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God, Bill Maher, GOP, Abramoff & More (Transcript) Cenk: Welcome to the point everybody we got
another great show ahead for you guys. On tonight's show, former lobbyist and convicted
felon Jack Abramoff is gonna tell us how you buy politicians and how the system is broken,
and then comedian Dean Obeidallah is gonna ask "Hey, if God is behind four different
Republicans, who's he really supporting?" It seems a little confusing, we'll try to
sort that out. Then finally, Bill Maher got in some trouble for a tweet that he sent about
Tim Tebow, we'll certainly be talking about that as well. Joining me on the panel is Richard
Eskow he's with campaign for America's Future, blogs at the Huffington Post, one of the most
popular bloggers there. Ana Kasparian, fellow host at the TYT, also the host of TYTUniversity,
also seen on Current, on The Young Turks. Michael Shure, seen daily on Current as well,
The Young Turks, and the host of 2012 on the TYT network. Got a lot of hosts here. So let's
get started, first point sent in by Jack Abramoff, former lobbyist and convicted felon, let's
be honest, but he knows how to fix the system, and basically he's gonna tell us how.
Jack: Hello, my name is Jack Abramoff, and thank you for having me on The Point. You
know I used to be a lobbyist in Washington DC, I used to work on K Street, and we all
used to go up on Capitol hill to get everything we wanted for our clients. Many of our clients
and many of the clients in Washington are special interests, and some are general interests,
but the fact is lobbyists have far too much ability to sway members' votes. One of the
reasons lobbyists have such a great ability to sway members' votes in Congress is because
many of those congressmen eventually want to become lobbyists. They may not call it
lobbyists, they may call themselves strategic advisors or history professors if there's
a certain fellow vying for President. But the fact is, the cashing in on their government
service is something Americans are getting sick of. Whether it's a congressman or senator
or whether it's a staffer, someone has to serve the public needs, to serve the public
then go home, and get a real job. Those in Washington stay in Washington. Americans are
sick and tired of seeing people right here worth ten thousand dollars, and leave worth
ten million dollars. Some of it, and this is perhaps an even sicker part, is that while
they're in office, others as frankly they leave office, they're able to make a fortune,
and I think Americans resent that, because they're making a fortune off of the public
service. So I believe and I've written in my book Capital Punishment, which has come
out, that this needs to stop. We need to close that revolving door, and we need to forever
shutter it so that the Americans once again have faith in their government and Americans
don't view their congress with a 9% approval rating. There are frankly few occupations
in this country that have a 9% approval rating. Congress doesn't know why that is, we need
to tell them why it is and one of the reasons that it is is because they're cashing in.
I hope it'll stop. Thank you very much. Cenk: I didn't think that the day would come
when I "I totally agree with Jack Abramoff", but I do, Ana, and how much do you think the
American public's aware of what he's talking about here.
Ana: Well if you asked me this a year ago, I would tell you not really aware at all,
but as he had mentioned in that video, congress has a 9% approval rating at this point, which
is a record low, and also think about all the Occupy movements. If you watched independent
media interviewing these Occupy protestors a lot of them mentioned this very issue. So
I think that more and more people are catching on to it, but I think the problem is the reason
why the majority of Americans don't know about this issue is because the media is either
clueless on it or they want to protect their corporate interests and not say anything about
it. You know, my mind goes back to a month ago when he had an interview with Leslie Stall,
and during that 60 Minutes interview he was telling her "Yea, I bought Congress, that's
what I did, and I did it all the time" and Leslie Stall was like "Really?" She was so
amazed by that, and it's like really? You are a journalist, you are a very respected
reporter, you don't know that that's going on? I don't know if she was playing stupid
or if you know, they're really that clueless about it.
Cenk: That brings to mind two things, right. One is I remember when Rick Sanchez did a
similar story back when he was still hired by CNN, and he did a story about "Hey look
at this, the senators that are voting on the health care bill are actually getting paid
a ton of money by the health care lobby" and he was like "Whoa!" right, but at least he
did the story, he's the only guy on CNN I've seen do a story on that. Michael I think that's
the driving issue, so Leslie Stall's like "What!? You influence Congressmen!?" and Rick
Sanchez is blown away, and no one else covers it.
Michael: And there are legitimate roots to lobbying. History says it started in the Willard
Hotel in Washington DC. In the 1800's, people used to go in there with their interests,
and the congressman and senators would come into the lobby, literally, and people would
have their conversations on what they wanted to see done. It obviously got perverted a
lot along the way, something happened to the process that totally changed it. Cenk, you
don't agree with Jack Abramoff, Jack Abramoff now agrees with you. There's a big difference
there. People have started to come around, it takes a whistleblower sometimes to see
that change happen, but you know, he doesn't come up with a cure for it, and there are
lots of people who discuss what the cures would be for it, but you know, you have to
be able to have that first amendment protection as well as not have it be sort of bastardized
by the lobbying the way it is now. Cenk: Well, Richard, I have a theory as to
when some of that change began that Michael's referring to. Late 1970's couple of Supreme
Court Decisions, Buckley v. Valeo, and another one where they say "not only does money = speech,
but corporations have the right to speech" and that's before Citizens United, now Citizens
United said they could spend unlimited money on PAC's so that just put it on steroids,
but at that point, look, we've always had rich people, but corporations have unlimited
money that they can bring in to the process. Didn't that really go a long way towards corrupting
it. Richard: Oh, it's all about the money, that's
really what it's all about, and absolutely. So, even if you think about guys who aren't
openly corrupt like maybe there's a Democrat, you kinda like. He goes to Washington all
of the sudden after 2 or 4 years, he's one of those type of corporate politicians. They
spend their whole lives raising money from these people, and these lobbyists are the
guys with the money they're the guys they have to please, they're being programmed day
in and day out to make these people happy. When I worked for Wall Street companies, I
dealt with some of the lobbying divisions of the large corporations and it was just
mind boggling what you'd see just even my little glimpse of it. They just have to chase
money, night and day. Michael: What Richard says is true, but just
by changing campaign finance law, while the two are related that's not gonna change lobbying
law, that's not gonna change what happens. Say you change campaign finance law, saw you
overturn Citizens United, you're still gonna have the corruption of lobbying, you're still
gonna have people going to capitol hill forgetting how much they can give to a candidate or to
a super PAC or anything like that. They're still gonna be paying these people to try
and be strategists to try and go up to the hill and influence the votes.
Cenk: That's exactly what Abramoff is talking about. It was part of my original proposal
for WolfPAC, we set up a super PAC to try to get money out of politics. I dropped it
just because it's too hard, and maybe we'll come back to it another day, but it was what
he's talking about here, and it's I would've put a ten year lobbying ban on anyone who
works in Congress or as a congressman, senator, President, or as a staffer, or as a general
in the Pentagon, because those guys go back and then get huge money from the defense industry.
Richard: When Obama went to Kansas at the sight of Teddy Roosevelt's speech. If you
read Teddy Roosevelt's speech that he gave in Kansas, he said that nobody that works
in government, elected or unelected, should ever work directly or indirectly for corporations,
that they should be two completely different career tracks. So I agree with Michael in
that sense, but just overthrowing Citizens United wouldn't be enough until we have publicly
funded elections, it's gonna be a broken system. Ana: Yea, and you know when it comes to the
revolving door of politics, senator Bennett tried to pass this act that would ban exactly
what you mentioned right now, members of Congress from either retiring or serving their terms
or getting elected out of office then going to work for a corporation of a lobbying group,
and what happened with that act? Absolutely nothing
Cenk: Here's what would happen? Nada, bupkis. Now let me give you guys some examples of
the people who've done this to give you a sense of how bad it is. Here are the guys
who are now employees of Goldman Sachs or paid consultants for them after they left
office. Arthur Levin, for chairman of the SEC, which is supposed to regulate these guys.
Judd Greg, former senator from New Hampshire. *** Gephardt, now Judd Greg's a republican,
*** Gephardt of course a very powerful congressman for the Democrats. Richard Roberts, former
SEC commissioner. Again, Greg Craig, who was one of the good guys in the Obama Administration
now working for Goldman Sachs. So, are you not influenced by the fact that you might
get paid a tremendous amount of money. Of course the guy who's the best example, Billy
Tauzin, so he starts as a democrat, but he doesn't give a damn. He eventually switches
to Republican when they're in power. They're doing the Medicare prescription bill. He writes
the bill totally in favor of the drug companies, leaves office, gets 2 million dollars from
them, and then he finally left as the head of the pharmaceutical companies lobby just
this past year. When he left, he got, I couldn't believe this number, 11.6 million dollars.
Now when you have that kind of financial incentive, Michael, of course you're gonna think about
that. Michael: You also, there's another side to
the story. There's the people that would argue that there has to be some way for these public
servants and go with me for a second here, people who go to Washington who give up these
big salaries, Billy Tauzin maybe could've worked for Goldman Sachs many years previously,
takes a federal wage and then he wants to come out into the real world and make some
money, a lot of these people never made money in their lives until they leave Congress.
There has to be a way of giving them a boundary as well where people can go to Congress and
then can get a job it doesn't have to be a job where you go lobby Congress, that's all.
You just can't have anything to do with strategizing or lobbying. That should be simple.
Richard: They make, what is it now? 173 thousand dollars a year, that's not millions, but it's
not nothing. Michael: It's not nothing, Richard, but there's
a certain level of money that a lot of people want to make, and a lot of people want to
Richard: Then don't be a public servant Michael: Why can't you be both, why can't
you be a public servant and..? Cenk: Because we've got a huge, systemic issue
of corruption here. What Jack Abramoff did that was illegal is not nearly as bad as what
he did that was legal. So Michael I understand where your concern is, right, and sure we
can set up the right boundaries so we can say "You know what? You want to work at your
law firm back at your home state, that has nothing to do with Washington. Of course you
can do that" but I would rather air on the side of caution and say they can't do anything
that relates back to Washington, and then say "Hey, you know what that might screw a
couple of honest guys that would've normally gotten a job, etc. etc." but I mean we gotta
fix the system. Michael: I'm not saying anything very differently,
I'm just saying you shouldn't be allowed to lobby or be a part of a strategic, any kind
of strategic enterprise when it comes to speaking to congress or dealing with Washington. It
should not restrict you from going to work for Goldman Sachs, just by virtue of the fact
that you served in Congress. Cenk: You know, I would probably stretch that
definition longer than you would, but I understand your point. One last point on this so the
audience gets a clear sense of why they do all this lobbying, why they buy all those
politicians. The oil industry spent 110 million dollars lobbying last year. Now that's a lot
of money, right? What do they get back in oil subsidies alone, let along every other
benefit that they get? At least 24 billion dollars a year. You put in a 110 million you
get back 24 billion. That's why you guy these politicians.
Michael: And you're excluding the tax breaks they get as well when you talk about that.
Cenk: Our next point comes from the Dean of comedy, Dean Obeidallah, and he's got an excellent
question about which side is God on in the Republican Race
Dean: Hi, I'm comedian Dean Obeidallah and thanks for having me on The Point, here's
my point. Why in this Presidential campaign with the Republicans fighting each other and
the unbelievable media coverage, why is there one issue not talked about, and that is God.
I don't mean god in general, I mean the fact that four of the Presidential campaign running,
now there's only three left of the four all said that god told them to run for office,
Rick Santorum, Rick Perry, Michelle Bachman, and Herman Cain all said that God told them
to run for President. Yes, the same god that created the earth said let there be light
and then there was light, told these People out of 300 million Americans to run for President.
Why doesn't the media ask a question like "Are you crazy?" Let's be honest, if I said
tonight I'm staying home because God told me to stay in and watch Glee people would
slowly back away from me but if you're running for President and you got your finger on the
button that could result in the apocalyptic destruction of our planet it's OK to say that
God talks to you. Here's the weird thing to me, only Republicans say God talks to them,
Appie Kim said it, George Bush said it. Apparently G-o-d loves the GOP, but there are question
I have. First of all, why does God not talk to Democrats, God knows they need their help.
Second, and the bigger question is, if God is going to speak to these four candidates
running for office, why does he not give them the right answer to the questions. They make
mistake after mistake, look at Rick Perry, November 9th debate he couldn't remember the
third government agency he wanted to eliminate. There's a guy dying for divine intervention.
Michelle Bachman not knowing whether evolution started, thinking the founding fathers tried
to end slaver, and of course Herman Cain, you'd think God would remind him that he was
having a 13 year affair with a woman, perhaps. So my question for you is shouldn't the media
be asking people questions, if you're gonna say God spoke to you, when did he speak to
you, what did he tell you, should we be concerned that you have voices in your head? Thanks,
I'm Dean Obeidalla, and you can follow me at deanofcomedy.com
Cenk: Well, Michael, obviously I agree with Dean, and it seems like whenever God talks
to anybody he either tells him to shoot someone or to run for President. He never says like
"do your laundry". Michael: And if you were Michelle Bachman,
wouldn't you be pissed that God also told Rick Santorum and Rick Perry to run, wait
a second, God. You were telling me to run, what were you thinking?
Cenk: I thought we were right there. Richard, what's your theory here. Is he just spreading
out his bets, just in case with these four or isn't he supposed to know how this movie
ends, why's he messing with the other three? Richard: Well, a lot of people don't know
this about God, but he's got a great sense of humor, and he just thought "Why don't I
mess with these people? Why don't I tell them all to run and see what happens" That's why
the theme song for the Republican debate is What if God was One of Us, did you know that?
No, look, who knows? I grew up in two different religious traditions, I was exposed to. In
one of them they said very clearly if you talk to God, you're devout, if God talks to
you you're psychotic. That was one which these people have broken the rule. Then there was
the other, the sort of fundamentalist Christian world, you know it's all relative, they couldn't
decide if they really wanted to get married, well we sat down and we had a talk with Jesus
about it last night. Now they're not schizophrenic, they know that they didn't literally talk
to Jesus, so there's that metaphorical thing, but yea if God told all these people to run,
he's a hell of a kidder. Cenk: And with Michelle Bachman there was,
you know, first God told her to listen to her husband, and he
Ana: To be submissive, right? Cenk: Right, to be submissive to her husband,
who apparently is interested in other people being submissive to him.
Michael: God telling someone to watch Glee. Cenk: Right, anyway, hey everybody. So, and
then he told her to be a tax lawyer, and then apparently God changed his mind and here's
what Bachmann said: "If I felt that's what the lord was calling me to do, I would do
it.. but I will not seek a higher office if God is not calling me to do it." But apparently
at some point he picked up his cell phone and was like "Michelle, it's go time" but
then he called Herman Cain and said quote, this is from Herman Cain, not God: "I prayed
and prayed and prayed, and when I finally realized that it was God saying that this
is what I needed to do. I was like Moses, 'You've got the wrong man, lord. Are you sure?'"
And, you know, I think you got the wrong man, and it turns out, he did have the wrong man.
Michael: Exactly, he got the wrong guy. Ana: I just think it doesn't speak well of
the country when as a political candidate if you mention that you have a close relationship
with God, that God talks to you you're immediately taken seriously, like, it is something that
you need to say, right, and the religion part of politics is the part that really gets on
my nerves because I don't care what kind of relationship you have with God, I wanna know
whether or not your relationship with God is going to affect me, does that mean that
you're gonna be up in my uterus telling me what I can and can't do with my reproductive
health? Does that mean that you're gonna change comprehensive sex education in schools? If
that's the case, then I wanna hear about your religions, otherwise I don't care if God is
talking to you and I don't care if you pray I don't care about it at all, and it's interesting
because if you're a Mormon or if you have a different religion immediately you're cast
off, right, so Mitt Romney gets a lot of grief because of the fact that he's a Mormon, so
did John Huntsman. Cenk: And look, that brings up a second issue,
which is imagine if they said instead of "Hey I talked to God and he told me to do it" they
were like "Yea, so I talked to Allah the other day, and he told me to.....run for office"
Do you think that would work? Michael: This playing field in a country that
is 75, at least 75% Christian, so if you're running for Congress in Massachusetts you're
not gonna say you're a Yankees fan, you're not gonna do the same, you're not gonna say
you're all about Allah if you're here. I did a little digging into the idea of talking
to God, and the way it is equivocated is the people say that this is their calling, in
the same way a chef would say this is my calling, this is what I'm here to do. Michelle Bachmann
and her ilk are saying this is my calling, my calling is to run for President, so we
could say it's God talking to them but they're looking at it in a very religious way that
this is what I've been sent to do. Which doesn't, I don't think it's wacky, and I understand
it. Richard: It's code talk, it's their coded
message to their base saying "I'm one of you. I speak your language" but you know you think
about it over history, the people who were really religious and involved, Gandhi never
said "I talked to God last night" Martin Luther King never said "I talked to God last night"
Michael: He'd been to the mountaintop Richard: He'd been to the mountaintop but
he didn't say God maybe did it. Cenk: No what he would say is "Look at the
example of Jesus" Richard: Exactly
Cenk: You know, here's a guy who's my absolute, my hero of all time, Martin Luther King Jr.
very religious guy, very, has tremendous amount of faith. That isn't the problem, the problem
is as you were pointing out Richard, for someone to come and say "No, I talked to the Picard
and the Picard said to do this" an old Star Trek reference, but seriously I get it if
you Michael: But he wasn't running for President,
he was a reverend, he could say those things as a Reverend, and a little than we're saying
that he said, but certainly he wasn't running for President. Somebody running for President
should it's separation of church and state, Martin Luther King didn't have to worry about
separating anything from anything, he was a reverend.
Cenk: And the other point is, look, I get the faith part that you're talking about Michael,
it's just a way that people say it, they say "I talked to God" or it's their way of saying
that they thought about it and they wanted to make sure that they did the right thing,
but when they get so specific on what God wanted them to do, then I get to thinking
like "How do you know? Are you sure he didn't mean that you should be a plumber?"
Richard: By the way that marriage between my relative and her husband, that didn't work
out either, God gave bad advice in that case too. You know, I think it's a way also of
not taking responsibility for yourself. You and I, we first met because we disagreed a
little bit about atheism, but I think when people say this they're not taking responsibility
for their own decision, They're saying "don't blame me for running, God told me to do it"
Well, you know what? You're trying to be leader of the free world, why don't you take responsibility
for your decisions Ana: Yea, I like that
Cenk: Yea, Richard and I had dueling blogs because I came out really strong against religions,
and you fought back on that so it's funny that we're talking about it again many, many
years later. The last point I have on this is that something that Ana mentioned and Richard
had alluded to, look it's one thing when they get into your business as you said, get into
your uterus which was, interesting and somewhat uncomfortable, but to me the thing that I
care most about is this whole idea of the apocalypse. So you've got these Christian
fundamentalists who think "Well, the way Jesus is gonna come back is if we start Armageddon"
now if you're talking to God, and remember what Bush said according to Jacques Chirac,
he said "God said they're coming out of Iraq" and Chirac said "Who the eff is that?" but
if you're starting wars or you want Armageddon to come about because of your fundamentalist
beliefs, then we got a real problem. All right, for our next point we're gonna
go to Bill Maher, he wrote a tweet about Tim Tebow of course Bill Maher is the host of
Real Time with Bill Maher on HBO, and he's a comedian, apparently people can't figure
that out based on his tweet, so I wanted to fill you in on that. Of course, Tim Tebow
for those of you who don't know hey, welcome to America, is the quarterback for the Denver
Broncos and he prays a lot. he "Tebows" on the sideline. Oh, Jesus. So he was getting
his *** kicked by the Buffalo Bills on Christmas Eve and had thrown about 18 interceptions
when Bill Maher tweeted out "Wow, Jesus just *** Tim Tebow bad! and on Christmas eve!
Somewhere in hell Satan is Tebowing, saying to Hitler 'hey, Buffalo's killing em'" Now,
I found this amusing in several different ways, but apparently a lot of people did not,
and now they're thinking of boycotting HBO to get Bill Maher off, what do you think Richard?
Richard: Well, I think that Bill's only mistake was that he forgot that old addage "The lord
*** those who *** themselves" and if you saw that game, especially the fourth quarter,
you'd know that Tebow did it to himself. So I mean, that's number one, and number two
I'm sick of Tebow's religiosity. I've always been the religious, remember when he used
to wear the eye black with the bible verses on it? Well, I, it's not gonna work, but I
brought see this is Matthew, it's not gonna stick, this is verse, chapter 6, verse 5,
that's me doing my Tebow, and if you don't remember it I'll read you a couple from it
"And when thou prayest thou shalt not be as the hypocrites for they love to pray in the
streets and be seen, but when thou prayest, enter into thy closet, shut thy door and pray
to thy father in secret" Now Tim, you should read your bible a little more often, because
if the Lord came back tonight he'd say "Tebow, put a sock in it"
Cenk: As Ana pointed out before, how many people are following this guy who's starting
the boycott? Ana: So the person who called for the boycott
is this no name guy in fact he's such a no name guy I forget his name right now. And
he literally only has 70 followers on Twitter, so they, I don't know how Fox News found his
tweet, but they took his tweet and they blew it up into a big story. This is not a controversy,
no one's boycotting Bill Maher, in fact, his demographic loves that tweet. So it's not
a big deal, and going back to Tim Tebow's religiosity, I think that it has kind of become
the thing that identifies him, right, it is his identity. This is what made him unique
and this is why he's constantly in the spotlight now. He's a religious guy, he's the guy who
did the anti-choice ad during the super bowl, and I don't think he's gonna step away from
that any time soon. Richard: Of course not, but he better be prepared
to take the heat and so should his followers, and the last segment again I was the defender
of religion when we first met, but if you guys are gonna say "This is a Christian country"
the conservatives are always saying that and they're always saying we have a right to criticize
this country and they're big on that and militias and that, then I have a right to criticize
your Christianity Cenk: Yea, and Michael, here I actually don't
mind Time Tebow doing it at all, right, but I also don't mind Bill Maher's tweet, I mean
I'm amused by Time Tebow, every time he's like...it's awesome, it's funny. I mean, there's
not harm in that, I don't think Michael: There's no harm in it, but it's annoying,
it's annoying that at the end of an NFL game 12 guys or 26 guys form a circle and pray
in the middle of the field, I mean the NFL should say, and they won't obviously "Don't
do that, do it at home, do it in the closet" this is not,
Cenk: I don't even agree with that actually Michael: Why? Why do you, if I'm watching
a football game, right, why in that forum there's nothing else that I, I don't go to
a restaurant and see the restaurant owners after the closing time forming a circle and
praying Cenk: Although that'd be awesome, I think
that'd be hilarious. Or you go to a local Muslim restaurant, or a gyro shop when they
close up. OK, but look, when I played football in high school, it was tradition right, and
we'd all pray before the game, after the game, and say, "hey" we weren't like Tim Tebow like
"Jesus, help me with that touchdown" which he doesn't very often, although he has had
some great wins and I like him as a football player in some other ways too, but I wasn't
religious, and I wasn't Christian, but I didn't mind, they were praying that people don't
get hurt and thanking God for when people didn't get hurt except we got hurt all the
time. I know, I knew it didn't make sense, but to me, and that's even more objectionable
because that's on school grounds, but if the Broncos are doing it, who cares?
Michael: I do, I don't like, I'm watching football, and I just never understand it,
I don't understand and then why don't they when the same person who goes, points to the
sky after a touchdown, why doesn't he just give the finger to the sky after he drops
the ball, I mean I don't understand why Cenk: Could you imagine? That'll start a boycott
Richard: There's a psychology of selective information processing, so you're reinforcing
your beliefs by only taking in you know "God help me on this one" and you leave out you
edit out the things that undermine it. Cenk: All religious people do that, the end
of Malcolm X's autobiography, or not autobiography, biography, ends with him saying "All the mistakes
are mine, all praise is due to Allah" like, so whenever you score the touchdown it's of
course Jesus or Allah that did it, when you dropped it, well you're the ***, because
God would never make that mistake. Richard: I'm betting that Tim Tebow's autobiography
will not end with that sentence Cenk: There's a good chance that that's the
case, but getting back to Bill Maher, look, this boycott is insanity, and Fox News is
just trying to stir the pot and they love this and they got the bowling guy who's on
Fox Business and has never done a business report in his life
Ana: Eric Bowling got a ton of media coverage, we talked about him on Current today, and
Tim Tebow is getting some coverage out of it, and when you really think about it, everyone
is getting a little media attention out of this, so I feel like it's one of those fake
controversies that helps a lot of people get a lot of attention for a little while and
then it kind of fizzles out, it's a non-story. Richard: You think it's gonna hurt Bill Maher
that the fundamentalist Christians are boycotting him? You'd think they were his big demographic
before now? I mean come on Michael: How do you Boycott HBO? They don't
have ads. Cenk: I love the idea of the guy being like
"God help me boycott HBO" he's like "I got it" and God's thinking like "Aw, Jesus man"
Michael: And all these people are fine with Curb your Enthusiasm but Bill Maher sends
out a tweet and the world has to stop, that's also what's so ridiculous
Cenk: That's absolutely true, but look, when you put the f-word and saying "Jesus f-ed
Tim Tebow" is it OK to get offended by that, if you're a Christian can you say "Yea, that's
kinda offensive" Richard: Sure, absolutely, I think people
can say they're offended by it, and I would respect that and understand that, but boycott
people you know come on. That's just, I agree with Ana, that's just a publicity ploy.
Cenk: And I guess the thing that bothers me most, because I'm OK with the rest of it,
is part of what Michael was pointing to, the idea that Jesus or Allah or Ganesh would care
about your football game. Like he doesn't have anything better to do and is like "Alright,
I gotta make sure both Michelle Bachmann and Rick Perry run for President, and I gotta
make sure the Broncos screw up the first three quarters then pull it out in the end"
Michael: God only cares about it if he's got money on it.
Cenk: I want to send out a tweet supporting Bill Maher, so in fact, I'm gonna tell, I'm
Tebowing HBO for keeping him on, for fighting against a strong boycott of the 70 dudes,
and they're not even all necessarily gonna do the boycott, they're just following that
***. Alright, now, here comes my final point for
the week. You know, I wrote an article about 5 years ago about why I love Santa, and I
happened to tweet it out actually earlier this week, obviously on Christmas day, and
it wound up getting a lot of pickup and it was very popular on Reddit, etc. and apparently
it struck a chord with people, so what do I say to it, about it, and what can I add
to it today? Well, I talked about the reason that I love Santa is that he's a fantastic
American creation. He doesn't have anything to do with religion, but Santa is a great,
cuddly character, he makes you feel warm inside. He doesn't start any wars, he gives out presents,
he's fantastic, no one can disagree with Santa, and of course he has absolutely nothing to
do with religion. Santa wasn't anywhere near Nazareth, OK, he's not you know, Saint Nick
of Bethlehem. No, he's a creation of mythology basically. In fact, there's a lot of the pagan
tradition of course that has been brought over to Christianity including the pine tree,
it's a celebration of Winter Solstice, Jesus was born nowhere near December 25th, if you
believe the Bible, because it explains where he is, but we created this cuddly character
and Coke basically helped to hype him up along with the polar bears, and everybody loves
it. And now in Turkey for example, they celebrate "new years" right, and they say it's, you
know, Noel Baba meaning "Dad Noel" who happened to come by and guess what he does? He gives
presents, OK, so everybody loves Santa Claus, and then I was thinking you know, that's what
I had written earlier, my addition to it this year is, you know, with this current spade
of Republicans, they probably hate Santa Claus. They're like "What kind of Communist just
gives out presents and doesn't make a profit off of it. What's wrong with this guy? He's
a Maoist, socialist, this guy is worse than Obama." and Gingrich would probably want to
make the elves do janitorial work, like "Get to work, let's go, clean up the rich people's
toilets what's the matter with you elves?" That has been the point for today, I want
to thank Ana Kasparian of the Young Turks, Richard Eskow for Campaign for America's Future,
Michael Shure, the host of the legendary show 2012, and I wanna thank our point contributors
Jack Abramoff whose new book is Capital Punishment and it's apparently available at Amazon. By
the way, you should use the TYT link, we also get a piece, keepin it real. Dean Obeidallah,
who can be found at deanofcomedy.com, Bill Maher of course has the show Real Time with
Bill Maher, which returns to HBO with new episodes on January 13th of 2012, thank you
all for watching The Point, we'll see you next time. Thanks guys.