All Episodes
Previous Next
Nov. 12, 2010 - Jimmy Dore Show
57:08
20101112_The_Jimmy_Dore_Show_-_November_11_2010
| Copy link to current segment

Time Text
Hello, this is MSNBC President Phil Griffin, here with a special announcement for listeners of the Jimmy Dore Show on KPFK.
After listening to last week's show, it became clear to me that Jimmy, though it pains me to say this, has been harboring opinions on stuff.
I know, I know, you're as shocked as I am.
That's why I've taken immediate steps to suspend Jimmy from KPFK and to revoke the tote bag he was given during the most recent pledge drive.
Some of you may say, Phil, we like to hear Jimmy's opinions on things.
We listen to his show specifically because he provides an insightful analysis of the facts rather than just pretending that every issue always has two equal sides that are equally deserving of consideration.
Some of you may even be questioning why the president of MSNBC gets to make staffing decisions for a public radio station.
And to you, I say, shut up or I'll suspend you too.
I'll suspend you all, so help me.
You do not want to test me on this.
Anyway, Jimmy's suspension will be over in a few days after I've had sufficient time to cave in to the overwhelming public opinion that I'm just a dope in a suit who likes to think he's a big shot.
Thanks for your cooperation, and I hope you enjoy our replacement host for Jimmy's show this week, straight shooting objective journalist Joe Scarborough.
It's the Jimmy Door Show.
The show for like-minded, low-in-law lefties.
The kind of people that are.
Phil Mance maybe on tearing down our nation.
It's the show that makes Anderson Cooper say it's hard to talk to your T Valga.
So sit back or sit up or keep driving.
Because it's the Jimmy Door show.
And now, here's a guy who sounds a lot like me.
It's Jimmy Dore.
A lot happening this week.
George Bush is back in the news.
He wrote a book called Decision Points, and he did a special with Matt Lauer and how are people reacting?
Let's ask a guy who's crazy.
A lot of Americans, I bet, were waking up this morning, having watched the special last night, saying, you know, I kind of miss him.
And now let's hear from a regular person.
First and foremost, the fact that I had to wake up this morning and really have to sort of process and stomach the theory that George Bush is back.
It's like the worst nightmare that God ever could have created for me.
Well, guess what?
George Bush is here to answer all our questions about waterboarding, the TARP bailout, and most importantly, why a rich kid who was brought up in New England and is afraid of horses sounds like a cowboy from Texas.
We're going to ask him in studio.
It's President Bush.
Plus, the President's Deficit Commission came out with their recommendations yesterday.
And in an era of billion-dollar bonuses going to Wall Street, how do they recommend we cut the deficit?
The plan would reduce future cost of living adjustments for Social Security and gradually raise the retirement age to 68 and make Medicare recipients pay more.
Oh, that's good.
I was afraid they were going to try to cut the deficit on the backs of the working people.
That was a close one.
We talk about the Deficit Commission and its ridiculous recommendations.
Then later, did you hear it was going to cost $200 million a day to send President Obama to India?
Did you hear?
Two days announcing India at $200 million a day.
Have you ever seen the president ever seen the president go over for a vacation where you needed 34 warships?
$2 billion.
Come on, $2 billion, Glenn.
$2 billion.
thirty-four warships we are sending Come on, you guys.
You didn't hear about this story?
I mean, it was all over the media.
But the idea that you're going to take 3,000 people and you're booking over 500 rooms in a hotel and you're taking 40 airplanes.
You didn't hear about the story being reported in the media?
Come on, $200 million.
Do you need another moron to say it?
$200 million a day!
$200 million?
You haven't heard about this story.
It's been all over the media.
No president has ever anywhere close to 40 airplanes, 3,000 people, 500 rooms in one hotel, and that's just one hotel for a 10-day trip, $200 million a day.
If you're not familiar with that story, it's because it's a totally phony made-up story being pushed solely in the right-wing media echo chamber of fact-free news.
Well, today we're going to take a look at how the mainstream news covered that story.
We're going to take a look at Brian Williams and Anderson Cooper, our two favorite millionaire newsreaders, and see how they covered the story.
Who gets it right and who gets it wrong?
Hint, Brian Williams gets it wrong.
And then later, Jim Hightower stops by to bum us out in a folksy voice, and we round out the show with a call from Moron in our Tuesdays with Moron segment.
That's today on the Jimmy Dore Show.
Jimmy Dore Show.
Okay, so we're back in studio.
I've got a full studio with us today.
To my right, Steph Sam Murano.
Next to her, Robert Yasimura.
Next to him is Paul Gilmartin.
Schlegel.
And then next to him is Ben Zalovansky.
Yes, I say hello.
But right now, we're going to talk to you.
I thought we were all doing our ethnicities.
Yes, and I am American.
Confuse me with Robert.
Okay.
Well, right now, we're going to talk to the president himself.
We're George Bush.
Hello, Mr. President.
Thanks for having me down again.
Yeah, you've written your book.
Jimmy Dorham, I'm glad I opened up the Jimmy Door.
I appreciate that.
I appreciate you bringing a little levity to the show, Mr. President.
Thank you very much.
No, if levity is still hunging around next to me, I'm going to hunt him down and send him to G-Bay.
Okay.
Now, you've been doing your tour.
How's your tour been going?
It's been going good.
We're mostly doing door deals, splitting a door at places.
I had a couple cancellations.
I'm not that much of a draw.
Really?
Certain parts of the country, but I'm working my way into the circuit.
I think I'm impressing people.
I have a regional agent, and I'm helping for you.
Carl Rove, sometimes, sometimes I just get a hateful clown.
Now, you've revealed a lot of things in your interviews with Matt Lauer.
First of all, how'd you choose Matt to be the guy who interviewed you?
Well, Matt Lauder is a fellow who.
It's Laura.
Oh, I'm sorry.
Are you listening in?
How you doing, Rash?
Yeah, Matt Lauer is a courageous Americanizer.
He's always been out there.
And, you know, I see him on TV.
I talked to him before, and he breaks it down in terms that I think the American people understand or understandful of.
So when I have a message that needs to be messengered, I think he's the wings to carry him to Christ's lips.
Now, Mr. President, you've revealed a lot about yourself in the book that we haven't known before, specifically how you developed a lot of your stances on pro-life and such.
Now, you tell us about that.
Well, I believe that I firmly believe that life begins at perception.
But you say in the book that your mother, Barbara Bush, had a miscarriage.
God bless her to death.
Go.
God bless her in a butter biscuit.
So you said that when she had a miscarriage, that she put the fetus in the jar and showed it to you.
The miscarriagers are out there.
And they're attacking our children at a young age.
Sometimes they can attack you and sneak up with an abortion even when you don't want one.
Really?
It wasn't her choice.
She's forced to into it by the evil god.
Was that.
Did the cat scratch your tongue?
And so, how did that affect you?
I mean, does she ever bring that up on holidays?
Well, sure.
I mean, mama was good with pickling anything.
If fetuses was in season, she'd pickle that and serve it up on Memorial Day.
I mean, I have memories of just sitting down there with a good pickled fetus and a hound dog hot dog.
And then maybe a side of stem cell caviar.
All right, no, I want to get into some of the stuff.
A lot of people blame you for the economic downturn we're in right now.
I think they should get a job.
Yeah, okay.
They don't have time to sit around being blamers.
But you say in your book that.
Well, first of all, let's just play what you say about you were talking to Matt Lauer, and you were talking about job growth.
I understand that.
You're talking about job growth, and here's what you said.
I appreciate that.
For nearly 53 weeks, we had consecutive job growth, the longest period in one of the longest periods in American economic history.
The tax cuts, in my judgment, stimulated economic vitality, and a lot of jobs were created.
Okay.
Not only do I stand by those words, I stand on them.
You know, you say you created jobs in your administration.
You created 3 million jobs.
Yeah, they were in my administration.
Contractors.
3 million jobs.
Now, as opposed to Bill Clinton, during his eight years, he created 23 million jobs, roughly 20 more million than during your administration.
Well, there was inflation in numbers of people between then and then.
No, there really wasn't.
If you go back in time to the time that I was president, one job was worth more than when Clinton was president.
And Ronald Reagan.
There's inflation.
No, President Bush, you don't understand what that means.
Ronald Reagan created 16 million jobs.
Bill Clinton created 23.
You created 3 million jobs.
Well, I tried hard.
You go down the basement with raw materials, you're trying to whoop up jobs.
But here is what in the 3 million jobs that you did create.
Many of those 3 million jobs created in finance and housing, which, as we all know, was a bubble that has since gone bust.
There's nothing more fun than watching a bubble go bust.
Just we took a nice bubble bath with the American people, and you got to play around with saggy baggy elephants.
Bubble and bubble pink elephant bubbles.
No, but how do you fun time?
Now, when you're out there and you're meeting the people and you're explaining to them about your economic record, what are you saying to the people about you?
I mean, you did leave us with big deficits, and the jobs that you created really went away, and now we have everybody's getting highest rates of foreclosures in the history of our country.
What do you say to all this?
Well, I think you just asked your own question.
I know the people out there are living through the foreclosurizers.
The problem with the foreclosure is that you don't take it far enough.
I think we've got to go for five closures, six closures.
Once you get to that level, people start getting used to being pushed around from house to house, and maybe they stop asking for stuff.
Now, you've been quoted as saying that you have to look at your debt as a ratio to the GDP.
Well, you've got to look at the ratio to the numbers of a billion BP per unit.
But that's in the aggregate.
Okay.
Now, this is all stimul.
I stimulized it.
Now, you said that.
I know I said it.
But I also did it.
But let's talk about TARP.
Now, a lot of people don't realize that you were the one who started the TARP funds, and that was your program.
Oh, yeah, that's my program.
And TARP stands for assets re-people?
Program.
What it stands for is a program that puts a tarp over people from getting them wet when they're a major bank.
Yes.
I don't know what...
I'll read the fine print.
I shoot from the billboard.
Now, here's what you had to say about the TARP.
If you were president again, though, and TARP came up again, you would do the exact same thing.
Absolutely.
Given the same circumstances.
Well, yeah, if you face the same circumstances and you get to live a second time, which you do from time to time, you get to do it over.
I think if it's the same circumstances, you better do it the same way.
Or else you might come to a different conclusion.
Let me ask you, just to get back, just before we leave the economy and move on to the other problems in your administration, you said that you have to judge your economic record.
You created jobs.
You say that your debt to GDP ratio was low.
I created jobs.
I mean, you got your show while I was president.
I'm going to take credit for that.
Mr. President, isn't it true, though, that the vast majority of the jobs you created were in the public sector for like defense and security after 9-11?
And in fact, in the private sector, we lost about a million jobs.
Well, I don't think in terms of sectors, if there's anything I want to get rid of, it's any kind of private public.
Well, the jobs that I created were in what we needed, and we needed job people to clean up fear.
Because we spilled a lot of fear all over the place.
Well, here's what two economists had to say.
That thing is the most important thing to remember about your economic record.
This simple figure that people should keep in mind when it comes to putting it on a credit card for our kids.
When George W. Bush came to office, they had over a $200 billion surplus.
And when he left office, we had a trillion-dollar deficit.
The biggest rate of change on the largest scale in any country ever in the history of the world.
Okay.
Well, yeah, I mean, there you go.
If you're going to go to Humpty Dumpty University, I can drum up an economist for you.
Okay, well, I don't know what that has to do with what those guys just said.
Everybody's got an economist.
I got economists who say that I created 500 surpluses out of a trillion, hundred billions.
We're talking with President George Bush in his new book, Decision Points.
I appreciate that.
The points had to be decided on, and they're the points that I made my decisions in.
Didn't you double the deficit from $5 trillion when you entered office to more than $12 trillion when you left office?
Well, yeah, I doubled it, but that's just because it's negative numbers.
when the deficit gets big, it's easy to double it without knowing what you're doing.
Okay.
You don't throw on your...
I was curious, President Bush, that, you know, just, you know, how did you come about writing this book?
Was it hard for you?
Did you collaborate?
Was there a ghostwriter?
Well, I'm not going to reveal any revealed things.
But what I will say is that when you sit down and you wrangle a book like this, you've got to sit face to face with words.
Words that may have hurt you over the course of your living time on the planet or outside of it.
And you're going to sit down and you're going to think, oh, what do I want to say?
And what am I capable of not saying?
And you've got to find the happy medium place on the extremes of both.
And basically, when it comes down to it, what I wanted to say was, I did what I did, I'm happy with it.
All I had to do was lay low for a couple years and look.
The proof eats pudding.
And Obama came in, made things worse.
Whenever anybody is president, things get worse.
What I'm trying to tell you, people, is things are always getting worse.
Now, you know, a lot of people.
And eventually we're all just going to end up like a pickle fetus.
Now, you don't seem to really have learned a lot from, I mean, the economy, the wars.
You said you would.
I learned plenty.
I learned, hola, you me gusta, su policias.
That's not the kind of...
I learned that.
I still remember it.
Here's what we asked for reactions from certain people.
And here is Colonel Wilkinson, who was the chief of staff for Colin Powell.
Here's what he had to say about Colin Powell.
Here's what he had to say about your appearances with Matt Lauer with Matt Lauer.
It's another proof for me that this is a man who doesn't know how to do critical self-analysis.
And even if he does, he doesn't know how to deal with it after he's done it.
So what do you have to say to him?
I understand the speed at which he talks, but I think I have plenty of critical self-analyzers around me.
And I think there's so many of them trying to critical self-analyze me that I tell them to shut up, and that's how I deal with it.
Now, can we get there's always voices in your head that's telling you that there's voices in your head.
And what you got to do is, you know, you sit down, you focus on Jesus climbing up on that cross, and you've got to go.
I don't think he actually climbed up on the cross.
I think he was nailed to it.
Yeah, well, he climbed up on the cross and he nailed himself to it.
And then after he saved everybody's sins, he climbed back down and walked off into the sunset.
And that's what I did.
I did.
I'm terribly inspired, folks.
Mr. President, I have one last question.
The timing of your book seems very strange that you waited until after the midterms, which may have kept you from being associated with, say, the current Republican Party and the Tea Party.
Were you told by senior members of the Republican Party to stay off the radar till after the midterms?
Well, no, I was just waiting until after the World Series.
I want to see how the baseball teams go.
I don't follow politics anymore.
Once you leave the field, I'm done.
I leave my blessings to the younger generations, and I walk off to collect the wheat from the chaff.
Okay.
You said that.
Can we talk about torture?
Sure, but if you talk about it too much, you might have to experience it.
Well, here's what you had to say to Matt Lauer.
Let's talk about waterboarding.
Okay.
We believe America is going to be attacked again.
There's all kinds of intelligence coming in.
So I said to our team, are the techniques legal?
And a legal team says yes, they are.
And I said, use them.
You see, we recorded some of that interview in bed together.
Just smoking cigarettes, just looking out at the moon.
He's good.
He doesn't interview.
So you, who brought up the idea of waterboarding these people?
Well, I mean, they're generals.
I don't know their names, just generals, people who look like Army soldiers.
When you become president of the United States, you're surrounded by people who look like they're Army soldiers.
And they go, oh, there's 9-11 needs to happen.
Iraqians are out there terrorizing their selves.
And we need to go in before the shape of a form comes in the taste of a mushroom stool.
And sometimes they're going to say, oh, the water borders need to happen.
That sounds like fun.
Because usually what the Army men say is, oh, we've got to go out there, we could kill him.
We've got to make sure we assassinate him before he assassinates himself.
So when they say something fine like waterboarding, you say, you know, hang loose.
But here's what you said.
Just jump on board.
But it wasn't previously legal.
And when Matt Lauer asked you, well, here's what you said.
I legal act.
In your opinion.
Because the lawyer said it was legal.
It said it did not fall within the Anti-Torture Act.
So I just want to play that again just because it's kind of stunning your response to Matt Lauer here.
Why is waterboarding illegal, in your opinion?
Because the lawyer said it was legal.
It said it did not fall within the Anti-Torture Act.
I'm not a lawyer.
Yeah.
I'm not a lawyer.
So I don't know if you know this, but a big part of the job of being president of the United States is that you're always surrounded by laws.
So when you don't bring that skill to the skill set, you've got to be surrounded by people who tell you what the right thing is.
So you're saying that if a lawyer tells you to do something, even commit a war crime, if a lawyer says it's okay, that you're going to do it?
Yeah, because he's a lawyer.
He put in the time and effort to now he gets to tell you what the law is.
I mean, there's a lot of lawyers that right now, the law in America is that abortion is legal, but you wouldn't do an abortion because you know it's wrong in your heart.
I know it's wrong in my heart, but I would find a lawyer who agrees with me.
When you find a lawyer with agrees with you, he understands.
I don't know if you ever have been in legal trouble, but you can't be a very powerful Bush without growing up around lawyers.
And they come in and they know what you want.
I want to torture somebody or I don't want to get out of a DUI or ran over a kid.
Erase him from the history books.
You know, they bring a lawyer in and he's going to make that, he's going to turn the law into what it needs to be.
And that's the magical thing about freedom.
Okay, well, President Bush, I just want someone made the, I was reading an article yesterday and some.
I get waterborne.
I've been waterboarded.
I've been waterboarded.
Yeah, but what do you mean?
Well, I'll show you.
It's like, you know, it's fine.
Just a little water goes up your nose.
Yeah.
I mean, they were thirsty.
You know, we were on the radio.
No one can really see that you did that.
Yeah, but the lawyers did.
Okay.
President Bush, I just want to say you put a funny anecdote at the end of your book, and someone made the observation yesterday.
I was reading online that the funny story you'd like to tell is two weeks after you were president, there you are picking up the mess.
You're walking your dog in the park and you have to spend with a plastic bag, you have to lean over and pick up the dog's mess and how funny.
The most powerful man in the world a week before, and now you're picking up after your dog's mess.
And I was just thinking, wow, and now the rest of the country, I wasn't thinking that.
The guy who wrote it said, now the country's following you around, picking up after your mess.
Well, it's about time because if I just went pooping all over the place, people would step in it.
All right.
I can't pick it up myself.
President Bush, I want to say thank you very much for coming in.
Let me leave you with a gift.
I want to give you this.
This is a pickle fetus jar.
It's really good in wintertime for memorializing.
Yeah, this is one of my babies that was born with empathy.
You can't be a Bush.
We can't let you in the family.
So we went ahead and called it a miscarriage.
And it's just my Thanksgiving gift to you.
Okay, thank you very much, Mr. President.
Thanks for taking time off.
I appreciate that.
Thanks for having me down here, liberalizers.
President Bush.
Our thanks to James Domion stopping in to do his amazing George Bush impression.
Thank you very much, James Domian.
You could have seen James this year on Last Comic Standing, and you can catch him at jamesdomion.com.
Right now, I want to let you know if you'd like to see me, Jimmy Doerr, doing my standing up comedy routine, I'm going to be out in Claremont, California this Friday and Saturday.
That's the 12th and 13th of November at Flappers Comedy Club in Claremont.
And you know what?
If you all like to come as a special thing for my listeners, I'm going to give you five pairs of tickets for Saturday night show to Flappers in Claremont.
Call 818-985-5735.
That's 818-985-KPFK.
Call now.
We're going to give away five pairs of tickets to see me and my friends tell jokes at the Flappers Comedy Club in Claremont, California.
And don't forget, there's another Flappers Comedy Club in Burbank, California at 102 East Magnolia, 102 East Magnolia in Burbank.
It's called Flappers Comedy Club.
And we're going to have a subversive comedy show with Jimmy Door and friends there next Thursday, November 18th.
That's right.
So you can go to flapperscomedy.com and get all the information.
And we'll be right back after the break.
This is Jimmy Dore on Pacifica.
This is former Governor Justy Thabati Ventura.
I'm listening to the Jimmy Doer show on KPFK every Thursday at 4 p.m.
Why aren't you, Bill O'Reilly?
Jimmy, I'm feeling pretty good right now.
You got anything for that?
How about a little Jim Hightower?
Fox TV has quit reporting the news to become the news.
To promote his corporate political agenda, Fox has surrendered any pretense of media integrity.
Earlier this year, the far-right poo-bah of Fox, Rupert Murdoch, bolted from his journalistic hidey hole to donate a million dollars from his corporate coffers to defeat Democrats running for Congress.
He followed with another million dollars to elect Republican governors.
Then came Proposition 24, a California ballot initiative to help stem that state's festering budget crisis by repealing nearly $2 billion in tax giveaways for big, hugely profitable out-of-state corporations.
Unfortunately, Prop 24 failed, thanks in large part to an unprecedented, unethical push by Murdoch and his Fox minions to kill it.
Among the biggest recipients of this special tax break was, guess who?
Murdoch and Company.
Rupert poured $1.3 million into the No on 24 campaign.
But cash was not his sole weapon.
He also deployed his Fox business network to carpet bomb the initiative.
Just one of his so-called reporters broadcast five consecutive hours of live reports that repeatedly assailed the initiative in the last week of the election.
Another Fox business show exploded into on-air hyperbole, declaring that Prop 24, quote, was setting up businesses to be destroyed, quite frankly.
Frankly, Murdoch and his journalistic embarrassments don't know the meaning of frankness.
For example, none of those involved bothered to inform viewers that Fox was a partisan with a direct conflict of interest in the issue.
Astonishingly, a top network executive tried to claim innocence.
We didn't know, he cried.
This is Jim Hightower saying, and these guys call themselves journalists?
It's time for them to admit that they're just hired political hacks.
Okay, welcome back to the show.
Now, if you are an astute viewer of right-wing media, you know there's a story that said President Barack Obama was going to go to India and it was going to cost $200 million a day.
And he's going to bring 3,000 people with him and 32 warships.
And they are renting out 8,000 suites at the Taj Mahal, which there's only 500 suites at.
And it all started with Michelle Bachman when she was on with Anderson Cooper.
I think we know that just within a day or so, the President of the United States will be taking a trip over to India that is expected to cost the taxpayers $200 million a day, taking 2,000 people with him.
He'll be renting out over 870 rooms in India.
And these are five-star hotel rooms at the Taj Mahal Palace Hotel.
This is the kind of over-the-top spending.
It's a very small example.
Yeah, so that was Michelle Bachman getting it out there.
Where did she get her information, I would like to know?
So Anderson Cooper did ask her where she got the information set, and she said it's out there in the media, in the media, in the media.
Out there.
Out there in the media.
I didn't get it in here.
In the media.
Okay.
so then it was, so Rush Limbaugh, I played it earlier at the top of the show, so then it just got picked up.
Rush Limbaugh, Mark Levin, Sean Hannity, you name it.
Glenn Beck.
How can liberals ever win against people that have no conscience about just blatantly lying and making up facts?
Well, that's what I'll pause.
That's my problem.
You know, and that's my problem with Jon Stewart.
It goes back to that whole false equivalency thing.
It's like, well, how can you so how do you it's like i don't mind someone having a different political philosophy than me i can be friends with them it's that they're not it's not about philosophy it's about them throwing cheating and lying cheating and lying and to get what yeah i mean baldface lies uh uh sarah palin two lies this week it's two lies as she rails against the lamestream media for being you know inaccurate misquotes she totally got into a dust up with a guy from the wall street journal this week who corrected her he she said in a speech that um
a grocery anybody who goes shopping knows grocery prices are skyrocketing well he actually caught that and he said you know actually no grocery prices this is the slowest rate of inflation for grocery prices historically ever right so then she came back and said just said he was lying and it's just like the weirdest thing is it getting worse because media is is more diversified now where you know where it used to be in the 70s when there was three channels.
Yes.
Was it easier to hold people accountable to telling the truth because there was less media?
I think so because people, everybody would listen to the three stations or the four stations.
Everybody would listen to the people.
And Walter Cronkite was kind of your filter.
Yeah.
And you trusted him.
Yes.
But now it's just certain people listening to the right-wing media, they know who you are, and they know that you're very comfortable with overlooking inaccuracies and out-and-out lies.
And they tell you what you want to hear to keep your indignation going.
Yes, it's the George Orwell five minutes of hate.
Except it's 24-7.
Now, they want to get their hate on.
And I know what that feels like.
I know when George Bush was president and how much I needed someone to just kind of comfort me to say, yeah, I know what you're feeling.
This isn't right.
And he's crazy and not you.
And I needed that.
And I think that they get that, but it's never, it's not trial.
It's not true.
It's not based in reality.
But I just want to get on to this story because Anderson Cooper covered the story and he covered it pretty well.
I'm going to play, this is about a minute or so or two of Anderson Cooper's report.
And then I'm going to compare it to Brian Williams' report of the same story.
So here we go.
Tonight, a made-up story about the President of the United States and the politicians and pundits who are spreading it.
No one needs to make up any stuff or spread false stories about waste.
But that is exactly what is happening right now.
Perhaps you've heard the story that President Obama's trip to Asia starting tomorrow is going to cost taxpayers, you, $200 million a day, about $2 billion for the entire trip.
Perhaps you've heard or read online that 34 Navy ships are going to be diverted for the trip.
It sounds outrageous.
A multi-billion dollar boondoggle, a slap in the face to recession-weary Americans, a clear example of an imperial presidency and wasteful government.
As Congresswoman Michelle Bachmann said last night on this very program, she was on to talk about budget cuts and balancing the budget.
And my first question was about Medicare, but she clearly didn't want to talk about that and went right to the president's alleged $200 million a day trip.
I challenge her on the number.
Okay, so she plays that, which I'd already played, so now he goes on.
As I told her, the White House says they're wildly inflated.
She didn't back down, though, saying, quote, these are the numbers that are coming out in the press.
No, it sort of sounds legitimate, right?
The press, newspapers, networks, they check facts, they have multiple sources.
But it turns out the only press in which this story was coming out was an Indian press report.
And that $200 million a day figure, where'd that come from?
Well, that was in a quote by an alleged Indian provincial official.
I say alleged provincial official because we have no idea who this person is.
No name was given.
It was an anonymous quote, the kind that Sarah Palin has recently been railing against.
Some reporter in India wrote this article with this figure in it.
No proof was given.
No follow-up reporting done.
Now, you'd think if a member of Congress was going to use this figure as a fact, she would want to be pretty darn sure it was accurate, right?
But there hasn't been any follow-up reporting on this Indian story.
The Indian article was picked up by the Drudge Report and other sites online, and it quickly made its way into conservative talk radio.
And then he plays all the stuff from the Conservative talk radio.
No one really seemed to care to check the facts.
The guy from the Pentagon you saw earlier, he said this is comical.
Well, it would be comical if it wasn't being used by a powerful congresswoman, powerful pundits.
So Anderson Cooper, oh my God, he put the story in the correct context.
He told you what the real story was.
Now, let's just contrast that very quickly.
But he's gay, isn't he?
Wow.
Yeah, he is gay.
I don't think that matters, Paul.
No, no.
I don't think that matters.
No.
That's not what they told me in grade school.
That's in St. Joseph's Grammar School.
That certainly matters.
Okay, so now here's how Brian Williams handled the same story.
Before the president left the United States on his long trip overseas, various reports started surfacing in the media about the cost of the trip and his security along the way.
For a while there, the numbers were repeated unchecked until some people did some checking and found out a lot that was wrong.
Our White House correspondent, Savannah Guthrie, has arrived in India ahead of the president and is with us tonight from Mumbai to talk about it.
Savannah, good evening.
Good evening, Brian.
Well, it actually started with a report here in the Indian press citing an anonymous government official, an Indian government official, alleging that the president's trip costs would be $200 million a day.
And another report said that the Pentagon was sending 34 warships to the coast here to protect the president.
Well, the U.S. Secret Service and the White House won't comment on specific security details, but it did call this wildly inflated, grossly overestimated, not even close to true.
Just to put it in perspective, it costs about $190 million a day to execute the war in Afghanistan.
Clinton's trip to India back in 2000 was $10 million a day.
And the Pentagon spokesman, when asked about this claim that the Pentagon was sending 34 warships, said it was absolutely absurd and comical that the Pentagon would deploy 10% of the Navy to protect the President, Brian.
All right, Savannah Guthrie and Mumbai will be checking in with you along the way.
Okay, so now the only thing wrong with that report was that it totally leaves you completely uninformed about the important relevant facts.
We didn't need somebody to debunk a news story from India that nobody knew about.
We needed people to debunk a news story that was picked up by the right-wing media from India and only passed around in the right-wing media that never went checked.
That's what we need to.
And every one of them, by the way, to call to the carpet the people that pass this around.
Michelle Bachman, Rush Limbaugh, take them to task.
Yes.
He never even mentioned that.
This was only, he said the media.
He goes, the reports in the media.
The media?
You mean like 60 Minutes and Charlie Rose?
No, no, no.
He means like Drudge and Ra and Rush and Fox News and Hannity and Beck and Laura Ingram and Mark Frickin' Levin.
That's who he's talking about.
And you won't even know that that's the, I mean, that to me is the real story.
It's like, hey, look, here's another example.
Here's death panels.
Here's weapons of mass destruct.
Here's yellow.
know it's it's it's the whole it's it's surely sure rod it's the whole and and they Actual.
It's basically just the same thing.
They just want to muddy the waters.
In other words, if we can talk about Obama spending $200 million a day to go to India, we don't have to talk about health care.
We don't have to talk about all this stuff that is actually sort of important to running the country.
We don't have to do that.
Yeah, if you get people revved up and cranked up enough, then eventually more and more people are going to say, oh, to hell with the whole thing.
Yes.
And that is always a net gain for Republicans.
Well, it's always about, don't you think, muddying the waters.
Like the public option.
Let's never explain what it is so then we can just.
But people used to be, you know, politicians and journalists used to be smarter than the general public, either smarter or more well-informed.
And when you look at someone like Michelle Bachman, who is an actual elected representative, they hear a thing like she's either evil or stupid, or possibly both.
But she hears the thing like, well, they're going to send 34 warships instead of a normal person who says, that sounds like it might not be right.
It sounds a little bit crazy.
Maybe I'll just double-check it real quick.
She just goes right with it.
So she's either a complete moron or she's deliberately she thought that President Obama likes to jet ski.
But you know, maybe it's not that crazy because if they're deploying 10% of the Navy, then that still leaves 90%.
So that's a lot.
You know, let me just say that it's, you know, listening to Brian Williams.
It's not like it's not new.
It's like the junk food of news.
You know, it fills you up with information, but it's nothing that really helps you or you need.
You feel full, but there's empty calories that don't nourish you.
It's like they make you, it's just information that makes you fat and sluggish.
It doesn't really, you know, energize you to do anything.
You know, I mean, so while Fox is actively and purposely misinforming us, it's people like Brian Williams who are passively underinforming us.
That's an excellent point.
And never properly framing any story or presenting any issue in its proper context.
I mean, that would be the perfect example of like, see, here's this fear-mongering wing of our society, ladies and gentlemen.
And it's really important that I point this out to you because that's the only reason I'm even reporting on this story is because they were reporting on it.
But you would never know that.
It's like, oh my God, Brian Williams has to debunk a story from India.
You know why?
Because they suffer from the same disease that the Democrats suffer from, which is they're afraid of being attacked.
They're afraid of going the extra length that sticks their neck out that they may have to create a mess that they will have.
That is exactly it, because they are so scared of the right-wing media machine that they and also goes for broke at every path of least resistance.
They will always.
And by the way, this is completely on point with what happened with Olberman, where MSNBC is so freaked out that maybe he appears to be biased, which we all know he is, and it doesn't matter, and we don't care, and they shouldn't care, but they are so freaked out that they might appear to not be right that they're going to suspend him.
Like, really?
Mm-hmm.
Well, I would like to give...
I just feel like Brian Williams, when he weighs in on things, he's just kind of weighing in.
He's kind of dabbling and touching, you know, and going, well, there's...
You know, boy, boy, that's great.
All right.
So you can see.
Yeah, and he looks so good, and he is making bucks.
So he doesn't have anything really, he has no interest in this.
Didn't you think it was unusual that he was reporting on something that had no basis in fact?
If there's anything, like, does he come out and say, well, I heard some kids today talking about Santa, but we did some checking, and there is no Santa.
You know what?
I would like to hear the news read by people who are making minimum wage.
I'd like to hear some investment in how people's lives are being affected by economic decisions.
Instead of millionaires, that's basically what this show is.
Are you getting rich doing this show?
That's what our show is.
That's what you're saying?
That's what this show is.
talking about things that people listen to.
Wow.
Hello.
Hello.
We will be back.
Jimmy, you know, I listen every week.
Guys, I appreciate that.
I appreciate that.
But that's the problem.
We've talked about this before about the idea that millionaires are reporting the news.
That's exactly, yes.
How are they really reporting the news?
They're being paid to read transcripts or read a monitor that is going to serve the purpose or the company that owns that.
What Brian Williams doesn't do is he doesn't come into work every day and say, hey, what do people need to know?
He never says that to him.
Hey, what is it that they need to know right now for their lives?
Oh, they would need to know.
He would come in.
They need to know how the banking system's actually set up to screw them.
How the banking system's actually set up to extract wealth from them instead of invest into our economy.
I think you're partly right.
I think he says, what do people need to know that doesn't keep me here till midnight?
It doesn't rock the boat in any serious way.
You know, like, wouldn't it be great?
Like, if he decided to do a Ted Koppel, like when Ted Koppel took over that show, it was like, you know what?
I'm going to do one issue a night, and we're going to explain it to the people, and people are going to know about this issue.
They're going to be informed on it, and they're going to be able to make the proper decision.
They don't do that anymore.
I mean, that's not what Brian Williams is doing.
He's like, exactly what you said he's doing.
I wanted to give a and I want to give an award to Brian Williams.
Yes, we have a winner for the president's trip to India contest.
The winner is Brian Williams and the whole team over at NBC.
What was the contest?
The contest was to see who could come out of this whole $200 million fake India story thing looking like the most spineless group of assholes.
That fits on a trophy.
Congratulations to you, NBC, Brian Williams, and the whole NBC news crew.
You beat out CNN.
That's right, CNN, who managed to not ask a single question during the Bush administration.
CNN, the company that employs Wolf Blitzer, possibly the dumbest person on network news.
CNN, the network that prides themselves on being less controversial than my high school newspaper.
Yes, NBC, you beat those guys.
That was my I think it's great, but I really do feel like there are too many award shows now.
Okay.
You know, that was a fake award.
Oh, oh.
Oh, then I really liked it.
Oh, okay.
Okay.
Welcome to the case of Anderson Cooper gets it right.
And this is a really interesting case because the Republican talking machine really, if ever, gets called out on their bullshit.
And I mean bald-faced lies about basic facts.
Remember death panels, yellow cake uranium, the birthers, for Christ's sake.
But here they get called out on their BS by the other mainstream journalists.
Why?
Why on this story would they want to debunk it?
I mean, it's certainly not because other talking points haven't been equally easy to disprove.
Remember, Shirley Sherrod's a racist?
Remember that?
They could have fact-checked that story just by not pressing the pause button on the tape.
Yeah.
Literally watching the tape a few more minutes would have disproven the Shirley Sherrod story and the news cycle is over.
But no one did that until after she was fired.
And with this India case, the mainstream press will not give him a pass.
Why?
Here's why.
Because the story hinges on a specific number.
Yeah.
Numbers, which were repeated over and over again.
200 million, 32 ships, 3,000 people.
And for some reason, mainstream press guys won't let numbers go like that.
They'll let, say, Bill O'Reilly get away with claiming a Montana school wanted to teach little public school kids about homosexuality in kindergarten.
Yeah, he really said that.
And no, nobody challenged him on it.
But numbers, for some reason, numbers stick in the craw of other journalists.
Because numbers never lie.
I mean, except they lie all the time.
But I guess at least they don't sound equivocal.
So let this be a lesson to you, right-wing media echo chamber that is factless.
When you fax out your daily talking points from what I assume is a James Bond villain-like secret lair hidden in a volcano, when you send out those memos, just don't include specific numbers.
You could include all kinds of crazy lies.
for instance, this past Sunday, Representative Mike Pence claimed raising income taxes actually lowers federal revenues, which, you know, defies the laws of causal reality.
But for God's sake, he didn't use specific numbers.
So keep it vague, and everything will be fine.
And by fine, I mean a completely unregulated economy run by a pseudo-religious corporate oligopy.
That kind of fun.
*music*
This had better not be moron.
Oh, my God.
Hey, it's Jimmy.
Who's this?
Hey, Jimmy, how you doing?
It's Moron.
Hey, Moran, what's up, buddy?
How you?
Jimmy, you know me.
I'm a good American.
I vote against my own economic interest.
I have lots of anger at the government, but it's misplaced.
But I do find comfort in the fact that my Lord Jesus the Christ hates exactly the same people I do, which is nice.
Okay, well, what's on your mind today?
$100 million a day.
$200 million a day.
Moron, you know that.
$32 warships.
That's been $32 warships.
That's been $3,000 servants traveling with him.
Servants?
First of all, that's been debunked, Morris.
$200 million a day.
$200 million a day.
Why do you keep saying that number, Morris?
$34 warships.
Thorn, stop it.
34 warships.
3,000 servants traveling with them.
3,000, Jim.
Okay, you're going to have to calm down about this because it's all false.
I heard it on the news.
Yeah, Boron, you heard it on Fox News.
You mean the most watched news channel in all of cable?
Yes, I saw it on there.
What's your point, Jim?
Yeah, that's why I know it's false.
No, Jim, I did not only hear it there, I heard it way other places, too.
I read it on the Drudge Report.
I heard it on the radios.
I even heard that Mark Levin say it.
Yeah, well, what does that prove, Moron?
So if it was a false story, then one of them would have caught the other one and corrected them, but they didn't.
Well, they didn't, but NBC did, and CNN, they corrected you.
You mean the lame stream media?
They'll never tell you nothing.
Well, yeah, I mean the yeah, I mean the sane stream media.
Lame stream, Jim.
No, sane, sane stream.
Lamestream.
Is there anything else on your mind today, buddy?
Did you see the deficit commission that the President Obama appointed?
They came out with their recommendations, and their recommendations are to cut Social Security and the Medicare, right?
Well, you got it.
You can't.
There's no free lunch, Jim.
Moron, there is plenty of money in this country to take care of old people and pay for their retirement.
Nope, can't afford it, Jim.
We're going bankrupt.
The country can't afford the health care for everybody who's old.
Moron, you're just repeating stuff you've heard people say in the media.
Correct.
Well, I'm here to tell you that's not true.
We got plenty of money in this country.
Other countries have enough money to take care of their people when they get sick.
Really?
Enough money to take care of their people when they retire.
We can take care of them, too.
We're the richest country in the world.
I know that.
We just choose to spend our money in weird ways.
Like spending it in Afghanistan and Iraq instead of spending it here at home on schools and teachers and Social Security and Medicare.
Yeah, but Jim, we gotta have the soldiers over there in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Why?
Because if we don't fight them over there.
No, don't say it.
We're gonna have to fight them over here.
Exactly, Jim, for crime.
Hey, did you see President Bush has got a book out?
Yeah, you know that you seen them with that Matt Lowis.
Yeah, what'd you think, buddy?
You know, I kind of missed him.
I really did.
He's a straight shooter.
I like that guy.
Of course, you do.
Hey, Jim, I might have to go real quick.
I'm expecting a package.
Oh, Willie, what are you expecting?
I'm getting Dr. Cock Pro.
Well, watch your mouth.
What is it?
Dr. Cock Pro.
A cock, are you saying?
Yeah.
Oh.
Yeah, it's real nice.
You know, I got the mildewy old cocking in the bathroom, and this replaces it.
It's the perfect prescription for all my caulking ills.
I'll tell you that.
I didn't even know you had cocky ill.
Watch your mouth.
Yeah, you just, it's great.
Yeah, you gotta have a removal.
It's got wings and a sharp point, and it quickly and easily removes even the most stubborn of cock without scratching, which is the most important thing, I guess.
It sounds like you've scratched it.
Ah, you know, I was using a screwdriver, and I yeah, I know.
I just don't understand why you have to go when the door rings.
Well, I paid extra for express processing.
Really?
What did that run you?
Yeah, $5, and you moved to the front of the line with your order for processing.
And so I did that.
And if I miss it, if I miss the guy when he comes, then, you know, oh, that was for naught.
Oh, I didn't know five bucks was involved.
Yeah, so don't be offended.
I gotta move when the doorbell rings.
Oh, no problem, buddy.
I totally understand.
Moron?
Moron?
Okay, buddy.
Yes.
Wow, that was Moron.
Thank you, Moron.
He had to go.
Five bucks is five bucks.
The Dr. Cock Pro shows up.
You can't mess around.
Can we, yeah, I want to play another couple of quotes from George Bush and Matt Lauer.
And I know I said I was going to talk about the, you know, we could tease it.
We could tease it and talk about the deficit commission.
I wanted to talk about it this week, but we ran out of time.
And so I'll get to it next week.
The deficit commission, President Bush.
What happened was the Republicans, right, wanted to have a deficit commission.
So they can, so they're all, because they're all about the deficit now that the president isn't a Republican.
They're all about the deficit.
And so they wanted to have a commission.
So Barack Obama says, okay, I'm on for that.
Let's have a commission.
Well, as soon as Barack Obama said, let's do it, they said we don't want to do it because they don't want to be part of anything that Barack Obama's doing, right?
So then Barack Obama said, I'll go ahead and appoint my own commissioner.
So he appointed Alan Cranston, right, whose last name sounds just like he is.
Oh, Simpson.
Did I say Cranston?
Yeah, no, you're right.
Seth is right.
It is Alan Simpson.
So he put Alan Simpson and Erson Bowles, right, from the Clinton administration.
And they came up with, it was predictable what they were going to say.
You know, all you have to do is get rid of our empire.
Really, all you have to do, you get rid of the military empire.
You get to take our soldiers home from Germany.
You take our soldiers home from Korea.
You take our soldiers home from Japan.
And you take our soldiers home from every other country in the world where we're at.
And then we can have everything we want.
And you want to get rid of the deficit?
David Stockman, who was Ronald Reagan's budget director, he was Being interviewed on 60 Minutes, and this is what he said on 60 Minutes about how we can get rid of the deficit.
He wanted to put a 15% surcharge.
Here's Leslie Stall.
Still, he says there should be a one-time, 15% surtax on the wealthy that he estimates would cut the national debt in half.
So I was just talking, Paul Gilmartin is sitting back in the studio.
I was just telling the people that David Stockman was interviewed on 60 Minutes, and he said that he recommended a 15% surcharge on the wealthy, which would cut the deficit in half.
He goes, a one-time surcharge, 15%, it would cut the deficit in half.
He's doing a one-time surcharge for a year or two-year-old?
Yeah, one year.
I'm guessing you add 15% onto top of whatever the tax rate is.
You do that for one time for one year.
And he said that would get rid of half of the deficit.
That's David Stockman.
That's the budget director.
So here's what he...
And think about this.
While we're talking about cutting the deficit and the way they want to do it is by...
I don't have anything against summer homes.
I think everybody should have.
Some little prejudice against third and fourth homes.
Well, they get all I'm saying.
They took away people's deficit commission wanted to take away the interest deduction people get when they pay their mortgage.
So that's something that helps the middle class.
They wanted to raise a retirement age because people are living longer.
No, lawyers are living longer, not janitors.
So here's what David, that's true.
So that's what David said, here's what David Stockman.
Just think about this over the week.
In 1985, the top 5% of the households, the wealthiest 5%, had net worth of $8 trillion, which is a lot.
Today, after serial bubble after serial bubble, the top 5% have net worth of $40 trillion.
Oh, my God.
The top 5% have gained more wealth than the whole human race had created prior to 1980.
$40 trillion.
Oh, my God.
The top 5% had gained more wealth than the whole human race had created prior to 1980.
So I think we have enough money to pay for Social Security, is my point.
That's quite a stunning statistic.
We're going to get into it more.
We're going to talk about the income and inequality next week.
And, of course, we're going to do it in a funny way.
And I wanted to...
Doesn't it lend itself just by its very existence?
It is, that is Paul Gilmartin, and I want to thank you for being my guest today, Paul.
Thanks for coming in.
I want to thank Ali Lexa.
I want to thank Robert Yasimura, Ben Zalivansky, James Adomian for playing George Bush.
Stan Stankos and Steph Samurano.
Thanks, everybody, for their help putting together the show.
And I want to thank you for listening and remind you to stop by JimmyDoorComedy.com and sign my email list.
And I'll let you know when I'm coming to your town to tell jokes.
Yeah, I just wanted them to also check out comedy and everything else.
Oh, that's the podcast that and I do, the comedy and everything else, where we interview all the top comedians of the day.
David Spade, Janine Garofilo, Paul F. Tompkins, Patton Oswald, all the best comedians around.
▲
Export Selection