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tv   Disrupt With Karen Finney  MSNBC  April 20, 2014 1:00pm-2:01pm PDT

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she got me drinking boost. it's got a great taste, and it helps give me the nutrition i was missing. helping me stay more like me. [ female announcer ] boost complete nutritional drink has 26 essential vitamins and minerals, including calcium and vitamin d to support strong bones and 10 grams of protein to help maintain muscle. all with a delicious taste. grandpa! [ female announcer ] stay strong, stay active with boost. thanks for disrupting your easter sunday this afternoon. i'm karen finney. in your forecast today, we look at pushing back on putin, presidential diplomacy an the politics of presidential punting on a pipeline. ukraine where civil war looks increasingly likely. >> no sign that pro-russian forces in the eastern part of the country will back down. >> this is clearly also a test of russia. >> they're desperately just trying to get to a containment strategy. >> our foreign policy is always a day late and a dollar short.
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>> i think what president obama is saying, look, vladimir, are you really that happy with what you've ended up with here? >> breaking news on the keystone xl pipeline. president obama will not make a final decision on the pipeline until the end of the year and this will be, of course, after the mid-terms. >> lawmakers calling this "ridiculous and shameful." >> we think that this is a huge victory for not only citizens and landowners but for the travel communities we're working side by side with. >> that basically allows the administration to have the best of both worlds. your forecast for this week, the obama administration under fire for pushing back on its decision about the keystone pipeline. but is the delay actually a shrewd political move and as vice president had heads to ukraine this week to tackle the deepening crisis there, president obama travels to asia to try to take on some unfinished business.
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state department announced this weekend that it won't make a final call on keystone until legal challenges in nebraska are settled which is unlikely to happen until after the mid-term elections. does that put vulnerable democrats in a tight spot or does it leave them more room to breathe on the campaign trail? as the holiday truce was shattered in ukraine this sunday leaving at least three dead, the vice president heads to kiev this week with russia and ukraine still operating in what seem like parallel universes, the vice president has certainly got his work cut out for him. >> president putin has a dream to restore the soviet union and every day he goes further and further and god knows where is the final destination. >> we are not going anywhere. we just want the ukrainians to find a way of dialogue, a new constitution to allow them to live in a country that is democratic.
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we want to have a friendly neighbor because for us all, irrespective of what is happening, ukraine is just our brothers. >> meanwhile, president obama has the dual task of rebooting the pivot to asia and attempting to get the transpacific train partnership back on track. to help us make sense of this busy forecast, our panel, prf sore prf sore at the university of texas in austin, erin carmone, and jonathan alter. thanks to you all for joining me. vickie, to you first on keystone. it was interesting that friday afternoon, in politics we call it putting out the trash. here comes this lazy good friday, here comes this decision that says we're going to kick it further down the road. some are suggesting some democrats are in tougher races but i think it is actually not such a bad thing. >> i think the political
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implication here isn't necessarily the punting. i think this is a very difficult decision. yes, we are dealing with environmental concerns on the one hand, but also the economic growth. for example, in south texas i've been down there. three aers ago there was nothing there in terms of jobs. suddenly you go in there and the starting salary at a subway sandwich shop is $17. can you see the tangible economic boom. so you understand that internal struggle of the president trying to lay out that economic benefit and the environmental costs. i can see why he is stuck. >> jonathan, it struck me as i read the stories, yeah, why woe want to give the republicans another thing to beat up democrats who are running this year for? like it seemed like a pretty obvious decision to me. >> i thought it was obvious and he was lucky because of this nebraska litigation he had an excuse to kick the can down the road. but if he had come out against the pipeline, that would have been very hard for people like mary landrieu in louisiana, mark
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begich in alaska, democrats from fossil burning states. fed's come out in favor of the pipeline, the environmental base of the democratic party would have been very upset with him and it is all a turnout yes in november. so he would possibly dampen turnout. something i think that hasn't gotten mentioned enough, we don't know for sure what his ultimate decision will be but i think this strongly increases the likelihood that he will rule against the pipeline after the election for this reason. there is a pattern of democratic presidents in the past at the end of their time in office making big, bold, unilateral pro-environmental decisions that are in accord with the pro-environmental principles of the democratic party. >> goldie, to that point, with so much at stake for a number democrats like mary landrieu, why not? tough race in tennessee against
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mitch mcconnell. she hasn't taken a position. it gives her the opportunity to sort of not have to weigh in on the issue. what mary landrieu said, "today's decision by the administration amounts to nothing short of an indefinite delay of the keystone pipeline. this decision is irresponsible, unnecessary and unacceptable. there are 42,000 jobs, $20 billion in economic activity and north america's energy security at stake." now seems to me for her, given her race, that's a good place for her to be. right? >> mary landrieu should be so lucky to be in this position today. no. truthfully there is not a legal pathway for this pipeline to flow just yet. the nebraska case is a serious issue. it is going to the nebraska supreme court. it has to be settled before we have a clear thoroughfare for this to happen. but on the other side of this -- and jobs aside -- and jobs are important. i think this is -- mitch mcconnell called this a shovel-ready project. jobs aside, the risks are extraordinary high with moving a pipeline through the heart of
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this country. you're going to have leaks, you're going to have spills and environmental impacts so we have to measure what those impacts are on the other side of this thing. the actual direct jobs to building the pipeline aren't nearly as many as some of the proponents would say that they are. will there be more subway jobs? will there be more? you have to figure that into the equation. i'm glad it's been punted down the road so there is more time to study this but mary landrieu and others should be so lucky. >> mitch mcconnell says, well this is the shovel-ready project. does he only like dirty shovel-ready projects? the american jobs act which the republicans defeated, there are dozens of shovel-ready infrastructure projects that could get going right now to create 7 million jobs if the republicans would just simply get over their anti-obama bias
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and say let's put america to work. they're not sincere about wanting to put americans to work. is it since we know they aren't going to get over their anti-obama bias any time soon, at least not in my lifetime it seems, if jonathan. is right, i think when we get back we'll hear criticism of the president against this decision for saying it is a shovel-ready project, it is jobs, instead of what about all the jobs -- you got the jobs act, a number of other pieces of legislation, that actually would create jobs. >> right. also republicans constantly when they talk about the debt they talk about their legacy we're going to leave for our grandchildren. how about a legacy of environmental devastation kind of being halted. the other thing that's so interesting is seeing the alignment of mitch mcconnell with organized labor. right? labor. right? who would have thought. labor is on the side of this. for obama it is a very unappealing set of choices. you have tom stier pumping so much money into the environmental cause. they are trying to build a
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movement. there's been enormous grassroots action against keystone. that does not look good to be against those folks, both the money and the grassroots. and at the same time organized labor and economic development on the other side. neither choice is going to satisfy core democratic constituencies. >> moving on to ukraine, we see the president continue to get slammed for not more saber rattling. in essence, that's what it feels like. everybody sort of agrees in terms of sanctions we're doing what can be done. there may be more things in terms of military support, armed military support. but in essence it seems like they don't like style. they don't like the way he's doing this rather than having a concrete "we should be doing "x," and he's not doing it. >> saying "they," we are talking about a core group of hawks in the government. but you look at. public opinion until the general and the u.s. is very dovish. as american people we're not
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pushing the president. we're saying be cautious, let's take stock of what's going on. so i think we need to separate out who's saber rattling and what the american people want. >> you know what? to that point, i thought in 2008 that's what we voted for. i thought we said we didn't want the saber rattling president. we wanted a guy who was going to be more methodical and think it through and try to utilize diplomacy. you do have the vice president going to the ukraine next week. we don't know what the outcome is going to be. we know that the prime minister as we saw in the opening has a long list of requests. >> sure. we certainly voted for a president who we thought would value diplomacy over bullets. that certainly has played itself out to be true thus far. but what's happening now in the ukraine is, putin is taking advantage of an opportunity we knew that he would. he is looking for -- this isn't just nostalgia over the old soviet union. this is a systemic rebuilding of this and the crimean peninsula is just another opportunity to expand that. so he is looking at those former russian republics that were
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russian speaking that still have a great sort of love for their homeland and he wants to bring it all back together and this is just one step in that process. we're going to see more and what we have to do is become thoughtful about what we're going to do about that as an international community and not just united states acting. >> while that's happening the president has -- remember we were pivoting to asia. while this is going on he's headed to asia. couple things on the docket. certainly china and the role of china and the role of the united states or of "the" china in the region but also this trade agreement that's pretty controversial here pack at home. a lot of democrats oppose it. my understanding that talks kind of fell apart on friday. the president meets with the prime minister of japan on wednesday and the thought is maybe through diplomacy he can open up some channels there. but i don't think we're going to have a big announcement coming out of this trip. >> probably not. he's got some real problems now with two -- not allies but two
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other major nations -- russia and china -- that we forget, he brought along with the united states in imposing sanctions on iran. that was one of the major foreign policy accomplishments of his first term. now that consensus on isolating iran has broken up over crimea, over some real issues between china and japan in the south china sea where we are more on japan's side. and then as far as trade goes, you have a nationalist prime minister, abe, in japan who is not going to be as amenable to some of these trade deals. he recently visited a shrine -- a place i've been -- >> very impressed that you would know that. >> been there a couple of times. this is a major symbolic move.
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he's the first prime minister in 30 years to do this. this is a place that celebrates pearl harbor, that says that the japanese did no wrong with the comfort women and so forth in korea. it sweeps all of the abuses of the japanese during world war ii under the carpet and celebrates japanese militaryism. when president abe went there that sent the signal he's going to be a nationalist prime minister which has very serious potential implications for our bilateral trade negotiations not to mention our intentions with china. >> my panel is staying with me. coming up on this easter sunday, arms for walmart and other large corporations. a new study that shows who the real takers are in today's economy. my panel weighs in next. introducing the more everything plan.
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remember when conservatives attacked pope frances' critique of the trickle-down economic when he wrote the following -- some people continue to defend trickle-down theories which assume that economic growth encouraged by a free market will inevitably succeed in bringing about greater justice and inclusiveness in the world. this opinion which has never been confirmed by the facts expresses a crude and naive trust in the goodness of those wielding economic power and in the worksings of the prevailing economic system. meanwhile, the excluded are still waiting. not only are the excluded still waiting, american taxpayers are subsidizing trickle-down to some of the largest corporations in america to the tune of $6.2 billion a year. a report out this week found
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that our nation's largest private employer, walmart, "pays its employees so little that many of them rely on food stamps, health care and other taxpayer funded programs." now that comes on the heels of two previous reports which found that the fast food industry is costing american taxpayers $7 billion each year. across the board, corporate profits and ceo pay are reportedly soaring to all-time highs. but despite evidence to the contrary, conservatives are doubling down on a budget that would cut the social safety net for working people while protecting corporate welfare while also clinging to their opposition to the increase in the minimum wage. here's how one congressman explained it to a constituent this week. >> we are going to make it a living wage, who's going to pay for it? who's going to pay for it? i'm going to pay for it? >> i'll pay 20 cents extra for a hamburger. >> so on this easter sunday, we
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wanted to disrupt the conservative rhetoric and take a look at corporate welfare and the dependency culture that conservative economic theories are fostering. my panel is back with me. erin, start with you. this report about walmart that came out this week, they actually refuted parts of it but it kind of recon firms something we all knew -- low-paid workers end up having to rely on the very programs that we hear the rhetoric from conservatives that are ruining the country. >> you had paul ryan say we don't want the social safety net to become a hammock. this idea that public benefits are being used by people who are not working, who are just guzzling the resources of the system. in fact, it is impossible to feed your family on the wages of a walmart or fast food employee. these are necessary public benefits, particularly when the minimum wage is so low and when the benefits are so hard to come by. especially if you live in a state where that has not expanded medicaid. you have an entire panoply of
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ways in which the working poor -- they say they want to encourage a culture of work. working poor is being punished. >> goldie, that really struck me about this study, also, is that we are talking about working people. to have it not be such an abstract concept but to really think about what walmart work doers in terms of their daily lives and their work. i want to read what the walmart folks said in response. they said more than 99% of our associates earn above minimum wage. in fact, the average hourly wage for our associates, both full and part-time, is an average of $11.83 an hour. i'm not quite sure how they got to that average. i don't know if the ceo's pay was in that average. but the point is people -- that's not a living wage. >> it certainly is not a living wage. when you look at walmart and other big box retailers like hoe depot an others who moved to a part-time worker strategy some time ago so they wouldn't have to provide their "associates" as
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they call them more benefits. they wouldn't have to provide health care insurance if they were not full time employees so they moved their work forces so they wouldn't have to pay the compensation for fully weighted employee. on the other hand, what has happened now is that we are picking up the tab. while walmart is squeezing their merchandisers to make sure their prices stay low, another reason why those prices are so exceedingly low that lures people in is because they are squeezing their workers and their workers are going to the medicaid office, they're going for food stamps. they're on wic. walmart itself is collecting food over the holidays not to feed the hungry out of the neighborhood but to feed its own associates and there is something very morally wrong with that. here's the irony of it all. if our policymakers in washington answer walmart's call and destroy this social safety net, if they destroy this wonderful environment that walmart is working within now, where would they go to get their workers? because i won't be able to afford to work at walmartfy don't have daycare, if i don't have a daycare subsidy, i don't
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have food stamps or medicaid. i won't be able to afford to that he job if the social safety net is destroyed. >> the other irony is the percentage of walmart sales to snap recipients. they also rely on those very programs that folks like paul ryan are trying to get rid of. $13.5 billion in snap sales. this ironic we're not going to pay our workers enough to live on but we need the people who don't make enough to live on. >> it is a vicious cycle. walmart isn't paying their employees enough so they have to go and apply for snap benefits. they turn around and spend those snap benefits at walmart hence enen riching walmart more. what really gets to me is it goes against gop rhetoric. gop is about trickle-down economics. start up top and the wealth will come down to the bottlobottom. well, it's not. gop is all about personal choice. why don't they bump up the minimize wage and allow folks to
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choose how they spend their money that they don't have to rely on government provided health care, they can go and pick their own companies for health care. completely against all gop rhetoric. >> with the exception of these states which have a lot of wall mar marts in them not expanding medicaid, i'm not as worried about the social safety net this year as when there was a chance the republicans would take the white house. the president has the veto pen. safety net will remain in place. question is how to change public opinion, use politics to raise consciousness about how it's now not -- it is the welfare queen, the poor woman living in the inner city who is at the public trough. it is walmart. corporate welfare. i'm -- i'm talking about the company. $6.2 billion in corporate welfare from us, from all of us, into the pockets of some of the richest people in the world. now if that was the only way they could do business, you
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could say, well, hey -- but there's costco. we have examples of big companies that have low prices that treat their employees well and those employees are not on food stamps because they are paid a living wage. this is really about putting pressure on walmart. it is not going to be possible to unionize walmart. that's been tried for years. but hillary clinton was on the board of walmart several years ago. there are other people who are on the board of walmart. you can bring a lot of degrees of pressure on them to force them to raise their wages. and also just because the federal government won't raise the minimum wage, states and localities now are moving to raise the minimum wage. >> erin, i think it is broader than just walmart. right? there is very much of an effort to change public opinion about how we think about the minimum wage. in fact if you look at the polling on the minimum wage, majority of americans support a raise in the minimum wage. i think we have a graphic. in 13 gop districts, by very
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large percentages -- that's not the graphic but it will come -- you have people by pretty high margins supporting increasing the minimum wage. yet you have republican members of congress standing up in front of those constituents and saying you don't deserve an increase in your minimum wage. i deserve an increase in my salary but you don't deserve an increase. >> i think what gets lost in this is how much the world that walmart has built is a choice. it is not the inevitable way that things have to be so that americans can buy a cheap toaster. in that same town hall meeting that you showed footage from, congressman asked who was going to pay. someone raised their hand and they saidly pay 20 cents more for a burger. we've become so used to these low prices at the same time that, guess what? that price is being paid otherwise. that price is being paid so people can have basic necessities fulfilled. at the same time, six walmart heirs are billionaires many times over. that also affects our politics.
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it also -- yes, there are progressive billionaires like tom steier, but for every tom steier, there's two koch brothers. money and political power are so concentrated -- and that's a policy decision. that's not some inaeftable market thing. we've all said that's okay. >> from a political standpoint i don't want to lose sight of the efforts both at the city and state level to increase the minimum wage. i think everybody deserves a raise. i think that's just the reality of this economy. still more to come. we are talking about an evolution on marriage equality. that is how the tides have turned culturally and politically in the equality debate. [ male announcer] surprise -- you're having triplets. [ babies crying ] surprise -- your house was built on an ancient burial ground. [ ghosts moaning ] surprise -- your car needs a new transmission.
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to world conflicts as he addressed some 150,000 people at the vatican. in keeping with what has been a priority in his papacy, the pontiff also called for paying attention to the needy close to home and standing at the side of the sick, elderly and outcast. we will be right back. when it's donut friday at the office i use my citi thankyou card to get two times the points at the coffee shop. which will help me get to miami...and they'll be stuck at the cube farm. the citi thankyou preferred card. now earn two times the points on dining out with no annual fee. go to citi.com/thankyoucards. i'm a messy person. i don't like cleaning. i love my son, but he never cleans up. always leaves a trail of crumbs behind. you're going to have a problem with getting a wife. uh, yeah, i guess. [ laughs ] this is ridiculous. christopher glenn! [ doorbell rings ] what is that? swiffer sweep & trap. i think i can use this. it picks up everything. i like this. that's a lot of dirt. it's that easy!
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[ male announcer ] open your eyes... to the 6-cylinder, 8-speed lexus gs. with more standard horsepower than any of its german competitors. this is a wake-up call. ♪ it's been another big week in evolving attitudes about marriage equality. on monday a federal judge in ohio ruled the buckeye state must recognize same-sex marriages performed in other states. then in a federal appeals court thursday, they heard arguments that could overturn oklahoma's same-sex marriage ban. eight other mostly red states have cases pending where the lower courts have all ruled against same-sex marriage bans. that's been the trend since the supreme court issued its two major same-sex marriage decisions last june. according to a new book, a lawyer who argued against marriage equality in the case of
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california's proposition 8 is also evolving as he plans his daughter's wedding to her girlfriend. he's not the only one who's evolve on the issue. here's president obama back in 2010. >> with respect to the issue of whether gays and lesbians should be able to get married, i've spoken about this recently. as i've said, my feelings about this are constantly evolving. >> we all know just how far he's come. two years later telling abc's robin roberts he now supports marriage equality. according to author joe becker, before leaving for that interview the first lady told her husband, "enjoy this day. you are free." but the question now is how long will it be before all couples and all politicians left and right who support marriage equality will feel free to say so publicly. my panel is back with me and i'm also joined by the former executive director of the human rights campaign and currently president of the global -- of the consulting firm global out, elizabeth birch.
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it is great to see you. >> hi, karen. it is great to see you. congratulations on your show. >> thank you so much. i want to start by talking about one of the things that struck me just in looking at how far we've come and how fast we've come. it's really been about making it personal. that was really crystallized for me. a south carolina police chief says she was fired because she is gay. the mayor is disputing that. but what was so heartening, this is a very red area in a red state, the community immediately came out and said, no, that's not okay. so again this idea of making it personal seems to really be a part of the real critical change for people. >> absolutely. she was the chief of police for 20 years, then suddenly she's not a good chief of police? i love stories like that. it is a small town. the town is split but there is a huge surge in support for this chief of police.
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and that's what's happening. that's symbolic that it helps really what's happening across the land and i think what you said is exactly right. we've crossed some sort of tipping point where people are coming down on the correct side of history and certainly the right constitutional stance for marriage equality for same-gender couples. >> goldie, to me i sort of liken it to the loving v. virginia case. when i read the decision in terms of how we think about -- to me, now the idea of saying, interracial couple can't marry because that's some abomination. i can only hope and pray some day that's how everybody looks back on marriage equality. it was interesting in this book, joe becker's book, she talks about vice president biden. he may have gotten out a little bit ahead of the president but he himself talks about how it was -- seeing this family, being in the home of a family with two kids in a loving home that
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really sort of evolved him i guess to the last stop, if you will. >> well, stories like that are really playing out across this country. what a blessing it is to live in a time when you get to watch the walls of justice come falling down. our family was one of those families that several years ago i -- if you had asked me about the legality of same-sex marriage, i would have said no and i would have gone to my faith to justify that. but then watching my children come to growth and be grown people and go out into the world and experience it through their own eyes, then bring that to me, new learnings about humanity, about our collective humanness, about our collective frailties, having the opportunity to be exposed to be with more, be with more. our family had its own monumental sea change that i'm seeing happen in families all across this country. so i am glad to see it. i hope that my brothers and sisters in faith -- and today is easter day, the day of resurrection -- i hope that many more of us will have that kind
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of reconciliation. because i truly believe that if you are indeed a follower of christ and you follow him and you say that you love all of your brothers and sisters and whatever they bring to this table, so i'm just glad to be living in this time and watching these walls come falling down. >> elizabeth, i want to talk about joe becker's book. to my mind -- i haven't read the whole thing but to my mind it sort of talks about a portion of the history. i know it's gotten some pushback and i know you wrote about that. i'm going to read something that you wrote in response to one of the individuals who did not like the book. you wrote, "if we're going to talk about lgbt history and the true heroes of marriage equality, remember these flames. henry 8th who made it popular. evan wolfson. mary bonito, and thurgood marshal. when everyone screaming no, they
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said yes. >> well, that's correct. we all know that any movement, any movement for social justice, has many, many interlocking parts. the very first marriage case was in 1971, baker versus nelson in minnesota. so that's 45 years ago. we've got 45 years of heroes and people that have stood up and said that couples under the constitution must be treated fairly and it is one of the key avenues for taking care of one's family, because benefits are based on marriage at the state level. i salute the prop 8 case because they did stand up and they did correct the law in california alone. edie windsor changed the covers history for everybody. but these are all important
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supporting parts. >> i would add one more name to that lexicon and that is kate kendall, out of san francisco. so there have been many, many people that deserve credit. and i think what you're seeing is sort of the post supreme court carping about who gets what. i think joe becker simply was trying to cover one little slice of lgbt history and it is an important slice. hopefully someone will write a book about robby kaplan's leadership in taking edewindsdi sore's case to the supreme court. >> i would say the movement is getting to the place where there is a public conversation about who gets credit more than a movement. the tipping point has come. here's what i am also curious about. we've talk -- i don't know if i think we're dempbtly at a tipping point but one of the
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things that's interesting is, it's becoming more of a political liability. by that i mean in 2016 you cannot be the democratic nominee for president without supporting marriage equality. and yet republicans seem to be recognizing it as well. last week the nevada gop took its anti-gay language out of its platform and you have a young group of young conservatives for the freedom to marry, our own abby huntsman is on the board of that organization trying to get that language out of the national party platform. that may be the start of an actual tipping point. >> absolutely. in 29 states you still -- they still do not have marriage equality but at the national level, we know which way things are moving. the question is at what speed. by 2016 republican convention, for instance, will they have a big platform fight at that convention. that could be fascinating to watch. will it actually become a liability in some states to be against marriage equality. remember in 2004, it is
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interesting that ken mehlman is in this new book. ken is the new chairman of the republican party. he's now on the side of marriage equality but in 2004 if karl rove had not used that issue to drive turnout in ohio and other key states, john kerry would be president. so it is only ten years since that issue was politically potent on one side. now we're approaching a time when it is likely to be politically potent on the other side where if you're out of step with history you may suffer the consequences at the polls. >> we have to leave it there. thank you to elizabeth birch. my panel will be right back with me. still ahead, two sleeper issues that could swing the 2014 elections in democrats' favor and why the women of america could again have the final say at the ballot box. stay with us. this is interesting. it says here that a woman's sex drive
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we wanted to update you on the latest of the ferry tragedy off the coast of south korea where divers continue the grim task of recovering bodies. death toll is 59 with at least 240 still missing. a radio transcript highlights confusion and indecision when the ship sank with a crew member questioning whether evacuation was the right move. several passengers followed the captain's initial order to stay below deck. captain has since been arrested and charged for abandoning his ship. msnbc will continue to bring you the latest developments on this story throughout the day. and we'll be right back.
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as the mid-term elections approach, democrats and republicans are going head-to-head in an effort to capture the women's vote. while much of these efforts have so far focused on economic issues, this week we saw the
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rise of two other topics with an appeal to women voters -- gun legislation and personhood. polls show a more than 20-point split between men and women on the issue of gun safety. perhaps that's what former new york city mayor michael bloomberg was looking at when he made a $50 million commitment to the issue and launched every town for gun safety modeled after mothers against drunk driving, every town focuses on outreach to american women especially mothers as they fight for common sense gun policies. with so-call personhood legislation, anti-choice activists at the state level are trying to enact some of the most extreme restrictions on abortion and other women's health services. it is the extreme nature of these bills and the extreme consequences far beyond the question of choice that have challenged values and beliefs for voters across the political spectrum, thus opening a potential pathway to moderate republican women which begs the question -- why are several republican candidates supporting the measure in key battleground
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states? my panel is back with me. erin, i'll start with you because i know you covered the situation in mississippi and that was the most recent example that we have. one of the things that struck me in that instance is part of the reason it failed from what i can tell is that while some of the people who voted against it might not consider themselves pro-choice, there was just so much extremism in the legislation that they knew they just were not for. >> this is a battle over who has sort of the common sense reasonable position. americans unlike with gay marriage where you see an enormous change in the younger generation, americans have very split views on abortion that aren't really changing and what it seems clear based on both referendums and what's happening in legislatures where there is anything approaching a divided place is that people don't like extreme things or what they perceive to be extreme. something that would potentially ban iuds, make it very difficult to get fertility treatment, ban
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the morning-after pill. these are all intentional parts of personhood legislation. very similar to the argument you see in hobby lobby that claims that birth control is the same as abortion. those were not found to be persuasive arguments in mississippi. in colorado in 2010 it helped elect michael bennett as senator because ken buck, his opponent, had supported this. they ran so many ads that said this is personal, i don't want the republican candidate in my birth control. this is a similar argument we saw in 2012. yet when you ask why republicans are supporting it, it is because the portion of their base that is excited about this is so motivated. by the way, that includes rand paul. >> what i find interesting about this issue is that on the one hand it does motivate the primary electorate base. for a number of people running they find in a general election it doesn't do as well because all these measures have failed. i want to read something jennifer duffy sent to the "washington post" this week.
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"democrats will use this to appeal to women beyond their natural base. moderate, republican-leaning women who tend to vote against the gop on this issue." jennifer duffy said. part of the point is to get them to show up. if this issue drives them to the polls, they're not voting for republicans. >> the onus here is on the democratic party. it is almost like republicans are giving them a freebie, here you go. but we know mid-term folks are just infamous for not turning out especially young folks, especially young women who may vote in the presidential but don't turn out for the mid-term. here it is the democrats figuring out how they can mobilize based on this personhood amenities. and across the board. not just near mississippi are states that are running this but trying to nationalize the issue much like we saw in 2012 with president obama being able to do that with contraception. onus is on the democrats. >> goldie, to that point, i think part of it is how you message it to people and how you -- really it is a values conversation which is why i
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think moderate republican women could be attracted by this conversation. >> you can look back to the mcauliffe race where we did not expect such a very large turnout but they successful targeted unmarried single women who were on these issues more progressive on women's fairness health issues, more progressive on gun rights issues where they wanted to see fewer guns on the streets and in the hands of our children. so he was able to capitalize on that. can democrats mobilize in time to make a huge play in 2014? that remains to be seen. i'm a bit skeptical about it. we know that it is out there but are we going to sort of put the mechanism in place to make it happen. you remember soccer moms. this is the return of the soccer mom only this time -- >> jonathan, again putting together a winning coalition, you do it piece by piece. a little bit of this issue, a little bit of this issue. i want to switch to guns. one of the things that's been interesting about the way bloomberg has relaunched this
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strategy is to say we will hold you accountable if you don't vote the way we want you to vote. we will go after you. there will be consequences. which was really an nra tactic. >> yeah. and i think that's going to be useful over the long term. in both cases it is about the lang that y language that you use to communicate. if you use "gun control." if you use "pro choice," you're not going to move the needle on any of these issues. if you use "gun safety" and "contraception." this is not a personhood issue. that's the language of the antiabortion folks who also use "pro life," which is a great line for them. so person hood is something that democrats and liberals should not -- that's not the language they should use. they should say you're the four women being allowed to use contraception or you're not. if you're with us, you're for contraception.
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we're pro-contraception, they're anti-contraception. we're pro-gun safety, they're anti-gun safety. so much of it is the way the issues are framed and democrats, i think victoria is right, democrats have not done a good job on the framing front. >> quickly in 30 seconds or less, vickie, do we think bloomberg is going to be able to make a difference in this election with $39 million? >> i don't. i think that the nra is too powerful and folks in deep red states just hate a new york city -- or a past new york city mayor coming down and tell them what to do. but maybe in the long term. >> i think part of the rebranding, if you will, is shannon watts who's the mom, make it about moms and not about the big city mayor, we'll see. i want to thank my guests, vickie, goldie, erin and jonathan. that does it for me this easter sunday. thank you so much for joining us. please don't forget to share your thoughts. you can find us on facebook at tweet us @msnbcdisrupt. i'll see you back here again
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