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tv   Melissa Harris- Perry  MSNBC  July 26, 2014 7:00am-9:01am PDT

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get the good more with verizon smart rewards and rack up points to use towards the things you really want. now get 50% off all new smartphones. this morning my question is two hours of torture enough to ignite change? plus, the presidential playbook of elizabeth warren. and canada. bringing us more than just hockey players. but, first, here we are again telling children do not cross that line. good morning. i'm melissa harris-perry. yesterday president obama met at the white house with the presidents of the three countries that are home to the vast majority of the nearly 58,000 children whop have arrived at the southern border of the united states as of last
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month. the president invited the leaders of guatemala, el salvador, and honduras to washington to discuss how the country is going to work together to stop the flow of children into the united states. >> each of these leaders have shown great responsiveness and sincerity in wanting to deal with this situation in a sensible and compassionate way. i appreciate your efforts. >> president obama's public display of cooperation with the central american leaders comes as his domestic plan to deal with the border crisis has hit the skids with a decidedly uncooperative congress. both house and senate democrats have responded to his kwp for aid that would cut a billion or more from the president's plan. while washington can't come to a consensus on how many to spend on the young people at the border, all of the plans are in agreement on this. most of those crossing the
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border can and will be sent back as quickly as the law will allow. for the most part americans agree. a pew poll found that 53% of people are in favor of speeding up the legal process that guarantees a hearing for each child even if that means some who would be eligible for asylum will be deported. republicans have supported their case for speedy deportation with a littany of reasons for why these women and children should make the united states tremble in fear. >> this president has promised them all sorts of free goodies like free food, free clothing, free health care, free transportation, free entertainment, and until that stops, you cannot anticipate that people around the world won't try to break into america because america is going to be their sugar daddy. >> this is the most dangerous demographic that you can select out of any civilization being brought into the united states and repatriated. >> gave us a list of the diseases they're concerned
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about, and ebola was one of those, tuberculosis, smallpox. all of these are concerns. >> i just can't. look, there was all of that and then there was this from a radio interview with congressman rich nugent. >> when you have those types coming across the border, they're not children at that point. you know, these kids have been brought up in a culture of, you know, of they'very, a culture of murder, of rape. >> yeah. >> all those things. now we're going to infuse them into the american culture. it's just ludicrous. >> a dangerous demographic of disease infested thieves, murderers and rapists who are coming to get their hands on all of our free goodies, who apparently pose so much of a threat to the united states that both the house republicans and governor rick perry feel it will
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take no less than the murl might of the national guard to defend ourselves against them. could we please pause for a moment here and remember that we are talking about children who are vulnerable, unprotected, and afraid, who are fleeing extreme violence and poverty in their home countries? traun to the united states where by our nation's reputation as a place where children are valued, appreciate and protected, and to some extent what they have found here is as good as what is advertised. there are people of the rio grande valley that despite being at the ep where i center of the surgery -- have stepped up to support their region's strained resources with thousands of hours of volunteer time, food, shelter, and emotional support for the migrant kids. then there was duvall patrick who last week offered temporary shelter for up to 1,000 unaccompanied minors citing what he calls america's century long tradition of giving sanctuary to desperate children. if we looked at had history, we do indeed see where there are
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moments where children have been the catalyst that moved americans to push beyond their own biases and borders, both national and racial. in may of 1963 the children's crusade organized by the southern christian leadership conference brought more than 3,000 young people to the city of birmingham, alabama, in a show of civil disobedience against segregation in the city. once americans saw those images of children standing courageously against injustice, the tide of national public opinion took a pivotal turn in support of the civil rights movement's cause, but we can't embrace that moment of america's moral fortitude without also owing the great -- owning the great moral failing to had it was responding because the children at the border have also been confronted with the hostility that is as old as the segregated south and just as american as the grace and charity of those who to who have extended a hand of help. if we are to claim our history protecting vulnerable children, we must fwraple with our history of responding to them as a threat when their presence
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undermines an established order. as much as americans rallied to the cause of the children's crusade, it was also agents of the american state that were willing to attack them with armed officers, fire hoses, and police dogs when they challenge a deeply entrenched way of life in the south. rick perry was preceded in his call to send armed troops to confront children by arkansas governor orville favas, and he, of course, called the national guard to stop the little rock nine from their first day of school at central high. the presence of children on buses integrating boston schools in 1974 didn't stop white crowds from confronting them with slurs and threats of violence. nor did it give pause to the adults who hurled objects and insults at 6-year-old ruby bridges on the day she became the first african-american child to desegregate an elementary school. and so when we look to children seeking safety at our borders and see instead an invasion to be defended defense, a contajion
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or a drain on resources we just don't want to share, that is a side of history on which we are choosing to stand. with me now is christina jiminez, co-founder and managing director and -- princeton theological seminary, and joining us is sonja desario author of the beak "enrique's journey. "thank you for joining us. >> i want to start with this idea of what it would take to shift this language from a lairnk of immigration to a language of refugee crisis. >> i really appreciate we're having these conversations here because the minute that this crisis became evident, what we saw is republicans jumping on this issue, exploiting the discussion to get into the broader content of the policy that we have been talking about for the last couple of years here, and then use this crisis
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to attack dreamers, folks like me, and attack the daca program, which is the president's program that protects some dreamers from deportation, some immigrant youth. they've been saying this is the cause for the refugee crisis that we have, and, therefore, we have to get rid of that program, and we have to promote mass deportation. i think it's been shameless to see republicans and other politicians using this to exploit it and to advance their own anti-immigrant rhetoric and hate rhetoric, so you know, what we do with united we and our leaders that live in that border area of texas, is to join the children when they immobilize the community to volunteer. we really started to show people the side of america that we are really about. many mu cowan, texas, where we were, that district is one of the poorest districts in the united states. yet, the community there has stepped up, volunteered at the shelters, and i just can't
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possibly understand how republicans can advocate for mass deportation of these children, and dehumanize these children when i was able to shower myself a 2-year-old that had crossed the border with his mother. >> i want to come to you on this because you have been talking about this question and writing so eloquently about this question of children and often of their mothers who come before them crossing these borders as a result of the economic and violence crisis in their own homes, and, yet, in their own home nations. yet, i wonder if what christina is saying here is true of who we really are as a people. if we hear their stories because your book is available on the bookshelf, if we hear their stories, do we change our opinions? >> yes. i mean, i think there's a complete disconnect between what we're hearing in washington d.c., an inability to truly grasp what these children are fleeing, and i was just in
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honduras for a week, and i have been there several times, but just went back after a decade of not going the capital, and what i saw just astounded me in terms of the level of violence. between 2006 and 2011 the number of homicides doubled, and just this year you have seen 500 children killed in honduras. this is a country with a population that's smaller than the size of new york city, the population of new york city. i saw children who were 10, 11 years old, an 11-year-old boy christian in an elementary school who said, you know, they are forcing me -- the narco car tells that control my neighborhood, the gangs that control my neighborhood, are forcing me to use drugs, and they want me to sell drugs, and they're threatening to beat me up as i come out of my elementary school, and these children are being threatened multiple times, and that's what's forcing them to flee. a decade ago when i went, it was
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largely economic conditions, poverty that was forcing these kids -- that was getting these kids to come to the united states. top get to reunify with a parent that had left them behind in their home country and then come to the united states. now it is this incredible level of violence directed at children who are being recruited by the cartels and by gangs to be their foot soldiers in a war to control this turf. honduras has become the main turf where cocaine flows that's coming from columbiaand venezuela up to the united states. our use of illegal drugs in this country -- i tell many students i speak to -- your choices of using drugs are killing children in places like honduras, and so i think there's a fundamental disconnect, an unwillingness to really see what is driving these children. they are refugees, and we must treat them as refugees with compass. you can't talk about compassion and being humane and then
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basically try to interdict these children in mexico and guatemala and send them back to conditions where they may be killed. >> that's so helpful to me. in part, also just sort of seeing that shift from the economic to the question of violence, although they're obviously interconnected. yolanda, when i hear -- when i hear sonja speak about this, i cannot help but to think about elizabeth eckford walking into central high school in little rock, arkansas, and adults standing there looking at this girl, a child, and screaming and yelling and spitting on her. >> that's right. >> i am -- my -- the part of me that loves the american patriotic, yes, we can aspect of our history wants to say that once we understand these conditions, that we as americans will feel differently and act differently, but when i hear language that sounds like "the help" about, oh, they're bringing these diseases and they're -- you know, this notion of literal contamination of our
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culture, i just think, oh, man, this is the worst of who we are. this is the ugliest part of our history. >> it's the question of which side of history are we going to be on? we have to be completely clear about the racist wrurundertonest are in all of this language. we have to be clear that we are in a human rights crisis. that these children are not only being stripped of their humanity, but being stripped of their protective status as children. they're making the argument, these are not 4 and 5-year-olds. apparently these are grown adults in 4 or a-year-old bodies. >> they're not children anymore because they've experienced violence. >> it's a human rights crisis. what are we going to do? what morally and ethicily are we as one human being to another to do when faced with these children who are seeking to flee conditions that, in part, we have helped to create. >> that's just where i want to go. this issue of the conditions that we help to create, we also heard a little bit of this from sonja. stay right there because at the root of the border crisis are the policies of a country with
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>> creating the crisis. under president juan hernandez, he has criticized u.s. drug policy for helping to push violent traffickers into honduras, guatemala, and el salvador. he spoke friday about the consequences for his country in an interview with my colleague, msnbc's jose diaz bolard. >> your country here in the united states is the largest consumer of drugs. >> for many public officials
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here -- it's a problem of life and death. >> so, sonja, this goes to the point that you were making about the consumption of drugs, which is clearly part of it. it's on the back of a child. it's more than just that. right? there's also the active -- for example, agricultural policies and economic policies, and political policies of the u.s. relative to these nations. >> yeah. i mean, i was -- i testified before the senate about a week ago. republicans were saying, you know, this crisis really started in 2012, and, you know, you can look at u.s. meddling in places like honduras, guatemala, el salvador going back to the monroe doctrine in the late 1800s. honduras is the original banana republic for large companies that went into honduras and created this export economy of bananas and were willing to fund
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and arm groups that deposed a president in 1911 and certainly are co-war politics were part of these civil wars that we saw in central america that killed hundreds of thousands of people and destroyed the economies of these places. we've also deported tens of thousands of gangsters from my hometown here of los angeles. people with the 18th street gang, ms gang. in 1996 we toughened immigration laws towards permanent residents who had committed certain drug crimes. these guys have been deported in large numbers and really helped spur a lot of the gang violence that is the underpinning of the current vials in these countries, and now we have this funneling of drugs through honduras. four and five flights of cocaine are landing in honduras. certainly the honeduran presidet
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and government has a lot to blame. four to five homicides in honduras are never even investigated, much less prosecuted. there's blame all around. >> it feels important to me. i'm glad you said that, to point out that talking about american culpability does not mean that there is no blame to be shared particularly for the democratically elected leaders of these nations. it does feel like part of what we have to do, even as we look at that, is say, okay, if these young people, these refugees on our border -- because they are children, they are miner's c can -- canary it's -- if we don't deal with this well now, christina, what do you think we see 20 years from now? what are the seeds we are sewing now for two decades from this moment? >> this is really a question about legacy, and this is for both, right? republicans and democrats. i think it's also important to
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highlight the fact that the president has not also been clear about how he wants to be treating this situation like a refugee crisis. in fact, his administration has been vague about whether or not they're also promoting mass deportation or fast tracking deportation of these children. >> you guys, for millions -- in large part simply to speed up the process. >> the fact of the matter is this administration has also deported the most number of people in the history of the united states. over two million people. i really think it's a question about leg as yu for both parties for our political leaders. whether the president or not is going to use this opportunity, right, to really step up and lead and live up to the values of this nation. it's a big question. not only on the refugee crisis that we have, but also immigration. he has already said that he is going to take action, and if he does not act in a way of providing administrative relief that will protect the most number of people from deportation here living in the united states, i think that that will be a sign that he will be
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caving in to all of the republican rhetoric that we've been hearing of this. >> that's exactly where i want to come back to you when we come back about the question of the president's legacy here, but also, as you pointed out, what side of history as ae people do we want to be standing on. when we come back. ing active cay ease arthritis symptoms. but if you have arthritis, staying active can be difficult. prescription celebrex can help relieve arthritis pain so your body can stay in motion. because just one 200mg celebrex a day can provide 24 hour relief for many with arthritis pain and inflammation. plus, in clinical studies, celebrex is proven to improve daily physical function so moving is easier. celebrex can be taken with or without food. and it's not a narcotic. you and your doctor should balance the benefits with the risks. all prescription nsaids, like celebrex, ibuprofen, naproxen and meloxicam have the same cardiovascular warning. they all may increase the chance of heart attack or stroke,
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so let's simplify things. let's close the gap between people and care. of immigrants, we're also a nation of laws. if you have a disorderly or disrange process of migration, that not only puts the children themselves at risk, but it also calls to question the legal immigration process of those who are properly applying and trying to enter into our country. >> that was the president on friday after meeting with the presidents of guatemala, el salvador and honduras. i appreciate what the presses was saying there. i appreciate living in a nation of laws. you know what would be legal? me eating in a restaurant with white folks, me going to school with white kids. sometimes our laws reflect the very worst of our biases, and
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we're showing census refugee crisises that occurred between february of 2014 and july of 2014 and decline in support for a pathway to citizenship around immigration from 73% to 68%. still a massive majority. it does look like this framing is having this negative effect. >> we have to name this a humanitarian crisis as opposed to an immigration crisis because we have to ask whose families matter? which children matters? we have to sit with the horrific decisions that some of these parents, mothers in particular, have had to make in order to even send their children away from their homes to flee the violence that they're facing. so the question about the humanitarian crisis is whose human dignity matters in this equation? everyone's human dignity has to matter, including these children who are fleeing violence that we have helped to perpetuate in these areas? until we name it as such, we'll continue to talk about immigration laws as opposed to talking about whose bodies of
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the most vulnerable of the least protected are being impacted by our policies at the border. >> and, in fact, sonja, on that point and on the point that the president made about being a nation of laws, we also exist with an international community. are our actions at this point in violation of either international law or practice relative to this idea of speeding up a process of sending home children who might, in fact, be eligible for asylum. >> you know, i think that these children are no different. what i saw in honduras, the violence they face and the pressures to join these narco cartels is not very different from what child soldiers face in sudan and we ask countries like -- that surround syria to take in nearly three million refugees in recent months and years, and we ask them to be humane towards refugees, and we have signed protocols and conventions that we will do the same. i believe that we are a compassionate country, and we
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used to take in twice as many refugees pre-9/11 as we take in now. i believe that there is a humane, practical, legal approach to dealing with this crisis that president obama has shown very little leadership on this issue. he is basically saying let's keep these kids from coming here, seal them into this deadly fate. let's expedite their removal so they don't have a fair process here in the united states. what we need to do is have these refugee centers in the united states where children are held for two to three months, and you bring in a lot of immigration judges and asylum officers and you give these kids a full, fair hearing so that they can really -- you give them an attorney because it's not a real process unless they have someone to advocate their right for asylum, to be a refugee in this country. you give them a full fair process, and if they qualify as a refugee, let them in.
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if they're economic mi grants, if they're coming here simply to better their lives and if they have a parent in their home country, then deport them. i understand we can have a full-throated discussion about economic migrants to the united states. the positives and negatives of that. these are not economic migrants largely. they are refugees. we have to show the same compassion that we demand from other countries towards refugees. we must lead in this area. >> so let me ask you, christina, about that possibility of leadership. we are hammering home this is a refugee crisis, not an immigration question, and, yet, the dreamers have been the folks now roped in in this conversation from the right, and you all were also most effective in pushing the president to demonstrate to him what he could do free from the congress, what he could do just as president in terms of doca. can you imagine the dreamers potentially picking up this question of these refugee young people and providing for the president, for the administration a road map of how
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to do the kinds of things we hear from sonja on here? >> we have been doing that already. we were the first responders. dreamers in texas, in areas like california and other border areas where the first thing is to respond to this crisis going to volunteer to the shelters, making donations. that's what we did in mccowan, texas. our big push right now is let's talk about the children and let's have the right conversation, which is about human beings and about children. all the immigrants who live here without status, they have dehumanized us, criminalized us to the point that our families have been put in deportation. we have gone through massive family separation every day over 1,000 people get deported. that means children without mothers. fathers without their children. that's the crisis that we have, and i think dreamers won't stop pushing the president not only to the right thing on this refugee crisis because let's be
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honest, congress is not going to resolve this before august recess. >> that's right. >> this is going to be on the president, and he has the opportunity to lead. >> that's right. >> and to fix his own record of being called the deporter in chief. >> i will say that for me watching all of this keeps calling to mind those four little girls in that birmingham church basement and the ways in which for african-american communities we have seen our children bare the brunt of the worst kind of violence and border protection in terms of racial border protection and i certainly hope that not only does the president lead, but also african-american communities recognize the historical connections here. >> thank you for joining us this morning. about them. not only do they clean everyday dirt, they clean a lot of
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6.7 million more people are enrolled in medicaid compared to the months before the aca expanded eligibility. more than eight million people have enrolled in private plans via the law's exchanges. 85% of them are eligible for subsidies from the federal government to help them afford it. the subsidies average $264 a month, and the best news of all? a new study published this week in the new england journal of medicine estimated that 10.3 million people who didn't have health insurance before the aca took effect now have health insurance. they can see a doctor. it's less of a struggle for them to pay their medical bills. that's a 26% decline in the number of uninsured in just a few months. that is huge. obama care is starting to work. 10.3 million people. yet, there remain those who want to dismantle the law, who want
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this past tuesday two federal circuit courts 100 miles apart issued opposite rulings on two very similar challenges to the affordable care act. the rulings have to do with the law's on-line insurance exchanges where people can buy individual health insurance policies. will there's an exchange in each state. in 14 states and washington d.c. the state or local government set up the exchange. in the other 36 states the federal government stepped in to at least partly run the exchanges. in some states because republican-led governments refuse to participate in obama care. now, here is where the affordable part of the affordable care act comes in. people buying insurance policies on the exchanges can get federal
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tax credits to help cover their premiums. of the more than eight million people who have signed up for exchange plans, 85% are eligible for the subsidies. the subsidies cover on average three-quarters of the monthly premium. it is those subsidies that are being challenged in court. aca opponents claim that according to the plain language of the aca the subsidies are only supposed to go to people in states with state-run exchanges. they claim that the law doesn't say anything about giving tax credits to people in states with federally run exchanges. again, 36 states have federally run exchanges. 4.7 million people have gotten subsidyized coverage in the exchanges? another federal court came to the opposite conclusion, and with that the fate of the affordable care act is once again in question. with me at the table, sarah
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knight from the american constitution society, democratic strategist, tara, dowdel and national reporter suzy kim, and joining us from michigan is jonathan cohen, a senior and writer for their new blog. he is also author of the book "sick, the untold story of america's health care crisis and the people who pay the price." nice to have you. >> thanks for having me. >> tell me, what exactly happened here, and what is likely to happen next? >> it's as you described. the opponents of the affordable care act found some ambiguity, some confusing language in the text of the law. now, as anyone who knows how congress works, this is not uncommon. it is typical in a large piece of legislation. you have some language that was just, you know, written in the wrong way because making a law is a complicated process. typically the courts say when that happens they say, well, we'll defer to the agency that
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is in charge of putting this law into effect. we'll let them figure out exactly what it was supposed to mean. the opponents of the aca have seized on this lairnk and said no, no, no, it's very clear to us that the people who wrote this law intended it in such a way so that if i state, as you said, chose not to run its exchange, chose to ask the federal government to take on that work, then the people in that state would not get the federal subsidies, those tax credits that can be worth hundreds, even thousands of dollars a year. they're basically saying they intended to deprive half the country potentially of health insurance. >> okay. so, jonathan, help me out here. nand when the supreme court is looking at the intention of law particularly of the constitution and they're talking about people who wrote these words in the 1770s, 1780s, 1790s that it is a question of interpretation. most of the members of the
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wraits congress who helped to pass this law are still living and most of them are still searching in that same congress. couldn't we ask them what they intended? >> well, not only could we ask them. we have asked them. every reporter who has covered this has asked them. you don't even have to take our word for it. nancy pelosi, max baucus, the other congressional leaders who wrote the law, filed a brief with the supreme court saying this is not what we meant. we did not intend it this way. you know, the best analogy i can come up with is this is a little like my 10-year-old telling me that when i sent him to bed last night i didn't intend for him to go to sleep. it's just nonsensical. this is the case that's going forward. >> yeah. i was going to say from 2:00 to 10:00, they will totally do that. you have to be careful what you say. go to bed, get under the covers, go to sleep. let me ask you, let me bring you
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in on this because on the one hand there's a part of me that just wants to shrug my shoulders and mock this. law is something different than justice, and law is something different than commonsense, right? is there a real legal basis here for saying, well, you guys got this law wrong when you drafrted it. this is what it now legally says. >> what happened next is that it will go to the full panel of judges who sit on the d.c. circuit who will reconsider the case. those 13 judges, the senior judges get included because they heard it on the earlier panel. we'll look at this nice fully expect that they will come down in the same way that every other federal court that's heard this case has come out, including the fourth circuit, which is to say they won't read these provisions in isolation from the rest of the 2,000 pages of the act. they'll look at it within the context of the act, and they won't do what senior judge harry edwards called in his strong disent in the d.c. circuit
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opinion the poison pill approach. to read that one provision in such a way that makes the rest of the act absurd and so i expect that that will do away with the circuit split that exists at this moment, and will make it less likely that the supreme court would want to intervene and take up the case. at least at this moment. >> so everybody stay with me because we've talked about the kind of legal question here, but the absurdity almost always means it's time to talk politics. up next, why republicans could be a political risk if they keep trying to dismantle obama care. everybody, stay with us. hey pal? you ready? can you pick me up at 6:30? ah... (boy) i'm here! i'm here! (cop) too late. i was gone for five minutes! ugh! move it. you're killing me. you know what, dad? i'm good.
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i would. switch to comcast business internet and get the fastest wifi included. comcast business. built for business. >> portion of americans without health insurance is plummeting. the under insured rate dropped almost five points since late last year alone to a six-year low, according to gallop. the 13%, though, it is still too
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high. but as more people are gaining health insurance through their affordable care act, the political tide could be turning. among those who have gotten insurance through the aca either by medicaid or through the exchanges, an overwhelming majority say they are satisfied with their new coverage. including 74% of those who identify as republican. isn't the rule that once a government program exists and people have an actual benefit that it is always to your political peril to take it away? >> well, it depends. in this crazy climate that's not always the case, as we're seeing. mother poll said that over half of americans had benefitted directly from the affordable care act or know someone who has benefitted from the affordable care act. that's a really astounding number. >> you are saying this all the time. why aren't they making a commercial about that? >> you are absolutely right.
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i think you'll see more of that happening, and i do think, though, that there's been an ongoing issue from my perspective, and i said this. i actually said this here. democrats should not for a second think that republicans are going to stop attacking this law. they will continue to attack it as long as it works for them and their base. that is the only thing they're concerned about. in 2014 insuring their base comes out to vote. for the most avr i had part of their base saying obama care is still something that rights them up. that's all they need right now. they're not worried. they're not worried about -- that's what democrats -- they don't worry about 2016. we're until 2014 right now. >> they're telling me that 74% of republicans are satisfied, and when you look at those who oppose the act for not going far enough, it's only -- 38% are saying that it is too liberal?
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right? that's a tiny minority of folks saying the law is too liberal. a full 17% are just saying it's actually not liberal enough. i mean, what is happening here that they continue to think that politically this is valuable for them? >> well, i think there's definitely -- you're going to see this increasingly as the law is implemented and takes effect. the differences between the kind of rhetoric that we hear in washington and the kind of fights that we have on that level and what's actually happening on the ground. i think there is a disconnect between this. i think it's only a matter of time between those two sort of get closer together. particularly as voters go to the polls. the interesting thing about the exchange subsidies, for instance, i think a lot of people are sort of drawing parallels with medicaid and the medicaid expansion, but we go to richer people, that we're not just talking about those for folks in states that have expanded medicaid. if you earn $16,000 as a single person, you can qualify -- newly
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qualify for medicaid. for subsidies, you can earn up to $45,000. these are working class people. these are lower middle class people. >> these with people who vote, right? >> these are people who vote. these are the middle class voters that both democrats and republicans say they want. to threaten to take the subsidies away, i think would be a lot more politically perilous. >> it feels as though it's more politically perilous. that's precisely what this particular decision, if it stood. you made me feel better that this decision is unlikely to stand. yet, it does feel like a kind of injustice that could happen. it does appear that this law is it would be absurd to move backward on that. >> i think that's exactly right. i also think that we have good reason to believe that the supreme court wouldn't necessarily take it up in a dire way either. i mean, you know, in the 2012 -- >> it makes me very nervous this particular court.
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>> i think chief justice roberts took a pretty strong move in the 2012 case to avoid overturning the law on what was i think was a more frontal and at least plan dateable ground. i find it difficult to believe that he would take this slender thread of one provision and use that to undercut the entire law when he didn't do it in the first pass. >> let me ask a little bit about that. it also feels to me like there's an interest group here that we're kind of leaving out, and that is the insurance companies themselves. don't they, as a very powerful block, right -- we're talking about voters and what they get, but these insurance companies now have lots of, as suzy was pointing out, working and middle income folks who are now buying policies, and they can only buy them because they're subsidyized by the federal government. if this did go to the supreme court, would the health insurance companies end up
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writing the amicus brief in support of the aca? >> you know, that's a really interesting question. i don't know if they would actually write the amicus brief, but there's no question at all there is now a huge constituency to keep these subsidies in place, and it's not just the people, as you say, getting the subsidies. it's the insurance companies. can you rest assured they will be rooting for the laws to stay in place in all the states, not just those that decided run their own exchanges. >> is this also a moment when we could finally see republican governors begin to reconsider that decision not to expand medicaid? >> i think we will see it. i think that if democrats have to tap into, first of all, we talked about this moral mondays. these on the ground grassroots protests where people are very upset, and they have been consistent. these are ongoing protests.
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as democrats start to really push back and also extend that to people just on policy grounds -- forget the politics. extend to people on policy grounds that you have two parties. one that wants to give you more affordable health care, and one that wants to take it away. second point, you have two parties. one party that wants to do something about the fact that over the last 35 years we've seen 875% increase in ceo pay. we've seen a 5% increase. these issues are interrelated. democrats need to tap into it. they need to push it. there will be a tipping point, but we need to make sure that tipping point happens sooner rather than later. >> he think what's fascinating is the republican-led states that have either expand -- chosen to expand medicaid and yet some political peril. you see that in ohio. or in pennsylvania where the debate is ongoing right now. the republican governor doesn't want to do it. he wants to propose an alternate
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plan, but there are legislators who are really pushing for it. >> because there are hospitals in their district that will close otherwise. >> these are swing states. these are the states that republicans and democrats fight over every single midterm election. all the presidential elections. those rules are clearly being rewritten. jonathan cohen in ann arbor, michigan. thank you for joining us here, and here in new york thank you to terry and to sarah and suzy who are going to stick around a little bit longer. up next, one hour and 57 minutes to kel a man. could we possibly agree that that is cruel and unusual? and the obama presidential playbook being put to work by a grassroots favorite. much more at the top of the hour.
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i'm melissa harris-perry. in the 1940s, 1950s, 1960s, americans otherwise healthy were purposely made ill by the united states government. whether they were forced to contract a deadly stomach bug or given gonorrhea or malaria, prison inmates were used for incredibly painful medical experiments with half of u.s. states allowing these practices. it was not until 1973 that this exploitation came to a head during congressional hearings and industry officials acknowledge they were using prisoners. the reason? prisoners were cheaper than chimpanzees. then senator hubert humphrey declared it is our moral responsibility to see that the poor and the uneducated and the captive are not left unprotected as human guinney pigs. yet, those on death row are still being subjected to painful and unethical experimentation.
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pharmaceutical suppliers that once provided the drug for lethal injection now refuse based on opposition to the death penalty. so states are experimenting with untested drug combinations to horrifying effect. the latest happened wednesday in arizona. the fourth botched execution this year. 55-year-old joseph rudolph wood was injected with a two-drug cocktail never before tried in arizona. it took him one hour and 57 minutes to die. witnesses described wood gasping for air for over an hour. >> to watch a man lay there for an hour and 40 minutes, gulping air, i can liken it to the way the fish opens and closes its mouth. >> in the aftermath arizona's attorney general issued a temporary moratorium on executions thursday. joining me at the table, sar wra knight, vice president of network advancement on the
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american constitution society. she's also represented pro bone yoi clients in death penalty cases. and joining us from seattle, phillip handston, professor ameritus much pharmacy at the university of washington and co-founder of pharmacists opposed to participation in executions. thank you for being here. this issue feels to me like it is at the intersection of medicine, law, andeth ikes. how do we adjudicate? should we use an ethical, medical, or legal standard? >> there is a real question, the reason why we set up the organization, farm sis opposed to participating in executions is because these things are, in fact, experimental, and they go against really what should be the code of ethics for pharmacy,
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and one of the key issues -- this one key issue i would like to bring up that pertains to pharmacy participation, and that is -- and for anybody to participate for that matter, is the issue of innocence. 144 people have been released from death row for reasons of innocence, and secondly, a recent report suggests that at least one in 25 people on death row is innocent. if anybody participates in an execution, there's a reasonable chance they will be killing an innocent human being. >> doctor, that feels critically apparently to me, but i am, of course, someone who has long held an opposition to the death penalty. part of what i'm interested in is whether or not -- if i'm someone who doesn't have a particular op sdwligs to the death penalty per se, as an ethical question, should the issue of how a person dies and whether or not it takes 15 minutes or an hour and 57 minutes, should that make any difference to me? >> well, i think it should.
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grovl we are going to have the death penalty, it shouldn't be done in this manner because it does bring up -- your other guests will talk about, i'm sure, whether this is cruel and unusual. it certainly brings up that possibility. >> let me turn to you on exactly that. when we look at the history of let's head out the death penalty has been carried out in this country, we arrive at the moment of lethal injection. >> at least -- least cruel and unusual. does that change -- do these. >> it's that when states start using lethal injection, it was on an argument for capital punishment than firing squads and the electric chair.
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it's i had hi fairly standard. this really dovetails with what phillip was talking about just now. were there serious ethical considerations on the part of pharmaceutical companies. what we're seeing in the states now is the states' response to pharmaceutical companies no longer selling to them the drugs they had been using that they knew how to use, and so in addition to having untested drugs that are being used, there's a veil of secrecy, and so one of the main issues in arizona dwoent know the drugs that red cross used, the purity of the drugs, the doses of those drugs, or the procedures that are being used to administer
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them to the person who is being executed. >> i wonder if there's a sanitizing effect of this form of euthanasia or that we see it as a form of euthanasia almost in the ways that we make choices, for example, for our beloved family pets. so we see this -- that it actually creates not only a veil of secrecy, but also kind of allows us to step back from it. the judge went so far as to suggest that we go back -- that says, sure, firing squads can be messy, but if you are -- we should not shield ourselves that we are shedding human blood. we as a society cannot stomach the splatter from an execution set back from a firing squad, then we shouldn't be carrying out at all this kind of go to the guillotine because then you see that and you know what you are doing. >> the opinion that arizona should tell everybody what they're up to, what drugs they're use and how they're being used.
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>> let me ask you what i think is a tough question. i'm going to listen for a moment to a woman who is a family member and the daughter and the sister of the man who was killed by the state who themselves were killed. let's take a moment and listen to her. >> what's excruciating is seeing your dad lying there in a pool of blood. seeing your sister lying there in a pool of blood. that's excruciating. this man deserved it, and i shouldn't really call him. >> whether or not we as a people should care how an inmate dies. >> well, absolutely. you have to -- your heart has to go out to the victim's families. i think also not to harp on the innocence again, but have you to juxtapose that.
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it is really an incremental difference between life in prison without the possibility of parole versus execution. it's that incremental difference that we're talking about with regard to the victim's families. with regard to the 144 innocent mostly men, ten or 15 or 20 years, imagine waking up every morning knowing that you have been falsely accused of murder and realizing it's not just a bad dream, but you really may well be killed as a result of a false imprisonment. i think that you must juxtapose the victims that have to be considered, and you also have to consider the innocent, accused and their families. it must be very difficult for them. >> phillip hampton in seattle, washington. thank you for joining us. sarah will be back a little later in the hour. next, which grassroots favorite appears to be taking cues from appears to be taking cues from the obama presidential playbook.
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my long personal history with president barack obama. no, no, it's nothing sorded. sorry, tmz. for me he has been a political figure much longer than for most. i was a chicago resident when he ran against bobby rush in 2000, and he won big. 30% big. >> an awesome guy in the blue states, and dwoent like federal agents poking around in our libraries in the red states. we coach little league in the blue states, and, yes, we have some gay friends in the red states. we are one people. all of us pledging allegiance to the stars and stripes, all of us
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defending the wraits of america. >> for most americans, that was -- but that is not the moment. this was the moment. >> in illinois tonight the republican candidate for u.s. senate said he would not drop out of the race has dropped out. jack ryan had divorce records unsealed that released allegation that is he had taken his ex-wife to sex clubs against her will. >> state senator obama, his democratic opponent, had no opposition. at least for a hot minute, republicans did scramble and come up with a conservative author and activist alan keyes, who wasn't even from illinois or
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living in the state at the time. all of a sudden he has had young state senator running for a u.s. senate seat that he would later win by a margin of 70-27. thanks in large part to this large lead in the polls throughout the campaign. our soon to be senator could afford to roam around outside his home state. in 2004 the politician on the rise campaigned hard and not just exclusively in illinois. mr. obama was on the road dogg what politicians do. raising money for fellow democrats, raising awareness for others. all the while collecting political capital to be cashed in at a later date. and, in fact, a few years later still learning his way around washington the junior senator gets a call from his party's leader, harry reid. the book "game change" chronicle az july 2006 meeting that the freshman senator obama was called to on capitol hill.
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>> i know that you don't like it. what you are doing. later, when obama returned to his office, robert gibbs asked him what they had done wrong to provoke the meeting. nothing. >> that whole meeting was before you running for president, gibbs asked. yep, obama said and grinned. he really wants me to run for president. democrats wanted an option. a candidate who could expand the playing field. they wanted to discover someone new. they wanted to have a choice. now eight years later you can call him liberal -- if you want to, but senator elizabeth warren is following a very similar playbook. from declaring she will serve out her full senate term, president obama did that too, and she's campaigning for democrats in deep red states like kentucky and west virginia. last weekend in detroit she had an empassioned speech at events
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like net roots nation. >> we believe that no one should still work full-time and still live in port. that means raising the minimum wage. >> we believe in equal pay for equal work, and we'll fight for it. >> we believe that corporations are not people. that women have a right to their bodies. we will overturn and we will fight for it. >> man, that sounds like a campaign slogan. we will fight for it. yes, we can. hmm-hmm. joining us now is constitutional law professor at fordham university, and democratic primary candidate for governor of new york igor, who is managing editor for think progress and suzy kim, national reporter for msnbc.com. what i want to do is back up from the elizabeth warren
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progressive substance love fest that has been going on because it's not so much the subject i want to talk about here. it's the strategy. >> it's hashed to tell. she's fund raidsing. she's saying she's not running. >> she's also not commenting on foreign affairs. she's not saying anything about the middle east. she's not traveling to iowa or new hampshire. it's not clear that she really has this ambition to run that many candidates have. what she's talking about is issues, and i think she feels even from the senate if she can insert issues about economic populism and student death, about raising the minimum wage, if that can be a democratic platform, that can help pull hillary to the left, pull the party to the left much more so maybe than just jumping into the race entirely. >> but that is the thing. it's interesting. because then that -- what that sounds to me like elizabeth
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warren is playing from a jesse jackson 1984, 1988 handbook where you have the progressive who pulls the candidate that is going to likely win to speak to the issues, but part of what obama did and i'm saying obama, not president obama because he wasn't president at the time. what obama did in that moment was to say, no, we don't just have to run in the party. i'm actually running for president, and i am wondering if maybe we just can't see her because we couldn't see obama because they are demographically different than what we expect. >> you may not know this, but i was part of a draft obama movement way back when. >> one of those early women for obama. >> where we would have a grassroots folks around all the states, and i remember going to some political science conference where 19 out of 19 political scientists said this is inevitable. you need hillary clinton. >> yeah. >> we also knew the soviet union was coming down. >> any time somebody says inevitable in politics, they're usually wrong. the key here is we need a
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primary. you know, the political world, the economic world has changed since the crash of 2008. now we have a chance to have real conversations with real power at stake about public education. everything has changed since then. about what's happening with big business. i mean, big business has taken over politics. >> this seems important. you made the point that she's not doing the sort of foreign policy credentializing, which, of course, we know the obama beats clinton in large part in that primary because of that one speech in hyde park where he says i'm against the dumb wars. he is standing against the iraq war. i'm wondering if that means that in this case, to your point, that the critical issue in this case isn't going to be the war in iraq where we were standing at that moment in 2007-2008. instead it will be the question of the 1%, 99% inequality, economic questions, and if she is, in fact, sticking out that same ground. >> i think the thing that people love about warren, and i
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actually went to -- the beginning of elizabeth warren's book tour, to cambridge, massachusetts, you know basically her home base at harvard, and the -- what i heard from them is that they love her authenticity. they love her passion, and the fact that she's been devoted to this issue not just as political -- as a politician? n the senate, but for years and years before then. she was a consumer advocate speaking out against, you know, the fact that things were too big. the fact that consumers were getting screwed over. for years and years before anyone else cared, now the party is definitely going in the direction. i think part of what helps that is the fact that republicans are -- they are in gridlock. these republicans in congress. that they can basically put forward bills that represent their ideals. they're not actually having to compromise because there's nothing really happening. they can really stake out what they believe in, what their values are. even i sort of idealize the role. i think elizabeth warren is definitely kind of at the heart of that push in congress and outside of washington of that
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conversation. >> i wanted to pick up that issue as soon as we come back because all the focus is really bad at prediction and really good at analysis, and the one thing that we would say about a warren candidacy is that there's a a lot of uncertainty and, therefore, a campaign could actually teach people things. when we come back, we're going to talk about what that campaign might look like. if you are ready for hillary, there's also a ready for warren. that's why i'm so excited about these new milk-bone brushing chews. whoa, i'm not the only one. it's a brilliant new way to take care of his teeth. clinically proven as effective as brushing. ok, here you go. have you ever seen a dog brush his own teeth? the twist and nub design cleans all the way down to the gum line, even reaching the back teeth. they taste like a treat, but they clean like a toothbrush. nothing says you care like a milk-bone brushing chew. [ barks ] nothing says you care like a milk-bone brushing chew. if energy could come from anything?.
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my plan is to serve out my term, she said in december. i am not running, she told abc last week. she told the boston globe in an interview, i'm going to give you the same answer i have given you many times. there is no wiggle room. i am not running for president. no means no. get it. not happening. once i know, i know. what's happening. the point is starting a group called ready for warren. that's when the nationaling journal report asks. the new group who stated intent to show senator warren how much support there is for her to run with regard to the group itself, warren said i do not support this. will the ready for warren folks take a hint, or be that persuasive? joining us from chicago erica, manager for ready for warren. >> thanks, mount st. helens wra. it's ready to be here. >> why are you ready for warren? >> well, we're ready for warren because we need progressive champion in the 2016 election. we can implement this debate
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right now. there's huge excitement about warren. tons of folks across the country really want her to run. she's been a fighter for working families. she's stood up for progressive values. that's gotten people really excited. that's why we're starting this effort right now because we believe we can influence her, that she's listening, and if we show her we're ready to get behind her, that she could run and she could jump into this race. >> i want you to listen to a moment with senator obama back in 2006. i just want you to lisp to what he said when asked about running for the u.s. presidency. >> so you will not run for president or vice president in on 2008? >> i will not. >> so that was that. are you hoping basically that what will happen is that all of these no's on the part of senator warren will turn into president warren? >> right zoosh i think no candidate is going to announce they're running until they're
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actually running. >> i wanted to ask you a question. how much for the ready for warren, kind of warren fever is about elizabeth warren herself, and how much of it is about hillary clinton and a kind of desire to have alternatives to hillary? >> it's about something else entirely. >> okay. >> it's about people not having jobs, schools failing, a need for competition in the democratic primary. democrats -- >> you think people actually care about topics for their own lives as opposed to the lives of the potential elected official? >> one once said it's about the economy stupid. it's about an economy and -- it's too few companies that are really running rough shod over working family's lives, over middle class lives.
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people want competition. the original version of the clintons was about the corrective to the primaries that have brought democrats too far to the left in 1984 and 198 1k38 left us with general election candidates who couldn't win. is this now a corrective back against that sort of first version of the lynnes? >> i mean, i think so. it's because one really represents kind of the heart of these issues that democrats care about so much. that's why they're clinging to her. hillary has been the national stage for so long. she has donors that think in a certain way that middle class and lower income americans may not, and so that's why it's difficult for her to muster up the kind of rhetoric that warren can use. she's a fresh-faced person to politics. she has a state seat in the senate. she can make these kinds of calls. is she electable? can she raise the kind of money
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hillary can to take things to the white house? we don't. what was being said about the state senator guy -- >> part of what you want in a candidate is that so a campaign can teach us. it's part of the clinton problem. people really have a lot of opinions already about her. what are the aspects of the warren story that you think generate a constituency for her? >> i think it is about her authenticity. it's about her -- she spent her whole life fighting for working families, standing up for progressive values. i think her work and her story and her life really speaks to what people care about in terms of can i get a job that pays a decent wage? am i going to be able to afford a home and afford college? it is what voters are thinking about and people are thinking
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about, and some of the biggest most pressing issues facing our country right now in temz of recovering from the financial crisis, skyrocketing income inequality. those really matter to people and to voters. i think that's what's really resonating and exciting people about warren. >> erica, once again, making the teach-out point that somehow people are voting for their own interests as opposed that for the party. when i come back, i want to ask whether or not there even is a democratic party anymore, or if the bench is so short that the political party is dead. when we come back rsh und brian!♪ ♪ this bar has protein oh yeah!♪ [ female announcer ] fiber one. ♪ this bar has protein oh yeah!♪ carmax is the best place to start your car search.e, great for frank, who's quite particular... russian jazz funk? next to swedish hip hop. when he knows what he wants... - thank you. do you have himalayan toad lilies? spotted, or speckled? speckled. yes. he has to have it.
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you fifteen percent or more on huh, fiftcar insurance.uld save yeah, everybody knows that. well, did you know that playing cards with kenny rogers gets old pretty fast? ♪ you got to know when to hold'em. ♪ ♪ know when to fold 'em. ♪ know when to walk away. ♪ know when to run. ♪ you never count your money, ♪ when you're sitting at the ta...♪ what? you get it? i get the gist, yeah. geico. fifteen minutes could save you fifteen percent or more on car insurance. from the 1990s, or is it elizabeth warren who has 15,000 likes on facebook. is that evidence that we just don't have a deep enough bench? >> there's a poll done by gallop very recently that 40% of democrats have no idea who elizabeth warren is. they don't really know who
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martin o'malley is. they don't know these people. they haven't made names for themselves in terms of the broader democratic party. as we were just sort of talking about a moment ago, i think part of the democrats' challenge is that in terms of the kind of folks that you would get to run for president, say a governor of a state, the democratic, you know, leadership doesn't represent the constituency. we don't have enough women. we don't have enough minorities. this is one area where republicans have actually made a lot of inroads. you have mickey haley in south carolina. you have susannah martinez. these are the people that you hear are being buzzed about because they seem to represent an increasingly changing demographic in the united states. >> on the other hand, like some people you don't know, say jimmy carter, say barack obama, all of
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the most recent democratic presidents are people with this moment like governor of arkansas or, you know, basically a state senator out of chicago. >> guys and gals that have been there forever, it makes people feel like they can't break through and get into politics if we get another clinton. biden, who has been there forever. all of these folks who have been around for so long. that's why warren is so exciting because she's this fresh face.
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>> you can have name recognition and money and a monarchy, but i talk to people all the time who say politics is as closed down as our economy? i'm not going to get involved. it's good for the health of our whole democracy to have new people. i wouldn't write out people we haven't heard of either. >> who represents the growing and changing face of america? >> yes. that's what makes for a healthy democracy. >> her demographic is not -- stick around a little longer. also thanks to susan kim. if you are not familiar with the digital extension of this program, it's called nerding out, and you can catch this week's edition hosted by the prince of nerdland, doorian warren live on msnbc.com. it stream this is thursday morning at 11:30 a.m. and will feature the teach-out on
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campaign finance law. you were next for us, what is a state to do when all nine supreme court justices say the law is unconstitutional? rewrite the law, of course.
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find out why more than two million members count on angie's list. angie's list -- reviews you can trust. >> let's take a look at what's happening in new orleans. save america has been in new orleans since last saturday for a demonstration. protesters have gathered at the site of a future planned parenthood clinic and at a medical clinic that provides abortions, and anne at the private residence of an individual the group believes to be an abortion provider. free throw testers took the message to the first union tarn clur. disturbing a moment of silence for a long-time republican who passed away the week before, and telling the congregants did he
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they didn't have a true faith for reproductive rights. demonstrators were invited to join the service respectfully. this cannot be separated by the supreme court in june to strike down the 2007 massachusetts law that created a buffer zone between abortion seekers and those looking to protest or counsel them. that ruling has massachusetts state legislators who are heeding the calm from governor duvall patrick to face a new buffer zone bill before the legislative session ends next thursday. versions of the bill have been passed by both the massachusetts senate and house and what the final draft hz agreed upon is expected to be signed by governor patrick. the new law will allow police to order one or more protesters to withdraw. if they impede access to a clinic. in order that back off, protesters would have to stay at
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least 25 feet from the building for up to eight hours. the attorney general could seek fines and compensatory damages for those that break the law. sarah knight, invites president of network advancement for the american constitution society, igor volski, editor at think progress.com, and from boston, massachusetts, state senator harry chandler, who is the senate's assistant majority leader and is the sponsor of the new clinic's buffer zone bill. nice to have you. >> do you see them as connected? >> i don't think you're wrong at all. i see them as connected, and it was just feelings like this that made us realize when the supreme court struck down our 2007 law that there was a void that needed to be filled and needed to be filled as quickly as possibl
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possible. we had a murder in massachusetts in 1994, and that memory runs long and deep for us. fwo people were murdered in a planned parenthood clinic. zoom because we know that dr. tiller was -- that was one of the churches i attended when i lived in new orleans, and so it's a chilling sort of moment. tell me about this new law that you all are working on getting passed, the speed with which you have done it, and sort of what you see as how this law responds to the supreme court ruling. >> as i said in 1994 we had a murder. we responded with a bill in 2001 that gave us a bubble.
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there was some protection. we want to make sure they're not harassed or intimated. the issue that was posed when the 2007 bill that created the buffer zone was have you beening down by the supreme court in june was that there was a first amendment problem. lfs no freedom of speech here. we read the bill, but read the decision very carefully. we really crafted the bill very narrowly so we would balance the safety issues with the access issues that needed to be protected.
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they could go within a line 25 feet away. they could stay there for eight hours or until the facility closed. we want to make sure that there is no problem. we want to make sure that nobody is injured. we want to make sure that this is always on public property, and we want to make sure that there is no infingerment of people's basic rights on that score. >> hold it one moment. so, sarah, just from what you know is does that seem to pass the fission amendment test from your perspective? >> i think it's a valiant effort to try. one thing to know about the opinion is that while all nine justices agreed that the 35 foot buffer zone violated the first amendment rights of the protesters, there was not agreement among all nine of them about the rationale for that. so in an unusual combination, we see chief justice roberts join with the more liberal members of the court, with the aca. a very unusual combination.
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they crafted an unusual decision that strikes down the 35 foot buffer and suggests that there are more reasonable and less restrictive alternatives that they can pursue, but doesn't give a lot of guidance on to what exactly that's going to look like. on the other hand, the four more conservative justices on the court are pretty clear that they would go farther. there's 2,000 decisions. state senator talked about the buffer that goes around a person. a bubble that kind of follows a person as another approach to the supreme court has accrued. i think it's clear that the other four more conservative justices would strike that down. it's unclear because justice roberts' opinion doesn't address that fact. >> so we're not completely clear where that. >> end up leading you us. thank you for joining us today, and also specifically, thank you state senator harriet chandler in boston, massachusetts. also for trying to respond so swiftly to this change and
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trying to, in fact, protect both the first amendment rights of protesters and women who are seeking constitutionally protected medical care. thank you. >> thank you. >> still to come this morning, our foot soldier is bringing more from canada than hockey players and news anchors. we'll be right back. our most faf all? hmm...the kind i have with you. me too. scheck it out.? i just saved 15% on car insurance in 15 minutes, so i took a selfie to show everyone how happy i am. really? because esurance saved me money in half that time. can i...? oh you can be in it! no need to photo-bomb me. hashbrown. selfie. yeah... that's not how it works. 15 minutes for a quote isn't how it works anymore. start with a quote from esurance and you could save money on car insurance in half the time. welcome to the modern world. esurance. backed by allstate. click or call.
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the detroit water and sewage department has been shutting off the water of delinquent customers since march. the department began shutting off water for up to 3,000 accounts per week. placing a basic necessity out of reach for those who cannot afford to pay. in order to incentivize bill payment. on monday, the department decided to halt the shutoff for 15 days to give customers enough time to work out payment plans after proving they are, in fact, unable to pay their water bills. by the time this decision was rendered, two twitter users had already taken matters into their own hands. tiffany ashley bell and christy
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tillman, two young women whose virtual friendship began on twitter, began exchanging tweets about the water crisis in detroit. they found themselves focused on a simple question. how can you pay for someone's water bill directly? their solution, the detroit water project. the website offers a platform for detroit water and sewage department customers who need help with their bills and to seek assistance and a place for the donors to offer a contribution. the site a none munonymously ma facilitate payment. the project has already attracted more than 3,000 donors who have each contributed anywhere from $20 to $2,500. those donations, the detroit water project has been able to pay more than 16 overdue accounts. and bell and tillman aren't the only ones helping a hand. water rights activist maude barlow led a seven vehicle convoy across the border to deliver about 250 gallons of
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water to detroit. maude said to drive home the message that cutting off delinquent customers violates the u.n.'s 2010 assertion that water is a human right. joining me now from ottawa is maude barlow, the national chairperson, the council of canadians. so nice to have you. >> so nice to be here, thank you. >> so tell me about yesterday's rally. >> well, it was very moving. we had a convoy from windsor. we did get stopped and had to pay a tariff on each of the cars. and then we were met by hundreds of supporters and people who have been protesting and fighting the cutoffs. and we went to one of the water drop-off churches, there's centers around detroit where you can drop water off where people need it. it was extremely moving.
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the water was blessed and people sang. it was a very moving moment, very moving afternoon. the culmination of a lot of months of work with our friends in detroit to show that c canadians care and we show solidarity with what they're going through. >> it is not a usual sort of mundane experience for a major american city to be receiving international aid for something as basic as water. what do you make of this? is it an indication of sort of a failing within the u.s. context? is it -- how do you see what this moment is? >> well, thank you for saying that. because that was exactly the point we're trying to make. we've been -- i've been personally very involved in getting the u.n. to recognize the human right to water. we've been working with communities around the world that don't have access to water. it's usually in third-world countries. it's usually in countries that we think of as very far away and very poor. but there are communities in the so-called first world now. europe is turning off a lot of water because of their austerity
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programs. there are communities and cities in the united states where it's happening. detroit's the worst. it's not the only one, but it's the worst. and what happened was the department decided under the new bankruptcy plan to sell off the water system and they wanted to get rid of the bad debt and they didn't go after the corporate users, the golf courses and big companies who owe $30 million, they went after the poorest of the poor who have been left behind as money has left detroit. we thought, well, look, if we are concerned about the lack of water rights in kenya or bolivia, why are we not concerned about the absolute clear violation of the human right to water and sanitation in detroit? and i have to say, i don't think detroit's going to be the last place in north america where this is going to happen. unless we change our policies. cut infrastructure. cut social security. you know, bring in policies for the 1%, you know, let the globalization -- so the jobs all
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leave and who got left behind, the very poor who couldn't pay, and water rates went up 119%. then two weeks ago, they jacked them up another 8%. now we're told they're going up another 34%. they can't pay. they've got twice the bills, twice the rate of the united states. so yes it's the canary in the coal mine. we wanted to make that point. >> maude, it seems to me what you just did there is something we always aspire to with our foot soldiers. this is about an individual one person to another kind of contribution. yet it really is shining a light on a much broader sort of structural policy question. >> well, that's right. in this case, it has to do of course with -- i call it the policies by the 1% for the 1%. i think we need to ask the question, how can a ask go bankrupt? it's not a corporation. how can you let people fend for themselves? how have we come to the place where we bail out the banks and we let the poorest of the poor in the heat of summer go without water? it's also a larger question
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around water privatization. i mean, we're living in a world where the water stocks are depleting. freshwater access is depleting around the world. i just wrote a new book on it. and the statistics are really distressing. the question is going to become, who makes these decisions around access to water? will it be public or private? will it be diplomatic or corporately controlled? >> this is truly getting back to basics. water is a human right. maude, our food soldier, in canada this morning. thanks for watching. i'm sgoing to see you tomorrow. we'll look at the outbreak take being place in western africa that has killed more than 100 people and could be spreading. also, the myth of the magical black father. you are not going to want to miss our conversations. right now, it's time for a preview of "weekends with alex witt." >> controversy and fallout, new reaction to the punishment given a football player for a fight that left his then fiance out
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cold. the nypd is going to an unusual length to figure out who climbed to the top of the brooklyn bridge and put up these white flags. why are they so determined? was it something more than a prank? who loves america and who doesn't? some surprising answers about america's frenemies. and startup ny companies will be investing hundreds of millions of dollars in jobs and infrastructure. thanks to startup ny, businesses can operate tax free for 10 years. no property tax. no business tax. and no sales tax. which means more growth for your business, and more jobs. it's not just business as usual. see how new york can help your business grow, at startup.ny.gov ♪ every now and then i get a little bit tempted ♪ ♪ by the chocolate all around ♪ turn around brian! ♪ this bar has protein oh yeah!♪
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