The Young Turks - Get Fired or Die!

Episode Date: December 14, 2021

According to multiple officials, a single top secret American strike cell launched tens of thousands of bombs and missiles against the Islamic State in Syria, but in the process of attacking the enemy, the shadowy force sidestepped safeguards and repeatedly killed civilians. At least five workers said supervisors warned employees that they would be fired if they left their shifts early during the catastrophic tornadoes in Kentucky. Screenshots of a system used by Scripps Memorial Hospital show markups as high as 675% being imposed automatically during medical treatment. In Hawaii, fears grow over unsafe levels of petroleum in drinking water. Nancy Pelosi will stay around to lead House Democrats through the next election -- and perhaps beyond. Hosts: Cenk Uygur, Ana Kasparian Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

You're listening to The Young Turks, the online news show. Make sure to follow and rate our show with not one, not two, not three, not four, but five stars. You're awesome. Thank you. Why just survive back to school when you can thrive by creating a space that does it all for you, no matter the size. Whether you're taking over your parents' basement or moving to campus, IKEA has hundreds of design ideas and affordable options to complement any budget. After all, you're in your small space era. to own it. Shop now at IKEA.ca.ca. All right, well, I'm the young Turks, Jake Uyre, Anna Kasperin with you guys, tons of news today, as always, we find out.

You're gonna be shocked to find out that it turns out some of the Fox News anchors and Donald Trump Jr. are liars. No way, I know. No one could have seen. Breaking news. Breaking breaking, breaking news on 2R2. Okay, all right, so that's a little bit later. We've got some really serious stories for you guys that probably almost no one else is covering to start with. All right, Anna. All right. Multiple former and current members of the military and intelligence officials are now coming forward with concerns about the careless nature of air strikes conducted in Syria by the United States military, which of course ended up killing innocent civilians. Now the strikes were meant to target members of ISIS. However, we're learning

more details about the careless nature of how these air strikes were conducted, how they oftentimes relied on faulty intel. And of course, there seems to be an effort to either cover this up or avoid any accountability as a result of the civilian deaths that have occurred. Now, this was a pretty decent report by the New York Times, a lengthy one as well, and it gives you a lot of interesting details about what's going on. They write that a single top secret American strike cell launched tens of thousands of bombs and missiles against the Islamic State in Syria. But in the process of hammering a vicious enemy, the shadowy force sidesteped safe,

safeguards and repeatedly killed civilians. And this is the problem with the United States meddling in any type of conflict abroad. Oftentimes they claim that their involvement is meant to protect national security, to defeat ISIS, or to protect civilians on the ground. But oftentimes the opposite ends up happening. So this unit that they write about is known as Tallinn Anvil, and it worked in three shifts around the clock between 2014 and 2019. In the rush to destroy enemies, ISIS in this case, Talon and Vil, circumvented rules imposed

to protect non-combatants, otherwise known as civilians, of course, and alarmed its partners in the military and even the CIA by killing people who had no role in the conflict. Farmers trying to harvest, children in the street, families fleeing fighting and villagers sheltering in buildings and just how much of an impact did this so-called strike cell have well quite a bit so as the New York Times writes Talon Anvil was small at times fewer than 20 people operating from anonymous rooms cluttered with flat screens but it played an outsized role in the 112,000 bombs and missiles launched against the Islamic State in part because it embraced a

loose interpretation of the military's rules of engagement, and if you think that high level figures within the military were the ones calling for the airstrikes and making these difficult decisions, turns out that is actually not the case. Some pretty low level individuals were calling the shots, and that led to more civilian casualties. Four current and former military officials say the majority of these strikes were ordered not by top leaders, but by relatively low-ranking U.S. Army Delta of force commandos in Tallinn Anvil.

And I have some more details later in regard to how they were able to find loopholes in certain rules for engagement in order to carry out these airstrikes, knowing full well that they could lead to civilian deaths. Before I get to that, Jank. Yes. Are you surprised? No, so there's a number of things to go over here. First of all, the exceptions they used, you will see.

And the other tactics that they use look like they're borrowed from police. departments across the country. So birds of a feather and all that. So is, was this authorized and did people look away on purpose? The answer is almost definitely, okay? So what in the past, generals used to order the strikes. Then they wanted to speed it up and they moved it lower and lower down the list until the Delta team with sergeants were making the decisions.

And how they by step, or step by, or step by other regulations is what Anna is going to tell you. But the most important part of it is guys, you're not going to get authorized to do that stuff unless it comes from up top, okay? And we know that for a fact for a number of reasons. People that were senior CIA officials complained. They're killing way too many civilians and brazenly, right? People inside the talent group complained.

Air Force pilots sometimes wouldn't even drop bombs saying, no, I'm not gonna drop bombs on these obvious civilians, right? And so these guys are totally out of control. And all these guys reported up the chain. These guys are out of control. They're killing civilians wantonly, right? And it goes up the chain to two people in particular, General Stephen Townsend, who commanded the offensive against ISIS. And when New York Times asked him about it, he's like, huh, interesting. No, no, we do a great job of protecting civilians. And then General Joseph Votel, who was his commander and the head of Middle Central Command, also, oh my God, we're the best in the business.

I don't know what you're talking about. So obvious nonsense, they must have known, they clearly authorized it, and didn't want to hear the details of all the murder of civilians that we were doing. Yeah, in fact, let me fill in more details in regard to what you're talking about. Because you're right, there was clearly an effort. to avoid really changing the culture here. And it's evident in the way that the people at the higher ranks responded to the criticism.

So Larry Lewis, a former Pentagon and State Department advisor who has viewed the Pentagon's classified civilian casualty data for Syria, said that the rate of civilian deaths was 10 times that of similar operations he tracked in Afghanistan. Lewis said that General Stephen Townsend, who Jenk had just referred to, who commanded the offensive against the Islamic

state in 2016 and 2017, was dismissive of widespread reports from news media and human rights organizations describing the mounting toll. And, Jank, you brought up how reading about these details reminds you of some of the behavior among police and local police departments across this country. And in my opinion, it's no surprise that military culture, bleeds into local policing in this country. I mean, we see how their military grade weaponry gets transferred over to local police departments. And with that comes a police culture. And as I read about the details in regard to how they skirted certain regulations, it also reminded me of common excuses that you'll hear from police officials and cops who end up firing at or just killing unarmed people in this country.

So there were some regulations and rules in place, right, rules of engagement, but they were able to circumvent them in a fascinating way. Delta operators were under enormous pressure to protect allied ground troops and move the offensive forward, the former task force member said, and felt hobbled by the safeguards. So in early 2017, they found a way to strike more quickly, self-defense. Talon Anvil began claiming that nearly every strike was in self-defense, which enabled them to move quickly with little second-guessing or oversight, even if their targets were miles from any fighting. So they just said, all right, instead of referring to or labeling an air strike as an offensive air strike, we're just going to say that it's a self-defense air strike, meant to protect allied troops on the ground.

And clearly that was meant to avoid having to do the necessary research, the necessary, necessary intel gathering before conducting that airstrike. Okay, so think about it this way, guys. It's an unmanned drone that they're using. And sometimes they would kill people 100 miles from the front. So who are you defending 100 miles from the front when there are no use? U.S. ground groups or any of our allies within hundreds of miles. And so you can't say self-defense of the drone, that makes no sense, you sent it over there

to kill a target. So obviously the self-defense argument is complete horse crap. All you would need is one commanding officer to look at what they were doing based on all the complaints to say this is ridiculous. The second thing you would see, which is also very similar to policing in America is they have cameras on the drones and right before they hit their target, they would move the cameras away, right? So you couldn't see the dead civilians. Now guys, think about it. If you were hitting the right targets, why would you move the camera away?

And they noticed the pattern in a great number of hits. Right before they're about to kill civilians, they move the camera so you can't see the dead bodies. So obviously they're covering it up, more evidence, they would only use their first name. They would never use their last names or their rank, and they wouldn't wear their uniforms. Gee, I wonder if they were trying to cover up that they were doing something terribly, terribly wrong, and everyone knew it and didn't do a damn thing about it. And by the way, one of the things that I thought of as I'm reading through this is, now mind you, it started under Obama, okay, it started in 2014 and went to 2019.

But you do see in the summer of 2016, they start to pick up the pace and killing civilians. And remember what Donald Trump promised on the campaign? He said, we should kill them and their families. And then you see in some of these, they have the footage in a lot of the videos before they started turning the camera away. In one case, clearly families fleeing fighting, get on boats, they launch the missiles anyway. And you see women and children killed, torn apart, and their bodies floating down the river. Why would you fire at women and children fleeing fighting?

Why would you do that? Well, Trump told them to kill their families. Now, Jake, this story in the New York Times would not be possible if it weren't for people involved in military operations, members of the CIA coming forward and essentially blowing the whistle on what's taking place. And I want to connect some dots because remember, the United States government right now is fighting tooth and nail to extradite Julian Assange for publishing. the leaks provided by Chelsea Manning and the Apache helicopter strikes happened to be the,

you know, the center of that story. And as you're talking about all of this, it made me remember, you know, why the Apache helicopter situation was so controversial. Obviously it led to the death of Reuters journalists, so there's that, civilian casualties, there's that. But that leak, regardless of how newsworthy it was, regardless of how controversial and disgusting, you know, the military's behavior was in that case, it just continued, it just continued. In this case, we're learning about it in the context of, you know, these people talking to the, talking to the New York Times, but if the U.S. government could have its way, if they treated all cases similarly, couldn't they go after the New York Times, we're publishing

this information right now? 100%. And so I was seeing the same exact thing as I'm reading this story. This is almost exactly what Chelsea Manning and Assange did. Chelsea Manning leaked it. Now, but a lot of these people who are leaking are top level of officials in the CIA and the military, so they're not going to get treated like Chelsea Manning, right? And the people that they leaked it to is the New York Times.

So they're not going to get treated like Julian Assange, but the reality is it is nearly identical. So the Apache helicopter video in the Assange leak showed us killing civilians. This has video of us killing civilians and higher command doing nothing. And by the way, I mean, in this country, only the just gets, get punished, right? Remember in that Apache helicopter video, the people who killed the civilians, none of them got punished, none of them. Only the people who leaked the story got punished. And same with the CIA torture program. No one who did the torture got punished.

No one who destroyed the evidence got punished. Only the people who leaked the program got punished. So in this case, New York Times and the rest of the mainstream media should be incredibly careful about how they treat the Assange case. Because otherwise, if you put Assange in jail, there's no reason why they wouldn't come after the New York Times and reporters like this at a later time. Well, the precedent was said under Biden, Trump now took not only in these cases that are near identical, but then of course Trump or anyone else. By the way, Republican or Democrat could open the door further and go, well, then there were other colleagues at the New York Times who helped with this or that or reported something I didn't like, put them in jail, put them in jail, put them in jail. So by the way, don't get me wrong, this is actually, and I, and I criticize the New York Times all the time for being in favor of the status quo. This was a great article.

This is great journalism. We love to see it, and we'd love to see a hell of a lot more of it and give credit to the New York Times for breaking this really important story. By the way, on the other hand, go turn on cable news and see if you'll ever hear this story reported. No chance. Right? And look, it's partly all of our fault. Like, we care. When I see civilians, it's not my fault.

No, no, I hear you, I'm saying as a society, right? When I see civilians being killed in Syria, I care deeply about it. And to me, a poor kid floating down the river bombed for no reason is heartbreaking and he's just as human as the rest of us. But a huge percentage in this country go, I don't really care. They're not us. There are some foreigners, I can't relate to. So we killed a bunch of their civilians.

So what, right? And by the way, and then in reverse, when our civilians are killed, a lot of people in other countries go, oh wow, American civilians were killed after they murdered civilian after civilian after civilian in endless conflicts. Now all of a sudden we're supposed to care about American civilians dying. I propose something radical that we all care about each other. But unfortunately, that's not how a lot of American voters react. And that's definitely not how the majority of American media reacts. They think it's no big deal at all.

Otherwise, they'd all be talking about it. Right. And look, you can help mitigate the damage done by corporate media that tends to avoid covering these types of stories by sharing this video. Share it on social media with your friends, your family. It's really important for people to know what's really going on, not only with our military, but with the endless supply of taxpayer money that goes to defense contractors and the military while Americans are being nickeled and dined when it comes to social spending. And I want to just give you one last instance of the over the top lies. So you know how outrageous this group was and how the military clearly knew about it and didn't do anything. So in one chat group, one of the members of this group writes, all civilians have fled the area. This is at four in the morning when they're about the bomb a village. And he says all civilians have fled the area. Anyone left is an enemy fighter. Find lots of targets for us today because we want to go Winchester. Okay. Now, in a In reality, the video shows no one had fled, it's four in the morning. The houses were filled with women and children and men, of course, and they were completely lying in their reports about what had happened.

They drop a bomb, and in that case, I believe, 23 people. One reported had it had it at 16 dead, another had a 23 dead, obviously pulling civilians out because they just bombed homes. And what you might be wondering is what is going Winchester mean? It means expending all of the drones missiles and 500 pound bombs. If you go Winchester, you're gonna kill everyone on the ground where you're hitting them. And that was the point of this group, kill them all, combatants and civilians. And then later the United States military will pretend to be outraged at terrorists who kill civilians.

All right, we gotta take a break. When we come back an update on the workers who were remaining in factories while tornadoes were ripping in, ripping across several Midwestern states. We've got that story and more when we come back. All right, back on TYT, Chink and Anna with you guys. All right, Anna. After tornadoes ripped through Midwestern states over the weekend, and we learned of about the collapse of an Amazon warehouse and also a candle factory in Kentucky,

there were some questions about whether or not these employees would have had enough time to go home and find shelter with their loved ones. Now oftentimes tornadoes can be unpredictable and some might have argued that employers forcing their workers to stay in factories or warehouses while these tornadoes were ripping through these states was the logical thing to do. But we're actually learning some new details in regard to the Mayfield Consumer Products Factory, the candle factory in particular in Kentucky, which unfortunately did collapse and did lead to the deaths of several of the workers.

Now we have some details from various reporters who actually spoke to the workers and said they were actually threatened with firings if they left work. Here's one of the reporters speaking to the press about what he learned. Initially, the company wanted, as the first sirens run off, the first sirens went off, I'm going to say around between 5, 36 o'clock, and they wanted everybody to like maybe take shelter in the bathrooms and the hallways. But then there was a three-hour window between then and when the second siren had came. And that's what a lot of the employees there had asked to go home. So we're talking to 15 employees, that's on the low end, possibly up to 40, but I'll just call it 15 for now. But who had asked, listen, is getting dangerous outside.

We're worried for our lives. Can we go home? And they say, well, yes, but if you do, you know, don't bother coming back. All right. So I want to clarify some of what was brought up in that video because it turns out that the workers absolutely did have time to go home and find shelter with their loved ones. I also find it fascinating that after the first siren went off, they were told to find shelter in bathrooms, like did they not have an actual safe place to go to to find shelter as these

tornadoes were ripping through these states? Now, Michaela Emery, who's 21 years old, said in an interview from her hospital bed that workers first asked to leave shortly after tornado siren sounded outside the factory around 5.30 p.m. And they were told no. In fact, they were threatened. They were told that they would be fired if they left. And so Emory, much like many of the other employees at the factory, decided to stay there because their livelihoods literally depended on it. Now, Emery ended up getting hit in the face with a slab of concrete, and she was trapped under the rubble for six hours. Okay, luckily she was rescued, but she was hospitalized as a result. Now, about 15 people asked to go home during the night shift shortly after the first emergency alarm sounded outside the facility, said another employee,

Haley Condor. Initially, Condor said team leaders told her they wouldn't let workers leave because of safety precautions. So they kept everyone in the hallways and the bathrooms. Once they mistakenly thought the tornado was no longer a danger, they sent everyone back to work, employees said. The real tornado wouldn't arrive for several more hours. And as we know, The building collapsed and several people died as a result. In fact, at least eight people died in the Mayfield Consumer Products Factory, which makes scented candles. The facility was leveled and all that's left is rubble.

Kentucky Governor Andy Bashir said Monday that 74 people statewide had been confirmed dead. Yeah, so look, we talked about this a little bit yesterday, but yesterday we didn't have this information that they did order them back to work. And so if your boss ever orders you back to work when a natural disaster is coming, do not listen to them. Go home, get or go wherever you are safe. In order to make a buck, are they willing to risk your life? Definitely. And so I mentioned this in response to a member comment yesterday. During 9-11, the second tower before it was hit,

a lot of the companies told their workers to go back to work and that it was not an emergency, and that they'd be fine. There's this one story that stayed with me, and I've repeated it probably about a dozen times on air, a woman who was working at it in the same tower as her husband, in that same tower, came down, she was free to go, but her husband wasn't, and management had said that he needed to stay. She said, I will divorce you unless you get out of this tower right away.

Everyone on the floor died but him, okay? So when they order you back to work in a situation that seems super unsafe, trust your instincts, will they kill you for a buck? Yes, if you haven't realized that yet, it's only because mainstream media is the marketing arm of corporate rule, so they don't often talk about it. So in this case, Anna, we might actually, now this might be a surprising twist, we might get some accountability. Now I'll tell you two reasons why, no, no, I know you have excellent reason for skepticism,

which is that corporations in this country are never held accountable. We're ruled by them, right? But here, one, you have a Democratic governor makes it slightly more likely. A Republican governor wouldn't do it to any company under any circumstance, right? Unless of course, they're in favor of gay rights or something, in which case they would hate them, right? And they might take action. So, but more importantly, it is not a giant company. Like the Amazon accountability in Illinois for doing something similar,

there'll be no accountability at all. There's a giant company they give millions and millions of dollars to politicians at the national level. Basically, they've paid the bribe so that the corrupt government officials will protect them, right? But random candle factory dude in Kentucky, he might be just as vicious to his workers, but I don't know how many political donations he's made. And if he hasn't made very many, then he actually could be in trouble. Then they make an example out of one small business so that they can avoid avoid responsibility for the bigger businesses that pay them off? It really depends, right?

Because when we think about accountability, we usually think about it on the federal level. Now you mentioned local politicians. And even if it's not a massive corporation as Amazon is, we're still talking about jobs. And so oftentimes when local politicians threaten local businesses or corporations that are based there, the response that they get from the company is, all right, well, we'll just, just pick up and go to another state and you'll lose all these jobs. So I don't know how it's going to play out. I hope you're right because there should be accountability.

And when you hear the heartbreaking individual stories of the lives that were lost, I mean, it's infuriating. It's infuriating. And by the way, the workers who stayed behind and showed up to work and remained at work, even as this threat was ongoing, weren't even offered increased pay. For instance, just giving you another quote from Michaela Emery, the 21 year old who spoke to NBC news about this, she says, people had questioned if they could leave or go home, said Emory, who preferred to stay at work and make extra money.

Overtime pay was available, but it wasn't clear whether those who stayed were even offered additional pay. So look, that's a small part of the story, but it's so in line with the culture that we see at most corporations and companies. And then finally, I wanna go to this video that profiles some of the victims, some of the lives lost, because this is what's at stake.

And I question whether the profit motive, I don't question it, I know. The profit motive clouds the judgment of anyone that's considered a higher up, right? But here's the real toll. Here's what's at stake, let's watch. Mark Saxton is still in disbelief. I don't see how nobody can be okay after this.

On Friday night, he was working the forklift, one of 110 employees on the evening shift at the Mayfield Consumer Products Candle Factory, when in a matter of seconds, a tornado brought the building to the ground. Chilling video, shot in darkness by another worker, shows a harrowing scene after it fell. Somebody, please, send us some help.

We are trapped. Rescuers pulled Mark out of the rubble, but he lost family and friends inside. People were screaming, Mark Hill. I couldn't even get to him. Denise Cunningham's 21-year-old son, Devin, was also working that night. She called him immediately when the tornado hit. He was alive, but trapped.

I called him, and a girl answered the phone. And all you can hear screams for asking for help. And my son couldn't get on the phone because he's trapped between those two walls. And they're all screaming for help. All she could tell me was that my son told me that he loved me, that he didn't think he was going to make it. And anyone who had the instinct to leave was threatened by supervisors for attempting to do so. In fact, the supervisors, according to multiple employees, decided to do roll call to keep tabs on who did end up leaving. Because some of the employees were like, all right, fire me, I'm leaving.

I'm gonna go to safety. No, everybody's sick of corporate rule. I saw some of the workers there just outraged afterwards, understandably so. And look, it's Kentucky, I don't know what the, all of the political affiliations, the people that were killed and the people that are outraged. But that's why you now even see Fox News speaking out against big business. And now they don't really mean it, they're using it as a trick to actually deregulate. deregulate big business and help them. But at least they're savvy enough to know everybody in

the country now hates big business for reasons like this. And so they pretend to be populace to get people's votes. The only people who don't realize it now to turn around and blame the Democratic Party are corporate Democrats, which is the almost 90% of the Democratic Party. They're like, oh, what do you mean? Big business, don't people love big business? We love big business.

So Anna, for example, you mentioned jobs, right? That's the excuse they always use, but to give you a sense of absurd that excuses because it seems plausible, right? Oh, you don't want jobs to leave Kentucky or Illinois, et cetera, right? Well, I remember this case in Pennsylvania where a fracking company said, oh yeah, we're going to leave if you do fracking regulations. And now the natural gas is under the state of Pennsylvania. They could leave, but then you'd have to do a whole other business and another well,

which you don't own in a completely different state. It's the most obvious joke of all time, right? And the other is like, we don't want to lose the jobs. No, it's an excuse, they of course bribed them too. That's the campaign contributions. No, at the end of the day, the big government works with big business to screw us all over because we legalize bribery in this country. And it's never going to end unless that system changes.

That's it, that corruption is everything. That's why all these decisions get made the way that they do. That's why you see increasingly little difference between both political parties. And we're gonna keep running into the same problem over and over again where there's absolutely no justice for the ordinary American because we're under corporate rule under this system of legalized bribery. Yeah, and lastly on that guys, look, if you're right when you agree with us, and they frame it as regulation to try to trick you, right?

But reality is what, what do you like most? Cops, right? Blue Lives Matter, cops matter, they keep you safe. Yes, they keep you safe on the streets and in your community. But the government is also supposed to provide cops to keep you safe at work. And that's called regulators. Yeah. All right, well, I'm talking about a lot of things that are broken in American society.

Why don't we talk a little bit about health care? Because it turns out hospitals are now using software to price gouge you. So a nurse has decided to blow the whistle on how hospitals are using software to help them price gouge their own. own patients. And this software intentionally marks up prices anywhere between 575 to 675%. So the nurse, understandably, did not want to reveal what his or her name is because he or she is concerned about getting fired as a result. But at one point the nurse worked at the Scripps Memorial Hospital and noticed that this

software was being used to mark up the price. of procedures that patients were getting. So this software is known to use something known as automatic revenue coding. Very cool. And here's what we know. For example, one screenshot is for sutures. That is medical thread, aka stitches. Scripps's system put the basic cost per unit at $19.30.

But the system said the computed charge per unit was $149.58. This is how much the patient and his or her insurer would be billed. There are more examples. For instance, Scripps automatic system took the actual cost of sutures, imposed and apparently preset 675% markup, and produced a bill amount that was orders of magnitude higher than the true price. This is separate from any additional charge for the doctor, the anesthesiologist, ex-rays or hospital facilities.

Here's another example. Another screenshot showed the pricing for an antimicrobial solution to clean the patient's wound. Scripps's cost per unit was $73.50. The billed amount ended up being $496.13. Blades for a cutting tool used by the surgeon had a cost per unit. By way, why are patients paying for that? Why are patients paying for the cutting tool used by the surgeon? But nonetheless, had a cost.

And every time. Yeah, had a cost per unit of $98.53. But the hospital billed, build it as $665.8. Now, why are they doing this? They're doing it because we have a system that's dominated by private health insurance companies that do not want to pay for the entirety of procedures, right? There's usually haggling going on between the hospital, meaning the health care provider, and the private insurance company and in order to kind of get a leg up in these

negotiations what the hospital will do is intentionally mark up the prices of the various procedures that they're providing for their patients and then eventually after going back and forth with the insurance company the price is lowered to some extent but understand that this artificially drives up the cost of the procedures that Americans need to get to stay alive it's insane So anyway, Jank, I mean, I'm not surprised by this. And at the heart of the issue is what we've been saying, that we rely on a private insurance model. Yeah, that's exactly where I was gonna pick it up, Anna.

Look guys, in other countries don't do this. That's, you've been trained by corporate media to think this is normal. It is not normal almost anywhere else in the world. So it's because in our system, every layer of healthcare, where there's any kind of larger business must make not only profit, but massive, ridiculous profit. They at a bare minimum, they got to make 15% every single year because of the stock market, right? It's a greed machine and it demands more, more, more. Where are they gonna get it from? They're gonna get it from you, okay? So the hospitals are private and in most

instances. So they say, all right, now I want money. So who am I gonna get the money from? Mainly from insurance companies. Well, they'll also for for profit. Now when the hospitals charge insurance companies a ton of money. Then the insurance companies charging you a ton of money because then that's why you gotta pay your deductibles, your premiums, all these other things that are making us drown in healthcare costs. And then they play these ridiculous games of, all right, I'll inflate prices. What are we at a mechanic here, at a car garage, you know what, the carburetor doesn't

cost 200 bucks, I bet I can get it for 80 bucks down the street. And that's what we're doing with people's lives. And other countries don't do this, this is insane. So they have normal prices that they charge. And that is why the healthcare system of a country like Japan, for example, is half of what we pay. Per capita, per person, they pay half. And guess what? Better results on almost every metric of health, including life expectancy.

All of this does not help our health one bit. In fact, it clearly hurts our health and bankrupts us. Exactly. All for the benefit of more profits for privatized healthcare insurance and hospitals. Listen, the most important part of healthcare is preventative healthcare, right? Which is why when you compare the United States, which is a well resourced country, to a poorer country like Cuba, you have to ask yourselves, well, why is it that the life expectancy of an ordinary American is similar to that of a Cuban, right? And it's because they're hyper focused on preventative health care, because they don't

have the resources to provide necessary health care when someone's condition has devolved further, right? Where it's gonna be a lot more expensive to treat a patient. In the United States, because of how this model works, people are discouraged from obtaining preventative healthcare, because you have no idea what kind of surprise bill you're gonna get. You have no idea how much the cost of that care or the cost of the prescription drugs are gonna be intentionally marked up by the provider, right? So, again, we're seeing this not just in procedures, we're seeing it when it comes to pharmaceutical drugs as well. And the new wrinkle to the story is that now an increasing number of hospitals

are just relying on software to do the dirty work for them, right? So just put in a procedure, in what percentage you'd like to mark certain things up to. And then this offer like, beep boop, boop, okay, let's price gouge these patients in the hopes that by doing so, we'll secure more money from the private insurance company. And as the whistleblower nurse says, I started asking questions. I was told that if we don't mark things up like this, insurance companies wouldn't give us what we want. Yeah, and so now they leave out a very important part of that, which is that sometimes

people don't have insurance and then, or they're out of network, which is much more likely, right? And then boom, they get hit with a massive bill that was marked up 675% for no reason at all. Now, a lot of good Americans don't even know that the hospitals and doctors are lying to you. Not about health care, they're good in saying, yes, these are the things that you need to do, and they're very good at saving your life, et cetera, right? But about the bills, they're totally lying, right? And a lot of people think, oh, that's my, hey, a man's got to pay his debts, and that's my debt, and it might be a minor procedure, or maybe they saved your life and you feel indebted, and then you wind up paying this. You're not supposed to pay it. You're

supposed to haggle like you're at a swap meet. It's crazy. Right? And then, but then it also depends on how good a haggler you are. This is insane. Yeah. What if it's a little old lady who doesn't know how to negotiate? And then they come, and by the way, it's not, Like the people on the other side are softies. No, they try to intimidate you, bully you, et cetera, into paying as much as possible. Well look, as Cheryl Sandberg will tell you, ladies, you just got to lean in, you know, learn how to negotiate. Yeah, and it's disgusting.

Yes, and so you're the one who's going to get caught in the gears, whether, you know, it's because you're out, you know, out of network or don't, or you have to pay the deductible, all of these different things, plus it doesn't matter anyway, because all those costs get pushed down to you through the insurance companies anyway. So you're doubly screwed. And the last thing here, guys, is, you know, Anna mentioned the Cuba example. So a lot of Republicans are like, oh, do you want us to be like Cuba? No, guys, you're missing it.

Cuba is obviously very poor right now. But even they have better health care than us. That means we are definitely not prioritizing the health of our citizens. We're prioritizing the profits of our companies. Yep. All right, we got to take a break. And when we come back, we'll talk about how there's petroleum in the drinking water in Hawaii. All right, back on TYT, Jane Canana with you guys. So I'm going to read one comment here from Twitch because it's so relevant to the story we just did. Shizer wrote in, I can attest this is completely accurate. I worked for Epic, one of the largest medical software company. That's the one in the story actually. As a developer for the software that did the billing for the hospital pharmacies, pricing is practically arbitrary.

That's amazing, a person who worked for that software company saying, yeah, we wrote the program to make the pricing arbitrary. So there you have it. But corporate media doesn't report about corporate problems, because that would defeat the point of corporate media, which is not news but marketing. marketing. All right, Anna. Excuse me. Residents in Hawaii have been warned against drinking or using any of the tap water or drinking water near Pearl Harbor. Now, this is as a result of testing that indicates that there's unsafe levels of petroleum in the water. And I'll tell you why, how the petroleum got in the water in just a minute. But the Navy is apparently responsible. for monitoring this and also finding solutions for it, and here's what we know so far.

Testing of a well overseen by the Navy had detected gasoline and diesel range hydrocarbons at levels up to 350 times that, 350 times what the state considers safe for drinking water. That well known as the Red Hill shaft is one of three wells that are run by the Navy, which began receiving complaints just last month from residents of joint base Pearl Harbor Hickman, who said that their water tasted and smelled like gas. So they also noticed that they were experiencing some health issues as a result. And so an investigation went underway. For instance, residents have complained of sickened pets and reported symptoms,

including sore throats, stomach pain, headaches, diarrhea, and vomiting. Health officials said that people who were exposed to the contaminated water could also experience difficulty breathing, coughing, and red or peeling skin. So what happened here? Well, luckily the Navy is taking some action, but there's actually a much larger problem at play, and it is a problem involving infrastructure. Now, the Navy has shut down two of these wells. They also relocated more than 3,000 families to hotels across the island, and they've distributed bottled water to families and officials. The state said that about 93,000 people have been affected. And so there was a pretty terrible jet fuel spill in the area that contributed to this, and the Navy is kind of sticking to that story. But as I mentioned, there are some infrastructure issues at play, especially when it comes to a, you know,

fuel storage facility that was built in the 1940s. It was built in such a way that is, it's essentially now leaking fuel into the drinking water. I'll give you more details into that in just a second. But Jane, do you want to jump in? Yeah, so two things here. First, I want to thank Nadia Olivas, who's a Wolfpack member who brought the story to our attention. I love that, wolf dash pack.com slash go. So there are lots of different ways that corporate rule affects us.

And this is, but Wolfpack members care about their community. And in this case, it's the government that's the issue. Now, the good news is the Navy has pretty much owned up to this. And they're trying to fix it. But as I was reading the story, Anna, I started to worry if Trump gets back into office, is the culture of lying and denying any wrongdoing going to start to leak? more and more into the military and every other part of it. I mean, obviously the Pentagon lies at a mass scale when we would do the bombings, et cetera.

But here at home, oftentimes they are decent on accountability, but are they gonna start saying, nope, there is no benzene in the water. No, I don't care. And no, we're not gonna clean it up. That's your problem, not my problem. So the government is devolving, and so that's one of the things that I worry about. Yeah, I mean, look, the government has devolved. I mean, I, I, I, I, I sure, the Navy decided to shut down these wells and they're talking about flushing out the water with clean, fresh drinking water, right? To kind of dilute the petroleum in the water. One of our members wrote in and said, well, what level of petroleum is considered safe?

Like how is any level of petroleum and drinking water considered safe? And I agree with you. I mean, the fact that we have a system in place that allows for any type of contaminant like that in our drinking water is an issue. And this is something that affects people across the country, obviously in different ways, right? But the fact that we have major parts of the country that don't have access to clean and safe drinking water is insane, especially when we're living in the wealthiest country in the world. Now, I wanted to talk about some of the potential causes.

I'm not even going to call it potential causes, the causes, okay? So I had mentioned that there was an issue involving jet fuel. Navy officials said that they believe, that the water in the Red Hill well was contaminated after jet fuel spilled into an access tunnel at the site on November 20th. But there's actually a larger issue. That's problematic enough. And so let's talk about what's going on with the infrastructure. So Red Hill Bunk Fuel Storage Facility is made up of 20 massive pill-shaped fuel tanks and a system of pipelines that use the force of gravity to deliver fuel to Pearl Harbor, 2.4 miles away. The whole facility, which generally holds about 180 million gallons of fuel,

such just 100 feet above the groundwater aquifier that supplies 77% of the island's total water, according to the Department of Health. Now here's the issue. As I mentioned earlier, this was built in the 1940s. It turns out that it was hastily built, didn't really think about the design flaws here. And so each of the tanks that carry the fuel, are made of a thin steel liner, about a quarter of an inch thick, that's it, a quarter of an inch thick that is now corroding in case by a concrete shell that the Navy admits it cannot access and is therefore impossible to maintain. The pipeline system attached to the tanks is just as old as the tanks themselves. So you got some fuel leaking out of these pill-shaped

containers that are only a quarter of an inch thick, they're corroding, the Navy has admitted that they don't have the ability to maintain these containers. And so water is just, I'm sorry, the fuel is just leaking into the water. Yeah. So we give the military $780 billion a year. Now, defense contractors are awesome at blowing that money on themselves and making tremendous profits. Yep. But don't tell me you can't find the money here. And this affects the drinking water of 77% of the citizens, as Anna just explained to you. So they better fix this and yeah, it'll be super expensive.

But that's why we give you nearly a trillion dollars every year. But of course, that's actually not the real reason. The real reason is because defense contractors pay off politicians. So, but when it comes to actually protecting us, not so much. And whether it's the military or private companies like oil pipelines, they always tell you, oh, it's not going to leak, it's never going to leak. It leaks every single time, right? Because these things are hard to design.

And then even if you design them well, you know, 60 years ago, 80 years ago, they're not going to withstand the test of time because that's how it works. And eventually, it's gonna leak into your water. And I'll let and my portion on this, Nufi Dragon, one of our members wrote in. And we do the show with you guys. So t.yt.com slash join and become a member and be part of the show. He wrote in petroleum in your drinking water means that you do not have drinking water. This is serious.

Yeah, that's right. Exactly. And so you can't have any petroleum in your drinking water. And of course people were getting sick left and right. And so now they're gonna have, they're bringing in bottled water for everyone. But how long can you go on bottled water when you have to shower and do all the other things? Yeah, yes. And by the way, they're advised not to shower in the water because it's going to cause damage to their skin.

I mean, it's just a complete and utter disaster. Yeah, and Progressive Rocks wrote in very similar, just as I was saying it, the Navy has out of date infrastructure, if only the defense budget could afford to replace the storage tanks. Yeah, all right, listen, the next story involves quite a bit of dunking on an assessment. establishment journalist who just can't stop himself from just like kissing Nancy Pelosi's butt. And I want to take our time with that story. So we're going to take a break. And when we come back for the second hour, we'll talk about why Edward Isaac Devere is one of the worst so-called journalists in the country. 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. dot co slash t yt i'm your host jank huger and i'll see you soon