The Young Turks - Ammo over Americans

Episode Date: February 18, 2022

Progressive candidates have crashed this year’s Democratic primaries, hoping to unseat incumbents and push the party to the left. Rep. Hakeem Jeffries, the fifth-ranking Democrat in the House, has other plans. A D.C. police lieutenant has been suspended over alleged ties to a right-wing group. Factory workers in Haiti go on strike to demand higher wages. President Biden is set to seek more than $770 billion in 2023 defense budget. Activists are pressuring Amazon to divest from Omni Air International, a company at the center of ICE’s deportation machine. Hosts: Cenk Uygur, Francesca Fiorentini 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. All right, well, the Young Church, Jake, you were Francesca Fiorentini with you guys on a lovely evening across America, obviously. And we have lovely stories for you guys, hilarious fact check that has no facts. Of course, it's against the left. They had to invent one.

And so many other stories, including the one we're about to do, that's got me in a wonderful rage. And we had a little pow-wow before the show and decided that we're going to do an excellent show for you guys. guys. So since that decision has been made, well, obviously you're about to get an excellent show. So having said all that, Francesca, take it away. All right, let's do it. So you might think that a goal for Democrats in the 22 midterms would be to defend the majority and make sure

that swing seats don't go red. Sadly, that is not the case for the fifth ranking House Democrat Hakeem Jeffries, his priority, it seems, is beating progressive challengers against Democratic incumbents in deep blue districts. So let me give you more because there's a new pack in town. Jeffries and two of his House Democrat allies on Wednesday rolled out. The first slate of endorsements from Team Blue Pack, a political action committee intended to protect incumbents from intra-party attacks. The endorsements and their attendant 5,000 campaigns. contribution, $5,000 campaign contributions are the strongest demonstration of support yet from Jeffries and his allies and serve as a warning shot to primary challengers seeking to unseat

incumbents as Democrats fight to hold on to their fragile majorities. Okay, so what are these seats that we're looking at? What are these races? Pretty predictable and one very familiar one. So the lawmakers united an effort to provide resources to the increasing number of House Democrats who face primary challenges in particular from the left. That's the That circumstance faces the five incumbents who received endorsements on Wednesday. Representatives, Chantelle Brown, Danny Davis, Carolyn Maloney of New York, Donald Payne of New Jersey, and Dina Titus of Nevada, all of whom are being primaried by candidates who were endorsed by the Justice Democrats, including our Senator Nina Turner, who is currently challenging Chantelle Brown, of course. Everyone support that campaign. Others are Keena Collins, primary in Danny Davis in Illinois, Amy Vilella in Nevada

going up against Dina Titus, Saraj Patel going up against Carolyn Maloney in New York. Again, all of these are Justice Democrats. So here we are and they're justifying, before I go to Eugenk, they're justifying themselves of this new pack. They're saying this is Josh Gottheimer. Remember the guy who tried to strong arm against. the build back better bill from the center. That was fun. Quote, we want to support common sense members who are delivering for their districts and helping advance a democratic agenda to create jobs and cut costs for their constituents. Hmm, who's cutting costs? The centris or the progressives

for their constituents? Who wants to extend child tax credits? Progressives or the centrist? Who wants Expanding Medicare? Jank, when this new Who's hit you, we were in the morning meeting, you were livid. Yeah, thoughts on it. So look, the article is actually better than you might expect, or I expected, because in the beginning it looked like they were trying to paint these three as neutral. But no, they explained later in the article that this new pack is almost completely funded by corporations. So I still think that they are too, way too kind to these three corporate goons. And they describe Hakeem Jeffries as being part of the Progressive Caucus.

That's a good one. Okay, is he technically in the Progressive Caucus? But yes, but if you don't know this and every reporter that covers politics should know this, half of the Progressive Caucus is not remotely progressive. And I don't mean like they don't meet up to my standards. No, I mean they're also in conservative caucuses. They just want to be in every caucus that they're not at all real. I wish the progressive caucus is as large as this numbers indicate. But no, half of them are totally conservative Democrats that put their name in there for marketing purposes.

And Hakeem Jeffries is a perfect example, he's one of the biggest corporate Democrats in the country. In fact, he's third of this pack backed completely by corporations to try to defeat progressives who are free of corporate PAC. money and hence actually try to fight for you guys and try to fight for democratic principles which Hakeem Jeffries is completely opposed to. So he says a lot of humorous things here, Francesca, so let me quote a couple here. He says, yeah, it's important to support effective legislators for delivering for the American people in partnership with the Biden administration. Now let's break that down. Number one, wait a minute, the progressives were in partnership with the Biden administration.

They were the ones trying to pass Billed Back Better. It was conservative Democrats that killed Billed Back Better. So what do you mean in partnership with the Biden administration? Hakeem, you're going with an old talking point. The old talking point is, hey, rest of the press, remember corporate Democrats are the real Democrats. We don't agree with any of democratic principles. We never pass any legislation for the American people or our voters. But you must declare that we are the real Democrats and we are with Democratic leadership.

But in this case, a lot of you guys, including Josh Godheimer, fought against the Biden agenda. Progressives tried to pass the Biden agenda. So Hakeem Jeffries is clearly lying there. And then he said support effective legislators. What do you mean effective? You guys didn't pass anything. So you passed COVID relief bills. Trump passed a couple of those.

And then you passed an infrastructure bill laden with corporate pork. Yes, your donors, Representative Jeffries. in Godheimer, they got rich off of it. And there's some good things in the bill, to be fair. But you said that you're gonna do build back better with it. I mean, Hakeem Jeffries, let's take him at his word. He says he's a progressive, I've got more on that in a second. Okay, he says his corporate PAC money doesn't affect him at all.

Okay, all right, but let's take out your word. Oh, you really wanted to pass build back better and the progressive priorities in there. Well, then according to your own logic, you failed and you're obviously not an effective legislator. So none of your quote makes any sense. But honestly, Francesca, none of his quotes makes sense. I'm gonna get to more in a second. No, can I go to the next? I mean, just to just to add some some meat to what you're saying in terms of this team blue, which is so funny, because every time a progressive sticks their neck out for a piece of legislation, i.e. like the vast majority, what the vast majority of

Americans want. They're always called like not being team players. But of course, when Godheimer and the rest want to hold back, they're being part of the team, right? It doesn't, how does it not work both ways? So, but if you do a cursory look at who's already donated, it's everyone from insurance companies and groups to financial groups to Coors Light and even Comcast. So the corporate money bundled in this pack is already there. Jeffries, of course, as, Jank noted is very defensive of this strategy. And he says graphic seven, why are members of the hard left targeting progressive members of Congress and then trying to act as though they're engaging in some ideological contests against the rest of us? Jeffrey says, it's worth noting

the writer writes, of course, that Team Blue Pack isn't defending any incumbents from challenges from the right. So what happens if Democrats lose seats in Congress? Who do you think is going to be blamed for that. Well, we know that they're not putting money at actually defending those swing seats. Instead, they're defending him from the left. But of course, progressives are going to be blamed ultimately. Yeah, so there's a lot of points to make there. I'm going to let one of our members make the first one. Joseph and I said, so it's wrong to primary incumbents. Should Jeffrey step down? Because Akeem Jeffrey's got to his seat by primary a Democratic incumbent. So he doesn't mean that it's wrong to primary incumbents. He means it's wrong to primary conservative

incumbents. And I went asked, hey, have you guys supported a single progressive incumbent Democrat? Nope. Did they form this and help Alexandria Ocas Cortez and Ilhan Omar and Rashida Talib last cycle when they were being primaried by conservative Democrats? Nope. They didn't care about those primaries at all. Now, that leads us back to the quote. what the Francesca read to you, he said, why are the members of the hard left targeting progressive members of cards? Wait, Hakeem Jefferson, you're claiming to be progressive. You're claiming to be progressive. And you're now financing elections against progressives. You're a joke. If there were real reporters in the country, they would all call you a joke.

Instead they cover for you because they're corporate media. And they say, oh, well, he could be a progressive, could be. I mean, he's helped to kill every progressive piece of legislation. there is. He's helped to fight back as aggressively as humanly possible against every progressive in democratic primaries. But he calls himself a progressive. So we have to, no, I don't give you that title. No, you're not remotely progressive. You've never shown that. In fact, you're one of the biggest enemies of progressives, and you admit it, right? But what's funny is that is him calling himself progressive, because that means he knows we're more popular than he is. That's why He has to pretend to be on the progress.

But even so he can't do it, he can't stomach it. He hates progressives so much. He calls them the hard left, the hard left. What hard left? Hard left that is fighting for, build back better. That's theoretically the Democratic administration's agenda. So reporters, you should ask to Kim Jeffries. What part of Biden's agenda is hard left that you're so adamantly opposed to?

I mean, honestly, it's senior citizens getting both dental and hearing aids. Like that's, I mean, radical. Hard left, hard left. Yeah, you're just alienating the majority of people who don't like all five of their senses. What about people who only like three? Think about them. What about the center? Two more notes, we all need to know, obviously, that Hakeem Jeffries is seen as the air to the speakership if the Democrats

actually retain the house. And if Nancy Pelosi ever steps down from that role and ever decides not to run again? Because again, she's running again. So it doesn't really bode well for leadership. And also he's someone who said essentially coded in a way to hit at the squad and specifically aOC like, oh, we have to be more than memes. That was like a quote that like the squad is just a bunch of memes. That's a collection of memes. I mean, really there's no difference from this line than what Republicans say about progress, real progressives in the house. Just one horrible quote more from Hakeem Jeffries. He says, is there any evidence that their voting record?

I'm assuming he means the hard left. And advocacy has been influenced by people who have contributed to them. Oh, excuse me, he means, he's basically saying there's no connection between who gives you money and how you vote. So he says, there is there any evidence that their voting record and advocacy has been influenced by people who have contributed to them? Somehow, we're supposed to theoretically believe that they're being unduly influenced because they're raising money from employees supported political action committees. Okay, Akeem, that's great.

Well, let's look at one of the incumbents that you're defending, Chantelle Brown in Ohio. Chantelle Brown approved major contract and then, hey, the contractor backed her campaign. And because of that, she's actually is facing an ethics probe over this exact same thing. It was a $17 million from the Perkins family who own the Perkins, Perkins. I don't know exactly what perk is, but there's a lot of other pieces of evidence of this. But let's go to Carol Maloney, Carol Maloney, again being defended. Some of her donors come from securities and investments firms, real estate, lawyers and law firms to the tune of $100,000.

There you have $80,000 from insurance. Oh, don't forget pro-Israel. Again, a lot of the dark money that supported Chantelle Brown as well against Nina Turner, $80,000 there. So by the way, Chantel Brown just said after Amnesty International called what Israel is doing in the Occupitari's apartheid, Chantel Brown came out and said, no, no, no, no, no, no. Amnesty International is wrong. So looks like Batpack got its money's worth when it comes to its campaign donations. So Hakeem, I'm pretty sure we're seeing a correlation there. Yeah. So amnesty international well known right wing group. I'm sure that's why Chantelle Brown is coming out against them. Calling, saying that they're wrong is absurd. Okay, look, you could have a difference of opinion. Is it honest or is it not honest?

Well, Chantelle Brown's campaign was helped by over two million dollars from a pack called Democratic majority for Cleveland. Oh, sorry, my bad, not for for Cleveland for Israel. It's a pack called Democratic majority for Israel. It's in a Cleveland race. I don't know which part of Cleveland Israel's in. And so, well, did they get what they were looking for? Because Sykeem says they don't.

They just give millions of dollars. Akeem, Jeffries, Chantel Brown, and all of these corrupt democratic politicians, but they never get anything in return. They just don't mind. They're doing it for charity. It has nothing new with Israel. Wait a minute. It says in the title, Democratic majority for Israel. So what does Chantelle Brown do? Not only does she help dismiss the Amnesty International report, she said

earlier that she basically would never question Israel's funding. Hmm. You get a couple of million dollars from a, from a lobby, and then you say, I will never question that lobby. I'm sure it's a wild coincidence. How about Godheimer? Godheimer was one of the top Democrats fighting against Medicare being able to negotiate drug prices. That would give you lower drug prices. That is so popular of polls that over 90% in the country, let alone in the Democratic Party. And Godheimer just magically happened to be against 90% of the voters. Oh, golly, gee, it's tons of money from drug companies and health insurance companies.

But let me reread Hakeem Jeffrey's hilarious quote, is there any evidence that their voting record and advocacy has been influenced by people who've contributed to them? Yes, yes, Akeem. There's overwhelming evidence. So, absolutely. He's an absolute joke and then he said, remember he said, oh, are there in some sort of ideological contest against the rest of us? In other words, he's implying that there is no ideological difference.

Oh, great, then I'm sure you'll get your partner, Godheimer, to vote with us on lower drug prices. Is he gonna do that? No, he's not, is he? Are you gonna fight for, that's the other thing. other thing. And so they, on some of the issues, they just flat out kill bills, right? And they do it on behalf of their corporate donors. And we've already shown you, what we just showed you was a tip of the iceberg. There's almost every one of their votes matches their corporate donors. That's the iceberg and we showed it to you a thousand

times on this show, right? But on top of that, there's the other part of it, which is, oh, we are for this agenda. But we just couldn't find a way to fight for it. Oh, did Mention oppose it? Well, mansions are good Democrat. Cinema, they're good Democrats. No, no, we have to give up. We have to instantly give up. So Chantelle Brown is now they're in common.

What does she do to get build back better packs? Nothing, nothing, nothing. What does she do to fight for any of those progressive positions? Nothing, because they never wanted it to pass. Their donors told them pretend you're in favor of passing because they know the progressives win, certainly Democratic primaries, if people know what their actual policy positions are, we can show you

the polling on those positions. And that's why they pretend to be progressives. And then the minute they're in office, no, no, no, no, I vote no on all progressive priorities. So by the way, these guys are going to raise millions of dollars from the people who they work for, corporations, they're donors, they're deeply, deeply corrupt, right? So you have to fight back, there's no other choice. If you don't have money, no problem, you can volunteer, et cetera. You want to surrender to these guys?

Yeah. Okay, so here's my suggestions. First of all, the race that they care the most about is the Nina Turner race, because they know Nina Turner is going to fight for you. And she's going to fight for progressive and democratic priorities. Why do you think they're scared out of their minds? Why did they put, if those packs put $6 million into a conflict? completely unknown candidate, Chantel Brown, they picked her out of a hat.

There was like 11 other people in that race that matched her credentials nearly identical, right? And they're like, who's the one who will do anything we tell them to? Oh, Chantelle Brown is already in the middle of several corruption scandals? Perfect, she's the one we won, right? And they poured $6 million into her campaign last time around. So you gotta fight back. Nina Turner.com slash hello. Because the reason they put $6 million into Chantel is not,

because of her, no one cares, she's just a robot, just fill in the blank, right? They were trying to stop Nina, because they're worried that Nina Turner is not just progressive, but that she'll be the leader of progressives, and she'll show them how to fight. And that's the number one thing Hakeem Jeffries doesn't want. As he hoards corporate cash in packs like this and uses it against us, he's like, you better not fight back. And his number one ally in all of this, of course, is corporate media. Oh, I can't, well, I can't tell the difference between Democrats.

I can't keep Jeffries might be a progressive. I don't know, I can't tell. Well, look at their votes. Look at their actions. So one more thing here. Just a couple of other races. That Dinah Titus race in Nevada versus Amy Vallella, Amy Vilella, another really strong progressive. You should back her as well.

She was in the original lockdown the house movie with AOC and Cory Bush, and they're already in Congress. She's, her daughter died because of insurance issues. That's a fact, we covered it before. So they're also scared to death of Amy because there's no way she's going to stop until they get Medicare for all. And all of their donors hate Medicare for all. And so that's why Titus magically shows up on this list because of her opponent, her opponent is definitely uncorrupted. And if there's one thing these guys hate, it's people who are uncorrupted, which then finally, leads to Quayar. They ask about Quayar. The guy is so corrupt. I mean, he didn't just do

legalized bribery, Francesca. That's what they all do. That's their racket, right? He was like, oh, Azerbaijani oligarchs, I jump in. And so the FBI had to raid his house for information about his illegal corruption. And they asked Hakeem Jeffries, well, you haven't backed him yet. He says, it's a jury's out. Literally, he said, I think people shouldn't prejudged the outcome. Okay, why does he defend Quayar? Because they're all corrupt. He's like, if I go after Quayor, they can come after me. And they said, well, you haven't given them money yet. Why? He said, no specific reason. An FBI rate isn't a specific reason. You might lose that seat. Who do you think is going to be a better candidate? A progressive

like Jessica Cisneros, you should also help her campaign. Such a bad look. Yeah. Or someone facing an FBI investigation in a seat that is not guaranteed to be democratic. Well, you would massively weaken the Democratic Party of Kueyar as the candidate. And guys, think about it, it's so obvious. Imagine if a progressive had their offices in House raided by the FBI because of corruption. Do you think Hakeem Jeffries would go, I can't tell? I can't tell the jury's out. We might support them later.

No, because Quayar is a dirty, corrupt, conservative Democrat, just like Hakeem Jeffries and Godheimer, he's like, no specific reason. We might come and support that fine, upstanding fellow later, okay? No, no, these guys are the ones that pretend, they're the worst of the worst, because they pretend to be on our side. They work for their donors. They kill every piece of progressive legislation, and their new pack is a joke. And I'll add one last way to fight back for you guys, rebellion pack.com. The whole point of rebellion pack is to fund progressives that do not have other options. And that need funding against these corporate behemoths and their servants, Hakeem Jeffries,

Josh Godheimer, and the rest. Amazing how it's never ideological whenever you're pro-corporate. That's not ideology. That's just how it is. Jenk, I do know we have to take a break, but we have more stories after this. All right, back on T. Jank and Francesco with you guys, take it away for it.

All right, well, some of those that work forces, as it's been said, this week a DC police officer has been suspended for so called improper contact with the proud boys. So who and what happened? Let's get more details, those that we can gather. So the officials identified officer Shane Lamond, who is a 22 year veteran. Law enforcement officials said there's evidence suggesting

communications between Lamond and Henry Enrique Tarillo. I think you probably remember him. He's like the leader of the proud boys, who described himself as the former chairman of the group. group, okay, sorry, chairman. I guess they're chairman now. Speaking at a DC news conference, police chief Robert J. Conti the third said only that a member

of the department had been placed on administrative leave. Mind you, no one's gotten fired, of course. Administrative leave during a quote ongoing investigation being conducted by his department, the FBI, and the Department of Justice. Of course, someone would talk and that was Tario himself, the proud boy who is currently in prison. He was reached by phone describing his contacts with Lamond as professional.

He said he provided Lamond or other police officials advanced notice when proud boys plan to rally or march in the district. But Tario also said that during the marches, Lamond, that's the lieutenant, would tell him the location of counter demonstrators. Tario said that that was so his group could avoid conflict. Oh yeah, proud boys, real good at avoiding conflict. Though after one night of violent demonstrations, police accused the proud boys of roaming the city looking for and instigating fights, targeting people they believed and identified as Antifa or anti-fascist. Now, I think you guys probably remember that Tario was in the news last year because it was discovered that years ago, he actually worked for the FBI, specifically in Miami on a number of drug bus and immigrant trafficking bus.

because he wanted to lessen his own sentence for theft and crimes that he had committed. So while nothing is currently known, this article continues about the Lamont case. It doesn't suggest recent interactions between Tario and the FBI. Court records show that yes, years ago, he was a prolific cooperator with federal and local law enforcement in South Florida, cooperation that grew out of his 2012 fraud case in which he pleaded guilty to helping sell stolen goods. I just want to give you guys some more context because obviously it's a big deal that the proud boys have direct context with the DC police. And these are claims that protesters from BLM to climate justice organizers to global justice organizers for years, for decades to Antifa themselves have said, look, white nationalists are protected by the police. Nobody believes them, nobody listens to them, not that there's video evidence or anything,

and we're going to show a couple, a little bit of that. But this, for those of you who, you know, if we're retracing the Hansel and Gretel breadcrumbs to January 6th, there were many different indicators that the police were going to be lax on any Trump voters. So you had in July, there was, there were demonstrations in D.C. led by the proud boys. Then in November, there was the million maga march. And this is from that million maga march. DC protesters who have spent months calling for criminal justice reform say that they were outnumbered and violently attacked by proud boys and other far right

agitators while police stood by and at least three of them suffered knife wounds. So okay, standing by is bad enough. But not only that, there are photos of proud boys fist bumping with DC metropolitan police. And in addition, this article continues, Trump supporters waving flags bearing a thin blue line, a pro police symbol that critics have long claimed also stands for white supremacy and opposition to Black Lives Matter, cheered officers as they passed. Several then lined up for photos with officers who smiled and flash thumbs up gestures for the camera. So the collusion is nothing new, But this now proven contact between someone from the proud boys and now this lieutenant in the

D.C. Police Department, we'll see where this goes. This is still in the early stages. We don't know what they talked about, but even giving the location of demonstrators and counter demonstrators, like I've never seen that bestowed upon any demonstrator actually fighting for civil rights, human rights, environmental rights, anything. Never seen that kind of interaction. Yeah. So I can prove that in a second. But first, an ironic defense of Tario. So is he a notorious snitch? Yes, he is. And so then the left wing says, oh, you know, this guy, ha ha, proud boys, you got played. Maybe this guy's a snitch for the cops against the proud boys to infiltrate them. And the right wing is also worried about the deep state and my God, what if they're infiltrating us?

And did, first of all, Tario wasn't there on January 6th because he had been arrested earlier, okay? Yes. By the way, that could also be a thing that you do as a cover for informant. So why am I convinced in this case he is not, okay? Because if he was truly an informant currently, they wouldn't put the guy that he worked with him on administrative leave. I mean, cops protect each other at all. costs. You don't say, hey, you know what? You work with an informant. That is outrageous. That's it. You're on administrative leave. You don't get punished for that if you're the cop.

No, you get rewarded for that. Hey, way to get an informant. So, and Tarios says, that is what you get for working for the government referring to earlier in his career. Then they screw you like this, basically. He says something to that effect, right? So clearly he's he's all. I'm also mad about this, okay? Yeah. And so, okay, fine, he's not a snitch in this situation. But is he still coordinating with the cop who got put on administrative lead because of this investigation? Well, definitely, okay, now is that a problem?

Because Tario's defense is, well, listen, I was just being a good Samaritan. I was telling him where we are. I also was getting the whereabouts of the other side to make sure we avoid them. But wait a minute, now that's where things bring. break down because as Francesca just explained to you guys, the proud boys do not have a history of avoiding counter demonstrators, they have a deep history of confronting counter demonstrators and then sometimes kniving them or sometimes beating them senseless and getting, by the way, oftentimes get arrested where they got arrested in New York, etc. And so did, is it a bad

idea to tell the proud boys where counter demonstrators are if you're the police. Of course, of course. That's ridiculous. He's basically telling him you go kick their ass over here, go kick their ass over there, go do whatever assault you want in the other place. And Francesca, the last point you made is undeniable. I've never once heard of a Black Lives Matter protester or imagine a pipeline protester that calls the cops. And the cops are like, Oh sure, I'll tell you where the other side is. Yeah, yeah, keep you safe. No, no, that's great.

No, nine times out of ten, they're denied permits to even peacefully demonstrate. And then they are arrested for not having a permit. See how that that's very fun. I just want to correct myself earlier. I said he was still actually serving his time in jail. He's not, he's been out since January of this year. I did want to show this video because it sort of demonstrates the mood in D.C., which BLM protesters and others who were active in 2020 and 2021, they saw what was happening.

I mean, everyone on the streets in D.C. knew that something like January 6 was brewing. And even the cops knew probably. But again, we don't know. But I just want to show this clip. And here is a proud boy beating up two Black Lives Matter protesters. The D.C. police are all over it. Watch how they handle him. Get that what a . Get that what a . Get up. Take up.

Take up. Back up, back up, back up, back up. Go get out of here. Go get out of here. Go get out of here. Be free. Live your wonderful life. Go kick someone's ass around the corner.

In what world have you see? Could you just ask yourselves, could you beat someone up in front of six cops right now and walk away, grab your hat that you dropped and be free? My guess is most people watching, hell no, in no world would that ever happen to you. Francesca, they shoot unarmed black men running away from them in the back. I mean, we've seen that in countless cases.

You think a black guy that was in, by the way, with other black guys, go and beat up a white guy on a bike and the cops are like, go, go. fly like the wind you know they basically told that guy go be your best white supremacist self okay you're free as a bird no if the if the rolls are reversed you know that the cops are going to kick the living crap out of that guy and and put him in prison and et cetera look at this guy look at this guy oh there it is yeah he's just walking away no one cares no one cares so No, by the way, that's a little bit of a white power sign and I think an F. Antifa is what he yelled. In case there was any doubt as to who he was. Continue, Jake.

There's not a single person, including right wingers, that thinks that if he was black, the cops wouldn't take the living crap out of him and arrested him. He committed a flagrant assault right in front of them. It's there, okay. So now look, not all cops are the same. Some cops have arrested proud, boys as they're beating people up, etc. But this cop in D.C. that we were telling you the original story about, it didn't look like that's what he was doing. It looked like he was telling them how they can go find left-wing protesters to assault. So we'll let that investigation unfold. Cops are not really known for doing honest investigations of themselves, but we'll see how this one plays out. But last thing on this, Francesca, is look, this is now there's a

Democratic president, and it's barely better. If we get another radical right wing that's in charge, I'm really worried about how they're going to unleash the bad cops onto all of the rest of us. And they're chomping at the bit, right? Everywhere where there's a Democratic mayor, they're like, ah, they won't let us assault minorities anymore. We hate this guy, right? So the minute there's a Republican in charge, oh boy, this is going to be super ugly. Looking back on this footage, you know, I put that in sort of the hurt place of my brain because I'm like trying to look forward. But like looking back at that footage, you you just remember how bad 2020 was and how much worse it will get if we again elect another fascist,

a Trump himself or a Trump variant, as I like to say. I just want to end this story by saying in no way are Jenk and I taking Tario at his word. No, him being like, oh, we just coordinated about location. Do we think that that's all it was? The fact that this guy was put on administrative leave, this lieutenant, for having ties to proud boys, come on, there's something deeper than just, oh, I gave you the location, because that's just standard police and extremist stuff. Yeah, it's a great point. I mean, in order for the police, to suspend one of their own, that bar is as high as you could possibly imagine. God looks up at that bar.

It's a really high bar, okay? So, oh, he happened to say, take record where the proud boys were going to be as part of his administrative duties, and hence we suspended him, hell no, God knows what he did with those proud boys. I think we have to take on another break. All right, when we come back, a wonderful strike, it's great to see. And then President Biden, as usual, tries to outright wing Republicans. Of course!

All right, back on TYT, Jank and Francesco with you guys forward. All right. So that incredible energy is from Haiti's garment workers who are taking the streets to protest corporate corruption and a bunch of wage theft that has been going on for decades. And given everything that's going on in Haiti with the political instability, now seems like just a good time as any. So more details on that. Workers employed at factories that produce textiles and other goods say they make 500 gourds, That's $5 a day for nine hours of work and are seeking a minimum of 1,500 gourds or $15 a day.

Imagine, yes, Haiti $15 a day. Here we're trying to fight for $15 an hour. Their demands come as Haiti has seen a sharp rise also in inflation. One factory worker telemark Pierre says salaries have not been adjusted in three years. He says that workers spend 200 gourds $2 a day on transportation alone and that their salary does not cover basic needs. So imagine that you're making five a day. You spend two on transportation, three left for what? Just for some what's going on, who like what factories are these?

Well, there are companies like Wal-Mart, companies like Haynes, Gildan. And for some context, a t-shirt at Walmart costs, let's say $7. Minimum wage in Haiti is 300 gourds a day, six to $7 a day. But of course, some workers are paid as little as $3.50. a day. And this guy, for example, says he makes $5 a day. It's been a week of strikes, by the way. This is, I believe, day five. But it's been going on for quite a while. For those of you who don't know, garment industry in Haiti is huge. It's a big employer. And a lot of corporations make bank exploiting Haitian workers. So Haiti's garment industry is focused on low end apparel and

clothing, cranking out plain T-shirts for North American companies such as Gildan, Haynes, and Walmart. According to the Inter-American Development Bank, the industry makes up 80 to 90% of the country's exports. And thanks to free trade deals agreed by the U.S. Congress, most Haitian garments are able to enter the U.S. duty-free. And that article is actually even from a few years ago. So you can only imagine how things have worsened, given the 2010 earthquake, given the assassination of the president of Haiti, Gauvinel Moyes last year we covered that I there's a political angle to all this and who are some of the the backers of that but maybe Jank you want to chime in with some of your thoughts on on this uprising yeah so I love it that video gives me

life we should do likewise here and by the way truckers in Canada that's a real cause okay I I'd like to endanger my fellow citizens by spreading disease to them is not the world's greatest cause for workers to unite around. That's why no one else in Canada supports you. Hey, we can't live on these wages. My kids are starving. That's a real cause. That's a real cause. And that's what a real worker power looks like. And they should do that more and more and more. So now, am I in favor of strikes in all instances, no, so that you always have to look at the facts, okay? So are these companies

like poor Walmart losing money? And well, you know, look, there's no margins. There's nothing they can do. They're about to go bankrupt. So that's all they could afford to pay their workers. You know how this is good. No, they make billions upon billions, not in revenue in profits, in profits. So whether it's raising, and get a load of this too, by the way, they're raising the prices in Haiti on their goods, but not raising the wages of the workers in Haiti or then doubly screwed, okay? So you can't go around claiming, oh, I had to raise prices because I didn't have a choice and I had to pay awful, awful unlivable wages if you're making billions and profits. No, that means you're choosing to pay terrible wages and power to

Power never concedes without a demand. So that was the Haitian workers right there demanding, as a lot of the workers in America should do as well. And of course, this gets in the corporate power as almost all of these stories do, including the free trade deals that America signed. The corporations rule our government. They're the ones who wrote those deals, they're the ones who signed those deals. And so, and guys understand this isn't just about the workers in Haiti.

This is also about the workers here. Because when you pay somebody in Haiti, four bucks or five bucks at day, that means you don't have to pay an American $15 an hour to do that same job. You just outsource the job. And the pain of foreign workers are almost never covered by American corporate media. So hey, see no evil and you think there's no evil, but trust me, it's right there. Yeah, and I do want to give some background to the ways that the political instability in Haiti, again, the assassination of the president and some of the foreign-backed free trade agreements and deals that give us exploited garment workers who are getting paid $5 a day, how those are very deeply linked and just go back to memory lane here. So in January 2011, Hillary Clinton, in her role as Obama's Secretary of State flew to Port of Prince to demand that this was a party, Preval's candidate, be taken out of the race.

Didn't like that candidate. And replaced by a third place finisher, a right-wing populist pop singer named Michelle Sweet Mickey Martelli. Martelli appealed to the most powerful international actors in Haiti, including Bill Clinton because of his enthusiastic support for foreign investment schemes, including a push to. reinvigorate Haiti's garment assembly sector in which Haitian people would be used as cheap labor to make clothes. Now, Haiti's garment sector had already been going and trucking. But the Martelli years, so this guy wins, the Martelli years end up being some of the most corrupt in Haiti in a generation. A Haiti anti-corruption watchdog reported in 2017 that much of the $2 billion Venezuelan Petro Carribe oil loans, so loans that the country got, money freed up to be spent on infrastructure, public health, and other needs,

had been embezzled during the Martelli presidency. By then, Martelli had left office handing power to his handpick successor, a largely unknown businessman from Haiti's rural north called Jovenel Moyes, the guy who was assassinated last year. And there's all kinds of shakeup in terms of what's going on now. Investigations into his assassination, who is behind it, it seems like the prime minister, the current acting president,

might actually be involved and that's a whole other angle on this, but just to show you that what's good for corporations is goes first. It doesn't matter what Haitians want. It doesn't matter the promise of funds. It doesn't matter that the United States and the UN have dumped billions of dollars into Haiti, right? Billions. Oh, we're always being told to donate to Haiti. Gotta have money for Haiti. Meanwhile, we're against raising wages. The Clintons have not only advocated, put their thumb on the scale politically, but they've also advocated for maintaining garment wages, workers' wages at that level. Again, this is a perfect, Haiti is a perfect example of the ways that Democrats absolutely push neoliberal economics around the world in the same

ways the Republicans do. Yeah, so one last culprit here, as usual, corporate media. So in America, construction workers go on strike, no one covers it. Truckers go on strike, but they're right wingers in Canada. The press is all over it, all over it. How often have you seen this Haitian story in corporate media? Almost never, of course, right? But I get it, it's a different country and they're not blocking a bridge to America.

Okay, I'm gonna give him every benefit of the doubt, okay? But Francesca, you remember when in 2016 during the primaries, American media held Hillary Clinton to account for putting in someone who was verifiably corrupt, even if she didn't intend to, at a bare minimum, it was a horrible outcome and deep incompetence that Hillary Clinton ruined Haiti by putting that corrupt person in charge. And corporate media was all over that, right? They challenged her endlessly on that, right?

Yeah. Oh, I mean, that's the thing. It's like, no, they're focused on her emails. Go after her for something real. Exactly. You know what I mean? Bernie was the only one who said, remember Bernie said something like, oh, I wouldn't brag if Henry Kissinger were my friend.

It was the only mention. And everyone got so mad at him. How dare you talk about her foreign policy record? Yeah, no, media is disgusting. They browbeat Bernie in the Brooklyn debate, like, are you saying that the money she took from the bankers affected anything she did? They asked with a scowl. Yeah, yeah. Her donors affected almost everything she did.

And guess who what company she was on the board of, by the way? Walmart. Oh, Walmart's one of the biggest employers in Haiti hiring those people at $4 a day. And look at that Hillary Clinton put somebody corrupt in charge of Haiti to make that happen. But hey, media in America, you wouldn't want to cover that. No, no, no, no. Instead, you should bash progressives all day long. They're the worst.

Yeah, no. I mean, heart goes out to Haiti and also it's just great to see, you know, it's great to see them standing up, but like the United States has failed them. I mean, we need to really just no more. We've screwed them royally. Shall we move on? Yep. All right.

Well, turns out the Biden administration is expected to request more than $770 billion in Pentagon and related spending for the fiscal year beginning in October. So for 2023, yeah, I know, crazy, right? That is apparently more important than eliminating child poverty or stopping climate change. Nope, $770 billion for one year. This is, according to Reuters, ongoing budget talks between Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin and the White House Office of Management and Budget, coalesced around a proposed defense requests of higher than $770 billion for 2023 fiscal year starting October 1st.

Now, that's even more than what Trump was asking for back when he was president. I don't know if you guys remember that Biden wanted a little bit more than Trump back in in 2022. Congress gave him even more, given $25 billion more than what he asked for to put it at 778. So I guess this time around Biden's like, okay, well, let's just start with 770. Want to bet it's going to land at like 790, depending on how this whole Ukraine thing shakes out. What does all this pay for? Let's take a look. The National Defense top line budget includes Pentagon budget spending on salaries, tanks, stealthy F-35 made by Lockheed Martin Group, as well as funds for the Department of Energy's nuclear weapons programs, you know, those sort of beautiful emblems to death.

Among the top priorities for this budget are shipbuilding, development, developing capabilities in space, missile warning and modernizing the nuclear triad of ballistic missile submarines, bombers and land-based missiles, one of the sources said. Finally, who benefits from all this? Well, the biggest beneficiaries of the budget would be U.S. defense contractors, including Lockheed, Northrop Grumman, and General Dynamics. Yeah, so I don't know, Jake.

Maybe we are going to war in Ukraine. You know, Francescoe, that is so weird because I was sure that we were out of money because Joe Manchin and Chris Sinema and every corporate Democrat and every single Republican and almost every reporter told us that during build back better, oh my God, we're worried about debt, we're worried about deficit, we're worried about inflation, how are you going to pay for that? How are you going to pay for that? Well, okay, let me skip ahead, the graphic gate for a second to give you guys a sense of context for the money.

Where does the money go? Huh, wait a minute, this is curious. I'm sure you've seen this all over mainstream media. Pentagon, this is, if you did it over 10 years, as they talk about, that's how they talk about the, what they call the reconciliation bill there is now build back better. So you guys remember, when it was killed, it was at $1.75 trillion. Manchin said even that was too much, but let's give him the 1.75 trillion. Again, remember, that didn't even pass, okay?

But they said it was way too expensive at 1.75 trillion. And that's part of the reason why they didn't pass it. Huh, look at the defense spending. It's at 8.31 trillion over 10 years. I'm not great at math, but I'm pretty sure 8.3 trillion is a little higher than 1.75 trillion. How many times have you heard cable news anchors say, how are you going to pay for that? I've got the number at approximately zero. No one questions it in Washington.

No one questions it on TV. No one questions it in print. Endless wars, endless money for wars, that passes easily and not just with Republican votes, with tons and tons of Democratic votes that's asked for by Joe Biden. And the same Joe Biden that gave up on his own agenda, billed back better because it was too expensive. He couldn't find a way to pay for it. But as soon as his donors at Lockheed, Martin, Northrop, Kremlin, et cetera, asked for what, well over four times that amount?

He's like, right away, sir. Yes, sir, absolutely, sir. What else would you like, Raytheon, sir? So that's facts. Everything else that corporate media tells you is spin. And by the way, also right wing media, Donald Trump, oh, he's a guest's endless wars. Well, he has a funny way of showing it. He didn't end any of those wars.

And he asked for record amounts for defense spending to go to his donors who are also defense contractors. And now Biden not to be outdone said, remember how progressive I am. I'll spend even more money on defense than Donald Trump did. So as usual, corporate Republicans and corporate Democrats agree. We should all get screwed. We should be robbed of our money by these defense. contractors and then when it comes time to giving you child tax credit or paid family leave or lower drug prices, golly gee, we can't find any money.

It is, it's the ultimate, like I feel like it has to do with Afghanistan, you know, which the problem with the Afghanistan withdrawal had nothing to do with the fact that weapons contractors and defense contractors didn't get to get their snacky, they didn't get their ice cream Sunday. So I feel like, but that's what that's what Biden and the administration is taking it from it like, oh no, oh no, we feel so bad. Oh, we said you couldn't have a cookie. Okay, you can have ice cream for dinner. That's what $770 billion. There you go. You can just eat ice cream for dinner and be happy. Don't hurt us. Don't be, don't be mad. It's all just to like make sure that they're on board and make sure. And it's, that's terrifying. That is terrifying that weapons

contractors have so much pull. But as Jenks said, and in the numbers, they really are even on in terms of who's donating to whom. So here's a graphic of the top contributions just from the last year, 2021 to 22, from all these weapon contractors, right? And and you can see red versus blue where they're donating. I know it's super small, but Lockheed Martin split down the middle, Raytheon split down the middle. General dynamics split down the middle. North of Grumman split right down the middle between Republicans and Democrats. And that's from open secrets.

You guys should and can take a look at that. To bolster and buttress what Jank was saying about Build Back Better. Let's just look. Let's compare. What do you get for your defense money versus what do you get with Build Back Better? So let's start with Build Back Better. All right. $1.75 trillion over 10 years.

remember 10 so zero after that you get universal pre-k child care and enhanced child tax credits subsidies on affordable care act exchanges through 2025 i could use those federal help to those who fall below the poverty line 570 billion dollars into climate measures and addressing affordable housing shortages shortfalls and again that's the paired down this is the compromise This was the thing that maybe Mansion would smell or Chris and Cinema would taste. Ewey, she didn't like it. Put it back. It's not caviar.

All right, what's in the defense budget? All right, it's got to be better than that. It's got to be better. $770 billion for one year? Policies. War. Funding rich defense contractors. I might add like bases and $15 bottled water dollar.

You know what I'm saying, Jake. $15 bottle water. That's what I meant to say. You remember those days like 20 years ago when they would do the stories about like the $10,000 toilet scene and all those things? Notice that they never do those stories anymore? Because defense contractors did something that was brilliant. They started advertising on television. And they don't sell anything to the public.

They sell missiles and weapons, et cetera. The government is their main client. So why are they putting millions of dollars in advertising when people can't even buy their products? Because they're not trying to do that. They're trying to buy the media. And they did wholesale. So I'm going to give you one last graphic year, Graphics 6. Just 200 defense companies reported lobbying the federal government in 2020.

The top five account for more than 50% of the industry's lobbying and the top 15 spend 75% of the lobbying money. The five biggest spenders in 2020, Lockheed Martin, Boeing, North of Grumman, Raytheon, and General Dynamics. spend $60 million altogether. Now, if you watch or read corporate media, yes, that includes New York Times and Washington Post and NPR is in the same exact culture, MSNBC, CNN, you name it, okay? All of those people will tell you that the $60 million, Lockheed Martin, Raytheon, are just giving that for general charity. They just happen to find a Democrat that they like and a Republican that they like, and they haven't like a lot of them. And they say, you know what, do what's best for the American people. There's 60 million is on us.

We say they're spending that $60 million to buy those politicians to legally bribe them and that they're getting the votes of those politicians. Now those politicians, both Republicans and Democrats, are all going to vote for a bill that is four times the size of Build Back Better without single moment's hesitation. Whereas Billed Back Better got killed because they said it was too expensive. Now, who do you think is right? Do you think mainstream media covering for the politicians and their own advertisers are correct? That these defense contractors give money to politicians out of the goodness of their heart and expect nothing in return?

Or do you think the trillions of dollars funneled to those contractors might have something to do with the legal bribes? Bribes they gave to all of those corrupt politicians. everyone knows the answer, Francesca, everyone knows it. It's so humiliating to be a mainstream media reporter or editor who has to go out there and go, no, it's not true. They're doing it for the general welfare and politicians are honest and they don't care about the donor money. Humiliating. And it's also, unless we're in a hot war or like, I mean, they didn't care about Afghanistan until we you know, Biden decided to pull out of it, right? That's it. That's the only time that they care.

They're not even going to cover drone strikes, really. But that's the only time they care is when it looks bad and we get to funnel more money. And again, you have to follow the money. Who is being, who is paying them? Who who's behind that media coverage that can again keep on fueling this war machine? That's not making us any safer, guys. Who's who's being made safer by us amassing troops right now, or like an anti-missile defense system in Poland. You guys, totally, me too, I wake up every morning and I'm like, thank God for that anti-missile system that NATO and the UN and the United Nations, I mean, United States, that's it. That's the one.

I'm melting down, Jake. Yeah. No, but guys, you, you, last thing, in the article, they bother explaining, but they don't say it as framing in the same way that I'm gonna. They say earnestly, oh, well, obviously all of our weapons have to be modernized. And the weapons we just bought just a couple of years ago are now antiquated and have to be transitioned out. Why?

We just bought them a little while ago. It seems like it's like a racket where you just keep buying new weapons that you don't need and just taking the weapons that cost us trillions of dollars of throwing them in the garbage just so the defense contractors make more money. That's what it appears to be, but no, the report writes it as, no, they have to be modernized, the other ones have to be thrown in the garbage, and they don't note the political contributions, they don't note that we bought those weapons just a little while ago, and when we bought them, they were sold as modernized, amazing,

we'll have these forever and they will protect us forever and ever and ever. A couple of years later, they're inconvenient, we need new weapons, we have no excuse for buying new weapons. They have to be modernized. Oh, but Jank, I wish they were thrown. Last point, I wish they were thrown in the trash. Instead, they're used F-35's being sold the UAE that is also with Saudi Arabia right now, bombarding the people of Yemen, starving the people of Yemen. So no, we take the old stuff, we sell them abroad, further destabilize the Middle East and Central Asia, and then it all just works It just comes full circle and it's a self-fulfilling, disgusting prophecy.

If you are watching this and you work in mainstream media, just have a little bit of pride, just have some smidge of self-respect. And go ask your editor, how come we never ask when it comes to defense contractor money, how are you going to pay for that? How come we've never, ever asked that in our history? And the minute you go to do something for the American people, I expand Medicare, lower drug prices, give people free college education. We instantly all of us in unison scream, how are you going to pay for that? There, media in this country is disgusting, absolutely disgusting. Okay, we got to go.

Everybody check out the Tuatuation Room. It's Francesca's show on our network on Twitch.tv slash TYT. It's awesome. Also check out our podcast, bituation room. Check her out everywhere. Thank you, Francesca. We appreciate it. When we come back, Adrian's going to join us. And if you thought all that was bad, now, corporate media has decided to put just flat out obvious, provable lies in their fact checks. Ah! When we return. listening to the full episode of the young turks support our work listen ad free access members only bonus content and more by subscribing to apple podcasts at apple dot co slash t yt i'm your host jank huger and i'll see you soon