tv The Rachel Maddow Show MSNBC April 2, 2012 9:00pm-10:00pm EDT
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from madison, wisconsin. so great to see ed out there in madison with that awesome crowd. thanks so you at home for staying with us. there's lots going on tonight. this is california. california is the largest state in the country. not largest in terms op la s of area. that would be alaska and texas. in terms of the number people that live in the state california wins by a zillion. it's equivalent to the combined populations of wyoming, vermont, alaska, delaware, montana, new hampshire, maine, new mexico, kansas, arkansas, mississippi and iowa. all of those other states combined have roughly the same population as the state of california. it's a big state. california has a big and a very
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good university system. there are community colleges in california. there are private colleges in california. there's a state college system and then there's the crown yule of higher education. the university of california system. there are ten university of california campuses all over the state. my dad went to one of them. my brother went to another of them. they are great schools. rick santorum thinks that these schools are actively trying to destroy america. this is rick santorum speaking today in wisconsin. listen to what he says. this is one of the all-time classic rick santorum making it up moments. watch. >> just reading something last night from the state of california and that the california universities, i think it's seven or eight of the california system of universities don't even teach an american history course. it's not even available to be taught.
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>> it's not even -- there's no american history being taught at the university of california campuses. really? why would they do this, rick santorum? >> it's not even available to be taught. just to tell you how bad it's gotten in this country where we're trying to disconnect the american people from the roots of who we are. >> that is unbelievable. he said seven or eight of the university of california campuses do not allow you to study american history. they do not teach it. you cannot take it even if you want to. that is unbelievable. that literally cannot be believed. that is not a true thing that rick santorum is saying. now even close. let's just pick one of these campuses at random. here is the university of
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california at davis. history 17a. history of the united states. history 17b, history of the united states taught my professor rushway. history 170b. this one starts in 1763 so maybe that doesn't count as america because we weren't america yet. history 174a the guilded age and professive area. prerogative. history 174d selected themes. shall i go on? there's others. rick santorum while running for president said you cannot take american history courses at seven or eight university of california schools. he read that somewhere. it is true that you can't take american history courses at one campus in the university of california system, at least i think that you can't.
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you cannot take american history classes at the university of california san francisco. that's because ucsf is a medical school. still, i'm sure there's a reason to be outraged about that any way, after all, you know san francisco. rick santorum is hard to report on in the presidential race because while numerically in terms of the people that are left in the race, mr. santorum has to be considered a top tier presidential candidate but the way he campaigns repeals top steer coverage as in coverage that takes him seriously. he campaigns like a michelle bachmann. he campaigned like herman cain didn't have a singing voice or that long weird strain of sexual allegations. we reached out to the santorum campaign to find out where mr. santorum read last night, as he said, that you can't take
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american history classes at the university of california. we have yet to recve a clarification from the santorum campaign. it does not appear he has issued a construction to this misstatement either. he does stuff like this all the time. you remember him saying the government in amsterdam likes to kill all the old people there for sport. remember that? he has not corrected that either. >> in the netherlands people wear a different bracelet and the brace sllet is do not euthanize. they have voluntary euthanized. half the people that are euthanized and it's 10% of all death, half of those are euthanized involuntarily at hospitals because they are older and sick. elderly people in the netherlandsson't go to the hospital. they go to another country because they are afraid because of budget purposes that they
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will not come out of that hospital if they go in there with a sickness. >> none of those things are true. none of that is true. it should be noted the netherlands is a country. there are hospitals in that country. there are old people in that country. it's true that some can be affixed to his thesis but everything else he said there not true and not that hard to fact check. not that hard to figure out it's not true. you could just find a dutch person and ask them. that's what we did. he said 10% of all deaths in the netherlands are the result of euthanasia. >> not true. >> he said that half those people are being euthanized involuntarily. >> totally not true. >> he said elderly people in the netherlands do go to the hospital because they are a frad
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of hospital. >> not true. >> they wear specialty bracelets that say don't euthanize me. >> would be cool, but i have not seen one. >> i don't know if he will apologize for the 100% made up, totally untrue, hysterically wrong thing that he said about the university of california. when he said that the dutch kill their old people for fun, dutch people got plan. that dutch news anchor who just questioned there about what mr. santorum said, that same anchor got the chance to ask the santorum campaign if they were going to correct the 100% made up wrong thing that mr. santorum said about holland. watch the answer that he got. this is an interview between the santorum spokesperson and that dutch news anchor. her answer is rick santorum is pro-life. rick santorum is pro-life.
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i can't hear you. >> i have to ask you about something he said about holland and euthanize ya. i don't know if you read about that on the blogs. he stated that people wear bracelets saying do not euthanize me and people are involuntarily ueuthanized. do you remember him saying that? >> a l of these things are what's in his life. he's a strong pro-life person. that comes from life to natural death. those are the issues that are important to the people of me america and that have come out to look for him. >> not asking about what h in his heart. your candidate said all of these things about ta country called the netherlandss which is a full place full of real people called dutch people. he said things that are not true. will recorrehe correct these th? he's pro-life. her answer again is rick
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santorum is pro-life. he's pro-life. did i mention he's pro-life? >> the government says the em bass si says the figures are not correct. he gave a wrong picture of the dutch euthanasia rules. >> rick is strong pro-life. as i said he's for life from conception to natural death. that's what the voters of america have stood behind him for. that's why he's getting the support. >> he's not using the right figures. he's not telli ining the truth t the euthanasia law. >> he's pro-life. >> i'm not going to get a comment from you? >> i gave you an answer. >> i'm asking you about something that he said was incorrect. did i mention he's pro-life. does that excuse you fm having to work in the factual world. the rick santorum campaign is
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being run out of blog comments on a birther website. it's very hard to treat him or his campaign as a major political force. it's hard to treat him as a major political figure with a shot at the presidency. this is mitt romney's competition. heading into tomorrow's contest in the presidential primary, mr. romney is favored in the latest polling to win the state of marylandly 25 points. in washington, d.c. there's not real any polling but it may help to know that rick santorum is such a serious candidate, he didn't bother to get himself put on the ballot in washington. he didn't even ask. in wisconsin,e said he might sneak in and have an upset victory in wisconsin and sure, that is possible. even the pro-mitt romney late developments in wisconsin in that primary tomorrow reflect the main dynamic in the republican race this year, which is not about the strength of mitt romney as a front-runner. it's about the weakness of his
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rivals. the milwaukee journal sentinel in wisconsin did endorse mr. romney today. there is not going to be the kind of endorsement that is quoted by the romney campaign. i'm sure they will find way to excerpt it to make it look like it was awesome but what the endorsement says is this, quote, he's the clear choice of in an uninspired and now dwindling field. romney's finger to the wind tacking across the political sea leaves us to wonds if he's chored any where. we do wonder which romney we'll see in the fall. the list of mr. romney's contortions is long. after short sounding descriptions of what the other candidates have to offer, the sentinel says mr. romney as a flawed front-runner is the best u choice for republicans
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considering the other options. >> seven or eight of the california system of university ts don't teach an american history course. it's not available to be taught. >> what are you talking about? how could you be one of the last guys standing h this race? it's a national race for a very important job. you're the competition. yes, the flawed finger to the wind uninspired contortionist is better than rick santorum. that says more about rick santorum than it says about mitt romney. should be noted, headingnto these contests tomorrow, it may be the last contested primaries of the republican contest. it should be noted that anything is possible. nothing is a fore gone conclusion in politics. wisconsin, in particular, is a place where it's been an unpredictable landscape recently for the past year as my colleague ed schultz demonstr
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demonstrated last hour. one of the things that could come into play tomorrow is that the wisconsin government accountability board told us tothd that there is a possibility and nobody expects this to happen, but there's a possibility this could come to pass that the wisconsin state supreme court at the very last moment could decide to take action to block the existing court rulings that have stopped the states new voter i.d. bill from going into effect in wisconsin. the wisconsin supreme court could at any moment require that as of tomorrow you have to show i.d. when you go to vote. we wouldn't know that until the polls open or maybe they would decide it in the middle of the voting day. the government accountability board is advising wisconsin residents to watch the news in order to figure out what the voting rules are for tomorrow's voting. chaos is possible.
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anything could happen. nobody is preparing for a rick santorum republican nomination anymore let alone a newt gingrich or a ron paul one. that means we starting to general election already. buckle up. we always hear about jobs leaving america. here's a chance to create jobs in america. oil sands projects, like kearl, and the keystone pipeline wi provide secure and reliable energy to the united states. over the coming years, projects like these could create more than half a million jobs in the us alone.
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still ahead, why president obama's toughest political foe may be five men in lovely black long robes. stick around. according to the signs, ford is having some sort of big tire event. i just want to confirm a few things with fiona. how would you describe the event? it's big. no,i mean in terms of savings how would you sum it up? big in your own words, with respect to selection, what would you say? big okay, let's talk rebates mike, they're big they're big get $100 rebate, plus the low price tire guarantee during the big tire event. so, in other words, we can agree that ford's tire event is a good size? big big
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pregnant doctors informed the family of horrible news. part of the baby's brain was developing outside the skull. the heart was inverted. if the pregnancy was carried to term the baby could take only one or two breaths. he said she would have watched it die. because that fatal defect was detected by her drawer, his daughter was given the option of having an abortion. the bill was introduced in the georgia house that would ban abortion at 20 weeks at the time just before his daughter was given her diagnosis. under the bill a doctor performing an abortion after the new 20-week cut off could face ten years in prison. that bill passed the georgia house largely along party lines. representative stephens although he's a pro-life republican did not vote for it. he did not vote for the 20-week abortion ban.
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he walked out during a roll call that woultd have taken awaz his own daughter's ability p and have the state government to force his daughter go through nine months of pregnancy and the birth of the child they knew would die immediate lly upon birth. he told the paper for somhing this yule to happen to my daughter or anyone's daughter is plain inhuman. i consider myself pro-life but this was a distortion of pro-life values. even though they did not have the support of that pro-life republican, th new 20-week abortion ban did pass the ga a georgia house. it was amended to add an exsejs. it would allow abortions past the new 20-week cut off.
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once it was added into the law in in the stat he decided he could vote for it. he could vote for the 20-week ban. he's a pro-life republican and he voted for the final bill. because of his initial reservations based on what had happened to his daughter, he is now being denounced as a republican in name only as a rino. he will get a republican coll e challenger from a group called the peach tea party. he's one of 17 lawmakers being targeted by this tea party group. one member of the peach tea party coalition saying they priority is banning or rolling back access to abortion even in cases of rape or incest. they say that's at the top of their agenda. any candidate that's not right on the social issues disqualifies himself from public office. so, in this election year with
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the republican party with abortion and contraception and social issue, we have seen republican nominee go from having the support of 44% of women under the age of 50 to 30%. he's now down to less than a third of women under the age of 50 supporting him. a few weeks ago he trailed mr. obama and now mr. obama is doubling him up in this group. this huge fall off has the president, president obama polling ahead of mr. romney for the first time in 12 swing state pps that national dynamic, that national falling away from the republican party of women voters is a product not just of the presidential race but of what's happening in the states. here is how it's working out. the detail ends up being important. democrats are really fighting in the states against this raft of anti-abortion, anti-women's
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health, anti-contraception legislation. fighting hard not just by voting against it but by demonstrating, fund raising and running ads. the same humiliation to women would apply to men seeking viagra. they have walked out during legislative sessions which georgia senators did a few weeks ago to protest senate vote on anti-abortion and anti-contraception bill. this time democratic women senators did not just walk out of the session, they staged their own protest complete with props and slogan. they walked out of the chamber. they started chanting loudly enough to be heard inside the chamber. >> women will remember in november. women will remember in november. women will remember in november.
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women will remember in november. >> women will remember in november. they are outside the chamber but inside the chamber that i would could be heard loud and clear. that's what one side of this battle looks like in the states with democrats fighting these things. the other side is the republican side. on the republican side it's the republican party and the conservative movement locked in their passionate embrace. lawmakers on the republican side susceptible to the same high bound old school republican social conservative politics they have always been subjected to. after three years now of being told that the new face of republican activism, this tea party movement is about small government and putting the culture war behind us, the group calling it the tea party movement in georgia is primarying representative ron stephens for his insufficient ideal logical impurity on how thoroughly he would push to ban abortion. jay, thanks very much for being here.
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nice to see you. >> thank you for the invitation. >> this particular tea party group, this peach tea party group, is a coalition of a bunch of different conservative groups including georgia right to life. the phrase tea party become the name you can attach to any conservative organization these days? >> yes. i think that's exactly what happened in this case. georgia right to life basic created the peach tea party and just took the tea party nam and attached it to social causes. >> it's being really aggressive specifically on the issue of abortion. i highlighted the case of that one republican representative because it seems to me the fact that he voted ultimately yes on the bill, that the amendment that he sought didn't gut the bill in any way and came from a personal and pretty understandable place. to be against him and determined to primary him for that seems to
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be almost unusually dock tri nar. is this something i don't understand about the way georgia politics is played or is this new for georgia? >> it's relatively new. you may recall karen handle ran for governor in georgia two years ago as a republican. she got defeated because she was deemed to be insufficiently ardent about right to life issues. she supported exceptions for rape and incest. she supported in vitro fertilization. you can't be for those things in georgia and get the endorsement of georgia right to life. she lost the primary because of that. >> that kind of litmus test, that kind of, i would say purrification politics, does it have an effect of making georgia republicans less competitive in
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general election contest? i'm thinking about suburban atlanta where that representative i was talking about is from and some other areas of the state which may not be pure red from which these republican representatives are coming from. the that litmus test hurt eing them or has it not done that. >> redistricting are making sure the red districts are very red. i don't think it's going to hurt them. i also believe that the peach tea party will be very successful in its efforts to oust these people. i think there's enough of a recognition within the georgia republican party that this really is extremism. it's not where the they want to go. you saw that in the georgia senate which stops the bill in its initial form. 13 republican senators stood up and voted against it despite being told they would be primaried. that took some political courage
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for them. i also think they understood it's important for the party to make that stance. >> the internal dynamics between the conservative movement and the republican party are the greatest show on earth when it comes to american politics. thanks very much for being with us. i appreciate it. >> thank you. five to four in hockey means both goalies are having a rough night. on the supreme court five to four could mean we're having a rough generation of plok. more on that ahead. and a choice. take advil now and maybe up to four in a day. or choose aleve and two pills for a day free of pain. way to go, coach. ♪ ♪ [ gong ] strawberry banana! [ male announcer ] for a smoothie with real fruit plus veggie nutrition new v8 v-fusion smoothie. could've had a v8.
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did you see president obama speaking today with some very harsh words for the supreme court? we've got that coming up. the tape is kind of amazing. we have presidential historian for the interview. stay with us. [ donovan ] i hit a wall. and i thought "i can't do this, it's just too hard." then there was a moment. when i decided to find a way to keep going. go for olympic gold and go to college too. [ male announcer ] every day we help students earn their bachelor's or master's degree for tomorrow's careers. thiss your moment. let nothing stand in your way. devry university, proud to support the education
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in 2005, albert and april bought a house. they were a married couple. they had a 4-year-old son. they had a child on the way. april was pregnant. they decided to celebrate by going over to april's mother's house. driving in the family car they were driving through new jersey when they were pulled over by a new jersey state trooper. april was driving. albert was in the passenger seat. their 4-year-old son was in the backseat. several years earlier albert had been fined for traffic violation. he paid the fine but in new jersey state records the fines showed up as unpaid. because of that there was warrant out for his arrest based on the supposed unpaid fine which he paid. there never should have been warrant. it should have been dismissed.
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albert knew about this glitch and he kept a document with the new jersey state seal on it in the car showing he had paid the fine in case this ever came up with the police officer. he was aware there was a problem. there looked like there was still warrant for him even though there should not have been. despite that, the state trooper even when albert showed the document arrested him on the spot in front of his pregnant wife and his 4-year-old son and they hauled him off to jail. not paying a fine is not an offense for whichou can go to prison in new jersey. when albert was arrested for having not paid this fine even though he had paid it, he was brought first to one county jail in new jersey and he was brought to another. he was held in jail for six days for supposedly not paying a fine that he had paid. upon admission to both of those county jails in new jersey, albert was strip searched. >> once i was arrested i was
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processed at the burlington county facility. i was asked to remove my clothing to bathe in the soap andnce that was done i was asked to stand in front of an officer and manipulate my genitals, spread my arms apart, turn around squatnd cough. >> this is his wife, april. >> in those six days i had no contact with my husband, which is hard. we speak to ea other every single day. i see him every day and to not hear from him, i couldn't call him. i tried calling up there. nobody would let him come to the phone. i'm home going through my pregnancy and i'm having complications with that and to have to answer to my son and he's four and he's wondering where hi father is, it's hard. it was very hard to have to go
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through that. >> he explained to the new york times the i consider mooims a man's man. 6'3", big guy. it was humiliating. it made me feel not better tha an animal. he sued saying he should not have been subjected to multiple strip searches. he was not suspected of carrying any contrabands. today the supreme court ruled in that case against albert florence. the supreme court establishing a new national presence dent that says no matter what you're arrested for whether it's a traffic violation or unpaid fine or caughtwalking your dog without a leash or picked up for not paying support, even a false belief that you haven't paid somethingon you have paid it you can be strip searched multiple time ps p the four justices made
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up the majority in this case ruling against albert florence. the four more liberal justices voted for him. this may be one of those cases like you may remember the imminent domain case that may end up getting a lot of people's attentions. a ruling like this has a double take factor. a say what factor. this is one of those things that goes against common sense. it goes against what is our common understanding of our relationship with the police, our right to bodily integrity. our right to privacy and not in the traditionally partisan and liberal way. this ruling today, y know know, but it has the potential of being broadly upsetting. it hits in the context of major intersection of the court and partisan politics. even before the obama administration health reform law was taken up by the supreme court last week.
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the court's conservative majority has come under fire from the administration and from the president specifically for their last controversial ruling in the citizens united decision. >> with all due deference of law, it will open an interest to foreign corporations to spend without limit in our election. >> that was conservative justice mouthed the word not true back at the president. watch again. it goes by fast. >> for special interest including foreign corporations to spend without limit in our election. >> by the way, a supreme court justice yells you lie at the state of the union. now with the oral arguments on the health care union over and the country anticipating maybe another five to four decision on this intensely partisan issue of
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the health reform law the president engaged directly on the question of the court and specifically on the issue op conservatism on this court. >> ultimately, i'm confident that the supreme court will not take what would be an unprecedented, extraordinary step of overturning a law that was passed by a strong majority of a democratly elected congress. i just recommend conservative congressmen at a timers that four years the biggest problem was judicial activity or lack of judicial prestrant th judicial restraint. a group of people would somehow overturn aduly constituted law.
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>> the supreme court always had a role in presidential election year politics. it's about who might retire and what kind of judges a presidential candidate might be expected to pick. it's about the litmus test issue of abortion. how important would it be and how much historical precedent would it be if it weren't just who might i appoint to the court but if the specific actions and specific decisions by the supreme court itselfssentially got cut on trial in the presidential race. joining us tonight for some perspective is nbc news historian. thank you for being here. >> thank you. >> am i allowed to be promoted to michael? >> yes. >> thank you. >> are there historical precedents of presidents putting the supreme court i the middle of their election campaign in. >> sure are. maybe the best case would be richard nixon saying elect me
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and you'll get law and order which is an amusing thing for him to argue for. he said the early war in court was responsible for the breakdown of law and order in the america and he would choose strict constructionist and put them othe supreme court. it was an element of his appeal probably not decisive. >> is there anything from the nixon example or other presidents trying to use this as a lesson in tierms of what work? >> the president made the nixon appeal from the progressive side saying this court has be too activists, citizens united and if it rules down the health care reform law. he is framing this in case there's bad news for him in june. it's not a big issue in presidential campaigns.
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a presidential candidate from each side will say elect me because if you don't, you might get some very bad supreme court appointments in the next term that may change the balance of power on the court. >> that balance of power is the thing that i'm starting to, i'm trying to figure out how much judicial resident it has. a lot of court watchers and some of the justices themselves very open about the fact that they think that five-four accident in questions can really affect the esteem of the court. how much the court is respected. whether or not court watchers feel like they can discern partisan bias. do you think it makes a difference to have a five-four decision versus ones closer to unanimous? >> on bigger issues it's a lot better. for instance, when richard nixon
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versus the united states, 1974, the issue of whether he could keep his white house tapes. that was eight to nothing. this issue is so important, we want to do this in a big way so that no one can say that this was just sort of by luck that nixon or bad luck he didn't escape. the first thing he asked wn told about the supreme court decision against him on the tape, he said is there any error in the decision. perhaps it have five to four. me might have tried a campaign against it to stay in office. >> if there's error in the decision there's room to litite it. if it's unanimous, people are likely to let it stand? >> yeah. you remember a case bush v gore, 2000. that was a close call and people were bitter for a long time. >> it's always great to have you
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here. thank you so much. >> thanks. congratulations on the great book. >> thank you. now i'm blushing. right after the show lawrence o' donnell has the latest news. lawrence guest will be the city manager of sanford florida. the politics and investigation on that story continue to move and evolve in quick terms. the state that took the most radical of all the radical right turns after the 2010 midterms is michigan. michigan does not get much attention for that fact. i think it should. tonight an unfolding political story in michigan that democrats are unexpectedly winning and i think will blow your mind is coming up on the show. stay with us. d money away and expected it to grow. then the world changed... and the common sense of retirement planning became anything but common. fortunately, td ameritrade's investment consultants
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listen to these happy progressive customers. i plugged in snapshot, and 30 days later, i was saving big on car insurance. i was worried it would be hard to install. but it's really easy. the better i drive, the more i save. i wish our company had something this cool. yeah. you're not... filming this, are you? aw! camera shy. snapshot from progressive. plug into the savings you deserve with snapshot from progressive. that story about michigan politics is still ahea but i want to let you know about another mass shooting that's happened today in the united states. another one, this time in oakland california at a private christian university called oikos. it's ancient greek for home or family. a former nursing student opened fire with a of them have died.
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it is not clear why he was hat at the school today or why he is no longer enrolled. he is reported to have fired off 30 round. police cap cured che suspect a short while after the shooting at a grocery store in alameda. the oakland tribune said he told someone in the store he shot people and as the paper put it he needed to be arrested. after friday's mass shooting in miami, which killed two and wounded 12 people, today's mass shooting in oakland, california was the snekd the united states in less than a week and the second in california in the last six months. if we learn more about the shooting, particularly about a potential motive we will let you know. we'll be right back. ♪ [ male announcer ] how could switchgrass in argentina, change engineering in dubai, aluminum production in south africa,
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michigan. is a mostly poor city and mostly african-american and the first city in michigan to have the local elected officials stripped of their power. last year by the state. under rick schneiders souped up emerncy manager law your vote to who you want to run the town can be overruled. the state said that benton harbor is too broken to be allowed a democratic form of government anymore. governor schneider turned the town over to a single unelected manager who has unilateral power to do whatever he wants, no matter what the voters say. the manager says the elected mayor and the elected commission are not in charge anymore. so they are not in charge anymore. in rick schneider's michigan, democracy is considered part of the problem n places like benton harbor, at least, democracy must go before progress can begin. accordingly what counts as progress in benton harbor is up to the emergency manager guy now. under rick schneider's law, this
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unelected emergency official can fire the elected officials, can cancel contracts, can dissolve the whole town itself. can sell off the town's assets. benton harbor did not have many public assets, but it did have this, a voice, a pub likely owned radio station broadcast out of city hall. the signal from wbhc 96.5 fm only reaches three miles. it belongs to the town. they broadcast by the town, for the town and about the town. in february exercising his unilateral power under michigan law emergency manager put the whole thing up for sale on ebay for $5,000. you get the cords, microphones and everything included. come and get it. it turns out even if rick schneider's state law says they can auction it off to the last office chair under federal law you can not do that. you can not sell a low-powered radio station that way. you can't sell it on ebay.
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a broadcast license like benton harbor has can only go to a local nonprofit or government body, not just the highest bidder you find on-line. the emergency manager had to take down the listing on ebay and find a qualified buyer. and now we know who is planning to buy the radio station. provided the fcc agrees to the transfer, the new owner will be the benton area schools. the school district is on the verge of getting the town's radio station so the students can practice on it. benton harbor's emergency manager says the radio station will be better in the schools we believe it will be more useful in their hands than in ours. more useful? more useful than what? what was it used for before? in addition to news and music, it was used for dissent, for expressing dissent about the town being stripped of its democratic rights for instance. when jesse jackson came to
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benton harbor to protest he sat down at the microphone at the town radio station and spoke his mind. i guess if you happen to be the state appointed czar who's being protested on that radio station that may not seem like a useful use of that station. it may not seem pleasant. we have learned something about about benton harbor, the emergency manager had been making noises about winding down his time there. the restoration of benton harbor's democracy turns out not to be imminent. they said we don't believe we are there yet in benton harbor. later this year he said we are going to work with folks in the community to the talk about the picture that you and have and we have as to what benton harbor's future should look like. local residents have been stripped of their right to have a say so. they have not had a local
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democracy since last year, since rick schneider took it away. governor schneider and the republicans legislature has done is up end the idea that in america we elect people to represent us. in america, we are governed by a democratic form of government. michigan republicans are ripping that idea out by the roots. if there are problems to be solved we do not do it by democratic means anymore in michigan. we suspend democracy to get things done, indefinitely. and it means you can be stripped of your right to vote for officials to govern your town and state level yo may not be allowed to vote in the state legislature. this picture shows michigan house democrats asking for a vote in the legislature and not being allowed one. republicans in the michigan house are being sued in court by their colleagues across the aisle. sued for stopping democrats from voting in the state legislature. the republicans are being sued
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for that. this is an amazing story. amazing that it has come to this, to one political party suing another for the right to vote. amazing this afternoon the state democratwon an early round in court. a county judge issued a temporary injunction ordering michigan house republicans to allow the minority party to vote and the court put on hold several laws the republicans passed improperly. this order that you can see with the scratch outs and the judges scrolling all over it. this has big inly cases for whether in america we solve problems by voting, by democracy or whether we solve problems by suspending democracy. michigan republicans say they will appeal the voting that they must follow the constitution and that democrats have to be allowed to vote. they are asking it be repealed immediately and michigan you are so epic this year. we are reporting the story fully and we will have the full story 0 in coming
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