The Young Turks - Byebye Bibi

Episode Date: June 15, 2021

There is a new Israeli Prime Minister and Biden released a statement promising to keep doing the same thing we’ve been doing with Israel. Ocasio-Cortez says the ‘elephant in the room’ is Senate Democrats blocking their own party’s agenda. Videos show Ocean City, Maryland police tasering, kneeing teens while enforcing boardwalk vaping ban. Lara Trump urges border residents to ‘get guns and be ready’ for migrants. Revealed: a right-wing firm posed as a leftist group on Facebook to divide Democrats. Hosts: Ana Kasparian, Cenk Uygur Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

You're listening to The Young Turks, the online news show. Make sure to follow and rate our show with not one, not two, not three, not four, but five stars. You're awesome. Thank you. All right, well, I'm the Young Turks. Jake, Hugh Grant, experiment with you guys. All right, we have a really interesting show for you guys today. We've got a lot of news from today, obviously. That's how things work.

New major news coming out of Israel, Netanyahu is finally out. So we will celebrate that, but don't celebrate too much because you need the full context. But we will also do a couple of things here that a little different. In the second hour, we're going to talk about the situation in Syria and the chemical attack that happened in Duma. So that record needs to be straightened out. And what you guys need to know is the actual facts of what happened. And that's what we do here.

We give you the facts in an unbiased way. Other people have agendas, we are going to show evidence to you guys. And in the bonus episode, we're going to do a segment on a very bad faith actor and show you exactly who he is. The reason we're doing in the bonus episode is because it's so raw that we can't show it on some of the platforms that we're on. If you're not a member, that's okay. We will put it up on major platforms that we can show it on later, okay?

So it's important that you guys see these because there are a world of liars out there. And so we will expose them, uncover them, and take them on. Not a lot of people have the courage to do that, but we've been taking on powerful people and everyone else in between for the last 19 years, and we will not shy from a fight. So with that being said, let's do today's news. All right, well, we begin with some international news out of Israel. Israel has formed a new government, essentially ousting Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu from office. He has been the prime minister for the last 12 years, and this was really an interesting effort by a coalition,

government meant to oppose him, oust him. And this coalition government is essentially a group of smaller parties, many of which have giant disagreements with one another, but have one agreement, which is the importance of ousting Benjamin Netanyahu from the position of prime minister. Now, Naftali Bennett is the new prime minister and the coalition government for the first time includes Arab representation. Yair Lapid will be Bennett's coalition partner. Now let me give you some more details.

The Israeli parliament on Sunday approved the new power sharing government by Bennett, the orthodox leader of Israel's religious nationalist movement and a former Netanyahu aid, in a close vote of confidence 60 to 59 with one abstention. Now I wanna note, I'm sure you've already noticed, that we're talking about a prime minister who worked very closely with Netanyahu as an aide. someone who's described as a religious nationalist. And that is obviously relevant for anyone who's wondering if this new coalition government will lead to any significant

changes in the treatment of Palestinians. It does not appear to be the case, especially given the leadership here and given the only real agreement that the coalition government has, or the various parties in the coalition has, and that is just the effort to oust Benjamin Nanyahu, who, to be quite frank, has been incredible brutally brutal to Palestinians and has been an authoritarian leader.

Now, the new government is fragile. Again, I want to really emphasize that, and Netanyahu's Likud-run government will now be replaced with a hodgepodge of Israeli parties that came together around the prospect of removing the sitting prime minister despite their limited agreement on a few issues. I want to get to the White House's response to this, but before I do so, I also want to provide a video of Benjamin Nanyahu's final speech as Prime Minister, because he did not in any way appreciate this effort and is not happy about the fact that he's been ousted from being Prime Minister. So he kind of had this scorched earth reaction to it. Let's take a look.

I didn't hear Bennett. He doesn't have the international standing. He doesn't have the credibility. He doesn't have the ability, he doesn't have a government, he doesn't have, the ability to put up genuine opposition and from all the differences of which there are many between us and the incoming government, this is the most important and fateful difference for the future of the state of Israel. And Israeli Prime Minister must be able to say no to the President of the United States on matters that endanger our existence and to back this up with a massive work in Congress, in the Senate and in public opinion, in the greatest democracy, which is the United States. That is what I did in 2015 when I spoke in the U.S. Congress, despite the opposition, the fierce opposition of the United States. the president of the United States.

Who will do this now? Prime Minister Ye'Ir-Lapid who attacked my speech in Congress because most members of the government designate support the nuclear agreement. So what Netanyahu is referring to there, of course, is the 2015 nuclear agreement with Iran. Benjamin Netanyahu also had a tumultuous relationship

with President Barack Obama, because Obama had the audacity to demand, that Netanyahu stopped building settlements in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip. And so that's what he's referring to when he says that I was the one who was willing to go against the United States. And he's trying to make this accusation that Naftali Bennett will govern differently. But there's really no indication that's the case. And, Jank, I want you to take it over from here about that issue. So as usual, there's a topic that requires a lot of nuance.

But the first part of it is clear. Down goes Netanyahu, down goes Netanyahu. I couldn't be more happy about that. So thank you, Israel, for making that happen. Netanyahu is the worst of the worst. He's basically Dick Cheney and Donald Trump combined. So he has the warmonger tendencies of Dick Cheney and also to some degree Donald Trump. And he's a personally corrupt, pathological liar, total narcissist, has started several

conflicts for his own political benefit. He's a monster. So good riddance. He was in office here for 12 years in a row. Previous to that, he was in office for three years, 15 horrible years, at least in terms of the political governance of Israel. And it only led to more conflict, more war, more oppression. He will not be missed by anyone outside of rabid right wingers who wanted nothing but more war. Now, the reason it's nuanced is because his replacement is not much better. Historically, his sum of his statements have been even worse than Netanyahu's. Now, but that's not the end of the story either. He is part of a coalition government. And in a parliamentary system, you must have almost always, sometimes you could win an outright majority,

but almost always a coalition government. And it depends on who's in your coalition. But first, let's tell you what a terrible guy Nafthali Bennett is. Now, you're not going to get this from any of the mainstream media, obviously, right now, oh my God, Israel, Israel, Israel, Nanyahu's gone. They began to realize, you know, 88 years too late that maybe Nanyahu's a rabid right winger, right? But with Bennett right now, of course, Joe Biden, our Blinken, our Secretary of State are all like, oh, Bennett is so great, so wonderful, yes, yes, yes. No, that's not true. Neftali Bennett said, quote, I've killed a lot of Arabs in my life,

and there's no problem with that. Now, look, in the military, you might have killed people, but when you specifically say, I've killed Arabs, and I have no problem with that, well, that's obviously a toxic comment, and it gives you a state of mind. But it doesn't matter, every comment is like that. And his party is a pro-settler party. They believe that they should have all of the land and that the Palestinians, hence accordingly, have no rights at all. And he does not believe in a Palestinian state. He actively fights against one. On the settlements, he said we should, quote, build, build. And that's, of course, over Palestinian territory. So in that sense, he's not only a warmonger, he's an occupier. And remember,

he was deep allies with Netanyahu before he decided, well, why don't I just take his power, And then finally he said a Palestinian state is pointless and that he would never advocate for one and never allow one. So understand that the new boss is not that difference than the old boss. But within his coalition, our moderate parties is in fact even an Arab party within Israel. And it is a tenuous coalition. It's 60 to 59 and 120 person parliament. Naftali Bennett's own party only has six seats out of 120.

He cobbled together the coalition and if he goes too aggressively against Palestinians, presumably the coalition would fall apart because of the Arab parties and the moderate parties, et cetera. Which then brings us back to Netanyahu, who said not only the comments you saw there, but he said, I would lead you, and this is very Trumpian, in a daily struggle against the evil and dangerous leftist government in order to topple it. He says on day one, God willing, it will happen a lot faster than what you think. Almost word for word what Donald Trump said. So that's who Bibi Netanyahu is.

Exactly. And one other thing I wanted to add about Bennett is, you know, in the speech that we showed you or the portion of the speech we showed you featuring Netanyahu, he talks about how he was a far better leader because of the fact that he was willing to go against the United States and the Iran nuclear deal, which, by the way, as we all know, Donald Trump ripping up the Iran nuclear deal did not make the world safer, it made it less safe, and that's exactly what Benjamin Netanyahu was demanding. Well, Naftali Bennett is really no different. As Axios reports, Bennett took a hard line on the Iran, I'm sorry, hard line on the Iran deal in his speech, so he gave a speech as well,

saying that it was a mistake in 2015, and it remains one today. And, you know, it really, at this point is abundantly clear that it doesn't really matter who the Prime Minister of Israel, it is, you're going to get the same response from the U.S. government, and I'll give you the response from Joe Biden. So the White House said Biden offered, quote, his warm congratulations and expressed his firm intent to deepen cooperation between the United States and Israel on the many challenges and opportunities facing the region. Biden said his administration plans to work closely with the Israeli government on efforts to advance peace, security, and prosperity for Israelis and Palestinians, and underscored his decades of steadfast support for the U.S.-Israel

relationship and his unwavering commitment to Israel's security. And that was at the end of it. You also have an official statement coming from the Pentagon, coming from the Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin. A spokesperson for Lloyd Austin said, Secretary Austin looks forward to continue the important cooperation and dialogue with Minister Gantz, he will remain the defense minister, to deepen the U.S. Israel Strategic Partnership, the U.S. commitment to Israel security remains iron-clad. So while it's great to have Benjamin Netanyahu out, we also have to be real about how the U.S. perspective or perception on peace in that region remains the same. And it hasn't been good. As we know, what we got from the Biden administration repeatedly during the latest round of violence

and aggression toward the Palestinians was Israel has the right to defend itself. They're going to continue on with that talking point. And Naftali Bennett, as the prime minister, is really no different from Benjamin Netanyahu, even though he does, yes, have this coalition government behind him. Yeah, so just a quick note on how similar the governments are, unfortunately. Gantz was defense minister under Netanyahu. He continues to be defense minister. under Bennett. So, and Gantz is to the left of Netanyahu because it's near impossible to be to the right of Netanyahu, but Gantz is also the guy who talked about wiping out the Palestinians in the recent conflict. So yes, there are a lot of good guys within the moderate

and left wing Israeli politics, and we applaud that, the fact that they helped to get Netanyahu out. Not a lot of people. peaceful folks and the right wing of Israeli government have said vicious things about Palestinians and plan to continue the occupation, it seems, forever and ever. But one last thing about our role in this as America, one of the selling points when Neftali Bennett was I will get along with both Republican and Democratic presidents and Netanyahu endangered Israel by picking a side and only supporting the Republicans. And that's why you saw Netanyahu say what he said, oh, I have courage.

I took on the Democrats. We don't need no stinking Democrats. By the way, Democrats still, while he was in office, what can we do for you? He's spitting in your face. You could actually have courage and stand up to him. Anyways, but Bennett's position is basically, no, we're not going to give the Palestinians a state.

And if need be, we're going to keep on bombing them. We're just going to get the Democrats to support us just as much as the Republicans. That doesn't really make it any better. So be clear about that. And Biden saying effusive praise and over and over again, anything you want, my beloved ally, doesn't help the situation. Yes, Canada, UK, Israel, our allies. But it doesn't mean that we should take any right-wing leader of that country and go,

anything you want, no matter what you do, we will definitely support you. That is not a strong position, and that's not a position that progressive should back. Let's take a break. We'll take our first break. And when we come back, we'll switch over to domestic policy and some updates regarding progressives and their strategy in accomplishing progressive provisions in the infrastructure bill. Come right back. All right, back on TYT, Jenkinana with you guys. Anna's got more news.

All right, let's get to it. I think the thing is, is that this isn't the best that we can get. And I do think that we need to talk about the elephant in the room, which is Senate Democrats, which are blocking crucial items in a Democratic agenda for very, I think, for reasons that I don't think hold a lot of water. Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez speaking out against obstructionist activity, behavior, not just among Republicans, but more importantly, amongst Democratic lawmakers. And it's an important issue to call out, but more importantly, an important issue to strategize about, which it appears progressive lawmakers are finally starting to really consider and put into action.

Now, AOC spoke out specifically in regard to the so-called bipartisan senators who have proposed a counteroffer to Joe Biden's infrastructure package, which would dedicate more than $2 trillion to infrastructure. While this group of bipartisan lawmakers are only offering a measly $560 billion in new spending and are also arguing that some of the coronavirus relief spending should be reappropriated specifically for the infrastructure package, which makes absolutely no sense. And I like seeing that AOC is fighting back against that. So let's take a look at more of what she had to say. A group of five Republican, five Democratic senators is proposing $1.2 trillion in an infrastructure

compromise deal. $600 billion of that is new spending, they say, no tax hikes to pay for it. Would you vote yes or no on that package if it comes before you in the House? You know, I think from what we've seen so far, and particularly the lack of climate action as well, I think, adding to the severe lowering of our scope and scale and what we're seeking to do on ambition, I doubt it, frankly, in the current state of that proposal. And I think one of the things that's really important to communicate is that this isn't just $1.7 trillion. This is about an overall investment spread out over, in between 8 to 10 years,

which is a very, very low amount of money. It's not gonna create the millions of union jobs that we need in this country, particularly to recover from the pandemic. And it's not going to get us closer to meeting our climate goals, which are crucially important at this point in time. So, Jank, you know, we've talked about

how important it is for progressive lawmakers in the House to vote as a block, and they can withhold their vote as a block until they ensure that they get progressive provisions included in the bill. It looks like that's what they're strategizing about. And there's also some strategy going on in the Senate as well, which I'll get to. But what do you think about it?

Yeah. So I want to talk about whether it makes sense to block a bill, force a vote, et cetera. So this is a good example of that. So first of all, should they block this bill? 100%. So overall, AOC was very aggressive in that interview. And she called out corporate Democrats, which never happens. So I want to give her tremendous credit for that.

You say, oh, she should have done it three months ago, six months ago. I agree, she should have. I think she should have done it last term, okay? But let's give credit where credit is due when it finally happens instead of bashing people when they're actually in the middle of doing the right thing, okay? So I criticize them during the $15 minimum wage bill because different circumstances call for different reactions. Here she's doing the right thing.

But even then I would say, yes, I would go a little stronger. She said, I doubted. She should have said, no, there's no way we're going to vote for this bill. Because if you say you doubt it, it opens a door. You don't want to open this nonsense door. You want to slam it shut. Why? In this case, look, the COVID relief bill had a lot of good things in it.

But it easily could have had $15 million in wage, and we could have made that happen with public pressure. But they were worried about losing tons of good things in that bill. I disagreed with them on strategy, but I'm glad the parts that passed actually passed. In this bill, no, this is a Republican-led bill, Republican-written bill, and they got five corporate Democrats who already agree with the Republicans to sign on to it. That's not a bipartisan bill. And it has nothing on climate change, unfortunately, as we predicted, because Joe Biden doesn't really want to do anything about climate change.

That's what no one is telling you, right? He never fights for any of his so-called progressive agenda positions, none of them, because he doesn't actually believe them. So you have to force that out as well, but that's going to be for a later day. I would do it instantly, but I know they've got to gather up, you know, wins as they're doing this, et cetera. Anyways, that's part of it, are strategy disagreements. But the bottom line is this is not a bipartisan bill for a second reason, because the American people want a lot more jobs created and they want infrastructure built. So it's actually another provision that is and another bill that is very, very popular.

So why don't you say to Dana Bash or Dana Bash, hey, you call bipartisan just because you've got five Democrats working with the Republican Party. But they're hungry now. Now. What about now? Whenever it hits you, wherever you are, grab an O. Henry Bar. to satisfy your hunger with its delicious combination of big crunchy salty peanuts covered in creamy caramel and chewy fudge with a chocolatey coating swing by a gas station and get an oh henry today oh hungry oh henry american people do not agree the american people are on our side

in a bipartisan fashion saying yes give me more jobs yes uh give us more infrastructure etc so Look, in terms of when to fight, here I'll address something that is that comes up every once in a while because I get it. Look, some good folks were led in the wrong direction. On the Nancy Pelosi vote on our speakership, that was a very poorly designed strategy where they said we don't have a backup option, we don't know what's going to happen next. And we're gonna ask for Medicare for all, which is an enormous priority for progressives, but one way we have to gain power and leverage to get to.

They said, no, I don't care, I don't care. Let's just do a stupid strategy right out of the gate that has no chance of working. So some people tell you, you should force every vote, no matter what, whether you can win, can't win, you have a backup plan, you don't have a backup plan, you have a strategy, you don't have a strategy. By the way, this is super important. Corporate Democrats and corporate media will tell you never force a vote. Under no circumstances should you ever do that.

What is the correct answer? The correct answer is obvious. It depends. Of course it depends. How could it not depend? So in this case, what am I going to do? Vote for a Republican bill? No, the answer is hell no.

Hell no, it's easy, it's obvious. You vote no, right? And then you get to the negotiating table. Same thing on $15 minimum wage. So this is a bill that they cannot get Biden's version. To me, it's more important that they out the corporate Democrats than try to get past a Republican version of this bill. But they should vote on the Biden version. And it's so easy to create public pressure to vote on the Biden version because it's fair for AOC and progressive Democrats to say,

hey, who's on Biden's agenda and who isn't? You all claim you're with Biden's agenda. Let me see you vote that way. If you don't vote that way, then you don't agree with their agenda. Let's figure out who's on which side. And that is a very fair ask. It's something they can definitely win on. So in the next video, you know, AOC specifically addresses the way government is structured.

And, you know, she's referring to the Senate filibuster, the legislative filibuster, which requires There's 60 senators to vote in favor of legislation in order for it to pass. And I think what she says here is important because the focus should be on a real restructuring of how these bills actually pass into law. Take a look. Well, I think then the question that we have to make is that there's a fork in the road, which is do we settle for much less and an infrastructure package that has been largely designed by Republicans in order to get 60 votes, or can we really transform this country, create

millions of union jobs, revamp our power grid, get people's, you know, bridges fixed and schools rebuilt with 51 or 50 Democratic votes. And I think the argument that we need to make here is that it's worth going it alone if we can do more for working people in this country. With 50 votes, we have the potential to lower the age of Medicare eligibility so that more people can be covered and guaranteed to their right to health care, as opposed to 60 votes where we do very, very little. And the scope of that is defined by a Republican minority that has not been elected to lead. And she's right about that. I mean, we've been repeating a similar point on this show in regard to passing some of Biden's agenda.

which is why are we catering to the demands of a party that lost in the last election? Bipartisanship isn't about, oh, we want Democrats, corporate Democrats and corporate Republicans to agree on everything and work together. Bipartisanship is ensuring that you're actually representing the best interests of the electorate, which happens to be Democrats and Republicans. You look at the polling, the vast majority of people, yes, Republicans included are favorable toward the infrastructure bill as the way it was proposed by Biden. A $2.2 trillion bill that includes well-paying union jobs, that includes massive improvements

to our infrastructure, and a whole host of other provisions that are incredibly popular. And we're not going to get that passed if we continue pretending as if this arbitrary legislative filibuster is the way to go, that it's somehow the more democratic way of doing things and that we need bipartisanship in the Senate. That ship has sailed. We're living in a different era. And if Democrats are serious about actually delivering for their voters, then they need to fight aggressively against maintaining the Senate filibuster.

I feel like almost everybody's already convinced on the filibuster that basically we keep yelling at the corporate media because they're the only ones left unconvinced. They keep going to the bipartisan, Senate tradition, all the horse crap of Joe Manchin and the Republicans and when in we know the history of the filibuster it was done during the Jim Crow era to defeat civil rights that's what it was almost exclusively used for it's not in the Constitution it's not any of those things the mainstream media by pretending it's some sort of revered tradition skews while pretending to be objective skews things towards the status quo which is their top

bias they have a status quo bias now along those lines aOC did a great job in defeating one of their talking points she mentioned right Right there, as I told you, this is a Republican-led bill. It's not a bipartisan bill, great. The second mainstream media talking point that I would have gone after there is, she says, Dana Bash asked in that interview, well, I mean, how are you gonna get to 50? You gotta get to 50, okay? The beloved 50, it has to be bipartisan, right?

No, wait a minute, you're making it seem like progressives are blocking the bill, when in reality, the corporate Democrats are blocking Biden's bill. Exactly, exactly. This is not Biden's bill. Biden's bill was $2.3 trillion. This is $579 billion in new spending. It's about a quarter of Biden's bill. So let me get this right.

I'm blocking a quarter of his so-called bill. Mansion is blocking three quarters of it, and yet you're blaming me? No, no deal, no deal. And now they are doing one good thing that's rhetorically catching on, which I like. They're saying no climate, no deal. If you don't have anything regressing climate change in this. bill. You got no deal at all. Senator, and guys, I want to encourage you as progressive voters, you did a great job in reelecting Ed Markey. So for whatever other issues Ed Markey might have

had in the past, et cetera, we told you that he would be more progressive than Kennedy in that race. And there were so many wonderful progressives on the ground in Massachusetts that swung that race. Marky was losing. You guys swung it in his favor through volunteering donations, everything, And guess what, Markey is now leading the charges in the Senate going, no deal, no climate, no deal. That's how politics works. You use your power and then you could actually get what you want. So thank you for believing, having hope and fighting for Markey in a way that is now, as you can tell, made the difference. Let's switch gears a little bit and talk about some police brutality that took place in Maryland over the weekend.

A teenager in Ocean City, Maryland was met with brutal violence and excessive force by police who alleged that he was vaping. Now, the following video is difficult to watch. I do want to give you guys a graphic warning, but it's important to see how policing is apparently done in Ocean City, Maryland, and this is not an isolated case. Take a look. Back up! Back up! Back up! Back up! It happened last year too. Back up.

You did that for no reason. No reason. No reason. Bro, put him in handcuffs for him with a bait. He was literally standing there. He wasn't a resting or, he wasn't nothing. All right, so we, that video, that video, That video was posted online and went viral over the weekend.

We do have some more details about it, but unfortunately that was not an isolated case. So the man's mother identified him as 18 year old tasier Griffin. She said the video shows her son being hit with a taser on the evening of June 6th while he was in Ocean City with a group of friends for senior week. She said witnesses told her he was walking on the boardwalk with a tobacco vape when police stopped him and said he wasn't allowed to vape there. So apparently Ocean City has passed a pretty strict law now in regard to vaping. They only allow vaping in designated areas and the police have been incredibly overzealous about it.

In fact, there were more cases. Now she said her son was arrested by the way and is facing charges including assault in the second degree. Wait, wait, he assaulted them? That's what they're elected. You just saw the video. You just saw it, yep. assaulted them. And then we're told, no, you should always believe cops. And look, for those of you

who are younger and you've all grown up on social media, you probably didn't hear that, right? But for those of us who grew up earlier, okay, all we ever heard in the media for 30, 40 years of my life, 45 years of my life was the cops are saints. The cops always tell the truth. Here's a beloved cop to tell you the truth, truth, truth. Anyone who disagrees with a cop is dangerous, criminal, et cetera. Now, you saw the video, we've seen hundreds of these videos. Who do you think is telling the truth? Yet, still, by the way, to this day, there will be right-wingers and conservative Democrats

who look at that video and go, no, no, he committed to assault. He had his hands up. You guys all saw it. He had his hands up. I mean, and look. There was nothing before. There was nothing after. I know there's nothing after.

They hog tied him. And that's the other thing. It's, that's the insult to injury. So they assault you, then they charge you with assault, and then on top of that, they want to humiliate you. Because why? He didn't put his, he put his vape pen away, but he might have taken it back out. Oh, that's it.

Let's hurt him, and then let's pick him up after we've tied his hands and feet. Like, well, you know what it's like. You know what it's like? And so there's historical references for people being tied up. that way and then let's put him in a cage because he dared to not listen to us for a nanosecond. And by the way, it's not just social city. All across the country, the number one thing we teach our cops is if anyone disrespects you, physically assault them, take away their freedom, and try to ruin their lives. There was more of that over this past weekend. So we have another

video to show you this time it involves four different teenagers allegedly the same issue. This is police trying to keep the public safe from vaping. I don't know if you feel safe after watching a video like this. I certainly wouldn't feel safe around these cops. So graphic warning, let's go to the video. Go! Go! Go! No!

Go! You're going to have a lot! You're going to go! I'm going to do it! I'm going to

do it! You're going to do it! You're a good! I'm going! I'm going to go! I think! No.

Just absolute chaos. I mean, you can certainly rely on the cops in this situation to intentionally escalate a situation over a nonviolent issue, which is vaping. It's unbelievable. Now, this is the statement from the cops. The incident, which was caught in these viral videos, left four teenagers arrested authority said. Ocean City officials pledged to review the officer's actions, but also noted in a news release, quote, our officers are permitted to use force per their training to overcome exhibited resistance. I mean, they're always going to back this up, right? I mean, the only way to change this, to really reform policing, is for organizing to take place,

for the protests to continue. And I'm specifically talking about protests, whether it's out on the streets or, you know, in other political ways in order to draw attention to these issues, to hold people in positions of power accountable for not doing anything in actually reforming policing. You know, look, and that's the other thing. I just want to be clear about the difference between what we saw over the last summer in response to Black Lives Matter and what needs to be done. The platitude...

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Conditions apply. And the hollow gestures is not reform, okay? I know I keep giving you guys this particular example. It's because it's the example that comes to mind every single time I think about this issue. A Black Lives Matter mural is nice. I'm not against that, but don't allow your local politicians to use that as a substitute for actual police reform, because that's what we're seeing. Yeah, so guys, you saw the video here, you know what vaping is, right?

I don't know if some boomers are watching, they don't know, right? Like, it's not something that's dangerous to everybody else. Look, they pass an ordinance, so you should follow the ordinance, right? But it's not like they're carrying around AR-15s. Oh, wait, they're allowed to. So in a lot of jurisdictions in this country, you can carry openly carry weapons, including assault rifles, everybody's hunky dory with it. No problem. Oh, you're vaping in public. We're going to kick the living crap out of you.

I mean, look, we live in an upside down insane country. We just do. And so then you look at that video, who caused the violence? Was it the kids or was it the cops? There's no dispute at all who caused the violence. It was the cops. Okay, they shouldn't have been vaping. They say, put it away, maybe you write him a fine, okay? Oh my god, I just got hit with a $500 fine for vaping. That's outrageous. It's, oh my, how am I gonna pay for that? And that's really painful, especially if you're a millennial, you got no money.

It's super painful, as a way of enforcing an ordinance. Going and starting a brawl with people who didn't do anything physical, kicking the living crap out of them, and then when people object kicking their ass, by the way, the guy who picked up the bike, of course, he was arrested, Everyone involved there now will have a permanent record as felons. That's insane. It's insane. This country constantly does things that are insane.

And yet the people in power go, I don't say any problem because they won't reform. They won't reform any of it. So that leads me to our two members, well, they're using YouTube super chat, two viewers that made really good points that I wanted to share with you guys. I love doing the show with you guys. Graham Henry wrote in, when I watched a cop in court, watch his own video, look straight to the jury and say, that's not how I remember it. See, that's so important right there because juries, especially older jurors, a little MacGee in our member section wrote the same thing, as I said. He grew up in it too. And we, those jurors have been told their whole lives, they've been programmed to believe that cops and authority always tell the truth.

So if you show them a video that shows the opposite of what a cop says on the stand, a lot of them will believe the cop instead of their own eyes. That happens all the time. That's why, without any hint of irony, a cop will turn around and go, don't believe your lying eyes, believe me. And that perfectly leads into no new net consequence, right, saying never, ever, ever trust people in power. Always question them, always hold them to account.

It doesn't matter what suit they wear. And that is something the media in this country has never told you because they love the status quo and they think that it's their job to protect it. Well, these are different days. We must change this system. It is brutal, and it's brutal against us, the citizens. Let's take a break. When we come back, an incredible story about how a right-wing marketing company created accounts specifically posing as leftists to tear leftists apart. That certainly is going on today as well. We'll give you that story and more when we return. All right, back on TYT, Jenk and Anna with you. Anna.

This story is insane. So a marketing firm with close ties to the right wing has been sowing discord among the left the left in an effort to essentially give the Republican Party an edge in elections. This is an incredible story from The Guardian that relied on a former Facebook employee who turned to becoming a whistleblower about the company's practices. And they found some pretty incredible details about just how easy it is for a right wing marketing firm to post accounts that appear to be leftist when in reality you have right wingers running it. So in the apparent attempt to split the Democratic vote in a number of close races,

the ads that this marketing firm was putting out purported to come from an organization called America Progress Now, or APN, and use socialist memes and rhetoric to urge left-wing voters to support green party candidates. So obviously voting for a third party in this two-party system puts, one of the parties in jeopardy of losing, right? It'll split the vote, and that's what the strategy was here. On October 27th of 2018, just days before the November 6th election, America Progress now began running a series of ads that used leftist motifs, such as the red rose emoji and images of Bernie Sanders and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez to rail against the corporate two-party

oligarchy and the corporate capitalist wage system. Some of the ads urged voters to choose a third party, but others endorsed green party candidates by name triggering FEC rules for independent expenditures. And we'll get to that in just a second because this activity, this behavior goes against FEC rules, but it really does seem as though laws are really enforced against people who have the audacity to vape in a non-vaping section of ocean of Maryland. But anyway, so I also wanted to give you an example of what these memes look like, because if you're, you know, just an unsuspecting person, you would see that and

think, yeah, these ads are totally put out by a progressive organization. They use pictures of AOC. They criticize capitalism, clearly seem to favor democratic socialism. But the whole point is to pose as leftists and then encourage people to vote for a third party because the Democratic Party is worthless. There's no way that they're going to ever accomplish progressive goals. Now we know that the possibility of a Green Party or a third party in general, winning is nearly impossible. I mean, just impossible. It's never happened. It likely won't ever happen unless we literally change our system of government. But, Cenk, why don't you jump in? And I'll give you some more details later.

Yeah. So let's talk about nuances as usual here. So are there actual people who believe in the Green Party? Of course! And that's why they're using this tactic to take advantage because it's so hard to tell who's being genuine and who isn't. And by the way, the other thing that it does is it tricks the people on the left into thinking, oh, these are people who have a good intention. Oh, they say that Trump might even be better than the Democrats on the issues of war or corruption, etc. When Trump ain't better than them at all, right? That doesn't make the corporate Democrats any good either. And so it's easy for a lot of the camps to fall in the two different absolutist positions here, where corporate media might look at this and go, that's it, dismiss anyone who's Green Party. No, no, that's ridiculous.

And then some of these troll farms will get you to believe, oh yeah, if you don't agree with this position, then you're not a good enough progressive. Right, there's a lot of that on Facebook. and Twitter. There's no question. And again, guys, some of the people saying that are actual leftists, and that's okay. That's their genuine position.

And some of them are trolls. And so, and you will hear, I guarantee you, even in response to this video, people saying, no, there are no trolls. Okay. This is a piece by the Guardian. They're not a conservative publication. This is a study

that was done. They uncovered it. It's in, there's FEC filings. The guy apologized. for not saying the correct information in the FEC findings. There's no question that it is true, right? And yes, they use tactics meant to deceive you. Like the two things that they constantly talked about was the corporate two-party oligarchy

and corporate capitalist wage system. Now, if you're a progressive, those sound pretty good. They sound like, oh, that's true, that is. That's why they're using it. And they know that it's a way to lure you in so you don't vote against Trump. Okay, that was literally the purpose of this activity. It's led by Charlie Kirk's group.

Yes. Okay, so we'll get to that. We'll get to that in a second, right? But, and these days, and the rose is the, is, they hide in camouflage behind things that are real. So are there a lot of socials on Twitter who use the red rose legitimately? Definitely, definitely, right? And are there right-wingers hiding by using the rose? Yes.

And so by the way, lately, the camouflage I'm seeing, and this is not part of the study, and you could judge for yourself, is the Palestinian flag. Even I fall for it. I'm like, oh my God, Palestinian flag, great. You're for free Palestine in the end of the occupation. And then you click on it, guys, a total right winger doesn't believe in that at all. He's using the Palestinian flag to get good, well-meaning progressives to support right-wing positions. Yeah, and there are certainly troll farms that use. similar symbols in order to deceive people into thinking that, you know, they're conversing

with an actual leftist. And then you click on their page and they have no tweets and the page was created a week ago, a few days ago, maybe a month ago. So I'm just giving you some signs to look out for. Can I just say one quick example? It happened over the weekend. A guy named Omar pretending to be a Palestinian and a left winger is criticizing me for being a fake leftist, all you got to do is click. You click on his thing. He's a total right wing, every tweet is right wing. And so he didn't care about the, oh, and what did he criticize me for? He went after my Turkish name and said, why don't you go back to Turkey? If you're Palestinian, that is unlikely critique that you would have of me. You could have other critiques,

but that would be an unlikely one. So some of these guys are super obvious, but people can't see it because they don't know that the phenomenon is actually happening. That's exactly Right. And so I want to give you some more details about what this group is and how they're tied to Charlie Kirk's organization. So as they report in The Guardian, Facebook was aware of the true identity of the advertiser, the conservative marketing firm Rally Forge and the deceptive nature of the ads, documents seen by The Guardian Show. But the company determined that they did not violate its policies. Rally Forge would go on to set up a pro-Trump domestic troll farm for Turning Point Action, a sister organization for Turning Point USA in 2020, earning a permanent ban from Facebook. So finally, Facebook realized what was really going on.

They found it was problematic and actually did go against their guidelines. And they implemented a permanent ban. Now, I mentioned a former Facebook employee who turned to being a whistleblower in regard to the company and its practices. Her name is Sophie Zhang. She spoke to the Guardian about this as well and said, quote, there were no policies at Facebook against pretending to be a group that did not exist, an abuse vector that has also been used by the governments of Honduras and Azerbaijan, which I certainly noticed during this. the Nagorno Karaba conflict just last year. And APN, by the way, this group, they broke election laws. But the FEC is just like, they said they didn't know they were breaking laws, so we're

going to let it go. The Guardian writes that APN and its ads appear to violate federal laws that require independent expenditures to be filed with the FCC and include proper disclosures on advertisements. But in July of 2020, the FEC voted to dismiss allegations that America Progress now had violated federal law after an individual, Evan Mollstein, took responsibility for the ads and attributed the lack of proper disclosures and filings to his quote, inexperience. I guess that's all it takes. It's all it takes.

Yeah. Yeah, I was so inexperienced. I didn't know I was using a really fancy consulting firm that charges tons of money to run a Republican operation. Golly, gee, I thought maybe I was Green Party. Okay, so it's an obvious lie. Will there be any consequences unlikely? FEC is totally toothless.

Half of it is Republicans, and they refuse to do anything about fraud because they mainly participate in fraud in these type of situations. But I've got to tell you two more things. Just think about the Azerbaijan situation. So presumably they are putting out tweets and Facebook posts, et cetera. This is about Facebook, so it's mainly in the case that they were caught on. about Facebook posts saying that Armenia's wrong. Now, were they appealing to right wingers or left wingers?

I don't know the particulars of that story, but the logical thing to do would be both. To pretend you're a left winger and say, oh, you know, the Armenians are terrible. Did you know they discriminate? Yeah, I'll make up as the thing. They discriminate against Muslims. Oh, left wingers go, why?

I don't want to have people discriminating against Muslims. I guess Azerbaijan is right, right? And then they go to the right wing, go, did you know Trump is in favor of Azerbaijan and then thinks the Armenians are ridiculous, et cetera? And then they get all people, all Trump's in favor of it. Trump's in favor of it.

How easy is that? You'd actually, it says Facebook basically allowed it in the past and is not great at checking it today, let alone Twitter, which is the worst on this. You'd be crazy not to do it if you're a foreign country. And you think Azerbaijan and Honduras are the only ones doing it? Do you really think that? Or do you think larger countries with far more sophisticated apparatus and a lot more resources? And I'm not just talking about Russia, guys.

It could be anyone. It could be China, it could be India, any large country that wants to influence American politics and sees how important social media is, it's such an easy way to game the system. We tell you all this just so, just please be careful. And a lot of times they look like real people, they actually put together real sentences, but they're part of a troll farm. And again, don't also assume that everybody's a troll. No, so a lot of people are real, of course, that hold those positions.

But finally, Anna mentioned the Green Party, so I wanted to say one more thing about that. Look, in the long run, if you work unbelievable amount of time on it and can muster up, unfortunately, tens of millions of dollars in resources, you can get the Green Party up and running, but you need to have a very long-term plan. And you could do it, but you should raise grassroots money for it, you should build a party infrastructure, and I know they're going to say they do. And with some local races which they have, those are good positive steps forward, because we can't stand the corporate Democrats either.

But if you blunder into an election at the last minute going, I think I got this, okay, I'll just, you know, I don't have a good plan. Here, vote Green Party. Well, that, first of all, you're probably not even going to get on the ballot. It depends on the situation. In local races, you can at the federal level, it is incredibly difficult, right? But if you do, and you might get on the ballot in Wisconsin, where you can take away really important votes from Democrats, but you might not get on the ballot in many other states,

and who cares, right? They'll think because we're just trying to take away these bad actors will think we're just trying to take away votes in Wisconsin. It's perfect for us. So how do you know if the Green Party has a chance or doesn't have a chance? I know it's hard, guys, but you've got to do a little homework. So if it's a local or state race, they might be able to win. So look into it and support them if you can, right? If it's a race where they don't have a chance, be really, really careful. And don't assume they don't have a chance. in the beginning, but don't assume that they're going to magically win at the end. That's why you need nuance.

And finally, a lot of people told you, oh, no, Green Party candidates can win at the federal level. I told you it's better to take over the Democratic Party. Let's do a progressive win called the Justice Democrats, and let's take it over from the inside. How many just Democrats are there in Congress now? Ten, all of them don't take corporate PAC money, all of them are uncorrupted. You might disagree with their tactics sometimes, I disagree with their tactics sometimes, but they're fighting and today they're saying no deal if there's no climate plans in the infrastructure

bill, they fought on qualified immunity, et cetera. And how many Green Party members are in the house? Zero. So I'm not saying ha ha, I'm saying guys, you can build something, but it's gonna take a while. But if you listen to a con man telling you that it can happen overnight, look at the results. Who got results and who didn't? So that's how you can begin to tell what's real and what's not real. All right, that does it for our first hour. When we come back, we're going to have an interview with a reporter who was based in Syria for several years to talk about the chemical weapons attack in Duma. It's an important story. I know that it's not necessarily a timely one considering this happened in 2018, but it's important to debunk the propaganda.

and lies out there about that chemical attack. So come right back. We'll give you those details and more. Thanks for listening to the full episode of the Young Turks. Support our work, listen ad-free, access members-only bonus content, and more by subscribing to Apple Podcasts at apple.com slash t-y-t. I'm your host, Shank Huger, and I'll see you soon.