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MSNBC's Dylan Ratigan talks to Rep. Alan Grayson about the amendment passed by the House Financial Services Committee to allow an independent audit of the Federal Reserve. If Alan Greenspan is not happy about it, I take that as a good sign they did the right thing. It only took putting this country on the edge of financial ruin that we're not out of yet for the S.O.B. to ever admit he might be wrong about anything.

Ratigan: Alright first big newsmaker of the Meeting, Democratic Alan Grayson, better known for some of his fiery comments on Republicans and health care, now taking aim at the Federal Reserve along with so many others. He says the Federal Reserve is more secretive than the CIA, and his new amendment co-sponsored by Republican Ron Paul would allow the first ever independent audit of the Federal Reserve. The amendment edged out a competing proposal from North Carolina Congressman Mel Watt who wants to limit those very audits.

Congressman Grayson now joins the Morning Meeting. Your amendment approved by the House Financial Services Committee—a huge step forward. Where do you go from here and what’s your level of confidence Representative that you can continue to addendum behind this piece of legislation?

Grayson: Where we go is to stop the secret bailouts. There have been hints and hints now for more than two years that the Fed’s been conducting huge bailouts on the scale of hundreds of billions of dollars to favor large failed banks. Now we’re going to find out all about it, and we’re going to decide whether it’s good or bad.

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Dylan Ratigan has a bit of fun with a deadly serious topic and 'celebrates' the anniversary of the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act which tore down the wall between Wall Street investment banks, commercial banks, and insurance companies. Gramm-Leach-Bliley repealed the Glass-Steagall Act of 1933 which prohibited any one institution from acting as any combination of an investment bank, a commercial bank, and/or an insurance company.

While I think Ratigan's theatrics are a bit over the top, the point he's trying to make is not. We're long overdue with some new regulations to get rid of these too large to fail entities with both regulating and breaking them up. Why the Obama administration has continued to keep our economy in a state where it could collapse again due to the risk these institutions pose is beyond me.

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Here's something you don't see every day. One of these talking heads stopped in their tracks for lying on the air. MSNBC's Dylan Ratigan calls out The Family Research Council's Cathy Ruse (what a name for a spokesperson, huh?) for lying about what affect the Stupak amendment would have on private insurance if passed.

After noting that The Family Research Council called the Stupak amendment a “huge victory for women", Ratigan asked her this:

Ratigan: Cathy, what was the victory?

Ruse: Well the victory is that the question is elective abortion and who should be forced to pay for those, the individual or the government. Before the Stupak amendment passed, Americans would be forced to pay for other people’s elective abortions.

Ratigan: That’s not true.

Ruse: It is true, under both the public option plan and…

Ratigan: No, that’s not true…

Ruse: …and under the federal subsidies…absolutely true. That’s why…

Ratigan: The objection was to the use of the exchange. I’ll have this debate but you have to operate in the factual reality which is you’re saying that all the private insurance being sold on a publicly established exchange cannot fund elective abortion, and that is not federal dollars paying for abortion—that federal dollars paying for an exchange upon which private insurance is sold where elective abortions are provided.

Ruse: The Stupak amendment did two things. It prohibits federal funding for covering elective abortions, but it allows private insurance to carry coverage of elective abortions so long as no federal tax dollars are involved. And let me just…

Ratigan: Cathy, you’re not dealing with—you can’t—just coming on television and lying is not journalism, nor is it actually beneficial to the country. Let’s talk about what we’re discussing which is the establishment of an exchange upon which private insurance that we bought and sold establishes federal dollars. Nancy you were going to say?

Keenan: Yeah listen, we know that about 80-85% of private insurance companies today privately cover abortion care, and what the Stupak amendment does, is basically means that women will not be able to purchase insurance coverage that covers abortions with their own money, with their own money in this new healthcare system. That’s the reality of the Stupak amendment and it is outrageous that they are saying that this is good for women or that this is somehow the status quo. This goes far beyond the status quo.

Maybe Tony Perkins should get himself someone else go to up against Dylan Ratigan if his group wants to continue to try to spread misinformation about what the Stupak amendment does, although I don’t think Perkins himself would have faired much better against Ratigan. Both Ratigan and Keenan go on to point out what the real purpose of the amendment is, which is to prevent private insurance from paying for any abortions, get Roe v Wade overturned and to derail health care reform.

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From MSNBC's Morning Meeting, Dylan Ratigan talks to author and former managing director for Goldman Sachs Nomi Prins about this week's article in the UK Times I'm doing 'God's work'. Meet Mr Goldman Sachs.

Think Progress has more--Goldman Sachs CEO says he’s ‘doing God’s work,’ rejects the idea that Goldman profits from gov’t support:

Last quarter, Wall Street investment bank Goldman Sachs made a $3.19 billion profit, and according to some estimates, the firm will set aside $21.9 billion for compensation this year. In an interview with London’s Sunday Times, Goldman CEO Lloyd Blankfein said that the firm is serving an important “social purpose” by helping companies grow, and denied the idea that Goldman is only able to make record profits thanks to government support.

Blankfein dismisses any suggestion that Goldman needed to be bailed out, and, by extension, rejects any notion that the firm is now profiting from public support. Sure, he took $10 billion from Washington’s Troubled Asset Relief Program (Tarp). But the bank has since repaid the cash, with healthy interest — 23%. Goldman also benefited from the federal bail-out of the huge US insurance firm AIG. Goldman had bought $20 billion worth of insurance from AIG and received billions of dollars — perhaps as much as $13 billion — when Washington pumped $90 billion into the stricken giant. But Blankfein insists Goldman was “hedged” against any AIG losses, in the best possible way — with cash.

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While I definitely do not agree with Dylan Ratigan on a host of issues, the one thing I've found refreshing about his show is that the guests had better not come on there and start spouting mindless talking points without expecting to be challenged on them--because they will be if they do, and forcefully as Betsy McCaughey found out the hard way about a month ago. Rep. Pete King was no exception today. With some help from Chrystia Freeland, Ratigan calls out Rep. Pete King for distorting what's in the House health care bill.

King asked for everyone to come join the Tea Baggers "press conference" on Capitol hill today and trotted out the tired old line about being able to buy insurance across state lines as a cost saving measure and allowing people "the freedom to choose" their health insurance provider. He also said that 85% of people are happy with their insurance companies and that Pelosi's plan would "cancel every policy".

Ratigan pointed out that it is not true that people are happy with their insurance companies and that the GOP bill would not assure more choices. Freeland noted that allowing people to cross state lines to buy insurance would just mean a race to the bottom and companies going to the states with the least regulations and make it even harder with people with pre-existing conditions to get coverage.

King and the rest of the GOP have nothing but the same tired rhetoric to offer on what their idea of “reform” is. They’re more worried about getting the Tea Baggers whipped into a frenzy than anything that resembles legislating.

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From MSNBC's Morning Meeting Oct. 16, 2009. Dylan Ratigan explains how Goldman Sachs managed to make $3 billion in three months investing our tax dollars sent to keep them afloat with no strings attached.

For more you can read his entry at the Huffington Post Goldman Sachs' Black Magic, Here's How They Did It.

Goldman at the apex of the crisis is delivered this money -- which they then use to borrow against at $20 or $30 for every $1. Which at 30x equals $2.1 trillion in available capital.

As one of the only banks in the world with money at the time, Goldman Sachs was able to buy billions in distressed assets around the world at record low prices -- only to watch $23.7 trillion in US taxpayer money be deployed during the past year to re-inflate the asset's values that Goldman had purchased with our tax money.

The question is not why did we bail out the banks.

The question is why did we give the banks billions of our money so they could then buy assets by the trillions with our money and they keep the profits?

The answer is Henry Paulson, former Goldman Sachs CEO who ran the US Treasury, and Tim Geithner, current Treasury Secretary who at the time ran the New York Federal Reserve, willingly delivered Goldman Sachs the $70 Billion -- with no strings attached.

So what can we do?

1. We must demand the return of those investment gains made with America's money - it was stolen from us and we can get it back. Demand Claw Backs - and not from the future but from the past - That is where our money is.
2. We must have an exchange for all credit derivatives -- the current version is riddled with loopholes that let banks avoid transparency by mobbing offshore and prohibiting government regulators from being able to force the use of the exchange by the banks.

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MSNBC's Dylan Ratigan and author of Bailout Nation Barry Ritholtz discuss JP Morgan's record $3.6 billion third quarter profits. Ratigan came out swinging and didn't let up from there.

Ratigan: There’s too many people in this country that are afraid to compete, wouldn’t you say? Particularly those banks and it’s time by the way for the opening bell on Wall Street. Stocks opening sharply higher—those better than expected earnings from JP Morgan—a few billion dollars on the take—thanks to your taxpayer subsidies. The Dow making its way towards 10,000.

That’s not a bad thing but you do have to wonder why it is that the taxpayer takes all the downside as the markets march higher. Curious isn’t it?

Heads Banks Win, Tails Taxpayers Lose: JPMorgan Cashing In:

JPMorgan Chase (JPM) — the beneficiary of a $25 billion taxpayer bailout and Trillions in indirect subsidies — reported soaring third quarter profits of $3.6 billion (a seven-fold jump) on an 81% increase in revenues. Moreover, The Wall Street Journal reports JPMorgan is projected to pay $25.9 billion to the bank’s workers. Seems as though socialism is a windfall for private banks.

In this case, taxpayers took all the risk and received none of the upside when lending money to banks such as JPM. Rather than our public servants negotiating on our behalf to get a genuine capitalist deal like Warren Buffett did with Goldman Sachs (GS) and General Electric (GE), we now get to watch JPM et al swim in their profits while our broken system could have benefited from a savvy deal.

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Contessa Brewer takes the NRCC to task for their remarks about putting Nancy Pelosi "in her place". I don't think I've ever seen her quite this pissed off. Give 'em hell gal.

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This was truly a thing of beauty. Betsy McCaughey gets smacked down by Dylan Ratigan and Anthony Weiner on MSNBC's Morning Meeting.

From Think Progress:

Throughout the interview, McCaughey was constantly on the defensive, complaining that she was being shut out of the debate. “Anthony, you are ignorant about health insurance,” she said, before insisting to Ratigan that “this will go down in history as one of the most browbeating interviews in television history.” “I hope that it does,” Ratigan replied. “And maybe you’ll learn at that point then to answer questions as opposed to go on television and cast accusations.”

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And Bob Cesca noted:

Jamison Foser makes a good point: why is McCaughey on television in the first place? While it's frustrating that cable news continues to elevate wingnuts and crazies, there's actually an upside to bringing in people like McCaughey. I'll explain. In the case of this Ratigan segment, he's doing the opposite of what Fox News does all the time. Fox News claims "balance" by including occasional liberals. Weak, barely articulate, outnumbered liberals who are way out of their depth. So the debate is automatically stacked in favor of the conservatives, while Fox News can claim "balance" in a very superficial way. Ratigan, today, lined up a strong liberal against a weak wingnut, and Ratigan is clearly more sympathetic to Weiner's position on healthcare. That meant two pro-reform voices against one weak anti-reform voice. It's a start.

Yes it is.

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As Contessa Brewer notes in the beginning of this segment, ACORN is threatening legal action against the filmmaker who posed as a pimp at their offices and Fox News which ACORN "calls an advocacy organization for right wing interests".

Dylan Ratigan then brings in ACORN's Scott Levenson to discuss the matter and this has to be one of the more infuriating interviews I've watched on MSNBC for a long time. Ratigan was so desperate to prove his preconceived notion that what ACORN does is somehow a left wing alternative to Dick Armey's FreedomWorks that Scott Levenson may as well have been having a conversation with himself here.

Ratigan: What is your explanation for that video?

Levenson: Well there is an explanation for this video as an attack on the work that ACORN is doing. We got a hundred and fifty thousand people into their first home. Kept fifty thousand people free of foreclosure, this year, done unprecedented work in health care, unprecedented work in education, so we see this as a coordinated attack driven by Fox entertainment, and not news, Fox entertainment, on the work and the members of our organization.

Ratigan: I was thinking about the conversation that you and I are about to have and about the one I was fortunate to have with Matt Kibbe of FreedomWorks who’s a conservative organizing group, a different agenda and we were talking about the frustration that exists I this country about the government process…

Levenson: And thank you for asking me…

Ratigan: …and the banks, I agree with you from what I can see journalistically that you have been targeted from conservative groups, but… when they target you they find things that are unsettling and so (crosstalk) that’s what I said when I look at Matt Kibbe, I understand your issue but I look at the, when you say “Oh kill Obama this, not kill, but kill Obamacare” so when the radicals (crosstalk).

Levenson: You’re absolutely right. Process matters. Process actually matters so it’s very important to look at these films as you’ll see none of these people got a loan. None of these people got a mortgage. None of these people filled out an application. None of these people even filled out (crosstalk) let me finish the point. None of these people even filled out an intake form. So we at ACORN have a multi-step process that keeps people from doing the wrong thing. These people never got to first base.

Ratigan: If you look at the vulnerability, like in other words let’s assume that you or Matt Kibbe or any of these organizations, that the intention is good. That the intention is to manifest political interest, but that those on the left or right are willing to behave when not properly monitored, in an unethical, manipulative, distorting, destructive manner that ultimately comes at the expense of the country. And I don’t care if it’s on the ACORN side, the FreedomWorks side or any other side. Obviously you’re process could use some improvement.

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Where to even begin with this segment from MSNBC's Morning Meeting. I've really got to wonder if a single one of these people has ever done a hard day of physical labor in their entire lives to be able to carry on trashing unions the way they did.

First, Dylan Ratigan asks if unions are against health-care reform because everyone having health-care benefits would mean union members' benefits are no longer better than other non-union members' benefits, and of course the only thing unions care about is getting bigger. Ratigan doesn't seem to understand that those benefits are bargained for and part of an overall compensation package, and that if we weren't having to bargain for the health-care benefits, that would likely play out in being able to negotiate for higher take-home pay or some other benefit instead.

He also ignores the fact that this would be good for unionized companies if the burden of paying health-care expenses were taken off of their backs, which would make them more competitive, thus also benefiting the workers at those companies. Bernard follows with this:

Absolutely, the labor unions right now simply exist for one reason. To self perpetuate receiving union dues and having political influence. I think it's absolutely amazing to watch that clip from The Rachel Maddow Show last night. This guy is, he's saying to President Obama, I'm strong-arming you buddy. And my answer to this would be they are showing themselves to be as ridiculous as many members of the American public think they are. What happened to pragmatism? What happened to competition, and what actually happened to winning?

Maybe it would be great for the Democratic Party to lose the support of labor unions because quite honestly a lot of labor unions are what holds America back and keeps us from being as good as we can be.

I'd like to see these clowns try to have this conversation with someone like Leo Gerard at the table. He'd have eaten them for lunch. Heaven forbid someone who represents labor might have a seat at this table.

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Howard Dean on MSNBC's Morning Meeting on whether there should be a public option in the health care reform bill.

Dean: The public option is really the only way to inject the kinds of things that the President wants and I think the Secretary was wrong when she said it's not essential. It is essential. You don't have reform without the public option. I guess I'd even disagree with the President. To say it's a sliver of the bill, it's true, technically it's a sliver of the bill. There's a lot of other stuff in the bill, but without a public option you're pumping $60 billion a year into the private health insurance industry, and I think that's an enormous mistake and hardly qualifies as reform......

I don't think the President can sign a bill which puts $60 billion dollars of tax payers' money into the private health industry, and that's what this bill would be without the public option, so I hope that he wouldn't sign that bill. I don't think he'll get a bill like that because I don't think the House will pass one.....

....My advocacy would be for this. If you're not going to have a public option, then don't call it health reform. Strip all the money out of the bill and just do something we did here in Vermont about fifteen years ago, guaranteed issue and community rating. Require insurance companies to insure everybody. Stop them from kicking people off and don't let them charge huge amounts of money for sicker patients.

That's not health reform. It's insurance reform. You won't do much for the uninsured but you will make the health insurance market work better for the people it does work for. And you know, that's an incremental step and I wouldn't want to throw that out, but I'd strip the money out of the bill because this is going to be and expensive bill and if you're not going to get reform then you shouldn't bother with the expense.

Amen Howard.