The Young Turks - Don Blankenship, Obama Feinstein, Black Students Dragged Off Stage, and “This Is America”

Episode Date: May 7, 2018

Hour 1:Cenk Uygur. Don Blankenship puts out another insane ad as he takes the lead in the West Virginia race. Donald Trump takes to twitter to endorse the other two mainstream candidates. Find Blankenship's democratic opponent Paula Jean online at  https://www.paulajean2018.com. California Senate candidate Patrick Little steps on and spits on the Israeli flag. Find Little’s democratic opponent Alison Hartson online at https://www.alisonhartson.com. Former President Obama endorses Dianne Feinstein.  Hour 2:Cenk Uygur, Hannah Cranston. College Grads dragged off of stage at graduation for dancing. Black students were dragged off of stage while white students were able to celebrate. Childish Gambino released his new song “This Is America” this weekend sparking conversation about gun violence among other political issues. 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. You're about to watch what we call an extended clip of the Young Turks, and the reality is somewhere in the middle. It's a little longer than our YouTube clips, but it's actually shorter than the whole two-hour show, which you can get if you're a member. You can get an ad-free and make sure you catch every new story we do that day. You're going to love it as a full show. That's at t-y-tnetwork.com slash join.

Thanks for watching. All right, welcome with the young Turks. We've got a great Monday show for you guys. Boy, the first story is amazing about the ghouls and goblins that the Republicans are running and how they're winning in their own primaries. Amazing. We'll get to that in a second. Late in the program, NRA is a new president and predator.

He is a criminal, a convicted felon. He shouldn't even be allowed to own a gun because of his criminal record. He is a guy who has made deal with terrorists. I will explain a little bit later in the program. All of that is absolutely true. And at the same time, they're excusing torture on a candidate that they are bringing up for the head of the CIA. That's an unbelievable story. And then in the second hour, lots of dancing, stories about dancing at least.

And one of them involves a person by the name of childish Gambino. Who is he? What does he do? And why is he so smart? Some of you already know the answers to that. But I found out this morning. Anyway, amazing, wonderful story. Yes, there are wonderful stories of the show.

Let's do it. Let's go over here. Okay. The ghouls and goblins that the GOP is running now are unreal, unreal. They're all over the country. Roy Moore was a child molester in Alabama. He lost, but the general election, but he won the Republican primary. If you thought Roy Moore was bad, buckle up!

Here comes Don Blankenship and Patrick Little. Now, Don Blankenship is a total monster. I'm going to give you some sense of who he is and how he's doing in a second. But before I tell you that story, I want you to make sure that you stick around for the Patrick Little story, because he's worse than Blankenship. And right now, he's in second place in the California Senate race among all contenders. He's number one among the Republicans. How could it be worse than Blankenship? Hold, we'll get to him. But let's talk about Blankenship. So he's a former call baron. He was convicted because in one of his minds, there was

a gigantic explosion, 29 people died. He had purposely not done mind safety, and that's why he was convicted. And why? Of course, for an extra buck. Now he's running for the Senate scene in West Virginia. And you know him by another name that he has. Let's put up this picture here. You know him as a pallbearer, obviously, from the WWE. But, oh, God, that matches him uncomfortably well on several different fronts. So yes, that's what he looks like. But he also sounds like that. He also says insane things like China people.

He keeps referring to China people and Mitch McConnell's China family. Why Mitch McConnell? Mitch McConnell's in Kentucky. He's running in West Virginia because he perceives Mitch McConnell to be the head of the Republican Party and the establishment. And yes, it is true that a PAC associated with Mitch McConnell has run ads against Blankenship in West Virginia because they want to win that seat. So that's why he keeps attacking Mitch McConnell.

Now, we run his ads in the past showing you what a lunatic Blankenship is, but he's not done yet. He's got a new radio ad. But that's not why I'm telling you this story. Wait till you see what position he's in. But first, yet another insane ad from Don Blankenship. This is Don Blankenship candidate for U.S. Senate. The establishment politicians are getting desperate and more hostile. They are calling me a bigot, a moron, a despicable character, and mentally ill.

But even if all this is true, I will do a better job than they have done. They have resorted to this childish name-calling because they don't want us to focus on the issues. The issues are that we need more West Virginia jobs, we need to end the drug crisis, and we need an honest government. We do not need more childish behavior like you may have witnessed at the Fox debate. The fake news is also pretending to be offended by my use of the words China people. They seem not to realize that China is a country, not a race. The establishment has given millions of our children. jobs to China people and left many West Virginia people to fend for themselves.

Send me to the Senate and I will represent West Virginia people not China people. I am an America person and I will put America first. That is so amazing on several different fronts. First of all, there is no such thing as an America person. Not a thing. You made that up because you kept referring to China people as in Chinaman. It's an old school slur against Chinese people and against all Asians in this country. Since he used that slur, he's now saying everybody's a person.

What do you mean? There's Korea people. There's West Virginia people. I'm an American person. No one has ever said, I'm a West Virginia person before. It's not a thing. It's not a thing. You made it up.

But my favorite part of that was in the beginning. They're calling me a bigot, a moron, and a despicable character, and mentally ill. Why would you repeat those charges in your own ad? But it gets better. The next sentence was, but even if all of this is true, he grants that it is possible that he's a moron and mentally ill. It's unreal, unreal. So that leads me to the news of today. Political reporting, as the tight contest hurdles to a close, four Republicans say they reviewed polling conducted in recent days showing blanketship,

who spent a year in jail following a 2010 explosion at his upper big break. branched mind, they kill 29 workers, moving narrowly ahead of his more mainstream GOP rivals. He's leading. He's leading. He's number one in the Republican primary. The primary is tomorrow. The primary is tomorrow. This goblin is likely to be the Republican nominee from West Virginia.

You never know. I mean, he's getting so much media attention. It could change the dynamics of the race. And even Trump has gotten involved. So he tweeted out, to the great people of West Virginia, we have together a really great chance to keep making a big difference. Problem is Don Blankenship, currently running for Senate, can't win the general election in your state.

No way, he says. Remember Alabama, vote Representative Jenkins for or Attorney General Morrissey. So there's two other mainstream candidates, such as they are in the Republican Party. I mean, is there anyone that's sane left in the Republican Party? By the way, those guys are running ads saying that Blankenship is too liberal. In case your mind wasn't blown enough yet. Okay, so how is Blankenship going to respond to the big dog, Donald Trump, throwing him onto the bus? Well, he's got a great answer. Watch.

While West Virginia really loves Trump, it's his policies that they love. It's the fact that he has demonstrated that he'll support coal. he's demonstrated that he will task tariffs if necessary to support the steel industry he's demonstrated that he is not a swamper and so it's those policies

that West Virginians love and I'm basically Trumpier than Trump when it comes to those policies but I'm a much more mild-mannered and much more in line in terms of social issues in West Virginia than even President Trump

Well you got to give him this He is mild-mannered. I mean, what he says is insane, but his delivery makes it appear that he has already died. You don't think about low energy. I've never seen anyone with less energy in my life. Anyway, I was offended by the word West Virginians. What I understood was that they are West Virginia people. All right, but of course, the interesting thing that everybody noted from that

response to Donald Trump is that he is trumpier than Trump. That's got to go on a shirt somewhere. So, oh boy, when we've got a new standard in the Republican Party in the country, which is trumpier than Trump, God help us all. So you might be wondering, why is he winning? Well, for two reasons. And again, winning just in the Republican primary. Two reasons. One, the Republican electorate has lost its mind. They got egged on by fear and hatred for year after year after year. And so, you know, like, yeah, fear and hatred. That's what we're for. So this guy hates the China people. That sounds great to me, because I'm a West Virginia Republican person. So I'm voting for

blanketship. That's, I mean, he didn't get famous for doing anything positive. The only two things blanketship are known for is blown up a mine where 29 workers died and going to jail for it and for being deeply racist in this particular campaign. It's not like people are like, Yeah, but on the other hand, right, it's, well, he does a lot of charity. No, there's no such thing. Okay, I don't know how much charity he does, but he's certainly not known for that. So the other reason why Blankenship is doing well, over the final six days of the race, as political reports, the self-funding coal baron is set to spend over $640,000 on commercials.

According to the media buying totals, more than Jenkins and Morsi combined, Blankenship has spent over $2.5 million on TV ads. in total, far more than his rivals. In other words, money and politics. We need to talk about a relatively new show called Un-F-Inging the Republic, or UNFTR. As a Young Turks fan, you already know that the government, the media, and corporations are constantly peddling lies that serve the interests of the rich and powerful. But now there's a podcast dedicated to unraveling those lies, debunking the conventional

wisdom. In each episode of Un-F-The-Republic, or UNFTR, the host delves into a different historical episode or topic that's generally misunderstood or purposely obfuscated by the so-called powers that be. Featuring in-depth research, razor-sharp commentary, and just the right amount of vulgarity, the UNFTR podcast takes a sledgehammer to what you thought you knew about some of the nation's most sacred historical cows. But don't just take my word for it. The New York Times described UNFTR as consistently compelling and educational, aiming to challenge conventional wisdom and upend the historical narratives that were taught in school.

For as the great philosopher Yoda once put it, you must not learn what you have learned. And that's true whether you're in Jedi training or you're uprooting and exposing all the propaganda and disinformation you've been fed over the course of your lifetime. So search for UNFDR in your podcast app today. and get ready to get informed, angered, and entertained, all at the same time. This guy made a ton of money running unsafe minds. He's not using that money to try to become the senator from West Virginia.

He's even overpowering his Republican opponents by spending millions of dollars on a West Virginia race. Man, the corruption runs so deep in this system. Meanwhile, the person not getting anywhere near enough attention in the race is actually a wonderful candidate, of course not on the Republican side, on the Democratic side, Paula Jean Sweringen. She's running as Joe mentioned. They also have a primary, and it's also tomorrow. So whatever you do in West Virginia, get out there and vote if you're a Republican, hey, look, man, I can't, you like the corruption, you like somebody calling people, China people, and being

Trumpier, that's your business, okay? I would say vote against blanketship, but that's your primary. What are you doing? Joe Manchin represents the coal companies, everyone else. Paul G. Swarington is running against him. Could you imagine if we had an honest, uncorrupted Bernie Sanders-style candidate against the monster that is Blankenship, she would crush him. She would crush him.

Instead, Blankenship might get to say, well, Joe Manchin takes money from coal companies. I ran a coal company. Cut out the middleman. That's literally what Trump did. You think it can't work? Trump said, hey, all these people take money from politicians. I'm the guy they took money from. Cut out the middle, man.

Go straight to the heart of the corruption. And it worked. And it worked. So it might be able to work against you. It won't work against Paul Jean. Here's her links. And they're all down below in the description box. If you're watching on YouTube or Facebook, make sure it's so easy to click.

Just go down there and click on them when you get a chance. Again, the primary is tomorrow. So whatever you do, just get out and vote. Go, go, go, go, go. Okay. So how could the California Republican candidate, Patrick Little, be worse than Blankenship? Okay, he rises to the challenge. And I'm going to tell you about his poll numbers in a second.

Little called Adolf Hitler one of the greatest leaders in history. And then he says he's running to liberate the U.S. from the Jewish oligarchy. and he describes himself as a white advocate who aims to crush anti-white racism in U.S. institutions. Well, that last one sounds like a right-wing troll on one of our videos. So, oh, China people, you say, hold my beer. Okay, going straight for the Nazi vote. And get a load of this, he's winning among Republicans. In fact, this is a race that Diane Fine Santa Ana.

And Harsson are in, okay? Fines size of 39% according to a survey USA poll. Patrick Little is at 18%. He would go to the runoff. He would beat all the other Republicans and the rest of the Democrats, keeping it real, and he would go to the runoff. In California, just the top two advances, it doesn't matter what their party is. Holy cow, how to hell is he at 18%.

That's insanity. So we're not done yet. So the GOP kicks him out of his convention, out of their convention, this weekend and he's super mad about it. And so how is you going to show how mad he is by standing on the Israeli flag? Watch. They just had me expelled from the building because I won't serve Israel. I want to serve my country. I want to serve the United States. I want to serve Californians. I will not bow to a foreign flag. I will not serve a foreign government. The Republican Party, the GOP of California

is nothing but Zionist stooges. They do the bidding of a foreign power that has committed terrorist attacks against this country. This is what the Republican Party's turned into. Look, I'm not the one that's saying they turned into this. The Republican voters are, look at the polling. He's crushing the rest of the Republican field in California. crushing them. I don't even know how they know about him, let alone the fact that they're like,

oh, a neo-Nazi who loves Adolf Hitler. Yay! In California! So in California, the race, if it were to go off, if that poll is accurate and it goes off today, you would have Feinstein who would be hillyer, hillier than Hillary. I just made that up. Okay. But it's true in the context, Diane Feinstein, more, way more conservative than Hillary Clinton. for the death penalty, voted for Bush's taxes, voted for Bush's Iraq war, voted to repeal the estate tax, just changed her mind after an Allison Hartson ad last week. Oh, yeah, marijuana, maybe you should be illegal. She'd been fighting against that, fighting against criminal justice.

She's so deeply conservative, funneled money to her husband, who was a defense contractor in the middle of the Iraq war after she voted for the war. That's how corrupt fine sign is. So she's worse than Hillary Clinton versus Patrick Little, who's worse than Trump? who's Trumpier than Trump and Trumpier than Blankenship but luckily you have a chance to make a difference

the top to advance for God's sake vote for the alternative Allison Hardson she ran a nonprofit for five years and the nonprofit's goal was to get money out of politics she takes no back money

totally uncorrupted she's crushing the rest of them on social media she beats everyone else combined I can go on and on. She beats everyone else's small donors. This is time for progressives to get redemption. It's 2016 on steroids, but we get a redo. This time, make the right choice. Vote for a Bernie Sanders style progressive, deeply progressive. Here are the links for Allison Hartson. Again, they'll be in the description box below. This one is primary is June 5th. So beat the neo-Nazi, beat the corporatist.

Why can't we have reasonable candidates that succeed? Why do we have to have monsters or total corporate hacks? Why can't we have someone actually fighting for the people? But if you live in California, you can make that happen. But you've got to go vote. You've got to go vote. So this is the Republican Party, Patrick Little, Don Blankenship, Roy Moore, Donald Trump. We didn't pick those people.

The Republicans did. So tomorrow we get to find out of Blankenship as their official candidate in West Virginia. And then we'll see who finishes first among the Republicans in California, whether they make the runoff or not. But for God's sake, vote for real progressives who are not going to represent corporations or their donors and who are not going to represent monsters. They've got a crazy new idea. They're going to represent you, the voters, instead of the donors, or instead of the ghouls and goblins. But you've got to go make that happen. help them in every way you can get into the fight and whatever you do make sure you go vote

go to the links down below and get in the fight if you can't get in the fight to fight against the neo-nazzi when do you get in the fight this is the time okay who these these are crazy times insane times okay now i'm not done with a uh california race because um Now, let's go to the other side. So now you've got ghouls and gobbles over here. Now you got the corporate guys over here. In the California Senate race, there are a lot of different candidates. The Republican leader is a neo-Nazi, Patrick Little.

And the Democratic leader is Diane Feinstein. She's a current incumbent. There's other great candidates like Allison Hartson. I'll tell you about that in a second. So who is President Obama going to support? There's, by the way, also a state senator who's a Democrat. Okay? So Obama has a ton of options on the Democratic side.

So let's find out. Former President Barack Obama waited into California's Democratic primary for U.S. Senate on Friday, throwing his support to incumbent Diane Feinstein. Say it with me. Of course. Of course he did. Do you really believe that Obama's progressive? Does anybody believe that anymore? then he was fighting for change, change what, to change the system, to end the corruption,

to get money out of policy, he didn't do anything for eight years. On that note, change, change what? His main accomplishment was a health care plan that was originally written by the right-wing think tank Heritage Foundation. Wow, the dude is not progressive. He just isn't, it's not in his bones. He is the establishment. So who does he back?

Of course he backs the most establishment candidate out there. And by the way, he went out of his way on this one. As the Associated Press notes, it is his only primary endorsement in the congressional races so far in 2018. He's like, wait, wait, wait. There's a Bernie Sanders-style progressive, Alison Hartson running. No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. I got to get involved in this one.

Hold my beer. I got to go help my fellow corporate hack, Diane Feinstein. Do you know that Obama's cabinet was picked by an employee of Citigroup? Handed him a list and Obama picked everyone on the list but one person. They said, oh, no, no, no, that employee is a guy who does the revolving door in Washington. He goes, works in the government, then he works for the banks, then he works for the government, then he works with the banks. That's an explanation?

That's an excuse? No, no, no. The bankers were his number one donors in 2008 and they handed him a list of who would be in his cabinet, and that's what he did. At TYT, we frequently talk about all the ways that big tech companies are taking control of our online lives, constantly monitoring us and storing and selling our data. But that doesn't mean we have to let them. It's possible to stay anonymous online and hide your data from the prying eyes of big tech. And one of the best ways is with ExpressVPN.

ExpressVPN hides your IP address, making your active ID more difficult to trace and sell the advertisers. ExpressVPN also encrypts 100% of your network data to protect you from eavesdroppers and cyber criminals. And it's also easy to install. A single mouse click protects all your devices. But listen, guys, this is important. ExpressVPN is rated number one by CNET and Wired magazine. So take back control of your life online and secure your data with a top VPN solution available, ExpressVPN.

And if you go to ExpressVPN.com slash TYT, you can get three extra months for free with this exclusive link just for TYT fans. That's EXPRE S-SVPN.com. t yt check it out today so get it out of your head that obama was in any way shape or former progressive he was a good mild-mannered um manager nice job um in terms of being a progressive and fighting for change who the hell would support diane feinstein if you're fighting for change she hasn't changed in 50 years she ran the confederate flag when she was the mayor of san francisco mayor of san francisco not Chattanooga. Why? Oh, she wanted to get the Democratic Southerners to vote for her for

vice president for Walter Mondale. She voted for everything Bush ever asked for the tax cuts the Iraq war on and on. She did the corruption, her, send the contracts to her husband in the middle of the Iraq war. What a convenient thing. You vote for the Iraq war. Your husband gets all these contracts. And on and on it goes. Obama sees that. Doesn't think that's the bug. He thinks that's the feature. And why Feinstein in particular? You know that Feinstein actually supported Hillary Clinton in 2008 in their matchup, but Obama doesn't care about that. Once someone from the establishment supports him, he goes, oh, yes, I'm going to bathe in the establishment support. In fact, Feinstein later served as the chair of Obama's first inaugural ceremony.

Wow, that took a lot of money, and Feinstein brought in money for Obama. So progressives, no, no, no, no, no, no. Obama is not going to do that. If you're waiting for Obama to support any progressive causes or candidates, please don't hold your breath. You'll hurt yourself. He's never going to do it. You remember how he talked about how he was going to put on his walking boots?

This is before he was president. Put on his walking boots if collective bargaining was ever challenged. Those walking boots still in the closet left completely unworn. Is there any progressive? causes that he's rolled up the sleeves and gotten into. Alison Hartz is a community organized. Community organizer. Come on, who would support that?

I thought you were a community organized. She was a teacher, he was a teacher. Doesn't care. It was about him. Okay. Now, people are saying, oh, wow, that's surprising. Now, look, does Obama even know about Allison? I don't know.

And the rest of the media has, is, by the way, also deeply biased in favor of the establishment. They don't know that if you're a writer in California or you work in media at all in California, you probably don't even realize it. But you're massively pro establishment. Why? Is there a conspiracy? No, of course not. Don't be ridiculous.

But your idea is politicians are awesome and I should write about politicians and I should focus on politicians and I should give politicians a ton of free media. But if you're a real person like Allison who ran a nonprofit for five years, nonprofit to get money out of politics. No way, no way. Now, so what do they do? They cover the other guy in the race, KDL. So he was a state senator. So the rest of the California media is like, oh, state senator, state senator. He does very badly in the polling. Look, the polling is all over the place. To be fair, almost everyone's doing badly in the polling, including Diane Feinstein. He's only a 39%. But instead of then going, okay, well, who are the viable candidates maybe

on other metrics? They go, I don't know. I'm lazy. and I don't know it, but I'm actually part of the corruption. So who's got more money that they have amassed from corporations? Who is an establishment politician? I'm the one who's going to give them press. So they do it with KDL. Now, let me give you a sense of other metrics they could use. Do you know that Allison Hartson has, in the last week, as an example,

she beat all of the other candidates. I think there's like 30 candidates running in California. She beat all of them combined in social media. All of them combined. The second closest person, she had six times as much engagement in social media. You know what that tells you? That's a groundswell. Now, is anybody covering that ground swell?

No, no, wait, yeah, but is she a politician taking money from corporate packs? No, then we're not going to cover the ground swell. Okay, how about small donors? So that might indicate, hey, there's a lot of people who support her who are giving her a ton of contributions. They're not given it in million dollar increments like the the ones that the corrupt politicians are getting. So let's take a look at that. 72% of Allison's contributions come from small donors. Those are donors under $200.

That category, Feinstein laughs. He's like, why would I take small donors? I already have giant donors. Only 5% of her contributions come from small donors. But KDL, the state senator? only 8% of his donations come from small donors. He takes the same kind of corrupt money that Diane Feistine does. So they say like as if he's like a progressive.

No, he's not an alternative to the establishment. He's the establishment's backup plan. You want to get a sense of how much it gets from large contributors? This so-called progressive got 86% of his contributions from large donors. And the list goes on and on. He also takes money from defense contractors and telecoms who are against net neutrality. What kind of progressive alternative is this? He takes pack money endlessly.

What kind of progressive alternative is this? So the Obamas of the world and the mainstream media, they don't know the degree to which they are taking part in corruption if I am being kind to them. But the reality is they are. They reward big money. They reward establishment politicians over and over. But you don't have to do that. You can support Alison Hartson.

We'll have the links down below to support Allison. Get in the fight. You volunteer. She's got over 1,700 volunteers. She's lapping the field. She's got more volunteers than everyone else combined. Okay. What else does she have to do?

The only way that the rest of the media pays attention to Obama is if she went and said, well, I did raise millions of dollars from Comcast and Verizon and Lockheed Martin and Boeing and Exxon Mobil. Then they'd be like, oh my God, you are a legitimate candidate. You're a legitimate candidate. She is, she is. And you guys can support her. Okay, by the way, a quick programming note there. I am going to do an event with her.

You know I support it. Can you tell by now? Okay, May 8th, that's tomorrow. We'll cover the primaries. So t-y-tnetwork.com slash live. And then afterwards, I'm going to rush over to the Stockney Horse Brewery and Freehouse in Culver City. So RSPB at the link down below if you're watching this on YouTube or Facebook and come over 27 bucks. So they do fundraisers getting millions of dollars.

We're doing it 27 bucks at a time. They say it can't be done. I believe it can be done. I believe we can have a Bernie Sanders style progressive that can actually represent the progressives of California. Let's go do it together. Okay, one more. No, you know what? Let me save this.

So I got Rudy Giuliani saying insane stuff. I got Oliver North now running the NRA, criminals for criminals. I've got all of that when we return. Thanks for listening to this podcast. You're only halfway through. So hold, hold, stay right here. Just want to remind you if you want to get all five segments of the Young Turks commercial free. These are just two of them.

Every day we do it. So go to t-y-tnetwork.com slash join. and you get the whole five segments, two hours. Add free. Do it now. All right, back on the Young Turks. Hannah Krasen joins us from Think. Woo.

Oh, I like that. You know who I'm having on Think Tank tomorrow? Who? For the first time in like forever. Huss. Hassan the Hun. Ah, interesting. He'll be making his appearance on Thingt.

You had Cassion, right? who does the Pilates channel? Yes, Cassie Howe. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So I just saw a brandcast in YouTube. She says hi. I love her. She's great.

She does vloggalates. Yes, she has a huge YouTube channel. You should check that out. She's a wonderful person. All right. Brian Newton writes, and I'm sure the victims, he's referring to McCain, of his warmongering would like a voiceover his passing too. Okay?

Connor Levone writes in. A regime change in Iran probably leads to a new civil war in Iraq and Lebanon and Syria. becomes an even bigger mess. All that is unfortunately, certainly possible and maybe even likely. Hezbollah has just won the elections in Lebanon. Buckle up. And when, if we attack,

2-2-2, if we attack Iran, that greatly emboldens all the radicals in the Middle East. They will get to say, we told you, there's never a peace deal with America. Go fight them, fight them, fight them. Anyway, members of the day are Peter Markland and Julie Welton. Hannah and I will be doing the post game today. Yeah.

And of course, it will be fun and fantastic. Fun and fantastic. That's right. And guys, if you want tomorrow, first of all, make sure you're watching our live coverage of the primary Samoa, Indiana, North Carolina, West Virginia, Ohio, these huge states. So Young Turks 6 to 8 p.m. tomorrow and then 8 o'clock, our primary coverage starts. And then after that, if you're here in L.A., 8 to 10 p.m. Pacific of the Stalking Horse Brewery and Freehouse on Pico Boulevard, Allison Harsen is going to do a people's fundraiser. You've got an RSVP there, and it's $27.

It's not thousands upon thousands of dollars like a normal fundraiser is. And I will go as soon as our broadcast is over, and I'll join you guys there as well. I think this is only capacity for 50 people. So, and by the way, we're not saying 27 is all you can give. If you can get more, by God, do it. Allisonhearsen.com slash go. All right, what's next? The University of Florida has been accused of racism after students were aggressively

and forcefully dragged off stage during the graduation ceremony. Take a look at some of this video. Okay, can I just say, Hannah, I thought for a second when I first saw the video that they were dancing, like that they were dancing together. Yeah. I'm like, I can't believe the guy made contact like that. That was like, I'm like, are they doing like the docee dough? What's going on? But they were literally physically. Physically dragging them off the stage. And you can see. see even some of the more almost like violent nature of it in this next video that I want to show you. You've got to look closely and you can hear the people in the crowd reacting to it. So let's watch that really quick.

Excuse you. Wow. Wow. So look, just real quick. Look, I know that those ceremonies can last forever, right? And there's 10,000 people graduating from the University of Florida. But you cannot manhandle them at their, what a lot of people consider it to be one of the most important moments in their life. Right.

And rassel them off the stage. That's crazy. You can't do that to anyone. And now, of course, witnesses are saying they didn't do it to the white students. They did it to black students. Oh, Jesus Christ. What have you done? Well, that's the thing.

So they basically implemented this policy to sort of move things along, right? Because these ceremonies can last a long time. And what's interesting, like you said, witnesses said that they weren't doing it to the white students. One of the witnesses said that there was a white student who did a backflip and he wasn't touched. He was allowed to do what he wanted to do. Now, one student in particular, Nefisa Atta, who was one. of the students who's actually pushed off the stage while she was dancing, said she had planned what she wanted to do on stage to celebrate my story,

all of my hard work I'd done at the University of Florida. I tried to do one of my stroll moves, but I was instantly, like, blocked by one of the officials on stage, and they aggressively pushed me off the stage after that. So I was definitely disappointed. They took that moment from me because I can only get my bachelor's once. I mean, and that really alludes to getting at what you were saying, is that this only happens once for most people.

And this is such a huge event in so many people's lives. And her family came from London and came from all around the country to watch her do this. And to watch have her be abused in the act of having this huge life event. It's so sad. So I want to be clear about this. I would be shocked if University of Florida dean or administrators were like, okay, we're going to have this random dude on stage. Now, make sure you only attack black people.

Okay, but that's the problem with stereotypes and discrimination and racism, is that, unfortunately, it's in the back of almost all of our heads. So when it comes to enforcement, there's selective enforcement. So white kids are doing backflips left and right, and the usher doesn't think to tackle them or suplex them. And so apparently strolling is part of a tradition, which I didn't know about. Yeah, so it is part of, it is a part of the black Greek organizations, and it's a sort of a celebratory dance. They do it. They'll do it at different events and things like that. Sometimes it's in a line or sometimes it dance and things like that.

They do like stroll-offs and things like that. Yeah, and look, I wasn't enough attorney. I don't know anything about that. I've sat through incredibly boring ceremonies, by the way, the dancing makes it better, not worse. Okay, reading the 10,000 names is a real problem at hand. okay yeah seriously and and i don't think those those ceremonies are that big a deal like people are like oh your kids graduating from preschool are you going to go nuts no it's preschool if she can't graduate from preschool we're in a lot of trouble um anyway graduating college is a bigger

thing graduating from preschool and hannah that's where i was going with it like but a lot of people think graduating from college is a giant deal like a seminal moment in and i know people who are brokenhearted because they couldn't walk uh you know and hear their name because they graduated in the spring instead of the fall, whatever it might be, instead of the summer. And so to rain on their parade like this, you can't do that. What you can do is you say, hey, everybody, please don't dance or please make it quick, because we've got to get through this. But you can't enforce it.

You can't. Otherwise, you're tackling people. By the way, if there was no racial angle here, it would still be totally unacceptable. If they're tackling white people left and right, it's still not the right thing to do at people's graduation. Of course. You shouldn't manhandle anybody. You just put that as like a base rule that everybody follows? I think that's a big component of it, right?

Like the violent nature, the aggressive nature, not respecting people's bodies. But adding in the race aspect of it really adds another layer, right? And it's kind of what you were getting at is that implicit bias and how we view black people and how a lot of white people view black people as more threatening, as more dangerous, as not having a right over their own body and how it is treated. or how it is touched or handled or whatever it may be. I mean, we see that with police brutality. And you're seeing it in this case, obviously, a much less violent scale, but violent nonetheless.

And it might be just that usher who thinks, well, if a white person is doing it, and he doesn't consciously think this, or maybe he does, I don't know the guy. But what happens oftentimes is subconsciously, he sees a white person doing it, thinks, oh, they're full of joy because they're getting their diploma. He sees a black person, he thinks they're showboating. There they go again. I got to put it. They told me to put an end to it.

I'm going to go put an end to it. I mean, if he punched a white guy while he was doing the back, not punch, that's too much. But he, like, tackle the guys he did with these people in the middle of his back flipped and I'd say, hey, the guy's just out of control. Yeah. But there does seem to be a second component here. Yeah, and the university president did apologize. And he said that it was too aggressive, that it was out of line.

But a lot of people say, like, too little too late. You stole that moment from us. We only, that was our one chance. And so, I mean, and the fact that he was on stage and probably witnessing some of this and didn't say anything at the time also sort of reinforces why people are so upset about this. Yeah, look, if he saw it, that's more problematic. He might not have seen it. But if he did, they should have just subtle, like, the usher dude, walk him out. We're done with the usher. Okay, the usher's not working out. Right. But anyway, what I really hope is that it's just a lesson learned and that for the, and the University of Florida says, we're not doing that. Again, okay? And for all the other colleges in high schools out there, we know it's a long,

boring process, but if someone actually wants to dance in the middle of it, let them dance. Give me a second, give me a second, let him enjoy their moment, and then the rest of us can get bored us with the rest of the proceedings. Yeah. All right. Donald Glover, aka Childish Gambino, released his new music video and song this weekend. This is America. And people are very excited about it. There's a lot of symbolism and commentary that we're going to get into now.

Now, we can't show you the video because of copyright, but we're going to show you some screenshots and go into some of the most pertinent and important symbolism that is present in this video. So the first image I want to pull up here. Oh, not that one. The image, TA 70, maybe. So the first image is of him shooting this man here. And what's interesting is in the beginning, he starts dancing, right? And some of his dancing is very exaggerated. Some are saying that it is a character of a character.

A lot of people are saying that it resembles Jim Crow. And you can see that image now where he is being compared. And that way, you can see a lot of the, even the stance is very similar there. And so he's in this stance while he shoots this man. Nothing happens. he gives the gun to somebody, they take it in a red cloth, they're treating the gun very nicely, and then the man is sort of dragged away. So a lot of people are saying that that's like a commentary on gun violence in America,

how we really put guns on a pedestal before human life. And I think we have seen that time and time again, and that's really, you know, Donald Glover's commentary on this. Yeah. Okay, so this is a brilliant video and an excellent political commentary, social commentary on America. It's not an accident that it's called, this is America. And so, first of all, I want to end the debate as to if he meant it. Of course he meant it. So when he shoots the guy, nobody cares about the guy, but then they care about the gun and they treat it so gently, that's obviously a statement on the current state of America. His exaggerated dance moves are an obvious reference

to how America views blacks historically as entertainers and are happy to have them entertain them, but their actual bodies, their dead bodies are less relevant and don't get the attention. And he really emphasized that throughout the video. Yeah, you can see that a lot throughout the video because a lot of what he's doing, he's doing these very popular dance moves that were made popular by people within the black community. and he's doing that at the forefront while in the background, so much is going on. So we can go straight to TA 72 where you can see him dancing around where all this violence, there's a police car, all of this craziness is going on in the background, which is really,

you know, to your point, Jank, talking about how we're happy to elevate black entertains. We're happy to appreciate black culture and appreciate black music. But then when it comes to violence against black people, nobody really cares. Everybody's focusing on what's on the forefront. And that's very problematic in our country and that this is America. Yeah. And so the dichotomy of how we treat black entertainers versus the far more common African-American experience in this country is what he's pointing out again in a way that I think is amazing. saying like the real problems are in the background and no one cares.

And in fact, they'll actively fight against it and fight against fixing it. But as long as you're dancing in front of people and entertaining them, they're like, okay, that's good, that's good. We like that. And then of course there's the Charleston Roberts. Yeah, so let's pull up that image right now, TA 71, where you can see this real back and forth in the video between joy and pain. And so there's these, you know, choir members, you think they're just singing the court. he comes in with what looks like some sort of semi-automatic weapon, and he's dancing and then just shoots them all without even blinking an eye, keeps on dancing by the bodies are

left just to remain there, whereas the gun again is taken carefully away from him, and he remains untouched, unscathed, which is, you know, similar to what happened in the 2015 Charleston shooting, where this man just went in, shot up a church, you know, he was not treated, I mean, he obviously went to jail, but was not treated forcibly or anything like that. So the famous story about how they treated the Charleston shooter was that they cops, once they arrested him, took him to a Burger King and got him a meal. And so that got under a lot of people's skin very understandably. And so people said, well, I mean, a choir and is that over the top?

No, no, the Charleston shooting happened at a church at a Bible study. They were at a Bible study. They were at a church. It was a joyous moment. guy came and murders them and walks out and then the cops give him Burger King. And so of course it's a reference to that and well done again. Yeah. And you know, part of the meta symbolism here is he say if all you're going to do is focus on us singing and entertaining you, well then I'm going to put it in the song and I'm going to put it in the video.

Perfect. I love that. Yeah, I mean, everything in this video is so genius. Even the next part, he has, you know, he says, this is a cellie, that's a tool, okay? And so, you know, that's a reference to Stefan Clark, but also the fact that people are now using cell phones to really document what is happening within the black community, especially police brutality against them. And it's so great that he talks about that. You can use this as a tool. And I love that he does that. And then the last scene is him running through this extremely dark hallway.

with his eyes bulging, and many are saying that that's a reference to the sunken place, a reference back to get out. So there's a lot going on in this video, but it is genius. I mean, all the symbolism is there. And I mean, I watched it at least five times. And every time I felt like I noticed something different and something new. And I'm probably missing still half of the symbolism that he put into this. Oh, yeah, I am too.

And I hope what he explains it all. Or maybe he doesn't and leaves it as a work of art. But so the Stefan Clark, of course, was shot by the cops in his own backyard. He had a cell phone. And the cops said they shot him because they were worried that it was a tool. And so they thought it was a tool that he was using to break into cars. It turns out, no, it was a cell phone. And he did not have any weapon at all.

And I don't know if it's a reference to the second place when he's running out or just a commentary on African-Americans running from the police. and oftentimes people will say, why were they running in the first place? And after you've seen all the carnage in the video, who in their right mind wouldn't run? Yeah. Right? So either way, incredibly well put together. And it had this funny effect on me. So his series, Atlanta is really well received.

It's got a ton of great reviews from critics, et cetera. But it's hard to keep up with all the shows and stuff. But after watching this video, I'm like, no, that's it. I'm going to go back and watch Atlanta. I believe it's the same director. I believe it's the same director who did both of them. Yeah, I mean, he's amazing. He's so multi-talented.

And there's so many things in this video. Another aspect, the one thing I want to bring up is he has the white horse and with the cloaked henchman on it, which is a reference to the apocalypse. And he's saying, this is America. And that's kind of how I feel every day. But I can't even imagine for the black community that is going through all of this, just constant violence. just disrespect by our country.

Yeah, and it's apparently the first horse of the apocalypse, and it's in the background while he's still dancing, and everybody's paying attention to the dancing, well, the apocalypse has begun. So, and that's one interpretation, and there could be others as well. All right, anyway, wonderful job in that video, and I'm glad that he's making a statement. By the way, cue the right wing to a countdown of saying, this is not the right place to make a statement, right? Three, two, one. Music, art, please, yeah.

Yeah, art is not the right place to make a statement. All right, we've got to take a break. And then when we come back, the right wing have found a new way to attack Emma Gonzalez. But wait until you hear which Emma Gonzalez. Thanks for watching what I hope was a lovely edition of the Young Turks. Now, you know that that is two of the five segments that we do because that's free. we want to have you support independent media and come watch the whole show that we do every day.

That's five segments overall, no ads at all. That's at t-y-tnetwork.com slash join. Come become a member. Thanks for watching either way. Thanks for listening to the full episode of the Young Turks. Support our work, listen to ad-free, access members, only bonus content, and more by subscribing to Apple Podcasts at apple.com at apple.com slash t-y-t. I'm your host, Jank Yugar, and I'll see you soon.