Jon Stewart, opening a segment pointing out the “assholery” of various people in power, took note of Wall Street legend Sandy Weill’s comments this week. Weill, who built up Citibank, said the nation’s big banks should be broken up. To Stewart, it sounded like Weill believes we should return to the days of the Glass-Steagall Act.
“So the guy who reaped enormous riches by pulling the last Jenga piece out of what was holding up our economy now thinks we shouldn’t have done that,” Stewart said Thursday. No matter, Congress can always reinstate that sort of regulation. “Unless they’re a bunch of assholes.”
Well, the Republicans’ jobs bill calls for a moratorium on regulations until the economy is back on track.
“So the reform that Sandy Weill thinks could fix the economy could not be reinstated until, according to this legislation, the economy was fixed,” Stewart said.
What’s more, the GOP jobs bill contained a typo. Instead of requiring 6 percent unemployment before regulations could be reinstated, the bill requires 6 percent employment. Republicans requested the typo be corrected. Democrats objected.
“Let’s be clear what just happened,” Stewart said. Republicans made a typo, they asked the Democrats if they would mind if they went back and corrected it, and Democrats went, ‘Yeah, fuck that.’ Full-metal assholes.”
Watch the video:
David Taintor
David Taintor is TPM’s News Editor. He contributes to TPM’s Livewire coverage, among other areas. David is from Chanhassen, Minnesota, where, yes, it gets very cold. Reach him at taintor [at] talkingpointsmemo.com
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