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Nov. 30, 2012 - Jimmy Dore Show
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The Jimmy Dore show starts right now.
This week, negotiations continued to avoid the fiscal cliff with President Obama insisting on raising tax rates for the wealthy.
Well, Speaker Boehner remains opposed to this or anything else that would be fair.
Boehner recently reiterated that Obamacare should still be repealed, even though right after the election he had conceded it was now the law of the land.
But obviously, it isn't the law in Republican fantasyland.
Maybe Boehner forgot whose guy came in second.
Apparently, though, he intends to make full use of the GOP's non-existent leverage.
Republicans are even saying they want Medicare and Social Security to be on the negotiating table.
Well, Merry Christmas to you.
That's a lot of safety net to destroy in four weeks, but I can understand the GOP leadership wanting to avoid looking human out of sheer spite.
On the other hand, to demand the elimination of health care benefits for the poor in exchange for raising tax rates for billionaires, it does start to look like all they care about is money.
Because obviously they don't care about winning any more elections.
Meanwhile, the Pentagon is permanently off limits to Republicans for budget cutting because we need missiles more than we need grandparents.
In the end, Obama may well compromise and raise the tax limit from $250,000 to half a million or even a million.
But people will still call him a socialist.
The two sides will probably come to an agreement right around a quarter to midnight on December 31st or maybe the 30th if they have plans for New Year's Eve.
But even if negotiations continued into January, it probably wouldn't be the end of the world.
On the other hand, if December 21st does bring on the end of the world, that would go a long way toward reforming our tax system.
Thank you.
It's the Jimmy Dore Show.
The show for...
The kind of people that are...
It's the show that makes Anderson Cooper save.
It's hard to talk about your T-Values.
And now, here's a guy who sounds a lot like me.
It's Jimmy Dore.
Everybody, welcome to this week's episode.
I'm joining the suiti cross-the glass for me from Morgan Reider for the Daily Show.
Hilarious comedian Steve Rosenfield.
Hey, Steve, how are you?
Good, Jimmy.
Great to be back in town.
No, I didn't leave.
That was a nice rant at the top of the thing.
Oh, thank you.
I was really proud of that one.
Yeah, me too.
Next to him, a hilarious comedian from Teen Yasamur.
It's Robert Yasamura.
Hello, Robert.
What's going on?
Good to see you.
Across from him, it's Emmy Award-winning writer and author of Morning Remembrance.
It's Jim Earle.
Hi, Jim.
I'm still full of turkey.
Vegetarian.
You're a liar, Jim Earl.
You're a liar.
Next to him, it's our resident Latina.
It's the host of Comedy and Everything Else.
It's Steph Zamarano.
Hey, Steph, how are you?
Hi-yi-yay.
I'm still full of the tamales or whatever it is that you people do.
That's right.
On the phone, we have from Mystery Science Theater 3000.
It's TV's Frank.
Hi, Frank.
How are you?
Hey, Jimmy.
How you doing?
I'm doing well.
Now, Frank, let's tell some jokes before we get to the jokes.
That annoys someone, by the way, that I do that.
Someone says, why do you do that?
I don't know.
I like doing it.
I like it.
Obama, Frank, did you hear Obama tell everybody to Twitter and use the hashtag MY2K to demand legislation on fiscal cliff?
Yes, and he also said use hashtag MST3K for the looming Torgo cliff.
Good for you missies out there.
Ha?
It's a little treat for you guys, huh?
So I don't know if you know the GOP announced their committee chairpersons, 19, they're all white males.
What?
Yes, they're all white males.
Interesting direction for them.
It's crazy.
But there is diversity.
Some dislike blacks.
Others fear Hispanics.
But most hate women.
Okay.
And hey, John McCain continues to criticize UN Ambassador Susan Rice over the Benghazi mess cup.
He said if she were any more incompetent, he'd make her his vice president.
And it's nice to see, I don't know, did you see the GOPs all in a knot about the Grover Norquist tax pledge, right?
About them never.
Yes, because, you know, loyalty to some creepy closet case is the true test of a public servant.
I have a deja vu.
I'm full of turkeys.
Yeah.
Coming up on today's show, we're going to talk, we're going to check in with the global warming chat that they had on Morning Joe.
Yes, and the big question was, hey, should we do anything about it?
Also, we're going to check in with some of the top CEOs in America to see how they feel about Medicare and Social Security.
How do you think they feel?
Also, we're going to check in with what Barack Obama's David Pluff spokesperson says about the big grand bargain.
Plus, Jim Kramer is going to give us some tips from Mad Money.
That's right.
Jim Kramer.
If you don't know who I'm talking about, Jim Kramer is that guy in CNBC, and he proves that you don't have to know what you're talking about as long as you're constantly shouting.
Okay, so he's coming up.
Plus, we're going to talk.
You can't believe what happened on Fox News.
Even I was a little shocked by it.
And somebody spoke the truth the other day on Fox News, and the interview lasted not too long.
We're going to get to that.
Plus, we got phone calls today from who called in?
Do you remember, Steph?
Maureen Dowd calls in today.
Oh, Boehner.
And Speaker Boehner calls us.
That's good.
That's today on the Jimmy Dore Show.
All right, so I was watching Morning Joe.
And because you know why I like to watch Morning Joe, you guys?
Because you like to start the day out angry.
I like to go to bed angry.
That's right.
I like to go to bed angry.
And you love your coffee.
And I love my coffee.
Thank you very much.
So they were talking about a global warming, and here's what they brought in the weatherman from the Morning Joe Weatherman to talk about global warming as if he knows something.
And here's what he had to say.
New Orleans, we spent almost $15 million to do the flood mitigation there.
Isaac came, no damage whatsoever.
Estimated on this one is $50 million.
They're saying it was cost about another $15 million to protect New York City from surges.
Do we do that?
Do we go and build the protection in New York Harbor to protect lower Manhattan?
I'm going to say yes.
Yes.
Actually, now that I live in Lower Manhattan.
Do we protect Lower Manhattan?
No, we see if we can move Manhattan to New Manhattan.
Why spend all that money protecting New York unless we can be absolutely sure the next hurricane is going to be just as bad, right?
We don't want to be gypped and it just goes right by.
Yes, right?
What if it turns out there isn't global warming and we don't get our money's worth on all that protection we built why spend all that money when the next storm of the century isn't coming till next year?
Let's go.
So Jonathan K. Wait, he said the math, didn't he?
He said it's going to cost you $50 billion.
He said fixed.
He said in New Orleans, they spent $15 billion and then they had a hurricane and nothing happened.
He said, no, are we prepared to spend, is that what he said, $50 billion?
Let's see what he said.
$15, I think.
$15 billion.
$15 billion to show up southern Manhattan or lower Manhattan.
Well, the storm cost New York and New Jersey somewhere on the order of $60 to $70 billion in damages.
Yes.
So I think that $15 billion is very well spent.
Yeah.
Also, you know, part of his logic, too, is that, well, there was no, you know, we built all that in New Orleans and nothing happened.
And it's certainly never going to happen.
If it didn't happen by now.
No, it's never going to happen.
Yeah, those suckers in New Orleans spent a fortune, huh?
And boy, is their face red.
Just look at it this way.
Dry as a bone.
That $50, $60 billion in damages, that's a job creator right there.
A lot of cleanup.
That's true.
A lot of rebuilding stuff.
I'm saying that what Jim is saying is absolutely true.
It's the shock doctrine.
Oh, my God, then.
You mean Naomi Wolf?
Yeah, yeah.
Yes, okay.
The economy's on disasters.
So then they go ahead and they throw it over to Jonathan Kaypart.
You know, he's from the Washington Post, and he has this to say about it.
Earlier about all these storms crippling us, how are we going to pay for all of these, all of these super the aftermath of all of these superstorms when we have when we're $16 trillion in debt, trying to figure out how we're going to lower the debt, trying to figure out how we're going to pay for all of the obligations we have to pay for now.
And then you have the added impact of these superstorms.
Where's the money going to come from?
I don't know.
Damn, these liberal super storms trying to suck money out of the.
That's the dumbest I've ever heard.
Where are we going to get the money?
Where's it going to?
I don't know.
Maybe, what do you think we're going to get it from?
The people who want to have protection.
How about that?
It's called taxes.
You pay for it, and then you fix it.
What do you want to do?
You want us to, I think we should break into a bank on Mars.
That's where we'll get it from.
What do you count?
They're going to name the next storm Hurricane Welfare Queen.
Hey, we can't ask the wealthiest Americans to pay for it because they're cheapscapes and they'll yell at us.
I hate when they do that.
But on the bright side, if we let the storm kill more people, there'll be more dead people and they won't be on Medicare.
Maybe we could take that money, shift it over to the hurricane.
Maybe leave it out.
Yeah, that's what I'm, this is what I'm talking about.
We don't want to take money away from our nuclear arsenal.
It's protecting us from the hurricane.
When are we going to wake up to the fact that these people whose homes and business have been destroyed are bleeding us dry?
They're takers.
They really are.
I mean, if we keep spending money every time there's a big storm, we're going to have a huge deficit.
I wonder what that would be like.
Okay.
So then Joe Scarborough.
First of all, this is just, this is what you, I think it's too early for them to be doing a pundit show.
It's just like everybody says the dumb like Jonathan Kaypart is usually pretty smart.
And that's one of the dumbest things I have.
Where is the money going to come from?
Where the hell do you think it's going to come from?
And isn't it funny that no one ever, ever asked that question before we went into Afghanistan or Iraq?
No one ever said, where's the money going to come from?
How come we can afford this?
A 14-year war?
Are you kidding?
No one ever asked that question, ever, still today.
And by the way, you would think Joe Scarborough would be upset because didn't the storm destroy Scarborough country?
So Joe Scarborough, I don't have a clip of it, but he goes on to tell a story about how on the golf course, he met this Republican guy who's really wealthy donor, big, big, wealthy Republican.
And they're talking about global warming.
And he's like, well, you just have to look at the evidence.
You can't ignore it.
And so that was his big, like, hey, look, Republicans aren't all Neanderthals talk, I guess.
That was Joe Scarborough trying to see.
And then, so then we come back to the studio, and this is what John Heilman says.
Question, Joe, is for people in your party.
And you're like, the guy you were just talking about.
You know, you can be a conservative and still believe in science.
Isn't that kind of part of the message here?
No, that's not the message.
The message was you can believe in science on the golf course.
I think that was the message there.
Okay.
All right.
He got an ass in one.
Ha ha ha ha ha.
Ha, ha, ha, ha.
Bye.
Thank you.
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Thank you.
So right now, everybody's talking about the grand bargain, the fiscal bar.
You know, when I was a kid, a grand bargain is if the guy in the ice cream truck gave you an extra scoop.
Now the grand bargain is, can we tax the richest people in the world and at the same time cut Medicare and Social Security and Medicaid for poor people?
So that's the grand bargain.
But they never talk about cutting the defense budget.
Why is that?
You know, when I was a kid, the grand bargain was, you know, the guy in the ice cream truck would let me go.
LAUGHTER LAUGHTER LAUGHTER We all have our different perspectives on life.
That's what I'm saying.
I hear you.
I hear what you're saying.
So I'm watching 60 Minutes, and they decide who better to ask what to do about our fiscal mess than a bunch of CEOs.
And the first one they talk to is Lloyd Blankenstein.
How do you say his name?
Blankfein?
Blankfein.
Lloyd Blankfein.
And he's the guy who's in charge of Goldman Sachs.
He's one of the chief engineers of this train wreck.
That is our economy, right?
Oh, and Turkey's economy, too.
And he's also a big recipient of, let's keep in mind that he's the biggest recipient of quantitative easing, which is what that is, is the government prints money, gives it to the bank, and the bank gives them those toxic mortgages that they made a fortune off of selling.
Right?
So that's what that is.
Am I correct in that, Jim?
Quantitative easing is When I add an extra size to my stretch pan.
You see that?
I understood.
Okay.
So here we go with Lloyd Blankfein.
Here's what he said to 60 Minutes we need to do to fix our fiscal mess.
You're going to have to undoubtedly do something to lower people's expectations, the entitlements and what people think that they're going to get because they're not going to get it.
Social Security wasn't devised to be a system that supported you for a 30-year retirement after a 25-year career.
So there'll be who gets that?
Did you hear what he said?
Nobody has a 30-year retirement and a 22-year career at 30.
What the?
So what he's saying is that someone retires after 25 years at work.
So he's saying the problem is all those people who start working at 40, right?
And go to college for 20 years.
That wouldn't be me.
I've never met anyone like that who started working at 40, retired at 65, and then lived to be almost 100.
95.
This is what he's saying.
The problem is, no, I've never met or heard of anyone like that, but for his argument to make sense, that's what you have to believe.
I also like the way he makes it sound like people on Social Security are in the lap of luxury.
People got to lower their expectations.
They're not going to have these jacuzzis and Maseratis in their retirement on the government dime.
I've seen these people.
They're having parties, popping champagne.
And you wonder why.
This is the guy they asked.
This is the 60s.
What was this, Scott Pelley?
Scott Pelley.
And so Scott Pelley has nothing to interject at that point, going, I don't know, Lloyd, maybe your math skills are a little off.
Are we surprised?
You know what I would like to say?
Go ahead, Frank.
It sounds to me like the only person that this would have any logic to is Benjamin Butt.
Okay, so here he's got more to say.
Certain things that, you know, the retirement age has to be changed.
Maybe some of the benefits have to be fetched.
Maybe some of the inflation adjustments have to be re- Yeah, so we have to retire.
Some of the retirement age has to be changed.
I don't know, 67, 70, 89.
We'll save a fortune on gold watches.
Because you know, there are so many companies clamoring to employ people over 65.
Well, Jimmy always talks about an old fireman.
Yeah.
Right?
You want a 70-year-old fireman coming to save you?
I do, but only for the novelty value.
Yeah.
Maybe some of the benefits have to be.
I'm going to remake of Cocoon.
This is important stuff.
I think the old man smell alone would put out the fire.
I mean, really, you want a 70-year-old bricklayer, 70-year-old roofer, 70-year-old truck driver.
You really want a guy driving a truck at 70 years old?
I mean, this is the stuff.
I definitely want an old, old nurse.
That'll make me feel good.
Anyway, so he's got more to say.
Time and age has to be changed.
Maybe some of the benefits have to be fected.
Maybe some of the inflation adjustments have to be revised.
But in general, entitlements have to be slowed down and contained.
And by contained, he means eliminated and replaced by less expensive alternatives like starvation.
That'd work.
People would say.
And so there's the president, there's the, or the CEO of Goldman Sachs.
And it turns out that having all the money in the world doesn't build character.
Fancy that.
Not for nothing, but everything he's saying is wrong.
Because Social Security is solvent through what, 2037.
2037.
Last time I checked, Social Security that was solvent, it has never added to the debt.
It's not a big driver of our debt.
And Social Security fixed immediately by just eliminate the cap.
You eliminate the cap.
And go ahead, Jim.
Plus, you're probably going to touch on this immediately, but that hypocritical mofo received millions in tax credits or subsidies for his stupid-ass company.
Well, this is what I'm talking about when I asked you about quantitative easing.
You know, that's what it's exactly.
Millions he'd received.
They're getting billions of money.
And I mean, the banking industry got trillions in free money from the government.
And he's saying the big drive parasite.
Yeah, he is a parasite.
So they'll take the bailouts, but they don't want to give entitlements.
I mean, it's not entitled to.
I hate him.
I hate him.
It's our money.
He's entitled.
He seems entitled to me, and that's an entitlement.
He seems very entitled.
We paid into Social Security.
We pay into all this crap.
It's our money.
It's not entitlement.
It's our right.
He's taking entitlements.
Hey, Jim Earl.
Yes.
So now they talk to next on 60 Minutes.
I'll tell you.
Oh, good.
It was the CEO of Honeywell, a.k.a.
defense contractor Honeywell, that gets multiple So he has to be a nice guy and sweet, I guess.
Well, here's what he says.
The big nut is going to have to be Medicare, Medicaid.
It certainly isn't the defense budget.
It certainly isn't that.
Could it possibly be the defense budget?
Honeywell?
Could it possibly be the defense budget?
No.
At the end of the day, you can't avoid the topic, especially with the baby boomer generation retiring.
It's going to literally crush the system.
It's health care is going to crush the system, not two unfunded wars and the Bush tax cuts that are crushing the system.
No, wars and tax cuts never crush anything.
The only thing with the power to crush things is health care for the elderly and the poor.
That's what crushed it.
Medicare is raiding our military budget, is what he's saying.
Medicare is raiding our military.
So if we're going to go on trying to keep all the good people alive, we won't have enough money to kill the bad people.
We're going to have to make a decision.
Let's be brutally honest.
Between a decrepit aircraft carrier or your grandmother, which one could be retrofitted?
Which one's sexier?
Can I just say that?
The only help for our economy is turning everyone on Social Security into soy and green.
You know, Frank, I think if you just explain to people that the government will no longer pay for their old age, you can mentally prepare them to die a lot sooner than they expected.
We should prep them better.
I think so.
No more medicine.
No more medicine.
You know, if things continue like this, keep spending money on Medicare, one day we won't even know where our next nuclear warhead's coming from.
And then what?
And now that Barack Obama's won re-election, he has a major political opportunity, right?
Now, because of the big fiscal cliff, so he has this big, major political opportunity to cave into the Republicans again, right?
Let's see what happens.
So here's the president's guy, David Pluff, and his big idea on how to reduce a deficit.
Here he tries to show he's reasonable enough to consider selling out the progressives who got Obama re-elected.
That's how you show you're reasonable if you're a Democrat.
You have to sell out your base, right?
And here, I'm going to play this clip, and keep in mind, when they say they want to engage in entitlement reform, because they have to say, we like to engage in entitlement reform.
What they mean is cutting entitlements, which means cutting Medicaid and Medicare.
It doesn't mean figuring out new ways to better serve people.
It means cutting services and programs that help the most vulnerable.
But they have to use fake words like entitlement reform, because if they said what they were actually going to do, it would make them sound like huge asses, and probably people would kill them.
But no, they have to say, here we go.
So here's David Pluff.
We want to engage in comprehensive tax reform.
We also need to engage in entitlement reform.
You know, Medicare, Medicaid carefully.
These are chief drivers of our deficit.
We made a lot of progress with Obamacare.
There's a lot more to do.
So there he goes.
Medicare and Medicaid, big drivers of our debt.
No, they're not.
That's like saying eating is a big driver of my food debt.
You can't live without health care.
You can't say, it's like.
the i don't uh...
i don't know if they did tell problems planning to cave but did you see that he met with chilean miners Oh, I'm so glad I keep up with the news for that joke.
I got to tell you, that makes it.
But that's where it's like, well, you know, their big, you know, healthcare is a big driver of our debt.
First of all, it's not Medicare and Medicaid that are driving the debt.
It's healthcare.
Why do we pay twice as much as the rest of the industrialized world for our health care?
And that's what we need a plan to curtail our health care costs.
If we could get our health care costs down to just what the rest of the world pays, we could cut our Medicare and Medicaid costs in half without reducing services to anybody.
Theoretically, right?
Do you follow me on this?
Yeah.
Yeah.
I think I'm pretty smart.
But here's the thing: Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security are all paid for with payroll taxes.
They're just a big part of the budget.
I don't, don't they look?
They don't have to borrow any money for Medicaid or Medicare.
But yes, but they're not supposed to.
That's their own stupidity.
But it's just weird that he says that it's a big drive.
It's like you can't live without health care.
It's right up there with oxygen and a sense of humor.
Okay.
For some people.
Things you can live with.
My sense of Europe has been a huge strain on the economy.
You know, you can live without a huge defense budget and tax cuts for millionaires.
You can live without those.
In fact, you know, let's look at the big picture.
Isn't it worth hanging a few million elderly people out to dry if we can finally stick it to Grover Norquist, right?
We all hate him.
We need both sides to give up something so that taxes will be slightly higher for the wealthy, but not high enough.
And Medicare recipients will lose some of their benefits, which we all agree is terrific.
That's progress.
Here's David Pluff.
He has more to say.
I think what we need to do, and the president believes this, is let's go for the big deal.
Let's go for something that we can say for a 10 to 20 year period, for the first time in a long time, our country's on the right sustainable fiscal path.
The only way that gets done is for Republicans, again, to step out and get mercilessly criticized by Grover Norquist and the right.
And it means Democrats are going to have to do some tough things on spending and entitlements that they'll get criticized by their left.
Okay, so let me just explain what exactly he just said there.
He's saying that the only way that we can have a grand bargain is if the Republicans get mercilessly criticized by the right for making those who can most easily afford it pay their fair share in taxes.
That's what they're going to get criticized for.
And the Democrats have to be willing to get criticized for the left by cutting health care to the elderly poor and inflicting real pain on those who are the most vulnerable.
That's called balance.
That is, boy, that is equal.
That's called an imperceptible 2% tax on the wealthiest Americans who won't even feel it is balanced by cutting health care for the elderly and the poor.
That's called balance.
I can just say this over and over for the rest of the show.
Can I just keep saying it?
But My 2K is a really neat hashtag, though, right?
Yeah, My2K is a real neat hat.
Okay, we're up against it.
Jim, would you like to read a morning remembrance, please?
Sure, certainly.
This is from my book of stupid obituaries of real people.
Available everywhere, especially at jimerl.com.
That's right.
Thank you for saying that.
Okay, Rebecca Carranza, inventor of the tortilla chip.
Rebecca Webb Carranza, acknowledged creator of the first tortilla chip, died of a heart attack last month after accidentally eating a priceless plate of nachos in the shape of the Virgin Mary.
Witnesses say her body was found cracked and soggy, face down in a half-eaten bowl of Picante sauce and surrounded by a bunch of teenage boys, too insecure to leave the snack table and go mingle with the girl standing by the chase.
Relatives say there's no truth to the rumors she died after breaking her hip on an unusually heavy chunk of guacamole.
Carranza's Los Angeles tortilla shop was a favorite of many celebrities, including Eddie Rochester Anderson, who played Rochester.
Yes, he played Jack Benny's valet on the radio and television.
You know, he would often buy a bag of her chips and then swallow them whole to create his horribly painful voice.
Carrazzo requested her remains be passed around at a party and then stored in an airtight plastic bag for freshness.
Thank you very much.
Thank you very much.
*Music*
That was Jim Earl reading from his funny book of fake obituaries of real dead people called Morning Remembrance, which can be found at jimerl.com.
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It really comes with little lights you put on it.
It comes with little ornaments.
They give you like 12 ornaments to put on it.
It's really cool.
So if you like that sort of thing, it's a mini Christmas tree and it's a great way to help the show.
You go to proflowers.com, you click on the microphone in the upper right-hand corner, you type in Jimmy D, and that gives us the great.
That gives us the deal, and it gives us some of the money they're going to send to us.
So thanks for your support.
Thanks for listening.
Now let's get back to the second half of the show.
Welcome back to the Jimmy Door Show.
On the phone, we have for Mystery Science Theater 3000.
We have Frank Connoff across the glass for me, former writer for The Daily Show with Steve Rosenfield from Team Yasamura.
It's Robert Yasamura, also a former writer for The Daily Show and Peabody Award-winning writer, author of Morning Remembrance.
It's Jim Earl, the host of Comedy and Everything Else, our resident Latina, Stev Samurano, is here.
And what do we got coming up on the second half of the Jimmy Door show?
Well, we're going to check into Kramer, but he's got some personal finance tips for us.
Maureen Dowd might call in.
We have another reading from Jim's book, Morning Remembrance.
John Boehner, he's going to left me a voicemail over the weekend.
So I'm going to play that for us.
And right now, let's talk about.
Oh, plus, we have the craziest.
I don't even know how to describe this clip from Fox News.
So I don't want to build it up too much, but we're going to play it.
And right now, Jim Kramer, you know Kramer, the guy who hosts Mad Money on CNBC.
He has the uncanny ability to predict a major recession years after it's hit.
He is a genius.
Have you guys ever watched Mad Money?
Anybody watch?
Oh, yeah, yeah.
It's intolerable.
I've watched Mad Money many times, and I wouldn't ask Jim Kramer's advice on how to get to the freeway.
Okay, so they have a new commercial for Jim Kramer's show.
Here's like a teaser.
There's like a teaser for it, and here it is.
I'll play it for you.
There's his big advice.
I'm Kramer from CNBC's Mad Money.
Health insurance is an expense that could save your life.
While paying up for coverage might be a pain, protection from sickness and injury is worth every penny.
Medical expenses are the number one cause of bankruptcy.
So don't get wiped out by medical bills and save room in your budget for health insurance.
They have money weeknight 6 and 11, CNBC.
Wow, that guy's a genius.
Wow, Kramer also went on to suggest that people get jobs to keep from going broke and to eat food to keep from starving to death.
He's right on top of it.
He has a font of wisdom.
So he's acting.
This is his big, this is going to, if you're all, this is his big grab to get you to watch his show.
So if you're sitting there and you're getting ready to invest money, you're like, huh?
I should get, what's this thing called health insurance?
I can do what now with the who?
And then if I get sick, I don't go, what?
How does this, I got to watch this Kramer guy.
Tell me about the honey.
Do you know about this health insurance?
No, I just saw this thing with Jim Kramer.
He's got a sleeve.
No, he's got his sleeves rolled up.
So you know he's not going to be able to do it.
What's that, Frank?
I said it's actually from his new show called No Duh.
So can we talk about that for a moment?
Can we talk about what does it bother anyone else that it seems like there's no price to be paid for being wrong on television or horribly lame?
Like, for instance, after the housing market, the credit bubble burst or the housing bubble burst.
That's hard to say housing bubble burst.
And nobody got in trouble.
Like nobody lost their job.
Like Jim Kramer didn't get fired.
It was like, how come you weren't warning us about this for months and months that this is coming?
Nobody lost their job.
Nobody lost their job over the Iraq war.
Nobody lost their job over anything.
And Jim Kramer.
Even after, even when God punished Tim Russert, his son still got a chance.
I mean, there's...
Yeah, it was Russert, I think.
Anyway, I mean, you know, then you get a guy like Kudlow from Kudlow.
It used to be Kudlow and Kramer, but they were so good they had to split them up.
Where else are you going to get your health insurance advice?
I don't know.
So the Kudlow said that it's going to be a landslide for Mitt Romney 330.
He had it exactly backwards.
And yet people still turn to these people.
So one or two things, this is my theory.
One or two things are happening here, Steve.
Either people aren't actually watching these people for advice.
They're just watching to see if Maria Barromo's boobs pop out of her shirt one day.
We're all waiting.
Oh, wait, that's a possibility.
I will be watching that.
Right.
Or people are morons.
And even people who want to invest their money.
Or only morons watch that show.
That's got to be it, right?
Only morons watch CNBC.
Probably, yeah.
Is that it?
It's a low-rated network, isn't it?
I don't know.
I think that people who watched it are rich people who are not affected by these things.
And because rich people watch it, the shows get good advertising.
Yeah, that is true.
Watch Sunday morning shows.
The advertisements are all for gigantic corporations and they're all geared towards wealthy people who are watching it.
So they're very profitable, but I think the overwhelming majority of the public doesn't watch it or care about it.
Wow.
So rich people are watching it, but it doesn't have any consequence for them.
No, no, because what happens is CNBC feeds them back what the wealthy want to hear, which is everything's great.
The fundamentals of the economy are great.
And You should invest in these blue chips.
Nothing bad is ever going to happen.
And you know what?
What this last election I think proved, Robert, is that they actually at some point start to believe their own BS, right?
They absolutely do.
They were actually shocked that they got their ass handed to them.
I mean, I don't think Bill O'Reilly was acting that he was that upset and that shocked.
I think he was that upset and that shocked.
It's because none of these people are journalists.
What they do is they hang out at parties and they listen to the scuttlebutt.
They don't go and actually research any of this stuff.
And they're just parroting the nonsense they heard around their high-fallutin water coolers.
The best example of these people just living in this imaginary world was in the second debate when Mitt Romney confronted Obama about the fact that he never been terrorists.
And he did say it, but they had created this fiction that he hadn't said it that was so real that Mitt Romney actually thought that he was going to be able to, that that was going to be a big score for him in a debate.
Like they believe, you know, it's like when the legend becomes back to print the legend.
You know, they just believe, they totally believe the fiction.
Yeah.
Well, that's what I that.
So that's, yeah, that's maybe they do start to believe.
Like maybe people watch Deal Cavuto and believe it.
So I guess people are believing.
They've got something's got to be.
It's just.
We as a people, we need fantasy and make-believe to help us get through the day.
For some people, it's Lord of the Rings.
For other people, it's Fox News.
But so what I realize is that today, I realize this today about Rush Limbaugh's show: is that people aren't actually tuning into Rush Limbaugh for anything, not information, not facts or figures or stories.
It's like a racist.
He doesn't care the reasons that you hate black people don't make sense.
He just wants to hear them.
And that's what that is.
They just want to hear.
It's that mana.
They need that nourishment of hate that it doesn't matter if it makes sense.
They just need someone to hate.
And it's going to be liberals and it's going to be blacks and it's going to be Hispanics.
And it doesn't matter if it makes sense.
People are the choir they want to be preached to.
They just, yes, I watched CNBC for the Catheter commercials.
Well, that's all I care about.
That's all I want to hear about.
I think that I don't think that Limbaugh has the influence that the media pretends to need.
His only influence is the fact that every stupid thing he says is picked up by the media and they go on and on and on about it.
But I don't think he's really influencing anyone except people who want to have something to listen to when they're sitting on their couch on their lawn.
Well, according to Steve Schmidt, the listeners of his show are all white and 65 years and older.
Is that true, you think?
But here's the problem with the Trumps, the Limbaughs of the world, the Bachmans of the world, is that the Republican Party doesn't disavow themselves.
They don't stop and go, these people are crazy.
They don't represent the best thinking of our party, and they should not be spokesmen.
He went on and called a very intelligent graduate student a slut for three days for speaking her mind and giving information and facts to a congressional committee.
When he did that, what Mitt Romney said was, I don't disavow.
I would have used different words, is what he said.
He didn't criticize him at all.
Well, and by the way, everybody should disavow themselves of Romney, too.
And they all got in some ways.
But I would also point out that Mitt Romney didn't disavow him at all.
And also I point out, Mitt Romney did not get elected president.
I call.
So in other words, I think one of the things that this election proved, and this is a good thing, is that most people think Donald Trump is an asshole.
He doesn't have an influence on them, you know, and Rush Limbaugh.
It's like a more reasonable argument won in this past election.
It says here that the Fox News channel, Fox News channels, daytime and prime time, their median age is 65.
I never saw that research because I was watching a Matlock marathon.
The average age of the right-wing radio listener is 67.
And it's 91%.
No, I mean, it's 91% Caucasian.
Wow.
It's only 91%.
So that means that 72% of Limbaugh's elderly listeners are men and thus are statistically likely to have a stroke sometime in President Obama's second term.
They can hate him with the left side of their pocket.
Ha ha ha ha!
Ha ha ha ha!
Ha ha ha ha ha!
Ha ha ha ha ha!
Jimmy, it's me, Boehner.
Why in God's name did I want to be Speaker of the House?
Oh, I remember.
Commanding a legion of rabbit house cats wasn't available.
I could be smoking, playing golf, and telling racist jokes right now.
But no, I had to make my dead father proud by captaining his goddamn Titanic straight to the port of Fuckme Stan.
On one side, I got the Tea Party people.
Hey, we came to Congress specifically not to govern.
What the hell is that?
Hey, I tried out for the basketball team specifically so I could refuse to play basketball.
These people informally appointed crazy-eyed blackmen, their leader.
You're going to do that.
Why not just put a pig head on a stick and worship that?
And I got Cantor breathing down my neck.
Hey, Eric, since you're always back there anyway, why not massage my hemorrhoids while you're in it?
That guy is six kinds of creepy.
I make sure I'm never alone with him, let alone make eye contact.
He's always like, hey, John, you want a piece of candy for my pocket?
And hey, am I the only one who's noticed how much Cantor looks like Ron Goldman?
Weird or what?
I half expect him to undo his collar and show me the gaping wound where OJ murdered him.
And I got Norquist.
Fucking Norquist.
If you raise taxes, I'll find someone more to the right to challenge you in your next primary.
Really?
You're going to find someone further to the right of Peter King?
Well, good luck traveling to the underworld to find whoever that guy would be.
And you're going to challenge Lindsey Graham?
Norquist, you're going to have to check a lot of closets to find that replacement.
Jimmy, I'm telling you, I am surrounded by so many defectives, I can't even cry at public speaking events anymore.
That was my thing, man.
That was like my signature move.
I would mention the Reds, cry like a giant orange baby, and then I was out.
I'm just venting, man.
Okay, I'm going to go.
But, Jimmy, I'm going to imagine you were going to give me a long, manly, gentle hug.
Like you just took me in your weird bony arms and let me smell your scent.
There, now the tears are finally coming.
I got to get to a microphone.
The Jimmy Dora show is available as a podcast for free on iTunes.
Or for other ways to subscribe, go to jimmydoorcomedy.com.
And while you're there, you can listen to past episodes and you can comment on them too.
Remember, Jimmy spells his last name, D-O-R-E, jimmydorecomedy.com.
Thank you.
All right, so let's move on to this Fox News story.
So there was a fire in Bangladesh at a factory that made clothing for what you call for Walmart, among other vendors.
For Walmart, they're called the Taz Tazerine Factories.
So the Tazreen factories, the garment factory in Bangladesh, where 112 people were killed in a fire, have been making clothes for Walmart, Disney, Sears, and other major retailers, some of whom say they thought they had stopped doing business with the place.
Really?
So here's what this guy says on Fox News about that fire in Bangladesh that killed 112 people.
They had no functioning fire, functioning extinguishers.
When the fire alarms went off, the managers told the factory workers to get back to their stations and they locked the exits.
112 people died.
Since 2006, over 200 people have died in Bangladesh garment factories as a consequence of substandard safety precautions prevalent in their factories.
A lot of people believe that brands like Walmart would move production at the factories if it was more expensive.
That is, if they had things like basic safety precautions.
Okay.
So that just happened, right?
So they go to Fox News, and here's what this guy says.
You know, listen, it's one of these things.
I don't think something like this will happen again.
I don't think something like this is going to happen again, he says.
Yes, yes.
Really?
This factory might as well invite Great White to come play, okay?
Because as long as people can still get Nikes for 20 bucks, there ain't going to be a sprinkler system in these buildings.
Okay?
So he goes on.
He goes on.
Don't think that the people in Bangladesh who perished didn't want or need those jobs as well.
Yeah, that's the point, you myopic female who desperately need jobs will put up with conditions which they shouldn't put up with.
It's their desperation that is being exploited.
Exactly, you moron.
All right.
He's got more to say.
I know we like to victimize everyone in this country, particularly when it comes to the for-profit motivation, which is being assaulted.
Okay, did you hear what he said, Frank?
Yes, he said that we tend to like to victimize people who are victims of fires.
He said we victimize people in this country when it comes to for-profit motivation, which is being assaulted in this country.
That's what he said.
Everyone's always down on fire.
You know, the Triangle shirtwaist company was never the same because of that kind of attitude.
They had to outsource to Bangladesh.
You know who the victim is here?
Capitalism.
Capitalism.
It's like the Walton families like Tina Turner, and those garment workers are like Ike.
That's it.
When are people going to stop victimizing large, highly profitable, multinational corporations?
You know, those people have feelings too.
Unfortunately, none of those feelings are basic human decency, but still they have feelings.
Okay.
As soon as that tragedy happened, I said condolences to the Walton family.
Okay, he's got a little more to say.
You know, it's a tragedy, but I think it's a stretch, an amazing stretch to sort of try to pin this on Walmart.
Yes, it's a stretch to try to pin this on Walmart.
I don't think it's that much of a stretch.
I mean, I know it's a complex web, but let's see if we can connect the dots, shall we?
Let's see if we can connect the dots.
Walmart hires Company X to make clothes for cheap because they're located in Bangladesh, where workers can be paid with no safety protections.
Okay, that's one dot.
But because they have no safety standards, company X has a fire.
Now, that's less than two dots.
That's it.
I just connected them.
That's two dots.
Who would have thought it was that easy?
Did you forget that these people, the fact that there's a fire means that they may be poor, but they can afford matches?
Did you notice how he lately threw it like when he talked about the tragedy part of that comment, but he kind of underplayed it?
Here, let's listen to it again.
You know, it's a tragedy, but I think it's a stretch and amazing stretch to sort of try to pin this on Walmart.
It's a tragedy.
It's like you say that.
Yeah.
There's incredible compassion in his voice.
Yeah, it's a tragedy.
Yeah, you know, tragedy.
Yeah, other than that, it's an inconvenience.
This is the kind of guy who refers to the Holocaust as unfortunate.
That's who this guy is.
And the weird thing is, is I don't know if you know what that guy does for a living.
He's a grief counselor.
A really bad one.
I love the fact that in the background of this recording, you can hear people like rioting like against – Remember that old Sam Kinnison bit about the starving people in Bangladesh?
Right, right.
Move to where the fire isn't.
The people screaming in the background are they're actually playing.
Literally, he's saying this over footage of people trying to help the people dying in the fire.
Oh, my God.
Yeah.
That's what he's saying.
This over that footage.
Uh-huh.
Okay.
He's going to wrap it up.
He's not done yet, ladies and gentlemen.
He's got a lot.
He's going to wrap it up here.
And listen, Walmart had its problems, and they have come a long way, and I think they will continue to do well and improve any area they can.
I'm not here as an apologist for Walmart.
No, I'm not here as an apologist for Walmart.
That's just a bonus.
I'm doing that completely for free.
I'm receiving no remuneration.
He's not an apologist because he doesn't think there's anything to apologize for.
Yeah.
But I am here as something as a spokesperson for capitalism and the American dream.
And I think for a lot of people, this is a step in the right direction.
He means a step in the right direction, meaning Walmart sending their work in Bangladesh is a step in the right direction.
What the f?
Death is a step in the right direction.
Roasting garment workers is a step in the right direction.
A direction that we can all accept burned human beings.
It's just the cost of doing business.
Maybe it's just me, but I don't think that's a good direction.
Did you catch how he said he's here as a Spokesman for Capitalism and the American American Dream.
Yeah, he's the spokesman for the American Dream, the same way George Zimmerman is the neighborhood watch captain.
Okay.
And he's a much better joke than you guys thought.
What's that, Frank?
As an act of compassion, he went to Walmart and bought DVDs of Backdraft.
Okay, before we got to get this in before we go, did you know that I was watching Fox News and they're talking about Benghazi, and so they had on a post-issue that won't go away.
A non-issue that won't go away.
They had a Pulitzer Prize-winning reporter on to talk about it.
And let's just enjoy this, ladies and gentlemen, because I was watching Fox News and something that the truth got out accidentally.
Senator John McCain has said in the past that he would block any attempt to nominate Susan Rice to become UN I'm sorry, Secretary of State.
She's currently the UN ambassador.
He seems to be backing away from that.
What do you make of it?
I think that Benghazi generally was hyped by this network, especially.
And that now that the campaign is over, I think he's backing off a little bit.
They're not going to stop Susan Rice from being Secretary of State.
Okay, what do you think they're screaming in that host's ear right now?
Cut him off.
Cut him off.
Hit him with four people are dead.
What's that, Frank?
Cut him off.
Yeah, hit him with four people are dead.
Hit him with that thing.
Say it sanctimoniously.
When you have four people dead, including the first UN ambassador, U.S. ambassador in more than 30 years, how do you call that hype?
How many security contractors died in Iraq?
Do you know?
I don't.
No, nobody does because nobody cared.
We know that several hundred died, but there was never an official count done of security contractors down in Iraq.
So when I see this focus on what was essentially a small firefight, I think, number one, I've covered a lot of firefights.
It's impossible to figure out what happens on them sometimes.
And second, I think that the emphasis on Benghazi has been extremely political, partly because Fox was operating as a wing of the Republican Party.
All right.
Tom Ricks.
Thanks very much for being here.
Okay, we now return to our regularly scheduled bullshit.
I guess I didn't need that bathroom break.
If all Fox News guests were that honest, every interview would be a minute long.
Literally, that interview, that entire interview was 72 seconds long.
That was it.
They were in and they were out.
Yeah.
Wow.
Yeah, last time Fox News cut a guy off like that, he was telling them Obama won the election.
Yeah.
Yeah.
I'm going to do that.
you you Joining us for the first time ever is New York Time op-ed columnist Maureen Dowd.
Maureen, thanks for joining us.
My pleasure, Jimmy.
I suppose you want to talk about Barry.
That's right.
I always refer to Barack Obama as Barry.
Can you believe how starky and irreverent I am?
Oh, yeah, yeah, I can believe that you're starky and irreverent.
You've been very critical of the president, haven't you?
I mean, you're supposed to be a progressive, but you're always kind of on him.
What can you say?
Well, he said he was going to take the country away from Beverly Hills.
I don't you want to, but now it's more like Melrose.
What is he going to take us in for a Not Landing?
I don't know what you're talking about.
I don't follow A. I just read you an accent from my next column.
And what would the Marine Down column be without dated pop culture references?
I don't know.
I'm going to say it would be readable.
Listen, what would you say is the number one problem facing average everyday working Americans today?
You, Maureen Dowd.
That's obvious.
The number one issue on everybody's mind is thank you cards.
Thank you, Carl.
What?
What do you mean?
Well, I should say the lot of thank you cards.
What?
Did you know that Obama is really inconsiderate towards his campaign donors and never sends them a fruit basket with a thank you note?
It's courageous.
I get the vapors of thank you, Obama.
The vapors?
Okay, listen, excuse me, Ms. Dowd.
Why is the fact that Obama doesn't send rich people thank you notes an important issue?
Why should anybody care about that?
Because I've written about it in several contexts.
columns and I only write about important things like the color of Al Gore's coat and John Kerry's ability to speak French and how professional accomplished women like you like Clint Desert Susan Rice should stay home and not make me feel threatened by their achievements okay Mrs. Dowd I have to say that one of your great achievements is proving that women can be every bit as misogynistic as any man can be thank you mr.
door.
You seem like a true gentleman.
I met when this interview was over.
I go home, fold me a bouquet of flowers, a sweet note saying, thank you, Maureen Downs, from your devoted gentleman of color, James Dwarf.
Actually, I wasn't planning on doing anything.
You're considerate.
You said thank you notes.
Unlike that cat, Barry Obama.
See what I did?
I called him Barry again.
What a burn.
Maureen, what do you think, what do thank you cards have to do with helping Americans get out of poverty?
That's my question.
Poverty?
Yes.
A vulgar word.
You'll never see it in one of my columns.
But what you will see is one of my pontificates about what an aloof, out-of-touch person the president is.
He doesn't like people.
He simply does not know how to behave in a social situation.
Really, Maureen?
Because it seems to me that he is charmed and glad-handed his way to be elected twice the leader of the free world.
I can hardly think of a man with no people skills.
How could he achieve that if he doesn't have people skills?
Well, I've already written several columns saying this, so I must say it is quite unchevelous of you to think otherwise.
Just for that, you can't come eat barbecue with me at Ashley Wilkes'stage.
I don't have any idea what you're talking about, Maureen, to be honest.
But how come...
How come...
I'll be honest.
How come a lot of people don't notice how vapid and stupid your columns are?
Be honest.
I'm serious.
Because they're usually posted right next to an even stupider David Buck's column.
Okay.
Well, Maureen Dowd, thanks for joining us.
Oh, thank you, Jimmy.
Do you see what I did?
I called you Jimmy.
I'm naughty, aren't I?
Everybody calls me Jimmy, Maureen.
It's not a big deal.
Fuck you.
Okay.
Jimmy.
So, Frank, what is this show that you've done?
I haven't listened to your new podcast.
You want to tell people what it's about?
It's called The Wonderful Pundits of Oz, and it's a radio play that takes place in Oz, and it's about an election for Wizard of Oz that all of the characters from the movie participate in.
And it is filled with irreverent button-down satire.
Okay.
All right.
And we...
how can people and uh hey Dave Gruber Allen and Emo Phillips Lorraine Newman Okay, so that's Frank's new podcast that I was not asked to be a part of.
So yes, it hurts.
But there it is.
I'm plugging it for him anyway.
I'll get you guys listening to it.
I'm sure it's hilarious.
Okay.
Okay, please remember this week's promotion, the Christmas tree.
It's a great Christmas tree for your office or a small room in your house.
We have them.
We have them in our house.
Okay, so guess what?
Today's show was written.
That's why it was written by Frank Conniff, Steve Rosenfield, Jim Earl, Robert Yasamura, Steph Zamarano, and Mark Van Landewitt.
I said it right.
And I want to thank the gentleman who helped make this show possible with their time and talents.
Sean James is our Mac genius, and he fixes my computer whenever it crashes.
He's great.
He can fix it for you right over the internet.
If you contact him at MacHelp at SeanJames.com and you spell his name S-H-A-U-N.
Okay.
Also want to thank Don Quixote for doing the great caricature that we're using for the logo and we're using for the Jimmy Dore show.
Thanks to Don Quixote, an amazing artist, and also Frank Pulaski, who takes some of the bits we do on the show and he puts video to him.
He's amazing.
And congrats.
He was filming the Fleetwood Mac just last night in Hawaii.
So big, big kudos to Frank Pulaski from Dreamtime Films.
Okay, that's it for this week.
Thanks for listening.
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