reauthorized. the question she posed to the lawyer for shelby county at the beginning, when you have that kind of record, how can you stand with a straight face before this court and say that you no longer need federal observation over your voting laws? my only regret about this is that we as americans can t watch what the two of you had the opportunity to sit and witness in person. i m going to say more about that at the end of the program. thank you, julie fernandes. thank you, dale ho. up next, ever wonder who the 12% of americans are who say they approve of the job that congress is doing? well, we found them. and that s next in the sideshow. don t forget, if you want to follow me on twitter, and i hope you do, you just need to spell smerconish. this is hardball, the place for politics. back to hardball. kblank with the spark miles card from capital one,
0 keep your eye on your prize. thanks for watching. i m al sharpton. hardball starts right now. the cutting edge. let s play hardball good evening. i m michael smerconish in for chris matthews. leading off tonight, who s afraid of the big bad sequester? no one apparently. certainly not the financial markets with the dow near it s all-time high. in fact, both political parties may be more okay with the big budget cuts than you d think. the democrats get to cut the pentagon and protect their social programs, and republicans get to cut spending. right now president obama is convinced republicans will pay the price for endangering the recovery while protecting the wealthy, but what if he s wrong. also, let s go to the audio out swinging at republicans today after his meeting with congressional leadership blaming them for the cuts that he referred to as dumb. what s important to understand is that not everyone will feel the pain of these cuts right away. the pain though will b
0 the cutting edge. let s play hardball. good evening. i m michael smerconish in for chris matthews. tonight, who is afraid of the big bad sequester? no one apparently with the financial markets and the dow near the all-time high and in fact, both plolitical parties my be more okay with the big budget cuts than you d think. the democrats can cut the pentagon and their social programs and now president obama is convinced that republicans will pace the price for endangering the recovery and protecting the wealthy. but what if he is wrong? now to the audio tape, and you can hear antonin scalia calling the voting act a racial tite element, and that phrase has angered his colleagues and may set up big left wing confrontations in the future. and plus, the march toward marriage equality got a big boost. the obama administration has joined the fight urging the supreme court to overturn proposition 8, california s ban on same-sex marriage, and look who just emerged from the mittness project
outside of the states covered by section 5, so in pennsylvania or ohio or wisconsin, there we saw that state-level remedies and to julie s point a different provision voting rights act, section 2, was enough to cure the discriminatory change at issue. but in the jurisdictions covered by section 5 congress recognized that those places were the ones where discrimination over time had been the most resistant to change and required the strongest antibiotic. julie, quickly, one answer, julie, whether you win or not. we are going to win. are you going to win? are you going to keep the voting rights act? we ll absolutely win. and that s because four times the supreme court has recognized the constitutionality of the voting rights act. congress developed a 15,000-page record in support of the voting rights act. and, chris, the experience of our clients and millions of voters on the ground in the covered jurisdictions all point toward the supreme court upholding section 5 in this challe
0 thing on the left. starting howard deem. also, the whole idea of sequestration emanated what office does howard dean own? i m just saying. you re pointing and saying. it pushes both of these folks i m sosh ri. i just want to check your facts. what democrats holding office in the congress want to see sequestration. the ones who voted for it. starting with them. you mean this whole thing got passed just on republican votes? it was called kicking the can are you kidding? i m going to ask you again, do you believe right now there are any democrats in the house or senate who want to see sequestration? yes. name one. there have been folks on the sure we don t have willy-nilly cuts that harm the military strength of the country, and republicans are advocating for cuts that would severely diminish the military capability of our country. it s nuts, absolutely nuts. it is politics over what s good for the country. the president, chris, put a balanced solution of cut