TYT 12.20.12 Hour 1

In [DEAD] Main Show, Membership by glmulhern18 Comments

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Hour 1
Segment 1
John Boehner decided to do a Plan B instead of the Grand Bargain; his plan would raise taxes on people who earn above $1 million. His Plan B was not able to pass; not even brought it up for vote. Poll shows Americans find Republican Party to be extreme. Despite all of Obama’s advantages, the Democrats are going to concede mostly to the Republicans anyway. Nancy Pelosi considers using chained CPI to be a strengthening of Social Security. She is making the Republican arguments for them. Boehner’s Merlot/cigarette insult of Obama. FoxNews conspiracy theories about Hillary Clinton and her Benghazi concussion. Imagine if the left said these things about Republicans. Cenk agrees that Clinton is avoiding the Benghazi issue.

Segment 2
The Republicans are at a low level of popularity. If we got money out of politics, the Republican party would collapse. There are 102 progressives who signed a letter refusing to agree to Social Security cuts in a Grand Bargain. VIDEO of Pete DeFazio saying we should just let all of the Bush tax cuts expire. Chuck Hagel’s possible nomination to the Secretary of Defense. Man who wants to set a mosque on fire in Toledo, Ohio. LIBOR scandal.

Segment 3
Morris the Asshat, pastor from Tennessee, makes points about gun control on VIDEO. Westboro Baptist Church compared to Mike Huckabee. Also Newt Gingrich saying that the absence of God is the cause. Little kid killed by his Dad by accident in a gun accident.

Comments

  1. I have been a huge fan on TYT for years and I was somewhat amazed and disappointed at Cenk’s opinion on whether the transsexual woman should be allowed to play on her community college’s women’s basketball team. I take issue with it because well…. I feel it is wrong and I feel in a progressive forum such as this, we’re all intelligent enough to hold rational opinions and discuss people whose experiences which we may not fully understand.

    Transgender and Transsexual people are one of the few groups left who can be openly discriminated against, usually without recourse. It goes on even in progressive circles, and really is a throwback to the struggles other groups of people, faced and which LG and B people faced until fairly recently.

    I should preface this by stating that I have firsthand experience with this issue as I began my transition at age 13 and completed my surgery at 20. I have been living happily ever since. I too attended community college right after graduating high school. I am now 40 years old, and happily engaged to be married to the man I’ve lived with for 3 years.

    While I had never considered playing for a basketball team when I was in college (I’m only 5′ 8″ and I was not really into sports) I do not feel the woman who Cenk thinks should not be allowed to play on her college team should be banned.

    The basis of his argument seemed to rest on genetics and a stated opinion that “no woman is 6 foot 8” and that her height offered her and her team an unfair advantage.

    I hope to refute these points below.

    1. The first argument Cenk makes is a dangerous one to make for it assumes that transsexualism is not genetic and condemns those of us unlucky enough to be born this way to being lesser than human. It’s obvious that if she is not allowed to play on her women’s team on that basis then it would be equally absurd for her to play on the college’s men’s team. Therefore she would in Cenk’s opinion, be some form of “other”. This would serve to deny her the one thing she likely worked hard all of her life to achieve, her feminity.

    I’m sure Cenk did not mean to do that, but that is how it feels to us when we are banned often arbitrarily from sometimes normal activities on the basis of how we were born. By the way, this is usually by people whose politics Cenk absolutely abhors.

    Look, we can not change how we were born. None of us asked to be born. None of us asked for this. Most of you can’t imagine what it is like to be us or the amount of bullying and abuse some of us took just to be who we are today.

    However, we do try to make the best of a bad start in life despite this. Some started hormone treatments early in life like me, others may have started later in life, like the woman at that college.

    Hormones can do a lot of things, they completely change the body’s muscle mass and fat distribution, they also do a lot of other things but one thing they can not do is t reverse height of someone who started taking them after their skeleton fully grew.

    Which brings us to…..

    2. Cenk must not be aware that there ARE in fact non-transsexual women who are as tall as the woman at the college. There are groups throughout Africa, Scandanavia and China whose women grow to over 6ft. Even some who grow to 6ft 8′.

    Infact the tallest women in the world Yao Defen of China was 7ft 8″ a full foot taller6 than the woman at the community college. Yao Defen recently passed away at age 36.

    Would Cenk have banned Yao Defen from playing on that team? Or any other woman 6ft 8″ or taller.

    So if Cenk would answer that question with no, then his opposition goes back to Argument #1. That she should be banned for her genetics or how she was born and not for the person she is today.

    3. Cenk thinks her height offers her an unfair advantage. However, as basketball is a team sport one player’s height advantage is mitigated somewhat. The fact that she is 51 also mitigates what height advantage she likely has as she probably isn’t anywhere near as quick or flexible as her younger opposition.

    Now if Cenk had opposed her on the basis of her age, that would be a whole other issue and one which I might have agreed but if her college and the schools they play against have no maximum age then what’s the harm?

    In closing I would like to say we, as transsexual women have the same hopes, dreams and fears as any other woman.

    Those hopes have an additional hope, to have a “normal” life.

    Those dreams may run the gamut from being a successful politician, beauty pageant contestant, athlete, school teacher, scientist, singer, or simply wife and mother.

    Those fears include all the normal ones, such as becoming a victim of violence, rape or abuse. But they have additional ones, usually having to do with having people deny and dash our dreams, slash our hope and burn our femininity to the ground based on something we never asked for and based on how we were born, not based on who we are today.

    I would hope Cenk might read this and perhaps talk with Janet Mock.

    She like, me is am African-American transsexual woman Cenk might learn a thing or two from on this subject.

    I hope I did not offend anyone in criticizing and refuting Cenk’s arguments.

    Like I said, I am a big fan of the show and I know Cenk is a smart guy with an open mind.

    I would applaud him for not going to the nasty vitriol that the ESPN commentators hurled at her but I shouldn’t have to.

    Applauding someone for treating a transsexual person as a human being worthy of dignity and respect makes the absence of that respect by the people who populate the sports talk world seem normal.

    You’re an enlightened guy Cenk, and almost there on this issue, educate your self a bit more and move forward to be on the right side of history. I know you will.

    Sincerely,
    Jordana LeSesne

  2. Discussion of which evil to vote for this past November reminds me of Mike Malloy’s insistence that until 10% of the country’s population takes to the streets, the corruption and BS continues, eroding what’s left of constitutional rights. So he advocated voting for Romney since his election would be the shortest route to the aforementioned scenario …whereas Obama is the “death-by-a-thousand-cuts-regime.” …sort of the stealth plutocracy puppet to paraphrase Jimmy a-Dore-able. (Jimmy, Ben, Michael, John -> awesome complementary pace for TYT)

    Either way, the puppet masters and their elected puppets (save a few) have ensured changes to come that Cenk has, on occasion, alluded to without elaborating. I give him credit for that. It’s as if he knows that , as important as the issues are that he covers, the voice we give to most of them will diminish in the face of inevitable, unscripted change.

    Specifically, this discussion can be found at Post Carbon Institute, Energy Bulletin and a handful more featuring legit education efforts. Concepts such as the end of growth and how we accommodate powering down and re-localizing on a different planet are not widely understood in “mainstream progressive media. ” Permanent ongoing climate forcing itself is as yet too troubling or obscured by the promise of a policy fix to be maturely discussed. A good sign though, is the diminishing amount of green techno-fix smoke being blown up our asses (James Howard Kunstler). Continued living as American large via alternative technology is not happening.

    As Ben said a while back, Cenk is the hardest working guy he knows – the man knows his stuff. I’ll buy that and tip my hat to our chronicaller of consequence who wields intelligent sincerity without fear. And good on him too for admitting to real doubts, honestly dispensed beneath the brawn of an admirable belief in the nation’s ideals.

    p.s. Please guys, from NPR to NYT to NBC, call it “CORPORATE MEDIA” not “mainstream media.”

  3. About libor and UBS. According to Swiss news papers, the UBS department which was responsible for the libor fraud let go 30 to 40 employees for disciplinary reasons. But as mention none of the top executives.

  5. The beautiful part about Plan B failing (1st time a Republican was in favor of anything called Plan B…) is that if the Republicans won’t go for the Republican plan then they sure as hell won’t go for the “Grand” Ripoff!

  6. Mandatory liability insurance for ALL gun owners.
    Minimum pay-out per event = $100,000.?
    For vehicles.
    Why not guns?
    Best of all:: it would be loved by the insurance companies and they are a
    mega lobby. Get ‘er done NOW!
    Helen

  7. Where is Cenk getting his figures for the benefits change from the Chained CPI? I’ve seen two sources so far that give far lower figures than Cenk’s. (~$200/year average) In addition, part of the Dems’ package is to protect the lowest incomes.

    I used to listen because Cenk was “The most reasonable man in the world”, but he’s losing me with his rants. I’m not a conservative. In fact I’m to the left of Cenk on some stuff, but I’m also open-minded and interested in reality.

    Keep it up and you lose me.

  8. How can I get Cenk to answer for his voting for Obama. I’ve emailed about it a bunch of times. Everyday Cenk goes on big anti Obama rants, again and again.

    He still can’t justify his OUTRAGE and OMG I HATE OBAMA, with having voted for him. Sure he could justify voting for him back when he did, but can he justify this outrage?

    His credibility is not good on Obama.

    Maybe I’ll just post this comment everyday until someone notices, and Cenk finally explains how he can constantly be outraged at the guy he SUPPORTED.

    1. I voted for Obama. Yet I can still point out their failures. Number one task is to always stay on target. Keep them to their word. Remind them when they lie, cheat or steal.

      Obama winning reelection was only the first step. The hard part is to make sure we keep their feet to the fire.

    2. You’d rather Romney had won? The role of the media is to hold the government accountable, and that is what Cenk is doing. He would be doing the same thing no matter who was in charge. Just because you voted for someone doesn’t mean you can’t criticise them for their mistakes. If you believe that, you are a naive fool.

    3. Drone Strikes? Cutting Social Security? Breaking his pledge on union rights? Selling us out on the public option? How can YOU not be outraged? Voting is nothing but making a choice between alternatives, and this election was between horrible and more horrible.

      May I suggest you find another source for news; TYT is for grown-ups, and you don’t qualify.

    4. Cenk doesn’t really hate Obama, as far as I can tell. He gets very, very frustrated over things that Obama does but is quick to give him credit when deserved.

      And Cenk’s already said why he voted the way he did: that although he would have preferred voting for Gary Johnson or another third-party candidate, it just isn’t realistic. Third parties really don’t stand a chance at the presidency right now; they don’t have the massive donations that the two main parties do, etc.

    5. I wouldn’t go so far as to say Cenk supported Obama this election cycle. From his “explanation” video, he explained that he would have wanted to vote for an -actual- (3rd party) progressive, but he could not tell others to vote Obama as he did not- and as as you probably know, the ugly truth is that we had no idea at the time how many votes it would take for Romney to be our next president.

      He chose pragmatism over idealism. Many Progressives walked the opposite path. I don’t support his decision, but neither can I fault him for it, nor do I think he should “shut up” when talking about how bad Obama really is.

      However, this pragmatism also deflects GeekCream’s point. I don’t think Obama, or many other Democrats, care about anything you do to “hold his feet to the fire.” His chief of staff called people like you “fucking retards”, his Press Secretary called you “the never-satisfied professional left”, and the DNC chair said she’d rather focus on “serious” concerns rather than yours. All these were responses to actual progressives putting pressure on Obama’s positions. This is what they think of you.

    6. I don’t think that voting for someone necessarily means that you have to support them on everything they do – that is crap Republicans do. Voting for a candidate is just choosing the lesser of two evils most of the time. I’m glad that Cenk can criticize someone that he voted for. It’s honest, refreshing and something that you don’t see in the rest of the media.

      I also agree with dradeeus. If you go back in the YouTube videos you’ll be able to see Cenk explain why he voted for Obama when he doesn’t really agree with what he does a lot of the time.

    7. I don’t get your problem…

      So Cenk voted for Obama. Or better: He voted AGAINST Romney…

      You US-Americans have just those two “real” choices, If I remember correctly. So Cenk chose the smaller evil and now hammersd aways at this smaller evil to make it a bit better.

      How does this affect his credibility?! *scratches head*

    8. Stacinz, where you watching most of his election coverage? He made it pretty clear, that however disapointed he is with Obama he’s better (just) than Romney(If Romney kept to his election version)

      You said the same thing in the comments yesterday, and people explained it to you in pretty simple terms.

      After the election, he even did a pretty detailed break down of why he voted for Obama .

      What anwser are you looking for?

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