The Young Turks - Housing Vultures

Episode Date: April 14, 2021

The Cop who shot and killed Daunte Wright Jr resigns. Johnson and Johnson’s COVID vaccine is paused over very rare blood clots, but the White House says the pause won’t disrupt vaccine distribution. Speaker Nancy Pelosi just bought up to a million dollars in Roblox shares. That suburban home buyer could actually be a foreign government. Democratic Senator Mark Kelly has resisted co-sponsoring a major piece of labor law reform legislation, known as the PRO Act, citing a policy of not endorsing measures that don’t have Republican support. HOSTS: Ana Kasparian, Wosny Lambre 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. What's up, everyone? Welcome to the Young Turks, Anna Casparian, and Wozni Lombre with you. Who's hosting a new show on our Twitch channel, Woznia, not a big deal. You're a bit of a star on the network, already, Was. Is that what I am? Yes, a little bit.

That's awesome to hear. Definitely quick shout out to everybody who tuned into the maiden voyage of the Wasnia Twitch show. I think we had a good time. I promise you guys, we would touch on a diverse array of topics. And I think we were able to do that on the first try. And that's, you know, that's what we're going to try to do. Obviously, get into things that are similar to what we do here on the main show.

But, you know, touch on different things as well. And, and I thought the first show was pretty fun. And, you know, the Twitch community, the commenters, so much love and support. It's, it was amazing. So everyone check that out on our Twitch channel. That's twitch.tv slash TYT. And, you know, we do have a lot of great stories prep for you guys for today's program. Later, we're going to talk about foreign investments in U.S. real estate and how that's screwing you over as a working, class person who's probably trying to find affordable housing in this country. We're also going to talk about the Johnson and Johnson coronavirus vaccine and whether or not it was a good idea for the CDC and FDA to essentially halt the use of that particular vaccine. But before we get to that, an update on a story that we covered yesterday. We have received a resignation, a letter from Officer Kim Porter. And in addition to that, we have also received a letter of resignation from the police chief.

You just heard from the Brooklyn Center Minnesota mayor who, of course, announced the resignation of the cop who shot and killed 20-year-old Dante Wright, allegedly by accident. Now, that person has resigned and so has the department's police chief. That was the person who let us all know yesterday that the shooting was an accidental shooting and that the officer who opened fire accidentally did so, thinking that the device in her hand was not a gun, but rather a taser. I want to remind you all of that moment. Let's take a quick look. As you can hear the officer while struggling with Mr. Wright shouts, taser, taser, taser.

times. That is part of the officer's training prior to deploying a taser, which is a less lethal device. That is done to make her partners aware, as well as a subject, that a taser deployment will be imminent. During this encounter, however, the officer drew their handgun instead of their taser. For informational purposes, we train with our handguns on our dominant side and our taser on our weak side. So if you're right-handed, you carry your firearm on your right side, and you carry your taser on the left. This is done purposefully and it's trained. As I watch the video and listen to the officer's commands,

it is my belief that the officer had the intention to deploy their taser, but instead shot Mr. Wright with a single bullet. This appears to me from what I viewed and the officer's reaction in distress immediately after that this was an accidental discharge. Now that was police chief Gannon. He is also the person who resigned along with the cop who opened fire. And you know, making a mistake like that, I mean, maybe you can make a case if we're talking about a rookie cop, someone who just got hired, someone who's young and inexperienced. I mean, I wouldn't make excuses for that person. It would still be a horrendous, terrible thing to do.

But in this case, we're not talking about a rookie cop. We're talking about Kim Porter, who's a 26 year department veteran. And she has been identified as the officer who fatally shot right during a traffic stop on Sunday afternoon. Her union announced her resignation. Now, Potter had previously been suspended awaiting the results of an investigation, but she had decided to step down before that investigation concluded. And I should also note that she was in the process of training an officer when she made that mistake in using her gun as opposed to her taser. and shooting right once in the chest, which ultimately led to his death. Was, I wanted you to jump in and share some of your thoughts of what happened. Yeah, it's tough, right? Like this police chief is his job basically to come out no matter what and defend his officers.

That's what the people he works with, expects of him. That's what he's been taught. A cop is supposed to do basically from day one on the job is that you go out and you protect your fellow. your fellow officers from scrutiny, from punishment, from all of that, right? Now, the officer who has finally resigned after 26 years on the job, we don't know the circumstances of, you know, your pension, et cetera, et cetera, after leaving the force. Most police departments, if you do 25 years, you can pretty much start collecting on your pension. It's just, I don't know, it's just the need to come out and unabashedly defend these

actions just strikes me as odd, right? Like, I don't understand why we can't just let the investigation actually play out and not let the person's chief come out and basically play lawyer for her on TV. I don't understand why that needs to be the process, right? We can say that person's on, you know, administrative leave, whatever. We're going to conduct. the very thorough investigation as to what the events were, and we'll get back to you when it's done. And this guy comes out. He essentially defends all of her actions, which I don't understand how that can be the process when something this fatal happens. This isn't some minor situation, right? Like she didn't just crash a squad car where he's like, all right, this is going to cost the city money,

but we can't figure it out. She killed a young man. Like, this guy's gone now. So you can't come out and just casually defend what happened at some, well, it was, you know, it's just a mistake. Just a mistake. We all make mistakes, guys. Come on, you know, she just messed up there. Like, that can't be how this works. But, you know, the response has been so swift. And I think in the past, I don't think you could have expected the cops to sort of, like a police chief to step down behind something like this. This is no. And I don't know that it's going to ultimately, lead to better outcomes for all of us, but this is certainly a departure what we normally see from police in these situations.

You know, my read of it is that the demonstrations that took place following the shooting of Dante Wright basically persuaded Kim Potter to step down, but also for the police chief to step down. And you're right, I mean, it is also kind of interesting because in the process of trying to defend her, he disclosed something. that just makes the entire department look laughable, right? I mean, how do you mistake a taser, or I'm sorry, a gun for a taser, especially if you're a 26-year veteran with that department?

And look, I don't know. There should still be an investigation. My understanding is that the investigation will move forward because you're right, this is not a small thing. We're talking about someone's life being taken when it really didn't need to happen. And I also want to provide some more detail about what led to the traffic stop to begin with. Yesterday when we initially covered this story, it was believed that it had to do with dangling air fresheners, allegedly obstructing the driver's view. But the police department is saying something completely different now. Apparently it had to do with expired registration tags, but that's still alleged.

I don't know if that's actually true. But that is what they're alleging. And just to reiterate, Potter was acting as a field training officer and was training a new officer when this incident unfolded. So I'm sure if Jake was here, he would talk about the training and how much of a problem it is. And it is a problem. But I also don't think that training is the one and only problem with policing in America. I think that they're, you know, they're overly militarized. They have, look, you and I, Woz, are in favor of unions protecting workers. There's no question, but the police union has certainly gone above and beyond in terms of defending any and all actions taken by police, even when there's evidence of excessive force,

even when there's evidence of cops, literally shooting unarmed people in the back as they're running away. And that is not using a lethal weapon when someone poses an imminent threat. That's using a weapon to retaliate against someone because you don't like the fact that they're running away from you. And this mistake was lethal for Dante Wright. But I also want to remind you all that after he was shot in the chest, the vehicle proceeded to travel for several more blocks until hitting another car. Luckily, no one in that other car was injured, but it could have ended even worse than what we're seeing now. And obviously the story is already enough of a tragedy. So those are the updates that we have for you.

And I do think that the demonstrations persuaded the chief and this officer to step down. And I think that's the right way to go. I just don't know, as you mentioned, Waz, how much of a difference this is really going to make when it comes to policing in that particular area or policing across the country for that matter. All right, final thoughts or do you want to move on? No, it's, you know, it's, I don't want to be that person that says I'm numb to it or whatever. It's like, what more is there to say, you know, about this? It's so obviously a heinous act by somebody whose job it is to protect the citizenry.

And it's, you know, it's frustrating. We're all tired of it. And what's it going to take for this culture of just overly aggressive and ultimately destructive police behavior, when is it going to end? Yeah, I know I feel you. It's frustrating. We were pretty deflated yesterday. It was a tough show.

But, you know, we do have some other stories to get to today, including some updates on the coronavirus vaccine. Johnson and Johnson, I mean, they started off with some production issues. Now we're hearing something different, so let's discuss. This morning I woke up ready. to go to my appointment to get my Johnson and Johnson vaccine. And about 20 minutes before that schedule, I got a call from the pharmacy telling me to sit my ass at home because they are not giving out the Johnson and Johnson vaccine. This is based on health officials essentially demanding

a pause on the usage of the J&J vaccine as a result of the blood clots that a few women have gotten in response to it. So let me just be clear, there have been millions, nearly seven million Americans who have gotten this particular vaccine. Out of those, only a few women develop blood clots, and that led to enough of a concern for both the FDA and the CDC to recommend halting the use of the vaccine until they can get health care providers ready to provide the necessary treatments to individuals who suffer from the side effect. Now, the officials said they're reviewing six cases, that's it, only six cases of a rare and severe type of blood clot. Out of more than 6.8 million people in the United States who have received the J&J vaccine, all six cases

were in women between the ages of 18 and 48. So they did release a joint statement, the CDC and the FDA did. And they say that this is important in part to ensure that the health care provider community is aware of the potential of these adverse events and can plan for proper recognition and management due to the unique treatment required of this type of blood clot. So this would require treatment that's different from typical blood clots that get treated already, right? So as a result of the unique nature of these blood clots and the severity of these blood clots, they want to ensure that healthcare providers know how to recognize it, know how to treat it, which does seem to make sense. Now, people have been frustrated, myself

included, about the decision to do this, considering the low number of people who have gotten this side effect. Obviously, it's incredibly rare considering nearly seven million people getting the vaccine and only six people suffering from the side effect. But what do you think, was? I know you got the J&J vaccine. Were you concerned at all? I mean, not really. When I up, a friend of mine who had also gotten the vaccine, but she actually gets blood clots in her own life. So she, you know, she had been vaccinated over a month ago. And she says she feels completely fine. She feels like she's out of the storm and she's not very worried about it. But, you know, I got mine last week, Wednesday. I feel fine. Yes, I had some minor

sort of side effects that day of, but I was basically fine, right? And again, all six cases were in women. I'm not a woman, just in case you guys didn't know. And no, and I'm not trying to laugh, but I'm just saying, like, that's what I initially had thought about when I saw the news this morning, because she did share with me, because she knew that I got the vaccine. That being said, this is what it's called to be an adult, meaning the CDC, the health department, they're coming out and said, we're pausing it for this reason. Obviously the people out there who are skeptical of vaccinations and yada, yada, yada are going to do a big point the finger and say, aha, there it is. But I'm sorry, guys, this is what it means to be an adult in a democracy.

The government is transparent. This is what we're doing. This is why. If you don't understand with six people out of 6.85 million means percentage wise, then we probably didn't do a good enough job in probability and statistics class with you guys. But still, it's important that we have this transparency and allow people to understand how to, you know, sort of taking the information and move accordingly. And again, I'm sure there's going to be a lot of people who's like, well, I don't want the Johnson & Johnson thing anymore, which is fine, at least we're being transparent, at least we're forcing people to be adults about this. Yeah, that's a really good point. And you know, when I woke up this morning, the first story on the news was this Johnson & Johnson vaccine issue and oh, the CDC is recommending halting

the usage of it. But you know, a recommendation is different from actually implementing, you know, some sort of stoppage. And so I asked myself, am I willing to get this vaccine even though I know the risks now? And I was like, Yeah, yeah, I'm willing to get it. Mostly because I don't want to go in for two different shots. You know, obviously the vaccine from Moderna and Pfizer would require you to get two shots as opposed to the one shot you would get from the Johnson and Johnson vaccine. My mom sent me a text message panicking.

She's like, don't do it. But I don't even have a choice. So you can't get that vaccine right now. I think it's going to be a temporary pause. And look, I think the reasoning that the health officials have given us does actually make a lot of sense because I was under the impression that these blood clots were similar to blood clots that women are usually more susceptible to, right? Women are overall more susceptible to blood clots. But no, that's actually not the case. And if healthcare providers aren't fully aware

of what the treatment needs to be in response to this side effect, they could actually cause more harm to their patients. So the standard treatment for blood clots, a drug called heparin, could cause tremendous harm for patients who got the vaccine so doctors need to know to use alternate treatments. So I get it, I get it. If they want to do this pause to make sure that all healthcare providers have the information they need, that's great. But you know, I do agree also that transparency is the right way to go. In Europe, they're using a vaccine from AstraZeneca that has a similar side effect. And they actually took the same measures just to ensure that people are safe, that particular vaccine has not been approved in the United States by the FDA.

So we're not using that here, at least not yet. But that's where we're at. And for those of you who have gotten the J&J vaccine, especially if you're a woman, please look out for any side effects that could be, you know, a sign of blood clot. So if you have severe headaches, let me give you all the other symptoms, abdominal pain, leg pain, shortness of breath within the three weeks after you get the vaccine, go talk to your healthcare provider, make sure that you're safe, you know, don't take any chances, and just take care of yourself, you know, read the information, make sure you know what you're doing.

But I also don't want anyone to be terrified to get the vaccine as a result of what's happening with the J&J vaccine. Again, only six women out of the nearly seven million who got vaccinated suffered from this particular side effect. So you're gonna be fine. The vaccine is necessary, especially as we hear more and more about the emergence of these variants that could unfortunately morph into something or mutate into something that the vaccine wouldn't be responded to. So it's important to get people vaccinated to prevent that from happening. For now though, we're gonna take a quick break. And when we come back, We're gonna talk about insider trading that's happening in Congress.

It's infuriating, it's happening right before our very eyes, and I'm gonna call out the names that need to be called out. We'll be back in just a few. So we've been talking a lot about the exclusive programming that we have on our Twitch channel, and some of you might be thinking like, oh, but you have to pay to subscribe. I don't know if I want to do that, but here's the good news. If you have an Amazon Prime account, you get to subscribe for free. And you can learn all the details about that right now by going to tyt.com slash prime. And so you basically have Jeff Bezos pay for it, which is nice. And you get to get all of this exclusive programming,

including Wasa's show, Woznia. I know that Brett does like a billion different shows, like he does a Sunday live stream, happy half hour. We also have Deep Dive with Jordan Yule, lots of fun programming. So definitely check that all out. There you go. There's Wasnia with the coolest graphics, probably of any program at this point on the network. I love those graphics. They're so good. Also, you should be a member of the show and a really easy way to do that. Just click that join button, a little clickety click. And once you do that, you're going to see three different tiers that you can join. You got TYT supporter, TYT essentials, TYT premium, and each one comes with different perks. But the best part about this is that you get exclusive

TYT member programming and you help keep us sustainable and independent. So thank you to those who have already become a member and please check out TYT membership on YouTube to become a member if you haven't already. And then I just wanted to remind you all that as long as the tech works, I am trying to do these live streams before the show where I answer your super chat questions and engage with you guys a little more. So I'm not going to pressure myself to be like, 2 o'clock sharp, I'm going to be doing the live stream. It's going to be around 2 o'clock, okay? Around 2 o'clock, probably 205, depending on what my workload is like that day. But I do intend on doing these live streams before the show to share stories with you that aren't in the

rundown, but also to answer some of your super chat questions. So definitely take a look at that, check it out. Mickey C, the Silver says, yes, Waz, Jank had better start showing up because I'm really fan girling on waz. Know that at my age, I use word girl loosely. Okay, okay, I see you, Mickey C. I see you, Mickey C. Thank you. Thank you for the kind words. We appreciate it. Was, I have to say, so the day that you premiered your show, I couldn't watch live because I committed to going on Ben Burgess's stream. And then after that was over, it was like three and a half hours long, after that was over, I did watch the recording of your stream and it was really good.

Waz does, he has a diverse list of topics. He doesn't keep it. I think it's great, I love it, I really love it. So you guys will see a little more of the personal side of Waz as well. Shadows writes in and says, So you mean to tell me she thought she was going for her taser and was aiming for his chest? He could have had a heart attack or worse. You never aim the taser for the chest, training, training,

defund the police and retrain these people. And theater goddess for our last member comment says seven million people have been injected with the J&J vaccine, but how many of them are women between the ages of 18 and 48? While six people may be small in regards to the total, it may be significant to that demographic. That's a good point, absolutely. And I think it's also good to halt it to make sure that healthcare providers know how to deal with it if people do suffer from those side effects. Let's get back to the show. What's up, everyone? Welcome back to TYT, Anna Casparian and Wozni Lombray with you. Let's get to our next story.

Actually, one of my favorite stories in the rundown today. New SEC filings indicate House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, along with other members of Congress, have traded individual stocks in the lead-up to grants that were federally approved for the very companies that they're supposed to be regulating and legislating. Now, this is something that became an issue to the lead up of the pandemic. We were informed that the Senate had a closed door briefing on the severity of the pandemic early on in 2020 before the general public knew the details. And during that time, You had several senators trade stocks, individual stocks, like tech stocks, for instance, which led to quite a bit of, you know, quite a bit of a win in the stock market, let's just put it

that way. Now, the latest information shows just how much or to what extent these lawmakers, not just in the Senate, but in the House, use their inside knowledge to make decisions about the individual stocks that they were invested in. So there's a great Twitter account that gives you all of the details, kind of updates you as we learn more and more from these SEC filings called Unusual Wales. And it comes with the receipt so you guys can check that out as well. And the account argued that Pelosi just exercised $10 million in Microsoft shares on March 19th. Microsoft then launched a $22 billion military deal. She sits directly on relevant. committees. And just to show you those receipts, you can see exactly what she was willing

to purchase right before that contract was announced for Amazon. Again, we're talking about a $10 million contract. Obviously, it's going to be helpful to that company, and it's going to increase the price of its shares. Pelosi bought about $10 million of its shares before that deal was launched or announced publicly. Now, I have other examples to to share with you as well, including on January 22nd, Congressman Mo Brooks and Ed Perlmutter and Mike Conway all bought Pfizer stocks in June and July, right before the US government signed a $1.95 billion vaccine contract. August 5th, US government announces $1 billion COVID vaccine contract with Johnson & Johnson, Congressman Kevin Hearn, who sat on the

House Committee on Budget, and Carol Miller, who's on the Oversight and Reform Committee, purchased J&J stocks in July, March 18th. I mean, the list goes on and on, guys. Former Congressman Greg Gianforte purchased up to $1 million in Glaxo Smith-Kline stocks, which is, by the way, up 25% at the 2020 peak. The company eventually signed a contract with the United States government through Operation Warp Speed. And of course, that was on July 29th when the U.S. government announces a $2.1 billion deal with Sanofi and Glaxo-Smith Klein for vaccine development. And I'm gonna give you one other piece of data to look at that I think is incredibly relevant because it shows you the extent to which these members

of Congress are trading as they're making decisions about the very individual companies they're making decisions about, right? Or making legislative decisions about, I should say. So take a look at this fun graph, which of course shows you that Nancy Pelosi has traded the most maximum investment in terms of the amount of money she had invested in the market. So it's obviously well past $20 million, but it gives you a sense of how broken the system really is. Like money in politics, corruption, that's definitely an issue. But that doesn't do away with the other ways in which our political system is broken. And to have members of Congress invested in either personal businesses or individual stocks essentially undermines our democracy. Why would they

do the right thing and represent the best interests of the American people when they can make a buck, right, by making decisions that help the share prices for these private companies. But Was, you know, this is something that infuriates me, it enrages me. But it appears that this behavior, for the most part, is legal. Yeah, that's the crazy thing about this whole thing. And a lot of times you and I might be talking to some of our normie friends who are not engaged in politics. And one of the reasons they'll cite, they'll say stuff like the corrupt duopoly.

in Washington. And oftentimes, you know, people like us who pretend to be experts and nerds about it are just scoff at the idea that Republicans and Democrats are at all alike. You know, I think we could cite the resurrection of Jim Crow in Georgia just as one specific example of the differences within the two parties. Excuse me. But when it comes to the tippy top, When it comes to cowtowing to the corporate power of this country, when it comes to just straight up, outright corruption, it's both parties. There's no two ways about it. Like, you can't tell me that Nancy Pelosi was just thoroughly investigated the merits of, you know, doing business with Microsoft, right? Like, that she just completely was just, you know, she was unaffected by how much money she might herself be.

able to make from the deal. She just never took any of that into account. She just went in and said, who would be the best person to get this contract from the United States government? And of course, I'm just going to pick the best people on the merits, not my own individual enrichment. How can you possibly believe that to be the case? It's impossible. You just have to be an idiot to think that these people are acting on our behalf in our best interest and not in their own when this much money's on the line. When Nancy Pelosi can invest, $10 million of her own money into this. You know, this is just one transaction. So that just shows you the measure of her personal wealth. And honestly, it shows you the interest that she

is most clearly aligned with. It's not with people like you and I. It's not with the American worker. It's with the corporate interest, the corporate power, the oligarchy class, for lack of a better term. And it's quite sickening, man. This lady is, she's one of the three most powerful Democrats alive. And she is wholly corrupt. It's craziness. No, I mean, let's put that graph up again, because I want to be clear about what this graph represents. These are the top House representatives with the most investments purchased in 2020. And I mean, I feel, I feel bad for Carol Miller. Poor Representative Miller, right? Like being included on a list. Like, look, I think they're all in the wrong. They shouldn't be invested in

individual stocks, period, right? So I'm being sarcastic and saying poor Carol Miller. But I mean, you compare her investments to Nancy Pelosi's. And I mean, it's not, it's kind of, it's kind of of laughable to include her on that list, right? I mean, Nancy Pelosi beats most of them by a mile. And then you have Susan Dilbin as well. But yeah, I, you know, this goes to the question of what the right strategy is for progressives. And, you know, I don't want to get into it yesterday. We had so much on our plate, but there are no saviors in Congress. And it's not about whether individual members of Congress are good people or bad people, Are they looking out for us? Do they care about us? None of that matters. All of the incentives

are in the wrong place. And really, I mean, what are they gonna do? Like, are they afraid of organized labor? No, because we don't have organized labor. You know what I'm saying? So like, I think that most of the focus that's been placed on electoral politics has been, and don't get me wrong, electoral politics is important, that should be part of the strategy. But putting all of the eggs in that basket I think is short-sided and is going to continue being incredibly disappointing because again, all of the incentives are on the wrong side. With that said though, Senator Kirsten Gillibrand did pass some regulations on this. This was in 2013, but all it really did was focus on disclosure as opposed to banning members

of Congress from doing this. She talks about it in this next video, take a look. Stock Act is a law that I wrote and passed that prohibits members of Congress and the executive branch and other powerful members of government from buying and selling stocks based on non-public information. The measure passed after evidence emerged showing members of Congress making serious bank in the stock market. A study of data from the 1990s showed senators' trades outperform the market by 12% per year.

That crushes investment. McGoo Warren Buffett, who only managed to beat the market by 2.5% that decade. Normal people's returns trailed by 1.5%. We didn't realize that insider trading was happening every day by members of Congress because there was just no disclosure requirement. Now when you buy or sell a stock that's worth more than $1,000, you have to disclose that purchase or sale within 30 days. But even Gillibrand admits that the law didn't go far enough.

Do you think there should be a prohibition on members of Congress owning stocks? I do. My instinct is it would be far easier if members of Congress didn't even have the benefit of owning stocks. You guys, how is that not insider trading when the Senate sees their investment grow by 12% and Warren Buffett's investment grows by 2.5%. Come on, come on, how is that not insider trading? Come on, come on, come on, I just, this is not okay. And here's the thing was, in order for lawmakers to be barred from individual stocks, investing in individual stocks, you would need legislation, right? Are these people going to want to legislate themselves? Come on. Yeah, it's kind of crazy

when you think about it. And I want, like, I do want to touch back on something you just said, Anna, this is not about these people being quote unquote evil or they're behaving in some weird way. This is how people operate when the rules are set up in such a way. I think specifically when it comes to us as progressives or people who self-identify as liberal Democrats, whatever, oftentimes there's this idea that we're taking the moral stance, where the moral, you know, shield against the evil Republicans and, you know, it can be a bit much sometimes, right, the moralizing and finger wagging. I don't think this is about morality. This is about I can easily make a bunch of money. This is America. Only thing that matters here is money.

I can't not do this. Like, it's easy to justify doing this for your family, for your own personal self-enrichment, for the people that come behind you. Like, you are incentivized to make as much money as you possibly can while you possibly can here in America. So they're just behaving in their best interest. They're not being weird or irrational or illogical. They're actually being, they're doing quite the opposite. They're doing exactly what logical people in their positions, not breaking the law, in an advantageous position of knowing what's going to happen before it officially happens. That's important.

So the only thing that we can do is legislate this stuff out to curtail the behavior, to make it so that there actually are tangible punishments for behaving this corruptly. Like we can't say it enough, these people are trying to make the rules to referee the owners and the gatekeepers of society while also being enriched personally by those same people. It cannot work. It cannot work. All right, one other thing that cannot work is the way our housing market is going. And I want to talk a little bit about what's happening with foreign investment in single family homes in suburban parts of this country. Overseas investors, meaning foreign investors, are snatching up America's limited supply of single

family homes in the suburbs. Now, they had already been doing this in big cities. Now they've really expanded their reach to some of the suburban areas outside of cities. And what it's essentially doing is screwing you. If you've been in the market to buy a house and you've been wondering how is it that there are bidding wars where the final price ends up being hundreds of thousands of dollars more than what the asking price is. This is what's driving it. Don't let anyone tell you that it's because of a lack of inventory or because there's zoning problems. Oh, these strict zoning laws, we need to repeal the zoning law so we can build more houses. That's not what's happening. Houses are being built and they're being sold not to just U.S.

investors, big investors, I'm not talking about individuals. They're also being snatched up by foreign investors as well who are looking for a place to shelter their money, guys. Stock market looks like a bit of a bubble, a bit of a bubble, where are we going to keep our money? How are we going to have some passive income? And their way of doing it is buying up these homes and renting them out. So I want to give you some of the details that were shared in a Wall Street Journal piece. They write that in suburban neighborhoods near cities such as Atlanta, Las Vegas and Phoenix, blocks of families are sending monthly rent checks to ventures backed by Canadian pension funds, European insurers, and Asian or Middle Eastern government-run

funds. But why? But why? Why is that allowed? Why is that allowed? Let me give you more. Foreign investors account for nearly a third, a third of institutional investment in single family rental homes. A third guys, and I do want to call out some specific, you know, investors from different countries, including German insure Allianz S.E. Last month said that it is investing to buy more than $4 billion of U.S. rental homes. Singapore's sovereign wealth fund, GIC, is backing plans by Quinn residences to buy single family rental homes across the southeastern United States. And let me be clear about something. I mean, they're being referred to as rental homes. That just means that they're buying homes that they intend to rent,

okay? It's not like they're buying apartment buildings where the people in there are already renting. We're talking about them buying existing homes on the market with the intention of not selling them, renting them out, which of course limits the inventory. And then Canada's public sector pension investment board, meanwhile, said in January it agreed to a $700 million dollar rental home venture in partnership with Pretium Partners LLC. The venture has bought around 2,000 homes. And again, I just want to make sure that you guys understand this, because I need you to be the debunkers. Every time you hear this talking point, I need you to be the debunkers. There isn't an issue with the lack of development, okay? There's an issue of homes literally

being built with the intention of selling them to these investors, either domestically or to foreign investors. As the Wall Street Journal notes, unlike a decade ago when investors bought foreclosed homes and already, or those already occupied, the focus is now on newly built properties. So if you're one of these bankers who's going around saying like, no, it's zoning, zoning, zoning, we got to get rid of zoning, zoning, zoning is a problem, we got to get rid zoning, it's not zoning, it's not zoning. This is what's happening, okay? We have these sharks and these vultures coming in, looking for places to store their cash, and they're artificially inflating the market. And they're creating a situation in which working people get completely

priced out, even in areas that were considered, you know, low cost relative to some of the big cities. I obviously feel very passionately about this issue, but was, please jump in. Yeah, so do I. It's kind of crazy. As a New Yorker, I'm very acutely aware of this problem and phenomenon, because, you know, back in the days when you felt like you really made it in life, you were able to get an apartment in Manhattan. Mind you, not Harlem, not Washington heights all the way up town, really not even lower east side, right? That was considered to be slumming it, right? But slowly but surely, they started building these monstrosities on the west side. And you know, they started being bought up by Chinese investors, Saudi

investors. Because a lot of times, if you are one of the oligarchs in China, you know one of the safest places to put your money is America, because you know America takes money very seriously. And two, you know, real estate in America is one of the safest, you know, basically holding havens. So they would buy up all these apartments, all of this stuff that nobody lives in, while nobody's living in there, those prices are being, they're jacking up the price of rent on other Manhattanites, who then even some of the most successful people, people in New York City were like, yo, I can't even afford Manhattan rent, I got to slum it in Brooklyn. And guess who has to move when those people move to Brooklyn? Because they can't

even afford to live in Manhattan, right? Like, who do you think is moving out of places like Bushwick and Bedstuy and other neighborhoods in Brooklyn that, you know, what traditionally just working class neighborhoods and now have been overrun by yuppies? Like this has a trickle down effect on the bottom rung of people. It's very easy to see. And again, these apartments sit vacant, just so these cats from Saudi and China can park money in America. And at the same time, ruin the lives of normal working people.

And the realtors, of course they want this. This is jacking up the value of all of their stuff. Like it works perfect for them. So, you know, the foreign investment gets what they want. They get a nice safe place to park their money just in case MBS holds another freaking meeting at a hotel with all the Saudi royalty and wants to freaking slice people's throats open and say, I'm gonna threaten to take all of your money that's in the bank. They know they have a nice, safe place of money that won't be touched in America.

Same thing with China. Just so those cats can have the right to do that and feel that safety, you know, we disrupt the lives and the sort of the pricing out of people at the bottom, man. This stuff matters. It matters, especially something that's essential as housing. There's nothing more important than housing. That's exactly right. Yeah, I mean, healthcare housing, education, I mean, these are things that have been completely defunded, they've been corrupted by moneyed interests. And you know, it is interesting to see like in, I can't speak for other parts of the country

specifically because I, you know, I haven't studied it as much as I've studied what's happening in Los Angeles. But in Los Angeles, we have around, you know, I'm sure the number has increased since the last time I checked, but ballpark 60 to 65,000 homeless people in LA alone, just Los Angeles County, there's around that many homeless people. At the same time, there are more than 100,000 vacant units. Now, that's not to say that all of those units are perfectly fine to move into some landlords, you know, they might be like they might be taking some time to remodel them or or make them available for rent or available, you know, for someone to live in them.

But my point here is we have vacant units, as you had mentioned. And what is the response to homelessness from the Los Angeles City Council so far? Okay, you have councilmember Bonin, or Bonin, I don't know how you say his name, who's like, yeah, you know, we do have a problem with homelessness. Maybe we just like let them pitch as many tents as they want on the beach. Okay, but what's the environmental impact of that? And is that really the humane answer to this? They're obviously vacant units. Why don't we have a discussion about that? There are other city council members are like, oh, we got an idea. Let's just buy vacant lots and just put them, put as many as we can in vacant lots and just let them do what they do. Oh, that's your solution to homelessness in

Los Angeles. I mean, it's it's garbage, it's garbage. Why is it that we have so many vacant units. The LA City Council was previously considering taxing landlords who don't rent out those units. And they decided to drop that. I wonder why. I wonder why. And so this is an issue that's affecting everyone throughout the country. And I don't even really see members of Congress focusing on it at all. Like it's not even on their radar. And it's infuriating because people keep trying to jam this myth of merit down our throats. Like, oh, if you just work hard enough, if you get the right education, it doesn't matter what you do, guys, doesn't matter how hard you work, doesn't matter how much you save. It doesn't matter. They come in and they buy in cash.

You have no chance. Yeah. 20% down payment, doesn't matter. They're buying you out in cash, out bidding you in cash, I should say. And we're talking about people with great jobs. Like the idea that you could ever buy property in a city like San Francisco or even neighboring Oakland is beginning to be just completely unrealistic because of the housing situation over there. But even, you know, obviously Oakland and San Francisco is a unique sort of issue. But I just would remind people that, you know, back when America was great or when these people would like us to think so, you know, you graduated high school, you got a factory job. You could probably buy a house within two years of that.

That's what the case used to be in this country. And now I'm talking about households making $200,000 in order to buy property in some of these cities because of the artificial jacking up of some of the prices by foreign investment. Again, if people have no intention of living there, no intention of doing anything with this stuff, But to just, you know, find some way to store some cash where they know the value is going to grow at least a little bit on their money and they'll get some type of return on it. It's disgusting. It's awful. We got to take a break. But if you're watching live, please like and share this stream. It would really, really help to support the show and get the message out there. When we come back from the break, we're going to give you an update on how the pro act is unfolding within the Senate. This is an important piece of legislation when it comes to empowering labor, empowering workers.

And unfortunately, we have corporate Democrats who intend to stand in the way. We'll give you that and more when we come back. See you in just a few. All right, I'm going to read some super chats. Starting with Parker, who says, my favorite quote from Wozniah last week was, you don't ask what's in my cup. I won't ask what's in yours. So I'm guessing you're, oh yeah, you're having a nice IPA during the show.

Just a quick brew, nothing crazy, we didn't go too crazy, you just had a little fun, that's it. Peter Hamby also writes in and says, in response to the story we did about the cop resigning, if you know which arm is where your taser is and your gun is, and you've been hit at, and you've been at it for 20 plus years, there's no excuse, she uniformed herself and killed the victim, it wasn't a mistake under the setting. Yeah, it just honestly, that, That excuse seems suspicious. Ray Turner, aka the bearded dragon, says I had the AstraZeneca shot. The chance of my blood clots at all is one in 250,000.

The chance of me dying from COVID is more than three in 100. I'll take it. Listen, Ray, I was down to take it this morning too. I get it, I totally get it. But they want to do this out of an abundance of caution. And look, for people who are skeptical about the vaccines over Overall, every time something happens to someone, they like dwell on it and it becomes a big thing.

I get why the CDC and the FDA want to do this out of an abundance of caution. And I do think it's important for healthcare providers to be prepared if they find themselves wanting to treat a patient who's dealing with these blood clots. By the way, the J&J vaccine accounts for a tiny percentage of the vaccines available in the United States and a tiny percentage of the vaccines that have already been injected in the United States. The vast majority of vaccines have been the Pfizer one and Moderna. Hot Pot Biddy Dragon says, yeah, how about defunding police nationally in one of those must pass bills like the military spending bill stipulate conditions for other state money? Listen, hot pot, bitty dragon.

We've been talking a lot about must pass bills and what could be done with leverage in those must pass bills. And it's frustrating how that leverage doesn't get used. It's, yeah, you should check out our video on that from yesterday. Park already read your comment and says, come to Flint, we have plenty of abandoned houses here. Yes. It's a really sad comment, but it's true. T. Bartimus from our Twitch section, gifted a sub, elder mine Paul. Galtz, gifted 10 subs and 1900 bits.

Obie mom, Knobe gifted five subs. Ritory Koo gifted a sub. Irie man gifted two subs. Patricia Swan gifted a sub. The Real Blue Tech gifted five subs. We also have Z. Sabani, three months prime with the comment, TYT Strong for three months. Can I get a Zen Dragon or can I claim Zen Dragon?

I'm gonna say yes, I'm gonna say yes. I don't know what that means, but yes. AJ Nestor, 10 months with proud to spend my Bezo Bucks here. Photo Chromax, two months prime with the comment, new month, fresh Bezos money. Thank you so much guys, we really appreciate it. We gotta get back to the show, so I'll see you there. Hey everyone, welcome back to TYT, Anna and Waz with you. And we're about to talk about a story that is really important.

Maybe it's not getting as much attention in corporate media, but it's certainly important for anyone who's a worker in America. So let's talk about the Pro Act. Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer has secured 45 yes votes on the Pro Act among Senate Democrats. But what about the other five? Well, we're hearing more about senators like Mark Kelly, a Democrat, who has resisted co-sponsoring this major piece of labor law reform, known as the Pro Act, citing a policy of not endorsing measures that don't also have Republicans, Republican support. Now, he's full of crap, and I'll tell you how in just a second, but it is hope that if he comes on board, he could bring his Arizona colleague, Senator Kirsten Cinema, with him, leaving backers just three co-sponsors short of the 50 that would bring the bill to the floor.

Now, before I continue, let me also just note that even if 50 Democrats say that they will vote yes on the pro act, It still would not pass in the Senate. The legislation has already passed in the House, but it still would not pass under Senate rules. And that's because there's still a legislative filibuster indicating that you would need 60 senators to vote in favor of this type of legislation. Manchin has said that he went from considering reforming the filibuster to now saying that he will not do it under any circumstances. So there are all sorts of problems, not just because there are Republicans in the Senate that you would have to appeal to, but because you literally have corporate Democrats or conservative Democrats who are standing in the way of filibuster

reform and even standing in the way of this bill, which would embolden and empower labor. So obviously, Kelly is full of it, and I'll tell you why. He has co-sponsored all sorts of legislation and supported and endorsed all sorts of legislation that has no Republican backing whatsoever. Kelly is a co-sponsor of Senate Bill 833, which empowers Medicare to negotiate drug prices. A bill hotly contested by Republicans and the drug maker lobby. Another bill, the continued funding for senior services during COVID-19 Act, has no Republican support, which does really help emphasize how much the Republican Party has no problem just being goons who don't actually look out for people they represent.

But, you know, Kelly here is saying, no, no, I just, you know, I really want to do things that are bipartisan, but he's full of it. He doesn't actually care about that. He just wants an excuse to not support the pro act. So, Was, before I get to more details on this, what are your thoughts? Yeah, it feels like a lot of their strategy, and I use the term strategy quite loosely whenever talking about the Democratic Party establishment. But it feels like their strategy is with every piece of thing that they want to pass is to slow roll it and do the charade and pretend that there's any way possible to get Republicans on board with anything that isn't shoveling money all the way back up to the rich people. It just feels like they're doing a song and dance and parade. They just say the same talking points.

Well, I don't want to do something that doesn't have bipartisan support. Why? Yeah, like, why don't we ask this guy why he's so committed to bipartisan support? And I say this all the time, like, people need to stop saying that like we need to do stuff that's bipartisan for the sake of bipartisan. I want to hear a full-throated endorsement of why bipartisan legislation should take presidents over anything, even stuff, excuse me, like, you know, the COVID relief bill that had 75% support amongst the American people. The idea that bipartisanship would trump that. And the

pro act, which again, as a Democrat, which is allegedly the party that represents normal working people, allegedly the left party in this country. The idea that they would wait for Republicans to pass something like the pro act, you know, pro labor, make it easier for unions not to get union busted and just destroyed by the corporate interests. Like the idea that you would need to defend this against bipartisanship is just ridiculous to me. These people need to say what, like part of what he said is he doesn't want to be the only senator from Arizona doing this. Why? Do you not believe in the legislation? They don't even talk about the merits of the legislation. They don't talk about the merits of the arguments that might be coming from the people who

would ostensibly be opposing this. They just come out and say words. They just spew words. It's ridiculous. You're 100% right. They don't. They do. They just spew words, even because it doesn't even matter, was it doesn't even matter. They get caught up in the lies. Mark Kelly lies about how he wants to do things that are bipartisan. I just listed legislation that he's endorsed that is not bipartisan or doesn't have bipartisan support. But he doesn't care. Just like how Senator Kirsten Jill, not Jill Brown, my bad, Kirsten Cinema doesn't care. Cinema has no problem walking up in front of everyone and, you know, doing that down vote on increasing the federal minimum wage to $15 an

hour. She's, she's proud of that vote. And the reason why she's proud of it is because what's going to happen? What's going to happen? This is the thing that drives me crazy about people who are like, no, we're going to find out, we're going to find out who's against the stuff that we want and then we're going to hold them accountable. How? How? What are you going to do? What are you going to do seriously? You have organized labor. Well, then you have workers in Arizona who can do general strikes and essentially pull capital down to its knees, right? But we don't have that. Like union jobs account for a tiny percentage of jobs in Arizona. Kirsten Cinema's not scared, guys. Neither is Senator Kelly, neither are any of these lawmakers. And so, like, that's the issue

here. And then there's a bit of a chicken or egg issue, right? Because you need the pro act to pass in order to protect labor, right? In order to make it easier for workers to form unions. You know, some of the union busting tactics that Amazon used in response to the unionization effort in Bessemer, Alabama was legal in the state of Alabama. That's the problem. 1945, the Taft-Hartley Act, which essentially said that employees cannot be forced to pay union dues. And so what did that do? That disempowered union. unions because they lose resources in the form of union dues and they become less powerful. Like the pro act is supposed to undo that damage and make it easier for workers to be able

to form a union should they want to form a union. So we're kind of stuck in this terrible situation right now where in order to emboldened labor you need Congress, this broken, terrible system that's corrupted and self-interested to do the right thing. And that's incredibly difficult to do. So that's the situation we're in. I want to real about it. And anyone who tells you like, oh, but if we just, if we just elect this person, or if we just elect that person, no, no one person getting elected into Congress is going to change your life. It's just not going to happen. It's not going to happen. Now, does that mean that electoral politics isn't important? No, that's not what I'm saying. That is part of the strategy.

But to think that all you need to do is vote every two years or every four years and that's it. and everything is going to go well, it's just not. It's not. It's not that easy. And again, and I would just like for one time for one of these Mark Kelly or Joe Manchin types to have to actually be held accountable for their stances, actually go on the record and explain to me why the pro act is bad for workers, why doing exactly what the capital wants is great for normal everyday working people. Just explain. Explain it to us. Tell us why this is better for us than what the pro act would do.

Explain it. I just want to hear you say those words instead of just throwing out platitudes, actually have to defend your stupid-ass stance. Instead of saying like, look, this is why I would potentially vote against this thing or why I'm not cosponsoring it, because look, it has this part of it, has this provision, that's gonna trigger that, that has all these unforeseen consequences, X, Y, and like anybody else has to do when they take a stupid stance in public, they actually have to go out and defend it. This guy doesn't, these people don't have to do anything. They just, you know,

they just spew their lies and ridiculousness and move on with their lives. I mean, they would need journalists to ask them follow up questions. And you just don't get that. But I do want to name some names. Obviously, Kelly and Cinema aren't the only senators who have not committed to to voting in favor of the pro act. You also have Joe Manchin of West Virginia, Mark Warner of Virginia, and Angus King of Maine. And King is thought to be some sort of like independent who might be getable. And to be quite honest with you, I'm not really buying that yet. He's been getting calls from the AFL-CIO, DSA is doing quite a bit of organizing in order to

apply pressure to these lawmakers to try to get them to sign on to the bill. But again, I mean, we just have this massive mountain to climb on this issue and others because it's not just about getting 50 Democratic senators to sign on to it. It's also about reforming, in the very least, that legislative filibuster that continues to stand in the way. That does it for hour one. When we come back for hour two, Josh Hawley believes that you will be canceled by Coke. So we've got Holly on Coke, we'll show you that video and more when we return 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 jank huger and I'll see you soon