The Young Turks - Afghanistan II, The Re-invasioning

Episode Date: September 7, 2021

Lindsey Graham tells a stunned reporter that the U.S. will re-invade Afghanistan. Jobless Americans have been left scrambling after pandemic unemployment benefits ended over Labor Day weekend. President Biden has encouraged some states to continue helping the long-term unemployed, but administration officials have said it is time for enhanced federal aid to end. The Justice Department wants to protect women seeking abortions in Texas. Portland will vote on banning trade with Texas because of the new abortion law. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

You're listening to The Young Turks, the online news show. Make sure to follow and rate our show with not one, not two, not three, not four, but five stars. You're awesome. Thank you. Hungry now. Now. What about now? Whenever it hits you, wherever you are, grab an O. Henry bar to satisfy your hunger. With its delicious combination of big, crunchy, salty peat.

Peanuts covered in creamy caramel and chewy fudge with a chocolatey coating. Swing by a gas station and get an O'Henry today. Oh, hungry, oh Henry. Hey, we know you probably hit play to escape your business banking, not think about it. But what if we told you there was a way to skip over the pressures of banking? By matching with the TD Small Business Account Manager, you can get the proactive business banking advice and support your business needs. Ready to press play? get up to $2,700 when you open select small business banking products.

Yep, that's $2,700 to turn up your business. Visit TD.com slash small business match to learn more. Conditions apply. All right, welcome to the Young Turks, Jake Eugher, Anna Kasparin with you guys. Hope you had a great Labor Day weekend. So a lot of Americans did not because their benefits got cut off. We're going to tell you about all that in a second. And Michael Moore is going to be on the show.

show today. So he'll be on the second hour. Talk a little bit about 9-11, Afghanistan, and other aspects of our endless wars. So great to have him on the program. And hilarious news about Ivermectin. Yes, that apparently exists, and we will share it with you guys. Casper. Well, I think we should start off with Senator Lindsey Graham and why he was trending over the weekend. He had some strong predictions regarding our foreign policy in Afghanistan. So let's take it away. We will be going back into Afghanistan as we went back into Iraq and Syria. Senator Lindsey Graham, who is heavily funded by the defense industry, is itching to reinvade Afghanistan following Biden's withdrawal of U.S. troops. In fact, here's more of his conversation

with BBC host Stephen Sacker. The Taliban are not reformed. They're not new. They have a view of the world out of sync with modern times. They're going to impose a lifestyle on the Afghan people that I think is going to make us all sick to our stomach. But most importantly, they're going to give safe haven to al-Qaeda, who has ambitions to drive us out of the mid-east writ large and attack us because of our way of life. We will be going back into Afghanistan as we went back into Iraq and Syria. Hang on, you seriously think the United States will once again, will have to.

In a foreseeable future, put troops back into Afghanistan. We'll have to, we'll have to, because the threat will go so, will be so large. Why did we go back to Syria and Iraq? Why do we have 5,000 troops in Iraq today? Because of the caliphate rising, projecting force outside of Iraq. Iraq killing Americans, killing the French, attacking the British. So yes, it will be a cauldron for radical Islamic behavior. You cannot deal with this over the horizon.

What's fascinating about Senator Lindsey Graham and the statements that he makes there, the clear fear mongering about how Americans will be targeted and murdered, is that he also simultaneously minimizes right-wing violence in this country. He consistently minimizes what happened in the nation's capital on January 6th. So more importantly, if you look at the impact of these multiple tours in places like Afghanistan, like Iraq, our soldiers have been suffering with all sorts of mental health issues which they then bring home and unfortunately in some cases ends up in violence against people around them. In fact, there was a story just this weekend about a sharpshooter from the Marines in Florida

and he decided to suffering from severe PTSD. I'm not minimizing or trying to excuse what he did, but he opened fire. and randomly killed four members of one family in Polk County, Florida, okay, including a 33-year-old mother and her three-month-old child. And we just abandon our troops here in the United States once they come back from those multiple tours. But Lizzie Graham isn't actually worried about Americans dying. He's not worried about these alleged threats.

He's worried about appeasing the defense contractors who have given him more than a million dollars over the lifetime of his political career. And I'll give you specific figures in just a second, but Jank, why don't you take it away? Yeah. So he talked about the Taliban is terrible lady. They don't agree with our way of life, and they want to take away some of our rights. I assume he means the ones in Afghanistan, not the ones in Texas. But the ones in Texas actually do take away our rights.

The Taliban can't take away our women's rights at all. But the Taliban in America, the one that Lindsey Graham subscribes to, Christian fundamentalists, can and do take away our rights. And so if he's talking about how Americans are affected, they're affected a lot more by the actions of Governor Greg Abbott in Texas than they are of Rashid Dostum or Gulbedin Hekmatiar or anyone in Afghanistan. So that's a reality, and that's a reality that's uncomfortable for him. But for a lot of Christian fundamentalists, they think, yes, our fundamentalism imposed upon you

is a great idea. You shouldn't have that kind of sex. You shouldn't have those rights. We should get control over your bodies. Oh, they want to do their fundamentalism based on very similar laws, but just with a different name. Oh, that's unacceptable. Only we get to abuse our women, not them. That's Lindsay Graham's position. Honestly, that's their neo-conservative position. But I can't say that it's entirely the Republican Party's position because the Republican voters do not agree with them. They are overwhelmingly against the war and further interference in other people's affairs. In fact, there was a poll done just last week by the Washington Post and ABC.

And here's what they found. They found that 77% of Americans say that they support the decision to withdraw all U.S. forces from Afghanistan, of course, support crosses party lines with 88% of Democrats and 74% of Republicans and 76% of independents aligned behind the decision. So Lindsey Graham's views on the necessity to re-invade Afghanistan is very much out of step with his own voters, his own constituents. And by the way, later in the interview, he also said this. He said, Afghanistan will be a cauldron for radical Islamic behavior presenting the United States with only two options. You can say that's no longer my problem or hit them before they hit you.

And it's just amazing because he's just recycling the same fear mongering tactics that were used in the lead up to that war. And also the lies that were told right before we invaded Iraq in that preemptive war. Yeah, you know, hit them before they hit you is the most common statement before someone starts a terrible war. By the way, you know who said hit them before they hit you, Adolf Hitler. Now, you can say, hey, Hitler said a lot of things. and you shouldn't compare anyone to Hitler. I hear you on that. But I'm not doing it to say Lindsey Graham is the same as Hitler.

I'm doing it so you understand. It's the oldest trick in the book. He said, oh my God, we've got to protect the homeland. It's literally what Hitler said. And we've got to hit them in the Sudetenland, in Poland, in Russia, and all these places before they hit us. They're coming to hit us. Those poor ethnic Germans, they're coming for us.

So we've got to hit them first. So whenever you hear somebody talking about all they understand as violence, They understand his violence. That's why we have to murder them before they even do anything, understand that they're the actual murderers. Now, if you look at what really motivates Lindsey Graham, because he knows that the Taliban doesn't really pose a threat to Americans. In fact, if you take troops, you put him back in Afghanistan, that does risk their lives, right?

So what really motivates him? What's the motivating factor behind his statements there? Well, I implied that, you know, he's trying to appease his defense. contractors, and that's very much real. If you look at the entirety of his career and the top sectors that have contributed campaign donations to him, you'll see that in that list, in the top five, is the defense sector. And by the way, I want to make clear that this is just the money that we know about. There's also dark money pouring into campaigns, which makes it kind of difficult to decipher

just how much money these sectors have actually given him. But of the money that we know about, that isn't dark money, over the lifetime of his career, he has received over $1,7,328. Yeah. That's a lot of money. And guys, look at the line right after that, energy and natural resources. It gets ranked in a funny kind of way here, but it's actually bigger than defense. It's over $2.5 million in his career.

But those guys also greatly benefit from wars in the Middle East. Because when you have instability in oil rich countries like Iraq and Iran, what that does is it drives up prices because they're worried about supply and even if demand stays the same prices naturally go up. So that's two out of his top five giant donors, over a million dollars, as you saw in those sheets there, that are heavily incentivized to create more wars in the Middle East. A lot of our mainstream media is in the brainwashing business, and they brainwash you into thinking that giant global corporations like oil companies and defense contractors are not interested in profits. They're just benign charities, and they give the politicians like Lindsey Graham $2.5 million, a million dollars, et cetera, just for charity, just for charity, because they believe in the same principles as he does. No, they're purchasing a politician, and what they are buying is the product of war. And you create the war, we supply it, we get rich, and we take some of the small amount of that and funnel it back to you. This is the cycle of corruption.

Now, what's really disheartening is a perfectly fine interview, and obviously the interviewer there challenged Lindsay Graham when he said such an outrageous thing like we're going back. But what no reporter ever challenges them on is, hey, Lindsay Graham, why should we listen to you given that you've taken millions of dollars from people who profit from me? these wars. Isn't it obvious that you're literally making a killing out of these wars? And so you would seem to be the least reliable source here, given how heavily incentivized you are to start more wars. You literally get more checks every time you start more wars. So you would be the worst person to interview, not the best on this issue. Isn't that correct, Senator Graham? But no one ever asked that because you don't ever want to offend the elite because they actually rule this country and reporters know their roles. Their role is to do propaganda on behalf of the powerful.

That's right. All right, well, let's take a look at policy back at home where, you know, unfortunately, some of the benefits regarding COVID have run out. So enhanced federal unemployment benefits have expired. In fact, they expired over the weekend on Labor Day specifically, which means that millions of Americans will not get the expanded benefits, even as coronavirus is surging, even as businesses are not operating at full capacity, even as millions of Americans are still without jobs. Now, to remind you all, the added benefits, federal benefits amounted to an additional $300 per week on top of the state unemployment benefits. But the expiration date reached on Monday means that 7.5 million people will lose their benefits entirely, and another 3 million will lose the $300 weekly supplement.

Now, what has Biden said? Well, as you can imagine, there hasn't been much pushback from Biden or any urgency from Biden to provide an extension of these benefits. In fact, Biden has called on certain states those with high unemployment rates and a willingness to continue aid to jobless workers to use state relief funds from the March law, the COVID relief bill, to help the long term unemployed. So far, no state, of course, has said it plans to do so. Roughly half of the states, nearly all of them led by Republican governors, moved to cut off benefits early on their own. Biden and his administration did not fight them. In fact, the Biden administration has now pivoted toward passing his agenda, both the bipartisan infrastructure bill and allegedly the reconciliation budget bill that includes all of the provisions that would actually help keep American families afloat. Now, to be quite honest with you, maybe he's fighting behind the scenes,

but I personally haven't seen much of a fight from the Biden administration in regard to the reconciliation bill. But nonetheless, this is not a good day for Americans who are still searching for work. And of course, there's a huge misconception in regard to what those unemployment benefits did to the alleged labor shortage that we're experiencing. So, so, Jake, do you want to comment on that? Yeah. So this affects a ton of people. Seven and a half million people get cut off now. Another three million lose an extra $300. They were able to get another three million had lost it earlier a couple of weeks ago or some time ago. So combined, that's nearly 14 million Americans that are losing benefits.

So this is going to have a massive impact. But look, the Biden administration is clear. They're not looking to extend it at all. They're not even pretending on this one. A lot of times they say, oh, golly, gee, we would love to continue the eviction moratorium. But all of our real estate donors say we can't. I mean, the courts say we can't probably maybe if we help them. Okay, so in this one, they're not even trying.

They're like, no, we're gonna end this, we don't want you to extend it. By the way, so the red states are the ones that took away the unemployment benefits earlier and Biden didn't object, but now the blue states are not petitioning to use them either. They're not using the extensions at all. So everyone agrees, including Democratic governors, et cetera. So, and by the way, at some point I would agree with, well, okay, maybe we should pair things back when we get back to normal unhealthy. Do we look like we're back to normal and healthy? No. So that come, that's that's the giant butt here. Okay, there's two aspects of it. One, the Delta variant really threw for us,

for a loop, including myself. Like, I thought we were past it. I was ecstatic. We, I was even going indoors in some places without masks, being vaccinated, et cetera. But now here comes a giant surge. And now we're back to masked up and affecting businesses and their ability to hire The unemployment numbers are not good recently. And so the second butt is these business owners, as Anna is about to show you, that are beginning to say finally what's true. It turns out if you pay enough unemployment insurance, people can squeak by, and then they realize how terrible their jobs were. And then you have to actually pay them a living wage to get them to show up to work. And man, businesses do not want to do that.

And in fact, there's one business owner flat out admitting it. But he does, he says he represents a lot of people. Fox News says he represents a lot of people. And in the business community, unfortunately, it's true. He's like, damn it, I don't want to pay living wages. We had him exactly where we wanted him, barely hang on by a thread. Right. I mean, in a situation where workers had absolutely no leverage,

but with unemployment benefits, they have a little bit of leverage. But there is still a misconception about what motivates workers to avoid going back to some of the jobs they had. I'll get to that in detail in just a moment. But first, I bring you Jason Kramer, the owner of the do-wop drive-in, who admits that, all right, I guess I'm just going to have to pay people a living wage, whereas before I was paying them starvation wages. Here's the thing that people get mistaken because of what we stand for. We're okay for giving people assistance that needed. This was way too much, way too much money for way too long. The issue is the money that was given out was for help, not to stay home and do nothing.

I couldn't even get people to walk in the tour, to even explain that, listen, I'm willing to compromise and give you a living wage, give you a working wage, not just minimum wage, but I wasn't even given the opportunity to help people get jobs. It is strictly about capitalism. I took the risk. I put my life in the line. I put everything. I worked hard, but I was willing to even share my wealth. the minimum that we were making with the employees, but I couldn't get people even in the door. You have all these statistics saying with all these means of people want jobs, where are they at?

Where were they? No, I just, I love that because it's like, you know, I wasn't given the opportunity to pay my workers a living wage. I couldn't even get them through that. You know, it's interesting because there's already data showing that for the employers who were willing to, up the wages of workers during the pandemic, they had a far easier time getting their workers to come back. Now there are other factors at play that actually have a much larger influence on workers' decisions to stay home and I'll get to that in just a second.

But, Jay, I just love the admission there. Yeah. Like I would have paid them a living wage, I just didn't get the opportunity. Yeah, so there's two things that I love about that. One is the lies and two is the truth. So first the lies, he's like, I wanna give it to them and they wouldn't take it, they wouldn't walk in the door. Yeah, I was in Colorado a couple of months back and that's when things were coming back into a business before the Delta variant. And the fast food chains had big signs in front, $15 an hour.

Pay, I saw one that said $18 an hour, okay? And guess what? They were functioning. They were open because people saw those signs and they walked in because $18 an hour sounded pretty damn good. Strange how that works, Jake. Weird. Yeah. Meanwhile, this poor guy, he doesn't know how to put a sign in front of his establishment.

He didn't get an opportunity, but he worked so hard. He worked so hard. He put everything on the line. My dad was a local businessman, he was a pretty good business man. You know what he would do? He'd put an ad in the paper. We could have done that. Oh, I didn't get a chance.

Okay, pretty sure you did. Look at you, you have a chance to say it on Fox News here. Tell people what you're paying. I guarantee you they'll show up in droves. show up in droves, it's a good number, right? So that's the lies. The truth though is even more amazing. He's like, I was willing to compromise and pay them a living wage.

Oh, were you? Well, are you not merciful? I didn't know you were that much of a humanitarian. So apparently before you weren't willing to compromise and pay them a living wage. Okay, and he views that to be a compromise. Come on, I'm even letting you live off my wages and you're still complaining? Jesus. And then the second admission, I was even willing to share my wealth. Again, quite the humanitarian you are. Right. Well, you see when people work with you and you all make the money together, yes, in a manner of speaking, you should share the wealth.

And in a way that is, will motivate them to come to work and maybe even create an atmosphere where you like each other, right? And that you have a functioning business. It doesn't mean they're going to make more than you. It doesn't mean you're not going to make plenty. But yes, you're supposed to share enough for people to show up to work. That's the bare minimum. And he views it as like, like, I'm such a good guy. I'll even pay you guys minimum wage and share my wealth a little bit. No, that's not what makes you a good guy. So let's talk about why workers aren't going back to work, right?

Because I think that there's this, and this always happens, the smearing of American workers as lazy. as bums, as people who just want to sit on the couch when in reality, you look at productivity in this country, you know, before the pandemic. And Americans work the longest hours, incredibly hard workers, incredibly productive, but we're just all bums. Okay, great. But evidence so far suggests that programs are playing at most a limited role in keeping people out of the workforce. States that ended the benefits early, for example, meaning the unemployment benefits have seen little, if any, pick up in hiring relative to the rest of the country. So one of the main things that get cited is child care.

Because remember, the coronavirus pandemic, whether we want to believe it or not, is still raging. So what ends up happening to kids who are supposed to go back to school? Well, they go back to school, there's an outbreak of coronavirus and a bunch of students have to quarantine, meaning that their parents need to be home to take care of their children, right? Child care is incredibly expensive. Most people can't afford it. So there's a cost benefit analysis that happens in every household. It ends up being that the mother is better off staying at home with the kids

instead of working all day to just pay all of her earnings toward child care, right? So data released by the Labor Department showed that the states that cut benefits, have experienced job growth similar to and perhaps slightly slower than growth in states that retained the benefits. That was true even in the leisure and hospitality sector, where businesses have been particularly vocal in their complaints about the benefits. So that's the thing, I mean, people in this country get no support at all. So if we're not gonna get help with childcare, how are you gonna expect workers who make meager

wages to show up to work when all of their wages then get spent on child care. It makes no sense. It makes no sense. This system is broken. And to smear workers as like these lazy bums is so disgusting when in reality you've got greedy businesses that don't want to pay a living wage. You have the government that's unwilling to do anything about child care and the lack of a social safety net. And this is the situation that we end up in, period. This is the way it works. Yeah, see, that's why I thought the Family Paid Leave Act, etc. would be easier to pass because at some point corporations have to realize if we don't help women with, and not just women, of course, but predominantly women still today with child care, they're not going to come

to work. And then by the way, it's not just that, hey, I don't have enough employees. What that'll do is it lowers the supply of workers, which drives up the prices. And so they don't want that either. So it's a perfect opportunity to unload that on the government. And so that's why it was easily put into the COVID relief bills. And but it's, I believe it's in the three and a half trillion dollar reconciliation bill. It is. And so that should be a way to sweeten the pot for corporations who actually, of course, run our government. But still, that one has trouble passing. And you would think that that should be a layup for them. But still to this day, They think, wow, I mean, I'm going to have to pay a part of that cost.

And look at that. The guy on Fox News, really, they're almost negotiating with the country, right? How little can we pay you for you to show up? They're trying to find your bottom. Yeah, he's not the only one, though. Yeah, and no, the whole country is, right? All the politicians are, he just happens to be symbolic. He's actually a small business owner, so not a great symbol.

The real symbol should be the giant corporations that hire fast food workers. workers, et cetera, and they're the ones that methodically try to keep your wages to scientifically as low as they possibly can pay and for you to still be able to survive. All right, we gotta take a break, but when we come back, the Justice Department claims that it is in the fight against Texas to protect women and their reproductive rights. We'll see what they're gonna do, we'll give you those statements and more when we come back. All right, back on TYT, Jankanana with you guys. Tons of the news left, including Michael Moore, by the way.

He's going to join us in a little bit, and he's going to talk about Afghanistan foreign policy. And, oh, by the way, also perhaps the evils of capitalism. So that's going to be interesting conversation. Casper, more news. All right. President Joe Biden's Department of Justice has weighed in on Texas's abortion ban. Now, the ban is, of course, after six weeks following conception, which means that 85 to 90% of abortions will be banned in the state of Texas.

Now, Merrick Garland, the Attorney General, has weighed in, and he said that the Justice Department has reached out to U.S. attorney's offices and FBI field offices in Texas and across the country to discuss our enforcement authorities. He claims that they will be protecting women's reproductive rights in Texas. But to be quite honest with you, the statement was a little vague in regard to the legality or ability to do so. Now the department he claims will provide support from federal law enforcement when an abortion clinic or reproductive health center is under attack. He also says we will not tolerate violence against those seeking to obtain or provide reproductive health

services, physical obstruction of property damage in violation of the Face Act. And there he's referring to the Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances Act, a 1994 law that prohibits threat. to an obstruction of a person seeking reproductive health services or of providers. Now, following the passage of that bill, and once it was put into effect, abortion clinics noticed that there were anti-choice activists basically swarming around the clinics, shining spotlights at them and being incredibly intimidating. So it's probably what he's referring to there, but it's still unclear whether the Department of Justice can can really block Texas from enacting this abortion ban.

And it still needs to work its way through the courts. Remember, what the Supreme Court did was essentially refused to block the law as it works its way through the federal courts. So they haven't weighed in on the constitutionality of it yet. But by the way that it's written, some legal experts are worried that the Supreme Court would allow it to stand. Although, Jake, I wanted to ask you a question, right? question, right? Because we talked about how the enforcement mechanism for the law doesn't

rely, doesn't rely on the state. They are allowing private citizens across the country to report possible illegal abortions in the state of Texas. But who would adjudicate that? Yeah. So it would be the courts. It would. But the loophole that they're using for now, which is both good news and bad news. The bad news is obvious. It's allowing the law to stand. I'll get to the good news as part of the explanation. So normally what would happen is when a state passed a law, anyone can challenge it because the state has enforcement power and hence it affects people whether you've begun to enforce it or not because you can enforce it, right?

So then you can sue the state and block it before it really takes effect, right? But in this case they're saying the state isn't going to enforce anything, it's the private citizens that are going to sue. And when they sue, that's when it will become a matter that you can adjudicate, okay? And then at that point, they would bring in the case, the argument that, hey, this is really a state's issue here, because without the state paying the $10,000, these vigilantes couldn't collect anyway. But right now they can't even make that argument because no one is subject to the law yet,

because no one's been sued for the $10,000 yet. None of the clinics have been sued yet. I got that, but also, I mean, the judicial system is part of the state, isn't it? So isn't the judicial system also part of the enforcement mechanism? Well, I hear you, but what they're saying is there's no case to adjudicate. Now it's the liberal justices are saying, no, you're obviously creating a loophole which puts this into effect anyway and use the state power. So it's not wrong to ask that question. In fact, that's the, in my opinion, is probably the correct decision.

But I'm just trying to explain the loophole to you guys. And what conservatives are saying and what the conservative justice are relying on is, we're not, and this is the good news part of it. They're saying we're not judging the merits of the case at all, because it's not yet a case in front of us. Once somebody sues a clinic for $10,000, then it'll be a case in front of us, and then we'll judge it on its merits. Got it, yeah.

Yeah, so we'll see if the Justice Department can really protect women who are seeking abortion. Right now, the abortion clinics in the state of Texas are being incredibly cautious. In fact, the day that the law went into effect, they canceled all their appointments because they're worried about being tied up in litigation, which of course will be incredibly costly and could bankrupt them. So this is already having an impact on women in the state. Now, Matt Gates of all people, a Republican congressman who's facing a DOJ investigation for possible sex trafficking of a minor had some views on this.

He says, quote, the DOJ is out of control. This is totalitarian stuff. If they don't like the law, they will just use DOJ raw power to crush it. Oh, so regulating women's bodies and telling them what they can and can't do with their bodies, that's not authoritarian in any way, that's not totalitarian. That's not a problem at all, right? But the Department of Justice attempting to protect women's rights, that's where you get into totalitarian territory for Matt Gates.

What a, I mean, he's a clown. But you know, it's this hardening to see how easily people are duped. And I remember, it's one case of it that we're going to talk about later in the show. So to say simplistic things like, it's also a proof for humans. What is it approved for? No one asks, right? Or unfortunately some people don't ask. In this case, he's like, can you believe the federal government is using its power like this?

And all the right wingers go, yeah, I hate it what the government uses the power over human beings to take away their freedom. What do you think Texas was doing? I love it what Texas, the government takes away, use their power to take away your freedom. But they genuinely believe it because they don't, you just have to frame it the right way. The federal government, when they act, it's tyrannical. It's tyrannical. When the Texas state government acts, it's wonderful and protects freedom. It doesn't have to make logical sense.

It just has to fit pre-designed talking points and framing. So it triggers a conservative mind to go, me like freedom, me hate tyranny, right? Do you like freedom for women to choose what to do with their own bodies and their own lives? Me no like freedom. But no wait, that's life. We have different talking point for that one, okay? Me like life, okay, great, so you want to take the vaccine. because 600,000 people have died.

No, me no like life. I mean me like freedom, right? They need their simple talking points. Look, I hate to do it to them, but they make us ridicule them with these, I mean, how can you not see the logical fallacy of Matt Case? Okay, now back to the federal government and the Democrats. So when I see the headline, Biden and Garland say they're gonna do whatever it takes to protect the woman of Texas, so okay, that's great, that's what we asked for.

I'm happy to hear it. But I'm really curious how. Right, right? Because there's a lot of different ways to go and it's not that easy a question because there's several different angles here and how it touches the law, right, and how it touches the federal government. So then I read and it says, oh, well, we will not allow violence at the clinics. Right, I mean.

Well, look, I hope that's not the main issue. I'm glad you're doing that, but that's really got to be the bare minimum. If that's all you're going to do, that's not that interesting. Yeah, okay, so let me just. give my assessment and I'm glad you said that because I'm like, is there something I'm missing here? I feel like the Biden administration is giving us the illusion of taking action when in reality they're not doing anything because they're addressing, they're not addressing the heart of the problem. Yes. They're talking about like, we're going to protect women as they

enter abortion clinics. No, but women aren't going to be able to enter abortion clinics at all if they can't even get an appointment for an abortion because the abortion providers are terrified of the costly litigation that they're now gonna have to deal with. As a result of people from across the country suing them for allegedly providing illegal abortion. That's the problem. That was not addressed at all in the statement that came from the DOJ, at all. No, it's, I always think of Dodd-Frank in these situations. All you have to tell the press that you're doing something historic or really strong. And they'll all write it down.

It doesn't matter if it's true or not. Like Dodd-Frank was a very weak financial reform after 2008 collapse that Obama passed super weak. It let the bankers run rough shot again. And right now we're over leveraged. All those problems have come back in a different form. But they told everybody in the press, this is historic. And everybody in the press wrote, historic financial reform, as if it's fixed. And in this case, we are fighting back against Texas.

We will do everything we can. They will do everything they can. Yeah. I mean, it's absurd. It's stenography, yes. Yeah, look, yes, but what? What are they doing? Right.

So, I mean, I was talking about airlifting the women out of Texas to make sure they can, we can protect their rights if there's no clinics that are open. That'd be pretty bad out. Okay, are we going to do that? Are we going to send in the National Guard? What do we do? Oh, okay, I don't want them. defacing the property of the clinics. Well, I don't either, and I don't want anybody's life

in danger, but you can't brag about doing the least and then tell us you're doing the most, well, apparently you can, as long as you have the mainstream media up your ass. Yeah, that's exactly right. All right, well, we've got to take a break, but when we come back, Portland, the city of Portland might retaliate against Texas, but does it mean anything? We'll give you our views on that and more when we come back. Back on TYT. Jake Ugar and a Casparian, don't often give the full names. I just did it.

All right, more news. All right. Well, let's talk a little bit about Portland. The Portland City Council is set to vote on essentially boycotting the state of Texas over its anti-choice law, which effectively bans the vast majority of abortions in the state. Now, the question is, can they do it and will it really have any type of impact? Now Portland Mayor Ted Wheeler said that the city council will vote on whether to ban trading goods and services with Texas and also bar state employees from official business travel as well. The resolution if passed would also bar city employee travel to the state.

Mayor Wheeler's office said that the resolution would be in effect until Texas either withdraws the abortion law or it gets overturned in court. Let me give you a little bit of Mayor Wheeler's statement on this. He says, quote, the law does not demonstrate concern for the health, safety, and well-being of those who may become pregnant. This law does not recognize or show respect for the human rights of those who may become pregnant. The law rewards private individuals for exercising surveillance and control of over others' bodies. It violates the separation of church and state, and it will force people to carry

pregnancies against their will. And he's right about that. It also forces women to carry their pregnancies to term, even if they've been the victim of rape or incest. So it's a pretty extreme law to say the least. But I do also want to note that it appears that if they do pass this resolution, it'll mostly be symbolic. So how much business does Portland do with Texas?

A quick search of Portland's current three volume, 1,9004 page book? budget returned only one mention of Texas, but that was a reference to a highway improvement project which included Southwest Texas Street in Portland. The Texas economy, by the way, is the ninth largest in the world, and that's according to the Texas Economic Development Corporation. Texas exports about $315.9 billion worth of goods and services to countries outside of the United States each year, including exports like petroleum and coal products. So I'd like that the city council is considering making a stand, even if it's just a symbolic one. But just know that even if they do vote in favor of this resolution and overwhelmingly pass it,

it is unlikely to really have an impact on the decisions of Texas lawmakers who are trying to appeal to their rabid right wing voters. Yeah, so I still love it. I think it's the right idea. And, you know, sometimes I talk about building a change machine here at TYT. And of course, it's a funny phrase, right? And nobody knows what it means, but what part of what it means is- Sounds like a great way to describe it then. I know, right?

So, you know, hey, listen, I'm here all week, okay, coming out with these brilliant ideas. No, but part of what it means, and eventually I hope people understand what we're going for here is, for example, I'd like to follow a suit. If we were a larger corporation, it'd be easier to do and say, hey, we're not going to do business. in Texas either, and we'd have to figure out what that means, etc. But then I would love to build a coalition of small businesses saying we will not go to Texas. That would have more impact. And then Portland starts this, I would love to help a coalition of cities that say we're not going to do business with Texas anymore. And that would have a huge impact, both those things would.

So that's part of why I'm trying to grow this into a bigger network so we can have bigger impact in a lot of ways, including financial, because that's the only thing that really moves the needle, especially for conservatives. especially for conservatives, especially because their donors are pretty much business interests. And so if you hurt the business interest or you affect the business interests, then you could affect laws like this. And then all of a sudden, Republican politicians are a little bit more careful how they tread. At this point, they're not at all careful because Greg Abbott, the governor of Texas, was asked about the fact that there was no exception to rape or incest, as Anna pointed out in this law. And he said, no, it's okay because we've got a plan. We're gonna wipe out

rape from Texas. So that won't have it anyway. Yeah, because you know, especially the Republican Party, they've shown themselves to be people who take rape and the mistreatment of women very seriously. Yeah. Yeah. And rape has not been wiped out anywhere on the planet, it's an absurd thing to say, it's the kind of thing you say if you have nothing else left to say, which is Greg Abbott's situation because they're saying basically, if you don't carry your rapist baby to term, we're gonna

have a, empower a whole bunch of vigilantes in the state of Texas. to come after you and the clinics that you're going to and try to hound you and bankrupt the people trying to help you. Now the woman, by the way, just to clarify, can't be sued. Yeah, the clinics can. But the clinics can, and the woman would have to be part of those proceedings, which would be off. Yeah, you have to track the women and violate their privacy and be totally gross to them, okay? And, of course, the effect of it is to make them carry the zygote all the way to term and take care of it for 18 years. basically turn the woman into chattel, an indentured servant of the state.

That's why people compare it to handman's tail, because you're using the women for their bodies and not asking them for permission. But yes, the clinics pay them on. Yep. All right, one more story before we go to our break, because Nike stepped in it, and I don't know how they didn't see this coming. So, Nike decided to shut down its corporate offices for a full week. Because would you look at that, they're really looking out for their workers. They want to make sure that they focus on their mental health. You know, things have been really difficult with COVID. But it's retail workers, you know, the forward facing employees who have to deal with

customers all day, those in the service industry, they're expected to show up. So how did Nike not see how awful this idea was, especially as they're promoting it as something that makes them the good guys for looking out for the well-being of their workers? Now, it has closed its corporate offices for the week so employees can, quote, enjoy additional time off to rest and recover, end quote, according to their statement. Matt Morizano or Morazo, senior manager at Nike posted on his LinkedIn page, quote, it's not just a week off for the team. It's an acknowledgement that we can prioritize mental health and still get work done. But as I mentioned earlier, the retail workers are still expected to show up. In fact, when a reporter from KGW News called a Nike retail store, the person who answered

the phone said this was the first they were hearing about the paid time off for corporate employees. And an associate professor from the University of Oregon School of Law said, if it is the case that part-time workers in a retail store are expected to come to work, whereas headquarter offices are not, that also sends a message about which kind of workers they care of. about and are willing to invest in. And by the way, this doesn't even account for the people who actually make the products for Nike, who overwhelmingly do not live in the United States and are in fact exploited in

countries like China and Vietnam. I'll get to those details in a second, Jake. Yeah, so apparently they didn't run it by their employees at the retail stores. They told them to just do it. Sounds like they didn't want to shatter limits. Oh, I guess if the shoe fits. But they could just do it. They could, but I said that over.

Okay. Okay, well, I thought we were, I thought we maxed out on bad dad jokes. Okay, so seriously though, it's an interesting story and an important one. Look, the original idea of looking out for the people working at headquarters, it's not a bad one, as long as you did it for every. You did it for everybody, right? Exactly.

And so, like, I don't want to just pile on them and say, I can't believe they wanted to give people more time off. That's great, that's great news. We're just asking you to do it more uniformly. And what's really interesting is that it's the lack of an ability to see outside your own perspective. Like, they didn't even think of the retail guys, obviously, because it went to print, they're bragging about it. Like, yeah, I mean, the guys who make the shoes in Vietnam or wherever, oh God helped them, right? That was never in question. They were not going to get a week off.

But it just never, I think it never occurred to them that we have workers elsewhere that aren't executives. Exactly. And unfortunately, that's the mindset of a lot of executives. They think like, oh, no, no, but they got to work. We need to have the stores open. But you don't have to work. Well, that's also interesting.

No, but to be fair, Jang, I'm sure the executives work a lot harder than everyone else. So they deserve that week off. But by the way, they definitely believe that. Of course they believe that. Of course they believe that. And it's insane. Anyway, all right, so let's talk about, look, we live in a global economy, right? And that global economy means that they don't just have workers in the United States.

They are exploiting workers in other countries like China and Vietnam. In fact, almost all Nike shoes are in fact manufactured outside of the United States. The leading manufacturer of Nike shoes is China and Vietnam, each accounting for 36% of the total manufactured worldwide. Indonesia counts for 22% and Thailand for 6% of the Nike shoes that are being produced worldwide. Now, there's also the issue of forced labor because when we're talking about China, there's also the issue of Uyghur Muslims who get forced into these factories. And there was recently an op-ed published in the Washington Post that touched on this. It's a team of researchers who have been tracking the treatment of Uyghur Muslims in, or Uyghur Muslims, I apologize, Uyghur Muslims in China, and here's what they found.

For months, our team of researchers based in Australia have been tracking the movement of Uyghur citizens from their homeland in the western region of Xinjiang and their other parts of China. We found that in the past three years, more than 80,000 of them have been transported to factories across China where they are compelled to work on production lines linked to at least 83 brands. The post Anna Fyfield visited the shoe factory in one of the shoe factories in China, producing sneakers for Nike, and found that it resembled a prison with barbed wire, watch showers, surveillance cameras, and a dedicated police station. Ugar workers at the factory, she was told,

did not come on their own accord, nor could they return home for the holidays. But hey, don't worry, the corporate offices, they're getting a week off, awesome. Yeah, look, we're having trouble people getting people to care about the women of Texas. Portland is hopefully started a trend by saying that they're going to boycott Texas. We hope more people do to effectuate change there. But getting people to try to care about Uyghurs in China and the 83 brands that they're forced into making in these camps, these concentration camps are outside of the camps. Unfortunately in America, it's just near impossible to get people to care.

And that's the reality. But it's so much so that even Nike executives forgot that these are folks that are also related to their brand and make their shoes. And I mean, a week off, what would be great is if China didn't put them in concentration camps anymore. And you guys could put economic pressure on to make sure that doesn't happen. happen, but of course they're not going to do that. And so I'd love to give them credit for coming up with a good idea about the week off, but they really got to do better in making it uniform, otherwise it looks inescapably elitist. Yeah, absolutely.

All right, that does it for our first hour, but stick around because when we come back for the second hour, Michael Moore will be joining us for a discussion on Afghanistan, the economy, and more. Thanks for listening to the full episode of the Young Turks. Support our work, listen to ad-free, access members-only bonus content, and more by subscribing to Apple Podcasts at apple.co slash t-y-t. I'm your host, Shank Yugar, and I'll see you soon.