The Young Turks - Living in Sinema

Episode Date: April 23, 2021

President Biden commits the U.S. to cut greenhouse gas emissions in half by 2030. Maggie Hassan’s campaign recently cashed a check from the lobbyist leading the opposition to the minimum wage, while his spouse raises money for her. 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. Thank you. All right, welcome to the Young Church. Thank you, Granite Kusperian with you guys. Hey, Anna, how you doing? Hi, how you doing?

I'm doing really well. I'm hanging out, I'm ready to share the news with the world. I'm feeling good, I'm feeling spicy. All right, I like that. I feel likewise, likewise sharing the news, likewise spicy. Hence, we do a show called The Young Turks. All right, so later in the program, Chris is cinema tries to weaponize sexism. She will fail.

It will be a scud missile, it will miss. And we have the Iron Dome here, everything's going to be okay. But meanwhile, not everything okay for our governor Cuomo or the royal family. Now, there's actually important news about that in the context of things we care about. So we got, it's as usual, a roller coaster of a ride here on TYT tonight. So let us commence the roller coaster. Well, I thought it would be important to kind of get into the details of the Senate passed coronavirus relief bill and how it's different from what the House passed.

So following cuts to some aid and direct checks to Americans, the Senate has voted in favor of passing the coronavirus relief bill. Based on party lines, of course, the altered legislation now heads over to the House of Representatives for approval before getting signed by Joe Biden. That could all happen in the next few days. Now, there are some differences between what the Senate passed versus what the House had passed earlier. And I wanted to give you some of those differences right now. The Senate version of the bill does implement more means testing. For instance, under the House bill, the cash payment would phase out for singles with incomes between $75,000 and $100,000 and married couples between $150,000 and $200,000.

But under the Senate bill, the phase out stops at $80,000 for singles and $160,000 for married couples. Now, that's important context because some were under the impression that after moderate Democrats succeeded in stripping out the 50,000 an hour minimum wage hike in the Senate version of the bill, then moderates, or I should just say conservative Democrats like Mansion and Cinema would back off when it comes to some of the other concessions they were looking for. It appears that was not the case. And the means testing will be a little more intense than necessary when it comes to the direct checks to Americans. Already the Biden administration had cut down the amount that they were willing to provide from $2,000 to $1,400, and now it'll be more targeted. And this means that there are millions

of Americans who did qualify for the direct checks, who now will not qualify. About 5 million Americans will not qualify for the checks when they did in fact receive the checks under the Trump administration. And keep in mind that we're talking about Democrats debating amongst themselves within the Senate, which makes this thing so frustrating. But to be sure there are positive elements to this legislation as well, which we'll get to in just a second. And I apologize. I also want to clarify that roughly 8 million, not five, roughly 8 million fewer households will get a check under the Senate bill compared with what the House passed, and that's according to analysis from the tax policy center. So there's more, Jank, that I want

to share. But what are your thoughts on this move toward more means testing? And also cutting the amount of money for the unemployment insurance benefits from $400 a week to $300 a week. Yeah. So first, let me explain that detail. And then I'll give you broad strokes here. So the reason why they made the deal to cut it from $400 to $300, but add the provision that you can now deduct the unemployment benefits from your taxes. You don't have to pay taxes on them. That is not to help the deficit. That's initially what they said, but that makes no sense because it actually did not change those numbers at all. The reason they did it was because the Chamber of Commerce said, I need you to drive everybody back to the minds, right?

So I don't, basically the Chamber of Commerce does not mind that's the business community, the corporations that run our government. They do not mind the government giving away a lot of money to individuals because they think, well, we barely pay any taxes. like Amazon pays $0 in taxes. Apple often pays $0 in taxes. So they're like, it's basically certain number of citizens financing other citizens. And then those citizens are more likely to spend money on our corporations. We're okay with that. But if you give them a lot of unemployment insurance or what they perceive to be a lot of unemployment insurance, that's going to mess with them coming back to work because we pay them nearly slave wages. So the minute you pay them anything above slave wages, they might not come back to work as quickly.

quickly. So don't do that. Now, we could have fixed all this not going through unemployment, tax credits, et cetera, but actually just raising their wages. But that is the thing that corporations hate the most. Keep the wages low so we can maximize profit. If you're going to funnel government help to them in other ways, we don't mind because that's not our money, that's your money that's just getting passed around. That's why they did that provision in that funky way, because If you're a normal logical person, you would think, why? Why mess around with that at all? Why do this incredibly convoluted way instead of the more straightforward way? And that's because corporations are the ones that control politicians, and they do not want higher wages.

They took out almost everything that would have touched higher wages in one way or another. So which then brings us back to the general point. Look, are there great provisions in this bill? Yes, yes, there definitely are, right? And it cuts poverty by a very significant. amount. We'll talk about that, the child tax credit, earned income tax credit, which I've told you was great. But all those provisions were not really under question. So the reason why we emphasize the $15 minimum wage and some of this reduced payments to some families, like 8 million people being left out, is because no one disagreed on the great parts. So great, mission accomplished. We needlessly threw away some wonderful parts of this bill, honestly, in a negotiation

with Joe Manchin and Krista Sinema's donors, which are, again, the Chamber of Commerce. Also, same of the other six Democrats that voted against the minimum wage. They don't work for you. They work for their corporate donors. And that's why you have the convoluted formulas, and that's why you have everything touching wages being taken out of the bill. Yeah, I think that's exactly right. And in regard to the various ways in which the Senate version of the bill is better than the House

version of the bill, I think it's worth taking a look at how much the Senate bill would actually subsidize COBRA, which would keep employees on, or it would keep people on their employer's health insurance plan for about 18 months, even after they've been laid off. So this is a way of kind of making up for the fact that we don't have a robust social safety net when it comes to health care in this country. Biden was unwilling to unilaterally expand Medicare so it covers every single person who had been laid off, which by the way, he does have the ability to do during a pandemic. Instead, what they're going to do is they're going to subsidize 100% of COBRA premiums, which is better than what the House proposed. The House bill temporarily subsidized 85% of the insurance premiums, which can be expensive. Cobra is notorious for being expensive.

The Senate bill will include a 100% subsidy of Cobra health insurance premiums to ensure that the laid off workers can remain on their employer health plans at no cost through the end of September. So through the end of September is shorter than I would like to see, but the fact that it subsidized 100% is certainly better than 85%. And then moving on to the expansion of the child tax credit, because I think that's the strongest element in this proposal. So it would provide $3,600 per child under the age of six and $3,000 per child between the ages of 6 and 17. And it would be deposited into Americans bank accounts every quarter, right? So this is different from child tax credits as we've known them where when someone files for taxes, a certain

amount of their income won't be taxed. That's not how it's going to work. People would literally get a deposit into their bank accounts by the Treasury Department once every quarter. And it really depends on how many children a family has and how old those children are. And that's huge. I mean, we're talking about $7,600 for a family of four, for a typical family of four, as long as they're not raking in a ton of money every year. So that's some positive news. And I'm glad that that portion of it was included in the Senate bill. Yeah, so let's go back to COBRA for a second. Why gratuitously throw in more benefits for COBRA?

Nobody asked for it. I'm glad they did it. That's a good development, right? Again, employers sometimes have to pay a portion of COBRA. So they tell corporate Democrats, I don't want to pay any portion of it. this will be a good way for you guys to get more relief to Americans and still, A, not hurt business interests, but B, help business interests. So that's why they're giving anything they can to help the business community in a way that is concealed as well as it could. And now, to be fair

to the Biden administration, this bill helps corporations directly a lot less than the other bills. And it helps the average American way more. So the other bills were around 37% of the money went to individuals. In this bill, over half the money, 54% goes to individuals directly. So that is a great development. So credit where credit is due. Only 4% goes to business interest. And the other bills, a huge percentage with the business interests. So that's why the business community, I think, is putting pressure on the mansions of the cinemas to strip out the increase of minimum wage and anything else that might affect corporate interests. Because they're shocked that most of the benefit isn't going to them.

I'm sure that they find that outrageous. And then finally, when it comes to poverty, partly because of the child credit, but all the different credits, earn income tax credit, et cetera, this is going to reduce it by a third. That's a giant number. And something to be celebrated, it will take 13 million Americans out of poverty. That's a wonderful number. And it will cut child poverty in half. That's terrific.

If they just kept the other parts today and tomorrow would have been an awesome celebration. Right? Just the other parts of the bill are really, really good. And I don't mind them doing the things for COBRA. That's good that we get more benefits for people who are out of work. I don't mind even, look, some of the playing around with math, we could I could have lived with that fidgeting, right? If they just included the minimum wage, this would have been a home run of a bill.

As it stands, it's, you know, there's still terrific things in there. I want you to focus on that, but I also would like, obviously, any Democrat or any progressive to ever come up with a plan to pass the $15 minimum wage, because right now they killed it in this bill and they have no such plan in any future bills. All they have is completely vague promises that right now appear to be undoable. Yeah, all of the positive elements of this bill were overshadowed by the fact that the whole debate about what would end up in the bill really highlighted the flaws in our system, right? I mean, when it comes to the Senate as a legislative body, the fact that they have this complete arbitrary procedural rule, the fact that they

have this legislative filibuster, it was just more verification, more confirmation that conservative Democrats like Joe Manchin plan to serve as an obstacle to getting robust policies passed. And yeah, I mean, it's easy for all these smaller provisions to be overshadowed by that, in my opinion, sobering fact for a lot of people. I think people were under the assumption because Democrats certainly campaign this way, that if you have, you know, these two Senate races, runoff races in Georgia go toward the Democratic candidates, well, then we're gonna be able to accomplish amazing things. But again, this was a sobering moment because some of the amazing things obviously include a long overdue $15 an hour minimum wage hike, which the federal government hasn't increased since

2009. I mean, it's absolutely shameful. But it also includes additional money for homeless services, 8.5 billion more than the House version of the bill had. So there, I'm sorry, $510 million for homeless services. And then in regard to the, and also it would fund FEMA in order to help with homeless services. And when I mentioned the $8.5 billion, it's for rural providers for COVID relief. So there's additional money to help individuals living in rural parts of the country. So there are some parts of the bill, again, that didn't get much attention that are positive. But when it comes to the overall broken system under which these pieces of legislation get passed, I think people are trying to think about what can be done to reform

it, what can be done to change it. Otherwise, we're not going to get anything done. Yeah, and the final piece of context is when Obama took charge with yet another Republican fueled disaster that he had to fix, the stimulus bill that they did was under a trillion dollars. And this one is about $2 trillion. So at least they've learned their lesson that there was no reason to go with a lower amount. It didn't get them any more votes, and it prevented a quicker recovery, which not only cost citizens, but it cost the Democrats politically.

So here they went very large, at least on the numbers in terms of relief to get people checks right away, and as both a good thing overall policy-wise, but honestly, it's also good for their reelection. Good, good, I love it. If you're gonna do things that are smart, that help you politically, but actually help to American people from a policy perspective, that's a win-win. There's nothing wrong with that. So at least they weren't knuckleheads about that. And I think when people do get those checks, it probably won't make a pretty significant difference in how they perceive the Democratic Party.

Because normally the Democrats never deliver anything. So them actually delivering something will be a giant surprise to the American people. All right. Well, we got to take a quick break. But when we come back, one thing, that Democrats do love delivering in some cases is weaponized, sexism, racism, gender identity, all sorts of things. And that's what we got from Kirsten Cinema over the weekend. And I want to rage about that. So we have that story and more for you when we return. Stick around. We need to talk about a relatively new show called Un-F-The-Republic or UNFTR. As a Young Turks fan, you already know that the government, the media, and corporations are constantly peddling

lies that serve the interests of the rich and powerful. But now there's a podcast dedicated to unraveling those lies, debunking the conventional wisdom. In each episode of Un-B-The-Republic or UNFTR, the host delves into a different historical episode or topic that's generally misunderstood or purposely obfuscated by the so-called powers that be, featuring in-depth research, razor-sharp commentary, and just the right amount of vulgarity, the UNFTR podcast takes a sledgehammer to what you thought you knew about some of the nation's most sacred historical cows. But don't just take my word for it.

The New York Times described UNFTR as consistently compelling and educational, aiming to challenge conventional wisdom and upend the historical narratives that were taught in school. For as the great philosopher Yoda once put it, you must have learned what you have learned. And that's true whether you're in Jedi training or you're uprooting and exposing all the propaganda and disinformation you've been fed over the course of your lifetime. So search for UNFDR in your podcast app today and get ready to get informed, angered, and entertained all at the same time. So, I'm going to be able to be. All right, back on TYT. I'm starting on Twitch, little switcheroo.

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If you have Amazon Prime, have I told you that it's free on Twitch for you? Twitch. D-Y-T, writes in hype, re-sub for my favorite channel. Love the re-subs, love the hype. I hear there's a train full of it at some point. Loki, Noki gifted a sub. We'll appreciate that. Loki's normally known for mischief, but not in this case. And Skittled Butt Dragon, gifted six subs. I mean, throw it out maybe all the different varieties of Skittles in the number of subs. All right, now you might have seen it in the graphics, but I need you to understand that we're celebrating International Women's Day today with 15% off of the feminist

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Seven rings for a goat, presumably referring to Tom Brady. Anyways, it goes on, so sick of the term centrist Democrat, it's propaganda to whitewash their poor voting record repeated by the media. They're basically Reagan Republicans, we need to call them what they are, Republicans. To me, Republicans is a little much, it feels like we're trying too hard, and it also reminds me of Aristocats. And so, I'm just keeping it real, all right. Did my son play a dog in a show named after cats?

Yes, that happened. Was he the lead dog? I suppose he was. All right, anyways, but you're overall right, they're not at all centrist. That's why I called him either establishment Democrats, conservative Democrats, or most accurately, corporate Democrats. Dead ate fish, fascinating, writes in on Super Chat. We qualified for the stimulus under Trump, but now do not under Biden, which is just wrong. My family lives on the edge in a high cost area of California. That is a great point. We love sharing your perspective. That's why we love doing the show with you guys. We'll be back. All right, back on a young church, Jank and Anna, you've stumbled on to a rowdy show.

You can make it more rowdy by sharing and liking this video. That gets a progressive message out to more people. Does that make you a bit of a hero? I guess. I guess. I guess. I guess. All right, the news hero, Anna Kasparian, go.

All right. Senator Kirsten Cinema got a lot of negative attention after she decided to do this jubilant performance while voting down a $15 an hour minimum wage hike as part of the coronavirus relief package. Now, there was really no need to have that kind of exaggerated gesture as she's voting it down. And many, I think, accurately saw that as Kirsten Cinema rubbing it in our faces, that the bill would not be, would not include a $15 an hour minimum wage. Now, following few hours of backlash, Senator Sinema spokesperson actually spoke to the Huffington Post and Amanda Turkle tweeted about it and it enraged me. So here's what it said. Senator Sinema's spokesperson said it's sexist to comment on a female politician's body language or physical demeanor when Huffington Post inquired about her thumbs

down vote on minimum wage. Commentary about a female senator's body language clothing or physical demeanor does not belong in a serious media outlet, a spokesperson for cinema told the Huffington Post. So this is what you see from not all, okay, I think it's a unfair to say all, but certainly from conservative Democrats who want to vote down any type of policy that would pull people out of poverty, or when they continue to push for austerity of incredibly popular universal social safety net programs like Medicare or Social Security. And they love to deflect any time they get negative attention by immediately accusing those who are criticizing them of either being sexist or racist.

racist or homophobic. I mean, you name it, whatever the soup de jour is. And it's incredibly frustrating because it's very transparent in trying to shut down a valid conversation, a valid debate. And more importantly, it makes a mockery of actual racism, sexism, and all the other inequalities that we experience in this country, right? They're using it as a political tool, it's very obvious, and I think it's absolutely cowardly and disgusting every time it happens. I have more to say on this, but Jank, why don't you jump in? Yeah. So, and we should also note the intimidation that they threw in there, too. Like, no serious media outlet would cover it this way. In other words, we're going to call you not credible, and that in

Washington is the biggest threat there is, because if you're deemed not credible in Washington, you'll be basically canceled in a sense. And people don't return your calls, they don't give you quotes for your articles, et cetera. So Chris's cinema immediately goes to a tactic that the powerful use a lot, which is threatening the media's access, as well as charging them with sexism. Now, what I loved was the reaction from HuffPost, who didn't buy any of that stuff. So Amanda Turkle, an editor there with very clearly pointing this out and getting past it. Amanda's a terrific editor and writer. And then the person who wrote this piece in particular is Sarah Baboltz.

I don't know the pronunciation of the name, but she was terrific in two different ways. Number one, the way she described that interaction was Cinema's office responded to a question about the gesture by making the absurd claim that the inquiry is sexist. Thank you. Oftentimes reporters don't have the courage to say, no, this explanation by this politician is absurd. Of course it's not true. They're like, oh, both sides and then maybe it could be, no, it's not, it's absurd. And then later she, you could tell she's a great reporter because she went on to clarify when Cinema's team said, oh, we care a lot about the minimum wage and we're going to do that later and maybe we'll do it as a standalone bill and that's better. The reporter here clarified that no, if you're doing it as a standalone

bill, it has almost no chance of passing because of the filibuster. So it gave the audience the important context that they needed. Because if you leave that part out, which almost all mainstream media does, it makes it seem like cinema actually does want to pass it at a later time. When in reality, she's doing a trick. It has almost no chance of passing as a standalone bill. And here, Huff Post is a great job of pointing out the actual facts of the case that leads you to the opposite conclusion, which is that cinema does not want to pass the minimum wage. And that is the correct conclusion based on the full context. Exactly. And I mean, if we want to have a discussion about sexism or, you know, doing something in a position of power to actually benefit or or enhance

women's lives, one very easy way to do it is to ensure that you increase the federal minimum wage to $15 an hour minimum at least, right? And there have been studies looking into who would benefit, which demographic would benefit the most from increasing the federal minimum wage. And wow, wouldn't you know it? The majority of minimum wage workers in this country happen to be women. Right now, 59% of workers who would benefit from a $15 an hour minimum wage are women with nearly one in four of these women being Latina or Black. But it seems like Senator Cinema is much more interested in getting the approval of Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell than actually doing what's right in representing the best interests of not just women,

but minimum wage workers, ensuring that people are paid decently for the job that they're doing, ensuring that they're not paid starvation wages. I mean, this video of her trying to get Senator McConnell's attention right before she votes down the $15 an hour minimum wage. And he doesn't even turn around to look at her. I mean, it's just, just doesn't even care to watch. Oh, it's so sad. All of it is so unbelievably pathetic and sad. And I also want to just quickly mention that cinema has been, you know, she's much like politicians that we criticize on this show, when she was running for Senator, she seemed to present herself as something completely different. I want to remind you all of what her campaign ads look like.

When I was in elementary school, my dad lost his job. Then my parents got divorced. My mom struggled to take care of us kids on her own. First we lost our car. Then we lost our home. For nearly three years, we lived in an old abandoned gas station without running water or electricity. Sometimes we didn't have enough food to eat.

But we got by thanks to help from family. church, and sometimes even the government. I have the chance to change things and help Arizonans every day. Whether it's a veteran who can't get his benefits, a widow who needs social security, a businessman who's struggling with red tape, or parents worried their kids won't have a better life than they have.

I get to help people solve their problems. What a privilege. I mean, she sees it as a privilege when she's running for the Senate. But after she's been elected and has spent a little bit of time, you know, in the Senate, she seems to completely change her identity. In fact, she was known for giving a standing ovation for Donald Trump's tax cuts for the rich back in 2017. Just one more video reminding you of what Kirsten Cinema immediately transitioned into after she got elected. As part of our great Republican tax cuts.

So sexism has nothing to do with this. Kirsten Cinema has been a complete and utter disaster, a standing ovation for tax cuts for the rich, an unwillingness to increase the federal minimum wage for minimum wage workers. And more importantly, rubbing it in people's faces as she was voting down that provision of the bill just gives you a sense of who Kirsten Cinema is really looking out for. It's not for women. It's not for the best interest of her constituents. It seems to only be about her own personal branding and getting a little attention with her theatrics there. Yeah. So when John McCain did the theatrics of thumbs down on the Republicans' attempts to kill Obamacare, that was also clearly theatrics.

And everybody pointed it out, and nobody charged it McCain with anything, right? When cinema does even more over the top theatrics, clearly to catch our attention and clearly we catch Mitch McConnell's attention, of course people are going to point it out. And then using sexism as a shield there, it really, not only is it something that cheapens everything that that's supposed to stand for, it becomes enormously counterproductive because it allows right wingers to say, oh, all of sexism is fake. Remember when cinema, the Democrat did that thing about, oh, yeah, you're voting down wages, but it's sexist to criticize her.

So it's just so much damage. And her desperate attempt to get McConnell's attention shows you she's trying to tell Republicans, both with the Trump ovation and this, I'm willing to work with you guys. I might switch over to being a Republican. In her mind, she thinks that gains her credibility in Arizona, with what she believes is so-called centrist voters, but it also gains her credibility with corporate donors. So I explained this on an earlier show. When she was first coming up, she was in the Green Party, she used to talk all the time

about being LGBTQ, she talked about her family struggles. She gets to Washington, and two things happened, but the one I mentioned earlier is that she realized, oh, there's a different ballgame, right? Getting elected, you have to try to be as progressive as humanly possible. But once you've tricked voters and you get to Washington, you have to be as corporate as humanly possible, because at that point, the incumbents get millions upon millions of dollars in corporate donations, and then if they have enough money, they can't possibly lose. So she just adjusted her game. You could say, hey, you know what? That's smart and strategic if the only thing you care about is yourself. And that's the kind

a politician at Christmas Cinema is, and she's willing to throw other women under the bus by using sexism as a defense here, when she knows that that's ridiculous, and that it will hurt other women's causes, because that's who she is. And the last part of it is ego. When they get to Washington, they are showered with praise. Because humanity, let alone D.C. is obsessed with status, the minute someone is a United States Senator, oh my God, that you would be shocked at the level of ass kissing. I mean, people are kissing their ass 24-7. Oh, my God, Senator, sit him. Oh, you are the greatest. And that gets to you, and that gets you to do flipping things like this and forget your whole past. Forget, and I don't know if she was ever genuine, but if she ever

was, she certainly forgot that the minute, you know, all those people started, you know, giving her that status of, don't worry, you're one of the elites now. You know, in D.C., you're not allowed to call people like Kristen or Joe. You have to say, Senator Sinema, Senator Mansion, right? Otherwise, they get very, very mad because the elites are not allowed to be in any way critiqued. And that's, this is a different version of that. Well, let's move on to conservative Democrat Joe Manchin because he's been an issue as well. And I do want to talk a little bit about where he stands on the filibuster now. So conservative Democrat, Senator Joe Manchin is committed as ever to maintaining the Senate

filibuster. In fact, he went on a media tour over the weekend. I mean, he was on almost every single weekend show just to talk about how he firmly stands by his decision to maintain the filibuster. However, he might bend a little bit on the possibility of reforming the filibuster. Let's start off with the first video where he makes it clear that he's committed to keeping the filibuster because Republicans are his friends and he wants to make sure that his friends are heard. Take a listen.

Sure, you would consider making it a lot harder to invoke the filibuster so that you just don't automatically have 60 votes that you need for any legislation. I'd make it harder to get rid of the filibuster. I'm supporting the filibuster. I'm going to continue to support the filibuster. I think it defines who we are as a Senate. I'll make it harder to get rid of it. But it should be painful if you want to use it. You just you should make you make sure the place works to where okay I want to work with you. How can we do this? How do we move forward? My Republican friends are my friends. They're not my enemies and my My Democrats as my colleagues, they're not my enemy either.

That's my caucus. Together we've got to make this place work and it should be harder to invoke pain. It should be painful for us. Don't make it painful for the other side. So what he's referring to there is the possibility of what's known as a talking filibuster as opposed to a legislative filibuster. As the Senate filibuster stands today, you would need 60 votes in order to pass most legislation, unless you can do it through the reconciliation process, and that would only require a simple majority. require a simple majority. However, under a talking filibuster, the minority party would be able

to block legislation by literally talking, like standing up there giving a speech and not stopping until they successfully block the legislation. Now, Manchin seems to be willing to reform the filibuster under what he's saying there, Jank. But I haven't seen him actually attempt to get the process rolling. So far, he's just been this warrior for maintaining the filibuster. This is the first time I've heard him say that he would like to maybe consider a talking filibuster instead. All right, so let me give a quick history of filibusters. Up until recent times, the filibuster was used less than once a year, less than once a year on average. Okay, when Obama became president and the Republicans took the Senate. In 2010, it started averaging 80 times a year,

80 times a year. That's because Mitch McConnell and the Republicans said, no, we're not going to let Obama pass anything. The press never noticed, because they were all born yesterday. Everything is even. The filibuster used to be used before by Democrats or Republicans. It's not used by Democrats and Republicans. No, no, there's a giant difference between less than one and 80 a year. And when that happened, one of the things I said on this show, because we've been around forever, was why don't they make them do it like the old days, a talking filibuster? Because if you're going to do 80 a year, it will become evident because number one, Democrats, tell the media they're doing it 80 times a year and they're breaking every record there is, you idiots.

Second of all, make him do talking filibusters so everyone can see with their own eyes. Oh my God, nothing's getting done because these Republicans got up 80 times to talk for days at a time. Nope, idiot Democrats are like, okay, okay, sure. I said the Republicans took to Senate earlier. No, of course, they were the minority. That's why they were doing filibusters. Or whenever they needed filibusters because of the different votes. But the Democrats never made them do it. They made doing filibusters against their own agenda super easy. And you know how a little respect I have for Democratic leadership, because they've never earned any of that respect. So, here we are now over a decade later, and they're like, maybe we should make them talk.

Okay, now, first of all, of course! Now, second of all, why is he saying this now, and how is this going to play out where it screws you? Because that's usually how it goes, right? And that's likely how it's going to go this time. The reason why we're even having a conversation about it is because Democrats need to pass HR1. They're not going to pass the whole thing because it has terrific anti-corruption measures. There's no way in the world that they're going to agree to that. So they're going to strip that out and then pretend that that's where, oh, well, golly, gee, okay, that's when we're going to do the filibuster. Now, we will do our job at that point and we'll scream from the rooftops, including you guys,

I hope. No, no, don't let them take out the anti-corruption stuff. Why would they kill the filibuster afterwards, right? But they need to pass the pro-voting stuff for their own power because the more people vote, the more the Democrats have a chance of winning. So Manchin is not going to be able to block them. So at some point, they're going to have to do something about the filibuster. But part of what Manchin is trying to do with this half measure is to drag out that process

so we cannot get anything done for two years going forward except passing half of H.R.1. And then at that point, the Republicans will be more likely to win the majority in the Senate in the next election and the Democrats will kill the filibuster right before they become the minority. They literally did the same exact thing with judicial filibusters and Harry Reid. So it has excellent historical precedent. I don't know why no one else in media has ever covered politics before, but they're all going along like, oh man, just got a new idea. Wow, that's amazing. Oh, I wonder if he's trying to get to the right place. No, he's trying to ironically, filibuster before they kill it and hand it over to the Republicans. If you want to end the filibuster,

do it right now. Do it right now and pass your entire agenda. If you wait to the end of this term, only an idiot or a liar would do that. Now he says that he's also willing to consider using the reconciliation process in the future if his Republican colleagues refuse to work together. And honestly, I don't really know why Manchin is under any assumption or any impression that the Republican Party has any interest in working with Democrats, especially after eight years of the Obama administration where they did everything they could to obstruct any policies under that administration. Now, he mentions reconciliation in the interview as well. Let's go to this next clip where he talks about it in more detail. Let me say this. I'm not willing to go into reconciliation

until we at least give bipartisanship or get working together or allow the Senate to do its job. Just by assuming that, hey, they'll never work with us. That's the other side. This is tribal. Republicans will never agree on anything or Democrats will never agree. I don't subscribe to that. I don't buy into that.

Well, I'm not going to change my mind on the filibuster. I'll change my mind if we need to go to a reconciliation to where we have to. At TYT, we frequently talk about all the ways that big tech companies are taking control of our online lives, constantly monitoring us and storing our data. But that doesn't mean we have to let them. It's possible to stay anonymous online and hide your data from the prying eyes of big tech. And one of the best ways is with ExpressVPN. ExpressVPN hides your IP address, making your active ID more difficult to trace and sell the advertisers. ExpressVPN also encrypts 100% of your network data to protect you from eavesdroppers and cybercriminals. And it's also

easy to install. A single mouse click protects all your devices. But listen, guys, this is important. ExpressVPN is rated number one by CNET and Wired magazine. So take back control of your life online and secure your data with a top VPN solution available, ExpressVPN. And if you go to ExpressVPN.com slash T-Y-T, you can get three extra months for free with this exclusive link just for T-Y-T fans. That's E-X-P-R-E-S-S-V-P-N.com slash T-YT. Check it out today. To get something done once I know they have process into it. But I'm not going to go there until my Republican friends have the ability to have their say also. And I'm hoping they'll get involved to the point to where we have 10 of them that will work with 50 of us or 15 of them that'll work with 45 of us. Can you imagine if life worked that way where despite all of the overwhelming evidence saying otherwise, you continue to believe something, right? So I want to believe that I can charge as much as I want on my credit cards and I never have to worry. I do not believe that collectors will come after me after I charge all of my credit cards and refuse to pay them.

That is what I believe. That is what I subscribe to. No, that's not how life works, Joe Manchin. You've been in the Senate. You know what Republican lawmakers are like. You know that they have no interest in working with Democrats unless it's policy that would provide more handouts to corporate. more tax cuts to the rich. That's when we do actually see quite a bit of bipartisanship in the Senate. But in regard to passing a voting rights bill, when it comes to all of the

other, the infrastructure bill, all of the other priorities that the Biden administration claims it has, the fact that Manchin thinks that they can pass those pieces of legislation with 60 senators voting in favor is ridiculous. It's absolutely ridiculous. And the fact that he's He's even trying to have this conversation right now is stupid. Yeah, Anna, I think that there might be one possible exception to what you're saying, and that exception is far worse. So first of all, him saying, I don't subscribe to this idea that we're tribal. You're 100% right on that, Anna.

I mean, Chuck Todd, you're right there. Why don't you say something? Hey, the Republicans haven't given you guys a single vote in decades. Okay, so what leads you to believe that they would give you a vote now? I mean, it's an absurd thing to say. There's the COVID relief enormously popular, including with an overwhelming majority of Republican voters, and they still give you zero votes. What leads you to believe that Republicans would ever give you a vote?

It's not tribal to say that, it's reality, it's what's happened. You're saying absurd things that make no sense. Why are you saying that Senator Mansion? Okay, now the one exception that might be what's even worse. course. If you notice, he said, not only it could be 50 to 50 and 10 Republicans, that's never going to happen. But the second option is more likely, 45 Democrats and 15 Republicans to overcome a filibuster. That means we cut out the five Democrats that are arguably progressive in the Senate, and we pass a Republican proposal. One that is like leans heavily,

heavily in the Republican direction. So we cut out Bernie Sanders and Warren and others, and we grab 15 Republicans. We pretend it's a Democratic proposal, but we pass a Republican proposal. So that's the only other option. The last part of it is he noticed he said, well, I'm now open to maybe overrule the reconciliation. That means maybe overruling the parliamentarian on a couple of things. But he only says that after he used the parliamentarian and reconciliation as an excuse to kill an increase in the minimum wage. The bottom line is all of this leads to the same exact thing. Joe Manchin basically saying, I only work for my corporate donors.

So if I can find 15 Republican friends who have the same corporate donors as I do, we'll pass legislation that helps the Chamber of Commerce and multinational corporations and screws over the little guy. That I will agree to. But if you're going to do any of these progressive proposals, I'm going to block every single one of them. That's the translation for what you just saw. So we do have a poll on this because we want you guys to weigh in. And the question is, what should we do with the filibuster?

We want to know what your opinion is. And the options include eliminate the filibuster, reform it to make it more painful, or leave the filibuster in place as is. Go to t-y-t.com slash polls to participate in that. And we will update you with how you guys wait in later in the show. All right, for now, though, we're going to take a quick break. And when we come back, we have more news for you, including an update on what Urquhart is planning on doing with all of their billing mistakes in Texas following that awful storm that led to all sorts of rolling blackouts. That story is completely underreported.

You don't want to miss the details on that. Stick around. We'll be right back. I'm going to be able to be. I'm going to be. All right, guys, if you, you know one of our sponsors' aspiration. The reason they're sponsors is because they're wonderfully progressive. You put your money in there, you got peace of mind, they're not going to give it to fossil fuel companies.

They're not investing in that. They're not investing in the end of the planet. In fact, they're planting trees every time you sign up. And now they've got a special promotion where you could enter a drawing to win a lifetime membership with TYT, specifically designed for us because they value you guys. and they're looking for progressives because this whole financial institution is designed for progressives. So aspiration.com slash t-y-t. I love that as a business model, and I want to encourage that, and you get the best deals. So aspiration.com slash t-y-t. All right, a very stable dragon rights in. Cinema, when you don't want to be held responsible for your actions, use identity

politics as a weapon. Unfortunately, that does seem to be the case. And old mole writes, and there's about 30 million people who might have had a reason to vote Democratic if they had left a minimum wage increase in the bill. That is certainly true. Silas writes in, he as in Biden's, said it loud and clear. No, in this case, I think you mean Manchin. Manchin said it loud and clear. Democrats are not his friends, Republicans are, Democrats are only work colleagues.

So in fact, someone else on YouTube super chat, Alex Das Libet pointed out the same thing. Manchin called Republican leadership friends and Democratic leadership colleagues. What is your party Joe, Alex asked. That's right. TYT Wolfpack, Justice Dem wrote in on YouTube super chat. Remember this Christmas cinema performance was intended to take the heat off of Biden and Harris for not fighting for the minimum wage. I think it had a lot of purposes and that might have been one of them.

The Benevolent Pancake asked, do you believe Chris's Cinema could be successfully primaried in her next election? Or does she have too much moderate slash conservative appeal? Well, that's a great question, benevolent pancakes. And the answer is it depends on the media. If the media frames her as a moderate Democrat or a centrist Democrat, then every terrible vote she has actually helps her. Because that's in all of the Arizona press, moderate Democrat, moderate, moderate centrist, which are all positive implications and inferences for who she is. If they started calling her a conservative Democrat, or if they said that if God forbid they ever talked about her donors and how much they benefit, I know that's an impossibility with our

completely controlled opposition media, almost no opposition at all, no challenge to the powerful, but if they were even 10% honest with their viewers and their readers in Arizona about cinema's voting record, then yes, you could easily be successfully primary. So that's the difference. And God, there were so many other good things, but all right, let's go to Twitch, Ardvar 2020, five months with us through Amazon Prime, says, quote, all the TYT women are straight up bosses, and I love it. Here, here, agreed. Alicia Queen writes in, No, it's three months with us now, just resubbed. Hill 76, two months with Prime, says mostly a lurker, but always here. Good to know. All right.

Back on Young Church, Jencanana with you guys. Alexander Bonham used YouTube super chat to ask this question. Hi, Jencanana. I have an idea for House progressives. It's out of the mansion handbook. The progressives hold out their vote on this current bill without the minimum wage increase unless Biden cancels $50,000 of college debt via executive order. So Alexander, I love that and thank you for being so generous on super chat.

We really appreciate that helps the show. Basically what you're suggesting is what we suggested. The progressives in the House should hold out. in the House should hold out for the $15 minimum wage. And I would have added something like you said. Look, if I was there, I would have said, and I want Medicare for all. We're going back to the negotiating table and you're going to give me that $15 minimum wage. Otherwise, I'll keep adding demands.

And the heart of the bill had no chance of ever failing. They have enough Democratic votes in the House and the Senate. That would have been the way to reintroduce progressives into this equation. But unfortunately, progressives in the Senate and the Senate. the house are choosing not to do that. Is that a correct strategy? No, it is definitely not the correct strategy. Alexander, your strategy is better, but unfortunately they will not be doing that. Will they do that next time? I don't know. If they never do it, they'll never be at the negotiating table and we'll never get anything we want. That's just a fact, but your instincts are great.

Thank you. Anna. All right, well, I felt that it was worth doing an update on the aftermath of the Texas storms and the failure of their power utilities there. And the update is not good. So Texas utility regulator Urquot is refusing, refusing to retroactively fix the $16 billion that the state's grid operator erroneously overcharged power companies during last month's deadly storms. And clearly if they overcharged the companies, that means that that cost. is then transferred over to consumers, meaning the people of Texas who had to deal with and endure rolling blackouts during frigid temperatures. So here's what we know based on reporting from the Texas Tribune. Potomac Economics wrote in a letter last week to the PUC that

Urquot kept market prices for power too high for nearly two days after widespread outages ended late the night of February 17th. Urquat should have reset the prices the next day, the letter said. And just so you guys remember the way that the Texas power grid is run is separate from the power grid and the rest of the United States, it's privatized, it's deregulated, and more importantly, it's based on this notion of supply and demand, which is a disastrous situation when you have deregulated companies or deregulated power grid that doesn't see the need to have energy reserves in case there is a situation like what was experienced during the frigid temperatures during that storm.

Now, in Texas, wholesale prices are determined by supply and demand when demand is high. Urquod allows prices to go up. During the storm, PUC directed the grid operator to set wholesale power prices and $9,000 per megawatt hour, and that's the maximum price. And so they get this letter from the Potomac economics people, and they're saying, okay, you guys should make this adjustment so people aren't charged or overcharged for the power that they received. And the PUC chair, Arthur D'Andrea, who was elevated to chair this week by Governor Greg Abbott and PUC Commissioner Shelley Botkin, could have decided to order

Urquhart to follow Potomac's economics recommendation, a move that potentially could have shaved billions of dollars off of what the grid operator overcharged power companies. But guess what, guys? They declined to do it. They said no. So DeAndria declined to and noted that a retroactive decision would have winners and losers. You don't know who you're hurting and you think you're protecting the consumer. And it turns out you're bankrupting someone else. Now, of course, there were no 100% a lie. And the reason why I say that is because, first of all, usually when that talking point is used, it's a lie. But DeAndria didn't even try to give us a more hearty response or some detail into what was meant in that statement. Just saying like,

we don't want to pick winners and losers. Okay, but who are the winners who are the losers? Can you elaborate a little bit? And I do find it strange that no one has asked, right? It's just a superficial answer that means absolutely nothing and no one is demanding details or asking a follow up to DeAndria regarding that answer. Okay, so when we're discussing this story in the production meeting, both Anna and I couldn't believe that it was true. We're like, I don't know if we're going to include it in this show. Let's read all the details and double check because really they're going to just let $16 billion in extra charges stand. after they killed some people in the middle of this crisis, and then they didn't have any heat,

and then they're going to put that gigantic amount of money back onto the consumers and make them pay it for the failures of the energy companies. And the answer is yes, that's the current plan. So Texas Tribune covered it well, but they, along with almost every other outlet, keep calling these charges erroneous charges or a mistake. No, that's not true. true. This is how the system is designed. It's not at all a mistake. It's a so-called free market model where if there is not a lot of demand and a lot of supply, your prices will be low. But in crisis like this where there's a lot of demand for heat in the middle of a winter storm and not enough supply once some of the lines freeze, well, you're going to have gigantic

bills that are due. It's not a mistake. That's how this system is designed. And now Greg Abbott, by putting this unbelievable liar into this position of authority just last week. So this is clear. He put in a stooge to lie to you guys, is basically saying, oh, no, no, yeah, we're going to keep your money. We killed some of you. We destroyed the whole state with our lack of planning called deregulation. And now we're going to add on top insult to injury. We're going to call it free market and make you pay an extra $16 billion. We didn't deliver for you. And on top of that, we're going to say, oh yeah, pay more. So the pathetic excuse that this DeAndre guy has is that, well, look, there are winners and losers in this system. And earlier, people might have paid less.

I presumably he didn't even say that part, right? But now they're going to have to pay what, a $12,000 bill for one month of electricity, a $16,000 bill. So winners and winners and losers. He says it so flippantly, like you got $12,000 lying around after you survive the storm to get pay for one month's electricity bill. And there are, no, there is the recommendation that Anna read to you was, no, of course they shouldn't have to pay that. And there would be no losers from it other than your goddamn donors, Greg Abbott. Those would be the only quote unquote losers. They already made it killing off of this. They already screwed this up. But Abbott says, no, no, no, no, no. They are going to rob you of every single dollar that they can. For God's sake people and journalists, so-called journalists in Texas. Do your goddamn job, man. Tell people Greg Abbott is a crook and this DeAndre guy is a crook. You're really going to let him pay those bills? You're really going to let them pay those.

If they try to make those pay, and God knows, maybe they'll say, hey, oh, it's related to the government. Maybe we can put you in jail if you don't pay those bills. That's the kind of sick corporate dogs run the state of Texas. Do journalism, point out the facts to people. If you let him pay those bills, it is an outrage beyond imagination. Yeah, you're right, Jank, because I even mentioned erroneously, But it wasn't a mistake. This is the way the system does work in Texas. And essentially what the group over at Potomac Economics argued was, hey, how about we end those exorbitant charges on February 17th as opposed to keeping the charges going through February 19th? Because the emergency alert was still taking place through the morning of February 19th. And that was five days after the storm had initially.

struck the state. But it was still, the market, the power grid was still unstable at that point, which is why people were still getting charged or the companies were getting charged that exorbitant amount, $9,000 per kilowatt hour. So it is how the system works. But I really want to drive home the point that you were making their jank about how there actually are winners and losers. The losers are the people living in Texas. The winners are the people living in Texas. The winners are the private utilities, the private power companies that get to base their pricing based on supply and demand. And remember, there was artificial scarcity there because these companies refuse to do the right thing because at the end of the day, there are companies that are

looking out for their bottom line by ensuring that they had energy reserves for this type of situation. They did not have energy reserves. They didn't see the need to have energy reserves because that's in their minds an unnecessary cost that they would rather do away with so they can increase their profits. And so certainly there are winners in this story. It's just not the people living in Texas. It's these private companies. Okay, when they say there's nothing we can do, it's beyond outrageous.

Potomac economics just delivered you a report on what you can do. You throw it in the trash can. Oh, no, no, there's nothing we can do. They should add without costing our political donors money, and we're not willing to do that. We'd rather have you pay the $16 billion instead. Okay, so of course there's something. Here's something you could do. Nobody's paying a bill above $300.

That's it. The government can say that. Oh, well, my beloved corporations can't rob you that way. That's right. That's the whole point. Of course there's something you can do. Well, and then they would counter with, hey, jank, you know, supply and demand. You know, if you have low supply, of course the price are going to be high and the company

should be rewarded for, but wait a minute, that doesn't make any sense. Anna's right, the only reason we have low supply is because of scarcity of resources. Why did we have scarcity? Because your pipes didn't work because you didn't take the precaution to put in measures that would have prevented them freezing. You were warned a decade ago ago to do that. choices chose to not regulate you. They chose to let you basically ride and not have those extra costs. So then it was your fault that we had low supply. Why the hell will the citizens of Texas

pay for your mistake? That's insane. It's totally insane. And by the way, I'd like to note for the record that the whole press, and partly us included, we were halfway, bit Keith Overman and Michael Moore's heads off because they said, oh my God, they're making an hyperbolic comment about how the citizens of Texas would be affected about the vaccines. Now the citizens of Texas were killed, were not protected, lost heat, and now are being robbed of $16 billion. And I can't find anybody in the press outrage. Oh my God, it wasn't a tweet. It wasn't this.

It wasn't that. It wasn't scandals. It didn't involve sex. It didn't involve me being outraged at a progressive. So I can't tell. Oh, yeah. $16 billion. I don't know who the good guys and bad guys are.

Well, then you suck as a journalist if you can't tell in this super obvious situation, who the good guys and bad guys are. And if you don't tell them, they keep reelecting the bad guys who go, oh, these suckers, these idiots, I'm just going to give all the money to my. donors. Oh, why? Because the press never told you about the donors. They never told you that they're clear. They gave, look, go to tyt.com, check stories. We have one investigative story after another, indisputable, all backed up by public records, show you the millions of dollars that Republicans in Texas have gotten from those same energy companies that they just gave a $16 billion gift to.

And whose pocket is it coming out of? The citizens of Texas. They're actually getting screwed and I can't find outrage anywhere. They're too busy worried about what Michael Moore said. We got to take a break, but when we come back, we have more news for you, including updates to allegations toward New York Governor Andrew Cuomo. And later in the show, we will talk about that interview with the Duke and Duchess of Sussex. Come right back. 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, Jan Yugar, and I'll see you soon.