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July 29, 2011 - Jimmy Dore Show
58:30
20110729_The_Jimmy_Doe_Show_July_28_2011
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It's the Jimmy Dore show.
It's the show that makes Anderson Cooper say It's hard to talk to your Tagging.
So sit back or sit up or keep driving.
Now, here's a guy who sounds a lot like me.
It's Jimmy Dore!
Hi, everybody, and welcome to this week's show.
I'm joined in studio, as always, from CinematicTitanic.com and Mystery Science Theater 3000.
It's TV's Frank, Frank Conniff.
Hey, Jimmy.
Hi, Frank.
Good to see you.
You're looking good.
Is this summer?
It looks good on you.
Oh, does it really?
Crippling depression becomes me.
Well, you've got Christmas to look forward to.
You feel worse then.
Yeah, I will.
Okay, Robert Yasimura is here from Team Yasamura.
How are you, Robert?
Also, crippling depression.
Slightly better than Frank's.
Okay.
Well, you fellas, Paul Gilmartin, how are you doing?
Paul Gilmartin hopes.
Why'd you keep that to yourself, Paul?
Paul Gilmartin, the host of the Mental Illness Happy Hour podcast and dinner in a movie on TBS, is feeling good today.
Yeah.
And that's funny.
Everybody here is suffering from crippling depression.
I have a new prescription of Zimbolta I'm making open later on for my birthday.
Okay.
Oh, happy birthday, Paul.
Thank you very much.
Thank you very much.
Before we get to what's coming up on today's show, Frank Conniff, TV's Frank, I can't stop saying it now.
We're talking about Amy Winehouse, and there was a very cold vibe happening on Twitter and Facebook about people making jokes about that.
Now, as comedians, I don't know how the rest of you feel, but I always felt that not only is everything jokeable, but it's our duty to find a way to joke about everything because the whole reason you need jokes in the first place is because we're the only animal that's aware of our own death.
And that's why we joke.
And, you know, and that's why we have religion.
Like, if we never died, we would not have religion.
Nobody's going to be 900 years old going, shit, I missed church.
You know what?
I'll get him.
I'm going to take off maybe for a few hundred years, and then I'll start going again when I'm 1,000.
What's the reason we have Branson, Missouri?
Oh, that's because we die.
That's why.
That's why you go to the bottom of the street.
That's what it says when you go in Branson, Missouri.
Because we die.
That's exactly.
And by the way, when the vampires come, that's the first place they're going.
Yes.
Branson?
I would.
So now, Frank, you were saying, no, why do you think it is that Amy Winehouse jokes are off?
Well, yeah, we were talking about this, and I was saying that right away on Twitter, the day that Amy Winehouse died, there was a vibe that I picked up right away of like a lot of people saying, don't joke about this.
Come on.
Because people were kind of maybe, because we all joked about her while she was alive about her addictions and stuff.
And so a lot of people were saying, don't joke about Amy Winehouse.
And like, you know, I agree that I think it would have been okay for anyone to do that, but they just should have expected that they were going to get hammered by people.
Yeah.
So no, how do you, where do you come down on it?
Is it okay to make Amy Winehouse jokes?
I think it's okay.
I chose not to.
I'm saving all of my jokes for when Dick Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld died.
And then I'm.
No, you're not kidding.
I'm not kidding.
You're not kidding about that.
I've got all my really tasteless tweets about it saved up for when those guys were.
Oh, God, wouldn't it be great if they died in a murderous suicide?
Like in Lovers Pack.
Oh, that would be good.
Would you just die with joy?
They did that if they were lovers and they died.
And then I think we'd have to change those videos to it doesn't get better.
So, okay, so Amy Winehouse, not good to, did you, have you heard any Amy Winehouse jokes that you think are good?
Oh, yeah.
Okay.
All right.
We've all heard those.
I heard one.
It was kind of an indirect one, but I thought it was funny.
Someone said, Justin Bieber turns 27 in a few years.
Be patient, my friends.
So that's really a Justin Bieber show.
But he's alive, so it's okay.
I saw that was Matt Champagne just wrote, but how did she die?
Oh, that's funny.
I thought that was just so simple and brilliant.
But why do you think that there was such a preemptive strike against people making Amy Winehouse jokes?
Any theories, you guys?
Because she was so ripe for it.
And I mean, to be fair, the tone of it was like, well, addiction is a disease.
She died of addiction, and it wasn't her fault.
And that's completely reasonable.
But it was like, yeah.
She did do a song called...
And that made me chuckle.
And, you know, she did do a song that was a hit called I'm Not Gonna Go to Rehab.
So it, you know, and I just think that anything that happens on a global scale is ripe for, I mean, you know, it's all in how you do it.
You don't know how you make the jokes.
Anyway, I think that Amy Winehouse.
Well, I know that like on at least a couple of Cinematic Titanic episodes, there are Amy Winehouse jokes that are just there forever.
And so I think you can make the argument, how is it less sensitive when she's alive to make jokes about someone who's in the throes of addiction than when she's dead.
I would, it would be hypocritical of me, I think to, to berate anyone.
I mean, isn't it saying that I, I didn't see a single joke like that.
No.
Which is what, I mean, I actually see.
You need to read my Twitter.
Okay.
But you know what?
Isn't that saying that she, you know, you can't make fun of her because it's not her fault and it's a disease?
Couldn't you say that O.J. Simpson suffered from narcissistic personality disorder and he couldn't help it?
And that he had to do those things.
And I mean, at what point do you stop stopping?
Whenever anyone who I'm not a fan of dies, I always say our long national nightmare is over.
That's like blanket one for.
Okay.
All right.
Well, let's get back to the.
Okay, I just wanted to get that off the top of the show and let's get to today's show.
What's coming up on today's show?
Well, here are some stories we won't be talking about.
Two stumbling blocks stopping the, we have the debt crisis is still happening.
And we're not going to talk about it on today's show because it's ridiculous.
And we all know they're going to raise the debt ceiling.
And the only question is how much stuff Barack Obama is going to give away for whatever reason he's giving stuff away.
Okay, but the two stumbling blocks, the Tea Party.
No, I'm sorry.
Can I just say that him, ironically, he's going to give away so much stuff that it's tax deductible.
Well, it seems like the two stumbling blocks stopping the Tea Party from accepting any debt deal is number one, Obama's still president, and number two, he's still black.
Okay, and the eventual debt deal will officially be called Bull That Doesn't Do a Fing Thing About Unemployment Act of 2011.
Norway, how about the Norway terrorist attack, right?
Torres Norak's a terroric attack by a Christian, white Christian fundamentalist might have been prevented if they had only closed more mosques.
Am I right?
Okay, and big news out of Comic-Con, the only morbidly obese man to not attend Chris Christie.
Okay.
And the big news out of Comic-Con is John Boehner is set to play the GOP superhero in a new movie, Captain Americans can go f himself.
And what else is coming up?
We're going to have phone calls from Bull Connor.
Plus, we're going to finally get to that Herman Kane clip that we teased last week.
Remember, Herman Kane is against Muslims opening a mosque in Tennessee, and here's what he said.
They are using the church part of our First Amendment.
Yes, they're using the church part of our First Amendment, and he's using the jerk part of our First Amendment.
So we're going to finally get to that clip.
And our young lady from MSNBC who says Sarah Palin and Michelle Bachman are being discriminated against because they're pretty.
And yes, when are the pretty and good-looking going to get their fair shake in today's politics?
That, plus Jim Hightower stops by and a call from Bull Connor.
If I didn't mention that and a lot, lot more, that's coming up on today's Jimmy Dore Show.
Time for another installment of Oh My God.
Hey, so today's Oh My God is going to be a very extended clip, but it will not disappoint, I guarantee you.
Step Samurano got this clip and sent it to me.
And it's about Bill O'Reilly and our good Bill O'Reilly, right?
He's the nicest millionaire to ever demonize the poor.
Sat down with another guy, Lou Dobbs, right?
The nicest Christian to ever demonized an immigrant who worked for less than minimum wage.
Did he get replaced on CNN with a Mexican?
No, they got rid of him too, right?
Because he said something about the Jews.
It's very complicated over at CNN.
It's very complicated.
And Lou Dobbs has a show now on Fox Business Channel, which Casey Anthony also has one there because she went into hiding.
Oh, Frank, that is such a thick joke.
Rich, rich.
Many layers.
Okay, so here is our clip today for the Oh My God.
Now, it's going to be an extended clip.
Like I said, feel free to say.
Now, I'm of two minds whether I should just play it all the way through one time or if I should stop and start it.
I have a feeling I'm going to have to stop it at some point.
But here's Lou Dobbs sitting down with Bill O'Reilly.
Personal choice segment tonight, the Census Bureau reports that 43 million Americans are currently living in poverty.
The Bureau defines poverty as a family of four, earning less than $22,000 a year.
But the Conservative Heritage Foundation says that...
A family of four making $22,000 a year or less.
Holy cow.
How does one person live on $22,000 or less?
I mean, I spend $12,000 on food alone, and for me, that's just for me.
Okay, so here we go.
But the Heritage Foundation came out with a study.
Many poor American families have lots of stuff.
Here now to analyze Fox Business Agar, Lou Dobbs.
All right.
So you have the chart.
I have the charts.
This is ownership based on the Heritage Foundation and the U.S. Department of Energy Residential Energy Consumption Survey of 2005.
So this is a six-year-old survey.
A six-year-old survey.
You've got to see if these improve.
Absolutely.
And the census.
So this is a survey from the Heritage Foundation, which lists all the stuff that American poor people own.
Like, I haven't seen the chart.
I'm not sure exactly what they're talking about, but you don't really need to because here it comes.
Census Bureau suggests that they, in fact, have improved.
82% have a microwave.
This is 82% of American poor families.
82% of people have a microwave.
So how can you say you're poor when you're capable of heating up a hot pocket?
That's not, I mean, that's like rich.
That's only for elite people to have a microwave to 78% have air conditioning.
I'm assuming a butler turns that on and off.
Yes, sure.
More than one television, 65%.
Cable or satellite TV.
First of all, I have a TV on my phone, okay?
It's not a big deal to have a TV anymore.
You can get a TV at a garage sale for a nickel.
I gave away a TV for free, a 27-inch TV yesterday for free.
There you go.
Okay, well, you know, you're probably because you're rich.
64%, thank God.
64% have cable TV, is what he just said.
Amen, brothers.
Cell phones, 55%.
Personal computer, 39%.
And as we said, that's a six-year-old consumption survey.
So these numbers are way up.
So how can you be so poor and have all this stuff?
Well, that's what Robert Rector at the Heritage Foundation in this study is pointing out.
That most families living in defined poverty, that is, at less than $22,000 a year in income, have not only a microwave, but they have an oven.
They have a dishwasher.
They have a dryer.
They have personal, if they have children, X-Boxes and PlayStations are in the home.
And the typical family defined as poor by the government.
So we need to see them in the Dust Bowl washing clothes on a washboard to be in poverty.
That's right.
It never happens that poor people have to make a decision between paying a medical bill or paying their mortgage or paying their rent or buying groceries for their kids.
That never happened.
That's what they're implying.
They're implying here that these guys are like, yeah, when they say poor, they don't mean like they're hungry and they can't see a doc.
No, that's exactly what they mean.
They have a microwave.
So poor people in America are just fat, lazy people sitting at home eating microwave.
That's the subtext.
Eating microwave pizza and playing with their Xboxes.
And you have to pay for them.
That's what Fox News is so good at is putting the subtextual message out there in terms of selective facts.
There's plus genius.
And is there anything?
I mean, is there anything that resonates more with your sense of fairness than two ass millionaires sitting around telling the poor how good they have it?
I mean, who would know better, right, than two guys who've been millionaires?
And okay, it gets worse.
Can we just say that the Heritage Foundation is their source?
Yes.
So here's what happened.
The Heritage Foundation took some numbers, made up some bull numbers, and then they're reading it on air as if it's a real report.
Yes.
Okay, just so we're clear.
Yeah, it's you're not saying anything in secret to say that the Heritage Foundation is a conservative foundation.
So obviously they're going to skew their stuff.
He said point blank, the Conservative Heritage Foundation released this.
Yes, point blank.
And isn't it amazing all the things that poor people have?
They have microwaves and televisions and wash machines.
It is really extraordinary to think about these conveniences that are enjoyed by the people for whom we give great care and consideration.
Oh my God.
There you have it.
For these people who we give great consideration and great care.
Now, look, I'm not saying the government should step in and save these people.
They're sitting there demonizing them.
Right, but to demonize them, isn't there someplace in between stepping in and saving people?
Like, I guess he never saw that hoop dream.
I remember about 10 years ago, there was that documentary, Hoop Dreams, and it documented this poor, two poor black kids who were trying to make it out of the ghetto by playing basketball.
And I'll never forget, like, often during the course of them filming, that one kid's electricity got turned off.
He didn't have any hot water to shower.
He didn't have electricity to do anything.
And he still had to go to school as a kid and go across town to try to make it to the school that was out of his bad.
So it's like, you've never seen a documentary about how poor people live in this country, Lou?
You've never read a book about it or nothing.
You've never, well, here we go.
It gets better.
The poor.
But those of us who still think back to when we were younger, who didn't have a television set, we were poor.
We didn't get a television set until I was in high school.
Yeah, well, they were more expensive.
They were way more expensive.
They were a major piece of furniture at that time.
And not everyone had them, you know.
Right.
Exactly.
They weren't, again, you couldn't get them at a garage sale for a nickel, Lou, okay?
We didn't feel like we'd missed a lot at that point.
They didn't have cable then.
No, because you had medical care, Lou.
You had probably full, you had three square meals a day.
You had your electricity.
You probably lived in a house.
And the tax rate on millionaires was 90%.
Yeah.
Yeah, the tax rate on millionaires when you were a kid was 90%.
And they didn't feel poor, did they?
But, you know, it's really interesting to see what a middle-class family then and a middle-class family.
Well, certain poverty is defined.
But what I think this is all about is the underground economy.
Now, here it comes.
Here comes my favorite part: the underground economy.
That a lot of people who report low wages are making a ton of money.
Not a ton.
Yes.
Bill.
There are people.
The people who have to work for cash are, you know, waiters, waitresses.
They're making decent money off the books.
Tips for waiters and waitresses.
Look, I gave a guy 20 bucks the other day to do something for me.
You know, I've got to file a formula.
I'm going to find a fact to help bolster my argument.
Yeah, I have to make up some BS fact.
I gave a guy 20 bucks the other day and was trying my shoes, and those guys are rolling in it.
If I was his waiter, I would sow whiz in his drink.
It's not.
Oh, these waiters, they're making all the money.
You know, that's who has all the money.
I don't know if you guys know who have all the money.
Waiters, waitresses, and to a lesser extent, the teachers.
And you can tell if it's true that he gave someone 20 bucks.
It's like a major, it looms large in Bill O'Reilly's head.
He'll be telling that story like in 30 years.
I gave this guy 20 bucks one time just to do something for me.
Just to actually do something I didn't want to do myself, some kind of physical labor.
And I just gave him $20 for it.
Gets worse.
But you know what I'm talking about.
Oh, we know.
Absolutely.
You're talking about people who are scraping by, who work on tips, who don't have a steady income, who have no health insurance, no health insurance.
You know, those people.
Those people, you know what I'm talking about.
Lording their untreated cancer over you.
There's a lot of off-the-books money floating around, which is why I want a national sales tax.
So what he's saying is, what he's trying to tell you is, don't feel bad about the fact that our economy right now is shifting into the most...
Incoming inequality is the greatest in our country's history right now, even worse than the Gilded Age.
Workers'money has...
pay has stayed flat for the last 40 years.
Ignore all that, because people are making money hand over fist, under the table, and they've got Xboxes, microwaves, and wash machines at home.
Holder, they're making the money under the table?
Are you saying they have tables?
These people are just rolling in it.
And then he wants to have a regressive tax.
Here we go.
That's why he wants to have a national sales tax, so we can have those people start paying their fair share.
The poor, again, are not paying their fair share to stay in this country, right?
They're only working and getting paid under the table.
It's working.
The income tax thing's lower because the government would then derive more money.
But that's what I think...
Yeah, that's what we want, is this government to get more money.
But I...
I want the government, not this government.
Oh, okay.
I mean, I want the government to have enough money to protect us and to build decent roads and do those things.
Your point...
And then he stops.
First of all, they're not building decent roads.
They're not doing...
What happened, Bill?
To do what...
I would like to hear what he really wants government to do.
I would be good to hear, but we don't get into that.
What about the underground economy here is interesting, and it's...
And I think that it has great merit in that people are not focusing on the fact that we've got over a trillion dollars in the so-called underground economy.
You bet.
And...
Yes.
As we look at all of them...
We need to squeeze it from the poor people to balance the budget.
That's what they're saying.
Yes.
They have a trillion dollars.
Oh, my God.
There's a trillion dollars in that underground economy that we can get.
There isn't a trillion dollars in the underground economy.
The trillion dollars.
The underground economy of trillions of dollars.
That's right.
You look under those sofa cushions at that garage sale.
You know what he's talking about?
He's talking about drug dealers.
He's talking about, like...
And by the way, there are, like, a handful of drug dealers...
Right.
...who make money.
Yes.
And then everybody who works for them statistically make, like, minimum wage.
Okay.
So...
They work for dope normally, right?
Yeah.
They don't work for...
But what he's talking about, if there's a trillion dollars in the underground economy, it's because it's in drugs.
He's talking about drug sales.
Yeah.
You know, are there people that abuse the system?
Absolutely.
But to make it sound as if they are the majority of it is just so egregious, especially if you call yourself a Christian.
If you were a millionaire, Paul, and I'm not saying you're not.
I'm not.
If you were a millionaire, and would you be caught dead in private, let alone publicly, speaking about how good the poor have it?
No.
No.
I would not.
If you're willing to say, ah, come on, you guys.
I gave a guy...
I gave a winner 20 bucks yesterday.
Think he's going to record that?
He's not going to tell anybody about it.
These guys got it made.
This is so mind-blowingly mind-blowing.
And it gets even better.
One of the issues that surround that.
Tax is one of them.
Illegal immigration.
Unemployment itself is hard to measure because a lot of the folks who are quote-unquote underemployed are also being paid off the books.
That's true.
Yes, exactly.
These people who say they're unemployed, they're working.
They're getting all that sweet babysitting money, man.
They're getting all that sweet.
You can't get a complete handle on it, but this is a bad economy.
But let's get back to the poverty issue.
We're not diminishing the suffering that poor people have.
No, you are.
That's exactly what you're doing.
I rode around South Carolina, interestingly enough, a couple of months ago.
And you're looking at these shotgun houses and these people living in dilapidated.
And yeah, inside they probably have a few modern conveniences, but this is no day at the beach.
But there is a reason for poverty in America.
There's almost always a reason attached to it.
It is not the capitalist system's fault.
It's usually personal responsibility, or something like that okay so what he's saying is we're not diminishing the suffering people poor people have no no we're just telling you that it ain't that bad and those so-called poor people are mostly a bunch of whiners except for some people i saw in south carolina but remember there's always a reason when people are poor and that reason usually ends up being it's their own stupid fault yeah he's bill o'reilly says that all the time he said that in um when Katrina was happening.
He was saying that the people who were suffering from Katrina, it was their own fault.
They didn't take personal responsibility.
They didn't take care of themselves.
And it shouldn't be the government's job to go in and do anything about them.
I mean, that's like a very common thing of Orive.
Because it allows them to sleep better at night.
And not that he should spend his income trying to save people, but he shouldn't have to ignore the elephant in the room, which is that corporations have lobbied Congress to ship all of their jobs overseas, and towns are drying up.
Yes.
That's the elephant in the room.
Yes, and we're spending all our money to prop up the banks.
We're not investing in America.
Meanwhile, we're borrowing money not to bring jobs to America or to hire teachers, cops, or firemen, but we're borrowing money so we can have pointless wars in foreign countries.
And by the way, we're destroying the education system.
While we're cutting education, healthcare for regular peoples.
And the reason for people being poor, according to Bill O'Reilly, it's that there's personal responsibility, which means they aren't good people.
They are irresponsible.
And being poor is really a moral failing.
It's a moral failing to be poor.
It's an incredible virtue to be rich, no matter how much.
Oh, being rich is what you.
You got the money.
It's a moral failing to be poor.
And I'm pretty sure, Frank, that's exactly what Jesus would say.
Right?
Jesus was for the poor, but he was like, ayay, there's a reason you're poor, isn't it?
Right.
You're a little irresponsible.
You didn't read that thing in the Bible that says it's easier for a rich man to get into heaven than to pass through the eye of a needle, except for a needle made at Hammacker Schlummer.
And I think part of the reason that all these poor deadbeats get away with it is because they've invested a lot in lobbyists in Washington, the poor people who get paid off the books lobbyists, who are always trying to get legislation done.
Oh, yeah, that waiter's baby shoes.
I always think WPPWD.
What poor person would Jesus demonize?
And also tips are supposed to...
Because when I was a waiter back, you know, back at the Copa in the 40s, like then it was all, you know, it was genuinely off the books, but they consciously changed that.
And I remember it was like controversial.
It was Ronald Reagan when he started to say that you have to start paying taxes on your tips.
And because he was a friend of the working man, a friend of the people.
I mean, we have to start shifting that tax burden from the people who have all the money to the people who don't.
So that's, and I love the stat they always like to throw around.
You know, that half of America doesn't pay any income tax.
It all goes to the other half.
You mean the people who have income?
So it's shocking to people to realize the amount of people who don't make enough income in America to actually qualify to pay income tax.
And they can't get a handle on that.
So what they do is they have the Heritage Foundation come out with a study that says, no, no, no, these poor people are freaking, they're raping you.
The poor people are sitting at home eating pizza and playing Xboxes while you go out and work all day.
So don't feel bad about it.
And don't feel bad about that.
Your country's going down the toilet right now because you have yours.
And I'm going to have two millionaires, one who's known for demonizing immigrants and blaming our.
And who contributed to the underground economy by hiring for his horse for his horse?
And Bill O'Reilly was just admitting to contributing to the underground economy.
Anyway, so that's who what that's how we do it.
You don't have to feel bad that our system is rigged.
You don't have to feel bad that our system is rigged against working people.
You don't have to feel sad about that or bad about that.
You have yours and someone else doesn't have theirs.
Because if they don't have it, it's because they're bad people.
And Jesus rewards good people with money.
All right.
And so any closing words on any of this, you guys?
How's that?
This has been, oh my God.
Oh, my God.
Okay, no, I know that was a long, I know that was a long time.
That, oh, my God, was a high mass.
That was a benediction.
We went in for stations of the cross.
O'Reilly's a Catholic.
It should drag out.
It should drag out.
Jimmy Dore.
It's O'Reilly.
So here you've got some sort of beef with me because of my conversation with Lou Dobbs on my show.
To be honest with you, I'm lucky I even made it through that interview alive.
I've made it no secret that I'm mesmerized by Mr. Dobbs' beautiful pearly whites.
Those are some seriously magisterial chompers, Mr. Dore, and I challenge anyone who disagrees to a fist fight.
But anyway, Mr. Dobbs' teeth and I were in complete agreement about this country's poor having too much stuff.
What the hell is a family that takes in less than $22,000 a year doing with a microwave oven and a stove?
Those items would only allow them to prepare food at home, when in reality, they should be going out to McDonald's and Burger King and supporting the corporate economy.
It's the least they can do, considering they don't contribute in any other way to society.
And the cops that died of that sort of food will instill their children with type 2 diabetes, as well as a host of other problems, meaning that they will eventually be contributing to the dying healthcare industry in this country.
Way to be a patriot.
We also talked about this massive underground economy that we have in this country.
And I'm not talking about drugs and guns.
I'm talking about the food service industry.
Waiters and bartenders and these types of folks.
These people work for tips, Jimmy Dore.
Tips.
Just extra money that we hand them for free.
We don't know what they're going to do with that money, how they're going to spend it.
Probably drugs.
These tips need to be regulated, some sort of cap on tips or something.
Otherwise, some deadbeat waiter could conceivably just work really hard and make a lot of money through tips.
That's not supposed to happen.
I don't like the idea of the minions who serve me my full aim and yon with Bernadette sauce, medium rare, goddamn it, aren't in the lowest tax bracket.
It's just outside the natural order of things.
All I'm saying is that personal responsibility or lack thereof is why people are poor in the first place.
And that axiom allows me to judge people who don't have a lot of money.
But when these same deadbeats are able to earn more money and better their lives, I don't really like that either.
I don't know why.
I just don't like it.
I simply don't like people who don't make their fortune saying right-wing falsehoods on cable or the radio.
Now, if you excuse me, I'm going to go have my mid-afternoon martini, my favorite Midtown Hotel Bar, and not tip.
Okay, that's Bill O'Reilly calling in, letting us know.
And this is the Jimmy Doer show on Pacifica.
Hello, podcast listeners, our favorite listeners.
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See you there.
And the next pop in politics is August 13th.
That's a Saturday.
Now, back to the show.
Hi, welcome back to the Jimmy Door Show.
I'm joined in studio by Frank Conniff, Robert Yasamer, and Paul Gilmartin.
We're here talking about, well, we just got done with an extended Oh My God segment in the first half with Bill O'Reilly and Lou Dobbs, a couple of millionaires sitting around talking about how good the poor have it in America.
And that's not a joke.
If you heard the first half of the show, that's what it was.
There's actually a little bit more.
There's actually a little bit more to that clip, which we didn't get to, which I feel compelled to play right now.
But the poverty in America has never been like the poverty in Africa.
If you're in Mexico, just go to Mexico.
So it can't be bad if it's not as bad as Africa.
No, because people, I mean, people here just can't see doctors or get healthy food or live in decent places or get decent schools.
I mean, over in Africa, they're dirt floors.
And the Bill O'Reilly show isn't as bad as Hannity.
Yeah.
No.
Or Glenn back.
No, no, no, no, no.
Because they have no social framework at all, no safety nets.
If you're going to be poor, be poor in America.
That's an endorsement for me.
Because you'll have a couple of millionaire jagoffs sitting there mocking you, demonizing you, and blaming you for an economic system that is rigged towards a plutocracy.
And if they lived in, you know, if they were in Somalia, they'd be like criticizing.
They'd be saying these people who are walking 30 miles to get a meal, they have shoes.
Wherever they were, they'd be pointing out how good.
When I was a kid, I didn't have shoes until I was in high school.
We didn't think we were poor.
We had to eat dirt and milk.
I agree, though.
If you're going to be poor, be poor in the United States so you can see what you're missing.
So it's actually in front of you.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Because you can still watch Dobbs and O'Reilly on campus.
Absolutely.
I mean, there it is.
How great a blessing can there be?
But again, we don't want to diminish the suffering of the world.
Even though we've just done that for the past 10 minutes.
Again, even though the whole point of this segment is to diminish the suffering of the poor in America and to tell you not to feel bad about it because they all have it very good, even though anybody who's poor know they don't have it good.
This is hilarious, right?
Did they not see Waiting for Superman?
Even though that's a completely flawed movie, did it not show you how hard it is for poor people to even get their kids a decent education in America, no matter what kind of backflips they do?
That doesn't, no, they still, it's their own personal failing.
It's a moral fail.
And the fact that we have, you know, our jails are full with more people than China has, it's because we have people with more moral failings in America.
It's not a policy set at the top of society that encourages incarceration for profit for no reason.
No, no, no.
It's because people have moral failings.
Who would Jesus incarcerate?
That's what I would like to ask.
There's still more to this clip.
It is intense in any country.
But in capitalism, there are going to be poor people.
There are going to be people who can or won't compete.
And that's just a system.
It is a system, and we have created one in which if you are to be poor, and whether it's transitory and in most cases, it is a temporary condition.
Thank goodness.
And we have still a highly upwardly mobile society.
He has no statistics to have the ability to pull ourselves up from that poverty.
I'd like Harry Zadu or the Department of Energy to do another study and update that because it is six years old.
I love the creative.
That's for sure.
I love the fact that he goes back to the classic Republican line of like, you're still in America.
You can still always pull yourself up by your bootstraps.
Like, that's a real like mahogany gem from back in the day.
If I'm not mistaken, right where you cut it off, then they propose that they force Dan Aykroyd and Eddie Murphy to switch places.
And also, you know, poverty is, you know, it's really true what he said.
It's just a transitional, temporary thing.
It only lasts usually just from birth till death.
But it's temporary.
If you can get through that.
Yeah.
Yeah, for most of the poor.
That's all sunshine.
Okay.
By the way, the statistic came out yesterday that white people still outpacing the minorities in this country in terms of wealth by a factor of 20.
Really?
20?
That's the 20 that Bill gave to that guy.
Okay, now it's time for our good friend Jim Hightower stops by to see what's on his mind.
Poor Halliburton, poor ExxonMobil, Blackwater, Microsoft, and other huge corporations that get billions of dollars each year in lucrative contracts from our government.
These political powers are presently wailing that they're being picked on by meanies in the Obama White House who are proposing to expose one of their most sensitive corporate secrets, the amount of cash they surreptitiously funnel into our elections through such front groups as the U.S. Chamber of Commerce.
The Obama's have drafted an executive order requiring these recipients of our tax dollars to disclose how much money they're putting into which campaigns.
Such honest disclosure can help us taxpayers and voters see for ourselves whether the political efforts of connected corporations might result in them receiving government contracts as payback from grateful recipients of their cash.
But oh, the squeals of outrage from CEOs, lobbyists, and front groups.
We will fight it through all available means, screeched the chief lobbyist for the chamber, calling the anti-corruption plan an attempt to stifle the free speech of corporations.
No, sir.
Corporate money could still speak, even shout, but the public has a right to know the noisy speaker's name.
It turns out, though, that the public is really what they fear.
The chamber's lobbyists cries that if corporate giants actually have to tell us what they're doing, we the people might launch protests against them.
And we can't allow that in a democracy, can we?
This is Jim Hightower saying, methinks these whiners protesteth too much.
If they're going to steal our government and loot our treasury, let's at least unmask them.
The watchdog group Public Citizen has a petition calling on Obama to issue this long overdue disclosure order.
To sign the petition, go to www.citizen.org slash disclosure hyphen petition.
What do the corporate powers from Wall Street to Walmart have in common?
They hate the Hightower Lowdown.
You can see why at www.hightowerlowdown.org.
Okay, that's Jim Hightower, our good friend, who stops by Every week to bum us out in a folksy voice with some interesting news about the world you didn't know, needed to know, but it's still depressing.
Okay, thanks, Jim Hightower.
And right now, we're going to switch and talk about Herman Kane, which we teased last week on the show.
So, Herman Kane is an African-American running for president, but that doesn't stop him from trying to discriminate against people who got here after he did, right?
Which means Muslims, right?
It's the right of all Americans to discriminate and try to marginalize the people who got here afterwards.
Yes, once you get through the door, hold it shut.
Hold it.
That's right.
Right.
So here he is, Herman Kane, standing up for bigots who oppose Muslims practicing their religion.
He doesn't like that everybody gets to use the Constitution, especially Muslims who want to open a mosque.
And here's what he says.
They are using the church part of our First Amendment to infuse their mosque in that community.
And the people in the community do not like it.
They object into the.
You know, let me just stop him and say, and that is the beauty of our Constitution, the framers, they put freedom of religion in the Constitution, but they never intended it for it to be used by everybody.
They put freedom of religion in the Constitution to protect popular religions that everyone likes, not to protect unpopular religions that people would try to suppress.
I mean, everybody knows that.
I mean, that's exactly what the why, why you don't need to protect unpopular religions.
We don't like them.
Right.
Right.
Okay.
So here, there's more to this.
The fact that Islam is both a religion and a set of laws, Sharia law.
The people in the community know best.
And I happen to side with the people in the community.
So you're saying any community, if they want to ban a mosque, yes, they have the right to do that.
You know, exactly the Constitution.
Exactly.
100,000% against this Constitution, which he can't stop talking about non-stop, 24 hours a day, the Constitution, the Constitution, until I don't like part of it.
And then I'm going to go against the whole underpinning of the Constitution.
Go ahead.
And well, no, he's saying, you know, what the community wants should be paramount.
And that's always really worked out for black people living in Tennessee.
Because that was all of the institutionalized racism in our history was all what the community was, always what the community wanted.
Yeah, it's what the community lynching locally, acting globally.
Yeah, why nitpick over what the community wants if it happens to involve torches?
Yeah.
It's the community they want it.
It's a green source of energy.
That's pretty stunning that he just keeps saying stuff like this.
And my whole thing is that that's the new normal now in the Republican Party.
You totally have to.
You have to, but it's your ignorance is on its front and center.
You're not that you claim to love the, not only that you're being bigoted towards people, but that you're going, you're being a hypocrite in the fact that you're going against the thing you claim to value the most, which is the Constitution.
And you go, oh, how dare those people use our Constitution to do exactly what the framers of the Constitution wanted people to be able to do.
So that's Herman Kane, ladies and gentlemen.
We finally got to it.
I knew I built it up.
Was it worth it?
Hello, Jimmy.
This bull Connor.
I guess you must have downloaded that new iPhone app that enables you to communicate with racist bigots from beyond the grave.
Well, I certainly am a bigot, and I'll definitely have him dead.
But thanks to the miracle of technology, I'm able to make phone calls to the living.
Actually, Jimmy, it may surprise you to older die of a high praise for a Negro fella that is making a name for himself in your world.
I'm speaking of Hoyman Cain.
I never thought a black man could hate Muslims as much as I hate black men.
But all Hoyman Cain needs now is a fire hole so they hold down Muslims just like I used to hold down people who look like Hoyman Cain.
Oh boy, I tell you, those were some good times back then.
You know, Jimmy, history has painted segregation in a bad light.
But what you never read about is how awesome segregation was for white people.
We could always get good seats at restaurants.
There was always some place to sit on the bus.
And lunch counters were such a convenient place to get a quick snack.
But that's all changed now.
Minorities want their rights, but they want to deny white folks the right to deny them their rights.
It's not right.
All right, Jimmy Dorf.
I'll see you in hell.
Okay, so now we're going to take a little clip.
Normally, I don't like to comment on other people's commentaries.
I don't know if normally I do that or not, but I don't think I do.
But I like to watch the Dylan Radigan show on MSNBC.
He has a lot of guest commentators at the end of his show.
He had a young lady named Kelly.
Kelly Goff was her name.
And she seems like a fine lady.
She's attractive.
She seems smart, well-spoken.
She's eloquent.
And I actually like most of her commentary.
She made a commentary last week that, well, might make your head fall off.
Here we go.
Myself discussing Michelle Bachman with a group of mothers who, like many Americans, expressed admiration at her willingness to take in more than 20 foster children.
But these mothers also expressed admiration at something else, namely Bachman's ability to effectively manage a household with that many children in it.
As these mothers pointed out and would know better than I do, running a household with small children is no easy feat.
Not with one child or two, and certainly not with eight, which was about how many children the Bachman family had in their home at any given time.
The moms I spoke to pointed out that the organizational skill required to effectively manage a home and family of that size arguably makes Michelle Bachman one of the most experienced managers in the GOP presidential race.
Did I mention that I was speaking to a group of progressive moms?
Kelly, I have one question.
Where do you do your field research that you found yourself talking to a group of moms in the first place?
Do you go to mommy and me classes?
Is that where all the really great journalists are keeping their ears to the ground these days, Kelly?
Can I find a group of fast-talking, tough-as-nails reporters fiercely scribbling in the corner of my local gymboree right behind the roly pillows?
I don't think so, okay?
Let's just say for the sake of argument that this conversation actually took place, okay, which I don't think it was.
But well, I'll say it more likely it came out of her dream journal.
Okay.
A group of progressive moms sitting around being amazed at how great Michelle Bachman is.
Okay, so a group of women admire Michelle Bachman for fostering and managing all those kids.
Fine.
Despite myself, and this is true, I kind of do too.
I kind of respect her for fostering all those kids.
Though it's hard to forget that she routinely mistakes historical facts publicly and that she's homeschooling those kids.
Okay, so let's remember all that stuff.
And that's all good.
But then her supposed group of women said that the organizational skills of a mother of eight make Michelle Bachman the most experienced managers, one of the most experienced managers in the GOP race.
Really?
You think mothering a gaggle of children means you're ready to get the new codes?
You know, my mom raised 12 kids and she's still baffled by the answering machine in the VCR.
And yes, she still has a VCR.
Yes.
I don't think that that doesn't.
Yeah, that's a big leap.
Okay.
And so to say that none of the other GOP candidates have more impressive management resume points than she does, which basically Michelle Bachman's thing is, hey, I made an unlicensed boarding school in my house.
Basically.
You know, off the top of my head, I'm going to go with Newt Gingrich.
He has more quality.
I mean, he did this thing called Run the House of Representatives, right?
Which is basically 435 insane children.
And he was in third of the line for the presidency.
All of these things.
And he took in many foster mistresses, too.
Right.
And he did that all the while ruining his marriage and taking a legal speaking fee.
So he was busy.
He didn't ruin his marriage, Jimmy.
His wife had cancer, and he divorced her at her bedside so he could recuse himself and give her the energy to focus on her cancer.
That's because he's a giver.
That's right.
Right?
And he cares.
Okay, it's all about where.
But I just want to say that these women, first of all, I don't believe they existed.
Second of all, if they did, even though they call themselves progressive, they're not.
Well, maybe they exist.
Maybe they're progressive.
And you know what?
They're idiots.
Yes.
If they think Michelle Bachman, because she raised this household, is the most quality, that qualifies her to be president, then okay, maybe they're mothers, maybe they're progressives, but don't listen to what they're saying about presidential politics because they're morons.
Yes, like, you know, when Ross Perot's name was being tossed around as a serious contender to be president of the United States, on paper, you said, well, yeah, this guy built up this computer company, et cetera, et cetera.
Maybe he would be good.
But then you talk to him for a little bit and you see that he does not like input from other people.
He was arrogant.
And so just because somebody is successful at something doesn't mean it translates immediately to politics.
I agree.
Well, there's more to this clip, but I just want to say if these women call themselves, they might vote Democratic, but that doesn't mean they're progressives.
They're the same people who say, I'm not religious, but I'm very spiritual.
Okay, that's how I feel.
And I know that a couple of you guys say that, and I said it just to make fun of you.
Okay, so here's the rest of this clip.
Oh, by the way, every time we do mention that, that people say stuff on the website about, you tell Paul Gilmartin and Frank Conniff that there's no God and blah, blah, blah.
And I always have to defend you guys, and I hope you appreciate it.
Okay, so here's the rest of that commentary.
Now, while these women don't consider Michelle Bachman White House worthy from a policy standpoint.
First, she keeps saying Bachman, which I don't know why that bothers me.
Michelle Bachman.
Yeah, that's weird.
It's not Bachman-Turner Overdrive.
I'll tell you that.
And she's not taking care of business either.
But she does take the A-15 into the city.
Working overtime.
If the trade's on time, she'll get to work by night.
Okay, here we go.
Pardon me.
Now, while these women don't consider Michelle Bachman White House worthy from a policy standpoint, their comments represent a powerful observation regarding what kind of work, accomplishments, and experience we place value on as a society.
Often succeeding at the most important jobs, such as being a good parent and a good person, carries very little social cachet.
When Meg Whitman threw her hat into the political ring with her record-breaking $160 million campaign for California governor, she vaulted to frontrunner status largely on the strength of her impressive professional accomplishments and even more impressive wallet.
But by multiple accounts, like many of her successful male counterparts, her success came out of price, and her home life suffered.
My question is, why is someone like her automatically deemed more qualified to run for office than a woman who may not have risen quite as far as fast because she was busy investing in her children?
And in the case of someone like Bachman, other people's children, too.
When it comes to male candidates, it can be fascinating what passes for relevant political experience.
For instance, former House Majority Leader Tom DeLay worked in pest control before entering politics.
There's a lobbyist joke in there somewhere, but I'm not going to make it.
I'm sure if you did make that joke, you would deliver it perfectly.
I agree with her.
There's a little bit more, and then we'll get to it.
Meanwhile, his successor, Denny Hastert, was a high school wrestling coach.
Now, I'm not saying this means they were not qualified for elected office, and I'm also not saying that Michelle Bachman is qualified for the nation's highest office.
But I am saying that if Herman Kane can be considered a serious contender for president based on a record of running several pizza joints, then why shouldn't a woman who not only worked as a lawyer but managed a home raising more than 20 children be considered a serious contender as well and not simply dismissed as a flake?
I'll tell you why, because that woman who is being dismissed as a flake says a lot of flaky stuff publicly.
That would be why.
It's not because she's a woman who raised the house.
It's because she's a flake.
That's why.
Okay, I'll open it up to the floor.
I agree with her point about a housewife shouldn't be considered on a lower tier than somebody who accomplishes a lot of business stuff.
But I also agree with your point.
She has already proven herself to be a flake, not because she's a mom.
Right.
Because she's a flake.
Because of the stuff she says about the founding fathers and misquoting facts.
And so what this woman is doing here is she makes two reasonable points, right?
First, that society doesn't value good parenting as an accomplishment.
Okay, fair enough.
And then the second point she makes is that the qualifications for national office seem arbitrary.
Okay.
And also, the third point she makes is that there's a deeper sexism in our society as to the standard by which we judge female candidates.
I think that's true.
All that granted, okay?
But then she mashes it up.
It's like, okay, it's like she's saying, okay, I'd like to make three super obvious points.
Yes.
And then I'd like to mash them up into a completely wrong point about Michelle Bachmann.
And that's exactly mission accomplished.
Boom, she's on TV.
And that's what she did wrong there, right?
Also, you know, what she's comparing it to when she says, well, if Herman Kane can be considered a serious presidential candidate, because he's not a bunch.
Yeah, I mean, the people who consider him a serious candidate are not to be considered seriously themselves.
And by the way, everybody she cites, she cites Delay, went to jail, pastered, taken out.
And who's the other person?
And by the way, those guys weren't running for president.
Those guys ran for Congress when he was a former football wrestling coach, before he was a former pest control guy.
They weren't running for president, which she is running, but Michelle Bachman is running for president.
And then she's like, well, you saying Michelle Bachman isn't as smart as George Bush?
It's like, so he's, we made fun of George Bush for being dumb.
Well, it's like Hillary Clinton, you know, whether you agree with her or not, like, she's considered a serious person because she is a serious person.
She's a Secretary of State and she does a job.
But Michelle Bachman and Sarah Palin, they're not serious people because what they say has nothing to do with the fact that they're women.
I mean, George Bush, as far as I'm concerned, is on the same par with Michelle Bachman as well.
And you can make the argument, but because of sexism in our society, we allowed an idiot like him to get elected.
And these other two idiots aren't going to get elected.
That's probably a valid point, but the point is they're all idiots.
Yes.
We are eating the sandwich that was built by Ronald Reagan, Bill Clinton, and George Bush.
Yes, and who was the head of the Fed?
Greenspan.
Alan Greenspan, who let it all happen.
All these great devotees of Ayn Rand, who that's exactly what happens when you let people just act in their own interests.
They act like parasites.
Yeah.
Extracting wealth everywhere they go, acting in their own greed.
And so that's.
But they do leave something behind, their feces.
So they don't.
They are.
So these people take Ayn Rand to mean there should be no regulation on business.
Business will fix everything.
It will be perfect.
And even though when their businesses come crashing down, they have the government come fix them.
So it's basically it's, you know, it's capitalism for us, and it's socialism for the banks and the corporations.
And I want to remind everybody that if you're enjoying parts of this show and you'd like to hear some of these comments again or maybe some of the phone calls.
There's no chance of that.
I have a feeling.
But you can always get a podcast of the show.
This show is available as a podcast for free at iTunes.
Just go to the Jimmy Door show or you can go to my website, jimmydoorcomedy.com, and you can hear the show there.
You can download it there.
You can leave comments on the show.
We always enjoy people commenting on the shows on our message board.
Plus, you can do other things at thejimmydoorcomedy.com.
And we'll be right back after this.
Music.
Okay, and we're back on the Jimmy Door show.
I'm joined in studio from Mystery Science Theater 3000.
It's Frank Conna from Team Yasimura, Robert Yasimura, and from the Mental Illness Happy Hour podcast.
It's Paul Gilmartin.
Now, we had a terrorist attack, which everyone thought was a Muslim terrorist, Arab terrorist, over in Oslo, Norway, which, Oslo, Norway, such a peaceful country, right?
I mean, they're only bombing Afghanistan, Libya, and I think they're involved in Iraq, too.
I could be wrong on that.
Don't quote me.
But definitely Afghanistan and Libya, they're bombing other countries, and yet those countries would have the gall to bomb them back.
That's what that, because that's what people were saying.
Can you believe these Muslims try to defend these Muslims?
Now I'm like, hey, wait a minute.
Norway is part of the group that just dropped bombs on Gaddafi's house and killed his kids, right?
So the fact that they're trying to blow up the prime minister's building in Oslo seemed to be fair play, but it turned out it wasn't Muslims and it wasn't Arabs.
It was an Isad model.
It was less.
It was blonde David Dukovny.
Or David Duke.
Who was a Zoolander?
So let's hear how Bill O'Reilly talked about it.
Sunday, the New York Times headlined, has horrors emerged.
Norway charges Christian extremists.
A number of other news organizations like the LA Times and Royd has also played up the Christian angle.
Brevik is not a Christian.
That's impossible.
No one believing in Jesus commits mass murder.
The man might have killed himself.
People who believe in Jesus sit around with other millionaires and demonize the poor on television.
That's what Christians do.
But Christians don't commit mass murder.
Okay, there's more.
Christian on the net, but he is certainly not of that faith.
Also, Brevik is not attached to any church and, in fact, has criticized the Protestant belief system in general.
The Christian angle came from a Norwegian policeman, not from any fact finding.
Once again, we can find no evidence, none, that this killer practiced Christianity in any way.
So why is the angle being played up?
Two reasons.
First, the liberal media wants to make an equivalency between the actions of Brevik and the Oklahoma City bomber Tim McVay and Al-Qaeda.
The left wants you to believe that fundamentalist Christians are a threat, just like crazy jihadists are.
And we all know that fundamentalist Christians aren't a threat, right?
Like George Bush would never threaten to invade a country under a pack of lives.
George Bush would never push through a bill that would let the government spy on you, going against everything this country has ever stood for.
George Bush would never fundamentalist.
Plus, Timothy McVeigh, I think he was an agnostic, right?
And certainly.
Yeah, I don't get the, you know, liberals want to compare what this guy did to what Timothy McVay did, as if both of them are heinous, horrible terrorist acts that killed a lot of people.
How could you compare both of those?
A Christian would never murder 75 people in cold blood.
A Christian would implement economic policies that makes them want to kill themselves.
Exactly, Paul.
There you go.
Or drop an atomic bomb.
Yeah.
Right?
Didn't that we do that?
We're Christians.
Who would Jesus nuclear bomb, right?
That's the question we have to ask each other.
So I'm not saying that we should fear Christians any more than we should fear anybody else.
I'm just like to point out the hypocrisy.
That's our show, fellas.
It went by quickly, didn't it?
And that is our show.
I want to let everybody know who's in the St. Louis area and listens to this show that I'll be there this weekend at the Funnybone in Westport.
And you can get a link to that show over at the website.
And don't forget, August 13th is the next popping politics at Meltdown Comics, 7522 Sunset Boulevard, Saturday, August 13th.
There's a link over at jimmydoorcomedy.com for that show, too.
Today's show was produced by Ali Lexa, and today's show was written by Robert Yasimura, Mike McRae, Frank Conniff, Steve Rosenfield, and Steph Zamarano.
I want to thank my guests for sitting in, Paul Gilmartin, Frank Conniff, and Robert Yasimura.
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