that government should help society adapt to the reality. one more time. help society adapt to the reality of single-parent families, and use its resources to help children and mothers succeed, regardless of family status. revolution! at the table, ohio state senator, nina turner, victoria defrancesco soto, professor at the university of texas. judith levine, associate professor of sociology at temple university, and author of ain t no trust: how bosses, boyfriends, and bureaucrats fail low-income mothers and why it matters. and one of the editors of the shriver report, senior vice president for american values and new communities at the center for american progress. so i want to start with you, daniella, because i want to go right to this question of single mothers and how much this whole story about women has to do with the ability of women to control and manage their own fertility. right, exactly. i mean, the thing we found most in this report and through our polling, which was
it s work first, but for middle class and wealthy women, we tend to say, family first. and the whole point is, so, if mommy at home is good for kids, if that is your theory of the world, then why isn t poor mommy at home best for her kids as well? because she doesn t deserve it. that s sort of the attitude because she has to be punished for having more kids and for being poor. and the misogynistic turn of welfare, where it started targeting women. so not just it s being on welfare is shameful, if you re a man or a woman, but women in particular, and mothers. victoria defrancesco soto, judith levine, who is also the aunt of one of our team members, my graphics p.a. here, which is where i first got the book, and also to daniella gibbs, and also nina turner, who is going to stick around a little bit longer. how could we let her go? up next, an exciting announcement about a new msnbc project and a nerdland road trip. stay with us. do you have any plans to look
good morning. i m melissa harris-perry. nerdland, today i want to talk about empathy. not just the empathy all of you should be having for me right now because of that new orleans loss last night, but, no, empathy in the biggest sense. the ability to put yourself in someone else s shoes. to see what life might be like for them. to understand how your actions affect them. it seems like it should be a controversial thing, empathy, but we have seen otherwise. do you remember back in may of 2009, when supreme court justice, david souter, announced his retirement. here s what president obama said that he would look for in a replacement. i will seek someone who understands that justice isn t about some abstract legal theory or footnote in a case book. it is also about how our laws affect the daily realities of people s lives, whether they can make a living and care for their families. whether they feel safe in their homes and welcome in their own nation. i view that quality of em
expected or does it sound like the white house may be backtracking on the 7 million target? they certainly are, but i think what happens with obamacare in stwirn going to be a lot bigger than the number of people who sign up for obamacare. next month people are going to learn whether they get to go to the doctors they ve been to in march. we re going to start seeing the new fine imposed on people who don t have insurance. and by the summer people are going to see skyrocketing premium rates as employers and insurers reup. even those who sign up are going to find some of the benefits they thought they were getting are going to be much more expensive and out of reach than they d hoped. i think it will be a tough year for obamacare and therefore a good year for republicans on that issue. steven, of course a lot of that remains to be seen. there s a lot of debate on how it will actually play up. daniella, pick up on those question marks that are lingering. thousand critical are these ne
not a shutout by a seismic shift. tell me why you think that. and m.j., i want your take on that. sure. well, republicans have a tremendous opportunity to compete for the senate where we ve got seven states, the democrats currently hold, mitt romney won in 2012. in each of those contests i expect we ll have really strong candidates. many will be strongly conservative. a few will be moderately conservative, but they ll all match their states and run great races. i don t think we ll sweep it all but i think we ll have a great showing next november. it will be 50/50 and from there the senate in the following cycle. m.j., is steven right? 50/50 in the senate? i think democrats have a good chance of holding the senate but i think a lot of these races will be very close. the dynamic we want to be watching most closely is how some of these tea party candidates that are challenging the more mainstream candidates, how they end up doing and how widely outside groups end up getting involved