Congress could temporarily lower the age at which Americans can claim Social Security benefits as a jobs bill, Rep. Dennis Kucinich (D-Ohio) said Sunday.
Kucinich, a liberal Democrat from the Cleveland area, said a $15 billion proposal he's floating would create 1 million jobs for the U.S. economy.
The two-time presidential candidate's proposal calls for a six-month period during which people could retire at the age of 60. The program would be funded by $10 billion in bailout funds, and $5 billion in stimulus funds.
Ed Schultz talks to Rep. Peter DeFazio and The Nation's John Nichols about whether the Democrats are blowing it on the health care debate and with demonstrating some leadership. I think Nichols has it right:
Nichols: The Democrats have as one of their best members of Congress Pete DeFazio said, made a hash of this thing. The truth of the matter is the American people don't care what a filibuster is. They don't care what cloture is. There's a new Pew Center poll that says they don't even know what those things are. What they care about is whether their kids, whether their parents, whether they have health care.
And if the Democrats don't get this, and I'd start with Barack Obama, nobody gets off the hook here, Barack Obama, Harry Reid, Nancy Pelosi and the whole Democratic Party, if they don't get that the issue is health care, not Senate rules, they are going to be beaten awfully badly this fall. They may not lose all their majorities, but they will lose their ability to function, and in so doing they will have sacrificed the ability to set this country right.
That isn't just bad politics. That's bad morality.
Ed Schultz slams Hannity for this bit of nonsense on his show the previous night -- Hannity: Bush "did not play golf while this country was at war. ... He seemed to be far more in touch". I would assume it's safe to say that very few of Hannity's regular viewers, or at least the ones who watch him and are silly enough to think he's credible, have never watched Fahrenheit 9/11 and Hannity knows this or he probably would not have told this whopper. Nicole Wallace knew better but sat there and let Hannity lie.
Ed Schultz let go with a righteous rant against the state of health care while attending a one-day free clinic today in Hartford, Conn for the uninsured.
I don't know what they are doing in Washington.
I know that there aren't any house members here and there aren't any senators here. And I can tell you one piece of information here in Connecticut, the house and the senate passed Universal care for everyone and the governor vetoed it. The public option in this state polls overwhelmingly well, but in Washington, Joe Lieberman, not only is he not here tonite, but he's against the public option.
(7:17) I could look Joe Lieberman in the eye, and Senator, I don't care if it costs me my job, I don't care, you are a coward. You are a coward, Joe Lieberman because you don't stand up for the people of this state and represent them and give them what they want.
Ed continued later on Olbermann's show with more details of the day in Hartford.
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James Clyburn responds to Mike Pence's assertion that the Democrats shut the Republicans out of the health care debate. That's all you hear out of these people is start over. After a year of having them participate and getting absolutely no votes as Rep. Clyburn just pointed out, do they honestly think anyone believes they'd behave any better the next time around?
I've got to give it to them though. They've got their lies and they're sticking to them, reality be damned. And most of the media is happy to go along for the ride without bothering to call them out for it, Ed Schultz being one of the exceptions. We're sure as hell never going to get that kind of messaging discipline out of the Democratic caucus with the Blue Dogs, ConservaDems and old Joementum Lie-berlips in there mucking up the works.
SCHULTZ: Congressman, I think the president needs to really talk to the base tonight, solidify the base, because there`s a lot of folks out there in the middle class that have seen a lot of things go to Wall Street. Now, with that in mind, to present to the American people that the Republicans have been obstructionists, they`re getting their backup when they hear that.
Earlier today, on Dylan Ratigan`s show, I made a comment about just that, and it drew this response from Congressman Pence...
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
PENCE: I`ve got to tell you, that was the one thing -- and THE ED SHOW is popular. It`s not my cup of TV, but he`s good radio and good TV. But look, Ed just said the president ought to consider shutting Republicans out.
Ed, news flash. House Democrats in this administration have shut Republicans out of the entire process in the House and in the Senate for the last year.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
SCHULTZ: I tell you, those Republicans are amazing. I didn`t say they should shut out the Republicans. I just said that you should move on without them. If they want to get in the process, that`s fine.
But Congressman Clyburn, he said that, "House Democrats in this administration have shut Republicans out of the entire process in the House."
Ed Schultz talks to Sen. Bernie Sanders about his opposition to Ben Bernanke being confirmed for another term as Chairman of the Federal Reserve. Sen. Sanders placed a hold on Bernanke's confirmation back in December and he reiterates some of the points he made in his press release at that time.
December 2, 2009
WASHINGTON, December 2 – Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) today placed a hold on the nomination of Ben Bernanke for a second term as chairman of the Federal Reserve.
“The American people overwhelmingly voted last year for a change in our national priorities to put the interests of ordinary people ahead of the greed of Wall Street and the wealthy few,” Sanders said. “What the American people did not bargain for was another four years for one of the key architects of the Bush economy.”
As head of the central bank since 2006, Bernanke could have demanded that Wall Street provide adequate credit to small and medium-sized businesses to create decent-paying jobs in a productive economy, but he did not.
He could have insisted that large bailed-out banks end the usurious practice of charging interest rates of 30 percent or more on credit cards, but he did not.
He could have broken up too-big-to-fail financial institutions that took Federal Reserve assistance, but he did not.
He could have revealed which banks took more than $2 trillion in taxpayer-backed secret loans, but he did not.
“The American people want a new direction on Wall Street and at the Fed. They do not want as chairman someone who has been part of the problem and who has been responsible for many of the enormous difficulties that we are now experiencing,” Sanders said. “It’s time for a change at the Fed.” Read on...
From Think Progress, Ed Schultz tries to tell White House press secretary Robert Gibbs what he apparently doesn't want to hear:
Last night, MSNBC’s Ed Schultz spoke at Minnesota progressive talk radio AM950’s Blue State Bash at the Minneapolis Convention Center. During his remarks, Schultz revealed that he recently had a testy confrontation with White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs (Gibbs appeared on Schultz’s show this past Thursday). “Mr. Gibbs and I had quite a conversation off the air the other night,” he revealed:
SCHULTZ: I told him he was full of sh*t is what I told him. … And then he gave me the Dick Cheney f-bomb. … I told Robert Gibbs, I said “And I’m sorry you’re swearing at me, but I’m just trying to help you out. I’m telling you you’re losing your base. Do you understand you’re losing your base?”
Talk show host Ed Schultz says he's not running for US Senate in North Dakota but if he were he'd "kick their ass" referring to Republicans. Schultz also says " We need to get the people who have infiltrated the Democratic-Progressive movement and get them the hell out" and "We need to get rid of Michele Bachmann" (wild applause)
Schultz spoke at AM950's Blue State Bash in Minneapolis. Distributed by Tubemogul.
Last night, MSNBC’s Ed Schultz spoke at Minnesota progressive talk radio AM950’s Blue State Bash at the Minneapolis Convention Center. During his remarks, Schultz revealed that he recently had a testy confrontation with White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs (Gibbs appeared on Schultz’s show this past Thursday). “Mr. Gibbs and I had quite a conversation off the air the other night,” he revealed:
SCHULTZ: I told him he was full of sh*t is what I told him. … And then he gave me the Dick Cheney f-bomb. … I told Robert Gibbs, I said “And I’m sorry you’re swearing at me, but I’m just trying to help you out. I’m telling you you’re losing your base. Do you understand you’re losing your base?”
Give 'em hell big Eddie. Somebody needs to tell them what they don't want to hear. This isn't all that surprising after watching them the other night. The interview was already pretty heated before they got off the air.
Ed Schultz hits Hannity for his selective memory loss on his radio show--Hannity: "No conservative is against health care reform". Since his listeners likely get their news from other right wing talkers and ClusterFox they probably think he's telling the truth. I don't know how the folks over at Media Matters can stand to monitor this garbage. I can take about five or ten minutes of him on the radio and I've got to turn it off.
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When asked by Ed Schultz what the Congress can do after this horrible Supreme Court ruling that corporations have the same free speech rights as average citizens Dennis responds with this:
Kucinich: Well one of the things I'd like to see done is repeal corporate personhood. They get... the corporations in America get a free ride. They're able to escape taxes. They don't have the same responsibilities as real people have. We need to challenge corporations hold on the political process, repeal corporate personhood and we also need to look at what we can do to go around the Buckley v. Valeo ruling or this other ruling to put strong controls on campaign spending.
And in addition to that, we have to I think have public financing of Congressional races because if you don't... it's either private financing of the races and then the government's owned by private interests, or it's public financing and then it's government and the public interest. That's really going to be the choice that we're going to have after this Supreme Court ruling.
Ed Schultz smacks Rudy Giuliani and Glenn Beck for their hackery in this edition of Psycho Talk.
SCHULTZ: And in "Psycho Talk" tonight, so much material out there, we just couldn`t settle on one, so we`ve got a doubleheader for you tonight.
First up, we have Mr. 9/11 himself, Rudy Giuliani. This week he went on "Larry King Live" and criticized President Obama for taking just too long to respond to the Christmas Day terror attempt. When Larry pointed out that President Bush took six days to speak up about the shoe bomber incident, Rudy started to rearrange history.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
RUDY GIULIANI (R), FMR. NEW YORK MAYOR: And I believe that six days was before the September 11 attack.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
SCHULTZ: Wrong. We all know the shoe bomber incident happened three months after 9/11. But Rudy`s rewriting history continued this morning.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
GIULIANI: We had no domestic attacks under Bush. We`ve had one under Obama.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
SCHULTZ: No domestic terror attacks under Bush. Hmm.
Rudy, you can`t make 9/11 the cornerstone of your presidential campaign and then just ignore it when it it`s convenient for you to go out and do some fear mongering. Now, that kind of stunt puts you right into "Psycho Talk."
Now, for part two tonight, doubleheader, here we go.
Sarah Palin makes Ed's Psycho Talk for continuing to spread her 'death panels' lie with some help from Sean Hannity, despite that lie winning PolitiFact's 'Lie of the Year'.
As Ed said, Palin doesn't seem to have too much trouble when it comes to disregarding facts. And Ed, she's going to be 'politically relevant' as long as the media keeps propping her up as someone we should pay attention to, but I don't think there's any way in hell she's running for office again. She's going to milk her celebrity for every penny she can squeeze out of it until the day she dies, or she does something so ridiculous that even the right becomes embarrassed about it. That seems to be an impossible threshold to meet for now. Nothing embarrasses these people.
Byron Dorgan explains his decision not to run for reelection in 2010. This is really a shame since Byron Dorgan has been one of our better Senators with standing up for the middle class.
It was reported that both Dorgan and North Dakota House Minority Leader Merle Boucher reached out to Ed Schultz about running for Dorgan's seat, but from what Think Progress is reporting, it looks like Ed would not be eligible to run even if he wanted to:
As Schultz pointed out on his show last night, North Dakota requires that candidates maintain residency in the state for five years prior to running for the Senate, and he has lived in Minnesota for the past two years -- meaning he is not eligible for the position.
Too bad. It doesn't sound like Ed wants to run with his television career just taking off, but I think that campaign would have been fun to watch if he had taken them up on it.
ED SCHULTZ: And Senator Dorgan joins us exclusively tonight from the Capitol in Washington. Senator, great to have you with us tonight. Congratulations on a fabulous career. You have done a lot for a lot of Americans and been a man who has spoken truth to power time and time again. And the case could be made, Byron, that the Democrats need you now more than ever, no matter what the political winds are.
Why are you going to do this? Why are you going to step away from the Senate?
SEN. BYRON DORGAN: Well, that's the big question, Ed. This has been a rare and great privilege for me to serve in the United States Senate. I have served, as you said, starting at age 26.
Forty years of state-wide elective office. It's been along, wonderful career. But you know, I just came to the conclusion that rather than make a commitment for seven more years, this year plus another six, I wanted to do some other things in life, outside of public service and I made that decision and I feel good about it. But again, it's no reflection on my party. It's no reflection on our government. Great hopes for this country and I'm an eternal optimist about our country's future.
SCHULTZ: Well, I think a lot of people are assuming that the Democrats are in trouble in 2010. We all know the wind blows in North Dakota. The political wind may be a little bit tough right now. Is the political climate weighing heavy on your decision at all? I mean, it's a tough climate out there right now.
DORGAN: It really has not, Ed. I've run statewide in 11 elections, been very successful and would have been successful this year had I run for election, no question in my mind about that. But the question for me is, when is it time to move on to do some other things? I'd much, much rather have them ask the question, why did he leave so soon rather than why did he stay so long? As I said to you, it's a great privilege.
I love the United States Senate. But there are other things in life I'd like to do and frankly this gives me the opportunity to do that.
