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tv   The Rachel Maddow Show  MSNBC  November 18, 2014 1:00am-2:01am PST

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"the rachel maddow show" starts this evening. >> powerful stuff. thanks to you at home for joining us this hour. so the pope. turns out the pope faxes. specifically, the pope faxes this man. his name is cardinal shawn o'malley of boston and on the occasion of the pope, pope francis announcing his first visit to the united states, 60 minutes has just done a profile of cardinal shawn o'malley. certainly the most influential american in the whole catholic church now. apparently somebody with whom the pope shares a love of faxing. they fax. >> usually we fax. >> really? >> yes. >> you fax with the pope? >> yes. >> people still communicate by fax? >> still communicate by fax. >> like with letters or -- >> uh-huh. >> really? >> very quick and efficient and a little more private than -- >> really? >> most people think -- >> paper. >> oh, really? most people think texting is quicker than faxing. >> well, the pope and i aren't into texting. >> no texting, just faxing. there are reasonable arguments to be made about how influential the catholic church or any church is in u.s. politics at
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any given time. we're at this interesting moment where the new pope announced plans to visit this country. he has also just demoted who was the highest ranking american at the vatican, cardinal raymond burke. pope benedict named him a cardinal. he was known for making the most of all the extravagances that come with being a cardinal, but you don't have to wear them all the time. aside from being flamboyant enough while in rome, so flamboyant other church officials asked him to tone it down. the other thing that cardinal raymond burke had been known for was being aggressively conservative and partisan in his politics in his american politics. he after all was the cardinal who said he'd refuse to give communion to john kerry when he was a candidate for president based on his politics. after ted kennedy died, he said ted kennedy should have been denied a catholic funeral
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because of his politics. the new pope just demoted that american cardinal in rome. he'd been effectively the chief justice of the vatican supreme court. he just got demoted. and the american cardinal who is ascendant now instead is cardinal shawn o'malley of boston who prefers to be called cardinal shawn. he wears the brown sack cloth of a franciscan monk. he's now being profiled to see what he wants and where his influence might be felt. the biggest question mark looming over american politics right now. the big immediate freak out and anticipation and guessing game is over the issue of immigration. the cardinal who is a confidante of the pope, this american cardinal has not just been outspoken but a real activist on the issue of immigration. cardinal shawn o'malley and eight other bishops who went to
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arizona earlier this year and walked one of the trails through the desert where immigrants trying to cross into this country have died by the dozens if not the hundreds by dehydration in the heat of the desert. they walked that path through the desert. they went to the border and left a wreath in honor of immigrants who have died trying to cross the border from mexico into the united states. and then he and these eight bishops did this remarkable thing. they set up a cross border mass. that fence there that corrugated metal wall behind them is the border fence. in april this year, we covered it at the time, they said mass
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in english and in spanish at the border for an ad hoc congregation that surrounded them on both sides of the border. you know the apex of any catholic mass is the giving of communion. when it came time to do communion at the border mass, the bishops gave communion to the people on the american side, people in front of them but also through the border fence they gave communion to the people in nogales, mexico, on the mexican side of that wall. there's this incredibly official american cardinal making his case in very dramatic ways for compassion on the issue of immigration and the need for immigration reform. not just these demonstrations of solidarity. same cardinal has written to the obama administration telling them to start deporting so many people and find a way to reform immigration policy. and he is the closest thing that americans have to somebody at the center of power in the church. he faxes with the pope every day. that's weird on the one hand. who knew people still faxed anything ever. but also -- it is also deja vu weird because back in the golden age of faxing, back in the 1980s
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it was the same situation being the catholic church being mad about immigration and trying to get the president to do something about it. back in the golden age of faxing, the president who catholics were mad at then about immigration was ronald reagan. he signed the last big policy change we had an immigration. millions of people here illegally could apply for legal residence. >> president reagan today signed a massive immigration reform law which will affect the status of millions of immigrants now here illegally. the new law grants amnesty to illegal aliens who lived here before 1982. >> the reason the catholic bishops got mad at reagan in the '80s about that policy is because the technicalities of the way that policy worked. in order to qualify for legal status you had to have lived here before 1982.
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the problem in the way that worked out for individual families is maybe not everybody has been here or been alive for all the same amount of time. sometimes a parent would have been here for the right number of years but their child would not qualify. there was this strict determination for who would be deported and who could stay. parents would be allowed to be here but their children would be deported without them. there were weird eventualities that weren't the way that policy was planned but that were the way that policy was working out. ronald reagan signed that in 1986. then the catholic bishops started lobbying president reagan to make a change. tweak enforcement of that law so families wouldn't be separated. if immigrant parents could get legal status, their kids could, too, and their families wouldn't have to be broken apart. it was a powerful case, a powerful argument about that.
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and the year after ronald reagan signed this law in 1986, congress did try to vote on a change to that law that would have made the adjustment the catholic bishops were asking for. they tried but it ended up not getting all the way through congress. ronald reagan took administrative action to expand on that existing policy. in 1987, the reagan administration announced even though congress hadn't changed the law, president reagan would do it himself. he'd make a change himself so that kids couldn't be deported if their parents had obtained legal status. but the bishops kept pushing and advocates kept pushing because even under the tweaked interpretation of the law, even after his executive action there was still fairly common circumstances in which this law still would result in families being split up. and congress, even after ronald reagan had taken that executive action, congress again tried on its own to take up legislation to make yet another fix of a
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law, wouldn't apply just to kids of people who had been legalized but also account for other immediate family members like spouses. so marriages wouldn't have to be broken up by this law. congress took up that law. thought they'd pass a tweak to it but couldn't get it done in congress. by then it was george h.w. bush who was president and he, too, like ronald reagan, decided to take executive action on his own to expand the number of people here illegally in this country who would nevertheless be spared from deportation because of executive action by the president. the total number of people to whom deferred deportation was extended by those actions was about 40% of what was believed to be the total population of undocumented immigrants in this country at the time. 40%. the executive action that president obama is now contemplating would also apply to about 40% of the undocumented immigrant population in this country. roughly on the same scale.
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it remains to be scene what president obama is going to propose. if they do anything like the white house has said to expect, it's going to be right in line with the huge categorical protections from deportation that were ordered by executive authority by two of the last three republican presidents. one of whom is now a saint. sorry. sainthood thing not official yet. sorry. jumped the gun. conservative media and the republican party are so upset by the prospect of barack obama doing what papi bush and st. reagan did that they're having a hard time among themselves figuring out if the appropriate response will be to impeach him or to sue him or to shut down the government or all of the above. on fox news recently one of their primetime hosts asked a republican senator if maybe republicans in congress should consider defunding the entire
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justice department in order to try to make president obama not do this. now why would getting rid of the justice department, which, i don't know, prosecutes all federal crimes and has some other stuff to do, why would it help to get rid of the justice department? i don't know, but it sounds big and clearly this calls for something big. when ronald reagan did this, the right did not mind. when george h.w. bush did it, they did not mind. a few months after he did it republicans in congress voted to codify his policy. the provisions he implemented wouldn't expire at the end of his term as president. now though this president is considering the exact same kind of thing, naturally it's the end of the world. on fox news, every time they talk about what president obama is about to do on immigration they still talk about impeaching him. everywhere else in republicanville they seem to be settling on the idea not of
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impeachment but another government shutdown. >> if they can call refusing to fund obama's unconstitutional power grabs, shutting down the government. it well needs to be shut down if that's what it takes. >> senator thune, are republican leaders now seriously considering somehow linking opposition to executive action with government funding? either by setting up a situation that will result in a government shutdown when funding runs out on december 11th or just passing the short-term bills, month by month and keeping this fight going and holding government fighting hostage? >> i think republicans, chris, are looking at different options about how best to respond to the president's unilateral action which many people believe is unconstitutional, unlawful action on this particular issue. but my concern is -- shutting the government down doesn't solve the problem. >> very briefly you're saying you don't think that republicans should take the bait if you
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will, and do anything to shut down the government? >> well, it doesn't solve the problem, chris, but we're having those discussions. we were only in for a couple of days. we'll continue to meet about this. the house leaders are talking about it. >> we're having those discussions. we were in for a couple of days this last week, continuing to meet about this. house leaders are talking about it. senate leaders are talking about it. it won't work, but we're thinking. government shutdown to stop immigration reform is also being pushed by the washington think tank, the heritage foundation, so instrumental in whipping for and sustaining the last republican government shutdown which was less than a year ago. remember the defund obamacare thing and the whole government shutdown effort around that? that was the heritage foundation pushing the government shutdown as a magical means of defunding obamacare which did not happen, even though they shut don the government. now they are pushing for it as a magical means of stopping amnesty. stopping president obama from taking executive action on immigration reform.
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so some things don't change. if you are against government in general if you think the federal government in particular is worthless or better yet evil, then shutting down that worthless/evil thing may seem like a good solution to any problem. it's good on its own terms, even if it doesn't ever accomplish something. the fake defund obamacare thing, shut down the government. stop president obama on immigration reform or make it look like you're trying to. tuesday? defund the government. wintry mix, defund the government. some things don't change in terms of what to expect. but the larger cycles on these sometimes don't change either. pope francis has announced he's coming to the united states while the top american cardinal -- top american bishop in the church is leading mass in english and spanish, praising
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immigrants of on the border, calling for compassionate reform to help immigrant families. right now they want president obama to act. in 1987 they wanted president reagan to act. 1987 it was pope john paul in length attracting the largest crowd in the history of dodgers stadium to a mass he conducted in english and spanish. they celebrated newcomers from the migrants who marched up the spine of california to found its missions two centuries ago to those more recently drawn to its shores. the pope commended catholic officials in assisting undocumented aliens to become citizens. he spoke in english and spanish before this huge stadium full of immigrants in los angeles. he spoke in english and spanish. today in the church in los angeles, christ is anglo and hispanic. christ is chinese and black. christ is vietnamese and irish. christ is korean and italian. christ is japanese and filipino.
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christ is native american, croatian, samoan. that was pope john paul putting a heck of a lot of pressure on political leaders on this country in 1987 to act compassionately toward immigrants and their families. to fix immigration reform in a way that would be more compassionate to hold families together. some things don't change. ronald reagan took that kind of executive action to fix immigration reform in 1987. and george h.w. bush took that kind of executive action to fix immigration reform in 1990. and president obama is about to do it, too. he may do it as soon as -- well, what time is it now? as soon as this week some time. it's fax time all over again. 1987 all over again except this time there's fox news and talk radio and heritage foundation and the right has decided to be enraged -- i should say this iteration of the heritage foundation.
quote
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and this time the right has decided to be enraged by the prospects of this policy change. even though we've been here before and achieved it before and the sky didn't fall, this time we're barreling toward a self-imposed collapse in washington because now the way we've evolved is we just can't handle things like this anymore even though we've done them before. joining us is john stanton from buzzfeed. >> good to be here. >> i was amazed to go back and see the comparison to 1987 with the pressure the catholic bishops were putting on reagan then and the pressure put by advocates and catholic bishops and others on president obama now. that is so parallel. what seems very, very different is the other side of it. what seems very different is the character of the anti-immigrant lobby. i guess i have to ask if that squares with what you're seeing
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with this furor over the prospect of immigration reform in washington. >> to a certain degree, yes. a bit of it, though, also is just the general really just distaste for president obama on the republican side. he can be doing almost anything on a unilateral or executive basis and republicans would probably get outraged. they have this sort of pending lawsuit about executive orders that's been nebulous. maybe it's obama care. maybe it's immigration. maybe it's this other thing. that's getting mixed up with the traditional parts of the republican party that were unhappy with president reagan's bill but never came out as hard as they are now. and has really been stoked by this really strong anti-obama strain within the party and the general partisan nastiness that's been going on in washington since 2010. >> it seems like the political power, though, so it can -- of trying to make a huge hubbub, like an impeachment level hubbub or government level hubbub or even lawsuit against the president level over this to be able to say this has never been
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done before. no president has ever taken any sort of action like this. is the debate in washington happening just in an historical context where we don't talk about anything that happened before last tuesday or is the george h.w. bush and the reagan experience at all seen as relevant? >> republicans, they've had a pretty good way of forgetting the parts of ronald reagan that don't go with what modern conservatism believes in. it's happening here again. do you say the law was passed by congress? his job is to enforce the law. if he's not enforcing the law it's unconstitutional. if you look at it from a legal basis or precedent, there's clear legal precedent for him to do this. prosecutorial discretion. allow them to make these kind of decisions. it's a purely political fight. they don't really -- the past in washington doesn't matter much.
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last week didn't matter much in washington these days. >> in terms of timing looking forward instead of timing looking back, any sense of when the white house is going to make its action? >> we've heard differing reports. possibly wednesday but maybe more likely on thursday. they've started sending out feelers to the activist groups to prepare to have rallies to support the white house. they're talking with some of the hispanic caucus to get them ready to be behind the president on this. sounds like it could be in the next 48 hours. >> john stanton, thank you. lots more ahead on this very busy news day, including some important bunk -- no, wait, debunking the function, the dejunction, that thing at the end of the show. stay with us.
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if you are a diehard fan of senator al franken from machine minnesota, you can download a high resolution photo of him and his wife frannie, ready to be framed and mounted on a wall near you. neat. you can also treat yourself to random stock video like movie clips of senator al franken, like this one call franken in diner. a heartwarming three-second long tale of the senator silently
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hobnobbing. you can also check out franken reading to children. a two-second long snapshot of the senator reading to children. then franken with couple at table. that's it. this is not an al franken thing specifically. name a candidate and i'll show you an out of context inane video of the candidate doing something on a loop. if you want mitch mcconnell just smiling, you can have lots and lots of inane short videos of mcconnell smiling for no reason. ♪ this wordless nonsensical piece of tape was not art. it was posted to mitch
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mcconnell's youtube account. no narration or voiceover. just this. it's not him just being creepy. the whole system is creepy. everybody is creepy. everybody has to be creepy in this system. alaska senate candidate don sullivan posted a non-ad campaign video in which he spends a chunk of time just staring creepily into the camera or maybe into your soul. and that's it. that's all that happens. what these are, these wordless noncampaign ad videos are pretty blatant attempts at bending the rules. rules that nobody enforces anyway. the federal election commission says super-pacs can raise and spend all the money they want but they cannot coordinate what they are doing with that candidate who they love so much. the pac can't go to a diner with
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al franken and shoot an ad with him there. they can't set up a camera crew in mitch mcconnell's office to catch him smiling. they can't shoot pictures of their candidate for an ad. the campaigns realize if they happen to post extensive photos and wordless videos of their candidates online and if super pacs just happen to stumble upon those, then nobody would be break anything rules. we just found this picture of mitch mcconnell smiling. since the campaigns were not sending that video directly to the pacs they were putting it out there for the world. technically they aren't breaking that no coordination rule. whether that line of thinking really does fall in line with the actual law has yet to be cleared up by the efc because nothing is ever cleared up by the efc and there are no enforced campaign spending laws in this country anymore. well, in any case, here's a new one. new tactic. chris moody now at cnn is reporting republican super pac
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have given their polling data to republican campaigns. you aren't supposed to be able to coordinate. but you know how in spy movies it's like a fake rock with a trap door or a loose brick in an underpass and the spy knows where the loose pass is and his handler knows where the loose brick is. they use these unnoticeable spots to drop information and hide information in public that somebody else then knows to come pick up. that's like spy novel 101. that's called a dead drop. what chris moody just reported about the last election is the republicans built a dead drop online. look at this. republicans and outside groups used anonymous twitter accounts to share internal polling data ahead of the midterms. the profiles were publicly available but meaningless
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without knowledge of how to find them and decode the information. look at one of these tweets. this is the tweet. fl-44-42/44-35/42-49 and then what appears to be a date, 10/22/14 and then the number 26. that's a coded tweet posted october 25th. if i'm right about that last part being a tweet, that would be polling data they are posting from the 22nd of october. my guess is the first two are the state, florida and the last two numbers are the congressional districts where those are from. districts 2 through 6. my guess is those are the internal polling numbers for each of those districts taken on that date. the accounts cnn renewed were active ahead of this month's election. they were live until november 3rd and then deleted minutes after cnn contacted the national
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republican committee with questions. this valuable information might help in terms of targeting your campaign resources. you can't coordinate but you do it anonymously. there some are surviving screen shots of what they were doing. if this was a super spy way of coordinating between super pacs and the campaigns they want to help, then plainly this would be illegal. it would be illegal coordination. if we actually enforced the laws around illegal campaign stuff anymore. but we don't. the vice chair of the fec tweeted, yes, this issue may come before the fec at some point but coordination rules are sadly murky. rules that are supposed to prevent this sort of thing, wet noodle.
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who knows? knock yourself out with the fake rock twitter dead drops. nobody is coming after you apparently. one side benefit of this whole murky business is if you ever need tape of senator al franken at a kitchen table going like this, that we can do. the senator's campaign can take care of you on that. watch. oh, yeah. that you can have. the more you know.
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late break update. one of the last two u.s. senate
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seats to be decide this year. tonight, which is 13 days out from election day, we finally have a winner in alaska. mark begich of alaska has conceded his senate seat to his republican challenger dan sullivan. a number of news outlets, including this one, had called the race for dan sullivan. they characterized dan sullivan as the apparent winner of the rice but senator begich insisted all of the remaining ballots be counted. the state of alaska tonight is still counting ballots and they don't plan to officially certify a winner until later this month but senator begich is apparently seeing the writing on the wall. he called to congratulate his opponent dan sullivan earlier this year. that results in alaska tonight means there's just one senate race left in the whole country that remains unresolved.
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it's a race democrats are trying desperately to hold on to and involves one of the more inexplicable political strategies i've ever seen in them trying to do that. that story is next. ful skin goes with everything. [ female announcer ] aveeno® daily moisturizing lotion has active naturals® oat with five vital nutrients naturally found in healthy skin. where do i wear aveeno®? everywhere. aveeno® daily moisturizing lotion.. and try the body wash too. aveeno®. naturally beautiful results™.
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he can hear you. he didn't mean that, kevin. kevin: yes, he did! keeping our competitors up at night. now, that's progressive. this was the scene outside mary landrieu's house in washington, d.c. today. a giant inflatable pipeline across her front yard put there by opponents of the keystone pipeline. senator landrieu is from louisiana, a democrat and in real danger of losing her seat in the senate. she has a december 6th runoff against her challenger. congressman cassidy is the sponsor of a bill that passed last week in the house that would clear the way for the keystone pipeline. mary landrieu has also been pushing for the senate to vote
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for it as well. she believes the pipeline has the votes to pass right away and demanded a vote on keystone in this lame-duck session while democrats still control the senate and while she's still running for re-election. senator landrieu wants you to see her getting her opponent's bill passed. that's what -- that's why she -- that's how she -- she seems to be saying vote for me because i agree with my opponent, and i can help get done what he wants to do. it's the definition of an insane way to win an election. despite that, mary landrieu is getting what she wants. the senate is scheduled to start voting on the pipeline tomorrow. it's not at all clear she's got the 60 votes she needs but she did get that inflatable pipeline on her front lawn today. regardless of what happens with the vote on capitol hill, there are also local votes that need to happen on keystone. it would cross several states an its way south from canada.
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one of those states in nebraska they've not yet settled the question of which state agency would give permission for that. the decision could come down to the nebraska public service commission. you may never have heard of this august body but the pipeline company has. so we have the federal vote in washington happening tomorrow and the local vote in nebraska that still has to happen. also, though, regardless of what happens in either of those, there may be a local war over this. the state of south dakota, the tribes of the sioux nation don't want the keystone pipeline coming through their land. a couple of years ago a native radio station issued an alert for them to stop oil trucks moving through. they ended up in a six-hour standoff, a physical standoff and stopped those trucks. >> this is our reservation. this is our community. and look at 300 some children over there. and maybe a thousand people over here. lakota nation we're standing on.
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and why are they coming through here. you're all lakotas. stand up for your rights. we have the greatest foundation in this world. i'm 92 years old. how long more am i going to be saying this is your foundation. protect it. at least we have our nation and we can say you cannot come through here with whatever you have. >> we say you cannot come through here with whatever you have. i should tell you those trucks they were blocking did not turn out to be keystone trucks specifically. but as a show proverbial force, that's a show of proverbial force. you can take how serious they take this by how long they've continued to say no.
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a coalition of cowboys and indians set up on the washington mall. it's become a chunk of an american idiom that's all but separated from the very real things. this literally true, cowboys and indians. they said they'd do anything to stop this pipeline. anything and everything they could. and this morning, there they were in front of senator landrieu's house to stop this keystone pipeline. an friday, after the house voted to approve keystone, the rose bud sioux released a vote calling that an act of war and the president of the rosebud sioux said the house has now signed our death warrants and the death warrants of our children and grandchildren. it will not allow this pipeline through our lands, authorizing keystone xl is an act of war against our people. rosebud president telling reporters, act of war means that we're going to have to take legal maneuvers now. we're going to protect our land and our way of life. we're going to protect our way of life on the high plains and reservation and national mall and now on mary landrieu's front lawn.
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joining us is aldo seoane, a co-director of a native american active group and part of the protest today at senator landrieu's house. thank you for being here. pleasure to have you here. >> it's an honor to be here. >> what does it mean to you personally? how do you understand this provocative phrase this vote was an act of war? what does that mean to you? >> i won't begin to speculate on what chairman was saying or what the rosebud sioux tribe is saying. what i do know is from being on the ground, you know, we take this very seriously. i'm under the impression what we're looking at is trans-canada, the keystone xl pipeline, them attempting to come through the reservation would be considered an act of war against the pipeline itself, not against the u.s. government. >> in terms of what that would mean on the ground at the reservation, when you say that you -- that the pipeline won't be allowed to come through the
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reservation, what do you think could be done? what do you expect might happen on the ground? >> it's not going to come through. the rosebud sioux tribe is a part of the great sioux nation and the ft. laramie treaties define that area. and that's pretty much the entire state of south dakota going into wyoming, north dakota, part of nebraska, over to the east side of the missouri river. that entire territory is part of the great sioux nation and a consensus not to let that pipeline go through. back on march 29th of this year, the rosebud sioux tribe set up a spiritual encampment to pray that the world would wake up to this, that our treaties would be honored, that the treaties are the tribe would be honored and that keystone xl would follow proper consultation procedures and that the government would support its due diligence process. and that it would continue with
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its policy on tribal consultation and work with tribes in finding solutions for this. that pipeline opposition camp has been standing. it's been manned 24 hours a day, and it's been said by president scott and by president brewer of the igualia sioux tribe this pipeline will not come through the territory and they'll stop it by any means necessary. >> are there conditions under which you would accept or the people of the sioux nation would consider accepting the pipeline through the land? is it a decision that's already made or is there a political process among the tribes for deciding about a project like this or for being consulted? >> my understanding is, no, this pipeline is in no way wanted. we have seen and been a part of actions where we've been hearing that, including the d.c. action, the reject and protect action. we've heard our chairmans talk and the chairmans of the tribe
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and other indigenous groups say we don't want tar sands. it's too risky for our communities both to the land, the water, the people. so i don't think that there is any proper strategy for this to go through or any kind of handling of this. >> aldo seoane, thanks for helping us understand this tonight. appreciate you being here. we have a lot more ahead, including a debunktion junction where we debunk me. which doesn't feel good. that will be fun for you guys, i guess. that's coming up.
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torrential downpours and everybody's favorite wintry mix made for a cold and wet and raw monday. if you had an event scheduled to be outside you called for the backup plan and moved it inside. but today in d.c., there was one event that couldn't be moved inside. in that driving rain, a bipartisan group gathered under trench coats and umbrellas and tents to plant a tree. this bare but tall american sycamore tree was propped up and
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put into the ground in memory of emmett till. he was 14 years old when he was beaten, tortured and murdered while visiting his relatives in the mississippi delta. if you think about your civil rights history, 1955 is early, right? 14-year-old emmett till's murder that summer, 1955, helped spark the civil rights movement in the south, particularly after his mother insisted an human being buried in an open casket so the world could see what was done to her son. emmett till was recognized with a living memorial at the capitol. nearly 60 years after his death, attorney general eric holder spoke in the driving rain today about that murder and about the symbolism of this memorial that will now mark his life.
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>> although emmett till died senselessly and far too soon, it can never -- it can never be said that he died in vain. his tragic murder galvanized millions to action. and today, we commemorate this legacy by planting a tree in his honor. a tree that will become his living memorial here at the heart of our republic in the shadow of the united states capitol. like the work it symbolizes and the cause it represents, this tree will outlast all of us. like our ongoing efforts it will honor the enduring legacy of a young man, a boy really, who never had the chance to grow old. and it will ensure that emmitt till's story and example will be preserved forever. >> attorney general eric holder speaking there. the man over his right shoulder is thad cochran. the whole mississippi congressional delegation there. in remembering that young man in the way we do today, we ennoble our nation and make our union more perfect. today is one of those days where it felt like the weather
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debunktion junction, what's my function. two weeks ago, d.c. voted to legalize pot. 65% yes, 28% no. for d.c., of course, it's not that simple. even before d.c. voters exercised their franchise to sigh, yes, we want legal pot there was already a congressman vowing to block d.c.'s legalization if that's the way the vote went. because the u.s. congress has final say on anything and all d.c. legislation and because of congress' history of imposing their views an d.c., the day after the election we warned, i warned that d.c. should expect
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some meddling. republicans love doing this to d.c. the city council voted to legalize same-sex americans and two utah republicans tried to block what d.c. voted to do. congress decided to take d.c.'s locally passed gun laws away. in 2011, republicans blocked d.c.'s own locally decide, locally funded abortion policies. now they are doing it again. d.c. votes to legalize pot as republicans sweep to power and expand their majority in the house. >> that was the day after the election. they're doing it again. now it's like two weeks later, right? is that true or false? that congress is set to meddle in d.c. affairs once again, this time to block d.c. from legalizing pot? is it true or is it false? false? false? it's hard to believe, but false. so, yes, we thought there would be more of a fight by congress,
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specifically by republicans. look at "the washington post" today. gop congress shows little interest in blocking pot legalization in d.c. senator lindsey graham. that's pretty far down my list of priorities. rob portman hasn't given it one thought. senator john mccain is focused on other things. at least publicly, the republican party says they'll not interfere with d.c. legalizing pot. they're not. so they say. take them at their word until they give us a reason not to. we'll see. all right, next up. to oregon. dr. monica wehby ran into a challenger against jeff merkley. dr. wehby did not win. she had a lot of issues she stood for. if there were two things the doctor monica wehby wanted you to know, they were number one, she's a doctor and number two, she really doesn't like obamacare. that's what her whole campaign
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was about. >> it's not brain surgery. obamacare is bad for oregon. i'm dr. monica wehby. i know firsthand how devastating obamacare is for oregon families and patients. i'm the only candidate for senate who has fought to stop it. >> the only senate candidate who has fought to stop it. her campaign slogan was even anti-obamacare. keep your doctor, change your senator was her campaign slogan. now that she'll not be a senator, there are reports she has applied for a new job in oregon. she's applied for the job of running obamacare in oregon. is that true or is that false? oh, yes, it's true. this is amazing. one issue anti-obamacare candidate lose election and called oregon's governor to ask about a job opening specifically directing the oregon health authority which would make her the state's top official in charges of implementing obamacare, something she campaigned against as
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devastating to oregon. now she wants to run it. not busy anymore. tah-dah! breaking news "first look." death and destruction. two terrorists attack jews praying in a synagogue this morning. and hamas congratulates those responsible. missouri's governor declares a state of emergency ahead of a grand jury decision in the michael brown shooting and the naacp is furious. today more than 200 million americans infy states will suffer from you temperatures at or below freezing pier. charles manson prepares to wed a 26-year-old woman. $66 billion for botox and a roller coaster to rival them all. breaking news, a brazen terror