The Young Turks - Corporate Communism

Episode Date: October 27, 2021

Joe Manchin is telling colleagues he has deep concerns about a proposed “billionaire tax” but is waiting for more details before making a final decision. Pramila Jayapal digs in on her stance to not vote for the Bipartisan Infrastructure Bill until there is enough agreement on the reconciliation bill and both bills can be voted on. Fox News guest says poor people “don't realize how wealthy they are.” Anti-Chevron crusader Steven Donziger has been denied reprieve and he must report to prison. Israel is planning to build 1,300 settlement units in the occupied West Bank. 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. Why just survive back to school when you can thrive by creating a space that does it all for you, no matter the size. Whether you're taking over your parents' basement or moving to campus, IKEA has hundreds of design ideas and affordable options to complement any budget. After all, you're in your small space era. to own it. Shop now at IKEA.ca. Democrats are massive losers.

That is the theme of today's show as the late breaking news of the day includes some pretty massive concession. to the corporate wing of the party, to corporate donors. I can't wait to give you the details on that story and more. And also just brag about the fact that Jank and I were both absolutely correct in our analysis regarding the billionaire tax that was being proposed by Democrats in Congress. So we'll get to that early on in the first hour. In the second hour, John Iderola will be joining me to discuss a litany of stories, including Joe Rogan questioning the necessity of men to have paid family leave.

This is an ongoing discussion among right wingers who seem to think father is spending a little bit of time at home with their newborns is somehow a bad thing. Okay, so we'll get to that later. Also, Fox News would like you to believe that if you are struggling financially, if you're experiencing the same economic anxiety, anxiety that half of Americans are experiencing when they can't even afford a $400 emergency, you should stop crying about it because you're actually a lot richer than you think. So we're going to debunk that nonsense and more. And yes, hello, I'm Anna Kasperi and you're watching the Young Turks. Thank you for tuning in. I'm looking forward to the show today.

And I'm looking forward to reading your comments and your super chats. So as always, like and share the stream if you'd like to support us. It's an easy way to do it. And also send us your If you happen to be a member of ours or send in your super chats, we'll read them during our social breaks. But without further ado, why don't we get to the latest on the budget reconciliation bill? Democrats have officially dropped paid family and medical leave from the budget reconciliation bill. Remember, the initial proposal in Joe Biden's build back better agenda was 12. weeks of paid family leave. That was later whittled down to a measly four weeks.

And we can't even get four weeks because our precious corporate Senator Joe Biden, Joe Manchin, is not willing to vote in favor of a reconciliation bill that includes even four weeks of paid family leave. The United States happens to be the only developed wealthy country that refuses to provide paid family leave for its constituent. for its constituents, for its citizens, and it gives you a sense of just how much our lawmakers are beholden to corporate interests as opposed to the best interests of their own constituents. Now, there's also some other news to share with you today

because there's a reason why that happened. Just one day after we told you that Democrats would not, under any circumstance, pass a tax on billionaires, on their unrealized gains, turns out that that tax tax proposal in the budget reconciliation bill has been dropped. Now, prior to this news, which broke later in the day, there was some waffling from Senator Joe Manchin who seemed to think that, you know, we're being a little mean here. We're being a little unfair to these poor, poor billionaires.

In fact, Axios had reported earlier, Scoop, Mansion waffles on billionaire tax. And when Manu Raju of CNN caught up with him, here's what Manu. had to say. So are you supportive of the billionaires tax? Are you supporting the billionaires tax? I'm supporting basically that we do, everyone should pay their fair show. And I've just tried to think of it. I don't like it.

I don't like the connotation that we're targeting different people. There's people that basically, they've contributed to society that create a lot of jobs and invest a lot of money and give a lot of philanthropic pursuits. But it's time that we all pull together and row together. You heard, you heard it? I mean, he's out of his own mouth. He thinks it's unfair. I don't like it.

I don't like targeting billionaires who don't pay their taxes. They decide to avoid selling any of their stocks. Remember, this was a proposal to tax unrealized gains of billionaires in the stock market. It would only impact individuals who are literally billionaires. So their assets are over a billion dollars. The way that they skirt taxes is they never sell their stocks, okay? Instead what they do is they use the amount of money they have invested in the stock market as collateral to be approved for various loans and they live off those loans.

That is a way to avoid paying taxes. Now the proposal was meant to specifically target billionaires who engage in that practice is to ensure that they're contributing something to the society that allowed them to become so tremendously wealthy. But you heard it here, you heard it right out of Senator Manson's mouth, he's not gonna have it. He doesn't like it, it's so unfair. I mean, it's not unfair to all the American workers who have dealt with stagnant wages since the 1970s.

He's not worried about how unfair he might be to everyone living in this country and the this planet because of the fossil fuel industry polluting it to the point where climate change is not just some far away distant threat. It is a threat today. People are suffering the consequences of it today. But hey, Joe Manchin doesn't want to pay more in taxes himself, let's keep it real. Joe Manchin doesn't want to target those poor, poor billionaires. And he certainly doesn't want to touch the fossil fuel industry, especially the coal industry,

which he himself profits off of handsomely. So let me give you some more details. So it's really interesting that Mansion is now saying that he's against the billionaire tax. It's been cut out of the bill, right? It was proposed just yesterday, now it's cut out of the bill. Now this is different from the 15% minimum corporate tax. So for corporations who report to their shareholders profits of a billion dollars or more, They are supposed to pay, if this passes, if this provision passes, a minimum 15% tax on that money, okay?

And this is essentially a way to mitigate the fact that the effective corporate tax rate is so low in this country, thanks to corporate tax loopholes, that oftentimes some of the most successful, some of the most lucrative corporations and companies, pay nothing in taxes. They get to take advantage of those loopholes and deductions. they pay nothing. Now that minimum 15% corporate tax, as it stands today, it seems like both Mansion and Cinema will vote in favor of it. But we're talking about something completely different here. We're talking about the tax Dodgers who have all their assets parked in the stock market. They intentionally avoid selling those stocks so they don't have to pay taxes on it, and then they live off loans that they get qualified for thanks to the assets they hold in the stock market. Okay, again, Mansion is against it. Now, it is fascinating.

But fascinating though, because when Manchin is confronted by protesters, when Manchin is confronted by his own constituents, he seems to have a little bit of a different message. Let's watch. Tax the rich. Oh, I agree with that. Oh, yeah, I agree with that. Manchin agrees with that as he sits aboard his yacht, speaking down at the protesters and West Virginia constituents who are demanding that he actually represent. their best interest. I mean, he'll pay them lip service. He'll tell them that he believes that billionaires should pay their fair share.

Until push comes to shove and he has an opportunity to vote in favor of that provision in the budget reconciliation bill, then all of a sudden, no, I mean, it's unfair. It's so unfair to the poor billionaires. Those poor, poor billionaires, you know, the ones who hoard the wealth, the ones who Americans have been told time and time again provide jobs. They're the ones who are going to provide higher wages, except they do. Don't do that as stagnant wages since the 1970s will show you. Mansion's potential opposition, now complete opposition, let's just be clear, to the

billionaire tax proposal would blow a $200 billion to $250 billion hole in the Democrats plan for new revenues. That means that major provisions are going to be cut. And to be sure, some major provisions have been cut. The one thing that's kind of on the precipice of getting cut, it hasn't happened yet, but my prediction is it will happen, is the expansion to Medicare, something that Senator Bernie Sanders, the head of the budget committee in the Senate says he is unwilling to do away with. We'll see, we'll see.

But Mansion has already expressed some opposition to it. Let's watch. Senator Sanders has said that Medicare expansion is not going to come out. of this bill. Do you still disagree with that? Okay. Let me just say about expansions. We're negotiating and talking about that. I am truly absolutely concerned about the deficit of our

of our country at 20, almost $29 trillion. I'm concerned about the insolvency of the trust funds. In good conscience, I have a hard time increasing basically benefits, which all of us can agree that, oh, I love to have this, love to have that, when you can't even take care of what you have. He's worried, guys, he's worried about the financial health of this country. He's concerned about the debt.

He's concerned about how much money we're spending. I mean, an easy way to reverse some of the damage that's been done over the last several decades would be to ensure that we have wealthy people pay their fair share, that we have corporations pay their fair share. It's interesting because they seem to be against the Trump-era tax cuts for the rich. The tax cuts that cost this country, two trillion dollars in revenue over 10 years. But he didn't want to reverse it. In fact, he served as a massive obstacle along with Senator Kirsten Cinema in the passage of that

tax increase, of the reversal, just the reversal of the Trump-era tax cuts. He was against that. He didn't think that his own view on wealth tax and corporate taxes and billionaire taxes. He didn't see any of that as irresponsible. But when it comes to programs that materially improve your life, when it comes to programs that provide vision, dental, and hearing care to our elderly citizens, that's irresponsible. Can't have it. Can't have it. Because, you know, he understands firsthand just how sweet it is to own a yacht. And billionaires might have a yacht or two, but what if they want their third? He gets it. Mansion gets it. It's just, that he doesn't understand the plight of Americans living in poverty, including Americans

in his own state of West Virginia, which of course is struggling with poverty. But why would he be concerned about that? He's just worried about the poor, poor billionaires. To give you more, Mansion all but killed a proposal to require banks to share more information about customers' accounts with the IRS to help the agency find tax cheats, depriving negotiators of an estimated $200 billion in additional revenues. Tax sheets? Apparently not irresponsible, according to Joe Manchin.

Providing dental and vision care to elderly people covered by Medicare, irresponsible, super irresponsible. That's who Joe Manchin is. Now this isn't a discussion about whether Joe Manchin is a good guy or a bad guy. You can make your decision or your judgment on that if you'd like. But what we need to focus on is the systemic issue that's played out time and time again, whether we're talking about the Affordable Care Act or any other issue where you have Democrats dangling policy right in front of us, pretending like they're going to be warriors

for us. And then they immediately fold. They immediately turn around and do right by their corporate donors. Why does that happen? Yes, we have that system of legalized bribery. But we also have lawmakers who are personally invested in the very industries, in the very corporations that don't want to pay higher taxes because they want to increase their profits. If these corporations maximize their profits, what do they get to do with those profits? Corporate stock buybacks, artificially inflate share prices. They also get to pay dividends to their shareholders. And so when you have members of Congress invested in individual stocks, you really think they're

going to bite the hand that feeds? Whether they're Democrats or Republicans, it doesn't matter. If they're personally invested in individual stocks, if they are personally invested in private business ventures, as Joe Manchin is regarding the coal industry, you think they're going to look out for you? Or are they going to look out for their bottom line? The way the system is set up with the incentives and disincentives will help you predict what the outcome of any legislation will be.

There's a reason why wages in the United States have remained stagnant for decades since the 1970s. There's a reason why wealth inequality continues to grow in this country regardless of who's sitting in the White House. It happened under Obama, it happened under Trump, and it's continuing to happen under Biden. There's a brief relief with some coronavirus stimulus. But make no mistake about it, what Democrats are doing right now in squandering this opportunity to improve Americans' lives is not just awful for Americans, it's awful for them.

Because they can go around and try to do PR, like put out their press releases, do their cutsy little speeches about how this is an unprecedented spending bill. But when Americans see that nearly two trillion dollars was spent on the reconciliation bill, but it was so means tested and it was so paired back that they don't actually see a real benefit from it in their personal lives, I would venture to say that Democratic constituents are going to be a little salty about that. Americans aren't stupid. They know what their personal finances look like.

They know what precarity is. They experience it in the workplace on a regular basis. So Democrats might think, hey, looking out for myself, all of these short-term gains for myself, that's way better than doing right by the very people who had voted me in this position of power. But come midterms, come 2024, I don't want to hear any crying from a single damn corporate Democrat who turned their backs on the American people, on their constituents after they turned out to get them either reelected or elected into Congress for the first time.

It's pathetic, absolutely pathetic. I want to move on to the issue of paid family leave, because that's absolutely infuriating, especially considering where we were at before and where we are now. So since Senator Joe Manchin has effectively killed the billionaire tax in the budget reconciliation bill, that means that massive provisions that were wildly popular across the political spectrum will also need to be cut. They don't have the revenue to pay for it, right? And one of the main things that's now cut is paid family and medical leave. The initial proposal from Biden's build back better agenda was 12 weeks of paid family leave. Who doesn't want paid family leave?

What Democratic voter thinks that paid family leave is an awful provision to pass? Very small percentage. So the constituents want it. I would argue that Americans across the political spectrum want it. I mean, you look at polling and you see the three-fourths of Americans find it to be a favorable provision. But it doesn't matter because at the end of the day, paid family leave is something that corporations do not want, paid medical leave something corporations do not want. And these are corporations that do a lot of political campaigning, a lot of lobbying, I should

say, a lot of money being infused into these political campaigns of democratic lawmakers. And so it's not so surprising that it started off as a 12-week program, then got paired back to four weeks, and now it's just completely cut. from the bill. So the question is, why, why? What kind of excuse are we hearing from Senator Joe Manchin? Senator Kirsten Cinema, another corporatist in the Senate, doesn't feel like she needs to spend even a second explaining to you why she's against it, why she's gone out of her way

to defeat the popular provisions in this legislation. But Manchin tries, he tries. So let's hear what his excuses. Pay leave, are you still talking to Senator Gillibrand? I'm talking to everybody, but I've been very clear to expand social programs when you have trust funds that aren't solvent, they're going insolvent, I can't explain that. It doesn't make sense to me. I want to work with everyone as long as we can start paying for things.

That's all, I can't put this burden on my grandchildren. I've got 10 grandchildren and I'll be, I just can't do it. Now in 2017, when Trump succeeded in passing his tax cuts for the rich, the tax cuts that cost this country two trillion dollars over the next decade, they didn't have anything in place to ensure that the tax cuts would be paid for, that there would be something to offset the new tax policy. And at the time, Senator Joe Manchin, along with Kirsten Sinema, were against the Trump-era tax cuts. They claimed they wanted to reverse it, but once they had the opportunity to do so, they served as an obstacle to that. So while Joe Manchin,

would have you believe, or he would really like to have you believe, that he's concerned about balancing the budget. You know, his actions don't indicate that. Because Democrats who I think have been incredibly weak, but have been negotiating on good faith, had all these pay-for's in the budget reconciliation bill, had all these different opportunities to ensure that we get the wealthiest people in this country to pay their fair share, So we can fund robust social safety net programs that improve Americans' lives. Mansion knows that. Manchin knows that there were paid-for's.

But he stood in the way of those provisions that would raise the revenue necessary for for incredibly important and popular provisions like paid family and medical leave. That's what the reality is. These corporate donors don't like it. They do not want to worry about their workers having a family and needing a little bit of time off. They don't want to have to worry about paying for that time off. The only thing that the corporations have salivated over throughout this entire process is the budget, the bipartisan infrastructure deal, which has all sorts of corporate handouts for them,

which gives them an opportunity to privatize public infrastructure. That's why they want it so, so bad. And then in the budget reconciliation bill, to be fair, universal pre-K remains untouched. But you guys know why that is. Because universal pre-K means mothers will have some place to drop off their kids so they can go back to the minds, go back to work. There's a labor shortage, everyone. We got to get the women back to work, we got to get the parents back to work.

All right, fine, universal pre-K, at least there's a benefit to us, the corporations that do not want to pay their fair share in taxes. But other than that, other than that, what is left? 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. Tilly dog, not included. The Naked God. Tickets on sale now. August 1st. In the budget reconciliation bill. So far, the Medicare expansion is under great threat by corporate Democrats. Bernie Sanders says that he insists on keeping the expansion in the final bill. We don't know what the outcome will be, but if I had to bet my money on it,

it'll either be completely paired back to something unrecognizable, or it won't even exist in the final version of the bill. Paid family leave, gone. Two years free community college, gone. Funding for elder care scaled back considerably. I mean, think about the priorities here. Don't raise taxes on the rich. Make sure you cut the programs that actually benefit workers.

That's what's happening. That's who Mansion is. That's who cinema is. That's what congressional lawmakers overall happen to be if they take corporate money and if they're invested in individual stocks. It's all about narcissism and self-interest, and it's because the incentives are set up that way. And honestly, at this point, the only way I see this country moving forward in a positive direction is if we take a look back at what worked in the past, the only time we've accomplished anything positive in this country, anything robust, anything that really fundamentally changed the power dynamic and the power structure in this country was during FDR.

FDR had all sorts of flaws. I'm not trying to, you know, put them up on a pedestal as this perfect president. There were definitely issues with African Americans being left out of the economic programs that proved to be so successful for white Americans in this country. But there's a reason why FDR passed the New Deal, passed all these labor policies that came along with it. It's because there was labor power in the country. We're all atomized, we're all divided, we're all in our little caves, you know, fighting with each other on Twitter, going after these ridiculous manufactured culture wars, allowing right wingers to bait us into stupid discussions about Dr. Seuss and Mr. Potato. Who cares? Who cares? We need to build a broad coalition. We need to talk to our coworkers. We need to organize our workplace. We need to build labor power in this country. story, that is the only answer, okay, sitting back and hoping that lawmakers are going to do the

right thing under this system that incentivizes their greed, not going to work, it's just not going to work. We don't have to reinvent the wheel. We have history to look back on to see what worked and what didn't work. I think we have lots of case studies from recent history indicating what didn't work. It's about time that we start organizing and ensure that we actually threatened capital. That's the only way we get what we want. All right, I've got more on this story, believe it or not. So we're gonna take a quick break and we'll come back with more. Welcome back to TYT. I'm Anna Casparian and I'm happier here with us. We've got some more super chat comments I want to just quickly read before we move on to the rest of the show.

Peter Hamby writes in and says, slept in the the mansion, donors call him president of corporations. You know, it's funny because Joe Manchin, the person who was elected as president, was asked about the fact that now people really perceive Joe Manchin, the senator, of being the leader of the country. And he's just kind of chuckled about it, and he's like, well, you know, his vote's important. Joe Biden's unwillingness to fight for his own agenda is just one of the most pathetic things I've ever seen. It really is. And his platitudes toward cinema and Mansion have also been

incredibly frustrating. Biden gave Mansion's wife a federal job that she wanted. How about you yank that job away? How about you start playing hardball? But here's the thing, you would play hardball if it was in regard to something you genuinely wanted and believed in. And I don't really think that's the case here. All right, well, we got to move on to the rest of the news. So let's talk about progressives. Now that we know what's being stripped out of the reconciliation bill, now that we know that billionaires will not get taxed, what is the outcome going to be? What are progressives going to do?

Progressives have unfortunately begun lining up behind the paired back budget reconciliation bill. The same bill that we learned today will not include a billionaire tax on unrealized gains. The same bill that has now completely cut out two years of free community college and paid family and medical leave, that's completely gone. We don't even get four weeks, they don't get four weeks gone. But progressives unfortunately are lining up in support with a few exceptions. Now not every progressive is on the record to be fair, let's give them time, maybe by tomorrow

we'll have a better understanding of how many progressives in the progressive caucus plan on voting no, but we do know that Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez has committed to voting no on the bipartisan infrastructure bill. That's the corporate handout bill that was separated out of the budget reconciliation bill as the corporate favorite. That's the one that corporate Democrats desperately want, that's the one that Republicans desperately want, because that's the one that corporations desperately want. That's the bill that privatizes public infrastructure. They love it. Oh wait, we get to take public infrastructure and implement tolls and fees.

So Americans who need to commute to work are gonna have to pay just to get to work. Awesome, awesome, they love it. The budget reconciliation bill, which was supposed to be the human infrastructure bill, the bill that was supposed to actually materially improve the lives of workers, that's been paired back to something that's unrecognizable. So again, AOC says, I'm voting no one bipartisan, on the bipartisan infrastructure bill. And I think that's the right way to go about it. That is the right strategy.

But what about the rest of the Democrats who spoke to the Associated Press? Well, just to remind you all, Mansion forced Democrats to drop language finding utilities that don't move away from heavily polluting fuels and rewarding those that do, which was a pillar of their climate change plan. So that was also cut out of the reconciliation bill. But Maisie Hirono, Democrat, says this, of course I don't like it, she says, of the outside influence moderates have had in compressing the package and erasing some of its provisions. These are all things that we've been fighting for for decades.

But she said the Democratic unity needed, with Democratic unity needed, the party should use the bill to open the door to its priorities and then try extending and expanding them later. Just like they did with the Affordable Care Act, guys. Remember how the Affordable Care Act was just meant to be the foundation of health care reform? And then Democrats were going to fight like hell to really build upon that, really expand that, right? Is that what they did? No, they didn't do that at all. In fact, Republicans under the The Trump administration succeeded in doing away with the mandate, which was one of the ways to keep premiums low in the Affordable Care Act.

I mean, it's a disaster. So not only did they fail in expanding the Affordable Care Act, they also failed in mitigating the damage that's been done by the Republican Party. But let's give you some more statements. Here's Representative Jim McGovern who says, at the end of the day, we have to accomplish something. We have to deal with the reality in which we're going to do with. we're living. So the question is, would we prefer not getting anything, or would we prefer something that can at least be a down payment on some of the transformational programs

that we want? All right, let's be clear about something. This bill, the reconciliation bill is not transformational, with the exception of universal pre-K, assuming that that doesn't get cut. That's the only thing that I've seen so far that has not been paired back. But wait, who knows what the future holds. So as it stands today, it's not really transformational. Do Democrats really want it? He says transformational programs that we want. Do you really want it?

Because if you really want it, you'd vote no on the bipartisan infrastructure bill. Because as things stand today, corporatists want that bipartisan infrastructure bill way more than progressives want the reconciliation bill. because the reconciliation bill is unrecognizable at this point. It doesn't include most of the major provisions that they claim they really want, that they claim they've been fighting for. So why would they give corporatists a win?

Progressives actually have way more leverage than they realize. The question is, are they going to use that leverage? And it seems that there are several progressives in the so-called progressive caucus who are unwilling to use that leverage because they're worried about the midterms. So that's the other thing. Corporate Democrats not only desperately want to pass that bipartisan infrastructure bill, they also want to point to something as a victory as they run for their re-election campaigns. So are progressives just going to give them a reward for the behavior that they've engaged in? I mean, I know I wouldn't. And just to answer Representative McGovern's

question, yeah, I think nothing is better than what we're about to get. Because it's not just about what remains in the reconciliation bill. It's about the precedent this sets. It's about communicating to the corporate wing of the Democratic Party that progressives, even when they have tremendous leverage, can be pushed around, and they're just going to shut up and take it. That's a really bad precedent to set. But more importantly, it just does the exact opposite of what progressives were elected into Congress to do. They were supposed to fight back against the corporate wing of the party. And to just like lay down and take it, it's beyond depressing.

And then there's this weird game of chicken because that whole game where corporatists want to vote on the bipartisan bill before the reconciliation bill, that's still going on, believe it or not. So Pramila Jayapal, the head of the Congressional Progressive Caucus, was asked about that. What is going to be the order of voting here? Are you willing to vote in favor of the bipartisan infrastructure deal before the bill for the reconciliation? Before the reconciliation bill is ready? And her answer was as follows. Let's watch. If we can all get to agreement before the president leaves, that would be.

great. We can have an agreement in principle and we can finish the voting the bills out next week. And is that enough for you an agreement and principle to move forward on a vote on the bipartisan package? Well, we're calling for both votes on both bills at the same time. So hopefully by next week we can get them both done. By next week. Okay. I mean, hopefully sooner than that, you know, we're ready. We're ready. We've been ready. I mean, we've been ready for some time. But the progressive, the progressive caucus in your position still hasn't changed. A framework is not enough to vote on the bipartisan package. What we've said consistently, and we've been really clear about this, is we want to vote both bills.

Now, you know, we're willing to, if there's agreement on the Senate moving forward and the president has an, you know, an ironclad commitment from all 50 senators, we will vote both of them out of the House, but we still want to vote both of them out of the House. I mean, who cares? The reconciliation bill is unrecognizable. It doesn't include many of the provisions that progressives claim they want and have been fighting for. But even with everything paired back, the corporate wing of the party is still trying to play this game. Where they're just trying to get that bipartisan bill passed immediately and then yeah, yeah, we'll get to the reconciliation bill when we get there.

And what's amazing, or maybe not amazing, maybe this is the most expected part. part of the story, was how Speaker Nancy Pelosi reacted to what Pramila Jayapal said there. Let's watch. Speaker Pelosi, Congress from a Jayapal just said that a framework agreement is not enough to vote for the bill. Well, I think it is. Thank you all. I think it is.

I think it is. Even if we don't have the bill written yet, and all we have for the reconciliation bill is just a framework, which is nothing, I think. I think the framework is enough to ensure that we vote on the bipartisan infrastructure bill. That's what Nancy Pelosi said there. When you do that, you get rid of all your leverage, all your leverage for the reconciliation bill.

No, they've given up. The reconciliation bill is like super on the back burner based on the way House leadership just responded to that question. So during a closed door meeting of House Democrats on Tuesday morning, Pelosi implored her rank and file members to compromise and embrace an emerging deal on Biden's roughly $2 trillion social spending and climate change package, even though its size and scope was far less than the 3.5 trillion progressives had hoped to achieve. And listen, it's not just about the top line number. It's not just about how much it spends. It's about where the money goes.

No paid family leave or medical leave, gone. No free community college, gone. Funding for elder care paired back. Major provisions pertaining to climate action, gone. Corporate tax increases, gone. No, but what does the bill include? Don't talk about embracing it. Don't try to turn this lemon into lemonade.

This is a rotten lemon, absolutely rotten, but you know, she's encouraging progressives to go along with it. Why? Well, she claims we're on the verge of something major, transformative, historic, and bigger than anything else. That's amazing because it's not true. Embrace it for what it is. No bill is everything, we cannot miss this opportunity. But what she's really concerned about is the midterm elections. Democrats want to just get this done.

Midterms are coming. They got to go back to fundraising. And they want to point to something they accomplished for their fundraising purposes and for their campaigning purposes. And so recent polls show both the New Jersey and Virginia gubernatorial races tightening with Democrat Terry McCullough now essentially tied with Republican Glenn Yunkin. in Virginia. National Democratic leaders are increasingly worried that a Republican upset in either state would deflate the base, energize the right, and cripple the agenda of Biden, whose approval numbers are already underwater. You know who's crippling Biden's agenda? Corporate

Democrats. So how about you deal with them? But again, this is more evidence that progressive lawmakers have a lot more leverage than they even realize. Why give corporate Democrats a reward? I wouldn't do it. Luckily, AOC isn't going to do it. But I'd like to see more Democrats, especially Justice Democrats on the record as saying no to the infrastructure bill.

The corporatists did not hold up their deal of this whole negotiation. If they're not going to play along, why should progressives play along? Trust me, they want that bipartisan infrastructure bill because their corporate donors want it. So for progressives to lose in this game of chicken is incredibly depressing. We got to take a break. This segment went by way too quickly.

But when we come back, we're going to talk about Steve Donzinger, who has been politically persecuted for holding Chevron accountable for polluting water and the environment in Ecuador. That story is incredible. You don't want to miss it. We'll also talk about how Fox News wants you to believe that if you are poor, you're actually really, really rich. Makes no sense, but we'll explain when we come back. Welcome back. You're watching The Young Turks with Anna Kasparian in hour two. John Ida Rola, host of The Damage Report, will be joining me and we'll talk about paid family leave. We'll talk about Joe Rogan's latest comments about how he feels that men don't really need to take leave after they have a child with their wife, okay, and or with their partner, I should say.

So we'll get to those stories and more. But I want to, first of all, apologize to all of you guys because I really drop the ball on this next story. And when I say drop the ball, I should have been covering this a while ago. But I didn't really do my due diligence and research it until recently. And I want to share you the details of the political persecution that Stephen Donzinger is now dealing with. Stephen Donzinger, a lawyer who won a major legal battle against Chevron on behalf of 30,000 Ecuadorian farmers and indigenous people, is now being forced to serve time six months in a federal prison in New York based on a ridiculous misdemeanor charge that is 100% politically motivated. He was charged and found guilty of criminal

contempt of court. But once you look at how all of the proceedings, all of this trial was set up. So he fails, you'll understand what I mean when I'm talking about political persecution. And to be sure, Chevron was certainly behind this. Now Chevron claims that it is not behind this. Chevron is not in any way going after Donzinger. That is a lie. Let me give you the details. Chevron and two federal judges have persecuted Donzinger after he won a landmark pollution case against the oil giant in Ecuadorian courts in 2013 for contaminating an area of rainforest the size of Rhode Island. Chevron refused to pay the $9.5 billion judgment and instead counterattacked in U.S. courts. In fact, Chevron in an effort to avoid having to pay that order, that 9.5 billion

dollars, they decided to remove all of their assets from Ecuador, bring it back to the United States, and then they went after Don Singer. In what you'll see is the most disgusting, politically motivated attack imaginable. And our courts are involved. So Chevron actually filed a RICO case against Donzinger in New York City, and the case case was heard by U.S. District Judge Lewis Kaplan. Don't forget that name, Lewis Kaplan. And he determined that the ruling of the Ecuadorian courts could not be enforced here in the United States because it was procured, he claimed, by fraud, bribery, and racketeering

activities. Hmm. So he's accusing the lawyer in this case, Don Singer, of engaging in fraud, bribery and racketeering activities and as a result of that judgment, Donzinger was disbarred in 2018. The decision hinged on the testimony of an Ecuadorian judge, Alberto Guera, who claimed that Donzinger had bribed him during the original trial and that the decision against Chevron had been ghostwritten. Wow, those are some pretty serious allegations. But then you dig in a little deeper, and the details are, you know, a little different from what the district judge here would have you believe. Now, Quera was a controversial witness. Chevron had actually prepped him on more than 50 occasions before his testimony, paid him hundreds of thousands of dollars,

and arranged for the judge and his family members to move to the United States with a generous monthly stipend that was 20 times. the salary he received in Ecuador. I mean, it seems like that's witness tampering to me. Seems like there's some bribery going on there. Seems like maybe Chevron should be investigated for what they did here in bringing forth an Ecuadorian judge, paying him handsomely to go after a lawyer who succeeded in winning a massive trial against Chevron after they had polluted. the water and the environment in Ecuador.

Now, in 2015, when Guera testified in an international arbitration proceeding, he admitted, according to The Intercept, he admitted that he had lied and changed his story multiple times. According to Chevron, his inaccuracies apparently didn't change the thrust of his testimony. And guess what? Judge Kaplan didn't think it was a problem at all. thought that the testimony was totally valid, given the fact that this judge who served as a witness against Donzinger admitted that he had changed his story and that he had lied. Doesn't matter, still credible. Now, I should also note that Judge Kaplan is a judge who was endorsed by the Federalist Society,

a right-wing organization, very well-funded, very well-organized, that has succeeded in getting conservative pro-corporate judges appointed to various federal courts. Okay, so the federalist, this group, they get some funding. They have donors and, oh, wow, what a shocker. One of their major donors happens to be Chevron. Conflicts of interest. I mean, who knows? Maybe it's not that important. Except it's incredibly important because, as you can see here, all of these connections, all of these corporate interests, all this moneyed interest had a huge impact on the outcome of Don Singer's case and the outcome of his entire life. He's going to serve six months in a federal prison in New York for a misdemeanor, which by the way, that in and of

itself, even if he was actually guilty of that, serving prison time for that misdemeanor is unprecedented. But let me give you more. Now after Donzinger appealed that ruling, he was charged with criminal contempt. So that was when he was charged with criminal contempt. He's like, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait. So this judge who has conflicts of interest just found me guilty in this RICO case that was brought forward by Chevron. I'm going to appeal it because it's wrong. and because he appealed it, the court found him guilty of criminal contempt. No, guys, look, I get it. I get that voting for awful Democrats who I can't stand myself is disheartening, it's discouraging,

you feel a little dirty when you do it, but judges matter. Getting these federal society judges in our federal courts has lasting negative ramifications. And we're seeing it play out in real time with Donzinger. Let me give you more. In July of 2021, this year, district judge Loretta Preska found him guilty of that misdemeanor charge of criminal contempt and sentenced him to six months in prison. Okay, and so he appealed that and he was hoping that, you know, he could stay out of prison during the appeal process, but no. Beginning today, he had to report to prison. He gave his son

a hug in a post that he put up on Twitter. It was heartbreaking. And he's going to serve six months in prison for this nonsense charge, nonsense, you know, accusation of criminal contempt, which again is a misdemeanor and has really like no merit. There's a clear political, this is clear political persecution. I really have no way, no other way of explaining it. Now as he was arguing the case against Chevron in Ecuador back in 2009, the company expressly said it's long-term strategy was to demonize him. And since then, Chevron has continued its all-out assault on Donzinger and what's become one of the most, in what's become one of the most bitter and drawn-out cases in the history

of environmental law. Chevron has hired private investigators to track him, created a publication to smear him, and put together a legal team of hundreds of lawyers from 60 firms who have successfully pursued an extraordinary campaign against him. It is insane. And by the way, he's been under house arrest for more than 800 days. So he's already been imprisoned in his own home for more than 800 days. And now he has to serve another six months in a federal prison for a misdemeanor charge.

That is just complete and utter nonsense. Because he had the audacity to want to appeal the, you know, the ruling in the RICO case. I mean, so, okay, well, now let's get to the criminal contempt of court. What was that about? Why? Like, so he was found guilty in the RICO case, and it was completely politically motivated. How did he get found guilty of criminal contempt of court? Well, apparently the home confinement is his punishment for refusing a request to hand over his cell phone and computer, something that's been asked of few other attorneys.

To Donzinger, who had already endured 19 days of depositions and given Chevron large portions of his case file, the request was beyond the pale, and he appealed it on grounds that it would require him to violate his commitments to his clients. Now, Donzinger, by the way, complied for the most part, but at some point, he's like, I've given you guys so much. what you're asking for now makes my own clients vulnerable. There is attorney-client privilege, as you guys know, right? So he said, I can't give you what you're looking for, but he complied with everything else. Donzinger said he turned in over the devices if he lost the appeal.

But even though the underlying case was civil, the federal court judge who has presided over the litigation between Chevron and Donzinger since 2011, Lewis Kaplan, drafted criminal contempt charges against him. In another legal peculiarity, in July, Kaplan appointed a private law firm to prosecute Donzinger after the Southern District of New York declined to do it. A move that is virtually unprecedented. And as Donzinger's lawyer has pointed out, the firm Kaplan chose, Seward and Kissel likely has ties to Chevron.

Kaplan has ties to Chevron. He is a judge promoted by the Federalist Society, which is funded by Chevron. Huge conflicts of interest. Obviously lots of political motivation behind what's happening to Donzinger. Kaplan bypassed the standard random assignment process, and he himself handpicked someone.

He knew well, US District Judge Loretta Preska, to oversee the case being prosecuted by the firm he chose. It was Preska who sentenced Donzinger to home detention and ordered the seizure of his passport, even though Donzinger had appeared in court on hundreds of previous occasions. So there you have it. When you have well-organized, well-funded conservatives focusing on every single part of our government, taking over every single part of government, we're talking about federal judges. We're talking about lifetime appointments.

We're talking about pro-corporate. That's the main point. When I say conservative, I'm not just talking about how they feel about abortion or gay marriage. Those issues are important, but that's not the main thing the federalist society is focused on. What they're focused on is ensuring that pro-corporate judges sit in federal courts for the rest of our lifetimes. Look at the makeup of the Supreme Court. That wasn't an accident. That took decades of funding, coordinating, and organizing by the right wing on behalf of corporate interests.

And now a lawyer's entire life has been completely destroyed because he had the courage to fight back against a massive corporation Chevron. that engaged in drilling in Ecuador that contaminated the drinking water, that polluted the environment there. He won, he fought, he won, and now he's suffering the consequences here in his home country because we have a disgusting corrupt system in place. Because we have corporate judges that have all sorts of conflicts of interest and they're never held accountable for it. It's absolutely depressing, and there's nothing behind this case against Donzinger, other than politically motivated actions to punish him and to send a message to other lawyers who might consider holding powerful corporations accountable for their behavior. That's what this story is about. All right, we got to take a break.

When I come back, John Ida Rola will join me and will give you a little taste of why Fox News believes that if you're poor in America, you're actually very, very rich. We'll also get into Joe Rogan's latest statements about leave for fathers who have just had children. Lots of stories to get to. Don't miss it. We'll be right back. Thanks for listening to the full episode of the Young Turks. our work, listen to ad-free, access members-only bonus content, and more by subscribing to Apple Podcasts at apple.com slash t-y-t. I'm your host, Shank Huger, and I'll see you soon.