Bill talks with financial expert Sheila Bair about the lawlessness of our banking system and the prognosis for meaningful reform. Bair was appointed in 2006 by President George W. Bush to chair the FDIC. During the 2008 meltdown, she argued that in some cases banks were NOT too big to fail — that instead of bailouts, they should be sold off to healthier competitors. Now a senior adviser to the Pew Charitable Trusts, Bair has organized a private group of financial experts including former Fed chairman Paul Volcker, former Senators Bill Bradley and Alan Simpson, and John Reed, once the chairman of Citicorp, to explore ways to prevent the banking industry from scuttling reforms created by the Dodd-Frank Act.

“I worry that the public is getting cynical,” Bair tells Moyers. “One of the reasons I started the Systemic Risk Council is I feel the special interest lobbying is, in a calculated way, trying to slow down reform, complicate reform, water reform down. And the public loses interest — they become cynical about if the regulators in Washington can fix any of this, and they don’t exert counter political pressure to get meaningful reforms in place.”

Full transcript available here.

Proposition 32 would stop unions from engaging in political activity while letting corporations do as much of it as their little hearts desire.

The so-called "Stop Special Interest Money Now Act" is not what it seems. It's really the Special Exemptions Act, intentionally written to create special exemptions for billionaire businessmen, wealthy CEOs, Wall Street investors, and more.

Don't let them gain even more power to write their own set of rules.

Who is pushing for these "Special Exemptions"?

Thomas Siebel, the billionaire founder of Siebel Systems, just dropped $500,000 on the pro-side. That’s pocket lint for Siebel, who is worth $1.8 billion, after he sold his company to Oracle for $5.9 billion in 2005.

Politically, Siebel may own the crown for Best Political Rally Intro Ever with his 2008 flourish for GOP VP candidate Sarah Palin. Or, as he referred to her: “The embodiment of pure, unadulterted good.” Really.

Here's how Siebel introduced Palin in 2008:

“Sarah Palin represents the best in each and every one of us,” he told the crowd, calling her ”an optimist, thoughtful, energetic, engaging … the embodiment of pure, unadulterated good.”

”Talk about change, my goodness, the world will never be the same,” said Siebel.

But he didn’t stop there.

"Sarah Palin has risen as if from some mythical kingdom of the north. She carries the flag of outrage for the rest of us: the employers who create jobs, the shareholders, the parents, the people who raise children … and the students, the future of America,” he said. ”Sarah Palin carries the flag of outrage for each of us … who cries out, ‘We’re mad as hell, and we’re not going to take it anymore.”

California, vote "NO" on Proposition 32

[Via Michael Moore, Joe Garofoli]

Big money and big media have coupled to create a ‘Disney World’ of democracy in which TV shows, televised debates, even news coverage is being dumbed down, resulting in a public less informed than it should be, says Marty Kaplan, director of USC’s Norman Lear Center and an entertainment industry veteran. In this encore broadcast, Bill Moyers talks with Kaplan about how taking news out of the journalism box and placing it in the entertainment box is hurting democracy and allowing special interest groups to manipulate the system.

Later on the show, Bill talks about Florida Rep. Allen West (R-FL) and shocking modern-day McCarthyism. Wasn’t this lesson already learned?

Transcript:

MARTY KAPLAN: It's all about combat. If every political issue is the combat between two polarized sides, then you get great television because people are throwing food at each other. And you have an audience that hasn't a clue, at the end of the story, which is why you'll hear, "Well, we'll have to leave it there." Well, thank you very much. Leave it there.

BILL MOYERS: And how the ghost of Joe McCarthy is back to haunt America.

SENATOR JOSEPH McCARTHY: They shouldn’t be called Democrats, they should be referred to properly as the Commiecrat Party.

BILL MOYERS: Welcome. How about this: enterprising and intrepid journalism students at Kent State University in Ohio took up our challenge to go to nearby television stations, collect data on the political ads they run and post that information on the Internet. It’s supposed to be public information in the first place.

KENT STATE STUDENT: We had one simple question for management at each station. Should these records be put on line? Three stations refused to be interviewed.

BILL MOYERS: Take a look at the complete Kent State video at our website, BillMoyers.com. We’re counting on other journalism students around the country – and maybe you as well – to follow their example and share the results with us. Meanwhile, on with the show, because as you can see, sometimes the truth reveals itself in the darnedest places. In an old movie, for example – one you saw some years ago, forgot, and then, by chance, happen on it again to discover that times have changed, and movies, too. But certain things never change: they just cost more.

Here’s what I mean: remember Eddie Murphy twenty years ago in The Distinguished Gentleman? That’s the term by which members of Congress address each other, no matter how disreputable their conduct.

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Occupation of the United States Capitol on January 17, 2012 will Highlight Corruption in America’s
Political System

Harnessing the considerable power of the Occupy Wall Street movement, protestors from all over the country are being called to participate in "Occupy Congress" next week. It is the next stage in the widespread public protest that began last September in New York.

On January 17th, an Occupy "Call to Action" urges protestors to convene beginning at 9 a.m. EST on the West Front Lawn at Capitol Hill in an effort to bring the movement's message to the doorstep of Congressional lawmakers.

Rallying against corporate greed and corruption, the "99 percent" will arrive on Martin Luther King's birthday weekend to participate in a day of organized protests. According to the Occupy Congress website, the day's activities will include Teach-ins, an Open Mic, a Multi-Occupation General Assembly, Idea Sharing Sessions, and a DC Voting Rights Vigil. The day will end with an "OCCUParty."

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