Dave Smith and his co-host dissect the Romney-Obama debate, arguing Romney dominated via stand-up comedy while Obama appeared weak and dictatorial. They condemn MSNBC's hypocrisy regarding NDAA detention claims and Obama's Anwar Al-Awlaki killing, mocking his "fake Romney" press conference. Despite predicting Obama's victory due to incumbent bias, they assert Romney outperformed him on taxes and debt, criticizing the media for favoring the president while dismissing astrology and Joe Biden's gaffes as the episode concludes. [Automatically generated summary]
Transcriber: nvidia/parakeet-tdt-0.6b-v2, sat-12l-sm, and large-v3-turbo
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Welcome to Part of the Problem00:14:45
You are listening to Part of the Problem.
Welcome to Part of the Problem.
Very exciting week.
We're coming off.
I know.
It's not over.
All right.
It's not over.
There's still some moths floating around occasionally.
It's been a busy life for me, all right?
I can't be expected to get everything.
Oh, what a week.
What a week.
Mitt Romney came out and smashed Obama in the debates.
I know you can get into it.
I know you're not so impressed with Mitt Romney.
Jessica's getting in Facebook wars.
There's a lot of shit going on.
Yeah, there's quite a bit.
Well, I actually quite enjoyed that debate.
As you know, Jessica, I was at the stand.
I'm so excited.
I was at the stand, which is this brand new comedy club.
Awesome club.
I love this new club, the stand.
It's on 20th and 3rd Avenue in Manhattan.
It's a beautiful club.
It's a really cool vibe.
A lot of great comics.
And they has no drink minimum there, which is pretty cool.
That's like they're kind of doing their own thing in that way, which is pretty cool.
But it's a great club.
And we did this thing with Nate Bargetti and Giannis Pappas, who were two hilarious comedians, who are friends of mine.
They used to do this thing.
They used to tour together and do kind of like a liberal versus conservative thing on stage.
And I think they did this with a couple debates last time in 08.
But they brought me in this time to have a libertarian there, which is more than we can say for the real debate.
They didn't bring the libertarian in at all.
Let Gary Johnson sit at home.
Having trouble with the mic over there?
Knocked it over.
No, we're good.
We're good.
But anyway, so I came in for that.
And MTV News came and covered it.
And they did a little story on us, which was pretty cool.
That was so neat.
Yeah, you guys can check that out.
It's still on MTV.com under MTV News.
And I plastered it everywhere on our Facebook and Twitter because I was so proud of you.
Oh, thank you.
That's all I ever wanted to do was make you proud.
Yes.
It's what I work for.
It's what I work toward.
But it was awesome.
So thank you to everybody from MTV News and everybody at the stand and Nate and Giannis.
I had a lot of fun that night, so that was pretty cool.
I hope we do that again for the next debates, which are coming up.
But so you did not think Obama did that bad in the debates, huh?
I don't think he did great by any means, but I don't think he...
He didn't kill, but it wasn't a disaster like everyone made it sound.
I don't know.
Looking at it from a comedy perspective, it was like Mitt Romney had a bunch of shitty jokes, but his delivery was so much better.
Because Mitt Romney killed, but he was killing with kind of bullshit.
Yeah, he was hacking.
Just making every make everything, reduce everything to stand-up comedy.
Obama was doing good stuff, but the crowd just wasn't that into him.
I thought, I don't know, I thought Obama did really, really bad.
I was kind of shocked.
I was kind of shocked.
I didn't see it going like this at all.
I thought it would be a very close debate where they both just kind of stuck to talking points, and no one really pulled ahead.
I thought at the first, I thought he was like sick or something.
I thought he looked like he had the flu.
Like, he just looked like kind of old and weak and just not interested.
I don't know.
I just didn't think he was doing good.
Mitt Romney did Mitt Romney was Mitt Romney at his best.
He's good in debates, but he'll fuck up every now and then.
He's always a little awkward, but sometimes he'll really be awkward and do things like the $10,000 bet or get really frustrated.
He did that a few times in the primary, but he didn't do any of that this time.
He was like perfect.
He was kind of pleasant and nice the whole time.
He had some good moments.
He had some really good moments.
He says some things that almost make me want to vote for him.
But, you know, if he wasn't full of shit, I might consider it.
But a few of the things he says are okay.
But then a few of the things were pretty terrible.
And I know people have been hitting him hard for, I don't know, all the liberal media is going nuts over this.
But there is something to be said for, like, I don't know.
Look, I'm not a Mitt Romney guy at all.
There's no chance I'd vote for him.
But for whatever reason, it's made me really, really happy that he stomped Obama out at that debate.
And just to have, not so much because I not even that I have animosity against Obama.
I just have animosity against his media.
And I love seeing his media just so frazzled and ridiculous.
I mean, dude, this is a...
I think the media was part of why I didn't think he did as badly as he did.
Because I watched the debates the next morning after I heard what a mess the whole thing was.
So I went into it, I think, expecting a lot worse.
So I think that may be why my reaction is different than that.
Yeah, okay.
I could see that because a lot of it's about what you go into it with your expectations because the expectations were that it would probably be tough for Mitt Romney to stand on this stage with Obama.
That's what I thought.
I just thought, like, oh, Obama's just a more impressive, a smoother guy.
When they stand on the stage together, he's going to look like the guy you want to have as your president.
And that wasn't the case at all.
But, you know, the media's narrative has been so pro-Obama this whole time.
And he's winning the race and the gap's widening.
And the gap really started to widen over that 47% comment.
Like, that was the focus of the race.
And when these two guys just stood there next to each other, without that media helping Obama, Mitt Romney seemed like the much more impressive guy, at least in this one.
Well, I want to play my favorite my buddies at MSNBC.
And I just loved how upset they are.
Chris Matthews was the best.
He was flipping out.
Well, this tonight wasn't an MSNBC debate, was it?
It just wasn't.
It had none of the things you mentioned.
It didn't mention all the key fighting points of this campaign.
And certainly there was no Bobby Kennedy in the green room before Barack Obama came out tonight.
I don't know what he was doing out there.
He had his head down.
He was enduring the debate rather than fighting it.
Romney, on the other hand, came in with a campaign.
He had a plan.
He was going to dominate the time.
He was going to be aggressive.
He's going to push the moderator around, which he did effectively.
He was going to relish the evening, enjoying it.
Nothing to do with the words he spoke.
Here's my question for Obama.
I know he likes to say he doesn't watch cable television, but maybe he should start.
Maybe he should start.
I don't know how he let Romney get away with the crap he threw out tonight about Social Security.
Listen to the stuff he got away with.
He said, you know, emergency room.
The latest thing we got from Romney, because he said so, is you know what I want to do with people when they're poor?
Shove them in the emergency room.
Why did Obama say that?
Why didn't he say that?
You talk about Social Security, Medicare, and Medicare people.
They're part of your 47%.
You want to drop them from the list of eligible Americans.
You don't have any care for these people.
What are you talking about?
We've got it on tape, Governor.
We got it on tape.
What do you think of these people?
Don't come out here and pretend you care about old people because you met somebody at some campaign event.
You've written off 47% of the country before you even started.
Where was Obama tonight?
He should watch.
Well, not just Hardball Rachers should watch you.
It should watch the Republicano.
He should watch Lawrence.
He would learn something about this debate.
There's a hot debate going on in this country.
You know where it's being held?
Here on this network is where we're having the debate.
We have our knives out.
We go after the people.
I mean, he's just so clearly furious.
This is the thing where, like, people can't really, like, the guys who like MSNBC can't really give Fox News shit about being partisan or whatever.
Like, say whatever you will about Fox News.
They're probably a little bit dumber than MSNBC overall, but they are far less partisan.
Like, no one on Fox News would be that blatant about how they're just for a candidate.
Like, he's furious that his candidate didn't win that debate.
It's also like when Chris Matthews gets mad, you really see his inner, like, his inner thinking come out.
Like, he's like, Obama should be watching cable news.
Yeah.
Obama should be watching MSNBC.
Like, what are you fucking retarded?
Do you think Obama doesn't know the bullshit that you're talking about every day?
But what he's furious about, what he started where he goes, oh, this sure wasn't an MSNBC debate.
He's furious that every question wasn't, you know, about Obama.
Yeah, well, he wanted every question should be, what about this 47% comment?
What about your taxes, the Cayman Islands?
What about, you know, what did you do in Bain Capital?
All this stuff, like all these attacks on Romney should be the narrative.
And instead, they just talked about like Social Security and Medicare.
And like, it was actually probably one of the most substantive debates in a while.
I mean, it still wasn't that substantive.
And no one was really that honest about these.
I mean, the most infuriating part to me about the whole debate was on Social Security, where they both just said they agree.
They pretty much agree, we both agree.
We both think Social Security, you know, you need to tweak it, but it's sound.
It's a sound Ponzi scheme.
We both agree that this is okay.
No, great.
Well, I guess the American people are fucked then.
No.
Because our two options agree on a Ponzi scheme that's going to go, you know.
The thing is, if Obama brought up the 47%, I think Romney could have spun it as, oh, Obama's beating a dead horse.
I already apologized for that and said it was wrong.
Yeah, you might be right.
I mean, I think I'm sure he had something prepared.
And I was, well, I'm pretty surprised that Obama didn't bring up any of these things just because I do kind of feel like politically they are useful.
Not that that's really what the most important thing is, but I was surprised that he didn't attack more.
I mean, there were just Obama's Obama had moments that seemed inexplicable.
I wanted to say, here, this was, I think, maybe Mitt Romney's strongest moment of the debate.
It's a critical issue.
I think it's not just an economic issue.
I think it's a moral issue.
I think it's frankly not moral for my generation to keep spending massively more than we take in, knowing those burdens are going to be passed on to the next generation.
And they're going to be paying the interest and the principal all their lives.
And the amount of debt we're adding at a trillion a year is simply not moral.
So how do we deal with it?
Well, mathematically, there are three ways that you can cut a deficit.
One, of course, is to raise taxes.
Number two is to cut spending.
And number three is to grow the economy.
Because if more people work in a growing economy, they're paying taxes and you can get the job done that way.
The president would prefer raising taxes.
I understand.
The problem with raising taxes is that it slows down the rate of growth.
And you can never quite get the job done.
I want to lower spending and encourage economic growth at the same time.
What things would I cut from spending?
Well, first of all, I will eliminate all programs by this test if they don't pass it.
Is the program so critical it's worth borrowing money from China to pay for it?
And if not, I'll get rid of it.
Obamacare's on my list.
I apologize, Mr. President.
I use that term with all respect.
I'm like, good.
Okay, good.
So I'll get rid of that.
I'm sorry, Jim.
I'm going to stop the subsidy to PBS.
I'm going to stop other things.
I like PBS.
I love Big Bird.
I actually like you, too.
But I'm not going to keep on spending money on things to borrow money from China to pay for.
That's number one.
You can't fire Big Bird.
That's going to cost him a couple of votes.
He's not firing Big Bird, but I actually, you know, I really kind of liked that little speech.
This is, of course, he's full of shit.
He's Mitt Romney, but I like the idea.
And I think there's something pretty...
I think that plays pretty good with the middle, the undecided voters, the people in the middle, stuff like that.
Just this idea that I'll judge things by this test.
Is it worth borrowing money from this semi-communist country?
And they're not really economically communist, but they're socially just a terrible country.
They don't let their people be free.
And we're in debt to this kind of evil government.
And we're passing on this horrible burden to our children and grandchildren.
We're literally just stealing from them.
And just this idea that this is a moral issue and that that should be the test.
And that is, when you look at it like that, it is, yeah, man, I mean, we really can't afford to be subsidizing Big Bird.
Like, they'll find a way.
Believe me, they're not going anywhere.
You cut out that public subsidy, they'll be fine.
They'll figure out, believe me, they'll figure out a way to get, they'll keep doing those donation things they do every year, and PBS will survive, or Sesame Street will get picked up by some other network, whatever.
The world will continue to go on.
We shouldn't, I mean, look, there's obviously a million other things.
I wish he would actually take that to its logical conclusion and follow that up with everything in government.
Like, we shouldn't borrow any more money from China, period.
Let's just cut the size of government across the board.
But he's not going to do that.
But I do think that was a pretty strong, that was a pretty strong moment for Mitt Romney.
Let's go to the next.
This is this part of the debate.
Something Obama said that particularly stuck with me.
A marketplace to work has to have some regulation.
But in the past, Governor Romney has said he just wants to repeal Dodd-Frank.
Roll it back.
And so the question is, does anybody out there think that the big problem we had is that there was too much oversight and regulation of Wall Street?
Because if you do, then Governor Romney is your candidate.
The Lie About Tax Cuts00:11:43
But that's not what I believe.
That's just that.
That's just not the facts.
Such a fucking...
All right, first off, yes, I'm right here.
And I'm not the only one.
There are people out there like me.
I didn't make this opinion up.
It's people that I follow who, yes, think that Wall Street was too over-regulated and that was the problem.
And that's a weird way.
You know, it's like when you call it regulation, it's a weird, you know, it makes it sound like regulation is inherently good.
Everyone wants things to be regulated.
Yeah, there's like a positive stigma attached to it.
Right, but the truth is, what does regulation really mean?
I mean, if you phrase that in a different way, you go, does anybody really think that the government's in bed with these banks?
Does anybody really believe that?
I think you get a lot of people who believe that.
And that's more or less what the regulation is.
That's the partnership between the government and these banks.
Does anybody not think that Wall Street's been in bed, like the government's in bed with Wall Street, and that's like the problem?
Does anyone not think that?
Because if you do, you're not paying attention.
And that's what's really annoying.
And it's so funny that he goes, so he goes, if you believe that, if you believe regulation in the financial industry is the problem, then Mitt Romney is your candidate.
And then Mitt Romney steps in and goes, no, that's not true.
So Mitt Romney essentially goes like, no, no, no, no, don't worry.
I'm not your candidate.
So they're like, oh, okay.
Thanks, Mitt Romney.
And he goes, I absolutely believe in regulating.
What did he say?
There was too much oversight and regulation of Wall Street.
Because if you do, then Governor Romney is your candidate.
But that's not what I believe.
That's just not the facts.
Look, we have to have regulation in Wall Street.
That's why I'd have regulation.
But I wouldn't designate five banks as too big to fail and give them a blank check.
That's one of the unintended consequences of Dodd-Frank.
It wasn't thought through properly.
We need to get rid of that provision because it's killing regional and small banks.
So again, Mitt Romney just won't go far enough and actually say what I wish he would, which would be like, yeah, we should repeal Dodd-Frank.
Well, this provision in it is bad.
That is a bad provision, but I don't know.
So Mitt Romney almost says some of the right things.
That's what he always does, though.
He almost always takes a stance on something and then he changes his mind.
He has changed his mind.
Just kidding.
He has changed his mind on a few things.
Well, a lot of people, the things that he's getting shipped for.
Let me just say before that, the thing that I really fucking loved, which I've said before, I think I've said on this show, but I've said forever, and I've never heard anyone say it until he coined that phrase trickle-down government in the debate.
I thought that was just excellent, and I can't believe conservatives haven't done that yet.
Like, I've always said that.
It's like the idea that trickle-down just got thrown at Reagan, and then it's kind of become, that's the stigma of the free market, as if a free market approach is trickle-down, but this centralized government planning, it makes absolutely no sense.
I mean, if trickle-down would be the centralized government planning where the government trickles money down to the people, a free market is just spontaneous from the grassroots up.
Like, to call that trickle-down.
And again, we talked about this before.
Yeah, we did talk about it on the show, but just the idea that if you believe a free market is trickle-down, then really what you're saying is you believe that it's the government's money in the first place.
Like, they're giving rich people more money.
When you cut rich people's taxes, you're not giving rich people more money.
You're letting them stealing less from them.
Like, you're not, you know, there's a pretty substantial difference there.
But I really like that he coined that phrase.
And I see that he said one thing that he had a hilarious line.
At one point, Mitt Romney said, I mean, they're both just obviously, you know, phony politicians.
But at one point, Mitt Romney said, he said, I'm not concerned with the people at the top, no matter who's president, me or you, you know, they're going to be okay.
He goes, I'm concerned with the people in the middle.
He said, the people in the middle are having the hardest time right now.
They go, actually, the people in the middle are having the middle hardest time right now, and the people at the bottom are having the toughest time right now.
This is such a funny little pandering thing to just go to that.
They all say, like, my concern is with who's really struggling right now, and that's the middle class.
Really?
Is the middle class really struggling more than the poor?
You explain that to me.
Middle class are, okay, those are the ones who are struggling.
It's just a weird kind of outlook.
They both say that, by the way, him and Obama.
But all the liberals are going crazy about the lies that Mitt Romney has.
They're all that they can't believe, you know, he wasn't called on it more.
And just to go over some of them, people are furious that he kept saying the thing about Obama cutting $716 billion from Medicare, which technically is true.
Obama's plan did cut $716 billion from Medicare to put into Obamacare.
I mean, I don't know exactly what the argument there is.
It's just kind of shuffled from one government health care program to another government health care program.
I think I'd like to see the conservative argument be like, we have to cut these programs because they're going to go bankrupt in a few years.
But I don't know.
I guess he has a right to do that.
Believe me, if any Republican had a plan where he was moving $700 billion out of Medicare, the Democrats would hit him hard for that.
I guess, fine, they can say those are lies.
The tax cut thing was pretty big that Mitt Romney just denies the number $5 trillion.
And he did, I got to say, hold on, this will be the last clip that I'll play, but it was pretty funny the way Mitt Romney just dances around his tax plan.
If the tax plan he described were a tax plan I was asked to support, I'd say absolutely not.
I'm not looking for a $5 trillion tax cut.
What I've said is I won't put in place a tax cut that adds to the deficit.
That's part one.
So there's no economist can say Mitt Romney's tax plan adds $5 trillion if I say I will not add to the deficit with my tax plan.
Number two, I will not reduce the share.
So he literally just sits.
He goes, Number one, I say I will not add anybody to the deficit.
So no economist can say I do because I say I don't.
It's just pretty crazy that he just got away with that.
He just goes, I say I'm not going to do that, so I'm not going to do that.
Now, look, the other thing about this is that I don't know, it's not even exactly the $5 trillion number.
This is the same thing when everyone goes like they say like, oh, if we repeal the Bush tax cuts, well, it'll add, you know, save this amount of money on the deficit or this tax rate would make this much money.
These are all kind of bullshit numbers.
No one really knows exactly what would happen if you change the tax code around.
No one knows exactly what will happen.
The economy is a very complicated thing.
You mix around the tax code.
A lot of different people are doing different things.
You raise taxes by 10%.
You don't know that that's going to increase revenue.
You don't know that.
Raising taxes at a certain point, raising taxes by 10% will crush the economy and lower revenues.
So it's a very tricky thing.
So to say what they're saying more or less is if you took this year's taxes, you know what I mean?
If you take what is currently going on and you chop off 20% when he's talking about the 20% reduction, if you chop off 20%, this is the money that it comes out to.
But that's completely ignoring the fact that some of that money gets back to the government.
If you cut someone's taxes by 20%, then they hire a maid, and that maid pays taxes, right?
So some of that money goes back to the government again in taxes.
To just count that as a complete loss isn't really fair either.
So the number $5 trillion isn't really fair.
But again, I just wish Mitt Romney would make the argument.
How about the argument, like, yes, I want a $5 trillion tax cut?
Yes.
If a tax cut doesn't mean that money disappears, that's $5 trillion more into the people's hands.
Exactly.
Let's at least have some people who aren't broke.
Our government's going to be broke for the rest of our lives.
I mean, that's what we've ensured.
Our government's going to be broke.
So why not at least have some people who aren't broke?
Yeah, let's give them another $5 trillion.
Maybe that'll get the economy going.
Mr. Stimulus President.
See?
Maybe that would be a good idea.
How is that not?
I mean, I don't know.
But of course, he won't own that position because it's too risky.
And then the other, but you know, yeah, so he's, I hate his whole promise, the loopholes and not being specific about them.
I think that's pretty crazy to try to get away with.
Like, I'm going to close loopholes.
I don't know which loopholes.
Well, I don't want you to close loopholes.
What does that even mean?
It's all like nonsense.
I hate how complicated they've made the tax code where it's just like, oh, okay, so I'm going to lower your rate and then close your loophole.
So what does that mean?
I just wish he could specifically name at least, I don't know, like two.
That would be nice.
But that's also raising taxes.
I don't care what they're calling it.
You know what I mean?
I don't care if someone goes, like, I'm only stealing 25% of your money because you own a home.
If you didn't own a home, I'd be stealing 28% of your money.
You go, whatever it is, whatever law you change, you're just changing what percentage they're stealing from you in reality.
And I don't know.
I just don't understand why the conservative message can't just be like, lower taxes.
But yeah, so I don't know.
The thing that's kind of interesting to me is while all these liberals are going crazy about the lies, these lies that Mitt Romney told them, they just feel like all these little lies, like what I'm going over here, the $5 trillion and the cuts from Medicare and some of the other stuff he said at the debate, his health care plan, when he said my healthcare plan will cover people with pre-existing conditions or whatever.
I understand, but you can't just expect the narrative to be only about Mitt Romney's lies and never talk about Obama's lies.
How about Obama's lies just since he's been president?
You know how many there are?
And you know, the funny thing is that a lot of what Mitt Romney's doing is very, very similar to what Obama did in 2008.
When Obama's, literally, Obama would say in the debates in 2008, he would get away with just saying stuff like he'd go, we're going to cut the deficit in half.
And then go, how are you going to cut the deficit in half?
Don't worry about it.
He literally, his thing was he'd go, I'm going to go through the budget line by line, cutting out every inch of fraud and waste.
Like, this is what he used to say.
I'm going to go through the budget line by line.
He said this is like every debate, line by line.
Because it's not like, I don't know.
What does that fucking mean?
What does that mean?
Yeah, I'm going to look at everything we spend and balance the budget.
I'm going to do exactly what I'm supposed to do.
Yeah, I mean, when you don't have a record, you can say stuff like, you know, when you're not the incumbent, when you're running, you can say stuff like this and kind of get away with it, I guess, to some degree.
And Mitt Romney's trying to do that now.
But it's quite ironic to me that there's so much outrage from the Obama supporters who, you know, and again, okay, if the entire narrative is going to be about Mitt Romney's lies and his taxes and his, you know, whatever, fine.
But then why can't we also give some attention to how many lies Obama's made?
Like, hey, there's one, cut the deficit in half.
That didn't fucking happen.
How about closing Gitmo or ending wars?
You know, I mean, it really, I really see a very clear parallel between Obama claiming the Iraq war is over and George Bush saying mission accomplished.
Pretty much the same thing to me.
It's like you both, I don't care what you say.
Iran, Afghanistan, and Backward Thinking00:05:50
We're still at war with these people.
Like, you can tell me whatever you want to.
Pufo Train Joe, I declare war.
I declare no war.
I don't give a fuck what you say.
We still have motherfuckers with guns and tanks over there.
People are still getting killed.
There's still fucking violence.
In fact, I don't think the violence is even getting better over there.
It's a little bit disheartening, but also conducive to Obama's point.
The violence in Iraq is supposed to be not as shitty as the violence in Afghanistan is now.
Well, that's for sure.
Yeah, that's for sure.
Afghanistan is crazy.
Afghanistan is really falling apart.
And it's pretty crazy that it's like this is the longest war in the history of our country.
Yep.
And I mean, for what are we doing right now to train an army against the Taliban?
Yeah.
I mean, it's just such a ridiculous.
And half the people we're training are coming back and killing our own troops, too.
Yeah, I mean, stuff's really bubbling up over there, too.
I mean, what's really going on, and this has been, I mean, this has been, I think, in the plans for a while, but it's really all about what's happening right now with Syria and Iran.
Those are the countries that we've really had our eye on.
And I think all these other countries have really been just to get in line to those.
I mean, I think we had to take, you know, we wanted to take Saddam out for whatever reasons.
Yeah.
Obviously, we wanted to take Qaddafi out at a certain point.
Although we changed the reasoning for why we wanted Saddam out a few times.
Yeah, yeah, but no, I mean, yeah, well, I think they changed what they were telling people the reason was.
But I think it was he was fucking with our oil money.
And he was selling oil and Euros.
We don't like that.
Can't sell oil in Euros.
You're going to have some problems.
But, you know, I think, I don't know.
It seems...
What I don't exactly understand is why it's so hard for us to topple Syria and why Iran is such an issue.
I don't exactly get it.
But clearly, for whatever reason, those guys have been able to protect themselves a little bit.
You know, we didn't talk about it last week at all in the show because we just ended up going really long and it didn't come up.
But the whole thing, you know, the week before this week when Netanyahu and Ahmadinejad both give their speeches.
Oh, yeah, yeah.
You know, it's like Ahmed Dinejad, like, he's a crazy motherfucker.
Obviously, he's just a backward dude who comes from just super religious, like, backward kind of like worldview.
It was hilarious when he tells Piers Morgan.
He's like, seriously, you think people are born gay, really?
You think people are born gay?
He's like, yeah, I do.
What do you mean?
I just think it's funny that he talked to Piers Morgan.
Oh, yeah, it was hilarious.
That in itself is pretty hilarious.
But, you know, I'll tell you, when he gets up, we do, like, our foreign policy is so fucked up that we leave him in the position to sound logical at the UN.
Like, when he gets up there and he goes, how can countries who are stockpiling hundreds and hundreds of nuclear warheads blast Iran for pursuing nuclear energy?
Like, how can you, like, what moral right do these countries who have tons of nukes have a right to tell us not to get a nuke?
I mean, it's just, it's just kind of crazy.
It's like, I mean, they claim Iran funds terrorism, but they never, like, bring any real evidence of that.
They claim they're on the verge of getting a bomb, but they have no evidence of that.
And they've been on the verge of getting a bomb pretty much my entire life.
It's like, I don't know.
I think part of why they can convince people that Iran is dangerous and that Iran is building nuclear weapons is just because of where Iran is located.
Most people aren't going to question a country in the Middle East having a leader that they think is nuts.
And that's...
No, you're absolutely right.
And he fits that nuts leader.
Exactly.
He's brown.
People, at least in the Midwest, are going to be like, oh, yeah, fuck him.
Fuck that guy.
And not just Brown, but he's crazy.
He's like a crazy dude.
But we have these crippling, terrible sanctions against them that, I mean, just literally, like, we deny food and medicine to their people.
It's just like we're doing all these secret programs, or us or Israel.
It's hard to tell sometimes, but we're killing their scientists and we're sending drones over there.
It's crazy.
And I don't know.
We end up making this maniac come off looking good.
And everything inside me, I want to be on Israel's side.
Israel's a much more hazard shit-together society.
They like freedom and equal rights for women and all that nice stuff, you know, and they have nice stores and they don't throw rocks at you.
You know, like they're good.
The people are fine.
But I don't know.
It seems a little ridiculous.
I think the other thing that Iran has going for them is that, you know, he's nuts, but at least he's consistent.
So people kind of expect it from him.
Well, a big part of it, too, is just that they fucking hate us so much that someone being hated by us is, you know, they'd rather have someone like that who's trying to not just give all their stuff to us.
I mean, that's almost like what you have to do in one of these Middle East countries is you have to just let our corporations come and like run your oil supply.
Like that's kind of the deal or you're going to be in trouble.
Unemployment and Political Scorecards00:05:13
Yep.
And I don't know.
I don't know what is really better for their economy because then we add these sanctions and I mean that ends up crippling our economy.
I like Netanyahu's graphic.
Oh my god, is that not fucking red?
You did a visual aid.
It was so cute.
I was like, first off, Netanyahu, that bomb is like going to just leave you looking black with your beak turned backward.
You guys can just shake that off.
You'll be fine by the next scene.
Don't worry about it.
Yeah.
I know that bomb.
I've seen it before.
Daffy Duck sold it to me.
It's like the bombs on Mario 2.
Yeah.
Yeah.
It's just like that.
It's just fucking like that.
So there's a new jobs, jobs report.
New jobs numbers came out.
Yeah.
And unemployment is under 8% for the first time.
Go team.
For the first time in a long time.
And I don't know.
I don't know what that really means for anything.
It's definitely a good political thing for Obama.
Definitely.
It's nice for him.
It was funny because people originally assumed Romney winning the debate would be the October surprise that happens in every election year.
But now they're saying, oh, maybe this is the actual October surprise, the 7.8%.
Yeah, Obama supporters were thrilled to just get something after that performance.
But I did find this particularly funny.
Obama.
Obama's reaction to the jobs numbers.
Saw that charge coming.
Today's news certainly is not an excuse to try to talk down the economy to score a few political points.
It's a reminder that this country has come too far to turn back now.
I don't know.
I find that hilarious.
Just to go, listen, this is not an excuse to talk down the economy and use this to score political points.
But it's a sign that we're moving in the direction.
We've got to keep going with me, Nahmitt Romney.
Everybody, thank you.
Really?
All right.
All right, buddy.
I mean, I don't know.
Look, we added something like a little over 100,000 jobs.
It's probably less than the amount of people who are joining the workforce.
Well, yeah, because the unemployment rate is the amount of people filing for unemployment, not necessarily the amount of people.
Oh, yeah.
Right, these conservatives.
They're a lot of work, yeah.
Exactly.
These conservatives are coming out and they're like, oh, these numbers are bullshit.
And I know, what's his name?
I forgot his goddamn name, but this guy who came out and said, oh, these are the Chicago guys.
They're cooking the books or whatever.
Oh, yeah, yeah.
It's like, well, you know, they're always cooking the book.
These numbers are always bullshit.
The unemployment rate's much, much higher than 7.8%.
It's been much higher than 8%.
Well, yeah, because after a while, you can run out of unemployment and they won't.
You can renew it up to a certain point.
Yeah, there's tons of things that number.
It doesn't account for people who have been discouraged and withdrawn and stopped looking for work.
It doesn't count people off the books who get laid off.
It doesn't count a lot of shit.
But, I mean, one way or the other, the economy is terrible.
It's just a terrible, terrible economy.
7.8 is good news.
Yeah, right.
That's still shitty.
Right, that's still shitty.
And that's not that it doesn't address any of the underlying problems we have.
You know, when Obama talks about, he says whatever is thing where he goes, you know, we created 30 million jobs.
And he leaves out that we also lost 30 million jobs.
But he's, you know, he's like, we created, you know, 30 m however many jobs in the last years.
You know, you go, yeah, but, you know, at what price?
Yeah.
At what price did we create all these jobs?
We were something like $9 trillion in debt when Obama took office, and now we're $16 trillion.
We'll be $23 trillion by the time he's done or whatever.
It's $21 trillion, something like that.
So at what price did we create these jobs?
That's a lot of money.
How many jobs do we get for that?
You know how much money a trillion dollars is?
Is $1,000 billion?
I mean, it's a lot of money.
You get a lot of fucking jobs for that.
And I don't think we're getting, you know, the economy growing at 1.3% is not enough when you're doing that.
And then on top of that, on top of the government spending all that money, we've got the Federal Reserve quantitative easing the fuck out of everything.
And this is what we're getting for all this money.
So for all this debt and all these liabilities, we're getting very, very little.
Anyway.
So I guess Obama will try to spend that, but I don't think 7.8% has any reason to be too happy and wait till next year when the economy really tanks, when we go off the fiscal cliff and the debt crisis really kicks in, which I think will be happening next year.
So I don't think that's going to be too happy about the 7.8% at that point.
Dictators and the NDAA Provision00:05:14
But we're happy about it now.
Let's just enjoy it.
I suppose.
Let's enjoy it.
Let's savor it before we jump off the cliff.
Let's try.
It's like enjoying the plane ride when you're skydiving, and then you realize, oh, fuck, I have no parachute.
It's like that.
Yeah.
The ride up is still nice.
It's still nice.
I think that's not a bad analogy.
Great.
Well, the other thing that happened this week that hasn't been discussed much because the debate is great theater, but the NDAA indefinite detention provision, which had been rejected by a previous ruling, got overturned.
So it is now in effect again.
And that's the provision in the NDAA.
For anyone who doesn't know, the NDAA is the National Defense Authorization Act.
It's a bill that comes up, I think, every year.
But it's one of these bills that keeps coming up all the time and kind of just lays out where all the money and stuff goes for defense.
And this year, they added this provision, which basically said that the entire globe is kind of the war front, is the battlefront for the war on terror.
And basically that means that we can treat anyone anywhere with the same war on terror tactics.
So even American citizens can be indefinitely detained without being charged or convicted of anything.
And Obama initially said that he would not sign that provision into law.
And then he signed the provision into law.
And then he wrote a statement, a signing statement with the bill that said he didn't like that provision and he wouldn't use it.
That's what he said.
He said he didn't like that provision and his administration did not intend to arrest American citizens who had not been charged with a crime.
But he still signed it.
Well, he still signed it and he still killed a couple American citizens who weren't charged with crimes, that Anwar Alaki and his kid.
But he signed it into...
But right, not only did he sign, so that was pretty hypocritical.
He signed it when he said he wouldn't, and he wrote this bullshit statement.
And then a federal court, you know, they ruled that maybe, just maybe, it wasn't constitutional for the government to be able to indefinitely detain American citizens who weren't charged of a crime.
Because it's pretty hard to get around that Fourth Amendment thing.
Could you imagine the founding fathers reading this?
Well, I mean, it's yeah, it's insane.
I mean, it's literally so clear.
They're pretty pissed.
Yeah, well, I mean, they probably, well, I mean, you know, I don't know if they'd be shocked because they wrote a whole, you know, a whole kind of detail of how to avoid this.
So it's like this was what was on their mind.
You know what I mean?
Like this type of tyrannical government.
I mean, obviously the technology and stuff and, you know, treating black people as human beings.
That would probably all be a little weird to them.
But they would, I don't know.
Like, tyranny is something I think they were well aware of.
But so then, you know, immediately, when this federal court ruled that this was unconstitutional, the Obama administration jumped all on it, appealed it.
Let me see this.
I'm going to read from an article in anti-war.com, which is a great website.
The Obama administration immediately appealed Forrest's ruling.
Forrest is the judge who overturns.
They immediately appealed Forrest's ruling asking for a, quote, immediate stay or suspension of the case's proceedings.
When Forrest denied the request, the government went to the second U.S. Court of Appeals in Manhattan and asked another judge for an emergency stay, which Judge Raymond J. Lower granted.
So immediately the Obama administration came in and made sure that this got overturned.
Even though he didn't like it.
Even though he didn't like it, signed it into law, used it.
RT News has been reporting that a lot of people are saying he's using this left and right, and they're just not telling us about it.
But it's pretty fucking scary.
I mean, it's hard to say if people really ask, like, besides the standard of, like, we switch dictators, which I think, right, isn't part of being a dictator that you can't get elected out or whatever, but we switch dictators who are all controlled by the same people.
But, I mean, they really are dictators.
Like, we don't have presidents.
We have dictators.
Like, they can go to war just by declaring it.
There's no, you know, you don't have to go to Congress anymore because they don't go to Congress anymore.
They just declare war now.
So you can just go to war.
They can just arrest you to detain you indefinitely.
I mean, how is that not a not like a dictator?
I don't quite get it.
Maybe they think if they don't have a mustache, no one will figure it out.
Mitt Romney's Pro-Government Stance00:09:32
Yeah.
Maybe that's what it is.
They do.
That is the genius of America.
We figured out that is what the most brilliant minds in government have come up with over the last 50 years.
Oh, dude.
People aren't seeing right through.
It's because of the stash.
Lose the stash.
This whole thing's going to work out, I think.
Oh, Jessica, that's why you're here for these brilliant insights.
I thought this was pretty fun.
Just to switch gears a little bit, go back to some more stuff about the debate.
But this was Obama the day after the debate trying to get back with some critics for what all his base is mad at him for being so passive.
Stage.
When I got onto the stage, I met this very spirited fellow who claimed to be Mitt Romney.
But it couldn't have been Mitt Romney because the real Mitt Romney has been running around the country for the last year, promising $5 trillion in tax cuts that favor the wealthy.
The fellow on stage last night said he didn't know anything about that.
The real Mitt Romney said we don't need any more teachers in our classrooms.
But don't boo, vote.
But the fellow on stage last night, he loves teachers.
Can't get enough of them.
The Mitt Romney we all know invested in companies that were called pioneers of So, you know, this is it's I mean, I just think it looks really bad to be on the same stage with a guy, just basically not challenge him at all, and then the next day when he's not around, just go at him.
Also, first response, I really love, where he goes, don't boo, vote.
Yeah.
Like, sir, those things are not mutually exclusive.
Like, I can boo now and go vote later.
It's not like, seriously, stop wasting your time booing.
This is time you could be voting.
Like, the election's still not for another month.
I love when you do his voice.
I have a whole month to sit here and boo, and then I just got to show up.
The place is like three blocks from where I live.
Like, I'll make it.
Tell you what, I don't get that.
Like, well, I'm just going to be like, booing the whole time.
You're like, oh, my God, I booed my way right through the fucking election.
Whoops.
Who would have thought?
Well, look, it's kind of surprising that none of this, you know, he didn't, none of this was mentioned at, you know, he didn't do any of this when he was in front of Mitt Romney, but it does kind of say something about Obama.
I mean, it really is.
And you could see this at the debate.
Obama has this thing.
It's like what people say.
It's very professorial.
It's very...
Obama likes to have a teleprompter and dictate to people.
The dictator likes to dictate.
But that's what he likes.
He likes to explain things to you.
He does not like to be challenged.
He's very superior.
I mean, that moment in the debate when he said that Lair was interrupting him.
Like, you see this.
He does not like to be spoken to like that.
He doesn't like that.
He likes this, what he was doing here, where he's sitting there and goes, I met this guy who claims to be Mitt Romney.
And it's funny and it's charming, and that's when he's on his game.
But when Mitt Romney's sitting right there, you know, it's like the thing about his tax ad.
He claims, he goes, Mitt Romney's been saying he has a $5 trillion tax.
Well, he gave us his answer.
You know, we heard his answer and you didn't really stand up to him at all.
The other thing is the way he tries to spin the Big Bird thing.
You know, and he goes, he's saying the problem is Big Bird.
He's saying that's what's driving our debt.
I didn't realize it was Big Bird.
And I think for anyone who did watch the debate or heard the clip just now that we played at the beginning of the show, I mean, that's not what Mitt Romney said.
And I actually think his argument of saying the standard is, we're borrowing money from China to help pay for Big Bird.
I don't know if we can do that.
I mean, that's, I think, a pretty reasonable argument to most reasonable people.
For the record, Big Bird had no comment on the debate.
PBS people said that Big Bird is actually six years old and doesn't understand politics.
Big Bird is six?
Big Bird is six.
The character.
I think Big Bird's bullshitting because I was watching Big Bird when I was six.
Yeah, but he hasn't aged.
He hasn't aged.
It's like Cher.
Oh, okay.
All right.
Well, so he's not into politics.
That's not his deal.
Yeah, he's not getting involved in this.
All right.
Fair enough.
Well, I know PBS came out.
They were upset.
But, you know, hey.
I think there's obviously, I don't know if PBS is where I'd start, but I do, I think there's definitely an argument to, like, when you have this type of crazy debt, you got to cut everything that's non-essential immediate.
You know what I mean?
Yeah, and I think you can also just compare it to like a person who's in a shit ton of debt.
Like, if I were in a shit ton of debt, I would like cut my cable because it's not that necessary.
Yes, yeah, exactly.
Right.
Everything that's not necessary is where you have to cut it first.
And, you know, they make this argument that it's, you know, that's kind of why I liked that one thing Mitt Romney said, where he said is a moral issue.
We're leaving this debt to our children.
And that's the thing where you go, okay, yeah, no, I know we want, we like Big Bird, but we can't, we can't stop, we've got to start maxing out our children to pay for them, especially to the Chinese.
I don't know what's the plan here.
Unless they're just going to go get all this oil from the Middle East and just jack it.
Yeah.
I think, though, in the debates, Obama deliberately didn't want to sound as smart as he usually does.
Because if you think back to 08, he got criticized for sounding too intellectual.
We get intimidated when someone sounds smarter than we do.
I mean, I'll be honest.
I thought Mitt Romney came off smart.
I was impressed with his smart.
He had a command of a lot of different issues.
I mean, I disagreed with a lot of stuff he said, but I did think he sounded smart.
Yeah, he sounded smart, but smart is different from intellectual in the minds of a lot of Americans.
Yeah, no, look, I get what you're saying.
And I do think also Obama was very concerned with Simang with getting into a fight and losing his likability points.
But you just think at a certain point, like he would have realized that he's just, I mean, that moment when he said the thing about the tax deduction, when Mitt Romney said, you go, sir, I've been in business for 30 years or whatever, and I've never heard of this tax deduction.
And he just took it.
He just took it on the chin.
I was like, I can't believe he let him say that.
I mean, look, I don't actually know what Obama's talking about either.
Like, there are, the IRS tax code is so complicated.
There are some credits, I think, for stuff that you're doing overseas in some way, as if certain governments penalize you for having a factory overseas, you might be able to write off some of that profit.
But in general, you don't get a deduction for shipping jobs overseas.
You ship jobs overseas and you pay taxes in that unsure.
You don't pay taxes here anymore.
So the deduction would be if their taxes are cheaper than ours.
And that's the reason why people have shipped so many jobs out of seas is because, one, we have high taxes, but mostly because we have crazy high regulations, which are essentially taxes.
I mean, that's essentially what it is.
We make it so hard for our businesses.
I mean, if you know anyone who owns a business constantly, some regulator coming in and fining them thousands of dollars, it's fucking ridiculous.
And, you know, that's why we drive all these businesses over.
It's much easier to go to these countries that have much, you know, like easier rules.
So, but that's, I mean, so there is an argument to put it as that's a deduction isn't really explaining what the problem with outsourcing is.
That's not really, I think, the heart of the issue.
So, I don't know.
Again, it's just, I think people are all always going to be, you see it even in the media.
Like, I always say this, but the, you know, it's Obama's media.
And besides, obviously, like, Fox News and some stuff, but it's Obama's media.
And that's why they're always going to be talking about, you know, the slant on it is, oh, well, Mitt Romney lied about a bunch of stuff.
You know, they're saying Mitt Romney lied about a bunch of stuff that he's going to do in his administration.
And that's supposed to be a bigger story than Obama lied about stuff he did in his administration.
This guy is a liar already on a ton of different things.
I think part of why the media tends to skew, not necessarily liberal all the time, but just in favor of whoever the incumbent is.
Ugh, I can't even speak.
The incumbent is.
There we go.
There we go.
I got it.
Is because normally the incumbent wins.
And if the media goes too far against them, they can lose press access to them later when they want it, if they do get re-elected.
So I think that may have something to do with it, too, aside from, you know, them being the liberal media.
They're also...
Sure, yeah, it's a pro-government kind of thing.
Horoscopes, Press, and Liberal Media00:02:50
I agree with that.
But I do just think that the reason, you know, their narrative is always, it always seems to favor Obama.
I think even more so than other Democrats, really Obama.
They just really love him in the media.
They didn't like Clinton that much when Clinton was in office, but Clinton also wasn't that press-friendly.
Although everyone loves him now, for whatever reason.
Like even Chris Matthews just loves him now.
I've always loved him.
Yes, I know.
I always have.
You have some weird fantasy for Bill Clinton.
It's not weird.
It's not creepy.
All right, fine.
You're making it so much pervier than it is, Steve.
That's what I do.
I perv things up.
You do all the time.
Oh, it's one of my specialties.
Well, so what was this Facebook war that you got in?
Oh, no.
I just said I wrote on Facebook that if I wrote horoscopes in the newspaper, they would all say the same thing.
They would all say, if you believe in this, please do not vote.
And people got mad at me for it.
A lot of people believe their horoscopes all the time.
But I don't even understand.
God damn, people are retarded.
But that's, you're saying if you wrote a horoscope, you weren't even really shitting on their horoscope.
No, no, no.
If I wrote horoscopes in the newspaper, like if I said, okay, if you're an Aries, this is what you're doing today.
If you're a Taurus, this is what you're doing today.
They would all say, if you believe in this, please don't vote.
That's what they would all say.
Oh, so you're just saying, if you believe in general, your sign doing anything, don't vote.
I think that's a fair thing to say.
I've gotten in arguments about people.
I don't understand how people take that nonsense seriously.
And it's some same people who are like really staunch atheists who are like, religion's retarded.
They'll still like.
Yeah, they shit on people for going to church, but then they think that if Mercury's in retrograde, they shouldn't leave the house.
Oh, dude, well, you're a Taurus, so you're like this.
Like, no, you know, it's really not true.
No, dude, trust me, if you know the stuff and you meet people, you'll just all over it always falls into the same thing.
It goes, no, you know the stuff, then you make it all fall into the same thing.
There's lots of people who are Tauruses who are this type of personality, and then there's Tauruses who are a completely different personality.
And by the way, all that shit in the stars, it doesn't actually exist.
It only exists from the perspective of Earth.
If you move up from the other perspective, it's a whole different alignment of stars.
So it's just from our perspective what it looks like in the sky.
Just because we made men and shit in the sky thousands of years ago, I don't think affects our day-to-day life.
We're going to do a rain dance, weirdo.
The only thing I agree with is that Scorpios are the sexiest sign, because that's a fact.
But the rest of it is pretty much bullshit, Dave.
No, no, I'm with you.
Religion's bullshit.
I mean, God's going to come get us in a flood at some point, but the rest is bullshit.
Paul Ryan in Trouble Next Week00:03:05
Yeah.
Yeah.
Just that one.
All right, fine.
Scorpios are hot.
Any Scorpios listening?
That's right.
Looking for you guys.
I'm on your team.
What's that?
All right.
Well, in conclusion, people on Facebook are idiots.
Mitt Romney smashed Obama in the debate.
I will say, I'm not changing anything about my prediction.
Obama's going to win the election.
I still think there's a long, long way.
Obama's not going to be that weak in the next two years.
Yeah, I think he's going to step his game up in the next.
He's going to come up a little more lively.
He's going to bring up some more stuff.
That's like the Ropa Dope strategy.
Mitt Romney came out the other day, yesterday, and he said he was absolutely wrong with the 47% comment.
So he was trying to get that off the table before the next debate.
Exactly.
That way, if Obama brings it up, he'll look like a douchebag.
Right, which is smart strategy.
But Obama's going to come in a lot more energetic.
They're going to get shoot something in his ass and get him moving again for this next one.
But he's not going to have.
I'm sure Mitt Romney will still do good in the next couple ones.
I think Ryan will probably win that debate.
But I just don't think overall the debate performances are going to be enough for Ryan, though.
Joe Biden is like, I don't know.
He's like everyone's favorite uncle after he has won too many beers on Thanksgiving.
You know, like he's going to, I think Joe Biden's going to be more fun to watch.
Paul Ryan will probably deliver a better speech, but Paul Ryan has a lot of trouble telling the truth.
So I think the morning after the debates, Paul Ryan's going to be in some trouble.
Yes, probably true.
And the media is very quick to jump on him when he bullshits.
Even Fox News jumped on him last time.
So that's a big opponent to have when you're...
Yeah, then there's really, there's no one else on your side if you're a Republican and Fox News doesn't like you.
Yeah, I think you're right.
I thought that's a great description of Joe Biden.
And he is.
He's very super, super likable to a lot of people, but he's also kind of a little on edge and he fucks up a lot and says crazy things like the other day when he said that they want the last four years have buried the middle class, kind of forgetting that he's been in office the last four years and saying they want a trillion dollar tax increase.
And these are things that you'd probably just rather not say during a campaign.
Yeah, wait till January.
Yo, listen, we buried the middle class and we still want to raise taxes by a trillion dollars, but let's talk about this other guy.
This guy's got some problems.
You know, Obama and all these people are just slapping their head.
And they're like, Michelle is going to kick his ass when he gets back here.
She's just going to lose her shit.
It's how she does it.
I feel like a lot of stuff, Paul, not Paul Ryan, Joe Biden says, like, everyone behind him just kind of face palms immediately.
Yeah, he's got some weird ones.
Buried Middle Class and Tax Hikes00:00:58
All right.
I guess let's wrap there.
I thought interesting week.
We're going to have another interesting week again next week.
There'll be another debate.
That's exciting.
Some more stuff to talk about.
So anybody, anyway, thank you everybody for listening to Part of the Problem.
We'll be back next week.
I'm glad to be back in sound.
That news from the news that's kept me hanging around.