tv The Cycle MSNBC August 25, 2014 12:00pm-1:01pm PDT
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ferguson, missouri, just a few miles away in st. louis, 4500 mourners packed a church for the funeral of michael brown 16 days after he was shot to death by a ferguson police officer. three autopsies later, an infinite number of questions about what went down. but today was all about remembering michael brown. his life, his promise, his story. >> i don't know how long the investigation will be. i don't know how long the journey will be. but i know how this story is going to end. the first will be last. the last will be first. the lion and the lamb going to lay down together, and god wiwill, god will, god will make a way for his children. i've been to the end of the book. justice is going to come. justice is going to come. justice going to come. >> that was our own reverend sharpton giving an incredible
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eulogy. for perspective on today's event, let's turn to two journalists who have been covering this from the start. msnbc's craig melvin, at the church in st. louis. and "the -- craig, tell us what the funeral was like. >> they were expecting north of 4,000 people. at last check, church officials told us there were about 4500 based on the capacity. church was packed. they actually ended the service early. they cut off six or seven speakers because they did not want it to go another 30 minutes or an hour. it was at times a somber service, a somber ceremony. at other times it was spirited. for those of us who grew up in the southern black baptist church, it was very familiar. i spent some time yesterday talking to michael brown's parents, and they told me the kind of funeral that they wanted to have.
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they wanted their son to be remembered for the young man that he was. but they also wanted him to be remembered for the young man that he might have become. you know, he's more than a hash tag. he's more than a movement. he was their son. that was something that was very important to them yesterday. >> craig, one of the key elements of this story has been the intense racial divide in the local response to this story. has that continued today? were you seeing white people atten attending the funeral, for example? >> yes, you saw some, josh. there were not, you know, a lot of white people in that sanctuary. i don't think that necessarily speaks to some sort of massive indifference. i think in this community and the young man's family, i think that was probably an accurate reflection of those two things. it should be noted, however, that governor jay nixon was not in attendance at the funeral today.
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we've got an indication that he was going to be in attendance. this morning there was a release issued from the governor's office saying out of respect to michael brown's family, the governor would not be here. senator claire mccaskill was inside. we did not see senator rory blunt. again, you saw a number of lawmakers and family friends and whatnot. but, yes, as you indicated, the audience itself was by and large folks who look like me. >> alex, you think of events that expose the racial fault lines in america, i think of hurricane katrina more recently. you obviously have the shooting of trayvon martin by george zimmerman. and it seems that there's a big public outcry and then something like that will be washed over with the simple saying. as president obama was elected two times, we're inherently a good country when it comes to race relations. this has shown in a public way
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with race relations and how communities are policed. will this time be different? >> you hope so. the funeral today is one chapter in the end of a story and the beginning of another. you've seen one man laid to rest. you've seen thousands pack a church to celebrate his life. the protests are beginning to subside. the family has called for a cessation of protests today as they grieve privately. and what you hope is that over over the next weeks and months, because justice is going to be slow, that this energy and enthusiasm will be able to translate a moment into a movement and to translate some of that into concrete change. >> alex, on that, specifically out of the shooting of trayvon martin, we saw the dream defenders, for example, build an organization that became a national organization. are you seeing those sorts of new building blocks there forming on the ground, or do you think it's still too early to see specific organizations taking root to give voice to the concerns that have been raised
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about ferguson, which really -- a lot of which are very national issues. >> i see there are some organizations that are always beginning to emerge. there are sort of a number of ideas that are certainly floating about to heal the community that has been torn apart by this. there are a number of different people who have a number of different ideas of the ways in which these problems can be ameliorated, whether or not it's creating a pipeline to funnel more policemen of color into a community with a nearly all white police force that polices a two-thirds black community. whether it's ameliorating income equality or a number of other political solutions. voter registration drives and whatnot. i think it's too early to know exactly the direction that some of these efforts are going to be translated towards and whether or not it's going to work. >> craig, when you speak with people on the ground there, do you get a sense of what they'ring lthey're looking for next? i know a lot of people are
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focused on the grand jury investigation. what are people watching for in terms of signs of improvement or change? >> mid-october, by the way, is what we've been told by the local prosecutor's office. that's a very good question, josh. over the past week and a half or so, the answer will depend on who you talk to. there are a number of folks who said one of the good things that could come out of this is increased participation here in this particular part of st. louis. as it's been widely reported over the past week and a half, african-american voter participation in ferguson abysmal. so that may be something that we see change. that's certainly something folks have been talking about. and the other thing, again, as has been widely talked about, you know, when you have a police force in a community that is largely black but 50 of the 53 officers are not, they're white,
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i don't know how much god comes from that. so the conversation that is started in ferguson about having a police force that accurately represents the demographic the police force is serving, that is probably something in the short term at least we're going to see change. a number of local elected officials have talked about different programs and policies to put in place to turn those numbers around. but i can tell you, just about everyone we talk to said if an indictment is not returned, if the officer who shot and killed michael brown, if there are not charges filed, you've got to wonder whether this community, whether ferguson, missouri, does not take to the streets once again. so a lot of eyes are on that local prosecutor. the browns yesterday told me they're being very patient. they understand this is a process that is going to take months, not weeks. michael brown sr. saying that he would rather see the process
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play itself out, that it be deliberate rather than a process that's rushed. again, i think all eyes are going to be back on ferguson come mid-october. >> and alex, we obviously were just talking a little bit about what can be done to try and combat something like what happened in ferguson. we see this is becoming a very divisive issue politically. a lot of aides i've spoken to on capitol hill said they were happy this happened during recess because their member would not say something stupid on the record about it. what can be done at the federal level regarding this type of issue in ferguson when it's so politically contentious and pits different constituencies against each other. >> it's a good question. you saw there were emissaries from the white house who were on hand today. certainly president obama has started an initiative, my brother's keeper, that is devoted to tackling some of these issues. but unless both state and
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federal legislatures can stand up and try to take some concrete change and legislative proposals, you know, there is a sort of grim sense that this unhappy tableau is born to be repeated again and again in the future. >> craig, certainly many of us can expect this will be repeated again in the future, partly because the economic structure of america is repeated in ferguson. emerson electric is a major employer in this area for people in ferguson, for people in st. louis. mostly for people who are doing high-skilled engineering and finance and management sort of work for folks who are on the ground, a lot of the folks we saw protesting, they're not able to work at emerson electric because that company is outsourcing to china, mexico, japan, et cetera. so those root causes are still remaining. but i want to expand it a little bit. i don't want to make it about you, but i want to use you to get to where we want to go. you guest hosted for chris hayes on friday.
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it was an extraordinary show. your closing got a lot of people talking. i want to play a little bit of that. >> i'm talking about a deep cross generational distrust of the system. not parts of the system. the entire system. between the folks who make the rules and the people who enforce them. that's what we've seen manifest itself here in ferguson. >> i mean, as you're saying is, what we've seen manifested in ferguson is that a lot of people feel left out of the american dream. >> yeah, toure. nail on the head. here's the thing. i don't know -- scratch that. i do know. i do know that a lot of people don't fully understand that. and it really has been somewhat baffling over the last week and a half. you hear from those folks on twitter and facebook, people who really can't get their head around how someone could feel left out of the american dream. and you come here and you talk to people who don't just feel left out of it now, but have
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never felt like they were a part of it. when you talk to young people especially, and you talked about unemployment. the unemployment rate for 16 to 25-year-old young black men in ferguson is north of 50%. you don't have to be an economist or a social scientist to understand that when you have an event like what happened here two weeks ago combined with statistics like that, nothing good comes from that. it would be a shame, i think, that if a year from now all people want to talk about with regard to what happens happened here in this part of st. louis, if all people want to talk about is the looting and the rioting and all of that stuff, that would be a shame. >> i agree. craig melvin in missouri, thank you very much. >> thank you. alex altman, just back from there, thank you so much too. >> thank you. coming up, we'll head to the
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cycling right now, california wine country is cleaning up from the strongest wake since the big o 1989. it was a magnitude 6.0 that injured nearly 200 people when it struck in the middle of the night early sunday. several additional aftershocks are still expected. here's a look at just some of the damage. toure, look away, because those are hundreds of wine bottles, including merlot, smashed to pieces by all that shaking.
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turning now to the frantic fight to control a n terror threat. a group affiliated with al qaeda has released american writer peter curtis after holding him there for two years. the big group you have heard about of late, isis, still has american steven sotloff and about two dozen other westerners held hostage. over the weekend, terrorists seized assad's last military stronghold in northeastern syria, and with it dozens of war planes, helicopters, tanks, and heavy artillery. isis now controls about 35,000 square miles of land in iraq and syria. that is an area the size of indiana, for perspective. as the pentagon weighs possible air strikes in syria, president assad's foreign minister says any air raid without their approval would be considered an act of hostile aggression. but the white house says assad is part of the problem. all this as congress faces debate on president obama's $.
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5 billion request to arm rebels. and u.s. inaction in syria would lead to the rise of extremists. president obama is back at the white house today. so is nbc's peter alexander. peter, a ton is obviously on the president's plate right now. so what is the white house's line right now on isis? >> yeah, that conversation with chuck hagel to happen this afternoon as well. there's new urgency in that conversation, obviously, given the recent events. you talked about the size of indiana, that swath of that region that is now run basically operated by isis. they expanded their reach over the weekend into northern syria, taking over a syrian air base there as well. so right now among the considerations at play here for this white house and for the administration, we know the pentagon is considering the potential to use a series of military tools. these are options that are under consideration right now. that would include potentially air strikes.
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it it could include more arms to moderates, the rebel groups inside of syria. but also intelligence sharing and working alongside the u.s.'s european allies and partners in that region. we should say senior administration officials also tell nbc news that as part of this preparation, there is, in fact, an identifying potential targets in syria taking place right now. one of the concerns that's getting criticism is the u.s.'s effort in syria, if it were to happen, would, in fact, help bashar al assad, the tyrant, the leader of syria right now. here's how the u.s. responded to that, press secretary john earnest a short time ago. >> we're not interested in trytology help assad regime. the president has demonstrated a willingness on a number of occasions to take the action necessary to order the military action that's necessary to protect american citizens. and that is true without regard to -- without regard to an international boundaries. >> and while we are told that
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president obama has made no specific decisions to this point about what the way forward is, certainly as it relates to what's taking place in syria right now, the administration today made it very clear that they do not believe, echoing the words of martin dempsey, that right now isis poses a direct threat to the united states, that they are not plotting any active attacks on the u.s. if president obama does attack or call for an attack on isis in syria, it's likely, according to our conversations here, that would occur and then only afterward president obama would come out addressing the nation and providing some form of justification. back to you. >> all right, peter alexander at the white house. thank you so much. and a major ally in the u.s. fight against isis is, of course, the u.k. britain's now identified the man they say beheaded journal itself james foley in syria. hundreds of brits and europeans are believed to be fighting alongside isis. the ministry of defense says there are more british muslims fighting for isis than for
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britain. but they are, of course, only a fraction of britain's entire muslim society. and the muslim council of britain has been extremely clear that there's nothing islamic about what isis is doing. this weekend, nbc's keir sims met some. >> there are a lot of people who feel they have a duty to protect themselves and defend against america. >> killing a journalist isn't protecting yourself. >> the vital question is, who's really to blame for the death of james foley? i believe it's the foreign policy of obama. >> it's the man who put that knife in his neck surely. >> well, you've got to ask, why was this particular man chosen? it seems like he was chosen because he was an american citizen. >> that is unbelievable. mohammed abassi is co-director of the association of british muslims. he's consulted on several films about terrorism and extremists. how are these mostly young men
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being recruited in britain? is it through radical imams in britain? are they radicalizing themselves through social media and other outlets? >> i think it's not so much imams. i think it's more to do with social media. you have a lot of innocent young men who are frustrated around various issues. what happens basically, they have this initial contact with ideology maybe online, maybe through a meme or something along those lines. they might see a website address or a link on facebook. then they move on from there. and they try to understand the point of view from another person. what this chap was just talking about, it just does not make sense to me as a human being, as a muslim, as a british muslim. there's many different outlets for his frustration.
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and by supporting a group like isis, it's not going to do him any good and it's not going to do the people that he is -- he's basically radicalizing. it's not going to do them any good either. >> mohammed, we're seeing these numbers, this 800 british jihadis having taken up the fight and places in europe like france. many fewer from the united states. do you have a sense of why recruitment, why they're having so much more success in recruiting people out of europe? >> i think simply because europe, the borders between europe, the european union, the countries -- i mean, myself, i can go from here, from the u.k., right to the border of turkey and iraq and syria without any -- you know, without any checks. simply because i'm british. there's also people from france. there's also people from germany as well as people in turkey themselves who are crossing over border into syria and iraq.
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most want to actually help the people in syria and in iraq. most are just adventure seekers as well. now, there's a few who when they come back, they could carry out atrocities in europe, in the u.k., and it's those people that we need to find a way of addressing, of finding out who these people are. and we need more checks and balances here in the u.k. as well. >> mohammed, what can be done to better assimilate these muslims, many of whom are first, second, or third generation british citizens to be more positive about their adopted homeland? one thing i point to is what happened here in the u.s. you had dzhokhar czar -- tsarnaev. he was the all-american kid, partied and listened to rock music. then he turned around and did the bombing. what can make these young men
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more proud to be british, more proud to be american? >> i think what we need to do collectively, not just as muslims, but as the wider community, as countries, even as governments, we need to engage with a lot of these disaffected young men. both muslim and from the wider communities. because it's very easy to find some of these young men, for example, on facebook or twitter. you can see through their profiles how some of the frustrations are vented online. if i was a recruiter, if i was with isis or i was with al qaeda, for example, i would be able to identify people through basically facebook. would i be able to radicalize them or not? i don't think i would be able to radicalize most of them. but some of them, yes. you need to find out what the trigger points are, how frustrated they are, on what issues they're frustrated about. are they frustrated about u.s. or u.k. policy in the middle
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east? are they frustrated on not finding a date, for example? and we need to sift those out and you need to find a way of addressing issues targeted at some of these young men who are liable, who are liable to go down further of this path of radicalizing themselves. most of them do radicalize themselves, but online they do find outlets where they can vent their anger. then they can be kind of, you know -- it can go down that conveyor belt where they might decide to travel to iraq or syria. >> all right. mohammed, thank you so much for your me perspective. so how can the president start controlling the events as opposed to events seeming to control him? the solution may lie with two unlikely allies. defiance is in our bones. defiance never grows old. citracal maximum.
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iran, washington is looking for regional support to help quell several mideast crises. today in gaza, israel and hamas continue to exchange air fire while egypt tries to broker lasting truce. gazans received this text message today, the battle is open and you have been warned. and in iraq and syria, the u.n. is accusing isis of ethnic and religious cleansing. iraq is offering to help the u.s. against isis but only if washington lifts some of the nuclear sanctions against iran. robert kaplan's latest piece is about the hard hand washington is facing in the middle east. you've been writing about how these autocrats in the middle east, as much as we may dislike them, have historically been the u.s.'s best allies there and more reliable than democratic governments. where does that leave us with isis? we got rid of the autocrat in iraq. i don't know that assad is a workable partner for us. now that we've created this vacuum, what can replace it? >> well, first of all, in the
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middle east, there's no choice except to work with autocrats. israel is a democracy. tunisia is a very tottering democracy. that's about it. if anyone is going to help us in gaza, it's going to be the autocracy of egypt to broker a cease-fire between israel and the palestinians there. in terms of isis, the fact remains that iraq is in a liberal, unwieldy, barely functioning democracy. you have an autocracy in syria. the white house may say it has no interest at all in helping president al assad in syria, but the fact remains simply by bombing isis in syrianer is story, it functionally helps the dictator in syria. because the dictator in syria is on brink of crushing the rebels. the only one else he faces before consolidating power is
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isis. and it is in the u.s.'s interest to battle isis. so whatever we do, the fact remains that our interests are allied with an autocrat in syria and with a barely functioning democratic regime in iraq and with the autocracy in iran who all have the same interests, the weakening or overthree of isis. >> and yet we spent years and trillions of dollars trying to remove the secular leader from iraq, which, in fact, kept the iranians scared and was an easier partner to do business with, it seems now, ten years later than what we currently have. but i want to switch over to another question, mr. kaplan. that has to do with the once again, the u.s. taking on this role in the middle east. we certainly broke iraq. considering the threat isis poses to europe, i've been surprised that the u.s. has had to take the lead to such a
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degree. it has not received is as much support from the eu as one might expect. why is that, and what can the u.s. do to try and get that support from the eu? >> every since the formation of nato in the late 1940s, early 1950s, europe has basically had its security delivered to it courtesy of the united states. europe has not really functioned in its own defense for many decades. france is somewhat of an exception with a very expedit n expeditionary military. president u.k. is somewhat of an exception. so europe knows at the end of the day the united states is going to act against a group like isis because of america's own interests. so there is less need for europeans to act on their own. now, of course, the u.k. -- the unite the kingdom, that is, has its own interest in the isis case because of the identity of
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the executioner of the journalist james foley. but by and large, this will be a united states show. and autocratings like president assad in syria and the mullahs in iran are indirectly going to do more to help the united states than most of its allies in europe. >> robert, you say, of course, this will be the united states' show. of course, we are the strong estimation in the world, so it has to be our show. but we have never really been strong enough to control the middle east as complicated as it is. >> that's true. that's a good question. the united states can do a lot of things. it can protect the lines of communication. it with project naval and air power all over the world, but it cannot remake complex muslim societies on the ground in the middle east. all it can do is play forces off
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against each other. it can play president assad off against isis. it can play the iranians off against isis. it can use the egyptians who, by the way, their autocracy has been more helpful than turkey's democracy in trying to broker a cease-fire in gaza at the moment. the united states at the end of the day will have to balance and play off forces, many of which will be liberal, many of which will not be conducive to our values, but air power alone is not going to defeat isis. >> robert kaplan, thanks so much for being here. we have news coming out of the storm cycle today. this is cristobal, a tropical storm with 50-mile-per-hour winds. it's been dumping rain on places like haiti, the dominican republic. there's no more threat to the u.s. east coast.
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protesters in ferguson, missouri, have made it loud and clear what they think about the shooting death of the unarmed teenager michael brown. so much so that brown's father asked for a day of silence today so he could lay his son to rest in peace. but here in washington, there's been an almost deafening silence from the start. sure, the president has talked more than once about the shooting. a number of white house advisers were at the funeral today. but others have avoided the subject, including one politician in particular who might just want the president's job some day, perhaps in 2016. just this weekend at a book signing in the hamptons, former secretary of state hillary clinton dodged questions about the unrest in ferguson, and she's not the only one. if you needed any other evidence this is a political hot potato, there you go. our esteemed colleague josh barrow recently wrote about this resounding silence among democrats for the upshot.
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and another esteemed colleague, perry bacon, joins us now to talk about it. thanks so much for being on. >> thanks for having me, luke. >> i've talked to a lot of aides here on capitol hill. they said they were very thankful this happened during a congressional recess so their member would not say anything stupid. this is democratic aides and republican aides. both sides here. one thing i find fascinating about this michael brown tragedy is that it pits some constituency groups against each other, especially ones that democrats need. you have the african-american community as well as working class white voters who hillary clinton really, if she is to run, which we all think she will, was really trying to make a play for and she did well with them back in 2008. there's a fine line to walk here for democrats. >> there are two really different issues here. one about the shooting itself. that goes to policing practices, racial profiling, police brutality. that issue particularly politicians are very nervous about talking about. the president on down. the issue also about the police
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and whether they should be militarized. that second issue you've seen claire mccaskill, elizabeth warren, ted cruz talk about that saying we're weary of the police having so much military style gear and bringing it out so quickly. but the racial issue, rand paul is pretty much the only republican -- the only presidential candidate who's talked about that. in terms of national politicians with a lot of followers, rand paul has been alone in taking this on. >> that's kind of stunning, isn't it? this is an issue of massive importance and for good reason to black voters. you've seen this in the polling breakdown about this. there's this failure to communicate. a lot of white people basically can't understand what black people in the st. louis area are so upset about. they don't understand the way this kind of policing affects every day lives of black people. not just there, but all around the country. this is a constituency of enormous importance to the democratic party. if you had a group that was 20% to 25% of the republican base this agitated about something, i
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can't imagine there being such silence among republican politicians. they'd be going to ferguson to stand with the protesters, even though they'd realize sometimes when they get out over their skis with their base, they get whacked for it, but they have to because the base insists on it and they bring up primary challenges if their concerns aren't being listened to. i think it's unsustainable in the democratic party not to have something rising up saying, i'm going to be the voice for this issue, i'm going to make it an important national issue like it deserves to be and basically force hillary clinton do address it in the 2016 campaign. >> josh, your piece was excellent. i hope all of our watchers read it. what i suspect this is, hillary clinton first out of the box, after she left the department, gave a speech about voter i.d. laws, decrying them. >> wait, hold on. i'm sorry. the last thing that i have been wondering as i've been watching ferguson burn is what does hillary think, or what does martin o'malley think?
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you have a situation where you don't know all the facts. there's still a dynamic thing developing. it would be foolhardy for someone to come out and say, this is what it's all about, here are the prescriptives for this situation. it would be counterproductive for that politician to raise their hand and say, this is what think about it, look at me, listen to me. there's a value to the people in the party in power to sort of clear the room and let the leaders who are already dealing with the situation, eric holder and barack obama, let them deal with the situation. >> toure, that's what i was going to get at. clinton has talked about some racial issues like voter i.d. laws, which are pretty settled. i think politicians will talk about this more when they know what to say and have a sense about what the policy solutions should be. i think if some group comes up with some kind of legal idea about reducing police shootings, i think hillary clintonicy and it or not. >> i personally think -- i think your reporting on that is absolutely right, perry, but i think that's sort of pathetic.
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if this is someone who wants to be president of the united states, she can't look at the national trends that are manifested in ferguson, albeit we don't know the details surrounding michael brown's death exactly yet, but we do know the details of the income inequality, the segregation, the crappy education system, the militarization of the police, the unequal application of justice that ferguson represents. and i think it is cowardice if you want to be a leader in this country, if you want to be the leader of the democratic not to say anything. i didn't think what rand paul said was counterproductive. i thought it was courageous. i find it sad that no democrat -- and i put the president in a separate category. he's handling things appropriately and letting the justice department take the lead as he should. but i find it sad that no national democrat is up to the task here, and i think it goes to the fact that democrats by and large take the black vote for granted. >> i was shocked by the fact
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that you got to and josh as well. when you look at what rand paul said, it was courageous. that's the right word. much broader than we've seen. elizabeth warren too. we have not seen any democrats really lead on this issue. i am surprised by that. >> perry bacon jr., nbc news. thank you so much for joining us. up next, a whopper of a merger being cooked up by a fast food giant that some argue is trying to pull a fast one on uncle sam. that right ahead. this is the first power plant in the country to combine solar and natural gas at the same location. during the day, we generate as much electricity as we can using solar. at night and when it's cloudy, we use more natural gas. this ensures we can produce clean electricity whenever our customers need it. ♪
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cycling right now, fast food giant burger king is in talks to buy the chain in a newly formed company that would be based out of canada. that shift called a tax inversion would mean that bk's parent company would pay canadian taxes. that would lower their tax burden. this has become a popular practice among american companies in recent years. as you might imagine, a hot political issue as well. from capitalism at its best to a beacon of americana, lady liberty, the 150-foot statue reminding everyone that america is the greatest nation in the history of history. it was not a gift from france, and thomas edison wanted to make it talk. for more on the statue of liberty, let's welcome elizabeth
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mitchell. tell us about the constructor of this statue. why did he make it? how long did it take him? >> he wanted to make a colas sas. he'd been in egypt and seen the pyramids and sphinx. he decided to build a colossas. he pitched it to egypt. the deal fell through. he came to america to try and sell it to us. >> how did he raise the money to actually construct this thing and get it over to america? i know you got a great anecdote in there about how joseph pulitzer was involved. >> this was raised really a nitty gritty penny by penny thing. he started in france first. he thought if he could get the statue made, the americans would get excited and make the pedestal. instead, the french were not very enthusiastic. he had to throw entertainments.
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you see there the torch of the liberty. he had that just separately put up down in philadelphia to get people to go in and pay ticket prices to see out from the torch. >> how much did ittorch. >> how much did it cost to make it? >> both sides had to ante up 250,0 $00 -- the americans had to do more in terms of keeping it going. >> thomas edison wanted to make the statue talk after he invented the phonograph. he wanted it to deliver speeches to upper manhattan. >> it's a great thing that they put the kibosh on it. he thought it was creepy, too. basically, if he thought there was going to be a monster disk that would go in the center of the statue and you would walk around upper manhattan and hear a speech.
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>> one of the most famous sta statues in all the world and it helped make him rich, right? >> no, no, he had a great idea to retain the copyright. he registered that when he had the idea and the design. as soon as it started appearing in advertising, the lawyers couldn't fight the cases for him. he made no money off it. >> it would be a feminist icon, but she didn't start that way. >> at the time she was inaugurated, they were fighting for a right to vote, particularly in new york. none were invited on the island, only two women attended the inauguration, one was his wife, the other the daughter of friends who had been the one who had done the suez canal and been a big sponsor. >> they found it offensive that here she is supposed to represent liberty and they could not vote. >> they had a boat that went around the harbor and blasted
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speeches. >> how close did new york come to losing out on the statue. philadelphia and boston made plays for it. >> there was a time philadelphia did want it. they seemed to be more supportive and new yorkers were disinterested in the whole thing. he said it would go there. the new yorkers felt that and decided to fight for it. >> did he make anything else of significance we have heard of? >> a lion in france that is significant to france. you know, it's another statue up on a cliff. th statues throughout new york and washington, there's a fountain in washington. they are not of this size. sadly, he thought he was going to get lots of jobs off liberty. nothing materialized. i know, it's a sad story. >> but it's a heart warming book. >> oh, yes, absolutely. there's a lot of joy to it.
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he was happy to see his vision finalize. >> thank you very much. congratulations on the book. still to come, another history lesson being written in america's heartland. it's monday. a brand new start. your chance to rise and shine. with centurylink as your trusted technology partner, you can do just that. with our visionary cloud infrastructure, global broadband network and custom communications solutions, your business is more reliable - secure - agile. and with responsive, dedicated support, we help you shine every day of the week. centurylink your link to what's next. wouldn't it be great if hiring plumbers, shopping online is as easy as it gets. carpenters and even piano tuners were just as simple? thanks to angie's list, now it is. start shopping online from a list of top-rated providers. visit angieslist.com today.
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see car insurance in a whole new light. liberty mutual insurance. the father of modern policing is sir robert. london was exploding in size because of the industrial revolution. many could see the old system with loosely organized volunteers. that system was no longer sustainable. so, he constructed what is considered the first modern
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police force and london cops are nicknamed bomb ed bobbis as ho him. citizens recognized them as another arm of the military. differentiating the police from the military. he dressed them in blue as opposed to the red. forbade them from carrying guns. he impressed the importance of maintaining public trust. he laid out a series of police -- power of the police is dependent on public approval of their existence, the extent to which the cooperation can be proved, the use of physical force and the police are the public and the public are the police. without the trust of the community, the job of policing is much, much harder. i wonder what he would think of the modern american police force. we have excellent cops but a force that seems at war with its
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communities. black people are more likely to have traumatizing interactions with police. the fears londoners had of a police force acting like a military have come true. police departments must strive to become as diverse as their neighborhoods. if you look like the community, you can build better relationships. enforce it by real gun control. cops should have the upper hand in terms of weaponry, but demilitarized because when you give a man a hammer, everything looks like a nail. more than that, as a former marine told the nation, if cops are going to steal our gadgetry, adopt our strategy, too. he's talking winning hearts and minds instead of filling people with fear. as former police chief of minneapolis david cooper wrote on his blog, improving policing,
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in order to be fair, a police agency must have the trust of those they police. work collaboratively with citizens. community policing does not mean an agency responsible for enforcing the law, it means understanding that the police are the people and that people are the police. technology has grown exponentially since robert peel. it comes down to what peel knew that relationships between cops and communities are paramount. as a professor and founder of policing told me, the social science is clear. compliance with the law stems from trust in the police, not fear of them. the police are the people and the people are the police. we have to get back to that for the sake of the people and the police. that does it for "the cycle." "now" with al lex wag near starts now. michael brown is laid to
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rest. it is monday, august 25th. this is "now." >> this is about justice. >> st. louis, missouri, the funeral is taking place for michael brown. >> the young man across the nation. >> he was shot and killed bay police officer. >> michael brown's blood is crying from the ground. >> you have somebody who was unarmed, who was shot. >> a public killer. the people need some relief. some finality. >> if it were not a police person, we would expect an indictment. >> it's time to deal with policing. >> a new civil rights movement is being resurrected. >> we have had enough of the senseless killing. >> they want his legacy to be about peace. >> he was an american citizen. we will not
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