THE STRANGE NEXUS OF CNBC, RICK SANTELLI, THE TEA PARTY, RUSH, DRUDGE AND CRONY CAPITALISM

Breitbart ^ | 10/30/2015 | C. Edmund Wright

[Servant of the Cross]

Prior to February 19, 2009, CNBC was an obscure niche network watched mainly inside Merrill Lynch offices ...

At the same point, in February 2009, the term tea party was only a vague memory out of middle school history - with no particular relevance to politics today - with the exception of a few mentions by Ron Paul that never resonated widely.

Meanwhile, crony capitalism (or crony socialism or cronyism if you prefer) was a problem, but it ... was kind of practiced in the dark and certainly not celebrated openly.

That all started to change shortly after 9 am EST that day, and it's no coincidence. These dynamics are connected dominos in a media/political continuum. So how did this all happen?

Enter a dude named Rick Santelli. The then obscure CNBC commentator and Chicago Mercantile floor trader had a small following for his morning rants, primarily among traders and investors who shared his libertarian small government bent - who also happened to watch Squawk Box. Small universe.

But on Thursday the 19th, with the Obama administration promoting a plan to force mortgage payers to bail out deadbeat mortgage clients, Santelli just went off from his post at the Merc. His 4:53 second soliloquy - carried live on Squawk Box - was met with raucous cheering from other traders on the floor. Santelli's sarcastic ire was aimed at a government that was too big, too powerful and too corrupt - and actively picking winners and losers. (snip)

... the money line was an off the cuff threat to "hold a Chicago Tea Party on Lake Michigan."(snip)

That audio was then picked up by those connected to the Rush Limbaugh Show ...

[C. Edmund Wright]

And if my memory is correct it was on FR dang near in real time, and it was off to the races, FR won't get the credit it deserves IMHO...

You sir are correct, there is still a SEO trail of immediate FR activity after Drudge went RED. Now, they might have gotten some credit if they didn't treat their author members so poorly.....

[C. Edmund Wright]

I was watching that day and remember his rant well. I only watch because I day trade- most of their staff are disgusting liberals.

I'll never forget it...I was in the Westin Hotel downtown Charlotte in my room sipping coffee....and BAM, Santelli went off. That's when I knew I had to get it pushed along a little bit...to the right people.

[C. Edmund Wright]

I suppose the first observation to make about crony capitalism is that it is an oxymoron. If it is the product of cronyism it cannot be capitalism.

A: you could not be more wrong. The prefix CRONY changes capitalism to the opposite of capitalism, the same way prefixes like "anti" and "non" and "faux" and so on.

B:I tried to cut off inane comments at the pass, giving you two other options right there in the opening paragraphs...meaning look, move along, this article is not about the debate over what to call it.

C: This article was not about that. Thanks for reading, but missing the entire point.

[C. Edmund Wright]

Please...something started earlier, but was going no where. It was the time line in the article that absolutely defines what it is today. If this had not happened, none of this would be anything like what it is today.

[C. Edmund Wright]

why don’t you read the article and make a reasonable comment instead of a paul bot codependent rant? I covered that it was a small dynamic over Bush’s spending....but the time line is the time line and you can’t make that Rush show go away and you can’t make that Drudge home page go away and you can’t make Gibbs threats against Santelli from the WH Press room go away and you can’t make the wall to wall coverage on all the NBC networks go away.

Sorry, you can’t.

[C. Edmund Wright]

please, there’s 1000 times as many now! What happened before is interesting trivia, but nothing to do with current movement as it is structured.

[Lorianne]

Hello? I’m not trying to make anything go away.
You need to chill

[Rusty0604]

I don’t understand the desperation of people that don’t want it to be in 2009. I do understand that many of the same people were involved in bailout protests before then, as I was. But I guess I don’t care that much of taking credit for things.

[Lorianne]

Also it wasn’t “Bush’s spending”.
A majority of Democrat in a majority Dem congress (both houses) voted for the bailouts. A majority of Republicans in the House (where the bill originated) voted against TARP ... which means it would not have made it to the senate. Which also means that this was a Democrat Congress bailout.

Also, it is not “interesting trivia”. The majority of people who were replaced in the 2010 election were replaced on the basis of their bailout vote ... very crucial to today’s dynamic in Congress. Without those replacements, you would not have supposed “tea party” people in Congress ... though some of them have since turned their backs on those who voted them in.

Nevermind, they can be replaced just as easily as those they replaced.

But the origin of this movement was the big bank and corporate bailouts ... not that some homeowners were getting a free ride.

[Rusty0604]

See my post #9.

[mkjessup]

MUCH Congratulations FRiend!!

I say old boy, if I had your actual address, I would send you a few jars of Grey Poupon to celebrate! :)

I think you know I wish you well, and *well done* !!

[cymbeline]

“If it is the product of cronyism it cannot be capitalism.”

Explain that. Greed and a willingness to cheat are present in people of all political persuasions. The former radio evangelist Garner Ted Armstrong started his shows saying that human nature is a combination of vanity, jealousy, lust and greed. Who remembers him?

[nathanbedford]

Noun: oxymoron

Conjoining contradictory terms (as in 'deafening silence')

A: you could not be more wrong. The prefix CRONY changes capitalism to the opposite of capitalism, the same way prefixes like "anti" and "non" and "faux" and so on.

It is you who could not be more wrong. But you are not just wrong in the dictionary meaning, you are wrong in a far worse sense: you are wrong in your presumption, wrong in the idea that you have any right whatsoever to "cut me off" or decide what an article is about in my world. You wrote it, you own it but when I read it, I own it free of any claim of a jealous author as to what it shall mean to me.

Put your misplaced pride back in your pocket but continue writing at your normally high quality level, a level which I have incidentally complemented within the last 24 hours.

[C. Edmund Wright]

I was watching Santelli live with his tea party rant. Anytime I mention here on FR that he started the tea party I get cut down quickly.

Well that's a tiny minority...just one loudmouth on this thread. Meanwhile, Rush and Drudge and the Breitbart staff and on and on and on know the truth...even Fred Barnes has talked about that being the real start. The timeline is simply not in dispute.

[nathanbedford]

...every individual necessarily labours to render the annual revenue of the society as great as he can. He generally, indeed, neither intends to promote the public interest, nor knows how much he is promoting it. By preferring the support of domestic to that of foreign industry, he intends only his own security; and by directing that industry in such a manner as its produce may be of the greatest value, he intends only his own gain, and he is in this, as in many other cases, led by an invisible hand to promote an end which was no part of his intention. Nor is it always the worse for the society that it was no part of it. By pursuing his own interest he frequently promotes that of the society more effectually than when he really intends to promote it. I have never known much good done by those who affected to trade for the public good.

From Adam Smith's Invisible Hand

It is not the greed of the individual participating in a free market which is the problem, it is the interference by the government in the free market to favor the greedy that is the problem because it distorts the system and prevents it from working

[C. Edmund Wright]

but that movement you mention was not going anywhere.....if you want to ignore all of the other to make some kind of pointless point.....go ahead and knock yourself out.

I did cover in the article, which you clearly did not read, and yet are snarking all over about, that there was some similar activity prior - but this did not get national traction until Santelli - at which time it instantly exploded.

Until then, Rush wasn’t talking tea party, CNBC wasn’t talking tea party, hell NO ONE was talking tea party.

And of course, in your desire to debate this inane point, you totally take yourself out of any conversation about the full circle relationship CNBC has with the conservative movement....which was the main point of the article.

[abb]

I concur with your analysis. I, too was watching CNBC live that morning. Herewith the realtime FR thread.

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2189035/posts

CNBC Floor Commentator Outburst “Obama are you Listening?”(SILENT MAJORITY ALERT)
CNBC.com ^ | 2/18/2009 | Rick Santelli

Posted on 2/19/2009, 7:35:24 AM by longtermmemmory

Aproximatly 8:10 am est one of the commentators whose first name is Rick Santelli and is a regular commentator form one of the trading floors just went NUTS about this bailout scam.

The traders who are generally silent while he makes his comments were CHEERING!

One even grabbed the mike and chimed in and said “perhaps we should all stop paying our mortgages”.

This Greg was pointing out that the free market WOULD CORRECT the forclosures and put the forclosed property at REAL market value with people who could actually afford to pay them.

he ended with “..are you listening President Obama? this is the silent majority.”

If anyone can provide a transcript or video/tivo link this would help.

He just RIPPED the IDIOT who was from the Obama “freebie” administration. His video is here, http://www.cnbc.com/id/15840232?video=1039822893&play=1

It is IDENTICAL to what Rush was saying. Obama is only helping the impossible loan deadbeats. Obama is burning the homes of the silent majority america.

FOLKS IT WAS AMAZING AND NEEDS WIDER SPREAD!

HIS COMMENTS NEED TO GO VIRAL!!
1 posted on 2/19/2009, 7:35:25 AM by longtermmemmory

[Lorianne]

You said you were writing a history. A history would include what went on PRIOR to Santelli’s rant. You did sort of mention it in an offhand manner in your article, you mentioned that it set off a tinderbox, but what was that tinder? Where did it come from? It came from opposition to TARP (not some later proposal to distribute some of the TARP funds to “subsidize the losers’ mortgages”).

I’ll tell you why I think this is important.

1. How things happen historically is linear. You can pick a point in time to start talking about something, but you are not telling the whole story that way. Or you can emphasize one aspect over another thereby slanting the nature of an entire group.

2. By not placing the emphasis on where the real anger was (anger Santelli tapped into I grant you) you make the whole tea party movement seem like petty people who did not want homeowners to get some of the TARP money. That was not what was important at the time .... even Santelli has since railed many more times and more often about TARP itself than the homeowner proposal which came later, and which sparked his famous rant.

3. By promoting that TARP was “Bush spending”, you hide the actual Congressional vote tally ... which clearly shows that it was the Democrats who are majority responsible for TARP passing. Whether you are for it or against it, those are the actual facts.

3. By placing the timeline in 2009 and the emphasis on Santelli’s one rant you play into the left’s claim that the tea party is/was first and foremost anti-Obama, rather than anti-crony capitalist ... which is much more important overall than one line item proposal that came out later as an afterthought of the TARP.

4. Many of the people who were voted out in 2010 were Republicans who voted for TARP. But you add to the other side’s narrative that the entire tea party got started AFTER Obama was elected ... ergo it is simply anti-Obama (and therefore racist yadda yadda).

5. The status quo Republican establishment has distanced itself from the tea party in part because they don’t want to be seen as anti-business ... which they ascribe to the tea party ‘extremists’ in their midst ... when in fact the tea party is/was not anti-business, but rather anti-crony capitalists and anti-subsidies, pork etc.

6. The Republican party is dividing into two factions ... one is for the status quo (including bailouts, more government spending, subsidies, pork etc) and the other ostensibly against those things. But the media lumps us all together as being in the first camp. Many of us are not in the first camp and haven’t been since BEFORE Santelli’s rant. We were/are the people who are the most distinct from the GOPe.

In short, your ‘history’ by placing the emphasis on that one event (which was pivotal I grant you) misses the larger point conservative ‘extremists’ have been trying to get across for 8 long years now ... we are against crony capitalism, government favoritism, picking winners and losers ... basically fascism. The Dems and the GOPe are for government/business collusion ... eg fascism.

There have since been even more abuses (Obamacare and more) but you have to go back to the beginning if you are to write a history of the real start of the breakup of the GOPe.

[itsahoot]

Santelli rant on 02/19/2009, first tea party rallies that I know of were 02/27/2009 and more on 04/15/2009.

Actually I remember Barry Farber asking his radio listeners to mail a tea bags to their congressman in the eighties before Rush.

[Chgogal]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bEZB4taSEoA

I remember this rant from 02/19/2009

The US make some sense then. Santelli is now an extremist.

http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2015/10/30/when-cnbc-created-the-tea-party.html