Cenk Uygur on MSNBC -TV: Billionaire Right-Wingers Hold Closed-Door Conference
Usually rumors of smoke-filled rooms where secret conspiracies are hatched are ridiculous. But it turns out there are some exceptions. Sometimes there is a room where the rich and powerful get together to secretly conspire about how to protect their wealth and power. And it turns out, we found that room. That appears to be exactly what is happening as we speak at this Palm Springs hotel where hundreds of political and media elites are gathering behind closed doors for a four day conference that ends tomorrow.
No word yet on whether they filled it with smoke but they definitely conspired and raised an estimated $30 million for the 2012 election. The invitation list is mostly kept secret but here is what we know.
House Majority Leader Eric Cantor was invited to talk Republican strategy. He has received over $36,000 from the secretive billionaire brothers who organized the event. Past conferences have included Republican Senators Jim DeMint and John Cornyn, Supreme Court Justices Clarence Thomas and Anthony Scalia, and conservative talk-show hosts Rush Limbaugh and Glenn Beck.
The secretive billionaire brothers who organized the event are David and Charles Koch, each worth an estimated $21 billion. They own Koch Industries, an oil and chemical giant, that stands as the second largest privately owned company in the U.S.
For years the Kochs have been promoting their own business interests by investing in right-wing groups. That includes $25 million between 2005 and 2008 to make you think that global warming is a myth and that we have too much environmental regulation. Interesting, considering Koch Industries happens to be one of the top ten air polluters in the U.S.
The Kochs have also poured millions into a group called, “Americans for Prosperity”, a group that helped organized many of the Tea Party’s first rallies, while denying, of course, any connection to the Tea Party at all, and claiming to be “grass roots”.
Now all of this is triggering a backlash. This weekend hundreds of protesters gathered outside of the hotel, trying to raise public awareness about the cloak-and-dagger activities of the secretive Koch brothers. Twenty-five protesters were arrested.
With me now is Michael Isikoff, NBC News National Investigative Correspondent. First let me ask you, it’s not as if these guys are not allowed to do this. Of course, they are allowed to get together and make any plans they like to elect Republicans. But it seems noteworthy to point out where their financial interests lie and why they might be interested in the political environment in the country.
Michael Isikoff: Exactly. And this has taken on more prominence and significance in the post United Citizens era, where unlimited corporate contributions can be poured into political nonprofit groups, which the Kochs have been doing for years, and then can be spent in the political process to influence elections, to run attack ads, to do electioneering communications that are indistinguishable from regular campaign ads. And we saw that in the last election where a whole array of nonprofit groups popped up and spent over $200 million on behalf of candidates in the last election. That opened the door for more of it coming. And this conference that is held by the very secretive Koch brothers, who do not like to disclose anything that they do not have to, is a sign of that. And as you pointed out, a principal goal of this conference is to raise money for grass-roots efforts in the 2012 election.
Cenk Uygur: Here’s where some of the funding goes that the Koch brothers give out. First, they have funding to thirty-five conservative and libertarian groups. And almost $48 million to global warming opposition groups. $37 million on direct lobbying to support fossil fuels. And more than $5 million to American for Prosperity. As they spend all of this money, they are looking for a return on their investment, aren’t they, Michael? They have factories creating pollution: they are one of the top ten polluters. Then they spend a gigantic amount of money to make sure that there is no regulation on pollution.
Michael Isikoff: The groups they fund are certainly consistent with their own personal economic interests. They would tell you they are strong free market conservatives, libertarians; we believe in the capitalist system; we believe that things work best when regulations are least, and that benefits all. It’s their economic philosophy. You may not agree with it. But that’s where they would tell you where they’re coming from. It’s worth mentioning that the causes they fund do happen to benefit their own personal business interests.
Cenk Uygur: Of course, 91% of their money goes to Republicans, and that is not surprising. Another thing that they’re interested in is taxes. Look at the capital gains tax: that’s 15%. When you look at the dividends tax rate, that’s 15%. Carried interest tax is 15%. That’s some of the lowest taxes in the country. They pay less taxes than we do. They are smart: you invest in politicians and you get a lot more money back in much lower rates than the rest of the country. It makes sense.
Michael Isikoff: That’s a valid argument you could make. But the Kochs and their defenders come back and say, what’s the issue here? Is it our economic and political philosophy? Fine, let’s have a debate on that. Or is it about the influence of money in politics. And they would say, “look at George Soros on the liberal side”. But the real issue here, as I was saying before, the post United Citizens era, that allows a lot of this money to pour into political groups without any disclosure and you get a secretive conference like this. Albeit from a distance, that’s exactly what we are witnessing.
The Barefoot Accountant reports on American politics….
Whenever you ask people if they are conservative or liberal, they always reflect the results of a Gallup poll conducted in 2009 that asked people if they were conservative, liberal or moderate? 40% of the Americans interviewed said they were conservative, 35% said they were moderate, and only 21% said they were liberal.
This poll is often quoted on television and in the press as definitive proof that our country is not liberal. However, this assertion is absolute and complete nonsense. The reason that liberals do not do well in the poll and conservatives do so much better is because of brand marketing. For 20, 30 years now, we have had had conservative talk show hosts saying conservatives rock, liberals are terrible. There has never been any Democratic politician step up and defend it.
For example, when Republican politicians are on television or radio, they inevitably say, “I am the most conservative in this race.” Have you ever heard a Democrat say “I’m most liberal in this race?” Almost never, right? They don’t defend the title. So the word has become a bad word.
But when you look at the actual voting and when you look at the actual issues, the country’s actually overwhelmingly liberal. Now, let me make my case. First, when you look at people who are saying whether they are Democrats or Republicans, all of a sudden it flips immediately. When asked in that same Gallup poll, 36% of Americans said that they are Democratic voters, whereas only 28% said they are Republicans and 37% said Independent.
Already this is a big leap for the Democrats, but it actually gets bigger. When they ask independents which way do you lean, 51% said Democratic, 39% said Republican. So, if everybody is so conservative, why do the Democrats have such a huge advantage in these generic polls? It is because people are actually not that conservative.
And if you are not convinced by the Democrat and Republican titles, you can say, hey that is also brand marketing in some way, and that is a fair point. Well, let’s go to the issues themselves.
So, the issue, for example, like the public option, which we were told in Washington over and over that it is way too liberal, and it was so “liberal” that a Democratic President, Democratic House and Democratic Senate wouldn’t bring it up for a vote. They didn’t even give it a shot. Now what percentage of the American people agree with that? 72% wanted the public option. So I guess this country is way more liberal than Obama and the former Democratic House and Democratic Senate.
That’s just one issue, you say. All right, let’s go to another one. How about repeal of “don’t ask, don’t tell”? Again, the Republicans fought it tooth and nail, the conservatives were dead set against it. 78% of the country wanted that to be repealed. How liberal is this country when you go issue by issue?
Let’s go to a third issue, the Citizens United ruling allowing unlimited spending in politics. The idea of reforming the spending in our politics is considered to be generally a liberal ideal, though everyone should agree with it, if you ask me, and it turns out, in fact, everybody does agree with it. 80% of the country hated the Citizens United ruling. They didn’t want it and what they want is reform in campaign financing because they know that our politicians are bought.
Now, if you are still not convinced, let’s go to how to balance the budget, because the people in Washington tell us that we got to cut social security and medicare to balance the budget while giving tax cuts to the rich. We just gave a $407 billion tax cut to the top 2%. But when you ask the American people how they want to balance the budget, an overwhelming 61% said raise taxes on the rich. The second biggest category: cut defense spending. That’s 20%. How about medicare and social security? Hell, no. Cutting medicare got only 4%. Cutting social security got only 3%. People do not want to cut those programs. That’s exactly what Washington plans to do over the next two years. It is nonsense.
This is a progressive country when you look at all the issues. We do not want to go in the direction of cutting these programs any longer. What we want to do is a sensible balancing of the budget with everyone sharing the sacrifice, including the rich.
The progressive agenda—the public option, campaign finance reform, balancing the budget—ultimately takes away the profitability of the health care, banking and other industries that control the politicians. So this ultimately isn’t a conservative issue in that sense. It is money versus nonmoney, money versus people. Unfortunately, money has completely bought the Republican party. They are a wholly owned subsidiary. The Democrats are only a little better.
The President recognizes what I’m about to say and fights on our side to protect the average American, but honestly I’m not sure that he will. Let me tell you what this is about. Every one in Washington is talking about how important cutting the deficit is and how they promise to spend all of next year tackling this grave issue. This agenda is premised, honestly, on a series of lies.
First, deficit cutting is not the top priority of the American people. A CNN poll came out just this week saying that only 22% of the country thinks deficit cutting should be the main goal. Does that sound like a majority to you? Now, every single poll shows that creating jobs, even if it means spending more government money to do so, is a much, much higher priority. Yet the people in D.C. tell you that deficits are more important.
That leads us to this second huge lie. Our political leaders tell us that we have to cut social security to cut the deficit. That is wrong! It’s a lie! It’s nonsense! It’s not just the Republicans, even Democrats are on board to cut social security. The President appointed a so-called bipartisan Deficit Commission: they came out with a proposal to cut social security. At least half of the Democrats I talked to on the air say, we must compromise and cut social security. Even Ed Rendell, who’ve I’ve respected as a tough progressive fighter in the past, earlier in the week told me that we have to raise the retirement age.
If you tell me by 2050 we’re going to raise the age of social security to 69, I don’t have a problem with that because we’ll all be living to 94, 95 degrees — 95 years in life expectancy and that’s an elemental change. That is an elemental change, but you have to understand this is a huge cut in your Social Security. That means you get two to four years less in benefits. Not only do you have to work longer, but they`re taking those years of benefits straight out of your pocket. And what`s the compromise you`re getting in return? Are the rich also going to chip in? Hell no. They just got a $400 billion tax break. Come on. They get the world, you get the shaft.
Ladies and gentlemen, I hate to break it to you, but our politicians are bought. When you ask real Americans what their priorities are, their intentions are incredibly clear. Look at these numbers. Eighty-five percent say they do not support any cuts to Social Security. Have you ever seen a poll with the results that high? Eighty-two percent say they do not support cutting Medicare for the elderly. Seventy-two percent say no cuts in Medicaid to the poor. Even 66 percent of Tea Party supporters say no cuts in Medicaid.
These numbers are overwhelming. The American people are screaming at the top of their lungs, don`t cut these programs! We need them to survive. And what does Washington do? They give $407.6 billion to the rich and say we should cut your programs instead.
Republicans derisively called these entitlement programs. Do you know why Social Security and Medicare got that name in the first place? Because you paid into them your whole life. It`s your money. That`s why you`re entitled to it.
Next year, I`m telling you now, they`re going to plan to rob you of all of that money. And the media will go along with their usual instant amnesia and forget that we just gave away the store to the richest people in the country when they start talking about shared sacrifice next year. Look at how much in the tank the media is to Washington establishment.
Earlier this year, when Kentucky Senator Jim Bunning first blocked extending unemployment insurance in February, everyone was outraged. It was unprecedented to cut unemployment in the middle of a terrible economy like this. He was all alone, and even shunned by other Republicans. Bob Corker, conservative Republican senator from Tennessee, said this about cutting unemployment at the time: “I believe we`re stooping to a low level.” Well, by the end of the year, the entire Republican Party had joined Bunning. And President Obama caved — I mean, compromised — and gave all the tax cuts for the wealthy in order for the GOP to allow some unemployment benefits to continue.
The country`s become so much more right wing right in front of our eyes, in this year alone. Look, it`s been happening for 30 years, but it was so stark this year. And yet, hardly anyone noticed. By the end of the year, the media was treating cutting unemployment as perfectly normal. That`s the Republican position. And the media must always remain neutral.
So outside of a few shows like this, in the next year you can expect the establishment media to do what they always do, suck up to power. So they will ignore the polls, the clear wishes of the American people, and they will help both sides demagogue about the deficit and tell you the only way to control it is to cut your benefits that you paid into for your whole life. And all of it is built upon another gigantic lie. Social Security isn`t broke, it isn`t anyway near broke. It has a $2.5 trillion surplus.
Now, if you ask a politician, hey, is that true? They`ll concede it. They`ll say, yes, yes, yes that`s true, but that they already spent that money when they shouldn`t have. Too bad. It`s gone, they say.
Watch.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The fact is that it`s gone. The fact is that it was in treasury bonds, and it`s been consumed and spent. And there is no treasury. And this year the abutment that people said for years has come, and that is we are spending more money this year than it`s taking in. Everyone knew it was coming. For 30 years people predicted it, and the day is now upon us.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
UYGUR: Yes, we predicted it because you kept raiding Social Security. So, yes, you paid into Social Security. Yes, it`s supposed to have a surplus. But we already spent it, so too bad for you, now we`re not going to pay.
You see, your savings is the last piggybank, and mark my words, the Republicans will raid it and the Democrats will go along saying they just had do it. And by the end of next year, they will all call it perfectly normal. Mr. President, you can either help stop this or you can be a part of it. The choice is yours in the upcoming year. It`s not my decision to make, it`s yours. But believe me, it`s not just our jobs that are on the line. What you do next year will also decide what happens to your job.
All right. Now tell me what you think in our telephone survey. The number to dial is 877-ED-MSNBC. My question tonight is: Do you think President Obama will protect the middle class next year? And it`s a good question. I`m curious to see what your answer is. Press 1 for yes. Press 2 for no. I`ll bring you the results later in the show.
All right. Joining me now is Steve Kornacki, the news editor for Salon.com.
All right, Steve. As you can tell, I`m not taking it easy on the president or the Democrats, and certainly not the Republicans or the media. One, let`s talk about whether you see this unfolding the same way that I do. Does it looks like they`re coming from Social Security with the deficit commission and all that`s being said?
STEVE KORNACKI, SALON.COM: Well, let`s see. I mean, there`s going to be an awful lot on the plate next year, and I think the overriding thing that you have to consider is, sort of the mission of the Obama presidency is going to fundamentally change next week, when the new Republican Congress is sworn in. You know, for the last two years, at least until the election, I think, the mission of the Obama presidency was sort of — it was a mission about expansion. It was about getting, for instance, universal health care, or moving us toward universal health care. It was about Wall Street reform. It was about enacting new programs designed to sort of live up to some of the potential of his 2008 campaign. When you look at what`s going to happen starting next, I think it`s going to be much more about playing defense. It`s going to be about protecting, for instance, health care reform, protecting Wall Street reform. And then it gets to the question of protecting the social safety net.
I don`t think that we`re anywhere near the point where we can say Obama is going to sell out people on Social Security or on Medicare. I`m not even sure at what point that`s going to enter into the discussion next year, because I look at what`s coming much more immediately with that Congress coming in. I`m looking at a showdown over the debt ceiling. I`m looking at a continuing resolution that`s funding the government right now, that`s coming due on — it`s coming up for expiration on March 4th. And I`m looking at the possibility that the Republicans are going to put — are going to insist at that point on defunding, for instance, health care reform, and having a showdown over that, or having a showdown, like I said, over the debt ceiling.
UYGUR: Right.
KORNACKI: Let`s get through that first, and then let`s start talking about Social Security, Medicare, social safety net.
UYGUR: Now, Steve, I`m telling you right now, look, we`re on tape here. So they`ll be able to play this back. OK?
KORNACKI: Right.
UYGUR: They are going to call for cutting spending. Obama is definitely going to go along with it. And then when they go for cutting spending, what are they going to go for? The deficit commission, commissioned by Obama, already came out and said, yes we want to cut your Social Security. It`s already so entrenched that, as I said, I talk to many Democrats on air. When they come on, they`re like, well, we`ve got to compromise. What`s the compromise? What are we going to get in return for cutting Social Security?
KORNACKI: Well, I think there are a couple of questions. First of all, you note that the commission proposals on deficit reduction came out in the middle of December, and then what was really the first thing that Congress did after that, as you correctly pointed out, they exploded a much bigger hole in the deficit. So that`s the degree to which Congress really cares about deficit reduction.
I think the other point is — and I think you get at it there, too, a little bit, you know, it`s true that people really don`t care about the deficit and about deficit reduction as much as Washington thinks that they do. If you take a poll sort of blindly on the question, do you think the deficit`s too high, do you think that we ought do something to reduce the deficit, those kind of notions poll well. Like you show though, when you actually say, OK, we need to make significant cuts in Medicare, Social Security, that`s how we`re going to accomplish it, support goes down.
Historically, if you look at the past 30 years, there have been three periods when the deficit`s really kind of been prominent, and one was in the early days of Reagan, one was in the early days of Clinton, and the third is right now. And in those other two instances, the economy was really what was driving that frustration and that anxiety. And people sort of attached their economic anxiety to the deficit. They`re sort of conditioned to do that.
I think they`re doing the same thing now, which is why I think the package that the president was able to get through, which is basically the closest thing he could possibly have gotten to a second stimulus, the package he was able to get through in the lame-duck session, that`s why I think that`s so significant, because that`s his last crack really for the foreseeable future at stimulus, and if that can get the economy going, then I think sort of this deficit fever dies down a little bit.
UYGUR: Steve, one last thing. Look, by the way, that was his last crack, and what did he do? He gave over $400 billion to the rich. And that goes to my last question, which is about the media. My guess is — and we`ll see again. We`ll see it unfold in the next year. We`ll see if I`m right or wrong, but that the media will totally forget that we gave away $400 billion to the rich, and when it comes to cutting spending, they won`t focus on the rich at all. Oh, that`s bridge under the water. No, no, no that`s already gone. And they`ll only talk about these other things. I mean, what do you think? Is that right, or will they finally wake up and go, oh my God, you`re right. Wait a minute. We just gave away the store to the rich.
KORNACKI: Well, let`s see what the sort of broader political atmosphere is like the next time that the fight over tax cuts for the wealthy comes up. It was waged, don`t forget, in a situation where Obama was weak politically. You just the midterm elections, you have unemployment near 10 percent.
UYGUR: Oh, come on! Steve, come on. Listen, weak politically? At the time, he had the House, he had the Senate, he had the White House. Only a Democrat would call that weak politically.
KORNACKI: And he just lost 63 seats in an election. That`s pretty significant. And if you look at what the trade —
UYGUR: But they hadn`t lost them yet. That was the whole point of the lame duck. They still had those seats.
KORNACKI: And they went on. And in exchange for also extending the tax cuts for the middle class, they were also able to get a treaty passed, they were also able to end the “Don`t Ask, Don`t Tell” policy, they were also able to extend unemployment benefits, and they were also able to pass a bunch of other stimulus measures that they wouldn`t otherwise have been able to pass. I`m not sitting here saying you should be jumping up and down and saying hooray, the taxes were cut for the upper-income people, but I think that`s not the only thing that happened in the last month.
UYGUR: I hear you. By the way, every one of those other things that we got had over a 67 percent approval rating by the American public. They were super easy. But that`s my opinion.
KORNACKI: The weren`t super easy. It would have taken 17 years to get “Don`t Ask, Don`t Tell” repealed if it were super easy.
UYGUR: No. I`m saying today. It`s 67 percent. Actually, “Don`t Ask, Don`t Tell” is at 80 percent popularity.
KORNACKI: Yes.
UYGUR: It wasn`t 17 years ago.
KORNACKI: Welcome to life in the U.S. Senate. That`s how —
(CROSSTALK)
UYGUR: No, not for the Republicans. They get stuff done incredibly easy when they have positions that are enormously unpopular. That tax cut for the rich was terribly unpopular.
KORNACKI: I think there was very significant legislation passed in that lame-duck session, much more than you`ve seen when Democrats have had lame-duck sessions and when Republicans have had lame-duck sessions.
UYGUR: All right. Steve, listen, you`ve been great. We really appreciate your time. Thanks for joining us.
>>> does president obama see in ronald reagan? at that lot. their philosophies are different. what president obama is learning from the gipper. let me finish with this question where will the grownups go in the republican party. we start with sarah palin and michelle bachmann. you know, let’s take a look at sarah palin. she must have saved this for fox in this interview. they are talk about the sputnik moment that president obamaing talked about which everybody remembers or heard about when united states got off its butt when we realized the soviets got out there with the first satellite. here’s her answer.
>> governor, last night there’s a lot of discussion about the sputnik moment that the president talked about. do you agree with him? is this our moment?
>> that was another one of those wtf moments that when he has so often repeated the sputnik moment that he would aspire americans to celebrate and he needs to remember that what happened back then with the former communist ussr and their victory in that race to space, yeah they won but also incurred so much debt at the time that it resulted in the collapse of the soviet union.
>> wow the soviet union went down after the failure of the coup out there. that was in ’91 in august. sputnik was in 1957. so the connection here. let me go to melinda. the connection with the space race with sputnik overtake our satellite efforts and us killing them in the space race. why would sarah palin say we lost the space race when everybody on planet earth knows we got the moon first, breaking human history by going to another world and the soviets gave up. they gave up. they said uncle. we can’t do what you guys are doing. 40 some years later they went bottom up. economically what is she talking about? who is writing this garbage for her? who puts it in her head. let’s start with her. who is putting this stuff in sarah palin’s head?
>> i don’t think there’s any good evidence that sarah palin has much of a team. i think she has yes people and she doesn’t have professionals working for her. but anything barack obama says, of course, she’s going say is absolutely the opposite of reality. but the thing that i was very offended hearing her talk about the wtf moment, i mean that’s so disrespectful of the office that i don’t think she’s even serious about wanting to run for the presidency. i think that if she were she wouldn’t be speaking in a way that really does not make her look like —
>> a little slow on this. i know it’s like people say btw. people say by the way. oh, my god, omg. here’s a woman running for president perhaps talking like this. jeff you were offended by her lingo. it’s childish and playing to the peanut gallery with this talk. not playing like you’re running for president. i’m offended by the absolute, seems to be weird sense of american history we’re getting from these people like her and bachmann. the other night bachmann was talking about how slavery ended by the founding fathers. there were compromises with henry clay. none of it ever happened. now we got — we lost the space race to the soviets and. bankrupt them. don’t they have some floor of knowledge they have to have for these people on the right to think of them as presidential material, josh?
>> you know, apparently not. both of them have creative approaches to american history. to me the key here is that the republicans sort of, you know, i don’t want to say the devil, made their deal in 2009 and 2010 and it’s people like sarah palin and michelle bachmann and a lot of other people who generate ad lot of energy on the right. not only them but them, you know, them and others to a great degree and now they are sort of looking towards 2012, they are in the majority in the house, but they still got these two who are there and, you know, i think that there are people in the republican party who now want to wish these two would sort of move to the side, but, you know, they sort of made that deal and it’s hard to get out of.
>> how can you tell your kid if you’re a conservative, reasonable conservative, would say my kids have to study in school because then you may bet to president. these people manifest ignorance. balloon head. bachmann knows nothing. running for president. when katie couric says what do you read they make knit to an insult. i don’t have to read anything. it turns out they don’t read the bible. they don’t read the constitution.
>> they are trying provocative. they don’t care —
>> are these people that cheer them think, aren’t they thinking. these people running for president making fools of themselves.
>> my big question as i said before about michelle bachmann does she have a staff. does she not have anybody say to you saying that founding fathers ended slavery.
>> let’s watch this. let’s recall. the reason there was a republican party. it wasn’t to cut taxes. it was to stop the expansion of slavery into the territories, into the new states so it wouldn’t become permanent. they want to get rid it and if they got all the new states being slave they would never get rid of it. here’s michelle bachmann ignoring that whole sweep of 100 years of american history the other night. here she is. let’s listen.
>> we know there was slavery that was still tolerated when the nation began. we know that was an evil. and it was scourge and a blot and a stain upon our history. but we also know that the very founders that wrote those documents worked tirelessly until slavery was no more in the united states. and i this it is high time that we recognize the contribution of our erse whoi ii iworked tirelessly.
>> but, you know, we did have from the 1776 onward until 1861, to the war we had slavery and it wasn’t until the emancipation proclamation and all slavery was outlaud under the 13th amendment. how can somebody gob out there — she does this little scribble. she mispronounces words like scourge and evil jamma. like she never said these words before. somebody is writing words that she never pronounced before. it’s scourge not scourge, it’s iwo jima. it’s iwo jima. but if you’ve never pronounced it before or said it before you say iwo jamma. someone emailed me and said this person is incredible. it’s insane a political party would consider a person like this for president. it’s sane.
>> look. they are both pretty ignorant.
>> how can you not get upset about it. this is unusual.
>> i’ll tell you why.
>> we had bob taft.
>> they are not being considered for president. and further, further they make the republicans who actually are serious contenders for the presidency look more serious by comparison.
>> these are the only people that get those republican people out of their seats cheering.
>> sarah palin, cheering and presidential, two different things.
>> why do people cheer these people?
>> i think there’s definitely something to what linda is saying. so me the key is yes i’m sure there are a lot of republicans that would like to usher these two off the stage. they are very ignorant. they say a lot of crazy stuff. they were saying this stuff in 2009 and last year. the key is that, you know, it’s very clear that sarah palin, you know, it’s a relatively small minority of people in the country who are really into her but a substantial chunk of the republican party. the key to me is going to your point, chris, there’s no one else in the republican party who can basically usher her away. she has too much support in the gop.
>> you know, i have a thought. that’s this.
>> do you?
>> a lot of people made it in american politics and made us look up to them who were not geniuses. bobby kennedy a smart guy. would study very hard. have people all the time to his house. learning. politic sass learning profession. jack kennedy from the time and he was kid, not only read everything but sit back ever he read the “new york times” every day in high school and try to be what he just studied. learned how to learn. these people are mocking that. they say you don’t have to know anything. you can tell katie couric i can’t think of anything i read.
>> no nothingism is — we have a long history of that in our country too of this populism that admires this —
>> not knowing anything.
>> i don’t think they are trying.
>> we’ll see. i think we’ll all be in tampa, those people cheering these people like mad and being very upset that one of these full mooners didn’t get the nomination.
>> don’t these women make tim pawlenty and mitt romney look more reasonable.
>> they make them look more boring.
>> four or five weeks of barack obama going up made them think it’s time to go whacko time. what’s the right word, you have a great voice, josh.
>>> cause of the financial crisis they issued their final report. a scathing indictment of both government officials and wall street ut executives. the commission was composes of six democrat, four republicans. it dug deeply into the actions, and negligence of officials at regulatory agencies, investment banks, credit rating companies and mortgage lenders.
>> we concluded, first and foremost, that this crisis was avoidable, despite the express view of many in the circles of financial and political power the crisis could not have been foreseen, there were many, many warning signs that were ignored or discounted. we concluded that key policymakers, our government, was ill prepared for the crisis and inconsistent response added to uncertainty and panic.
>> the commission says bush and clinton administrations, the current and previous federal reserve chairman, and treasury secretary timothy geithner all bear responsibility for allowing this crisis to happen. and the commission warns, it could happen again. but the findings are tainted by partisan politics, as well. six democrats on the commission supported the conclusions while the four republicans dissented. joining us now, the host of msnbc’s dylan ratigan show, part of his “steel on wheels” tour, while he was driving that bus, he was sifting through hundreds of pages of this report. what do you think of it, my friend, based on results that have been out there so far?
>> reporter: simply, it confirms all of our worst fears, that you had wall street executives transferring risk into the american pension system and then when it blew up, they had bought insurance, the wall street executives had bought insurance that the garbage they were selling to america’s pensions was going to blow up, it did. aig was happy to collect the insurance money but didn’t have anything to pay out. so we all had to pay it in our tax dollars to pay off goldman sachs$3 billion that went into their bonus pool and across wall street. the bigger question for me, richard, it confirms, again, all of our worst fear, that wall street executives were gaming the system to pay themselves off. tim geithner, our treasury second, at the new york federal reserve, was directly participatory in moving $3 billion of taxpayer money from the government to aig, into goldman sachs, that the treasury secretary at the time was the former ceo of goldman sachs. the only question that remains, richard, a simple one, and that is, will we see prosecutions for the fraud, the accounting fraud, ratings agency corruption, the overall conspiracy and act of control fraud allowed financial executives to pay themselves billions of dollars? they took that mooney and gave it to politicians. the politicians changes the rules in order to allow them to do this. and they had the blackmail of threatening toe blit threatening obliterate every pension in america. where are the prosecutions?
>> the four republican whose dissented on this report, they say there’s a list of ten factors that are influencing what had happens during the crisis. these are some of them we’re putting up on the screen right now. global economic forces in general had a major part of what happened. what’s their thinking here?
>> reporter: you know, i have no idea. maybe they got a lot of money from bankers. this is not a matter of opinion. the credit default swap is a mathematical device created unbill clinton, advocated under larry summers with no supervision. the leverage requirements lifted under george bush to allow them to bet 100-1, that is a math mat cal fact, to say the weather was weird that day and this happened is fundamentally laughble. you don’t agree with what the — global inputs to what happened. you don’t agree.
>> you asked me as if it’s my opinion.
>> right.
>> reporter: this is a mathematical fact. this is not a political opinion. it’s preposterous. is he dead or not dead? no, no, he’s dead. that’s an observable fact. because lloyd blankfein is so close to the white house, $1 million contributor to the president a featured prominent guest at china state dinner, this is only $8 million study. they funded this with pennies. i think, if nothing else, it’s a call not just for prosecutions on the fraud, but prosecutions — excuse me the establishment of a fire walled investigation, fire walled from the white house, which is clearly too close to goldman sacks and goldman sachs we know a fire walled investigation to get names, numbers and file charges.
>> dylan ratigan, thank you so much. have a safe trip. “steel on wheels.” catch the show today. taking the tour to omaha central high school. highlighting innovation, education, and a new push to revolutionize how we teach our kids. that’s today at 4:00 p.m. eastern
>>> paul ryan will give the response to the state of the union tonight, also something worth buzzing over, but he scored a bigger coupe when house republicans passed a resolution to give him the ability to single handedly cut ought nonsecurity spending to 2008 levels. at the won’t pass the democratic senate, but it’s curious that republicans voted in lockstep to give all the power to one lawmaker from the state of wisconsin. ryan is a fiscal hawk, or at least he claims that when he’s in and out cutting taxes. he has proposed privatizing social security and gutting medicare, but here’s the thing. his right-wing ideas seem moderate compared to most of the republican caucus. he’s proposed cutting $60 to $80 billion in the budget, but the republican study committee has its own proposal. it calls for at least $100 billion of cuts immediately and on the way to $2.5 trillion in federal budget cuts overial. let’s talk about it a bit more with congresswoman rosa delora of connecticut. first, i want to ask you about a couple lists here. i have a list of the cuts. they are looking to cut pbs, national document for the amounts, am track, and the ones i agree with, the federal travel budget, not all of it. the prohibition on competent tiff sourcing of government services, which if they actually did stop, and the usda sugar program, which is a subsidy for sugar. do some of those make sense? and, two, what do you think about the pbs and all the other ones they have always wanted to target? >> let’s put this into a context. they said what they wanted to do was to create jobs. they wanted to protect the middle class and deal with a deficit reductions. the first opportunity was how do we repeal and repeat health care, which is a job creator, which would have a devastating effect and would have $230 billion to the deficit. and they have — there’s some pieces here that they have laid out, but in fact there are really no real specifics to what they’re going to do. others would have to judge the impact on ordinary people. the fact of the matter is if you take a look at cutting for state and local government, what does that mean in terms of services? would that mean an increase in property taxes to families you know, at the moment, no rhyme or reason to what they are doing to try and meet the first need that the public has scud us to deal with, create jobs. where are they? where are their proposals to create jobs and put our economy back on track again? they’re not there. with this, as you pointed out, one individual to make cuts anywhere? i don’t think the americans were looking for that kind of effort. they leer look for democrats, republicans to come together and compromise on what that i can sense for the long-term economic growth of this country, to create jobs, and yes, to cut deficits. >> congresswoman, i don’t see how the massive spending cuts will do it. make they could make an argument for a long-run solution, but short run they have to admit that doesn’t create a single job, but you know, you mentioned specifics. you’re right the leadership is very brought. ryan is a little more specific, but not very. but when you get to the study group and those are the more right-wing guys, they are specific. for example, they want to prohibit taxpayer-funded union activities by federal employees. they’re going after the panel on climate change to help the oil companies. they’re going after administrative costs, which means you can’t do health care if they cut that. the general assistance to the district of columbia. community development fund. >> these are all of their ideological — >> it’s like a dream hit list. >> they will — it would be interesting to me to see what they would think about in the next year or the two years’ extension on the tax cuts for the wealthiest 1% of the people in this nation, and that is about $100,000 to these folks, whether they’re willing to cut back that, or where they’re going to go to deal with ordinary people. i think this is pretty disengenous about what they want they were going to do when they came to washington. a total flip about how we’re going to get this economic right, how do we create jobs? how do we protect the middle class? and how do we bring down the deficit? >> i didn’t see a single one that hits the top bracket. every ounce of pain goes to the middle class and the poor. >> you got it. >> congresswoman, thank you for joining
>>> to privatize medicare. of course. the conservatives are after health care reform now, but as you can see, medicare is up next. reform has already been repealed by house republicans and is moving closer to a vote in the senate. but senate democrats are fighting back. hold i holding hearings on how health’ reform is helping people from bankruptcy and quite possibly saving their lives. mere’s what one witness said about reform.
>> i could never drop off of an insurance plan, because if i did, it would have been almost impossible for me to get back on a plan. paying for my own health care would pretty much bankrupt me. the passage of the affordable health care act made walmost all of that go away. i can stay on my parents insurance till i’m 26, hopefully i won’t have to, but to have that security, i don’t think words can describe how important that is.
>> senator, tell us how the senators in the senate are looking to fight back against the republican repeal of health care.
>> first of all, thanks for bringing this up. we’re going to fight back by making the republicans defend themselves. how are they going to defend themselves by taking away emily’s health care coverage. the fact now she can stay on her parents’ policy. they have to explain how that’s going to help the american people. have them explain how it’s going to benefit people when they take away the coverage for pre-existing conditions where you can still get coverage even though you still have a pre-existing position of a child. the law is on the people’s side. now they want to take it away? i say put them on the defensive.
>> will there be a vote in the senate on reform?
>> well, mitch mcconnell says he’s going to bring it up one way or another. i assume at some he’s going to have a vote on it. but i want to see the debate. i want to take them on on this one.
>> esays you’re afraid of a vote. i’m not afraid of a vote.
>> i would welcome a vote on whether republicans want to take away the protection that people have right now that an insurance company can’t cancel their policy if they get sick. they want to take that away? let them vote on it.
>> it doesn’t look like the polls are on their side. they might be careful about what they wish for. now i do want to move on to medicare, though. the house saying they’re looking to privatize medicare. is that realistic and is that another fight you welcome?
>> you bet i do. they want to privatize social security. you might as well throw that one in there, too. they’ve been doing that since the 1930s, tryinging to repeal medicare or privatize it since we passed it in the ’60s. you bet. finally the american people are going to wake up and find out just what they voted for last fall. the old lincoln quote, you can fool some of the people all the time and all of the people some of the time but not all of the people all of the time. i think people are going to find out they got fooled in the last election. they thought they voted iffer people who were going to straighten the government out and be on their side. they’re going to find out they voted people into office that are going on the side of wall street, the hedge funds, the private investigators and they want to take away the coverage they have.
>> president obama has been noncommittal on social security. it looks like he might at some point agree to raise the retirement age. would you fight that?
>> you bet i would. it’s different for us that wear a tie and go to work every day. we’re 70. but how about the fireman or the woman who stands on her feet all day in a department store and you’re asking her to work until she’s 70 years old? it’s time to get real about what this means to really average working americans. no, we are not going to raise the retirement age.
>> all right, i like that kind of talk. one more for you. i know you were pushing for filibuster reform. it looked like it didn’t happen this time, what happened?
>> well, people got bought off with a lot of vague proms with we’re going to behave ourselves and be nicer around here.
>> that’s a good one. .
>> good luck on that one. look, senator jim demint said his goal for this congress is total gridlock. senator mim mcconnell said his goal is to make sure obama was a one-term president. i mean, let’s face it. the senate has become dysfunctional. what i insist on and what i think we ought to get to cenk, it’s all right for the minority to slow things down, but right now, they can veto everything. you can’t do anything unless you get 40 votes. guess what? the minority rules the senate. that stands democracy on its head. we’re going around the world preaching democracy? the minority gets to have a veto. explain that to veto.
>> if you’re going to filibuster, at least filibuster. you have to go out there and actually do it. the current system doesn’t make any sense at all.
>> okay, if you’re going to filibuster, stand out there and filibuster, they voted that down, too.
>> real quick, didn’t democrats have enough votes an at the beginning of the session to do it? why couldn’t the democrats hold it together?
>> well, why couldn’t the democrats hold it together? because we didn’t have the white house on our side. we couldn’t get the people together to understand that we won’t be able to get our programs enacted unless we have a change in these rules. you know what it is, cenk more than anything else. people are afraid of a majority vote. i’m not afraid of that. and if the people who elect these crazy tea party people in there and they vote to do these whacky things, i say give them rope. and the american people will find out and then we’ll have a real election next time around.
>> you weren’t kidding, you came to fight. i love it. thank you so much for joining us. we really appreciate it.
TRUMP TOLD THE AMERICAN PEOPLE THERE ARE THE SECURITY STATE AGENTS WHO THINK THAT THEY RUN THE GOVERNMENT AND HE STOOD UP TO THEM AND CHALLENGED THEIR ORTHODOXIES AND PIETIES AND SHOWED AMERICANS, ESPECIALLY PEOPLE IN THE REPUBLICAN PARTY ON THE RIGHT, THAT THESE INSTITUTIONS ARE NOT NOBLE OR BENEVOLENT BUT ARE HIGHLY PERNICIOUS. THEY […]
Joe Biden said, if you're fully vaccinated, the chances that you can get severely ill, not even die just get severely ill, are very low. And the statistic that he gave is, out of every 160,000 people who have been vaccinated, only one ends up going to the hospital with a serious illness. So the […]
Glenn Greenwald: "So you have huge number of journalists who believe that, they have the right to lie and even when they get caught, they don't care because they know their audience won't hold it against them." Continue reading →
THAT'S WHAT THEY ARE USING JANUARY 6TH. IT'S DEMENTED TO COMPARE 9/11 AND JANUARY 6TH BUT IT'S SO CENTRAL TO THE AGENDA OF THE SECURITY STATE, THE DEMOCRATIC PARTY, TO ESSENTIALLY INITIATE A SURVEILLANCE REGIME, A DETENTION REGIME, AGAINST PEOPLE ON THE RIGHT WHO ARE AGAINST THE ESTABLISHMENT. AND THEY’RE ALREADY DOING IT. AND THEY […]
Carlson: So now we’re arming the Taliban and marooning our own citizens in Afghanistan. Who could possibly have seen that coming. Glenn Greenwald is one of the few journalists who did see it coming. He writes for Substack where all … Continue reading →
And so that is what I call the birth of this woke industrial complex. It is a new leviathan, a new monster, that is far more powerful than what Thomas Hobbes might have envisioned 400 years ago, and it is the biggest threat to individual liberty today. It is not big government alone. Its conservatives […]
FBI CIA NSA are not only spying on American citizens but also are illegally unmasking their identities to journalists who support our fascist government Continue reading →
The government is instructing social media companies what should and shouldn't be allowed to be on the internet, these are the people least competent to judge what is misinformation. Continue reading →
Google, Facebook and Twitter should be treated as state actors under existing legal doctrines. Using a combination of statutory inducements and regulatory threats, Congress has co-opted Silicon Valley to do through the back door what government cannot directly accomplish under the Constitution. Congress is giving Big Tech immunity and more power in exchange for it censoring […]
THE SECURITY STATE HAS EXISTED SINCE THE END OF WORLD WAR II. THEY'VE BEEN OPERATING IN SECRET AND WITH NO DEMOCRATIC ACCOUNTABILITY FOR EIGHT OR NINE DECADES NOW. DWIGHT EISENHOWER WHEN HE LEFT OFFICE WARNED THE COUNTRY ABOUT THE DANGERS THAT THEY POSE. Continue reading →
Darryl Cooper, AKA @MartyrMade, is a podcaster who had a Twitter thread go viral with 13k retweets and 20k likes of the first Tweet alone. This one is 36-Tweets long. It makes very cogent arguments of not only why millions of Trump supporters believe the 2020 election was stolen, but also why we are justified […]
COVID-19 antibodies have been found in blood samples as early as September, 2019. China knew about the virus' transmission to humans months before it announced such to the world. Why has the media and our government not investigated this gross negligence, if not mass murder? Continue reading →
Democrats and elites are making straight white men the enemy of their new world order. Blacks, hispanics, gays are now the good guys; straight white men are the bad guys. Continue reading →
This ruling class of administrative state, big tech, corporations: all of these people think that they can get rid of Trump and we'll go back to normal. They're wedded to a broken system that has sold out the American people. And now they're going to try to sell out the American people and the middle […]
The real threat is collusion. When journalists strike secret alliances with the very people they're supposed to be holding accountable, we are in deep trouble. Lies go unchallenged. Democracy cannot function. And that's what we're watching right now. Continue reading →
The CIA from the very first days of the Trump administration, even before he was inaugurated, devoted themselves to sabotaging the administration because Donald Trump questioned just a few of their pieties. And that can't be done in Washington. Whoever does that must be destroyed. And so the CIA and the Deep State operatives became […]
The problem is the corruption that is absolutely pervasive in the U.S. news media. There are newsrooms all throughout New York and Washington DC, where top editors are explicitly saying they do not want this story investigated. And they're being clear that the reason that they don't want to investigate it is because they think […]
So Apple isn't fighting for diversity. They're doing exactly what they appear to be doing: they're trying to keep wages down and keep their workers compliant by importing labor from abroad.This isn't about diversity. It's about exploitation. It always is Continue reading →
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For years the Kochs have been promoting their own business interests by investing in right-wing groups. That includes $25 million between 2005 and 2008 to make you think that global warming is a myth and that we have too much environmental regulation. Interesting, considering Koch Industries happens to be one of the top ten air polluters in the U.S.
Cenk Uygur: Here’s where some of the funding goes that the Koch brothers give out. First, they have funding to thirty-five conservative and libertarian groups. And almost $48 million to global warming opposition groups. $37 million on direct lobbying to support fossil fuels. And more than $5 million to American for Prosperity. As they spend all of this money, they are looking for a return on their investment, aren’t they, Michael? They have factories creating pollution: they are one of the top ten polluters. Then they spend a gigantic amount of money to make sure that there is no regulation on pollution.
Cenk Uygur: Of course, 91% of their money goes to Republicans, and that is not surprising. Another thing that they’re interested in is taxes. Look at the capital gains tax: that’s 15%. When you look at the dividends tax rate, that’s 15%. Carried interest tax is 15%. That’s some of the lowest taxes in the country. They pay less taxes than we do. They are smart: you invest in politicians and you get a lot more money back in much lower rates than the rest of the country. It makes sense.
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