The Young Turks - Ben Shabibo Mutiny

Episode Date: June 4, 2021

Biden offers a tax concession in infrastructure talks with a key Republican. Kyrsten Sinema defended the filibuster with Cornyn by her side: the filibuster was designed to “create comity and to encourage senators to find bipartisanship and work together.” Watch Rashida Tlaib grill bank CEOs who are confused about environmental racism.  Hosts: Ana Kasparian and Wosny Lambre  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. One of the hardest parts of getting older is feeling like something's off in your body, but not knowing exactly what. It's not just aging. It's often your hormones, too.

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A survey found 86% of women lost weight, 77% saw an improved mood, and 100% felt like themselves again. Start your next chapter feeling balanced and in control. For a limited time, get 15% off your entire first order at happy mammoth.com with code next chapter at checkout. Visit happy mammoth.com today and get your old self back naturally. What's up? Welcome to the Young Turks. I'm Anna Kaspareen. Joining me today is my good friend, friend of the show, host of Wozni on our Twitch channel, host of the Woke Bros, you can get that wherever you get your podcast, Wazni L'Ambre, or Waz, as you say your name in the beginning of Wokebrose, which is my personal favorite with that French accent. You want to do it? You want to do it? Wosney Lombre? I love it. Every time you introduce yourself that way, I get excited.

So, Waz, as always, thank you for joining us. We've got an excellent show ahead for you guys today. In fact, I have handpicked some of these stories specifically for you, Waz, because I know you have some strong comments regarding the importance of labor unions. We're going to talk about that in the context of Ben Shapiro's own viewers turning on him on the topic of unions. So that's one of my favorite stories of the day. It's right at the top of our rundown. Later, we're also going to discuss the ongoing insanity regarding maintaining the Senate filibuster. We have some video to show you of so-called Democratic Senator Kirsten Cinema and Joe Biden's concessions to Republicans as they negotiate in bad faith in regard to the infrastructure bill.

We've got that story and more. But before we get to any of it, as always, I just want to encourage you guys to like the stream, share the stream if you're watching us online. If you're one of our live linear viewers, go ahead and tell your friends, tell your neighbors. Tell everyone you can about this show because we want to get this message out there. We want to get some eyeballs on the show. And as always, you can leave us some super chat comments, which we will read and respond to during our breaks. Now, without further ado, let's get to our first story. Conservative commentator Ben Shapiro is noticing a little bit of backlash by his own viewers,

his own supporters, because he keeps doling out anti-union propaganda and turns out even conservatives understand the importance of strong labor unions. Now, Ben Shapiro has done a number of different videos attacking unions and putting out propaganda against unions. One of the more recent ones is this, which is a video talking about how public sector unions lead to a lot of bad as Ben Shapiro writes in the caption, just like the real reason your kids aren't in school. And so what honestly people should not be surprised by is the fact that you have socially conservative individuals in this country who are, yes, blue collar workers in many cases, who have union protection and they understand the importance of it. So some of the responses to this video were just

delicious. And I want to give a quick hat tip to Nathan Robinson because he's the one who drew attention to this. He's from Current Affairs. You should check out his magazine. Now, Christopher Reynolds is one of the people who is watching Ben Shapiro's content apparently and disagrees wholeheartedly about this notion regarding labor unions. He says, yeah, my family has probably only prospered as well as it has because of Teamsters Union. I'm not really down with anti-union propaganda, someone needs to stand up for the working class against the abusive corporations. And notice it even has two likes there. Another comment is from Jake Wright, who says nothing is perfect, but since joining the IBEW in 2015, after eight or so years working

non-union in the electric utility industry, lineman, he says, my income has doubled. Some years tripled. My family gets employer paid health care insurance versus nearly $1,000 a month premiums for trash coverage. I have over $150,000 in employer paid annuity in just five years. That's the last statement, he says. And us, the workers, get a say-so on jobs and quite often get what we ask for if it's reasonable. So you can read the rest of the comment for yourselves, everyone. But what I particularly loved about this is that it draws attention to something that I've at least been trying to articulate on this show, which is, while we may disagree wholeheartedly on a number of social issues with right-wing voters, conservative voters, while we might be culturally, socially different, at the heart of it, I think most Americans agree that our current economic system and this growing wealth and income inequality, ever-growing wealth and income inequality in this country, has been a net negative for the majority of workers. And so if we can reach out to those who might be socially conservative

and try to find common ground on economic policies that we tend to agree with, on labor rights that we tend to agree with, I think that we can actually accomplish a lot of wonderful things. But, Was, I wanted to bring you into this conversation because I know that this is a point that you've been trying to make for quite some time as well. Yeah, I'm not going to lie, if you can see it almost brought a tear to my eye to read those comments. And that's because, look, the thing about class solidarity, the thing about labor unions, that's beautiful. The beauty in all of it is that if you're a Muslim or a Christian or you're gay or you're a man or you're a woman, it's not hard to understand who it is exactly that's trying to stop you from getting that house you want to rent or buying that house that you want or

getting a car or putting your kids through college or going on a decent vacation or being able to pay your medical bills or not going bankrupt from paying your medical bills. We all can understand that it's the bosses. And conversely, if you already have those things, the reason why you're able to stay up on your mortgage, stay up on your rent, is because you have this solid job and the people who want to take it away from you are the bosses. It's not your fellow gay co-worker or Muslim co-worker or black coworker, what have you, what have you. It's very easy to understand and draw the lines as to who the problem is, who the enemy is, the people who want to keep me from living a dignified life.

And we all know who that is. That's the bosses. And guess what? I love that first comment because he said, I remember what it was like working not with the union. And guess what? it sucked. My pay is going up. We get our demands met when they're reasonable. Things are on the up and up. Before that, it was completely horrible. It's just beautiful to illustrate that because even Ben Shapiro fans can understand, hold on one second, man. This is how I pay my damn

mortgage. Yeah, no, exactly. And do you guys understand why it is that right wingers latch onto, I mean, like with all of their might, with all of their strength, this culture war nonsense, because it's meant to divide us and also deflect from the fact that the right wing has absolutely nothing to offer in terms of materially benefiting the lives of workers in this country. That's the reason why Ben Shapiro focuses on the transgender issue, for instance. Transgender athletes being able to play sports in the gender that they identify with. Part of the reason why is because I think that Ben Shapiro is genuinely socially conservative, But he has an inherent interest in avoiding topics that actually do, I think, unite many Americans,

many members of his audience, many members of our audience. Now, again, on social issues, I have no doubt that there's pretty significant disagreement, you know, when it comes to reproductive rights, when it comes to a whole host of issues. I'm not discounting that. However, we need to be able to find common ground on these incredibly important issues, the economy being one of them, workers' rights being one of them, and just focus on how we can work together to ensure that the electoral system actually represents candidates and congressional winners that represent our best interests to ensure that we do what we can to get things like

the Pro Act passed, which only strengthens the ability for workers to form unions and hopefully potentially in the future, do strikes if they don't get what they need and what they demand from their employers. And I also want to go to this other post by Ben Shapiro, because first of all, it's a lie. But secondly, it gives me the opportunity to talk about why it is that labor unions have lost so much power in this country, really beginning in the 1950s. He wrote on Twitter, the law is stacked in favor. He claims in favor of labor unions, The fact that Americans have dumped unions at an astonishing rate since 1950 is due to the fact that the vast majority of employees aren't all that interested in them, despite Democratic Party and media wishcasting. Now, that is a complete and utter lie. There is a reason why labor unions lost quite a bit of power, really beginning in the 1950s.

And it had to do with a law that was passed in 1947 called the Taft-Hartley Act. What was it? Well, why don't we hear from Richard Wolfe, and he'll explain what it did. Under the Taft-Hartley law, then and to this moment, that union must, must give anything it wins with the employer to all the workers there, whether they're in the union or not, whether they joined the union or not, or whether they pay union dues or not. Whether when the union, if it thought it had to, called a strike and had workers go out and tell the public about their situation to help pressure the employer to meet them halfway and give them a wage increase, the workers who went on strike and therefore didn't get paid, had to give to all the other workers who didn't go on strike, who didn't lose a day's pay, the same benefits they won. The Taft-Hartley law, in effect, created an incentive for workers not to join the union, not to pay the union dues, because they would get whatever the union won, whether they did so or not. So what that law did was discourage people from joining the union because why would you join the union?

Why would you pay dues if you get to reap the rewards and the benefits of the, due paying union members who strike and then have to share the rewards that come along with that, the wins that come along with that. And so because of that, union membership declined pretty rapidly. Unions lost the money that they would earn through the dues that were paid by the employees. And that, of course, weakens the unions. Now, of course, Ben Shapiro, the cool kids philosopher isn't going to get into those details or the historical context or any of that, but he is paid to spew this kind of propaganda. I mean, you look at some of his funders, and they certainly have a vested interest in ensuring that we don't increase taxes on the rich,

ensuring that we don't pass legislation like the Pro Act, which again would reverse the damage that was done by the Taft-Hartley Act. And his viewers aren't having it. They don't like these talking points. So on Twitter, he got similar pushback. One person wrote, I'm as conservative as they come. Unions are great. They protect the middle class. And another viewer of his, Michael says, I'm a Republican blue-collar union worker. I can see the use in collective bargaining. And I just would like to help you guys see what the use is. If you were to maybe draw a graph to see what the use is. This is what it would look like. This is from data from the Economic Policy Institute. And it shows that as union membership declined, wealth inequality or income inequality,

I should say, increased. So more of the income from these companies traveled up to the top 10%. So there is obviously good use for labor unions. It gives workers the power to collectively bargain, negotiate their wages, negotiate their working conditions, and ensure that they have a seat at the table when it comes to deciding what their daily lives are going to be at work. Was. Yeah, it's funny that Ben Shapiro doesn't mention that, you know, it's almost like human beings their behavior is going to almost always align with their incentives, right? We see corporations, dodge taxes, use all kinds of tax leopoles, leverage their

capital against us, the people with politicians, to enact laws that ensure that favorable outcomes happen for them. Like we see them do this all the time and to act like, oh, a worker wouldn't be like, you know what, why join the union if I can get all the benefits with none of the risks? Temporarily, by the way, of course they would behave in such a manner. But ultimately, you know, I'm going to believe in the power of, hey man, you have a pension at stake, you have health care at stake, you basically have your financial well-being at stake. The security of that, specifically, because I think that's basically the most important function

of the union is that job security, that knowing when you put your head down at night, you're going to have a job in the morning so long as you wake up and you show up to work on time. There's just something to be said for that. How many Americans can say with certainty that their job is going to be there tomorrow, Right, like there's somebody can't come in and start strong arming and muscling them. That's not the case for the vast majority of American workers. And, you know, under strong union leadership, that is the case, you know. And that's why the big dogs don't like that.

They don't want that. They don't want to have to answer to us. They want to be able to move as they want, however the winds may blow in their crazy fantasy, greedy-ass corporate lives. And then they just treat us how they feel like it, right? And again, when the decision is, well, hey, you know, this trans guy or this trans thing or this gay thing or is this black thing and my pension, you know, the choice is always pretty clear. Yeah, so I wanted to respond to one quick super chat comment from Jay Smart. And I think that Jay brings up a good point. I think that there's also a misunderstanding.

So let me just explain. So the comment is, Anna, I love you, but please stop boiling racism down to economic anxiety. They won't support any economic policy that will empower minorities. So that second part I completely disagree with. I think that if you look at polling, it's abundantly clear that, yes, even Republican workers, conservative voters are very much in favor of economic policies that would be universal in terms of benefiting workers. They're not against it if it benefits black people or brown people. However, I also want to just disagree with what you're implying regarding my commentary.

I am not in any way excusing racism, and I'm not boiling racism down to economic anxiety at all. I think that there are, again, socially conservative people. A perfect example is religious people in the country. I don't think that it does us any favors to go after religious people if we ourselves, are not religious, right? So I'm an atheist. I'm very clear about that, but I don't think that it helps to aggressively go after religious people and mock them for believing their religion, when in reality, maybe we can find some common ground, even though they're conservative due to their religious values, right? So that's what I'm specifically referring to. But anyone who

wants to whitewash racism and pretend like it's, you know, it's non-existent, I don't agree with those people, so I want to be clear about that. Well, and also I think it's very important to understand positioning something, right? We got to be real about the context that we live in America today, where people are watching Fox News all day, they're consuming hate radio all day, if they're getting this, you know, universal health care is going to disproportionately help black people, and is being positioned as a black thing, a Mexican thing, of course they're going to oppose it, right? It's just that you don't need to position it that way. That's, to me, that's the point of it. I think marketing

does matter. And, you know, some people say, well, do we want universal health care if the bigots are with it? Yes. Yes. Yes, we do. That's what a lot of people just, you know, I feel like a lot of the Democratic Party's messaging has been centered around moral high horsery. And that's cool. I know it makes you feel warm and fuzzy at night. But that stuff does not feed people. You don't pay your bills with moral high horsery. I'm sorry. It's certainly not a substitute for what Americans need in terms of policies that redistribute wealth to actual workers, right? So that's the problem with the Democratic Party.

They push, you know, and by the way, so they push all of these like, no, we want equality, we want this, we want rights for people. They do it rhetorically, but they never actually do anything policy-wise or substantively to actually better the lives of the groups of people that they're talking about. They use it as a campaign tactic, and it's actually pretty gross because they do it intentionally to avoid talking about economic issues. And then at the same time, once they're in positions of power, once they're elected, once their re-election campaign is over, they just completely abandoned actually doing anything to benefit anyone's lives. So that's one of the issues that I have with the Democratic Party, which, by the way, we have a lot to talk about in the next segment. Joe Biden has offered up a massive tax-related concession to the right wing. I'll give you the details on that and more when we return. I'm going to be able to be.

Hey everyone. Welcome to our first social break of the show today. I do want to thank Leith for the generous super chat. We really, really appreciate you. And I also really appreciate your comment. Ordering Domino's pizza tonight. That's right. Thanks to Anna and John's conversation in last night's post game where Was, I argued that Domino's pizza is better than New York style pizza. TYT.com slash join. Love to all from DC. P.S. Anna and Was you both look great. I knew that. Waz would have that reaction because he's such a New York guy that I'm sure it's like, did I offend your sensibilities? You didn't offend my sensibilities. It's just the notion is absurd. It's just like when they tried to say they were better bagels out here. I said, oh, okay, we're just saying crazy things. We're just doing stuff for clicks these days.

It's all good. All right, let me read a few more comments. Peter Hamby says, it's was, is Waz, wait, Was about time fans are tuning or turning Bentai Union Shapiro away and tell him in a speed that everyone can understand. Seriously, greet over poverty is the GOP telling us to work harder and not get paid. Yeah, I mean, GOP lawmakers are certainly full of it. I mean, when people think that Josh Hawley of all people is like some sort of like economic populist, all you got to do is roll your eyes. When push comes to shove, all they do is protect the interests of the wealthy. I mean,

we see it playing out right now when it comes to Biden's infrastructure bill. In our member section, we have eclectic miscellania who says that in regard to the union story we just did, that feeling when Ben Shapiro's fans are further left on labor issues than many establishment Democrats. You know, I like to refer to them as corporate Democrats because they're serving the best interests of their corporate donors, right? So we'll talk about that in more detail in the next story. But at the end of the day, who are they really representing?

And we keep seeing examples of them having their meetings with the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, all of these business interests, and then talking about means testing with the coronavirus relief package or cutting unemployment benefits so people can be incredibly desperate to go back to work for starvation wages. The list goes on and on. And ironic mansion fan club says the Netherlands in Germany, everyone who also gets the benefits of the collective bargaining agreement. In fact, they are not negotiated for time parts or for time parts of local factories for entire economic sections. Hey guys, you guys got to proof read these comments before you put them in the dock. Like I can't just read that. Like I don't

have time to pre-read them. So just putting that out there for our team, just proofread. So I'm not reading a bunch of grammar errors. But anyway, point taken, ironic. I really appreciate it. You look at Scandinavian countries, they're not having these debates about raising the federal minimum wage. Labor unions do it on behalf of the workers. And that's why they get paid really well for the same jobs that we're doing here in the United States. I mean, it's just you compare the two and you can see where the value of having that representation lies. All right, we've only got 19 seconds before we get back to the show. So I'm going to wrap this up. And when we come back, we'll talk about Biden's insane concession to GOP senators.

Welcome back to TYT, Anna Casparian and Wozni Lombray with you. Let's get to the next story. In yet another, extremely embarrassing and pathetic concession to GOP senators who have no interest in negotiating in good faith. Joe Biden has pitched keeping taxes disgustingly low for corporations to essentially try to gain some support from Republican lawmakers for his infrastructure bill. This time, though, what he is offering Republicans is incredibly infuriating, which means it's time for the dumb and the feckless. One of my prayers is that the Republicans will take back their party. Things keep dripping out, drip, drip, drip. And the truth comes out.

Ah, yes, the truth comes out. And the truth has to do with the corporate tax rate, which Biden had proposed to increase from a low, low 21% to 28% even though the corporate tax rate was actually 35% before Donald Trump decided to slash them as part of his 2017 tax cuts for the rich. Now, Biden has now recommended a new, minimum corporate tax of 15% seeking to take aim at dozens of profitable U.S. corporations that pay little to nothing to the federal government annually. The White House also proposed stepping up enforcement on corporations and wealthy earners who rely on loopholes to lessen their tax burdens. So Republican lawmakers are saying, okay, you know, raising taxes is a non-starter

for us. We are not going to support your infrastructure bill if raising taxes is part of the equation. So Biden apparently in these negotiations has offered to drop increasing the corporate tax rate from 21% to 28% and instead has offered to just ensure that the companies that pay nothing in taxes, like Amazon for instance, at least pay a minimum of 15% in corporate taxes. Now, was, am I being unfair here in thinking that this is an unnecessary and ridiculous offer to the Republican Party. And you might be muted. There we go. Of course you're being fair and you're completely right.

Because guess what, Anna? I'm old enough to remember when our friend President Barack Obama put Social Security on the table. And the Republicans told him to go take a long walk off a short pier. There are no circumstances, even Social Security, which they've been wanting to gut since Reagan. Even if you put that on the table, we will never be seen as helping a Democratic party agenda, meaning we will never put votes on something that actually helps your agenda outside of military spending, which everybody agrees is just great for some reason. So it didn't work last time when Barry tried it. Why are we doing this dog and pony show

again. And then, by the way, if you remember with the coronavirus bill, they got zero Republican votes. Then after it passed and people loved it, the Republicans said, I know I didn't vote for it, but they only put it in there because we suggested it. It's like, they're not going to vote for your stuff. Why are you putting stuff on the table for them? You're, I mean, look, you're absolutely right. And Mansion was able to secure all of these concessions for Senate Republicans, who then, of course, turned around and refused to vote in favor of that COVID relief bill. Now, Biden at least is pretending that Republicans are negotiating on good faith, or in good faith, I should say, the offer marked an attempt by the White House to thread

a delicate political needle. This is according to the Washington Post. It aimed to preserve the president's 2020 campaign pledge not to raise taxes on Americans making under $400,000 a year, while steering clear of the so-called red line set down by Republicans who see the 2017 tax cuts as their crowning economic achievement. Okay, okay. That is, that is, that is, that is, that is, that is galling. Oh my goodness. The Trump tax cuts do not pull well because there are tax cuts for the rich. So the fact that Biden is like, oh, we must protect what you believe was a giant political accomplishment.

No, no, no. Like an actual president who genuinely wants to model himself after FDR would go out there and fight and be like, look at what they want to do. They want to protect the tax cuts for the rich, those super unpopular tax cuts that were polling well below 50%. even with Republicans in the equation before they actually passed in Congress. But he's not playing hardball. He's not playing hardball with Mansion and Cinema in the Democratic Party. He's certainly not playing hardball with Republicans when he's coming out with this nonsense in an effort to help them protect their perceived political win from 2017,

a political win that's unpopular. Hit him where it hurts. But he's not doing that. Well, there's nothing more sacred than the precious pure concept of bipartisanship. And as you know, bipartisanship wears a chastity belt and will also wear a nice pure white dress to its wedding to the death of this country, by the way. I'm just saying like when these guys were passing their mega record setting tax cuts, during the Trump administration, I don't remember stories coming out about the Democratic

Party's red line. Well, the Dems won't do this, so we gotta keep it under consideration. That never, ever, ever happened. So I don't get this impulse to just be like, well, we're trying to do the bipartisan thing, so we have to take the, you know, the feelings and the little hurt fiefies of the Republicans into account. It's, it's, it's, it's, it's, baffling, it's mind blowing. And, you know, part of me just feels like, I guess we have to do this dog and pony show. I don't know who it's for, but I guess we have to do it. Maybe the donors want to see them try to do it. Because I don't know who wants this. There's no Americans, no rank and file American citizens who want to see this. I don't get this. Well, I think that

what we need to keep in mind is that we have two political parties that have been infected with a virus that was released into this country by the United States Supreme Court in their ruling on Citizens United. They have the same donors. When it came to the coronavirus relief package, you know, Biden had all this tough talk about what he was going to accomplish through it. He had one meeting, one meeting with the U.S. Chamber of Commerce in the Oval Office. And following that meeting, we started hearing about the means testing, cuts to the unemployment program, all sorts of nonsense. And the way that it was presented to the American people was, we're doing this to unite the country. We're doing this in an effort to, you know,

pass legislation in a bipartisan way. The bipartisan talking point is a hollow talking point. And it's, again, meant to provide a veneer to the disgusting corporate greed and the disgusting corporate influence that we're seeing in Congress and in the White House. In fact, I'll show you who Biden is actually representing. It's people like Jamie Diamond from J.P. Morgan Chase, who just a few days ago was complaining about proposed tax increases. Let's hear what he had to say. Diamond was very outspoken, probably the most outspoken CEO to testify yesterday. But yes, one of his big criticisms he launched was against Biden's tax proposal.

Now, this isn't necessarily new, though the tone of it was kind of new. Earlier in the month, he had talked about the tax proposal, basically saying, don't just throw money at the problem, calling for Biden to put an itemized list of where those taxes would actually go. But this was a different tone because list or not, he was saying that higher corporate taxes would be detrimental to America. It would be detrimental to companies push a lot of capital overseas. So, you know, this is the same nonsense that we've heard. from wealthy people. And look, Jamie Diamond pretending to be concerned about increases in taxes, making his business untenable. It's just ridiculous because as I've shared with you

multiple times on the show before and I'm going to share it again, Chase just announced that they're going to do more corporate stock buybacks. We're buying back stock because our cup runneth over. Jamie Diamond, J.P. Morgan Chase and Co's chief executive said on an earnings call in April of this year. The bank, late last year, unveiled a $30 billion share repurchase plan. Come on. I just, don't insult our intelligence, Biden. Just don't.

The game is so obvious it has to be a farce, honestly. Jamie Diamond, I think Chase made $27 billion in its last quarter in profit. That's not like, you know, gross revenue or net or whatever. It's that's how much they made after they paid everybody, okay? This idea that a 7% increase in their corporate tax rate would somehow completely crippled the company who just, again, they didn't say, oh, man, our workers, they work so hard, you know, those people at the bank branches and all these other people, the loan officers, et cetera, et cetera, all the worker bees at J.P. Morgan Chase, not the people in IB, because they're not the people in IB. those people get taken care of no matter what. No, we're not going to take care of those people. No, we're just going to do $30 billion in stock buybacks.

That'll solve everything. And again, like, there's no proof that those big old tax cuts helped the American people or the American economy. It didn't do anything for us. So this notion that this guy would come out and say, well, if you do that, it's going to crush us. Like, we got crushed cutting your tax rates, brother. Like, it's just, it's just the gall of all of this. And again, it's not like Joe Biden's going to come out and make the case for his own tax proposals, right?

I don't see Kamala. I don't see Joe. They don't have some pit bull that they would send out, you know, like back when the Obama administration would send out Ramahua to tell everybody, like, we don't need universal health care on every single Sunday show. Who's doing that on behalf of Joe Biden's tax plan? It's not happening. They don't even try to defend it. Right. No, you're absolutely right. Colorado Blue Blazer in our member section. You can become a member by going to t.yt.com slash join says if it was a true 15% minimum for these corporations, I wouldn't be upset.

But everybody knows that it's just a 15% minimum tax rate. So he makes a really great point because Biden's not talking about closing corporate tax loopholes. So if the effective minimum tax rate is 15%, that doesn't take into account all the various deductions that these corporations can take, which effectively sometimes, even in the case of like Amazon, leads to a tax refund by the federal government after they fail their to file their taxes. So that's a really great point. And so far, we've heard nothing about closing tax loopholes.

Anyway, I do want to move on to our next story. story though, because the filibuster is very much something that people are thinking about when it comes to passing legislation that we need passed in the Senate. And we do have Senator Kirsten Sinema standing in the way. So conservative Democratic Senator Kirsten Sinema has sparked the fury of progressives for good reason because she remains defiant on the issue of the Senate filibuster, which of course requires 60 senators to vote in favor of legislation. in order for it to pass. Now, this is essentially going to block everything in Biden's agenda, whether it's the

infrastructure bill or the American Families Plan. We already saw how the Senate filibuster played a role in making it more difficult to pass the coronavirus relief bill. It needed to be passed through the reconciliation process, which can be done with a simple majority. But of course, that only applies to legislation that impacts the federal law. budget. The Pro Act, which would strengthen labor unions, for instance, that cannot pass through reconciliation. And so Kirsten Cinema has been asked, why? Why do you want to maintain

the Senate filibuster when it only serves to prevent the Democratic Party, which is in charge right now, from actually accomplishing anything in their agenda? Here's what she had to say. Without amending the filibuster or getting with it of the filibuster, a lot of your colleagues in the Senate say that that's not going to pass. And some people are saying that you have a choice between the filibuster and democracy. Your answer to that. Well, as folks in Arizona know, I've long been a supporter of the filibuster because it is a tool that protects the democracy of our nation, rather than allowing our country to ricochet wildly. every two to four years back and forth between policies, the idea of the filibuster was created by those who came before us, the United States Senate, to create comity and to encourage senators to find bipartisanship and work together. And while there are some who don't believe that bipartisanship is possible, I think that I'm a daily example that bipartisanship is possible.

So to those who say we must make a choice between the filibuster and X, I say this is a false choice. The reality is, is that when you have a system that's not working effectively, and I would think that most would agree that the Senate's not a particularly well-oiled machine, right? The way to fix that is to change your behavior, not to eliminate the rules or change the rules, but to change your behavior. So I'm going to continue to go to work every day, aggressively seeking bipartisanship in a cheerful and happy war your way, as I always do, and showing that when we work together, we can get things done. Yeah, well, she's going to go to work every day, except for that one day when they voted on the January 6th commission to investigate what happened in the U.S. Capitol. That day, she didn't show up for the vote.

But, you know, thoughts. That was incredible. Anytime somebody shows up somewhere to a press conference, wherever, and they have to publicly speak, and they exhibit the same cadence that Siri does. I'm inclined to believe every single word that comes out of their mouth. Like, that was insane. Like, nobody could watch that and actually believe this woman believes a single word that's coming out of her own mouth. This is ridiculous. And again, I'm going to say this over and over again.

We need follow-up questions. Can you cite examples of this, Kristen Cinema? Yes. Of you guys just grinding it out for bipartisanship and it working out in the favor of the American people. Where is the examples of bipartisanship working? And then when she said this, oh, the filibuster stopped the country from ricocheting back and forth every two years. Is that what was not happening in the last four years under President Trump? We were just on a stable, steady ride.

That thing was like an outy, wasn't it? And when President Trump was involved, bipartisanship and the filibuster just saved us from a rocking road, didn't it? Well, you know, if you want to actually discuss the true use of the Senate filibuster in this country's history, it had absolutely nothing to do from protecting the American people from wild political swings. In fact, it was used incessantly by right wingers to prevent the passage of laws that would maybe stop persecuting black people in this country. You know, maybe do away with Jim Crow laws, for instance. The modern version created in 1917, as Vox writes, really does have a racist history.

So let me give you those details. As Adam Gentleson, a former aide to Senator Harry Reid, noted, you start to see civil rights bills pass the House in the 1920s, and it was consistently used to block them, meaning the filibuster was used to block them in the Senate. If there was any ambiguity in the antebellum era, it certainly shed that during the Jim Crow era, where it was widely taken for granted, that the filibuster was directly tied to blocking civil rights. So the defenders of Jim Crow pioneered this new filibuster successfully deploying it again and again to block civil rights bills. Richard Russell, a leading filibuster practitioner and staunch segregationists said in 1949 that nobody mentions any other legislation in connection with it.

And so when Kirsten Cinema was asked about the racist usage and the racist past and history of the Senate filibuster, she tried to minimize it. Here's her statement. A lot of them say that the filibuster is a relic of the Jim Crow era. And my sense is you don't support those things from the Jim Crow era. So why would you support the filibuster? Well, the filibuster was not created as a tool to accomplish one thing or another. It was created as a tool to bring together members of different parties to find compromise and coalition.

Yeah, Was, it was, I mean, the filibuster's true intent was to bring people together. Don't you know that? Wow. Well, that's like saying White Hood's true intent was just just, just. be, you know, a pristine piece of cloth. Like, you know, a white hood is just a white hood. It's the people that give it meaning. I'm like, this is just the weirdest, weirdest display.

And, you know, it shows you where her allegiance is lie. Obviously, her corporate donors have told her to come out and do this dog and pony show because there's no other reason to debase and embarrass yourself this way. Like, there's no intellectual integrity to anything that she's saying. She's not backing her, her, you know, assertions up with any facts or data. She's just talking and looking like a complete fool in the process. And that just shows you how powerful the money interests are in this country. Well, as you get the last word on that story, because we got to go to break.

But when we come back, Congresswoman Rashida Talib grills bank CEOs on the topic of climate change and environmental racism. You do not want to miss these videos. They're fantastic. We have that and more when we return. Hey everyone, welcome to our social break. E-Ace of hearts has a question about Domino's. I wonder if Domino's would ever be a sponsor for TYT and if TYT would take their money

based on Anna and John's love for their foods. Learning that Anna is a Domino's fan and goes so hard for the garlic knots, I mean, how could you not? Amused me greatly right up there with the first time I saw her singing badly, like a nerd, so great. I'm happy that I can entertain you. But I will say that my love for Domino's pizza is sincere and I enjoy it every time I order it. Colorado Blue Blazer says, here's a research assignment for someone who has more skills than I have. How many times have the Democrats sustained a filibuster against a Republican disaster?

We keep hearing that the filibuster is designed to force comedy or community or, yeah, but I can't think of any time that Democrats actually push back against the Republicans. Instead, it seems it's only ever used to stop any legislation helping the people over the donors. You know, that's a fantastic question, and I do want to look into that for you. So I promise I'll do that and get back to you probably on tomorrow's show, which I will be hosting. So I'll be on the second hour tomorrow. political goth says change your behavior quoting Kirsten cinema does that simply mean bend to right wing slash corporate demands rather than fighting yes that is what it means that's absolutely what it means it means tapping Mitch McConnell on the shoulder to get his attention right before you shimmy over to do a thumbs down on a $15 an hour minimum wage that's what it means micky see the silver hair dragon says the right wing has their margery cue green we have our Kirsten cinema two sides of the same coin. Cinema's delivery is not as loud, but it's just as ludicrous. Man, Mickey C,

you're going in hard, but I like it. I'll go with it. I'll go with it. Spicey Flander says, unions invented the eight-hour workday, overtime pay, and employer paid health benefits. Ben Shapiro is a privileged snowflake who has never worked a real job. You know, he's a failed screenright, which I feel like failed screen rights are really over-reperperperiment. presented in the Republican Party. It's just, it's, it's delicious. All right, and then since we have a little bit of time, I'll move over to our super chats.

Gail writes in and says, if paying taxes is a burden, then no individual should have to pay taxes. Yeah, I mean, people like to see it as a burden, and I get it, but I think that there needs to be more discussion about what we get through paying taxes. All the public services that I think people tend to take for granted or fail to know notice because people think it's just a given. But our roads, our bridges, various social

services, like our parks, parks are lovely. I love when I'm paying my taxes and I see it actually being used toward bettering the community by creating, you know, parks and places where we can all socially gather and enjoy, you know, recreational sports and all of that. Anyway, let me go to Detroit Microsound who says, cinemas well, well mirror practice. hand gesturing. Yeah, I can't, I can't, there's a lot I can't stand about her. But I'm trying to keep this show profesh, you know, the unprofesh stuff. Maybe I'll save for Twitter.

And Sierra says, don't forget to like and share. Love you guys. Yes, please like and share the stream. We love what we have more live viewers. And when people see this message, so. Welcome back to the Young Turks, Anna Casparian and Wozni Lombre with you. Was, you have your show Wasnia on our Twitch channel, which people can watch at Twitch. t-y-t. You've got your woke bros podcast.

Anything else you'd like to plug? I mean, if anybody who watches this show happens to be a fan of the NBA or pop culture or sports in general, you should check out my work at the ringer.com. I'm a contributor to the ringer NBA show as well as I write for the site. So if you guys ever have interests that aren't aligned with, say, politics, directly, please check us out at the ringer. They help pay the bills. Nice.

All right, well, let's talk a little bit about environmental racism, which Congresswoman Rashida Talib did a great job grilling people over. So during a recent House committee hearing, Congresswoman Rashida Talib decided to grill the CEOs of the major banks in the United States on the topic of pollution and how their investments in fossil fuel companies leads to pollution specifically in poor neighborhoods, in poor parts of the country, and in parts of the country that by the nature of them being poor tend to be communities of color. Now, what was amazing about this was just how easily she calls them out on their ignorance on the topic of environmental racism. Watch. I just want to ask one of my one yes or no,

Are you familiar with the term environmental racism? I'll start with Chase. Are you familiar with environmental racism? I said vaguely, yes. Vaguely, okay. How about you, Citigroup? Ms. Frazier? The same, only vaguely.

I don't know the specific definition of it. That's fine. And how about you, Mr. Moore, Gorman? No, I'm not. Morgan Stanley doesn't, isn't familiar. Okay, how about Bank of America? Are you all familiar with the term environmental racism? Yeah, vaguely familiar, but seems.

Yeah, Wells Fargo. Do you know what environmental racism is? Yes or no? That's unfortunate. How about you, Mr. Solomon, Goldman Sachs? Vaguely familiar, but not specifically. I love that. I mean, just to give you an idea of what she's talking,

about and why she's grilling bank CEOs about it. The six CEOs at the hearing lead financial institutions that together have invested 1.1 trillion with a T, trillion in fossil fuels since the 2015 Paris Climate Agreement. And that's according to a recent report from several environmental groups entitled banking on climate chaos. Was, you know, environmental racism is certainly something that we need to talk about more moving forward because the polluting activities of these major companies and corporations, of course, disproportionately impact poor communities, communities of color, essentially communities that have no power and aren't able to aggressively fight back

against the behavior that's taking place. Yeah, you know, obviously, as with anything, disastrous and catastrophic that tends to happen in America, poor working people, black people, indigenous people, Latin people tend to suffer at a disproportionate amount. However, you know, I kind of wish that they wouldn't position this as environmental racism, because let's be honest, Jamie Diamond doesn't give a damn if black people are harmed by an investment that his firm has made. In fact, to him, that's like, well, that means I'm doing it right.

If I'm only harming black people, I'll have nobody to be against this thing. I wish they would position it a little bit differently because I'm sure viewers of TYT will remember the Keystone Pipeline and getting that blocked and stopped. And the coalition of people who got involved as far as the boots on the ground was a diverse array of Americans and Canadians, quite frankly, as has ever been seen. It's like it's indigenous people all the way up in North Dakota to farmers in Nebraska and everything in between. They banded together to stop this thing. And that was environmental pollution. People were like, man, we don't want our drinking water to permanently be compromised by this thing

that nobody actually needs. It's just there for corporate greed. So I do wish they were position it a little bit differently because let's face it, the sad reality is if you're the CEO of a firm like J.P. Morgan Chase or Goldman Sach, and you add one black or brown or woman's face up on your, you know, your corporate board, everybody's going to pat you on the butt and say what a good job you're doing to help the lives and the plight of black, brown, and indigenous people in this country. What in reality is you're funding stuff that are doing the opposite to actually ruin it in the lives of these people. So I want to go to the next video because, well, actually, before I do, I agree with what

you're saying. And you're hitting at something that I also wanted to articulate about how, yeah, they don't really know much about environmental racism or what's happening in, you know, communities that tend to be much poorer because they're good. We live in a country that actually really two different countries, and they're living large. They're not worried about pollution or an oil refinery or some sort of catastrophic environmental issue where they're living at because they're protected. And they have the resources to weather any storm, right, in their minds. I mean, obviously things can get so bad that their money can't protect them and we're quickly approaching that phase.

But when it comes to our lawmakers who can invest in individual stocks and their investments typically beat out the stock market, which gives you an idea of just how corrupt they are, when it comes to CEOs of major banks, they're not in any way concerned about the things that keep Americans up at night. So have they heard about environmental racism? Of course not. They're not concerned about it. It does not apply to them. Let's go to the next video where Talib gets a little more specific about the issue. Well, I want you all to know environmental racism showed its face in a deadly way during the pandemic in my district, where more of my black neighbors died at a higher rate from COVID than any other community in Michigan, even though our black population in Michigan is less than 15%. The pre-existing health conditions that come from living in the backyard of corporate polluters financed by your banks. When it comes to racial justice, I see many of you having these commitments to just diversify your executive ranks.

Good. But I think the American people really truly want to know what about the actions that are needed to invest in our communities like mine that you all profited off of that left us with more pollution, decay, and poverty. You all should know and be familiar with the term environmental racism. Because for generations, black, brown, and indigenous communities have seen the fossil fuel corporations, Use your banks to finance and construct oil and gas refineries, petrochemical plants, and pipeline projects. These polluting projects haven't been built in wealthy neighborhoods. I have to say, you know, oftentimes I'm a little critical of progressive Democrats because they love to flex muscle on Twitter or even during these hearings. And I want to see more action, right?

So how about withholding your vote as a block on must pass bills to ensure that we get our priorities included as provisions in the legislation, all of that? But at least at the very heart of what we're seeing right now with this wonderful exchange between Talib and these corporate CEOs, is that we're at least being represented, you know, to some extent. And it's so rare these days to see it in Congress that whenever you do see an exchange like that, it makes news for good reason. Because finally we're hearing what actual working Americans have been suffering from for a long time and have not been represented by the likes of Nancy Pelosi or certainly not, you know, someone like Mitch McConnell, a Republican whose number one priority is to just continue cutting taxes for the rich. But just to give you a little more context into what Congresswoman Talib was talking about there,

she gave, as example, the Marathon Refinery, a 250-acre oil processing facility and tank farm near the Boynton neighborhood of Detroit, which has received 15 violation notices from the Michigan Department of Environment, Great Lakes, and energy for pollution since 2013. The area which includes more than two dozen industrial sites is 71% black. Also, Detroit is the 10th worst metro area in the country when it comes to asthma attacks for black children, which a 2017 report from the NAACP and other groups that is linked to oil and gas exposure. So these are communities that haven't been represented. These are communities who have been neglected, forgotten, and Rashida Tili wants to raise a awareness about what her constituents have been suffering.

But when she's raising awareness about that, Waz, she's really speaking for or on behalf of so many Americans across this country that have been neglected by our congressional lawmakers. Yeah, and what I did like to, because again, I was not a fan of the way that they racialized COVID-19 because, again, like, people are taught not to give a damn about the things that affect only black people, only Mexican people, only whatever, you know, marginalized group. I like that she connected it to, no, these people died at a disproportionate rate because of pollution that you guys put in their neighborhood. This isn't some genetic or racial

phenomenon. It's like, no, they happen to live in the places that got polluted by the corporate interests. I love that she connected those two things and made it plain for everybody to understand. And I just wish they would do that more often and take it the next step further and be like, look, guys, they did that in this neighborhood just now. You know where you live. You know that there are people who live in much better, richer neighborhoods than yours, and you better know they'll never go there. So they come into your town next. I would hope that they would use the fear mongering against the corporate interests every now and again. Well, you might actually enjoy this next clip. It's our final clip of this story.

And she has one final question for these CEOs. Let's watch. 4217, the neighborhood I represent with Marathon there is the most polluted zip code in the state of Michigan of majority black community. So I want to ask you all one by one. Chase Fink, Mr. Diamond, do you live near a refinery? Yes or no? Do you live near our oil refinery? I do not.

How about you, Ms. Frazier, do you live near our oil refinery? No, I do not. Mr. Gorman, do you live near an oil refinery? No. Mr. Is it my hand? Am I saying it right? From a Bank of America, Brian, do you live near a refinery? I do not.

How about you, Mr. Sharp? How about you? Do you have marathon oil refinery in your backyard? No, I don't. How about you, Mr. Solomon? No, I don't. So I need you all, all of you to address racial equity. What that means is understanding environmental racism and reversing decades of it and halting the damage that you all continue to invest in.

My favorite part about that was, first of all, the question was a great question because I think that she's hitting at what you were referring to was. But the Bank of America CEO, where she's like, hey, you, I don't know how to pronounce your name. Like, you know that that got under his skin. We know what these corporate executives are like. Like, Brian, hey, I don't, do you live near an oil refinery? He looks super annoyed. I loved it. So, yeah, that was great.

That's a trick we used to use on the basketball court. And whenever, you know, there was a white boy on the court, we'd be like, hey, white boy. You know, we knew his name was Tyler, but we called him white boy anyway. That was a trick we used to use back on the court, back on the back in the days, back when I used to hoop. All right, well, lots of credit for that wonderful handling of that hearing. We do have to take a break, but when we come back for our second hour, we'll discuss, you know, the right wing and it's obsession with cancel culture, not criticizing it, but actually carrying it out for themselves. We got that detail, we got details to that story and more when we come back for hour two. Don't miss it.

We'll see you in a few minutes. 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 slash t-y-t. I'm your host, Shank Huger, and I'll see you soon.