Edited For Clarity

Well, after writing, recording and editing…

It never went up. In fact, some never got edited. Such is the problem when you do this kind of stuff in your free time with a full-time job and you’re a single dad…

So, we’re going to refer to this as the lost show. I’m working on the new show already, with hopes to get it shot and posted by the 7th of August. In the meantime, we’ll post what did get done in terms of video, and all of the scripts.

We chose not to post the first segment, as it is a news update, and at over a week old, a bit out-of-date. So the first segment we’re releasing is the second one filmed.

The transcript is below the video:

Transcript:

This week, a hard-working, good-hearted employee at the USDA was dragged into the limelight over alleged racist comments. She was told to submit her resignation, over her Blackberry, and was removed from her position.

The problem? The claims weren’t true.

The evidence was made up of a clip from an NAACP meeting over 2 years ago. At that meeting, Shirley Sherrod, a black woman whose parents were killed for the color of their skin, told of a farmer who came in for help and treated her an an inferior. She admits that she did not want to give this man all the help she could because he was white.

That’s the part that ended up in the video released on Tuesday. The part that was to ostensibly be played on the Glenn Beck show. The word of this got to the upper levels of the USDA, who called and demanded Ms. Sherrod’s resignation. The NAACP got wind of it, and also demanded action.

But the problem is, that was only a small part of the video. What was on the rest of the video turned the story on its head.

What is seen by looking at the entire video is that the statement is not a proud exclamation of revenge, but of a turning point, where Ms. Sherrod realized that she was being guilty of the same racism she had experienced – that she was perpetuating the problem. And that it changed her way of looking at things.

What is also not seen in the video is that she went back and did everything show could for that farmer. The farmer and his wife have since come forward and backed Ms. Sherrod, saying their success, their livelihood, was due to the help they received from Ms. Sherrod. Indeed, they are friends to this day.

How did this happen? Well, primarily, this was the result of knee-jerk reactions from the USDA, the NAACP, and perhaps the White House. All have delivered mea culpas, but the damage is done. They all jumped when a conservative blogger posted the selectively edited video. And in fear that there might be a controversy, they all jumped – far too quickly.

But this is a symptom of a different problem. As I mentioned last week when talking about the Republican strategy, Democrats need to get tough if they want a chance this election season. And part of that toughness is not reacting to everything as if it’s an emergency. Especially those of a blogger.

Look, I understand the desire to increase transparency, to seem responsive. But this instant reaction to everything is self-defeating. And the right have figured out how to get it happen on cue, and make the most of it.

And the folks on the left help it along. The traditional circular firing squad of the left came out in full force, first screaming for the resignation, then screaming at those who asked for it. And all the while, the folks on the right sat back and fed them ammunition.

In understand the frustration. After years of conservative policies tearing down liberties, shuttling money to big business and the wealthy, driving us into wars, people on the left wanted a change. But, it seems, they naively believed it would happen immediately. And when it doesn’t, the left forgets the achievements that have been delivered, and only focus on what hasn’t happened.

And so the left’s circular firing squad takes aim, and shoots themselves in the foot. And everywhere else, damaging the gains that have been made, pushing them to the rear while these lousy, bogus attacks come to the forefront.

For example, just this week, Wall St. reform was passed and signed into law. With it, some of the most powerful consumer protections in history, protections designed to avoid a future financial meltdown like the one we are currently working our way out of.

What kind of protections? First, an end to “too big to fail”. To do this, measures have been put in place to create a fund, a back-up – paid for by the finance industry itself – so that companies that are on the brink of failure can be unwound without putting taxpayers’ dollars into play to keep them afloat. Had such a system been in place before the current mess, there would have been on bank bailout, no taxpayer money loaned to private institutions. And there would have been no threats from the industry that the failure of one company would bring the world economy crashing down. They simply would have used their fund to put the failing company to rest.

On top of this, more stringent requirements have been implemented in terms of bank capitalization. This means that banks will have to have a larger share of the money they loan. The leveraging that banks allowed during the years leading up to the crisis resulting in far more money being loaned than the banks had. When those loans went unpaid, it quickly snowballed. By requiring lending institutions to have more of that money actually on hand, the exposure to damage from bad loads is reduced, creating more stability in the financial industry.

Shareholders will also be given a say in CEO compensation. This means that consumers who hold stocks will have a more direct connection and influence on how much CEOs are paid. If you think that’s not a big deal, here’s a little tidbit for you: in 1950, the average executive’s paycheck was about thirty times the size of the average employee’s paycheck. Today, that ratio is between 300 and 500 to one. So either those execs have become ten to fifteen times more valuable than they were in 1950, or something has gone WAY out of whack. Even amid the financial crisis, Wall St. bonuses for 2009 were up 17% from 2009. Shareholders, many of whose monthly income relies on the health of the stocks they own, should have a say in the pay structure of the people running their company.

There are a number of other protections included as well, including protections in credit cards and lending as well as credit card rate hikes.

Also passed this week were extensions of unemployment insurance benefits, giving relief to millions who are still struggling to get back to work. While Republicans cry about tax cuts being allowed to expire, the fact is that money spent on unemployment benefits has more of a positive effect on the economy than putting more money in the hands of the wealthy. The unemployed immediately put that money back into the economy, paying their bills, and keeping other folks employed in the process. The wealthy, on the other hand, are sitting on their money, waiting for a better time to spend.

Also passed this week, with little fanfare, was the Improper Payments Elimination and Recovery Act. This was passed UNANIMOUSLY by both the House and the Senate. The idea? Remove excess spending and fraudulent payments from the system. One example given is that of a $3 million being spent annually for a radio navigation system for the Navy – when we have GPS. 20 years ago, this cost MIGHT have been justified. Eliminating these expenditures alone represent $20 billion – with a B – in cost cutting, just by finding unnecessary redundancies.

The second focus of this bill is to reduce “improper payments”. These are payments made to the wrong person, or entities that should not receive them. For example, payments to contractors that are no longer allowed to work for the government, or payments to individuals who are trying to defraud the government – including payments to dead people. The estimated savings from this area alone is estimated to be around $110 billion – again, with a B. That’s a total of $130 billion in saving from this one program.

In all. Three separate important pieces of legislation were signed last week. How many did YOU know about? I can guarantee that the right doesn’t want you to know about any of them. Heck, they have vowed to REPEAL Wall St. reform. Remember that when they start spouting their campaign talk – they want to REPEAL the protections that were signed into law this week. The right will try to get you to forget about gains made this week and in the past few months.

Meanwhile, the left gets so up in arms about the stumble made over the Sherrod flap that they completely miss the real news – that there was a whole lot of good done this week. Here’s what I say to them – KNOCK IT OFF! Who needs Republicans when the left will simply bash themselves into the ground.

A whole lot of good was done this week. I just thought you should know.

We’ll be right back.

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