global responsibility of what i will call former

imperial nations relative to the nations that they helped to economically under develop initially in the 20th century and 19th, is there a responsibility of what we used to call the first world to the developing world as we start to try to plan and mitigate for climate change? >> absolutely. i mean, it's not only about that, it really is a global issue. there's a reason we were calling it global warming even though people kind of bristle to that term these days. climate change affects us all around the world. whatever we do here will affect them. there is a responsibility to take some action. not only because it's going to impact them, but it's impacting us. it's also impacting our poorest communities here. go and look at our urban centers. go and look at our agricultural lands. they are going to be hit the hardest. they can deal least with the changing temperatures. i mean, even if you look at this winter, a heavy winter really, really impacts poor people the most. a hot summer impacts old people and poor people the most. so we have a global

responsibility, period. even if we want to be completely u.s. centric, what we do here is affecting us all so we need to take action here. that's why president obama's climate plan is so critical. we need to act on carbon and that sets us on that right path. >> david, let's go all the way back to the start of the show because you've been here since we started. if this is the discourse, if what disaster and climate change do is to reveal to us the pre-existing inequalities as we saw in sandy, as we saw in katrina, then i really am not very confident we're going to make policy around it. we spent the whole first part of the show talking about if it's the big money who are the big polluters, how do we develop the political well? >> one of the fundamental problems is lack of information to people. there's no shortage of information as a whole, but we have news coverage, and i've spent my whole life in news, that is very, very focused on some things and not others. we get a lot of attention for the ryan budget, not very much for the progressive caucuses

budget, for example. so the degree of inequality in this country, 47 babies will die in the u.s. today unnecessarily. if we had as good a maternal -- infant mortality rate as sweden, norway or japan, 47 more babies would live. if we were as good as cuba, 15 more babies would live today in the united states. how many people are aware of this? it's in "divided" my new book. fundamentally people are unaware of these facts. we have to get a narrative and change the meaning of our whole discussion of this and we make smart choices. >> politics in the u.s. does seem pretty impervious to facts. sometimes it's on both sides, but i think specifically on the right where there has been this climate denialism discourse. like is that -- is that sort of the battle within the u.s. congress ideologically about whether the facts constitute facts going to take us to the

land of a dystopic future? >> we need a broader consensus. we need to confront it. >> that it's real? >> i think thinking about it in terms of risk is critical to na. you can be skeptical about this, that or the other prediction but we manage risk all the time. we manage risk in national security. we don't wait until something is about to happen to us that's horrible in order to try and stop it. we know that it's going to be too late at that point. >> we're going to preemptively strike instead of another nation, this time preemptively strike. although we've missed the opportunity to preemptively. we have 30 seconds. we have 30 seconds. are there kind of clear action plans? >> 25 seconds. we have to fix a way to find green energy to be so cheap that everybody eventually will adopt. it's not about feel good solar pants right now, it's about making everyone adopt green technology. it's about innovation. if we want to avoid catastrophes

like sandy, new orleans, it's about adaptation. it's not about have we done the can i owe tow protocol or cutting c o2. get adaptation now and make green energy cheap in the future. >> you're not going to get me to feel bad about building the levies higher. i'm down with that. putting a human face on environmental disasters. how one tiny fishing communities is still feeling the effects of one of the nation's worst oil disasters. ♪ velocity 1,200 feet per second. [ man #2 ] you're looking great to us, eagle. ♪ 2,000 feet. ♪ still looking very good. 1,400 feet. [ male announcer ] a funny thing happens when you shoot for the moon. ahh, that's affirmative. [ male announcer ] you get there. you're a go for landing, over. [ male announcer ] the all new cadillac cts, the 2014 motor trend car of the year.

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a new documentary film to be released this month takes an in-depth look at a man-made environmental catastrophe. vanishing pearls tells the story of a community of fishermen in louisiana's gulf community whose way of life was almost eradicated by the 2010 deep

water horizon oil spill. after more than a century of relying on oyster fishing as a food source and a driver of the local economy, the fishermen are left facing a cultural and economic losses. the film follows one member of that community as they have their fight for justice and accountability from b.p. and the government. >> these people have suffered enough. we can't let b.p. use delay tactics to deny justice. i've been on these waters since i was a child. i have never in my life saw anything so devastating as what's out there now. nothing. it has taken us generations to come from share cropping to being independent and now between state policies and b.p. oil spill, this he have destroyed us. for us to remain in this

business, we have to go back to share cropping. >> the struggles the fishermen hit close to home for the documentary's director and producer, nayee jefferson because this is miles from her own hometown of new orleans. that's where she joins me. nice to see you, miss jefferson. >> nice to see you. thanks for having me. >> absolutely. we've been talking about the broad question of global climate change and food insecurity. this is not a story about sort of the long-term global climate change, this is about a polluter who could in fact be held responsible. tell me, is b.p. doing what they said that they would do along the coast there? >> no. b.p. said that they would make people whole in 2010 when this spill occurred. now four years later we see b.p. is putting out commercials that the gulf coast has returned to normal and that, indeed, has not been the case. they put out an ad campaign. they have full page ads saying they no longer need to be held responsible and pay these claims and that, indeed, is not making

people whole like they promised that they would do when the spill occurred in 2010. >> so, you know, as we've talked a little bit about food and the question of what will the cost of food be. for those of us who live along the gulf coast, we have seen the immediate impact in our seafood coasts in the post deep horizon world and your story hence to explain why we have seen that change so swiftly. >> absolutely. and lake ponchatrain basin where they harvest their oysters, the number has been down 71%. that's a huge impact and that is resulting and impacting consumers in the price of oysters. >> it must be stated that these are working class to poor people. >> absolutely. >> that's a predominantly african-american. is that part of the difficulty that they have been having in holding both government and corporation, b.p. in this case, responsible for what's happened? >> i think so. i think that the

african-american fishermen in louisiana have been under represented by our politicians. before the spill a lot of people didn't know that this community existed. they didn't know that they had african-american fishermen. we talk about that in "vanishing pearls." now i hope to give a voice to the voiceless community and give a change and move towards the change that they need to get the help that they need to move forward. >> you mentioned local officials. obviously one of the challenges for anyone who holds office in new orleans and louisiana is that they are pretty beholden to the economic interest of polluters or that the polluters represent, the gas and oil industry whether you're a dem or republican, right? >> absolutely. >> these office holders are pretty much accountable to these polluters. is there any way to shift that they are instead accountable to these residents? >> well, what's interesting is that they have all the power. they hold all the power to make the rules but they are unwilling i think to make these rules to stand up to oil and gas companies and say that you have to be responsible, you have to

be environmentally responsible so we can continue to live along the gulf coast. if they're willing to stand up and say that, these oil and gas companies aren't going anywhere. it's the wealth that we have out there in the waters is so much. they're not going to leave. so if they're willing to stand up, then i think a change can occur. however, i don't know why, but louisiana politicians have been unwilling to stand up to these companies and hold them responsible. >> my last question for you. we sometimes talk about the idea of a mine err's ka na irri. they would take the bird down into the mine because the vulnerable communities would be impacted first and then it affects everybody. are these fisher men the minor's canary in the overall food system in the west? >> absolutely. i think so. they're kind of at the bottom of the totem polle i guess you coud say. we're starting to feel it along the gulf coast with food prices rising and it doesn't seem like

it's getting better as oyster harvests continue to drop because of the effects of the b.p. oil spill. >> so let me pull out adrian. we've heard now sort of -- we have a clear sense of what this story is. are these the kinds of stories that can then be used effectively before congress or in impact work in order to actually move the needle on the willingness to make policy? >> absolutely. the human face is critical. we need to tell these stories, and i think that this story is one of the most vivid. the fossil fuel industry has a strangle hold on our government. i think they have almost two lobbyists per member of congress at this point. that's something that the public can never compete against, but until we make that clear and bring these stories home, bring them to congress, we are not going to get rid of that strangle hold of these oil companies, the coal companies. we need to start doing that. >> so this goes back to the

short term and long term. you have the oatesster fishermen in conflict with b.p. there's lots of poor communities where people are in the gulf, they work for the gas and oil industries. if we ask them to behave more responsibly, do we take the jobs from one group of poor people to the other? >> people are benefitting along the coast from the oil and gas companies. you need to have the right rules for them. part of the solution is to make sure some of the rules, some of the standards are imposed at the federal level where it's a bit easier to enforce them. some of it is from switching from higher carbon to lower carbon, switching from coal to natural gas. both of the tools we have today and into the future. that's a key point here is that we need to have those immediate transitions and also build on longer ones at the same zbliem mary is in a tough race right

now. there's a democrat who represents in the u.s. senate louisiana. if she comes out against b.p., she loses her race. >> i don't think she needs to come out against b.p. when you cause damage to others, you pay for it in full. if you don't do that, if you don't require paying it in full, that's not environmental pollution, that's economic pollution that makes everyone worse off. >> she should be promoting integ grit at this. >> integrity, louisiana politics. what language you speaketh there. >> thanks to adriana, to david johnston, michael levy and to bjornlonborn. my letter of the week is up next. see, i figured low testosterone would decrease my sex drive... but when i started losing energy and became moody... that's when i had an honest conversation with my doctor.

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on tuesday the mississippi state legislature passed its own version of the religious freedom bill that was vetoed in arizona

in february by governor jan brewer. that bill would have made it easier for businesses to refuse service to lgbt couples the nationwide outcry and mostly from the business community from brewer in her veto had the veto of the bill. the governor of arizona, this is apparently just fine for the governor of mississippi. that's why my letter this week is to mississippi governor phil bryant. dear governor brooinyant, it's melissa. here's what you said about the new law. that it will, quote, protect the individual religious freedom of mississippians of all phase from government interference. now i've got to hand it to your party's lawmakers, governor. they were able to avoid a national firestorm by making their bill's language even more vague than that of the arizona bill. all the new mississippi law says is that persons can use their

religious beliefs to challenge or defend themselves against state law. it does not define person which the arizona bill did to include businesses. and it does not define the exercise of religion beyond the first amendment of the u.s. constitution. an earlier version of the bill which died in the outcry over arizona had defined religious exercise to include the refusal to act in a manner that conflicts with one's beliefs, like, say, refusing to take wedding photos for a gay couple. so the whitewashing of the language was enough to placate the mississippi chamber of commerce which had originally opposed the bill. therefore, it passes tuesday. we see you, governor. the aclu says the bill will open the door for individuals and businesses to use claims of religious freedom to discriminate. we only have to look to tony perkins, the head of the family research council who was at your side during the private bill signing to get a clear example of just who the law will protect, like as perkins said, quote, a wedding vendor whose

orthodox christian faith will not allow her to affirm same-sex marriage. yeah, we see you, governor. and it's not like the people of mississippi are under the thumb of onerous laws that protect lgbt people. same-sex marriage is banned in mississippi. you all can already be discriminated against for your sexual orientation in mississippi. you can be fired or not hired just for being gay. you can be denied housing. so, governor, what did you -- what you did was to make it even easier than it already was to discriminate against lgbt mississippians. to deny them services available to everyone else. basically you gave bigots another avenue to dehumanize their lgbt neighbors. that's not all the religious freedom restoration act does. it also adds the words in god we trust to the official state

seal. something that was such a legislative priority that you made special reference to it in your january state of the state address. >> with your help the seal of the state of mississippi from this section forward will reflect the simple yet profound words in god we trust. >> so, governor, you made it a priority to add a few words to the state seal, a priority for mississippi where more than 1 in 5 people live in poverty, more than any other state in the country. the state where people struggle more than in any other state to afford food. the state with the shortest life expect tax si and the highest infant mortality rate. the state with the second lowest high school graduation rates and the lowest math and reading scores of any state. in god we trust. but that goes both ways, governor. the way god works, at least in the christian tradition which you and 84% of mississippians follow, the way god works is

through his followers, feed my sheep, je sheep, jesus said. so when you put mississippi in your hands, you have to hold up your end of the bargain. sincerely, melissa. i procrastinated... on buying a car for... because i knew... it would be a scary process. when i was introduced to truecar, i didn't have to second guess myself. i felt more confident... in what i was doing. truecar made it very easy for me... to negotiate what i wanted, because i didn't really need to do any negotiating at all. i just knew from the get-go that i was... flat out getting a good deal. when you're ready to buy a car, save time, save money, and never overpay. visit truecar.com

♪ ♪ >> you have been listening to his music throughout our show today. and now i want you to meet this week's foot soldier, aiden thomas hornaday. he is 13 years old and started

playing his brother's harmonica at age 7. customers started tipping him by throwing money into his cap, much to aiden's surprise. he collected $80 the first night and initially aiden says he thought about buying a video game. but on second thought, he instead chose to help others and donated the money to an international children's charity. he soon became a fixture, donating time and money to charities and local hospitals. he has performed across the country, collecting and donating more than $90,000 through his personal appearances and his webside, aidencares. very pleased to have aiden thomas hornaday with me as today's foot soldier. >> good morning. >> good morning. how are you? >> when did you first begin to play? what drew you to this instrument? >> it just kind of happened, i was 8 years old and i started snooping in my brother's room, and he's the older brother so he didn't enjoy me doing that and he said i'll make a deal with you. if you leave my room right now,

no questions asked, i'll give you a harmonica. and i was like, all right, yeah, i was going to leave anyway, so i might as well get something and took it and ran. and before he could ask for it back i started playing and fell in love instantly. it was the toy and never left my mouth and since then incredible. >> it is incredible. and as much as i could have you here, just to talk about your role as a young musician -- >> right. >> you are also a foot soldier, because the money you earn, you contribute. why make that decision? >> i feel like living to give is life's greatest answer and knowing that you're really making a difference. and to where if it's children, adults, food, the earth, or no matter what it is that you feel passionate about making a difference over, i just felt the need to give. and just been incredible ever since. >> tell me about braden. >> braden martin is a little boy that we met, and i believe june of the year of 2012. and incredible little boy. and we actually came through him through facebook, and got to love facebook. and so we heard about him.

and i said, you know what, we'll take him some harmonicas and visit him. and we met him and he perked up and he said what have you got in your hand and i gave it to him and he started playing and discovered they needed a lot more help than harmonicas. so we went to work and got a dealership to donate them a brand new suv. >> and that car is so his mom can go back and forth. >> they didn't really have a reliable car, and it was terrible. they had to borrow the car every day. and it was awful. and so we just wanted to really help them in the best way we could. and it's been great from the support of others we were able to make that possible. >> aiden, you represent in a million ways what all of us want from our children which is that you have a talent and a gift, but even as a young person, you recognize the need to share the fruits of that talent and gift. so it is lovely to have you here. >> thank you for having me. >> thank you for being our foot soldier. >> thank you so much. >> and you are welcome back any time. aidan thomas hornaday. i'll see you tomorrow morning, 10:00 a.m. eastern, when we get

into the debate playing out largely online, a complicated debate about race in america. i hope you will join us for that discussion. the senior editor at the "atlantic" will be here with other terrific voices. we're going to get into the great debate on this issue. right now, it's time for a preview of "weekends with alex witt." alex, isn't he the best? >> adorable. but he deserves more than that. look at the way he dresses too. just the whole package is awesome. anyway, thank you, melissa, for that. we're going to tell you about an unverified report about a pulse signal detected in the ocean in the search for malaysia flight 370. could this be the clue investigators need or another false lead? the polls are closed in gaenls's election. how women were courted like never before. a rebirth in membership physician. we are at the national civil rights museum as it reopens its doors. plus in office politics, conversation with author tom periodham about the income gap of today and martin luther king's search for economic justice. don't go anywhere. i'll be right back.

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possible developments in the four-week hunt for the missing malaysia jetliner. chinese state media reporting a search ship has detected a pulse signal under water. the big question, of course, is it related to flight 370. this as we're getting new images of possible debris spotted in the search zone. and just moments ago, the australian government weighs in on what it knows. heavy turnout. voters in afghanistan defy taliban violence and head to the polls to choose their next president. richard engel joins me to discuss what's at stake for u.s. interests. and history revisited in memphis. a firsthand look inside the national civil rights museum opening today. hey there, everyone. hi noon here in the east, 9:00 a.m. out west. welcome to "weekends with alex wi witt." missing malaysian airlines flight 370. american