The Young Turks - Gay Nutcracker

Episode Date: November 18, 2023

Special counsel investigating Joe Biden’s handling of classified material is not expected to bring charges. 24 House members, led by AOC, have sent a letter to Biden and Blinken calling for a bilateral ceasefire. The Supreme Court refuses to reinstate Florida’s anti-drag show law. Book review destroys Marjorie Taylor Greene's bizarre memoir that jabs older Democrats for not running fast enough on Jan. 6. Fox News runs an indignant segment on gay nutcrackers and Black Santas on sale at Target: "Gone way too far." HOST: John Iadarola, Helen Hong, Sharon Reed SUBSCRIBE on YOUTUBE: ☞ https://www.youtube.com/user/theyoungturks FACEBOOK: ☞ https://www.facebook.com/theyoungturks TWITTER: ☞ https://www.twitter.com/theyoungturks INSTAGRAM: ☞ https://www.instagram.com/theyoungturks TIKTOK: ☞ https://www.tiktok.com/@theyoungturks 👕 Merch: https://shoptyt.com 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. The new BMO ViPorter MasterCard is your ticket to more. More perks. More points. More flights. More of all the things you want in a travel rewards card.

And then some. Get your ticket to more with the new BMO ViPorter MasterC. and get up to $2,400 in value in your first 13 months. Terms and conditions apply, visit bemo.com slash V-I-Porter to learn more. Thank you, Friday. Drop it like it, CY, CY, CY, CY, CY, CY, CY, C Y, CY, CY, CY, C Y, CY, C Y, CY, drop it like it's my home studio's Wi-Fi connection. Welcome one and all to the Young Turks. I am John Ida Rola and I am very lucky to be joined on this first hour of the power panel with two awesome people who are going to accompany me and all of you through the news.

Sharon Reed, Helen Hong, welcome to the show. Hi. Hi. Great to have you here. Everyone I'm sure is already familiar with you. But in case they are not Sharon as a contributor to TYT sports, Helen is of course a comedian, actress and also I should be very careful. Every time I pronounce this, host of the GoFact Yourself podcast. I don't want to get in trouble.

Very good. We're very glad to have you here. Thank you. The drop-it message was an illusion to the fact that my internet at home is very spotty. And so I get to return to the studio a little bit early. I was supposed to be back on Monday, but now I'm back surrounded by the walls and these fine people. Great to see you all. Again, thank you, everyone.

And thank you to both of you for being here. It's like exciting to be back in like the swing of things. How have you all been? Probably more well-rusted than you, because you're a new dad and you've got an infant at home, right? So you're just, yeah, you're just all you want to do is sleep. I do. She's a pretty good one, though. She already sleeps through the night, so I can't complain too much.

Whoa. Knock on wood, knock on wood and crib. It's not going to last. It's not going to last. I was going to ask you how your new boss is. Apparently, she's sleeping well. She's pretty awesome. She's pretty awesome.

You know, when the sun's out, she doesn't really like sleep in. so much, but as soon as the sun goes down, she's pretty good, so I can't complain too much. Ah, that's awesome. So we've got that going for us. We also have a lot of interesting and important news, sometimes both at once, but not always. I'll leave you to decide which is which. But with that, why don't we jump into this? Special counsel Robert Herr is not expected to be putting forward any charges

coming from the investigation into the President Joe Biden area of the classified documents investigation, very different from some other classified documents investigations we've talked about on the show. If you're not familiar with this and why the president might have had charges coming his way, well, with the cooperation of Biden's personal legal team, the FBI searched the Penn Biden Center shortly after November 2nd of last year. That was when Biden aides found classified material there and surrendered it to the national archives. Agents later went and searched Biden's homes where they turned up further classified documents. Now, in the wake of that, and at this point we already had Donald Trump's classified documents

and former Vice President Mike Pence's classified documents, there was a lot of special counseling going on. So they decided fair is fair, we're gonna have a special counsel that investigates the president as well. And they not only did that, but they chose Robert Herr, who is a Trump appointed U.S. attorney, which seems like it would be relevant when making an evaluation if all this is political. Nobody cared as soon as he was appointed, not a single Republican cared that Trump. Trump is the guy who had picked him from then on.

But anyway, they are preparing their report right now. The investigation has been going on for some time. It has been exhaustive and sometimes exhausting. They've talked to many, many people who have had something to do with the classified documents and their movement and storage. And we're expecting that sometime within probably the next three months, that report is going to be put forward. And they're expecting that it is going to be critical of President Biden as well as his team,

saying that they could have been more responsible, more timely, but it is not expected at this point that there will be charges. There's a lot more to this, but why don't we jump into it? Starting with you, Sharon, what do you make of this? It's nothing to see here is what I really make of this. We all saw this coming, including the playbook by the Republicans who were for someone and now they're against someone. I think this is a waste of money, to be honest with you. They could have just said, come on over, you want to see my office, it's a mess.

Okay, I left a few things around on the floor. Nothing to see here. Ellen totally agree it was a waste of money but my favorite part is you know Trump's reaction to it which is like what we did what he had why did I get charged and he doesn't get charged which is ridiculous because as we know as we all know Joe Biden is you know an ancient man who probably like it was probably like the equivalent of toilet paper stuck to the bottom of his shoe. Like, he just had a classified document stuck to the bottom of his shoe.

And he got home and he was like, oh, what's it? Like, he's just kind of this bumbling old man who was like, oh, I get, oh, how did this get here? I don't even know. Whereas Donald Trump's situation was clearly orchestrated and planned and, you know, boxes and boxes and boxes of documents stored in like the bathroom at Marilago as opposed to. Joe Biden being like, oh, I guess, uh, I guess somehow this ended up on the stuck to the bottom of my shoe. So I mean, come on. Like, yeah. And in terms of imagery, of course, you know, you referenced things stuck to the bottom of the shoe, which is something that did happen to

Donald Trump once, very notably while he's walking to his plane. But like the imagery coming out of these two cases is that Donald Trump had them stored next to his toilet. And thanks to Donald Trump, we know that Biden had them stored next to his corvette. Way to make yourself look like the weirdo of the two. I'm not saying having classified documents in your garage is a good thing or necessarily a good look. But if I had to choose from the two, I think I know which I would choose of those. So anyway, this is, as I've alluded to, an early leak. And we've still got several months.

And look, who knows? Maybe the leak is wrong. There were multiple sources that spoke to CNN. But it could be that something changes. It could also be that, you know, based on reaction to this, and we're going to give you the reaction of some Republicans who are not happy about this leak, that maybe they modify, you know, the report. But I can't imagine they'd go to the point of actually pushing for charges. And as we're going to get into, there was just like we can talk about the scenario of where the documents were held. But but more importantly, the process of getting the documents back was so different between Joe Biden.

and Donald Trump that unless you are 100% willfully blinded by partisanship, by tribalism, I don't know how you can expect that they should both suffer the same consequences when they didn't do the same thing. We are gonna get by the way to Donald Trump's response. But before we do that, any other thoughts about Biden's side of this? Lock him up, lock him up. I mean, of course this is not gonna end here and they will say lock him up, charge him, maybe even death penalty. Hillary was visiting with her emails. Who knows what they'll say, but it's not going to end.

And the fake news will prevail on this one. And depending on who occupies 1,600 Pennsylvania Avenue, maybe something will happen. Maybe we will see a perp walk for the senior Biden. I come, yeah, I do agree with you, John, about how different the responses were to, like, you know, when it came out, like, oh, you have classified documents. And Joe Biden's camp was like, oh, man, our bad, here. Yeah, 100%.

Well, and notably. Here, here they. Sorry, like, here they are. And then, you know, as opposed to the way Trump handled it. It's like night and day. Like, they literally were like, oh, shoot, our bad. Here you go. Like, sorry about that.

Right away. And you're actually being, you're being a little bit more strict on him than perhaps he's even merited because it wasn't even that they were approached and they said, oh, our bad and gave it back. Once the Trump stuff was out there, they went looking and they found the documents and they handed them over and said, by the way, you can search literally anywhere else you want and, you know, my cell's always on, you can call me whatever you want. They were trying, they were going way over the top on trying to be helpful.

It was like they were negotiating with Joe Mansion or something, whereas Donald Trump, of course, tried so many different schemes to hold onto those documents and still to this day implies that they're his. But if we're talking about Donald Trump, we should at least allow him to to respond since he is facing charges in this area, amongst the many other charges he's facing. So this morning, Donald Trump responded to the news about the lack of charges coming Joe Biden's way in the classified documents case saying, wow, fake news, CNN through a leak through the Department of Injustice, see what I did there, has just reported that no charges will be filed in the much bigger than mine crooked Joe Biden documents case. We are living in a very

corrupt country. And I feel like that really says everything. I feel like it says everything about the documents. And, you know, if you read between the parentheses, it might say even more than that. But he decided to double and triple down, truthing prosecutorial misconduct and selective prosecution, which I don't even think is inaccurate. But like, yeah, you select who you prosecute based on the crimes they committee. You don't just prosecute everyone. Like, you did the bad thing. I shouldn't be prosecuted for that. You'll notice that they're also not prosecuting Joe Biden for the crimes of the Trump organization or trying to overthrow the government of that sort of thing. Like you did those things. He did a much smaller version of it and was

tripping over himself, not just because of his advanced age, but also because he wanted to be helpful. Whereas you were hiding documents and flying them across the country and handing some over and then keeping the rest back and then trying to get your lackeys to do your dirty work and hiding them a different place. Like it is such a different case. I get that he has to performatively freak out, but I think that reasonable people understand the difference. First of all, I got to say, John, that your Trump impression is so good that I was having a, I was having a PTSD moment. I was just like, oh God, is you really here? Thank you. So thank you and no thank you for that. But also, yeah, I mean, he's just,

he's such a whiny, like second grader. You know, this just reminds me of like someone in, the play field who gets in trouble for tripping other kids being like, but he, but he brought peanuts at lunch or something, you know what I mean? Like, he's just like, dude, it's apples and oranges. Like, stop being like, why, why am I the one getting in trouble? Because I'm the one tripping people on purpose when he's not, he's getting in, he's not getting in trouble because he didn't. Yeah, it's apples and peanuts. in that way, Sharon? I agree.

And, you know, it said that the White House declined, of course, to comment on this. And I just started thinking, I wonder if there's ever been a time where Donald Trump was asked for a comment and he declined. Or if there's ever been a time where he hasn't just volunteered to say something ridiculous and stupid. These were enough of an investigation. Hunter Biden was even, I'm surprised he didn't bring that up. Hunter Biden was even talked to about the documents.

And it was like, I didn't even live it. I just use it on my driver's license. So it's going to be what it's going to be. Yeah, yeah, they in total interviewed about 100 aides colleagues and family members, including as you said, Hunter Biden. They did a two day interview with the president. Like a hundred people, what was the second day? Sharon, you're so right. This is such a freaking waste of money.

You know what I mean? Like, and it's like we don't have this money. Like, we need this money. There's, you know, there's a billion things that we could have used this money for that it was more useful than spending all this time and effort and taxpayer dollars. Yeah. Being like, so, you know, where were you when we found the one rando document under his shoe? And by the way, look, we're going to get to a little bit more of people freaking out. But it's just like you're saying, you're pointing out that it seems unnecessary that so much time and attention and money should be put into this. But also like it didn't, none of this had to be anything.

Like Donald Trump easily could have just complied three months, six months, a year after leaving office. He could have just shipped the documents back and that would have been it. I know that this is going to blow the mind of the Maga world, but the FBI was not like champed at the bit to raid Mar-a-Lago. That is politically dangerous in the country that we live in. So he easily could have gotten out of this. And if anything, like we've made the point from the beginning, I can only speak for myself, that of all the different things he's being accused of, like even though he has done way more than Biden, this is not as significant a thing as some of the fraud, let alone trying to overturn the election or,

you know, blackmail Ukraine or whatever. Those are worse things. We didn't need this. This is not Trump derangement syndrome, this is self-destructive behavior from a person who is so arrogant and stupid and short-sighted and unable to, you know, like admit when he's wrong that he like opts into prosecutions that he really doesn't need considering all the other things he's being accused of. So it's just, it's so needless. And if I was a member of the Maga base, I would be so frustrated with him, with all the things that I want you to accomplish. you know, like there's whole like marginalized communities, you could be wiping out. And instead, you decide to own goal on this, dude. It's just, it's embarrassing. But that said, before we get into more commentary, I want to give you a little bit more

of the reactions from the right. So why don't we launch into Sean Hannity of responding to this? According to media leaks, Joe Biden, he's going to get off Scott free. Listen to this on the classified document case that is now about to come to a close. Joe Biden's own DOJ will not charge him with anything, apparently. That's not a surprise. We know that they have been politicized and weaponized. But guess why?

Because his name is not Trump. It's not, you know, a conservative. It's sad. ...again's against Hunter Biden. Just as a reminder. And also, what about her's name? Her, the Trump appointed special counsel. Again, it would be one thing if there was a person on the right, be it a Sean Hannity

or whoever, you know, in the establishment right or the independent right, which is the exact same thing, who would go through all of what we would list as evidence of what makes these cases different. So Donald Trump spent 18 months trying to avoid giving them back. He'd give some back and he'd keep the rest and he'd lie and he didn't want to give the footage and all of the stuff that he did. And then Biden, like going out of his way to try to give the documents back and being super helpful and all that, if they had any intellectual honesty, they would go through all of that and show how those actually are not like differences, distinctions with a difference. Like, it doesn't matter at the end of the day. If Biden was helpful, he still had the documents.

It's that they don't engage with any of the evidence because that would require talking about what Trump did. And it is literally indefensible through their actions, through their unwillingness to talk about this topic, they're showing that they think it is indefensible. And they don't want to have to defend it because they'll look as buffoonish as Donald Trump. So they just complain, they bleed about weaponization and selective prosecution and all that. But reasonable people who are not like rabid team Biden people, that is not who I am, can at least see the distinctions between these. Any other comments from you too?

Starting with you, Helen. I'm certainly not a rabid team Biden person. But yeah, this is all ridiculous. And again, to your point about the special counsel, special counselor, her, who is a Trump appointee, like, hello, this is not like, you know, that this team was stacked with lefties that are like, oh, yeah, we're going to give him a pass. Like, the guy running the show is a Trump appointee. Like, that should be the end of it. Like, the Trump guy was like, yeah, there's not enough here to prosecute. Sorry, I tried. Yeah. Period. That should have been the end of it.

I just think it's unfair, John, that you want Sean Hannity to investigate this thing. It's an hour show, okay? The channel's only on 24 hours a day. And these little details, the audience is not interested in absorbing all that. There's no timing. You got to get into the nutcrackers and stuff. You know, there's a lot to fit in to the rundown. Anyway, we're going to set it aside from now. We'll see if anything changes between now and when the report is actually released. And whether Donald Trump actually faces any consequences. Remember, Donald Trump is notably not in prison yet for any of this. He could well get off as scot-free as Joe Biden. With that said, more to come on the other side of this.

Welcome back to 1.0, the first hour of the power panel with me, John, Helen, and Sharon. And with that, if you were just joining us now, there is still time to hit the like button. I checked. We've got 38 minutes, but you should hit it on the early side of that. And we have more news to get to, so why don't we do that? Almost three dozen members of Congress have now banded together to call for a bilateral ceasefire between Israel and Hamas. That is already drawing condemnation. And not just condemnation, but bucks, or at least promises of bucks to come. APAC, according to a new report, has a plan to spend in just the Democratic primary over $100 million to take out some of those who have signed this call for the ceasefire, members of the squad and others.

We'll get to that. But first, I want to talk about the actual cause for the ceasefire because on Wednesday you had 24 members of the House sending a letter to both President Biden as well as the Secretary of State. And we want to give you just a little bit of what is in that call. They say, we write to you to express deep concern about the intensifying war in Gaza, particularly grave violations against children, and our fear that without an immediate cessation of hostilities and the establishment of a robust bilateral ceasefire, this war will lead to a further loss of civilian life and risk dragging the United States into dangerous and unwise conflict with armed groups across the Middle East.

Seems like a reasonable concern, considering the last two decades of American foreign policy. They go on to say, we reaffirm our unequivocal condemnation of the Hamas attacks on Israel that took place on October 7th, we also share dire concerns with the ongoing Israeli response in which the Israeli defense forces have killed over 11,078 Palestinians, nearly half of whom have been children. Now, there are a lot of people on that list, some of them standouts that you're not going to be surprised to find out signatories, including representatives Talib and Ocasio Cortez. But on top of that, you also have Representative Beka Ballant, who became the first Jewish member of Congress to call for a ceasefire as well.

And that is notable, particularly because some of the previous comment from the representative went in a slightly different direction. So early on, Ballant had said that Israel's right to defend itself against the unprecedented surprise attack against them is basically absolute, that that's what we should be focusing on at that point. But now we have in this op-ed, I want to give you sort of the evolution, says, I'm one generation removed from the horrific trauma of the Holocaust, which impacted my family and reshape the world. Like me, there are thousands of American Jews that share a deep emotional connection to Israel because of what it meant for the survival of the Jewish people in the face of extermination. This same history also drives so many of us to fight for the protection

of Palestinian lives. I do not claim to know how to solve every aspect of this decades-long conflict, but what I do know is that killing civilians and killing children is an abomination and categorically unacceptable, no matter who the civilians are and no matter who the children are. And let me just add same for all of that from the initial attack, which was utterly horrendous. I love the historic context that Representative Ballant adds. And then talks about why there seems like there should be a natural connection between your desire to protect civilians on both sides of this conflict. And so it is good to see that. So we have overall 34 members of Congress calling for a ceasefire.

Just one senator, though, that is Senator Dick Durbin. None others have joined them, including Bernie Sanders, who sort of like double down on not using that terminology saying, I am not quite sure how you would negotiate a ceasefire with a terrorist organization that is dedicated to perpetual war. And as a practical matter, long term or even medium term, yeah, that might well be difficult. But it would be really nice to have it for as long as is possible, even if that's a short time. Dozens, hundreds, perhaps thousands of lives could be on the line, even with a brief ceasefire. fire, and that certainly seems like something worth engaging in a little bit of experimental diplomacy over. That said, I've thrown a lot out there. Sharon, I want to start with you.

What are your thoughts about some of these recent developments? I think that when you lead with, well, I'll say it, bullying, money, force, it's never going to end. And we're in a climate worldwide of polarization. And so when a representative makes a measured, not even careful, just a decent measured statement. I think it deserves more attention than that. Respectfully, Senator Sanders, he's talking about the terrorist organization. Others are bringing up the Palestinian people. And I think that when you have children, babies dying, and you have people who have lost everything, including lives, so many of them, on both sides of this, I'm not making any kind of moral equivalency about how we got here with this incident in October.

But it's just, there's a time that you have to give people a seat at the table and threatening and bullying and using gobs of money, more money, I guess, than maybe perhaps we'll ever be used in this way. What are you really going to accomplish? Helen? I am so disappointed in Bernie Sanders. And I am so impressed by Representative Rebecca Bolint, that's her name, the Jewish representative who's calling for a ceasefire. Because it is, I mean, this whole issue, I feel like logic and reason has left the building with this entire issue.

Like people who I normally consider sane, reasonable, thoughtful, intelligent people are just, they're just like, no, no, no, ceasefire. And it's like, no, you know what, two things can be true. A, we can call for a ceasefire to stop killing children and babies. and we can also be pro-Israel and anti-Hamas. Like, why are we conflating these two things? Why is calling for a ceasefire automatically make me anti-Semitic or anti-Israel or pro-Hamas? Like, two things can be true people. And I feel like, you know, people who would normally be able to see that and speak to that in a reasonable way, it's just like I don't

know what did you know I mean I'm sure I know you know there's all this history you know with the Holocaust and stuff but also the money you know let's face it there's money behind a lot of this who's giving the money where and I just I just can't believe more people are not speaking out like like I personally have lost a few thousand followers on my Instagram account because I've said really, like because I posted a video of clearly a Palestinian child who had been injured and attacked and who was the same age as my nephew and it broke my heart and I literally just reposted a video of the suffering toddler and I and I hashtag ceasefire now and I lost like 3,000 Instagram followers because people just can't like logic and reason has left the

building in this whole issue. I feel. And I can't believe it. It really does feel like that. And by the way, I don't know Representative Becca Ballant. But being the first Jewish member of Congress, I imagine this is an incredibly difficult thing to do. I can't imagine what messages she's getting, you know, not necessarily just from Randos, but from from colleagues, from perhaps family members. Like there's, as you point out, there is just so much vitriol and there is so little willingness to extend like like a quantum of grace in any of this. I was reading a Reddit discussion of the DNC protest and there were so many people willing to just say you know they're they're doing that they're calling for the ceasefire because

they hate Jewish people and they want them all dead and I thought I don't I don't think that's probably it many of them are Jewish that were in the protest so that's probably not what it is I don't feel like that's driving like there's just there's so little willingness to extend an grace and I understand that that is not that is not true only of one side I am sure when I you know talk about this issue I'm sure I could do better and I will try to but but we're not in a we're not in the realm of the hypothetical right now we're not in the immediate aftermath of the horrendous attack of October 7th

with an idea of what the strategy is going to be talking about hypotheticals of no there should be a ceasefire because what if people die we're not there Over 11,000 people have already died. And if that doesn't get through to you, if that doesn't cause you to take pause, and even if somehow it doesn't get you to like to, you know, favor a ceasefire, if that doesn't cause you to at least want to reassess the strategy, then I would put forward that perhaps nothing will. But it's, but it's truly horrendous to me.

It is good to see that we have at least, you know, 8% of the house. No, not even. Less than that, being willing to call for a seat. One senator, you can't get two senators to rub together on this. It's amazing. But we might soon have even less dissension because, as I said, there's now this report, although APAC disputes it, that they are going to put more than $100 million into the Democratic primary to take out some of the most vocal critics of Israeli policy and military strategy. So close watchers now expect, according to Alexander Samna Slate, expect them to put 100 million forward, largely trained on eliminating incumbent squad members from their seats.

So look, members of squad have been challenged to basically every election. You know, they, to some extent, challenge, you know, entrenched power. So that's not surprising. But now there's going to be a lot more money that goes towards it. Bush, Bowman, Lee, and Omar have drawn primary opponents already. You know, many of them are safe blue seats. We will see, you know, how they can ward off these sorts of challenges. But $100 million is a lot of money.

And it's almost certain that they will be able to raise money, you know, to counter that. I don't know if they'll be able to counter $100 million. And notably, while the Democratic caucus generally says that they support their incumbents, That's why they don't support primary challengers to people like, you know, Representative Henry Quay are or something. It doesn't seem like they're super concerned about this massive war chest being rumored to target some of their most outspoken and in some cases popular members. So it's sort of weird where they like lock arms to protect the incumbents and where they're like, well, you know, let's see how this goes. But I want to read, to be fair, spokesman from Apex saying we're reviewing a number of races. involving detractors of Israel, but we have made no decisions at this time.

I'm not going to, you know, like beat a dead horse, but I will give a brief version of what I always say, which is challenging government policy, particularly of a party or a governing coalition that is as unpopular as it is in Israel. Criticizing a military strategy is not criticizing a country or a nation or a people or a religion. That's not how it happens. That's how propaganda works. And I hate that the way that people throw those terms around. But, C responded to this saying, criticism of the Israeli government, and she's specific, see, is virtually non-existent in U.S. politics, but apparently that's not enough. Got to spend 100 million to unseat the few who believe in Palestinian human rights and a ceasefire

that most Americans already support. That's true. The polls bear it out. The acceptable level of dissent is zero. And look, we cannot be too surprised. This is what money in politics is for, massive sums of money from a variety of different groups that are raised to counter like the popular will. It's not about engaging in persuasion and trying to rally people to your cause. It's flooding the zone in the election largely with misinformation. And so we're looking at another round of that. Helen, I apologize. I went on for a long time there. This whole thing frustrates me. What are your thoughts? I mean, this is the thing that this is why I'm so disappointed in Bernie Sanders is because as many of you know, I was an active campaigner for Bernie

in both 2016 and 2020 for him to get the presidency. And I often encountered people who said, Jewish people who would say, oh, he's anti-Semitic. And I'd be like, he's Jewish. And they'd be like, no, he's anti-Semitic because, and I'd be like, why? He's like, oh, because he's into, because he likes Palestinians. And I'd be like, oh, do you mean the one time he said Palestinians are people too? And that's, you know, and that's kind of where we are for some reason now.

Like saying Palestinians are people too. Palestinian babies don't have nothing to do with Hamas and had nothing to do with the attack on Israel on October 7th, which was horrendous and Hamas is horrendous. But why are we bombing babies that happen to be in geographic closeness to Hamas? You know what I mean? Like, it's just, it's so like people, please, like, I keep going back to like two things can be true. And we can accept that we shouldn't be bombing babies anywhere. You know, like when you say never again, you can't say never again for one group.

It's got to be never again across the board. right? Never again genocide, period. I think we should all be on board with. And that's not what's happening right now. It's like just because I say, I don't think Palestinian babies deserve to die doesn't make me anti-Semitic or anti-Israel. But two things can be true, people. I couldn't agree more. And this litmus test for whose anti-Semitic ceasefire, I guess, is the question. If you say you want ceasefire, then there it is, there's the litmus test for it. When 66% of Americans say we don't want to see any more of this, we want something to be figured out, to me it means that we don't have the right leaders.

We kind of knew that before, but it's like putting a punctuation mark at the end of this thing. I think laser focus should be on the Democratic Party and the leadership when they are crickets, won't stand up for these incumbents. It seems that both sides, I was going to say, you know, the Republicans, they don't agree with you, got to wipe you out. You're not allowed to stay here. But look at the Democratic Party and what they're not saying and how they're not helping here. Because I believe they don't want dissent either.

They are tired of those eight people in their ear. They wish they would just capitulate. And since they won't, well, might not be such a bad thing to let the other side do our dirty work. Yeah, yeah. Well, risky game. Considering what the polls show, particularly amongst younger voters, particularly with Joe Biden already so unpopular, particularly with the really difficult Democratic Senate map in 2024, feels like you might want to show the people that you're hearing them, but we'll see. We've got about three dozen, perhaps that will grow over time. The only question

is how many civilians need to die before that happens. Okay, let's briefly jump into one more little update to a story that's been discussed on the show before. A little bit of good news for once. The Supreme Court earlier this week refused to revive a Florida law designed to restrict drag shows in the state. If you don't remember the origins of this, the case began when an Orlando restaurant, Hamburger Marys, sued the state. In response to that, a district court judge in June sided with hamburger Marys and barred state officials from enforcing the law in a preliminary order. That ruling found the statute likely violates the First Amendment, in part because its vague language does not define. lude conduct or lute exposure and it was quote specifically designed to suppress

the speech of drag queen performers. Now of course it wasn't written to specifically do that or for you to know that that's what the goal was but it's clear that that's what the goal was and all you have to do is listen to literally any of the politicians involved in it in their enthusiastic public appearances over the course of years where they have demonized and lied about drag performers. But there was a question. Will the Supreme Court side with the lower court? And thankfully, they did. In a statement accompanying the Supreme Court order to...

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to reinstate the Florida law does not reflect their view about whether it violates the First Amendment. So theoretically, they are protecting the performers' First Amendment rights while signaling to the country, we still might be down to have people's First Amendment rights be restricted purely because of the art form they partake in or the community that they're a part of. So stay tuned for developments in that area. You also have Three other justices, Thomas, Alito and Gorsuch, who indicated that they would have allowed the law to take effect while the litigation continues. So theoretically, other perhaps state laws, a new version of this in Florida, maybe the Supreme Court would be willing to play ball with that. But this is at least for now a good development coming out of the Supreme Court, a Supreme Court that has not provided many of those to us over the past few years.

Sharon, what do you make of that? You're right. It is a good thing that's come out of this body. Not their ethics stuff, but perhaps this, but I also think that you read there some things that are causing confusion because what is next from the Supreme Court, you know, is and would that law cover say Lauren Bobert watching Beetlejuice with her boyfriend and acting a fool? You know, it's like, where's that line? Where's that line for all of us? And they want to script it and draw it based on their own personal lives, but then they color outside the line. And so I don't know, I just hear a lot of confusion, even in a decision that in this case, I like. Helen?

I was going to go so far as to give us a slow clap for the Supreme Court, but just one. A literal slow clap. Just one. Because like you said, you know, it's good news for now. It's like limited good news for now, but of course, Amy Coney Barrett and frickin frat boy, Kavanaugh had to jump in and be like, well, we still hate drag queens though. We reserve the right to hate them enthusiastically in the future. Yeah, look, the Supreme Court is not great. That much is clear and God only knows on any given day what they're going to do, but it could get worse.

And there's the sort of like the already the little movements indicating that they might be, again, willing to play ball. I'm glad that this was knocked down, particularly in a context. Like, I don't want to run through all the hypocrisies, but it just is absurd that we live at a time where, man, the Republicans never stop talking about how much they hate cancel culture and how they think that, why are you saying I'm politically incorrect? They're saying these people's politics is incorrect. Also, their sexuality, their orientation, their existence is incorrect and they need to be canceled. Not in a colloquial sense like it's so often used where being canceled means that somebody like insulted you on Twitter. No, actually canceled by the government, shut down through the force of law. They do that and they wipe out speech and then they go back to saying that

they're free speech warriors. It's utterly absurd. I don't know why it's not breaking through more, how little any of that ever actually meant to them. But at least the Supreme Court in this case isn't on their side. Now with that said, we do have to take our second. break of the show, but you're going to want to come back because Marjorie Green wrote a book and the initial reviews are in. We'll have that for you and more after this. What you heard there was another one of the mashups that Bart puts together and he put it together for fun, you know, the Kavanaugh, I like beer, but it's also a reminder, it's crazy that he's on the Supreme Court. Like it's been normalized, he's been on there for a while, but he has no place on the Supreme Court. He's a reprehensible human being and it's a national embarrassment that he remains on there to this day.

But anyway, speaking of national embarrassments, let's talk about the news, starting with this. That doesn't have much to do with this story. I just love it. And the music editing, no notes, it's perfect. But what we saw there was, of course, Representative Josh Hawley, who is fleeing the abhorrent violence on January 6 after, notably earlier, giving like the raised fist to the that he would eventually be fleeing for his life from. Well, that seems like an amazing just crystallization of cowardice.

But Marjorie Green thinks that she has other examples that deserve just as much attention. So she's written a book, written, she did it. She sat down and she wrote it. She wrote it out or typed it. It was her that did it. Credible. Definitely. All the words.

She wrote all of the words herself. She did that. that. Which is impressive for someone who can barely read. That's a good point, yeah. Anyway, the book is called MTG. Did you think at all of a real title? That's what you went with?

Anyway, okay, whatever. Look, we don't have the book, but The Guardian has the book, and they're already publicizing some of the claims that she makes in the book. And so some of it has to do with yet more misinformation around what happened on January 6th. And it's opportunistic misinformation, as it so often is. often is, because she is lying about what happened on January 6th, specifically to make the Democrats look bad. So she says, describing January 6th, several of the Republican congressmen said, we're going to stay right here and defend the House chamber. As they began barricading the door with furniture, I noticed not one Democrat was willing to stay to defend the chamber.

So the idea there is look at these cowardly Democrats. These like man's men, Republicans are willing to stop again. the conservatives on the other side of the barricades from coming through and killing people, but not the Democrats. The issue is that that's just not true, and we already know that it's not true. Because in the wake of January 6th, there was a lot of attention paid to what was going on there, and we got the casual testimony of a lot of representatives who were involved in that. And so we know there were people like Representative Jason Crow, an Army combat veteran, who talked about what he got up to during that time. He said, I got into Ranger mode a little bit.

Most of the members didn't know how to use the emergency mask, so I was helping them get their emergency masks out of the bags and helped instruct a bunch of folks on how to put it on and how to use it. I wasn't going to leave the house floor until every member was gone. So we waited until we were able to get everybody out. Allegedly was the last representative out of the room. I guess in her defense, Green didn't see that because she was already out of the room at that point. He was still waiting. But just like completely ignoring, now he looks on and says Marjorie Taylor Green doesn't exist in the

the same reality as the rest of us, we've known that for some time. For those of us who were there in January 6th and actually defended the chamber from violent insurrectionists, her view is patently false. She doesn't know what she's talking about, which definitely seems true. And there are others, Raul Grijalva will get to what he had to say, but like this is perhaps I guess the least important thing about what happened on January 6 is who had bravery, but she just, she can't help but lie about it. So add this to the mountain of other lies that she has told about January 6th.

Sharon what do you think he's very mean I mean she also called them fat basically said they were out of shape and old ageism too they could not run fast enough to escape they had bags over their heads because they were afraid of tear gas it's just mean and stupid it's just really stupid what do you say about is it in the fiction section is that how you get it's just not she knows it's not true okay stop calling people fat it's it's it's it's it's It's in the trash fantasy section, like not even good fantasy, trash fantasy section. I can't believe it. I mean, I can't, I'm still trying to get over the fact that Marjorie Taylor Green

actually expects anyone to believe that she wrote this book. But whatever she's paying her ghost writer, hmm. And yeah, she's, like, why do we even listen to her? She's just, like, what were they? supposed to do like you're not allowed to bring arms into the capital building right as far as I know you're not allowed to bring you're not allowed to be armed inside of the capital building and so did she expect that they were supposed to just be like put them up yeah you know some of these some of these people that were coming in did have arms

have arms and they had bear spray and, you know, batons and they were like taking baseball, you know, baseball bats to the heads of security guards and stuff. Yeah. And let's not forget, like, there were guards that died, you know, from in this mob. So like, what is, you know, where were you, Marjorie? Like, what were you doing? Were you doing the put them up thing? Like, come on. Get out of here. She was knocking out a set of pull-ups. Yeah, the entire thing, is ridiculous. And again, it's another demonstration, by the way, of what we constantly seen is not often pointed out. Is the wanting to have your stupidity cake and eat it too on the right where like they'll say COVID is a Chinese bio weapon. How dare the Chinese

send a bioweapon to our shores? And then when it's here, what should we do to stop people from getting sick with it? Nothing. It's just don't you should, why are you worried about it? Why are you talking about it? You want me to put on a mask just to avoid the Chinese bio weapon? In this case, like, why weren't they at the barricades with us defending against the mob? The mob that did nothing wrong, by the way. They were just sightseers. They were just tourists walking through. And why wasn't everyone there to stop them?

You should have had pikes, raised, ready to take their charge. They were not doing anything wrong, though. They were just citizens who were concerned about the election. I know, like, can anyone be consistent, please? I'm not even saying the stance you take has to make sense of itself, but just take one stance. How about that? Anyway, the mockery of the Democrats continues. She says many of the Democrats obligingly put their gas masks on,

and some were lying on the floor, hysterical, describing a chamber in complete and utterest rate. Maybe they were on the ground because they were worried about being shot by one of these right-wingers, maybe. And also, she's not specific here, but I detect a note of, like, she hates masks so much in the pandemic, that she's mocking people for putting gas. masks that they were ordered to put on on are all masks bad now they could have

used to buy a weapon if there's a plane going down with Marjorie Taylor Green on it and the oxygen masks drops she's gonna be like you know what no thank you masks never a hashtag never again with the masks just with the last gasp of oxygen or lungs don't tread on me As everyone else is just like, I hope the turbulence doesn't last. I know, I can't breathe. Yeah. Anyway, okay, look, the entire thing is ridiculous.

I haven't seen this compilation. Can we play D3? I'm just curious what you guys put together on this. They were screaming, they're so proud of her. Ah, ah, ah, ah. Oh, oh, oh, you can do it, baby. I love you so much. Magic.

And it's bad news, bad things are happening. Mom, I'm sorry. Was that Marjorie Taylor Green working out? Whoa, okay, somebody needs to teach this girl some form because her form, like, I don't know. I know a lot about CrossFit or that, you know, like, but I know, even I know enough that she was doing everything wrong and girl, you're going to hurt yourself. Yes, she is. Like, you are going to hurt yourself. You're going to pull something.

You're not doing it right. I don't want you to be attacked by the Crossfitters out there because the Crossfitters are a devoted group. And I will say, I too. I don't know much about cross. I'm told that they think that's the correct way to do it. I also have seen injury statistics for people in CrossFit. I think crossfitters, please back me up. She is not doing this right.

Yeah, she's not doing right. I'm not going to get involved in this, okay? I don't cross crossfitters or Swifty's. So this is the two groups that I don't mess with. Okay, I want to show one more graphic, but can we show the last graphic of this? Because the book is not even available yet, but already people have hit the Barnes and Noble reviews and they're not fans. And if you just want to have fun for a little bit, you should read some of the reviews. It's possible some of them got early review copies, but the comments are funny, so go check that out.

It's MTG on Barnes & Noble. Why don't we jump into, it is that time of year again, the launch of the war on Christmas. Let's take a look. We're witnessing the dillinization of corporate America. Companies are committing financial suicide one after the other. We all remembered what happened to Bud Light. And Disney got all weird, started sticking their nose in politics, and then their movies started flopping.

Then there's Target. They were selling a line of clothes for trans toddlers, Tuckums. Yes, tuckums. They're stock tanked, down $9 billion over the summer, but they didn't learn anything. It's the dillinization of corporations making very mild, limited overtures to diversity and representation, which they had never done before the Dillon affair. I honestly believe that that's what he thinks is going on. But look, they're super excited over at Fox for the continued culture wars that they engage in.

And again, these conservatives who will do one segment on how people need to stop critiquing others' speech and they need to let people just be politically incorrect if they want to be then they immediately transfer over to how dare a corporation sell a thing. Well, you can see that he's mad, what is he mad about this holiday season? Take a look. Gay Nutcracker, complete with a rainbow hat, a trans flag. Full price, $12, but right now it's on sale for eight. Target also sells Santa ornaments, but Target Santa is in a wheelchair and is black.

And it's a good thing our chimney is wheelchair accessible, so Jesse Jr. is going to get all the gifts he wants. How you get it? It's because they would have trouble operating as Santa. Isn't that funny to what I have to imagine is an audience that he thinks doesn't include any conservatives who are disabled in any way or in any way, you know, movement like limited? I don't understand the casual desire to insult members of your own audience, but it's an unending thing. Anyway, they have to be angry about something. So they went and they tried to find something that like everyone would agree is unacceptable. They can't. What they found is a nutcracker and a black disabled Santa. And he can't even tell you what is wrong about that. He just says it puts up the picture and you're supposed to fill in the blanks of why that's a bad thing. And for the many like conservative men are watching this, they're just steaming over

this. They're trained to be alphas, to be strong. And they're spending their time being mad about things that they would never buy. I don't get any of this. Helen, can you explain this? Why is this such a big issue for these people? My favorite part about that is that, you know, he put up the picture of the of the gay nutcracker, but there was one gay nutcracker next to like clearly a stack of not gay nutcrackers. So he's mad that there's one, they're offering one goddamn gay nutcracker amongst the sea of straight nutcrackers. And I'm twisted about it. You know what? My nuts feel cracked about this. It's like, yeah, dude, just don't buy, just go turn around and look at the pillows.

There's plenty of straight pillows. You know, like, what are you talking about? Like, underneath, I'm sure, directly next to this pile of black Santas in wheelchairs, there was a much bigger pile of white santa's standing up who were fully able-bodied that he did not want to juxtapose in the photo. Like, it's like, dude, let's literally show us the whole picture. You're not showing us the whole picture. And why does anybody care?

Just literally turn to the right and there will be an able-bodied white Santa for you to buy. Literally anywhere else, anywhere else. There will be plenty, plenty. of able-bodied white Santas. You know, this is the one section in one aisle of a black Santa and a wheelchair. And, oh, we can't have this. We can't have this. I'm sorry.

Yeah, I agree. And if there is only one gay nutcracker, I'm bad about that. I don't know a gay nutcracker that wants to be alone over the holidays, okay? I think it's also, it's just so pathetic to put on target in these other companies as if they're trying to push this moral agenda. It could be that they just want to make money from groups who have been underserved, okay? I grew up and now I'm dating myself where it was a little hard to find black Barbie dolls. Okay, we couldn't get them at every store.

Once they got them, we bought all of them. It could just be that the companies want to make money and serve more consumers than just the straight white nutcracker. I could be wrong, okay? I'm a terrible businesswoman, but that's my thought. Yeah, I think the only like gay agenda they're pursuing with that nutcracker is their desire to have your $12 or $8 now. I think they want to have that. I get that that's what the job is. That is what Jesse Waters and all the rest have signed up for.

They didn't put that on the rundown. Some Fox producer went to Target and just looked for something to be mad about and now they need to performatively pretend that it bothers them. bothers them that it's there but it's just it's it's so weird I don't understand the weakness I don't understand why these people who and Jesse Waters is a white male like me we have never had difficulty in finding people characters like us reflected everywhere we look why it bothers you so much that not 100% are exactly like you why it ruins your day that a woman is starring in a movie or a person of color is included

in a thing. Why is it that you have after a lifetime of having the world catered specifically to you? You can't take just a little bit of that being given to other people. You've enjoyed it. It is clear how important representation is to you. So why do you not understand why it's important to other people? It is core to your worldview, but you don't think anyone else should care about it like you. And even diversity in pursuit of celebrating a family holiday together. This is not some subversive thing. This is Christmas. This is Santa. This is tradition. This is like linked like a lot of time to Christianity. Like, why is that not enough of that for them at this point? I will literally never understand the performative weakness of these

people. Any final thoughts? You're missing a point. Santa is white. Okay, that's what they would tell you. Okay, is Megan Kelly. Jesse Waters, if you go out today to literally, to literally to literally any store and have trouble finding a white, able-bodied Santa ornament. I will give you not just $8, I will give you $12. Like I will pay the full price of that gay nutcracker for you, I will buy it off of you

if you have any trouble at all in any store finding a white able bodied Santa ornament, I will give you $12. And that is a guarantee. You can take that to the target. Anyway, that is unfortunately all the time we have for the first hour. I would love to keep talking with you both. But unfortunately, that's all the time we have. Before we close though, starting with you, Sharon, where can people see more of your work? B.YT sports. I'm honored to be a part of it. I also have a show on in the black network. So I hope you'll check it out.

Nice. And Helen? I'm performing at the Laugh Factory in Covina, California, November 26th. That's the Sunday after Thanksgiving. So if you're in the Covina area, come see me. I'm also going to be in the Bay Area, New Year's Eve, Sunnyvale and Cupertino. If you're in that area, come New Year's Eve weekend, see me there. Thank you. Great to do the show with both of you.

And for all of you out there, there's a whole other hour coming up, so don't go anywhere. We'll be right back. Thanks for listening to the full episode of the Young Turks. Support our work, listen ad-free, access members-only bonus content, and more by subscribing to Apple Podcasts at apple. com at apple.com slash t-y-t. I'm your host, Shank Huger, and I'll see you soon.