The Ed Show for Wednesday, October 23, 2013

THE ED SHOW
October 23, 2013
Guest: Frederick Haynes, Otis Moss, Wendell Anthony, Marcia Dyson, Zerlina
Maxwell


(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Because it is making all of us subservient.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Then we aren`t free after all.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: And what is ObamaCare?

RUGH LIMBAUGH: The law of the land. Well, so was slavery one time
the law of the land.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: And we aren`t free after all.

BARACK OBAMA, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A state
representative somewhere say that it`s as destructive as the Fugitive Slave
Act.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: As destructive to personal, individual liberty as
a Fugitive Slave Act of 1850.

OBAMA: I`m not making this stuff up.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The Left likes to think that we are the fringe.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It is time to end the slavish devotion to the
Democratic Party.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: That is unfortunately where we are right now.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Sort of launch and leave missiles, politically
speaking.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We aren`t free after all and that`s the idea here.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

MICHAEL ERIC DYSON, MSNBC GUEST HOST: After the GOP took a
shellacking in the 2012 elections, there was a whole lot of talking about
rebranding the Republican Party. The GOP said they were going to invest an
outreach to minorities and women. They wanted to make their platform less
divisive. But in reality, we witness some lot of the same old same old
case in point, one of the marking names of the GOP teaming up with one of
the party`s most extreme members.

On Tuesday, former vice presidential candidate Paul Ryan phoned in to
a conference call with Republican candidate for Virginia, Governor Ken
Cuccinelli, homophobic anti-choice, climate science-denying, blurter-
friendly (ph), victory-hating Ken Cuccinelli. The same Cuccinelli who
likens abortion to slavery and the civil war.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: You talked about again your strong right to life
views and about God and being surprised that God hasn`t punished America in
some way for abortion.

KEN CUCCINELLI, ATTORNEY GENERAL FOR VIRGINIA: If you go back to
Abraham Lincoln in the civil war, he looked at the civil war as a sort of
national penance for slavery that the evil of slavery and letting
(inaudible) and the founders knew how bad it was. And if we have other
things in this country today and abortion is one of them.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

DYSON: This is who the Republican Party elevates? I don`t see a
whole lot of rebranding going on there, my friends. The sad thing is using
slavery rhetoric is nothing new for the Republican Party. If they don`t
like a law, suddenly, it`s a kind of slavery. Check the Affordable Care
Act for instance.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: What is ObamaCare? It is a law as destructive to
personal and individual liberty as the Fugitive Slave Act of 1850 that
allowed slave owners to come to the hamcher (ph) and see the African-
Americans and use the federal courts to take them back to federal slave
states.

GEORGE WILL: I hear Democrats say, "The Affordable Care Act is the
law," as though we`re supposed to genuflect at that sunburst of insight and
move on. Well, the Fugitive Slave Act was the law, separate but equal was
the law, lots of things are the law and then we change them.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The Republicans say, "Well, we can`t do anything
about. Once it`s a law, it`s a law of the land and well, so was slavery
one time the law of the land (inaudible).

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Going back to what legislation approves slavery
and all of that. This is even more dangerous than that.

REP. JOHN FLEMING, (R) LOUSIANA: Yeah, and this affects millions. In
fact, this can affect probably every single American.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: ObamaCare is really I think the worst thing that
has happened in this nation since slavery and it is in a way -- it is
slavery in a way because it is making all of us subservient to the
government.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

DYSON: Earlier this month, even President Obama had to call out the
crazy.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

OBAMA: And you had a state representative somewhere say that it`s as
destructive to personal and individual liberty as the Fugitive Slave Act.
Think about that. Affordable healthcare is worst than a law that lets
slave owners get their runaway slaves back. I mean, these are quotes. I`m
not making this stuff up.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

DYSON: My brothers and sisters permit me the esteemed privilege for
just a moment to be America`s professor. Let`s take a quick refresher
course here. 1850s, Fugitive Slave Act asserted the rights of a slave
owner to reclaim an escape slave even if that person had run to territory
where slavery was illegal. The law levied harsh punishments for
interfering with their capture. The law heightened hostility between the
north and the south. It is without doubt one of the most controversial
laws of the 19th century. So let`s break this down.

The Affordable Care Act and the Fugitive Slave Act both laws. But I
want to make one thing absolutely clear, the similarities in there, that`s
it. Let me tell you. Slavery was one of the most dehumanizing acts of
American history. It was the systemic attempt to deprive people of the
privilege of existing freely. It made one group of people subordinate to
another. It made raise the central preoccupation of America. The
poisonous bigotry that has polluted this nation has continued to infiltrate
itself into our collective and consciousness and our, if you will,
individual and collective lives.

But the problem is that the bigotry in racism that persists as a
pedigree of slavery have to be rejected and even if black men talk about
slavery akin to the Affordable Care Act, they are wrong. Black mouths are
opening, white supremacist ideals are speaking. Theirs had been a
ventriloquist act going on here. So when you hear people like E.W. Jackson
or Ben Carson or Alan West speak about slavery in relationship to the
Affordable Care Act, they are not giving you serious history.

Read Orlando Patterson`s "Slavery and Social Death" where he talks
about the genealogical isolation. What does that determine? That means
you don`t who your mama or daddy is. So, you`re floating out there without
a sense of connection and rootedness to your particular family. He talked
about social death. What does that mean? That means that human beings
have no recognition in the state, in no recognition that the state is bound
to, if you will, acknowledge and our humanity is lost and cut off. We are
dead. Socially existing vampires if you will.

People who have been body snatched from the land of freedom and thrust
into slavery. The only thing that is comparable to slavery is slavery
itself. Stop all this stuff. Each nay on the comparative analysis of and
the parallels to slavery, Affordable Care Act has three millions of people
from their indentured existence in a system that denied them opportunity.
Let`s not talk about their enslavement, let`s talk about their relative
freedom to exercise their choice in 2013.

Get your cell phones out. I want to know what you think, tonight`s
question, do Republicans have any right to compare ObamaCare to slavery?
Text A for Yes, text B for no to 67622 or go to our blog at ed.msnbc.com.
I`ll bring you the results later in the show.

Joining me now is the Rev. Dr. Frederick Haynes III, Senior Pastor at
Friendship West Baptist Church. He was now in Washington DC. That church
is in Dallas. And the Rev. Dr. Otis Moss III, Senior Pastor, Trinity
United Church of Christ in Chicago.

Dr. Freddie Haynes and Dr. Otis Moss, thank you so much for joining us here
today.

REV. DR. FREDERICK HAYNES III, FRIENDSHIP WEST BAPTIST CHURCH: Thank
you very much.

REV. DR. OTIS MOSS III, TRINITY UNITED CHURCH OF CHRIST IN CHICAGO:
Thank you very much Mike.

DYSON: Dr. Haynes, let`s begin with you. I know you`ve been
preaching recently in your barn-storming fashion around the country about
the ludicrous character of trying to compare slavery on the one hand with
the Affordable Care Act on the other and trying to draw spurious parallels
between the existence of people who were systematically dehumanized and
those who have a choice now to talk about choosing what healthcare plan
they`ll take. Can you help us understand why that`s so problematic?

HAYNES: And thank you Professor Dyson for educating hopefully our
dear friends who on the Right and misguided about the comparison. It`s --
It equates to a false equivocation. On the one hand, you have the most
evil expression of man and humanity to man in the history of humanity that
took place in American slavery where black bodies were violated, where
people had no rights simply because of the color of their skin and as a
consequence, you had many lives lost, millions of lives that have been
lost.

And so, evidently, our dear, misguided friends on the Right did not go
far enough in terms of what they want to equate the Affordable Health Care
Act to maybe they should equate it to the emancipation proclamation, but of
course their ignorance does not take into account the fact that again, so
many lives were aborted and lost, so many lives were mistreated, families
were torn a thunder, and I recommend all of them to read not only Orlando
Patterson`s work but even check out Frederick Douglas the "Life and
Narrative of a Slave" in which he compared slavery, you want to look at
words for slavery that are synonymous, check out the words such as
barbarity, such -- check out words such as human fraud, check out words
such as evil, those are the words that you equate with slavery, not the
Affordable Health Care Act that sets people free for real health and
healing and a future.

DYSON: Right. In line of that Dr. Moss, that kind of bring an
exegesis we just heard from Dr. Haynes. The new film "12 Years a Slave"
really goes into a powerful examination of the conditions applied in
predicament of actually existing people who were slaves, told from the
perspective of a man who was free, then brought into slavery, and then got
free again and became one of the strongest evolutionist against that
institution. Tell us about that film and why it`s important to have a
historical context?

MOSS: Absolutely and thank you so much Dr. Dyson for allowing us to
be on here today. Steve McQueen, the director to "12 Years a Slave" did an
incredible job showing human subjugation and there were movement of human
agency and the fact that slavery was not, again, slavery was not some
"happy go lucky" slaves running around as it was in "Gone with the Wind."
It`s the first time that we have seen on film, on celluloid the fact that
this entire story is told from the perspective of Solomon Northup.

We see his particular predicament. And we also see two interesting
things, those who were the slave holders who claimed Christianity, but it
was really capitalism in drag. We also see those who were enslaved,
enslaved Africans who shifted and saved Jesus from American Christianity.
"12 Years a Slave" does a powerful, powerful job of showing us the whore,
the pain, the brutality of slavery. But yet a people who were in that
context, they were able to come out and still, not only praise God but also
transform this country known as the yet to be United States and the words
of W.E.B Du Bois.

DYSON: Right, absolutely. And in light with Dr. Moss say Dr. Haynes,
what`s the importance of rescuing the sense of agency from black people,
you know, who were seen to be merely the victims of an institution when
actually they made creative choices even within the claustrophobic context
of slavery?

HAYNES: Right. And they were creative choices to resist, to affirm
their humanity in the face of the worse expression of inhumanity that we`ve
ever witnessed in the world and as Dr. Moss` so brilliantly suggested to
literally save Jesus from a Eurocentric brand of brutal Christianity that,
you know, we all since had nothing to do with Jesus of Nazareth. And so
the brilliancy of our ancestors who refused to go along with that brutal,
invisible institution as it were, in which they insisted, "Before I`ll be a
slave, I`ll be buried in my grave, go home to my God and be free."

Whenever you hear those on the right being wrong and turns up
justifying, I guess, slavery, in their own minds because they basically are
devaluing how brutal it was. It is a reflection of racial insensitivity,
historical ignorance within under current of racism that they need to be
delivered from because they are also rubbing themselves of -- and this
nation of the dignity that African ancestor showed in the face of that
brutal and a hellified (ph) horror that again, cannot be compare to be
Affordable Healthcare Act.

MOSS: And I would add also. Dr. Dyson, is that this is a case of the
othering of people in America. We witnessed our President constantly being
othered by those on the Right. They`re not sure if he`s a Christian or
he`s a Muslim, if he`s in Kenya, or even if he`s born in the United States.

The other ring of a Trayvon Martin because he is wearing a hoody, he
does not belong in a particular neighborhood, the othering of people who
are immigrant, the othering of people who are gay. The right has a
particular issue with othering everyone else so that they can put fear in
the political system so they can raise their funds and say that we are the
true holders of the American dream not realizing that this is a diverse
quill where people who are immigrants and those who came over as result of
the enslavement system who are now building a new America.

It is time for people to recognize that we no longer can be othered
that we must be build a coalition that transforms this country so that we
can be the United States, not red or blue, but a purple community that is
willing to transform and liberate those who are on the margins.

DYSON: All right, brilliant elicited by two insightful and prophetic
ministers, the Reverend Dr. Frederick Haynes and Reverend Dr. Otis Moss.
Thank you so much for your time tonight.

MOSS: Thank you.

HAYNES: Thank you Dr. Dyson.

DYSON: Remember to answer tonight`s question there at the bottom of
the screen and share your thoughts on Twitter @edshow and on Facebook. I
want to know what you really think.

Coming up, the doctor of delusion who`s been a guest on this show is
trying to join the rest of the misinformers under Republican Party. Plus
it`s D-Day for Detroit, a bankruptcy court will decide if the city is
really broke.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

ED SCHULTZ, MSNBC HOST: What is our heart and what is our soul as a
country is what the next generation is going to have to answer. Are we
going to be a country of a privilege? Are we going to be a country that`s
more in bankrupt? Are we going to be a country that doesn`t care about our
next door neighbor?

(END VIDEO CLIP)

DYSON: That`s big Ed across upon, dropping progressive knowledge of
American politics at Oxford University this week. Ed will be back and in
the host seat tomorrow.

But now it`s time for the Trenders. The Ed social media nation has
decided and we are reporting. Here are today`s top Trenders voted on by
you.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I really must insist that you help me win the
election.

DYSON: The number three Trender, cling on.

GORDON KLINGENSCHMITT, DOCTOR: Gordon Klingenschmitt is my name. I
stand for freedom and I will fight for you.

DYSON: Dr. Chaps wants to bring his extreme views to the Colorado
State House.

KLINGENSCHMITT: I will not compromise on gun rights. I believe in
marriage between one man and one woman. I don`t believe in abortion. I
don`t believe in exceptions.

SCHULTZ: Chaplain I`m just looking for you to make the moral case for
taking the health care away from someone with the preexisting condition.

KLINGENSCHMITT: Here`s my thesis, ObamaCare causes cancer. We`re
going to take back Denver. We`re going to back the State House.

DYSON: Number two Trender, royal poisoning.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: One word says it all, Oxford.

DYSON: Ed makes a splash across upon.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I came in here for no arguments.

SCHULTZ: And they want to hear from a liberal in the perspective of a
liberal in American politics.

DYSON: And today`s top Trender, the town decision.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Detroit`s the poster child for the
deindustrialization of America.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The judge will determine if the city is indeed
eligible for bankruptcy.

DYSON: Detroit`s bankruptcy fight goes to court.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Let`s get Detroit on the path to be in a great
city again, because that`s critically important to all of Michigan.

SCHULTZ: The pensions of 23,500 city retirees remains at stake.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: We are not responsible. We should not pay.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We didn`t make those decisions. The decisions
were made by people on the Wall Street.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

DYSON: Joining me now is the Rev. Dr. Wendell Anthony, President of
the Detroit branch of the NAACP. Dr. Anthony, thank you so much for joining
us.

REV. DR. WENDELL ANTHONY, PRES. NAACP DETROIT: Thank you Dr. Dyson.
Let me just say I love Ed, that`s my man but you really represent him, so
and he got the right man for the right job, for the right time.

DYSON: Well, we love Ed as well, we miss him, and thank you so much
for that my friend.

Look, Detroit bankruptcy has been a huge issue, not only to Detroit
but the entire nation.

ANTHONY: Yeah.

DYSON: Your contention is this is the canary in the coal mine.
What`s happening to Detroit might likely happen to other cities as well.
So before we get into the specifics, tell us why this might be a trend that
is a negative one throughout the nation.

ANTHONY: Well quite frankly, Mike, there`s nothing pure about
Michigan. That`s the slogan that the governor is using. It really is
impure. Michigan seems to be more like the New Mississippi.

This is what I would simply call trick or treat politics. The people
are getting tricked while others are getting the treats. If I have a back
problem, Dr. Dyson, I`m going to get a chiropractor. I`m not going to go
and see a dentist. When you bring in a bankruptcy law, you -- that means
from the word go that`s your intention. We believe that Detroit should not
have gone into bankruptcy and Detroit did not file for bankruptcy. The
Governor of the state of Michigan through the emergency managed a file for
bankruptcy.

We believe that they could have followed a New York model which was
done in 1975, what then unions, the labor folk, the business people. They
brought everybody to the table, they talked about the issues of New York
City, the government provided 2.3 loan guarantees, the federation of
teachers provided $150 million to support that process to average center
(ph) and others and they resolve the issue. New York did not sell Central
Park, they did not sell the Statue of Liberty, nor did they sell their
museum assets.

So we in Detroit believe as a result of what we saw today what the
courts hearing the question of eligibility with regards to the bankruptcy
case. Did Detroit, did the Governor, did Mr. Ore (ph) do the appropriate
due diligence before they file for bankruptcy in behalf of the state of
Detroit? We say no.

Thousands of people gathered at those footsteps of the court today
inside the city of Detroit. The protest that to let folk know that
pensions, that our voting rights, that the constitutionality of Michigan
and the federal constitution should not be neglected or rejected on the
basis of somebody coming in and taking advantage of the city of Detroit.

DYSON: Well, look, the House just wasted $24 billion with this
shutdown. How does that make you feel? Could that money not have more
suitably gone to Detroit?

ANTHONY: Well, a whole of money -- Mike, there are 125 cities across
America that at the brink of bankruptcy. This is a model. This is a
strategy. If you can eliminate new labor unions in Michigan, if you can
take the voting rights away from the citizens, i.e. the mayor has no power,
the city council has no power that one man has the power to do what he
will, that he had provides all contractual obligations that he can sign
away the city asset. If you do that, that is not America. That is not
what the democratic process is supposed to be about.

We should be at a common table. A matter of fact, the state of
Illinois has a worse wrecked of credit rating than the state Michigan.
There is -- There is Chicago, there is the city of Minneapolis, there is
Cincinnati, there is LA all of these cities have financial issues but they
do not have emergency managers. 50 percent of the African-American
population in the state of Michigan live under an emergency manager.
That`s one man, one person rule. That should not be the democracy that we
see in Detroit today.

DYSON: Well, look, besides the fact that .

ANTHONY: Excuse me.

DYSON: . this is not a duly sworn end official, that is to say not
elected by the people so the rejection and repudiation democracy on the one
hand is apparent.

But let me tell you what, Dr. Anthony. I was having a conversation
with a well-known Detroiter who happens to be black and he told me, "Look,
this is the product of mismanagement of African-American politicians over a
city that we had had extraordinary political power within and as a result
of that we can`t now cry foul." How do you respond to that?

ANTHONY: I`m so glad that you raised that, Dr. Dyson. That was a
study done that went back 50 years, looked at Coleman Young , looked at
Mayor Gribbs, looked at Miriani, it looked at Van Antwerp, it looked at
Dennis Archer. It looked at all those mayors who have preceded this time
period. What they found through the Detroit free press and others that
Coleman Young, the first African-American mayor in the city of Detroit had
the best record of fiscal responsibility of any of the mayors that preceded
him.

One cannot look at Detroit in isolation and say, "Somehow the
leadership currently are those within the last 10 years have caused this
situation." It has to do with deindustrialization, it has to do with the
growth of suburban communities. It has to do with a tax-based that has
been lost, it has to do with all those things when you look at that then
that`s the ordered issue of whether or not Detroit as other cities require
and need not only of the state but of the federal government.

DYSON: All right, Reverend Dr. Wendell Anthony, thank you so much for
joining us here today.

Coming up, social media backlash, an Ed Show regular gets attacked for
doing her job. We`ll break it down with her in the Rapid Response Panel
plus Mr. Cat Scratch Fever Ted Nugent is itching for a new position. But
next I`m taking your question Ask MED Live is just ahead. Stay tuned.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

DYSON: Welcome back to the Ed Show. We love hearing from our
viewers. Tonight in Ask MED Live. Our question is as follows. Why don`t
Republicans understand the separation of church and state?

Well, I`ve got to tell you, first of all, is because they have a
mischaracterization of the nature of religion in this country. They think
the founding fathers believed in the same thing they believed in. No they
believe in something we called mechanistic deism. What is that big word
mean? That means that God set the world in order and allows it to work on
its own steam and power according to its own universal laws.

Number two, they mistake Thomas Jefferson for their evangelical
preacher around the corner. That just ain`t so. When Thomas Jefferson
finished cutting up the Bible, the first thing to go where the miracles
themselves.

So that`s not the same kind of Bible that evangelical would cherish,
and finally, Benjamin Franklin said, "Look, religion is great if it helps
us joined together and nip together the common will to make us a better
nation," they were not about propagating a narrow conception of religion.

So, therefore they don`t understand the wall of separation of church
and state because they want to Christianize everybody who believes what
they believe and demonize those who don`t. It`s a fundamental
misunderstanding of the nature of democracy. Go back and read your history
text.

Our next question is from Mary. If Ted Cruz gave up politics, do you
think he`d have a viable career as a stand-up comedian? Let me quote the
late great Whitney Houston, "Hail to the yes."

Stick around the Rapid Response panel is next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

DYSON: Welcome back to the Ed Show. In the weeks following
ObamaCare`s open exchange in HealthCare.gov roll out, the kinks on the side
were distressing and of course very real. Publicity of these errors is
necessary by liberals and conservatives alike. We got to be critical about
it to be honestly involved in the process, but technical examination fail
short of assessment and swiftly move to manipulation and fixation.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The thing people are getting very concerned about
is what if it`s not just the traffic?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The website is up, its unmitigated disaster,
everyone agrees on that.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: A lot of people have been coming to say, "Look,
this is some real inherent problems with the way that the website is the
way the whole thing was created.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I`m surprised that they were not even able to get
a website running competently.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

DYSON: A bunch of man acting emotional? The voice of reason from a
woman prevail, Salon.com`s Joan Walsh who was the first one who point out
the craze.

Noting the rush deterrence of the Affordable Care Act`s website. She
cautioned liberals not to abandon the greater narrative of legislative
triumph in favor of the media`s newest obsession.

To put it bluntly, she critiqued the critique. The response to
Walsh`s article was outstanding. What once was the discussion moved into a
flurry of attacks coming from all political ideologues, but this time, the
aggression was personal in nature and misogynistic in tone, just a big word
to talk about the cruel and usual hatred of women. Criticism does not mean
becoming a tool to one side of the debate or another, but instead
recognizing problems within perspective.

Here, the discourse was polluted with personal attacks and we must
investigate the roots of this ugly nature in our culture.

Joining me now is our Rapid Response Panel, Author Lizz Winstead, the
Grio contributors Zerlina Maxwell, and Joan Walsh of Salon.com.

Joan I just want to come to you. You`re a woman of extraordinary
ability, you write well, you think well, you talk well, you look well, you
do everything well.

JOAN WALSH, MSNBC POLITICAL ANALYST: Oh, thank you.

DYSON: And you`re balanced and you`re self-critical. What do you
make up the fact that this kind of venom port forth from people who simply
disagree with your argument and not simply from the Right to be self-
critical but from the Left as well.

WALSH: Well, you know, I woke up on Monday morning and it was as
though months that we lived through where the Republicans were bringing our
country to the brink of economic and more. Disaster hadn`t happened.

DYSON: Right.

WALSH: And suddenly the narrative had turned on a dime. We were
hearing a little bit about the republican civil war .

DYSON: Right.

WALSH: . which is just a little thing where their grown ups are going
to take charge and we`ve been waiting for that to happen, but what they did
and how horrible it was really muted in favor of the new narrative that
ObamaCare is a train wreck and the failure of these websites to serve the
track that they`re getting which is a problem, which I said in the piece is
the big deal.

And even one writer I like, not Ezra, somebody else suggested that the
failure of these websites was going to be equivalent for the Democrats, the
failure which they haven`t yet failed would be equivalent for the Democrats
to the Republicans bringing us to the brink of default and I just said,
"Hold on."

DYSON: Right.

WALSH: These things are not equivalent. This is what -- This is a
textbook case of false equivalence which we`re all deriving. Here is how
it works and sometimes it works because liberals are very quick, myself
included to criticize the movements were a part of or criticize program
that we otherwise support.

DYSON: Right.

WALSH: Criticize this President, I mean, you know, you all know the
notion that I`m an Obama butt which is actually the nicest thing that was
said about me .

DYSON: Right.

WALSH: . is observe, we`ve got people out in TV land right now,
yelling at the TV, you know, she`s been critical of this President. She`s
been too critical of this President, but I thought that the criticism was
unfair, I didn`t say don`t report it.

DYSON: Right.

WALSH: I just said, have some proportion and report in context.

DYSON: Absolutely, absolutely.

WALSH: And then the rest .

DYSON: Then the rest came up. So Zerlina, this is a tweet, you know,
I don`t want just Joan to respond, you know, and defend herself, I want
other women on this panel .

WALSH: And they did, actually.

DYSON: Oh, absolutely, right. This is a tweet that she received.
Guess, she`s looking for that I am woman liberal sympathy. So, you know,
how do we characterize, again, the vicious, vituperative nature, the
personal characterization especially when it comes to women?

ZERLINA MAXWELL, THE GRIO CONTRIBUTOR: Right.

DYSON: Right. It`s not that, you know, look, I`ve had my share, I
know about it of the whole thing but the character associated with women
seems to be even more venomous.

MAXWELL: Absolutely, there`s gender the tax on women when and if they
speak in public and express their opinions, it`s not, I don`t agree with
your argument, it`s that, you were a bad person or, you know, I don`t like
your arms or your face, right?

DYSON: Right.

MAXWELL: It`s very gendered (ph) and I just want to take a moment to
point out that I went on a website before we came out here. It`s working.
In New York at least right, and so I think there`s a lot of male privilege
infecting the dialogue around ObamaCare. I am currently uninsured, and
well, when I finally was able to log in and create a username, I have a 124
different options, right.

DYSON: Right.

MAXWELL: So, you know, Ezra Klein and other journalist to already are
ensured are doing this symbolic logging on the website not actually needing
health insurance, right? So a website be having glitches is a lot less
frustrating to me than having to use the same inhaler for a year because I
don`t have health insurance.

DYSON: Right, exactly, well, look Lizz, you know, all of us are sons
of glitches when it comes to, you know, problems that we work out whether
it`s Apple or something like that, our daughters as well.

But -- And you`re humorous, you understand the nature of committee
relief, but something about this seems to be awful mean-spirited, and
again, trying to suppress the viability of a woman`s voice to weight in on
a political subject that`s usually seen as men`s territory.

LIZZ WINSTEAD: Well, I think specially in this subject when some of
the people weighing in are brilliant people who have really dissected what
this healthcare law means. So then to start speculating and stuff as like,
"Why are you doing that? We don`t know what`s going to happen." I mean
that`s absurd. You can list a thousand different things, you know, the
Wright brothers flew 120 feet on their first flight. Oh, you know, America
booed and aviation never move forward. Really?

So I don`t really get it and I think .

DYSON: Right.

WINSTEAD: . if you`re going to -- on the third week of the ObamaCare
website launch, immediately go to what if this is endemic of the entire
thing? What are you going to write about for the national -- like four --
like I just feel like going from there to there? There`s a lot of stuff to
look at and the nuance and detailing what this means and third and I`ll
just stop.

Young kids are laughing at old people talking about the Internet.
They are not like, "Oh, what if they don`t sign up? What if they get
bored?" They`re not going to -- people who are young, all of us, when you
know you have five months to do something, you have to do .

WALSH: Right.

MAXWELL: Right.

WINSTEAD: . it the first month. You put if off, you wait, and then
you do it, what`s going to happen that last minute is going to be a train
wreck and that`s when that websites really going to be tested .

WALSH: It`s got to work. Right.

WINSTEAD: . is when the final hours people need to be signed on.

DYSON: Right. So, Joan, tell us then about, you know, some of this,
you know, some of this stuff we`ve read. I read in another one, Joan
should test her arguments on her 12 cats before she punches post .

WALSH: Yeah, I`m a cat lady. I`m a cat lady. I`m ugly. I`m fat.

MAXWELL: Whore.

WALSH: I`m --right, whore. B-word. C-word. All the C-word. I`m
attracted to Ezra, young Ezra, who`s married, who I love but .

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: And the President .

DYSON: Right.

WALSH: Don`t tell Michelle, but the President is my boyfriend. Men
are not attacked in this way.

MAXWELL: Right.

DYSON: Right.

WALSH: Men are not reduced to their genitalia, men are not reduced to
their doing something either out of love or unrequited love, or spurned --
I mean .

DYSON: Right.

WINSTEAD: It`s sexism tourette (ph) is what it is.

MAXWELL: Yes. Yes.

WINSTEAD: It`s sexism tourette it`s like you say something and they
say, "I want to have sex with you." It`s like, "Wait, was it an option
that you could ever have sex with me? Can we just back up? There was
never an option for you with the eagle avatar that you`re getting in my
pants." Like it was never happening. (inaudible).

DYSON: All right. All right. That just won`t play.

WINSTEAD: Yes, you want that (inaudible) won`t unleash your guns from
your hands. So for sure it`s not happening.

MAXWELL: And I actually thing it`s a responsibility of men on the
Left to stand up for Joan, to stand up for other women .

DYSON: Right.

MAXWELL: . expressing their opinions because they were having an
intellectual argument about policy .

DYSON: Right.

MAXWELL: . and about the narrative. And I think it`s the
responsibility of those who are disagreeing with Joan to stand up for her
and say like, "Lay off."

DYSON: I`d say that, "Lay off. Lay off for Joan. Lay off for
Zerlina. Lay off for Liz. Unless they want you to speak to them with
(inaudible) .

WINSTEAD: Or lay on them.

DYSON: Oh well. You know what? I`m going off of that.

WINSTEAD: Wait. That`s a different show.

DYSON: Liz Winstead, Zerlina Maxwell, and Joan Walsh thank you so
much for laying on thickly.

Coming up, daddy issues, Rafael Cruz declares his son Senator Ted
Cruz, the anointed one.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

DYSON: In Pretenders tonight, the Motor City Madman, Ted Nugent. The
Nug is well known for his fringe, conservative political activism. But
now, he`s taking it to the next level. Nugent announced he will "co-chair
former Texas state representative Sid Miller`s campaign for Texas
agriculture commissioner." The hard rocker is already commissioned or has
already promised "raise as much hell as he can." Raising hell would be an
understatement with Nugent`s history of inflammatory and dangerous
rhetoric, it will likely be a nasty campaign for Texas agriculture
commissioner.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Snake. Snake. Snake.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Again.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The thunder break in half. Get him, Dazo (ph).

TED NUGENT, MOTOR CITY MADMAN: And I tell you this right now, if
Barack Obama becomes the president in November again, I will either be dead
or in jail by this time next year. We are patriots, we are brave heart.
We need to ride into that battlefield and chop their heads off in November.
Am I -- any questions?

Obama he`s a piece of -- and I told him to suck on my machine gun.
Let`s hear it for him.

I am an extremely, loving, passionate man and people who investigate
me honestly without the baggage of political correctness ascertain the
conclusion that I`m a damn nice guy. And if you can find a screaming
process more powerful than that .

(END VIDEO CLIP)

DYSON: If Ted Nugent think he`s out to run a state political campaign
in a serious manner, he can keep on pretending.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

DYSON: Welcome back to the Ed Show. It`s time for a visit to the
church of crazy with Senator Ted Cruz. The Canadian Republican Senator`s
father Rafael Cruz gave a sermon at the mega church in Irving Texas last
year while his son was running for Senate.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

RAFAEL CRUZ: The wealth of the wicked is stored for the righteous.
And it is through the king`s anointed to take dominion, that that transfer
of wealth is going to occur. God even though he`s sovereign, even though
he`s omnipotent, he doesn`t let isolated rain off the sky, he`s going to
use people to do it.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

DYSON: The elder Cruz is saying his son is among the evangelical
Christians believed to be anointed as kings to take control of all sectors
of society. The Texas mega church`s pastor chimed in.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Before I ever met Ted I met Rafael and I knew that
if the son was like the dad we could trust him to be our senator. Amen.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

DYSON: Not all of Senator Cruz`s conservative colleagues see him as
anointed. Fox News host Mike Huckabee admits Cruz probably did more harm
than good for the Republican Party and his failed mission of trying to
defund the Affordable Care Act.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We gave the Democrats one incredible early
Christmas gift. I`m not going default (ph) Ted, he believes what he was
doing was going to be helpful, but in the end of the day you look and you
ask, are we any closer to defunding ObamaCare or ridding ourselves of it
than we were. The answer is no.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

DYSON: What does Ted have to say in response to all of this?

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SEN. TED CRUZ, (R) TEXAS: With every stage my prayers it to God that
His will be done, and as it will be.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

DYSON: Here`s the take away when you get a lot of people together in
a mega church you can do some pretty impressive things with the mission,
even if that mission spreading crazy over all sectors of society, even if
that mission is electing a man who will pull green eggs and ham during a
21-hour rant on the Senate floor attempting to defund something already
made a law.

My next guest may start a holy war on this one; the Reverend Marcia
Dyson joins me now. Welcome to the show.

REV. MARCIA DYSON, SOCIAL ACTIVIST: Thank you for having me Dr.
Dyson.

DYSON: So, what do you think about Rafael Cruz saying that his son is
anointed to restore balance and give wealth back to those who deserve it?

MARCIA DYSON: Well, first of all I was misinformed maybe with an evil
agenda and (inaudible) I thought you said, he was annoying that he isn`t
truly not anointed. I think that when you have the senior Cruz who`s name
ironically is Rafael means God has healed is using Cruz the cross whether -
- sword rather than a cross, Cruz which his name means in Spanish to add to
the woundedness of America rather than healing America.

I think it`s very problematic. And to use a sacred text in order to
justify their righteous indignation toward God`s least of these, I think
they`re misinformed.

MICHAEL ERIC DYSON: Right. You know, it is interesting and you bring
up an interesting point that a lot of these folk who are defending their
assaults upon ObamaCare are using a biblical basis or at least a religious
one. What is it about the kind of right that wants to take away advantages
of the poor by citing the Bible to justify it?

MARCIA DYSON: I think it`s a form of ignorance of even about the
sacred text which should they use as a constitution so to speak since
they`re trying to make this a theocratic society rather then a Democratic
society. When you look at Matthew, say for example 25:24, when it says,
"And I tell you the truth brothers and sisters, as you do unto the least of
these, you have done it -- you have also refused to do unto me." And I
think they`ve misinterpret that that least to be the less.

When we talk about God, I think of God as being exclusive -- inclusive
God, not an exclusive God. But if you`re a son, Ted Cruz, raised by a
gentleman who`s son thinks that the shrinking of America is to the state of
Texas, it remind us again (ph) their narrow notion of the Bible, maybe
Bible literalism which is informed in them. It doesn`t make them bad
people, just ill-informed people to me which then lies the danger.

MICHAEL ERIC DYSON: But why is that that so many people who are
religious are willing to buy in to this kind of evangelical fervor that
attacks poor people? Because, you know, Jesus said, "The poor you have
with you always." It wasn`t an endorsement of poverty.

MARCIA DYSON: Right.

MICHAEL ERIC DYSON: It was simply saying that, "Look. Take advantage
of me being here right now, but you got to address the conditions that
makes people poor." Why do we disconnect religion and the relief of
poverty?

MARCIA DYSON: First of all, I think Michael, you should know with all
the mega churches whether they`re Black or White, they are seen as a power.
And if he says that this pulpit has allowed his son to come to government,
then, he wants to be a star his self.

That`s the only way I can ritualize it because there`s no grounds on
them theoretically or spiritually for them to have this animosity to other
American citizens (inaudible) immigrants there is a benefit of either
locally, nationally, or federally from American forms of government to come
on out and say the things in which Obama Administration would love to do
like ObamaCare taking care of God`s least of these.

But you`re antithetical to that message means that you`re very wounded
yourself. But I`m not hating, because I`m a (inaudible) Texas feeding some
of God`s homeless people and I would invite Senior Cruz to come and meet
with me at Minnie`s Kitchen in Dallas, Texas so that we can set up the
communion table but hold the oil (ph).

MICHAEL ERIC DYSON: All right. Well, there`s something else you said
you wanted to mention tonight so we wanted to give you that opportunity.

MARCIA DYSON: Well, I know that you have crossed the commercial
today. It`s your 55th birthday. And I along with the staff of MSNBC and
the Ed Show want to wish you, Michael Eric Dyson -- Dr. Michael Eric Dyson,
the MED professor, happy birthday.

MICHAEL ERIC DYSON: Oh, my God. Oh, my God. My friend is here.

MWATA DYSON: Happy Birthday.

MICHAEL ERIC DYSON: Thank you, my friend. Oh, my God. For once in
my life, I`m speechless. This is -- all right. This is Dr. Mwata Dyson,
my son, handsome, articulate, insightful. Let`s get him on the Ed Show
soon. He`s mother the Rev. Marcia Dyson and James Homes, and all the
people here at the Ed Show, I`m extremely grateful for this wonderful
opportunity to have hosted this show, to stand in for Ed and to have my
family surrounding me, to come here and lie to me so deliciously and trick
me into receiving this birthday cake. I`m going to eat it all by myself
and then, share the tops with you. But thank you so much, my man.

MWATA DYSON: All right. Love you so much.

MICHAEL ERIC DYSON: Love you so very much. Rev. Marcia, thank you so
much for that.

MARCIA DYSON: Thank you for having me. Thanks for having me.

MICHAEL ERIC DYSON: This is a PG audience and so we`re appreciative
of that. All right. That`s the Ed Show. I`m Michael Eric Dyson, in for
Ed Schultz. Politics Nation with the Rev. Al Sharpton starts right now.

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY
BE UPDATED.
END

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