Transcripts For MSNBCW The Ed Show 20141211

A good idea. Merry christmas. Good to have you with us tonight, folks. Thanks for watching. Okay, democrats, liberals, progressives. Lets saddle up and lets be clear about this and not leave anybody in the dust. There is no budget that anybody can come up with in washington that would be good if it sets the table for the robert barons on wall street to do exactly what they did in 2008. Why in the world would this country take that risk again. We start tonight with another possible government shutdown. This time republicans, theyre handing out risky gifts to big banks on wall street. Democrats not happy about this at all, at least some. This could result in another government shutdown. Another 25 billion or maybe more. Later tonight the house is expected to vote on a spending bill that repeals a key provision of dodd frank called the swaps pushout rule. The bill passed a procedural vote earlier today, and the vote is currently stalled. Democratic leader nancy pelosi says the delay is proof republicans dont have the votes and they better not have the votes. What budget could we have as a country to function if we took care of everything and we gambled with the future. President obama shockingly said today that he supports the spending billioning that this is in there. What . However, its not clear whats going to happen in the senate. Maybe since we still have the majority in the senate we can stop this thing, put this on their watch when they get control because this is a bad call for the democrats to have their mitts on it. The swaps pushout rule makes big banks separate the riskiest part of their trading from the fdicinsured accounts. That means if risky trades fail like they did in 2008 we need a refresher course it wont crash the insured part of the business. It also means you, the taxpayer wouldnt have to pick up the tab for risky, reckless behavior on wall street. I thought we had enough of that. Earlier today john boehner was asked about this provision in the spending bill. Why should big banks be able to trade derivatives and have their risks covered by us, for the taxpayers. Why should they be able to do that . I dont believe that to be the case. Jessica . I dont believe that your description of this is the case. Sounds like he went to the Dick Cheney School of communication on that one. A great nonresponse, a nonanswer from the speaker of the house. I would like to know exactly how Speaker Boehner interprets repealing this key provision of dodd frank. One of the key democrats leading the charge to protect dodd frank is senator Elizabeth Warren. On wednesday night senator warren said this is all about republicans helping out their buddies on wall street. This is a basic safety and soundness provision and it only applies to just a handful of the biggest Financial Institutions in this country. So whats really going on here . Well, they can make more money if they can do all of this business under the umbrella of their insured operations. They want the american taxpayers to subsidize their risk taking. Theyll take all of the profits when it works and push losses off on everyone else if it blows up. Oh, the big get bigger and they just get to do whatever they want, right . Sounds pretty familiar. Dont forget in 2008 the american taxpayer bailed out wall street to the tune of 700 billion. How can we forget that . This is why we did dodd frank. The provision will prevent another massive taxpayer funded bailout on wall street. This is a handout to the big banks. Senator warren made this clear earlier again today. To Republican Leaders in the house, i would ask this, you say youre against bailouts on wall street. Ive heard you say it again and again for five years. So why in the world are you spending your time and your energy fighting for a provision written by citigroup lobbyists that would increase the chance of future bailouts . Why in the last minute as you head out the door and a spending bill must be passed are you making it a priority to do wall streets bidding. Who do you work for . Wall street or the American People . The fact citigroup literally wrote the provision is absurd, donts you think . This is what happens when big money buys big lobbyists in washington, d. C. , the banks own the senate. Despite the crash of 2008, this country hasnt learned anything. To reverse the roles here a little bit. To put it in street terms or very basic sense here. Okay, businesses. Youve been in business before, you invest in products you invest in services and you invest in brands and personnel. Thats what,es do. Sometimes you lose, sometimes you dont sometimes they win. What about you and i . You the viewer and i. What do you say you and i go to las vegas to gamble in the hottest casino out there . We have chase. We have citigroup, wells fargo and bank of america. Theyll back us up, right . None of the banks will be covering our gambling losses in vegas. Basically what we have here is wall street. They are betting big with your tax dollars and now elected officials might let them get away with it. Its wrong and the bill should not pass. I dont care how sweet the budget is, and i dont care how many caveats are in there or how many deal can be cut, congress cannot set the table for wall street to run amok again, we were on the verge of this country having a total financial collapse, worse than the depression and we want to go back to that . You see, the republicans, they want no regulation. They want no regulation because the boys on wall street line their back pockets when it comes to reelection time. Get your cell phones out. I want to know what you think, tonights question, do you think its acceptable for citigroup lobbyists to write laws . Text a for yes, text b for no to 67622. Chief a comment on our blog at ed. Msnbc. Com and ill bring you the results later in the show. Congresswoman Maxine Waters of california who sits on the Financial Services committee. Congresswoman, good to have you with us tonight. I appreciate your time. I know youre in the middle of this fight. Im just delighted to be here, ed, and i love the description that you opened the show with. Youre right on. Thats exactly whats happening and theres an attempt to give a big gift to wall street. Weve got to stop it. All right. Do they have the votes . Where is this at this hour, congresswoman . Well, i can tell you where it is. First of all, we had a whip mighting with the Democratic Caucus and the democrats were fired up to fight this and not allow the banks to come in here and wield that kind of influence. We said we were not going to back to where we were before 2008. Were not going to put our families at risk and were not going to have all these foreclosures and were not going to bring this country to the brink of the depression. So they were up on it and we left there and went to vote on the rule. We came within two votes of losing the rule that determines how you take up the bill and since that time unfortunately, we are getting our members who are targeted and who are getting called and who are getting lobbied from so many people including the president of the United States who has decided that he would have this bill no matter what. Its wrong again, what you find is the big banks are saying to the members of congress, we rule this. We know how to get you when your back is up against the wall at the 11th hour. Were going come in and were going to insist that were able to do this risky trading and not push out this Derivatives Trading that weve been doing so that the american taxpayers dont have to back it up, and so the fight is on. 20 members just left my office. Were organizing. Okay. Are there some republicans who are against this. We dont know if there are republicans that are against this, but we are being told that the republicans dont have their numbers to put this bill out for different reasons. You have some right wing republicans and the Tea Party Republicans who are trying to del with the president on immigration. They are supposedly not going to support the bill and the Republican Leadership are sending a signal that they need the dechl democrats in order to put this bill out. If we put this bill out with the republicans then we certainly have abandoned all of those people out there who depend on us and are looking for us to stand up to democratic values. We cannot do this. You just heard josh ernst in the last hour on the set. We are urging the democrats to take this deal. Why is the president so adamant to put wall street and our economy at risk just to get a budget deal. What do you make of it . You know, it is baffling and i think perhaps maybe he thins s he has to do this in order to keep the government open and the fact of the matter is if they dont have the votes we can force them to take this mess out of the bill and come back with a bill that we can have a bipartisan agreement in. We shouldnt be resisting and fighting and thling them if you need democratic votes to put this bill out youre not going to get it. Thats the only way to bring them back to the table. Congresswoman Maxine Waters. Good to have you with us tonight. I appreciate your time. Let me bring in bernie sanders, independent senator from vermont. Well, senator, here we go again. Weve seen this movie before, but i think the shocking thing in all of this is that the white house is telling house members to take the deal. Whats your reaction to that. Well, i think what they are afraid of is a threemonth continuing resolution and the republicans then control the future of the budget and thats what they worry about, but i think what Elizabeth Warren and Maxine Waters said is absolutely right. Look, the illegal behavior on wall street caused this horrendous recession to deregulate again, to force the taxpayers to have to protect these wild speculations makes zero sense to me and that provision has got to go out, but ed, let me also tell you there are other aspects of this bill that are equally bad. Should we as a nation which has so many unmet needs. Kids cant afford to go to college and kids graduating, and a crumbling infrastructure and the disaster and the need to transform the, and should we spend 60 of the discretionary money in the military and in that bill is 600 billion for the military and laying the groundwork in the middle east. Furthermore, we bailed out wall street and you made that point. You know what is also in this bill is a real attack on work s workers pensions and you have workers in this country who have worked decades and decades with the expectation that theyll have say decent pension and this bill lays the groundwork for saying to those workers, by the way, we changed our mind and were cutting the pension by 30 or 50 . I understand its hard. The republicans are negotiating and they want to protect the rich and its true, but we can do better than the agreement than we presently have. Say it passes in the house, senator. Where is it in the senate . The democrats still have the majority. The president wants the budget. Will there be enough democrats to say no to this . I will say a very, very loud no, ed, but i cant give you the answer. I dont know how many others will do that. You clearly would vote against it. Absolutely. Look, again. Its tough negotiating and theyre only half the negotiators and there are so many onerous provisions and i think the American People want us to do better and believe they should do better. The 585 billion of military spending, its reported that a good portion of that is going to be to train tirian moderates for operations in iraq and afghanistan. Now we as americans, its look were going down two roads that weve been down before that didnt turn out very well. And i know that and its not a good proportion. Its 580 bill onis a massive amount of money. Its not a huge amount, but what it does is it lays the predicate for us to be continuously involved, forever, it seems to me, for a neverending period in these bloody wars in the middle east, but the other issue is if you look at the military budget, huge cost overruns. Huge amount of fraud with the defense contractors. We need a Strong Defense and we need a Strong National guard, but i dont think we need to spend close to 600 billion. Were spending almost as much as the rest of the world combined and enough is enough. We have unmet needs in this country that weve got to address. Finally, back to the dodd frank. In your opinion, how important is that to keep that in there and to make sure that the democrats hold the line on this because what budget would be worth what weve been through before. Exactly. Exactly. This is, you know, the American People were furious. They had to bail out wall street because of their illegal, reckless activity and now wall street is saying, oh, yeah, we would like to go back to where we were before. We would like to have all of this wild speculation and derivatives and if it fails and you made that point, if it wins, we make a lot of money. If it fails taxpayers, thanks very much, youre there for us. No, we dont want to go back to that path. Senator bernie sanders, good to have you with us tonight. Appreciate your time. Remember to answer tonights question there at the bottom of the screen and share your thoughts on twitter and ed show and likous facebook. Thanks for that. You have a lot to say about the good old days of wall street, deregulation. Coming up, conservative utopia. Remember the stories in detroit. Detroit exits bankruptcy. Tonight well show you who picked up the tab. Plus dick cheneys back and hes throwing more verbal bombs. Admiral joe sestak who is in military intelligence will tell us what he thinks of all of this. Well be right back. Why do i take metamucil everyday . Because it helps me skip the bad stuff. Im good. Thats what i like to call, the meta effect. 4in1 multihealth metamucil now clinically proven to help you feel less hungry between meals. Experience the meta effect with our new multihealth wellness line. I love my Meta Health Bars. Because when nutritious tastes this delicious, i dont miss the other stuff. New Meta Health Bars help promote heart health. Experience the meta effect with female announcer sleep trains is ending soon or 3 event get three years interestfree financing on beautyrest black, stearns foster, serta icomfort, even tempurpedic. Plus, get free delivery, free setup, and free removal of your old mattress, and sleep trains 100day low price guarantee. But hurry sleep trains interest free for 3 event is ending soon. Guaranteed sleep train your ticket to a better nights sleep shyou see this right . Its 80 confidence and 64 knee brace. Thats more. Shh. I know thats more than 100 . But thats what winners give. Now bicycle kick your old 401 k into an ira. I know, i know. Listen, just get td ameritrades rollover consultants on the horn. Theyll guide you through the whole process. Its simple. Even she could do it. Whatever, janet. For all the confidence you need. Td ameritrade. You got this. Welcome back to the ed show, whats trending and whats hot, whats not. ed show, get my podcast on itunes. Its free 24 7 and you can get it at ring of fire radio. Com. Ed show social media nation has decided. We are reporting. Here are todays top trenders voted on by you. Its a sweater. The number three trender, oh, christmas sheep. We spotted the stylish ship and brought him to the humane society. He was wearing the softest, most beautiful sweater. I dont think its a wool sweater. I think its acrylic. He didnt buy the sweater himself. A festive farm animal is reunited with his family. The sheeps name is gauge. Hes an indoor sheep. It was like losing my kid. I was scared and didnt know what to do. This is the first time gauge has gone on the lam. It is clear hes happy to be home. Vw victory. Vw says the company lz verified that the uaw has signed up at least 45 of the plants employees. Hope it sticks. The 45 number now entitles the union to have regular facetoface meetings with management. The uaw gets a big win over republican obstruction. The election in february was heavily tainted by outside influences. Ive been fairly outspoken and i think its a negative. Its about one thing. Its about money and its about power. I am now part of the uaw who gives workers a say. In todays top trender. Did the ends just my the means . Absolutely. We asked the agency to go take steps and put in place programs that were designed to catch the bastards that killed 3,000 of us on 9 11 and to make sure it didnt happen again and thats exactly what they did. Cheney throws bush under the bus over the torture report. The report suggests that president obama was not fully briefed on the program. Not true. He was, in fact, an integral part of the program. He had to approve it before we went forward to it. I think he knew everything he needed to know and wanted to know about the program. I think what meaded to be done was done. I think we were perfectly justified in doing it and i would do it again in a minute. Joining me tonight is joe sestak, retired navy admiral who worked in intelligence and former congressman from pennsylvania. Congressman, good to have you with us tonight. Good to be with you. Dick cheney, you bet. Mr. Cheney, very critical of the report and he admits he didnt read it. Does that surprise you and how accurate is what hes saying, in your opinion . It doesnt surprise me. I think Vice President cheney had already established what his position would be. Ever since we went into iraq, that tragic misadventure, that and the means we use to extract intelligence from terrorists that we gathered around the world, he just wants to justify, i think hes wrong. If hes wrong, for no other reason, ed, that it exposes our military members overseas to torture. They might be liable to it today, but this now permits others to say you did it. What do you mean we cant . Thats one of the real tragedies about this. Cheney says that bush was not only aware of the program, but he approved it before he went forward. Whats your reaction to that . Well, if president obama did not know about it, i think that says a lot on its own. Hes captain of the ship. He should not whats happening, but that said, i think the real effort here by the Vice President is to try just to cement the entire Bush Administrations legacy as a whole, that everybody was responsible for it, but, you know, im not going to judge anything on my opinion about what Vice President cheney has to say. Okay. How accurate is this . One of the claims is that no one involved in the enhanced interrogation programs were interviewed by the senate. What does that mean, as you see it . Well, heres what i think. I think this report by the Senate Committee is a good report, but its far from a perfect report, ed. I think they should have, in a perfect world, interviewed individuals as well as looked at the douchlt, but heres what i think it says the most of, this is hindsight. It is not oversight and thats what this Intelligence Committee should have been doing as this was going on. If anything, this report speaks to is where was the oversight by congress in this effort, when it was happening as well as other efforts. I can remember being on the Arms Services committee in congress and for four years while i was on it and iraq was happening there was not one hearing on the war in iraq. Whats that saying about oversight by congress . Well, it seems to me that the Bush Administration had the just right where they of theed them and had the lawyers saying exactly ma they wanted to say and people in the Intel Committee that werent curious enough and were believing everything that was said by the cia and these guys were given a free rein. Go ahead. That next to last point was an excellent one. What i found at times was that those Congress Members and be it transportation, be it intelligence or Arms Services were coopted by the professionals so to speak within the agencies. Theyre great. Theyre heroes, but at the same time theyve got their programs to protect and move forward. I think at times, particularly seeing how many Congress Members then go to lobby, so to speak, then you have to understand that maybe the oversight is also part of the representatives being coopted by those within agencies. As a former military man and an expert and an admiral, does it whats your reaction when you hear dick cheney come out and say when you know torture is wrong, he denies it and he plays on the emotions of the American People, they killed 3,000 americans and calls them bastard and we had to do what we had to do and we protected and didnt get hit again. All right. Thats true. We were mad and we wanted to get justice, but the fact is now we have to live with the way the arena was set up. And what this is going to do to our personnel worldwide right now, isis is cutting peoples heads off and this is getting elevated and where does it end, admiral . Ed, what you most want and whenever crisis happens in the military is a cool head. Someone who can rise up above the emotions because usually the first word in any conflict is wrong that comes back and you need someone who can think through the longterm implications. Look, the reason so many of our judge advocate core in the military, and our lawyers opposed the use of torture was for exactly the reasons you said. It opens up us to it even more in the future. I am grateful, though that transparency has finally come about too farr long the road and anything that our government does, as long as it doesnt harm the National Security should be open to sun light and say thats not who we are. Were better than that. I remember at the time, senator joe biden at the time talking about how we had to protect our military personnel around the world and we dont torture because we dont want our people tortured and now look where we are. I also remembered in 2006 when nancy pelosi got the gavel and the democrats took over the house, the left in the country was adamant about bush being impeached and i just wonder if the democrats tonight when they read this report, if they knew back then what they knew right now would they be in favor of impeaching bush and cheney and bringing them up on war crimes because theyre all saying that this is such a tight report and its very accurate footnoted by 38,000 notes. Admiral joe sestak, good to have you with us tonight. I appreciate your time. Thanks so much. You bet. A major American City climbs out of bankruptcy. Millions of people are still hurting and tonight the real story behind detroit and later, a badger bolts to the nfl. Twominute drill on the way. Your questions next on ask ed live and were back on the ed show on msnbc. Siest airports in the country. We operate just like a city, and that takes a lot of energy. We use natural gas throughout the airport for heating the entire terminal, generating electricity onsite, and fueling hundreds of vehicles. Were very focused on reducing our environmental impact. And natural gas is a big part of that commitment. Im spending too much timer our calhiringer. And not enough time in my kitchen. Need to hire fast . Go to ziprecruiter. Com and post your job to over 30 of the webs leading job boards with a single click; then simply select the best candidates from one easy to review list. You put up one post and the next day you have all these candidates. Makes my job a lot easier. Over 100,000 businesses have already used zip recruiter and now you can use zip recruiter for free at a special site for tv viewers; go to ziprecruiter. Com offer99. We have a serious hairball issue. We clean it up, turn around, and there it is again. Its scary. Little bit in my eye. [ michelle ] underneath the kitchen table, underneath my work desk, weve got enough to knit a sweater. [ doorbell rings ] zach, what is that . The swiffer sweeper. The swiffer dusters. Its some sort of magic cloth that sucks in all the dog hair. Its quick and easy. Pretty amazing that it picked it all up. I would totally take on another dog. [ kevin ] really . Welcome back to the ed show, appreciate the questions from our viewers in our ask ed live segment. Our first question comes from tejbir. Ed, where in the world were you yesterday . I missed youed. Oh, tej, you would sht want to be where i was yesterday. I had the 24hour bug. I got a flu shot a few days ago and had a reaction to it. It might have been it. I hope thats not the case, but that was not good. Just a sick day, you know what i mean . Our next question is from maria. She wants to know will dick cheney now be indicted for war crimes . No. It wont happen and thats the sad thing of it all as i see it. Stick around. Rapid Response Panel is next. Im kate rogers with your cnbc market wrap. Stocks gained ground and end off session highs today and the dow climbed 63 points and the s p adds nine and it rises 24 help retail sales were stronger than expected. Core sales, which exclude food and gas were up 6 , thanks to falling prices and increased spending on clothing. The number of americans filing for firsttime jobless claims fell more than expected last week. Filings dropped 3,000 to 294,000. Thats it from cnbc, were first in business worldwide. We have the technology. And we have the team. We made over 15 billion successful deliveries last year. 15 billion football has a season. Baseball has a season. This is our season. Fyour everyday dishes will only go so far. Literally. You had to go deep into the cupboard. Embarrassingly deep. Can this mismatched mess be conquered. By a little bit of dish liquid . It can if its dawn ultra. Its more concentrated. Just one bottle has the grease cleaning power of two bottles of this bargain brand. Heres to the overextended family gathering. Dawn, its amazing what a drop can do. Wouldnt it be great if hiring plumbers, shopping online is as easy as it gets. Carpenters and even piano tuners were just as simple . Thanks to angies list, now it is. Start shopping online from a list of toprated providers. Visit angieslist. Com today. Were for an opens you internet for all. Sing. Were for creating more innovation and competition. Were for Net Neutrality protection. Now, heres some news you may find even more surprising. Were comcast. The only isp legally bound by full Net Neutrality rules. Welcome back to the ed show, conservatives finally get their utopia. Today the city of detroit exited bankruptcy under the approved resolution, detroit will reduce its debt by 7 billion. Just like that. Its amazing. Over 5 billion of the debt comes from leaving retirees out in the cold. I want to recognize the retirees who are taking some cuts through this. That shouldnt be forgotten. This was because people worked together. We had a unique outcome that is very positive in a very, very difficult situation. But people did make sacrifices. Lets cut to the chase. Retirees are getting flatout cheated here. Once again, the least who can do it are doing the most. The resolution cuts pensions and helps benefits for detroits retired workers. What did they do wrong . Governor snyder ordered to clear the way for privatization. Now these guys are celebrating the Great Success of a blankfeinable slate after screwing workers. Thats what it is. Bankruptcy leaves businesses with a clean slate. Bankruptcy leaves cities with communities in ruin and thats what we have here. In detroit, the Unemployment Rate is double the state average. Property value has plummeted. The city is hemorrhaging residents. Residents still face water shutoffs. What a turnaround, governor. Kevin orr officially surrenders control of spending and operations today and make no mistake, authorities still havent completely shifted over to elected officials. All of the authority that they need. A Financial Commission made primarily of state appoint sees have Oversight Authority and the commission could stay in control for the next 13 years. A little caveat there. Kevin orr hopes the radical legislatures stranglehold wont end with his departure. My concern really is in the long term that people forget the lessons that oui learned over the past almost two years and start developing bad habits again. Yeah. The lessons, hate unions and dont pay workers too much. Joining me tonight on the rapid Response Panel and michael eric dyson, professor of Georgetown University and msnbc political analyst and the detroit homeowner and political activist. Both of you gentlemen with detroit ties. Good to have you with us tonight. Lee, whats the reaction in detroit to governor snider and kevin orr, basically patting themselves on the back for this big turnaround as if theres no hurt in the community. Whats the reaction . The criminal activity thats been going on, you know, and them celebrating like this is a good thing for pensioners that we came to the table and sacrificed, they were threatened and coerced into making decisions that were not in their best interest, and Governor Snyder fails to acknowledge the fact that those same taxpayers that he just stole money from to give to wall street billionaires, those same taxpayer gave the state of okay and none of that money made its way to detroit to stimulate the economy here and put those people to work to stimulate those tax dollars and that money went to shore up their financial inconsistencies and starve detroit of the immediate revenue they needed to make and pay its bills and under that, detroit didnt miss a single debt payment until the state came in and took over and put kevin orr in who then made a unilateral decision not to pay any of the citys debt which then forced the bankruptcy. That was off the table. And at the same time, kevin orr lives in a 2,000 a week penthouse for the money that he spent in the last two years living in penthouses and eating caviar he could have bought a house in detroit and helped revitalize the community that he says he cares so much about. Professor dyson whats your reaction to this . This pays for privatization and squeezes out minority community, doesnt it . It does and its very shameful, i think, in light of the fact that detroit has been such duress that the billions of dollars that the monies that were spent in the effort to somehow reconstitute the infrastructure economically and financially detroit could have gone toward paying down the debt and, b, preserving the pensions that have now been sacrificed on the altar of this privatization and reorganization financially of the city. So the very people that were meant to be benefited by this who should be advantaged by this are the ones who are taking the, un, the biggest cut so to speak and those people can ill afford that. We didnt look at what corporations in the city can do. We didnt look at what major Financial Institutions might be able to contribute. We did it on the backs of the very poor people and thats a shameful legacy and one thats dangerous because it will happen to other cities, as well. That is the key. I mean, it was picking on the poorest people. They had to serve it up. Lee, whats the future look like for detroits retirees of strong deal with this . Erred, i dont know how they expect people to live off of the money that they were promised, right . When the bailout happened on wall street those contracts for those ceos were sank ro safrnif, and when it comes to the most Vulnerable People in our community, our seniors and those contracts can be broken at will and they can be shifted to millionaires and billionaires. It will be millionaires and billionaires downtown and getting sweet heard deals and getting land for a dollar and being able to get exclusive vending rights to sell, to the suburbanites who come in to frequent those establishments downtown and the city that held it together for the last 40 years will be forced to continue to pay even though theyre the ones that should be receiving the benefits of any benefits that come out of this bankruptcy, the citizens of detroit who held it together should be benefitting from it and not those that decided to show up and buy low and sell high. We just cant let cities fall apart like this. We cant turn our back on american citizens. All those retirees, they paid their taxes and they abided by the laws. They did exactly what they were supposed to do and now they have to pay the price. And also, and it was a real mistake. And also the city is paying the price because if you look at it, last week we had a complete blackout of downtown because we refused to make an investment in the infrastructure in the form of tax dollars. As long as we keep giving more and more businesses tax breaks to move in our infrastructure will continue to drum bell and not only just in detroit, but the state roads are shambles and this legislature and this corporatecontrolled legislature refused to tax themselves to pay for the infrastructure they need to bring their goods, services and employees to market. Rick snyder, the politico reports the governor will tour the country to talk about the bankruptcy as he looks toward 2016. Dr. Dyson, whats your take on that . This is the model, isnt it, for big cities . It is the model and shameful again because conservative financing is built upon the austerity thats imposed on the very poor who are least capable of observing it and rich and happy times for those who were up top. The redistribution of wealth upward into the coffers of corporation and massive financial interests are the powerful story of what happened in detroit and the tragedy is that the vulnerable will be made more vulnerable. When floods and hurricanes come, weve helped people and when economic strive and job losses there, we just turn our back on them. I think thats wrong and michael eric dyson, its good to have you both back tonight. Still to come, americas biggest employer is slapped down for intimidating employees. The story ahead. Keep it here. Well be right back. Account. Before he opened his first hot chocolate stand calling winter an underserved season. And before he quit his friends leafraking business for not offering a 401k. 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First they lose their coach. Harry anderson leads the Wisconsin Badgers going to oregon state and its the right move and Melvin Gordon and wisconsins old world plans to enter the 2015 nfl draft and the junior from kenosha, wisconsin, rushed for 336 yards this year. 29 touchdowns and hell close it out for the badgers and against the outback bowl on january 1st and the ninth overall prospect in the draft. He should win the heisman and he should be a number one pick. Ed show coming right back at you. Stay with us. And unlocks the door when i forget my keys. Its just that. I feel like hes always watching us. Yes, that is why we should use wink. Look, it can monitor and manage our house but it wont start to develop human emotions. Hey buddy. Control your entire home with one simple app introducing wink its like a robot butler, but not as awkward. Oh and could you turn on air conditioning im starting to sweat. Ill just do it myself. Useless. Thats nice. Sets the mood. Have your entire house within reach, even when your devices arent. Introducing relay by wink its like a robot butler, but not as awkward. Thanks. [ male announcer ] fedex® has solutions to enable Global Commerce that can help your company grow steadily and quickly. Great job. mandarin cut it out. See you tomorrow. Welcome back to the ed show. This is the story for the folks who take a shower after work. A National Labor Relations Board judge has handed a big victory to walmart workers. They ruled walmart managers at two California Stores unlawfully threatened and punished employees trying to organize. A unionbacked group of walmart employees called our walmart filed the complaint with the labor board. It details actions in richmond and placerville, california. One manager told employees, if it were up to me, id shoot the union. The judge ruled walmart had unlawfully disciplined six richmond employees for engaging in a oneday strike back in 2012. And management had improperly prohibited other employees from talking to those six workers. Walmart says it will appeal parts of the ruling to the full labor board in washington, adding, quote, we do not agree with some of the Administrative Law judges conclusions. Joining me tonight, robert greenwald, who directed the 2005 documentary walmart the high cost of low price. And also with us tonight, martha cellars, a walmart employee and member of our walmart. Martha, you first. What does this ruling mean to the workers of walmart, that something has been done, a declaration has been made that has come down on the side of the workers. What do you make of it . Its a victory. It validates what we do is legal and protected by law. So we can all stand together and make walmart a great place to work, a great place for the economy. Im thrilled. Were you subject to any intimidation, did you have any friends that went through hell . I had a lot of friends go through hell. Personally, ive just had my hours cut. But thats enough. Ive had three terminated from my store. I dont know how im still there. You think that youre going to be able to stay there in the wake of this . As long as i keep fighting and as long as im the model employee, yes, i still have a job. Mr. Greenwald, this is just the latest example of illegal retaliation by walmart. Whats it going to take for these workers, or should i say walmart to start listening to the workers and the workers to be effective when it comes to fairness in the employment arena . What do you make of it . Well, i think the work that our walmart is doing and the workers who are courageous in standing up, and as we just heard, having their hours cut, people fired, but it is now official. It is illegal intimidation. Walmart is once again breaking the law. Many laws that theyve broken over the years, from environmental laws, to driving Small Businesses out of business, to taking overtime away from workers. But its going to take the continued organizing and every single one of us, supporting our walmart. This year, there was protests at over a thousand walmarts. Thats a tremendous achievement. We have to build on that, keep going and call them out. Martha, what do you think employees are going to do now . What do you think the reaction to this is going to be amongst the employees nationwide . This is a very unique ruling against walmart and the way theyve treated employees. Im hoping it will take the fear out of them. Walmarts culture is fear. Fear of retaliation. So this is proof theyve been retaliating against illegally. So i hope it motivates people to speak out finally. Walmarts been getting away with this for 50 years. Its our turn to put it back on the workers so that we can earn a decent living. Do they train their managers to be hard on people . I dont know the manager training, but i would imagine, the power goes to their head. What do you think will result of this . Do you think theres a chance that our walmart will push this company to do more for workers . Yes, we will. When more workers stand up and say, this is wrong, this is wrong, its wrong for me. Its going to be wrong for my grandchildren and every elses grandchildren. If its this bad now, how bad is it going to get ten years from now . Mr. Greenwald, you did this in 2005. Did you know this kind of stuff was going on when comments were being made about shooting the union . Yes. When we did the film and we investigated, we found out that walmart was hiring law firms, were putting up videos, intimidating their workers against talking to unions, threatening them, as martha said, creating a culture of fear. This is systemic. Its not one manager here or there, its in the dna of the company. Its built into the waltons, the walton family, which makes 8 million a day without working, unlike martha. Theyre not working for the money. And thats an important point to make. We have to support people like martha, keep organizing and keep calling out what they are doing and how they are doing it. Fortunately, the law is beginning to work in favor of those who are doing the right things. This is one of the reasons why Lamar Alexander from tennessee, when they get the majority in the senate, they want to get rid of the National Labor Relations Board. If that were to happen, what avenue do these workers have . Well, they will have the avenue of protests, of economic pressure, of continuing to organize in different ways. But obviously, ed, that would be a tragedy and something that we will work and try and fight against happening. But look, these workers are strong. Like martha, theyre fearless, theyre tough, theyre speaking up, theyre losing their jobs, theyre having their hours cut. But they wont be silenced. A thousand protests, thats a big, big deal. Martha, dont you feel that this is the time to protest now that youve got a legal ruling to your side . Absolutely. We need to do something large to follow this up with. Well, this should set the stage for some more protests and some more people stepping up against walmart and sticking up for the workers. This is a big ruling, lets see where it all goes. Its going to be appealed of course by the company. Great to have both of you with us tonight. I appreciate your time. We will follow the story. I will not be here tomorrow night. Its going to be michael eric dyson. We have a big weekend coming up in our family. Kelsey and our son dave will be married on saturday. And tomorrow night we have the rehearsal dinner and we have got the rehearsal. We cant forget that. We got to get that right, rev. Go got to have the rehearsal, then the wedding and its going to be a great weekend. Thats the ed show. Politicsnation with reverend al sharpton starts right now. Good evening, rev. Have a great weekend, i will tell the marchers you couldnt be there because of family business. True family business, brother, thank you. Thank you, ed, and thanks to you for tuning in, where we start tonight with breaking news in washington. Senator Elizabeth Warren and House Democrats leading a dramatic fight to stop a giveaway to the big banks. Tonight, just six hours before potential government shutdown, a gop attempt to ram through a spending bill that guts the doddfrank financial reformas