The Young Turks - Gun Control in New Zealand, America Are You Listening?

Episode Date: March 23, 2019

New Zealand Passes Sweeping Gun Reform. What Are You Getting Cenk For His Birthday? REPORT: Boeing Charged Extra For Lifesaving Safety Features On Planes. Fox News Pushes Stupid Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez Conspiracy. Ben Shapiro Doesn't Know Anything About Gun Control. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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Welcome to the Young Turks, Jank Huger, Anna Kasparian with you guys, a lovely day in America. Why is it a lovely day in America, Jank? I don't know. Could it be your birthday? Buh, bha-p-p-p-p-p-p-p-p-bh-h-h-oh. It's Jank's birthday. Okay, do we have this? I don't know that I'm allowed to do that about my own birthday.

You're allowed to do whatever you want. Okay. So some of you might be wondering, what could I possibly do? do to celebrate Jenks' birthday? Is there a gift I can give to Jank Yugar of the end-dhawks? Everyone's wondering. Is asking that question today? Exactly.

So I have an answer, luckily. You can become a member. No, we're interesting. By going to t-y-t.com slash birthday. Yeah. So I think there's two options there. One is become a member and that that's a gift to me and actually the whole company and thank you guys.

is to give the gift of membership to someone else on this day. Now, it's not just my birthday. It's also the birthday of many great progressives in the country, including Adam Green of Progressive Change Campaign Committee. So if you want to go to t.t.com's birthday on his behalf, awesome. Also, Rosie O'Donnell's birthday. Okay, so it's progressive powerhouse. Also, happy Norwoos, or no ruse, I always have trouble pronouncing that.

That's the Persian New Year, and it's the Vernal Equinox, when all things are in balance. I feel pretty balanced today. Okay, there you go. So anyway, thank you for anybody who participates in that, obviously. Now, later in the program, Politico has a hilarious article about how people who get big donor money should be treated with more credibility and legitimacy than people who are getting small donor money, right? That's not indicative at all.

It was one of the most, I don't know, I think it goes too far to say unbelievable because it's politico, it's establishment type perspective, so I guess I shouldn't be as surprised, but it's a piece written by Bill Shear, and isn't Bill Shear kind of a good guy? Well, he certainly was, and so I don't know who's- What's happening? Yeah, exactly, like you just, these things are so crazy, you can't tell what? Who's doing what anymore and what's what? Like I remember Bill's share from back in the day was a wonderful progressive, but so was Peter Dow. And so now, bah, right?

And well, you know, I don't know, but look, it's been over a decade since Progressive started on this journey and well over a decade. And people gotta live, right? They gotta pay the bills. It is tough out there. It is, but that's no excuse. Like, I would rather scrub toilets than write some of the things that I've been seeing. Then scrub the donors, if you will.

Yeah, exactly. So anyway, that's an amazing story, we'll get to that later. And then are the fact-checkers bias when it comes to grading progressives? That's a Young Turks exclusive analysis that we're gonna do for you guys later. So wonderful program ahead, don't miss any of it, and now let's get started. We begin with some good news out of New Zealand. The Prime Minister of New Zealand has announced that they are taking action. when it comes to certain types of firearms

following the mass shooting that took place in two mosques. Take a look. New Zealand will ban all military-style semi-automatic weapons. We will also ban all assault rifles. We will ban all Kai capacity magazines. We will ban all parts with the ability to convert semi-automatic or any other type of firearm into a military-style semi-automatic weapon. We will ban parts that cause a firearm to generate semi-automatic, automatic, or close to automatic gunfire.

In short, every semi-automatic weapon used in the terrorist attack on Friday will be banned in this country. For those listening to the podcast version of the show, that was the Prime Minister of New Zealand. Prime Minister Ardern, and she also announced that they will be doing a gun buyback program in order to offer compensation to individuals who do turn those weapons in, and she notes that they are planning on offering fair and reasonable compensation to these gun owners. So, you know, giving them an incentive to give those guns to the government. She also noted that individuals who refuse to do so and later get caught with these guns will face a penalty.

So if you're wondering what the difference is between New Zealand and the U.S., why they took immediate action with three days, and both political parties, major political parties, agree, and they'll ban the weapons, and they will seize them. It's now going to be illegal to have them. You must turn them in. And the U.S., the most common answer that people will give is because, well, America those guns has got a unique relation with guns. And that's why they didn't want to do gun control.

No, no, that's not true. So first of all, New Zealand also loves guns. New Zealand actually has a lot of guns and has some of the used to have some of the most lax gun laws in the world and partly what, you know, and then we had this, another massacre. And so that's part of why they're taking action. But all of New Zealand is united and they're outraged over this, but all of America is united and it's outrage over our massacres. Now, it wouldn't be anywhere near as stringent, but there is a piece of gun control legislation

in America called federal background checks, where we would at least find out who's buying the guns, right? 97% of Americans agree. So what do you need? 98% or 99%? No. I mean, that is massive, unprecedented agreement, yet our politicians say no. So the difference between us in New Zealand is not our love of guns.

It's the fact that we do not have a democracy and they do. When 97% of any country wants to do something and the politicians say, I don't care, I don't care what everyone in the country thinks, we're not going to do it, that means you do not have a democracy. Those folks work for their donors. They don't work for the voters at all. So the corruption in America is unprecedented, and that is why we don't have any gun control that prevents any of these massacres in a reasonable, sensible way, or even even in a tiny

way here in America. So I was actually fascinated by how many similarities there are in regard to gun culture in the United States and New Zealand. There are a lot of similarities, many parallels. To give you an example, I believe the United States still has more guns per capita. But if you look at New Zealand, it's a population of an estimated 5 million, and a quarter million people in the country do own guns. And so they love guns, they celebrate them, but you're right, Jank, in that we also have a similar

reaction when these mass shootings happen, yet the government is willing to act in the case of New Zealand as opposed to here in the United States because of the corruption, but also because of the way the government is structured, which I thought was really fascinating. So they have gun lobbyists in New Zealand as well, and they're powerful, they have some influence, but they're not as influential as the NRA. The NRA can very easily and successfully convince politicians, hey, if you get a bad rating or bad grade from our group, well, then we can destroy your political career, especially if you are a Republican.

So- But I don't want to clarify once, a really important point. People often throw lobbyists as a general concept in there, and then they don't delineate. So every country has lobbyists, including non-corrupted countries, and there could be programs pro-gun lobbies and they could be from the industry and weapons manufacturers and they could be anti-gun lobbyists, gun control lobbyists, et cetera. That's not the issue. The issue is that in our country, the lobbyists come with cash and they are allowed to spend unlimited money simply buying our politicians.

They're not lobbying, they're purchasing. So they can give money to politicians directly, but even more importantly, they can do independent expenditures through PACs. So the NRA spent $50 million in the last election cycle on Republicans, $30 million on Donald Trump. So they didn't lobby our government, they bought our government. Right, they bought the government, but there's more to it, okay? Of course the money plays a role, but there's also something about how districts are drawn

and how the NRA uses that to their advantage here in the United States. Gun lobbyists in New Zealand can't do the same thing. So I wanna go through these great points that were written by reporters at the Washington Post, and it really gave me a good look into what's going on in New Zealand. So let's go to Graphics 6. They write, unlike the NRA, New Zealand's interest groups have predominantly lobbied the government quietly rather than threatening politicians with the scorn of its powerful voter base.

They continue to write, the US system of representation and the way congressional districts are drawn increase the significance of rural Republicans' voters, disproportionate. That helps explain why the NRA can pressure politicians into following its demands, even though NRA supporters account for only a fraction of all U.S. voters. So that is true, and the smaller states in America have disproportionate power because of the way our senators structured. If you live in a tiny state like Rhode Island, which is a blue state, or Idaho, which is a red state, you have just as many senators as if you live in California, New York, or Texas,

are gigantic. So now that disproportionately advantages the rural states that have less people in them and there are more likely to be in favor of looser gun restrictions because they're living out in more rural areas. That is true. But what the mainstream media often leaves out of the equation is it's also easier to buy a politician from a small state. So in Idaho, buying a senator is really cheap.

You don't have a major market like Los Angeles or New York, buying ads there is really easy. You can overpower your opponent very, very simply. And so the smaller state, as long as there's not big cities, which are more expensive advertising in those cities, right? In more rural areas, super easy to buy our senators and our congressmen. Absolutely. So in New Zealand though, the way that their government is structure is different. As you can tell, they have a prime minister, we don't have a prime minister here.

And so New Zealand's election system is designed in a way that the number of lawmakers a party has in parliament is aligned with its share among all votes cast. The mixed member proportional voting system is supposed to prevent small interest groups from being able to gain disproportionate influence over lawmakers. So they have certain safeguards that essentially force lawmakers to listen to the best interests or the concerns of the people as opposed to the best interests or the concerns of one small interest group. Everything is kind of flipped in a different way here in the United States where the NRA does

have a lot more power because of the money and because of the way things are structured here. So that's a really good analysis by the Washington Post, and I think that it's a healthy percentage of the difference between us and New Zealand. and leads to the outcome. But it is greatly frustrating. The mainstream media will never tell you the overwhelming majority of the problem is the corruption.

And because they're like, oh, no, no, no, why? We can't call the esteemed gentleman from Rhode Island and Nebraska corrupt. We can't say that the millions of dollars that the NRA gave them influenced their vote. Every American knows it did. Every American knows they're corrupt and that they're accepting legalized bribes. But no one in the mainstream media is allowed to say it. So then we keep dancing around and saying nonsense things like, oh, gun culture, when in reality, the elephant in the room is bribery.

It is bribery. And I think, and this is my speculation, but I think that there's enough data to prove what I'm saying is correct. Look, yes, money is corrupting politics, but that same virus has infected the mainstream media. And so when we talk about in the context of the media, it's usually when we're referring to their sponsors or the advertisers. But remember, many of the mainstream media outlets that people know about are part of giant

conglomerates that are under this huge corporate umbrella, right? You have, I mean, how many, you have Comcast and you have all of these major corporations who have major control of our press. And so do they really have any type of incentive to speak out about corruption when they They themselves are dealing with that same level of corruption. Yeah, I love it when people will say, oh, like the idea that massive multi-billion dollar corporations would want to make a profit and would be influenced by that sounds conspiratorial. I'm not sure you understand the definition of that word.

So yes, of course, corporations want to make profits. And so one of the ways that they make profits is by appealing to the government to allow for mergers, kill net neutrality, et cetera. The other way that they make a profit is through their advertisers. And so, and each category is a little different. Here, in the case of guns, I think that one is less relevant, okay? In the case of drug companies, enormously relevant, because cable news, which dominates the conversation in America, runs nonstop pharmaceutical ads because their audiences generally

above the age of 65. So they need things to, you know, get them going. And so those are the nonstop ads. So then CNN and all the other cable news outlets are not going to be motivated to tell you that the number one corruptor of our politicians is the drug companies. They give more money to politicians than any other industry, but you will never hear that on cable news because they also give more money to cable news than any other industry. So this is how the corruption works, and look, we have to explain it to American citizens

because there's basically a media blockade on that conversation. And they keep dancing around the major issue at hand and why we have more massacres than any other country, why we have more guns per capita, why we have more gun homicides per capita, gun suicides per capita than anywhere. It's because of this phenomenon that the rest of the media is not allowed to talk about. And we also explain it to the international audience because they're usually, I mean, their opinion of America these days is not super high, but are generally really surprised to find out how corrupt America is and that it's become basically a banana republic where any lobbyist can walk in with a check

and buy any politician and block regulations or laws that are enormously, unbelievably popular. Right, and so I wanted to just end this conversation about New Zealand versus the United States by looking into the type of gun laws that they already have. on the books. I mean, how much more, I don't want to say difficult, but how many safeguards they have when it comes to the process of buying a gun. So as we know, when it comes to private gun sales or the gun show loophole, federal background checks are not implemented.

You can easily go to a gun show and buy guns from the back of someone's truck, whereas in New Zealand, they have stricter laws to ensure that guns don't end up in the wrong hands. So for instance, they have, when buying a gun, they have. In buying a gun in New Zealand, you have to pass a background check that considers criminal, medical, mental health, and domestic violence records, provide character references, which is fascinating. Authorities interview or advise in person your partner or next of kin to ensure that, you know, maybe you're not a violent person, maybe you haven't committed domestic violence.

Also pass a home security inspection that checks for proper firearm storage. That's so important because there are people. out there who aren't a threat who want to use their gun for hunting or whatever innocent purpose that they want to use it for. But they're not practicing gun safety and kids will get their hands on it, right? So did you want to jump in, Jay? Yeah. So my last point on this is, you know, don't let the conservatives twist things because, and

we'll talk more about that later in the program too. But they'll point to New Zealand, they'll say, well, look, Anna just. I just read you a whole long list of regulations, but they still had this massacre. Yes, but that's the only one they've had in a long, long time. And so it didn't prevent this particularly heinous massacre. But remember, New Zealand also has more guns per capita than a lot of other places. And so they have a lot less massacres and mass shootings than we do, partly because of those regulations.

And now they realize it wasn't enough. So we're gonna take away the high-powered guns that can kill a lot of people at once because we need to tighten up our regulations because we still had this terrible tragedy happen. And you'll see as it happened in Australia and so many other places, now they'll have even less mass shootings. Whereas in America, we have one mass shooting per day. So not the size of this, which was 50 people, although we had one that size obviously in Las Vegas and a couple others that were near that.

But four people shot and killed or more, those kind of massacres happen literally, literally every day in America. And finally, I just wanted to make note that they also have to wait for approval for a firearm license, and that could take weeks or months. I only want to mention that because it's important to juxtapose how lengthy that is to the very limited time the FBI has to conduct a background check. It's a few days, and if they don't finish that background check within a few days, the individual seeking to buy a gun is immediately approved.

And that's how I believe one of the mass shooters that I don't want to name, who opened fire in a black church and killed dozens of people, was able to get a gun. Yeah, in Charleston, obviously. So regulation does work, and now they've got even more regulation, which should help the situation. I love that they actually still have a democracy in New Zealand. It's nice, right? It's refreshing.

Yeah. So when we come back from the break though, you're going to hear a different perspective, and that's the perspective of someone who's only interested in spreading misinformation about all of this. Ben Shapiro, we're going to give you his arguments, and then we're going to debunk them. All right, back on a young Turks, Jank and Anna with you guys. Let me read some comments from the member section. Recyclobs said, wow, I can't.

I can't believe New Zealand didn't try thoughts in Paris first. It's really funny, recycle lives, thank you. Jammer Nee says money's a hell of a drug. True. Jess, I am TYT, writes in, in honor of Jen's birthday, I will be upgrading my TYT membership from insider to producer, wow. Yes. Thank you.

Super proud to be a member, happy birthday, Jen. Thank you so much, Jess. Really, really appreciate it. Enjoy reading your tweets every day. And if you want to do that, great, we would love it. T.y.t.com slash upgrade every bit matters as we continue to make this place sustainable. So we deeply appreciate it. Hooding glasses says, happy birthday, jank.

I would become a member if I wasn't already, best money I've ever spent. Wow, thank you. It's because he likes to hear about how I drain my dog's anal glands, that's why. I think so. I think that's what it was, actually. That was in the post came a couple of days ago. I wish we had a channel like TYT and Canada. Thanks for everything you do.

Don't know what I would do if I had to watch CNN. That's funny. And then last one, Zero Deviser says we had five major media conglomerates. Then Disney just bought Fox and we're down to four. Where is the antitrust enforcement? So I want to make a quick clarification on that because I originally thought that Disney had purchased Fox in general, including Fox News, the News Division. but they did not. Disney has absolutely no control or ownership of the Fox News division. That's separate from its entertainment division. Yeah, they split Fox into two. It's not exactly 50-50,

but the, because nobody wanted to buy the Fox News part, because it's toxic. They make a good profit on Fox News, but it's a branding problem for everyone else. Now, they kept other things in that division, too. But the more interesting part is what Disney bought, which makes Disney much larger, Fox, a much smaller company now, but they are still around. But the overall point that you're making is correct. I mean, these media conglomerates have existed for a while now, and they just keep getting bigger and bigger and bigger, and it's harder to trust them when it comes to certain types of reporting, especially when it has to do with corporate influence and power.

Yeah. Yeah. And Abdul Hawks said, happy birthday on YouTube super chat. Abdul, I appreciate it. All right, let's keep going. All right. Following the mass shooting in New Zealand, certain conservatives have attempted to spin the story to carry out their agenda or their objectives in order to prevent any talk of gun control here in the United States. Well, one of those conservatives is Ben Shapiro, who is oftentimes known for sharing misleading data and statistics.

Now, first, I want you to hear what he has to say, and then we're going to tell you why the statistics that he's going to cite are misleading. take a look. Of the 86 countries where we have identified mass public shootings, the United States ranks 56th per capita in its rate of attacks and 61st in mass public shooting murder rate. Norway, Finland, Switzerland, and Russia all have at least 45% higher rates of murder from mass public shootings than the United States. Well, one possibility here is that it is not guns that enable mass shooters. Guns also help deter a lot of this stuff from happening. Okay. So he's actually citing a common study that conservative cite, and it was done in 2015.

Now, he cited the Crime Prevention Research Center. This is a pro-gun rights nonprofit run by an economist named John Lott. And so following the studies publishing, Snopes did a great job fact-checking it and looking at how he came to these statistics. So where the United States saw at least 12 mass shooting deaths every year between 2009 and 2015, some of the other countries on Lott's list experienced one or two rare, but very high casualty shootings. When you average out the death rates, this creates a highly misleading impression about the

consistency and lethality of mass shootings outside the United States. So what this study does is it looks at the general population, the side of the size of the the size of the population and the number of people who have died as a result of mass shootings relative to the size of the population. Well, the United States has a giant population compared to these smaller European countries that were cited in the study. So it's incredibly misleading and it's misleading on purpose. So let me explain two more pieces of context there.

So anyone, especially with a high-powered weapon like in New Zealand, can kill 50 people in one massacre, right? Now, if you're in a country of 300 million people and you killed 50 people, well, it's a lower per capita deaths. If you're in a country of 3 million people, the same shooting has a much bigger impact per capita, per the number of people in the country. So when you have one outstanding event, a horrible event in one of these countries like, for example, Norway, they have that on the top of the list.

Well, that's because, as everybody knows, there was a horrible event. horrible shooting in Norway where about 69 people were killed, if I remember that, right? And so Norway's a small country, that's a giant killing. But what they don't tell you is, in six out of the seven other years, there were no mass shootings, none. So that one shooting massively skews the average. Now, I'll give Ben credit, I think he's intelligent enough to know that, he just leaves it out on purpose.

Yeah, I mean, look, statistics can be manipulated. The statistics from this study are correct, but it depends on the methodology and how you're measuring things. And it was specifically measured in a way to make it appear as though the United States does not have any problems with gun-related deaths tied to mass shootings, especially when you compare them to these European countries. But again, what is the size of the population? How often do these shootings occur?

So let's go to Graphic 13 because Snopes had more on this and gives you an idea of just how misleading the outcome of this 2015 study really was. If we compare the number of mass shooting deaths each year to the population of Norway each year using the same method we did for the United States, we get an average annual death rate of two per one million, more than 20 times higher than the rate in the United States. though we know there were zero mass shooting deaths in six out of those seven years in Norway. So, and that's obviously one of the facts that I was alluding to, but when you look at studies that look at the number of mass shootings, as opposed to the number of mass shooting deaths per

capita, then the U.S. is number one in a landslide because we have nonstop massacres here. The shooting is four people or more getting shot happens nearly one time. per day in America. But again, if you have a shooting of 50 people in one of those massacres, in America it'll have less impact on deaths per capita, that doesn't mean that there are less shootings happening. There are more shootings happening in America, there are more mass shootings happening in America, there's more deaths in America, and if you take the median as opposed to the average, meaning what's above and below the median line, that's not a great explanation,

but I think you understand it, then the numbers give you a much better sense of it, as opposed to say, hey, we got one shooting in Norway and what in New Zealand is so per capita. The deaths are higher over there. And the reason that it's a right winger who did this particular statistical analysis is because he's trying to find a way. Other measure shows that the U.S. is by far in away the worst in mass shootings and gun homicides, right? So he finds one particular thing, he says, well, based on deaths, if you take the one giant

shootings in each one of those countries, ha ha, I can get you this misleading stat. Exactly. So Ben Shapiro has more to his argument, so let's hear what he has to say. Maybe I do really care about dead people, and the best way I think to protect people from being dead is to arm people outside of, for example, mosques and churches and synagogues. It's an argument I made in the wake of the tree of life shooting. It's one of the reasons why we have armed guards outside of the synagogue that I attend, and not only that, I have personal security that comes with me to synagogue. We need to talk about a relatively new show called

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you knew about some of the nation's most sacred historical cows. But don't just take my word for it. The New York Times described UNFTR as consistently compelling and educational, aiming to challenge conventional wisdom and upend the historical narratives that were taught in school. For as the great philosopher Yoda once put it, you must unlearn what you have learned. And that's true whether you're in Jedi training or you're uprooting and exposing all the propaganda and disinformation you've been fed over the course of your lifetime.

So search for UNFDR in your podcast app today and get ready to get informed, angered, and entertained all at the same time. So the answer to gun deaths, mass shootings is more guns. And it's actually a very similar point that was made by a lot who had done that misleading study. Do you want to jump in? No, I was just amused at the cell.

importance of Ben Shapiro with his armed guards everywhere. Is there like pro-peace advocates who are like, oh, I'm gonna get bad, okay. But look, I'm sure he gets the same threats we all do online. No, exactly, exactly, I don't begrudge him for that at all. But the main point I wanted to make was, okay, I mean, that's an interesting point. I'm not sure that a lot of his right-wing friends are going to agree, should we arm all the Muslims in the country? So he said we should have armed guards in front of the mosque, so maybe we should, you

know, have armed guards in front of the mosque, but also they should come packing, right? So more guns for Muslims in America, according to Ben Shapiro, okay, that's at least a principal position. Well, look, the one thing that he definitely didn't lie about in that statement is that there's an armed guard in front of his synagogue, because there is an armed guard in front of his synagogue. And the first time that I encountered that, it terrified me, right? Like there's a guy with a giant gun, like standing out there on the sidewalk in a public

place and it doesn't make anyone, I mean, it might make him feel safer, but it doesn't make me feel safe. And so- Yeah, I remember when I would go to Turkey and there'd be, you know, people, security and military with high-powered weapons in the streets sometimes, I believe me, it didn't feel safe. Yeah. Okay. But look, last thing on that, the synagogue I get.

Yeah. And so we're not saying that you should never have security, yes, you need security for the president, The cops need to have guns, although in Britain they don't, and they're a lot less people get killed. But nobody's saying, no, take away every gun in the country. We're saying, does it make sense? Depends on the context. We have almost no regulation in this country which leads to those record numbers of mass

shootings. The idea of arming everyone is preposterous, as preposterous as saying no one should have guns including cops, actually way more preposterous than that. Like I said, Britain actually has a great system that has a lot less deaths because of that. But yeah, synagogues are under threat in America, it's true. And so I get why they would want to have security. So one final thing, I just want to make note of what John Lott, again, the same economist who had done the misleading study in 2015 had to say about more guns.

He did push the notion that more guns leads to more safety. Now, not only was John Lott's assertion that more guns lead to more safety formally repudiated by a national research council panel, but he had also been caught pushing studies with severe statistical errors on numerous occasions. Of course he had, he's a right winger, of course. So let me give you the details on that, because it's easy to just say it, but what are the facts? What are the details?

Well, an investigation uncovered that Lott had almost certainly fabricated an entire survey on defensive gun use. And a blogger revealed that Mary Roche, an online commenter claiming to be a former student of Lott, who would frequently post about how amazing he was, was in fact, John Lott himself. Oh, that's so embarrassing, this is the guy they quote. It's amazing. He was all but excommunicated from academia. But you know who that reminds you of, of course.

Their beloved hero, Donald Trump, who would pretend to be his own spokesperson, would call in, Obviously, in his own voice, he's such an idiot. And all the guys who were never Trumpers like Ben Shapiro, then put on MAGA hats and dutifully bowed their heads and now think the idea of arming teachers in the schools is a great idea. And then we have to teach them, this is literal, we have to teach them which are the students to murder? Like, hey, if you think that student is a threat and might shoot up the school, we're gonna train you on how to kill the right students.

And they think that's going to keep everybody more safe. Have you seen all, look, there's wonderful teachers in the country. Are they all wonderful? Are they all stable? Look, we got a president who's not mentally stable. I do not want to arm all the teachers. And so the left wing says, context matters, facts matter. In fact, I'm pretty sure the facts don't care about your feelings.

But what the right wing says is, I'm afraid, I'm constantly afraid. I'm afraid of gay people, I'm afraid of Black people, I'm afraid of Latinos, I'm afraid of Muslims, I'm afraid, I don't care that guns don't make me safer, I just want to have one so I feel safer. Exactly. When we come back from the break, we are going to do a deep dive into Boeing. It turns out that some of the incredibly important safety features for these Boeing 737s were not just equipped on these planes, they were add-on features that people would have to pay for.

So we'll give you the details on that and more when we return. We hope you're enjoying this free clip from the Young Turks. If you want to get the whole show and more exclusive content while supporting independent media, become a member at t.t.com slash join today. In the meantime, enjoy this free session. All right, back on the Young Turks, time to tell you about one of our sponsors, NordVPN. So I use the public Wi-Fi hotspots too, but you gotta be careful about that. stuff because they are not at all secure.

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One of the other vote shirts was Bernie won Kenobi is. So, t.com slash notice to submit designs, and then we'll shout out your name if we pick your shirt, et cetera, so please participate that way. All right, now your comments, eclectic miscellaneous says there are three types of lies, lies, damn lies, and any statistics Ben Shapiro uses. For real. But if you talk really fast, then people won't realize that he's misleading you. Yeah.

Just talk really quickly. Jedi Protector writes, and would anyone actually go to a sitting argument if there were armed guards outside the building. God, no, I would rather spend time praying at home than risk getting shot right in my community. It's a good point. Like if I was taking the kids to any event, right? I was taking pro to chess or soccer or, I mean, I don't go to any religious services. That's why I'm using those other examples.

And there was armed security with like AR-15s around, I'd be like, what the hell's going on here? Nope, turn right around. Yeah? Yeah, it is, it's jarring. It's jarring to see it because we're not really used to it. So again, when you see an armed guard with a giant, you know, it looked like a rifle type thing, right?

Like standing on the sidewalk, because the synagogue is like, here's the front entrance and the sidewalk's right here, right? It's just, it creeped me out. I get how it might make some people feel safe. But for me, it just felt like weirdly threatening. Yeah. Marky Mark 9192 writes, as a black man, the last thing I want to see is more armed people. We already have police killing unarmed people who look like me, you start putting arm guards everywhere.

It will just lead to more unarmed minorities being murdered and their killers getting away with murdered. That's a great point. Yeah, it is. Great point. And so, I mean, if you think cops make mistakes nonstop, well, you'd be right on the facts. Wait till you get a load of the citizens. I mean, right now they're calling black people, cops on black people for barbecuing and mowing

lawns and, you know, using Airbnbs, et cetera, imagine if they were armed, right? Are you sleeping in their own dorms? Yeah, that's right. And last one is a good point. Blakely says, does Ben Shapiro think every American can afford a personal security detail? I guess he just lives like a capitalist every single day, Chank. Okay, yeah, and that's how the rich think, though. What do you mean?

I'm going to build my castle higher. I'm going to have, you know, and I'm going to have a moat and I'm going to have armed security. And so the problems I created are your problem, not my problem. And on YouTube super chat, it keeps coming in. Happy birthday, Jake Pete and Marco, Peter and Marco, thank you guys, appreciate it. And if you want to get a gift of membership for someone to celebrate my birthday, I know it's a funny, weird thing to say, but that's awesome, thank you. Would we appreciate it?

You could go to t.yt.com slash upgrade if you're going to upgrade your membership, but t.t.com slash birthday to either get yourself a membership or get someone else a membership. Thank you guys. I really appreciate the messages. All right, what's next, Anna? The New York Times has found that one of the potential safety failures on the Boeing 737 jet could have to do with the fact that there are issues with the sensor. So the sensor might indicate that the nose of the plane is tilted too high up in a dangerous fashion, and so it'll force the nose of the plane to go down. And apparently, there are two safety features that the plane could be equipped with, but unfortunately, they're not automatically equipped with it. Individuals or pilots or airlines have to actually

pay money, additional money, in order to include them on the plane. So Boeing's optional safety features could have helped the pilots detect any erroneous readings. One of the optional upgrades, the angle of attack indicator, displays the readings of the two sensors. The other called a disagree light is activated if those sensors are at odds with one another. But again, the planes don't automatically have this. It's not a default feature on the plane, it's something that the airline companies would have to pay additional money for, even though they are safety features. Yeah, I wanna make an important note about that.

Look, there's, you've all had some experience with buying cars, leasing cars, et cetera. You know the things that are optional. Hey, you know what? I can get different kind of hub caps that are a little cooler, right? And- Some 20-inch rims. Whatever that is, that's right, okay? I'm not a car, as you can tell. I never get any of those, I'm not interested.

Did you say I can get the cool hubcaps or something like that? Yeah, I mean, boy, does that give you a sense of how I'm not a car guy? Okay, so, but if they said to you, oh, here's a great car and it's a wonderful price, and they left out, now you could, there's a bunch of options you can get, the hubcaps or the rims or whatever, and one of the options is brakes. No, no, that's not an option. Right, that's not optional, right? And so in this case, the safety features were optional.

You had to pay extra. Now think about it, look, I don't know and I don't know if I'm being unfair here, but the two planes that crashed were in countries that don't have great economies. I don't know if they couldn't afford the extra options on the planes, right? And so, but if one of the options is directly related to whether the plane will crash, that's not, that's not optional. So I need to jump in because it doesn't matter whether or not the airline company flying the plane is it from a rich country or a poor country because we have several airline companies

based in the United States. And when it comes to corporations, companies, what is their number one motive? What is it? Oh, can I guess profit? It's profit. So the New York Times did a great breakdown where they asked specific airline companies here in the United States, hey, did you pay for the extra features? United Airlines did not pay for the extra features.

So it's just something to keep in mind. It doesn't matter if it's a rich country or poor country, but more importantly, these should not be optional features. But the reason why they are able to make them optional features is because of the way things are regulated. So for instance, neither feature, neither safety feature is mandated by the Federal Aviation Administration. And that is an issue because this is a issue.

something that could have potentially, and I want to be clear, we don't know for certain yet what the issue was with these planes. They're pretty certain, but it hasn't been 100% confirmed yet, so I want to be clear about that. But if this is the issue and this safety feature was not automatically included in these planes because there's a profit motive here, I mean, it gives you a sense of where the priorities are. What is the role of the government?

What is the main core role of the government? It is to keep its people safe. And that is not what's happening right now. And just quickly, sorry for interrupting you. Going back to what you said about cars, Jank, look, there are certain safety features that are automatically included in a car, and that's because of regulations, right? So you have the seatbelts. Obviously, Ralph Nader had to fight for that, but you have the seat belts.

You have the rear view mirror, you have the side mirrors. Those things are not optional. They're included. However, there have been, as of late, with technological advancements, some safety features that are not included in every car, and I think that they should be. So there's the backup camera, that is a safety feature, that should be included in every car, especially if- Especially for a guy like me. Absolutely, absolutely.

So those types of things- By the way, if you want to hear the stories of how many people at the Young Turks I've crashed into in parking lots, sign up to become a member where we talk about it in the post games, t.t.com slash join. By the way, that is the one optional thing I got in my car. Like, oh, that camera, I need that. And the thing that you can magically see from the sky, okay, I'm like, you throw that one in. Okay, anything that helps me see around the parking lot, I'm in. Right.

But again, those things shouldn't be add-ons. They should be included in the vehicle. Yeah. Look, if you've ever flown spirit, you know that everything's an add-on, right? Like, oh, you're going to bring on a purse. I'm going to charge you for that. Oh, you brought on your left arm. I'm going to charge you for that, right?

But if they said to you, hey, if you're gonna fly it's also optional whether the sensors work. And if the sensors don't work, the plane could crash. No matter how cheap you are, you're not getting on that plane, right? And I don't know the planes of spirit, I don't, so I want to be clear about that. I just use them as an extreme example if they'll charge you for anything and they'll make everything optional. But safety is the one thing that cannot be optional.

Right, exactly. It's not about the aesthetics, it's not about comfort, it's about keeping people alive. live in cases of emergencies. Now, Boeing has responded to some of this. They have started moving on the software fix. So apparently there was an issue with the software, and the equipment change before the crash in Ethiopia. Now remember, the crash in Ethiopia was the more recent one that happened on March 10th.

Five months earlier, there was the Lion Air crash that occurred. And so after that, Boeing decided to do the software update and also include some of these safety features into the planes. Now, remember, the FAA in America did not ground the Boeing's for a number of days when all the other countries had. I mean, the Mongolian Airlines had grounded these Boeing, et cetera. But that's called regulatory capture, where there's a revolving door and the people that work in the industry, first of all, that work at the FAA, first of all, are appointed by politicians

who get campaign contributions from the industry. Second of all those officials then go work in the industry and make a lot of money and then go back into the government. That's the revolving door aspect of it. So even though two planes had crashed at the same model, obviously there's some issue here at a bare minimum. For a number of days, the FAA was like, I don't see any problems, no, I don't see any issues at all.

And now Boeing's coming out and saying, oh yeah, we gotta fix the software and obviously you've got the we now find out in this story. The safety features were not already built into the plane, there were extras. So how wrong was the FAA? And they were, but they were adamant for those number of days when they were saying that, why would you be that adamant against in the face of obvious facts? Because you got captured by the industry you're supposed to regulate. And that makes us all a lot less safe, especially in the case of planes.

And finally, I have to give you other examples. of optional safety features. And it just gives you a sense that profit over human lives continues to take priority. So Boeing charges extra for a backup fire extinguisher in the cargo hold. Past incidents have shown that a single extinguishing system may not be enough to put out flames that spread rapidly through the airplane. Regulators in Japan require airlines there to install backup fire extinguishing systems, but The FAA does not.

Boeing also makes wings optional. No, they don't. I'm kidding, but I mean, it's so crazy that it's almost like that way. But okay, that actually leads to my final point, which is that a couple of days ago it was revealed that the FAA let Boeing self-regulate some of these safety features. And guess what, it turns out they decided that they, they're self-regulate. did not require them to spend more money on safety, oops. So to all the libertarians out there, how could you possibly think the self-regulation would

work? Obviously they're going to cut corners to maximize profit. Well, look, I think that you're really failing libertarians in making that argument, because the free market will decide, right? Because we have a lot of options. Right now, there are two major companies that make these airplanes. There's Boeing and then there's Airbus in Europe. So just let the free markets aside.

Yeah, and there's a lot of competition. And I know what the libertarians are going to say, like hey, but the Boeing's are grounded. And so there's Costco, et cetera. That doesn't help the people on those airlines in Ethiopia and Indonesia. They're already dead. They never had a choice. So that is why corporations look out for themselves and their profits and you guys understand that, everybody gets that.

And the government is supposed to look out for us because there are representatives. And when you let industries regulate themselves, what do they do? In fact, legally, they must maximize profit. So they of course don't care about the citizens, they don't care as much about safety. They care about the bottom line. So when the government abdicates this responsibility, this is what happens. So let's talk about some more people who care about the bottom line, especially when when it comes to attacking AOC.

Recently, someone by the name of Mr. Reagan, or at least his YouTube channel goes by Mr. Reagan, attacked Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and accused her of being nothing more than a paid puppet and an actress. Now this is a common conspiracy pushed by the right wing. They did it to the Parkland students after they became very active in pushing gun control legislation following the shooting, where they saw their peers get gunned down in front of them. And now all of a sudden, AOC is being accused of being an actress as well. Now, normally I wouldn't care if some random person on YouTube is trying to spread conspiracy

theories. But these conspiracy theories have now seeped into Fox News. Earlier we heard, you know, Sean Hannity and Glenn Beck spread this conspiracy theory on Fox. And now we have Mike Huckabee doing the same thing. Take a look. Somebody's writing her questions. I saw the questions at Michael Cohen and saw the questions at Wilbur Ross. And there is some forces behind her. I think there's a story there.

Well, they're very well could be. I know there has been some allegations that she was almost like the Manchurian candidate, recruited, prepared. You know, I don't know. Okay, I love that for a number of reasons. But the most important one is, wait, I thought you said that she wasn't bright. Now all of a sudden, her questions are so. so good, someone else must have written them for her. Her comments are so good at catching Trump in wrongdoing, which is what she did in the Michael Cohen hearings and the Wilbur Ross hearings. Well, I mean, that's so brilliant, it can't be her, it can't be her, it has to be someone

else. So which one is it? Is she not bright or too bright? Okay. Right. So first of all, it's incredibly insulting to her because it's making this assumption and spreading this narrative that she's a complete moron who can't think for herself and needs to be controlled, right?

Secondly, yeah, you're right, Jank, you're admitting that the line of questioning in the Michael Cohen hearings, for instance, was brilliant. Because it was, it was brilliant. So if somebody said something stupid that you didn't like, you wouldn't say, like if, pick any conservative, if Glenn Beck says something stupid, if. He does and we come out and talk about it, we don't go, I wonder who wrote that forum. My God, that thing was so stupid, it couldn't have been Glenn Beck. It must have been someone else stupid.

Right? No. So it's an absolute admission here that they're like, she's too intelligent, so we've got to feel, it can't be her, could it? Now that gets at least the second part here, guys. There's a reason why they do this, and as always with conservatives, it's projection. Because their politicians are almost completely controlled by the donor class. So at TYT, we frequently talk about all the ways that big tech companies are taking control of our online lives, constantly monitoring us and storing and selling our data.

But that doesn't mean we have to let them. It's possible to stay anonymous online and hide your data from the prying eyes of big tech. And one of the best ways is with ExpressVPN. ExpressVPN hides your IP address, making your active ID more difficult to trace and sell the advertisers. ExpressVPN also encrypts 100% of your network data to protect you from eavesdroppers and sales. cyber criminals. And it's also easy to install. A single mouse click protects all your devices. But listen, guys, this is important. ExpressVPN is rated number one by CNET and Wired Magazine. So take back control of your life online and secure your data with a top VPN solution available,

ExpressVPN. And if you go to ExpressVPN.com slash TYT, you can get three extra months for free with this exclusive link just for TYT fans. That's EX-P-R-E-S-V-N.com. slash TYT. Check it out today. It's in a sense the invisible hand of the free market because we've allowed for legalized bribery in this country. The Koch brothers, Sheldon Adelson, the Mercer's, and by the way, all the multinational corporations go give unlimited contributions to politicians through PACs, independent expenditures, and direct contributions. So they then tell them what to say. In fact, there's this group called Alec, American Legislative Exchange Council. They literally write the laws and hand them, oftentimes the state legislators, sometimes

the state legislators will forget to take Alex's header off and they'll submit it with Alex's actual header into legislation, into a proposed bill, and they'll get caught and we've done those stories, et cetera. So on the right wing, they are controlled, their questions are written, their talking points are written, they're disseminated, that's why you will see all of them saying the same thing on TV all across the different channels, because they got talking points, and the talking points were from the think tanks, also funded by the same donors. So when they see someone who's smart, like Alexandra Ocasor-Cortez, who is moving the national

conversation in an unprecedented way, they immediately think who's behind her, because in their world, there's always someone behind them. Mike Huckabee is a Republican politician. He did the same thing, he got the same donors, he was told what to say, and he did exactly as he was told. So he assumes likewise for AOC. So Huckabee actually takes it a step further because in the clip he refers to her as a Manchurian candidate.

And so what is a Manchurian candidate? First of all, that phrase is based on a novel and two movies, right? Where the Manchurian, where American soldiers are captured and they're programmed to murder, right? And then also it reminded me of Zoolander, where Zoolander is programmed to kill the Prime Minister of Malaysia, like this scene right here. Welcome to your relaxation time. Like this wonderful 80s classic soothe you. Learn, martial arts.

Yeah, Prime Minister of Malaysia, bad. Now, I can assure you no one did that with AOC. I can also assure you that they don't actually do that in the right wing. It's much simpler than that. They don't have to strap Huckabee into any kind of contraption. All they do is they come in with a check and they're like, now, if you like, we can give you this check and then you can vote for that, or I could walk away with a check and give it to your opponent, especially in a primary.

And then all of a sudden, Mike Huckabee's like, where's my questions, where's my script? What do I need? What do you need me to do? Yeah. So remember, this whole talking point that's now spreading to Fox News is based on one conspiratorial video that was put out on YouTube that's already been debunked, right? And it was debunked by Snopes, but more importantly, it was debunked by me. In an episode of No Filter, which I'm going to give you a little snippet of. Take a look. I know this sounds crazy, but bear with me.

Okay, I'll try, but yes, you sound crazy. Keep going. In 2017, a group called the Justice Democrats held auditions for potential congressional candidates that they would run on their platform for various congressional seats throughout the country. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez's brother Gabriel submitted her for the role. Now, I've auditioned for many acting roles in my day. I've also cast many of my own projects. I know how this works. If you find somebody with star power, even if they don't 100% fit the part, you go with it.

Obviously, AOC has star power. Just look at her. She's a superstar, the most famous person in Congress, maybe ever. Their casting was perfect. Obviously, AOC has star power. Okay, this is Mr. Reagan's central thesis, and I'm actually making him sound way smarter than he really is by describing it that way. Much like the Conservatives' conspiracies regarding the Parkland students who became politically active after they witnessed their peers get gunned down in a mass shooting, right-wingers are trying to paint AOC as a paid plant or a trained actress. It's their way of trying to get everyone on their side to believe real people couldn't possibly

be passionate about reforming a rigged economic system in America. So there's a couple of funny things there too. One is, and then they had her audition for the role. Or how about the people suggested real Americans who could run for Congress and we ran them? Why does it have to be an audition? Like, they assume that every politician, I guess, must be an actor. Why is it an audition? In fact, we're doing it again, JusticeDemocrats.com slash nominate.

Okay, and people found out that her brother nominated her because we said it on the Young Turks. So if we wanted to keep it a secret conspiracy, why do we keep broadcasting it? Why did I just do it right now on air? Okay, so it's totally preposterous to cast it in that sense. And I just think that they can't wrap their mind around the idea that a real person, an uncorrupted person, could actually be smart and actually do a great job in Congress. And then the second part is, and obviously, AOC has tremendous star power, right? How come that wasn't so obvious before the primary?

When we were supporting her before the primary, and we did absolutely, we did 34 videos about her, and over a million views that we got on it, right? But no other press covered her. I mean, at the very end, there was a couple of articles, but we were dying to get her more press. We were trying to get her on the New York Times, we were trying to get her on CNN, nobody wanted to talk to her. It's obvious she had star power, and that is why they cast her.

If that's true, then you're wrong about how brilliant we are, because if we cast her, it didn't work. There's no other media covered her before the important primary victory after she did one of the most stunning defeats in American electoral history, then everybody wanted to cover her. So Snopes actually did get into touch with Mr. Reagan, and this is what they found. Ironically, the only actor in this scenario is Chris Coles, who plays the character of Ronald Reagan or Mr. Reagan in the YouTube channel, right?

Coles told us in an email that the use of the word actress was illustrative. In other words, not true. This is his quote. Or I should do it like this. In other words, not true. And this is his quote, I did not mean to suggest that this was Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez's actual profession or an official role. I thought this was clear.

No, Chris, it was not clear. In fact, you said the opposite several times in that video. Well, while Coles admits that the Congresswoman was not an actress in the literal sense, He said that he still believed she auditioned for the role of Congresswoman as a response to an open casting call by Justice Democrats. And you know, who's, Jank, who is the mastermind behind all of this? Don't even answer. Don't even answer, Jank.

Because he's about to tell us right now. Mastermind behind it all. Jank Yugar of the Young Turks. They all sound completely nuts like a big conspiracy theory. But the Justice Democrats was heavily promoted on the Young Turks. We have video evidence from the young Turks. evidence from the inception through into the campaigns. I think they have maxed out on incompetence. So that is why we must choose a new pass. And that is what we embark upon today. What we need to

do is take over the Democratic Party. And as Martin Luther King said, when he did the Civil Rights Movement, he said he was doing it not just to help African Americans, but to save the soul of America. Here we're going to try to save the soul of the Democratic Party. Doesn't that clip sound great? It actually does sound great. And also, why are you telling everyone about your conspiracy? You're supposed to keep it under wraps, you know? Left wingers, we're such knuckleheads, we broadcast our conspiracies.

Wait, I thought I was a mastermind. What kind of mastermind broadcast a secret conspiracy? But by the way, I'm now using hashtag mastermind on Twitter. I know, I've noticed. I'll take it, brother, I'll take it. But by the way, isn't that sad that our democracy has gotten so corrupted that if you come up with a plan to run real Americans who are uncorrupted and they actually do things and are in favor of things that are popular as opposed to things that we just serve the donors,

they win elections and people are like, whoa, nobody thought of that. What a crazy thought to actually not take corporate money and to actually do what the people want. up people vote for that. Yeah, and I can guarantee you, it doesn't take a mastermind to figure that out. Also, justdemocrats.com slash donate. So we can keep on doing that and have Mr. Reagan and the Sean Hannity's and the Mike Cuckabees do more and more. Oh, if they thought 2018 was bad, wait until they get a load of 2020. We're going to have it hopefully at least another 12 AOCs in Congress and their heads are going to explode. It's going to be a beautiful

site. Can't wait. Hashtag mastermind. Great. All right. Let's take a break. When we come back, we are going to give you a TY18 exclusive how fact-checking websites like to draw false equivalencies between Democrats, Republicans, conservatives, progressives. 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.co slash t-y-t. I'm your host, Shank Huger, and I'll see you soon.