IE 11 is not supported. For an optimal experience visit our site on another browser.

The Rachel Maddow Show, Transcript 12/23/11

The Rachel Maddow Show, Transcript 12/23/11

RACHEL MADDOW, HOST: Hi. Merry Christmas, happy Friday. And thanks for being with us. Usually at the end of the year, you have to practice saying the name of the New Year, right? Because it`s unfamiliar. You write the wrong year on your checks. In our 21st century, there is an awkwardness about whether you say 2,000 and something or 20-something. There is a weirdness about the year switching over, usually. Not this year. This year I can`t believe it`s not already 2012 given the number of times I say the word 2012 every day. The voting in the 2012 presidential race starts in a week and a half at the Iowa caucuses. To be followed in very quick succession by New Hampshire and South Carolina and Nevada and Florida and so on. The Republican Party picking its nominee to run against President Obama is a huge story and it is a huge deal for the country. I think it is basically worth all the blanket coverage that it gets. That said, I don`t think even the forward looking national 2012 obsession in news about politics this year means that 2012 race is the most important thing going on in American politics this year. The most important politics in America in 2011 are not just the setup for next year`s presidential race. I think they`re about the consequences of the last election. They`re about governing. They`re about governing and discontents. In the midterm election in November 2010, the Republicans basically ran the table. They not only won control of the House of the Representatives in Washington, they rally run the table in the states. Governorships, state legislatures, whole state legislatures -- and as that red tide of state legislators and state officials were sworn in in January of this year, the story of 2011 politics began -- the story of 2011 politics really became the way that they governed in the states, because they had a really big idea about that. If Congress under Republican control is where policy goes to die now, the states under Republican control are where policy goes to let its free flag fly. A lot of these new Republican governors in particular have been reading from the same playbook all year long. And the policies that they have all been instituting, they`re all very similar, have sparked a really big backlash, a big backlash that showed the country a whole new, whole different side of what it means to have an energized Democratic base. Elections have consequences. (BEGIN VIDEOTAPE) MADDOW: On Friday, Governor Walker said he was refusing to negotiate with anybody who worked for the state. No negotiations. Instead, he would direct the Republican-controlled legislature to pass by fiat this week his new budget that goes after the benefits and bargaining rights of people who work for the state. So not only he would not negotiate with people on this, he will never negotiate with them again. He will remove their right to collectively bargain in essence. While shocked by the radicalness of proposal and how fast he is trying to jam it through, state workers in Wisconsin proved they are not going to take this lying down. Look at this. An estimated 30,000 people protested in the state capital of Madison today -- 30,000 people. This is an existential a fight for the Democratic Party. That`s why Wisconsin looks the way it does right now. That`s why the streets of Madison were shut down to traffic today, because of the sheer number of people who turned out. That`s why people slept in the capital rotunda overnight. That`s why the state legislature looked like this today -- Democratic legislators wearing orange t-shirts that read "Assembly Democrats working for fighting families." And that`s why 14 Democratic state senators in Washington went AWOL today. They refused to turn up for the anti-union vote scheduled in the state Senate today. Right around noon, the Democrats disappeared. In their absence, the Republicans could note get a quorum and therefore they were unable to hold the big anti-union vote which they plan to hold today and plan to win. To avoid the threat of being forcibly returned to the state capital, Democratic senators did not just not turn up at the state legislature today, they fled the state. Joining us now is a Democratic Wisconsin state senator named Jon Erpenbach. He joins us now from a reportedly secure but alas undisclosed location. STATE SEN. JON ERPENBACH (D), WISCONSIN: This is systemically dismantling some of the best parts about the state of Wisconsin. Our public employees, they plow our roads, they clean our streets. They are teachers. They are prison guards. They are the people who run our great state parks. And you`re saying to them, what you do doesn`t really matter. Not only do we want you to pay your fair share, which they`re more than willing to do, we want to bust your union. And that tears at the very fabric of the state of Wisconsin and it`s not the right way to go. MADDOW: Last night, in the blink of an eye, Republicans in the Wisconsin Senate wiped away most union rights from most of the state`s public employees. Today, Republicans in the state assembly did the same over the loud and vocal protests of those who have gathered outside the chamber, as well as the Democratic representatives inside the chamber. Republican Governor Scott Walker has pledged to sign it into law as soon as possible. Recall petitions have been filed against six Republican state senators now. If only three of those succeed, this fight will have turned the state Senate in the middle of the perm from Republican-controlled back to Democratic-controlled. Six incumbent Republican state senators face re- election and the backlash against those Republicans who supported Republican Governor Scott Walker stripping of union rights in Wisconsin. Two Democrats did unseat the Republicans they targeted yesterday. Jennifer Shilling beat Republican incumbent Dan Kapanke, 55 to 44; and Jessica King defeated Randy Hopper, 51 percent to 49 percent. Jessica King`s rally as you can see here captured the spirit of a lot of happy Democrats in the state last night. They were pumped up. They recalled two Republican senators from office, thus reducing the Republican majority in Wisconsin Senate down to one. That said, had Democrats prevailed in just one more race, they wouldn`t have just narrowed the Republican`s majority, Democrats would have been in control of the state Senate. They didn`t get that. So, bottom line, Republicans were delighted they didn`t lose control of the Senate. Democrats were disappointed they did not win that. But Democrats are happy that they picked off two Republican senators and they are happy that the margin in the Senate is at least down for now down to one Republican vote. But also, Democrats say today that they are happy with what last night`s numbers might mean for a planned effort next year. "Recall Walker," they are saying. Republican Governor Scott Walker. Folks celebrating at Jessica King`s rally didn`t wait a day to turn the focus to their next target, Governor Walker. Chair of the Democratic Party in Wisconsin confirmed today that he`d like to begin the process of recalling the governor, quote, "as soon as is feasible." The governor can`t be recalled until he`s been in office a full year. That requirement will be met this coming January. A new poll out this week on Governor Walker`s prospect shows that 58 percent of Wisconsinites want him to be recalled from office. That`s not good for him. Today in Ohio, the Senate there voted Wisconsin style to strip union rights. The measure passed 17 to 16, even though six Republicans jumped ship and voted with Democrats to protect the unions. In Ohio, Democrats couldn`t block up quorum. So, they didn`t have the option that Wisconsin Democrats had of stopping the bill by leaving the state. The Ohio union-stripping measure heads over to the assembly now where Republicans will probably pass there, too. That said, the protests in the streets in Ohio and the wild unpopularity of what Republicans are doing and the Republican defections on this do not make passage a sure thing. If it does pass, Democrats say they will get it repealed by a public vote this November. This is Ohio Governor John Kasich, a Republican freshman governor just elected in November. After Governor Kasich signed SB5, people who support union rights in Ohio started collecting signatures to put it on the ballot for a citizens repeal. Last month, they delivered box after box after box of petitions. Today, the Ohio secretary of state announced that over 900,000 of those signatures are valid. That`s nearly four times the amount needed to qualify the referendum. This means that there will be a referendum. It`s going to be on the ballot. The vote happens in November. In Ohio, the most high profile race in the country, the bid to recall the Republican union-stripping law there, it lost by 22 points, a blowout. All those polls predicting an impossibly high margin of victory for the pro-union right side in Ohio, those impossible margin of victory polls turned out to be exactly accurate. The Occupy Wall Street protests in New York have been going on for 12 days now. Most of the media attention they have received thus far has been because of violent and rather outrageous police tactics used against the protesters. Btu the reason this movement is growing and in fact spreading to other American cities now is not because of some message about police tactics toward protesters. That is not the larger point. The larger point is the basic message, the basic point about who caused the mess the country is in right now. Who has figured out how to benefit from it? And who is stopping us from fixing it? Police this weekend arrested hundreds of Occupy Wall Street marchers on the Brooklyn Bridge. Hundreds of people arrested. Occupy Wall Street now showing signs of becoming occupy everywhere in America. Occupy Boston, Occupy Chicago, Occupy Portland, Maine, Occupy Seattle. UNIDENTIFIED MALE: This is a fantastic, beautiful, bountiful land that is hopelessly in debt. What happened? You know, what happened? MADDOW: The idea of the occupy protest is that people stay. That`s the occupy party of it, right? You don`t go anywhere. Like Hoovervilles, these are supposed to be semi-permanent living reminders of what`s wrong with the economy and the political system. The permanence is part of the pressure. And city officials around the country are not handling this well at all. In Oakland, California, police cleared out protesters from their downtown encampment early Tuesday morning. Later in the day when protesters returned to reclaim their space, the police response in Oakland was fast moving, loud, and ultimately violent. It involved tear gas and shooting at the protesters with nonlethal projectiles. Today, thousands of Oakland residents took to the streets for what were reportedly by local press calling these things the largest demonstration in the East Bay since the days of the Vietnam War. Today in New York City, very, very early this morning, really in the middle of the night, New York City police raided and tore down and cleared out the Occupy Wall Street encampment that has been at Zuccotti Park in lower Manhattan for nearly two months. The raid happened at 1:00 a.m. roughly. Most of the protesters were there asleep. New York City police officers dressed in riot gear handed out a written notice to the protesters telling them where their personal articles from the encampment could be retrieved, which sounds lovely until you saw what they were doing to the protesters` personal belongings. There were reports that police used knives to cut up the sturdy military grade tents that were the best hope of surviving winter down there. You can see the police here cutting down the protesters tent polls with handheld saws, with Sawzalls. This is a massive police action. There were 200 arrests this morning. Zuccotti Park was totally cleared. TIMOTHY GORDON, OCCUPY WALL STREET PROTESTER: I`m going to stay here. I`m going to put my tent right back up. We show them that we`re not just words on the Internet screen. We are people. And we are willing to put ourselves in pain and misery to get our point across. (END VIDEOTAPE) MADDOW: There`s no reason to believe that the mats protests in the Midwest against Republican governors and Republican legislators and laws stripping union rights, there`s no reason to believe that those led to the Occupy movement. These things emerged in different parts of the country with different goals, different tactics. It`s different people. But if you want to understand the politics of 2011 overall, it is Republican governance in the states sparking huge backlash in the streets. And it`s the streets all over the country coming alive with a dissatisfied, energized, creative message from the left. We`ll have more on that ahead. (COMMERCIAL BREAK) MADDOW: Very rarely in the TV news business are you force to hide the identity of someone you are interviewing. Very, very, very rarely are you follow the arc of that story long enough that after you`ve done an interview with somebody in disguise, the world changes enough that it becomes safe for that person you had to show in silhouette to reveal who they are, to show their face. It turns out this has been one of those very, very rare times. That`s coming up next. (COMMERCIAL BREAK) MADDOW: It was this time last year that we first knew it would happen, that after all of the impossible politics of it and all of the stalling tactics from the other side and all the studies and after many, many, many disguise falling pronouncements from one Senator John McCain of Arizona, it was this time last year it became clear that President Obama was going to be able to make good on his campaign promise -- his campaign promise to end the Clinton era anti-gay law "don`t ask, don`t tell." And then it was one minute past midnight on September 20th this year that it ended. (BEGIN VIDEOTAPE) MADDOW: Today`s day one of the United States military after "don`t ask, don`t tell." In the run-up to repeal day to day, an 88-year-old World War II veteran spoke at a ceremony marking the policies repeal in Georgia. Today, just hours after the repeal became effective, two active duty service members spoke out about being gay in the military during a press conference with the Servicemembers Legal Defense Network in Washington. Last night in San Diego, servicemembers and their supporters celebrated the repeal as it happened, as it took effect. Tens of thousands of gay people have been serving in the United States military during this whole debate while the policy has existed. Now that the policy has gone, they can make their own decision about whether or not and how to say who they are. It can no longer be used against them. Why it is worth it to you to take the risk to speak out like this and to do the work that you have done without serving? UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I think why it`s important for me is that at some point while you`re serving under the military and under this policy, you see some of atrocities that occurred to people across the world, including myself who is blackmail, that at some point, you have to see there is something larger than yourself out there and you have to take these risks to do something like this to help others and create the change that`s need. MADDOW: I did that interview last year with an Air Force lieutenant using a pseudonym. And you can see there, pictured only in silhouette. I`ve only done a few rare interviews like that in my life. That Air Force had been blackmailed for being gay as a young officer. He started the underground network of active duty U.S. military personnel called OutServe. His pseudonym was J.D. Smith. Joining us now live from Washington, D.C., at a party hosted by the Servicemembers Legal Defense Network for the very first time not in silhouette is United States Air Force First Lieutenant Josh Seefried who will never again have to be known as J.D. Smith. Lt. Seefried is the founder of OutServe and author of "Our Time: Breaking the Silence of `Don`t Ask, Don`t Tell`." Also joining us is newly retired Air Force Lieutenant Colonel Victor Fehrenbach who came out nationally on this program. He fought his discharge under "don`t ask, don`t tell" and won -- as he saw the policy crumbled this year. Gentlemen, I have to say, congratulations. Thank you both so much for joining us tonight. Lieutenant Seefried, formally known as J.D. Smith on this program, let me start with you. How has it felt to you personally to be able to say who you are, to have spent this first 24 hours in the new military? FIRST LT. JOSH SEEFRIED, U.S. AIR FORCE: It feels like a huge burden has been lifted off your shoulders. I mean, there`s not a single day that you cannot think about this policy while serving in the military. And knowing today that there`s a career I have an opportunity to have where I don`t have to be scared of who I am and who I love, that I can be part of the military family and I`m so excited about it. And I think every other gay person in the military feels the exact same way. MADDOW: Victor, are you -- are you anticipating that there are going to be problems with implementation of repeal? The military has been very firm, the Pentagon has been very firm in saying there are not going to be problems. We are prepared, we are trained, we are ready for this. Having been in the Air Force for 20 years and seeing what you`ve seen, most of that time not being a man who people knew was gay, do you think there`s going to be trouble? LT. COL. VICTOR FEHRENBACH, U.S. AIR FORCE (RET): I think there may be isolated cases. I think the way this was done -- I was obviously the most impatient man in the world having this threat of discharge hang over me for the last three years and four months. But what I learned from that in the last two years, again, I`ve been able to serve openly. I shouldn`t be surprised by this. But, you know, the military people are professional, they`re disciplined, they`re dedicated to the mission. And that`s all they care about. So, there may be isolated cases. But across the board, we took our time, we got everybody trained. And I think people have been expecting this for the last 10 months or so. So, I think we`re ready. And I think those cases will be very isolated. MADDOW: First Lieutenant Josh Seefried, Lieutenant Colonel Victor Fehrenbach, I want to thank you both for your activism, for speaking up, the bravery it took. Thanks for joining us tonight. I sense the cost of that viscerally because I know there`s an open bar there and you are both in the mood to celebrate. So, I release you both. Congratulations, you guys. Have a great night. SEEFRIED: Thanks, Rachel. Cheers to you. FEHRENBACH: Thanks, Rachel. MADDOW: Thanks to you both. (END VIDEOTAPE) MADDOW: The Republican candidate`s for president this year made some noises about reinstating "don`t ask, don`t tell" if they`re elected president. Meanwhile, in the military, even military leaders who criticized the idea of scrapping the policy before we did it, people like the Marine Corps commandant, now say, now that the policy is gone, that getting rid of it has caused no problems at all. The Marine Corps ball this year included some same sex couples this year. The sky did not fall. When this Navy ship came home this week to Virginia from being deployed, the first sailor ashore, the coveted first kiss upon returning home was this female sailor greeted by her partner who is also a female sailor. Guys like Tim Pawlenty and Rick Santorum is saying they would force everyone in the military back into the closet if they were elected president -- at this point, I kind to like to see them try. (COMMERCIAL BREAK) MADDOW: In a year filled with radical Republican politics in the states, the multistate attack on union rights, biggest roll back of abortion rights in the state since Roe versus Wade, supposed small government conservatives mandating hair and urine samples to test citizens for drugs even if those citizens were not suspected of using drugs. In a year filled with radical Republican politics in the states though, my vote for the single most radical thing that happened in American politics anywhere was what happened in the state of Michigan where Republican legislators and newly elected Republican Governor Rick Snyder took an existing Michigan law concerning something called emergency managers. They took that existing law and they dramatically changed it. They changed it into a way to override local democracy. Michigan Republicans gave their governor the right to void local elections, to overrule what people vote for in their cities and towns in Michigan. It`s democracy begone. Before this happened this year, I never thought somebody could get away with this in the United States of America. (BEGIN VIDEOTAPE) MADDOW: One of the signature policies of Governor Snyder has been his emergency manager law, whereby his state government can just declare any town or school district to be in an emergency situation and the state can install somebody to replace all locally elected officials. Under Rick Snyder`s law, his state government can even just abolish whole Michigan towns, take them over and declare them no more. It doesn`t matter who you elected to run your town, who you elected for mayor. Governor Snyder reserves the right to take it over. The first town to feel the tender ministrations of Governor Snyder`s new law is little Benton Harbor, one of the poorest towns of the state. And yes, despite the Rust Belt decline that has defined life in Benton Harbor for decades, Benton Harbor is also home to the global headquarters for Whirlpool Appliances. Among the heirs to the Whirlpool Appliance`s fortune is Benton Harbor`s Republican Congressman Fred Upton. A former Fred Upton staffer, Republican State Rep. Al Pscholka, he represents Benton Harbor in the state house. So, he`s the person who introduced the emergency state takeover bill that Governor Rick Snyder signed. This is their ceremonial reenacting of the signing there. Until last year, Mr. Pscholka served on the board of directors for a nonprofit that wants to build a half billion dollar, 530-acre lake front Jack Nicklaus-designed golf course and luxury real estate development that would span both relatively wealthy St. Joseph and poor little Benton Harbor -- a development that eats the one collective asset that Benton Harbor had, Benton Harbor`s beautiful beach front park. It would turn it into a place where caddies carry bags for Whirlpool executives and rich folks that drive in from Chicago for a weekend at their new luxurious signature home. I don`t know what a signature home is, but they`re very expensive and they`re part of the whole golf course deal. Benton Harbor`s park, Jean Klock Park, was deeded as a gift to the town. One of the poorest towns in Michigan. It was deeded to the town in perpetuity in 1917 -- perpetuity I guess is not as long as it used to be because now, Benton Harbor residents are looking at a golf course where the cost of an annual pass for a family to play there is $5,000. $5,000 is half the average annual income of actual families living in Benton harbor. This golf course development thing is not for them. And neither apparently is democratic local go. On Friday, Benton Harbor`s new state- appointed emergency overseer Joe Harris issued an executive order that restricted the mayor and the city commissioners to three duties -- they can call a meeting, they can approve the meeting minutes, and they can adjourn the meeting. Three things that elected officials of Benton Harbor are now allowed to do. That`s it. (BEGIN AUDIO CLIP) JOE HARRIS, BENTON HARBOR EMERGENCY MANAGER: The fact of the matter is city manager is now gone. I am the city manager. I replaced the finance director. So I`m finance director and city manager. I am mayor the and commissioner, and I don`t need them. (END AUDIO CLIP) MADDOW: Benton Harbor`s emergency manager unilateral authority guy told the local TV station this week in Michigan that people of Benton Harbor probably love that their local officials have been replaced by him. He said although he hasn`t polled anyone, he bets the people in Benton Harbor see him as an angel of common sense. Is that true? Does Benton Harbor love their new autocrat instead of their old democracy? Despite this week`s protest, is that accurate? Is that true? It does not matter! Remember, they don`t know you`re going to say in anything about their town. Benton Harbor residents voted this week on Tuesday. They voted down all seven of the ballot measures that this emergency overseer guy unilaterally designed to put on the ballot. According to the residents` votes, Benton Harbor elected a new mayor and some new counselors. But, of course, the votes are all pretty much mute. They went out and went through the motions of voting. But thanks to Governor Rick Synder`s emergency manager law, votes in that part of Michigan just don`t have any effect anymore. Local elections are overruled by the state for your own good. So, hey, Benton Harbor. Thanks for playing. Democracy the game -- the people you voted for, they`ll take power when and if this emergency overseer from the state who has unilaterally running your town ever decides to leave. (END VIDEOTAPE) MADDOW: 2011 is the year when Republicans in the great state of Michigan decided that small D democracy is a problem in Michigan. It`s not the way that Michigan solves its problems. Democracy is itself a problem. It needs to be done away with in the name of efficiency. What Governor Rick Snyder and the Republican legislature did in Michigan this year gets my vote for the sing the most radical thing in American politics this fairly radical year. That said, the fight back against what happened in Michigan this year has also been intense. It sin tense and at times it has even verged on inspiring. That`s coming up. (COMMERCIAL BREAK) (BEGIN VIDEOTAPE) MADDOW: This is Catherine Ferguson Academy. If you are in high school in Detroit and you got pregnant or you had a baby -- since 1988, Catherine Ferguson Academy was designed to keep you in school, to keep you from dropping out, to get you to graduate, to get you into college. Real course work, high expectations, plus, help with parenting classes for the moms and child care and early education for the kids. Right in the middle of hollowed out inner city part of Detroit, they`ve got some land and the school has used it to have the girls tend beehives and take care of animals. That is part of the deal at Catherine Ferguson, the girls learning to grow food and harvest crops -- learning farming. The formula seems to have worked. At Catherine Ferguson, they can brag on their graduation rate and their college acceptance rate. There is almost no place like Catherine Ferguson Academy in the entire country. (BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) NIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I want everybody to have the same opportunity that I had. I got out of here. I want you to graduate the same way I did. I got two kids. You can make it with one, two, or how many you got. They`re going to make it happen. Ms. Andrews can make it happen. (END VIDEO CLIP) MADDOW: Last month, the new Republican governor, Rick Snyder, signed a new emergency measure law which you could call emergency manager on steroids. Or if you really don`t like it, you could call it financial martial law. This new bill contains more than a dozen new triggers for getting put under emergency rule. And it gives an emergency overseer in a town or school district, it gives that overseer astounding amounts of new power. The Detroit schools manager told "The Detroit News" He was frustrated under the old manager law. Detroit was still allowed to have an elected school board, and those locally elected officials did not always want what he wanted which he found frustrating. The new law passed by Republican Governor Rick Snyder, though, would do away with that complication. Before the new law went into effect, the school`s emergency manager said he wanted to close Catherine Ferguson Academy. It was slated for closure last year as part of Detroit Public School`s emergency financial manager Robert Bobb`s plan to downsize the school system but protests from students and community members kept it open. Manager wanted to shut down the city`s special school for girls who were pregnant or who had kids. But protests from students and community members kept it open. Now, with expanded unilateral power, all teachers in the Detroit schools just got layoff notices from this person and the girls at Catherine Ferguson Academy just found out that their school is put on this list. Look -- closures or charters with a big asterisk on it. The asterisk means, quote, "proposals will be requested to operate the schools as charters. If an acceptable proposal is not submitted for a school then it will be closed during the summer of 2011." The girls got the news about what was going to happen to Catherine Ferguson Academy. They went to their school, they gathered inside. They made a collective decision to say this is our place and we`re staying. And then, of course this is what happened next. (VIDEO CLIP PLAYS) MADDOW: The police turned on the sirens for their police cars to drown out the girls` voices while they were getting handcuffed and arrested for refusing to leave their school, at least one teacher was arrested alongside them. All week, we have been expecting today to be the Catherine Ferguson Academy`s last day ever. That was what the emergency manager had ordered. The principal, Asenath Andrews, had been told to say goodbye to the students today, to hand in her keys to the school tomorrow, on Friday. There was to be a protest at noon today at the school. The actor Danny Glover was expected to be there, as well as lots of other people. Principal Andrews went to bed last night thinking this was it, her school was done. But early this morning, her phone rang. The emergency manager wanted to see her for a meeting at 10:45 a.m. Then another call, meeting changed to 10:00. No, another call, please get down to the emergency manager`s office right away. Ms. Andrews said she walked in to find them finishing up a deal to keep the Catherine Ferguson Academy opened. They asked her if she minded, and she said no. The fate of the Catherine Ferguson Academy is in this private company`s hands now. But this time yesterday, this school was due not to exist. As of today, Catherine Ferguson Academy has a tomorrow. Joining us now is Asenath Andrews, the only principal that Catherine Ferguson Academy has ever known. Ms. Andrews, thank you for interrupting what I imagine is your celebration here to be with us tonight. ASENATH ANDREWS, PRINCIPAL, CATHERINE FERGUSON ACADEMY: I just can breathe. Thank you for having us. MADDOW: Let me just personally say, congratulations. I feel like I am very invested in you as a principal because of all I have learned about this school. Am I right that you had no idea this was coming at all? ANDREWS: Not at all. You know, everybody has had some scheme or some way they said they were going to save us. And I had gotten really excited and then I gotten deflated. And so I just -- I couldn`t -- I couldn`t imagine that they would wait so long. So, I -- my office is packed. Well, sort of packed. And I just thought I`d be gone, and my girls would be just thrown to wind. So, we are excited. We`re excited. (END VIDEOTAPE) MADDOW: Catherine Ferguson Academy still exists for now as a charter school. And that`s the important fine print here. Charter schools sometimes work, sometimes they do not. Sometimes they give teachers more freedom and better pay. Some sometimes they pay less and do less. Teachers with Detroit public schools are union. Teachers with the new company there are not union. But Catherine Ferguson Academy is open because the girl and the teachers and the principal and the community of supporters of Catherine Ferguson fought to make that so. We`re just on a personal note, I have to tell when you we aired that story, a particularly -- the part of the story of those girls getting arrested trying to keep their school open -- I mean, I get feedback from people I know who watch the show all the time. But that was the only time the feedback after watching one of our shows from a lot of people that I know was them asking me how to get there, how to physically go there because they wanted to go help. We`ve got more ahead. We`ve got more ahead, including what happens when you mix me and the daughter of a Republican senator and a whole lot of guns and Pittsburgh all together. That`s coming up. (COMMERCIAL BREAK) (BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) MEGHAN MCCAIN, MCCAINBLOGETTE.COM: I don`t own any assault rifles and I had friends that (INAUDIBLE) them. It`s just unnecessary to have. MADDOW: We agree on a lot of this. We totally agree on a lot of this. And I feel if we can agree on this, then we should probably be able to make better policy as a country. MCCAIN: I agree. MADDOW: Reasonable people can come to this conclusion from totally different perspectives. MCCAIN: I agree. MADDOW: We solved it. (END VIDEO CLIP) MADDOW: Back in April, Meghan McCain, the daughter of Senator John McCain, took me to the NRA convention in Pittsburgh. After that, after going to the convention, I met up with a councilman from Pittsburgh named Rick Burgess, who was not at all psyched about his city hosting the NRA and its 70,000 of its members this year. Watch. (BEGIN VIDEOTAPE) RICKY BURGESS: I represent the eastern part of the city of Pittsburgh. I represent the poorest area of the city of Pittsburgh, unfortunately, the most crime infected, the most homicides, the most drug- infested area of Pittsburgh, the lowest economic standards and it is unfortunately, a very difficult place. It is a place that has been plagued by violence, by gun violence. I, myself, my whole life has been the consequence of gun violence. My aunt was murdered. My mother had a nervous breakdown and for 20 years had a mental illness that she never recovered from. My cousins have been shot and killed. My wife`s father was shot. My wife`s mother, my mother-in-law, was shot and killed, who lived with us. Her brother killed someone and spent 20 years in the penitentiary. I have adopted his son and had raised him as my own son. I actually went into the ministry to kind of figure out this thing. So, all of my life has been affected with violence. My wife`s cousins have been shot and killed. I had children of my church shot and killed. I ran for council, in fact, because I just couldn`t take the shootings anymore. The ease in which you can buy guns in these communities is frightening. You can buy a gun from a gas station. I mean, why do individual citizens need AK-47s, M-16s, AR-14s, three and four of them? You know, there`s no gun manufacturer in the community. These guns are not made here. They are brought here through purchasers, through gun shows. It`s turned my community into either a combination of the old Wild West or a ghost town. It`s killed the businesses. It`s killed the residential community. The area I represent has lost almost 75 percent its population since 1968. It`s just been devastating. And almost all of it leads directly or indirectly to gun violence. MADDOW: You said you used to play here when you were a kid? BURGESS: This was my alley a couple blocks down. I learned to play basketball, football, baseball, you know, track relays right here. This was for many years the most dangerous places in the city of Pittsburgh. One of the local record producers called it Klitzberg pistol-vania (ph). These houses were learned to store guns and to store bodies. What they did was they put holes because they`re all connected. They put holes in the walls interconnecting these buildings. So, they could go in one door here, and if the police were chasing, they would go in this door and they run down through the holes of the walls and come out further down in order to escape police. Bodies were found here, guns were found here, almost any vacant building, you had a danger of finding guns because that`s where they hide - - rather than hide them at their house, they hide them in places like this. It`s one of my great, great, great interests, I have the mayor to agree, we`re working on tearing this down. This has to come down. But as you see, it`s, you know, empty lots, vacant lots. And even being here this way is dangerous. MADDOW: Yes. BURGESS: Even though they`ve concreted some of it, still some of it you can in -- how you doing baby? You OK? Good to see you. What`s your name? UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Gerarda (ph). BURGESS: Gerarda, good to see you. How you doing? MADDOW: Do you live around here? BURGESS: Where do you live? UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Over there. BURGESS: OK. Well good. On your way home from school? MADDOW: This is your city councilman. BURGESS: I`m your city councilman, how are you doing? Good to see you. A young girl about her age was shot and killed about five years ago on the front side of the street on the way home from school. It is dangerous because there is a school about two blocks that way. But the school was probably like this. MADDOW: Seeing her go home through these lots is hard. BURGESS: It`s hard for me. And I see it every day. I see it absolutely every day. MADDOW: What happens to -- BURGESS: And this is a result, make no mistake, this is economics. These were closed because of gun violence. They got this way because they were shooting people on these streets every day. This alley was known as for a while the most dangerous place in the United States, this alley right here where you`re at. This was the most dangerous place, highest incidence of homicide right in this alley in the United States. And so, that`s why this is like this. MADDOW: And so, people had to move because regardless of what else was offered or not offered. BURGESS: Right. They had to go. They just had to go. MADDOW: And, you know, the only thing I`ve ever seen with this many houses boarded up is natural disaster. It`s been flooded. It`s you know, hurricane damage, that sort of thing. But this isn`t natural disaster. BURGESS: Unnatural. MADDOW: This is policy disaster. BURGESS: Right. This is policy. This is gun violence. This is -- tell the NRA, thank you very much for this gift. This is what guns have done to my community. And I have more vacant houses, more empty lots than any other place in the city of Pittsburgh. Oh, there are 5,000 of them. I can show you house after house after house. I can show you houses with furniture in them. You could move into them tomorrow. MADDOW: Why doesn`t the Democratic Party, why don`t people who represent urban districts have a say in gun debate? The gun debate is dominated by the NRA, dominated by people who are fundamentalist about gun rights. Why isn`t the other side surfacing in the gun debate? BURGESS: I can`t answer that question. I do know here in Pennsylvania, we are controlled by the Republicans. Our House, our Senate, and our governor are owned by Republicans. And so, they are not interested. And the NRA, you know, puts a lot of money in lobbying, a lot of money in political contributions and they absolutely control our state. And so, any responsible gun law has not been passed in our state. And people like me, I think, who speak up, I think hopefully we`re heard, but I think we don`t have the power in the state in order to make it happen because in Pennsylvania, we have two major urban centers but a lot of rural communities represented by rural representatives. But I challenge them to come here with me. Let me show you my community. I will show you the victims of gun violence. I`ll show you what is left and you tell me what good your lobbying has done for my community. Tell me what those guns have done in good for my community. I`ll show you the deaths. I`ll show you the people. I`ll show you the houses. I`ll show you the abandoned buildings. I`ll show the flight. You tell me what -- how would good the overwhelming number of guns on my streets have done to my community. What good has it done for us? MADDOW: Councilman Ricky Burgess, thank you for this tour and this time. BURGESS: Thank you. (END VIDEOTAPE) MADDOW: Actually getting to see and therefore actually getting to show you what I saw in Pittsburgh is sadly a little bit unusual for us. I`d like to get out there more, I have to say. That`s my resolution for 2012. But most of the time on this show, from the confines of this studio, we instead rely on a whole party bag of tricks to try to illustrate what`s going on in the world outside these walls. Some of the extremity work well. Others not so much. Luckily, we have no shame or self-discipline or restraint. And that will be on full display, next. (COMMERCIAL BREAK) MADDOW: When we get together as a staff every day to try to figure out not only what stories to cover in this news hour but how to cover them, we inevitably end up trying to figure out metaphors, ways to explain what`s going on through the magic of storytelling, using television and the risk of humiliation through props to try to make stuff clear. Sometimes, our visual metaphors work. But looking back over the hundreds of show that is we did in 2011, more often than not, things end up like this -- (BEGIN VIDEOTAPE) UNIDENTIFIED MALE: You`re getting a rare look at what`s called an American liberal. The liberal appears to be upset, angry even about plans to abolish Medicare. We can`t know why. But with this liberal ear tracking device, we`ll be able to observe any other strange outbursts that occur in the liberal`s natural habitat. Senator McCaskill, you are always very welcome to come back on the show. We`d love to have you. We missed. Until then, as a gesture of goodwill, we are going to mail you this life-size cutout of Blanche Lincoln. MADDOW: Want to know what happened today? Ding. Doesn`t look right without a breeze, I don`t think. Hold on. That`s nice. (MUSIC) MADDOW: This ring tone is Newt Gingrich`s ringtone. It`s "Dancing Queen" by Abba. Never raises his voice, but seldom takes "no" for an answer. Not in it for the balloons. The world needs new, America needs fresh. Come on, puppy, stay awake, stay with me, puppy. No, up, up, not down. Wake up, puppy. Come on. It`s going to be up. Come up! No matter how adorably sleep-inducing Fed monetary policy is, come on -- there you go, yes. The percentage drop in the S&P 500 today was, look at the bottom number there on the right, 6.66 percent. Seriously, 6.66 percent -- 666. Just in case the numerological gods weren`t with us, it had to be 666. Dead birds are not the scariest thing to fall out of the sky in America. You may be wondering what`s up with really loud cowbell. You know who rings cowbells besides cows and Will Ferrell? Ski jumping fans. We are glad to say Michael Wolf (ph) joins us now live -- OK, that`s not Michael Wolf. You guys, that`s Richard Wolffe. Do we have Michael Wolf here? Do we have Michael -- no, that`s Michael Steele. That`s not Michael Wolf. Do we have Michael Wolf? Do we? Seriously, come on. That is Bill Wolff in a wolf t-shirt. That is not -- all right, forget it. Forget it. Meat plus caffeine equals the best new thing in the world today. Here`s the scene. Where are we? We are on a street. Here, wait. What was I doing? I was driving a car. What`s that? Person I just ran over in a crosswalk. There`s one thing to understand about the case for Rick Perry that is being made so far and that it looks like will be the basis for his presidential run, one thing to understand about that -- it`s baloney. HERMAN CAIN (R), FORMER PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: I`m often criticized about the fact that I`ve never held public office and criticized that I don`t know this and I don`t know that, and I don`t know that and I don`t know this. You know, a leader doesn`t have to know everything. MADDOW: I don`t think I have to try to prove this anymore. I think the evidence is overwhelming. Can we just concede that we agree on this? (END VIDEOTAPE) MADDOW: New Y resolution for 2012, more art projects. Less Herman Cain. Thank you very much for being with us tonight. I hope you have a merry Christmas and that`s from all of us here at THE RACHEL MADDOW SHOW. Have a great night. THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED. END