The Young Turks - American Dystopia

Episode Date: June 24, 2022

Conservative Supreme Court Ends Constitutional Right To An Abortion | Clarence Thomas Floats Contraceptive & Gay Marriage Ban After Roe v. Wade Decision | Congress Sends Flimsy Gun Control Bill To Biden's Desk | GOP Rep Requested Blanket Pardon For Election Deniers Hosts: John Iadarola, Farron Cousins, Kyla Frank *** The largest online progressive news show in the world. Hosted by Cenk Uygur and Ana Kasparian. LIVE weekdays 6-8 pm ET. Help support our mission and get perks. Membership protects TYT's independence from corporate ownership and allows us to provide free live shows that speak truth to power for people around the world. See Perks: ▶ https://www.youtube.com/TheYoungTurks/join SUBSCRIBE on YOUTUBE: ☞ http://www.youtube.com/subscription_center?add_user=theyoungturks FACEBOOK: ☞ http://www.facebook.com/TheYoungTurks TWITTER: ☞ http://www.twitter.com/TheYoungTurks INSTAGRAM: ☞ http://www.instagram.com/TheYoungTurks TWITCH: ☞ http://www.twitch.com/tyt 👕 Merch: http://shoptyt.com ❤ Donate: http://www.tyt.com/go 🔗 Website: https://www.tyt.com 📱App: http://www.tyt.com/app 📬 Newsletters: https://www.tyt.com/newsletters/ If you want to watch more videos from TYT, consider subscribing to other channels in our network: The Damage Report ▶ https://www.youtube.com/thedamagereport TYT Sports ▶ https://www.youtube.com/tytsports The Conversation ▶ https://www.youtube.com/tytconversation Rebel HQ ▶ https://www.youtube.com/rebelhq TYT Investigates ▶ https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCwNJt9PYyN1uyw2XhNIQMMA #TYT #TheYoungTurks #BreakingNews 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. Big my team. Three-a-Thing Three-a-Tee Three-a-Tee Three-a-T-R-G-R-T-R-T-R-R-T-R-T,

Dream-R-R-R-T, Dream-A, D-R-T, Welcome to the Young Turks. I'm your host, Anna Kasparian. Actually, the host today is John Iderola for the first hour, which is typical of a Friday show, John, how are you doing? Yeah, it's just typical stuff. You know, it's typical times, typical politics, typical America, that's what it is. You know what I mean. I know what you know.

No, we're glad to have you on for this first block. You know, you go back a ways with this show and so it feels like it makes sense for you to be involved in it. So when I was pretty much frozen and trying to really really, really take in what's happening today. I needed someone to do what John did this morning, which was give me a call and encourage me to do what I really wanted to do, which was beyond the show today. So we will have a power panel after the first block.

I just felt it was important for me to come on, the show that I host on a daily basis, to talk about the big news, the big terrible news, and then we'll move forward with other stories related to the reversal of Rovi, Wade, the rundown is important today to say the least. So if you're watching us live, please share the stream, like the stream, do what you can to get the message out. Because now more than ever, it's really important that we stick together, that we fight together, and do what's necessary to reverse, in the very least, the damage that the Republican Party

and the theocratic zealots in this country have been doing, the damage they've caused. So John, before I get to the story and the details, did you want to mention anything else, what the audience can look forward to for the rest of the first hour? Definitely. So after this first break, after this first block and then the first break, we will be coming back with the power panel. Farron Cousins and Kyla Frank are going to be joining us. We're going to be talking a little bit about looking ahead to what else the Supreme Court

will be coming for rights-wise in the near future. we've got a little bit of updates on gun control. And hey, you remember Deborah Berks? Turns out she still has stuff to reveal. She was testifying before Congress this week. And we have some pretty interesting revelations. So we'll break that down and more after this first block. Well, let's get right to it. The big news story of the day, which will have consequences for possibly generations to come. The right wing theocrats in the Supreme Court have now have now officially done something that will essentially reverse the expansion of rights that were given to us by the very same court less than 50 years ago. They have reversed Roe v. Wade, meaning that

the constitutional protections for women's reproductive rights no longer exist. It is now up to the states, at least for now, to determine what their reproductive rights will entail. And as you As you can imagine, immediately after the Supreme Court reversed Roe v. Wade, roughly half the states in the United States made clear that they plan on either completely banning abortion or severely restricting it. Now, I want to give you some of the details on what we learned after this reversal. Joining Alito, obviously Alito conservative justice were Thomas and justices near Gorsuch, Brett Kavanaugh and Amy Coney Barrett. The latter three justices are Trump appointees. Thomas first voted to overrule Roe 30 years ago for justices would have left Roe and Casey in place.

Now the vote was six to three, so obviously it was divided along ideological lines. Six to three to uphold the Mississippi law, which effectively bans abortion past 15 weeks. But Chief Justice John Roberts did not join his conservative colleagues in overturning Roe. Roe. He wrote that there was no need to overturn the broad procedures to rule in Mississippi's favor. And I would argue that he was right about that, but it didn't matter. There is a strong conservative majority in the Supreme Court and they get to decide to strip us of our rights. And I want to also note that this is unprecedented. This is the first time the Supreme Court is rolling back rights that had been expanded by the Supreme

court decades earlier. Okay, so we're moving backwards. This country is devolving. Women's ability to make decisions about their own bodies have been stripped away from them. And for all of the right wingers that are telling you, it's okay, it's okay. Everyone calm down. It's just it's up to the states now. It's up to the states to decide. Well, these anti-reproductive rights zealots are currently working on what their next agenda item is, which is, which is, which is ensuring that the federal government codify the ban of reproductive rights, the banning of women being able to make decisions about their own bodies. And considering the unbelievable corruption and incompetence of the mainstream Democratic Party,

there's really no fierce opposition preventing the right wing from doing what they've clearly stated they intend to do. So the liberal justices obviously dissented with this decision, decision with the majority decision. And they write with sorrow for this court, but more for the many millions of American women who have today lost a fundamental constitutional protection. We dissent, they wrote, warning that abortion opponents now could pursue a nationwide ban from the moment of conception and without exceptions for rape or incest. And let's just make something very clear here. I've said it before, many times,

I'll say it again. This is not a debate or a discussion about life and death. We have had the distinct pleasure of experiencing the right wing death cult in this country during the global pandemic that has killed over a million Americans. They couldn't be bothered to put a piece of fabric on their faces, temporarily, temporarily to save people's lives, to stop the spread of a lethal virus. virus. They couldn't be bothered with that. They argued that that was too invasive, that it was a violation of their bodily autonomy. Oh, it was a violation of their liberties. Take a look at what happens to a woman's body, both during pregnancy and during childbirth. And try to compare that

to the very easy action of putting a mask on to protect people from dying due to a contagious virus. Nah, these people, they were never, ever sincere about wanting to protect life. They watch us die day in and day out based on their policies, based on their refusals to take care of the American people when they're down on their luck. How many people die of poverty in this country? How many Republican lawmakers have fought aggressively to cut down whatever is left of our measly, minuscule social spending programs, which overwhelmingly help children living in poverty.

And then they turn around and they tell us, no, no, no, we want to control women's bodies because we care about lives. They never have cared about lives. This is really about power and control. And if you look at the roots of the anti-choice movement in this country, you will learn that it was never, ever about protecting lives. It was all about ensuring all All of these right wing organizations, all of these religious leaders came together to force their ideology upon all of us. And that we're dealing with the consequences today. Yeah. Yeah, no, you're totally right. Again, it's it's never been about life. It feels, it feels insulting for like for someone to have to explain that. Like it's just it's so it's so abundantly clear.

I mean, it was it was clear before the pandemic. They don't care about people dying because they don't have health insurance. They don't care about people who die because they don't have food or because they don't have housing, and so they're exposed to the elements. 1,500 people die just in heat waves every single year. They don't care about that. They're not interested in saving your life. They're going to be women who died directly because of this in red states. Women who desperately need abortions to save their lives, they will be left to die if they can't get access to one in those states. And they will gladly watch those women die.

They won't care at all, let alone everything that you said about the pandemic. I mean, thousands of people were dying every day for month after month after month after month. And it wasn't just that they wouldn't get vaccinated or that they wouldn't wear a mask. It's a larger issue than that, that they just didn't care that it was happening. Like, it wasn't like I'm not willing to do the mask to save lives. It doesn't bother me that so many people are dying. They found it more annoying that people talked about it. They found the discussion about possible solutions more inconvenient than the mass death.

that we were experiencing every single day and still experience. I mean, it's still more than 300 Americans dying every single day. That's been stretching for so many months that if you were to actually stop and think about it, you would break down crying. But they don't, they just don't care at all. They don't care about life, they don't care about the kids. The second the kid is born, they're gonna forget about it again. They don't care about that either.

It's a process, it's a symbol, that's all it is. They know, as well, conservative women too. There is something about women that is suspect, that is suspicious. It is supposed to be feared and it definitely is supposed to be controlled. Men have been convinced by conservatives in this country to be constantly afraid of their diminishing position. It's not just in terms of gender, they've got a lot of race-based fears that have been instilled in them as well, as well as religious fears, but definitely about women. The fact that there might be a female pilot is supposed to reduce a conservative men to shaking and bawling. And so, yes, they want to control them.

And importantly, they will get no pleasure from this in the end. Have you noticed that Republicans are never any happier after they win? You know, when no gun control happens, they're more scared and angry after. When Trump won, they were more angry than they were during the Trump years, and there's a reason for that. It is because when you pursue in politics things that have no effect on your life and only have a negative effect on other people, it necessarily cannot improve your lot in life. Conservatives who right now are tweeting about how great it is that the hoes are going to learn. And I'm sure you've seen many tweets like that.

Are you going to retire more easily because Roe v. Wade's gone? You're going to buy home? Your wage is going up. You got health insurance all of a sudden because some woman you're never going to meet is going to be forced to bear like the incestuous rape child that's been forced on her. Is that going to improve your lot in life? It isn't. This is the con that has been played on conservatives. Regular conservative voters by their media and by their politicians for years and years and years. And so they are left

after every victory, more angry, more hollow, more bitter, because their life is still the crap that it was going into this process. No, I mean, look, you make such a great point there. And it immediately goes to what I've noticed about American politics, especially over the last several years. I mean, this is what the playbook is for the Republican Party. It's been the playbook for the Republican Party. And increasingly, we're seeing it with Democrats as well. The effort to avoid discussing or debating any of the fundamental bread and butter issues that have an impact on all Americans, including my conservative brothers and sisters, the individuals in red states across this country who are living in poverty, who have a state

government that have that has given them the middle finger, you know, these are states where, by the way, I know how much you guys hate New York in California, but the taxes that we pay the federal government overwhelmingly goes to benefit your states because your state lawmakers, those Republican lawmakers who are effectively stripping you of your rights as we speak, would also like to, you know, that's the thing, they have no problem watching Americans die of poverty. And I'm not talking about zygotes here. I'm talking about viable human beings, including children, their policies have a direct impact on their lives, whether they live or die. Maybe that's what they enjoy. Maybe they enjoy watching living,

breathing, viable humans slowly deteriorate until they potentially die as a result of their austerity measures, as a result of them constantly attacking people who work 40 hours plus a week and still are not getting paid enough to pay for the basic necessities of life, including putting a roof over their heads. The Republican Party has been incredibly effective in empowering Wall Street, in empowering private equity firms who have bought up all the real estate in this country and price ordinary Americans, whether they're conservative or liberal out of the housing markets across the country. That is what the Republican Party represents. They want to lean in and lean in aggressively on these culture war issues, because they don't

want you to pay attention to the fact that they're robbing you. So congratulations, gentlemen, for all the morons out there who are celebrating today because they think the hoes will learn now, the hoes be knowing, okay? The hose be knowing. And what you don't know is that you're getting robbed and you're freaking smiling as they're doing it because all politics has devolved into for right wing voters at this point. is owning the libs, that's it, owning the libs. They own the lips, they laugh about it for a few hours, and then they go back to their sad lives

where they can't even take care of themselves and their families because the very people that they pander to, the very politicians that they provide unwavering support to, screw them, rob them, and they love it. So enjoy that, the hoes be knowing. Yeah, and as I'm sure you talked about on the damage for this morning, I'm sure you will here too, what we're identifying, what the right does, the con that they play on their own voters is obviously effective.

It's kept the Republicans in power in some time, them in their individual seats and all that. It's gotten them in the Supreme Court and all that. It's also, in theory, one would imagine very easy to be, if you had a competent party that could offer an actual alternative. The Republicans don't want you to focus on the economic state of your life. And so they invent an ever-changing number of social stuff that you're supposed to be worried about.

Some fictional caravan or Dr. Seuss or Mr. potato heads penis or whatever. They will have that. That's how they con their people. And then the Democratic Party just points to them and says, wouldn't it be terrible if they were in office? Now, like, imagine what if we had one party that actually cared about what your life was like and cared that your wages keep losing out against inflation more and more so every year? Like, how easy would it be to beat that? They're just, they're, they're, they're, they don't care about you. Let's just be very clear. They don't care about you. They don't care. And not just you, John, all of us. The Democratic Party, the mainstream Democratic Party

today gave us a massive middle finger, okay? With Joe Biden and Francesco will talk about this on the show later in, I believe the second hour. But Joe Biden's speech today was, man, this really sucks. You should really elect more of us so this doesn't happen. You guys are in charge. What are you talking about? Nancy Pelosi. sending out the fundraising emails immediately. What a gift. What a gift to the Democratic Party, time to fundraise. What an awesome issue that we can campaign on, fundraise on, and then do absolutely nothing about.

And by the way, speaking of Nancy Pelosi, speaking of Nancy Pelosi, I'd like to share the double middle finger that she gave the American people today by reading a poem from a member of the Israeli military. Let's watch. From time to time, I quote this poem by Ehud Manor. He's an Israeli poet. I met his wife when I've been in Israel. He says, I have no other country, even though my land is burning. Only a word in Hebrew penetrates my veins, my soul, with an aching body and with a hungry heart. Here is my home.

I will not be silent, for my country has changed her face. A country has changed her face. I shall not give up on her. I shall remind her and sing into her ears until she opens her eyes. Clearly, we hope that the Supreme Court would open its eyes. John, clearly she hopes, clearly she hopes that the Supreme Court will open its eyes. Clearly she hopes. A useless, pathetic shell of a woman step down immediately. You are not fit to lead anything. You are not fit to fight. You couldn't fight your way out of a wet paper bag. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, including the rest of Democratic leadership, needs to step the hell down. I mean, they're holding on to power, will not let it go. And the country is suffering as a result of

that yeah it's absolutely pathetic there's a concept in the parliamentary system of vote of no confidence there's there's the idea and more importantly than the mechanism there is the idea that there should be accountability that if you fail even like in one important thing even if you've been doing stuff that your party likes for a few years and there's one big thing that you have to get done you fail you might step down like no she should just be in charge for years and years and years and it doesn't matter if anything gets done She's quoting a poet who like all he has is hope.

Do you know why? Because he's a damn poet. That's what he's not in charge. He's not the speaker of the house. Like the idea that you would, like I once saw a child who said, why isn't the world better? And I thought, yes, that child is right. Why isn't the world better?

That's a child. They're not in charge. You are. And I'm not saying that Nancy Pelosi can snap her fingers and suddenly the Senate will do what it needs. will do what it needs to do. And that is often, as far as any centrist Democrat, a regular voter, I mean, will take this comparison and say, well, what could she do?

Stop asking rhetorical questions and try to answer it. What could she do? Do you have any ideas between like a fantasy world where she can instantly get it done through mechanism we don't understand and absolutely nothing? There is a broad gulf of possibility. You could do something. You could use your position in leadership. use your ability to get the media to pay attention.

You could get the entire multi-hundred person caucus of the Democrats in the House to go and just sit outside of cinema and mansions offices for a couple months if necessary. God knows you're not getting anything done anyway, you've got the time. You could put the focus on the people that might be persuaded. Talking about these conservative justices as if your hope is going to influence them is a goddamn waste of time. They weren't put there to be responsive to the people or whatever. They were put there for a mission, and they just accomplished it.

But you could be putting pressure on people, and at least there would be a chance that they would cave. At least then, even if they didn't, the voters would be able to look and say, Democratic leadership is doing everything they can against the worst members of their party. And when it comes to the next election, what are the things they're going to do is replace them with better Democrats? But none of that is on the table. There's no pressure. And when it comes time for a primary, what do they do when it comes to the worst Democrats in the party? She went and campaigned for Henry Quayar against a pro-choice Democrat, a progressive in Jessica Cisneros.

So don't give me your poems. We know what you did with your actual power. And it was advancing the same mission as these Republicans. Yeah, and just to back up a little bit, I just want to remind everyone that back in 2009, when President Barack Obama had a super majority in Congress and had the ability to pass a federal law protecting women's reproductive rights, he literally said that it wasn't the top priority. It wasn't a priority. Okay, because he would rather capitulate to the Republican Party with the hope that they would help him pass his Heritage Foundation written Affordable Care Act. But it didn't work though, Anna, right? I mean, at least like it was a rough bargain, but in the end, they helped. But you know, it's interesting to see how the establishment Democrats are trying to rewrite history

and feed us this revisionist garbage about why Obama didn't do it. Now Obama didn't do it because he was capitulating to the right wing. Make no mistake about it. But what they're trying to tell us now is, no, the reason why Obama didn't do it is because he couldn't do it. Yeah, he had a super majority in Congress, but there were blue dogs, Blue Dog Democrats who are standing in the way. And then you have Nancy Pelosi, fast forward to today,

after reading the leaked reversal of Roe v. Wade, okay? This is before the official reversal happened. After that leak, she decides to campaign for a right wing Democrat who, for the most part, voted along with Donald Trump when he was in power. And that's Henry Quayar. When she could have endorsed his progressive primary challenger, Jessica Cisneros. And who knows, maybe that endorsement would have made all the difference because that was a close race. It was. But make no mistake, we know what the Republican Party

is about. And sometimes people get mad because they feel like I'm a little too harsh toward Democrats. I should focus more of my energy toward Republicans. Listen guys, I tell you that Republicans, the Republican Party is trash every day. I don't know what more I can do. If you don't believe me, if you don't believe I'm being sincere there, okay, that's on you. But the Republican Party tells us who they are. They tell us what they plan to do. They give us endless warnings about what they're going to do. But the Democrats, they lie to us.

Yeah. They fundraise off issues we care about. They purport to care about the same issues. They claim they're going to fight for those same issues. And when push comes to shove, all they give us is Kente cloths and poems. I'm not interested. This party is an absolute failure. They failed the American people.

the American people, and I'm not, I'm just, I'm done with the performative politics, I'm done with like the incredibly shallow culture war narratives. I want fighters. Because this isn't just about like, let's have a friendly debate about policy. They are rolling back our rights. And if you think it stops at reproductive rights, you're sadly mistaken. They're coming for gay marriage. They're coming for contraception. In fact, Clarence Thomas made that abundantly clear in his decision, he wrote a separate decision that concurs with the conservative justices, but goes even further. He wants to roll back all of those other constitutional rights that have been granted to people in the gay community, that have been granted to married couples.

He wants to allow states to regulate what kind of sex you're engaging in. Okay, he wants to uphold anti-sodomy laws. These people are creeps, okay? Here's what non-creaps don't do. Okay, non creeps don't sit around thinking about anal sex among other people who are in relationships. I don't think about other people having anal sex. Conservative justices along with the right wing movement in this country, they can't stop thinking about anal sex. It's on the mind all the time. So much so that Clarence Thomas wants to regulate whether you have anal sex, how you have anal sex. Super creepy stuff, super creepy.

Sounds like the Supreme Court has a few groomers in it. Yeah, well, we'll actually be talking about that. on the other side of the break. Well, any other thoughts? No, have a great show, guys. We got a fight. One final thing I'll say is don't waste your money by giving it to members of the Democratic Party. They're going to be fundraising off of this.

They're going to exploit this tragic moment for their own political purposes. And they don't deserve that funding in their campaign coffers. They have abandoned the American people, they only look out for themselves. The only time you ever see a corporate Democrat fight is if they're fighting progressive members of their own party. Other than that, they're useless. So look into organizations that actually want to fight. Look into organizations that are providing safe abortion access to women in red states, whether it's by covering their travel expenses or whatever it is that they do to help make this situation a little easier for women who are

going to really bear the brunt of this Supreme Court decision today. But wasting your money by giving it to the corporate Democrats right now is just not the, it's not the way to go. At some point, we have to change course and realize these people do not care about us. Thank you, Anna. With that, we're going to go to our first break. We come back, Friend Cousins. Kylo Frank will be joining us. Don't go anywhere. Drop it. Drop it. I'm going to leave the wacky drops for a week where rights were not stripped away from millions and millions of people.

But I'm John at a roll and we're back with the power panel. I am joined by contributor to Rebel HQ. Kyla Frank, welcome to the show. Great to be back. Thanks, John. Great to have you here. And Farron Cousins, host The Ring of Fire. Glad to have you here as well. Always a pleasure. Thank you, John.

Glad to have you here. You know, I have hypothesized about what it would be like to have people like you on a show like, this to just discuss good news, it's never happened, maybe someday. But instead, we're going to transition to the stories that we do have, and why don't we actually get into that right now. If you're wondering right now, what comes after the destruction of Roe v. Wade? Well, insert a right, because according to Clarence Thomas and conservatives like him, there's a whole lot of other things that they would love to take away rights that many Americans have had for years, possibly decades. He wrote, in fact, in the decision released today, I join the opinion of the court because it correctly holds that there is no constitutional right to abortion.

Respondents invoke one source for that right. The 14th Amendments guarantee that no state shall deprive any person of life, liberty or property without due process of law. That's the due process clause that he talks about. Well, that's just his jumping off point. Well, where does he go from there? He says the court well explains why under our substantive due process precedents, the purported right to abortion, is not a form of liberty protected by the due process clause. Such a right is neither deeply rooted in the station's history and tradition,

nor implicit in the concept of ordered liberty. And if that can go out the door with this new view of how liberty is supposed to work, what else could? Well, in future cases, he says, we should reconsider all of this court's substantive due process precedence, including Griswold, Lawrence, and Obergefel. Because our substantive due process decision is demonstrably erroneous, We have a duty to correct the error established in those precedents.

So he's listing a bunch of those things. Maybe you're aware of those court cases and the rights that they concerned. Maybe you aren't, but just in case it's small things. Like whether you have a right to purchase and use contraception, like at all, in any cases, all kind of birth control, condoms, IUDs, all sorts of things. Can you actually get those or should those be barred by law? you'd be locked up if you tried to buy or use those. How about sotabee laws, same sex sexual activity was illegal in many states up until,

I don't know, like after Seinfeld concluded, very recent history, they'd like to go right back to that. What about the ability of gay couples to marry, significant things like that? No, they'd like to literally break apart millions and millions of marriages, and they're just getting started, this is what Clarence Thomas had off the top of his head while opining about a separate case. Imagine once the Heritage Foundation and all sorts of Republican senators and pundits really get revved up for the next battles. What is this going to look like, Kyla, what do you think? First of all, I just want to highlight the conservative

contradiction to this recent court hearing and all the things that are going to be taken away from us in the future. How is this promoting freedom? How? Please. When you strip away rights from people, like, they can only get worse. And I want everyone to be taking attention to this moment right now. I also want everyone to understand that young people, like the media always has to call us apathetic that we don't pay attention. We are extremely involved in this right now. Y'all know that I work for unpack, a youth organization.

I talk to several young people today who are chapped into this moment. We are not willing and we are not ready to let our features slip through our fingers. And so you can bet we're going to be fighting. like hell to in order to make sure that our rights are protected. And it's just again, it's a contradiction to say that sit here and take all these rights away and promote freedom. I'm like really sick of it. And also Thomas, you want to talk about picking people's freedoms away. I'll talk about people who are actually breaking the law like your wife. That's a good point. There's definitely

some glass houses there. Faron, I'm curious about what you think about this, But also, in the decision, people like Alito and Kavanaugh are like, well, I mean, we're not Thomas. We're not coming for those things. Those are settled law. Why would you worry about us coming for those? Does that reassure you? Oh, absolutely not. It's the meme.

Like, oh, I never thought the leopards would eat my face, said the person who voted for the lepers eating people's faces party. Look, so here's what we got to do, because we obviously know now. Clarence Thomas made it very clear, they're coming for the rest of our rights. And as soon as he can think of more, he's gonna add those to the list as well. All right, fight fire with fire. Right here, right now, this is what we have to do. One, we gotta kill the filibuster so we can expand the Supreme Court. Easier said than done. But if legal precedent no longer matters at the US Supreme Court, then fantastic, let's get busy working on ways to overturn citizens united,

McCutcheon, Heller, all of these other horrendous decisions, let's do what they're doing. And I hope the Democrats understand that in order to do that, you're going to have to borrow a couple of pages from the Republican Party's playbook. Why was this even at the Supreme Court to begin with? Because Republicans at the state level passed this law that they knew would get challenged in court so that they could send it all the way up to the Supreme Court. need to do that. You've got to get a blue state somewhere to say, okay, fine. Corporate money is officially banned in this state from our politics. Then the second one of those little right winger sues to overturn that, that's when the ball goes in motion. But it doesn't mean anything if you send it to this court. It has to go to a court that has 30 freaking judges on it. I don't even care how many. But that's what we have to do. And we have to fight fire. We have to play their game by their rule. or we're going to continue to lose. Yeah, well, look, Kyla, we were talking in the first segment about, you know, there's a lot of blame to go around for how this happened. I mean, this is a legal effort that's been going on for literally decades.

It's ramped up recently. But I know, I know that Twitter is not the real world. I'll acknowledge that. But I've seen on Twitter any number of people who, despite the inability and unwillingness of the Democrats who have been in power for a little bit of time, and they control, you know, both chambers of Congress and the White House, they didn't do anything. do anything to stop this from happening. They didn't do it before the leak. They didn't do it after the leak. Those people, their faith in the centrist Democrats don't seem to have been shaken at all. They know who is to blame for this. And you know who's to blame for this?

Bernie voters from six years ago. That's who's to blame for this. And so it makes me, like I agree with everything fair and said about how we should fix this. And I know that we can do it necessarily need those people. But it is crazy that like they could still think that no, people like Biden, Pelosi, cinema, those are the ones we need. We just need to have to have more faith in. We have to love them harder. Joe Mansion, that's how we'll get these rights back that have been stripped away. What do you think? It's it's absolutely false. And honestly, I just want people to stop putting their

faith in these centrist Democrats. They've had numerous times to get this this issue correct. First of all, they need to get on their bully pulpit and make sure that their party is in line. The fact that Mansion and in cinema and especially mansion, he has time and time again voted down issues. The woman health care bill health care protection act, he voted against that that would have ensured that Roe v. Wade was codified in this country. He's voted against voting rights. He's voted against reforming the filibuster. So why do they time and time again keep putting their faith in people who have shown you that they are not interested in ensuring the rights of the

people in this nation? It's ridiculous to me. Nancy Pelosi supported coolers. Who's a a staunch anti, anti-choice Democrat. So again, it's confusing me that people are still putting their faith in these people when they have dropped the ball several times. Yeah, Farron, how do we get through these? Like, they still think that like Hillary would have won if Bernie, like they still, how do we get through to these people? How do you, like they don't care about the facts? What do we do?

It has to hit home for them. And that unfortunately is the problem. You know, they can, oh, they could stump their feet and be, oh, we're so mad about this ruling. But at the end of the day, a lot of these people are more of the, you know, probably well-off, affluent liberals who are still mad at Bernie and still with her in their Twitter profiles. And they're not going to be affected by any of this. Because a lot of these folks are also the people, you know, put it this way, I'm down here in Florida. They're not my neighbors.

But you know, in the safe blue states, they can stop their feet and be mad all they want because they know that it's probably not going to hurt them as bad as it is, you know, the people down here in my neighborhood. So it's easy for them to lose perspective on things like this when you are in that little cocoon of just other, you know, neoliberal brunch type people and I hate to stereotype anybody. I apologize for that, but we all know what I'm kind of talking about here. You know, these are the people who are super active on social media and down with Trump. Everything he did is bad. Everything the Democrats do is good. No, you have to wake up.

You have to see how this is affecting everybody else outside of your gated community. And until they do that or until it affects them personally, they're gonna keep doing what they're doing. And unfortunately, it's going to take a lot to open their eyes and the most, you know, obvious part is it has to directly start impacting them for them to realize how bad it is out here for the rest of us. Yeah, I agree with your analysis. The obviously one of the baked in difficulties here is that this sort of issue, the banning of abortion, it hurts people with less economic means. It doesn't hurt every racial demographic equally. Like it is so hard for it to be. as real for some of these people that are sure they understand it. Well, with that said, we do have to go to a break. When we come back, we're going to be jumping into a couple of different issues,

including the gun control bill that was just passed, as well as we're going to get us some more news, too, possibly getting into this whole pardon situation coming out of the January 6 hearings after this. Welcome back to the power panel, everyone with Kyla and Farron. Thank you for joining us. We're gonna jump into some news in just one second. I just noticed this Twitch comment from Batmanda who says, how do I turn my screams into energy like in Monsters Inc? I don't know, but that I think is what we're gonna try to do on the panel today.

But anyway, with that said, why don't we jump into our next? story. The Congress has passed gun control, or at least as much gun control as you're likely to get in the near future. The House voted 234 to 193 for the bill. The day after, by the way, the Supreme Court ruling that broadly expanded gun rights, no Democrats were opposed, 14 Republicans backed the measure. This is the Senate bill. I'm glad that that graphic mentions the fact that yesterday the Supreme Court acknowledged that certain rights are fundamental, but they have to do with concealed assault weapons and stuff like that. Anyway, the House action followed a late Thursday Senate vote on the similar bill, 65 to 33.

There were 15 Republicans who actually supported it, which some in the media will tell you means that bipartisanship is still alive in America, and others will say, what do you think has to be true of a bill for 15 Republicans to support it? It can't do that much, that's what I would say. So what doesn't it do? It does not implement federal red flag laws, although it does provide funding for the states that do have them. It doesn't ban any weapons or high capacity magazines. So your ability to wreak as much havoc as possible and kill as many people as possible and as short a time as possible will not be constrained in any way by this. So if you

are a potential school shooter, breathe easy. You can get suited up for war just as readily as you could have before this bill. Those convicted of misdemeanor domestic violence crimes can get their guns back after five years. It does not raise the age to buy any of these weapons. So all of that, you know, the brain science about how the brain isn't fully formed until like your early 20s. And so it is crucial that we don't allow especially young teenage men access to these weapons. We're not listening to that. They can still buy these weapons and all that. What it does do, though, is it bars from having a gun, anyone who is convicted of a domestic violence crime against someone that they have a continuing serious relationship of a romantic or intimate nature. That is the boyfriend gap.

So previously in some of these states that had red flag laws, it applied to marriages. In this case, it extends it out to if you were in a serious relationship producing, at least from my inexpert legal standing, a situation where, You will have readier access to deadly firearms if you beat someone that you're only casually seeing. I don't understand, but that's the best that we could get, I guess. Farron, there's a lot on the table here. What do you think? No, that is a very weird exception. Like, no, it's only if they've been Facebook official for like three months, then the red flag law kicks.

No, if you're beating the hell out of anyone, an intimate partner or not, that should be a red flag. I mean, that that's what we really need, those kinds of things to seek out the violent individuals. Doesn't matter who they're violent against, but if you have a tendency to lose your temper and immediately go to violence, that's what red flag laws should do, not just, oh no, you have to be married for a certain number of years and you have to know all these details. about the person for the red flag law to kick in, absolutely preposterous. Having said that, I mean, I don't want to be just this big negative Nelly here saying this is a garbage piece of legislation because you do want to understand that this is a historic moment. Yeah. It's been decades since we've had anything. So that's good, but is it?

You know, it's not exactly doing the things that could help prevent future violence. You know, yes, we're gonna get millions for mental health initiatives, which is a good thing. We've been needing that, but that also to me kind of makes it seem like, oh, no, no, no, don't worry. Gun is really just a mental health issue and we're gonna address that. No, that is absolutely oversimplifying so many things with the problem. But again, I don't want to be too down on it because it is historic, but man, it just doesn't get us there. That's a good point.

Kylo, what do you think? Well, I can definitely go put it down because it is a half measure. Like how many times does Democrats have to serve us crumbs before we stand up and say, this is not enough? Like I'm totally sick of their disingenuous and ensuring the safety of our children in this nation. I've talked to several young people who like plan to be teachers, but they're afraid for lives. Like the Democrats don't realize that they're going to lose a whole generation of young people who want to teach the next generation, you know, teach the next generation. And they're

afraid to even go into a classroom because at any point, they could get shot up and die. And like, it's totally ridiculous to me. And I wish the Democrats would fight harder. Like, please fight harder. Like, I'm, it's just so disappointing. And I know that I should be a little bit more positive of like you, Farron, like it is historic, but I just really can't bring myself to accept that this is the only thing that Democrats can do. Yeah, yeah, I look, I feel honestly like like I'm perched here in the center between you two. And I largely feel a combination of of how you feel. I mean, Farron is right. Like we haven't had anything like this in damn near three decades. And so that is good. And there is, there is perfectly good stuff in here.

It's perfectly good and maybe my predictions, by the way, that I might make where I am sometimes worried that inadequate legislation could actually have the corrosive effect of making it less likely in the future that more will be done because there will be a perception that we have already done something. Or if crises come after this sort of legislation, it will convince people that there's nothing that can be done that would actually help anyway. Maybe passing something like this will actually lead people to think, well, this is a thing that can happen. So maybe the next time it's brought up for debate, it won't be considered the apocalypse. We'll have to see. I don't know. I don't know. And I also really hope that I'm wrong about the whole violence thing about it. Because like the idea that someone could like beat their way through a whole foods, but as long as they weren't ready to commit with any of the people, it's like I've got to be wrong about something in this comparison.

I don't know what. I'm not a lawyer. Anyway, with that said, we are running a little bit low on time. Why don't we jump into something completely different starting with this? The general tone was we may get prosecuted because we were defensive of the president's positions on these things. The pardon that he was discussing requesting was as broad as you can describe from beginning. I remember he's from the beginning of time up until today for any and all things. He mentioned Nixon and I said Nixon's pardon was never nearly that broad. Well, Nixon's pardon didn't need to be as broad because Venmo wasn't around for Nixon,

so he didn't get up to some of the nonsense that Matt Gates did. But it is interesting that he wanted a pardon, but not just in relation to January 6th. That almost provided a convenient, like a way to start the conversation. Oh no, it's just totally about the challenge, but could you have it include everything that I've ever done in every area? That is a little bit suspicious, Kyla. What do you think about that? You really have me cracking up, John. But now I definitely agree he he was doing a lot more than just aiding and embedding in an insurrection. Like you said, he was trapped, he was, you know, trapped allegedly trafficking in minor across state lines.

I'm sure he has a lot other like, you know, dirty webs in his closets. And an innocent person does not ask for a pardon. I just want everybody to be clear or not. An innocent person does not ask to be excused of any potential crimes. So he's definitely guilty. And I hope that all of his crimes come to light and he's held accountable. But honestly, how this country works, I doubt it. Yeah, Farron, I want to ask you about that because that's sort of my gut feeling, too, that

if we can bring up this first graphic, you'll see part of the email of Mo Brooks where he was basically requesting everyone involved in this, even tangentially, to be given a pardon. But Mo Brooks pitches it as, no, we don't need this because we've broken the law. We just need this because the Democrats are going to do a witch hunt against us. What do you think about about that? Well, first of all, I find it interesting that Mo Brooks decided to send that information to reporters at CBS. I think that in and of itself is definitely something that we need to expand upon a little bit because people, Mo Brooks sent this to reporters. And I think he did it, you know, my opinion as a way to show that I'm ready to.

to talk and I'm ready to show everybody what I've got. I got screwed over in my election, so I'm gonna let it all fly. So hey, more power to you, Mo Brooks. You got anything else? Keep texting it away to CBS. As for this whole excuse, like, oh, no, we just, we want to, you know, basically a CYA moment. That's not what this is and they know it. But they're also smart enough to understand sometimes you can't explicitly say what you want to say. You have to use the coded language, you have to try to cover it up because there is a chance always that whatever you say is going to become public. So I think that's what was really why Mo Brooks's email or letter, whatever it was, was framed the way it was. Like, oh no, we don't think we did

anything just so everybody knows, but you know, these socialist Democrats they kept calling them in the letter. They're the ones who were going to come after us. We just need to protect ourselves. And Matt, Matt, of course, wants to protect himself from everything that happened since the Big Bang. Exactly. And I didn't mean that that way. Oh, geez. Oh, God. Oh, no. You're going to put us in trouble. Okay, so I want to get acknowledging that we only have a couple of minutes. I want to get both of your thoughts. The hearings are done for now. They're going to take a break. They're going to come back at some point in July. And they say, in part, they're taking this break because now there's so much new evidence. New people are coming forward based

on what's been said. There's people who want to cooperate. Jamie Raskin says, that there's people who suddenly want to tell the truth. So that to me sets expectations a little bit high for the hearings in July. Kyla, do you do you have any thoughts or expectations about what either they will have or what they would have to have for it to merit this way? Well, I think that I'm glad that people are coming forward with their testimonies. I hope that more information will be more incriminating to the people who embedded in, you know, in this insurrection. Whether or not it will actually like result in

convictions and holding people accountable, I'm still going to be doubtful. Again, Democrats, they are just weak, you know, like they just don't have the oomph they need to actually get things done in this country. And so I'm hoping that they can prove me otherwise, but at this point in time, no one has been convicted of anything serious. So I guess we'll just have to play the waiting game. That's true. Farron, what do you think?

I've been exceptionally disappointed just to build on what Kyla said with Merrick Garland. And even when you have, you know, former AG Eric Holder, who was about as useless as they come, even when he's coming out and saying like, yeah, this, they kind of have the smoking gun now, what are you waiting for? It tells you everything you need to know. Like, yeah, they could be doing a lot. They're just not. And maybe he's waiting for everything to come out in the wash. I don't know, but I would love to be optimistic. I simply have not. However, I will say I have been very surprised, pleasantly surprised with the way this committee has come forward with this information. You know, I've doubted them multiple times over the last, you know, 10 months.

They have proven me wrong and I'm glad they did. I would just like now for the Justice Department to also prove me wrong and get up and actually do something about all of this massive, you know, damning information that has come out of this committee. And I think what we're going to see in July is going to make what we've seen so far look like nothing in comparison. I hope so. I hope, you know, in the words of Kyla, I hope that the Democrats get some oomph, and I hope the July hearings have a little bit of razzle-dazzle. That's what I'm hoping for at the very least. Anyway, unfortunately, that's all the time that we have. Kyla, Farrant, thank you so much for joining us. Everyone watching, you can see Kyla's work over at Rebel HQ.

Ferran, of course, is holding it down at Ring of Fire, as well as many other places. Thank you to both of you for joining us. Great to have you here, especially on a day like this. And for all of you watching at home, Francesca is going to be taking over after this break. by subscribing to Apple Podcasts at apple.co slash t-y-t. I'm your host, Shank Huger, and I'll see you soon.