The Young Turks - Joe vs Joe

Episode Date: June 3, 2021

Biden appears to swipe at Manchin and Sinema during Tulsa speech: “two members of the Senate who vote more with my Republican friends.” Amazon gives US customers 1 week to opt out of wifi sharing network. Global shortages of many goods reflect the disruption of the pandemic combined with decades of companies limiting their inventories. Arizona “refurbishes” its gas chamber to prepare for executions, documents reveal. Biden shows little desire to reverse Trump’s Cuba policies.  Hosts: Ana Kasparian  Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

You're listening to The Young Turks, the online news show. Make sure to follow and rate our show with not one, not two, not three, not four, but five stars. You're awesome. Thank you. Welcome to the Young Turks. I'm your host Anna Kasparian, and we have a gigantic show ahead for you today. I'm super, super excited about it. We are going to do a deep dive into something that you're likely to hear from people like Larry Summers and GOP lawmakers about inflation. Woo, inflation.

It's happening because we're spending so much money on the country's poor. But I'll give you the real reasoning for why inflation is happening and you don't want to miss that segment. Later in the program, we'll also discuss a story that I wanted to get to on yesterday's program, but we didn't get a chance. and that is Joe Biden's foreign policy in countries like Cuba. Is he planning on rolling back some of the more draconian policies that were re-implemented by the Trump administration? I'll give you a little bit of a spoiler alert.

Biden's foreign policy has been pretty disastrous. But he has gotten a little more aggressive toward Democratic senators like Joe Manchin and Kirsten Sinema. So we're going to talk about that as well. And then in the second hour, John Iderola, host of the damage. report. So called Dragon Daddy will be joining me to discuss guns in Texas and West Virginia, different contexts, different stories, but the heart remains the same. In West Virginia, for instance, there is now an attempt to encourage people to get vaccinated by giving guns away. So lots of fun there. But before we get to any of the stories, I just want to encourage you guys

to please like and share the stream. We want to get as many people to watch our live show. I know the bulk of our audience likes to catch our videos on demand. But we like engaging with the audience as well. So please go ahead and share this video, like and share the stream so we can get more people to be part of this conversation. And as always, you can leave comments in the YouTube Super Chat section and we'll get to them when we go to our social breaks. All right, with all that said, let's get to our first story because Joe Biden had some words for cinema and mansion that I thought was pretty fascinating. We'll see if this is the beginning of something new in the Biden administration. President Joe Biden was speaking in Tulsa, Oklahoma, and he

specifically focused on the importance of maintaining our democratic process and strengthening our elections to ensure that everyone who wants to vote gets the opportunity to do so. Now, as we know, there are several states that are either in the process of passing, restricting, voting laws or in the case of Georgia, they've already done so. And so in that context, Joe Biden decided to bring up two Democratic senators who have been giving him a tough time in passing his agenda. Let's take a look. I urge voting rights groups in this country to begin to redouble their efforts now to register and educate voters. And in June, in June should be a month of

action on Capitol Hill. I hear all the folks on TV saying, why doesn't Biden get this done? Well, because Biden only has a majority of effectively four votes in the House and a tie in the Senate with two members of the Senate who vote more with my Republican friends. But we're not giving up. Earlier this year, the House of Representatives passed for the People Act to protect our democracy. The Senate will take it up later this month, and I'm going to fight. fight like heck with every tool in my disposal for his passage. Okay, so small note because I can't help myself, the phrase fight like heck is, just don't just don't do it. Don't use that phrase because it makes it seem like you're not going to

fight it. Fight like heck is like, yeah, I'm gonna give it my best shot, you hear. But anyway, I thought it was interesting that for the first time Biden felt the need to say something mildly aggressive in regard to two Democratic senators. Obviously he didn't name them by name, but I think it's safe to assume he's talking about senators Kirsten Cinema and Joe Manchin, who have really served as a giant obstacle in getting much done in the Senate. Many of the, many of the pieces of legislation that get to the Senate, they're passed by the democratically controlled House, they get to the Senate where Democrats, of course, have a very slim majority with Kamala Harris as the tie-breaking vote. And you would need all Democratic senators to agree on voting in favor

of legislation if it's going to be done through reconciliation, if it's a budgetary piece of legislation. But if it's any other piece of legislation, for instance, the for the People Act, which reforms our elections, gets money out of politics, secures our elections by ensuring that voting machines aren't connected to the internet by ensuring that there's a paper about. All of that stuff needs to pass with 60 senators in the Senate. And that is impossible to do when Senator Mitch McConnell, the former Senate Majority Leader, has made it abundantly clear that he prioritizes fighting Biden every step of the way. So the only thing that we have left to do, The only thing that Senate Democrats can do in order to pass important legislation like the For the People Act is by either reforming or doing away with the Senate filibuster, which again requires 60 senators to vote in favor of legislation like the For the People Act.

But unfortunately, we're still dealing with Mansion and Cinema saying that under no circumstances are they willing to do away with the filibuster. In fact, just today, Kirsten Cinema said in a video that's now gone viral on Twitter that I'm a daily example that bipartisanship is working. How exactly has she made that assessment? I'm very curious because in order to claim that you are a shiny example of how bipartisanship is working, you should be able to note what legislation you were able to pass in a bipartisan way. Bipartisanship is not working when you have Republican leadership, like Mitch McConnell, for instance, saying that his priority is to fight Biden's agenda every step of the way. There is not a culture of bipartisanship in the Senate. There's no culture of bipartisanship, even when it comes to something that honestly all lawmakers should be able to agree on, which is doing an investigation into what happened in our nation's capital on January 6th. What were the flaws in our system? Why do we have white supremacists in police ranks, for instance, in capital police? Why were they posing with some of the capital rioters on that day? These are things that should be debated, investigated, discussed. But Kirsten Cinema couldn't even bother, couldn't even bother to show up to vote on a 9-11-style commission to investigate what happened in the nation's capital. Now, I do want to point to one thing that Biden said.

that is hilarious to me mostly because the mainstream media fact checkers immediately jumped on it because it's honestly easy picking. It's low hanging fruit. Biden says that these two senators tend to vote with Republicans more often than Democrats. Obviously, that's hyperbole. Obviously, that is not necessarily true. But I do think that Biden is trying to touch on something that is important to keep in mind in regard to this whole myth of bipartisanship and how Democrats can successfully work toward bipartisanship. Now, both Mansion and Cinema have basically said, we're not going to do it away with the filibuster. In fact, we want to do things in a bipartisan way. So you have Joe Mansion literally securing what Republicans want in cuts to the

unemployment program in the coronavirus relief package. means testing to limit the number of Americans who qualified for the stimulus as part of that coronavirus relief package. And after he did all that, after he worked with Republicans and gave them the concessions that they demanded, what happened? How many of them voted in favor of the coronavirus relief package? How many Republican lawmakers? There were approximately zero, zero Republican lawmakers who voted in favor of that. So what I think Biden's trying to get at, And obviously, I might be putting words in his mouth. But my read of what he was saying there was, look, we have these Democratic lawmakers in the Senate who are more interested in working with Republicans in their bad faith attempts at passing legislation, then fighting to secure what we need to get done in this country.

Think about the infrastructure bill. Think about the American Families Plan. Every step of the way we've seen Republican lawmakers lie about what the legislation proposes, lie about the economic impacts of that legislation should it pass. They have served as an obstacle because they have told the American people in a very transparent way what their priority is. We're going to fight Biden and his policies every step of the way. That is the priority. So any Democratic lawmaker who claims that they're doing things in the tradition,

of bipartisanship, it's a lie. I don't know what Kirsten Cinema thinks she's doing. I don't know what Joe Manchin thinks he's doing. I mean, just yesterday while I was talking about this very topic with Ryan Grimm, he said that, you know, there are some Democratic lawmakers who think that there's some three-dimensional chess going on. You know, these Democratic senators are trying to present themselves as individuals who are really bending over backwards to succeed in a bipartisan way. But the second that it's very clear to the American people, Democrats or Republicans, that nothing's going to get passed in a bipartisan way. That's when they're going to turn and say that they're going to either reform or do away with the filibuster. I don't know if I'm buying that

argument. Just today, there was more discussion about what the Senate parliamentarian had to say regarding the number of bills that can pass through reconciliation, which only requires a simple majority to pass a piece of legislation. Who cares what the parliamentarian has to say? We never hear about the parliamentarian until Democrats are in charge. We didn't hear about the parliamentarian during the Trump administration. We didn't really hear much about the parliamentarian at all until there were debates about the coronavirus relief bill. And the vice president, Kamala Harris, can easily overrule the parliamentarian. So when you hear Democrats cite arbitrary parliamentarian rulings on legislation, and they treat it as if

it's the gospel, it really makes you question how sincere they are in wanting to get their agenda passed. And honestly, the next time you hear Senator Sinema or Mansion claim that they've accomplished something in a bipartisan way, reporters need to ask the follow-up, What do you mean? What are you talking about? Here's what Mitch McConnell had to say about what the Republicans' priority is. So what is your response to that? And how do you honestly beef up your argument that you're succeeding in bipartisanship? There is no evidence of that right now. So that's where we're at. I don't know if this is the beginning of the Biden administration, applying pressure to Democratic lawmakers like cinema and mansion.

But I do want to know what you think. So we have a poll on this. And here's what the question is. Is this the beginning of Biden challenging mansion and cinema more aggressively? That's the question. Go to t-y-t.com slash polls to answer that question. And you've got two answers or two possible answers. And that's yes or no. Again, the question is, is this the beginning of Biden challenging mansion and cinema more aggressively? Yes or no? I mean, I want to be optimistic and think that this is the beginning of a much-needed trend with the Biden administration. but I'm not going to hold my breath. All right, let's move on to our next story. And this one has a lot to do with privacy concerns

and how the share economy is being extended to major corporations that are profitable mushing off of your internet. So let's discuss. Amazon customers have been given very little time to opt out of a new Amazon program known as Amazon. sidewalk. Now what Amazon sidewalk would do is essentially allow your neighbors to mooch off of your wireless internet. It's a way of connecting users through this mesh system using very, very slow internet speeds or low bandwidth in order to connect and set up various Amazon-related

gadgets and gizmos, right? So I'll give you a few examples. As Ars Technica notes in their headline on story, Amazon devices will soon automatically share your internet with neighbors. Amazon's experimental wireless mesh networking turns users into guinea pigs. And you have until June 8th, by the way, to opt out of this. If you don't opt out of it, you will automatically be enrolled in this program. And there are some significant potential downsides to it, which I'll get to in just a second. Now, Amazon's sidewalk involves the company's devices being used as a springboard to build citywide mesh networks. Now they're not doing this in order to expand internet accessibility to people who might not

be able to afford it. They're doing this because rather than maybe contributing to taxes and ensuring that we have publicly funded internet so everyone has connectivity, they've decided, no, we want to make sure that people who might not have the best internet service, maybe even people who can't afford internet themselves, are able to mooch off of their neighbors' internet through this system that we're setting up. Because remember, Amazon has a vested interest in ensuring that people, A, can buy their products and connect their products to the internet, and B, are able to use the internet for their own consumer habits. And that's not what this is

about, right? But this is the beginning phases of that. And that's what my prediction is. So to give you more details, the feature works by creating a low bandwidth network using smart home devices such as Amazon Echoes and ring security cameras. A new echo can be set itself up. A new echo can set itself up by using a neighbor's Wi-Fi or a security camera can continue to send motion alerts even if its connection to the internet is disrupted by piggybacking on the connection of another camera across the street. So what's crazy about this is just how opaque this program is, how there hasn't really been much attention given to it so consumers know what they're getting themselves into.

So consumers have enough time to opt out, should they find this program problematic? And I certainly think that there are some significant downsides to it. Other devices that don't need a high bandwidth connections, such as smart lights, pet locators, or smart locks can use sidewalk all the time. So, look, as I mentioned, people don't really have that much time to opt out. You have until June 8th, and if you don't opt out by then, you're automatically enrolled in this program. Now, once you're automatically enrolled, you can still opt out. But it's important for people to know about this program to begin with so they can make that decision for them. themselves. The problem is, Amazon hasn't really been very transparent about it. It's a very opaque

program. And even though they have a Q&A section on their website in order to explain what this program is, it still leaves people with many questions. So users can disable sidewalk in the setting section of Alexa or Ring apps, but have until June 8th to do so. After that, if they have taken no action at all, their devices will become so-called sidewalk. bridges. So I want to take a quick moment just to help you all out if you are interested in opting out of this. So here's how you can do it. You just open the Alexa app. You open more and select settings, selecting account settings, selecting Amazon sidewalk, and then at that point you can turn Amazon sidewalk off. Now let's get to the potential downsides of this. First of all,

there are clearly some potential security concerns because if, let's say, hackers get even more sophisticated with their methods or if there are viruses that can affect one gadget, if you have multiple gadgets connected through wireless internet, could that indicate that one household that has a virus could then spread that virus to its neighbor, which is, of course, piggybacking off of the internet connectivity of the original person who got the virus, right? So there are security concerns in that regard. Some have also brought up some potential privacy concerns. So, you know, that, of course, has always been an issue when it comes to Silicon Valley tech companies and the way they not only operate in terms of, you know, collecting

data, but also how they sell data to third parties. They've been opaque about that type of practice as well. And then the final thing I want to get to is how this kind of plays a role in the ongoing share economy. So when you think about the share economy, consider businesses like Airbnb, Uber, Lyft, that requires people to use their own private property in order to make money. So in the case of Uber, you're driving your own private car in order to make money. In the case of Airbnb, you're renting out your space to make money. In this case, though, you're not making any money, but you are allowing Amazon to use your wireless internet in order to help connect other people to Amazon devices.

So it's just another example of a highly profitable private company using basically private Americans and what they're spending money on in order to build their own. business, right? So they're building a new program, a new business off the backs of their own customers who, of course, aren't getting paid anything for it. They're just putting themselves in a situation, in many cases unwittingly, where this highly profitable private company that pays nothing in federal taxes uses their internet in order to improve the connectivity of other consumers. I think that's an issue. It's an ongoing issue that continues to devolve further, starts off with systems and services like Airbnb, and now it's gotten to a

point where really there's no upside to you as the consumer, but there is quite a bit of upside to Amazon that does not want to pay more in taxes, which could expand broadband internet to everyone publicly, and certainly has no interest in paying for internet expansion themselves, so they don't have to free load off of their own customers in order to make this program. work. And in the future, my prediction is that this will expand to something even bigger. Right now, this is about low bandwidth. This is about connecting things like the Amazon Echo products or the, you know, that doorknob product. What is that thing called again? The ring security cameras, for instance. But in the future, if this type of behavior is allowed to move forward,

How is this going to expand to allowing people to use up more of your wireless internet through this mesh system in order to do, let's say, online shopping on Amazon? And then one other thing, some of you might be wondering, well, if my neighbors are able to use my wireless internet and I have data caps, my internet service provider has data caps for my service, does that affect me in any way? And the answer is yes, it absolutely does. In fact, Amazon answered that very question and said, when you share your bridges connection with sidewalk, total monthly data used by sidewalk per account is capped at 500. megabytes, which is the equivalent of streaming about 10 minutes of high definition video. So that might sound negligible. That might not be a big deal to most people, but it is going to use up some of your data. And some people might not have, might not like that, might have some issues with that. And the fact that Amazon hasn't made it abundantly clear or easy for people to opt out, I think only adds insult to injury with this situation. So not only do these companies get away with paying nothing in federal taxes, even though they're highly profitable,

but they're looking for ways to use the services that you pay for in order to continue building their highly profitable businesses. So it's just another example of privatizing gains and socializing losses, because you're paying for the internet, not Amazon. All right, we've got to take a quick break. When we come back, we'll do a deep dive into what might sound like a dense topic, inflation. But you don't want to miss it. I want to gear you guys. up to get into some fierce debates with people perpetuating lies about what's causing inflation. So I'll give you those arguments and more when we come back. So, I'm going to be able to be.

Hey, everyone, I'm going to be a little bit of our first social break of the show. I'm going to go ahead and read some member comments. starting with cognitive dissonance is a hell of a drug. And this is a comment about the Amazon story that we just did. How many people have been held hostage by Amazon hackers where all you need is the Amazon password to take full control of someone's security system

and other Amazon devices? This is lazy production on Amazon's part. Actually, I did not know that about Amazon specifically, but I had a very similar experience with PayPal. And the only response I got from PayPal was, sorry, we can't do anything other than just close your entire account. And so they did that. And I never signed up for another PayPal account again. So you don't have good internet security. You don't have good security for your service. I'm not really interested in working with you. But oftentimes you don't have a choice, guys.

Like Equifax is a good example. In 2017, they had a massive breach. Hacker stole the personal information of 150 million Americans. they barely got a slap on the wrist, barely got a slap on the wrist. And they are collecting our data without our consent, without our permission, and they make money off of it. It's just, it's infuriating. Mickey C., the silver-haired dragon says, in my honest opinion, Biden is just spewing his usual BS when he pretends to challenge mansion and cinema. It's no different from him pretending he wants the $15 an hour minimum wage, expanded health care, canceling student debt. tell the people what they want to hear, even if it's not true. I mean, the student loan debt stuff is particularly infuriating.

When you have, like, centrist establishment Democrats saying, can you maybe like cancel $50,000 in student loan debt? And then Biden says, no, maybe $10,000 and then literally does nothing. Tattered Remnant says, this is the same game. The Democrats have been playing for decades. gaslight the people with great speeches and legislation that they know will go nowhere because they have their corporate gatekeepers in line to stop any progress. Want something different? Stop voting for the corporate toadies. And Bucket Full of Dragon says, the share economy brought to you

by, we don't want you to make enough to afford what you own. And we don't want to fix the problem. But here's a box you can meditate in when things get lousy or busy. Yeah, exactly. such a good point. All right, we got 20 seconds left. I'm going to read a few super chats. Nove 1775 says so-called pepperoni dragon says hi. What's up? We got to get back to the show in 10 seconds. One more comment. Peter Hamby. Biden may call out anyone like, may call out anyone like Mansion and Sinaba, but no mercy to their donors. It's in one ear to these and out the other. You're right. Welcome back to Tybalt, Anna Kasparean, you and we've got honestly one of my favorite stories of the day, mostly because I love

tackling some of the misinformation that purposely gets doled out on platforms like CNBC's YouTube channel. So let's discuss inflation. If you've tuned into some of these financial programs on CNBC or Bloomberg, you're likely to come across right-wing talking points about inflation. The argument that we're experiencing high prices in various goods and services as a result of lazy workers who don't want to go back to work and they just want to collect unemployment checks as a result of government spending on the poor. In fact, if you didn't get any of that while watching television, number one, you're lucky. Number two, I'm about to expose you to it. Take a look. Gas prices are up. Food is up. Housing is up. All of the cost, all of the inflation. indicators are having a red light, not just a caution light, but an alarm bell going off.

Republican lawmakers are taking aim at President Biden's economic agenda. And inflation data is at the center of that strategy. They pointed to rising prices as evidence that President Biden's COVID relief package was too big. We've got to get reasonable and real about spending or inflation will be a problem. Government stability will be a problem. The dollar will be a I think my main reaction is that this is the budget that you write in the campaign trail. This is the budget that you write for the Democratic Twitter base. This is not the budget that you write when you're governing and you're in the face of inflation. And your most senior graybeards economically in the Democratic Party are saying we have to stop spending this types of stimulus money.

We've got to start getting a handle on the reality of increased inflation. Everybody should. And the more you look at a $6 trillion investment, it is going to be a real problem because it's just more fodder on the fire for inflationary concern. Now, just last week, Joe Biden proposed his budget and it would spend about $6 trillion. Of course, Republican heads exploded as a result of that because in order to pay for it, Biden has also proposed to increase taxes on the wealthy. Now, we've seen what that fight looks like, and it isn't much of a fight. Biden seems to have a very laxed way of pushing for higher taxes for corporations and the wealthy. But it is worth tackling the dominant talking point by these Republicans in regard to inflation, because inflation

is pretty relevant. I think that it's also noticeable for many Americans. You go to the grocery store, for instance, and you probably have noticed that there's an increase in the price of food, there has been an increase in gas prices, the price of housing, something that we've discussed quite a bit on this show. But there is certainly a far more accurate explanation for why inflation is happening. Don't buy what Republicans are selling you. It's not because the ordinary American worker is flushed with cash from the unemployment program. And it's certainly not because we're spending too much money on the country's poor. In fact, quite the opposite. We have a problem with the capitalist model that literally incentivizes keeping inventory low. And when you do

that and deal with a shock to the system, as we've experienced with the coronavirus pandemic, well, then it's going to have an impact on the supply. And it's certainly going to have an impact on inflation when demand is up and that's what we're experiencing right now. So the New York Times actually is a pretty good piece on this and they write that the breadth and persistence of the shortages, meaning inventory shortages, reveal the extent to which the just in time idea has come to dominate commercial life. This helps explain why Nike and other apparel brands struggle to stock retail outlets with their wares. It's one of the reasons construction companies are having trouble purchasing paints and sealants.

It was a principal contributor to the tragic shortages of personal protective equipment early in the pandemic, which left frontline medical workers without adequate gear. So just take a moment to think about it. We're dealing with a global pandemic in a global economy. And when you have major U.S. corporations rely on the exploitation of cheap labor in other countries like China and India, well, a shock to the system, like a pandemic, is going to disrupt the supply chains and also have an impact on inventory of products, which were already slim as a result of this just-in-time model, which really started to take off in the 1980s.

Now, the underlying thing here, the underlying motivator for the just-in-time low inventory model is to maximize profits. We all know that. So let me give you those details. Companies that run successful lean programs not only save money in warehouse operations, but enjoy more flexibility, declared a 2010 McKinsey's presentation for the pharmaceutical industry. It promised savings of up to 50% on warehousing if clients embraced its lean and mean approach to supply chains. So if you go to Macy's, for instance, and you decide that you want to buy a nice sectional couch, as I did in January of this year, because I desperately needed one, they don't have that couch in stock. They'll tell you it's in stock, but it's not in stock. And then four

months later, when you haven't gotten the couch and you're like, yo, what's up? What's going on? They won't tell you what's really going on. But in reality, the supply chains have been disrupted. Inventory is incredibly low, in fact, to the point where they don't even have the couch in stock, and as a result, you are paying more for the item and waiting much longer in order to get the item delivered to you. Also, this kind of slim inventory thinking not only left us vulnerable economically to the coronavirus pandemic and all of its economic impacts, but it put us at a disadvantage while for many years put major corporations at a huge advantage because they don't have to worry about warehouse space. They can maximize their

profits by keeping their inventory slim. In fact, from 1981 to 2000, American companies reduced their inventories by an average of 2% a year. According to one study, these savings helped finance another shareholder enriching trend. My favorite thing to bring up on this show, the growth of corporate stock buybacks. So they're like, hey, maybe we save on warehouse. costs because we don't have to store, you know, all these products and have a large inventory. And we take the savings and we, what, invest in our workers? No. Increased wages? No. Do something relevant to actually benefit and stimulate the economy? Of course not. We're just going to artificially inflate the value of our shares by doing corporate stock buybacks. Duh. And that's exactly

what they've been doing. Part of what's been contributing to the rapid increase in home prices, for instance, is the cost of lumber. So as the New York Times points out, the pandemic has slowed sawmill operations, causing a shortage of lumber that has stymied home building in the United States. Now, of course, that's just one of many factors contributing to the high cost of housing in the United States. And one of the main things that is worth mentioning when it comes to the lack of inventory is this one part that's relevant to many of the products that we consume, everything from cars to computers, and that is the chip that is necessary for the manufacturing of these products. Intel, the American chip maker, for instance,

has outlined plans to spend $20 billion to erect, which is a funny word to use in any context, but to erect new plants in Arizona, but that is less than the $26 billion that Intel spent on share buybacks in 2018 and 2019, money the company could have used to expand capacity. But why would they expand capacity when they can, again, further enrich themselves by artificially inflating the value of their stock? And then finally, the other thing to keep in mind, something that Republican lawmakers stay away from because they love those low interest rates. It's what the Federal Reserve is doing. When you keep interest rates low, that could certainly contribute to inflation. And it's actually kind of shocking

that it's taken this long for the Federal Reserve's monetary policy to catch up to us. But it has had an impact. And whenever you hear about short-term inflation, keep in mind that short-term inflation can only be a reality if the Federal Reserve changes its behavior. But it seems to be unwilling to do so. Take a look. The Fed is allowing inflation to overshoot and it's not raining it in. The reality, though, is that the Fed changed its inflation targeting policy last year to allow for inflation to run a bit. It's become a very different policy from. what we are accustomed to with the Fed. Before you could characterize the Fed's policy as taking

away the punch bowl just as the party is getting going. Now the Fed is likely to keep the punch bowl out for a while, even if some partygoers get tipsy. So this is more of the quantitative easing that I've talked about on this show previously about. And it's an important topic to focus on because Jerome Powell, the head of the Federal Reserve, seems to think that the inflation that Americans are experiencing right now is just temporary. The only thing contributing to it is the lack of inventory, right? And the lack of supply and then the high demand by Americans for these products. And again, I just explained that that certainly does contribute to inflation. But when you have low interest rates and you hand money over to these banks, what do they do

with that money? Do they actually lend it out to small businesses or average Americans so they can maybe start a business, buy a home, and do the things that they need to do to survive in this pretty brutal economy? No, they've used the money to essentially buy up residential real estate themselves. They've handed it over to private equity firms that have done the same. I mean, it's just cheap money that's being printed by the Federal Reserve and given to these major banks. And that, of course, I mean, think about it. You increase the supply of money and what does that do? It lowers the value of the dollar. And Jerome Powell seems to be completely delusional about how much of a negative impact quantitative easing has had on the

economy, which means that he's likely to continue with the policies that have been pretty disastrous for the average American and pretty great for these banks and corporations that have been able to benefit from quantitative easing. But at the heart of this, again, is the fact that inflation is not caused by the federal government giving Americans too many so-called handouts. That is not the problem here. There has been quite a bit of corporate welfare in this country for quite some time since the 2008 economic collapse. That's where the attention should be focused. The fact that these companies have low inventory in order to maximize their profits, that should be the focus of this. But that's not what you're going to get from

these goons in Washington that want to make you think that you're the problem because the government happens to finally give a little economic relief during a pretty brutal pandemic. All right, we got to take a break. We will be right back. You know, I'm going to be able to be. You know, and I'm going to be able to be. And then, I'm going to be. Hey everyone. Welcome back to our social break. Just a quick note about one of our partner's aspiration.

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And then Woznia, just a quick programming note, will be on our Twitch channel tonight at 10 p.m. Eastern time, 7 p.m. Pacific. Just go to twitch.tv slash tyt where you can watch the show. And with 30 seconds left, a few comments for you guys. Let's start with jank flexing triceps in our member section. Didn't hear about inflation when the GOP passed their COVID bill along with tax cuts for the rich. I also didn't hear we had deflation last year.

So things are reversing from last year. Yeah, I mean, I just, it's really frustrating to me that the GOP just gets to make things up. And it goes unchallenged on forums like CNBC's ridiculous financial show. Gotta get back to it. Hey everyone, welcome back to the Young Turks, Anna Casparian with you. And in the second hour, John Iderola will be joining in to help me do some of these lighter stories. But for now, we're unfortunately going to talk about something pretty brutal and devastating out of the state of Arizona. So let's get right to it.

Arizona is preparing to conduct executions of its death row inmates by using gas chambers. I'm not kidding. Not only are they planning on using a gas chamber in order to make this happen. They're planning on gassing death row inmates in the exact same way Nazis, gas Jews, and Auschwitz by using the same materials in the same way. And one thing you should keep in mind, if you happen to be a proponent of the death penalty, which I of course am not, but if you are, we do have constitutional protections against cruel and unusual punishment. And so the real question is, is this cruel and unusual? And the answer is unequivocally yes. So let me give you those details.

First, this was a story that was broken by the Intercept, I'm sorry, not the intercept, the Guardian. And so Ed Pillington over at the Guardian was the one that reported on this, and the details are pretty brutal. So documents obtained by the Guardian reveal that Arizona's Department of Corrections has spent more than $2,000. in procuring the ingredients to make cyanide gas. The department bought a brick of potassium cyanide in December for a little over $1,500. It also, by the way, purchased sodium hydroxide, which are hydroxide pellets and sulfuric acid,

which are intended to be used to generate the deadly gas. The gas chamber itself, which was built in 1949, and disused for 22 years, for good reason by the way. has been dusted off and, according to the department, refurbished. So death row inmates in Arizona will be given a choice, right? Wow, how nice they get a choice. And the choice is between a gas chamber or a different awful method of being executed. As the Guardian writes, inmates who choose the gas chamber are strapped into a chair in the center of the vessel.

colored levers are then used to drop the sodium cyanide into a pot of sulfuric acid under the chair, releasing the deadly hydrogen cyanide into the air. And again, I want to just emphasize this was the exact method used in Auschwitz. And we're now using it here in the United States, in the state of Arizona, in the near future, in order to execute death row inmates. And as we've talked about on this show multiple times, The issue with, well, one of the many issues with the death penalty is that far too often we've found evidence using DNA of innocent people who had been wrongly convicted for crimes

and were sent on death row and luckily they were cleared of wrongdoing or exonerated as a result of DNA evidence. That in and of itself should persuade people that maybe we need to rethink this whole death row execution method of punishing people for crimes they've committed. We should also be considerate of the fact that, again, we are supposed to have constitutional protections against cruel unusual punishment. And when you look at the history of this method of execution, clearly there is some evidence of cruelty and unusual punishment. So for instance, the last person who was executed in the state of Arizona, not by a gas chamber, but by these lethal injections, was Joseph Wood in 2014. Joseph Wood took almost two hours to die when Arizona experimented on him with 15 doses of a then little used concoction of lethal injection drugs.

An eyewitness told the guardian that he counted would gasp and gulp 660 times. Now, when it comes to gassing death row inmates, the last time that that happened in the state of Arizona was in 1982, and it was incredibly brutal. So Walter LeGrand, a German national, was sentenced to death for a 1982 bungold armed bank robbery in which a man was killed. The Tucson Citizen published an eyewitness account of his 1999 execution, so his crime was in 1982 and his execution was in 1999, in which he displayed agonizing, choking, and gagging, and took 18 minutes to die. So I don't know, I mean, you guys decide for yourselves. Does that sound like cruel and unusual punishment? Let me give you more. The Tucson Citizen published an eyewitness account of his 1999 execution in which he displayed agonizing, choking, and gagging, and took 18 minutes. minutes to die, the witness room fell silent as a mist of gas rose, much like steam in a shower. And Walter LeGrand became enveloped in a cloud of cyanide vapor, the citizen reported.

He began coughing violently three or four loud hacks and made a gagging sound before falling forward. The newspaper recorded that over many minutes, the inmates head and arms twitched and his hands were red and clenched. So again, there's the issue of executing death row inmates and the flaws in our justice system, the very fact that innocent individuals get convicted for crimes that they did not commit. That already is a huge problem. And then you couple that with these methods of executing people, either by lethal injection, which is an option in Arizona, or by this gas chamber, which is very soon to be another option in Arizona. And so when you weigh what we're supposed to be protected by, the U.S. Constitution against these forms of executing people, we really need to ask ourselves, are we comfortable in easily signing off on those constitutional protections in an effort to get vengeance against someone who might be wrongly convicted of a crime?

That's really the question to ask here. And it is kind of incredible how these red states have decided, yeah, you know, we're not going to evolve on this issue. In fact, we want to devolve on this issue. We want to bring back spiring squads. We want to bring back gas chambers. We want to use lethal injections with drugs that haven't really been fully tested and could actually make the entire process much more painful for the inmate that's being executed. All of these things we've seen happen in red states. that have refused to do away with their death penalties. And when you really think about the impacts on our constitutional protections and also the flaws in our criminal justice system, it really makes you wonder if we're ever going to really rethink how we respond to crime in this country. Because clearly it hasn't worked. I mean, the death penalty hasn't served as a deterrent.

We're experiencing a giant spike in homicides in the United States as we, speak, even as these red states are rolling out more draconian methods and practices in regard to the death penalty, what we're doing with our overly punitive justice system isn't working. I'm not saying to be easy on crime. There's no question about that. I'm not saying that we should just let people who have murdered others just roam the streets free. I'm not saying that. But clearly what we're doing, these punitive measures haven't worked. We have incredibly high recidivism rates where people serve their time in prison, their release, and then before you know it, they're back in prison, which means that there is a lack of rehabilitative

characteristics in our prison system, clearly. And we spend so much money on it. We spend so much money on failing. And instead of maybe changing course, maybe going in the right direction for once, you've got red states that have decided, no, we're just going to devolve. further. We're gonna go in that direction. It's incredibly frustrating. All right, final story for you guys in the first hour before John Iderola joins us, and this one is about foreign policy. The State Department has sent its strongest signal yet that Joe Biden's administration does not plan to roll back the Trump administration's policies on Cuba. Now, if you can recall back during the Obama administration, there was a loosening of the so-called embargo

toward Cuba, which allowed for Americans to travel to Cuba, for instance, which also kind of opened up some possible trade opportunities with Cuba. And lifting the embargo and the sanctions that come along with it is not just great for Americans who want to freely travel to Cuba, but it's great for the Cuban people who have been crushed by US sanctions as a result of the United States government being incredibly, honestly, brutal to any country that has a political system that we disagree with. After the communist revolution in Cuba, of course, that's when the U.S. government decided to take a hardline approach toward Cuba with the embargo. And honestly, it hasn't changed their system of government. It hasn't

change the way they run their economy, but all it has done is crush Cuba and the Cuban people when in reality they should be able to run their country any way they like without the United States meddling in their business. Now, the State Department this past week listed Cuba as among those, quote, not cooperating fully with United States anti-terrorism efforts renewing a determination first made in 2020. So this is what Trump did in the time. tail end of his presidency, he decided to essentially list Cuba as one of these countries that happens to be an enemy of ours because of the cooperation that they participate in with countries like Venezuela, for instance, right? So what does this determination really mean? What is its

actual impact? Well, the determination was made under the Arms Export Control Act, which requires a report every May listing countries barred from defense exports and sales with you with the US with the US now hold on let's pause for a second because I do want to address that I don't care about weapons sales to Cuba in fact I would prefer to end all weapons sales internationally I think that it's been incredibly destructive and has only destabilized regions of the globe so that's not my concern I want to be clear about that but understand that the determination, while it has an impact on weapon sales to Cuba, is really about maintaining the embargo against Cuba and the unfriendly relationship that we currently have with Cuba.

So Obama had actually removed Cuba from the list back in 2015. The statute is also one of three laws weighed when adding countries to the state sponsors of terrorism list, something Trump added Cuba to in the final days of his presidency. Okay, so Cuba, Cuba, Cuba is a state sponsor of terrorism. How exactly? Because if I can recall, if I actually ignore the American media propaganda about Cuba and actually take a good hard look at the government's actions, it doesn't really seem like they're spreading terrorism or sponsoring terrorism. In fact, it's quite the opposite. For instance, during the pandemic, Cuba has done quite a bit in, you know, ensuring that they're taking care of their own people.

They develop their own coronavirus vaccine outside of, you know, the Pfizer-Maderna, Johnson & Johnson vaccines that we're using here in the United States. In fact, why don't we just quickly go to this clip that explains just how much Cuba's been able to do for its people, even with the U.S. embargo crushing the country? Dr. Marta Galvez runs the plaza of the Revolution Polyclinic and knows just about everyone in the neighborhood. Every day, she makes the rounds to check on COVID-19 suspects who've been quarantined. Especially those who come from abroad, like Florida resident Isabel Garcia. Upon landing in Cuba, she was given a COVID-19 test. Then she and her entire family were put under strict lockdown. A doctor checks on them every day.

On the fifth day, she got a second test, and now Dr. Galvez has come to tell her she's in the clear. I'm impressed that despite Cuba's few resources, they've been able to control this pandemic so well. Also, the people are very aware of what's going on and what they have to do. With a population of 12 million, Cuba has had fewer than 10,000 confirmed cases of coronavirus, and fewer than 140 deaths.

This secret isn't the weather. The same detailed block by block organizational control that the state uses for political purposes is also an effective tool for confronting everything from natural catastrophes to pandemics. That's what Cuba is able to do while the United States has sanctions in place, you know, barring economic activity between Cuba and other countries, between the United States. and Cuba, of course, U.S. allies in Cuba. So there's that aspect to it. It kind of sounds like implementing sanctions against other countries during a global pandemic is really bad behavior, right? Cuba's not doing that to other countries. The United States is doing that to Cuba, Iran, and several other countries because we disagree with whatever's happening within their borders. Right. Now, in the case of Cuba, it's

particularly disgusting because while the United States claims that it sponsors terrorism, the reality is that when something like the Ebola virus breaks out in African countries, Cuba sends its nurses to those countries to help out. So is that humanitarian aid an example of the terroristic activity that the United States is referring to? And look, this was something that, of course, happened in the tail end of the Trump administration. But now that Biden's charge, he's, he's got the power, right? He has the ability to lift the Cuban embargo, to, you know, approach the U.S. relationship with Cuba in a more diplomatic way, and to allow Cuba to run its country however the hell it wants. It's a sovereign nation. Who is the United

States to determine how Cuba should run its country, right? You might disagree with communism, you might not like socialism, but we don't run Cuba. We have no. honestly, no say in how, and we shouldn't have a say in how they run their government. But of course, when you have U.S. business interests looking to exploit various countries, they certainly don't like communist regimes or socialist regimes, and they want to ensure that they open up business opportunities everywhere they go, including in places like Venezuela. So that's really at the heart of this.

Now, the State Department said that the decision was made after, quote, a review of a country's overall level of cooperation in our efforts to fight terrorism. Okay, so this is a state department's claim, taking into account our counterterrorism objectives with that country and a realistic assessment of its capabilities. So the United States really has a problem with Cuba because it's allied with Venezuela. private business interests in the United States wants to exploit Venezuela. They don't like the fact that they've nationalized their oil. They don't like the fact that business interests can't take advantage of them as they please.

And the same goes for Cuba. Those two allied countries, you know, they're friends. Terrorist activity. How dare they? Anything that goes against the vested interests of private corporations in the eyes of the U.S. State Department is terrorist activity. That's what this is. And Joe Biden has decided to go along with that narrative instead of reverse the damage that's been done by Donald Trump. And I think that's a problem, especially when Obama wasn't so great on foreign policy, but he did secure the Iran nuclear deal,

which Trump then ripped up and Biden refused to reenter. He also lifted some of the restrictions toward Cuba, which Biden is unwilling to re-implement. So if people want to give Biden credit for allegedly being close to FDR on domestic policy and whatever, first off, that's not true. He certainly hasn't been fighting for FDR-like policies domestically. And internationally, his foreign policy has been dog crap. 100% dog crap. Just an extent. of Donald Trump's horrific behavior, and he should be called out for that. We've got to take our break, but when we come back, John Iderola will be joining me to talk about what's going down with Tucker Carlson in his latest culture war talking point about

the coronavirus vaccine and guns in Texas and Virginia. Stick around. Thanks for listening to the full episode of the Young Turks. Support our work. and ad free access members only bonus content and more by subscribing to apple podcasts at apple dot co slash t yt i'm your host jank huger and i'll see you soon