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Feb. 18, 2017 - Jimmy Dore Show
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20170218_The_Jimmy_Dore_Show_2-17-2017
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Get ready for an outstanding entertainment program.
The Jimmy Dore Show.
Hello.
Jimmy, Mitt Romney here.
The Romer man.
The Mitt Rom.
The Rom.
Rommel, the Desert Fox.
I went too far there.
Governor Romney, what a surprise, buddy.
I like egg salad sandwiches.
So sometimes they call me the Eggman.
My son's name is Tag.
I like toast.
Do you like toast?
I like toast.
That's how we do things in Utah, or the Ute, as we call it.
I heard you were just in Salt Lake City to commemorate the 15th anniversary of the Winter Olympics there.
That's right, Jimmy.
It was just grand to have the Olympics in this wonderful and lively city.
Salt Lake?
Yes, Jimmy.
They've just opened up a quench.
So that's pretty keen.
A what?
Quench.
It's a juice bar, Jimmy.
But it's not just any juice bar.
Hey, that's nice.
Look, I just wanted to ask you about Trump's first 20 days in office.
Quench is an innovative response to an emergent food trend focused on fresh ingredients.
They achieve thirst-quenching taste, hence the name Quench.
I bet it's spelled with a W. Of course it is.
That's how you spell quench with a W. That's how we do things here in the salt.
I'm pretty sure Quench is spelled with a Q, Governor.
That's because you're the product of a godless secular education system, Jimmy.
I went to Catholic school, Mitt.
Like that's better.
Hey, I kid the seculars, but I'm not letting you Catholics off too easy either.
You Catholics cut up your God into three people, whereas we have one God, the Holy Spirit and Jesus.
But there's only one God.
The other two are assistants.
Follow me.
No.
Okay, look, God the Father isn't like a dog biscuit.
You can't divide him up into three parts and use him as a treat for when you don't piss on the couch.
God is one being, one divine dog biscuit.
And he's your reward for building temples dedicated to him, decorated like Donald Trump's bathroom.
You see, Jimmy, you weren't taught how Jesus came to Utah when he was young and wild and married 72 virgins.
Then he went on a staycation to Arizona and built Bedrock City, a life-sized version of the town Fred Flintstone grew up in.
Betsy DeVos will change all that.
She's very wealthy, Jimmy.
She might even be richer than I am.
Money equals knowledge.
Didn't you know that?
Well, I know money equals power.
And power equals knowledge.
So ergo, or using the theorem of money, money equals knowledge over power squared minus 72 virgins were exes.
Dah, fuck it.
You're under arrest.
What?
You can't do that.
Give us a year.
Hey, so how do you think Trump is doing so far, Mitt?
Do you regret criticizing him during the campaign?
I have no regrets, Jimmy.
As a matter of fact, I think Donald's gotten off to a strong start.
There are encouraging signs on a number of fronts with the new administration.
What does that mean?
I'm going to run for the Senate in two years, and I need his endorsement.
But what specifically do you like about what he's doing?
Well, for one thing, he's using all my executive orders I plan to use if I'd want, which I did back in 2012, like repealing and replacing Obamacare.
With what?
Romney care, you asshole.
I also had an executive order ready to bring back torture, mainly by repealing Obamacare.
Is there any other orders you had already to sign?
Yes, I was going to ban all recreational boating.
Water's evil.
God cursed it.
It's in the Mormon Bible.
Google it.
Did God really do that?
Yes.
In 1831, God cursed the water while Joseph Smith was bathing on the banks of the Missouri River.
Joseph Smith was not a very attractive man.
I think was at a place called Pig Fucker's Bend.
Very sacred.
Google it.
Any other executive orders?
Yes, no flip-flops.
I'm sick of seeing them, and God is too.
I mean, come on, it's time for a change.
Oh, gotta go, Jimmy.
Jesus just told me my laundry is ready.
Not Jesus, but hey Zeus, the guy who does my laundry.
Allah Akbar.
Allah Akbar.
It's the Jimmy Dore Show.
The show for people that are inch me be on tearing down our nation.
It's the show that makes Anderson Cooper save.
It's on Poppy, TV.
Here's a guy who sounds a lot like me.
It's Jimmy Dore!
Hi, everybody.
Welcome to this week's Jimmy Dore show.
We got a jam-packed one for you.
I want to remind everybody, we'll see you this Monday at the live Jimmy Dore show in Birdbank at Flappers.
That's this Monday, February 20th.
The next one's March 4th.
That's a Saturday coming up quick.
I think that's at the improv in Hollywood.
And then the next one is going to be March 20th.
So those are our dates.
This one, Monday, has already sold out.
So the two left are March 4th at the improv in Hollywood and March 20th back in Burbank at Flappers.
So go to JimmyDoorComedy.com for a link for all those shows.
We'll see you there.
What's coming up on today's show?
Well, Putin, Mitt Romney, Harrison Ford all call in.
And the White House press secretary, Sean Spicer, calls in for the first time.
We're going to talk quickly about Trump's rambling press conference and why it appeals to his base.
The Democrats are chastising Bernie Sanders for being correct and popular.
And we talked with Tim Canova about divesting in the banks that are funding these dangerous fracking pipelines.
All that, plus a lot lot more.
That's today on the Jimmy Dore Show.
Jimmy Dore Show.
Hey, everybody, welcome to the Jimmy Door Show.
I'm here with Ron Placone and Jim Earle.
Hello.
Hello, fellas.
Hello.
So, you know, we talked about this a lot on the show about my theory about why the neoliberals are pushing this Russia thing.
Because they don't want to talk about what's really wrong with the Democratic Party and how they can't help but turn their back on their base and they're in bed with corporations and they don't want anybody to notice or talk about it.
They want to pretend they're still the party, an opposition party, which they're not.
So, like, for instance, here's Christopher Hayes.
He tweets out, by the way, this probably is a minority view, but if Flynn had a phone call with Russian ambassador urging him not to overreact to sanctions, I don't think that's the worst thing in the world.
But why all the subterfuge and dissembling?
Why'd everybody act like there's something to cover up?
And then Michael Tracy says, because Democrats stoked flaming Russia hysteria for months and would latch on to any evidence that purported to show Trump is being compromised.
With that in mind, even Christopher Hayes is like, what's the big and everybody, oh, right.
And they can't, this non-stop Russia thing.
By the way, Trump wants to have normal relations with Russia, the way Barack Obama said he wanted to Mitt Romney in 2012.
And the neoliberals in the mainstream media seems to want World War fucking three.
That's not a joke.
They're ramping up, NATO's ramping up forces all over the effing place.
From the Black Sea with Estonia to Lithuania to Germany.
We already have people like Keith Frothing at the mouth, Olbermann and John McCain screaming, traitors, we've been attacked.
They've invaded us.
Yeah, they sound like they want to provoke a war with a nuclear power.
To me, that's the most irresponsible thing in the world.
I mean, all of a sudden, it's like pseudo-progressive to sound like McCarthy.
Yeah.
It's like, what's happening?
Isn't that weird?
That's really weird.
So that's so under that guy's Trump did a press conference today.
And of course, the headlines is 77-minute meltdown, all that stuff.
They're saying how horrible it was.
Think about that, though.
But Trump's going out in front of a press, which he always maligned.
And he's horrible to the press.
I'm not defending Donald Trump's treatment of the press whatsoever.
But think about that.
He's going out now to give a press conference to talk about this stuff.
And the press has been ramping up this Russia BS.
Here's a little clip that they were running on the Huffington Post today.
Presentation directly to the American people.
He's going to make his presentation directly to the American people, right?
He's going around the media.
That's what that sounds like to me.
With the media president, which is an honor to have you.
This morning, because many of our nation's reporters and folks will not tell you the truth and will not treat the wonderful people of our country with the respect that they deserve.
And I hope going forward we can be a little bit different and maybe get along a little bit better if that's possible.
Maybe it's not and that's okay, too.
Unfortunately, much first of all, I think that's ballsy.
I don't know why.
That appeals to me that he said I'd like to get along better with the press, but if not, that's okay too.
Like, wouldn't that, that's, to me, that's a little bit, that's that catnip to the right, like Bernie gave to the left in that debate in New York when he said, Lloyd Blake Flight has said, I'm a dangerous person, and he's right, I am dangerous.
Oh, we went crazy.
Yes, give it to him.
That's kind of, to me, that's how I took that.
Like when he said, you know, I'd like to get along better with the press.
If not, that's okay, too.
I'm doing my fucking, you know, I'm doing what I want to do.
I'm the president.
I don't know.
See, I kind of took it as that's like the closest he can get to being diplomatic.
Yeah.
Like that, that's how I kind of like.
So you took it as like a failure because he should reach out more to the, it makes more sense.
Not even reaching out more to the press, but I feel like he's trying to be like low-key here, trying to be, and he's just like, ah, but I'm still kind of a dick all the time.
Like, that's kind of how I took it.
I think it's just more of his fucked up verbal diarrhea.
The man can't shut up.
He can't end a sentence when he should.
Well, you know, I have tremendous respect for the press.
But then again, I don't.
Well, I'm going to react to the Russians and the spy ship.
But then again, I might not, but you're not going to hear about it.
But, you know, I'll do it alone.
You don't have to know about it.
All this kind of terrestrialism.
I think there's a lot to what you're saying.
Maybe that's maybe he just didn't know when to end that sentence.
Words sound.
But I don't know.
I still like it.
I like it.
We don't get along.
We don't get along.
The media in Washington, D.C., along with New York, Los Angeles, in particular, speaks not for the people, but for the special interests and for those profiting off a very, very obviously broken system.
Now, I will say this.
A lot of people came to the Young Turks and then came to this show because they were seeing through the mainstream news media, including MSNB frickin' C. We're not just talking about Fox or CNN or whatever.
People got sick.
They were like, oh, you're right.
They're not speaking for the people.
They're carrying a corporate message, a neoliberal corporatist message.
And they're smearing the real deal guy in favor of propping up a corporatist warmonger who we can't stand.
And people saw right through it.
They saw them giving more time to Trump's podium, empty podium, than they did to Bernie Sanders.
People saw what was happening.
So in a sense, again, why he resonates is because he's touching on real truth.
Even though he does it in like a disingenuous way, he's touching on truths that are real.
People do not trust the fucking media.
I don't trust them.
That's why we do this show.
I mean, it is hard to imagine that a media outlet owned by Comcast wouldn't necessarily be for the people, but here we are nonetheless.
Comcast, which people, I don't know if people know, I mentioned it all the time, voted one of the worst companies in the world to work for.
Always, but voted that.
And yeah, I wonder why they're carrying the corporate.
Anyway, so there's more to this.
The press has become so dishonest that if we don't talk about it, we are doing a tremendous disservice to the American people.
Tremendous disservice.
We have to talk about it to find out what's going on because the press honestly is out of control.
The level of dishonesty is out of control.
He just repeats himself.
You're right, Jim.
It's just this verbal diarrhea.
It's out of control.
Honestly, out of control.
You just believe me.
It's an honor to have you here.
But you're out of control.
You're lying.
But it's an honor to have you here.
It's an honor to have you here.
If he rolled back media deregulation, we might be okay in the long run.
Like, if that was like the one progressive thing that happened.
Yeah.
I mean, it's not going to, but, you know, if he rolled back.
Yeah, like, like, if he rolled back, like, the telecom act of 1960.
Oh, no.
It's not going to happen.
I'm just saying, like, like, what if like someone like stuck that idea in his head?
Yeah, I had that dream too.
They had regulation.
I had a dream like that, too, that he would enact the public option.
Like, we're going to repeal Obamacare, but we'll give you the public option.
Like, they're not going to do that.
But I had that pipe dream also.
Yeah.
Like, what if he accidentally tries?
He accidentally does something amazing.
What if he accidentally does something great?
Somebody puts it in his ear.
Well, that's what I thought of.
If somebody put in his ear, if you do single-payer health care, they'll put you on Mount Rushmore.
Yeah, and then compliment him after.
You will be president forever.
They'll repeal the term limits.
You can be president.
And I'm sure he was like, well, that sucks.
I don't want to be president too much longer.
Anyway, so there you go.
That's what I think about Trump's press conference.
Trump's press conference.
Hello.
Good morning, Jimmy Dore.
You atrophied arm of the establishment.
Is this Vladimir Putin?
This is President of Russian Federation of Planets, Vladimirovich Petrovsky Maximovich Putin.
But you can call me Putipie if you so desire.
How are you feeling today lately?
Fine.
Why?
Just checking.
I would not want to worry about anything, but if something should come up, I had nothing to do with it.
Even if I did.
What would be the point of injecting you with Strontium 235?
It's highly traceable.
Everyone know that.
Do you think I am stupid?
No, of course not, President Putin.
But can you comment on Michael Flynn resigning?
I don't comment on the affairs of other countries.
In Russia, we have a saying: prostitute tot pee on bed, bed pee on prostitute.
What?
While TV watched Yakov Smirnov completely lose control of bowels in hotel hotspot with Colgirl.
But that is a urban myth.
Or is it?
One can never tell, can one?
So you don't think this will increase tensions between our two countries?
America is Russia's greatest trading partner.
President Trump and I make good deal.
You sell us grain, oil, and construction equipment.
And we sell Trump, I mean you, three warehouses full of Catherine the Great furniture knockoffs, carved penis-legged chairs, gold vagina nutcrackers, and two crates of Bruce Babyman Baum crazy eyeball glasses.
By the way, would you like to see taxes of Donald Trump?
Because we have them right here.
You hacked into the IRS?
I'm talking about Russian returns.
In fact, right now, I'm looking at this Dievyat Yats.
His what?
1099.
Would you like to hear old Russian joke?
Yeah, sure.
So two grain quota bureaucrats, Uri and Gleb, are having a drink.
You heard this one?
Two grain quotas are having.
No, I never heard this one.
Uri and Gleb walk into bar.
Uri said to Gleb, you appear in disheveled manner today.
Explain.
And while providing me with this information, please be quick and pull a point.
And Gleb replied, I have a real bad day at work.
I was arrested and sent to a labor camp.
Then I had head kicked in by gypsies and my family attacked by a band of marauding Cossacks.
To which Uri replies, and what of soybean production this year?
And Gleb answers, 270 million pounds, down 20% from last year.
I don't get it.
What's the punchline?
Oh, Jimmy, you ask too many questions.
I wish the United States no trouble.
Everything you need to know is on my OKCupid profile.
Google which it.
I enjoy riding horse, tranquilizing polar bear, shooting dart at whale, guiding endangered whooping crane and motorized hang glider, and of course, catching large fish.
Like Donald Trump.
But no, seriously, this guy is scary and he creeps me out.
Please help us.
He's going to get us all killed.
Stalin was more stable than this guy.
I hear someone coming.
It's no longer safe to talk.
I have to go.
Don't try to contact me.
Gorbachev's head stain is a lie.
So you know that Bernie Sanders submitted the amendment to make drug importation from Canada legal because right now they pass a law it's illegal.
And you know that it was a bunch of corporate Democrats that killed that bill.
So right now, we could be getting drugs the same price Canada does.
Imagine that.
I mean, do we have that kind of power as a country?
Can we actually, are we strong enough to the country to negotiate with pharmaceutical companies to get our drug prices halved like Canada does?
Are we savvy enough?
No.
Turns out no, because the corporations are savvier than the people, and the corporations bought our politicians to say, no, you have to pay twice as much for your medicine as Canada does.
And we got these senators to go along with us.
Corey Booker.
Yeah, who has the balls to show up supporting Planned Parenthood in March right after he casted that vote?
Yeah, he's a corporate pig.
It turns out the Democrats, so you think they would go, oh, man, I guess we got to start being more progressive and stuff.
And the people are really with Bernie Sanders on this.
And hey, maybe we should have two parties instead of just one corporate party.
Hey, maybe I guess things are changing.
The ground's moving underneath our feet.
People are waking up.
And Donald Trump was the worst thing that could happen to these corporate Democrats because now everyone's paying attention to us.
You think that's what they would do?
You think that's a rational reaction to a Bernie Sanders campaign and them being wiped out, meaning the Democrats wiped out electorally at the state level and at the federal level, wiped out.
You think that's a rational response, but here's their real response.
From the Hill, Chuck Schumer tries to keep the peace as Sanders speaks out.
You ready?
As he speaks out?
Ready for this?
Sanders' colleagues complained about an interview he gave to USA Today, a newspaper with the nation's third highest circulation, in which he said some Democrats lacked guts because they were unwilling to stand up to the pharmaceutical research and manufacturers of America, one of the most influential associations in the nation's capital.
Yeah, so they're upset that he's telling the truth about them.
He's upset.
Hey, Bernie Sanders is talking to a newspaper and telling people what the problem is.
You know, that's impolite.
You know, he's exposing that.
Well, he said it was just disappointing that 13 Senate Democrats didn't, quote, stand up to powerful special interests like the pharmaceutical industry.
Now, that's a gaffe.
As you know, what a gaff is in Washington is when a politician tells the truth, usually accidentally, except Bernie was doing it on purpose.
So that's a gaffe.
So that created now.
They had to have a meeting.
Chuck Schumer had to have that caused such problems.
They had to have a meeting because of this guy, this Bernie Sanders, screwing shit up for us.
You know, the best part is if the meeting starting with Chuck Schumer going up to Bernie and being like, look, you know, the DNC and everybody's been really great to you.
One lawmaker described the atmosphere in the room as frustrated.
Frustrated.
Oh, this Bernie Sanders, he's doing stuff that's popular with the American people.
He's introducing bills that would actually help people in a huge way.
This is very frustrating for us.
Think about this.
Think about that.
It's very frustrating for Bernie Sanders to be going around pointing out what the problem is and why we lost to fucking Trump and why we're wiped out.
It's really frustrating when a guy accurately diagnoses our problem and then tells newspapers what it is.
Meaning the people.
Bernie Sanders is telling the people what's wrong with our government and that it's got to stop.
Chuck, call a meeting.
So Chuck Schumer calls a meeting.
His public comments were especially offensive because Schumer tapped Sanders to serve on his leadership team in November, appointing him to serve as chairman of outreach.
Quote, you cannot do that if you're in the leadership, said one senator who did not approve of Sanders' tactics and requested anonymity to speak frankly.
You cannot do that if you're in leadership.
I'll say anonymously.
Fuck.
What a profile and courage for that guy, for that senator.
Hey, you got to stop this, I'm saying in the dark shadows.
You have to stop being Bernie Sanders.
Yeah.
What the fuck?
why did they give him that leadership position then?
Well, Chuck Schumer gave him that leadership position because the Democrats are wiped out and they realize that all the energy in the party is with the progressives.
And now that you're here, stop giving them a platform to get behind.
Yes.
You might do your job.
Exactly.
Democratic sources say Chuck Schumer convened the meeting not only to salve rankled feelings, but also to send a message to the Vermont senator.
Play nice with others.
Wow.
Hey, play nice with others.
You know what playing nice with others gets you?
Donald Trump president.
You know what playing nice with others got you?
Wiped out in the Congress.
You know what it got you in the Senate?
Wiped out.
You know what it got you in the state houses?
Wiped out.
You know what it got you in the governorships across the country?
Wiped out.
That's what playing nice with other corporate, because exactly what we've been saying, because they don't give a fuck if they lose to Republicans.
They'd rather lose to a Republican than let a progressive take over and take their corporate gravy train away.
That's why.
That's what this is.
They don't give a shit that they just lost to Trump.
Does it sound like they give a shit?
They don't give a shit because they kept their cohesive structure in place.
We still have donors.
Tom Perez is going to, Tom Perez is going to be the DNC chairman.
It's all going to keep going, baby.
Sanders declined to comment on the meeting when asked about it by The Hill, but noted that he is working with colleagues on new legislation intended to reduce drug costs, and he plans to introduce it soon.
However, sources say he seemed chastened afterward.
One Democratic senator said Sanders kept relatively quiet at the next two caucus meetings, where he is usually a voluble presence.
It's good to see that they're quieting.
They're kicking the enthusiasm out of the one guy who has anybody giving a shit about him.
So that's it.
That's from Bernie Sanders.
Hey, Bernie, Calm Da, keep it down.
Let people who know how to win, like Nancy Pelosi and Chuck Schumer, let us take care of things.
We know how to win.
You just lost everything to Donald Trump.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
That's not important.
The important thing is we're insiders and we don't make fun of each other, okay?
Or embarrass each other, okay?
Even when we're screwing over the American public.
That's the important thing.
And it's everybody else's fault.
It wasn't us.
It's everybody else's fault.
And it's definitely Bernie Sanders' fault for introducing that bill to save Americans millions and billions of dollars on drugs.
It's his fault for doing that because that embarrasses the corporate Democrats.
That's literally what they fucking are saying.
Good on you, Bernie.
I think Bernie needs to start a third party and really stick it to these motherfuckers and make them come left.
And we're going to see what we can do about that.
This is what I say.
Thanks to everybody who thinks about the Jimmy Dore show.
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So thanks, everybody who does that.
And now let's get to the second half of the show.
Hello, who's this?
Hey, buddy.
What's going on?
It's Harrison here, the big H. Hovet hanging, Broheem.
Harrison Ford, what a pleasure.
It's been quite a while.
I hear you're under investigation by the FAA.
Huh?
I am.
Yeah, dude, you didn't know that?
I just read about it in the newspaper.
You flew over a passenger jet at John Wayne Airport.
Fuck.
Are you serious?
I did that?
Yes.
And I'm not supposed to do that.
Not according to the FAA.
They're investigating you.
You flew over a passenger jet.
Are you sure it wasn't a really big seagull?
We've got some big ones in Orange County.
All they do is fucking eat onion rigs for a goddamn day.
And they balloon up like John Goodman on Thanksgiving.
They'll eat anything.
That's how we're a clapton's son died, eaten by a bird.
Wrote a song about it.
Tears in heaven.
His son was snatched by a big obese seagull and left and rights ahead song about it.
Boohoo.
And they call that art.
I never flew over any goddamn passenger, Jeff.
I'm an Oscar-winning pilot, instrument-trained.
Maybe it was Nick Nolte.
Sometimes he designated flies for me.
Makes a good pilot, you ignored son of a bitch.
How dare you?
No, wait.
I'm thinking of Mickey Rourke.
They kind of look alike now.
No, Billy Crystal looks like Mickey Rourke now.
You ever see Sleepless in Seattle?
I'll have what she's having.
Great line.
I'll never get Botox.
What?
No, I think you're, I think you're talking about when Harry met Sally.
I never flew over no passenger jet, Jeremy.
I'm a professional.
I'm a highly rated pilot and can fly nine types of airplanes.
Whoa, what kinds?
Well, there's the type with propellers, you know, like big fans and you put them in the front or on the wings and suddenly doodle-y-doo, you're flying.
I'm highly rated.
I've crashed more planes than John McCain.
I read you also own a seaplane.
It wasn't a seaplane before I got it.
And you own a helicopter.
Now, why do you need a helicopter?
To hover over my crop of sweet Chiba Chaba.
You know, you've been flying for years.
Do you have a favorite landing field?
Yeah, the Santa Monica golf course.
Why did you call me again?
You called me.
Look, hey, Harrison, do you have any new films coming out this year?
Indiana Jones and the Temple of Ramps.
I'm 74 years old.
It's time for my nap, Jeremy.
Over and out.
Is that airliner supposed to be underneath me?
Thank you.
you you I'm pleased to have on the show for the first time Professor of Law from the Nova Southeast University.
He ran a spirited campaign against former DNC chair Debbie Wasserman Schultz for her congressional seat.
And he's a real progressive who's helped lead the anti-fracking and anti-pipeline fight in Florida.
Please welcome our guest, Tim Canova.
Hi, Tim.
How are you?
Hi there, Jimmy.
Thanks.
Great to be with you.
Great to have you on.
Now, I just wanted to ask you real quick, how do you think progressives can win in this era of Trump?
Well, I think for the next two years, it's going to be very challenging.
We're going to be on the losing side of a lot of votes just because we're in the minority as far as the Democrats are in the minority, I should say, which means progressives are in the minority in Congress here in Florida in our state house, in state legislatures all over the country.
So I'm not sure we're going to have as many wins as losses, but we can resist.
We can be protesting in the streets and civil disobedience, have spirited defenses, you could say, in these legislative bodies to slow things down.
Even if we don't win, maybe we slow things down.
We have to make the case so that hopefully some Republicans jump ship on some key votes.
You know, we almost were able to block the DeVos Betsy DeVos nomination because a couple of Republicans did switch sides.
So, you know, the politicians follow the polls.
If we can keep making the case and the polls reflect it, perhaps, you know, we can stop some of the most radical parts of this Republican agenda.
Kind of sad, and it's sad to see all those Senate Democrats going right along.
You know, part of resisting someone like Trump is you have to have practice to resist.
So maybe if they, instead of going along and confirming all those cabinet choices like Pompeo, maybe if they would have got together and started practicing how to resist when it came time to really resist, they could do it.
But they have no practice.
I'll just put that out there.
So let's go ahead and move on and we're going to talk to you about what's going on right now with the divestment issue and the pipelines in Florida.
Sure.
You know, and we came upon the divestment movement and trying to be a big part of it precisely because a lot of other avenues to stop these pipelines and to stop fracking seem to be closed off.
Florida has to be one of the worst places in the world where you could be fracking.
We have a very low water table and two very large aquifers that would be in danger from fracking.
And, you know, the Obama Environmental Protection Agency took five years for its study to come out.
It finally came out in Obama's last month in office.
And it concluded that what we all knew from watching Josh Fox's gas land six years ago, that fracking contaminates drinking water.
We are fighting fracking here in the state of Florida.
A number of legislators, key legislators have introduced bills in our state house and our state senate.
And I should say, not just Democrats.
Republicans have also introduced legislation to ban fracking in Florida.
It's a tough road to get through this legislative body.
Rick Scott, the Republican governor, we don't know if he'll veto that kind of legislation.
We've talked about trying to get a referendum on the ballot in 2018 to stop fracking.
That's two years down the road.
We got to stop not just fracking, but there's a pipeline being built here in Florida called the Sable Trail Pipeline.
And we like to say that standing rock is everywhere.
And really, if you take a look at the map of the United States at the pipelines that are being built, it does seem to be everywhere right now.
And the pipeline, the Sable Trail pipeline is really emblematic of how crazy this is.
They want to turn the entire state of Florida, apparently, into Flint, Michigan.
This pipeline is a 515-mile pipeline, and it will transport, when completed, a billion gallons of fracked gas a day.
Why?
Not for use in Florida, but to export in the form of liquefied natural gas, presumably to China.
And for that, we're going to endanger our drinking water.
Now, that's not an overstatement to say we're going to endanger the drinking water.
This pipeline is going right through, I should say, and underneath some major rivers, but it's also sinkhole country.
And, you know, I don't know if you remember just a couple of years ago, there was a Floridian who was asleep in his bed when a sinkhole opened up underneath his house and swallowed him up.
I mean, the man was never even found.
You know, sinkholes open up unexpectedly in this part of the state, the northern and central part of the state.
If a sinkhole should open up underneath this pipeline, it's game over.
The pipeline will crack open and a billion gallons a day will start flowing into the aquifer.
This is one of the world's largest aquifers, a very shallow water table.
And it's like they're playing Russian roulette with this aquifer.
At the same time, we've got a separate aquifer in South Florida that is in danger because of saltwater intrusion, which is a result of the rising sea levels from climate change.
So, you know, Florida is really on the front line here.
We have the most to lose from climate change.
We have the most to lose if our water supply gets contaminated by frack gas, and we've got to fight back.
And our tools are somewhat limited.
I should also mention, Jimmy, that Governor Rick Scott has personally invested over $700,000 in these pipeline companies.
So we turn to Senator Bill Nelson, a Democrat, and we hand him 90,000 petitions.
We did a petition drive and we got more than 90, we're almost up to 100,000 signatures now.
And we can't get any response from Senator Nelson's office.
Well, lo and behold, perhaps the reason why is that he's taken over $70,000 in campaign contributions from these same pipeline companies.
Our tools to fight it are somewhat limited.
The political process, the establishment of both parties seemed to be closed off from helping us in any way.
So how do we fight back?
And that gets us to the divestment movement.
You know, a lot of folks, especially people who have been around for a while, will remember that the divestment movement was very effective in helping put pressure on and bring an end to apartheid in South Africa.
And, you know, it took some years.
We don't have years right now.
These pipelines are being built as we speak.
The Sable Trail pipeline could have gas flowing through it by the summertime.
And while we don't have a lot of time, we do have social media.
They didn't have that when we were fighting apartheid in South Africa.
So we're looking to organize college campuses all over the state of Florida to try to get students and alumni and faculty involved in pressuring universities to diversify, or I should say, divest their endowments out of fossil fuels out of these pipeline companies and into solar.
It used to be when you talked about solar, people would kind of roll their eyes and think you were talking about something futuristic.
At this point, you just have to look at Germany and China to see thriving solar industries.
And Germany is now producing an awful lot of solar energy.
If you took the 515 miles of the Sable Trail pipeline by 50 meters wide and you took only half that acreage and put solar panels on that acreage, you'd produce more energy than is being produced by that frack gas going through that pipeline.
Twice in the past year, voters in Florida voted for solar.
We had a referendum that was on the ballot the day I was on the ballot, August 30th.
And for a referendum to pass in the state of Florida, it needs 60% of the votes, and we exceeded that.
So we have Democrats, Republicans, Greens, even Libertarians and Independents who have been supporting solar in Florida.
They're way ahead of the politicians on this because the politicians are in the pocket of the fossil fuel industry.
So the divestment that we just saw in Seattle, you mentioned it to me yesterday, and I looked it up.
It's great what happened.
Their whole city council unanimously voted to divest from Wells Fargo, not only because of their funding of the Dapple pipeline, but also because of their unsavory business practices where they commit fraud on their own customers.
That's right.
So you want people to divest from the banks that are financing this pipeline.
How do you tackle the problem of the fact that there's only five banks in the country?
And so now if people are divesting for Wells Fargo and then they divest from Bank of America.
There's only, what is there, three more banks left?
I mean, you know, that's one way to look at it, Jimmy.
After the financial crisis, you know, the top six or seven banks now control something like two-thirds or more of the nation's banking assets and deposits.
But there's still plenty of banks in that other 30%, you can say.
I personally divested some years ago.
I closed out my bank account in Bank of America.
I've been teaching regulation of financial institutions for many years.
And, you know, that was the main reason I divested at the time was because of the lending practices of Bank of America, much like you mentioned with Wells Fargo.
So I shifted my banking to a community bank.
That community bank happened to have then been bought up by a commercial bank, but it's still a regional commercial bank.
So there are options for folks out there.
I would recommend looking at community banks, local credit unions.
Those are usually financial institutions that'll take better care of you anyway.
Yeah.
We moved out of the country.
What Wells Fargo did to its own customers was outlandish.
They committed fraud on 5,000 of their own customers.
Well, 5,000 people had to get fired.
They opened up a couple million bogus accounts and their name didn't tell their own customers.
Nobody goes to jail, right?
Because it's a bank.
Right.
And the 5,000 tellers, so to speak, that opened up these accounts were pretty much following orders.
And for orders, they got fired.
And, you know, the managerial class does quite well.
They pretty much have their stock options and haven't suffered as a result.
So if we could divest, so Bank of America, Wells Fargo are the two big banks.
Jimmy Dorso does our banking with the California credit union.
So that's how that's the way we go.
I hope the wave of the future are state-owned public banks.
I know in California, there are a bunch of jurisdictions that are trying to open up their own state banks.
The Bank of North Dakota has been a model for 100 years.
Unfortunately, the Bank of North Dakota has been following, you could say, local public opinion in North Dakota, which supports that Dakota access pipeline, and they've helped invest in that pipeline.
But in California, I know that there are attempts to create community banks and public banks in Oakland, in Richmond, in Mendocino County, all over the state of California, Pennsylvania, all over the country.
People are talking about public banking.
That's definitely what we need to do because it doesn't seem like there's going to be the political will to do what they're supposed to, which is break up the banks and put some of those guys in jail.
So maybe the next financial crisis, but we can't hold our breaths on that.
Yeah, so, and it's coming, by the way.
So it's coming.
You know, Barack Obama bailed out that equity firm, Blackstone, on his way out at the office, right?
So what he did was create a bigger barrier for first-time homebuyers because now rents and home prices are artificially inflated because the government is now playing crony capitalism and backing up these predatory equity firms, correct?
Oh, yeah, correct.
Don't get me started.
For years as a law professor, I've been writing about the central bank.
And you take a look at the Federal Reserve's response to the financial crisis.
In the first two years after the crisis, the Federal Reserve made more than $29 trillion in low-interest loans.
And I mean loans at 0.25% to the largest banks and hedge funds in the country and in the world.
And did very little, really nothing to help working class folks, the main street interests.
And that's a contrast to how the Federal Reserve responded to the financial crisis of the 1930s, where you saw the regional Federal Reserve banks actually making hundreds of millions of dollars of loans to small businesses, to mainstreet interests.
Yeah.
And I know after the crash, you know, my brother is in construction.
He owns a construction company in Chicago, and he couldn't believe they couldn't get money.
Nobody could get money to finance projects because the banks were taking all that TARP money and using it for more speculation, which is that's right.
You know, we're used to using the word trickle-down to describe fiscal policy, you know, tax cuts for the very wealthy and hoping it trickles down to the rest of us.
We've had a trickle-down monetary policy approach now for many years, and a lot of that money isn't trickling down.
It's inflating securities markets.
It's inflating real estate prices.
And, you know, I think you're right to worry about an asset bubble that could be bursting.
Yeah, I'll just go ahead and predict it.
So, but I do think that they're going to stop the pipeline and the frac.
See, the craziest thing is that these pipelines that they're the Keystone pipeline, that doesn't, that's Canadian oil going to the Gulf of Mexico to go to China and other places.
That doesn't help America.
It's not American oil.
It's nothing.
It just puts money in the pockets of oil companies that doesn't trickle down.
And the same thing seems to be happening in Florida where they're going to frack this gas, turn it into and put it in a pipeline so they can ship it to around.
So this doesn't help the country at all, but it has an amazing potential downside to the country.
And I think that they will stop those pipelines in Florida as soon as one breaks and pollutes your aquifer.
Unfortunately, that's what it might take.
You know, what's shocking to me, you can go online and research this.
There's a lot that's now been written about it, but the largest water conglomerates in the world are now in league with the fracking companies.
And now, part of it is that the fracking process requires a lot of water.
So they're going to make money on the fracking process.
But a nice side benefit of it, of course, is that as the fracking leaks and spills into the aquifer, poison the drinking water, the water companies can sell us bottled water.
I guess we'll be taking our showers in the future with bottled water.
Yeah, we'll be at the USA of Flint.
Exactly.
Why do you think the so the LA housing prices are unbelievably inflated and rents are even worse?
Is it all because of the private equity firms that are allowed to do what they're doing?
Do you think?
I don't know if you know.
I'm just asking your opinion.
Well, you know, I think it's a combination of factors, some that we've already described.
But in addition, the idea of public housing went out the window decades ago.
And that leads to an undersupply of housing for lower income folks.
What I always find incredible, I found this in Orange County when I taught there, was the janitorial staff at Chapman University were people who were quite often commuting an hour or two.
I mean, imagine a two-hour commute just to come into what, to clean toilets.
They couldn't find any jobs anywhere near where they were working.
You know, I do think we need a lot more public housing than we have.
Of course, the trend in recent years has been to move in the other direction, to privatize anything that's in the public commons.
Well, that's neoliberalism, I think, in a nutshell.
Yeah, in a nutshell right there.
It's to take public assets, privatize them, extract wealth, and screw the people who need the government services the most.
Exactly.
And, you know, this neoliberalism infected the Democratic Party terribly in the 1990s.
I mean, it's the real legacy of Bill Clinton, I think, and Robert Rubin to bring in those folks.
And it's not going to change unless we push the Democratic Party back into a different direction to embrace sort of the New Deal roots of the progressives.
And I think, as you indicated, not just within the Democratic Party, You need activists outside the Democratic Party, people who believe in third parties.
But we have to be making these arguments to the American people.
They're not going to hear it on mainstream media.
They have to hear it through campaigns like mine where we were knocking on doors and talking to voters about the issues and shows like yours that go around the mainstream media and reach people right through social media.
It doesn't even seem like the Democrats have an agenda.
Like they don't even have a response to Trump, except we're not Trump.
It's like, so what's your bold?
You know, maybe they, why not hijack Bernie's agenda?
I mean, that's the thing that people seem to be on board with.
Why not have a populist message?
It's like the people who control the Democratic Party still won't even admit that there even is a problem.
I mean, I saw Nancy Pelosi on the CBS morning show say that people don't want the Democrats to change direction.
I saw that.
I saw that.
You know, Jimmy, it seems to me that there are a lot of Democrats.
The establishment of the party would rather remain corporate-owned and corporate coddled than to let go of that lifeline of corporate cash and try to be a party for the people.
And you see it playing out with the discussions about who's going to head the Democratic National Committee, where when these candidates for the DNC post are asked, should we get rid of corporate lobbyist donations to the DNC?
Should we ban it again the way it had been banned by President Obama back in 2008, 2009?
There's a lot of sort of mealy-mouthed answers to it.
And of course, part of that is each of these candidates need the votes of DNC delegates who have been swimming in a lot of this corporate cash.
We just saw Tom Perez admit that the DNC rigged the primary against Bernie, and then the next day he tweeted out that it didn't.
So it's like, okay, so now you just prove that you're a liar sometimes.
But of course, he said he misspoke.
That's the thing that's turning people off.
And the Democrats are destined to lose again in 2018.
And it's because of the people with the money and the power.
It's not because of people like me or people like you.
It's people like me and you are trying to reform this political system and try to return it.
So that's the funny thing to me, the people with all the money in the power, the John Podestas, right?
They're not going to ever admit that there's a problem.
No, they're not, but we just have to beat them.
You know, there's a lot of reasons to say, you know, to be pessimistic and say, well, it's destined to happen again in 2018.
But take a look at the last year.
Even though Bernie fell short, even though my campaign fell short, millions of people woke up in the past year.
And I see it at the local level here now.
The energy that's coming into the Democratic Party that wants to challenge the leadership of the party, the progressive energy, the young millennials that are showing up at local party meetings and at new progressive caucuses all over South Florida is very impressive.
We've got to build on the gains that we saw in the past year.
We can't throw in the towel and say we fell short, therefore, the game is rigged and we can't ever win.
Yeah, the game has been rigged, and it's time to take off the gloves and really fight back.
I agree.
I know the progressives in California took over.
It was the first time I'd ever gone to a delegate election for the Democratic Party in California, and there was a line down block.
Nobody couldn't get in the room.
There were so many people.
So you are correct that this Trump presidency and the Bernie candidacy has woken a lot of people up to what's actually been going on in their government.
And I think it was, you know, the pretty face of Barack Obama, who's a very likable guy, right?
So when he talks, he makes you feel good and you forget about all the horrible shit he's doing in the Democratic Party.
So I think that also put a lot of people to sleep for the last eight years.
And Bernie and Trump have woken people up.
There is, you know, even the Women's March, right?
So I'm being told, or I've read that that was the biggest protest coordinated in the country's history.
So that's just not people pushing back against Trump.
That's like an amazing thing happening.
And I hope the Democrats, I hope people like you can capitalize on the movement that's happening or the anti-Trump feeling, right?
But the problem is we have to fight back with something.
Like you have something.
Debbie Wasserman Schultz was a nothing.
She offers you exactly what they're offering you, except a little bit less of it.
So I hope the Democrats can fight back with something.
Like, why don't they just adopt single payer?
I had to see Bernie Sanders go on CNN and try to defend a right-wing health care plan.
I know.
I saw that.
It was brutal.
It was brutal.
Go ahead.
You know, he did bring up single payer.
And, you know, it's sad to see us in the position of trying to fight to maintain Obamacare.
Let's see what the Republicans offer in its place.
I doubt it's going to be much of anything.
The Republicans are going to have to run on a record in two years.
2018 could be a watershed year.
There's no reason to be pessimistic about it.
We got to have progressives challenging Democrats in primaries.
Look, I almost took out the head of the DNC and I was a candidate for all of eight months.
You know, now we've got a lot more than eight months to build on that all over this country.
So we got to move the center of gravity within the Democratic Party away from this neoliberal and corporate establishment and move it into its progressive roots.
And that will offer the American people a real alternative.
You know, I have little doubt had Bernie Sanders been the candidate against Donald Trump, we wouldn't be looking at a Trump presidency.
I have little doubt, quite frankly, if Hillary Clinton had just put Bernie Sanders on her ticket with her, we wouldn't have a Trump presidency.
And I've said this many times.
You know, the Clinton campaign slogan of stronger together, they kind of forgot the word together.
You know, you have a two-word slogan.
You should really remember both words.
I think that together they were referring to suburban Republicans.
Well, perhaps.
Or progressives should just, you know, get in line and suck it up and no matter what they're being offered.
And, you know, a lot of progressives did.
And here in Florida, if you take all the Green Party votes and put it into Hillary's column, Hillary still loses.
You know, so they can try to blame the Russians.
They can blame the FBI.
They can blame the Greens.
You know, it's really time for these folks to grow up, look in the mirror, and try to take responsibility for the mess that they have been making, not just in 2016.
This has been going on for a decade now as far as their total election defeats at the polls.
And you're right, Barack Obama masked the failure of the Democratic Party.
You know, I'm sure you're aware of the statistics.
Since 2010, the Democrats have lost over 1,000 seats nationwide in state legislatures and in Congress.
This is the weakest position this party's been in since 1920, I think.
And, you know, when you say stuff like that, and when I say stuff like that, people say, oh, my God, you're being divisive.
And why are you such a purist?
I'm sorry we can't pass your purity test.
And what I say is the only people that complain about my purity test are the people who can't pass it.
That's a good one.
I like that.
And, you know, I saw Ram Emanuel made a speech like this in the past week as well.
You know, and they try to say with a purity test, we won't win elections.
Well, you know, guess what?
You're not winning elections now.
Exactly.
That's my point.
It's not a purity test with them.
It's a money test.
You know, they will follow whatever special interests are stuffing money in their pockets.
And guess what?
It's not working.
You know, Hillary outspent Trump two to one.
It's not working.
You know, Tim, I think it's the old saying: if you don't learn from history, you're bound to win in 2018.
All right, buddy.
Well, listen, you know what?
You're encouraging.
It's nice to talk to you.
It's very encouraging.
You have a positive outlook for the future.
I think 2018 should be a bloodbath.
If the Democrats can come together, the only problem is when the Democrats say let's come together, what they mean is that the progressives need to shut up.
And that's a that's the we need to, I say let's come together, but the corporatists need to shut up and they need to be dissatisfied with the party for a while, unlike the Bernie Sanders wing of the party or the progressives have felt for the last 16 years or whatever.
Al Gore, look who Al Gore's vice presidential choice was.
Joe Lieberman.
Do you know what Joe Lieberman did two weeks ago?
He introduced Betsy DeVos to the Senate.
That was what Joe Lieberman did.
That was Al Gore's vice president.
That's how bad they were 16, 17 years ago.
They're even worse now.
This is the politics of triangulation.
The Democrats keep moving to the right to try to co-opt the Republican issues.
And then they wonder why the Republicans keep moving even further to the right.
And, you know, you take a look at what the voters want, and you saw it with Bernie's campaign.
I saw it with mine.
They want people who are speaking the truth.
And I think one of the most insidious things that came out of the WikiLeaks was that statement from the Hillary campaign or Clinton's emails that she has one statement, one policy position for her private donors and another for the public.
People are fed up with this.
They really just want honesty.
They want truth-telling.
And we need the politics of truth right now.
And that's how the Democrats can come back and win.
So enough of this.
Should we be further to the right or further to the left?
No, we should just be honest.
We should speak the truth to the American people.
I don't know about that, Tim.
I think the reason why people like Bernie was because he was a good-looking jet setter hanging out with the nice.
I think that's what it was.
It was his shiny suits he got from JCPenney.
I think that's what it was.
For both Bernie and I, it was our hair.
Yeah, Bernie's starting to do a Justin Bieber now.
Hello, who's this?
Hey, Jimmy, this is Sean Spicer.
Hey, Sean.
Hey, Sean, how are you?
Good.
How are you?
I had a few minutes for questions.
I'll take a few questions from you.
I have a few minutes for taking questions, but I ask you to please keep them brief and to the point and easy to answer.
There's rumor that the fact that Melissa McCarthy now portrays you in sketches on SNL is bad for you inside the White House because Trump thinks it makes you look weak.
Is that true?
Yeah, well, the president has no opinion on Saturday Night Live.
And as I said the other day, I thought it was cute and funny.
They do what they do.
It's a comedy show.
And the fact that his presidency is being continually emasculated is not a concern for the president right now.
He's got much more important things to concern himself with.
That's not what we heard.
He tweets about SNL all the time.
What are you talking about?
Well, he may tweet about us.
The president tweets about a lot of things.
The fact he's tweeting about something doesn't necessarily mean he's prioritizing that over anything else more importance or any kind or that it's bothering him more than it would be anything other as, for example, the fake news or other related such issues.
Next question.
Jimmy Dorr from the Jimmy Dorr show.
You know, there's a lot more to that Sean Spicer phone call.
And all you have to do is become a premium member, and it's real affordable.
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So go to JimmyDoorComedy.com, click on join premium.
Everyone should do it.
It's less than $5 a month.
And then you get all the stuff we do.
We do a couple of premium podcasts a week.
We put stuff into like the phone call, and everyone's happy.
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It's a great thing.
Okay.
Thanks, everybody who already does that.
And remember, we'll see you March 4th and March 20th.
All right, for the live dates.
Today's show was written.
That's right.
It was written by Mike McRae, Paul Kozlowski, Mark Van Landuit, Ron Placone, Jim Earle, and Steph Zamorano.
All the voices today perform by the one and the only, the inimitable Mike McRae, who can be found at mikemcray.com.
All right, that's it for this week.
Until next week, this is Jimmy Dore saying you be the best you can be, and I'll keep being me.
Do not freak out.
Do not freak out.
I'm not kidding.
Not freak out.
Not freak out.
You are now down.
Don't break out.
Don't freak.
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