The Young Turks - Face The Music

Episode Date: August 4, 2022

The American Israel Public Affairs Committee helped to push a Jewish progressive out of his seat in Michigan. Florida’s Ron DeSantis threatens to sue doctors that give gender-affirming care. School districts across the nation are suffering from a teaching shortage. Four officers in the case of Breanna Taylor’s murder are facing federal charges. A recent study shows that having a bad career can decrease your mental health. Hosts: Ana Kasparian, Emma Vigeland *** The largest online progressive news show in the world. Hosted by Cenk Uygur and Ana Kasparian. LIVE weekdays 6-8 pm ET. Help support our mission and get perks. Membership protects TYT's independence from corporate ownership and allows us to provide free live shows that speak truth to power for people around the world. See Perks: ▶ https://www.youtube.com/TheYoungTurks/join SUBSCRIBE on YOUTUBE: ☞ http://www.youtube.com/subscription_center?add_user=theyoungturks FACEBOOK: ☞ http://www.facebook.com/TheYoungTurks TWITTER: ☞ http://www.twitter.com/TheYoungTurks INSTAGRAM: ☞ http://www.instagram.com/TheYoungTurks TWITCH: ☞ http://www.twitch.com/tyt 👕 Merch: http://shoptyt.com ❤ Donate: http://www.tyt.com/go 🔗 Website: https://www.tyt.com 📱App: http://www.tyt.com/app 📬 Newsletters: https://www.tyt.com/newsletters/ If you want to watch more videos from TYT, consider subscribing to other channels in our network: The Damage Report ▶ https://www.youtube.com/thedamagereport TYT Sports ▶ https://www.youtube.com/tytsports The Conversation ▶ https://www.youtube.com/tytconversation Rebel HQ ▶ https://www.youtube.com/rebelhq TYT Investigates ▶ https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCwNJt9PYyN1uyw2XhNIQMMA #TYT #TheYoungTurks #BreakingNews 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. Welcome to TYT. I'm your host, Anna Casparian, and joining us today is Emma Viglin, host of Majority Report, good friend of the show, former colleague of my and someone I love hosting the show with. Emma, good to have you. Oh, good to be back. Two Thursdays in a row for us. So very fun. I'm so happy to be here with you. It's pretty sweet. It's funny. Yesterday, John Adiorla was talking about how much he misses hosting with you. And I had told him, well, next time Emma's on, you know, maybe we'll just do a power panel, even if it's not a Friday.

But I didn't realize you were hosting today. So it didn't really give me enough time to let him know. Hopefully he's getting some rest because he's worked really, really hard this week. But we do have a great show ahead for all of you today. In fact, we are gonna begin with some breaking news related to the trial for Alex Jones and the very clear defamation that he had carried out on his programming for several years in regard to the Sandy Hook victims. So we'll talk about that. Later in the hour, we'll also talk about how APAC has been incredibly influential in certain congressional races. They have poured money to defeat progressives. And unfortunately, they have succeeded in Michigan's 11th district.

So we'll discuss that. Later in the show, we'll also talk about just how far Republicans in the Senate are willing to go to do away with programs that we the people, we the taxpayers have paid into Social Security, Medicare. He wants to snatch it from us. And I'll tell you how he plans to do it. And luckily, he's gotten some backlash from other conservatives. So we'll share that and more. But first, why don't we get started with the breaking news story? There is a big, big update in the Alex Jones defamation trial. We've now learned that Alex Jones will have to pay $4.1 million in compensatory damages in the defamation case.

It's actually the first of three trials that he's facing in regard to the parents of Sandy hook shooting victims who have been harassed by him, who have been defamed by him. He was already found guilty of defamation in a summary judgment after the judge with her unbelievable patience gave him a lengthy period of time to cooperate with this lawsuit, to cooperate with the discovery process of the lawsuit and handover documents. When he refused to comply, the judge had no choice but to issue what's known as a summary judgment and he was found guilty of defamation. So now the focus of the trial is, well, how much will he have to pay in both compensatory

damages and punitive damages? So far we have learned that he has been ordered to pay $4.1 million in compensatory damages and beginning next week, the portion of the trial that focuses on punitive damages will begin. And remember what we've learned through the trial so far has been pretty damning for Alex Jones. You've had various staffers and hosts take the stand, and they admitted under oath that they do very little fact checking before they air certain conspiratorial garbage that they broadcast on their programming. And we also learn that Alex Jones has no problem lying both on his programming and also while he is sitting on the stand, testifying under oath. In fact, there was this wonderful moment during the trial just yesterday when the plaintiff's lawyer, called him out on his lies about text messages.

He was supposed to turn over text messages that had anything to do with Sandy Hook. He had claimed that no such text messages existed. And then Alex Jones's lawyers did something incredibly stupid. And this was the moment in the trial that had to do with this situation. Let's take a quick look at that. On the left corner, is that your phone number? Yes. So you did get my text messages.

And I said you didn't. Nice trick. Yes, Mr. Jones. Indeed. You didn't give this text message to me. You don't know where this came from. Do you know where I got this? No.

Mr. Jones, did you know that 12 days ago, 12 days ago, your attorney's messed up and sent me an entire digital copy of your entire cell phone with every text message you've sent for the past two years and when informed did not take any steps to identify it as privileged or protected in any way. And as of two days ago, it fell free and clear into my possession. And that is how I know you lied to me when you said you didn't

have text message about saying you go. Did you know that? I see, I told you the truth. This is your Perry Mason moment. I gave them my phone. Mr. Jones, you need to answer the question. No, I don't know this happened. That was such a great moment, Emma. But also it just made it abundantly clear that this guy has no problem lying under oath. Even prior to this happening, the judge called him out on lying under oath two separate times. Again, this was before he was called out on the lies regarding evidentiary, evidentiary portions of this case.

But I want to hear what you think about this because there was some fear that since his lawyers seem to be incredibly incompetent, they might try to do, you know, toss this trial out and start again. But it looks like he will be paying $4.1 million in compensatory damages. Yeah, I mean, I'm, I'll never get tired of watching that video. I got to be honest with you, because this man, as fun as it is to laugh at him and his red sweaty face that's caused by whatever off brand supplements, he's making $100. of thousands of dollars on a day, like he has caused untold damage to not just the victims of the Sandy Hook massacre and their parents, of course, but to just the discourse in general. I mean, Sam likes to say if the, if Alex Jones didn't exist, the CIA would create him, because it's really helpful to have a guy out there talking like a crazy person who is completely

diverting attention and heat from the actual conspiracies in this country. And instead talking about lizard people and, you know, the frogs turning gay and the Bilderberg group or whatever garbage he has on his program, he is sapping, I think, the discourse of relevant attention on actually powerful actors who are hurting people on a daily basis. Plus, of course, what he has cause to the Sandy Hook parents. So I'm thrilled to see this, even though the number is lower than I thought, I'm happy that it happened. And it seems like more is coming. But I did love that moment where he's stunned there. It's like in the OJ trial, if the glove don't, if the glove doesn't fit, you must to quit, right? It's like texting the prosecutors a picture of you wearing

the glove and then also holding the knife. Right? I mean, that's, kind of what this happened here, except for the fact that you don't need that smoking gun evidence to go after Alex Jones in this regard. It's all over the internet. And that moment really did demonstrate just how much of a professional liar Alex Jones really is because he got caught red handed in that moment in real time during the trial. And his immediate reaction was, see, I told the truth. I handed over the text messages. And the plaintiff's attorney, of course, had to be like, did you know that your attorneys had sent me the entire digital copy of your cell phone? No, I didn't know.

attorney is a good attorney to say the least. He's not some sort of ambulance chaser who doesn't know what he's doing. He is strong in his line of questioning, did a good job in dismantling any kind of ridiculous argument that Alex Jones or any of his cronies might have to try to pretend as if they aren't guilty of any wrongdoing here. One thing that I noticed during the trial, which tended to occur over and over again, was this notion that the plaintiff's attorney was purposely taking statements out of context, right? And that's a typical right wing talking point that we see quite often. And it's like, you have hours and hours of content calling the Sandy Hook massacre, along with other mass shootings, by the way, along with the Boston bombing, by the way, referring to them as false flags, meant to rile up Americans into thinking that these are

government executed tragedies that are done specifically to take guns away from law abiding Americans. It's complete horse crap. And I'm very happy. And to me, real quick, one final thing I'll say. I agree with you. I think the $4.1 million in compensatory damages is not enough. We'll see what he'll have to pay in punitive damages in this first trial. Remember, there's going to be three trials to determine what he owes the parents of the Sandy Hook massacres. This trial has to do with Neil Helson, Heslin, I'm sorry, Neil Heslin and Scarlett Lewis, who lost their six-year-old boy, Jesse Lewis. So overall, who knows how much he's going to have to pay in damages, but I'll say this, he does make hundreds of millions of dollars off selling these garbage

supplements over a very short period of time. And I would like to see more punishment. He claims that a $2 million settlement or ruling by this judge would, or by the jury, I should would lead to financial ruin for him. No one's buying that. Yeah, I didn't mean to cut you off there earlier. No worries. But, but, but I mean, when you bring up the conspiracy theories about other shootings, people should understand that this is reflected not just in right wing discourse on the fringes, but in the very halls of Congress, Marjorie Taylor Green repeated conspiracy theories about massacres being essentially false flags. She talked, talked about how why would the Las Vegas shooting happen at the country music concert? Well,

that's because there are a lot of Republicans there. And that's trying to get them, get you to be scared to give away your guns. I mean, dozens of people died, died in that shooting. And she rode that conspiracy theory mongering all the way to Congress. And so that is a reality, right? Like this kind of stuff influences people and it influences politicians who now hold power. Now, luckily, she's been, you know, stripped for committee assignments, but I would not be shocked if Paul Gosar, Lauren Bobert, all these other lunatics hold very similar views to him. He's been an influential figure rubbing elbows, rubbing elbows, rubbing shoulders with Roger Stone, who has direct line to Donald Trump. Like, this is not somebody on the fringes. This is somebody who needs to be sued out of existence. Like, you think he might say, I want to cancel him? Yes. I want to. I want to. I want you canceled. Yeah, I want you off air, I want you bankrupt, I want you gone. And I would love to watch that happen.

I'd love to watch him go down in flames and I would enjoy every second of it. Yeah, I agree with you 100% on that. You know, there were some who purport to be on the left individuals like Jimmy Door per se, right? Like they love to just provide cover for Alex Jones by saying things like, well, we might not like him, but we don't want him to get banned from platforms like Twitter. And I actually have a pretty strict line. You know, I'm not one of these people who wants everyone or anyone who says anything offensive to be blocked from social media platforms. But for me, Alex Jones crossed

that line. And the reason why I say that is because his speech went far beyond just being offensive. I mean, he's the king of offensive speech. I never called for him to get banned from anything just for being offensive. The issue is when you start engaging in defamatory speech that specifically targets individuals and directs violence and hatred toward them. And he, along with his staff, along with his co-hosts, had absolutely no problem further victimizing parents, further putting parents in danger after they lost their children in a school shooting. That is who Alex Jones is, he causes actual harm, including possible physical harm to people who have already been victimized. And he had no problem doing it. He had no issue with it. It wasn't

until he was forced to admit that he believes that Sandy Hook happened, that it wasn't some conspiracy. It took the stand, like he had to be in trial on the stand to finally admit that and to say it openly and clearly. But without this lawsuit, he would have continued. I mean, it was a huge cash cow for him. And what's really depressing about all of it is when you take a step back and you look at the bigger picture, the problem is much deeper than Alex Jones because the trust in our institutions has completely eroded and people are willing to believe what some lunatic like Alex Jones has to say, regardless of how far-fetched and insane his conspiracy theories might be, they're more likely to believe that guy,

Alex Jones rather than believe our mainstream media. And that's not to criticize the individuals who trust in Alex Jones. That's to criticize the fact that we do have institutions. We do have this media culture that sows distrust among people, right? And so that needs to be dealt with. And I don't know if it ever will because there is a corporate structure in our in our press as well. And when you have that financial motive, when you have a profit mode, I think inevitably some of the reporting is going to skew in a direction that so is the very

distrust that I'm talking about. Yeah, and I'll just add this one thing to, in addition to the press not being helpful in this regard, our actual institutions, there's conspiracy abound there, right? I mean, what the deep, who the deep state actually targets are civil rights activists, indigenous activists. I mean, go back and read your history, look up some of the assassinations, in this country of civil rights leaders. And I'm not just talking about, you know, Fred Hampton. There's some sketchy stuff when it comes to Malcolm X, Martin Luther King.

Like these institutions were set up to attack the left, among other things, but surveil and attack the left. And part of what Alex Jones does is he diverts attention away from that and obscures and muddies that water, where it's not as clear. But that's the reality. Yep, absolutely. All right, well, we're going to switch gears a little bit, talk about something completely different. Although, you know, if you want to talk about what's really going on behind the scenes and what really influences our government and politics, we should follow the money. It's not that hard to do. It's actually a pretty open conspiracy. So let's discuss.

APAC has been on a mission to destroy the candidacy of progressives across the country. And their massive investments in this project certainly paid off in Michigan's 11th district. After spending millions of dollars, Representative Haley Stevens, who APAC, of course, preferred, defeated fellow Democratic representative Andy Levine, a Jewish progressive who has criticized Israel's illegal and brutal occupation of Palestinian territory. Stevens ultimately prevailed with 60% of the vote, a win that APAC celebrated as a major and consequential. Now, Apex intervention in this race was through one of their super PACs that's referred to as the United Democracy Project, which is a hilarious label considering what they're engaging in. And it's

mostly funded by moderate Democrats, no. It's mostly funded by billionaire Republicans. So Stevens and Levine were forced into a primary contest by Michigan's redistricting process. And I know, Emma, there's some of that going on in New York, which I'd love you to jump in about in just a moment. But that provided an opportunity for APAC super PAC and other special interest groups to pour literally millions of dollars into the race to oust Levine, who by the way has been described as one of the most progressive Jewish members of the house. Now due to redistricting, Levine and Stevens both found themselves choosing between the 11th district and the neighboring 10th district, which unfortunately is a Trump leaning seat based in Macomb County. Both ultimately chose the 11th district

leading to accusations of carpet bagging against Levine, whose current constituent base is largely within the 10th district. I'm gonna skip ahead because I think the statement from Jay Street is absolutely correct. So Jay Street is also a Jewish organization, but they are the antithesis of APAC. And here's what they had to say. Quote, it is alarming that this race, this race, like many other Democratic primaries this cycle, was heavily impacted by the aggressive outside spending of APAC and its Super PAC, the United Democracy Project. They spent nearly $5 million to target and defeat Levine, far more than was spent by any other group. A PAC has endorsed and funded 109 Republicans who voted to overturn the 2020 election on January 6th.

Promoters of the big lie like Jim Jordan, Scott Perry, and more while attacking candidates like Andy Levine as extremists, which by the way, also makes their label, you know, their pro-democracy label ridiculous, considering the kinds of candidates they tend to fund and endorse. Emma, thoughts on this. Yeah, it is a really troubling dynamic in the country right now where I think APAC and right wing interests and they overlap. all together, by the way, are really threatened by the Ilhan Omar's, the Rashida Talibes, the Alexandria Ocasio-Cortezes, the Cory Bushes, the progressives in Congress who are causing a sea change about the way Israel and the Israeli apartheid state is discussed in the mainstream press. Because the more voices that you have in the halls of power talking about how 90% of the occupied territory in Palestine does not have clean water, how they are second class citizens and have to check in with the Israeli government when they want to travel around

the territory, how asymmetrical the warfare is there, where essentially Palestine is being occupied and they retaliate. But Israel's brutality, that's usually... comes first, frankly, as a way to make sure that Palestine doesn't get too hopeful about their prospects for actually having some freedom. They will kill many times over because they have way more sophisticated weaponry. And Palestinians try to fight back, but because of the United States' unconditional support, it's not going to work out for them because we send them so much money and so much weaponry. And so it's an existential threat to right wing hawks in Israel when there are more people in the halls of power saying, maybe we should make that conditional

on like, I don't know, treating Palestinians like human beings. And so the more people in Congress who have that perspective, the more scared APEC becomes. And so I think they understand, even though they are a right wing organization, that they can get way more bang for their buck And they can represent other right wing interests who can funnel money through AIPAC. And it's under the guise of a pro-Israel lobby, not like the oil and gas industry or Wall Street, et cetera, right? And there's no accountability there. They can cut off progressives' legs in the primary process.

And it's all under the guise of, hey, it's just APAC money. And so all of these issues intersect. Yeah, you make a really great point there. You know, the way dark money works in our congressional races, and presidential races, by the way, is really, really important to hone in on because, you know, I think that things are changing, which is a good thing where you can actually be openly critical about the government of Israel, just like any other government in any other country without automatically being labeled anti-Semitic, right? And so I feel like a lot of these,

special interests kind of group together under that APAC label to do their spending in order to get the protection they think that they're going to get, right? Because for the longest time, saying anything that came across as even a little anti-Israel was so negative. I mean, you would have a negative reaction to that. And it's changing among young voters and young people. I mean, they're definitely aware of what's going on and being critical of the treatment of Palestinians by the Israeli government does not make you anti-Semitic at all. Same as being critical of the American government doesn't make you anti-American. That's insane.

But I do think that the way dark money works in these congressional races is important to pay attention to. And in the end, the people who actually end up winning the most tend to be moderate Democrats in these races. And moderate Democrats, in a lot of the policy issues that we care most about, would much rather side with the Republican Party than with progressives, which is terrifying. And we see that play out with social spending bills and the like. Well, you know, I just want to, you bring up America there.

Imagine you were watching the United States's slow genocide and stealing of land of Native Americans in real time. And then understand why it's so important to speak out against what's happening in the West Bank and Gaza. And everybody but the United States and other allied countries in the West agrees with this assessment. The United Nations agrees with this assessment. Any country that isn't completely biased in this area agrees with this assessment. And so this is why we should support BDS because the only way that South Africa really changed its position is when they were on apartheid, I should say, is when they were economically harmed. And I think you can see why APAC is so scared is because people are starting to gain a consciousness about what is happening over there. And it's very analogous to what was happening in South Africa.

And it's analogous to, as I say, you know, other movements of cultural genocide throughout history. And we have to be clear about that and not be scared about being smeared as anti-Semitic. Because frankly, like Andy Levin or Bernie Sanders, they'll also get smeared as being a self-hating Jew because that's the only tactic that APAC can go back to. And all these other Jewish progressive organizations don't ever go there because it's not true. It's a smear. It's false. And Jewish Americans in this country are some of the most progressive voters historically. And they've been incredibly consistent on that.

And when you poll Jewish Americans, they are not supportive of the way that Israel is conducting this cultural genocide in Palestine. And so just remember that. APAC is not representative of Jewish Americans. Absolutely. We got to take a quick break. When we come back, we have more news for you, including some pretty terrifying news out of Florida where a democratically elected prosecutor has been suspended unilaterally by Governor DeSantis. We'll tell you why. Welcome back to TYT, Anna Caspariate and Emma Vigland with you. Emma hosts the majority report with Sam Cedar. You guys should check that out. And preferably not when it's live because that's because that's when damage report is on, that's when watch list is on. But still, it's a great show and you should check it out.

How dare you? You could, you could subscribe to their VODs on YouTube. I don't even know what that is. It's video on demand and it took me, I don't know, several years to figure out what that meant when it was an email sent to me. I'm like, oh yeah, VODs totally. Right. But a triple level hype train, like I know what that is. I know, right.

God, I hate, I'm in my 20s, I don't know anything though, right? Like it's, it is painful how much cooler everyone else is than me. You're still in your 20s? Yeah. Well, that's incredibly depressing. Let's move on. There's other things to talk about, including what's even more depressing, what's taking place in Florida under the leadership of Ron DeSantis.

Florida's governor Ron DeSantis has announced the suspension of an elected Tampa prosecutor who pledged not to pursue criminal charges against women seeking abortions in the state or doctors administering gender affirming care to their patients. Now here is DeSantis making the announcement that he unilaterally decided to suspend this prosecutor. We don't elect people in one part of the state to have veto power over what the entire state decides on these important issues. The constitution of Florida has vested the veto power in the governor, not an individual state attorneys. And so when you flagrantly violate your oath of office, when you make yourself above the law, you have violated your duty, You have neglected your duty and you are displaying a lack of competence to be able to reform those duties.

And so today we are suspending state attorney Andrew Warren effective immediately. Now, as we all know, and I'm sure we've all experienced it in whichever state we live in, right? Prosecutors tend to have quite a bit of discretion in regard to what type of charges they pursue. And in this case, you have a prosecutor who was elected in Tampa by people living in Tampa who said, yeah, I'm going to use my discretion, basically. He signed this pledge. And we'll get to the, in my opinion, modest pledge in just a moment. But a few more details and context before we bring Emma in. So DeSantis, who of course is a Republican, suspended Andrew Warren, the elected state attorney of Hillsborough County. In June, Warren, a Democrat, joined 83 elected prosecutors across the country who vowed not to prosecute those who seek or provide abortions after the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade.

Florida imposed a 15-week abortion ban in April. Now, again, prosecutorial discretion is very common. There are cases where prosecutors might look into it. They might decide, all right, this person may be shoplifted. And it's a waste of our resources to pursue criminal charges against this individual. In this case, you know, Warren's arguing, well, you know, do I really want to get in between a patient and their doctor? And also, does it really make sense for me to pursue a woman or possibly a girl who's seeking an abortion? Should I criminalize that person for seeking an abortion?

In quoting the pledge, in quoting from the pledge, Warren signed, however, this is interesting. DeSantis's order makes one notable edit. The pledge states that the prosecutors would exercise our well settled discretion and refrain from prosecuting those who seek, provide, or support abortions. Now, here's where it gets interesting. The DeSantis orders quote of the statement actually leaves out the part where the prosecutor, pledged not to charge those who seek an abortion, replacing the word seek with ellipsis. Gee, I wonder why. I wonder why DeSantis would do that. Could it be because it's incredibly unpopular to pursue criminal charges against a person who is seeking an abortion? Could it be that?

And Emma, we saw what went down in the state of Kansas where the voters through a ballot initiative decided to maintain their state constitutional protections for abortions, and Kansas certainly is not some blue states. So even Republican voters, by the way, voted against an amendment to the state constitution in Kansas, which would have scrapped the constitutional rights to an abortion in that state, which I think is telling, right? So what are your thoughts on what's going down in Florida? I mean, Desantis is just running for president with every step, right? He wants to do these performative orders, but they're, I mean, they're not just performative. He is targeting people. And he wants to build up his bona fidez so that he can effectively run against Trump in

2024. We'll see how that goes for him when Republican voters get a taste of the real deal. But I mean, this is really going to hurt people. The targeting of women and people who can get pregnant and girls is, of course, it's inherent to these abortion bans. But I think people need to realize that the targeting of doctors and getting in between their medical discretion and what's best for their patient by threatening them with some outside legal liability, it's going to kill women and people. And it's going to continue to trickle out. And I think that the more of those stories keep getting publicized and it is on local papers to make sure that they're on the ground on this and they're as, you know, threadbare as ever, but this, it's important

to keep our nose to the ground on this. You know, I think people are going to start to get really angry. And you mentioned Kansas there. Kansas, Kansas is unique in a variety of ways. I didn't realize that even ahead of the row reversal, Kansas was providing abortions for a lot of out-of-state patients. Yes. Around 50% of the abortions performed in Kansas were for patients coming from out of state. And that is just really interesting about the history of Kansas. I mean, they have a history that isn't as straightforward as just red state, right?

Like, they have had some interesting anti-slavery movements with John Brown, etc. Like, it is a fascinating state in many regards, but not to get off too much on the tangent, the Democrats finally see, right? This is tried and true. It actually worked. And so they aren't so scared. And there was an article in the Times today saying they might try to pursue other ballot initiatives across the country for abortion access.

Yeah, no crap. Of course you should do that. But, I mean, they got to it late. At the very least, though, it's also in their interest to do. these kinds of ballot initiatives because it turns out voters and they'll vote for you. So hopefully they learn their lesson. And I don't know if it'll happen in Florida, which keeps honestly devolving and it keeps getting redder and redder. But in other states, hopefully they do this because they see the stakes. Yeah, I totally agree with your take on ballot initiatives

and what the strategy should be for the Democratic Party. And it's kind of incredible and incredibly depressing, how scared Democrats are to run on popular issues. And in this case, the popular issue, popular take on this whole reproductive rights issue is to want to protect a woman's right to choose what to do with her own body, even in red states. So stop running away from the word abortion, call out Republicans on exactly what they're doing. They are getting involved in our personal lives. They are making decisions about what we can and can't do with our own bodies. They're getting in between us and our doctors. They're even, you know, they're having super light conversations, like total creeps about what kind of sex should be outlawed

behind closed doors in our own households. It is insane. That is who these people are. The so-called small government party is really about massive government for individual average Americans, but tiny, tiny government specifically for corporations so they can abuse their workers, so they can underpay their workers, so they can maximize their profits. Because at the end of the day, the people who do benefit the most from that are the very Republican lawmakers who love that deregulation. Their stock portfolios certainly do much, much better when they look out for their corporate donors rather than look out for ordinary Americans, especially American workers, and those who might need help in getting back up or might need help in

ensuring that they get the right health care and treatment when they might fall ill. So we'll see if Democrats are going to fight this the way that they should. But yeah, I agree with you. What is currently transpiring in Florida is terrifying. And I do think that what we're seeing from Ron DeSantis is the beginning of his 2024 presidential campaign. And if he were to win, I just want to remind you guys that it could potentially be much worse than Trump because one of the things that might have saved us a little bit from Trump's terrible presidency was just how incompetent he was and how he had really

no ability to implement much of the devastating policies he had in mind. DeSantis seems a little little smarter than him, but who knows? All right. Well, let's move on to one more story. There is a teacher shortage and I actually, we got to take a break. God damn it. Okay, let's take a break. When we come back, we'll talk about the massive teacher shortage in America. What does it mean? What does it mean for your children? We've got that and more coming right up. Welcome back to the show, Anna Casparian and Emma Vigland with you. If you haven't become a member yet, what is going on? You gotta do it. We've got so many fun stories to share with you in our bonus episodes every single day after

the main show. You get exclusive members only programming, you get all sorts of of perks, emotes and things like that, or emojis, depending on which platform we're talking about here. You can become a member through YouTube by just clicking on that join button if you're watching us on YouTube. Or you can become a member simply by going to tyt.com slash join and just move about the motions. You'll figure it out. It's super easy. And one of the biggest benefits is you help keep us independent and sustainable and we really, really appreciate it. All right, well, why do we move on to one of the many issues we're having in this country? A teacher shortage. Great. The United States is currently dealing with an overwhelming teachers

shortage, which really shouldn't be surprising considering how abusive this system is toward teachers who are underpaid and undervalued. But nonetheless, here is what we know so far. While there's no national database giving us a national look at how many teachers we need in the country, if we look at a state by state basis, it's undeniable that there is a huge problem here. For instance, in a January report, the Illinois Association of Regional School Superintendents found that 88% of school districts statewide were having problems with teacher shortages, while 2,040 teacher openings were either empty or filled with less than qualified hires. And I'll give you more details into that in just a moment.

because you might be wondering what does less than qualified mean? Now if you move over to Houston in that area, the largest five school districts are all reporting that between 200 and 1,000 teaching positions remain open. Keep in mind, summer breaks nearly over, which is super depressing. I hate that summer is almost over, but kids are going to go back to school. They need these positions filled as soon as possible or else they're going to have to take some pretty desperate measures. Andrew Spar, president of the Florida Education Association,

said that the need for teachers in his state is dire. His association estimates there are at least 8,000 teacher vacancies this year, up from 5,000 the year before. So they were already having a problem and it is further exacerbated this year. Now the Nevada State Education Association estimated that roughly 3,000 teaching jobs remain unfilled across the state 17 school districts as of early August. And Nevada's Clark County School District is already resorting to pretty desperate measures. First off, these are the measures that I actually like. And I wish every school district was focusing on teacher pay to both retain and attract teachers. And that is what they're doing.

So in hopes of shrinking, it's roughly 1,300 teaching vacancies, the district has raised the starting teacher salary by $7,000. There you go, maybe more. Maybe you need to do more. more and is offering a $4,000 relocation bonus to new teachers who move from out of state or more than 100 miles. In an interview, the superintendent, Jesus Hara, said that the district is also granting employees a retention bonus of up to $5,000 for staying in their jobs. And so paying them more money and actually making them feel appreciated, I think is the right way to go. Unfortunately, Clark County is one of the very few school districts who's doing this. Other school districts are resorting to larger class sizes, hiring people who are not qualified to be teachers to teach. And I'll give you more details in that in just a moment.

But Emma, this is a huge problem, not just for kids and their education, but for this country's future. Yeah. And I mean, teachers are heroes. I just think that needs to be stated because they are, you know, doing this job for very little pay. They're handling everyone's children. And they're completely taken for granted. And I want to point out that the reason, that they're being targeted in this way, both as Republicans attack them on a variety of issues, including, I think, you know, the three-headed monster, critical race theory, everything they teach is critical race theory, and you're gonna get fired if you teach that.

The don't say gay bills, hey, do you have a partner? Are you a woman that's married to another woman? Are you a trans teacher? Well, no, you're gonna be weeded out because you're grooming our kids, and that's literally what's happening in red states across the country spearheaded by Ron DeSantis. And third was the COVID stuff for banning masks.

You cannot protect yourself in your classroom. These boiler plate situations, I should say, or maybe it's just the extreme situations from the past a few years have forced teachers to reevaluate. I know of people who have decided I can't do this anymore. And that's here in New York, where you aren't dealing with the CRT. the don't say gay stuff. That's just because of COVID, right? They are dealing with so much and want to move into other professions. And on top of that, as you say, Anna, their pay is so

pathetically low. And it's such a disservice for these public servants in this country. And the reality is that this is what the right wing wants. Betsy DeVos came out the other day and said, we should eliminate public education altogether. Because this is another, just another tax for them. This is another tax on the wealthy. They want to eliminate it and have kids go to charter schools or private schools where wealthy people can pick and choose. And they want to sap the public education system dry. And so with those three tactics along with just defunding public education, which the right has been doing for years. And Democrats have frankly acquiesce to a degree that they shouldn't have.

They have been trying with a multi-pronged approach to eliminate public education. And this is just another indicator that they're more. successful right now than they are not. The only country I've seen with an education model that's been very successful and has yielded incredible results, especially when it comes to like test scores and all that, is Finland. And what Finland did was literally ban private education. They banned it. And what that led to, oh, I know, I'm Finnish. I'm finished, right? My grandmother grew up in Finland and spoke of that public education system incredibly, incredibly fondly. And it was a shock for her to come to the United States when it was not that way.

Sorry to shut you off. No, no, thank you for that because it's good to have that testimonial because it's absolutely true, right? What you just said is anecdotal, but you don't have to focus on anecdotal. You could take a look at their education model in Finland and you can look at the empirical evidence. You could look at the results and Finland was actually struggling with its education system when they had a two tiered model like the one we have here in the United States with both public and private options for people. And options is a strong word because let's keep it real. There's one private school in our neighborhood and it costs, I'm not kidding, $50,000 a year to send your kid there. It is a grade school. It is not a college. It is a grade school that charges parents 50 grand a year. That is the tuition, that doesn't even include books and everything else that they have to pay on top of it. So when you do away with private education, when you ban that, what ends up happening is all of the wealthier individuals in the country have no choice but to ensure that the public education system is top notch. When you have a two-tiered system, obviously there's going to be a concerted effort to dismantle the public option.

So all of these wealthy individuals who are super salty about having to pay a small amount in property taxes, which of course funds public education in most cases, they don't want to have to pay that. They want to be able to keep the money for themselves. They don't want to pay for some other kids' education. How dare you? How dare you even ask for that? That's why you need a universal program like public education without a two-tiered system involving a private option that, of course, wealthy people are going to want to pour all their resources in, because that's the way things work. We've seen it play out here in the United States, and to the detriment of our children and this country's future, quite honestly. Now, I want to give you some other examples of what's going on because there are some responses from other school districts that I think have been pretty disastrous. So, Rural school districts in Texas, for instance, are switching to four-day school weeks,

which is bad because this is their way of- It's, it is, because it's taking an entire day out of the week where kids could be learning, and they're doing it specifically to attract teachers, right? Well, four-day work week, doesn't that sound great? Florida's asking veterans with no teaching background to teach. Okay, Arizona is allowing college students to step in and instruct students even before they get any type of credential or any kind of degree. Like teachers aren't just randos who have no credentials, like they're people who are experts who have been specifically trained to be educators. And a new state law in Arizona signed by Governor Doug Ducey last month allows college students to take teaching jobs. A similar law,

which took effect in Florida on July 1st, offers K through 12 teaching jobs to military vets, Who served for at least four years, the veterans do not need a bachelor's degree, but must have earned at least 60 college credits okay while maintaining, wow, a very impressive grade point average of 2.5. Yeah. Not impressive. I'm just talking about real. Right, well, honestly, I should have included this when I spoke about this earlier, but this is also a way to undercut teachers unions and unions at large, right? If anybody can be a teacher, if there's a shortage, and if you make a workplace so hospitable to a large, to a unionized workforce, then maybe people leave the profession and then, hey, we have no choice, we have no choice, but to bring in anybody,

other people who will teach our kids. And that is helpful. That's the reason that public education is such an important canary in the coal mine, frankly, for right-wing influence and fascism across the country, because it includes all those things, right? Educating our youth about our real history, teachers' unions, public funding of institutions, taxation, all of these things that threaten the right wing. And that's why they've been so aggressive in going after public education. And frankly, when you hear a libertarian ideal about everyone should go to a trade school and not have any real education.

Just learn to how to be a productive widget in the capitalist system. That's the only thing that you have value for, not history or math or social science or art. No, just that. That is another way, another layer of how they're trying to target these institutions. Such a great point. I mean, they've been wanting to dismantle teachers' unions from the very beginning. So that certainly has a lot to do with this as well. All right.

Well, we should probably take our break and come back and do a story that might actually lead to justice in the Brianna Taylor case. I can't even believe I'm saying that, but obviously let's hold and wait and see how this plays out. We'll give you the details of what the federal government is doing in response to the tragic police killing of Brianna Taylor. We've got that story and more coming right up. We'll see you in a few. 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 slash t-y-t.

I'm your host, Shank Huger, and I'll see you soon.