The Young Turks - Justice Denied

Episode Date: July 11, 2023

Clarence and Ginni Thomas' wedding reception was paid for by another rich "friend." Trapped drivers swam out of their cars. A woman died after being swept away by floodwaters. What to know about the heavy rainfall hitting the Northeast. Judge throws out lawsuit for reparations over 1921 Tulsa Race Massacre. Eric Adams called me a plantation owner for defending tenants. AOC supports Biden’s reelection bid. HOSTS: Cenk Uygur (@CenkUygur) & Ana Kasparian (@AnaKasparian) SUBSCRIBE on YOUTUBE: ☞ https://www.youtube.com/user/theyoungturks FACEBOOK: ☞ https://www.facebook.com/theyoungturks TWITTER: ☞ https://www.twitter.com/theyoungturks INSTAGRAM: ☞ https://www.instagram.com/theyoungturks TIKTOK: ☞ https://www.tiktok.com/@theyoungturks 👕 Merch: https://shoptyt.com Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

You're listening to The Young Turks, the online news show. Make sure to follow and rate our show with not one, not two, not three, not four, but five stars. You're awesome. Thank you. All right. Well, the Young Turks, Jay Cougar, Anna Consparing with you guys. A lot of stories today from progressives in Congress backing Biden to Trump kicking to Santa's ass. I'm super worried about that, we'll get to that in a second.

reparations. Lots of stuff on the show today. Okay, but first, I gotta tell you something real quick. So we've had some programming changes at TYT today. So watch list and on boss are affected. But there's plenty of good news in there as well. So for example, we're taking the live shows off the air because in the online world, it's all about formatting and platforms, etc. But we're go for watch list. It's still staying here, so make sure you're checking it out on YouTube, Facebook, Snapchat. J.R. Jackson is a great host. He'll definitely be part of the network.

And in fact, he'll be on the power panel this Friday. And so I want you checking out his videos. This is actually a model we used on TYT Sports, and it worked really well. When we transitioned it from a live show to shows that you could find on those platforms, it was very successful, and we suspect that the same thing's going to happen for watch list. And then on boss, we're sunsetting the show, but Nina Turner's still with the network. And you'll see her on a power panel two weeks from now. We love Nina, love J.R. obviously, right?

And so not only will Nina's videos be on Rebel Headquarters, our channel with so many excellent contributors, but Nina will guest hosts on not only Young Turks and disputable, but also break down all of these. I'm sorry, the damage report. And also check out Nina's tweet as she put out because she's going to do a lot of things more that she's been doing. on the ground. So more speeches and we'll cover a lot of those speeches, a lot of immense in the movement,

both from on the progressive and politically, but also helping labor and workers' rights. So she's doing great work there. Make sure you're checking her out there as well as on TYT. We still have five hours of live programming. So you know that starts at 10 a.m. Pacific, one o'clock Eastern with the damage report. John Iderola's great show. And then of course an hour and a half later, you've got indisputable with Dr. Rashad Richie and so that's a three hour block right there and it's fantastic and then obviously

Youngter starts at 6 o'clock and goes to 8 o'clock. So yeah, then that's about it, okay? So you'll see Nina and JR all over there here today. And so transitions are always a little, you know, rough, but I think that they work great in the past. I think they're going to work well here. And I just want to say one last thing. to all the people who worked on those shows, nothing but love on top of love.

They did a great job, they worked really hard. And just because a live show didn't work or one particular platform or format didn't work, doesn't mean anything. It just means that, hey, we're gonna find a bigger, better way to go. And so that's exactly what we're gonna do going forward. All right, now onto the news. All right, well, we begin with the latest investigation into Justice Clarence. Thomas and some of the gifts he's received without disclosing those gifts to the public.

A New York Times investigation reveals how Justice Clarence Thomas's relationship with the Horatio Alger Association basically placed him in the company of America's wealthiest elites and possibly exacerbates concerns of corruption within the Supreme Court. Now, as with the relationship that the justice has with Harlan Crow and as with the gifts he received from Harlan Crow, in this case, with the various gifts he received from people associated with the organization here, the association, he failed to disclose the gifts to the public. Now, the New York Times spoke to two dozen people and reviewed public filings and internal documents as part of their investigation. and this investigation found that Thomas had received many unreported benefits from his cohort of wealthy and powerful friends. As the Times writes, quote, the broader cohort of wealthy and powerful friends have included

major donors to conservative causes with broad policy and political interests and much at stake in Supreme Court decisions, even if they were not directly involved in the cases. Now look, the appearance of corruption is a huge problem. And while there's been quite a bit of reporting in regard to Justice Thomas in recent months, there is other instances of other Supreme Court justices, the late Anthony Scalia, the late Ruth Bader Ginsburg, there were issues with some of the gifts they were receiving as well, although in those cases, a lot of it was reported. We'll get to that in a moment. But here's more on the latest reporting from the Times. So there was apparently a time when the justice actually did report gifts that he was receiving.

In his early years on the court, Justice Thomas disclosed about 20 private plane flights and an assortment of other gifts including cigars, a Daytona 500 jacket, a silver buckle, and a rawhide coat. After the LA Times chronicled his gifts and travel in 2004, he stopped disclosing private flights and has seldom reported gifts or other benefits, even though he's supposed to. Right? Now he argued that other justices basically told him, nah, don't worry about it. You don't have to do it. But that is actually not the case. His decision not to disclose many benefits for nearly two decades beyond trips related to teaching speeches and attending legal or academic conferences has made it difficult to even track potential conflicts of interest. And here's the truth. Justices are allowed to accept gifts and free travel. And many other justices have disclosed receiving such benefits. Justices like all federal judges are required to complete an annual form listing investments, gifts and other financial ties. Yet in some cases, the rules are ambiguous and the disclosures

do not provide a full portrait of gifts or finances. So the rules are not really strong enough. So that's the argument made there. But even given what the current rules are, it's clear that Justice Thomas should have disclosed these gifts but failed to do so. And again, what we're about to talk about isn't even in regard to the gifts he received from Harlan Crow. This has to do with gifts received through individuals he met through this Horatio Alger Association. And so real quick, Justice Thomas's acceptance of such hospitality apparently predates his time on the court. A former girlfriend said in an interview that a buddy of Justice Thomas had paid for their vacation in the Bahamas in the mid-1980s when he was

chairman of the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. A longtime friend, a conservative commentator Armstrong Williams, said he had paid for the justice's 1987 wedding reception. In fact, it was Williams who encouraged him to join the Horatio Alger Association. And in just a moment, I'll talk a little bit about the relationships he forged through that association and what kind of gifts he received as a result. Jank. Yeah, so for me, there's always a line, right? And there are plenty of things that could be under the line. So you've got some lifelong friends. You took a bunch of trips with them. It is what it is. There's no problem, right? You guys regularly go to the Poconos. Nobody's going to begrudge you that. Okay. Okay, we were in

the cats because everything's going to be fine, right? You do one or two spectacular trips. Again, your lifelong or maybe they're even new friends. All right, all right, it's not the end of the world. So where's the line? Number one line, obvious. You stop reporting it when you're supposed to reported, that means you're actively hiding it, right? And so now I'm very concerned. And there's a reason why we have rules. And the Supreme Court is supposed to be the arbiter, the ultimate arbiter of rules. So it is deeply concerning when they go, oh, no, the rules don't apply to us. And we're not going to abide by them at all. Secondly, all these friends for Justice Thomas, since he's been on the court, are friends he acquired right as he was

getting on the court and got on the court. And then they have been paying for a lavish trip on top of a lavish trip. But again, to me, that's not the biggest issue. The biggest issue, now the second line is when they start doing things like buying your mom's house at above market value and buying all the property around it and paying for your wedding reception. Now we're not in the Poconos. Now we're in a completely different arena.

And it looks like this Harajor-Alger Association, everybody can draw their own assumptions and opinions about it, but my opinion is it looks like it's one of those organizations that's meant to purchase people, right? So you go, if you're a good boy, whether you're a commentator like Armstrong Williams or Clarence Thomas, or name any other person, and it doesn't matter what their background is, what their religion, race, et cetera is, as long as you're playing ball, you're going to get a lot of free stuff and it's going to be awesome. But you ruled the wrong way, all of a sudden things could dry up. So yeah, I mean, look, I think that's what the concern is, not just with this association,

but also with any relationship where gifts are being exchanged and could influence decisions made by Supreme Court justices. Look, it's really, really important for the American public to have faith in our institutions. And when there is, even in the very least, right, the appearance of conflicts of interest, the appearance of corruption, right? Even if you want to steal man this and really, you know, assume that, you know, there's no evidence of actual corruption here, just the appearance of corruption is bad enough because that leads to distrust toward these institutions. And remember, the Supreme Court is supposed to adjudicate whether or not certain laws or

certain issues are constitutional, right? So let's get to what that organization is. Jank mentioned it briefly, but I do want to talk about what they claim to be and what they actually do. So the Horatio Alger Association was founded in 1947. And according to its website, the whole point of the organization is to dispel the mounting belief or among our nation's youth that the American dream was no longer attainable. To that end, the group has awarded more than $245 million in college scholarships to roughly 35,000 students, which I think is great, I don't think there's anything wrong

with that. Now its members have included a wide spectrum of people whose life stories exemplify the Horatio Alger Credo, although they have trended conservative, so Justice Thurgood Marshall and And Fred Trump, former President Donald Trump's father, were members. So was Harlan Crow's father. And you also have Justice Thomas's class of inductees, which included the poet Maya Angelou. And so you get a sense of like the people who are associated with it. It's not all conservative.

It's important to know that. But with that said, you know, the whole point of what they're trying to do is provide scholarships and to uplift, you know, young scholars. With that said, within a few months of Clarence Thomas getting confirmed as a Supreme Court justice, he ends up joining the Horatio Alger Association of Distinguished Americans, and he was able to secure some material gains through his association with this group. Over the years, his Horatio Alger friends have welcomed him at their vacation retreats, arranged VIP access to sporting events and also invited him to their lavish parties.

In 2004, he joined celebrities, including Oprah Winfrey and Ed McMahon at a three-day 70th birthday bash in Montana for the industrialist Dennis Washington. Several Horatio Alger friends also helped finance the marketing of a documentary about the justice in the wake of an HBO film that had resurfaced Anita Hill's sexual harassment allegations. against him during his confirmation. And there's a little more, including prominent among his Horatio Alger friends, has been David Sokol, the one-time heir apparent to Warren Buffett at Berkshire, Berkshire Hathaway. Sokol describes the justice and his wife, Ginny, as close personal friends. And in 2015, they hosted the Thomas's for a visit to their sprawling Montana Ranch, the Socles have also hosted the Thomas's at their waterfront mansion in Florida. And there is a photo showing them at that retreat back in 2015.

That's the image that you're seeing featuring the Thomases with the Socles in this Montana ranch. Jake. Yeah. So some more nuance and then some more clear lines. So first of all, no, like a lot of organizations are a mixed bag. And by the way, things change. So, for example, Horatio Alger started in 1947, probably sounds like it was started

with great intent, and it has done some great work, like $245 million for 35 students, ain't no joke. So we don't have to paint everything as black and white, right? And so, and things change like the Republicans used to be the party of Lincoln. They're not that anymore. And you could argue the Democrats are not the party of FDR. So it might have started with great intent. But here the issue is when you've got incredibly wealthy people next to incredibly powerful people in the government,

whether it's Congress Thomas back in the day at the Equal Employment Commission, by the way, where he spiked almost all the cases. He never saw any racism anywhere, pretty much. Hey, look at that. Corporations win. And when on the Supreme Court, he almost always rules with corporations, right? So, hey, you could say it's a nice coincidence. You could say he's being affected by his incredibly well. friends that he happened to find at this organization. And by the way, they're not the only organization.

There's tons of right wing organizations. And in this case, this is again, mixed bag, right? There's right wing, left wing, et cetera, at that organization. But there's other organizations specifically set up to funnel a giant amount of money to the right wing. Look, there's a person who came over from the right wing to the left wing, and I have a relationship with him. And he explained to me how it was back when he was the right wing as opposed to Now, and basically that he said, it's shocking how little money the left has. When you're on the right, the money's just flowing everywhere, everywhere, right?

And so Justice Thomas is basically just sitting there, like having the tsunami of money wash over him. He doesn't have to take the bribe and spend it on a fancy vacation. He just gets the fancy vacation, right? He doesn't have to get the bribe to take care of his mom's house. They just do that for him. And on and on it goes. And one fun note in this story, by the way, is I like that they're bringing back the word industrialist.

Right, I know, I know, it's incredible. No, but you know, it's interesting because there doesn't, you don't even need an explicit quid pro quo, right? I think that's important to keep in mind as well. Forging these types of relationships where an exchange of gifts occurs, even if there's no explicit agreement or explicit conversation, that makes it clear to Justice Thomas that, you know, this is a favor for a favor. Just building that relationship and exchanging those gifts could have an influence on the decisions Justice Thomas makes in these various cases. And by the way, I want to be fair and note that there have been other instances of other Supreme

Court justices where the exchange of gifts seems a little concerning, right? So I said that I would give you two examples. There's Justice Antonin Scalia who passed away. But according to the Times, Scalia's disclosure show that he took 258 subsidized trips from 2004 to 2014 to destinations that included Switzerland, Ireland, and Hawaii. He died in 2016 while staying for free at the West Texas hunting lodge of a business executive whose company had recently had a case before the Supreme Court. And even Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg had some issues. I'll give you that example. So Justice Ginsburg disclosed more trips than any other justice in 2018.

During a trip to Israel to accept a lifetime achievement award, she was a guest of the Israeli billionaire Morris Khan. The year before, the court had given his company a victory by declining to take up a case. So look, I don't know if the relationship she had here with Morris Khan at all, a role in not wanting to take up that case. But my point is the appearance of that influence, the appearance of that conflict of interest and possible corruption communicate something to the general public that is toxic and terrible, which is why we're supposed to have these disclosures. We're supposed to have ways of mitigating potential conflicts of interest. And so when you have,

let's say, legacy media outlets, or when you have commentators scratching their heads in regard to why so many American voters, why the electorate does not trust in American institutions, I think this is a big part of it. Yeah, and I have one more bright line. When you're judging a case where you have anywhere near a conflict of interest, to Anna's point, even an appearance of conflict of interest, you've got to recuse yourself. And by the way, justices do do that sometimes, and it's these days almost exclusively the left wing that does that. That puts them at an even bigger disadvantage.

But like if there's a case about Harvard, the justices that went to Harvard recuse themselves, or at least the left wing justices do. Right. Justice Kataji Brown Jackson did that in regard to the Harvard affirmative action case. Yeah, and that should be clear, not just if they went to Harvard, but I think she was on their board, right. So she goes, hey, look, and that's great, that's exactly right. Now, you know, you could say, oh, damn it, that's one justice we need in that case. Okay, that's fair, but it is what it is.

You have to be, the propriety of the court and the trust that we have in the court is so important because that this establishes order in the country, right? But now they've just shredded it so much that it's, now there's a poll out saying the majority of Americans now think that the Supreme Court is making decisions based almost purely on politics. to which unfortunately I say, of course, of course. So since that's happening, even though the media go, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no politics. They're just, you know, calling balls and strikes. And every confirmation hearing, we have this theater that's absurd,

where all the justices go, oh, I have no political opinions. What, what are politics? Policy never heard of it. And they go on the court, and whoever's right wing votes right wing, 98% of the time. Left wing votes that way, 90% of the time. 80% of the time. The other 20% they won't vote with big business. Okay. And so like guys, already the Supreme Court's reputation is in significant trouble with the American public.

And this is doing body blow, body blow as they keep taking these enormous gifts from the incredibly wealthy and then not recusing themselves from the cases. Right. And ruling on them, it's just, it's disastrous. It is. And I leave you with this because this is telling. Remember, the very person who encouraged Justice Thomas to join the Horatio Alger Association was a guy named Armstrong Williams. And he spoke to the New York Times to say that while he was happy that Justice Thomas's relationship with this organization seems to make him very happy, there are some concerns. He says this. This is also about power and prestige. I mean, Thomas is on the Supreme Court.

even though they provide for these kids, meaning the scholarships and all of that, this is the true aristocracy of America. And yes, that's exactly right. And look, guys, so some on the left will say they shouldn't even have organizations like this. And by the way, some on the right will definitely say it too, where the rich get together and they hubbub and say, no, there's going to be rich people in the world and they're going to get together somewhere. That's not the issue. The issue is what do they do?

So when the Koch brothers gather up all of the rich right wingers of the country and they have a conference one to two times a year, and they literally decide which politicians they're going to purchase and for what political purposes so they can all get richer, that's a massive problem. And then the right wing would be like, oh, Bilderberg and the place where there's the fire and this and that. Guys, Coke brothers, right there, all the rich get together in that particular case and decide how they're going to do the bribes. And the right gets it. I mean, when the right complains about Soros, that's the exact same thing. It's just that it is a incredibly wealthy and influential man who is pushing, you know, political issues or policies that you disagree with. And the argument that we're making is that no wealthy person should be able to buy our politics or politicians. Exactly. You don't have to eat the rich, but the rich are not allowed to buy our government. And we have to get back to absolutely insisting on that.

We're going to take a break. When we come back, we'll talk about some terrible storms that took place in the Northeast over the weekend. And we'll give you an update on climate change and where we are with yet another record hot year. All right, back on TYT, Jank Anna, Jermontah Payne and Samantha De Jesus, or maybe De Jesus. You're all awesome, thank you for joining. They did it by hitting the join button below the video on YouTube, and we want to thank Chris Birch for gifting five young tourist memberships on YouTube. You're all fantastic, thank you, Casper.

Well, there was some tragedy over the weekend having to do with flooding, let's Let's discuss. Overnight, a string of dangerous thunderstorm slamming the Northeast, washing away cars and collapsing roads. That's insane. 27 million people now under flood alerts across the Northeast from Eastern New York to New Hampshire. One person has died and millions are under flash flood warnings as severe rainfall continues to douse the northeast. Now, there's more detail on what transpired over the weekend, but there is a broader point to make about these severe weather conditions. We'll get to that

in a moment, but first this. Tarrantial downpours leaving drivers stranded, like this apocalyptic scene in Orange County, New York, which is now under a state of emergency. He advised Main Street and the traffic surface completely underwater. I got a car going down the river. Rain totals, they are reaching nearly eight inches, creating hazardous sinkholes in the road. Drivers dealing with swamps roads throughout the region. In Pennsylvania, nearly 10 inches of water left to vehicles submerged. I just watched my car just swim away.

While parts of Connecticut were hammered by about five inches of rain in just over an hour. So the nearly 10 inches of rain that fell just yesterday in New York's Hudson Valley is actually the amount that usually falls throughout the entire three months of summer. So it gives you a sense of just how severe the storms were. And the area near West Point Military Academy has been hit particularly hard. CNN reports that rainfall in West Point, New York totaled more than 7.5 inches in six hours Sunday afternoon. According to preliminary data from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, that's a one in one thousand year rainfall event for the area. A once in a millennium rainfall event is one that is so intense that chances of it happening

in any given year is just 0.1%. And people were tragically trapped by floodwaters at the Academy at West Point and had to swim out of their cars to get to safety. And that's an image showing you exactly what I'm talking about here. And there has been at least one fatality in Orange County, which is 60 miles north of New York City. NBC News reports that the woman who died on Sunday after she was swept in fast moving floodwaters in Highland Falls, New York, has been identified as a 43-year-old named Pamela Nugent. She was fleeing her home with her fiancee and pet when she got swept into the ravine, the governor said earlier on Monday. So I want to talk a little bit about the

climate implications here. And more importantly, what people are already dealing with, not just with the destruction of these extreme weather events, but the lack of insurance companies that are willing to provide coverage for these extreme natural disasters. I'll give you more on that in just a moment. But, Jenk, what are your thoughts? So there's one way of thinking about this that gives you a sense of how intense these storms are. One inch of rain is about 12 inches of snow. So if it was like you just heard in one area they had five inches of snow in one hour. I'm sorry, of rain. That would be five feet of snow in one hour. Just think about that for a second. And over the last

day or so, some areas have had 10 to 20 inches of rain. 10 feet of snow, 12 feet of snow. It's unimaginable, right? And that's, and this, the thousand year storm is based on the percentages. They say, you know, based on what we've seen in the past, 0.5% as Anna told you, right? So if they're not making it out of nowhere, it's not something that's just hyperbolic. It's based on, hey, the patterns that we have seen before. except now the patterns are out of whack because the planet's burning up.

So it's not happening once every thousand years. It's happening pretty much every other year. Now on top of all that, you add in El Nino, which has just arrived. Oh boy, okay, look guys, we're going to tell you about the temperatures in a second. June breaking all records, right? But I'm going to give you some quotes from scientists now when they've seen these latest numbers that just came in. quote, extraordinary, terrifying, uncharted territory. We've never seen anything like this in our life.

This will just keep, just carry on getting worse and worse and more and more extreme. We don't have a backup planet. Yeah. We're burning this one up. I mean, wait until you get to the ocean temperatures, which we'll get to in a second. Right. No, guys, this is not like the other issues. We're burning the whole goddamn thing to the ground.

So one trend that is concerning for people across the country is that as these extreme weather events happen, as droughts end up, you know, taking a longer period of time, like all of that is leading to insurance companies changing their models, refusing to offer coverage in various States. So a good example is in California, right, where droughts have been happening more often, and when the droughts occur, they last for a longer period of time. And so with the dry conditions, that increases the likelihood and the occurrences of wildfires. Those wildfires, of course, destroy entire neighborhoods, destroy homes. And so insurance companies, farmers insurance is a good example in Southern California, they've decided, you know what, we're going to stop

offering coverage to people living in parts of Southern California that have a higher risk for these wildfires. And again, the wildfires are exacerbated by the incredibly dry, historically dry conditions, right? In Florida, the occurrence of hurricanes, the likelihood of hurricanes, the frequency, I should say, of hurricanes and how much more extreme they've gotten has now led to insurance companies, refusing to provide coverage for that in the state of Florida. And so the state has had to get involved to offer coverage on behalf of those insurance companies. And that has become far too expensive for the state. And people living in Florida have noticed that their premiums have gone up significantly as a result. I'm giving

you those examples to say that it's not just the scientists, okay? The insurance, companies are looking at what's happening and they're like, listen, this is not going to help us with our business model. This is not going to help us with our profits. It's becoming more and more expensive to provide coverage to these individuals because of the frequency of these extreme weather events. And so they're just pulling out and they're refusing to provide coverage altogether in some instances. Yeah, look, you can tell based on the money if it's real or not Because a lot of the right wing, they still, they'll believe anything Fox News tells them, right? So they still think like, oh, I bet it's no big deal.

It was this more probably in 87. No, it wasn't. It wasn't. Almost every year we break a new record. And now it's one of the scientists said something that really sent a chill down my spine. They said it used to be linear. Now we're worried that it's not going to be linear anymore. So linear means you're going up steadily, and that's not a good thing.

But if it's not linear, it's exponential, which means you don't go upsetly, you go like this. If we hit that, we're all toast. Like this is not a, this is just like the movie, don't look up. The meteor is about to hit us, and we're not doing anything about it. Like so the insurance companies are like, all right, well, now we won't back you guys anymore. Meanwhile, the oil companies are still pouring out tons and tons of oil and gas and all that stuff. And Biden, you know, you go, hey, I helped a little. bit in the inflation reduction act, but then I took it away by giving up more pipelines,

the Mountain Valley Pipeline and drilling in Alaska, et cetera. You're not getting it. Right. This is not, we can't have a tiny little gradual response to this. Like now the numbers went from like alarming to hair on fire, planet on fire. And I mean, look, I've covered this recently, but the transition away from nuclear energy. And look, the concern away from nuclear energy, and look, The concerns about nuclear energy, I get it. I totally get it. But as more of these nuclear power plants get decommissioned, they don't transition to renewable energy. They transition to coal, which is like one of the dirtiest forms of energy. One of the dirtiest fossil fuels, right? And so look, I really, really think that given the lack of development on wind and solar,

it's not where we need it to be to be fully reliant on that. We do need to continue relying on nuclear energy if we want clean energy sources to mitigate the impact of climate change. So that goes exactly to my point. So guys, I've had people who are in favor of nuclear energy on the show's guests. I've had people who are against nuclear energy. And it's hard to tell who's got the science, right, et cetera. They both are super fervent in their beliefs, right?

And by the way, it doesn't fall neatly into left and right. But since it's an absolute planet wide emergency, what I would do if I was president and I was leading, leading, I would bring everyone in and go, okay, how do you propose to handle this emergency? And I would put everything on the table. So maybe in good times or times that weren't as alarming, maybe we don't consider nuclear. Now I'm willing to consider anything and everything because we got to get the carbon out of the air. We've got to get it out. If we hit a tipping point, it's not magic. You can't turn it back. The Arctic ice caps are almost gone. Here, I'll give you more facts.

One of the scientists said this is probably the worst going back to at least 100,000 years on Earth. And for knuckleheads who are like, oh yeah, but so what? The Earth was still around back then. No, but a lot of animals living on the Earth, including potentially humans, were not. Right. Right. So it's, we want to be able to live on this planet. And if you, look, the planet's gonna be here.

Yeah, regardless of what we do to it, right? The question is, will we be able to live? Will human beings be able to live and survive on this planet, given what we're doing to it? And just to give you some more stats and some more numbers. So for instance, last week, the planet's average daily temperature soared to highs unseen in modern records, kept by two climate agents. in the United States and Europe, while the records are based on data that only goes back to the mid-20th century, they are almost certainly the warmest the planet has seen over a much longer time period,

probably going back at least 100,000 years, according to Jennifer Francis, a senior scientist at Woodwell Climate Research Center, average worldwide temperature on Thursday reached 17.23 degrees Celsius or 63 degrees Fahrenheit. with records already broken or tied three times this week. The previous record for average daily temperature was in mid August of 2016. So it's not about one day or one week where you notice that things are getting real hot. No, it's looking at the long term trends and noticing that consistently there is a trend upward in regard to like the climate warming.

Yeah, so let me give you two more stats here. stats here. Guys, I hope you can keep up with this, man. I don't think it's that complicated. Normally, if you have a record like we had in June, planet-wide for hottest June ever in recorded history, the new BMO, V.I. Porter MasterCard is your ticket to more. More perks, more points, more flights, more of all the things you want in a travel rewards card, and then some. Get your ticket to more with the new BMO ViPorter MasterCard and get up to $2,400 in value in your first 13 months. Terms and conditions apply. Visit BMO.com slash ViPorter to learn more.

It'll be gradual, linear, like it'll be 0.01 or 0.02 difference in beating the former record, right? This time it was 0.5. So we beat it by about 50x. Like scientists have never seen anything like that. No, now we need to pit the goddamn panic button. I'll give you one last one. And by the way, credit to the mainstream media here, beginning to cover it with the urgency that it requires.

They're beginning to show you the actual facts and stats the scientists have. So I'll quote CNN in this case. Ocean heat has been off the charts with surface temperatures last month reaching record levels for June. Parts of the North Atlantic have seen, quote, unprecedented marine heat wave with temperatures up to five degrees Celsius, nine degrees Fahrenheit, hotter than usual. Nine degrees hotter than usual for the ocean. Disaster. Oh, this guys, this is an unbelievable disaster. And El Nino's are regular. Their regular occurrence every couple of years, they come around and they make the temperature hotter.

But given climate change, it's now a double whammy. And it's intensifying it so much. Again, we're very worried about tipping points. And last thing is when a scientist was asked about, okay, now El Nino combining with climate change, and their last words were, I'd say, buckle up. And so that's the state of the planet as we stand now. And I don't see anywhere near that urgency from politicians in America. When we come back from the break, we'll talk about a lawsuit that attempted to secure reparations for the surviving victims of the Tulsa massacre that took place in 1921.

I want to talk about the outcome of that lawsuit and compare it to what occurred at Bruce's Beach in Southern California. Don't miss that. We'll be right back. All right, back on TYT, Jank Anna and Violet, Hunfleur, which is such a fun name. Thank you for supporting us. We appreciate it, Violet, and you all can do the same at t.com slash join. Casper. Well, let's talk about a controversial case and a controversial decision.

An Oklahoma judge has thrown out a lawsuit that was seeking reparations for the victims and descendants of the 1921 Tulsa Race Massacre. Now look, if ever there were a clear case in which reparations make sense, this is it. And unfortunately, the way the judge handled this case, I do disagree with. We'll get to that in just a moment. But first, what was the Tulsa massacre? Well, during the 1921 massacre, an angry white mob descended on the 35 block Greenwood District, home to most of Tulsa's 10,000 black residents. Over one night, attackers burned and looted homes in the area, killing hundreds of black

residents, destroying local businesses and taking valuable goods, and that's according to a 2001 State Commission report. Multiple personal property cases after the massacre were also dismissed. in 1937. And the next video will give you even more detail into this horrific part of our history. Let's watch. The residents of Greenwood try to defend their neighborhood, but they don't have a chance. The National Guard sprays the residents with machine gun fire, and it gets worse. You have something new up in the air, and its airplanes start flying over Greenwood. There is evidence, and I believe this firmly, that at least on one of the airplanes, a co-pilot is dropping sticks of dynamite down on Greenwood.

This airplane was up, it's raining down the bullets, and I could see them, and I heard them, and I was so frightened. Greenwood is left a smoldering ruin. 9,000 people left homeless. The dead uncounted. Estimates range from 75 to 300. Lived until 2010, her granddaughter, Joy McConagy, keeps her story alive. Now, there was a lawsuit filed in 2020 under an Oklahoma public nuisance law, and that lawsuit argued that large swaths of Tulsa's black community suffers from the damage brought on by the massacre nearly a century later. Now, there are, believe it or not, three remaining survivors of this massacre. Their names are Lessee Benningfield, Viola Fletcher, and Hughes Van Ellis. Their attorneys argued that the massacre contributed to generations of economic instability

for the city's black community. Though many black families fled Tulsa after the attack, those who remained were never compensated for their losses. And so the suit was seeking very specific things, okay? A detailed accounting of the property and wealth lost or stolen as a of the attack, the construction of a hospital in North Tulsa, and also the creation of a Tulsa Massacre Victims Compensation Fund. But unfortunately, the judge in Oklahoma decided to throw out the case. So Tulsa County District Court Judge Caroline Wall dismissed the case in a written order after reviewing complaints from the city, the regional chamber of commerce, and other local agencies, they argued the plaintiffs request to compensate residents for the destruction of

the prominent black neighborhood would impose a significant burden on the government's financial stability. I do want to just quickly also read a comment that the attorney representing the Chamber of Commerce gave to the Associated Press a few years ago after the lawsuit had been filed. This is Graphic 4. What happened in 1921 was a really bad deal. And those people did not get a fair shake, but that was 100 years ago. So, Jank, I'm curious what you think because I think, you know, there are some legitimate questions about when these debates about reparation take place. Reparations take place. I think in this particular case, I mean, you have very specific victims, surviving victims of something horrific.

Yeah. You know, their livelihoods, their lives were upended, were destroyed as a result of this. I think they deserve reparations, but the defendants in this case, those arguing against the reparations, argued like, no, you know, there was no guarantee, let me actually give you. In their motion to dismiss, this is graphic three, lawyers for the state argued that the government cannot be held liable for civil disobedience, riot, insurrection, or rebellion, or the failure to provide providing police, law enforcement or fire protection, which, wait, what? That last part to me makes absolutely no sense whatsoever.

Yeah, so, okay, first of all, reparations is an enormously difficult issue for reasons I'm going to explain. This case, on the other hand, is not that difficult. First of all, they're still alive. So this is not like from 500 years ago and who are we going to trace back to what, right? No, they're right there. And they're the victims of that massacre. That's not that complicated.

So second of all, they're like, well, you see, it wasn't the government. It was just random riots. Really, where the planes come from? Yeah, National Guard. National Guard sounds like the government, doesn't it? Dropping dynamite and spraying bullets from airplanes? No, it was definitely the government. Okay.

And second of all, they're like, oh, then they say, oh, well, how could our municipality afford this? Now, that's an interesting issue when you get to other parts of reparations. But not in this case, because wait a minute, whenever the municipality does something wrong, they reward the particular victim, right? So, for example, in police abuse, we all pay for it. That's right. And we didn't sign up for it. We hated.

We don't want the police to abuse people for no reason. And remember, they win the cases where it's false charges. Usually they win the police do and the municipality does. Usually when the civilian wins, it's a really bad case. and we have decided as a society, we're all going to chip in to pay for that because it's not right for a citizen to live through that, et cetera. To me, I think the police should pay for it, but that's a different conversation, okay? So is there a precedent for paying people from the general fund of a city, a state,

or the federal government? Absolutely there is. Okay, so why is reparation is complicated? Because it depends on the timing, right? How far back do you go? How specific is it? So, for example, San Francisco passed the law that I thought. was absurd and it's now already been, I think Gavin Newsom got rid of it, so it never went

into effect, and that's a rare thing I agree with Gavin Newsom on, where they were like reparations for every black person in the city of San Francisco, and it was just so extreme, like they could buy a house for a dollar, and everybody else from every other race had to pay for all the reparations, etc. No, I mean, if they put that into place, San Francisco wouldn't exist. There'd be no, there'd be no non-black residents. They would have to foot the bill. An unbelievable, enormous bill they couldn't possibly pay for. And where did the black residents of San Francisco come from? Where did the non-black residents? No, that is totally unworkable, right? In this case, in a case in Southern California, we're going to tell you about

reparations are perfectly workable. Right. So it depends. I know people hate to hear it depends. But one thing that is clear to me is we should do just like South Africa did, truth and reconciliation. So I, and I hear I'm the exact opposite of the right wing when they say, oh, don't teach race, and the schools. No, I think everyone in high school should be taught what happened in the Tulsa master. Absolutely. Absolutely. Because you've got to know where we came from and what happened and why we're here. If you don't, what's the point of teaching history? Right. Yeah, I mean, we're supposed to learn from history. We're supposed to learn to avoid making the same mistakes.

I do want to now move on to a specific. I do want to now move on to a specific instance in which there were reparations and it made all the sense in the world. So this has to do with Bruce's Beach in Los Angeles County. And around the same time as the Tulsa Massacre, basically land was taken from a black family in Manhattan Beach, California, using eminent domain. So the involvement of the local government was much more pronounced in that particular instance. And so let's discuss it a little bit. The property was owned and operated by Charles and Willa Bruce for the benefit of the black community during racial segregation, right? So people wanted to go enjoy the beach, but because of racial segregation, black people weren't given the same services that white people

were given. And so this family, right, they wanted to create a business where black people can go and, you know, change, be able to prep themselves for the beach, you know, just enjoy themselves and have the same services that white people would get. And unfortunately, that made them a target. Okay, so let's watch this next video and then I'll tell you what the aftermath was and the reparations that took place many, many decades later. We had the bathhouse here in the dining hall. Dwayne Shepard is the family historian. He says the L.A. County Lifeguard headquarters now stands where Willa built Bruce's Lodge. It became a popular destination for the black community when segregation kept them off most beaches.

So people weren't supposed to cross this to go to the beach? They had to walk a half mile in either direction before they could get into the water. Barricades were built. Tires were slashed and one real estate agent even admitted he was trying to end the quote Negro invasion. It was a chapter of the Ku Klux Klan. They started harassing my family around 1920. They burned across. They threw burning mattresses under the porch of one of the buildings. City leaders ultimately used domain to shut down the Bruce's thriving business and make way for a park. It's a legal maneuver city and county leaders now confirm was racially motivated. So it was 1924 when the city of Manhattan Beach Council used eminent domain to close down

Willa, I'm sorry, Charles and Willa Bruce's business. And so the property was later, By the way, they used eminent domain. They're like, we want to build a park. That's what we wanted to. We want to build a park. It just sat empty. They did nothing with the land for literally decades. So it's pretty clear that they just wanted to shut down, you know, this black owned business.

And so it was eventually turned into a park in the 1960s. And it was renamed Bruce's Beach in 2007. Then in 2021, the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors voted unanimously. to approve returning the county land to the heirs of Charles and Willa Bruce. And so they did that. They handed over the land back to the rightful owners. And then they decided, the Bruce family decided to sell it back to the county to the tune of, I believe, $20 million.

Jank. Yeah. So that one again is pretty clear. That's the descendants. There's no question. And I've known about this case a long time because that's actually one of my favorite parts, to be honest. And when I read that the story behind it, my heart was broken. And when I found that they were going to actually compensate them, I was like, yes, finally, just a smidge of justice, right?

They had set up that business there. The business was thriving. It was, yep. And that is incredibly valuable real estate. If they had kept that real estate, Conrad Hilton started his hotel chain. right around the same time and in a similar area. I mean, God knows what could happen, right? If you let them actually thrive.

And instead, they viciously drove them out of the land. And so, and again, it wasn't that long ago, right? And so in this case, super clear, definitely give it to them. Now some people are upset that they sold it back to the county for 20 million bucks. No, no, no, that's their business. That's their business. That's not your business, it's their business. It was their land, their family, et cetera.

Now, I know that land, and they could have gotten $45 million, but there was going to be a lot of lawsuits, et cetera. Anyways, God bless our hearts for fighting all the way through and actually getting some justice here. But again, back to the original issue of, like, what do we do in general? I think if you've got specific ancestors like this, and you can tie it to a specific piece of land, a specific massacre, et cetera. It makes tons of sense, right?

Like, look, here, I'll give you a quick example from my past. that I use these obscure Turkish examples, but I'm trying to do that so that it's not biased by what's happening in the American context, right? So one of my ancestors from my dad's side was taking prisoner of war in a war between the Ottoman Turks and the Mamluk Turks, and this was a couple hundred years ago. And once you get taken as prisoner war back, then you were basically a slave. And now it's not the same thing as America, because it wasn't based on race, and it wasn't necessarily permanent. And my ancestor, after they kept him as a slave for X number of years, they eventually let him go, right?

So definitely apples and oranges. I just tell you that as, well, how do we get compensation for that? No, that's just a war. But that was, they were wrong. Can you see how this can get intense? All the wars, all the slavery, all across the world, all of the wrongs, all of the injustices. We have to try to fix things as much as we can without getting so overwhelmed that we can't function, right? and that it becomes hopeless and then people give up and go, then we shouldn't do anything.

That's why I'm positive that we should do reparations in specific cases. Marianne Williamson has a great line about this. A debt is owed, right? But most importantly, we have to teach the actual history of this country. Last thing on that, guys, we took the labor of African Americans in this country just stole it for hundreds of years. How much of a debt is owed for that? So you can't make that up. It's too big a number.

But at the same time, you have to know that this country was built on the backs of black people. And so I don't think that Americans overall have a deep enough appreciation for that. For, hey, now we have this wild disparity in wealth. Where did that wild disparity come from? It didn't come from, ah, they're not working hard enough. And this idiot Republicans saying things like, welfare queens, oh, no, it came from this history. And if you don't teach that, you're not teaching real history. And people don't know what actually happened.

And by the way, an important part of that is I wouldn't, and I would literally say this too. Guys, this isn't about people that live in this country today. You white person in Nebraska, you didn't do it, right? I'm Turkish. I immigrated here when I'm eight. I didn't do it. It's not about blaming people. It's about seeking justice and truth.

There's a giant difference. All right, that does it for the first hour. When we come back, pretty damning poll. Not looking so good for Ron DeSantis in the Republican primaries. We'll share that and more. Don't miss it. Thanks for listening to the full episode of the Young Turks. Support our work, listen to ad-free, access members-only bonus content, and more by subscribing to Apple Podcasts at apple.com slash t-y-t.

I'm your host, Shank Yugar, and I'll see you soon.