The Young Turks - Killed Bill

Episode Date: January 18, 2024

You’re vital to our work. Support as a member: https://go.tyt.com/signup. Senate kills Bernie’s measure to scrutinize Israeli human rights record as condition for aid. A Mississippi slaughterhouse is directly responsible for the death of a migrant teen who was sucked into machinery. The U.S. unveils plan to limit overdraft fees amid banking industry opposition. The ultra-wealthy who fly private are costing average flyers a lot of money. HOST: 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 ❤ Donate: http://www.tyt.com/go 🔗 Website: https://www.tyt.com 📱App: http://www.tyt.com/app 📬 Newsletters: https://www.tyt.com/newsletters/ If you want to watch more videos from TYT, consider subscribing to other channels in our network: The Watchlist https://www.youtube.com/watchlisttyt Indisputable with Dr. Rashad Richey https://www.youtube.com/indisputabletyt The Damage Report ▶ https://www.youtube.com/thedamagereport TYT Sports ▶ https://www.youtube.com/tytsports The Conversation ▶ https://www.youtube.com/tytconversation Rebel HQ ▶ https://www.youtube.com/rebelhq TYT Investigates ▶ https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCwNJt9PYyN1uyw2XhNIQMMA 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. Woo! It's up! What's up, everyone, welcome to TYT. I'm your host, Anna Kasparian. And today we've got a lot of news to get to. It's a little bit of a beat up on corporations type day. Yes, we are going to cover some updates on the ongoing war in Gaza.

But we also have a lot of, believe it or not, fun stories, poking fun at corporate culture in the second hour. John Iderola will be joining me for the second hour of the show. So you have that to look forward to. In the first hour, a lot of serious content to get to, including updates on Gaza. But more importantly, I wanted to share a positive story about the Biden administration. If you can believe it, I have been beating up on the Biden administration quite a bit lately over its handling of the war in Gaza. However, there is a policy that's being pushed by Biden as we speak. And it is a good policy that could really benefit you and the way that you're treated at some of these big banks.

And I think his war against these junk fees are, that's one of the more positive things to come out of the Biden administration. So we're going to talk about that a little later. We're also going to discuss how Nikki Haley played a role in some of the issues that Boeing is now having. in regard to their planes, malfunctioning, doors being ripped off mid-flight, all of that stuff. So don't miss that. That'll be later on in the first hour as well. But as always, guys, I just want to I just want to say this. When I'm putting the rundown together with my team every day, there are all sorts of stories on the table that are moneymakers, but they're also garbage. Okay, and we intentionally pick the important content, knowing that they're not necessarily going to make as much revenue or get as much viewership, because we really respect our audience. We want to make sure we get you guys accurate, important information on a daily basis. And so one way that you can support us for free is just by sharing the stream. If you're watching us online, you can like the stream. That also helps out. But if you have some, you know, sweet, sweet disposable income and you wanted to support us finance,

You can do so by becoming a member. You get all sorts of perks that come along with membership, including members only content, which we do every day after the main show. We'll be having a bonus episode tonight as well. So please think about that if you can, if you are ready and willing. And we always appreciate it because, as you all know, we like to be free from corporate influence. We like to be able to speak our minds and we wouldn't be able to do that without our members. So special thanks to them and to everyone who supports the show.

All right, without further ado, we should get to some of the updates in Gaza, although this story really does have to do with our Congress and what the Senate just recently did in killing a resolution that I would argue is incredibly important to pass. But nonetheless, let's get to it. In an effort to prevent ongoing war crimes from being committed by Israel in the Gaza Strip, Senator Bernie Sanders, attempted to place human rights conditions on U.S. military aid to Israel. Unfortunately, it didn't go so well. So I'm going to give you what the outcome of the Senate vote was in just a moment. But first, let's get familiar with what the resolution entails. Now, according to the intercept, the legislation, which was introduced in the upper chamber in December would have made sure that the State Department submits a report to Congress about allegations of Israel committing human rights violations and whether and how the United States specifically played a role and responded to such acts. So this is really about ensuring that what we are engaging in does not prop up or support, you know, human acts or violations of human rights.

So if the bill had passed, the State Department would basically be punished if they failed to submit a report within 30 days, meaning that USA to Israel would be frozen if the State Department fails to provide this reporting to members of Congress. Now, if the State Department had submitted a report to Congress, USA to Israel would have come to a vote, giving Congress an option to condition, restrict, or terminate security assistance to Israel, or do nothing at all. It really depends on what the report from the State Department would entail. And such votes would have required only a simple majority for passage. So this is really about ensuring that Congress does its job as part of our system of checks and balances, that it provides a check on the executive branch, in this case, the State Department and its unwavering, undying devotion to Israel, regardless of what that government consists of. At the moment, it is a far right government. It just ensures that there's enough oversight. Again, we're supposed to live in a country that has a government structured with these checks and balances. And as you all know, following the, you know, September 11th attacks on our country, Congress really did let go of a lot of their power and helped to consolidate more power in the executive branch, allowing for the president to act or the executive branch to act without congressional approval. And so Bernie Sanders wanted to do something about that, especially in this context where we see Israel carry out war crimes with the very military weaponry and funding that we have provided for them. Now, Sanders had firm legislative foundation, a firm legislative foundation to basically build on this proposal. And so Sanders' resolution was based on the Foreign Assistance Act, which prohibits the American government for providing security assistance to any government, which engages in a consistent pattern of gross violations of internationally recognized human rights, section 502 BC of the law empowers Congress, to request information on a country's human rights.

practices, which Sanders took advantage of to force this vote. So unfortunately, he did force the vote, but the resolution failed to pass. When it came to a vote Tuesday evening, the Senate voted 72 to 11 to table the resolution, effectively killing it. So I want to talk a little bit about who was in favor of this resolution, because while some of these individuals have been criticized pretty vociferously by me. They deserve credit for the way they voted. That includes LaFanza Butler. The current senator from California, she was appointed by Gavin Newsom. I have some issues with her past and some of the work that she did against labor. But in this case, she did the right thing, and I give her a lot of credit. You also have Martin Heinrich of

New Mexico. You have Senator Herono from Hawaii. You have Ed Marquis and Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts, Jeff Merkley of Oregon, Chris Van Hollen of Maryland, Peter Welch, of Vermont. These are all incredibly courageous members of Congress of the Senate who were willing to vote in favor of a resolution that ensured more accountability, not just for our State Department, but for the countries that we are providing military aid to. Now, Rand Paul was the only Republican to vote against tabling the resolution, and he deserves some credit in that regard as well. Van Hollen told the intercept that it's important for the Senate to get the information required by the proposed report. That's important for transparency. And I think taxpayers have a right to know how their funds are being used. And I completely agree with him on that. At the end of the day, do I think that Congress overall is going to vote against providing

the military aid to Israel? Probably not. But we do deserve to understand. The American people deserve to understand exactly how that aid is being utilized by the countries, in this case, Israel, that we're providing that aid too. But let's get to the Democrats who actually voted against this resolution and their excuses for doing so. Because in quote after quote, you'll notice that they'll say things like, yeah, you know, we do have some issues with how Israel is carrying out this war. But we're going to give you a really weak sauce excuse for why we voted against this resolution. So Senator Chris Murphy is one example. He has a record of scrutinizing human rights abuses by U.S. allies, but he voted against the resolution saying he supports Israel's right

to defend itself and that he has deep reservations about the way it has conducted its campaign, but he doesn't support measures potentially designed to cut off funding for Israel. The resolution, he said, is a vehicle toward completely cutting off aid to Israel. I don't think that's the right move for Congress at this time. Now, it doesn't have to be if Israel was, you know, a little more careful in their military operations, if they decided, you know what, maybe we don't level Gaza. Maybe we don't bomb every hospital. Maybe we don't bomb refugee camps. Maybe we're a little more careful with the civilian lives that we've been incredibly reckless and careless with so far. They wouldn't have to worry about the U.S. pulling support to Israel. But it's interesting

to me because, in my opinion, Senator Murphy's statement there seems to accept the fact that Israel is carrying out war crimes. They plan to continue carrying out war crimes. Thus, this resolution cannot pass because if it passes, there is some likelihood that the United States will pull the military funding from Israel. Now, it's worth getting into how Israel so far has utilized the military aid and the funding that we have provided them in this war on Gaza. because we've shared stories about the 2,000 pound bombs. And what you're watching footage of right now is the destruction carried out in Gaza with those 2,000 pound bombs that we have provided to the IDF. On December 30th, the Wall Street Journal reported that almost 70% of Gaza's homes, homes have been severely damaged or completely destroyed.

And just to give you a sense of how many homes we're talking about here, we're talking about more than 307,000 homes in. total. There's nothing for Gazans to go home to. You know, we keep hearing about displaced Palestinians. They were forced to evacuate to the south. Now the south is being bombed. And there's all this talk about whether or not Palestinians are going to be allowed to return to their homes in the north. There are no homes in the north. You just saw the footage. You see the reporting, including reporting coming out of publications that have been incredibly favorable and complimentary to Israel in the past. But you can't ignore the images and the reports that we're seeing. You can't ignore the fact that at this point, 10,000 literal children

have perished in this war. And we should also talk about the fact that the bombing has damaged Byzantine churches and ancient mosques, factories and apartment building, shopping malls, luxury hotels, theaters and schools, much of the water, electrical communications, and healthcare infrastructure that made Gaza function is beyond repair. So when we have a discussion about war crimes, this is what we're talking about, the leveling of Gaza, the destruction of their hospitals to a point where none of the hospitals at this point are functioning at 100% capacity. About three of them are barely functioning. And you combine that with the aerial bombardments and just the sheer number of Palestinians who haven't perished yet, but are suffering from severe wounds,

from amputations, who do not have access to appropriate medicine to stay alive. All of this stuff plays a role in why the international community, with the exception of the United States in the U.K. has deep concerns and deep problems with how Israel is carrying out this war. So there's more. The latest military operation carried out by the IDF was at and around the Al-Nasr hospital in Kan Unis. This is in southern Gaza, displaced Palestinians sheltering at the hospital, which is the largest in the southern region of the Gaza Strip. You see patients now fleeing. Their videos all over the internet showing them being displaced once again. About 7,000 people are believed to have been sheltering on the hospital grounds, according to the

United Nations humanitarian office. That's what they said in their daily update on Wednesday, adding that an intensification of hostilities in the area was further obstructing access for patients and health workers. And many displaced Palestinians in Gaza have, again, have already been relocated several times, they've been displaced. More than a million individuals we're talking about here in a already densely populated region of the world. They're being, you know, basically forced into an even smaller portion of the Gaza Strip seeking safety, but as several humanitarian aid organizations, as the UN has said, as the World Health Organization has said, there really is no safe place in the Gaza Strip.

Even the areas that have been deemed safe by the IDF have been bombed, have suffered these aerial bombardments and shelling by the IDF. And the World Health Organization reported that Nassar treated 700 patients on Monday of this week, double its usual daily caseload, requiring some patients to be cared for on the floor. It noted Wednesday that only 15 out of Gaza's 36 hospitals were even partially functional. But guys, I mean, you look at foot from within those hospitals and to say that they're partially functional, and it's a structure that is still standing. To say that it's functional as you see all of these people suffering on the floor, children being amputated without any anesthesia, it's laughable to even say that they're

partially functional. The Jordanian army also said that the Jordanian Field Hospital, which is near Nassar, had been severely damaged by Israeli fire in the area. It said a person working at the hospital had been wounded and would be airlifted to Jordan for treatment. So this is obviously increasing hostilities in the region. We're now hearing about Iran conducting airstrikes in three different countries, including Pakistan, a nuclear power, including in Syria and Iraq. They did an air strike in Iraq just yesterday. So this is not only leading to a humanitarian crisis on the ground in Gaza, but it's also

leading to an expanded regional war, which is absolutely terrifying, especially when you consider that Pakistan is unfortunately a nuclear power. But it's one thing to hear about the death, destruction, and sheer torture the Palestinians are facing in the Gaza Strip. It's another thing to actually see it. And there are some brave reporters who continue to work there, providing footage, providing reports of what's happening on the ground, despite the fact that dozens of journalists have died in this war. More journalists have died in Gaza than in any other war over the last century, giving you a sense of just how brutal conditions are on the ground. And if you're having difficulty visualizing it, well, here's a report from Channel 4 News in the UK.

Doctors fight to keep alive the victims of an Israeli airstriking ruffer. A medic tries to comfort one young boy. The body of a small child wrapped in a shroud. A distraught father struggles to process his loss. This, a snapshot of the pain being inflicted every night, every day. More than 10,000, you have me. children in Gaza have been killed in this war so far. How many more will die before it ends? And that is what some Americans and 12 senators are arguing right now as we speak. How far is this

going to go? And are the American people and the American government comfortable with sending military aid, including those 2,000 pound bombs, to a government that has been so incredibly reckless and careless with the lives of these Palestinian civilians. I can only speak for myself and people that I personally know who do not enjoy knowing that, you know, it feels like we have blood on our hands as we sanction this war, as we allow this to continue to be carried out. And it's unfortunate when you look at the Democratic voter base and you notice that upward of 80% of Democrats want a ceasefire, yet the United States Senate, which at the moment is dominated by Democratic politicians, refuses to hear their own constituents out, refuses to carry out

the wishes of their own constituents. And I really do hope that there's a political price to pay for that. And finally, the World Food Program estimates that 93% of the Palestinian population in Gaza faces crisis levels of hunger, disease is also spreading rapidly. The World Health Organization predicts that the death toll from sickness and starvation in coming months could eclipse the number of people who have already been killed so far in Gaza, and that's more than 24,000 people. Now back to the resolution that unfortunately failed in the Senate, some argue that the 11 senators voting in favor of that resolution shows that there are some signs of

progress in the country. One of the people arguing that is Andrew O'Neill from the advocacy group indivisible. He argues it's frankly historic that this vote, such a low bar, took place at all. The number of senators willing to take a vote like this even weeks ago on the face of it would have been zero. I appreciate that he's trying to look at the silver lining here, But I argue that this is an indictment of the United States government, specifically the United States Senate, since this is the story about a common sense resolution, if you ask me, failing in the Senate. And I just ask everyone watching, are you comfortable knowing that it is precisely our bombs that we are supplying to the Israeli military that has led to so much suffering and so much death among the Palestinian people in the Gaza Strip? I'm not okay with it, and I really do wish that our politicians hurt us out and carried out what we want instead of what various lobbying groups like APAC and the Democratic majority for Israel want. We got to take a break. When we come back, we have more news for you. We're going to switch gears and possibly cover some positive news coming out of the Biden administration. So stick around. We'll be right back. Book Club on Monday

Gym on Tuesday Date night on Wednesday Out on the town on Thursday Quiet night in on Friday It's good to have a routine And it's good for your eyes too Because with regular comprehensive eye exams at Specsavers You'll know just how healthy they are

Visit Spexavers.cavers.cavers.cai to book your next eye exam Eye exams provided by independent optometrists. Welcome back to TYT. I'm your host, Anna Kasparian, and we're now going to travel right back to the United States and talk a little bit about what's happening within our borders, because while Palestinians are suffering and dying in the Gaza Strip, Unfortunately, we have literal miners working jobs that they are not supposed to be working and losing their lives as a result of that. So this is an update on a story that we covered about five months ago. And it looks like there will be some consequences for a specific company.

But the question is, will this be enough? Well, let's get to it. Duvonne's uncle saying he put his hand on the machine and his whole body was pulled in where he couldn't stop himself and nobody could help him. Family members and the local coroner say Duvon was just 16. He was working at Marjack Poultry in Hattiesburg. Police confirm his body was found trapped in a conveyor belt. Now that was five months ago when devastating news broke about a minor, a 16-year-old getting killed while working a job that he should not have been working in in the first place.

And now federal officials have found that Marjack Poultry, This is a processing plant in Mississippi is directly responsible for the death of this 16-year-old in their facility. Now, as a reminder of what happened back in July of 2023, Duvonne Perez, the 16-year-old worker, was cleaning a deboning area or cleaning within a deboning area of the Hattiesburg plant when his hand unfortunately got cut or caught and his body got pulled into this. machinery. OSHA officials said that while Marjac manager was supervising in and around the area prior to and during the accident, procedures were not utilized to disconnect power to the machine. Now, obviously, there was an investigation into this. And what the federal investigators found was that the facility had failed to follow proper lockout slash tagout procedures, which safeguard employees from an unexpected energization or startup of machines and equipment.

So lockout, tag out procedures were not utilized to disconnect the power to the machine. And the lockout tagout device was not used to prevent the machine from unintentionally starting during the cleaning, OSHA said. Now again, I just really want to reiterate, we should keep in mind that this was a 16-year-old who should not have been allowed to work at that factory under federal laws. And this is a story that we see popping up over and over again. We see instances where minors who are supposed to have certain protections from working certain jobs end up getting severely injured or they end up losing their lives because they're working these jobs. They shouldn't be working. So with that said,

let's take a look at what I'm talking about in regard to these federal laws that are so brazenly ignored by some of these companies. The company says it relies on staffing agencies and was unaware a minor was working at the facility, adding Marjack MS would never knowingly put any employee and certainly not a minor in harm's way. But it appears at this point in the investigation that this individual's age and identity were misrepresented on the paperwork. Under U.S. law, no one under the age of 18 is allowed to work dangerous jobs and meat

processing plants. A recent labor department investigation found more than 100 children, cleaning slaughterhouse floors in the Midwest overnight. Could it be, could it be that this problem is so pervasive because the consequences and the penalties for employing minors and jobs that they are barred from working based on federal laws are not persuasive enough, not enough of a disincentive to do what they're doing here. And by the way, I'm getting real tired of hearing from companies who want to basically pass the buck and claim that there's a third party, there's a contractor involved, that they're not overseeing. And it's really the third party's fault for employing this minor in the first place. You know, this employee, the 16 year old who lost his life, they thought he was

a 32-year-old. Did that kid look like a 32-year-old man? Come on. Come on. We know what's going on here. Now, the Fair Labor Standards Act specifically lists sanitation of meat and poultry plant equipment as hazardous activity that's off limits to underage workers. And look, we don't know exactly when Perez, who immigrated from Guatemala to Mississippi six years ago, started working at this poultry plant, but he was hired by a third party staffing agency using a false identity of a 32-year-old man. But again, I mean, if that 16-year-old went to a bouncer at a club and tried to get into a 21 and older club, do you think the bouncer would let him in? So why is it that a literal corporation that's supposed to have safeguards in place was unable to determine that the 16-year-old

wasn't actually a 32-year-old. And luckily, in this case, OSHA wasn't really buying that ridiculous argument, which is why they have decided to implement some penalties here. But again, I don't think the penalties are enough. Someone literally lost their life. And they lost their life because of the fact that the company seemed to have no problem, employing someone who appeared to be underage, working in this position that he should not have been working in.

Now, OSHA Regional Administrator Kirk Peter Meyer said in a statement just yesterday, following the fatal incident in May of 2021, this is a completely separate incident, by the way, and it's important for you to know about. Marjah poultry should have enforced strict safety standards in its facility. Only about two years later, nothing has changed and the company continues to treat employee safety as an afterthought, putting its workers at risk. No worker should be. placed in a preventable dangerous situation, let alone a child. So what he's referencing there was an incident where another worker, in this case an adult, ended up losing their life in 2021 after the worker's shirt sleeve got caught in a different machine. So it pulled him in and killed him, much like what happened to the 16 year old who lost his life two years later. And I bring that up because after that incident, they were supposed to take action to implement certain safeguards to ensure that their workers were safe. In this case, that they're adult workers who are allowed to work these positions are safe. And they did nothing. Nothing changed.

So including Perez's death, the 16 year old's death, the company has had three deaths and one amputation just in the past three years. OSHA previously cited them in 2020 and 2020. in 2021 for four safety violations and three separate incidents, totaling $52,355 in initial penalties. Now, that sounds like a lot of money. It does, right? For an average Joe, that is a lot of money. Not a lot of money for a company, for a corporation that has revenue, yearly revenue in the hundreds of millions of dollars, which is why they keep brazenly ignoring the law, why they keep brazenly ignoring the safety standards that are required of them by federal law. And in the case of a literal 16 year old losing his life, they got, in my opinion, another slap on the wrist.

They were fined $212,000, a little over that, but $212,000, give or take. I mean, that is nothing for this company, clearly. Is this going to be enough to persuade them to actually give a damn about the safety of their workers? Look, we're supposed to live in a society where the actions of someone leading to the death of someone else. Like in this case, if I had engaged in some sort of activity that led to the death of an innocent individual, right? I might get charged with involuntary manslaughter. How is it that no one gets any criminal charges when this kind of brazen, ignoring a federal law, happens and when people lose their lives as a result of that, it's just absolutely gross and

disgusting. They don't care about the fines. When Marjax attorney, Larry Stein, was asked about the potential fines from the labor department and how it could affect the company and how they do business. Look, I think he said what he was supposed to say, right? Because they have to pretend like they give a damn about the lives of their workers. And that's actually a bigger loss than the money that they're going to lose from these fines. He said, quote, I think the publicity of having something like that is far worse than the penalty. Nobody wants to be seen to have been hiring a child. You're right. No one wants to see that this company is hiring a child who was then working in a position that was incredibly dangerous for adults. But what makes this situation

even worse is not only did they employ a 16 year old in a job that he should not have been working in. They also did not care enough about the safety of their workers to do a damn thing after one of their own lost his life in 2021. And so companies are not going to change their actions based on the kindness of their hearts. Maybe in some rare cases they will. But you have to provide enough of a disincentive for them breaking the laws that they actually follow the laws. Clearly these fines aren't working. And I think it's time to think a little outside the box and consider whether certain criminal charges should be filed against executives at a

company like this, especially a company that has so many violations in such a short period of time. news because while I have no problem tearing Biden apart, especially with his handling of the Warren Gaza, I do want to give him credit for how he's been pretty ferociously tackling junk fees. So let's get right to it. I knew that we only had about $11 in our account. And I had to make sure that we had enough food to get us through. I spent about $9 in three different transactions. Something went through our account that we had forgotten about. And so our account was already an overdraft. We were charged $30 each overdraft. We didn't have much money to begin with in the account. And I was being so careful. And yet we got socked with almost

$100 in overdraft. House Republicans are absolutely ripping the Biden administration for their plan to protect Americans from greedy banks looking to profit by charging exorbitant overdraft fees. Now, the move is also pissing off banks, who happens to be the top donors for the very politicians crying out about these proposals. Now, this is sure to spark a massive fight between the White House and financial giants. And I love to see it. This is one of the rare areas where I think the Biden administration deserves a lot of credit. So let's talk about their proposal and what this could do to actually make your life better as you bank with some of these big banks across the country. Under the new draft rules, unveiled by the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau,

my favorite government agency, banks would be subject to tough credit card-like regulations on their overdraft programs, unless they agree to lower fees on customers. The charges would be capped, either to the amount necessary for a bank to recover its losses or to a federal maximum, which may be set between $3 and $14. Now, if you're unfamiliar with overdraft fees, I don't know how you could be as an adult. I feel like every adult in this country has suffered from an overdraft fee at least once, but it is worth getting into how they work to really understand how unjust they are. So basically, if a consumer spends more money than they have, if they use their checking account

to buy something. And let's say they've got $10 left in their checking account. And they buy something that's $10.15. Well, that $15 means that they have charged more than what they have in their funds. And so the bank will tack on an overdraft fee. In some cases, as high as 35 bucks. Now, think about how unjust that is, right? When you think about, the easy access to cheap credit that Americans have had for such a long time, the idea that they should see this as like, oh, it's kind of like a credit card, right? You have fees, just like a credit card. No, this is actually totally different. And it's far more exorbitant, far more expensive than simply buying items on a credit card. Now, the fees historically have

fallen the hardest on poor Americans while enriching major banks. The fees are predatory in a lot of cases, the CFP, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, says that the fees can be as much as $35, even though the average debit card overdrafts by consumers are actually less than $26. So you kind of see the uneven nature and the unfairness of these fees. So this has been a problem for so long that TYT has covered it many, many times. In fact, here's a video from 12 freaking years ago when TYT covered it. Let's watch. Every time that you went over your account and you didn't even know about it, you'd get charged

like $35. So let's say you went over because your rent was too much and then you bought a cup of coffee for $2, then you went to McDonald's and had a $7 meal, $35 for your original overdraft, $35 for your cup of coffee, $35 for the McDonald's meal, every one of those added up. It is even more outrageous than what you laid out. So let's say you had $50 in your bank account left, and then you made a charge for, on one day, made charge for $1, $2, $3, $4, $4, $6, and then one for $75, right? If the way they make those transactions happen is based on time, it would be kind of fair.

But here's what they do. They take all the transactions from that day. Then they clear the most expensive transaction, so you're instantly overdrafted. And then each subsequent transaction for $1, $2, $4, those are all overdrafts too. Which is so unfair because if you just did it by chronological order, half of those wouldn't be overdrafts because you had the money. I mean, it's just so absolutely sick, right? They would reorder the transactions to ensure that the more expensive transactions cleared earlier. That way subsequent transactions would increase the number of overdraft fees that are implemented in your account by the bank.

And this really did harm a lot of Americans and ended up being a major profitable element of the business model for these banks. So for instance, in 2022, overdraft charges generated nearly $9 billion in revenue for the industry. and that's according to data furnished this week by the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, which is repeatedly punished banks for imposing excessive penalties to boost their profits. And look, there has been some action already taken against banks for implementing these overdraft fees in ways that are just, believe it or not, even shadier than what you've just learned about. For instance, as part of a roughly $4 billion settlement with Wells Fargo in 2022, the Bureau found the company's overdraft practices to be illegal, alleging that the bank charged customers

even in cases when customers had enough money in their accounts. The Treasury Department, meanwhile, fined Bank of America last July for imposing overdraft fees multiple times on a single transaction. And top CFPB officials say the regulations, which would only apply to the largest banks can still save consumers about $3.5 billion annually in fees. So that is what the Biden administration, or I should say the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau under the Biden administration is trying to do for the American people. They're trying to save you $3.5 billion annually in these junk overdraft fees. But big banks are big mad. Some industry lobbyists are expecting to sue the agency if they issue any final rules, potentially denying relief to

Americans who have clamored for the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau to finally do something about this. And in an effort to avoid federal government, the federal government from regulating the fees, some of the banks have already taken some actions. So I think that this is a good case study proving how just the mere threat of the government working on behalf of the American people will lead to corporations, banks, companies preemptively making changes because they don't want the regulation. So for instance, Bank of America reduce the amount of its fees from $35 to $10, which is great. Well, as Fargo similarly overhauled its policies in 2022, probably after they lost that investigation by the feds. They joined some banks in instituting a grace

period in which a customer can make their account whole before any fee is incurred. And then there are some other banks like Capital One, for instance, that have decided, you know what, we're just going to eliminate overdraft fees entirely, providing, provided that the customers that we're working with are making regular deposits in their account. So like, you'll see this with a lot of bank accounts, right? We won't charge you any fees, no monthly fees, no yearly fees if you do a direct deposit into this account. Now, even though Americans who could use the money have access to way cheaper credit than like what these overdraft fees end up charging, a pair of House Republicans are

basically regurgitating the very talking points coming from lobbyists representing these banks. And those GOP lawmakers include Patrick McHenry from North Carolina and Andy Barr from Kentucky. They claim that this proposal would only harm consumers in the long run. Because consumers really, like their lives are enriched by junk fees, according to these guys. Here's what they argue. The Biden administration's attempts to mandate one size fits all consumer financial products and services, diminish financial inclusion. Or we're using the language of inclusion to defend these acts by these banks? Okay.

Limbic consumer choice, stifle innovation. How is it innovative to charge ridiculous junk fees? How is that innovative? But anyway, let me continue. And it ultimately raised the cost of banking for all consumers. It's just, again, more of the same boring talking points. And it's important for you guys to know this because as a certain faction of the GOP has kind of co-opted economic populist rhetoric to fool their constituents, it really must be said that these are people who do not care about your financial stability. They don't care about how predatory practices by banks or corporations negatively impact your life and your finances.

They also went on to say this proposed rule will further reduce access to the short-term liquidity products that millions of Americans rely on to help make ends meet. We urge the CFPB to withdraw this misguided proposal that harms the very consumers the agency was created to protect. I don't say this lightly. This is absolutely true. The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau at this point is literally the only government agency that consistently gets Americans their money back when they've been defrauded, when they've been scammed. We also luckily now have fantastic leadership in the Federal Trade Commission. Lina Khan is doing a great job ensuring that antitrust laws aren't being broken by corporations, that some of these mergers that would give you Less options, less choices do not come to fruition. And that's also something that the GOP seems to be super salty about. So while on one hand, they claim that they want to protect your options, make no mistake about it. What you see among the corporatist wing of both parties, to be quite frank, is this effort

to maintain a system in which corporations monopolize, corporations give you less options. And I'm really happy to see that the CFPB and the Federal Trade Commission is working hard to basically dismantle all of that. So good news coming out of the Biden administration, I'd like to give myself a pat on the back for being very fair. Because, well, again, I'm very critical of Biden. This is something that he and his administration deserves some credit for. All right, we got to take a break. When we come back, we have more news for you, including, well, a pretty infuriating story about how you are subsidizing the trials. of wealthy people on private jets.

Don't miss it. This episode is brought to you by Square. You're not just running a restaurant. You're building something big. And Square's there for all of it. Giving your customers more ways to order, whether that's in person with Square kiosk or online. Instant access to your sales,

plus the funding you need to go even bigger. And real-time insights so you know what's working, what's not, and what's next. Because when you're doing big things, your tools should too. Visit square.ca to get started. Welcome back to TYT. I'm your host, Anna Kasparian, and we covered some, corporate related stories in the show so far. A lot of it really does upset me, but this next one really is a doozy, something that I hadn't even considered in regard to those who like to travel on private jets. So let's talk about the details. All of us economy flyers out there

are apparently subsidizing high rollers who like to get around on private jets. You probably didn't know that, did you? But that's absolutely the case. Believe it or not, private travel has actually surged in the United States. Private jets make up one out of every six flights handled by the Federal Aviation Administration's air traffic controllers. Now, that's an agency that needs to get paid. They need resources in order to function. And our taxes help to fund their operations. The only problem is the way that those funds and the way that those taxes are collected

is incredibly unfair to ordinary Americans who are footing the vast majority of the bill. Now, the Institute for Policy Studies and Patriotic Millionaires put out a new report that shows that private jet travelers pay just 2% of the taxes used to fund the FAA. 2%. That's it, just 2%. The rest comes from us. So how? Commercial flyers must. pay a tax on every ticket equivalent to 7.5% of the fair price. But private flyers only pay a jet fuel tax. And while commercial plane tickets have increased in price in recent years, jet fuel costs have remained steady, the report found, meaning that commercial travelers are ponying up an increasing portion of the taxes, which is infuriating. How is this not infuriating? And, It gets even more infuriating once you realize how much those taxes were cut further through the CARES Act under the Biden administration.

Now, let's break this down into specific numbers, because once you do that, you'll realize that the reality of this whole unfair situation is even more infuriating. So jet fuel taxes made up $186 million of the more than $8 billion, billion with a B in tax revenue that was allocated to the AATF. in fiscal year 2021, or about 2% of the fund's total tax revenue, the report read. Meanwhile, more than half of the AATF's tax revenue, $5.32 billion, came from passenger taxes, meaning the taxes, ordinary people like your eye pay when we buy a ticket to fly anywhere. So it gets even worse than that. Private jets also use almost 3,000 of the companies. smaller airports that aren't used by any commercial airlines, but are indeed funded in part by the FAA. So in other words, taxpayers are subsidizing the infrastructure that commercial

flyers don't use, because again, these are airports that commercial planes do not operate out of. The funds the FAA sends to these airports known as general aviation airports are generated in large part from the taxes that commercial travelers are paying every time that they buy a ticket to travel. And we're also subsidizing and paying for the pollution that these private jets put out into the environment. Private jets emit up to 14 times more climate warming pollution per passenger than commercial planes. And that's according to the NGO known as transport and environment. They did a report of their own in 2021, and that's what they found. The IPE and patriotic millionaires recommend that the government double the federal jet fuel tax from 0.219 per gallon to 0.438 cents per gallon to discourage short flights, discourage flying, and fund sustainable or sustainability efforts.

And the report estimated that Elon Musk, who with 171 flights, was the most active private flyer in the United States last year, would have paid nearly $97,000, honestly, chump change for him in federal jet fuel taxes on the approximately 221,358 gallons of jet fuel he consumed in 2022 under the proposed higher tax. And what I find so amazing is that when it comes to people like Elon Musk, when it comes to people like Elon Musk, when it comes to, to some of the wealthier individuals, the billionaires in this country, they love to like attack Joe Biden as some sort of like Marxist. Like he's a socialist and he's really hurting big business and he's really this high tax, high regulation guy. When in reality, the first thing Biden did as president of the United States back in 2021 was the CARES Act. And the CARES Act included a lot of goodies, a lot of provisions for the rich and the famous, namely tax cuts that impact those who like to travel on private jets. And if you want to know what I'm

talking about, this is what I mean. The CARES Act suspended the 7.5% federal excise tax on private jet flights for the rest of this year. But there was a loophole, no expiration date for those flights. So you could buy the flights now and take them years from now. Private jet companies are launching big bulk jet cars that don't expire for four years or even longer. Netjets, Magellan, Jets.com, lots of others, racking up big sales right now with cards of up to 100 hours that are tax-free. So if you bought 100 hours on a G450 from Magellan for 1.2 million, you would save $94,000 on taxes. And by the way, you don't have to take the flight until 2024. Now some companies like sentient or fly exclusive don't even

have any expiration date. So you can take these flights anytime until the funds run out. I mean, so as our flights on commercial planes become more and more expensive and more miserable to be honest with you, right? They do calculate it misery. So you're more willing to spend more money for minor comforts on a commercial flight, right? I mean, you feel like you're in a tin can, you're squished, there's barely any room in the seat, and they find new fees and new ways. Basically, the travel has become far more expensive for ordinary people. At the same time, they're footing the bill for the FAA through the taxes that they pay for every single ticket that they buy for these flights.

And in the meantime, the wealthy, the people who get to, you know, travel around in these private jets, you know, spreading all this pollution, all that stuff, they get the tax break. They get to experience the benefits of our tax money, basically making it easier and better for them to travel, while our experience becomes far worse year after year. And so I just want you all to remember what happened during the holidays in 2022 when all those flights were canceled, when the federal government was hymning and homing and basically saying that they were going to do something to make the situation better. There were some fines for some of these airlines. But look, at the end of the day, I don't begrudge people who are well to do, okay? I don't begrudge people for wanting nice things. I don't want to feed into hatred of any. group of people, including those who have been successful financially, I just think that they should pay their fair share. I think it's unfair for ordinary working Americans who year after year are getting crushed by all sorts of things, whether it be higher taxes and inflation,

all that stuff. I'm tired of them being the ones who fund everything in this country, Well, the richest people who could certainly afford to pay a higher percentage of their income toward taxes, basically get away with paying far less. Whether we're talking about corporations, whether we're talking about, you know, individual wealthy travelers who travel on private jets, it's just an unfair system. This country is overwhelmingly funded by the middle class in America, by working Americans. And I'm so sick of them getting screwed over. So while on one hand, I give Biden credit for wanting to do something to tackle junk fees that are charged by corporations and banks. I do want to call

him out for this tax break for private jet travelers in the CARES Act. Get it together. It's not right for ordinary Americans to foot the bill for the fancy travel of billionaires. All right, we got to take a break when we come back. John Ida Rolla will join me for the second hour. A lot of fun stories in the second hour today, so don't miss it. I don't know. Thank you.