The Young Turks - Congress Gets Creamed

Episode Date: December 15, 2023

Congress passes a $886 billion defense policy bill, and Biden plans to sign it into law. Exclusive: Nearly half of the Israeli munitions dropped on Gaza are imprecise "dumb bombs," US intelligence assessment finds. School cafeterias might serve whole milk again. Contraception is a winning issue, conservative strategists tell the GOP. HOSTS: Cenk Uygur (@cenkuygur) and Francesca Fiorentini (@franifio) 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 ❤ Donate: http://www.tyt.com/go 🔗 Website: https://www.tyt.com 📱App: http://www.tyt.com/app 📬 Newsletters: https://www.tyt.com/newsletters/ If you want to watch more videos from TYT, consider subscribing to other channels in our network: The Watchlist https://www.youtube.com/watchlisttyt Indisputable with Dr. Rashad Richey https://www.youtube.com/indisputabletyt The Damage Report ▶ https://www.youtube.com/thedamagereport TYT Sports ▶ https://www.youtube.com/tytsports The Conversation ▶ https://www.youtube.com/tytconversation Rebel HQ ▶ https://www.youtube.com/rebelhq TYT Investigates ▶ https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCwNJt9PYyN1uyw2XhNIQMMA Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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All right, welcome with the Young Turks, Jane Hugar, Francesca Fiorentini with you guys. So a huge show ahead. Of course, we've got news about Donald Trump and his shenanigans, including Rudy Giuliani in a disastrous court case, full of hilarious twists and turns. The Republicans have caught on to the fact that contraception is popular. They crack me up, man. It's going to be an amazing show. And of course, unfortunately, stories out of Gaza as well. So we've got everything from incredibly serious important stories to hilarious Republican shenanigans.

Hence the Young Turks. All right. Francesca, take it away. There's also milk. There's a milk story, guys. So stay tuned for that. There's so much against you. Okay, okay.

I'll stop messing around. Once again, when it comes to war, Congress has found the money. Yes, both the House and the Senate passed. The National Defense Authorization Act, once again, this is 63 straight years that they have successfully passed. What they will argue keeps us safer. And what progressives and people who want things like universal health care paid family leave will say, no, it absolutely doesn't. And of course, no one asked how they found the money. Now, Republicans are also pissed about the NDAA, certain Republicans, and we'll get to that in a little bit.

But first, let's talk about how these votes came down, what was in this NDA specifically. The House vote came down to 310 in favor, 11 against, 87, 4 in the Senate and 13 against. Those who voted against in the Senate, notably Josh Hawley, Bernie Sanders, J.D. Vance, Elizabeth Warren. So again, the strange bedfellows on either side, and again, we'll get into those reasons. In the House of Reps, the entire squad voted against this NDA, including Rokana and Pramila Gaiapal, Ken Buck, Marjorie Taylor Green, and Matt Gates. This is, of course, giving $886 billion. That is a record number of money to our defense systems, the department, and the Pentagon. Even though the Pentagon, just this November, we learned, they failed their audit for a.

sixth year in a row. Here's just a little cute little headline from Reuters reminding us of that. So yeah, we just we just dump money in there. Somehow we find the money and then no accounting for. Now what's in this bill specifically? There's a few things that made it in and things that didn't that we'll get to in a bit, but it increases the national security budget by 3%, which is not a lot, but considering it's on the backs of other unprecedented bills, NDAs, it's again, still an increase. It gives a 5.2% raise to service members. It calls to strengthen military training programs with Taiwan. So a little bit of a nephew or just some more anti-China aggression. It creates a nuclear fuel security program that promotes uranium-powered fission reactors. So I guess we're leaning into

nuclear power. And this is fun, extends warrantless wiretapping via the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act. Again, this is the mass sweeping of metadata. This is the ability to tap into any American's phones without their knowledge without getting a warrant. And that extension is just for four months. But according to this is common dreams who sort of broke it down, that four month extension of that section 702 of FISA that senators approve Wednesday would in effect likely become a 16 month extension, giving that the U.S. government is expected to use the four months to secure a one year extension from the FISA court. So on and on and on it goes. Again, this is the legacy of the war on terror. This is the legacy of 9-11 and so on and so

forth. There was some efforts to push back against that warrantless wiretapping. Pramilla Jayapal, head of the Congressional Progressive Caucus did that, urging senators and legislators not to include 702. There's more I wanted to get into spin. specifically when it comes to funding for Israel and then the rights reaction. But, Jank, I just wanted your sort of, here we go again. We found money for war in the middle of two plus wars. Yeah, so there's a couple of different issues here. So number one, the Pentagon cannot pass an audit.

So every year that they've been audited, they failed. And they say that they can't find approximately half the money that will appropriate to them. So I, this one's very easy. If I sent, look, I run TYT. If we had a contract with an outside party and we sent them a ton of money. I mean, 800 and what would charge, $86 billion. If I sent somebody an $886 check and I said, where is this, oh, I don't know where half of it is, but no, no, no, that's not a thing. And we don't do another deal if you say, I lost that. half the money and I don't know where it is.

No one in their right mind would ever do a deal like that again. But yet every year Congress is like, yeah, sure, go take it. God knows where the 400 some odd billion went. So no, until they pass an audit, I would take out half the money. The half that they can't find. Okay, once you find the money, then I'll send the rest to you. So that's point one, it's in arguable. Nevertheless, two thirds of Congress rushes over right away, right away.

Point two is the point that Francesca is making. So don't ever tell us that we can. can't afford anything. Because that's literally not true. The correct way that they should be saying and including the cable news anchors is, do you think this is more important than stockpiling weapons we never use or send to our allies to commit war crimes? And I'm not just talking about Israel. I'm also talking about Saudi Arabia and other allies that we've sent weapons too that they use for war crimes. So for the average American, Republican or Democrat, that's a super easy question. Do you want education, health care, et cetera, for your kids?

Or do you want to spend more money bombing innocent civilians abroad? This is a hard question. But for Congress, for the deeply, deeply corrupt politicians in Washington, it's a super easy question in the opposite direction. They're like, of course you don't have money for your kids or your healthcare or anything else you want in your life. No, all of our money, a giant, unbelievable, record breaking amount going to defense, when we never even do defense, all we do is offense, all we do is start aggressive wars. Can I build on that, Jank? Yeah.

Because I think that it's even worse because you know how many times the American people get audited, get their finances surveilled and poured through to see if they qualify for Medicaid, to see if they qualify for food assistance. And if they make $1 more, they're off of it. So this is what we're talking about. When we talk about priorities of this nation, you absolutely have the power to audit people. You absolutely have the power to hold them accountable.

It's just when it comes to people in this country going hungry or needing a little bit of food assistance and not the Pentagon. Yeah. So, and then finally on through the warrantless wiretapping, et cetera, the section 702. So look, if you don't hold a powerful accountable, they not only do more law breaking, but they then take the law breaking and make it legal. So one of our issues with Barack Obama was, hey, you've got to hold George Bush and Dick Cheney accountable for both torture,

which is not just against international law, but against U.S. law, but also on the warrantless wiretapping, which was deeply, ridiculously illegal. And instead of holding them accountable, what we did was, oh, well, let's just make it legal so that we could just totally take your private information, whatever the hell we want, and we'll call it national security. Okay, so it's an outrage in every conceivable way, and no one in Washington thinks it's even remotely outrageous. I shouldn't say no one, you see the vote, right?

And I thank you to all the brave people who voted against this monstrosity, right? But the media and an overwhelming majority of politicians in D.C. go, yeah, of course we're not going to give you guys the American people anything at all. But the defense contractors that fund all of our campaigns while we have an endless piggy bank. Go ahead and rob the American people blind. I want to get to one more aspect of what was just passed. And then we'll talk about why Republicans are upset about it and why even mainstream media is framing this as sort of like a cut against. the far right, I would argue it is not. But one thing that was extended in this NDA was basically unlimited access for Israel to precision-guided missiles that are basically in a massive

stockpile. And this was reported in these times by women for weapons trade transparency, because this continues, this new NDA continues what was passed in 2021. It's called section 7, 1275 of the 2021 National Defense Authorization Act. And it allows a limitless transfer of PGMs, again, precision guided missiles from U.S. Reserve stocks to Israel, Israel stockpile without normal congressional notifications as long as the U.S. combat readiness isn't compromised. So this bypasses Congress and this most latest NDA extended that to January 2027. And again, from in these times, they say that a State Department official confirmed, that to both in these Times and Women's for Weapons Trade Transparency, that Section 1275

has been invoked since October 7th to rush more PGMs to Israel. Again, this is in the midst of Biden asking for $14 billion in supplemental funding. But meanwhile, they've got all of this stockpile that has already been green lit thanks to this passing. Precision Guided Missiles, by the way, were responsible for the attack on October 31st, on the general. first on the Jabalia refugee camp. If you remember that, I think we have images or video from that reportedly killing 195 people. So yeah, that was, that just passed right under the radar. Jank, I don't know if you want to weigh in on that, but I can move on to Republicans. Yeah, so real quick, yes. So now it's being reported when we're talking more about it later

in the show that Israel has dropped over 29,000 bombs including unguided missiles, meaning basically indiscriminate killing of civilians. And apparently we are behind the scenes sending them, as you saw there, and I'm just going to quote it again, a limitless transfer of weapons of the PGMs from the U.S. Reserve stocks. Limitless. So are they a foreign country or are they not? So do you have to actually pass bills that say we are going to fund that foreign country? or does this country that is currently committing war crimes,

that the whole world is reviled by their actions in Gaza, do you just get limitless access to our weaponry, which also means limitless access to our money? Because it's our taxpayer money that creates those bombs that we drop on Palestinian civilians' heads? This is an absolute outrage again, but no one in Washington's outrage because no one in Washington actually represents the American people.

Republicans are also upset about the passage of the National Defense Authorization Act. Again, this was a 30-100-page document and again, again, continuing the the sort of war path that the United States has been on and the war machine that we fund every single year. The reason they're mad, though, is not because of that. They love war. But they're mad that it didn't include their so-called anti-woke pieces of legislation and all the culture war stuff that they wanted. Because according to Reuters, that final version of NDA left out those provisions addressing divisive social issues such as access to abortion and treatment of transgender service members that have been included in the version passed by the Republican majority, House over the objections of Democrats,

threatening to derail the legislation. For a sense of how they're taking it, here is none other than Steve Bannon. The NDA just passed. It just passed. This is Mike Johnson. And don't tell me you're a Christian. I don't want to hear your Christian.

Don't wear your faith. Don't give me the Bible. I don't hear more Bible verse. When you've allowed the transgender, you've allowed all that garbage, all that demonic trash throughout the defense budget. You wonder why you wonder why you can't get that you can't kids, you know, red-blooded American boys and girls to get into the military? Steve Bannon reacting to the passage of the National Defense Authorization Act because it didn't include all the so-called anti-woke amendments that Republicans have been trying to pass.

Here's Representative Matt Gates on the floor explaining that. We had legislation to eliminate the chief diversity officer at DoD because that was the fountainhead of so many of these woke bad ideas. And yet the House receded on that position. Many of our colleagues are concerned that it seemed when you look at our military bases or installations, they were flying flags that weren't the American flag, that the LGBTQ flag, the Black Lives Matter flag, whatever that flag is with all those pink and black triangles in it. And that desire that we had to have the American flag, the flag of our, flags of our service branches, that was also surrendered by the House of Representatives to the Senate. We wanted a parent's bill of rights in DOD schools so that you wouldn't get the strange material that goes into radical gender ideology or race ideology that abandoned by the House of Representatives.

Yes, again, somehow the military is too woke for the far right. Representative Matt Gates voted against the end. 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 chili dog.

Chili Dog, not included. The Naked God. Tickets on sale now. August 1st. NDA in part because of that. And as did Marjorie Taylor Green, who will get to in a second. But I just, again, this is all about the fact that they wanted to include legislation about preventing service members from seeking any abortion care. Number one, reproductive care, informing them about their rights as trans service members and or helping them get a gender affirming care. Again, just proof. The military is not woke. And even they're like, no, no, no, we're for human rights of like our own service members. Yeah, yeah, we'll support, you know, indiscriminate bombing of civilians abroad.

We've tortured before, but like, you know, we also understand the people deserve basic health care and especially when it comes to reproductive and gender affirming care. So they luckily that wasn't included in any of this. But a little pivot, Marjorie Green included her, you know, the anti-woke BS as a reason that she voted against us. But also she is correct in that she was against this. NDA because of the warrantless wiretapping. So she tweeted the NDA didn't remove Ukraine funding, doubled it to 600 million, funded abortion vacations, kept trans in our military. Worst of all, they shoved the FISA spy court into our defense bill. The NDA should never reauthorize

the weaponization of our justice system that Joe Biden's DOJ and the FBI are using to spy on American citizens. I voted no. It was Bush's and Obama's and Trump's, but okay, I guess Biden's continued it. But Jink, this is that, you know, faux populism where they're right on some things and completely wrong on others. Yeah, no, I don't care that it's foe as long as they vote the right way. So look, they're frustrating and hilarious figures. At least Marjor's Taylor Green mentioned the FISA warrant issue there, right? Now, she thinks it's deep state and it just started on Tuesday. To your point, her beloved Donald Trump did it as well, right? let alone Bush and et cetera.

But, but hey, if you're against that, great, I love it. Conservatives, welcome to the cause, happy to have you. And by the way, you're right. That's government tyranny. And that's exactly the type of thing that you don't want. That's the whole point of the don't tread on me, flags, et cetera. So thank you for figuring that out. It took a while, but I'm happy to have you at the party, right?

And I am encouraged that there is some strain of right wing, and it's growing every day among the voters that are against endless wars. In fact, among the voters, Republican voters, I think it's very large. And now imagine if that strain joined the left, progressives, and say, no, we don't want to keep flushing $886 billion down the drain every year. We wanted to go to us, to the American people, and send it to your donors who are the defense contractors. That would be an amazing development.

And it has partially begun here. But guys, as I looked through the news and I was hoping that they were going in that direction. There was a smattering of it as you saw there from Marjorie Taylor Green. But really the number one thing they were all obsessed with is that the military doesn't hate trans, gay, and black people enough. Like that's your issue with the military. That's your number one issue. And then the wasting of our money is number three. Spying on Americans with government tyranny, et cetera, is number two.

But mainly you just want to make sure the military hates gay and trans people. Man, that is an incredibly skewed way of looking at reality. But I'll take all the no votes. And one day, you know, if the two sides can finally see straight, maybe we can get regain control of our government and have them stop wasting all this money and instead directed to the American people. Yeah, 100%. I also just want to name that like most of the spying that happens from the U.S. government

happens against leftist organizations, racial justice groups, and historically has happened that way. And so if Marjorie Green and Matt Gates just looked into that, they'd be like, oh, no, no, that's fine. That's fine. We just meant like don't tap like any white supremacists or Nazis. Like that's what we don't want. But I think you're right, Jank. I mean, what's hard is that we can't come together around hating trans people. We can't come together around hating diversity in like government institutions. But these strategic votes around, and let's vote no on the NDA. I don't care.

You've got your backwards reasons. Okay, we've got our, we want less money for wars abroad, more money for people here reasons. Yeah, if they go backward and we go forward, we might wind up in the same place. Okay. And look, yes, on social issues, we could fight till the cows come home and we will, right?

But there's nothing wrong with agreeing on votes where we have mutual interest for whatever reason, right? And so on on voting this down, one day we're going to have a big enough coalition to vote it down. And the corruption is the number one problem. And when you talk to Republican voters, they share our disgust with that corruption. So the old days of the hacks in Washington saying, how dare you support the troops, right? That stuff doesn't fly anymore. And Republican voters don't give a damn what mainstream media says or what the corrupt politicians say.

That's their one upside. And it's a significant one, right? And the progressives don't care either. And we have now our own media and social media, et cetera. And one day mainstream media and mainstream politicians are going to wake up and realize they're on an island. And we've got them surrounded. And we're not going to allow for votes like this that constantly rob us blind. Indeed.

Okay, we're gonna take a quick break here. Like I said, as we go throughout the program, there's some hilarious stories on Kellyanne Conway and Rudy Giuliani, you do not want to miss those. So stay right here. All right, Jank Uger, Francesca Fiorentini, Angelique Ryder Mitchell, and Straw Hat Dragon. We all do the show together when you guys are members. Thank you for joining us. We appreciate you.

You can do it by hitting the join button below. At t.yt.com slash join. We're trying to get to 6,000 extra members by the end of the holidays. And it's absolutely essential for us to stay in business. And we appreciate you guys. please try to help out tyt.com slash join. Speaking of which Gabby Mathis and Benjamin Memorial, thank you for gifting memberships on YouTube

and you guys are American heroes, let alone Joe Winterden, gifted 10. Thank you, Joe, you're the best. Fran, what's next? All right. Well, Israel has maintained that its war is on Hamas and not the people of Gaza, even though nearly 19,000 have been killed there.

Many, largely, the majority of those, are civilians. Israel says that no, it is precise in its bombings, but a new report from the U.S. Director of National Intelligence shows that the kinds of bombs it's using are not precise at all. In fact, they're actually called dumb bombs. That's right. This is according to CNN, nearly half of the air-to-ground munitions that Israel has used in its Gaza and its war with Hamas since October 7th have been unguided, otherwise known as dumb bombs. Unguided munitions are typically less precise, can pose a greater threat to civilians, especially in such densely populated areas like Gaza. The rate at which Israel is using the dumb bombs may be contributing to the soaring civilian death toll. I'm extremely surprised and concerned. This is according to Brian Kastner, former explosive ordinance disposal officer who now serves as Amnesty International Senior Crisis Advisor on Arms and Military Operations. He says it's bad enough to be using weapons when they are precisely hitting their target.

targets, it's a massive civilian harm problem if they do not have that accuracy. And if you can't even give a benefit of the doubt to the weapon, that the weapons actually landing where the Israeli forces intended it to. The IDF has a response to this new report. They told CNN that the type of munitions using each strike is determined according to the characteristics of the target, the operational need, and the effort to mitigate harm to civilians, which the terrorist organization uses as human. shields. Yes, if we all had a dollar for every time we heard the human shields line.

This is however a line that the Biden administration has largely bought. And we'll get into a little bit of that. But the real question is, for me, does it matter, right? Precision guided bombs, which supposedly strike their targets more accurately, or these dumb bombs. It seems like civilians are dying no matter what. And again, one of those precision guided bombs was used to target a refugee camp. They've been targeted, targeting ambulances with people who are injured trying to leave and flee. So tomato tomato a little bit to me, Jenk, but this is still like a massive report that

says, you know, the kind of indiscriminate bombing that Biden had the gumption to finally say, although it was behind closed doors, it was to his donors, finally had the, you know, finally had the balls to say this is indiscriminate bombing. Yeah, it's been indiscriminate. And it's sort of by design, I don't even know why the IDF is defending this. If they, they say they're not targeting civilians, but then they do target civilians. It's the most developed, you know, military in the world, and they're the most moral army. They don't target, but they do, but they, it's like whichever way they want to spin it

on Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, whichever day of the week, they know what they're doing. They know that they're actually, they're punishing the people of Gaza for the crimes of Hamas. And they just expect us all to, you know, stop talking about it. Yeah. So let me tell you why I think that this is indiscriminate killing of civilians. There's a great number of evidence to point to that. Number one, the Israel has now dropped over 29,000 bombs in a place that's about the size of Las Vegas. Imagine you're in Las Vegas and another government is dropping 29,000 bombs. I mean, the terror would be unspeakable.

Imagine if they drop 29 bombs on Vegas, let alone 29,000. Second of all, now we find out that no, they're unguided. Nearly half of them are unguided bombs. So that means who cares where they land? I mean, they make these ridiculous claims. Oh, we fly a little bit lower when we drop the dom bombs. Right. Okay, absurd.

Absurd. Look, this whole thing about, oh, a monster is hiding behind human shields, et cetera. For the people in Washington, they think that's clever. To the rest of us, you look absurd when you say that. No one believes your propaganda anymore. So that's gonna go to another point, which is that, as I've pointed out now, and it drives me crazy to the rest of the media, doesn't point it out even though we've all seen the videos. The tunnels are totally unaffected by the bombing.

Hamas fighters are in the tunnels. And Netanyahu himself on American television said, well, now that we're on the ground, we're finally beginning to have an effect on Hamas. Well, but you'd already dropped over 10,000 bombs by then. So you just admitted that that had no effect on Hamas. So they're dropping bombs and they're not hitting Hamas at all, it appears. And so even when you ask the IDF and they are the world's biggest propagandists, they still say, well, of the 18,000 civilians killed, maybe one or 2,000 are Hamas fighters.

So that means there's no way it's close to 1 or 2,000. But even if that were true, that your hit rate is abysmally low, because you're not really trying. And then that gets to another point. New York Times did a brilliant job of reporting this. The largest bomb we ever dropped in a residential area in Iraq was 500 pounds. And that was in the heaviest fighting in Mosul. And we were very reluctant and had lots of committees and et cetera before we dropped that bomb. 500 pounds.

Israel is dropping 2,000 pound bombs. Again, it's the size of Vegas, they're obliterating everything in their path. And the most densely populated place on earth. Yeah. So the size of Vegas, but the most densely populated. Yeah. And guys, this is, and New York Times also reported this. They've killed more civilians in two months than America killed in Afghanistan in 20 years.

More civilians have died in this conflict than all other conflicts come. in all of last year. And IDF has the nerve to turn around and go, it was all an accident. Whoops, did we do it again? Oh, we killed civilians and civilians and civilians. And we're apparently the worst, most inaccurate, buffoonish military.

Up, there goes more civilian does. No, guys, they are attempting to kill civilians. You can get upset about that. You can do propaganda if you want. It doesn't matter. We all have eyes, we have ears, we can see it clear as day. day and the facts overwhelmingly prove they are not, they are not trying to minimize civilian

casualties. This is indiscriminate massacre of civilians. And I don't want America funding it at all. I don't think we should send a dollar to Israel from now. Forget the 14 billion that they want to send. Apparently, we just found out in the defense bill, they send limitless missiles to Israel without even asking Congress, let alone the billions of dollars we send them every year. We should 0. I do not want my money going to massacre children in Gaza. Yes, and we also are supplying those dumb bombs to Israel specifically. So we could end the indiscriminate bombing if Biden is more comfortable with discriminant

bombing, and we'll get to that in a second. But to the human cost, and I think Jenks summed it up so beautifully, CNN, finally doing some real reporting, not behind IDF tanks, not just being shot. shown by the IDF around El Shifa Hospital. This was reporting from Clarissa Ward who got access to southern Gaza, remember. And she's in a hospital that was set up a field hospital. So just set up on the fly and arguably one of the last hospitals that's still operating and still taking civilians coming in with injuries. Take a look.

In two years old, Amir still doesn't know that his parents and siblings were killed in the strike that disfigured him. Yesterday he saw a nurse that looked like his father. His aunt Nahaya tells us, he kept screaming, Dad, Dad, Dad. Amir is still too young to comprehend the horror all around him. But 20-year-old Lama understands it all. all too well. Ten weeks ago, she was studying engineering at university and helping to plan her sister's wedding. Today, she is recovering from the amputation of her right leg. Her family

followed Israeli military orders and fled from the north to the south. But the house where they were seeking shelter was hit in a strike. The world isn't listening to us, she says. Nobody cares about us. We have been dying for over 60 days, dying from the bombing, and nobody did anything. There, they did as they were told. They fled northern Gaza, and they were bombed in southern Gaza. It is chilling. I'm glad CNN's actually doing some real reporting. Jank, I want to, I want to move to just what Biden would like to see this week. He sent his national security advisor Jake Sullivan to Israel to talk with government officials there and to try to get them to just stop this much bloodshed, right? Don't be so egregious. According to the time,

New York Times, the Biden administration envisions a new phase of the war that would involve the use of smaller groups of elite Israeli forces that would move in and out of the population centers in Gaza, carrying out more precise missions to find and kill Hamas leaders, rescue hostages, and destroy tunnels. That's so cute, that is so beautifully naive, Joe Biden and company. The idea that Israel would do that, when they could have done that from day one.

And as we've talked about, no, they prefer dropping smart or dumb bombs on civilians, on journalists, on their families. And effectively, I would argue, engage in ethnic cleansing and genocide to wipe Gaza off the map. Yeah, so first, credit declares award in CNN terrific report. And for every kid you see there with their

face mangled and dismembered in some cases and their parents lost, etc. Understand that there's 18,000 more like that. So Benjamin Netanyahu is one of the biggest war criminals of my lifetime. The fact that my money goes to help him commit war crimes keeps me up at night. They should keep us all up at night. Now finally Joe Biden is concerned in telling people the only place he goes, which is fundraisers, that he's worried about the indiscriminate killing of civilians. Well, if you're worried about it, brother, you have a funny way of showing it, because all he's ever done is greenlight Israel's massacres. Those are solid facts. So now they do this absurd thing that Frannie mentioned there. They're saying, no, no, no, I know it doesn't

look like we're stopping Israel at all, but we're doing quiet diplomas. Yeah, it's so quiet, no one can hear you. There was a ceasefire resolution in the UN. We vetoed it. Everybody else was on board. We're like, no, no ceasefire. Keep killing Palestinians. Keep murdering their babies.

That's what Joe Biden's administration is saying. Not only that, they're saying we want to spend another $14 billion, another $14 billion of your taxpayer money to murder those kids. And they say no conditions at all. Israel can do anything it wants with the bombs and with the money. Okay, so what? Where's the quiet diplomacy part? Where's the part where you're checking them?

You're not checking them at all. You're just doing that for marketing purposes. You know why Biden all of a sudden cares about marketing? Because he's losing Michigan by 10 points. All of a sudden, Joe Biden has found a conscience, or pretending to find a conscious, so he could say, oh, you should see what I'm doing behind the scenes, man. I mean, it looks like I'm greenlighting everything publicly,

and I'm trying to send them more money for more massacres with no conditions at all. at all. But trust me, I'm doing diplomacy behind the scenes. No, I don't trust you at all. And at this point, I think you're a monster. Yep, I think it's perfectly said. And, you know, let's get to them milk stories. This is, yeah. Yeah. So you know what, guys, let's take a break here. The milk story is much lighter. So let's bring it down a little bit. And then we'll give you the, the, the, the, the, the, the, interesting but lighter stories. We'll be right back.

makes a giant difference. We thank you. Frannie, what's next? All right. I apologize for this in advance. Here we go. Reflecting on Christmas traditions this year begs the question. If whole milk is a good option to fuel Santa's extraordinary Christmas Eve journey, then why isn't it an option for American school children in their lunchrooms? That's why I support Representative G.T. Thomas. Whole Milk for Healthy Kids Act. What?

Okay, that was Virginia Fox, U.S. Representative Virginia Fox on the floor of Congress one day before Congress takes its recess for the holidays, using their precious little time to do things like put whole milk back in schools. in schools. Yes, it's the newest culture war thing we should have all been mad about a long time ago and Republicans are going to stop it. No joke, y'all. This was a vote that came down

right before a Biden impeachment inquiry vote. And I think after a resolution condemning university presidents for anti-Semitism. So at least one of those is also sort of clownish. But we're both Anyway, important things. Here was Heather Kigil from Twitter, just writing Congress in a nutshell, allowing schools to serve whole milk. Next, vote on Biden impeachment inquiry. Ooh. All right. What the hell's going on?

What's wrong with whole milk or why isn't it in schools or why is it not in schools? Well, children gather around this holiday season and listen to a tale about the Obamas. Yes, it all happens with the Obamas because in 2010, Michelle Obama, then the first lady, you guys remember, she was on a health kick and she wanted every American to be healthier. She agitated for policy changes to combat childhood obesity. Nutrition rules for schools participating in federally assisted meal programs were updated to include a ban on whole milk amid health guidance that children should avoid it. Again, that doesn't mean you got to drink fat free, but you know, 1%. Now, now's the time though, we're going back on this. So obviously with the help of the dairy lobby supporters, which include the dairy industry,

and more than 100 lawmakers say the children are more likely to drink milk when it tastes better to them. So an opponent say children can get the same nutrients from lower fat while keeping the same saturated fat in check. That was from the Wall Street Journal. So I guess 100 lawmakers are doing like blind taste tests in the halls of Congress and other Lawmakers are like, yo, the nutrients are still there. Representative Kim Schreier, who is a Democrat actually,

was a bill co-sponsor. So hey, bipartisanship, it's happening around the dumbest things in our country. They've argued that if it tastes better, children will drink more of it. One of the, the chairman of the House Agricultural Committee says, we've seen students opt out of consuming milk altogether if they don't have access to a variety

that they enjoy. Let's face it, the only way to benefit from milk's essential nutrients is to Consume it. Wow, you're smart. You are a congressperson. Again, the dairy industry is fully behind this. They want to get you hooked on that, that all that fat, all that goodness, I guess. If I'm a 1% chick, honestly, even if I have to drink milk. But let's see, it just gets sillier, Jank. I apologize. I got to read you more quotes. And then there's a new video. And it's silly. But this is Representative Lloyd K. Smucker of Pennsylvania says I urge my colleagues to support. support this bipartisan, bicameral, and utterly fantastic Bill. He didn't even spell utterly the way I thought he should. And let's not skim over the facts here. Whole milk is truly the cream of the crop in delivering these key

vitamins and nutrients to growing children. And then of course Virginia Fox had to pull the Santa card. Here are the rest of her comments. The nutrients in whole milk like protein, calcium, and vitamin D, provide the fuel Santa needs to travel the whole globe in one night. Whole milk is the

unsung hero of his Christmas journey. Protein helps build and repair Santa's muscles. Hoisting heavy sacks of gifts up and down the chimney is no easy task. Calcium is

vital for strong bones. It is calcium that keeps Santa strong and sturdy as he dashes from rooftop to rooftop. And vitamin D is essential to a strong immune system. Santa absolutely needs one as he braves the cold, wintry night. You see, it's not just the magic of the season that helps Santa deliver presents worldwide. It's also the fortifying nutrients of whole milk.

Oh my God, it gets even worse, Jank, when you watch it again. Yeah. I feel like Congress is actually made up of eight-year-olds now that I've seen that. Yeah. Well, so this story is both funny and devastating in two ways because it's so symbolic, right? So number one, everything's about corruption. Why are we talking about whole milk? Who cares?

2% and 1%? I'm apparent. I don't care. I don't care. This is the least important issue. You want to have it in a school board meeting? God bless, that makes sense. That's where you should have.

We're discussing this in the United States Congress. Why? Because the dairy industry bribed a bunch of Congress people. Look at how ridiculous this is. I mean, it's like an S&L skit. So now they're all like, oh, the biggest issue in America is whole milk. Is it? Really? Is it? Or are you guys all just got checks from the dairy industry?

Big milk is running the place now. Okay, this is, I'm near a goddamn joke. Our politicians are a joke. And anyone who doesn't treat them as a joke is fundamentally dishonest. So mainstream media going, oh, well, what's the debates they're having? Oh, well, the Republicans say this and the Democrats say that. And oh, well, their ideologies, they don't have any ideology. Their ideologies, who's writing the check today?

They're all prostitutes. So big milk writes the judge, they're doing, oh, yeah, put the milk all over me. Yeah. You know, John Boehner used to write checks for the tobacco industry on the floor of the Congress, on the floor of the House. He would hand him out right before the votes. Right after they voted against higher minimum wage, Kirsten Sinema and Joe Manchin went to the National Restaurant Association, right after, and collected checks for voting down higher wages for Americans. They're all, well, I should be kind and not say prostitutes. I should say, well, they're not sex workers, but they'll sell their soul for for money,

which I think is only a billion times worse. I think sex workers are an honorable and noble profession, especially compared to politicians. Okay. Yeah, I just like the fact that you, you like sold out for chocolate milk. You know what I'm saying? Like chocolate milk was like, hey, it'd be a shame if you lost your next campaign. and like strawberry milks there like yeah you know what we're gonna do like it actually honestly jank we just got done talking about war for a really long time it's kind of for you know the pun intended

kind of wholesome that our congresspeople are being bought by like dairy farmers and like the milk industry i know vegans and vegetarians will get mad at me yes i agree yes what they do to cows is awful but like it's like oh that's cute you're owned by chocolate milk yeah i mean you know Everybody jokes around about how they should have like the NASCAR jackets on, right? With all the right. And so now like they're going to have the chocolate milk on there. I'm telling they're going to start bringing milk. They're so pathetic.

So which believes me to the second point. I mean, look at the nonsense in Congress. Moms who have babies can't take any time off in America. When I go, I've been doing a lot of interviews now in other countries as well. And when I say that we don't have paid family leave here and that moms have to report to work the next day after delivering a baby, no one else in the civilized world can believe it. They're like, no, that can't be true. America is the richest country in the world. You can't take one day off afterwards without spending your own money.

I'm like, no, 85% of American workers can't. And every other developed nation has that. Almost every nation on earth has that as a policy. Estonia has 82 weeks off. We don't have one day off, okay? So, but they won't discuss that policy that 84% of Americans want because it costs corporations a little bit of money. So they bury something that popular, let alone dozens of other bills that are above

two thirds majority, right? But we're discussing milk, we're discussing whole milk because some of you took checks from the dairy industry, pathetic, pathetic. That's what our Congress is. Totally and utterly useless other than for corruption to rob us all blind, take our money and redistribute it to their donors. Indeed, utterly with two Ds in that case. There's more. This is a fun little interesting slice and I have thoughts on this. But former Trump campaign manager and aide, Kellyanne Conway, is back and this time she's

on the hill. She's trying to get Republicans to understand that Americans like contraception were for contraception. We believe in the right to contraception. and it's incredibly unpopular if you try to take it away. As we know, Republicans have really struggled with crafting a message around their anti-abortion stance, considering it's wildly unpopular. And Republicans are now sounding the alarm. Hey, stop here.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's okay to let women sort of bleed out in their cars from miscarriages and whatnot and non-viable fetuses. But we draw the line of contraception. She's working with lobbyist Susan Hirschman and independent women's voice CEO, Heather Higgins. And they're basically on the hill on this was this week on Wednesday and asking Republicans to reverse course on this. The group shared polling commissioned by the independent women's voice and conducted by K.A. Consulting Conway's firm that shows overwhelming public support, including from Republicans and people identify as, quote, pro-life for policies that make contraception cheaper and more available, including implantable long-acting versions like the IUD that some conservatives view as akin to abortion, even though it's absolutely not. She was, Kellyanne Conway's was even also shocked at how her side was supporting contraception, like that that many Republicans wanted it. She said, quote, I've been doing this for over three decades and I'm surprised that eight and ten independents and over eight and ten pro lifers would agree that Congress should ensure access to contraception regardless of costs because some people say, quote, you may have a right to contraception, but why am I paying for it?

That's the classic libertarian argument. Well, by the libertarian standards, you also stay out of, you know, people's reproductive lives. But, hey, they don't have any kind of consistency there. Conway, however, planned to tell Capitol Hill Republicans, they'll, quote, lose precious political currency and votes if they do nothing or take steps to put contraception further out of reach, pointing to the polls, finding that nearly half of conservative women would, quote, consider voting for a candidate from a different political party if Republicans back birth control restrictions. Conway continued and said, you've got a fair number of Democrats saying they want an alternative to Biden and Harris, or they might sit it out. He's especially bleeding young voters, who you would think would be animated and interested to hear about contraception and who are in the prime of their years and choosing to conceive or not to conceive. This, I thought, was really interesting, but Heather Higgins, the independent women's voice CEO said, quote, Republicans are like your uncle who really loves you and loves women in the family,

but he's bad about showing it. It's just not in their natural vocabulary. And we're trying to help them learn how to make this be more part of their vocabulary and tell them that they need to talk about these things, that their constituents all support and be more visible and vocal. That's adorable. What's your name, Heather Higgins? Here's the only problem, and I'll kick it to you, Jake, in just a second.

Republicans are hell bent on getting rid of any reproductive rights, including acts. access to contraception. They blocked a right to contraception act in the House last summer that would have enshrined the right to get contraception. Democrats have also said and highlighted Justice Clarence Thomas' call for the High Court to reconsider decades-old federal precedent, the guaranteeing the right to contraception and conservative groups align with the GOP, including Turning Point USA, have urged women to stop taking birth control pills, claiming they're actually abortifacients. I have no idea. I don't know what that made-up word. is that feels very made up by the right. But you know, Republicans have also tried to rescind

title 10 family planning, money 14 pregnancy prevention, and so on and so forth. But Cenk, I just, I like, go Republican ladies. At least they're trying. I don't know. Yeah. They're attempting. So I think there's three interesting points here. Number one, they just discovered that contraception is popular in America. Isn't that amazing? All the quotes in the beginning of the story were of Republicans going, I mean, if you'd asked me, I'm knocked over by a feather on this. Turns out that American women want contraception.

How did you not know that? You live in this country and you thought, I think you were shocked by that. Eight and ten pro-life women want contraception. Of course. We've shown you the polls before where I've seen 97 and I've seen 99 percent. of women that have used contraception. And yet Republicans are like, huh?

Well, you look at that, man. I talked to a woman for the first time in my life. I'm like that weird, creepy uncle that we were talking about. Never met a woman who didn't know how to talk to one. And then it turns out I talked to them and they like contraception. I thought they just wanted to get knocked up by me whenever I wanted. Huh? What a weird thing.

Are they, do Republicans live on this planet? And again, to be fair, this is the problem. politicians and the consultants, etc. When they asked their own voters, they're like, yeah, we use contraception, you moron. What did you think we were doing? Okay, so now, but to me, and look, actually, the second thing is the uncle thing. I mean, they said this out loud. Republicans are like your uncle.

I know Franny, you read it to you already, but I'm amazing by this. Republicans are like your uncle who really loves you and loves the women in his family. They have to clarify this. but he's bad about showing it. They're saying that Republicans don't know how to talk to women. They've never even done. He's like, I love the women in my life, kind of, I guess. I mean, now that you forced me to think about it, but I don't know how to talk about it.

I've never said, you just admitted you've never fought for women. You never thought about women. You never tried to represent women. You're the creepy uncle who's never even thought about him. And now he's like, oh, God damn it turns out I need their vote. All right, let's try to figure out what these women want. Exactly. Unbelievable.

They're telling on themselves in like hilarious ways. And then it's a total admission. But yeah, it's an admission that they absolutely don't speak to women, that they're losing women in droves, that this is a losing issue. And again, like, it's so sad. They're like, you know, they have to teach them how to women whisper. And to me, Jank, here's my take, the saddest part about this initiative, which, which by the way, clearly has a lot of money because Kellyanne Conway doesn't do anything out of the goodness of her heart.

She's doing this for money, that's fine, I'm I'm pro the pro contraception lobby, that's tight. But the reality is it's not about a lack of love. It's not about a lack of not a way to speak to women. It's that they see controlling women's lives, controlling their bodies as a way to install a version of Christian nationalist fundamentalist fascism in this country as a way to control control people and to get votes. And if they control women's bodies, then as I've said, every man in America's, you know what, will grow by a couple inches and jobs will come back from China.

See, see how that works? Jesus. And so finally, the greatest irony in this whole story. The last couple of quotes that Frannie read you, they're actually trying to cut funding to birth control as we speak. They've introduced several different pieces of legislation in Congress. Client's services has even said that they might take away the right to contraception at the Supreme Court. Their think tanks and their activist groups are all fighting against birth control.

And now Kellyanne Conway comes and says, well, since we're trying to kill contraception, why don't we pretend we're the ones rescuing contraception? Because warrants have no meaning. And George Orwell was right about everything. So we will endanger contraception. And then pretend we're rescuing it. And then we'll tell it to the press because it doesn't really matter. Because everything's propaganda.

Our voters aren't going to know anything. And maybe we could trick some independent and democratic women into thinking that we're their champion. What we're actually the one trying to take away their contraception? Turns out they wanted. I didn't know that because I never talked to women. Republican 101 right there. Okay, we are out of time. And I hope we're not out of contraception soon.

And politicians hope we're not out of whole milk soon. Otherwise, how can they cash in? All right. All right. Frannie, you're the best. Everybody check out the Vituation Room. Thank you. That's a wonderful podcast.

Check out Frannie at all of her live appearances. Now, when we come back, I promise you Rudy Giuliani's hilarious shenanigans. his own lawyer's insults against Rudy. Like for all the bad news in the world, as Martin Luther King used to say, there is a bomb to cure the sin sick soul. Okay, and that story is it. So stay right here.