Guests: MR1.0 producer Josh Orton, comedian Doug Benson, and author Robert Reich
It’s casual Friday once again folks and Sam’s got 3 hours worth of show packed into a neat and tidy 105 minutes. But if you are not a member by Monday you will only get the first 40 minutes of show and miss the great Members Only show. And today Sam had a super-special guest (Robert Reich) on the Members Only show. That’s the kind of great stuff you’ll miss out on!
The “assault on unions” in Wisconsin is still the lead story and with each day it seems the protesters are growing stronger. Democratic state senators have left the state in order to block a vote on the measure.
Breaking News: Republicans in WI state senate sending State Troopers to get Democratic leader
Sam points out an article on AmericaBlog about how the Egyptian Army refused orders by Mubarak to move their tanks against protesters in Tahrir Square and then ponders if our National Guard would do the same if Scott Walker dared to call them out.
Unrest has spread to the small island nation of Bahrain.
Breaking News: Bahrain forces have fired on protesters in Manama, injuring at least 66.
Former Majority Report 1.0 producer Josh Orton called in live from Madison, WI. He lives about 100 feet from the heart of the protest and gives accounts of what is like there.
Scott Walker has turned a $121.4 million surplus into a $137 million deficit because of new tax cuts and spending to special interest groups. He cannot be recalled right now, but 8 state senators can be. ActBlue.com has started fund drives to support Democratic state senators.
A new report by Dean Baker shows that the origin of the pension shortfall is because of the 2008 crash of the stock market and now that the market has climbed back those shortfalls will be manageable or even erased.
Mike Stark calls into Rush’s show again and tries to get him to understand how unions built up the middle class. No such luck.
The hilarious Doug Benson stops by with some weekend movie picks for Sam, pitch hitting for Wally Pipp, oh I mean Chris Rosen. Be sure to check out Doug’s podcast at Doug Loves Movies and The Benson Interruption.
Netflix - Joan Rivers: A Piece of Work
OnDemand - Unstoppable
Listen to Doug Benson on the Majority Report.
And on the Members Only show:
Missouri Senator Jane Cunningham wants to repeal child labor laws. John Galt would agree.
And as a super-special secret guest in the Members Only show Robert Reich talks to Sam about his proposal to lower taxes on those that make less than $250,000 (98% of the country), but raise them for the richest 2%.
Listen to the interview with Robert Reich.
Aftershock: The Next Economy and America’s Future by Robert B. Reich
Note: Next week the listener IM-driven post show podcast will only be available to Majority Report members. Please become a “member with benefits“ so you don’t miss all of The Majority Report!





10:42 am
The national press has been completely absent from the Wisconsin Labor Protest story until it couldn’t be ignored. I guess you need to have shadowy billionaire-funded front groups to make something newsworthy enough to have wall-to-wall coverage of a couple dozen white males yelling at congresspeople, to make up for the difference in TENS of THOUSANDS of regular, everyday Americans demonstrating the use of their First Amendment remedies to governing by fiat. Now that the huge numbers of people converging on the Wisconsin capital had to somehow be explained, none other than news talker Richard Lui thoroughly discredits himself by using baloney statistics supplied by none other than Kaiser Permanente–a recognized Union buster–as well as the Wall Street Journal, a publication run by noted Union Buster Rupert Murdoch. Really Richard Lui? Really? Those are the bar graphs you really want to use? How about a bar graph of the tax breaks Wisconsin Governor gave to millionaires to engage in this class warfare, and how much an average family of four is expected to give up for those tax breaks to millionaires? Could Kaiser Permamente make a bar graph of that, Richard Lui, that would put this into perspective for the average viewer?
And pusillanimous fence-sitting wishy-washy one-term President Obama deigns to opine: “It looks like union-bashing.” REALLY? D’ja-think? Wow Barry, just wow. Way to get out ahead of the people who put you in the oval office. What great “leadership.” With courage and principles like that, somebody oughtta make that guy head dogcatcher.
3:38 am
Well, it doesn’t hurt having a 24/7 news outlet organizing and promoting your protests.
11:08 am
Looks like your root dns servers have successfully catapulted the propagation….
http://viewdns.info/propagation/?domain=live.majority.fm
11:10 am
I just don’t trust long running client side applications that don’t follow the interweb.
11:16 am
Ahh, yes, good reminder… Spring Cleaning is a good time to flush the caches…
11:39 am
Sound is not good guys. Sam’s mic is not clear.
12:18 pm
Go here.
Uppity Wisconsin
Progressive News from the Cheddarsphere
walk like an egyptian.
12:21 pm
Nice show today.
12:35 pm
Sorry for rocky road on the site today. I’ve upgraded the whole apache/php configuration to use fcgi. Site should be much zippier and perform better.
12:35 pm
howdy
12:38 pm
the site DOES perform better
12:39 pm
Yes “The Corporation” is a good DVD with Sam, Janeane, and other
guests from MRR back in the day.
12:41 pm
If we had infinite resources i’d do a lot more with the site but I’m trying to squeeze every drop from the tiny shit server we’re on
12:44 pm
I logged in to the members only page but MY avitar is just the standard
default one and not my personal one. I must have used a diff. e-mail, ah-crap.
12:45 pm
i can see your avatar (peace sign with J & P)
1:09 pm
ah i saw your comment in the members only thread. go to gravatar.com and set up new graphic for member email.
3:24 pm
JP, try this…
login, then go into your profile in the site admin and put your gravatar email address in as the “contact info” email.
5:51 pm
ah! *
FYI:
after setting up my gravatar account for an additional email address i had to log out of MR members only and than back in to get Gravatar to work
3:43 am
Quite possibly. I’d been using one email address for posting to MR, but my “members-only” account was initialized using the email address associated with my PayPal account.
1:00 pm
Stopped by to watch the Sammy Cam for the first time in a long while. Was wondering if Sam is still as handsome as ever. I see, yes, he is. The Maron is obscuring his face a little too much though.
2:33 pm
iTunes subscriber feed still empty. Is that to be expected?
3:40 am
The “members” feed, yes, as of the time of your posting that comment. There should NOW be at least one podcast in the members feed.
2:52 pm
Here’s some live footage from Madison from one of the members here.
http://www.justin.tv/mzmartipants
3:29 pm
eya gang!
nice day here, sunny and warm.
Sam’s podcast up and i’m listening to Josh Orton in Madison Wisconsin.
Josh doing a superb job! Applause!
Pingback: Tweets that mention Friday, February 18, 2011 | The Majority Report with Sam Seder -- Topsy.com
4:25 pm
Robert Reich was a treat, it’s good to see him back on the show.
3:40 am
Yeah, Reich was a great bonus interview. Thanks, Sam.
5:45 pm
Great show. I’m amazed that no one has mentioned that the Atlas Shrugged movie is Part 1. Yes Part 1…
9:03 pm
Ring Of Fire on now here:
92.1 The Mic in Wisconsin:
http://www.themic921.com/main.html
3:45 am
Sharing Kansas’ peculiarities, i.e. Secr. of State/seemingly racist-nativist Kobach with the Pres. of NAACP Topeka: Fourth clip from top / http://communitybridge.blogspot.com/
Enjoy.
Peace