Sen Bernie Sanders took the Waltons of WalMart to task over them being the wealthiest family in the country while paying their employees so badly that they need to obtain tons of government support just to survive. Video of Bill O’Reilly arguing with James Carville over the Senate Benghazi report, claiming that he simply doesn’t care what the report says in debunking Republicans’ claims on the attack. A court in PA struck down the attempt to restrict voters by forcing them to have voter ID. This tactic would disenfranchise the poor and minorities.
Duck Dynasty premiered their new season, and the ratings dropped significantly, potentially due to the controversy around the anti-gay comments.
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Comments
Obama is so disappointing. We must acknowledge that his intentions are malicious. His vision of America is so, so very different from ours.
just wanted to say that I adore both Ben and John and I love when they host together! <3
Ben always makes the worst points on the show. His idea that once your in office anyone would get overwhelmed and bend to the National Security interests ignores the fact that the type of people we put into office are already spineless corporate puppets who have no moral compass to begin with. Please bring Cenk back from vacation, I’m all for a good devil’s advocate on the show but Ben takes it too far.
So consensus from posts below (and the general internet vibe) — we’re all annoyed by the sub-standard topic discussions by fill-in hosts and need Cenk back.
In response to the below statements, our current system of corporate crony capitalism is one of the worst systems of government in the world. It currently has resulted in record levels of imprisonment, income inequality, corporate money buying our government officials. Well done American capitalism and hooray to Free Market solutions that Republicons tout so fervently. The Europeans have it done much better with a Socialist Democracy system. Every corporate Board of Directors has to have 50% labor representation on it, elections aren’t awash in corporate money and nobody goes bankrupt from medical costs. (and the health care is rated better than ours)
Ben is wrong, walmart is actually, tangibly getting that money, because when an employee is capable of working for less than a living wage because of welfare, walmart gets to pocket the money that they were paid in welfare instead of by walmart.
We need more Ben! I love the balance he brings to the TYT-stories!
So yesterday I was frustrated by Ben. Today the frustration over the NSA discussion hit a new high. Ben asks John about tangible effect of the rights given away through the programs. Off the top of my head:
1) LOVEINT described by Cenk earlier; google it.
2) Writers self-censor to avoid unknown consequences of getting on the bad side of the government.
3) Sources for reporters are deterred from whistleblowing on serious issues due to fears of being exposed and persecuted.
And the ludicrous point that a third party could collect the data for use only with a warrant – are you kidding me? Eliot Spitzer lost his job over a sex scandal; NSA didn’t do it, the banks did. If they have the records and at any time get pissed at someone for whatever reason, or just see it in their interest to go ahead and spy on someone, they will. And let’s remember that they got Spitzer on META-DATA! It was just records of transactions, just like you calling a pleasure establishment is meta-data; it was an accident and your career is over. Or it wasn’t an accident, and your career is over.
Do I trust the government a bit more than the banks that targeted Eliot? You look at the Snowden and Assange cases and this question should become irelevant – the people in charge are not honest players and they don’t have our best interest at heart. The only way I will trust the government more is if they stop collecting our data and (not ‘or’) show some meaningful reparations to WikiLeaks, Snowden, Glenn’s boyfriend and whoever else they are fucking with for no reason. And no, Snowden should not go to jail, because it’s a special case. Just like the Pentagon Papers were a special case. He didn’t blow a whistle on overconsumption of sugar in Chriss Christie’s office for his own benefit; he uncovered blatantly illegal activity in the government that hurts us all and he did it the only way he could.
Ben, there is a reason for the fourth ammendment in the constitution. It not a joke. It may not have noticable effect on your ability to take a shower and get your morning coffee yet, but it definitely has immediate and huge impact on every life in US and in the world, because fear of the system is real and the world does look to US for this sort of thing.
Come on, man. Try to see past your own nose. Even if you think all of the stuf I mentioned is not a big deal, you at least have to mention it when asking about tangible consequences. Even if your point was just to say that a pretty speech from Obama will go a long way – well guess why that may be the case – you didn’t mention any of the problems with it.
I wonder why the hell they put him online to discuss important stuff with children (John did ok unprepared to answer, but not exactly a Jeremy Scahill level answer to Ben’s questions there; don’t take it the wrong way, I have high hopes for John), when he’s clearly not interested in the subject enough to spend more than 10 minutes to get out of his own little box.
They seemed to go from “well, obviously you should have suspicion of intent before searching” to casually discussing whether or not they’re okay with a private entity holding all the data-mined information rather the government.
No, we’re not! Let’s go back to the “data-mining” thing! You can’t just skip by that straight to debating who should GET all of our personal data.
Did I miss something? Why would it be legal for a third party to hold on to information procured by illegal means? Was this something mentioned in Obama’s speech?
Sam Seder discussed the matter with Cliff Schecter on his Friday Show at Majority Raport. Worth a listen.
What really bothers me and what never comes up, is that the NSA program offers the opportunity for a nixon watergate bugging times a million. No one thinks the GOP won’t do it if they can get away with it? The potential for election fixing and digging up dirt on progressive journalists and political candidates, nevermind the things you mentioned, is really scary.
Fracking fluids have electrolytes.
It just dawned on me, Hillary Clinton is going to be the next President.
She is establishment, but I think she is a lot more politically clever than Obama and eventhough he did what she could not (Healthcare reform) I think she will do a lot better than Obama for progressives. I also think she will succeed in showing that the republicans are at a loss without a plan, while her matriarchal strength is, a lot of people will believe, exactly what the US needs right now.
Unfortunately she is probably still a great supporter of repeal of glass steagall which is the main reason for the 2008 crisis and the next. And totaly in the pocket of big bussiness.
Elizabeth Warren is what the US and the world actually need right now, obviously.
And I base this…on absolutely nothing :-)
the only part worth quibbling is the “better for progressives” you nailed the rest
She is going to be pretty much the same as a republican president, only she’s going to be labeled as a democrat so you can count on at democrats and progressives to lay down and let her steamroll over them doing the bidding of Boehner and company. I’d say if obama doesn’t manage to repeal the new deal by the end of his second term, hillary should be more than capable of getting it done before the end of her first.
It’s such a tired argument to hear, when Ben says “at some point it needs to be secret.” That’s like chiming in that some regulation can go too far, when we’re arguing for even the slightest, DECENT regulation. I’m pretty sure he thinks that’s quite the “moderate” thing to say and feels good about himself, but it’s such an unnecessary, meaningless addition to the conversation.
You said it so perfectly, just as I thought of it you put it into words. Consequently, I get the feeling Ben thinks he is some sort of Dan Rather moderate media person with his semi-serious look and opinions that seem to go out of his way in order to seem different or moderate in order for him to feel or think or impress upon others that his thoughts were much better thought out because it isn’t the “typical” liberal view.
I also gather that Ben is such an Establishment Democrat that is annoys me to hell.
He probably thinks that being Establishment is a more grown up / moderate position and that he is above everyone else because he thinks and acts like the congressmen and politicians that he sees on TV (and that Michael Shure wishes he was).
So f-ing lame, none of the politicians except for a handful (literally 5 or less) have anything worth respecting, they are all cut from the same piece of shit as the other.
Oh, did you see yesterday how when the topic came up about his lastname helping him with his career? He hates that, because he knows that he, and all his family members (father, cousines, siblings etc) are all riding the money train & free career boost that his grandfather afforded them when he played a part in writing Citizen Kane (in other words, they are still riding off the good quality, clever work that their grandfather endowed them with), like any decent Israeli person, they’ve squeezed this resource & surname until there is no more milking left to be done, yet they believe they all ended up in this line of work coincidentally, because of their own hard work (lol). Yep, must have been, since they all had political and/or TV careers, what are the odds of so many family members ending up with successful famous political and famous hollywood careers all independently of one another and all because they put in hard work, and it all seems to have worked out for ALL of them that wanted it. WOW, what are the odds? 1 in a few trillion or 1 in a few zillion.
So, Ben goes on to say “and I say this with no defensiveness at all”… and then goes onto explain that his grandfathers name holds no power and has had no relevance lol. Ben, i knew as soon as you said “i say this with no defensiveness” that you absolutely were saying it with 100% defensiveness lol.
Oh and don’t get me started with his family having money problems in his childhood. $72,000 a year in 1979 was like $500,000 a year today you moron, and he tried to argue that they were not well off and always had monetary problems. Heck, even if you did have money problems, it was probably because you brought a triple story home instead of a double story. That reminded me on when Mitt Romney said in an interview that he was currently unemployed and laughed. Yeah, technically he is but I assure you he doesn’t need a job!
I want to like Ben and love him on What the Flick, I think he’s an excellent movie reviewer.
But I also can’t stand that his debates with Cenk are pretty much like this.
Cenk: (Prediction of Obama failure based on history of weakness or corporatism.)
Ben: (Scolding of Cenk’s presumptuousness and pessimism; counter argument with presumptuousness of noble intent.)
His apparent definition of “moderate” is either taking people at their word, or stretching to justify their actions. It’s annoying because while he might be “right” in some milquetoast way, his being on the show feels like he is constantly straw-manning everyone at TYT as crazed fanatics, and believes his is the voice of reason.
Still like him much better than Michael Shore though. >_>
Yeah, Michael surely is the worst TYT host, but is directly followed by Ben. I mean, they all have their faults (Ana is too judgemental and a hypocrite about it to boot, Cenk still thinks capitalism is the only system that will ever work and often comes off as a jingoistic USA-Firster, etc), but those two just never learn that the establishment way of looking at things only leads to one being wrong. How many things have Michael and Ben been wrong about in regards to Obama and his intentions over the last five years?
Oh, well, I get that they are part of the family and therefore immune to not being on the show, but it really is tiring when they once again get their chance to spout the same stupid mainstream BS they have talked over the last eight years and never have to apologize.
Ben *IS* TYT. Cenk is just keeping his seat warm.
Look, some people are just contrarians and can’t help it. I think they have great value; hell, I am one and I think it’s the best thing about me. I heard him vaguely argue some very good political points on WTF, so he is not without merit when he says he’s progressive in a group of liberals. The problem is he’s not a raging progressive, because he has no real interest in the stuff. He’s not a raging anything, except maybe baseball fan.
There just is no substitute for genuine interest in the issues. Cenk is not a genious; he’s just really into this stuff. Ben is a really smart guy, but doesn’t seem to give a flying fuck about most of it. Results are evident.
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