The Young Turks - FBI Infiltration

Episode Date: February 10, 2023

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You're listening to The Young Turks, the online news show. Make sure to follow and rate our show with not one, not two, not three, not four, but five stars. You're awesome. Thank you. Woo! It's up! All right, well, we are Turks, Jankewara Anna Kasparan with you guys. for you guys, stuff that the mainstream media won't cover, that's really important. But also fun stuff like the chaos of the Republican Civil War, where people are getting

politically assassinated in directions that is hard to keep track of. Correct. So we will try to keep track of it for you tonight, and I think you'll rather enjoy that. Yes. All right, Casper, what do we start with? Well, I actually want to start off with correction on a story that I did last month. Really, really important that we get the facts right. Every once in a while, we don't get the facts right, and we have to make those corrections to make sure you guys are not ill-informed on either

the topics that we're talking about or the people that we're talking about. So the story in question has to do with an interview on Tucker Carlson's show. I talked about it on January 17th, and the guest that he had on his program was a community activist and politician in Oakland by the name of Seneca Scott. Now, while my commentary was mostly positive toward Mr. Scott, because I agreed with what he was saying on Tucker Carlson's show, we unfortunately mistook him for a different Seneca Scott, a politician or former politician from the state of Oklahoma who had gotten in trouble for campaign finance violations.

He had misused campaign funds on personal items, and as a result, he got in trouble. for that. And so I said that about Seneca Scott on Tucker Carlson show when in reality that information did not apply to him. It was in regard to a different person in a different state who happened to have the exact same name. That was my mistake. It was an honest mistake. I apologize for that. So it's important for you guys to know the Seneca Scott that we were talking about in the context of the Tucker Carlson show. He is an entirely different person. from the Seneca Scott in Oklahoma, and I want to apologize to him and the audience for mixing up the two. That is my bad, and I apologize.

Yeah, I just want to say one quick thing. Look, we actually care about the truth. And so if we don't get something right, we tell you right away. And the number one reason we do that is because we've got an obligation to you guys. So it's obviously we have an obligation to everyone we cover as well. And so we appreciate the correct Seneca Scott pointing that. out because we don't want anything that is wrong out there. Right. But mainly our jobs deliver the news to you guys.

And a huge and most important part of that is that it be true. Okay, so we do our best efforts. Sometimes things like this happen. But the important thing is to correct those mistakes so you guys know exactly what's right and wrong. All right? Thank you guys. We appreciate it. Well, let's move on to our first story of the day.

This is a doozy, as reported in The Intercept. So an explosive new report in The Intercept details how the FBI hired a convicted felon to infiltrate Black Lives Matter demonstrations in Denver and basically serve as an informant on behalf of the FBI. Now, Mickey Windaker is the name of the informant they used and he even tried to entrap some of these demonstrators by goading them to commit acts of violence. Luckily, they were not at all swayed by his calls to violence, luckily, and it did not work. But it is worth learning more about what the FBI was up to as protests broke out in response of the murder of George Floyd in 2020. So let's give you the details here, a few important excerpts from the piece. Windecker offered to give the FBI information about protesters.

In an internal report, the FBI claim that Windecker's motivation for becoming an informant was to fight terrorists and that he believed people who participate in violent civil unrest are terrorists. Now, it's important to note that he himself had a violent past and terrorized many people. We'll get to the details on that in just a moment. But it is telling that he was trying to goad them into violent acts. They refused to engage in that. Yet he thought they were terrorists and they were violent.

Yeah, so that that is two really interesting components to it. First of all, by his own definition, he's a terrorist because as you're going to see later in the story, he's the one that goes them into violence in those actual protests. So that's not my definition, that's his definition, and he definitely falls into that category. Okay, second of all, look at the informant the FBI sending in, a guy who is so racist that he thinks any protest of the police is bunch of terrorists who are going to be violent. And then he constantly tries to gode them and goad them into that violence that he claims to be so worried about.

So that's a deeply racist informant the FBI used in that case, let alone God knows how many other cases, let alone how he tries to create dissension in the group and destroy the group. It's an amazing story. No, what was really incredible, and I think this should be a cautionary tale for everyone, but especially the left, okay? Once he infiltrated the group of demonstrators, he started accusing others within the group of being feds or informants. And so that led to distrust, it led to fracturing within the group.

It's just really fascinating how he kind of implemented these strategies to destroy the group of demonstrators here. Now, FBI payment receipt records signed by Windaker show that he was paid more than $20,000 for his work during the summer of 2020. when the FBI aggressively pursued racial justice and left-wing activists based on nothing more than First Amendment protected activities. Now, the story of the Bureau's infiltration of racial justice activist groups is particularly relevant right now because House Republicans, of course, want to launch an investigation. They have this new committee, we talked about it a little bit yesterday. It's chaired by Jim Jordan, and it seems to exclusively focus on the,

the FBI's alleged targeting of the right wing. But clearly, there's evidence here that the FBI was targeting left wing groups, especially as it pertains to the protests that broke out in the summer of 2020. So the FBI is a deep, deep history of targeting the left, targeting black groups, ethnic groups, et cetera. And this seems to fit in perfectly. And it is incredibly disheartening that in the, you know, in 2020, as late as that, they're still doing this stuff. alone if they're still doing it now, but guys, it's also cautionary tale for the right wing and how we treat each other. So do they sometimes use these same tactics in the right? Well, we've covered stories where FBI informants have gone into right wing groups that are

much more prone to violence, but still, they go and they go to them. And they go, hey, would you like weapons? In the case of the left, they're like, would you like a peace shooter? And the left's like, I don't know. In the case of the right wing, you're like, you want missile launchers, shoulder fired missile launches, they're like, yeah, right, et cetera. But entrapment is entrapment. Yes. Okay, so whether you're on the left or right, for God's sake, be objective about this, sometimes they get the right guy, sometimes they get the wrong people, and they target them for the wrong reasons. So here's one example of what Windaker specifically did on behalf of the FBI. So there was this one rainy summer afternoon after he had already

become a paid informant. He met with his FBI handler, special agent Scott Dahlstrom, okay? The federal agent clicked on a hidden camera device. Like they meet together, federal agent clicks on the camera device. It, and then he says into the camera, okay? It is August 28th, 2020 at approximately 402 p.m. Special agent Scott Dahlstrom said into the FBI recorder before handing it to Windaker. The video is, is part of more than a dozen hours of FBI recordings I obtained, meaning the reporter here, Trevor Aronson, documenting Windecker's work investigating racial justice activists. The FBI agent, Dahlstrom, asked whether or asked Windaker if he remembered his

tasking orders, which involved enticing a black racial justice activist into committing a felony, which by the way is entrapment. And he said, yep, I got. it, Windaker said. Thanks, Mom. Thanks, Dad. So I want to give a shout out right now to Trevor Aronson. I mean, wow, what an investigative piece. He's got the tapes on this guy. He's got every kind of evidence and receipts on what the FBI did. It is a, it looks to be an impeccable report and with great detail as to how exactly the FBI tries to entrap people. And by the way, there's tons of dangerous groups in America. Yes, tons of extremist right-wing groups.

We're talking about government tyranny and how you got to use your Second Amendment rights, etc. It's important that the FBI do good work in actually infiltrating those groups, but not. go them into violence. Number one, we don't want the violence. Number two, that's entrapment. I don't care how much I disagree with the right wing or how extreme they are. If they're going to do the violence, great, then catch them, right? But if they're not going to do the violence, don't egg them on like this. Now, in the case of the left wing, they had no intention of doing any violence. And he keeps putting trays of guns in front of them going, you want it? Yeah. Yeah, so let me give you, let me give you a few examples, right? So there was one activist who

was mentioned quite a bit in this piece. Excuse me. So, Windaker reported that one local activist, Zeb Hall, used incendiary rhetoric in conversations with other demonstrators, claiming that Hall said, quote, we need to burn this mother effort down. Windaker also secretly recorded a conversation in which Hall spoke vaguely of violent revolution and a desire to train for combat. Windaker encouraged Hall with fantastical claims of training anti-fascist activists in Iraq and Syria as part of what he called the Red Star Brigade. Okay. Now, Zeb Hall didn't fall for it, luckily. The only unfortunate thing that Zeb Hall did was he purchased a gun for Windaker, which he knew he shouldn't have done because Windiger had a criminal past. He was a convicted felon. He did not have

the legal ability to buy a gun on his own. He was eventually arrested as a result of purchasing that gun on behalf of Windecker. But in terms of actually carrying out acts of violence, Zeb Hall never did and he was never arrested for carrying out acts. In fact, let me give you two more facts about Hall so you know. Because in the beginning, you got the revolutionary kind of talk. I'd be saying, hey, wait a minute, let's strike this guy because he says he might do violence, right? So it turned out that when he actually tried to go to him into doing a specific act against the government official, Hall was like, no, no, I don't want it. I don't want it. And he backed away, okay? And at the point when he bought the gun, he, the only reason

he gave it to him is because he was afraid that if he didn't, that, that, that Winder had so many weapons and kept talking about how he was going to use him for violence against his opponents and enemies. He's like, I took his money and I had already bought the gun. And I did, By the way, the authorities arrested him three years later, like as a kind of a cover-your-ass operation. Yep, yep. Because when Windecker eventually got caught by the activist, they figured out he was the informant, right? And at that point, just so that they're not humiliated, the FBI was like, yeah, yeah, a couple of years later. Oh, Hall was dangerous.

Oh, he was so dangerous, even though he literally would not do the act of violence that Windecker pushed him to do. Now, I think it's important to understand what the FBI's. And remember, this is still under Trump's administration, but I don't think it matters, right? I mean, Christopher Ray is still the head of the FBI. So same folks within this government agency. It's important to understand how they themselves viewed the demonstrators, and they were incredibly vicious. The FBI's second in command, for instance, David Bodech, compared the demonstrators to the 9-11 attacks. When 9-11 occurred, our folks did not quibble about whether there was danger ahead for them,

Boadage wrote in a memo. They ran head on into peril, Boadage described, the racial justice demonstrators throughout the country as, quote, a national crisis, end quote, whose violent protesters were highly organized. Agents suspected these demonstrators could fit into a domestic terrorism ideology. the Bureau had to find during the first year of the Trump administration as black identity extremism, a controversial, widely criticized catch-all label for any domestic extremist ideology that drew a black following. Can I just, there are no black groups that call themselves black extremist identity folks

or whatever that made up title is. And there are no groups that fall under that bracket. They just made it up, the FBI. Whereas if you go to right wing's treason, there's like dozens and dozens of groups that say that, hey, violence against the government is justified. Violence against government officials is justified. To my knowledge, there aren't any black groups that fall under that category. And then eventually the category was so made up and they pushed so hard to get them to do violence and they wouldn't that they had to put it under a broader umbrella that included white supremacist, extremists, et cetera, which is in reality almost 100%. percent of that category. Yeah, they started referring to it as racially motivated violent

extremism. Because let's also keep in mind that while the protesters are taking place, one of the other issues that the country is dealing with is violent acts carried out by neo-Nazis and white supremacists. So to have this hyper focus on demonstrators who were justified in their outrage over the murder of George Floyd, while not really focusing much on the white supremacist issue we have in the country, a bit of a problem, bit of a problem. So they, again, eventually changed their phrasing to racially motivated violent extremism. Now, let's get to Windaker himself, right? I had reference that he had a criminal past, which is definitely true here. So according to the reporting in The Intercept, he was a bit of a

scumbag for the following reasons. So he has prior arrests in multiple states, Colorado, Nevada, Texas and Florida for crimes including sexual assault. When he was 20 years old, he had a sexual relationship with a 14-year-old. He met at a roller skating rink. So shocking. This guy, really? Yeah, he claimed he didn't know the girl was underage. She was 14, okay?

So he pleaded the case down to a misdemeanor and was sentenced to 180 days in jail. In another case for felony menacing with a weapon in 2001, he stuck a gun. in a woman's face and claimed to be a police officer looking for a suspect. That incident resulted in a felony conviction and Windecker served two years. In addition to criminal charges, Windaker has had four protection orders filed against him in Colorado, the most recent in 2021. In a petition for a protection order filed in 2016, a friend of Windekers alleged that Windaker had presented a fake police badge and threatened to kill him and his family.

Yeah, and so his main M.O. is that he was a snitch. And as always, of course, when challenge, he would say very aggressively, there's three things I'm not. I ain't a punk, I ain't a bitch, and I ain't a snitch. Turns out he was all three. All three. Okay. And so he would use the prison papers from his arrest as street cred. Like, I'm not a Fed. I'm not an informant. You see, I was in prison. Yeah, that's where he started snitching for the authorities. And so he And one of the times he threatened a woman that he used to date and she was scared for her life, he looks like he got out of prison by doing more snitching. So they're like, oh, okay, you might have maybe hurt that woman really badly,

but you're free to go because you gave us evidence on someone else. Yep. I got to say one other thing, and then we got to wrap this up because we have an interview. But look, guys, the most important thing that you should take from this story is that clearly the feds try to discredit important movements by goading them into violence. Because once you engage in violence, it's real easy to discredit you and what you're trying to accomplish in the country, right? And so keep that in mind, you know, obviously when you see something as horrific as someone

getting, you know, basically strangled to death before your very eyes, you get angry. And that anger, that passion could lead you to want to do. Don't engage in that stuff, though. Don't engage in any violence whatsoever. Don't let anyone go do you into it because chances are someone might be doing so to either entrap you or discredit the movement. All right, my last things are, look, first of all, if there are extremists of violent groups within the left, I want them rooted out immediately. We go to those protests. I don't want anybody getting hurt at those protests.

That's insane. We would also get hurt. That makes no sense at all. And if you're progressive, you should never do violence because it is surrender. It is saying, my ideas cannot win, so I have to be a moron and go to violence instead. It is, the minute you pick up that weapon, you've said, I'm too stupid to engage it in exchange of ideas, okay? That's mainly for the right wing. It's not for the left wing.

And if you're a left winger, you're tempted into that stuff, know that likely the person you're talking to is an informant. Very, very likely. So if you'd like to go to prison for a long time, go ahead and have that conversation. As far as the FBI is concerned, who are they? The right wing now says defund them and their monsters and the left wing says this and that. No, the reality is they are a group of people that are different. They're not all monolith, okay? So my guess is that a lot of the agents of the FBI are right wing.

Some of them are probably moderate or left wing, right? And so some of them do great work and actually catch bad guys before they blow up buildings. And they have done that with several right wing groups and those were actually real, right? And some of them do terrible stuff like this. To me, the worst part of the story was that high level FBI agent talking about American citizens engaging in First Amendment rights who are not at all violent and the racist, awful assumptions he had about them. And then he goes out of his way to try to ruin their lives, right?

So are there people still like that at the FBI? Of course, of course they are. And mainly they want to catch people, whether they did it or they didn't do it for notches on their belt so that their career is enhanced and they move up. So be careful. Do not engage in any violence and be careful about these guys trying to destroy your groups from within. All right, we're going to take a brief break when we come back. David Serota from the Lever News will be joining us to talk about a train derailment that occurred late last week. looks like the lack of regulation has a lot to do with that. So it's a story of corruption and more.

Don't miss it. We'll be right back. All right. All right, back on TYT, Jank and Anna with you guys, Anna. All right. Well, a story that really caught my attention earlier this week, a train transporting combustible material was derailed in East Palestine, Ohio late last week. Now, residents within a two mile radius were forced to evacuate as authorities carried out

what was referred to as a controlled release of vinyl chloride from five train cars in order to prevent an explosion, although if you take a look at this video, it's pretty clear. that it looks to be a bit of an explosion. And what's even worse is we're talking about vinyl chloride. It's a chemical that's used to make car parts and PVC piping. But it's also linked to multiple cancers, and it can be deadly if breathed in for too long. So what happened here? And were there certain regulations that could have prevented this or mitigated the damage?

Reporters from the lever news say there absolutely were regulations that should have been implemented but weren't. The piece is titled, rail companies block safety rules before Ohio derailment. And I want to read you just a few excerpts from the piece before we go to one of the reporters, David Soroda, to answer some of our questions about this. They write, though the company's 150 car train in Ohio reportedly burst into 100 foot flames upon derailing and was transported. materials that triggered a fireball when they were released and incinerated, it was not be, it was not being regulated as a high hazard flammable train, federal officials told the lever. Norfolk Southern paid executives millions and spent billions on stock buybacks, all while the company shed thousands of employees despite warnings that understaffing is

intensifying safety risks. The company officials also fought off a shareholder in initiative that could have required company executives to assess review and mitigate risks of hazardous material transportation. Now, here to talk to us about this reporting is one of the main reporters on the piece, David Serota, also a good friend of the show. David, thank you so much for coming on today. Thanks to both of you for having me. So walk us through what happened between 2014 during the Obama administration and 2017 under the Trump administration, when it came to these regulations pertaining to trains? So there was a derailment in 2012 in New Jersey that involved actually the same chemical

vinyl chloride that you mentioned. And there was pressure on regulators to do something about those kinds of trains and about oil trains. There had been a number of derailments involving trains carrying crude oil. And so, So the Obama administration had a rule proposed, an initial rule proposed, to better regulate these trains. And it's important to trace how this rule making went. The rule proposed really asked what kinds of chemicals should be regulated or subject to stricter regulation when being transported.

And then what should those stricter regulations look like? And what happened was that the National Transportation Safety Board told the regulatory agency, said, listen, these regulations should broadly cover not just oil. They should cover what's known as class two chemicals, which include, again, vinyl chloride. And the chemical industry lobbyists and other industry lobbyists went to work pressuring the regulatory agency to limit the definition of what a high hazard flammable train is. limited in a way that the train in Ohio, which you just saw on screen burst into flames into a fireball, ended up, that kind of train ended up not being classified as a high hazard flammable train, even though the images certainly show that it was high hazard and certainly flammable.

The second part of what happened was that trains that were subject to this rule were going to be required to use a special kind of new breaking system. to try to deter or at least reduce the damage from derailments. Most trains in the country are still using technology from the Civil War era from the late from the 1800s. And this was a new technology that by the way Norfolk Southern itself in previous years had said would significantly improve safety on the rails. But when the rule mandated that the industry embrace this and use it in a much more expansive kind of away across the nation's rails. The railroad industry sort of changed its tune. It didn't want the mandate. It cited cost concerns to press against pressure against that rule. Now Obama's rule, although narrowed, included that measure to expand the larger use of those brakes on the

nation's rail system. But what happened was that then Donald Trump got into office. Donald Trump's Senate Republicans in that 2016 election year, the Republican Party got about six million, $6 million plus dollars from the rail industry. And Senate Republicans started beating the drum for Trump to repeal the rule. Beating the drum, by the way, with obviously the rail industry lobbyists. Donald Trump repealed the brake rule so that the nation's rails, the industry does not have to kind of universally or even start to use these kinds of breaks. Now one former regulator told us, as you'll see in our story, one former federal railroad administration regulators told us that these breaks, which are known as EC, breaks would have mitigated a disaster like this. But Norfolk Southern was one of the companies that was railing against requiring these breaks on their trains. And we just learned today after the publication of our story, federal officials told us that this train did not have those breaks on the train. All right, David, this story is so interesting, not just because of a giant fireball in Ohio, which should be, fascinating in and of itself and worries of it itself, but it's a perfect picture of exactly

what's wrong with our government and our media. So I want to talk about that. So, I mean, of course you have the hilarious part that you mentioned that they're like, don't worry, it's not flammable, we don't have to regulate it. It's an enormous fireball in the middle of the country, right? So you get a sense of how full of crap these politicians are, which leads me to the first part of this. When the lobbyists came in, what did they give 6 million to John Thune, right?

The leading Republican discussing and on this issue and trying to make sure that they didn't do regulations. So when the lobby is coming with all of these giant checks, the rest is just theatrics, isn't it? And I almost want to ask you something that's not in the piece, which is, do you think these guys bother to believe their own theatrics? Or are they just like, oh, no, of course that vinyl chloride can't explode. You don't need brakes on trains. You do you use the old brakes? Don't sweat it. Do the lobbyists believe it?

Do the politicians believe it? Or they just pass the check and they wink and then they say these things in public. And then the rest of the press goes, oh, it must be true. A beloved politician and a beloved lobbyist said it. Well, I think in this case, what's really interesting is that the same company that pushed to repeal this rule was a company that was touting these breaks in prior years before that. They were saying these brakes are so good. We shouldn't necessarily have to follow other stricter safety rules because this new break technology that we like can be used

and can improve our safety. But the moment the government was considering making it a mandate, a requirement. And again, remember, it was narrowed in scope to the number of trains that would that mandate would affect. So even after it was narrowed, they didn't want a requirement for this. And look, they made the argument that the costs outweighed the benefits. And what they were, you know, in granular detail, what they were saying was the costs to put these breaks on will raise costs for goods across the country. It could slow down the movement of goods, the supply chain across the country. Whether you believe that or not, that's up to you. But here's what's interesting. The railroad industry cited an amount, $3 billion, putting these brakes on the trains that would be required to have them would cost a total of $3 billion. Now, that's about two weeks of operating revenue, revenue that the train system pulls in, two weeks of revenue in a single year, meaning it's a tiny amount of money when you're talking about the entire rail industry. but they didn't want to spend it.

And my guess is they didn't want to spend it because they presume that their current safety systems are fine. And if their current safety systems fail, that governments, whether local state or federal, will pick up the tab for the cleanup, for the disaster. That cost is socialized to the public, not internalized by the private company. So they didn't, they made a cost benefit analysis that, yeah, maybe the breaks would make things safer. They're the ones who actually said these breaks would improve safety. But in their cost benefit analysis, it still wasn't worth it to them for their profit interests. It's incredible. You know, one thing that really stood out to me, though, was it appeared as though the shareholders were very much in favor of the updated breaking system. And in fact, I don't know if this is potentially fraud, but back in 2007, as you guys report in your piece, during a quarterly earnings call, the company's executives were bragging about implementing this new braking system.

So, I mean, did they actually do that? Did they actually implement the new breaks? Because it appears that's not the case. So why do they say that to the shareholders? Well, again, I think the company changed posture from prior years to its current posture. In prior years, it was essentially saying, hey, we found technology that we can go to regulators and say, hey, we don't have to necessarily follow these other safety rules because now we're developing special breaks. But then the minute the government considered requiring those special breaks, the company and the rail industry kind of writ large flipped. Now, let's be clear, I don't think it wasn't all shareholders who supported this.

The shareholder resolution was brought by a group of shareholders. It ultimately didn't even get a vote by the company. But I do think I go back to this issue of what were the companies saying to the regulators and what were the regulators doing? And in this story, the thing that really I think blew my mind in reporting this out was you had a part of the government, the part of the government that is supposed to solely be focused on safety, not on the supply chain, not on on anything else. The NTSB literally went to the regulatory agency that regulates the railroads and said this kind of rule should cover a much broader

sweep of chemicals. It shouldn't just cover oil trains. It should cover class to chemicals as well. Vinyl chloride is a class two chemical. And ultimately, the Obama administration's regulators decided not to do that. And there were as a town that had a big rail crossing that wrote in asking for these chemicals to be covered. So part of the craziest part of this story is the fact that these were clearly hazardous and flammable materials. But the government itself ultimately under regulatory, under industry pressure, made a decision to not classify these kinds of trains as hazardous, flammable trains. And the question now is, will the Biden administration move to reinstate the breaking rule, move to expand the definition of trains that are covered by

these kinds of safety rules? There's been basically, so far, it's not clear what's going on on that problem. Actually, real quick, I do have a follow-up question on what you just said. I'm curious, is that something the Biden administration can do unilaterally or would that need to pass through congressional action? No, look, Trump repealed the rule. The Obama administration originally created the rule. I mean, this is a, this is a regulatory kind of rule that transportation regulators can do. Got it. Yeah, I would be shocked if they did that. Absolutely shocked. And that's going to go towards my question. First, a quick correction. The railway industry put in $6 million to the Republicans overall.

John Doon was a third largest recipient of that money, but he did not get the whole $6 million. Okay, so now to the question. So David, in the old days what would happen is there'd be a giant fireball in the sky and the local towns folks would be outraged and then they would push their representatives and then the representatives would get in there and fight for them. And then, and then, but mainly the press would then talk about, oh my God, the fireball, oh my people in Ohio could have died, et cetera. And the press would create this giant concern because we should be concerned about trains

exploding near our neighborhoods, right? And then the regulators would come up with their analysis and then the government officials would do it. That actually did happen earlier in American history. It happened all the time, right? But now we've got a breakdown in the system. First of all, you guys seem to be the only ones covering this and great, you know, we'll have the link to the lever story. It's amazing in the description box below.

And I don't know, do you see the rest of the press piling on? Because what I'm worried about is, and I'm not just blaming the press here, that every part of this has broken down. The press does not hold the corporations accountable, does not hold the politicians accountable. Then the politicians go, well, I'm going to get $6 million, the Republican Party. is here from these guys. I'm getting nothing from the other side. And there's no downsides. There's no one telling people that I'm a monster who's in favor of giant fireballs in their neighborhood because I got bribed, right? No one's telling them that. And in the middle of the story, David, it seemed like the industry realized that in between 2014 and today, they're like,

oh, there's no ramifications. Why would we do extra costs? Who cares of people die in these accidents, etc. That's a tiny cost to us. We don't want to incur the larger financial cost. And it turns out, my God, nobody's robbing the, nobody's guarding the bank. Let's just do the robbery. There's no consequences. So you tell me how it applies in this case. No, I certainly think that's, I certainly think that's right. And actually the history on this, actually, you can see the transformation. I mean, there were high profile derailments that that raised significant questions and garnered significant public attention in the late 2000s, early 2010s, which ultimately prompted the Obama administration to begin looking at doing this

kind of rule. I don't know if we live in a world anymore where something like that happens and it prompts a governmental response in a serious way. I mean, let's just step back here. We just saw on national television a train oligopoly, by the way, a few months after the government broke a railworker strike in which rail workers were in part saying that the understaffing on the railways while was creating cost cutting that inflated the profits of those railroad companies was increasing safety risks. We just saw in the middle of the country, in the heartland of the country, a giant disaster of a chemical. fireball, reportedly a mushroom cloud, a hundred foot flames, and very few people asking questions about what led up to this. Now, I want to be clear, I'm not saying that if these rules have been better, had been more expansive and had been enforced, a disaster like this wouldn't have happened. But I'm also not, I think we can't say that it would have happened had better

safety enforcement been going on. And I think the scary thing is, is if something like this happens and questions aren't asked and public attention isn't focused and there isn't pressure on those who didn't act to now act, then we shouldn't expect better regulations. We shouldn't expect any kind of change. We should actually expect this kind of thing to happen again and again and again. And that's what's really scary about a media system and a political system that no longer even asks the questions about how did we get here. Right. You know, for anyone who's concerned about, you know, the lack of maybe arrests when it comes to situations like this have no fear. There was one individual arrested. It happened to be a journalist from News Nation who was allegedly too loud as the governor of Ohio was conducting a press. press conference on the matter. He was later released, but I mean, it just gives you a sense

of how screwed up our system of government really is, how the press really focuses on the wrong issues all the time, and tends to allow the corruption to just continue going on. I mean, and it is shocking, David, that, you know, Trump didn't drain the swamp here. Seems like he was swimming in it during his administration. Of course. Anyway, David, you are incredible. Thank you for your reporting. Thank you for everything you guys are doing over at the Lever News.

And for anyone who wants to read this story and much more, please visit levernews.com slash TYT. That's levernews.com slash TYT. Thank you again, David. I really appreciate it. Thanks to both you. Thanks for covering it. Absolutely.

All right, everyone. We have to take a brief break. When we come back, we've got more news for you, including one of the most insane story. I've read in my career about what's transpiring in Missouri, their gun laws are crazy. Crazier than what we've already heard about. So stick around. We've got that story and more coming right up. All right, back on T.OAT, Jay Canana with you guys, more news.

Missouri's Republican-led House of Representatives has decided to vote against banning literal minors, children from openly carrying firearms on public land without adult supervision. Now, only one Republican voted in favor of the regulation, and the proposal was actually brought forth by a Republican law. but it's the lone Republican lawmaker who wanted to do the right thing. Now Democratic Representative Donna Berringer said police in her district asked for the change to stop 14 year olds walking down the middle of the street in the city of St. Louis carrying AR-15s. Now if you think that that is an exaggeration, which to be quite honest with you, I initially

thought it was, you'd be mistaken. I would like to show you just a screenshot of something that occurred recently. This is a graphic four. Those are teenagers. Since they're minors, of course, their faces are blurred out. But they're walking around on public streets, carrying weapons. In this still frame, you'll see one of them pointing a gun at someone's window. And of course, the resident in that home was terrified. But apparently the police can't do anything because in the great state of Missouri, there are no age restrictions in regard to open carry of firearms. And so the lawmaker says, Democratic Representative Donna Berringer said, now they have been emboldened and they are walking around with them until they

actually brandish them and brandish them with intent. Our police officers' hands are handcuffed. Okay. So this is America now. So first of all, it applies to all in Missouri. So suburban parts, rural parts, urban parts, it doesn't matter. If you're a kid, you can just grab a weapon, walk around, and that's normal. The rest of the world, just look, because you get gaslit all the time by our politicians and our media. That make it seem like it's normal. It's not normal. The rest of the world thinks we're nuts. Nobody lets, first of they don't want anybody walk around with guns because it's super dangerous guns kill people, right? But second of all, kids, 14 year olds, have you ever met a 14 year old? No impulse control at all. I mean, they get into a fight. 14 year old boys will get into a fight over the silliest things at a moment's notice and we'll go nuclear with whatever they have, right? And if they're carrying around weapons like this, look, we've as a nation, we have 100% lost our minds.

And by the way, to be fair to us, actually the great majority of us don't want it at all. The federal background checks poll anywhere between 88 to 97% as an example. The assault weapons bans is actually very popular. Two thirds of the country want to ban assault weapons, okay? But we have a lunatic fringe right wingers that are both corrupt and take money from weapons manufacturers and have lost their minds and belong in mental asylums who are like, oh yay, we'll give an assault rifle to an assault weapon. to a 14 year old and have walk around and see if we can agitate them. And they think that's normal.

No, you belong in an asylum. And by the way, passed easily, right? The vote was overwhelming. Let the 14 year olds walk around. Hopefully they'll kill a whole bunch of people. It'll be great. Idiots in Missouri. Total morons.

Every Republican now voted for that is a monster. Well, voted against it. Voted against it. Because the proposal was to ban minors from open carry in the state. of Missouri. And I do want to give the one Republican who proposed this and voted in favor of it some credit. It's a state representative, again, a Republican, Lane Roberts. He's a former Joplin, Missouri police chief and state public safety director. And he's like, yo, this is not, this is not a good idea. Now, I also want to read a quote from another Republican lawmaker who does

not deserve credit and should be shamed at the idiotic statement he made. So this is Missouri state representative Tony Lavosco who says, well, it may be intuitive that a 14 year old has no legitimate purpose. It doesn't actually mean that they're going to harm someone. We don't know that yet. Generally speaking, we don't charge people with crimes because we think they're going to hurt someone. Okay, great. So why do we have any regulations as it pertains to minors, right? Minors as young as 10 should be able to get behind the wheel. We don't know that they're going to cause a car accident. We don't know that they're gonna drive recklessly. So why have any regulations at all as it pertains to minors? And by the way, on weapons, why stop it at assault weapons? Why not

start handing out grenades to 14 year olds? By the way, Republicans in Congress, there's a one lunatic who from Florida who did start handing out grenades. He's like, no, no, no, they're inert. They probably won't explode. And luckily he gave it to fellow. I know, exactly. So look, guys, we're pointing out the one Republican that voted the right way, I think over a hundred. voted the wrong way in Missouri, because whenever we find a Republican legislator in the country that is not insane, like what? Like it's like breaking news. We've found one Republican in Missouri. That is not a lunatic. Breaking news, breaking news. And by the way, why? Because he's a former police chief. He's like, are you serious? And you know who's complaining about this rule?

The cops. Cops are like, you're going to send us out there with heavily armed teenagers that can just roam around. Are you guys nuts? Is this helping the cops? Does this look like you're in favor of the thin blue line? I don't know anything that endangers cops more than this. How are you going to disarm these kids? Okay.

And by the way, of course, they had to sprinkle and run racism, right? They're like, oh, yeah, we should be able to carry guns around in the white areas and stuff. But for the black areas, they wanted to have an extra prosecutor. So they're like, now remember, we're supposed to let all the white folks go, okay? But for the black areas, if you see him, you know what to do, extra prosecutor. Jesus Christ. We're just so irresponsible with guns in this country, right? You can be a perfectly reasonable person, like me, who sees the right to bear arms as an important constitutional right that should be regulated.

Children should not be running around town with weapons, with guns, with tools that are meant to kill. It just doesn't make any sense. Anyway, let's actually get to our next story. It was an insult to President Trump. She does not exist politically if it's not for President Trump. She's not intellectually capable of going to the heart of the matter, right? Let's be blunt. These two chas are extremely unhappy with Arkansas governor Sarah Huckabee Sanders

and her rebuttal to Biden's State of the Union speech. Why don't we hear more and why they're so upset with her? But given the fact that Trump had made her, made her, hang on, made her, to not say go to go out of his way, her way not to say his name, and then to tell the story about the trip to Iraq and not say his name in the story of the trip was outrageous. And you're right, this was like written by Ronda Santas. Ah, yes, the only problem with Sarah Huckabee's rebuttal to Joe Biden's state of the union address was that she wouldn't say daddy's name enough or at all.

Say his name. Say his name. I want you to say his name. Like, how unbelievably pathetic is this conversation right now? It's, it's like almost like the worst porn you've ever seen. Like, say his name, say his name. Okay, all right, take it easy. But because he's kind of a prophet, a messiah to them. So you can't take his name in vain. Yeah.

You also can't not take his name in vain. Okay, you must say that old. So she had some sort of responsibility to do a giant ad for Donald Trump there. That's exactly what they're saying. Because they're saying, who cares about the Republican. agenda. By the way, it's because they know there is no Republican agenda. What laws are they going to pass? Only like, I guess well because I'm a Hunter Biden and Twitter, okay? How about wages or health care or anything? Nothing, nothing, right? So since they know they have no

agenda, though, she's like, they're competing over, who are you going to do an ad for? Because you have a prime time spot. And by the way, let's be honest about one part of it, okay? they're not wrong about that political calculation because the state of the union, the state of the union response are nothing but giant ads. And a bunch of idiots on TV go, oh, Joe Biden did a great job. That's amazing. He looks so energetic. And look at these wonderful proposals. By the way, today, two stories out. The easiest ones, $35 cap on insulin, gone, dead on arrival. That you're going to be shocked to find out the wealth tax. Look, who's honest? Who's giving you honest news?

We told you guys, there was no chance Biden was going to do that. It's dead on the first day. They didn't try their liars. So to be fair to Bannon and Lou Dobbs, they're saying, well, you know, your job is to do propaganda. You're not going to actually do anything that would favor the American people, obviously. So you should do propaganda for our Messiah. Okay. Yep.

In fact, why don't we hear more, unfortunately, from Lou Dobbs during this conversation on Steve Bannon's podcast? The rebuttal last night. I think that was a great insult to President Trump, not mentioning his name when Sarah Huckabee went to Iraq with the president and the first lady in the dark of night for Christmas with our troops. to not mention his name, to talk about new leadership. It looked like the governor's association had written that much of that speech and aligned themselves with Ron DeSantis. It was a shame. It's amazing that that's what they got out of that rebuttal. I mean, so when I saw the headline showing that Steve Bannon was going to trash Sarah

could be Sanders, I thought, oh, maybe it's because most of her speech was not only uncharismatic, it focused on the military, which Republican voters, they're not buying into the raw, raw, pro-military stuff anymore because many of their family members were sent abroad on multiple tours for these forever wars, and they've soured on the military industrial complex to their credit. No, but it wasn't about that at all. It was all about their daddy Trump. That's all that matters to them. It is amazing to me. So the political bullets are flying in the right wing, right? And so when I saw the headline, I couldn't decipher why they were going to be against Sarah Huggabee Sanders. Because you remember she was part of team Trump. Yeah, yeah. She was his press secretary.

She never had a falling out with him. And I thought maybe it's like collateral damage. She's an innocent bystander. And they were looking to politically assassinate another Republican. And they accidentally hit her, she's the little child on the side, right? And I'm like, they're like, everyone's against each other. I can't keep it straight, which Republican wants to tear the face off to other Republican, which is all kind of fun, of course, right? Yep. But, and I thought the same thing, I thought hashtag Anna was right.

Are they pissed about the militaristic tone? But then with Ben and he's hilarious because he's like, he pretends to be against wars because that's a Trump position, he thinks it's a populist position, et cetera. Yeah, but he wants us to go to war with China. And this show is called The War Room. I know, I know. Okay, but also I want to get out of Afghanistan. I can't believe Biden got out of Afghanistan.

So there's, of course, no principle. Of course it all comes back to cult of personality. 100%. Okay, so I want to go to the final clip here because if you think that they didn't go after DeSantis, you would be mistaken. Let's watch. It was a metaphor for what the donor class is trying to do to Donald Trump right now. That is, use his four years as president as a template and model for a rhino presidency that they can control.

The issues today are not much different than 2016 when President Trump was running and elected. They can't stand it, that they can't control him, and that he is in point of fact. America first patriot. He means it, what he wants to make America great. And he has proven that he will deliver. So they think that DeSantis is a rhino. I think that's hilarious because DeSantis literally mimics everything that Trump did. He even mimics his mannerisms.

I just, I mean, they're very clear on which corner they're in when it comes to this Trump, You know, brewing battle and I'm here for it. Yeah, look, the more I read into this story, the more I realize, oh, no, it's actually kind of important because it's not a stray political bullet, right? No, they meant it. And what is happening is two things. One is all of the lunatics are lining up on Trump's side and almost all the powerful are lining up on DeSantis' side. So, and when I say the powerful, I mean right wing media, not these guys, they're too small, but like the Fox News of the world, at least their news division, et cetera, a lot of right wing

radio, almost all of the Republican politicians and mainstream media, right? So once I saw, and this is now the beginning of those camps being more clearly defined, because in the beginning it looked like a lot of the MAGA guys were annoyed at Trump too. So there was like real MAGA guys who were like, hey, Trump causes the election in 22 and he's too self-indulgent and we got to move on. No, all the MAGA guys are now starting to go back to Trump. Yeah, they are. And in a battle between MAGA lunatics and all the powerful people in the Republican Party, I think MAGAL lunatics win. I think you're right.

And after I saw this and a couple other news stories in the last couple of days, I was like, oh, no. Trump's the favorite again in the Republican Party. You can't get rid of the guy. And that is concerning, right? Because if I were to have my way with the outcome of the Republican primaries, I would prefer someone like a DeSantis, right? Because DeSantis isn't going to try to pull what Trump did on January 6th, right? They stand for the same policies at the end of the day.

We got to be real about that. But one of them just is so egotistical and narcissistic that he is willing to destroy what we have left of our democratic process just to remain in power. And that's terrifying. So we'll see what happens. We're going to keep looking into this and covering it. And for now, we're going to take a quick break. When we come back for the second hour of the show, we'll talk about the disaster capitalism that the right wing engages in, the griff that keeps on giving. That and more coming right up.

USA, USA. USA. co slash t yt i'm your host shank huger and i'll see you soon