Jimmy Dore Show - 20110610_The_Jimmy_Dore_Show_6-9-11

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June 10, 2011 - Jimmy Dore Show

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20110610_The_Jimmy_Dore_Show_6-9-11

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	Hey, Doy, this is Bill Riley.
	Well, you got to have me on your show to tear up this Wiener guy.
	Can you believe this pinhead twittering that picture of his manhood to that lady without the hashtag pound sign, get on it, you whore?
	Unbelievable.
	What a coward.
	Jimmy, this whole thing is nuts.
	The media's gone out of control on this one.
	We're out of control.
	As is always the case, a Democrat caught in a filthy sex scandal like this one gets a free pass from the media.
	And no one bats an eye or gives him any scrutiny at all.
	Whereas everyone knows that if a Republican so much as wolf whistles at a woman, he is pilloried by the press and then literally thrown on top of a pile of burning tires.
	Isn't it great that I get to say demonstrably untrue crap like that and not get fired?
	I love America.
	I, for one, have been very magnanimous in dealing with Congressman Weiner.
	For example, I pointed out that, hey, at least he didn't send close-up pictures of his nose, right?
	Have you seen that thing?
	You're like, I'm looking at spy versus spy over here.
	And quite frankly, if this is his idea of sexual harassment, I'm not very impressed.
	Hiding behind your keyboard or your Blackberry and sending suggestive little twitbics.
	Come on.
	You call her directly on the phone and you tell her how and when you're going to bang her.
	Or hell.
	Get up there in real life, champ.
	In my day, you'd have to corner her in an elevator, knock her purse out of her hand.
	And then when she bends over to pick it up, you press your penis against her cheek.
	It would turn her on, and everyone else in the elevator would have a good laugh over it.
	Everybody wins, Jimmy.
	I'm telling you, all this internet stuff is making people soft.
	I've said that for a long time now.
	Give me a call back, Jimmy.
	I love you, but you do it!
	It's the Jimmy Door show.
	It's the show that makes Anderson Cooper say it's hard to talk to you guys.
	So sit back or sit up or keep driving.
	And now, here's a guy who sounds a lot like me.
	It's Jimmy Dore!
	Hi, everybody.
	Welcome to today's show.
	I am joined in studio, as always, from cinematictitanic.com and Mystery Science Theater 3000.
	It's Frank Connip.
	Hi, Frank.
	How are you?
	Hey, Jimmy.
	And from Dinner and a Movie on DBS and his own podcast, The Mental Illness Happy Hour podcast, which I love that show.
	It's a great show.
	It's Paul Gilmartin, ladies and gentlemen.
	Hello, James.
	Hi, Paul.
	And Paul also does the hilarious character, Ask a Republican, right?
	You're still doing it.
	They're going to do it this Saturday, aren't you?
	I am at Poppin' Politics and the website, ask a Republican.com if you want to see what it's that time.
	So what's coming up on today's show?
	Wow.
	The hubris of Anthony Weiner, the narcissism.
	I mean, this is even worse than when he thought he'd get the public option into the health care bill.
	Now people thought he was going to be the next mayor of New York, and now he's going to have to sell for his own show on CNN.
	Is there a difference with Senator David Vitter?
	I mean, with his whole little prostitution, he's on a prostitution client list.
	That's right, folks.
	And there's hypocrisy so blatant that even Greta Fan Suster noticed it.
	And there is a big difference between what Vitter and Weiner did.
	The money Vitter spent on hookers went to help small business.
	We're going to talk about the hypocrisy with the RNC chairman Russ Priebus coming up.
	Plus, guess who else showed up?
	And so I'm here for some vindication.
	That's right.
	That's Andrew Breitbart, the discredited journalist who repeatedly been caught doctoring videotapes to slander lion push-false narratives.
	Well, he showed up to defend his good name.
	Okay, we're going to talk about that.
	Plus, we're going to talk about how the local media handled Anthony Weiner story, the national media, how Chris Hardball handled it.
	Plus, we have an interview.
	That's right, we're going to talk live with Jim Hightower coming up today.
	Oh, plus, lots of phone calls from Morgan Freeman, Bill O'Reilly, Arnold Schwarzenegger.
	That's this week on the Jimmy Dore show.
	I'm okay and say hi.
	Now, let's just lay it.
	I'm on up.
	Time for another installment of, oh my God.
	Okay, so for on today's, oh my God, I'm going to give you a little background.
	It's a clip from Rush Limbaugh, but do you remember when he got caught with the Viagra coming back from sexual tourism?
	Well, this is reported by the AP and CBS News.
	After authorities found a bottle of Viagra in his bag at a Palm Beach International Airport, the airport, and this prescription was not in his name.
	He was detained for more than three hours.
	And then there's some more stuff to that.
	It was a violation because he had already been convicted on the doctor shopping with the Vicodens.
	So he was already a criminal.
	And then he was caught doing that criminal.
	So the reason I bring this up, just so you have some background, because I'm going to play a clip right now of a guy calling into his show.
	This is, I think, from yesterday, actually.
	I mean, you're talking about how smart everybody is.
	You tell us how smart you are every day.
	But how is this different from you going to, you know, the sexual tourist destination of Dominican Republic with a bottle of Viagra and having that split all over the headlines?
	So he's talking about the Anthony Weiner thing.
	He just says, how is this different than what you did?
	And here's what Rush says.
	How did you like that?
	Why is this different?
	Well, but what you describe about me isn't true.
	And I guess what you're suggesting here is that getting caught having sex affairs is only stupid when Republicans do it.
	No, but what you're suggesting, Rush, is that it's only stupid when Democrats do it.
	That's what he was doing all day.
	It's only stupid when the Democrats do it.
	No, but I didn't, I didn't.
	No, this, you know, you are, you're repeating internet rumors based in hatred and misinformation and typical brainlessness on the left.
	And also on AP news reports.
	We're also basing it on that.
	It's people like you who present the rest of us with the greatest challenge we have in saving the country.
	Because general glittering jewels of colossal ignorance like you and your hate-filled partisanship are primarily responsible.
	People just like you are primarily responsible for the precarious position this great nation finds itself in.
	Because you can't be counted on for genuine, decent citizenship.
	That's right.
	Do you think he was looking in the mirror while he was saying that?
	I don't know, but maybe, you know, so this is the kind of decent citizenship and the kind of debate he's looking for, this kind right here.
	Obama's America, white kids getting beat up on school buses now.
	I mean, you put your kids on a school bus, you expect safety, but in Obama's America, the white kids now get beat up with the black kids cheering, yeah, right now, radal, radar, radon.
	And of course, everybody says, oh, the white kid deserved it.
	He was born a racist.
	He's white.
	See, that's what he's looking for.
	That didn't come off as racist at all.
	Rado, rado.
	No, he's just trying to.
	You get the feeling that his, if he were to say what a black person would say, he would use the word turkey.
	Yes, he would.
	There's more to his good citizenship.
	Yes, the NFL all too often looks like a game between the bloods and the crips without any weapons.
	There.
	Hi, Service.
	There, he said it.
	There, he said that racist thing.
	And you could feel the country unite.
	Yes.
	He's bringing people together.
	That's what Rush Limbaugh is all about.
	So I think there was.
	I want him to be in Thailand.
	I don't want him here.
	I want him to do on his sexual tourism.
	So there is a little bit more to that clip.
	Let me see if I don't know.
	I'm not sure what's on there, but let's listen.
	You can't be counted on to protect this country when it's under assault internally.
	You seek your jollies in false victories over your political enemies while your country is in the process of going down in flames.
	It's people like you that try to make excuses for reprobates like Weiner and Clinton and so forth.
	But not Vitter or Ensign or Gingrich or Foley or none of those guys.
	No, just those guys.
	Because they're filled with partisan hatred.
	That's what it's all about.
	When someone calls in and has a factual thing to throw at him from the AP News report about him getting caught with Viagra, you know, it's a little bit shoot the messenger.
	I'll also say in Limbau's defense that this guy accused him of being a sexual tourist.
	But when he went to Thailand, he makes a point of going to the less touristy whorehouse.
	That was where the lie was.
	That's where the lie was.
	He doesn't like those, like those vulgar touristy cheesecake factory of whorehouses.
	Yeah.
	Yes.
	I think it seemed weird.
	You know that saying when you point the finger at someone, you have three fingers pointing back at you.
	Rush also had his feet and his other hand pointing back at him when he was doing that.
	Although, you know what I say?
	When I point the finger at you, yes, I have three fingers pointing at me, but I also have my thumb pointing at you, which is like two fingers, so it's even.
	That's how I look at it.
	Okay.
	And that was.
	This has been, oh my God.
	Oh, my God.
	Okay, nobody's screaming, oh my God, today.
	You don't really expect to be surprised when you say, and here's a clip from Rush Limbaugh.
	You just go, okay, what form will this hypocrisy take?
	But if he said something compassionate, then you go, yes, yes.
	Oh, maybe I should start looking for those guys.
	You'll never find.
	Because, no, he has said stuff that I agree with before.
	It's rare, but I've heard him say stuff I agree with.
	He said it was 84 and Sunny in Tampa Bay the other day, and I was like, you know what?
	He's dead on.
	I probably, I don't know if he has this, but I bet I agree with him that Cinnabons are awesome.
	I bet I agree with him too.
	All right, no, I want to get to the coverage of the Anthony Weiner thing.
	And I'm going to start out with my local ABC news.
	Here's a young lady, the top of the news.
	This is the lead story.
	The Anthony Weiner scandal raises a question: why would a powerful politician risk everything, including future and family, to engage in such inappropriate behavior?
	Well, that's your question.
	Why?
	The inappropriate behavior being the texting of pictures of his penis or using government money to shave his chest.
	Very nice.
	Well, it's just funny.
	To me, it's always funny when this happens and they have a woman say that.
	Why would he risk everything?
	It's like, I'm going to give you three guesses, and the first two don't count.
	And the third one would be because he has a penis.
	Yes.
	He has a penis.
	It's okay.
	If I had a penis that was worth looking at, I would see how I could text it in HD.
	That's what I would spend most of my time trying to figure out.
	So here's, so I'm watching the Dylan Radigan show, and he likes to have a roundtable.
	And it's hard for me to watch a roundtable of people that I know for sure I'm smarter than all of them.
	It's really hard because they all miss the big point all the time, except for Dylan Radigan.
	He's the smartest one there.
	And so here I am watching Dylan.
	And by the way, Robert, Yasamura, congratulations.
	You made it.
	Thanks for showing up.
	Absolutely my pleasure.
	All right, he's here.
	We got caught in the traffic on the 10, but we're in the apocalypse out there right now.
	Even though KPFK is not in FunDrive, we still are in Studio B this week.
	Just because I like to sit in my comfy chair.
	Okay.
	So here's another.
	We're talking about Robert.
	We're talking about the media coverage of the Anthony Weiner scandal, and people trying to figure out why he did it.
	Here's a woman from the Dylan Radigan show yesterday, and here's what she had.
	Here's another woman trying to figure out just what it's like to have a penis.
	I think that goes to the sort of bigger picture, frankly, of what we've seen, not just over the last several weeks, it feels like, but going back for quite a while, which is there is something going on in our culture, it seems, where you have these men who are powerful who seemingly have it all and are willing to risk it all for a sexual thrill on the side.
	Part of it, the adrenaline, makes them feel sexy, makes them feel strong and powerful.
	Okay, so what she's saying is guys in powerful positions are doing crazy stuff and risking it everything for a few moments of sexual pleasure with strange women.
	And boy, is that a news flash.
	That is a new thing.
	What is going on in the zeitgeist for the last 2,000 years?
	Guys willing to risk it all for sex is surely a new phenomenon, isn't it, Robert?
	It's absolutely insane that our basic biological urge that we will kill to procreate is coming up now.
	Wow.
	What is going on?
	What's with the kids do?
	Why would Weiner act upon something he thinks about every eight seconds?
	Exactly.
	That's what they say.
	Men have a sexual thought.
	Are you guys excusing what he did, or are you questioning the depth in which they're examining this as if there is something to discover?
	That's what I'm exactly.
	That's it.
	Yeah, no, no.
	Because I think it is.
	It's certainly newsworthy because it shows bad judgment.
	It's certainly newsworthy.
	It shows bad judgment.
	It's not anymore.
	It's certainly not as newsworthy as the debt ceiling.
	It's not as newsworthy as them slashing Medicare.
	It's not as newsworthy as the 9% unemployment as permanent.
	It's not as newsworthy as one in every four mortgages is underwater.
	It's not as newsworthy as the we only added 25,000 jobs in May.
	It's not as newsworthy as.
	We get it, fact guy.
	We got it.
	But what those other stories lack is the word wiener in the title.
	They do lack.
	And an actual wiener in the story.
	And the guy, first of all.
	Do you think God is up there just going, how can I let them know that they need to be better journalists?
	Well, let me have a guy that makes off with a lot of money.
	Let's have his last name be Madoff.
	Let's have a guy showing his dick.
	Let's have his name be Wiener.
	Do you think at some point they're going to people are going to walk around with arrows next to them that say, this guy's going to do this, cover him this way.
	Right.
	It turns out that God is into puns.
	Who knew?
	But Republicans from the 11th in Iowa.
	I mean, she's going, but she made the case.
	She's like, what is it about?
	That's going to the sort of bigger picture, frankly, of what we've seen, not just over the last several weeks, it feels like, but, you know, going back for quite a while, which is going back for quite a while.
	So not just the last several weeks, but going on for quite a while.
	So do you mean like going back to, I don't know, Bill Clinton or going back to JFK or going back to FDR or going back to Thomas Jefferson who had kids with his slaves?
	We can go all the way back to the guys from the Geico commercial.
	Men in the newsroom aren't speaking up because they don't want to come off as pigs by saying, listen, this isn't a news story.
	This is.
	Yeah, this is what this is what guys.
	Well, it's a news story, but it's, but you don't have to figure it out.
	Yeah, it's like, oh, he got caught doing this thing.
	He got caught around.
	I think the impulse to not be monogamous is probably in most men, but I don't think necessarily most men act on that.
	Right.
	Well, yeah, right.
	The hubris of to get away with sexual dalliances, right?
	But the real story is here.
	Or one of the story is that the headline could easily reach: read: A congressman stays faithful to his wife, still needs to leave Congress.
	Right.
	Doesn't break law with prostitutes.
	Doesn't break law with prostitute, has no physical contact with woman, is shamed and needs to leave Congress.
	That's really what's happening here.
	I know Arnold Schwarzenegger actually called in.
	He had a little something to say about Weiner.
	Hello, Jimmy Doer.
	It's me, Arnold.
	Remember me from a few weeks ago when everyone was talking about what a scumbag I was?
	Well, now, thanks to this Anthony Wiener guy.
	That seems like a long time ago.
	It seems almost as long ago as my movie, The Last Action Hero, would seem to anyone unfortunate enough to have watched it.
	Some people say that this Weiner guy should go to a psychiatrist, and that's probably a good idea.
	I just went to a therapist, and my behavior was diagnosed as auto-erotic because as governor, I had sex with all kinds of women while driving California off a cliff.
	But I don't just don't understand how Anthony Wiener could be satisfied doing all his hanky-banky in cyberspace.
	I mean, call me old-fashioned, but I don't think I could have emotionally scarred the women of growth if I hadn't done it in person.
	I just love that one-on-one experience.
	Me laughing and fondling.
	Two women screaming and spraying mates in my face.
	I'm not afraid of it, I'm not sure Jimmy.
	And Jimmy, for me to get an erection, I need to have a woman in the same room with me.
	Or better yet, two or three women in the same room with me.
	It's employed in my sperm.
	It's a subbranched beside the computer keyboard.
	Come on, Jimmy.
	I can't get my kicks alone in a room with a laptop.
	I'm a movie star.
	Well, I used to be a movie star.
	I don't know that I am anymore.
	Or what I am.
	Except Horny.
	Man, I could really go for a housekeeper right about now.
	Even a nanny.
	I'd settled for a Kennedy.
	That's how desperate I am.
	I once asked Maria's grandmother, Rose.
	She dressed in a French maid's outfit for me.
	And I she refused.
	I was so angry, I almost stopped having sex with her.
	Oh, no.
	I think I said too much.
	Yeah.
	Okay.
	Wow.
	Okay, that was hard.
	Let's talk about Andrew.
	Can we talk about Andrew Breitbart?
	I knew that the victim in this was Andrew Breitbart.
	We all knew that the real victim, Andrew Bright, whose previous investigations have been debunked, exposed as frauds long ago, and he should have been shamed into hiding by the mainstream media for repeatedly using doctored videotapes to lie and slander.
	But for some reason, he hasn't been.
	Some reason, the media just embraces him.
	They treat him like he's just a regular guy.
	And he also respects your journalist now, like Opie and Anthony.
	Yeah.
	Yes.
	Yeah, you expect him to have a morning zoo crew behind him at any moment.
	And so he showed up, I guess, because he showed up at the press conference because he wanted to defend his reputation as a piece of shit.
	I guess.
	I guess he didn't want it to be besmirched anymore.
	So here's what, let's listen to what he had to say.
	I want to hear the truth from Congressman Weiner.
	Quite frankly, I'd like an apology for him being complicit in a blame the messenger strategy.
	That was clear what happened.
	72 hours in Palm Springs with your family is excruciating when you are being challenged.
	Andrew, why aren't you on vacation?
	Why won't you get off the phone?
	Because I'm being accused of being the hacker against a congressman.
	So Andrew, he's holding a press conference because he had a bad weekend in Palm Springs.
	That's why he's had.
	Hey, I felt so horrible when I heard about how it ruined his weekend in Palm Springs.
	In Palm Springs, hey, how about that's like you and every other gay guy in Los Angeles?
	Okay.
	And you don't hold, and they don't have press conferences about it.
	At best, they do a one-person show.
	Anyways, and do you really think that his kids were going, Daddy, why are you on the phone?
	I'm pretty sure they were saying, hey, why the hell did you bring us to Palm Springs?
	You know, unless you're an asthmatic golf fanatic, it's barely anything interesting for adults to do in Palm Springs.
	And for children, it's pretty much just the experience of being dehydrated.
	No, children love mid-century furniture.
	Yes.
	Daddy, take us to Sinatra's house.
	Take us to where JFK never showed up and ruined his weekend.
	But the thing, you know what's worse of a weekend for Andrew Breitbart, though?
	I'm pretty sure Shirley Sherrod had a few worse weekends.
	You know, what with being slandered out of her decades of public service by Andrew Breitbrad?
	And I'm also guessing all the people who worked at Acorn have had worse weekends because of Andrew Breitbrout.
	I'm pretty sure ACORN employees have had rough weekends given that they did some of the most selfless, thankless, and underpaid work trying to help the indigent of this country with legal aid.
	And speaking of whom, the poor...
	It can, if you want it to mean that way.
	Do you want it to mean that?
	Go ahead.
	But the poor.
	Let's think about the poor, Andrew.
	The poor that used to be serviced by Acorn.
	I think they've had a couple of tough weekends since that, you know, being all poor and all.
	But maybe they should have a press conference.
	So how did you feel about, how did you guys feel about Andrew Breitbart and his press conference, Robert?
	I wanted to kill him.
	I wanted, you know what, him I can let alone.
	It's the news media.
	Yeah, and the thing about that press conference, too, is it's not just that he got up.
	He got up there because the press encouraged him to encourage him.
	They asked him to get up there.
	They asked him to get up there.
	So, yeah, I mean, he wouldn't even be a part of our consciousness, really, if it weren't for all the enablers in the press who well.
	I mean, look, look at the entire right wing right now.
	I mean, it's like they're pointing cameras at people and making them exist.
	I mean, Sarah Palin ceases to exist the moment you point a camera at her.
	It's degenerated to the point of reality TV, almost to the point where every week the press room should vote a journalist off the press room.
	But there are no journalists in the press room.
	No, that would be the problem.
	You'd have to go get some journalists.
	Where would you go to get journalists?
	Oh, I don't know.
	School papers.
	The I.F. Stone Weekly is still coming out.
	They're not even stenographers.
	Like, they don't even have that skill set.
	They just sort of point cameras and then announce what they just pointed cameras at.
	And do we think that this is a result of the budget cuts from media consolidation?
	No, I don't know.
	Why do we think it's a good idea?
	It doesn't have anything to do with it.
	It just has to do with the continued disintegration of standards in the mainstream.
	But what's constantly started in the television?
	It started in the Clinton years.
	It's been going on for a decade and a half at least now.
	But you don't think media consolidation has contributed to the market.
	Well, media consolidation has totally.
	Yeah, when they got rid of the Fairness Doctrine, when I got Telecommunications Act in 96, which allowed news stations and newspapers and radio stations to all be owned by the same entity in the same city, which it used to be split up before, so you made sure that the people were being served.
	Well, now it's not.
	Now it's like the most patriotic and Christian thing you can do is serve the money-making capabilities of a large corporation.
	And all of the press do is protect power, as they consider, I think, their major purpose.
	Do you think they do it consciously?
	Pretty much.
	I think if they don't, it's editorial.
	Like just by cutting out certain stories, they can do it.
	I mean, you know, just do it by omission.
	Yes, it's that it's the core, it's the stories they choose not to tell.
	It's the frame that they give to the stories, but it's also part of hegemony, which is when they internalize the ruling class's values.
	And that's exactly what I mean.
	Every journalist, if you have not internalized the ruling class's values, you do not make it as a journalist.
	I mean, David Gregory, if he questioned the status quo, would not be on that show.
	And like, it's like when the whole WikiLeaks thing came out, exactly.
	They all attacked the WikiLeaks.
	Because they were protecting the powerful from Wikileaks.
	Yes.
	And for being exposed for not being journalists themselves.
	Right.
	Well, I don't even think they ever saw it that way.
	I really don't.
	But Arnold called me.
	But before we get to Arnold Schwarzenegger's phone call, here's a little something from my friend David Feldman.
	Hi, Jimmy.
	This is David Feldman.
	And coming up on our show this Friday at 3:30, tomorrow, we'll wish a happy birthday to Britain's Prince Philip.
	Still going weak at 90.
	Maria Shriver and her kids stop by to show us which brand of cyanide they'll be buying Arnold for Father's Day.
	The state of Alaska releases 24,000 pages of emails that Sarah Palin sent as governor, which are said to be a treasure trove of spelling variations on the name Jesus.
	And after seeing Congressman Anthony Weiner without his shirt on, America now wonders if sometimes the cover-up isn't worse than the crime.
	It's all tomorrow on the David Feldman Show, 3:30 right here on KPFK.
	And now here's our call from Arnold.
	What?
	Yes.
	But anyway, I just don't get this Vienna guy.
	First of all, he took pictures of his little penis.
	How pathetic is that?
	Last time I had a picture of my penis taken, it was by Annie Levitz.
	That was for the poster for my movie, Kindergarten Cork, which was never released for reasons that should be obvious.
	And seriously, Jimmy, does Congressman Vienna caught that thing in his underpanther barge?
	Have my true lies posted.
	Jimmy D. Curtis has a bigger barge than that.
	But my advocacy, the only photographic process that would do it justice is a 3D IMAX green.
	You know what?
	I'm going to call my buddy Jim Cameron and get him started on this right away.
	Oh, boy.
	Now I'm excited.
	How excited?
	But Jimmy, go online and I'll send you a Twitter picker.
	That will show you just how excited I am.
	So long, Jimmy.
	Goodbye!
	Hey, Jimmy, this is David Feldman.
	Don't forget to listen to our show tomorrow at 3:30 on KPFK and this Saturday at Meltdown Comics at 8 o'clock.
	Catch poppin' politics with Jimmy Dore hosting his pop and politics show with Mystery Science Theater's Frank Conniff, Fly of the Concord's Eddie Pepitone, Dinner in the Movies, Paul Gilmartin, and me, David Feldman.
	Join Jimmy Dore and a celebrity panel as they make fun of other celebrities, today's newsmakers, and our favorite cultural jackasses with a raucous blend of stand-up, sketch, and video clips of people saying some of the dumbest crap you've ever heard.
	It's a hilarious night of laughs, blasphemy, and general disrespect this Saturday, popping politics with Jimmy Dore, 8 p.m. at Meltdown Comics, 7522 Sunset Boulevard, only $10.
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	And now back to the show.
	you Thank you.
	you Okay, we're back at the Jimmy Door show.
	I am joined from Mystery Science Theater 3000.
	It's Frank Connoff from Dinner in a Movie.
	It's Paul Gilmartin.
	And from Team Yasamura, it's Robert Yasamura.
	And reminding everybody, see you this Saturday.
	Oh, tonight also at Flappers.
	We're going to be telling jokes with Robert at Flappers and Burbank, right?
	Go to flappers.com.
	All the shows are available at the Jimmy Door comedy website.
	That's what I'm talking about.
	And if you want a link to the Poppin' Politics show this weekend, go to kpfk.org.
	If people do that, it's right there on the front page.
	You link it up, baby.
	And okay, so what's coming up on the rest of this show?
	Well, Jim Hightower, you know, when he usually stops by and bums us out in a folksy voice, well, he's going to be here in person on the phone.
	We're going to talk to him for about 20 minutes.
	He's going to be here in person on the phone.
	Well, you know what I mean.
	All right.
	I was a little confused there.
	You know, it was meant to be confusing.
	Well, Jim's in town doing a benefit.
	It's called Stand Up for Main Street, and it benefits an organization called Public Citizen.
	And there's a lot of hilarious comedians on that.
	It's this Sunday.
	If you can pony up the dough, it's going to be a fun show.
	You can go to citizen.org to get more information.
	But right now, Jim Hightower is going to explain.
	He's on the board of Public Citizen.
	He's going to explain to us what the Public Citizen does and how important they are for everybody.
	Here's our conversation with Jim Hightower.
	I happen to be on the board of Public Citizen.
	It's the only board of directors that I serve on.
	And I'm on a few advisory boards, but that just means you give advice, whether they want it or not.
	But this one, I'm actually on the board, and that's because they're just not only do they have a breadth of issues that they get involved with, but they are extremely effective.
	More often than not, they win, and we need more of that on the progressive side.
	So everything from their legal division, Public Citizens Legal Group, is the most effective public law organization in the country, really a public law firm.
	They're before the Supreme Court all the time, you know, that sort of stuff.
	But also, their global trade efforts that they make, they've got a big energy environmental program as well.
	And they stand up for consumers, for regular working folks against the corporate powers.
	And the good news is they take no corporate money and no government money.
	And they're totally independent.
	Well, that's good to hear.
	And can you hear, which is very unique in today's day and age, but can you hear, can you tell us, like, what were some of their victories that you could point to that people would know about?
	Well, they were the organizers of the protest against World Trade Organizations some years ago.
	And now, that was in Seattle really a decade ago, and I was a part of that myself.
	But that sparked a movement in this country to fight back against these trade scams.
	And it has forced some of the politicians in our country, everything from attorneys general to members of Congress, and even slightly the Obama administration, to have to take a pro, a more pro-worker sort of stand against these trade scams.
	So that has been tremendous.
	They have had numerous efforts that they've made on automobile safety that have made the cars all that much safer than they once were.
	And they continue that push, continue exposing the frauds that are within the industry on safety.
	But again, fighting and winning.
	And, you know, now they're here in Texas, they've got a Texas office.
	We're working on trying to get a California office, by the way.
	They have a tremendous impact here.
	They are the leading public interest groups in front of the legislature here in Texas.
	And I tell you, somebody's got to be in front of the legislature because this is a bunch of goobers.
	So now, where does a public citizen get most of their funding?
	From foundations, from members, they've got about 100 something thousand members of the organization.
	From actions that they bring, they're actually on some of the lawsuits that they win, they actually get money out of those that then goes back into the organization.
	And also, like a lot of public interest organizations, or nearly all of them, really, they don't pay the exorbitant salaries.
	I mean, we do try to be fair and try to be competitive, at least in the public interest world.
	But we're not having to compete with Wall Street salaries.
	And so that makes a difference as well.
	So it's pretty, pretty, you know, it's an organization that uses money well and produces real results.
	And your board isn't full of the bunch of fat cat teachers who are getting rich off the public dole.
	Oh, those teachers.
	You know, I didn't realize that Miss Ruth West back in the 11th grade in Denison High School, that she was just a leech on society.
	Yes, they are.
	I didn't understand it at the time.
	You know, I thought well of her.
	I always suspected it.
	Even though they drive junkie cars, they still are the ones taking all our money.
	I don't know.
	They're just sneaky.
	I mean, why else would you become a teacher, Jim, unless you are really greedy and a money grubber?
	It's about money.
	Now, let me let me.
	And so this, the reason why we're talking to you this week is you're in town to do this.
	There's a stand-up benefit to raise money for Public Citizen, which is an organization we could use more of.
	And it's this Sunday at 6:30 at the Brentwood Theater.
	That's 11301 Wilshire Boulevard in Los Angeles.
	And it's an all-star cast going to be on the show.
	Bill Burr, people are familiar with him, Jeff Garland from Kub Curb Your Enthusiasm, Andy Kindler, Hal Sparks, and even some more people.
	So it's going to be a fun stand-up comedy show.
	And now you're not going to, are you going to be doing comedy, Jim?
	Well, I'm going to stand around.
	Barbara Enrock's also on our board.
	She's going to be there.
	I'm going to be there.
	And of course, our man from right out there in your own territory is going to be with us as well.
	So it's going to be a fun night.
	Okay, now let me just ask you while I have you just a few questions.
	Now, we hear your commentary on my show weekly, and a lot of times you're railing against corporations.
	Now, what do you have against making a profit and creating jobs?
	I'm all for both of those things.
	What I'm not for is making a killing and destroying jobs, which our major corporate powers seem to be in the business of.
	The real job creation comes from pretty much local businesses, but certainly from smaller enterprises and particularly startups and new companies.
	And that's where we ought to be putting our energy.
	But instead, our distinguished leaders, now at the state level as well as at the national level, seem tied to the money powers, which are the corporate interests that fund the campaigns and buy government.
	And so we keep providing subsidies to people who need them the least to the ExxonMobils, to the Walmarts.
	Subsidies, not only in terms of cash and tax breaks, but also in terms of regulatory favors, helping them move jobs out of the country.
	We actually subsidize that here.
	I mean, in Ignorance is Bliss.
	We must be ecstatic to keep doing that.
	Well, I thought that's because our corporate tax rates are too high here.
	People have to ship the jobs overseas.
	Isn't that what it's all about?
	Yeah, because once you get a tax rates that corporations are paying, averaging around about 12%, as opposed to us regular schmucks, you and me, who's paying about 30%, yeah, that corporate rate is way too high.
	We ought to cut them some more slack.
	So let me ask you a question.
	So now, a movement underfoot is a lot of right-wingers want to lower the corporate tax to like a 25%, but they want to then say they want to eliminate the tax loopholes so that the corporations will actually pay 25%.
	Now, if that happened, would you be in favor of that?
	One, I don't trust that it will happen.
	Corporations have entire divisions, entire floors of their headquarters that are populated by lawyers and accountants and bean counters whose job is to find the loopholes, to find their way out of it.
	That's why I don't believe in kind of these regulatory reforms.
	For example, we just passed one last year on Wall Street.
	But notice that Wall Street's profits continue to be just as high as they ever were, and that the Wall Street executives, the very ones who crashed our economy, are now reaping the multi-million dollar bonus payments for themselves yet again.
	And that Wall Street did not take the bailout money that we made available and put that into the real economy.
	Instead, they're playing the casino games that wrecked the previous economy.
	So here we go again.
	And so they have a way of getting around regulation rather than what we should have done on that reform was to break up the Wall Street Giants.
	Actually, we made the ones that remain bigger than they were before when they were too big to fail, you might remember.
	Correct, sure.
	And that's why we had to bail them out because if they were going to, if they didn't bail them, we had to save Wall Street to save Main Street.
	Well, we saved Wall Street, but Main Street still got a depression no matter what.
	So my question is: I hear Mitt Romney now is starting to make his campaign starting to kick his campaign off.
	And he's talking about bringing jobs to America.
	Now, Barack Obama, he's a smart guy.
	So wouldn't he know that his banking policy is going to lead to less jobs?
	Didn't he know this already?
	I have a feeling he already did.
	So, I mean, if Americans ultimately are going to judge their leaders on if we have jobs or not.
	I mean, ultimately, that's what's going to happen.
	So isn't he aware that not doing a proper, like this first stimulus was kind of not really worth it anyway because most of it was in tax cuts, which really aren't stimulative.
	And so if he's smart, which he is, we all can agree on that.
	He must know that he's not going to be creating jobs anytime soon.
	And he has kind of boxed himself into a corner now where he can't even do another stimulus.
	And he's now kind of regurgitating right-wing talking points about cutting spending, which is the opposite of what we should be doing in a depression.
	So what, I mean, I don't, so that kind of, have you ever thought about that?
	What is his psychology?
	What's his game?
	Is it just to kind of get re-elected by the skin of his teeth?
	Or does he really want to try and help the economy?
	I think his plan is to face a Gingrich-Bachman ticket.
	I have no idea.
	I've struggled with this one.
	I've written about it.
	I've talked about it.
	But it makes no sense at all.
	Yes, of course, jobs are the issue in this country and will be for a very, very long time because we don't have a jobs program.
	Quite the opposite.
	We have a job elimination program, what the corporate economists refer to as the new normal, in which you will not have lifelong employment at a particular company.
	You may not have, there will be long periods where you will not be employed.
	And the job you get next will pay less than the job you did have.
	So it's a downward spiral because as one corporate executive put it, you really don't want labor.
	You don't want people working for you.
	And so they're trying to replace labor with machinery and with cheap labor elsewhere around the world or by bringing cheap labor here even, which is another scheme.
	But Obama, I don't understand, Jimmy, why he did not put forth something he really talked about, which was the new green economy, a grassroots push where we would hire all kinds of folks at a local level to retrofit our buildings for conservation purposes,
	our homes, the schools, where we would have a crash program of renewable energy development and shifting the economy totally toward the green area that is very job intensive, much more job intensive than the corporations we now have.
	But he didn't push it.
	So, you know, instead, we got to.
	I've heard Dylan Radigan kind of speak to this point a little bit.
	And, you know, one of my favorite progressives, Jenk Uger, will often talk to Dylan Radigan on MSNBC, and he'll always lament, well, why doesn't Barack Obama fight harder?
	Why doesn't he fight against the banks?
	And Dylan Radigan says it's because he doesn't see anything there to fight for.
	He's already made it clear that he's coming down on the side of the banks.
	He's with the banks.
	He's not with the people.
	But at the same time, my question is like, well, if he doesn't increase employment, how is that going to help his administration?
	How is that going to help him get reelected?
	And even Mitt Romney, it's like, you know, he's talking about bringing jobs back to America.
	I'm like, all right, well, if you get elected, you know that your plan isn't going to bring jobs to America.
	Mitt Romney knows that his plan isn't going to bring jobs to America, just like Barack Obama knows his banking policy isn't going to bring investment to America.
	So do they just want to win the political?
	Do they just want to, you know, Obama's counting on money.
	You know, he's going to raise, I don't know, a billion dollars for the campaign.
	And, you know, other money will be there behind him as well.
	So he's catering to the big money interests that have that ability to fund his campaign and then count on the other side being right-wing balls, which is a fairly good possibility, given the lineup.
	And then, you know, having, you know, being able to make good speeches and that sort of thing.
	But, you know, the problem is, is not that, well, the problem is that that approach to politics depresses turnout.
	Yes.
	He'll have the hardcore Democrats and folks like us, but it's not that those working stiffs who have know that they've essentially been lied to and that they are in a jobless recovery.
	Yes.
	I mean, that's not just an oxymoron.
	It is moronic, and they know that.
	So they're not going to go vote for him.
	And so they may not like the Republicans, so they'll just stay home.
	So what happens, Jim, when government becomes, you know, one, over 70% of the people polled said they wanted a public option.
	Over 70% of the people say they're against cutting Medicare to balance the budget.
	Yet this is what it seems like our government is hell-bent on doing.
	Now, what happens?
	You're smarter than I am.
	So you can tell me what happens when a government becomes this unresponsive to its people.
	I mean, we have nowhere to go.
	I want to get out of Afghanistan.
	Where's my party?
	I want to defend the unions.
	Where's my party?
	I want somebody who's going to stick up for teachers and invest in America.
	Where's my party?
	Bingo.
	Well, first of all, I'm not Smarter than you, as you just articulated very well.
	And secondly, this is why, as Lily Tumlin puts it, no matter how cynical you get, it's almost impossible to keep up because we keep getting stiffed, we being we the people.
	As you indicate, people are overwhelmingly progressive in terms of the policies they want.
	Yet we're being stiffed.
	And the result of that is cynicism, which is very bad, which leads to non-participation.
	But that's not entirely what's happening.
	And this is the good news: that at least at the local level and in many state levels, there is an energy and a responsiveness, and things are getting done, very progressive things.
	Vermont just passed a single-payer health care plan, for example.
	It doesn't take effect immediately, but it is a single-payer plan.
	Wow.
	That's good news.
	Medicare for all, in effect.
	So the states are going to begin to move, and cities are going to move.
	And, you know, like, well, a good example is Wisconsin, where this Koch Brothers-funded and backed right-wing governor got elected up there and immediately began to enact an agenda that the people of Wisconsin simply do not support.
	And so now a bunch of those, well, the governor himself, but about seven Republican senators who voted for this stuff are in a heap of hurt.
	They're under recall election.
	Three have already been certified for recall elections and they're going to lose.
	One of those three senators, for example, only won last time by 163 votes out of 84,000 cast.
	So he's got some pain that's coming his way.
	So is there a silver lining in all this?
	Is that maybe that it's going to take people themselves?
	Yeah, that the people are going to wake up.
	Yeah, well, people are awake.
	But like you just said, people are saying, yeah, this is what I want.
	Where do I vote for this?
	What do I do?
	And there's no easy lever right now.
	But we have to keep electing better people to the Congress.
	And by the way, we have a lot of stalwarts.
	There are some very, very good, strong people in the Congress who do stand for us and do push for real democratic policies, both little D and big D policies.
	By the way, I've come out with what I think is the best pumper sticker for 2012, FDR for president.
	Yeah.
	You know what?
	I couldn't be couldn't agree with you.
	The real Democratic White House.
	Yes.
	Well, let's dig him up.
	Dig him up.
	He couldn't do worse.
	Could he?
	No, he couldn't.
	Barack Obama sounded a lot like FDR in the campaign, but he certainly is, you know, he governs more like Joe Scarborough.
	Yeah, right.
	Well, here's the problem.
	And it is that Obama wants to be liked by the wealthy.
	Unlike Roosevelt, who was from the wealthy, who said when he was asked about the fact that he was betraying his class, he said, I welcome their hatred.
	See, that's the attitude you've got to have.
	If you're going to govern as a progressive, you've got to be willing to piss people off.
	Well, the difference, you know, I point to Teddy Roosevelt and FDR, and you say, well, and even Elliot Spitzer, the three guys that I can think of off the top of my head who stood up to big business or to Wall Street.
	And the thing that ties those three guys together is that they were all born of privilege and they were all rich.
	So they didn't grow up needing their approval from the rich people.
	They didn't grow up with an inferiority complex.
	Whereas Barack Obama, you know, you don't get to be the editor of the Harvard Law Review as a black guy if you stir it up all the time.
	Good point.
	And from the opposite end of it, Jimmy, is Elizabeth Wong, you know, who comes out of a hard Scrabble family in Oklahoma, but not only has stood up to the bankers, but has really irritated them.
	And of course, they're out to crush her.
	But, you know, the question, will Obama have the stuff to stay with her and get her on that commission?
	Or should she just step away, as some are urging, and go to Massachusetts where she has talked and has a home and run for the U.S. Senate there.
	Wow.
	Yeah.
	Well, that would be nice if she did that.
	But, you know, I've told people that George Bush made me an activist and Barack Obama made me a cynic.
	And, you know, I have a lot of Democrats who get mad at me for, you know, you got to stick together.
	You got to get big behind Barack Obama.
	And I say just the opposite.
	I say, you know, you have to hold their feet to the fire.
	And he's, you know, if your government's not being responsive to you, I mean, what should you do?
	Well, what we have to do is to work at a grassroots level to build a progressive movement that is independent of the White House, a progressive movement that can elect people to the city council, state legislature, and to Congress.
	For example, y'all are going to have a shot out there in California up and just north of San Francisco up there with Norman Solomon, who's running for a congressional seat there and has a very, very good shot at it.
	Norman Solomon comes out of Ralph Nader, for God's sake.
	He is a solid challenger to and confronter of the corporate powers.
	In fact, he had a phrase.
	I was out there doing some campaigning for him recently and he had a phrase I liked.
	He said, it's not that you need to speak truth to power.
	You need to speak truth about power.
	That changes people's minds.
	Yes, very good.
	Well, you know, there's only a few places you can get truth about power.
	It certainly isn't through the corporate media.
	It certainly isn't going to come from Brian Williams.
	And, you know, I hate to say it, but even NPR toes the corporate line very often.
	It is very disheartening.
	You know, it just breaks my heart as much as Barack Obama did.
	But I want to let people know a good way that they can do something, Grass, which is to support Public Citizen, which is a great organization you sit on the board of.
	And this Sunday, you're in town.
	You're going to be speaking at all-star comedy show featuring guys like Bill Burr, Jeff Garland, Don Myrera, Andy Kindler, Paula Poundstone, and many others.
	That's this Sunday, June 12th at 6.30 p.m. at the Brentwood Theater.
	And they can go to, what is the website for Public Citizen?
	Citizen.org.
	Oh, okay.
	And then you can go to slash stand-up event.
	And Steve Scroban, on our board out there in L.A., has been the organizer of this, himself, a great comic and comedic writer with everybody loves Raymond and the credentials he's got.
	And he's just a super guy.
	So he's going to be there, myself, Barbara Ehrenreich, Rob Wiseman, the head of Public Citizen, and just a whole gaggle of us.
	We're going to have more fun than the law allows, but we'll see what happens.
	Okay.
	Well, good luck to you on the benefit.
	Thanks for taking time to talk with us, Jim.
	Really appreciate it.
	And thanks for making your commentaries available to our listeners.
	We enjoy them very much.
	Thank you, Jimmy.
	Love your show.
	Okay, that.
	Bye-bye, buddy.
	Okay, that was our conversation with Jim Hightower, and hope you can all make it out.
	If you can't make it to pop in Politics this Saturday, you can make it out to the Jim High Tower show on Sunday.
	Okay, right now, guess who called?
	You know, I don't know if you guys know about Morgan Freeman, but he's dating his grandstepdaughter, and that's not made.
	That's not, that's not, I'm not kidding.
	He really dating the granddaughter of his wife.
	Of his wife.
	Yes.
	So, well, I don't know if they're still mine and wife anymore.
	I'm guessing.
	So he's.
	Because she's in a coma.
	I'm going to guess.
	At the very least, they're estranged.
	So he thinks not.
	But he called me.
	Jimmy Door.
	This is Morgan Freeman, beloved actor and narrator.
	If I could, I'd like to come on your show and discuss this whole hullabaloo regarding Congressman Anthony Weiner.
	You see, I've got a little avuncular advice for the young man, should he happen to be receptive.
	Or if not, perhaps we can simply make this a teachable moment for others like him.
	Because you can tell that Anthony Weiner, deep down in his heart of hearts, wanted to be in show business.
	Every time he mugs for the camera or showboats on the floor of Congress, I'm reminded that actors and politicians ultimately come from the same cesspool of narcissistic, sociopathic personalities.
	The only difference is we actors can get away with doing seriously sick shit.
	Politicians can't.
	That's where young Anthony went wrong going into politics.
	If you want to be famous and tweet your junk, you must choose the path of the actor.
	And don't mix the two.
	If he had simply remained an action star, Arnold Schwarzenegger could have impregnated a beluga whale, and no one would have battered an eye.
	But he became a politician, too.
	So now it's a news story if he wakes up from a nap with a semi-chub.
	Take me, for example, Morgan Freeman, beloved actor.
	To the public, I'm the very epitome of want, respectability, and wisdom.
	But in real life, I cheated on my wife of 25 years with my step-granddaughter, who is nearly 50 years my junior.
	Go ahead.
	Take that in for a minute.
	Step granddaughter.
	Known her since she was a girl.
	Helped raise her.
	Taught my wife for her.
	Do I hide it?
	Do I apologize in a press conference?
	No.
	I bring her as my date to movie premieres.
	I slap the public in the face with a depraved arrogance that no ethical man could countenance.
	I gleefully toss my many crimes against human decency into the air like confetti at a New Year's ball and then slow dance with the devil beneath its sparkling orgiastic precipitation of iniquity.
	My ass is still going to be in Batman 3.
	In trouble for tweeting an underwear picture to a grown woman.
	Hmm.
	She is.
	This young man has a lot to learn about life.
	So, Jimmy, give me a call on my granddaughter's Hello Kitty phone.
	It was so cute when it rang.
	Wow.
	Wow.
	Okay, it is Morgan Freeman letting us know how it feels to date your grandstepdaughter.
	And I want to let everybody know tomorrow, June 11th, we're doing the Poppin' Politics Show.
	Who's doing it?
	Myself, David Feldman, Frank Conniff, Eddie Pepitone, Benzelavansky.
	We're all going to be there at Meltdown Comics.
	$10.
	You can go to the JimmyDoorComedy.com.
	There's a link there to the show.
	You can go to kpfk.org.
	There's a link there.
	There's links all over the place.
	The important thing is you come out to the funniest show in Los Angeles.
	Mixture of stand-up sketch and video.
	Okay, if you like all things funny, come out to Meltdown Comics June 11th.
	That's Saturday, 8 p.m.
	7522 Sunset Boulevard.
	And the proceeds go to help KPFK.
	That's right.
	You're coming out.
	You're having a good laugh and you're supporting a great cause, KPFK.
	And we'll see you there.
	And I want to thank everybody who helps make this show possible.
	Today's show was written by Steve Rosenfield, Mike McCrae, Frank Conniff, Robert Yasamura, Steph Zamarano, and it was produced by Ali Lexa.
	And I want to thank my guest, Paul Gilmartin, for sitting in.
	Paul doesn't do anything except show up and be funny.
	Thanks, Paul.
	And thanks to you for listening.
	The podcast listeners are my favorite listeners.
	Don't tell anybody.

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