The Young Turks - Capitol Attack

Episode Date: April 3, 2021

Man rams car into Capitol barricade. President Biden’s “Job Cabinet” tries to sell the infrastructure plan to Congress as Republicans resist. 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. Drop my team, Big my team, Big MacD, Big MacD, Big MacD,

Big MacD, Drop it. Everyone to the Friday power panel here on The Young Turks. I'm here but nobody cares about that. What they do care about is that I'm joined by Adrian Lawrence and Rashad Ritchie. I've missed you guys. I can't talk about the news with you. Ah, yes, very much looking forward to the show. Thank you.

We have a lot that we're going to be talking about. talking about. Not only the breaking news at the Capitol, obviously we're going to be leading with that in just a little bit. We've got a little bit more of the back and forth about the infrastructure bill, how the Republican Party is attempting a message around that, some debate around the border. Who cares? Who's pretending to? We're going to try to separate one from the other. And a little bit of positive labor news from a couple different countries around the world. That's exciting. Maybe that'll inspire America to act right for once when it comes to its working class. So we got that, we got more. You guys ready to jump

into this? Let's do it. Okay, let's do it. Earlier today, the Capitol had to briefly go back onto lockdown following a tragically fatal attack on the Capitol building with a vehicle ramming into a barricade striking two officers. Both were injured, one later pronounced dead. The suspect was apparently shot after getting out of the car with a knife and attempting to attack the police officers. Now, we've been gradually getting some information since the morning. Robert Conti, the acting chief of the Metropolitan Police Department, said the attack near the U.S. Capitol today, quote, does not appear to be terrorism related. It does not appear to be terrorism related, but obviously we'll continue to investigate to see if there is some type of

nexus along those lines, which is just an amazing way to say that. Throughout the day, The FBI Washington Field Office was providing support to the U.S. Capitol Police. The DC National Guard deployed an immediate response force made up of members of the National Guard to the Capitol Complex today to support the U.S. Capitol Police, and there are roughly 2,300 National Guard members in D.C. supporting the local state and federal authorities in D.C. So they had a pretty immediate response and they had a very quick sort of breakdown of the situation of the press, obviously learning some lessons or at least wanting to reassure us that they've learned some lessons since what happened in January,

but this is obviously incredibly serious, not just because the attack, but because the Capitol police officer did lose their lives. What do you both make of this? Well, on my end, I will tell you that it's very jarring. You know, again, this is such a close in time attack since January 6th, which was extremely terrifying. And it really said how vulnerable our nation is, especially the capital. And it is beneficial here that we didn't have Congress, as Congress is in recess right now. But seeing these Capitol police officers already reeling from that loss that happened on January 6th or as a result of that, and now they have another fallen brother, it just really speaks to the fact that our nation has a problem with violence

and that we need to address it and stop ignoring it. Yeah, very sad, unfortunate. And We're still getting details, obviously, but here's something I want to point out. They were more prepared for this random act than they were for the planned terrorism attack that took place on January 6th. They were more coordinated for this random attack than coordinated white terrorists taking over the Capitol. And I think that's an element here that should be discussed. Obviously, they have learned some lessons, but to have this level of coordination, as well as this level of information dissemination, really within minutes after it happened, is something that we haven't seen before. And I'm hoping that this becomes the normative method

for how they deal with attacks or even future acts of terrorism, God forbid, if it ever happens again at the nation's capital. Yeah, I think that there's two elements that I would like to see to demonstrate learning from the events of the last year. I think you perfectly illustrate how they have to learn from all the problems from January. That was a terrible response in so many different ways. But I also think while there's been a lot of people replaced and, you know, this seems like a positive change. I also want to see a change from how they acted, you know, several months earlier than that during the protests of the previous summer. So being a little bit, you know, more Johnny on the spot when someone is attacking is important.

But also understanding the difference between an armed insurrection and peaceful protesters and applying force where necessary, but also not applying force where it's not necessary. We don't have a good test case of that yet. But we'll see if another round of protests eventually greets the Biden administration. Hopefully the police will show more restraint than we saw in the previous year. In any event, as Adrian pointed out, thankfully Congress was not in session. There were still, of course, many. people in the Capitol building and there were members of Congress in the area as well. And so a message was sent to congressional offices saying, due to an external security threat, there was no entry or exit permitted at this time. You may move throughout the building, but stay away from exterior windows and doors. If you're outside, seek cover, which has got to be a terrifying message to receive, you know, whether you're a staffer, a journalist in the area, something like that. And let's also remember we had the individual who had weapons that was outside of what's going to become, Kamala Harris's, the vice president's

permanent address. So like there's kind of a line of these events stretching back to the capital violence. And one has to wonder, is this going to be the last, at least for a little while? And my fear is definitely that it's not. And I actually think that's probably almost a rational fear. You know, the fact that this attack is now, it's something that came just about a week after officials removed those perimeter barriers, that fence, that had that razor wire and really just roped off the complex that was a product of the January 6th insurrection. And so, you know, the thought that, well, we let our barrier, our guard down just a little bit and we have more attacks. It just speaks to the fact that we have a significant problem.

And I don't, I'm not, I know they're looking into the root of why this young man ran the police officers there, but to automatically discount the fact that it's terrorism. You know, we need to bear in mind that there is domestic terrorism that is going on every day on our soil. And to only limit it to this thought of international terrorism is really ignorant, unfortunately. And it puts us all in the mindset of thinking, oh, you know, that the problems come from the outside, as opposed to, no, the call is coming from inside the house, because it's been coming from inside the house for at least the last four years and then some. I concur 100% with Adrian. I think it was premature for the executives and law enforcement to come out and basically say,

according to their information, this has no relationship to terrorism. Let's be very clear. First of all, terrorism is the utilization of violence, criminality, coercion for political ends. That doesn't mean that the individual is foreign, anything else. Domestic terrorism is a reality, and white males are the biggest portrayers of that. So there has to, be a real investigation before anybody can conclusively say this was not somehow politically motivated. And you have to imagine if you intentionally try to attack anybody at the Capitol, how would that not have a political motivation somewhere? Yeah, what, I guess what is the alternative that it was personal?

I don't know, I mean, look, we can say, okay, clearly the ideological motivation is more in line with terrorism than other descriptors, but we'd prefer to keep terrorism for events that are likely to produce a larger body count. Like we could have a rhetorical like conversation like that, but there's information that could potentially come out. It seems like sure, it was a much lower like lower scale attack, but you don't attack the capital because you don't have any sort of political motivation. And we honestly, we don't know. There's very little we know about the individual. There has been a bit of information about them. I don't know that it's necessarily company policy. I don't read the names of these people generally. But this individual was armed

with a large blade. People are saying it was identified as a follower of the nation of Islam. But that's the initial information. We don't have any other information about what the person believes politically, whether they've been particularly active recently. What we do know is that This country seems to have, its politics and the violence are more closely intertwined than at any point that I can remember, at least in my life of covering news. And having these events sort of occurring back to back, I don't know how much more information I need to be worried about that. I feel like regardless of the motivation, it's worrying. Right. And let's keep it 100. Let's keep it 100. Because you said something real powerful there, John. We have this connection

now between violence and politics. The truth is we have a reconnection between politics and violence because the genesis of this country started with politics and violence. The colonization of this country was politics and violence. There was a separation for a period of time, or at least optically a separation for a period of time. But even in the 60s, it was politics and violence. So now you have the folding of those elements on top of each other once again. And let's be real. President, the former president of the United States, Donald J. Trump, he had a lot to do with inviting this element back to mainstream political conversation, mainstream political narratives. And now you see the remnants of that continuing

beyond his presidency in variations all across the country. Yeah. Well, while a lot of members of Congress, senators were not in the area somewhere. And we actually have a bit of video of Representative Rokana, who had called in to CNN, talk about the experience. And I want to show you a bit of that video now. The question we have to ask is what is happening in our country where we have people coming in trying to use violence and knives and arms into the part of

American democracy, the monument of American democracy. I mean, this is what our country was founded to prevent violence to say we solve disputes with debate and reasoned dialogue. And something is really just wrong with our nation. Yeah, I think that's pretty much indisputable. I mean, there's just a glorification of violence. On the right, not only that, like Lindsey Graham, you know, doing his little video of him shooting in Air 15 because military grade weapons are the most fun hobby in the world. But the incredible defensiveness towards towards the movement. And again, I don't know if this individual from today is a part of the

movement that attacked the Capitol on January 6th, but this big and apparently growing movement of people who feel like violence is an alternative, is a legitimate tool in politics. How much defense did they receive from people like Ron Johnson and Lindsey Graham and people in the media like Tucker Carlson, implying that we should be more understanding towards the people that that tried to hunt down and murder politicians. And so then they go back out there and some have been tracked down and some have been arrested, but others have not and others have been motivated by what they saw on January 6th. And so how many little ticking time bombs have we got sprinkled throughout the country now at this point,

ready to attack the capital or a state capital or something like that? Yep, and it seems that with this almost, it's recognizing that there's a breakdown in our society, you know, because the courts were created so that people could result disputes without resorting to violence. And the fact that people aren't using the courts because maybe they feel that they're corrupt, or they're not going to their political representative, their member of Congress, to lobby or to try to push to make change, it's this ideology out there that's letting people know that you can't really change how the corruption has impacted the system in which we live. And thus, they are resorting to violent means, they are embracing conspiracy theories.

They feel like they don't have a lot of control over what's going on or avenues to change it, and thus they are going for illegitimate means. And if we do not change the mentality and the understanding and the view of the vast majority of those in this nation, we are going to end up just essentially imploding. Well, we are going to take our first break. We come back, lots more news to get into, including the potential battle that's brewing over this infrastructure Bill, battle coming from multiple sides, actually. So we're going to be back with that in just a few. We need to talk about a relatively new show called

Un-F-Inging the Republic, or UNFTR. As a Young Turks fan, you already know that the government, the media, and corporations are constantly peddling lies that serve the interests of the rich and powerful. But now there's a podcast dedicated to unraveling those lies, debunking the conventional wisdom. In each episode of Un-B-The-Republic, or UNFTR, the host delves into a different historical episode or topic that's generally misunderstood or purposely obfuscated by the so-called powers that be. Featuring in-depth research, razor-sharp commentary, and just the right amount of vulgarity, the UNFTR podcast takes a sledgehammer to what you thought you knew about some of the nation's most sacred historical cows.

But don't just take my word for it. The New York Times described UNFTR as consistently compelling and educational, aiming to challenge conventional wisdom and upend the historical narratives that were taught in school. For as the great philosopher Yoda once put it, You must unlearn what you have learned. And that's true whether you're in Jedi training or you're uprooting and exposing all the propaganda and disinformation you've been fed over the course of your lifetime. So search for UNFDR in your podcast app today,

and get ready to get informed, angered, and entertained, all at the same time. Welcome everyone to our little break, it's just being, it's just you know, we can just talk, we can just see what's going on. Like, for instance, that over on Twitch, Lumi Roo rated us. Thank you very much. for that. The Progressive Defender gifted five subs. Crazy Hawaiian MPA gifted a sub as well. Thank you to all of you for helping out. We're Bain's CEO, subscribe for the third month in a row. Thank you for that. And McBee gave 1,000 bits and said the most infuriating part of all of this violence is deep down knowing Tucker Carlson, Fox, Trump, Hannity, etc. are the source of the violence. They are. Yeah, we all just pretend that they are not and it's just crazy people. Perhaps because listening to bull crap made them crazy.

Well, look, I think they're certainly activators. They've helped to produce this aura of respectability and patriotism to injecting a bit of violence into politics. There's always people in America that are ready to, that are ready to kill other people. We're, and as, you know, we're born in violence. What's that? I'm one of them, please. You let me know I'm locked and loaded. I got you. Okay, well, I'm let's be careful. I'm glad you're over computer. Yeah. Whatever. Anyway, Gabby says in the member comments, I believe this is a country whose capital suffers

terrorist attacks every other month is usually regarded by history as a failed state. Yep, and what do we get? We get a few thoughts and prayers, and that's it. Tony Montana says, from our history in recent events, could it be argued that the United States has been built upon terrorism. Yeah, I think so. You're not allowed to teach that in certain states anymore. They've banned it, but a case can be made.

Let's see. Carlson is a lying mother Tucker says, why does law enforcement continue to do the PR work for criminals? There has been no investigation, so they have no grounds to speculate. I would also point out that they never seem to point out when a criminal is Christian, but they always sure to mention it when the PURP is Muslim, Even if they have no evidence to suggest any political or religious motives. Yeah, I don't know exactly where they got that information from.

I guess, yeah, that's true. They would never point out like what church a Christian went to. Yeah, it's almost like how it was the thought that white is the default, and thus they won't acknowledge white, but they will acknowledge if it was a person of color. Yeah. So I assume that's why they do that. That and it gives you the implicit thought that this person must be brown or not one of us or inherently violent, so on and so forth. Exactly.

Colorado Blue Blazer Regular says, I know it's kind of pointless, but why the hell are Democrats so incompetent of politics? Why the hell doesn't Pelosi make every single Republican Matt Gates? Ours keep defending that predator, so now every single one of them is Gates. Never stop saying it, never back down when they cry. The ours do it constantly for spurious reasons. Kitty Hill, Al Franken, because it works. forced them to play defense for a strange or for a change. Yeah, she seems, her response so far seems to indicate that she thinks that he's going down

no matter what she does and that she wants to just step back and watch it. That's what I thought. But yeah, they should definitely be talking about it. He was immediately defended by other reps. In any event, we do have more news to get to, so we will be back right after this. Thank you. Hey, everybody back to the news, Irolau'll know, Roshad and Adrian, and we've got so much, Welcome back to the news. It's me, John Irola, Rashad, and Adrian. And we've got so much news to get to. So why don't we jump into our next topic? We now have some basic information about the upcoming infrastructure bill. And we also have a bit about what the Republican Party is going to say and do as we get closer to that process. We have some statements from Mitch McConnell, the Senate minority leader, never gets sick of saying that. He says, we have some big philosophical differences. And that's going to make. it more and more difficult for us to reach bipartisan agreements, something that he always works

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Because of course the taxes are going to be on some corporations and the highest income individuals. So he is going to leap to their defense. He is going to try to imply that this around two, two and a half, $2.2 trillion infrastructure bill has nothing good in it. It is just tax increases. What do you think about the battle that's coming? Adrian, what are your thoughts? I think that the battle will largely be split along party lines and extremely unproductive, if you want to talk about unproductive. It's unfortunate because you have the GOP largely standing for corporations and preventing that additional taxation that would help us continue to build our country up and to use those

resources. But unfortunately, because they're protecting that wonderful kind of wage income gap and any kind of class division there. I don't think that it's going to be in any way a productive exchange. Yeah, the only issue that Musk out Mitch has with this is the fact that it rolls back the 2017 GOP taxation rule for the wealthy corporations and 1%. That's the philosophical difference. This is a good bill. This is, to me, the bill doesn't go far enough, but it has some good things in the bill. And we keep calling it an infrastructure bill, and it has some traditional infrastructure elements, $165 billion for rolls, $161 billion for rolls, $165 billion for public transportation.

That's normal stuff. But then it has things like expanding Medicare for child care providers. It goes on to address climate issues. So it has a lot in here. And the reason why it must have a lot in it is because you only get a few bites. at the political apple when you have this filibuster U.S. Senate, right? And so they have to cram things in these massive bills. Biden has to push it, push it hard. You're going to have to get it passed through reconciliation. And hopefully you can keep all of the Democrats in tow and make this

happen. But you can't compromise with folks that literally don't give a damn by the other side of this conversation. So trying to get them on your team and on your side to negotiate this bill is a waste of time. And I hope Joe Biden has learned that his few days at the White House. Yeah, and look, we'll see how the process goes and how many Republicans even pretend like they might get involved in the process. But we're not purely hypothesizing. Not a single Republican supported the COVID-Aid bill in the midst of a terrible pandemic. So we have some evidence from which to determine the likelihood that there will be bipartisanship. But that said, there is a split between Democrats. So you have people like Joe Biden saying, I'm going to bring Republicans into the

Oval Office, listen to them, what they have to say and be open to other ideas like doing nothing. We'll have a good faith negotiation with any Republican who wants to help get this done, but we have to get it done. So he does stress getting it done. Pramila Jayapal representative says let's not water down a bill for a party that's not actually interested in bipartisanship or wait for Republicans to have some awakening on climate change. Let's move with the urgency and boldness. that this moment calls for. Let's go even bigger. This package can and should be substantially larger

while investing in green infrastructure, renewable energy and more. It's what we need in this moment. And I sort of feel like it's so unlikely that many Republicans will get on board. Maybe none of them will. But I know inevitably they're going to claim that they're going to want some of the credit for it.

I saw a tweet from Madison Cawthorne talking about some of the funds that were going to different health clinics in his district. from the COVID aid bill that he voted against. Seems a little bit dishonest, but this is going to be even bigger. Like so much money is going to go to so many different areas. These bridges are not all in dem districts. The roads are.

The rural broadband probably mostly isn't. That's going to be going to red areas of the country. And it's almost certainly not going to get any support from Republicans. No, it's not. And kind of to piggyback on what Rashad said, you know, the Republicans are really objecting to raising that corporate raising that corporate tax rate to 28% because, hey, Trump got it down to 21 from 35 back in 2017. And Trump had really pushed the thought that these corporate tax cuts would increase

the average household income by some $4,000. That's not true. There was a 2019 study by the International Monetary Fund where they looked at who was benefiting most from these corporate tax cuts, and they looked at Fortune 500 companies. They found that a whopping 80% of any kind of increased cash flow from these cuts in 2018 just went back into investor pockets. They did buybacks, dividends, asset planning adjustments. And since the majority of what these corporate stocks, they're just held by the wealthy and foreign investors, you know, this windfall business is really about funneling more money to the wealthy. And that's not something the GOP is willing to let go of. And thus it will allow everyone to suffer by going against this bill.

And this is what pisses me off about Democrats. What Adrian just said, Democrats have no true messaging around it. The majority of Americans who hear this, they will say, hmm, I don't like that. If you look at item for item that Democrats support, a large majority of the American population supports it. But Democrats have failed on the messaging angle of any of this. They can't get on the same page. And then when they do get on the same page, they don't. message repeatedly. It becomes fragmented and disjointed. And this is where I blame

leadership in the Democratic Party for failing to properly message. Republicans have mastered this. That's why they can tell a lie and keep telling that lie. And over and over again, people start believing the lie. Messaging is real simple. It's repetition. That's all it is. When you repeat a message, it becomes a brand. Brands are almost, you can't defeat a brand. You can defeat a message, but you can't defeat a brand. A brand is strong. And that's what the Republican Party has been able to do with their base, Democrats that failed to do so.

And they have not only their base, but they also have independence and moderates who are willing to listen to a common sense message like that. So, Rashad, are you implying that build back better isn't a rock solid brand identity? Man, it's lame as hell. I mean, this would be the time for it with infrastructure. No, it doesn't move anything. Yeah, no, look, I'm going to keep an eye on his approval rating on different topics. He's, you know, he's still in that honeymoon period, but that said he's doing well on most issues, obviously not the border for some reason. I can't imagine why.

But we'll see, we'll see. The COVID-Aid bill was very popular despite Republican efforts for months to demonize around it. So we'll see. Now, in terms of what you could message around, like we said, I believe probably most people who might appear on this show would be in favor of massively expanding the size of this and fingers crossed, maybe that'll happen. But even in the $2 trillion bill, it would rebuild 20,000 miles of rebuilt roads, repair 10 of the most economically important bridges, eliminate lead pipes and service lines for the nation's water supplies, which feels like that by itself, deserve. quite a bit more coverage than it's received so far, considering how many years activists have been pushing for that to be a goal. It's intended to do it. Shift to cleaner energy sources, modernize the electric grid, create millions of jobs, create half a million electric charging stations, resubsidize electric vehicles. We could just throw out a bunch of stuff like that. And that said it being $2 trillion over a decade, 1% of GDP, far smaller than other big scale infrastructure bills in America's past.

That's right. So that's what we have so far. I am curious, do you think there is a chance that once the House and the Senate get a hold of this, that it comes out of this process bigger than it's going in? If it does come out of the process bigger, it's because the Republicans are going to want certain things in it. And for some reason, we're going to be in a position where we need to give it to them. And will that earn any Republican votes, do you think? Um, possibly. I don't know. I don't think it'll earn enough. I don't see this bill passing without just a simple majority. You got to go ahead and go through the process, file it under budget reconciliation to get your simple majority.

I even think then you're going to have a tough, tough time getting a simple majority on this bill because of the conservatives that act like Democrats we have in the U.S. Senate. Exactly. Yeah, I just hope the parliamentarian is in a good mood when this bill goes forward because the future of America's infrastructure might come down to their recommendation, which we will treat as if it is like an adamantium promise. Wasn't that wow, man, like all of a sudden, like everything was based on the parliamentarian who, by the way, is not a constitutional position, it's not even a statutory position. It's, once again, it's an office rule, and the person serves as someone who makes recommendations,

not even as a director or executive at any level. And then Democrats are like, oh, I can't do anything. The parliamentarian said so. Yeah, well, it's useful for some people. Excuses are useful, especially when someone of the title provides it. In any event, why don't we jump to our next topic? We're going to mix things up a little bit and talk a bit about the border. Joe Biden has received a lot of criticism over his border policy.

I think it's fair to say the vast majority coming from Republicans. But he has his critics among the Democratic Party and on the left as well. And AOC has been one of the most outspoken ones. So I want to show you a bit of video recently of Representative Ocasio Cortez talking about some of the conditions that led to what we're seeing right now, zooming out a bit from the situation at the border as we see it today. We have this surge, which people are saying, and we have to address that term because it is wrong. And people are pushing back, you know, when we talk about this.

And when they say that, the reason why we shouldn't use that term is because this is not an invasion. And in fact, when you want to talk about that, we should be owning the fact that U.S. foreign policy has contributed to the destabilization of these regions and of the very countries that are now mired in a lot of violence that these families and these children are fleeing. So we cannot use that term not to police it, not to be politically correct, but because we know what the level and the steps of dehumanization lead to. We just experienced this last year. And I'm not going to allow the Stephen Miller's of the world to pretend that he didn't do what he did. And to act like this is the same. Exactly.

So look, I think she's done a very good job of laying out some of the differences in the policy. But that said she has also talked about the conditions there and described them as currently, as barbaric, as horrifying. And so she is hardly a sort of just like getting in line Biden defender on this. And I think that's what we need is someone who can acknowledge the splits from the past where they exist, but also acknowledge when they might not be as big as some might want to imply that they are. What do you both think? Yeah, I think we are, as AOC seem to acknowledge, we're out there causing some form of chaos. And then when the consequences come our way, we're like, whoa, we're not ready for this.

So we're trying to reject it or act like we had nothing to do with it when the role we played helped enable the situation. And knowing that the Biden administration was what on pace to take in more than 17,000 unaccompanied minors in March, that's wild and I guess greater than the record set before in May 2019. And we need to be prepared for these consequences of our actions abroad and not try to pretend that it should not happen or that it's a deficiency necessarily innate in other countries. as opposed to a direct result of things that we've done. Yeah, we have a question to answer in this country. Are we going to be a nation that's transactional? Or are we going to be a nation that's transformational? When AOC talks, she talks from the heart.

She talks from a position of righteousness. Right is right. Wrong is wrong. And she's labeled a radical by those who do not talk from the position of right is right, wrong is wrong. Politics has become so ingrained in double talk and corruption that when a person comes to the capital with a clear moral compass, that person is problematic and that person is extreme. If we were to eliminate the politics of it all and just act as if we're having a simple conversation with AOC, We would say AOC is right and this other foolishness is wrong. But once you provide the context and the lens of politics, all of a sudden, right can be argued as wrong and wrong can be argued as right.

I appreciate the politics of AOC. I think it's the politics of progression. And I think eventually our entire country and the narrative of this country will get to that point if we make the right decision while we're right here at the split in the road. because we are in the fight of the soul of this nation. Well, why don't we demonstrate the difference between right and wrong, in a quick little back and forth. So let's start with a bit more right. It's Friday.

Let's start on a good foot. So EOC tweeted, a lot of people who are just now suddenly horrified of the dehumanizing conditions at our border are the same folks who dehumanize immigrants and helped build these cages in the first place. When we tried to stop this infrastructure over a year ago, we were overruled by both parties. And that was opportunistically jumped on by Ted Cruz, a guy who all of a sudden really cares about the border, saying AOC explains the real Dem position, abolish ice, full open borders, which would make the Biden border crisis, which she is desperately trying to turn into a hashtag, even worse. She says nothing else works. Really? Last year we had the lowest illegal immigration. At TYT, we frequently talk about all the ways that big tech companies are taking control of our online lives, constantly monitoring us, and storing. and selling our data, but that doesn't mean we have to let them. It's possible to stay anonymous

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And as I alluded to on the damage report, I can't tell what's difference between 2020 and 2021. There's probably nothing systemic about the year that influences international migratory patterns and all of that. But anyway, she responded saying, Ted, this is pretty rich coming from someone who fled their own home and responsibilities during an environmental crisis to cross the border and seek refuge in Mexico. Also, you funded cages, expanded cages, and yet you're complaining about cages. You have no policy, just puff, which I have tried to love more and found that I cannot. It is just perfect. And yeah, so he took his little trip to the border and he hid in the brush. And then him and Lindsey Graham took a little ride on a boat and they put on vests and they were strapped in to make sure that they don't fall over the edge and everything.

And suddenly they really care about the border. They don't talk much about any of the individuals or what would happen to those individuals if they were moved from the bad circumstance they're in in these. in these facilities to then being thrown out of the border as they would if they could. But they want you to believe that they care about it, that it's something serious for them. No, they don't care at all. They want to continue to do as they please, have the rules only apply to other people. And just like you had acknowledged, you know, in him crossing the border when Texas was going through dire straits. So he could go enjoy the benefits that are south of the Rio Grande. It's just, it's another, another example of the fact that we essentially have a nation that survives on hypocrisy,

or at least in terms of our leadership. And they're not here looking to help the people at all or to make change, but rather to continue to fill their coffers and to play this us them game. Yeah, I lost all respect. And it's not a lot of people I can say this about, but I lost all respect for Ted Cruz when he let Donald Trump talk about his wife. And then he comes out hardcore on television saying, don't talk about my wife, this is blah, blah, blah, like a tough guy. And then he becomes the greatest bootlicker of Donald Trump before the presidency and during the presidency.

So I lost a lot of respect for that guy back then. Now he has the audacity to talk trash to anyone, especially AOC. He does not want to smoke from AOC. And Ted Cruz, one of the most lack of a better word, hated individuals even inside of his own party because of his smugness and his arrogance and his unwillingness to believe that there's another way other than his way. So I don't like talking about the guy much what we have to because he's in the news, but I have no respect for that dude. Yeah, yeah. Every move with him is obviously some calculated thing that he thinks is going to benefit. him in the future politically. And sometimes instincts are right. I mean, he is still the senator, regrettably of Texas. But he's just such a clearly, nobody likes him. He's the Mac Gates of the

Senate, honestly. Nobody in his party even likes him. And I get that, so he greets the new president comes in, they do a COVID aid bill that's that's quite popular. Vaccination is going ahead of schedule, which is popular. The infrastructure bill, once people start talking about it's probably going to be pretty popular. So they need something. But I'm, but I'm But honestly, shipping a whole bunch of Republicans putting them on a little dingy and floating them on a river, that just to me reminds me of their immigration policy, which they may not seem to understand this, wasn't popular. People did not like the Trump administration immigration policy. And this is their best thing that they can distract with. It's just his instincts just really seem off in this case.

I'm glad that there's a lot of attention being put on the border, even by Republicans, because maybe some, Some conservatives watching this when they see some of the footage will for the first time actually care for the human suffering and not just think of it as some sort of invading army storming our borders. Maybe we'll get a little bit of that, a little bit of accidental empathy. But if it leads to a better policy, if it does put pressure on Biden, that's a good thing because Biden is wrong. He's being like it's an unprecedented number. I get it. They're being too slow. They have basically unlimited funds. They can house people in better conditions than they are right now. And so Ted Cruz is awful, he's just the worst person, but hey, maybe accidentally he can be a part of accomplishing something good here. I doubt it. Anyway, yeah, I was like, okay, yeah, he's still Ted Cruz, but in any event, we are going to take our second break. When we come back, there is another Republican congressman who is being just burned to the ground once again by his own family. We will give you that footage after this. I'm going to be able to be able to be.

I'm going to be able to be. I'm going to be able to be. You know, I'm going to be able to be. I'm going to be. And so. You know, I'm going to be able to be. Hey everybody, let's see what you've got to be.

Hey everybody, let's see what you've gotten up to recently. Eclectic miscellaneous in the member comment says another attack on the capital and more deaths should lead to a serious discussion of the systemic causes for Americans feeling like their government is against them and an attempt to tone down dangerous rhetoric on the right. But instead, the only thing we can hope is that the police aren't even more brutal now towards non-whites and that the surveillance state doesn't get even worse. Good point, good point. In the super chat, Umberto Morero says there's only so many heroes like Edwin Goodman. Yes, well look, I mean these two capital police officer just gave their life trying to stop this car.

So spare that in mind, we I think better than most point out when the cops do the wrong thing, but sometimes they do die doing their job. And it's sad. Okay, Jan Elephant says, Happy Friday, TYT, loving this power panel. Will you guys be discussing MLB drama? People are defending the anti-voting rights bill now because they'd rather drink crappy beer rather than acknowledge blatant voter suppression. I'm not sure if that's in the second hour possibly. That is a really interesting story, though.

So I hope that we can make time for it. I also wanted to thank Just Freakin Ortega for gifting a sub as well as tell me what to put. Thank you to both of you. And Danielle for resubscribing for the second month, says I love TYT and I look forward to watching every day. Thank you, Danielle. Ozal, subscribe to the 10th month and says, I love my community here on Twitch. Ozol, thank you so much. We really do appreciate that. There's more comments. We'll get to them in future breaks. Thank you, everyone who's been sending them in. And we've got more news for you coming right for this.

Welcome back to the power panel with myself and Adrian and Rashad, we've got a couple more stories for you. and leading the second hour, switching it up on a Friday, and a Casparian is here. She's actually going to be leading that hour. Should be really awesome. Can't wait to see that. But before that, let's jump into something a little bit fun, if kind of sad. The family of GOP representative Paul Gosar are once again calling him out, as they did with an ad when initially tracked it this time for his promotion of the big lie.

Let's watch. There is no one member of Congress more responsible with attack on the Capitol than Congressman Paul Gossar. My name is Jennifer Gossar. My name is Tim Gossar. My name is David Gossar. I am Paul Gossar's brother. Gossar is my brother. My brother.

He should be held accountable for all the lies he told. That led to the attack on the Capitol on January 6th. Immediately following Fox News calling Arizona for Biden. There were rallies outside America. Copa County Clerk's office. And Paul was right in the middle of them. He's saying things like, we're going to fight to the bitter end. This is our alamo. This is our alamo. Paul's one of the first people to tell the big lie about Dominion voting machines. The division seems to be, he said, which was changing Republican votes to Democrat. And he tried to sell that lie every chance he could.

He should have criminal consequences. And if he's found guilty, he should go to jail. No, those are, like we're used to seeing politicians being criticized and there, they're bringing the receipts. He did spread the big lie over and over and over again, like so many of his colleagues did. But there is something, and we were getting into this during the break, there is something about seeing it coming from family members that, oh, it just kind of makes you a little bit uncomfortable, or at least for me. What did you think? Oh, it doesn't make me uncomfortable at all. It makes me feel, have a lot more confidence in humanity, you know, because too often do we see people.

whether it's their kin or their company or whatever, not speak out and not say anything despite knowing that the person is problematic in various ways. And so to see these brothers and sisters band together to speak truth, knowing that it will come from an influential place, since generally, you know, you stand by your family 100%, blood thicker than water, you know, business, it really says that great, their moral compasses have not been, you know, derailed by virtue of the fact that they are related to this individual. Yeah, John, I have some cousins, man. They still owe me money.

They're not going to get invited to the barbecue. But here's a guarantee. They're not going to sit and produce a commercial against me, right? What kind of POS is this individual to where your family will literally do a commercial against you and basically saying the commercial, you're a killer? and you need to be in prison. And let's not forget that back in 2018, six of his siblings,

not just three, but six of his siblings endorsed his political opponent. This guy is beyond problematic. And when you hear his rhetoric, of course it lines up. And I agree with Adrian. I'm actually thankful that someone, even though it's a blood relative

or blood relatives, they're able to see the kind of destruction that this individual can bring to a country, and they've decided not really to break rank, they've decided to unite. He broke rank, and they have launched a campaign once again against them. They were unsuccessful two years ago. They may be successful now. Perhaps. I'm glad that they're doing it. I'm glad that, I don't think that we actually read it, I should have. In the previous story of AOC and Ted Cruz sort of going back and forth, she reminded him that his resignation was about 85 days overdue.

It's just a reminder that like, yeah, they, they spent months trying to overturn the election, doing media appearances, court things, all of that. State legislatures voting to try to take over the process. They sent rival electors. Like, they did all of that. And then after all of that and all of it failing, then on the sixth, they said their people came attacked. And then after that, their representatives and senators still tried to vote to overturn it. And it hasn't mattered at all. Some of the people who were dumb enough to try to overthrow

the election at the Capitol that wore horns and stuff, they got arrested. But those who wore ties, there hasn't been any consequences whatsoever. And that just seems so fundamentally wrong, that after all of this, why not do it in the future? What's the worst second? Why accept an election in the future if there's no consequences to trying to overthrow it? If the only thing that determines whether democracy exists is just raw power, then just try it until you eventually succeed. And that's my fear is that they're going to come out of this not feeling chastised or worried about how the country might respond if they try to do it again, but just fire it up to learn from this experience.

experience and try to be a bit more effective in the future. Yeah, because how much have they suffered? Because even these individuals who did get arrested for the January 6th insurrection, I don't know of anyone saying I'm leaving the Republican Party or I'm no longer going to support this ideology. If anything, it almost solidified their beliefs even more. And that's a dangerous thing. But the reality is that there are no consequences.

There is no deterrent, as you've noted. And so I do very much appreciate these family members speaking up and speaking out. against their brother. Yeah, and it's bigger than the election. They were trying to overturn democracy. And it's baffling to me that these individuals that attempted to overthrow overturn democracy, those individuals who voted to not accept the constitutionally mandated electors, and those who decided to launch these frivolous court hearings saying that

somehow democracy was wrong, how would they still part of the mainstream conversation. This is an attack on the country, and the individuals who got arrested for committing those acts of terrorism, they're getting arrested for real simple charges. Many of them, most of them, are not going to serve any real jail time. This is treason. This is an attack on the nation. It's more than an attack on an election. It's an attack on democracy. And if you do not get this under control, you're right, John, you're right. This will likely happen again because these guys are getting the minimal punishment for doing the ultimate sin. against a nation that they're citizens of. Yeah, and while we're reminding people of little lingering things, there are just a few things.

I have not seen any updates on this. I apologize if I somehow missed it, or maybe six months from that we'll have an answer. But did any Congresspeople do tours in the lead-up? Did that ever happen? Was there no camera footage? I guess there's no cameras in the building to check. And wasn't a Congresswoman's panic button taken out?

Yeah. We heard about that and then that was it. I have not heard anything else about that or who would have been in a position to do that. It's really weird how much is just like, I guess we're moving on as a country. Okay, well, we are moving on as a show, though, because we've one more topic I want to get into. Maybe it will provide a bit of inspiration to us as we continue to try to move this country in the right direction. We will see. Germany's largest trade union has apparently signed a deal that would allow its workers

to, in theory, move to a four-day work week. And I want to talk about this, especially because we've been seeing some experimentation like this in a couple different countries. And overall, just these, like from the American perspective, amazingly labor-friendly bits of legislation passing across in different countries around the world. So first of all, starting in Germany, their largest trade union, IG Metal, agreed to a 2.3% wage increase to be paid either in full or as part of a switch to a four-day week in a key industrial region, setting the benchmark for 3.9 million metal and engineering workers nationwide. Their salaries will increase from July, but the additional money will not be paid out until February next year as 18.4% of a single monthly salary according to the company, the trade union, I should say. An equivalent payment in February 2023 will be worth 27.6%, and there will be a one-time coronavirus premium of 500 euros slightly more in dollars. So I don't know if it's actually determined exactly how that's going to work, but it could be, I would say, larger than the vast

majority of other international experiments we've seen so far of switching over to a four-day work week. And I don't think that I've spoken about my passion for a four-day work week with either of you before. So I'm very curious what you think about both this experiment and other countries looking into this as a possible option, especially coming out of the experience of 2020. I think it's incredibly wise. We do have this nation that's built on capitalism and really exploiting the worker. But the thing is that there are consequences for that, whether it's having poor health care, running yourself into the ground, or just not enjoying any kind of quality of life. And it seems that Germany is really investing in its people by not only

making sure that they have adequate pay, but also that they're not working or living to work. And as we see things like New Zealand raising that minimum wage to $20 an hour and also increasing that top tax rate for the country's highest earners to 39%. We see nations that are investing in their people and making sure that their lives are quality. And we look at the quality of life index, Germany and New Zealand are in the top 10. The United States, not the case. They're number 15 and they couldn't break the top 10 if we wanted to. Yeah, surprise they were 15. Yeah, I know.

I was too. I feel like we bribed our way to get a higher number. Because I don't think that that's accurate. You know, happy workers, happy country. I applaud what they've been able to do here. But I'm also reminded that we have to chip away at the extremism of capitalism. Capitalism is praised as some great holy grail by many in the conservative movement. The reality of that capitalism led to a lot of other isms like racism.

It led to slavery, the concept of free labor, and a lot of destruction killing that happened because of capitalism. Capitalism only functions at its best when there's a permanent underclass because you must maintain a poor working underclass in order for the extremism of capitalism to flourish. and any chipping away at that across the seas or domestically is a good day on this planet. Yeah, and let's skim across a couple of other countries that are experiments in these areas. So almost a fifth of companies in the UK are considering bringing in a four-day working week after the pandemic, according to a survey by B the Business, a charity that focuses on productivity in the workplace. The hope is that it would boost productivity, but it seems that some are already onto it. In fact, 5% of small and medium-sized businesses, 300,000 are ahead of the game and already

have a four-day week. The Spanish government also, we talked about this on the damage report a few weeks ago, have begun this sort of experiment in one area of switching over to a four-day work week. And it just, it depresses me every time the topic comes up that it's still considered so radical, that best case scenario you get a little experiment. Like, how is it baked into the physical constants of the universe that best case scenario, two days off. That's all mammals need. Why? Why? Why? Why after thousands of years of toil, we finally got a labor movement strong enough to give us two days? And that's good for the next few millennia. Why? We're way more productive than we were. And we could certainly use the time off. We have a culture that's

started to take seriously this concept of wellness and all of that. But even some workers respond as if it's insane when you talk about switching to four days on, three days off. I don't understand why that's considered such a radical position still in 2021. We have toiled for the better part of a century since the weekend was established. When do we earn that third day, if ever? That's what I ask America. We don't want the third day. Our identity comes from what we do.

You know, when people, you ask people, you know, tell me about yourself. First thing, what do they do? What's their job? We live with this mindset that our purpose in life is to labor. And so I could very much see most Americans kind of being off put by the idea of having that extra day off because they wouldn't know what to do with themselves. And what defines them wouldn't be activated. It's unfortunate. I'm not one of those individuals. So if anyone wants to hire me for like four days and then three days, I'm down. And here's the reality. Like people already kind of take a four day work week anyway. Nobody pulls it all the way on Friday. Okay. Nobody goes all out on Friday. There's one day, or maybe Friday is not your day. Maybe Monday is the day you don't really go all in, right? Everyone kind of does it. Everyone has that one day where it's like, I'm going to just double down on this day, but I'm going to take it easy on this one. So the concept has always been there, but you're right, there's an indoctrination about the five-day work week and the Saturday, Sunday weekend. And what is indoctrination?

And indoctrination simply means you are unable to critically challenge what you believe. And we have believed that this five-day work week is such the crim day la crem of how to do work in America that we have become indoctrinated to the idea of it and not able to critically think about how we can still get the bottom line done with the four-day work week. Yeah. Finally, I want to mention, I want to give a bit more detail to something that Adrian brought up. And that was the recent minimum wage increase in New Zealand, up to $20 an hour. And they've increased the top tax rate for the country's highest earners to 39%. The government estimates the minimum wage increase, a rise of $1.14 per hour will affect up to 175,500 workers and increase wages across the economy by $216 million. Now, this is New Zealand dollars.

So that works out to slightly more than $14 an hour. But that is the new national minimum wage. I can remember when America stood on the precipice of a $15 an hour minimum wage, but then the parliamentarian got in a crabby mood and so we didn't end up getting it. But maybe someday. And this, by the way, is coming just a couple of weeks at most after New Zealand passed their enhanced maternity, paternity, and bereavement leave policy, which is just amazing. There's really nothing like it in the world.

And I've tried to find out if anyone in any of progressive politicians are working on something like that. We supposedly have a moment now with Biden becoming president where maternity and paternity leave could actually get passed. I would like to see us take some inspiration from New Zealand and make sure that their various components of bereavement leave are included as a part of that. Yeah, that would be really awesome. And we saw how New Zealand handled COVID-19. Man, I got a girlfriend who met a New Zealander married him. And she's like, I'm out. She lives there now. They got big bucks, but got big bucks and now, you know, living the healthy life.

It's just, we're just sitting here across the pond just being like, okay, I'm glad you're not going to die from COVID like a lot of us have. Yeah. Well, that is regrettably all that we have for this hour, but I loved doing the hour with you. I've been watching the live response and it's incredibly positive. In the meantime, before we do a power panel once again, where can people watch more of both of your work? I'm on Twitter at Adrian Law, Instagram at Adrian Lawrence. Yep, you can find me at Rashad underscore Richie, IG and Twitter, and check me out on Twitch. That's exciting. Comes up right after the damage report on Mondays. I love being the lead

into that program. Rashad's show is a bit different. He likes to really get into it with people on the right sometimes and have a little debate. It's exciting. I like it. In any event, thank everybody for watching this hour. Anna Kasparian takes over after this break, so you're definitely not going to want to miss that. 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.combe slash t-y-t. I'm your host, Shank Huger, and I'll see you soon.