well i'm john berman in washington d.c. and here's what's coming up tonight on the big picture. to the past few days a supreme court decisions are any indication our country is as divided as ever between red and blue states that portend a new civil war or that just a moment also just one day after striking down a law that in the senate the senate approved ninety eight to nothing justice antonin scalia now says that the supreme court has no business overturning laws passed by congress is the court's most conservative justice such a flop or talk about that more in tonight's lone liberal rumble and believe it or not it's time the american people started listening to george w. bush well at least when it comes to congressman darrell than gazi grand car theft i

see tell you why and i'd still take. you need to know this twenty thirteen is starting to look a lot like eight hundred fifty eight and a new civil war awfully is time without guns could be on the horizon in the decade leading up to the civil war the united states was an increasingly divided country all northern states like new york pennsylvania massachusetts are experiencing rapid industrialization back then sudden states remain predominately agricultural and while the pre civil war north economy was based on free wage labor the southern economy depended on slavery and looked more like a feudal empire and part of a democratic republic the differences between those two societies because that's really what we were two distinct societies influence every aspect of american politics creating division in congress conflicts between the states and even

division within families the pressure of all this eventually led to the session most of the south in the union in the bloodiest conflict in american history civil war began over one hundred fifty years ago. but in the wake of the past two days supreme court rulings the history of the period leading up to it looks as relevant as ever today with its decision in the case of the hollingsworth of the perry the court legalized same sex marriage in california setting up waves of celebrations throughout that state and the country but the court's ruling along with this decision striking down the defense of marriage act in the case of the united states v windsor there's a lot of issues on resolve in deciding hollingsworth of the perry the court did not issue a broad ruling legitimizing gay marriage throughout the country it simply reconfirmed an existing lower court decision that struck down california's two thousand and eight voter approved ban on same sex marriage that means the wall californians are now free to marry whomever they please gay and lesbian residents of red states like mississippi and alabama will have to wait until their states pass marriage equality laws of their own to get their unions recognized this creates another yet another

does a division between the two kinds of states that make up today's america f.d.r. blue states and ronald reagan red states like the northern and southern states in the decade leading up to the civil war the roosevelt blue states in the reagan red states are fundamentally different societies most obvious difference of course is the attitude toward gay marriage if you compare a map of states that allow some porsche some sort of protections for gay couples with a map of last fall's presidential primary results or election results they line up pretty closely excluding a few outliers but the differences don't stop with gay marriage while blue states like oregon in vermont are pushing forward progressive experiments in health care texas and other reagan red states have rejected the obamacare medicaid expansion and refused to cooperate with a law that based on initial estimates in california looks like it's going to be a big success red states have higher rates of obesity higher rates of teen pregnancy score lower on almost every important indicator of social development red

states also have lower minimum wages and more restrictive labor laws than the blue counterparts if you look at a map of states with the union busting right to work for less laws. it matches up pretty closely with the two thousand and twelve presidential election results and now thanks to the supreme court gutting the voting rights act of one thousand nine hundred sixty five and two thousand and six reagan red states like texas have renewed their efforts to keep people of color from voting or minimize the impact of their vote with harsh voter id and redistricting laws gerrymandering such america in two thousand and thirteen is a lot like america eight hundred fifty eight we have two separate sets of states blue states modeled after the social and economically progressive new deal the red states following in lockstep with the help the rich screw the poor policies of the reagan revolution far from uniting the country under one set of policies or principles the court's decision in the voting rights act and same sex marriage will intensify these differences and push red and blue states even farther on their very

different hats what happens next is unclear but the potential for conflict is real as abraham lincoln remarked back in eight hundred fifty eight on the eve of the civil war a house divided against itself cannot stand. for more on those as well as inside analysis on the other issues of the day i'm joined now by john nichols or correspondent for the nation magazine and author of the new book dollar ocracy of the money in media election complexes destroying america john nichols walk and welcome back it's a how to view to great to hear you or have you here with us you've heard my rant i'm curious to hear your take on this increasing divide between red state america blue state america and the increasing polarization of our political process i think we're seeing this really large in congress where it oh yeah and i think that the polarization can't be separated from something you talk about all the time which is money in politics you know we actually have a situation now where all the things you just said are true there's no doubt of that and all the social issues all the economic political things but we also have this super charging of the politics with huge amounts of money that i think moves

red states red or blue states blue or and makes it such a high stakes game that even when you see the whole of the country shearing on. a progressive action in the state of texas which was this standing up for reproductive rights by folks over the last few days state senator wendy davis yes but here's the interesting subtlety this would bring it all together the voting rights act decision of the supreme court yesterday will almost certainly i should say it's very possibly usher in a new wave of redistricting oh she's been gerrymandered out of her actually to say so here you have somebody from a southern state a progressive who's been raised up now and people of the north are cheering her on in there seeing possibilities in texas suddenly she might be out of politics that's the dynamic of what's occurring here and that's where you get people i mean logically they become more embittered they become more furious at the system they really do start to question whether folks in other places are like them that's unhealthy for

a country and it's also frankly again not as true as it seems on the surface because beneath the surface in a state like texas you're going to find some very progressive people and in a state like minnesota you can find very conservative folks but this is what i think the court has done on a host of issues is really kind of push people to their corners you know and they can and to a large extent i mean doesn't this just demonstrate that we need to have a sense that the court is not going to give up the power judicial review any day soon scalia's rants notwithstanding isn't it all the more important that we pass a constitutional amendment that says that corporations are not persons and the money is not free speech i had to. be on one amendment now i hate i hate to say i think we need to write some i think we need an amendment that says corporations are people i think we need an amendment that says everybody has a guaranteed right to vote and to have that vote counted in a legitimate way and then finally and you referenced it in your opening there this redistricting gerrymandering that is a fundamentally anti-democratic reality that just warps our politics and we have to

think about that we have to think about whether my solution is to say the congressional districts always have to be polygons you know they have to have relatively equals equal. distributed sides i mean just you know kind of look. you know there's polling that shows that that forty five percent i think it's forty five percent americans would be glad to pick congress out of the phone directory so . congressional district by shape would not be any worse yeah maybe we should go back to what the greeks did it's. come sites like jury duty. berman is an incredible experience i love what we've tried to do in this country of what we're still trying to do i just think that we should never forget that the wisest of our founders jefferson tom paine all said that you must regularly update your constitution to read respond to not just the reality or times but through the reassertion of the money power that you jefferson's both of them are actually quite outspoken about that shelby holder one of the things i found really interesting

this is the case that knocked down the voting rights act was that in the original case they were not claiming any damage now they were not claiming any harm they were simply objecting to the law on its face the supreme court almost never takes that kind of case i mean there in fact as as scalia as says our assigned role as article three says is to resolve disputes cases and controversies between two parties yeah well i mean the intervention of the court there was i continue to think of this is as classic judicial activism if this is a court seeking to get into a game and create results as you saw with citizens united where they hold that case over to a place that it didn't begin it and what's significant about this is something that was it within the ruling by the court that really troubles me this suggestion that because african-americans are finally voting at proportionally equal even larger levels than than white americans caucasian americans and because after only by one

percent if you are getting elected after americans are getting elected they're saying well the problems done what with all due respect the problem was done in the eight hundred seventy s. for a while too we had laws we had reconstruction and you saw african-americans moving quickly into positions of power they were also voting at high levels and then suddenly you ended reconstruction and an awful lot of stuff fell apart i'm not saying we're in the same position i think that would be unrealistic but what i am saying is that you know federal interventions do matter. the voting rights act has mattered it has moved us forward but the suggestion that that progress means we can now we must get rid of it that's illogical and yet that's what the court will and also to say you know this this law is out of date when it was just six years ago that it was not only passed again and yes it's called the civil rights act of one hundred sixty five but it was asked again modified before it was passed and this was following fifty thousand pages of testimony and findings fifty one witnesses in

the memo to some service members of congress stepping up and probably expressing their record ninety eight to nothing. but all that said i don't i don't think there's a chance in anything that john boehner is going to risk the two thousand and fourteen elections because you could today in the last twenty four hours five of these states five of these southern states have now come forward and said ok we're now going to gerrymander like crazy as we can legally do it and we're going to introduce voter i.d. laws to stop young people old people people of color. from voting and we're going to be reminded of something that's that that is not always covered well by our media and that is that the voting rights act only applies to a certain number of states it has an influence nationally and you see in in rulings in cases in states that are not covered by the voting rights act the judges will say well well it doesn't apply here is important united states has recognized that we do have to consider some of these issues and that when you strike down this this

entry point into the voting rights act and make it such a complicated thing throw it back into congress a congress that can't even pass a farm bill you create a level of confusion that frankly is a real opportunity for folks who want to achieve political ends that they could not achieve at the ballot box but that they might be able to achieve through gaming of the system and gaming of the system is something the the. the john and eric show are very good at i mean it's just i was struck by the fact that eric cantor said yesterday that he's been deeply moved by going. to selma with john lewis and that that will affect him that that will influence him if you was deeply moved by that and i respect that you people of many different political stripes could be i hope that he would give john lewis the call and say john let's work this out this week he needs to john nichols thanks so much for being with us there's a good question. coming up one day antonin scalia loves judicial review the next day he hates it is the other something is he just

a hypocrite more on this and its long liberal rumbled right up the bridge. i would rather as questions for people in positions of power instead of speak on their behalf and that's why you can find my show larry king now right here on r.t. question more.

it's wednesday you ready to rumble joining me for tonight's long liberal rumble our other sermon conservative strategist blueskin solutions and horace cooper conservative commentator and senior fellow at the national center for public policy research that's right and to thank thank you both for joining me today so before we get into talking about the whole supreme court decision about gay marriage and all together things i want to first point out something interesting in justice scalia's dissent in citizens united v windsor here's the first paragraph of his dissent says this case is about power in several respects it's about the power of our people to govern themselves and the power of this court to pronounce the law today's opinion aggrandize is the letter with the predictable consequence of diminishing the

forward former we have no power to decide this case and even if we did we have no power under the constitution to invalidate this democratically adopted legislation if i could have this back let me just this is this is has been stated this is what he read from the bench he said the majority invokes what it calls this court's primary role in determining the constitution's meaning the constitution assigns to us no such primary role indeed it does not assign to us the role of determining the constitution's meaning at all and the at all as italicize was emphasized like of our side where it was article three says is to resolve disputes cases and controversies between two powers and then he goes on about how the court has become more powerful the other branches of government which. from a conservative point of view would be a bad thing because the power of the court is increased enormously in becomes primary among the three branches when our ability to expound upon the constitution is uncoupled from our duty to resolve live controversies and the very end he talks

about this is this is blowing up the beauty of what our framers were blowing up my phrase but it demonstrates so vividly was it the beauty of what our framers gave us the gift of a clue. if the corps pawns today to buy it stolen moment the spotlight a system of government the permits us to rule ourselves the court has cheated both sides robbing the winners of an honest victory in the losers of the peace that comes from a fair defeat we know both of them better this is an argument against marbury vs madison an argument against judicial review it's frankly what his last comment that's that's my argument my concern about roe v wade was that the court stopped the debate in the united states so i'm just curious what you think of what it's a sham like ask you you know you said it from a conservative point of view that yes the judge is having more power than the other branches of be a scary thing is that not scary to you i mean do you want a balance i think the i think that this is trans you know the progressives and conservatives should be equally concerned about this they sat with you know the the unelected branch of government basically saying look we haven't we don't longer

have a constitutionally limited representative democratic republic we have a constitutional monarchy and these nine people are the monarchs and they get to decide what becomes a lot of what doesn't and they get even make up policy you know the idea that corporations are people for example was never proposed by any legislature anywhere it was invented out of whole cloth by these guys ok what you read and misinterpreted was the basic complaint that conservatives have had about the courts for a while which is that any three which no not some seventy three for a while actually since much of the f.d.r. revolution of the constitutional interpretation scheme that existed prior that the court decided that it was ok in the name of progressive meads to change meanings and fabricate things this is the one of the reasons why when i was in law school i joined the federalist society courts are supposed to have a limited role and that is to adjudicate the disputes and enforce the constitution

what he describes there is what happens if the court doesn't have the of. or would it be to execute a judgment on an issue and you can't look at the case in question and conclude that the constitution opines on it and therefore gives the court the right to make a judgment that it made well you could say that about the doma case i don't see how you could even get close to not saying that about knocking down the voting rights act because they did not get down the aisle you're on it massaged one in three they left intact section two which is that which is a core of the voting rights act i mean the whole idea that they struck it down is not true they got a deal they did not i don't know that it was a i states in the last twenty four hours announce that they are now going to gerrymander massively and they're going to put into place repressive voter i.d. laws to tell a population of minorities young people in all my organization filed an amicus

brief in this case and we asked the court to strike down the pretty clearance policies because this administration was abusing them what will happen with the five states that you describe the first time that they can show that any minority organization or individual was stymied in their voting they can still be sued after the fact of the election no not after the election after they've already had the after they've already crowded out of the legs of the election the only in the event but there is an actual showing pre-clearance if they had used it judiciously wouldn't have presented this problem the problem is shelby had no showing shelby county had no showing both a no violation shop there there were there was this was a case on its face the voting rights act that is the got to vote whatever we have language you want to agree on the supreme court typically does not decide cases like that as far as our assigned role is article three says is to resolve disputes

cases in controversies between two equal our heats the equal sovereignty doctrine is a more than one hundred year old provision that the court. have operated under and that principal caused this problem you can't say the shelby county without showing actual evidence that they are violating minority nobody says they they were unable to demonstrate any are they were no no they were demonstrating the harm the hard there was no assertion of harm they were simply saying we don't like this law strike it down no you can't do that shelby said we shouldn't have to get permission to make the changes we want and the federal government with its preclearance authority could have simply issued a letter to shelby and said you're right you're not a problem let's go and focus on where the problems were the first time that a problem they seemed as if they were being restrained then yes they were that's the whole purpose of the shelby case that's its origin and there were no specifics and now congress isn't has been tasked with not not just totally ignoring

a session but they have to create new you know more data more up to date. qualification rights like i did two thousand and six when they heard fifty one witnesses and produce fifty two thousand pages of testimony and and repeated that and the same nine states and the same double nearly a dozen or more counties or the exact same places where the problems were my organization sent a letter to the justice department saying to them prior to this election why don't you go to where we know actual voter intimidation and other irregularities are happening philadelphia chicago amy annapolis. milwaukee a number of these places and not only did we not get a response but justice department did nothing about that meanwhile. you can't have a voter id law if we had a legislature that we could trust to actually legislate i'd say great reboot the voting rights act let's do what you're suggesting but you and i both know that the republicans in the house of representatives they're still playing paul weyrich sold game of you know frankly quite candidly our leverage in the elections goes up as

the voting populace goes down i mean this is all they did was remove the database. for preclearance authority you still can be found in violation of the voting rights act after the fact and you can still be sanctioned as a result of the. million number of remedies affluent after the damage is done the damage is done and you have a new legislature let's move along to gay marriage if we can and this is the big news of the day the court struck down the defense of marriage act and also struck down and did not strike down defense of marriage act they struck down a provision of the defense of marriage act it is not a total win for same sex marriage advocates and in fact i'm curious well first of all you know i'm curious your take on this well i mean obviously it's not ideal for marriage advocates who are fortunate marriage primarily for the children you know that you can be a traditional marriage advocate and also be pro gay you know it has nothing to do

with how you feel about homosexuality has something to do with how you feel about marriage being the foundation of our society of any society and what's best for our children it's also mitigating factor on civil service civil services and things we have to give out for taking care of children who are not being raised and a parent mother and father household inevitably we have i mean you know social service going together and so is in a it's for a fairly solid that the two people raised their kid is better than one and even if that not just two people the reason it works out as well what research shows though there is research on same sex parenting it's very very good what do you what are you going to say to gay people we're going to say sorry you can't get married when we were i don't know what i what i what we are saying right now the state versus states are making the states still have the ability to decide what marriage is that's what is still the case right now where you have twelve states where it's

legal and we have you vote but in this with you don't want the court to be in the business of making these pronouncements and yet your question is what are you going to say to the gay people the courts. was not to answer what they're going to say to the gay people the court's job was to assess is this statute properly before us i do not believe that there was a jurisdictional grounds for them to have accepted this case but had be excepted this case i don't understand why this is any different from a bridge where you say you must pay minimum wage you must take all federal holidays you must use this much submit every ounce of concrete that you make that is the power that congress has to spend money they are allowed to say we won't give funds to people who are not married to a person of the opposite sex they get to pick and choose their way marriage goes like it is a change i mean what's a marriage is a contractual event it was and congress certainly has the power to regulate. i don't think anybody would do so and it's and it's not that they have the power to regulate i marry obligation it's not that i don't agree with that principle i

believe that they have the right to predicate whatever benefits they are giving they can say we're only going to give them to men who served in the military they can say we're only going to give them to people who are more than sixty five years of age they have the right to decide this case says i except when it comes to gays you don't have that same freedom to decide which group you're going to hand it out to and if they were asked the question where does that come from and the court claims that there must be some mysterious right to be married to a person of the same sex that trumps the right of congress to be able to pick how it's going to allocate its resources that congress has that is asserting that right with regards to straight couples no has they absolutely do in the i.r.s. then there is something that right with regard to the minimum wage there are not that right so that's why i think there are sixty five years once again this this this really is not about gay rights it's really a matter about what is marriage and marriage about what is the power of the court

is the argument that this point i'm making. what i'm saying is if you're looking at from a societal. perspective you know for the layman out there what is marriage the definition of what is marriage i would say the last decade has changed and no that's not true not public policy wise no i mean obviously as they know this at the state level you are seeing marriages being redefined so yes that is true and we just and if there's a conversation that's just started to take place in our country about what marriage is it's very much in its entire stage as well just as abortion you know another conversation about a conversation i've been using sixty's in the fifty's and sixty's not not the level that i had. after brown v board there were people saying interracial marriage should be legal it was a lottery how does it happen and states very different topic i wish i had a very similar and i was talking about being you bring interracial marriage to every single time you want to talk about gays the issue is there and there's an

actual provision in the constitution that says you can't use race if you're the government to allocate policy because you can't use it to stop people from voting no no no no no don't tell me that fifty of them and i'm talking about the four to the women you talk about voting rights that i might be. so well then let it talk you down the side that is gay people are saying give me some of that equal protection under the law the fourth to make a really we're going to have about that and we have to if you are going to go back more of the night after the break. is it possible to navigate the economy with all the details and specifics and misinformation and media hype will keep you up to date by decoding the mainstream headlines stating it's been your right.

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a little bit of a. going back to the liberal level joining me tonight heather sermon and horace cooper let's get back to it in a speech at georgetown university yesterday president obama laid out his plan for fighting global climate change using executive authority reminding his audience that now is the time to act the most important part of the president's plan are to direct the e.p.a. to institute new carbon standards for power plants by twenty fifteen two years hence and setting new goals for efficiency in buildings and vehicles as well as setting new targets for renewable energy production other parts of the plan include goals for increased renew.