The Young Turks - Back 2 Work Mama

Episode Date: May 25, 2021

Senator Ron Johnson complains about the ‘downside’ of paying women enough to afford childcare. Some journalists covering Israel and Palestine say an ‘illusive concept of impartiality’ led them to face persistent doubts and skewed editing for years. 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. On July 18th, get excited. This is big! For the summer's biggest adventure. I think I just smurf my pants. That's a little too excited.

Sorry. Smurfs. Only theaters July 18th. We're going to be able to be able to be. All right, we need you to welcome to the Young Turks. That's not a real sentence, but nonetheless, Jake Uger, Anna Kusparian. We need you to be welcome. And we've got a lot of stories here.

You know that, you know that. So Anna found a story on the going on's. What's wrong with you today? What is that? She's that. Phrase that. Strong start. Killing it so far.

She found a story about how the Israeli-Palestin issue is being covered in the press. And I think it's amazing, fascinating, et cetera. Can't wait to talk about it because it's going to give you a sense of how journalism works and doesn't work in this. country, it's so real and it's so interesting because of that. And then of course, Texans going more crazy, more out of control legislation throughout the country. And you know the usual spill. But it's going to be an amazing show. And by the way, speaking of shows, one last thing for now. Tonight, we also have old school. Don't forget that. That says 7 o'clock Eastern. It's live now. That's why I'm sorry, 10 o'clock Eastern, 7 o'clock Pacific. That's why I'm pointing it out now.

you guys, everybody can watch it live and free. We're going to have a controversy about Instagram tonight, a rare story planned for old school. So it's going to be myself, Ben Manquist and Mark Thompson, truly an old school cast. And you guys are going to love it. Look, it's not a big deal, but you guys are going to love it. And then we got a bonus episode for you tonight here and a bonus episode for old school as well. How do you get those? Well, t.com slash join. Obviously, there's also a join button below on YouTube. You guys get it, Casper. All right, first I just want to say, congratulations. No, wait, let's put, let's put that guy down for a second, okay? Yeah. Ashwaria is filling in for Brett for

the next month and a half, I believe, as supervising producer. She's fantastic. Everybody give her a round of applause because she's killing it, and I'm so proud of her and so blessed to have her on our team. So sure. All right. Who thanks to their staff in the beginning? Of the beginning of a show. Gotta do it. We do it. Because we care. All right.

Well, now let's put that guy back up. Let's talk about Ron Johnson and his whiny little ways. Put the Johnson back. All right. So. Republican Senator Ron Johnson wants to get everyone back to work, including women who can't afford childcare and who were literally forced to stay out of the workforce to take care of their children during the coronavirus pandemic.

Now, he was confronted with a common sense question about how, unaffordable childcare is and how that is letting or forcing women, I should say, to stay home and leave the job market. And so I want to give you the question from the reporter before I give you his answer. Because Johnson actually thinks that the problem now is that wages are too high. It's a big issue. I'm not even kidding. Now the question from the reporter is this.

What about the argument that this situation is kind of shining a light on some of the out-of-control cost, the increase in costs that wages haven't kept up with for folks like things like child care. A lot of women are choosing not to go back into the workforce right now because at the end of the day it's a complete wash. Their wages would simply cover the cost of having to pay for child care that they don't have to pay for now. That is an excellent question from a local news reporter and I want to commend him for that. Now unfortunately he's talking to a buffoon and he got a buffoonish answer in response. Ron Johnson responded by saying that, you know, the problem is wages are actually too high.

He says businesses pay what wages they can afford based on the competitive situation, whether it's in a restaurant, whether it's in manufacturing, where they're competing against foreign manufacturers, I just have greater faith in the marketplace setting appropriate wage rates. But there's no doubt about it. Wage rates are now being bid up because there is a later. shortage, and if you're a worker, that's a good thing. But then he continues to make the case that higher wages are actually really hurting everyone. This is what he says. Increase in wage

rates ratchet up, and that creates permanent inflation. You can hear the GOP repeating the word inflation over and over again, and they're deflecting by blaming the wrong reasons, right? So you may feel good about getting a five or six or seven percent raise, but if general inflation is six, seven or eight percent, that increase is just completely wiped out. That's what the marketplace does. I'm highly concerned that what we're looking at right now is a witch's brew with all the ingredients for stagflation. So what he's referring to here is, and I'm sure many of you have experienced it, an increase in prices for honestly things that people need to survive. You might have noticed that the cost of housing, for instance, has gone up considerably. And part of the reason why is because there is, honestly, a higher price for lumber. The production of lumber was halted during the pandemic. It takes a while to get the process back up and running again. And so as there's a lack of supply and higher demand for housing, obviously it's going to drive

up the cost of housing. But that's just part of the equation. Let's also talk about the fact that interest rates have provided cheap money to investors who then take that money. and buy up all these houses as investments, as speculators. He doesn't talk about that. He doesn't talk about lowering, I'm sorry, raising interest rates that have been ridiculously low for quite some time now by the Federal Reserve.

He doesn't want to talk about that because he and his cronies benefit from that. But when it comes to wages, he's going to go ahead and blame that for inflation, and that is not the story here. So Anna makes a sophisticated argument and the facts about inflation versus wages are really important, And I want to get back to some of that in a second. But let's just note that a Republican senator, a United States senator, just said your wages should be lower, not higher. Yep. That's amazing. And so that would never happen in a normal democracy.

Even if they actually believe that, they would normally hide it if they thought the voters actually decided elections. But Ron Johnson is of the mind, and he has historically been right for the last 40 years. Now, since the just Democrats have come on board, the equation has changed. a little bit, but he's been largely right that no, donors decide elections. So Iran Johnson is going on television and saying, yeah, I work for big business. I want your wages to be lower. I mean, it's spitting the face of the voters. He's, oh, many of your wages go up. I mean, we might have inflation. By the way, but you would also have higher wages, right? I mean, what an unbelievable excuse to work for big business and keep you down and oppress you. I don't

might have higher wages. It might cause inflation. Well, how about what the executives had giant pay raises and giant bonuses? And how about when they did the stock buybacks and all those things? How about when the Fed printed all that money and gave it to all the companies? You weren't worried about inflation then? You guys authorized $2 trillion to go right in the beginning of the COVID relief thing immediately to big business. And then the Fed authorized another $4 trillion. But you weren't worried about inflation with $6 trillion on the line. But now when the work workers might get a dollar raise or a $2 raise per hour. He's, oh, now all of a sudden

I'm worried about inflation. Now, they're brazen, man. They're brazen. You vote for Ron Johnson. You're an idiot, unless you're a billionaire, or you run a giant corporation. He's telling you, he's telling you, I want your wages as to be as low as humanly possible so my big business

friends can win. Now, back to the details of that, right? So, he says, I have faith in the markets. No, but wait a minute, guys, markets are real, and they do set prices, but they don't exist in a bubble, right? So it's the job of the government to hold corporations accountable. It's the job of corporations to maximize profits. If you let corporations set wages, they would set them at near starvation wages, right? They'd get it so that you could barely live, and then they would take all the profits on top,

because it would keep their costs literally as low as humanly possible. Now the government is supposed to step in and protect us in a democracy to different things like regulations one of them is the minimum wage one of them by the way is a 40 hour work week before we didn't have a 40 hour work week we didn't have weekends because we had no use it unions to protect us and we had no democracy to protect us right now we do or we used to and now Ron Johnson and the corporate overlords have taken over again and say no you should not have any protections if you're an actual American worker and you should like it. And so let alone his views on women getting back to work, these guys are disgusting. And the only reason why anybody votes for them is that the press calls everything even and helps them lie to you guys.

Now, I also want to provide some data in regard to where American wages have been and compare wages and how they've fared with inflation. Because inflation has continued for decades and decades and decades, The question is, have wages outpaced inflation? And, I mean, spoiler alert, no. But before I get to that date, I want you to ask yourselves a question because I'd love an answer. What exactly are parents supposed to do with their children if they're not making enough money to afford child care?

What are they supposed to do? Leave them home alone? I would like all of these so-called pro-life Republicans to explain to me what parents are supposed to do with their children if they can't afford child. child care in this country that provides no social safety net for parents who have young children. That's the question I want to ask. Now let me get to the data. There's been a lot of data on U.S. wages and how they have not kept up with inflation. I'm going to give you a few data points right now. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics generated compensation cost indices, total benefit costs for all civilian workers have risen and inflation adjusted 22.5% since

Since 2001, when the data series began versus 5.3% for wage and salary costs. So it continues. This is from Pew Research. After adjusting for inflation, today's hourly wage has just about the same purchasing power as it did in 1978, following a long slide in the 1980s and early 1990s, and bumpy inconsistent, that's important, inconsistent growth since then. That's when inequality really started to explode. In fact, in real terms average hourly earnings, I'm sorry, in fact, in real terms, average

hourly earnings peaked more than 45 years ago, the $4.3 an hour rate recorded in January of 1973 had the same purchasing power that $23.63 and $63 would today. That's nowhere near what the federal minimum wage is. The current federal minimum wage is $7.25. Minimum wage jobs pay that amount. Nothing close to $23.68. This indicates that the hourly wage for minimum wage jobs has not in any way kept up with inflation. Let me give you more.

This is from 2000 to 2013. The dark blue line shows how productivity has increased through the decade. But you also see that the hourly compensation, has stagnated. So Americans are actually working much harder and receiving less compensation for the hard work that they're putting in. But you might be thinking, well, that's 2000 to 2013. I mean, do we have any evidence that that trend continued? Yeah, let me show you some data from 2019 that shows the same trend. This is from Bloomberg. They use data from the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis, and it shows that pay hasn't kept pace. It's very easy to see, and it's

easy to also witness for yourself out on the streets with so many Americans living in poverty or in RVs or giant encampments because they can't afford a home. Yeah. So I want to give you guys some context. Those graphs that Anna just showed you, the divergence starts around in 1978. I'll talk about it a lot in my book, Justicescoming, book.com. You can pre-order there. And it's because of a couple of Supreme Court decisions that allowed corporations to give unlimited money to politicians that happened well before Citizens United. And then you immediately see the divergence as they purchase all of our politicians

and keep our wages low while productivity is high. The difference between 1970 and now in those charts is the difference between productivity and the wages is about $12 trillion. So they took $12 trillion of your productivity and gave it to the richest people in the country. and the world instead of you. You earned it, but you didn't get it. But now Ron Johnson spits in your face and says, you know, if we give you any, the inflation might go up.

But as Anna showed you, it did go up. If our wages had kept up with inflation, instead of being $7.25 right now for minimum wage federally, it'd be over $23. $23. Now we're trying to get $15 and we can't get it. That eight Democrats voted. And that's, by the way, that's $15 in five years.

Right? And even eight Democrats join with the Republicans. I know my corporate backers say it's way too much. Well, it would have been 23. How about the inflation point that Ron Johnson made? I don't know, we only use that to keep wages low. We never ever talk about it when it would mean that wages would be higher. And finally back to the original point about Ron Johnson, they asked him, hey, how is a woman supposed to go back to work if she's got kids and she needs money for childcare? His answer was basically, I don't give a damn, and I want to keep her wages as low as possible.

And I don't want to give her daycare and I don't want to give her unemployment. But I want to force her to go to work because that's what the point of that entire interview was. He's terrified that people are not going back to work because the unemployment benefits that they're receiving as a result of the coronavirus relief package is persuading them to stay home. So what he's doing along with other Republicans like him, he's running interference on behalf of corporations who don't want to compete with the. Nichols and dimes that the federal government is offering to the American people who are experiencing hardship, they don't want to increase their wages. They don't want to compete, again, with the federal government's unemployment program, which is not in any way overly generous. So they get these Republicans, and oftentimes corporate Democrats as well, to run interference on their behalf, because that's what they're paid to do, guys. That's what the campaign donations, force them to do, persuade them to do.

They don't represent you. Ron Johnson is not representing the best interests of constituents in Wisconsin. He couldn't care less. What he cares about is, of course, his own political career, which is, you know, really dependent on the campaign donations from these corporations who don't want to pay you a fair wage, a living wage. You vote for these big business Republicans. You're out of your mind, unless you run a giant business.

Alascoord goes to our viewers because they made a bunch of good points. Jake Fisher says on YouTube super chat, as a single parent, what have I heard, what I have heard was, and always has been, get a better paying job. You know, like they just grow on trees or something. That's how cruel and heartless most politicians are, because they don't know anybody that doesn't have millions of dollars in savings. They're all millionaires. All they know is millionaires and billionaires.

So they're like, oh, why don't you just get a higher paying job? Oh, I didn't think of that. Thanks for letting me know. And then lastly, YTP renewed also on YouTube Super Chat said, businesses can't afford $15 an hour. Tell it to Denmark. It's a great point. You know how much an average McDonald's worker makes in Denmark?

$23 an hour. Do you know how much more expensive their burgers are? About 70 cents more than on average American burger. Okay, in McDonald's. Same thing. Okay, and now it's rounding up on the burger price. So, oh, no, they can't do it. Oh, wow, the burger costs $5.99 instead of $5.29.

and they pay $23 a worker. But the most important part of it is, well, did McDonald's go bankrupt when they paid that much to the workers and the burger cost 70 cents more? No. No, they make a great profit in Denmark. Perfectly great company doing unbelievable profits in Denmark.

They choose to continue to work there and choose to make tons of money in Denmark. It turns out you can pay your workers more. You just don't want to and you got away with it because you bought all these corporate Republicans and corporate Democrats, and they sold out the American people on your behalf. That's the reality.

All right, we got to take a break. But when we come back, this incredible story published in Slate where journalists talk about their experience throughout the years, attempting to cover the Israel and Palestine story fairly and the unfortunate editing and censorship they had to deal with. Come right back. We'll share that story with you and more. We need to talk about a relatively new show called Un-F-The-Republic, or UNFTR. As a Young Turks fan, you already know that the government, the media, and corporations are constantly peddling lies that serve the interests of the rich and powerful.

But now there's a podcast dedicated to unraveling those lies, debunking the conventional wisdom. In each episode of Un-F-The Republic, or UNFTR, the host Dells. into a different historical episode or topic that's generally misunderstood or purposely obfuscated by the so-called powers that be. Featuring in-depth research, razor-sharp commentary, and just the right amount of vulgarity, the UNFTR podcast takes a sledgehammer to what you thought you knew about some of the nation's most sacred historical cows. But don't just take my word for it.

The New York Times described UNFTR as consistently compelling and educational, aiming to challenge conventional wisdom and upend the historical narratives that were taught in school. For as the great philosopher Yoda once put it, you must unlearn what you have learned. And that's true whether you're in Jedi training or you're uprooting and exposing all the propaganda and disinformation you've been fed over the course of your lifetime. So search for UNFDR in your podcast app today and get ready to get informed, angered, and entertained all at the same time.

Thank you. I don't know what I'm going to be. You're going to be able to be. All right, so I want to let you guys know about a programming note, LGBTQ prize special. We're going to have it as we do now annually. And I want you guys to check it out on June 1st. It's at 8 o'clock Eastern, 5 o'clock Pacific. It's on t.com slash live, of course, Facebook, Twitch, and YouTube as well.

And we're going to have John Airolo, Adrian Lawrence, Jason Carter, Daniel Fresace, plastic mortar, Canola Lopez, Odessa Kelly, Rhea Butcher, and so many others on, and it's going to be an amazing program. So make sure you check it out on June 1st. All right. Now let me go to your member comments. Someone who likes Bernie Sanders wrote in, I know that the minimum wage movement has been laser-focused on $15 an hour. But the most important thing we should do is what they do in Europe, which is to tie the minimum wage to inflation, so that minimum wage automatically increases as inflation increases. So 100% want to do that.

And it's absolutely critical to any increase in the minimum wage. But the problem is we can't get any movement, no movement at all. And Biden, let's just, you guys, if you watch show, you know the reality, as opposed to if you watch mainstream media, you get lied to. So Joe Biden is against raising the $15 minimum wage. He says he's in favor of it. But then he had Carper and Coons, the two Delaware senators, his top allies, vote against it in the Senate. So that's Biden saying, no, I'm not going to do $15. I'm not going to tie it to inflation. I'm not going to do any of that stuff.

And I'll get my idiot mainstream media reporters to transcribe what I say, which is that I'm in favor of it as I actively kill it. So that's the current status and he's not going to change it. Mickey's See the Silver Hair Dragon says, don't forget the last week, Biden announced that if you're offered a job, you must take it. It doesn't matter if it's only $7.25 an hour, and that won't pay your bills. He said, quote, you can't game the system. It looks like your big business donors are gaming the system. It looks like you you're gaming the system by having Democrats vote against $15 minimum wage. And but all of our progressives in Washington are, yay, A-plus, FDR.

I told you guys, it wasn't real. Unfortunately, as usual, I was right. All right. Now let's go to wonderful people who join Andrew Bonapes, Sam Alzahara, Jessica Manchaca, and William Grace. You guys are amazing. Hit the join button below on YouTube. Appreciate it. Mr. Charles says Casper is looking extra beautiful this Monday morning.

She's a superhero. Jenk isn't Anna the best. I don't know why you're forcing me to say it. It's kind of, but fine. Okay, she's a hero. No, don't say that. Thank you. All right, back on a young Turks, Jane and Anna with you guys, amazing stories coming up.

So Anna, take it away. All right. The ongoing violence in Gaza, due to airstrikes by the Israelis, has opened up a discussion about how journalists in the United States have historically covered the story. And some of you might have noticed that there's been a pretty significant change in journalist's willingness to really call out the aggression by the Israeli government. Whereas before, it seemed as though the number of casualties on the Palestinian side was somehow equal to the number of casualties on the Israeli side, even though the numbers did not bear that out. I mean, there was this effort to make it seem like both sides were equal in the level of

Both sides were equal in the number of casualties or the amount of violence. But this time something changed. And what was really interesting was the reaction by the public to news that the Associated Press had fired a Jewish journalist by the name of Emily Wilder because of her pro-Palestinian activism in the past when she was in college. And now we're also hearing from some journalists who agreed to speak to Slate about their personal experiences reporting on the matter. and the kind of censorship they had to deal with in the past. So let's start off with Omar, not his real name, but he worked for a major U.S. newspaper.

He spoke to Slate and shared some personal anecdotes. He said, I wrote a piece about the extraordinary number of people that were being killed in Gaza in 2014. It was ready to go. It had gone through so many edits, excruciating edits. And the hold up was they wanted me to find out exactly how many children were injured by Hamas rockets in Israel. Israel, and then get reporting on the psychological impact of that on Israeli children.

Omar continues to say that it's this level of bending over backwards for some elusive concept of impartiality that is just so impractical and would never be applied to any story elsewhere in the organization. If a black man gets shot by police, we do not go out and try to track down how many white cops were assaulted by black men that same year or something like that. It's dispiriting and upsetting. Can I just jump in for one second there, Anna? I think that's such an important point.

So it's oftentimes the tone and the other journalists quoted in this story talk about they would have all of their tone changed from this is what's actually happening to, but on the other hand, on the other hand, right? Now, he's saying, look, when a policeman kills an unarmed black person, we don't go, but on the other hand, you know, how about all the crimes of black people across America? Now, the right wing does that, and it doesn't make sense because it's not in the context of that story. It's just an what aboutism to try to distract you from what actually happened, which was the crime of that unarmed black man being killed. And normally the New York Times and other outlets do not tolerate that because it gives a wrong, misleading impression of the context of that story, right?

But when it comes to Israel, I mean, look at what they just explained there. When you're reporting the sheer massive number of Palestinian children killed, you must include not only the couple of Israeli children killed, sure, of course you should include that. That's also true, right? But in that war, it was about, I think, two Israeli children were killed and about 1,400 Palestinian children were killed. But they say, but that's not enough. You must then include how psychologically damaged everyone in Israel was about the children mean.

Can I include how psychologically damaged the 1,400 people were, their families were when their kids were killed? No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. We have to even it out. But it's not even. It's 1,400 to 2. No, it doesn't matter. shut up and even it out.

Almost every reporter explains, a top editor eventually would come in and go, no, I don't want you to report the facts as you saw it, as the witnesses say it, I want you to go and change the tone, or I'll change it for you. And by the way, if you don't agree, you're a troublesome reporter. No, it goes, you're a troublesome reporter. Maybe that's the type of communication coming from the editors. But it goes further than that in the general public. And I think that's part of what honestly persuades editors to do this censorious coverage of what's actually happening on the ground.

In fact, Omar also shares that oftentimes they would get information from the Israeli defense forces. And it would need to be published unchallenged, even if the reporters on the ground had witnessed. something that contradicted what the Israeli defense forces said. So Omar shared that as well. Now let's move on to a former New York Times journalist who goes by Layla. No one wanted to share their real names. I think you can kind of understand why it's really difficult to get journalism jobs as it is. It's even harder when you're willing to call out your boss or your former bosses for this kind of behavior.

Now Layla shares her own experiences by saying, when the big escalation happened in the summer of 2014 and they were massacring civilians in Gaza. The New York Times coverage, as usual, violated all the basic principles that they insist on sticking to for just about every other story. The thing that really killed me was this rocket tracker. And so at the time, the New York Times had a graphic heavy piece that specifically tracked Hamas and the rockets that it's firing. Now, that should be covered, but of course it needs to be covered in its proper context, right? Because obviously the defense and military capabilities of Hamas is very different from that of Israel. Israel has the Iron Dome.

That's the reason why they're very luckily able to protect themselves from Hamas and its rockets. Gaza doesn't have that. Gaza has very little protection, which is why the casualties are much higher, including casualties among civilians, including children, right? So that kind of context oftentimes would be buried in the story or would be left out altogether. And that's what Layla is alluding to here. She also says it was a depressive couple of weeks of crying in the restroom. I also had a close ally in the opinion department who was forwarding me all the responses those editors were having about pitches and the sheer racism and dehumanization from rank and file opinion editors when talking about Palestinians was just jarring.

And these are people in my union, people who were my co-workers. In fact, she was so bothered by this that she decided to raise her concerns with the top editors. One of those top editors was Susan Shira at the time. And she also raised these concerns to executive editor Dean Bacquette. And she did not get the response that she was hoping for. She told Slate, quote, the line was basically, if we're being criticized by people who are pro-Israel, and you're also complaining, then we're doing. the right thing, which I think is a pretty weak response.

And they- It's a terrible response. They repeated a very similar response to Slate when Slate asked them to comment about this interaction. So there's that. Not long after that interaction with the editors, Lela decided to quit her job at the New York Times. Now, in 2015, Palestinian journalist, this is the one person who decided to go on

the record with his name, Ahmed Shihab Eldon, was filming a document. for Vice. He came upon a group of settlers destroying a Palestinian family's home in the Silwan neighborhood in East Jerusalem. After a mother who lived there came home with her young daughter, he watched as a settlers through the young girls' toys out of the house, removing pipes and destroying furniture. So he talks about how that moment, especially for a documentary, is a big deal. You would want to include that in a documentary to give a fair and balanced view of what's happening on the ground. He says, we're filming and all of a sudden,

there's a torrential downpour, and they're locked out of their home. Literally, if we had done all the planning with millions of dollars to try to capture the scene that unfolded in front of us that we captured by chance, we wouldn't have been able to do it. But Vice decided to cut that scene from the documentary, and he never got a good reason for why they decided to do that.

So that's the kind of editing that takes place that is honestly really difficult for a journalist who cares about reporting the truth to stomach. And that's why you hear these stories about people walking away from their jobs, quitting, or in some cases, yes, they feel that they have to stomach it. They have to deal with it because where else are they going to go, especially since most legacy media outlets had the same type of policy, right? It's an unspoken policy, but you can you can see where it's headed anytime you have any coverage that's a little more critical of the Israeli government and the Israeli defense forces, Shank.

Okay, so in that same story where he gets this amazing footage of this family being abused, their house was not set for destruction, the settlers were destroying it anyway. They eventually gave him the excuse that we can't show the confrontation because it will make it show too much of one side's argument. But that's actually what happened. So you can't show the truth because it would show that one side is right. another one is wrong. Now, you guys aren't report. I mean, none of this, these are not real journalists, journalistic operations. At least on this issue, you know, so, and everybody

reports the same thing, nonstop editors on this one issue. No, no, no, no, you can't, you can't, you can't, you can't, you can't, you can't, you can't. You can't report the truth because that'll make Israel look bad. Now, guys, I want to look, I'm going to take a pause here because I got more devastating stuff. But I want you to understand something. It is because of the political correctness and the incredible power that politicians put on these journalistic outfits, okay? There's no cabal of secret people in charge. There's none of that, okay? But on this issue, it is politically a third rail in America. And it has been for a long, long time. So that's the context of it. But Morgan says, frankly, the issue here is, are Palestinians human?

Are Arabs human or Muslims human? That's how basic it became. Now, look, they give Arab names of the Arab American reporters that are going anonymous in this story. Morgan apparently is not, and that's also pseudonym. But here's a guy who is not ethnically linked apparently to either side. And he's saying, you're not even treating one side as human. This is unbelievable. And then he says, look, the good news is, and I've.

seen this too, and it's also reported in this slate piece, that now the tide is beginning to change a little bit. And there's a couple of reasons why there's now more Arab Americans, Muslim Americans and newsrooms, and they're going, are we really going to say that it's 1,400 to 2 is no big deal and reported as even? And by the way, the New York Times terrible excuse for, well, hey, look, if both sides are angry, then I must be doing something right. Number one, we've covered when Rush Limbaugh says that.

No, that is not real journalism to say, I mangled it on both sides or both sides are angry, right or wrong. What am I supposed to figure out if it's right or wrong? I'm just going to put it right down the middle so everybody gets mad. And I don't care what the facts are because I'm trying to be politically correct. By the way, when you report that Joe Biden won the election, the other side gets super mad. Trump people get furious. How come you still report the facts on that one? Oh, all of a sudden, you don't have to be right down the middle.

No, you're not supposed to be down the middle politically. You're supposed to be objective about the facts, not neutral to the politics. And Morgan described what happened if you complain. And he explained, there was, quote, many, many small and large negotiations with editors. The negotiations would be non-stops. And they say, you show, hey, a bomb hit a home and killed many civilians. That's the fact that I'm reporting on the ground, right? they'd say, no, you have to show us how tough you are on terrorists.

Okay. Yeah, it's insane. And if you complain too much or you ask to actually put the facts in the story, they would say, according to him, that you were, quote, a frictional reporter. You're creating too much friction and won't just do as you're told. And look, I think it's also important to hear from someone who is ethnically tied to this issue, right? And that's a Jewish, progressive journalist in the United States, based in the United States. Peter Beinart, I'm sure you've seen him on Twitter, if you're active on Twitter.

He is one of the editors, actually the editor at large over at Jewish currents. And so he shares his perspective, and I think it's super relevant to this story. He says, there's a whole carefully curated language around this conflict, where terms are often deployed in order to not provoke controversy or backlash. One of the things that I hope that will start to happen is that people will interrogate that language and ask, maybe this is the politically safe language, but is it actually true? He continues to say that even putting aside what happens in the West Bank or Gaza, where Palestinians aren't citizens at all and the state dominates their lives, it is very frightening

that words like ethno-nationalism or Jewish supremacy or Jewish domination would be unsafe words for most mainstream newspapers to use, even though, in a certain sense, they really shouldn't be controversial. That was the strongest statement that I've heard or read about this issue. But, and look, I also understand with the very real issue of anti-Semitism, why some outlets would be very careful in the way that they report these stories. But when you're going out of your way to essentially hide or bury the real story or the devastation that Palestinians are facing, as a result of the aggression by the Israeli government, you're not ethically doing your job. The facts are the facts. You can't change the facts. You also can't omit facts in an effort

to avoid backlash from people who don't want to hear them. Journalism is actually a very difficult job if you're willing to do it correctly. And yes, you're going to get backlash. People are always going to be unhappy with you. But you have to ask yourself whether you're in it for the right reasons. Yeah. And so the voice is like Biden aren't speaking out are so important. And now you've got, as we reported last week, wonderful Jewish senators leading the way in Congress saying maybe Israel shouldn't get the arms sales that we agreed to or Biden agreed to recently if they're going to continue to occupy Palestine and bomb Palestinian civilians, led of course by Bernie Sanders, but other wonderful

senators as well, Jewish and Christian alike. And so, and that phenomenon of under 40 year old Jewish Americans being very progressive and saying, no, of course Palestinians are human. Just dehumanize them like this is ridiculous. When you say something should be a Jewish state and hence we must occupy. It's one thing to say that should be a Jewish state. It's another thing to say it's got to be a Jewish state. Hence the Palestinians within Israel should have some lesser rights. And more importantly, the Palestinians that are occupied should be kept occupied for decades and decades because basically under the logic of they're too violent to govern themselves. And so I suspected that that would rise up and that those folks have risen up

and they're absolutely heroes and they're making a giant difference. And so at TYT, we frequently talk about all the ways that big tech companies are taking control of our online lives, constantly monitoring us and storing our data. But that doesn't mean we have to let them. It's possible to stay anonymous online and hide your data from the prying eyes of big tech. And one of the best best ways is with ExpressVPN. ExpressVPN hides your IP address, making your active ID more difficult to trace and sell the advertisers. ExpressVPN also encrypts 100% of your network data to protect you from eavesdroppers and cyber criminals. And it's also easy to install. A single mouse click protects all your devices. But listen, guys, this is important. ExpressVPN is rated number

one by CNET and Wired Magazine. So take back control of your life online and secure your data with a top VPN solution available, ExpressVPN. And if you go to ExpressVPN, VPN.com slash T-Y-T, you can get three extra months for free with this exclusive link just for T-Y-T fans. That's E-X-P-R-E-S-S-V-P-N dot com slash T-YT. Check it out today. Just last couple of things here, because it's so important. They said the other problem is that it creates self-censorship. Every reporter, almost every reporter quarter of the piece says the same thing, which is, well, then you wonder, like, if I write it accurately, am I going to get in trouble? Are they going to think I'm a frictional reporter? All these things that

happens. So sometimes you don't even bother writing it, even though it's obviously true. And so this is disgraceful. And here, I want to give you one more quote here, because I think it's so important. We had another, this is from one of the anonymous reporters quoted. And then we had another tier of editors. They explained first we had lower level editors were good. They actually cared about, hey, what's actually happening on the ground, et cetera. But when you got to the tier above them, he explains, we had another tier of editor above them who were more mindful of the tone of the media organization and dictated a lot of the tone. So that's not important just to the Israel story.

That's important to everything we cover, guys. And we're about the only show that I've seen that explains and focuses on the tone of the pieces, because that is where they send you subliminal messages. and we oftentimes show you in the pieces. You see what they said about Medicare for All? Even though it's technically true that it costs $32 trillion. They left out that it saves $34 trillion. And then they frame it as this is something really expensive that we can't afford.

But when we have taxes for the rich or endless wars, they never talk about the cost. Well, my God, the missing context and the tone actually totally. you more about the story than the so-called facts that they put into the story. And it's the selective editing that takes certain facts and highlights them and minimizes other facts. In this case, it's a matter of life and death because it minimizes the Palestinian civilian deaths and maximizes what they say comes directly from right-wing Israeli government sources. And other reporters explain again here, if Mossad said it, or not Mossad, sorry, Israeli defense forces said it, we would write it as it was fact.

We would not, we were not really allowed to question it was an official source. But if we saw it with our own eyes or we got an eyewitness, they would say it's unreliable. It's crazy. It's so crazy. That's unbelievable. And by the way, like, think about that in any other context, right? A military source, I don't care if it's the Israeli military. I don't care if it's the U.S. military. I don't care if it's the military in Zimbabwe. I don't care. You should not consider that an official source that you can't question as. a journalist.

That is insane thinking. That is not journalistic, that is not ethical. The fact that they would ever refer to a military source as a source that cannot be questioned is crazy. And I'm gonna say one last thing here, because guys, it is this story is much larger than just Israel, even though that's a huge story in and of itself. Because they actually did used to do that here in America until very, very recently, and we're still trying to get past it now.

the issue of police violence towards minorities in this country. They would say the police reporting something, every local news outlet would say that is an official source and you must write it exactly as the police say it. And questioning it is very controversial. Like, well, you need overwhelming evidence to question an official statement by the police, right? But if you have a witness, an African American witness, before the days of the body camp footage and the iPhone footage, they'd be like, unreliable, don't print it, don't print it. Or if you do say, well, you have to heavily discount it

and what is that created? It creates state-run media. De facto, subliminally, they tell you the state is always right, even if the state is doing violence on its own citizens or other citizens. And if the citizens protest against that violence, they are not to be trusted. And that is poison inside the American media and destroys journalism.

And that's the reality, unfortunately, of corporate media in this country and the skewed perspective that it has created. When we come back from the break, I'm going to show you that Liz Cheney is still Liz Cheney. Don't be fooled, she's a Cheney. We got that story and more when we come back. I don't know what I'm going to be. I'm going to be. All right. All right, back during the break here, first let me go to YouTube.

1297 just joined. I assume that's a Turkish name. I have no idea if it actually is. Anyway, hit the join button below. At the essentials level, you get the bonus episode. We got hilarious Megan McCain shenanigans in the post game today. We'll straighten her out. That's for the members.

By the way, at the premium level, you get old school's bonus episode and the bonus episode of all of the shows. All right. Kaley O'Hara writes in on Super Chat. Frictional reporter is the new suppressive person. Interesting point. Forrest Dudley writes in, what is the time frame slash deadline for the Twitch pitch submission? Is there a hard deadline or will be an ongoing program?

P.S. woke up super late and tired today. Thank God for Too strong coffee. I love that. There you go. Love both things. Okay, too strong coffee.com slash tYT. That's how you get this delicious coffee. The kids are calling it Delish. I'll roll with that. And now I have my coffee without cream. I've never had it without cream my whole life. But this coffee is so delicious. I don't need cream for it. Let me see that. No, this one's water. I was just plain. Okay. I had coffee from earlier. I had a lot of coffee today because I didn't have sleep. Anyway, thank you for that shout out. But in terms of Twitch pitch, I love that you care about that. We're trying to create new hosts from you guys. When is the deadline? I'm not sure. Go to t-y-t.com slash Twitch. I don't think you have to do it today. I don't think deadlines anywhere near now. But a lot of

people are starting to sending it in because that gives you the guidelines for how to send in your video, t-y-t.com slash twitch pitch. Please do that, okay? Stephen says, please send a reporter challenge as White House reporters. We're working on it, brother. We're working on it. We're working with another publication and we might have a White House correspondent. As with all things, it's all about how much resources do we have. And so that's why we ask you to join and become members, because then the more resource we have, the more we could do things like that. And having a White House correspondent would be amazing. Zero, zero, zero, eight three writes in, Jank, I love you, man, right back at you, zero.

Anyway, but are you really going to finish this book? Come on, you can tell me, no one will know. Okay. Dude, writing a book is like just pure torture, unless you're already rich and famous and then someone writes it for you. Like, that's why I haven't written one. I don't have time. to go back and forth with some literary agent who like can't make up his or her mind about what the edits need to be. Just give me the edits. One time, I'll do the edits and let's move on. Let's move on. What is wrong with you people? Worse. Apparently, Casper had any experience. I think I'm close to done with it.

Justice's Comingbook.com. Justice'scomingbook.com. I've got a way to wrap it up, so I want to do that. You're gonna love it. It's gonna be amazing. I promise you, I've already written most of it. We'll be back. I don't know. I don't know. All right, back on CYT and Shannon with you, Casper. All right. Representative Liz Cheney was finally asked something that I've been curious about, which is while she has protested her own party and their willingness to enable Donald Trump's lies about the 2020 election,

she's been part and parcel of a Republican party that has spread all sorts of lies and talking points about voter fraud that just simply has not existed. And of course they've done that in an effort to sell these voting suppression bills to the American people. Now, she was asked about that connection during an interview with Axios. Let's hear what she has to say. You don't see any linkage between Donald Trump saying the election stolen and then Republicans in all of these state legislatures rushing to put in place these restrictive voter laws. Well, I think you have to look at the specifics of each one of those efforts. I think if you look at the Georgia laws, for example, there's been a lot that's been said nationally about the Georgia voter laws that turns out not

to be true. But even the Republican lieutenant governor of Georgia, Jeff Duncan, said that there was when this bill started to pick up momentum was when Rudy Giuliani was testifying that the Georgia election was a sham. I don't think anyone doubts that the reason 400-some voting bills have been introduced 90% by Republicans, supported by the Republican National. committee. I don't think it's a coincidence after the election that this has happened. Look, I think everybody should want a situation and a system where people who ought to be able to vote and have the right to vote can vote and people who, you know, don't, shouldn't. Yeah, that's not really an answer. And let's be clear, the Republican Party for years

through its well-oiled machine of politicians spouting talking points, which are then covered by right-wing media, have primed the electorate to believe, without any evidence, that widespread voter fraud has been a big problem. So this actually started before Trump, and Trump decided to do what he does best, exploit the opportunity for his own political advancement. And so for her to protect, first of all, she didn't even answer the question there, we have a second video, we'll get to in just a second. But her non-answer there, in my opinion, is telling her unwillingness to take responsibility for what she's created.

The monster that she's created says a lot about who she is. 100%. So in fact, the U.S. attorney scandal happened during the Bush-Cheney years, if you remember. And what was that scandal? That was when the administration was making the U.S. attorneys look into voter fraud cases. that weren't there. And the U.S. attorneys would report back, even though they were political appointments and they were Republicans in general, they would report back saying, we looked, there was no voter fraud. And they said, do it again.

Or they intimated they would be punished if they didn't find voter fraud. And it was all a politically manufactured event to create a fake scandal about voter fraud so they could limit voting. So that was a giant scandal. And it happened during George W. Bush and Dick Cheney. term. So who's, I mean, look, the fraud goes all the way back to 1980. We've shown you that clip a lot on the young turks. So Paul Wyrick, who set up a couple of the huge right-wing organizations like Alec and Heritage Foundation and Moral Majority. He said, we honestly don't want more people voting. We want less people voting in order for Republicans to win. And the

Republican Party has been trying to limit voting ever since. And so, and this is not new to American politics overall, obviously Jim Crow laws were meant to make sure that black people in the South couldn't vote. And by the way, how did they do that? Things like you have to get an ID. The ID costs money. And even if the ID doesn't cost money in the new days because they know, hey, that old trick is known to be racist, well, it's going to cost a lot of time and effort, right? You might have to take a day off from work to go in and get it, et cetera. And so we know it's going to be really hard for you to get it if you live in a city, you're poor, your student, all the reasons you wouldn't have a car, right?

And those tend to be more Democratic voters. So Liz Cheney knows that her party started this cancer, and her dad was a huge part of starting this cancer in American democracy in the first place. Now she's outraged to find out gambling in this establishment, right? Right. And all of a sudden, she's like, now Republicans are lying about voter fraud in order to try to steal an election? Well, golly gee, I've never seen it. I'm glad she came to the party, but she is awfully late.

Also, I think that she's clearly made a political calculation because I'm not kind enough to Republican lawmakers to believe that she had this moral awakening in regard to Donald Trump. I think that she has decided that the right political calculation is to brand herself as this courageous right winger who's willing to speak truth to power. when again, she's had absolutely no problem with, honestly, stolen elections in the past, elections that were stolen by, you know, maybe people like her dad who was on the ticket in 2000. In fact, she touches on that. Let's go to the next video. But what problem were they solving for? Like, there's not like, what are all these states doing? No, I think, well, each state is different. What was the big problem in Georgia that needed to be solved by a new law?

What was the big problem in Texas? What was the big problem in Florida? What was the... These laws are coming all around the states. And like, what are they solving for? I think you've got to look at each individual state law. But I think what we can all agree on... But you can't divorce them from the context.

Well, yeah, but I think what we can agree on is that what is happening right now is really dangerous. So she says what's happening right now is really dangerous. And then later she continues to say that when the election in 2000, was contested that, you know, Al Gore did the right thing. Al Gore did the right thing by finally conceding even though we all know what went down in Florida during that presidential election. So what she's saying is, you know, Trump is unwilling to do the right thing here by conceding even though Trump rightfully lost the election.

He, I mean, took this battle to court dozens and dozens of times, over 60 times I believe, and his lawyers failed to provide a single shred of evidence indicating there was why widespread voter fraud. The Republican Party has gone out of its way for a very long time now to disenfranchise voters, to suppress voters, and she has to take responsibility for that. The fact that she's not taking responsibility for that, to me, proves that what she's engaging in right now by speaking out against Donald Trump is nothing more than a political calculation to further her own political career.

I know that sounds crazy considering she's faced some ramifications as a result of her willingness to speak out against Donald Trump. But I really think that this is the way that she wants to brand herself in the Republican Party. 100%. Look, the Bush and Cheney folks caught feelings, too, because Trump kept attacking Bush over and over again. Sometimes he'd attack Dick Cheney. So a part of it is personal. But the other part is, Anna's absolutely right.

Liz Cheney's thinking long term. She's thinking, look, at some point, the Republican Party might turn. And if it turns, they're going to look for the loudest voice that was opposed to Trump. Well, now that's going to be me. It's not going to be Jeff Flake. It's not going to be Ben Sass. It's not going to be any of those folks. It's going to be me.

And that's a good calculation. So it's unlikely that the Republican Party will turn against Trump. But if they do, then she's sitting pretty politically. Now, last piece of hypocrisy here, if they counted all the votes in Florida, the entire state of Florida, all the media organizations after the election got together, got all the votes. Under chads, over chads, whatever, all those different things that were hanging chads, all the different ways of measuring who won. And it turns out Al Gore had won the electoral college as well as the popular vote. Okay.

So Bush and Cheney did steal an election. And what she's saying here is not don't steal an election. She's saying don't be a schmuck in how you steal an election. We did it right. You're doing it wrong. Totally. All right. Well, let's go to the great state of four.

Texas and see what they're up to. Nothing good, unfortunately. Texas Governor Greg Abbott is set to sign new legislation that the legislators in the state have agreed to, and it would allow for gun carriers to carry handguns without a permit. This comes during the same weekend, by the way, where gun violence has exploded in the country. CNN reported there were as many as 12 mass shootings over this past weekend alone. We'll get to those details in just a moment. But before I do so, let me go ahead and tell you more about House Bill 1927, which would

eliminate the requirement for Texas residents to obtain a license to carry handguns if they're not barred by state or federal law from possessing a gun. Now, to some, that might seem like it's not unreasonable, except there are, all sorts of loopholes to the federal background check, which we've covered in great detail. The federal background check does not apply to the sale of guns by private sellers. There's the gun show loophole where someone who might have a criminal record or someone who has no business buying a gun is easily able to buy as many guns as he or she wants. You guys get the picture. So with all of these flaws in our, you know, gun laws already,

loosening up whatever existing laws there are in Texas doesn't seem to make a lot of sense, but I'll give you more. So before approving the bill, the Senate did tack on several amendments to address concerns by law enforcement, because there are certain law enforcement departments who are concerned about loosened gun laws. It could affect them negatively, right? So what were those amendments? The final version of the bill keeps intact a number of of changes that the Senate made to the House bill to assuage concerns from law enforcement community, including striking a provision that would have barred cops from questioning someone based on their possession of a handgun. I mean, cops are gonna wanna harass

certain people if they have a handgun, right? Mm-hmm, of course. So let's keep it real here, right? And so some right-wingers might say it's too cynical. I don't really care what they say, so let's just move forward. No, it's pretty accurate. Considering how cops react to a black individual with a gun, oftentimes with a license gun, as was the case with Philando Castile, and the way they react to a white person like Kyle Rittenhouse who literally had an illegal gun. Yeah. So the changes that they made to the law that held it up for a hot minute was online safety course, who cares, it's not at all controversial, increasing the penalty for felons having a weapon. Okay, that's not going to be that controversial in Texas,

Right? People are going to generally agree to that. But the one that they cared the most about was the cops must be able to question the person with the gun. And our sense of it is that they probably got together and we're like, guys, you think we're to question why people with guns? Of course not. Those are good of binding American citizens, right? But imagine if there's a black guy with a gun and we can't ask him why he has it. Hair on fire. They're like, okay, we've got to change the belt. We got to. But now in Texas, they, we don't. We don't. We don't. We don't. We don't. We don't. We don't. We Don't know, right? But I'm telling you, my guess is, having seen this many times, that they probably had a conversation. Now, imagine someone who looks Mexican, and he's carrying around weapons. What, the cops aren't allowed to ask him, why he has the weapons? They're like, change it right away. Cops can ask, cops can ask.

And you know how they're going to selectively enforce. We've seen it a million times all across America. They're not going to ask the white guy with an AR-15 walking around Walmart. We literally showed you the pictures. They walk around without a care in the world. And what did they do to John Crawford in Ohio when he had a BB gun that he was going to buy

from Walmart? Then he picked up at the store. They shot him in two seconds flat and killed him. So you know, look, I hope they ask in Texas when it comes to a black person or a Latino person. Because most of the time, the way that it actually works is what Anna told you about Philander

Castile. White guy has a gun, points it out officers, the Bundy guys, So threatens to kill the officers, we have a party with them and we, you know, eat crumpets and set of. In January 6th, they raid the Capitol and they viciously attack police. Nobody gets shot. Except one person finally got shot when they were finally crossing the place where they could actually get to and murder the legislators, right?

But before that, the cops are just viciously assaulted and nobody gets touched. But to me, Rice, 12-year-old black boy, I can go on. and give you dozens and dozens and dozens of cases where it was a toy gun, a BB gun, no gun at all, it was a phone, et cetera. They didn't ask, they just shot and killed a black guy. So that's the reality of America. And in Texas, I guarantee you they don't ask white people in general, but they will ask almost every black and Latino person, why do you have that gun?

And this is just, I mean, this particular piece of legislation in the state of Texas is so gratuitous. It's so unnecessary, considering how easy it is for Texans to access. guns to purchase guns. This is just needlessly provocative, gratuitous, you get my point. And when you look at what's happened over the weekend, I mean, are we ever going to get to a sane place in this country in regard to gun violence, in regard to closing the loopholes when it comes to federal background checks? Just common sense gun legislation. And by the way, I say this as someone who, believe it or not, despite covering these types of stories for years now, I've warmed up to gun rights, right?

But not to the point where I want to get rid of all laws and regulations and just let guns run amok. No, I think that people who are law-abiding citizens who have proven themselves to be responsible human beings should have the ability to access a gun for hunting, for going to the gun range, for whatever they think that they need the gun for. But we don't have that system in place right now. And it's far too easy for bad guys to get guns, not because we have too many gun laws, but because we have insest. We're insanely weak and lax gun loss. And it bears it out in the numbers of mass shootings and gun violence, which over this past weekend really did explode. There were at least 12 mass shootings between Friday night and Saturday and Sunday. According to an analysis of data from the gun violence archive,

the shootings took place across eight states, Illinois, New Jersey, Ohio, Indiana, South Carolina, Virginia, Texas, and Minnesota. So far this year, more than 7,500 people have died from gun violence across the United States. dates, guys, we're not even done with May yet. And that's according to the same source, gun violence archive. There's also been a 23% uptick in deaths from gun violence this year. So mass shooting is when four people are shot, either wounded or killed. So 12 of them, including one in Texas obviously, 80 people injured, 11 killed, overall.

And it's not even news. Is it major news? Did you hear about the 12 massacres that happened in America this weekend? You didn't hear about it because it's normal now. It would be, if we had no massacres this weekend, that would be breaking news. Oh my God, we went a whole weekend in America without a mass shooting. A shocking, shocking development. And in Texas where they had some of the worst mass shootings in American history, they're now saying,

we have too many gun laws. We should let everybody run amok, okay? Who cares if you're licensed, not license. You're going to get a car? You need a license? You're going to vote? Well, we need tons and tons of voter ID and make sure that you're doing it right. Oh, you're going to take a gun that could kill anybody at any moment?

Yeah, who cares? Do anything you want. Yeah. So look, their hypocrisy is super obvious. They don't care about the massacres. If you're, they've done nothing about the massacres, you're voting for Republicans. Honestly, you're voting for massacres. And I don't share Anna's opinion.

I have not gotten, I am not warmed up to any goddamn gun rights, okay? That doesn't mean I'm in favor of taking away everybody's guns. But I think we need to get a thousand times stricter because this country is nuts. No other country has massacres like us nonstop. It's total insanity. So I would make gun laws way more restrictive than they are now. If you want to cry about that, oh, I got a hobby, man. And my hobby murders people every weekend.

Oh, so what? Oh, 7,500 people died because of my hobby. You got a hobby fantasy football. Waste a little time. My hobby murders people. Well, what are we going to do? Oh, you don't take my freedom away. Well, I don't agree.

All right, we got to take a break. But when we come back for the second hour, interesting update to the story involving Jeffrey Epstein's suicide. you do not want to miss the details on that and more when we return. Thanks for listening to the full episode of the Young Turks, support our work, listen to ad-free, access members-only bonus content, and more by subscribing to Apple Podcasts at apple.com at apple.com slash t-y-t. I'm your host, Shank Huger, and I'll see you soon.