The Young Turks - "Class War" Crybabies

Episode Date: August 10, 2023

FBI fatally shoots man who threatened to assassinate Biden. Abortion rights won big in Ohio. Here’s why it wasn’t particularly close. Forbes: Meet the billionaire who built a fortune "price-gouging" customers like the Pentagon. Unions win big after the White House unveils a wage rule for federal projects. Sean Hannity attacks the bottom 50 percent of income earners for taking from the rich. HOST: Ana Kasparian (@AnaKasparian) SUBSCRIBE on YOUTUBE: ☞ https://www.youtube.com/user/theyoungturks FACEBOOK: ☞ https://www.facebook.com/theyoungturks TWITTER: ☞ https://www.twitter.com/theyoungturks INSTAGRAM: ☞ https://www.instagram.com/theyoungturks TIKTOK: ☞ https://www.tiktok.com/@theyoungturks 👕 Merch: https://shoptyt.com 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. Woo! It's up! What's up, everyone to get What's up, everyone? I'm your host Anna Casparan. You're watching TYT. And of course you're going to get some spicy takes today. You're going to get excellent

good excellent news because the main show team brings it and they bring it daily. So we're going to talk a little bit about some breaking news, more death threats against President Joe Biden. Unfortunately, the individual making those threats has been shot in a raid conducted by law enforcement. We'll get to those details in just a moment. Later in the show, one of my favorite stories today really sheds light on why it is that we spend so much money on defense. If you think that every dollar is needed in order to protect national security, of course you don't think that, you're watching the young Turks, you're very aware of the waste in the Pentagon, but just understand that the inflated prices that are charged to the Pentagon

by these private defense contractors is really at the heart of why we spend so much money on defense every single year. We're also gonna talk a little bit about, you know, What else are we going to talk about? Let me see. Well, we're going to talk about the update on the Ohio special election. That's one of my other favorite stories today. Just a lot to get to. And of course, in the second hour, John Iderola will be joining me to lighten things up a little bit. But also talk about some other news, including basically, you know, what is currently happening with, I'm forgetting. Oh, there's the Senate elections in Arizona. Carrie Lake has basically, announced that she is running for a Senate seat. So we'll talk about that and how she holds up against Ruben Gallego, the Democrat, and Kirsten Cinema, the incumbent independent and corporate, you know, darling. So a lot to get to. You can support the show by going to t-y-t.com slash join and become a member, or you can click on the join button and become a member that way if you're watching us on YouTube. We're going to have an awesome bonus episode for our members,

members only of course, and if you are on dealing with some tough times and don't have the resources to become a member, but you still want to support the show, easy way to do it is to hit that like button and share our stream. Get the word out, get more eyeballs watching the show. We would definitely appreciate that. With that said, here's the big breaking news story, and it's an unfortunate one, something that we keep seeing happen over and over again among radicalized right-wing. unfortunately, so let's talk a little bit about it. FBI agents have shot and killed a man in Utah during a raid in his home on Wednesday morning after he allegedly threatened to assassinate President Joe Biden and federal prosecutors targeting Donald Trump. Now, this was an individual who had been investigated beginning in April of this year, although he had been putting out some pretty terrible threats against Biden and Democrats beginning late last year in 2022. Now, the suspect was identified in charging documents as Craig Robertson.

On Monday, Robertson allegedly made a threat referencing Biden's trip to Utah this week, saying he needed to prepare his camouflage and sniper rifle. FBI officials say that they've been investigating this man since April of this year, and that the U.S. Secret Service was notified by the FBI about this man and his threats in June of this year. This time is, the time is right for a presidential assassination. He had written first Joe, then Kamala, authorities say Robertson wrote in a September 22 Facebook post included in the filings. Now, in addition to allegedly making these threats and these posts, agents also say that

Robertson suggested online that he was making plans to take physical action. And that's really where the difference is when it comes to these online threats. Online death threats are pretty common. But once an individual gets specific about what they're going to do, how they're going to do it, what kind of weapons they're going to use, that will typically alert federal authorities. And that's certainly what seems to have happened here. So according to court documents, Robertson posted online saying, I hear Biden is coming to Utah, digging out and cleaning the dust off my M24 sniper rifle, welcome buffoon in chief.

The FBI also said that Robertson allegedly did own a sniper rifle and the suit that he referenced in that quote. In his most recent post, Robertson stated that he had a dream about seeing Joe Biden's body in a dark corner of a D.C. parking garage with his head severed and lying in a huge puddle of blood. He adds, hurrah. So obviously this guy had some severe issues and he had this disdain and just utter hatred for Joe Biden. Listen, I obviously have some issues with the Biden administration strategy and accomplishing the policies. we want. But even if I were a Republican, even if I were a conservative, even if I were part of T MAGA, the idea that Joe Biden of all people is horrible enough to warrant wanting

to murder him is just absolute lunacy to me, absolute lunacy. I mean, it's just, it's crazy how many people we have in the country right now who are struggling with severe mental health issues and to make the issue worse, the political discourse in the country and more importantly, the kind of propaganda and fearmongering that you see in the media doesn't help the situation at all. And this man was shot and killed by FBI agents who showed up at his home in order to conduct this raid. You know, I don't know if the situation would have been better if he got the mental health care he needed. I don't know how much of an impact, you know, right-wing propaganda had on this man, but this isn't the first person who has been inspired from his political ideology to

potentially carry out acts of violence. There have been other instances of individuals who had carried out acts of violence as a result of their political beliefs. During the Trump administration, there was the guy who was sending pipe bombs to places like CNN and to Democratic politicians. There was the man who showed up to Nancy Pelosi's home and bashed her husband's head in with a hammer. This, you know, era of political violence is absolutely unacceptable. But nonetheless, it wasn't just Biden and Harris that he threatened to kill. We do have some more details. Robertson alleged, Robertson's alleged threat to New York prosecutor Alvin Bragg included calling him a political hack linked to George Soros and plotting

to assassinate him in a parking garage, the charging document said. I mean, gee, I I wonder where he gets the idea that, you know, Alvin Bragg is super dangerous. He's funded by George Soros and there's some sort of crazy conspiracy. Now, to be clear, George Soros did donate money to the campaigns of more liberal or progressive prosecutors. That's not the point that I'm trying to draw attention to. But the point I'm trying to draw attention to is the fearmongering surrounding that and how you'll oftentimes hear members of farm. right media repeat these conspiratorial talking points over and over again. Robertson had intent to kill at a minimum DA Bragg and President Joe Biden, according to the charging documents.

But the charging documents said that Robertson mentioned many other politicians, including New York Attorney General Letitia James, U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland, and California Governor Gavin Newsome. So all Democrats, clearly this was politically motivated. Following the The FBI's investigation, Robertson was charged with three felony counts, including interstate threats, threats against the president of the United States, and impeding and retaliating against federal law enforcement officers by threat. And the FBI was serving a warrant at his residence today when he reportedly, when he was reportedly shot and killed, but the events leading up to that shooting at this moment have

not been disclosed and are unclear. So that's why I'm not giving you details. We don't have them at the moment. We want to make sure that the details that do come out are accurate before we share them with you. And finally, in a statement, the FBI said it's, it is reviewing an agent involved shooting, which occurred around 6.15 a.m. on Wednesday, August 9th, 2023, in Provo, Utah. The incident began when special agents attempted to serve arrest and search warrants at a residence. The suspect or subject is deceased, the FBI said. So if we learn more details about this, we'll certainly share them with you. But yet another story involving an individual who is threatening political violence and certainly had the weaponry to prove that

he could carry out that attack if he so wanted to. All right, moving on to completely different news, some good news. I'm sorry to start with bad news, but we do have some good news today. We did it. We did it. In Republican-led Ohio, a resounding victory for abortion rights supporters. The supporters of Issue 1 made the ultimate tactical error, and they have unleashed a movement that I promise you is not going away tomorrow. Voters there rejected a Republican-backed measure that would have made it more difficult

to change the state constitution to include abortion protections. That's right, a big win for democracy in Ohio, as voters overwhelmingly rejects. rejected a power grab ballot measure that would have made it much more difficult to alter the state's constitution. Had Ohioans approved issue one, it would have required a super majority of 60% to amend the constitution rather than the current standard of a simple majority, you know, the democratic standard. Now issue one would have also made it harder and much more complicated for citizens of the state to bring forth ballot measures in the first place. And so looking at the results, I gotta say, we really had nothing to worry about yesterday

because it wasn't even close. More than 57% of Ohio voters rejected issue one, a clear majority with hundreds of thousands of more votes against the measure than those who supported it. And even though the measure had serious implications for a whole host of political issues, which we'll get to in just a minute, it was widely seen as a way to crush efforts to enshrine abortion rights in the state's constitution come November. So the outcome of this special election makes it pretty clear that protecting reproductive rights is enough to galvanize voters and get them to the polls.

Even in a red state, during a special election, when voter turnout is usually extremely low. In fact, the backstory of the special election really highlights this point. So Ohio Republicans moved in January to cancel most August elections. because they were low turnout affairs that voters rarely paid attention to. In fact, just over 8% of voters turned up in an August 2022 state legislative primary election. That's just one example. So when the GOP controlled legislature flip-flopped months later, scheduling issue one on the August ballot, those in support of reproductive rights correctly called these lawmakers out for

attempting to get the measure passed without most voters even noticing. But I'm really happy to report that you can't pull a fast one on the people of Ohio because they turned out big time. More than 600,000 people voted early, a number that could still rise from late arriving mail ballots, which outpaced the entirety of the turnout for that 2022 August election. It was also more than twice the number of people who voted early in the May 22 primaries, which featured competitive Senate or gubernatorial contests. So this trend has been playing out in other red states as well. In Ohio this week, and in Kansas, Kentucky, Michigan, and other states last year, groups poured millions into TV ads arguing that codifying abortion rights in the state

Constitution would lead to the abolition of any restrictions on the procedure, a lie, including requirements that parents be notified when a minor terminates a pregnancy and bans on most abortions after the point of fetal viability. And look, even though polling does in fact show that majorities support those restrictions, even Democrats do, the arguments have not persuaded voters to get behind more draconian abortion restrictions that legislatures in red states have been passing. So Ashley All, who led the successful campaign to defeat an anti-choice ballot measure in Kansas says that these abortion bans are actually backfiring on the GOP because people now see the real consequences of these bans. They see children having to cross state lines

to get care. They see women almost dying in childbirth, so they don't buy the arguments the other side is making. And the outcome in Ohio also ran counter to what we're used to when moneyed interest pour their resources into getting what they want past. Conservatives, with the help of out-of-state Republican megadoner Richard Euline, spent a ton of money, millions of dollars urging voters to cast their ballots in support of issue one. The coalition supporting the measure called Protect Our Constitution is funded almost entirely by billionaire Illinois business owner Richard Euline, who contributed a whopping $4 million of the campaign's $4.8 million, according to campaign filings. Feels really good to know he wasted that money. Now, the campaign's largest Ohio-based donation, $150,000, came from Save Ohio Jobs, a group tied to the Ohio Chamber of Commerce.

Now, the reason why they got involved in helping to fund the yes on issue one ballot measure is because they also know that pretty soon voters are going to fight to have a ballot initiative to increase the state's minimum wage. Currently, Ohio's state minimum wage is the same as the federal minimum wage, which is an embarrassing $7.25. The people of Ohio deserve a raise. They know they deserve a raise. that on a ballot initiative and if they can vote on it, I think they're overwhelmingly going

to approve that ballot initiative, which is why the Chamber of Commerce wanted to essentially make it even more difficult to get these issues on the ballot. But it wasn't enough, by the way, to mislead Ohioans into voting, yes, all that money that they spent didn't do the trick. And abortion in Ohio still remains legal for now, thanks to a court injunction, blocking enforcement of the state's near total ban. Now, Ohio voters have an opportunity to directly weigh in on a constitutional amendment on the November ballot to basically permanently protect the right to the procedure, which would make any anti-abortion legislation obsolete. Now, similar efforts to put abortion rights to a popular vote are also brewing in states

like Arizona, Florida, Missouri, Nevada, and South Dakota. Now, while it's absolutely true, that the measure was a proxy battle over abortion rights, there was far more on the line. And I think there's a lot to learn from this election in terms of building a successful left-wing strategy moving forward. The Associated Press accurately noted that the size of the vote lead for the no side indicates that a sizable number of Republicans voted against the measure. The no side was comfortably ahead in areas that Donald Trump can. carried narrowly in the 2020 presidential election.

Although yes, led in areas Trump won by greater margins, it fell far short of Trump's performance in nearly every county in the state. So strategically speaking, sometimes the left needs reasonable Republican voters to join them in order to win on policy. That's certainly the case in red states like Ohio. And it's an undeniable fact. Writing them all off is like magoracist and fascist really makes no sense if policy goals are what drives us. And Senator Nina Turner actually touches on this fact while talking to Amy Goodman on democracy now.

Let's take a look. The people of the great state of Ohio have spoken, resoundingly rejecting the GOP overreach, which is indeed a beautiful thing. And we know that folks in Ohio, voters in Ohio from all the political. ideologies weighed in on this and they said to the GOP, you have gone too far. And I know that the GOP themselves made this strictly about abortion. I understand abortion rights activists are celebrating that this is so much bigger than just abortion access. There will be issues on the ballot to raise the minimum wage. Who knows coming down the pike what other issues will be on the ballot? And the people of this state have a right to weigh in.

They sure do, and they sure have. Senator Turner is 100% correct. Just take a look at other red states where Democrats needed Republican voters to stand with them in rejecting GOP power grabs or passing ballot measures for a higher minimum wage. In 2020, voters in Republican-controlled Florida voted overwhelmingly to increase minimum wage in the state to $15 an hour. Last year, voters in Kansas another red state rejected a proposed state constitutional amendment that would have said there was no right to an abortion in the state. Arkansas and South Dakota similarly rejected efforts to implement supermajority requirements for ballot initiatives. We have to find areas of common ground and work together where and when it makes sense. It doesn't always make sense, but sometimes

it does. And to the Ohio Republicans who join Democrats to make the right decision on issue one, thank you for standing up for democracy and human rights. And I'm also happy to report that even Ann Coulter is pulling her hair out because Republicans, or the Republican Party, I should say, doesn't seem to get it. In fact, she's warning that by the time the GOP wakes up to reality of abortion politics, there will be no elected Republicans left. And I do think that their draconian anti-abortion policies backfired during the midterm elections. That is what allowed for the Democrats to maintain their slim majority in the Senate. In fact, they gained a Democratic senator after the midterm elections. And it also allowed for Democrats to kind

of contain how much of an increase Republicans won in the House races. And so while Republicans, of course, do have a slim majority in the House of Representatives, the red wave never happened. And I do think that their assault on reproductive rights has a lot to do with that. So great news out of Ohio, really happy to share this news with you. And really happy to find that part of my theory is definitely correct. Stop. Do you know how fast you were going? I'm going to have to write you a ticket to my new movie, The Naked Gun. Liam Nissan. Buy your tickets now. I get a free Tilly Dog. Not included.

The Naked Gun. Tickets on sale now. August 1st. For areas of agreement among the left and the right, and we absolutely need to find the reasonable members of our political opposition who can work with us in order to protect our democracy, protect our human rights, protect our reproductive rights, and more. So love this story, really great news to start off the show with. For now, we're going to take a break. And when we come back, we're going to go right back to the negative and talk about a defense contractor that is price gouging the military and the airline industry, which leads

to us paying a lot more money when we travel. We'll be right back. What's up, everyone, welcome back to the show. Just want to say thank you to our YouTube member, John Wilmingk, who's been a member for two months and just has a sweet comment, thank you for all that you do. Thank you for watching, supporting the show, and being a member. Just so you all know, membership is what carries us through without membership. We wouldn't have the revenue necessary to do what we do. So special things to all our members.

If you're not a member, please, I encourage you to become one. You get all sorts of perks, including members only exclusive coverage, exclusive shows and stories. As election season heats up, we are going to be doing a lot more special election coverage that is behind the paywall for our members. Of course, we're going to be doing a lot of coverage. free for all. But without members, we would need to rely on corporate sponsors. And anybody got time for that, not interested in it. So thank you again to our members for supporting us and allowing us to do what we do. With that said, let's move on to some pretty awful price gouging and greed by a defense contractor. And those costs are being transferred

over to the American people. American taxpayers are getting ripped off by Transdime, a company that makes and sells aftermarket aircraft parts to the Pentagon and the commercial airline industry. The company's price gouging is made abundantly clear in a new investigative report by Forbes where staff writer Jeremy Bogoski basically reveals Transdime's profit maximizing strategy. What they do is they buy up companies that happen to be the only ones making particular aircraft parts, and then they jack up prices for customers who basically have no other alternatives. A former employee described Transdime as a cancer, literally. Another told Forbes that the company is the Satan of aircraft parts. Now, reviews by the Pentagon's

Inspector General in both 2019 and 2021 found that immediately after acquiring a company, Transdime raised prices on 44 out of 46 items and reaped profit margins as high as 4,436% over the 15% that investigators deemed reasonable. And guess what? This was all legal. And you know who's paying for the price of all of this? We are in the form of increased defense spending and of course higher prices for flights when we travel. Overcharging for spare parts alone may have inflated defense spending by billions of dollars over the past two decades, according to Pentagon audits that looked at a universe of companies beyond just Transdime. A review of a 2018 contract with a Transdime unit found that the military would pay $119.3 million over 10 years for 100 parts that should have cost

just $28.3 million, which still seems pretty high. But again, nine million a year up in smoke based on this price gouging that they discovered through the audit. And since airlines are the company's biggest customers, travelers are paying higher fares for flights due to what the House Oversight Committee has called Transdimes abusive pricing practices. The expensive nature of the aviation industry, unfortunately, makes it easier for Transdime to get away with what they're doing, or at least hide what they're doing. Because every part on a commercial aircraft, along with the methods for manufacturing them, has to be certified as safe and reliable by the federal aviation administration. As a result, it's a super time-consuming and expensive process. And even as

Transdime implements these outrageous price hikes, customers like commercial airline companies, avoid seeking out less expensive alternatives because Transdime's products remain a pretty small part of the overall cost of building an aircraft. So on top of that, Transdime also keeps buying up companies only to dominate the aftermarket parts industry, and they raise prices on these parts that customers can't get anywhere else. So one example is the case of a quick disconnect coupling half, a small part that allows for the rapid connection and disconnection of fluid lines without tools. Transdime sold it to the Pentagon in 2017 at a price that amounted to a 219% a year increase from 1999, or I should say 1991. On a subsequent purchase for

the same price in 2018, the inspector general determined Transdime booked an excess profit margin of 1,698%. I mean, the greed is unbelievable. And it costs close to nothing to make these parts relative to what Transdime is charging for them. House Democrats revealed that the inspector general found it cost Transdime just $173 to make a quick disconnect coupling that it then later sold to the Pentagon for $6,986. dollars. And take a look at this graph, which shows the five types of spare parts Transdime sold to the Defense Department with profit margins as high as 4,436%. So the green portion basically represents how much it costs for Transdime to make the product. And then the largest

portion, which is the blue portion, depicts how much the company charged for the parts. So just One example, while it costs the trans-dime around like $1,000 to produce actuator cover assemblies, they charge close to $13,000 for it, which of course is much more than the 15% profit margin that the inspector general argues is an acceptable markup for profits for the product. Now, if you're wondering how the Pentagon can get screwed over like this, well, unsurprisingly, The weak regulatory environment is definitely to blame. It's nearly impossible for the Defense Department to negotiate better deals with Transdime because the company has been able to refuse the government's request for cost information

in order to gauge the fairness of its pricing. By law, military contractors don't even have to produce cost data on transactions below $2 million. The regulation actually used to be even weaker prior to. to 2018, when Congress raised the limit from $750,000. Now following those changes, as small as they might be, it was easier for regulators to determine that the government was being overcharged and screwed over for parts sold by Transdime. After getting pummeled in the 2019 hearing over the Pentagon Inspector General's findings, the company complied with a request to refund $16.1 million in overcharges. Transdime

has so far stiff-armed the Defense Department on another request to return $20.8 million in excess profit found in a 2021 follow-up review. Now, in an attempt to explain themselves, the company claims that the 15% profit limit noted in the Inspector General's report is arbitrary, and the review's methodology is flawed because it excluded legitimate costs. You know, it'd be nice if they elaborated on what those costs are exactly, because based on these investigations, we see that they spend tiny amount of money to make the parts, and then they price gouge the crap out of the defense department and the airline industry.

But there's also some concern that Transdime broke disclosure rules, including their failing to report that Transdime was the owner of 12 subsidiaries that bid for Pentagon contracts. The lack of transparency makes it much harder for the military to track Transdimes price hikes and possible price gouging. I don't even know why I'm saying possible price gouging because multiple investigations have shown that they're definitely price gouging. Then there's the airline industry, which is also shelling out steep prices for Transdimes parts and then of course transferring those costs onto us.

A former employee at one of its subsidiaries known as AvTec Taiy told Forbes, that airlines hate TransDime with a passion, but they have no choice. You don't like it, your plane doesn't fly. You know, because they've cornered the market by buying up all other companies that make these parts. Also, the CEO of GA Telesis, which repairs planes and distributes parts, agrees and sheds light on how Transdime buys up after, buys up other aftermarket parts companies in order to monopolize the market. So he says that, the airline customers complain to Boeing that Transdime prices are high, and that's making it hard to manage costs. But Boeing didn't contract Transdime to make these parts. Boeing contracted a company

that Transdime bought. Now, investors absolutely love Transdime's greedy little business model. I mean, how could they not? I mean, it translates to a sweet return on investment for shareholders as the company basically rips off the defense department and American taxpayers. But based on accusations from former employees, Transdime could also be engaging in financial fraud. I wonder how the shareholders feel about that. So at Transdime subsidiary, Avtec Taii, pressure to perform led managers to commit fraud, according to a former employee, Phyllis, Santa Stephen Sullivan, who was the company's finance chief and worked there from 2018 until she was fired in May of 2021.

Now, she filed a lawsuit because she says that she was wrongfully terminated after she had pushed back on these practices. And in that February lawsuit, she claimed that the company improperly sped up booking revenue to meet aggressive quarterly financial targets and pushed favorable. numbers into the future. She also said that she found that $400,000 worth of revenue was improperly booked on a new project for Boeing, even though, you know, no product was shipped, nor was Boeing invoiced. So if her accusations are true, that's definitely fraud. In addition to that, she alleged that the company sent a prototype part to defense giant Lockheed Martin in 2019,

almost a year before it was ready so that hundreds of thousands of dollars in revenue could be recorded in that quarter. But guess what? Since they sent that part to Lockheed early and prematurely, and it wasn't ready yet, Lockheed sent it back. The former Avtech Thai employee who spoke anonymously corroborated these accounts of the Lockheed Martin incident but said she was wrong in one respect. The part had actually been shipped to Lockheed prematurely twice to book milestone payments. By the second time, they were no longer really enjoying us very much, he said. So while shareholders are definitely happy in the moment because of these maximized profits, if it is in fact proven that this company has been defrauding them

through this lawsuit, I'm sure they'll be, you know, singing a different tune. In fact, I'm pretty sure that the only way executives for this company would face real consequences for their actions is if they're found to have lied to investors. I mean, who cares that they're price gouging ordinary Americans through the defense department, right? But for now, the price gouging in possible financial fraud is paying off handsomely for Transdime's executives. I mean, take a look at this. Since Transdime went public, back in 2006, Forbes estimates that its CEO, Howley, has amassed a fortune of 1.1 billion dollars, that's billion with a beat. That's based on his disclosures of Transdime stock sales

and publicly reported CEO compensation before he stepped down to become board chair in 2018. And guess what? Unsurprisingly, Howley isn't the only Transdime executive who's gotten rich by these schemes. The company awards big stock option packages to executives, including the managers of its subsidiaries contingent on meeting ambitious financial goals. By the way, those financial goals, of course, I think incentivize potential financial fraud. Again, we'll see if those accusations have any merit behind them once this lawsuit is over. But one other person says it's made many people quite wealthy. You know what that other person is? The former vice chairman of Transdime. He said that because he would know firsthand just how wealthy these schemes are making the executives

for this company. So every year when we see members of Congress without question approve increases in funding for the military, don't let anyone lie to you and make you think that those increases in spending the 800 plus billion dollars that we allocate for the Pentagon every year, that it goes to benefit rank and file soldiers, ordinary people who are fighting to protect our country, they get raises here and there. But for the most part, the reason why our military budget is so inflated is because private military contractors are able to price gouge us and get away with it. And the fact that we have this weak, regulatory system in place that essentially allows for them to skirt disclosure rules.

Tells you everything you need to know about how weak these regulations really are. This is our money. We work really hard in order to obviously provide a living for ourselves, but we also provide revenue for the federal government. To see it get misused by this, to see it basically make these corporate CEOs as wealthy as these guys are, absolutely. makes me sick and we shouldn't accept it. The fact that they've had multiple house hearings about this company alone should make you want to rip your hair out. How many hearings are we going to have until members of Congress do what they need to do to strengthen regulations and prevent the federal government from getting price gouged by these private contractors?

That's the real question here. For now, we're going to take a quick break. When we come back, we've got more news, including look at that second positive news story today. Come in. out of the Biden administration, looks like they're really taking their pro labor message to heart. I'll tell you how when we come back. Ohio in regard to their special election. And now I'm about to share even more good news with you, assuming that moneyed interest don't defeat the Biden administration through lawsuits. But nonetheless, let's talk a little bit about what the Biden administration has been up to in regard to construction workers and unionized labor.

We strongly believe every worker deserves fair wages for their work. So I'm here today to announce that we are updating this law and giving workers across the nation a raise. That's right. In a nod to labor unions, the Biden administration is looking to improve pay standards on federal construction projects. And this is really good news because if you take a look at the policies that the Biden administration managed to pass, of course, through Congress. These infrastructure projects, you know, chips manufacturing plants, a lot of that federal money right now is flowing to a specific part of the country where there are issues with the lack of organized and unionized labor. And so what the Biden administration is trying to do here is mitigate the impact of that. And I'll tell you how they're going to do it. So the measure aims

to restore the old definition of the prevailing wage, which was actually scrapped by the Reagan administration in the 1980s. So what the Biden administration is trying to do is revive it. What does that mean? Under the new rule, employers would be required to pay construction workers the equivalent of wages made by at least 30% of workers in a given trade and locality. The new rule, which updates the 1931 Davis-Bacon Act, is intended to ensure that labor unions are at the forefront of the projects resulting from the federal spending blitz. So what is the federal spending blitz? As we've covered on this show pretty exhaustively, the Biden administration managed to pass some wateredown policies, okay? But the wateredown policies include quite a bit of funding for important projects.

That includes, you know, the projects to manufacture semiconductor chips here in America. Also, the infrastructure bill, which allocated quite a bit of money toward infrastructure projects in the country. And then finally, there's the efforts to invest more in clean energy. And so there are, you know, workers who are going to be impacted by that as well. And so the Biden Department of Labor's proposal basically has this Davis-Bacon rule include changes to enforcement, anti-retaliation provisions, and tools to hold contractors responsible for wage violations. It would explicitly include certain green job classifications under Davis-Bacon, such as solar panel and wind turbine installation. And so this rule was unveiled by Vice President Harris just yesterday. She was in Philadelphia in order to promote this.

And I think overall this is good news for a number of different reasons. So number one, any policy that seeks to improve the lives of workers, obviously I'm in favor of. I think that's the type of policy that the Democrats should be hyper-focused on. I'm really happy to see it. The other good news here is that we're getting a peek into the Biden. administration's political strategy here. And I think that they, if they keep going in this direction, they're getting the right idea, right? They're focusing on binomics, which I was skeptical of, just keeping it real. But the point here is they're focusing on improving material conditions

for American workers. That is something that will resonate with voters across the political spectrum. And that is a good thing. It's not divisive. It's something that actually has a real positive impact on people's lives. And if this is nothing more than a campaign strategy, I mean, great. As long as some people's lives get improved along the way, I'm all for it. And so let's take a look at where the federal money for these projects, the infrastructure projects, the semiconductor manufacturing plants, all of that. Where is the money flow? at the moment. Well, funding from President Biden's Inflation Reduction Act has poured disproportionately into red states with private developers of renewable energy projects

seeking lower labor costs in parts of the country with non-union workforces. So the Biden administration's like, hmm, we want to make sure that the money flowing into the parts of the country where workers have the least rights. Basically, we improve the rights of the workers, right? We mitigate the impact of, you know, the anti-labor, anti-union policies in these states. And so they're doing it through this federal policy, obviously unilaterally, right? Like this is an executive action. So what is likely to happen?

Well, according to Dean Baker, who's an economist at the Center for Economic and Policy research, a left leaning think tank. He says this. A lot of plants have gone to the south, to non-union states where very few workers are organized. And Biden is trying to do what he can to make sure as many jobs as possible are unionized. Biden is trying to do everything within his executive power to make sure the jobs created by all these bills are good paying jobs. That is a noble goal. I am a thousand percent behind Biden on that. And look, while we're super critical of Biden when he deserves it, we also give him credit where credit is due. And in this case, credit where credit is due. And what is the Biden administration, what the Biden administration is doing here is really

important. And also the new rule is viewed as a win for organized labor. North America's building trades unions has commended the administration's efforts, as has the United Associated Association, which represents plumbers and welders, among others. Mark McManus, general president of the United Association, called Biden's decision a historic step. So look, he's actually putting his money where his mouth is, right? Biden has tried to kind of present himself as the most pro-labor, pro-union president in modern times. And it's not just rhetoric. You know, if this really goes through, if this is really implemented, he's actually putting actions behind his words. But unfortunately, corporate interests are not happy about this. I mean,

it's to be expected, right? And they're planning on fighting this through the courts. So the associated builders and contractors could file a lawsuit to stop this as soon as this week. Ben Brubeck, who's the organization's vice president of regulatory labor and state affairs, said in a statement that the administration's decision, quote, illegally increases regulatory burdens on small businesses, new industries, and more public works projects. In fact, he said that the group will be forced, just forced to take appropriate legal action. And so if the associated builders and contractors win in stopping the Biden administration through the lawsuit, understand what this means.

Okay, I, I want you, especially if you're living in the South to understand what this means, because this is really important to absorb. The Biden administration is trying to do something that specifically helps workers who are disempowered in parts of the country like the South. And then you have moneyed interests that represent corporations come in and say, no, we want to underpay our workers in the South. And we don't want the federal government to have any say over how we treat these workers and how we compensate these workers. So I really do commend the Biden administration for looking out for people living in parts of the country who typically don't even support the Democratic Party.

I think that's the right thing to do. But for any Republicans who like to hate watch the show, just understand the real enemy here isn't the Biden administration who's actually looking out for workers, construction workers, in this case who are underpaid and mistreated in certain parts of the country. The real enemy here are the moneyed interests who want to maximize their profits by paying as little as humanly possible to individuals who engage in sometimes literal backbreaking labor. With that said though, if upheld in court, it would be a step toward shrinking the wage gap between northern states, which have generally higher worker protections and the south and southwest, where contractors are more hostile to unions and reliant on a migrant workforce.

The new rule is expected to particularly benefit workers in states like Texas, one of the deadliest places for construction workers and other states lacking their own prevailing wage laws. And look, there is some good news because the Biden administration apparently wanted to cross their teas and dot their eyes when putting out these new rules. They went through a few rounds of making sure that it would be upheld if they dealt with lawsuits. And so the Labor Department published its proposed rule more than a year ago, but the final rule was actually delayed by efforts to make it airtight against litigation because it has been held up in the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs. So there is some chance that even with this upcoming assault from corporate interests, these new rules could be upheld through the courts. I don't want to get people any false confidence or excitement about that.

Who knows how the federal courts will rule on this? Who knows how the Supreme Court will rule on this? Should it get to the Supreme Court? We know that many of those Supreme Court justices were promoted by the Federalist Society because of their pro-corporate anti-worker ideology. But they have passed down some rulings that surprised me. So who knows? We'll see how this all plays out.

But overall, this is good news coming from the Biden administration, coming out of the Biden administration. And when they do anything to improve the lives materially of ordinary people, they get props on this show. So props to the Biden administration, I hope that this is able to win. some of the legal scrutiny moving forward. one more. Just one more. I've been wanting to do this story. So let's get to it. Top 10% pay almost the entire tax bill, 80% of the taxes. Bottom 50% pay next to zero.

That's redistribution. It's that simple. Really don't need. It's not that complicated. The thing is, is they now want a wealth tax, a confiscation of wealth. You know, they want a second, a third, a fourth bite of the apple. You risk your money, you invest it. Then you're going to get hit with a capital gains tax. That's money you already paid taxes on. Corporate bootlicker, Sean Hannity, is once again pretending that the United States is just too hard on the wealthy. These poor, poor, wealthy people. His explanation of our country's tax structure is unsurprisingly disingenuous and extremely biased toward the rich. But that's why we're going to once again debunk the nonsense that he's spewing. Now, the Wall Street Journal

reports that Americans who earn less than $1 million a year actually make most of their money, you know, through their wages. But the Americans who earn more than a million dollars a year are actually getting rich from their investments. This image, in fact, helps to visualize what I'm talking about here. So as you can see, the vast majority of long-term capital gains, $954 billion worth belongs to the wealthiest Americans. The other income groups don't even come close to that much wealth. This also translates to massive tax advantages for the ultra wealthy, because long-term gains have a maximum tax rate of just 20%.

And guess what? That's significantly less than the max marginal tax rate of 37% on earned wages. Now keep in mind that investors don't even have to pay taxes on these assets until they're sold and the gains are realized. So what the ultra wealthy typically does is they apply for loans using their investments as collateral without ever having to sell or pay taxes on them. The rich are well versed in these tax avoidance schemes. And that's why they pay the federal government very little in taxes relative to the percentage. of taxes, ordinary wage earners have to shell out every year. This was actually highlighted in a bombshell report by ProPublica back in 2021, which revealed

that the 25 richest Americans saw their worth rise a collective $401 billion from 2014 to 2018. And they paid a total of just 13.6 billion in federal income taxes in those five years. The IRS data shows this. And that's a staggering sum, but it amounts to a true tax rate of only 3.4%. Let me ask you guys something, okay? How many of you paid a tax rate of 3.4%? Pretty sure you paid a lot more than that.

Now, by the end of 2018, the 25 were worth $1.1 trillion. For comparison, it would take 14.3 million ordinary American wage earners to put together to, I'm sorry, earners put together to equal that same amount of wealth. The personal federal tax bill for the top 25 in 2018, 1.9 billion. The bill for the wage earners, $143 billion. These millionaires and billionaires don't even have to dodge the law to get away with such low tax rates. They're doing all of this legally. All of their strategies that we explained to you are perfectly legal.

But to add insult to injury, we have to put up with stooges like Kennedy who are paid to pretend that the rich just pay too much in taxes. They're really victimized by it. You know, taxation is theft. Sadly, he's not the only corporate media doofus who's crying on behalf of the rich. Let's take a look. The notion that we're fat cats. The shareholders are fat cats and have been overly rewarded. We haven't seen this.

That's class warfare. And it's very shocking to hear class warfare. That's right. So last week, CNBC's Jim Kramer flipped out over statements made by United Auto Workers President Sean Fane. Much like Teamsters president Sean O'Brien, Fane was recently elected as part of a reformist movement to end corruption and once more represent rank and file workers at the union. Now, Fane's biggest task at the moment is negotiating a new contract with the big three U.S.

automakers, which of course includes Ford, GM, and Stalantis, aka Chrysler, didn't realize that they had rebranded. Anyway, their current contract expires on September 14th, and from the looks of things, Fane is basically ready to rumble. Here's some of it. of the clips from a video that Fain posted yesterday after receiving a contract proposal from Stalantis. Stalantis knows our members deserve more and they know the public is sick of seeing corporations and the rich continue to make out like bandits while the working class gets left further and further behind. That's why the company, they've recently made multiple statements to the

the media, claiming that they are not seeking a concessionary agreement in this round of negotiations. And I want to tell you, UAW family, that just isn't true. Stalantis has passed over a list of initial proposals that are riddled with givebacks. UAW family, I'm going to be blunt. Stalantis's proposals are a slap in the face. They're an insult to our members' hard work over the last four years. When we get things like this from the company, and they want to sit there and talk, about they're not asking for concessions or looking for concessions. Everything they're looking

for in this document is about concessions. So I'll tell you what I'm going to do with their proposal. I'm going to file it in its proper place because that's where it belongs. The trash. Yes, I love that. Now, you can probably tell why corporations and corporate media are a little spooked by fame. Jim Kramer, of course, not a fan of that move. The fellow who's running it is just going around telling it. But if you walked in there, he would tell you. I mean, he says horrible things. He's talking about a cryptocracy.

That the people who own these stocks are just bad people. I mean, you know, Americans own these stocks. I mean, it's like it's an annual year old 401K. I haven't been focused. Oh, you've got to focus on this guy. This guy is just, he was made for our show. We should bring him on? Oh, I've won him one.

Sean Fein, I think he should be like a co-host. He is so electric, he is third rail. He is using rhetoric that Elizabeth Warren would say, keep your mouth shut. That was hilarious, okay, absolutely hilarious. By the way, I didn't see Fane say anything about ordinary people who buy stock from the big three. Okay, he didn't call them bad people. But in case you were wondering, the big three have definitely. They've got a ton of money, ton of resources to spare for their workers.

They just choose not to share the profits with their workers. And keep in mind, these are the individuals who are generating the revenue for the company in the first place or the companies in the first place. So Ford, General Motors, and Stalantis made a combined $21 billion, not in revenue, in profits. In just the first six months of this year, that's on top of the quarter trillion dollars in North American profits. that the Big Three made over the last decade. Big three CEOs saw their pay spike 40% on average over the last four years. But God forbid they share any of that wealth with their workers. Now in 2021 GM CEO Mary Barra made over $29 million.

Ford CEO James Farley made almost $23 million. That's one year. And Stalanta's CEO, Carlos Tavares, made about $21 million. Again, that is how much money they were raking in in one year. The shareholders are sitting pretty. Since the fourth quarter of last year, all of the big three have announced dividends for their shareholders. Ford and GM to their credit haven't engaged in any corporate stock buyback program. So I guess that's good news.

But since May, Salantis has bought back over $1 billion in shares. And speaking of Silantis, their contract proposals that made Fain angry included cuts to retiree medical benefits, fewer vacation days for new hires, expanding forced overtime, cuts to the company's 401k contribution, eliminating the moratorium on outsourcing, and perhaps most alarming, the unilateral right to just change parts of the contract without even holding a vote with the union. Meanwhile, the union's demands are simple. They include eliminating tiers on wages and benefits, substantial wage increases, restoring the cost of living adjustment, defining benefit pension for all workers, reestablishing retiree medical benefits, creating the right to strike over plant closures, getting more pay time off to be with families, and more. I mean, ordinary things that allow people to do more than just work all day and get paid little to do it.

Now, according to Kramer, fighting for those demands makes Fain a communist. It must stop. I mean, honestly, this is not capitalists, all right? It's not capital. It's some other form. I took seven courses on communism at Harvard because I was in a particularly bad period at Harvard. There should be an eighth course, Sean Fane and what he had to do with Engels. It was marks and angles and faith.

Harvard's not bringing their best. We're not winning with Harvard, apparently. What an embarrassment to Harvard. Now, Kramer and Hannity are nothing more than tools for the rich to make workers feel like they have it too good. Don't complain. How dare you demand better pay and better working conditions? Meanwhile, thanks to decades of deregulation, union busting, and loose tax laws. The rich have successfully re-engineered our political system to serve themselves and the corporations they run.

Don't believe us? Then take it from ultra-billionaire Warren Buffett instead, who's quoted as saying, there's been class warfare going on for the last 20 years, and my class has won. Indeed. We got to take a break. When we come back, John Ida Rola joins me for the second hour of the show. do not miss it. 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.