The Young Turks - Madness in 'Merica

Episode Date: February 25, 2023

Curt Schilling compares Ukraine to Italy in WWII, and says the war is just between two really bad people. Rep. George Santos backs a bill to make AR-15 assault rifle the "national gun of the United States". Tennessee to put bans on drag shows and gender-affirming care. Groups launch world's first-ever climate lawsuit against a commercial bank. Nick Fuentes on No Fly List after threatening to strangle a flight attendant. Host: John Iadarola, Cenk Uygur, Brian Unger 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. Woo! It's up! Bigot team! Big my team! Big MacD!

Big MacD! Drop it! Drop it! Well, you'll look at this beautiful power panel. Jake, you're a bright uncle, everybody. The Ungertaker's back. He's back. And John I'd roll of Johnny Pye.

When you got Johnny Pye and the Ungertaker in the same power panel, although it is powerful indeed. Only one of us is wearing a cardigan, though. I don't know if that was in my part, I apologize. He's also Johnny Ty, so you know, he's got to live up to his several nicknames. And Brian will be burying someone later in this hour living up to his name. All right, great to have you back. Guys, we've got a crazy show.

We've got a lot of news ahead for you guys. So, John, take it away. I will. In fact, in this case, the news will. Let's jump into it. Let's let's go quickly back in time. If Germany had invaded Italy in 1939, what would the world have done? Because that's exactly kind of what's happened here in a modern sense.

One one really bad person has invaded another really bad person's country. And we're picking sides as if there is a good, there isn't always two sides to every story. And there isn't always good and evil. These are two really bad places with really bad people. It has been exactly one year since Russia, unilaterally invaded Ukraine, and despite the passage of that year and everything we've seen since then, Kurt Schilling there has no idea who's to blame, who's responsible? They're all bad, I mean, who is to say? And he would know he was, after all, once, baseball pro, and now he's a right wing guy on the internet. So anyway, not only is he not sure who's to blame, if anyone, they're all bad, equally culpable.

He also believes at the same time that the Republican Party is the party of peace. Take a look. I'm offended that these people on the left are talking to us as if we're as stupid as we know they are. I have a son who's about to graduate and become a United States Marine. I've always been invested in our military. I love our military, but I'm wondering if we're not finally realizing that the left is the side of conflict, confrontation and war that they claim the right has always been. By the way, we appreciate you being with us.

Nothing I love more than being attacked every day for literally years, for calling for less nation building, less money being spent needlessly on our military here in the U.S. And then also being told that we constantly love conflict. You know, Sean Hannity this week was saying that Ukraine is just another one of the endless democratic wars. And he's doing that to play into lingering, you know, resentment that a lot of people have over the long time that the U.S. spent in Iraq and Afghanistan. Two wars that there's a few notable things about. You should know. One, Sean Hannity approved of those wars literally every day as years and years and years went by.

Also, they were started by Republicans. And by the way, Donald Trump, he was in office as those continued. We left his term with those wars still going on. And when Biden ended one of the wars, they attacked him and continued to until this day. So I understand that they've, you know, they've watched people criticizing war for a long time and seeing that that's a popular position. And thus they want it, but they just can't sell it. Yeah. So we're going to tell you how the war is actually going in a minute.

But I love that short little clip. I like the part where he starts out with the, you know, the left thinks were stupid as they actually are. Okay, persuasive. Wait, are you feeling offended that we don't think that you're that bright? When you say the same thing about us, you said it for 20, 40 years, right? Growing up all the right, every year, oh yeah, soft-hearted liberals don't know nothing. Now you're offended, now you're offended, right? And he's like, I don't know, they say that we start the, you know, they're the ones who like the wars.

really? Was George W. Bush and Dick Cheney, were they Democrats? No, there's a reason why people think that Republicans start wars, because Republicans start wars. That's a fact. Now, there's plenty of culpability on the Democrat again, Biden, Hillary Clinton, John Kerry, they all voted for the Iraq war. But unlike Fox News and Kirschling, we're not biased. We hate that they voted for the war that the Republicans started. So if you want to say they're all guilty, I'm happy to say they're all guilty. Of course, you'll never hear that on Fox News. Well, they'll pretend, oh, the Republicans. I don't know what war you're talking about. But overall, I love that they brought this knucklehead in. Well, maybe literally, given that he's a

pitcher, to do, they're foreign policy expert on this. Okay, look, this guy, he's, if you don't know what kind of a moron he is, he, of course, believes in Qadon. So I don't know who he thinks are the satanic pedophiles, the Ukrainians, the Russians, boats, etc. And, And what other conspiracies might be out there, he indicated that he might think that Sandy Hook was a hoax, etc. So just total, you know, loon. Like, belongs way more in an insane asylum than he does on television or the Hall of Fame or anywhere else, right? And but to be fair to him, his sage analysis in this war was, they're both really bad places with really bad people. Really? All of the Ukrainian people are really bad? All the Russian people are really bad.

Russia's a really bad place and Ukraine's a really bad place. That's your trenchant observations about this war. Wow, I'm glad they brought him on as an expert. All right, Brian. Yeah, well, what, who, when he talks about the Ukraine being, let's just say hypothetically, it's a place with really bad people. Who is he referring to? I have no idea. Zelensky, they certainly believe a lot of things about Zelensky. Yeah, okay, I mean, listen, I play a doctor on Yellowstone, so I really have no business talking about it either. But first of all, anything related to Yellowstone, because of the co-hosts of the show regularly Anna Consparing, you will get a pass.

She's such a giant fan of that show. You are now officially a foreign policy expert for being on that show. I know and I know I know I I know Kevin so well and I know his anatomy so well I was telling Cape Tino if I if if Anna knew how much I how I felt him up or seen after scene after seen I've told him to get his clothes off and shut up and get in bed I mean if you listen to the audio it's some of the sexiest television ever but I mean when you see me then and I'm I'm you know I did operate on his brain and it's hard I don't want to do any spoilers here but And I'm sorry Anna's not here for me to just rub it in a little bit.

But the question I had too, does Sean Hannity have a live show, a live TV audience now? He sometimes does. Yeah, I don't know where he's doing that show from, but apparently they love the idea that Ukraine has really bad people. It's like it's like an applause one. That is pretty crazy. Okay. Yeah. I don't like I we're such we're seeing such a weird position like obviously we're

critics of the war have been from the beginning but like how many times if you had a guess have we said that we don't think that this insane barbaric needless war should change the way that you view regular Russian people yeah we've said it dozens of times what yeah why why do we bother with this nuance or understanding or empathy it's way it's one we're fun to just be like well everybody's bad so I guess if If they wanna kill hundreds of thousands of civilians, whatever, what are you gonna do? Anyway, look, some of you in the audience might be wondering, what does it matter that Kurt Schilling believes that? Or believes that Sandy Hook is a hoax, or that this 2020 election was stolen,

or that the COVID-19 vaccine is a hoax that's killing people, or has allegedly advocated lynching journalists. Well, he was brought on to Fox News. He's given a job by Fox News, actually. Fox Corp's sports property Outkick has hired him as a host as well, despite all of these incredibly reprehensible beliefs that he not only holds, that would be bad enough, but that he uses the platforms that people unwisely give him to spread. So Fox is, and by the way, we're just in the aftermath of finding out what Fox really thinks about some of these things, including the election conspiracy theories that Kurt Schilling is spreading. We know that they don't actually believe that stuff. They're just doing, they're just talking about. it to appeal to his base. So I guess hiring Kurt Schilling is a great way to do that. Hire some crazy person that every single one of your hosts and executives and producers is going to look down on and is going to see as the loon that we do, but pretend that they don't.

They just put him on the air and then maybe the Trump fans will like them again. Yeah, sounds about right. I think that's their business plan. And, and I mean, to Brian's point, the audience did kind of love it. They're like, oh, former baseball player says hate everybody in Ukraine. Yahoo! And by the way, that is how the right-wing mind works, right? That's, they think

people in other places that I'm not familiar with are really bad. We must protect against the really bad people in foreign lands. But John, how is the war going? Well, it depends

that you ask. Not great, though. We're going to catch you up. It has been one year since the Russian invasion of Ukraine, and things have not developed the way, for instance, Vladimir Putin and the Russian military might have hoped. It seems plausible in the opening days of the war that they would have toppled the government and taken over basically the centers of power within the first week at the very least. That obviously did not happen.

And the war has shifted in different places around Ukraine. Mostly seems to be focused in the eastern portion right now, although there are attacks that strike much deeper into Ukraine. As a result of that, we do want to catch you up on what we believe to be the best data for loss of life thus far. So apparently up to about a week ago, the first year or so of the conflict, the UN office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights recorded over 8,000 civilians killed and over 13,000 injured. That is their official log. No one obviously

knows the actual number and basically everyone disputes all of these numbers, believing them to be massive undercounts, in part because a lot of the civilian casualties are caused by explosive weapons with wide area effects, shelling from artillery, multiple launch rocket systems, missiles, and airstrikes. So that makes it difficult to know exactly how many people have died when it comes to civilians. And the fact that there's very good evidence that at least tens of thousands of Ukrainians, particularly the young, have just been carted off to Russia. Who knows exactly? Who is dead? Who has been kidnapped? Who perhaps fled to another area? It makes it difficult to know for sure. In terms of soldiers,

though, Western officials have estimated some 100,000 casualties among Ukrainian troops. It's difficult to say, obviously we have better information about that. When it comes to Russia, we know that it's got to be at least 40 to 60,000, some combination of armed forces, private military contractors, paramilitary forces, and potentially hundreds of thousands of other casualties, including those wounded in action. So, you know, we don't know exactly what the numbers are. But it's devastating on all sides. And I will remind you, as I always do, literally none of this needed to happen.

There was no pressing need for Russia to choose to launch this invasion. But it has been convenient from the very beginning that for Vladimir Putin and his biggest backers, they're never at risk. 200,000 more Russians could die. It's no skin off their back. So that's convenient the way that that works out. Yeah, I think we learn a couple things from this war. and on this one year anniversary, but I'm not sure where it's going to end.

So what do we learn? First of all, the big Russian bear, oh my God, their military is so amazing. Turns out it's more like a cocaine bear. And they went on a wild rampage and then petered out. And so they've lost tons and tons of soldiers there, as you saw in the numbers. And it turns out they're military solely incompetent. Is it because the Russian soldiers? no, they're like everyone else. It's the leadership. The leadership apparently was lying to Putin about how great his military was. They are unprepared. It's been a total disaster for them. Now, it's been a bigger disaster for the Ukrainians, not in how they fought back. They fought back valiantly, heroically, unexpectedly, and they've basically battled the Russians to a stalemate, which was previously unimaginable.

So a lot of people are going to take away that they did an amazing job here, including Zelensky. But at the end of the day, their country is devastated. It was just John pointed out, obviously, the number one problem here. It was the original invasion. And, you know, people keep trying to put blame on Republicans or Democrats or this or that. No, there's one person to blame. It's obvious. It's Vladimir Putin.

And saying anything else is counterfactual and ridiculous. And so, but what we don't know is what's going to happen from here. It looks like they're fighting back and forth, back and forth. I can't tell if in the four regions that Russia tried to annex, they have the upper hand, or they're going to lose those regions. It's super hard to tell with the information that we have. And most depressingly, given how much of a stalemate it's turned into, I see no end in sight at all. Brian.

Yeah, you know, I, the closest comparison in my life. time, even albeit I was very young at the time, was Vietnam, where these kinds of war, like these slogs, they get bogged down in years of fighting. No one wins these wars. Neither side wins these wars. This feels and looks like World War I. This is trench warfare where the Russians are really just taking feet every day and trying to eke out some kind of winnable, solution to what is a, you know, a resistance that's not going to let them just basically sweep and take the country. I mean, in other words, we have to find a piece for this because that's the only way this is going to end is basically with both sides agreeing on some kind of peace,

because it's very clear that this could go on for a very, very long time and just decimate people and geography and territory and lives for years to come. I don't know if this Chinese peace plan or anyone who can broker some kind of peace here can make some sense of this, but we know by history that this is going nowhere now. Yeah, and it's just like you try to imagine what the best case scenarios are supposed to be. I mean, like best case scenario, obviously for Ukraine, you get them the hell out of the country. And then they can try to recover over the next 10, 20 plus years, trying to repair all of the infrastructure that's been devastated, try to reunite families, try to start some sort of legal process to get the many children that have been kidnapped and sent to Russia back from the point of view of Russia. What's the best case scenario here?

You finally are able to kill all of the senior members of the government. And then you get to rule over what used to be Ukraine, whatever's left. of its population, whatever you haven't killed at that point, and they'll despise you for the next 500 years. What is the point of literally any of this? It's just maddening. It's just maddening. There was a point, but that's the silver lining that I want to end on.

So first, more disastrous news, part of the reason why we're so despondent about the potential for peace is neither side has really budged. They both have listed demands and none of their demands match each other's. And if you think about it, it's very hard to resolve because Russia now says, oh, I annex four other parts of Ukraine. Ukraine can't give those parts up. Russia can't leave without having them. Otherwise, it's a complete and utter failure that Putin can't stomach and the Russian people can't stomach, which leads to the other point, which is that 82% of Russians still back Vladimir Putin. So every once in all, you'll see in Western press, like protests and stuff, and you get just encouraged, oh my God, the Russian people are going to topple Putin or they're.

They're against? No, they're not. No. So he's still very, very popular in Russia. So he hasn't lost any base of support. So he's going to keep going. Zelensky's going to keep going. So that's all the bad news. The silver lining is, look, if you're anywhere near a rational world leader, and I know that's a big stretch, most of our world leaders, unfortunately, appear to be nuts. And they got there by being sociopaths and so hungry for power. And that's why so many of them start so many wars, right? But if you're anywhere near rational now, it looks like territorial conquest has come to an end on this planet. America, you know, got its ass kicked in Vietnam and Iraq and Afghanistan.

Russia has now gotten its ass kicked in Afghanistan and Ukraine. And these are the most powerful militaries known to mankind in the history of mankind, right? And they just cannot win a war. They can't do it. And so every time anybody tries to take any kind of land, they wind up in guerrilla warfare in a morass that destroys their military, their finances, and their people. So unless something dramatically changes, which of course can happen at any time. But overall, the trajectory of history is showing trying to win land in the modern world

is a fool's errand. And Vladimir Putin, in this case, is the fool, and he has now learned that lesson the hard way. I hope that other world leaders learn that lesson and don't go down this path because it ends in certain disaster, not just for others, but for themselves as well. Yeah. Okay, we're going to take our first break. When we come back, we're going to switch things up, take a look at what Congress is up to after this. All right back on TYT, Jank, John Irola, Brian Unger with you guys. All right, John, more news.

Okay, let's jump into it. George Santos might have gotten into office through lying, But now that he's there, he is committed to solving the true real problems facing his constituents. For instance, he's just signed on to a bill that would make the AR-15 style rifle, the national gun of the United States. People have been clamoring for decades for that. So many lives are lost with it not being officially recognized as the national gun of the United States. But he is working on it. It's the AR-15 National Gun Act, sponsored by Alabama Republican Barry Moore, Georgia Republican.

Republican Andrew Clyde and Colorado Republican Lauren Bobert, who's basically a sentient handgun herself. Reminder that Andrew Clyde was the congressman who just a few weeks ago was handing out A.R. 15 lapel pins. So that's fun. You can see that shot right there. Representative Barry Moore who initially filed this legislation was at a gun shop in Alabama. And he said there, the anti-second amendment group won't stop until they take away all your firearms. One rule to remember, any government that would take away one right would take away them all. Asked to follow up about the death of Roe v. Wade. He had little to say, I presume. In any event, he's a big fan of the gun.

He says, and there's not an actual full write-up on this. It exists mainly in their minds, I guess. But the summary says that the A.R. 15-style rifle chambered in a 223 Remington rifle or a 556-millimeter NATO round would be the national gun. of the United States. And it does make some sense that a gun, you know, this popular and this notable would get some recognition. I mean, it does occasionally get coverage in the news when virtually all prospective domestic terrorists choose it as their weapon of choice. It's been very popular amongst mass shooters, people who want to kill school children. So it does occasionally get a little bit of play in the press from that,

but it'll be nice for it to get the stamp of approval of the US government. Yeah, okay, here's a twist for you guys. I think, this move makes sense. It makes sense in a couple of ways. So number one, there's only one political group in this country that doesn't mind outrageous liars and con men and crooks. That's the extreme right wing. They kind of love it. And who's their messiah? Donald Trump. And I say extreme, and only because I'm being kind, the reality is probably the majority the right way, right? So a lying con man, that's that's their leader that there's a guy they still look up to. Are you sure Santos lied more than Trump? Are you really sure? I'm not at

all sure, right? So if you do, and they don't look, the left will punish you for the slightest transgression. And that's actually a problem for the left, okay? There's not nearly enough for people who talk about restorative justice, et cetera, I almost never see it on the left, right? So we're being, I'm being honest about, I think, our side's flaw. But on the right, as long as you say to them, I mean, I hate the libs, I want to own the libs, I hate the others. They're like, oh, come on in, welcome in. Who cares?

Oh, you were a large liar. Who cares? Campaign finance violations. We all do campaign minus violations. Don't be ridiculous, right? Oh, you scam people out of money. That's what it's the vote of the party. Welcome to the party.

You're late. Okay. So he's not wrong in his capital. that the more extreme right wing he goes, the more die hard advocates he's going to pick up. He's going to go from no base to a base, right? The right wing does not mind liars at all, at all. So they will probably open him with welcome arms. And so that's politically well played.

And remember, look, he might lose because it's a purple district next time around. And I mean, the idea that a Democrat is going to hold anyone accountable is comical. He has almost no power. So if they would hold anyone accountable, it would be someone like him rather than Trump, right? So yeah, he might lose his seat at some point because of one of those two things. But at the end of the day, if he maintains a right-wing followership, then he's famous and popular and can milk that for the rest of his life. He just becomes a right-wing celebrity. Does a podcast, people will go on it, and he'll get more and more extreme.

This is actually a well-worn path for conmen. And so that's, it's logical and that says. And then the AR-15 being the national gun is also logical. Yeah, because there's non-stop massacres here in America. And that's what we're known for now, murdering each other nonstop. We literally have a massacre every single day in America. So what else should be our national gun? Let's own up to it.

We've lost our minds. And so us murdering each other at scale is kind of. I know all-American now. I don't think he's going far enough. I think we should make fentanyl the official pill or drug of the United States. I believe that the pit bull should be the official dog. The Tesla with the autopilot driving system should be America's official car. I don't know.

Here's the thing he can take comfort in knowing this. There is only one other person on the planet who lies more. And that guy is on trial for the murder of his wife and kid. His name is Alex Murdoch. So Santos is like the second biggest liar in America. I mean, look, I don't, I don't know how, argue with me about this, Jank. Wouldn't he want to court at least some of his base in Long Island that might get behind him and say, okay, this guy's pulling his act together a little bit? Or is it just, is it just gone?

No, Brian, I think that is what he's doing. So like, is he going to get any Democratic votes? Of course not, right? He's probably lost independence, probably, but I'm not sure, right? What he's doing is solidifying his Republican base so he at least doesn't lose the primary, right? And by the way, if he makes it doesn't get any legal consequences and wins the primary and loses to a Democrat, that's kind of respectable, right? And so I'm not kidding when I say, if I was him or if I was his advisor, I would advise him to do exactly what he's doing. Solidify your base first and hope that you could expand out of it. And don't worry, America's full of lying politicians. you know, and you were kind of a spectacular one, so people might not let it go for a while.

But this is your best route out of this mess. I wonder why he didn't get, they didn't do like cancer is the official disease of America. Because it probably doesn't make a very good lapel pin. It might be that, that I was just wondering. Yeah. And then we can debate whether we should cure cancer or now. Biden said he was going to cure cancer in his administration. Now the Republicans can take the other side, be like, no, it's our official.

disease. You can't wipe that away. That's a disease replacement theory. Anyway, look, I think, I think your theory about wise does it makes a lot of sense. It's the sort of stuff that he's been signing on to for some time. He also wanted to do some sort of commemorative coin to recognize service dogs. That I think was specifically designed to appeal to me and I will be moving there to vote for him. He also wants to, he signed on a bill to encourage colleges to ban TikTok. It's, he's gonna sell that as the anti-China think. Yeah, this is just designed to make the right wingers like him. Maybe he can squeak through a primary. My guess would be that he wouldn't.

But if he does, then even if he gets absolutely destroyed in the general election, he'll just say that it was stolen. Like he's very comfortable lying. And Kerry Lake has been for months now riding the gravy train of saying the election was stolen from her. So why not lie about that? I'll end on one last quick thing here. I mean, if you guys think I'm doing hyperbole or, oh, my God, you're just a partisan, you don't like Republicans.

No, remember, to this day, two-thirds of Republicans think that Joe Biden is not the president, that he did not actually win, that Hugo Chavez is ghost and Dominion and Fauci stole the election and Trump actually won. By the way, 52% of Republicans believe that Joe Biden organized the riot against himself on January. 2006. So you sure that Republicans don't like liars? I think they love liars. They want those sweet little lies. We're superior to everyone else. They should all obey us. Oh, democracy doesn't mean majority rule. It means white rule. They love those lies. Yeah. Yeah. And they're not going to let something like the fact that he wants to honor the weapon that the Buffalo mass shooter used in his own state, stop them. It's just, it's sick, man. And by the way, guys, it's not, okay, you may mean to say one more thing, John, it's your fault. I apologize. Okay, so by the way,

it's not like he's alone on this. The guy from Alabama is the one who introduced it. A bunch of Republicans are on it. They're like, oh yeah, the gun that massacres all these Americans. I love it. Let's make it the national gun. I don't know if blood was dripping literally down their mouths as they said it. I'm not positive. News reports are not clear. There's no legitimate reason for an AR-15. I wrote that online the reaction from right where you say, oh yeah, I got a government tyranny. Oh, so your other reason for killing it for using it is to kill government officials and not just random civilians. Whoa, that sounds like such a good idea as to why we would need this and make it the national gun, right? If you're hunting with an AR-15,

you're the worst hunter in the world. The only reason you'd have an AR-15 is to murder other human beings and these bloodthirsty Republicans celebrate it. That's just the fact. Well, literally celebrate it in this case. And also, and also they make a joke of it too, which is honestly, it's just a cynical ploy to kind of be provocative and poke the left in the eye with this whole instead of a stick and they are 15. But at a time when these mass shootings are occurring every single day, I know you said this was going to be the last thing you were going to say, but I was going to end it anyway for you. It's just, ultimately it's just like, it's not a joke. Like let's let's try to do something about it.

And it's just so cynical that it's so sad that that's like a joke. Like making pins out of it, they don't care. It's just a joke to just sort of waged the fight for for the preservation of just any gun, any weapon. That's not a joke. A joke would be like the day after Trump finally keels over, Rashid Talib, sponsors legislation to make the big back the national sandwich of America. That would be a joke and I would support that bill because it's a delicious sandwich. Okay, with that said, why don't we move on to other news, other legislation.

that would ban public drag performances and gender affirming care for transgender minors, because there is nothing else going on in Tennessee that needs to be addressed by its state government. So they have time to do this. Here's what's in the bill, introducing the state Senate last November by state Senate Majority Leader Jack Johnson. Tennessee Senate Bill 3 seeks to amend an existing state law preventing, quote, adult-oriented businesses from operating within 1,000 feet of schools, public parks, or places of worship to include adult cabaret performances, which the legislation defines as performances that feature, quote, male or female impersonators who provide entertainment that appeals to a prurient interest,

which is, of course, incredibly vague by design. They get to say what's pruriant or not. They also get to decide what male or female impersonation is. So like if Hillary Clinton wears a pants suit, that's a suit, is she impersonating someone? What the hell does any of this mean? We know what it means. This is a culture war thing. It doesn't It doesn't have to be logical, it doesn't have to be specific. They don't even have to enforce it necessarily, but passing it makes every one of these Republicans look good to some of the craziest people in the country. And by the way, while there are some things that immediately are going to be outlawed as a result of this shows of to topless dancers, go-go dancers, exotic dancers, strippers, those sorts of things. Some people are concerned that it could go way beyond that. Take a look.

My concern with this is the breadth of the language, Mr. Sponsor, and the breadth of this language takes direct aim. at the local economy of my city. It takes direct aim at the entertainers within my city. It takes direct aim with that small businesses in my community. And so the language of this bill, now I don't know if you've ever attended a Beyonce concert. Something tells me you haven't. Or a Harry Stiles concert, or a Lizzo concert, or a Madonna concert. your language

prohibiting and the breadth the vagueness in this bill would prohibit those entertainers performing in my city it would prohibit Beyonce the Queen Bee herself who is coming to Nashville this year

this bill would allow me as a district attorney by the plain language of this bill to arrest Beyonce Is that your intended goal here? I like his general point there. I like even more that he fit in the reference to the Queen B. It wasn't necessary, but I like it, I respect it. But yeah, it's perfectly good point.

Harry Styles frequently gets attacked by the right wing for wearing clothes that aren't traditionally masculine clothes. So I guess you could arrest him or more likely he wouldn't risk that. He just wouldn't come and yet another right wing state would approve it's. to be so backwards that no popular entertainer, no figure would want to go through the legal headaches. So why even bother? If fiance is going to wear a suit jacket and a tie, she could be arrested. So why even bother? What is the point of all of this? Okay, before I get to my serious points, I love looking at the legislators in the background. And so normally they're always like look bored, even if there's like madness going on and whatever the speaker is saying,

Sometimes the white guys in the background look angry, by the way, this passed overwhelmingly. So those are the white guys in the background that I'm referring to. But if you notice the guy in the pink shirt, the black guy, all the way in the right there. Once he got to Queen Bee, he was like, mm-hmm. I was waiting to see what his reach was here. I see the nod right there. I love that guy. And I like how, what's he eating?

I want it. I don't know. Anyways, so that's the fun part of the story. The rest is a disaster, but first, Brian. Well, I was willing to say, I'm not a lawyer, but I play one on TV. And I know that the phrase prurient interest or will never stand up in any higher court. To measure prurient interest, we would have to put what is called a penile plethymograph on the end of every man's palace and measure it and his degree of excitement as he looks upon. what is considered a sexual, overt sexual demonstration of whatever.

And really there is no way to do that without it being a complete invasion of one's personal liberty. So I really don't, you know, they say that this will be enforceable by their attorney general. And the first challenge to this case is, is I can't wait until I just want to see a solicitor in the highest court in the land of the Supreme Court in drag arguing the case before the justice. says. And I don't know what you guys think. And then I just had this other thing to say, but that I've been giving a lot of thought to the Daily Show and what we started, you know, almost over 25 years ago. We started making fun of the news media. And we started making fun of the corporate news media. And, you know, we've been sort of laying bare this satirical sort of truth about, you know, news and and satire and all of it has really made people laugh,

yes, over the few decades, but I don't know what you guys think. It's just kind of emboldened the right. The Fox News Media machine still grew at an exponential rate. But when I think about it in this context, there have been all these series about drag shows and drag performers and all this transparency about what these what these people are doing with their lives and how they consider it like an art like show business there's been years of ruPaul's drag race it's like a really popular show on VH1 i mean it's got a huge audience and constituency and you would think that the result would be the opposite the people would come around to an awareness of something and go like oh it's innocuous it's it's just people expressing themselves

It's like practically art, you know, but it has the opposite effect. It emboldens the resistance. And it starts to, the result is a codification of this bias into law now in Tennessee where a public drag show is literally akin to like what I grew up was known as a flasher. Like a guy in a trench coat who stands on a playground and opens his coat up to a bunch of kids. like it it doesn't quite fit logically what do you guys think of that well look I think the right wing mind needs the others they need to identify someone who is outside their wagons and they need to attack them just look at the history of this country that is what the right wing has done every time they just move targets yeah so and and now they're kind of moving around

They went back to black folks and immigrants a little bit, but they moved from Muslims to Jews a little bit, right? But they need another, and they were attacking gay people for timing memorial here in America, and unfortunately throughout the world. Then that became non-coacher, and if we're being honest, a lot of the donors are gay. And so then they had this, the Republican party officials had to stop because they were getting money from people who were in that community, right? And so they're like, ah, this is painful. We love hating the others, but I think we're going to have to let this one go. And more importantly, a lot of Republicans realize there's gay people in their families. Right, and they're like, oh, well, it's a little harder to hate my son, my daughter, although a lot of them pull it off, right?

But it became harder. So they had to go further out in LGBTQ. They had to get the T and beyond, right? To the plus. They had to be to the plus. Yeah. And so, so the right wing attacking people that are different than them is inevitable. And guys, it's not an American phenomenon.

It happens in every country. The right wing of every country attacks the others. And they always rotate who the others are, but they're not them. It's not their race, it's not their religion, it's not their community, et cetera. So does this have to do with the children? No, the sick part of this is they're using children as political tools to actually perpetuate hate. So it doesn't have any new children. I mean, look at what Brian said.

This is so obvious. We're worried about the poor kids. Are you? Because RuPaul's drag races on TV, you're not banning that. Well, hold up. I know, hold on, though. The internet has a limited point. of every variety and all of your kids have instant access to it.

Are you banning the internet? Are you banning anything? No, are you, by the way, purient interest? Okay, why are we focused only on drag queens and people who are trans? On the internet, there is tons and tons of purian interest that involves straight sex. Should we ban those? Oh, no, no, no, we like to do. Okay, then what?

Okay, then what is this about? Guys, I'm tired of having gaslighting debates about what they actually mean. Oh, do they really care about the kids? No, they don't care about the kids at all. Oh, do they care about family values? What kind of family value is? I'm going to tell you how to run your life and I'm going to tell you how to run your family. Like, for example, if somebody said to me, hey, I took my kids to a drag queen show, I think,

well, okay, I don't know what this is in the drag queen show. It's not my job to know what's in that drag queen show. It could be something totally innocuous, it could be really sexual, that's possible. But it's not my job to parent their kids. That's their job, okay? So this is actually a war on parents. Say, hey, you know what? If I don't like the way you're parenting, because I am a tyrant and I love government tyranny,

and I love big government, I'm going to tell you, don't watch that, don't look at that, don't have your kids go to this, I'm going to tell you what to do with your kids. Right wingers. just own it. That's who you are. You spew hatred, you love big government, and you loved it when government was tyrannical. Not you guys specifically, but back in the day, right wingers, it wasn't left wingers, it was right wingers who loved the institution of slavery and loved controlling other people's lives, owning other people's lives. And to this day, you're still like, drag queens and trans people, tell them what you do, get to obey us. And then you talk about

freedom you hate freedom just own it 100% okay we're gonna take another break when we come back a couple more stories close out the hour don't go anywhere We're back on TYT, J. Hugher, John Iderloor, Brian Adorola, Brian Unger. We're becoming one person. Yeah. Mr. Tassu wrote in, I'll go to tour with you in Bird Law. I assume that's directed to Brian. Okay, just to be clear.

It's a classic. Yeah, I don't talk about Bird Law anymore. I can't. I can't. It's so disruptive. I can't even buy like a chicken breast at a supermarket without somebody coming up and talking about bird law, or if you watch the show, Jane, they want to see my hands. My hands play a very significant role on the show too, and they want to have my hands

and see my hands in person. My life's been ruined by it's always sunny in Philadelphia. Good to hear, good to hear. All right, John's got more stories first. I do, and I would just want to acknowledge those are some of the best episodes of the show. Anyway, with that said, let's jump to important news. This week, a trio of advocacy groups launched what is believed to be the world's first high-profile climate lawsuit against a commercial bank. And the, I guess, philosophical or legal underpinning of this challenge is actually pretty interesting.

So I can't wait to discuss. This is BNP Pariba, Europe's largest funder of fossil fuel expansion projects. And an advocacy officer at Oxfam, France, says that it continues to write new blank checks to the largest fossil fuel companies without setting any conditions for an oil-free, gas-free, transition. They had apparently spent months communicating with the bank to try to ward off from their point of view the need for this lawsuit, but BNP was not interested in that. So here is what they say they're going to use for this lawsuit. They accuse B&P of violating France's duty of vigilance law, which according to a summary from the European Coalition for Corporate Justice, establishes a legally binding obligation for parent companies to identify and prevent adverse human rights and

environmental impacts resulting from their own activities, as well as the activities of companies they control and from activities of their subcontractors and suppliers with whom they have an established commercial relationship, which is interesting. The idea is that if you are financially underpinning and benefiting financially from the activities of these companies, you have a corporate responsibility to make sure that they are not committing violations of human rights and other affiliated issues that would then result in you benefiting from that. And these advocacy groups are pointing out that there are massive consequences for additional fossil fuel exploration and exploitation. And so I don't know what the sort of current makeup of France's judicial system

is, how likely they are to take this seriously, I suppose. But in any event, I like it. It's a novel way to approach this. I think that these companies have been benefiting for for well over a century while putting all of the associated costs onto us, not only in concerns of carbon emissions leading to climate change, but pollution, which kills literally hundreds and hundreds of thousands of people every single year. Yeah, look, Anna and I were just talking about this on, I think, the bonus episode last night for members, and about, well, what could we do with capitalism? And is there any way to get it under control so that its only imperative is not to maximize profit?

because if that's the only code we write in legally, well, then they're going to destroy everything in their path to maximize profit because that's literally their job, right? Well, in Europe, as you can see here, that's not the only code they write in. They say that you have to care about human rights and prevent adverse human rights and environmental impacts. So that's in the law. That's why this lawsuit exists. They're not just like, I don't know, let's give it a rough shot here and do some. you know, far-flung lawsuit that has no chance of succeeding. Now, how do I know it has a chance of succeeding overall in Europe? Well, Shell got sued on similar grounds, and a Dutch court ruled that they have to

slash their carbon emissions by 45% by the year 2030. Now, look, they haven't complied yet, and it's under appeals. But that's a court saying, no, you are not to maximize profit at all costs. you must do these things that affect that you know you because your your costs are negatively affecting the rest of society and this is the rest of society saying no more okay you've got to do it in these specific ways doesn't mean shell can't exist doesn't mean this bank can't exist but there are certain rules and restrictions that you have to follow I love that that's exactly what a democracy is supposed to do say hey here's what's allowed and what's not allowed

and burning up and destroying the planet falls squarely under the not allowed category. But here, again, they're not going anywhere near that far. They're just saying, hey, if you have, you know, you're going to do $8 billion of financing of fossil fuel companies as this bank did over a recent period of time, well, then you've got to do other things to ameliorate it, right? It's good news for our aspiration has been a sponsor of ours.

They're not currently. But so what aspiration does is they go, okay, if you've got a dirty bank like these guys, come to us. We don't finance fossil fuel companies, right? And then they say to other companies, hey, why don't you clean up your act? Here, we'll show you how to get carbon neutral, right? And in America, some companies are trying to do the right thing, and they sign on for that. But the bad guy companies are like, who cares?

There's no consequences. But in Europe, there are consequences. And that's great. So this is a relatively novel lawsuit, not the first. of as kind as I just explained, but a really welcome development. Brian, what do you think? I, the duty of vigilance law, I was just curious when I heard that, I wondered how often it is called into question or in terms of being violated or how often a case is brought to court

based in that law. Because we have something similar here, but it's so all over the place in terms of just general liability. And this idea, even this court, this case that went before the court this week about section 230 and do do internet providers have any, you know, liability when they are passing on their own form of toxicity in the forms of information and are they liable for that? And so it brings a moral question to what is considered good business and what is righteous and what is good and then what is also. a detriment to society. And this just seems like an interesting novel way to approach the climate problem. Because that, that, you know, I don't know, we just we, we, we're asking companies basically

to stop funding companies that spill poison into the air that are ruining the planet, that you have some culpability that you're involved in that. You're in this chain of custody of funding a company that then loot and then for you to just sort of say what, oh, we're just financing, you know, someone. We're just the creditor here. It just raises really, really interesting questions for sure. Well, there's finally a statement from a spokesperson for BNP. They told a website called a responsible investor that they, quote, regret that the NGO's decision to engage in litigation rather than dialogue. And I have to say I regret it too, because I really

think like you know a couple more months of talking and they probably would would have willingly stopped it's just you know a couple months maybe 50 years couple months to 50 years they would have stopped it's just needless a waste of money in time yeah well you just would have loved that proposal yeah exactly uh let's do it let's do okay really fast though let's jump into this white nationalist nick fentes claimed just a couple of years ago that his apparent prior presence on the TSA's no fly list was because he was a conservative, that this was political persecution. This is once again the woke TSA targeting conservatives or something like that. Turns out, though, according to a new analysis of documents, that that might not be the case.

The TSA says that they banned Fuentes from flying because he posed a safety risk to crew members and threatened to strangle flight attendants. Now, they were able to track down some evidence of this, and it was difficult. It was very secret. They had to dig deep, hire private investigators, and they eventually found the evidence on his podcast. So here it is. Excuse me, could you put your mask on? Yeah, and let me tell you, I'm going to land and then I'm going to get in the airport parking lot and I'm going to wait for you. And then I'm going to put a mask over your face, your mouth and nose.

You still need to be wearing the mask, even if he can't breathe. So, no, I'm kidding. Who's kidding? So, you know, no harm, no foul. That's not the only thing. There's social media posts of him talking about these conflicts. He seemed to repeatedly, enthusiastically want to broadcast that he is an issue in reality and hypothetically far worse. And honestly, I mean, you watch that thing. If I was a flight attendant, I would be terrified to any one second section of that video would convince me at least. And this is just me, I'm only speaking for myself, that he shouldn't be on a plane and he might have a taste for human flesh.

I'm not saying he's actually eaten it, but I'm saying he's thought about it at least. Look at his body language. What is going on with that guy? Would you want to sit next to him in a cabin of an airplane? Yeah. Well, we don't have to go that far to know what he stands for. He said that Hitler's really cool. Okay, and by the way, he then says,

but you're not allowed to take that into consideration when considering whether I'm a threat or not. Well, Hitler killed 13 million people and you thought that was pretty cool. That does go to state of mind a little bit, a little bit, but I wouldn't ban him from flying because of that. But threatening to strangle and murder flight attendants, that'll get you banned.

I get your ban real quick. But to me, what's amazing about the story is the entitlement complex. He's like, what, what, what? This is discrimination against me because now all of a sudden you're saying I can't threaten to murder the flight attendants. That's not discrimination against you. That's just applying very simple rudimentary laws. But for right wingers, they really, really believe they should be above the law.

And they're shocked any time that it's applied to them. Yeah, I've never really understood why the face mask. is like the mountain they want to die on, the face mask. Like a flight attendant makes like $28,000 a year. Like they're up there, like standing on their feet all day, serving water to angry people. And then you're going to have to deal with this guy who's screaming at you. And I'm going to like meet you in the parking lot later and strangle you or whatever,

put a mask on you to suffocate or whatever. I mean, like, you know, I, like, we've, This is just the typical, like, crap that people have been putting up with with regard to face masks, whether they work in a grocery store or an airplane, you know. And, you know, I'm glad people like that are put on no-fly lists or no shop lists or whatever. Because, you know, it is a very small, thinly veiled, literally attempt to safeguard the welfare of the public. It's really simple. And it won't be forever, but just, you know, when you're flying, put one on.

Yeah. Yeah. And by the way, most of the time these days, you don't have to. It's only if they ask you to put one on. So last thing, real quick, I went to the dentist office today and they said, oh, you've got to put a mask on. I've put a mask on in a while. I actually really don't like masks. They make my nose itch.

I don't like how it makes me feel confined. So you know what I did? I threatened to murder the dental assistant. No, please make clear that that's a joke because you'll be put on a no drill list. Oh, okay, seriously, of course, what did I do? I just put one on. It wasn't the end of the world. It was totally fine.

You don't have to threaten to kill people because you're taking away your freedom, right? Meanwhile, they're looking to arrest anyone who goes to a drag show or is in a drag show in Tennessee, et cetera. parents are not allowed to do this. Teachers, we're going to punish you for that. It's sort of you take away freedom in a thousand different ways. But we ask, hey, can you put a mask? Oh, I'm going to be politically discriminated against. I'm a victim.

Oh, right wing, neo-Nazi, oh, so sad for you. Okay, yeah, neo-Nazi, no cookies for you. Anyway, to close, he apparently was taken off of the no-fly list, like almost two years ago. you know the next time you fly watch out okay oh by the way it turns out it's not cookies it's no flights for you i have an idea just i thought of it just as we're leading guys i know you have to go but i think drag queens everywhere should make the ar 15 the official gun of drag performance and i bet you they'll get their shows anywhere they want this is slight genius slightly genius by the way if If the drag queens said, hey, you know what, we're not going to come into our normal outfit.

We're just in the outfit that we do the drag thing. Just kind of come dressed as, you know, we would in everyday life. But we're going to bring AR-15s and shoot them into the ceiling. Yeah. Right wingers would go, yeah, that's a good idea. I like that. Yeah, that's not at all dangerous, right? And we'll bring our kids.

But if you're in your drag queen outfit, oh, no, that's way too dangerous for our kids. Yeah, you can't spell drag without. A.R. You know, it's just a whole, I got a whole campaign. Just put a couple of thoughts behind it. Okay, Brian's here to just stimulate the thinking. I'm no dummy. I'm a basic cable tier three superstar. I know, but I'm no dummy. Yeah, and his expertise isn't even in the Second Amendment. It is in bird luck, so it's amazing how versatile he is. All right, you can check out old episodes of Always Sunny in Philadelphia. You can check out daily show. Yellowstone. Back in the day, if you could find that. But Yellowstone,

So check that out. Anna approved. All right, Brian, you're the best. Thanks for joining us. We appreciate it, brother. John, thank you. Everybody check out damage report. We've got another killer power panel coming up next.

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 at apple.com slash t-y-t. I'm your host, Shank Huger, and I'll see you soon.