TYT Hour 1 November 22, 2017

In The Young Turks Hour 1 - On Demand by Gigi Manukyan69 Comments

Cenk & Ana. Mystery donor gave $28M to help get Gorsuch on Supreme Court. Murkowski will back Obamacare mandate repeal. Dems joining GOP in co-sponsoring taking away regulations for banks. FCC next step in blocking net neutrality. Trump doubted Moore’s female accusers. GOP women turning on Moore. John Conyers settlement: was is for sexual assault?


Comments

  1. I don’t really know why I’m posting this I guess I’m looking for advice or something.

    (I’m 23 and live in Australia) my dads always been big on trump and people like him. But recently he’s Gorton in to “alternative” documentary s on the Nazis and starting saying things like “Hitler did a lot of really gud things” and a slew of other stuff a lot of it arguably worse.

    And I’m …idn dispointed…. I don’t know what word to use….

    There r caviots . for years he donated 50 bucks a month to a black kid in some 3rd world place. And he is a sucker for these types of docos . but in the past I it never bothered me because it was things like chariots of the gods which I just thought was funny.

    But this I don’t know how I’m ment to feel.

    Thanks if anyone replys

      1. Hi James. My name is Kim and I’m also in Aus. I don’t really have an answer for you per se but let’s see if we can work through this.
        It has been shown men can become more conservative as they get older, that could be contributing. I think it’s completely valid for you to be disappointed and concerned with the sudden change in character and in such a disturbing manner.
        Has he just discovered social media or gotten deep in to the internet? Maybe he hasn’t worked out yet that not everything you read on the internet is true? My mum is still learning this even though she’s been on FB for years.

        Lastly, has he displayed any other character changes? Maybe irritability or memory loss etc?

    2. I don’t claim to be a Hitler/Nazi expert, but from my understanding, they actually did do some good things in regards to animal rights and conservation, and possibly other things. You should find out what he actually considers their ‘good things’. Might be a learning moment for both of you.

      Obviously no amount of ‘good things’ could justify what Hitler is most known for, but it’s important to understand the world is not always as black and white as it seems.

    3. This is a slightly disturbing thing to read and I understand what you’re going through as I’ve seen both my father and father-in-law shift further to the right over the past 5-10 years. My own dad has always been racist and bigoted, also my mother and extended family. They are all from the southern US and to them it was normal to think black and brown people were below them (very glad I wasn’t raised here and lived all over the world which helped me break away from my parents’ views easier). Shandrill asked good questions like if your dad has been using the internet a lot more lately and if you’ve seen any other changes. For my father-in-law, he started changing into a gun-loving, gay-hating, black-fearing jackass when he had a bad accident on the job and couldn’t work anymore. I believe he felt (without realizing it) that he lost part of identity as a provider/working man and that turned into feeling he lost his masculinity and his pride was damaged. To make up for those feelings he bought multiple guns and started looking down on people he feels he can blame for things that they have nothing to do with. I have also heard that people become more “conservative” when they get older but I’m not sure if that’s in reference to being financially conservative or socially conservative. I would think it would be more about money (since many people generally have a bit more $ later in adulthood) than slowly turning into a racist or bigot. Maybe have a talk to see if you can find any underlying reasons for the changes to see if he’s frustrated or unhappy about something in his life? People often turn internal fears and stresses into external negative behaviors. I do hope things will work out. Good luck.

  2. RobertJordan18 .you are wrong. And you know it. First off they aren’t mister donors when we know who the investors are. And they are venture capitalist, they are looking for ROI, it’s not quid pro quo. And it’s simple because TYT is a business, and the others are politicians.. so what product do politicians offer? Their policies (regulations, taxes, etc) – TYT is not giving up content control to anyone connected to this financial deal, they have a profitable business model and a sound business plan.
    So shut the fuck up and understand the FACTS before you try to stain progressives… dumb fuck.

    optimismpains Said it perfectly in his reply to your outlandish statement as well.

  3. GOt news for you Cenk – Car insurance is $900 a year for me. Healthcare wants $700 A MONTH from me! I am in the age range of people who carry the load of increased premiums by 50% (54-64-year-old). Two years ago I was paying $300. Now it’s $700!!! I am in good health. I do NOT want to pay this and I won’t. SHAME on whoever thought this was a great idea.

  4. Hmmm, I received training from Wellspring from Dakota Resource Counsel. They were teaching how to organize for our political interests. DRC is bipartisan but very progressive so I assumed Wellspring was too. I even thought it was good for helping us organized Wolf-Pac members. This needs to be looked into further.

    1. Cenk and TYT have turned down fucking money for years from lots of sources because they didn’t and cannot be bought. Cenk wouldn’t suddenly sell out to some cock-sucking piece of shit right winger like the Koch brothers or some other propagandist. There is a reason why TYT has relied on us members too keep the show going and at a time of record membership numbers why the fuck would Cenk and every other principled progressive at TYT suddenly what sell out their whole fucking values, everything they and many of us believe in that have us all hooked on TYT’s no bullshit, UN-corrupt, truth to power content.

      You know that Cenk turned down a cushy higher paid show on MSNBC and sad fuck that, he is a man that can’t be bought. Watch Mad as hell and then come back here and apologise and if not i’m happy that you’re paying TYT money through your membership to continue to speak truth to power as cowards like you cower.

      1. > Cenk and TYT have turned down fucking money for years from lots of sources because they didn’t and cannot be bought.

        I thought so too, but his assumption is verifiably mistaken. First they took 4 million dollars fro m Republican governer Buddy Roemer https:// http://www.politico.com/blogs/media/2014/04/buddy-roemer-firm-invests-4-million-in-young-turks-network-186934

        Then, more recently, they took 20 million from 4 different venture capitalist firms, one of which is just an extension of Democratic Party king-maker Jeffrey Katzenberg (Katzenberg is more in bed with the Democratic establishment than anyone on this planet is, just check it for yourself: https://
        en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jeffrey_Katzenberg

  6. I would be grateful if the live shows were uploaded at least a day after they were aired. I hope you do not expect your members to have their news 2 days in arrears.

    1. Because of Thanksgiving I assume that this is the most recent show –
      Gigi usually uploads within 1 – 1,5 hours after the resp. hour aired…

      1. Thank you. I live in Australia, I was not aware of the holidays. It would not go far off though to have a note up to inform the members.

        1. Agreed! They definitely need some kind of TYT news&updates site –
          when do Special Events go up, what live streams are there in general and members only,
          scheduled Interviews, Old School, technical issues, live stream delays, canceled events, holiday schedule etc.

  8. Why are you defending Pai? The “system” is made of people like this prick, Pai. His is THE person making the decision. And he should be held responsible. And BTW stop kowtowing to right-wingers. They don’t watch your show. This endless pleading to right wingers is making us nuts. They aren’t your audience, WE ARE.

  10. Sadly, we are at the divisive point in politics where we could stop all campaigning and spending money on ads. The majority of people just vote D vs R. Why name the candidates on ballots? Are we almost at the poit of anonymous candidates? We get to open the elections surprises the Wednesday’s after the election to see who we voted for? Ridiculous!

    1. Fortunately, that is NOT the case.

      Fortunately for the future, but the fact that it’s not the case is the reason why Trump is president – people opposed to him did not just vote D regardless of the candidate…

  12. Thanks for the news of the new deregulation for banks, despite the need for stronger creditor protections because of Wells Fargo and Equifax. Would love to know the names of the other corporate Democrats, one of whom is Kaine, Hillary’s running mate. Gee, you’d think that the gains against Republicans in Virginia would have more clout with its Senators. Why Not????

  13. Here is the thing. When Cenk was talking about the Manafort/Kushner meeting, he said it wouldn’t matter that the foreigners had been Russian – “any meeting with a non-US citizen to get dirt on a political opponent is problematic”. Yet when Hillary got her information from a former MI6 agent he said “that’s just opposition research”? Since when is the MI6 a US agency..? It’s not often or on much I disagree with Cenk, but when it comes to this issue, I just feel he’s searching/hoping for something – first it was the financial deal, then it was the meetings, then it is hacking again, then it is obstruction of justice. The fact that he does ignore/not deal in the same way with similar, if not exactly the same accusations against Trump when it comes to Saudi-Arabia or China shows me that Cenk is objectively a “hack” in this particular situation. He hopes on the Russia story, not because of its merits, but because he believes that US representatives/the establishment has anti-Russian sentiment, he hopes that’s enough to push them over the top – he’s afraid the establishment doesn’t care about the actual issues as long it’s not about Russia, that’s why he doesn’t emphasize those issues when it comes to other countries… seems pretty obvious…

    1. I don’t know if there is a wider story with Russia or not, and hopefully the evidence for it comes out if there is. But I will say that the Trump people have not acted the way innocent people normally would. At first they said the whole Russia business was made up out of whole cloth, and there are no connections. Since then we have found out about many connections between the Trump camp and Russians that were not previously disclosed. It might be that there was nothing shady or illegal about those connections. But if that was the case, why were they secretive about it?

      1. Oh don’t get me wrong – I believe he is 100% GUILTY of pay-by-play corruption be it about Russian interest
        –
        or Saudi-Arabian and Chinese interest…

        I just think people concentrate on Russia, because they hope/play on anti-Russian sentiment

        By the way, the focus on Trump is also getting Putin away with creating/help fostering the alt-right/identitarian etc. movement itself. His meddling is WAY bigger than Trump, it is in fact WAY bigger than America. But also less successful as people make it seem – and the solutions as long as the establishment is concerned are less freedom, more gatekeepers, harder against outsiders etc. that has nothing to do with Cenk or TYT ofc, but I am afraid of societal narratives that can become dangerous…

  15. Ok, so someone please explain to me why the Establishment Democrats and the hysterical MSM are not already crying that the “mystery donor” who sought to influence the US government/congress was actually VLADIMIR PUTIN???

    This is one of many things that has always bothered me about the ridiculous Russia-Gate hoax. If Putin, or the Saudis, or Madero, or Netanyahu, or any other foreign government wanted to influence US elections, all they had to do was donate “dark money” to the PAC that served their interests. Hell, I would bet serious money that they already DO THAT.
    And yet, you won’t hear Democrats complaining about that, or calling for investigations. Why? Because Hillary Clinton was, according to the Center for Public Integrity and many others, the candidate who has benefitted MOST from the Citizens United decision. https://www.publicintegrity.org/2014/01/21/14140/hillary-clinton-citizens-united-candidate

    1. > all they had to do was donate “dark money” to the PAC that served their interests. Hell, I would bet serious money that they already DO THAT.

      And why wouldn’t they? The whole purpose of the well-established PAC/SuperPAC/dark money system is precisely to allow absolutely anyone with deep pockets to donate.

      The system is NOT corrupt because even players like the Russian government (and the Saudis, the Israelis, the Chinese, etc.) can insert their capital somewhere in there. It’s corrupt because both parties have set it up that way, at the behest of America’s own economic elite (which is also a transnational, cosmopolitan elite).

      The fact that even the Russians can potentially participate is just a side effect of a plethora of horrendous domestic political choices.

      1. Agreed!! I tried to make the argument years ago when Chavez was still alive that as the Venezuelan government owns CITGO they would probably love to have a voice in the government of the country in which they operate. And if you really believe all that Corporate Personhood crap then why shouldn’t they?

        It’s just as Cenk said: the US may well be defined as the most corrupt country in the world for the simple fact that they have legalised bribery and made bribery a fundamental and integral part of their system of government.

        1. > the US may well be defined as the most corrupt country in the world for the simple fact that they have legalised bribery and made bribery a fundamental and integral part of their system of government.

          This reminds me of the time when a Chinese citizen went to one of the newly created Chinese courts (created in the 90’s as part of the globalization process, I believe) and tried to sue the Chinese Communist Party* for various things. The response was extremely clever: the judge said that the lawsuit had no merit because the Chinese Communist Party does not exist as a legal entity. And the judge was right: the party has no official existence, in that particular legalistic sense.

          (As far as I know, the plaintiff was even left unmolested, unjailed, and not sent off to the many work camps.)

          The point is this: for all the dirty crimes that the Chinese government does on a daily basis, at least they have the decency not to proclaim that it’s all legal and above board. At least they haven’t elevated the worst corruption into the open face of the system itself, or declared that it’s all an expression of their proud fundamental values (which is what the US Supreme Court has done).

          * Not actually a “communist” party, just totalitarian and 100% in charge.

  17. hi, y’all at TYT. this little essay opinion piece of mine was a labor of love. believe it or not, it was almost 20 years in the making, ever since Bill Clinton got away with his workplace sexual harassment acts in the late ’90s. ever since then, i’ve been trying to set down in words why i believe both Clintons to have been guilty of certain criminal acts that are only now being recognized as such. it’s been hard to take this position, in the face of Clinton popularity and Tripp hatred, but i have persisted. i think that now is the time for my pay-off. d really don’t know where or to whom to submit it, but i trust you, Cenk, in particular, to recognize its validity and, perhaps, worth.

    just the other day on MSNBC’s Morning Joe news .ommentary program, co-host Mika Brzezinski had her say — “Bill Clinton must apologize for sexual harassment history.” it can be found online at thehill.com my response is set out below:

    “Morning Joe’s Mika Brzezinski: Bill Clinton must apologize for sexual harassment history, published online at thehill.com.”

    i agree, Mika — both Clintons need to come to the table with clean hands. but exactly what do you think that Bill Clinton should apologize for? the way i see it, he’s a serial workplace sexual harasser. two victims’ names come to mind: Paula Jones and Monica Lewinsky.

    Paula Jones rejected unwanted sexual advances made by Bill when he was serving as her employer, Governor of Arkansas. she was so offended, in fact, that she filed a lawsuit against him alleging workplace sexual harassment — whether she was goaded or otherwise encouraged into doing so is a question of her motivation and not of his guilt or innocence. her lawsuit attempted to lay out Bill’s pattern of workplace sexual harassment; Bill’s deliberate perjury as regards his acts committed with Monica go directly to obstruct such evidence. but i’m getting ahead of myself.

    Monica Lewinsky, the quintessential Thoroughly Modern Millie, initiated her consensual relationship with Bill — by playing “peek-a-boo” with her thong — while Bill was serving as HER employer, President of the United States. Monica was way more photogenic than Paula — she didn’t come from anywhere close to “trailer-park trash,” as Bill’s attack dog, Snakehead James Carville, would have it (remember when Carville remarked that — and i paraphrase — you never knew what might turn up if you dragged a hundred-dollar bill through a trailer park?). Monica was also the very opposite of offended — her attractive, winning smile flashed out at an eager public in many photos and videos — just look at that cute beret. SHE would NEVER think of betraying her lover by filing a lawsuit!

    no, she was so proud of herself that she betrayed Bill by confessing every sordid detail of their affair to an acquaintance — Linda Tripp — who responded to this verbal dynamite by protecting herself as best she could. how was that? why, she preserved oral evidence of the tell-all monologuing by recording it. the public’s reaction to THAT indiscretion was instant, reflexive anger — against the workplace sexual offenders? NO! against the not-very-attractive Linda Tripp, who instantly became the villainess in this imbroglio when it was revealed that, according to D.C. law, she should have had Monica’s permission to record the tell-all conversations. AS IF! i mean, give me a break!

    Linda Tripp, no fool she, had observed both Clintons as they systematically demolished every one of Bill’s accusers — the real victims and those who may not have been; that question still goes unanswered without a full confession from the perps — both Bill and Hill. i do not blame Tripp for her act of perceived “disloyalty” against her friend Monica — exactly what kind of friends were they to each other, BTW? life-long? undying? or acquaintances of but a few years’ (or maybe months’) cultivation? what level of loyalty did Linda owe Monica, in the face of any defense against an angry Clinton Machine in full attack mode?

    at any rate, we have those damning confessionals — from the cigars to the stained blue dress — to help deflect both Bill’s willful perjury and Hill’s willfully withheld silence. is there any question that, but for those tapes, Linda Tripp would have either gone down in flames or been forced to hold her tongue, or been forced into various acts of — willing or unwilling — perjury? i suggest that any perjury that might have been committed by Linda Tripp would have been engaged in with far more reluctance — and self-guilt — than that engaged in by the POTUS himself, when he looked directly at all of us, pointed his finger in our faces, and denied having had sex with “that woman.”

    so, Mika, i ask — what exactly do We the People either want or need from Bill the Predator or Hill the Enabler? nothing less than their voluntary signatures, admitting to the veracity of the tale as told herein, at the bottom of this statement, as well as any legal penalties that may accrue therefrom.

    maybe then we can go forward in our condemnation of such alleged perps as Roy Moore — who flat-out denies any wrongdoing, a la the Clintons — or Al Franken — who has admitted wrongdoing, apologized for it, and requested a Senate Ethics Committee investigation of himself? — allegations against Franken and Moore continue to pile on as i write, so the current events remain unsettled … and unsettling.

    certainly, admissions by the Clintons would finally — and for once in their political lives, perhaps — see both Clintons before us with clean(er) hands i’m not holding my breath. one thing the Clintons share in common with Moore — and Trump — is the unspoken agreement to ADMIT NOTHING. maybe the Special Election on December 12th in Alabama will indicate how effective this cowardly strategy is. one way or another, it will serve to shape America’s political zeitgeist for quite a while to come.

    1. Thought provoking, and very well written piece. If you don’t already have one, start a blog. If you do, share the link!

      1. thanks! i sort of have a blog, but it consists wholly of a modest collection of some of my very favorite Golden Age Classic Speculative Fiction short stories, novellas, and novels. in my professional career, i was a legal word processor and copy editor. i actually love typing and formatting — after being diagnosed with bilateral Carpal Tunnel Syndrome, i made the switch from the QWERTY keyboard over to the Dvorak — wise decision!

        i’m passionate about the great SF from c. 1930s-1960s (with a few ventures outside that range, into John Varley, Michael Bishop, and Octavia Butler, e.g.). there are 30 or so entries, each of which i personally input, formatted, and uploaded to what i loosely call the blog, PRESCIENCE (a plural term indicating a collection of SF writers). it’s got some of the best SF out there, i’m proud to boast, and you can find it at presciencesf.blogspot.com. the site itself isn’t formatted very well, sorry about that, but each chapter is autonomous and, as such, eminently accessible. one novella not on the site is John Varley’s The Phantom of Kansas — i’m thrilled to report that Mr. Varley has uploaded the entire novella, and it can be googled; he also uploaded an accompanying screenplay, and i can promise you that it would make a terrific and highly original film. i can see Anna Paquin starring — she is one badass beauty!

        i’ve just started writing opinion pieces in the last couple of weeks — there’s actually a story to explain how that came to be, but it’s too involved and personal for this site. i’ve been using Facebook as my platform, but i’ll take your suggestion seriously. thanks again for the feedback!

    2. I agree. In fact the Clintons and their behavior at the end of his second term was one of the reasons why I became a left-winger in the first place. Ever since last years elections I have flashbacks / so many things reminded me of that time (not only from the sexual harassment/assault angle, but that too).

      It was very well already part of feminist debate back then to look at power dynamics in this kind of relationships – yet when it came to Clinton/Lewinsky? Nothing but excuses (by Democrats/within the Democratic party)!

      Think about it that way – Cenk Uygur about Jordan
      “if you think it’s OK to go in a hotel room with your employee we disagree completely” /
      Cenk’s statement about Bill Clinton he made for Mad As Hell is
      “the guy is president, can’t he get a blow job every once in a while?”

      It’s been a while, lots of people changed their opinion lately – some very lately. But when Buzz Feed brought up Juanita Broaddrick last year, a lot of people on the left just didn’t want to talk about it.

      We ridicule and criticize Republicans for Roy Moore, but the partisan hackery around the Clintons is similarly problematic. If we go by the same standards we have since the Weinstein story, if we go by number of accusers and pattern of behavior, Clinton, especially Bill Clinton has to apologize at least. And btw, people shpuld look into him not necessary while he was president, but into his time in Arkansas. The Eileen Wellstone story is also believable if you ask me, so it’s definitely possible we’re talking of rape here.

      In this time when no one gets a pass any more (including another former US president already), we can not excuse Clinton’s behavior any longer…

      1. oh, yes — i couldn’t agree more. i was taken totally by surprise yesterday about Jordan, and early this morning about Wes! what’s the hell??? i totally disagree with Cenk’s comment re: Clinton getting the occasional BJ in Mad As Hell, but agree with him about Jordan’s hotel room and whatever the hell went on there.

        as far as Bill Clinton being capable of rape — well, i can’t say one way or another, but i CAN say that he likely considers himself the most entitled human being on the planet — after all, he did commit perjury as to a point of his established predatory office behavior, which was entirely relevant to the Paula Jones lawsuit … and he (Bill, i.e.) was well aware of that fact. the judge should have felt that lie like a slap in the face.

        it might appear that Trump lays claim to that “ultimate privilege” POV, but Trump is more a schoolyard bully than a Machiavellian. Trump’s deviltry is, as Cenk likes to say, that of an immature child; he’s no Richard III. after having glimpsed his Trump Tower digs in an Apprentice episode, i started calling him “gilt-ridden,” and i think it’s apt.

        1. It’s true. I think we even have to consider an aspect that is not often highlighted
          (and it shouldn’t play a role, but I’m afraid it does).

          Bill Clinton was actually considered quite attractive at his time, by accounts a lot of women saw him as a celebrity as well as a politician, they admired him. That’s in part true for the other guys as well of course, but I do think it plays role that it was not just a status, but also physically attractive/personality(charming) thing. Why would that be important? For two reasons.

          First I think that a lot of guys who have a lot of suitors become even more entitled and don’t believe/accept and/or can’t handle rejection. They think like “9 out of 10 women said yes, why would the 10th say no? In fact, you don’t even mean it, of course you want it”.

          Second I wonder if it is even harder for women/victims to come out if they think that other women/possible support see the perpetrator as very desirable. I wonder if they think people would believe them even less. I say that because if you have a guy like Aisles or Weinstein, the narrative seems to be so clear, so fitting. But from the statistics we know that a lot of sexual misconduct happens either inside of a relationships or in some kind of flirtatious grey area. So I would assume that a lot of perpetrators, if not the majority, have actually some attractive qualities, both personality wise, but also physical. I wonder if it would be harder for a victim to come out in this case, because people are already victim blaming, they already say things like “come on, I know you like him”, “you are totally into him”, “you wanted it to happen” etc. and that would be -at least that what victims could believe/fear- even emphasized…

          Ana told the story of someone slapping her behind and said she felt weird “because she really liked the guy”,
          Carly Hammond was supposedly flirting with Jordan all the time etc.

          Some guys (wrongfully ofc) think that gives them a free pass, and I think in Bill Clinton’s case, that happened on steroids!

          1. i like the way you were able to put yourself “in their shoes” — something Roy Moore’s evangelical supporters seem either unable or unwilling to do. i also agree with the “law of attraction” theory you propound — it’s why i spent a good bit of time stressing both the attractiveness of Bill and Monica and the lack thereof in the cases of Paula and Linda. it really DID play a big part in holding sway over the masses.

            you also seem to understand some of what i’ve had to put up with over the past two decades — i can’t count the number of times i’ve defended Linda Tripp’s honor from attackers all too willing to call her a POS and throw the word “consensual” around like a Get-Out-of-Jail-Free card. people might like to claim that looks don’t matter, but i disagree with that particular meme. au contraire — looks matter a LOT.

            here’s another example of how visual appearance played out in reality — the 1960 Kennedy/Nixon presidential debate was both televised and broadcast. those who merely listened thought Nixon hai won; those who had watched on tv believed Kennedy the winner. why? well, for one thing, Nixon refused the offer of pancake make-up for the tv cameras, and he sweated profusely. it mattered … a LOT. i repeat this and give it the stress it deserves because Nixon’s physical appearance made viewers uncomfortable. q.e.d.

          1. Wes seems to have or had some kind of mental breakdown. He wasn’t fired, because they never paid him in the first place – I don’t even know if they have some kind of relationship still or how it looks like – some of them had been friends after all.

            Fact is, Wes made some super weird accusations against TYT and Cenk personally. They start of as “there could be something to it” / accusations everyone’s used to (still seemingly out of nowhere) “Cenk used TYT credit to personally gamble and lost a lot of money” etc. But then he goes on and speaks of Wolf PAC working with Erdogan in Turkey and black helicopters flying over his house while TYT agents following him around and threatening his wife etc. I had a friend who had Paranoid Schizophrenia and it reminded me of that big time.

            There are no accusations of any kind made against Wes, mainly, I wish him luck and help and hopes he comes back to live in the real world soon…

  18. Under the ACA, very few healthy young folk pay more than a pittance for insurance. Because most of the young make less money than they’ll make in their 40s, they either qualify for free expanded Medicaid or large exchange subsidies. With subsidies, if you are under age 35, $0 to $50/month are typical costs. Yea, a few are lucky enough to make too much to qualify for a subsidy. Good for them, they can afford 10% of their income.

    The ACA needs these healthy young folk, for the most part they don’t notice the cost.

  19. So much misinformation on banks.

    All banks gamble with depositor’s money, that is what they do, they lend it to people and corporations with varying degrees of credit worthiness and if one of those clients defaults the bank is in big trouble. Glass-Steagall did not stop the homes and loans crises of the 80s which was bigger than the 2007-2008 crises.

    The proposals in the bill are worrying in many aspects but in some aspects are needed. Trumpland was starved from credit because it was cheaper and more guaranteed to finance services and IT sectors instead of former industrial heartlands. Raising the threshold will partly address the problem.

    The Stress Test part is the most important however and the most important part of it is the requirements. The bill will dilute the Stress Test mechanism which is never good.

    1. “Glass-Steagall did not stop the homes and loans crises of the 80s which was bigger than the 2007-2008 crises.”

      Two major errors:

      1) Savings & Loans institutions were NOT covered by Glass-Steagall. The S&L crisis of the 80’s is actually PROOF of the effectiveness and the need for Glass-Steagall type legislation/regulation: http://therealnews.com/t2/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=31&Itemid=74&jumival=11747

      2) The 2008 crisis was order of magnitude LARGER than the S&L crises of the 80’s. All told, the S&L crises cost the US Govt. $132 Billion in bailouts. The bailouts for the 2008 crisis ran into the TRILLIONS.

      And no, there is a difference between gambling by making qualified loans and gambling by casino investment and betting on CDS and other derivatives. Glass Steagall set up a wall between the normal banks, that exist to facilitate commerce and industry and growth by loaning out depositors’ money, and investment banks, which are there to pursue purely capitalistic gambling adventures by investing money on behalf of their clients. There were two problems with reversion G-S: (1) the wall between the 2 banks was removed and (2) the banks started trading with their own money, thereby putting not just their depositors but their shareholders and the institution itself at risk.

      1. This conversation will be helpful to many:

        1. S&Ls were not covered by Glass-Steagall but the commercial banks that were involved by lending money to the S&Ls and the investment banks that arranged those loans (and subsequent junk bonds) were regulated by the aforementioned law.

        Now deregulation of S&Ls* was the main cause of the crisis but Glass-Steagall did not stop banks from engaging in risky lending practices and using derivatives and Mortgage Backed Securities (MBSs). Banks, as Cenk said, gambled with depositors money despite the existence of Glass-Steagall.

        2. Actually the cost of the S&L crisis were around $400 billion in dollar terms (out of a total S&L capital investment of $600 billion or 10% of GDP in 1990) and the measures taken by the federal government, state governments (excluding the Federal Reserve which should not be taken into account since it is independent from the government) cost approximately a net loss of $160 billion for the taxpayers. Over 1700 institutions had to be bailed out or closed and in terms of GDP the cost was 5%.

        TARP cost $ 426 billion only which in GDP terms is around 2.5% but unlike the S&Ls the government made a $15 billion profit.

        If we are to include the Federal Reserve lending things will get into the trillions but the Fed did the same thing in the S&L crisis so we should also take that into account.

        As for gambling and lending, all risk bearing investments are by definition gambling. Making lending laws strict on a macro-level starves the risky markets from credit even if the fundamentals of the company are solid. Derivatives trading was not, initially at least, gambling, it was done out of necessity and practicality. Too much unproductive cash (thanks to leveraging laws) on the books was costly especially during the great inflationary period of the late 70s. Derivatives, were a way to make marginal money out of that idle cash.

        As for investment banks, I don’t now where people got the idea that Investment Banks use their own money to lend and trade, that is nonsense. Investment Banks are glorified cashiers, they live off billings and commissions and never use their own money for anything. They arrange loans by under-writing them and managing the collection on behalf of the subscribers who are usually small and mid-sized commercial banks. Trading arms were basically brokers, working with other people’s money.

        Corporations that do use their own money are private equity firms and Investment Management firms which many Investment Banks turned into.

        In the end my point is not to dismiss G-S, it should be reinstated with certain liberties for practical reasons, my point is that regulation is not a safe guard against dumb management and bad business decisions. No country on earth has G-S besides the US and they never seen the types of failures the US saw.

        1. I forgot my Note:

          S&Ls are particularly interesting creates. Originally they were supposed to be Associations with no commercial goals but by the 1980s they became effectively banks without the banking licence (that is they got the right to be a part of the Fed system and the right to open checking accounts) and almost all of them operated on S&L state charters and the reason for the lack of regulation is because their political power because they were voluntary associations. Instead of reforming this sector the Carter admin, during its wave of deregulation, deregulated them even more.

          Thankfully they are not a problem anymore but it shows that in terms of finance, the Federal government should have the final say because it was the states that allowed this to happen.

        2. I agree! No single law can be a silver bullet to prevent scoundrels from being scoundrels, or myopic business leaders from doing stupid things. Glass-Steagall should be seen as just one part (albeit an important one) of an overall regulatory framework that FDR imposed on the US banking system to revamp and restructure it in the wake of the Great Depression. FDR seized the “opportunity” presented by the Depression to force the banking industry to change, and to subjugate itself to a strong, active and vital regulatory regime. I also agree that it was this overall regime, with its appurtenant administrative, investigative and punitive bodies, all working transparently and in concert, that kept the banks in line for so many decades.

          It is not a coincidence that the S&L crisis happened under Reagan. It was the “government needs to get out of the way” theology and the neoliberal reliance on markets to self-regulate that really led to the scandals and bailouts. Clinton was, in so many ways, simply a continuation of the Reagan revolution, and when he said “the era of big government is over” he may as well have said, “it’s time to put the fox in charge of guarding the henhouse.”

          Obama, like FDR, was also presented with a marvellous opportunity to restructure the FSI and return it to sanity and to fulfilling its proper role in providing the financial lubrication to keep the wheels of commerce turning. He could have made the US and even the world’s banking industry more stable, more accountable and more just. Instead, he did the exact opposite and let the banks and the bankers off the hook. As Thomas Frank said, we reached a great turning point in 2009, and we failed to turn. Thanks, Obama!

          1. With regards to the reforms of the great depression, not all of them were good. Indeed a lot of those reforms went too far and did damage on the long term and had to be tweaked again and again during FDR and later.

            To be fair the deregulation drive did not begin with Reagan, it began in the 60s with Johnson (not through legislation but through diluting many rules like the S&L rules we discussed). Nixon pushed for deregulation but failed to pass legislation. The first major legislation was passed under Ford but the real regulation buster was actually Carter who deregulated Media, Transportation, Energy and passed the first law that chipped away from G-S, even the Libertarians are praising Carter and you can’t get more Libertarian than the Von Mises Institute:

            https://mises.org/library/rethinking-carter

            Reagan got to reap the benefit, praise (and damnation) because he was a damn good messenger. But his achievements were small and were not that effective or damaging, indeed he reintroduced many of the Carter regulations in finance after the S&L crisis which again was not Reagan’s direct fault but rather Carter’s (and to a large extent the states as well).

            As for the financial crisis and Obama, I totally agree with you on that, Obama went too short in his reforms, which shouldn’t be belittled since they are quite substantial in perspective, but then again Obama never claimed he was going to those reforms anyway, he was always a “centrist” and prided himself in that*.

            *Obama is among the most clever politicians there is. Technically speaking, Dodd-Frank gives the executive branch regulatory powers that allow the president to bust the financial industry without congressional approval, Dodd-Frank gives the executive the power to finance regulatory agencies independent from congress (starving the SEC was the main contributing factor to 2007-2008, the laws and regulations were there but the funds were not), it gives the executive the power to nationalize banks and to break them up without congressional approval. Dodd-Frank, under a progressive president, is actually perfect.

            Obama claimed this law was enough and factually it was true, however Obama chose not to apply the effective parts of it.

  22. No one actually has to put up with the big telecoms taking advantage of the country like this. What you need is a publicly owned broadband network, preferably fiber based. In fact, your city, town, PUD, etc. probably already has one for their own internal uses that can be expanded.
    Hundreds of towns have started offering their own broadband services without making deals with the big telecoms. Check out this site to see https://muninetworks.org/communitymap
    Also, please check out the petition started in my town to get something similar going. Too bad our Corporate Democrat Mayor just signed a big deal with the anti-net neutral provider CenturyLink, right after they got in trouble for lying to our neighbors in King County, but there are very some good reasons to still believe we might succeed.
    https://www.change.org/p/mayorsoffice-cob-org-bellingham-public-fiber-optic-network

  23. Anyone have video from outside the FCC headquarters? People need to see what is happening or if it even is happening. The masses of the Internet need to be motivated.

        2. So, let me see if I have this straight. For the peanuts that TYT pays it’s reporters, TYT expects them to have no outside interests or projects, and TYT expects to exercise veto power over who they have sex with (even if the sex is clearly consensual and involves people who don’t work for TYT). That’s what I heard in Cenk’s statement.

          Oh, and you tell a guy that he needs to resign or be fired, and are shocked when he becomes uncooperative.

          1. I liked Jordan’s reporting a lot. He was the most talented reporter they had by far. But his behavior with these woman is highly problematic. Its a sexual harassment lawsuit waiting to happen not only to Jordan but to the company if Cenk turned a blind eye.

            Its sad to see him go but I don’t see how Cenk had any other choice.

  26. FCC will go to court over net neutrality the 28 M Supreme Court will start to pay off for the mystery donor.
    I want my member hat please back order?

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