The Young Turks - Monster Storms

Episode Date: December 14, 2021

The southern midwest region of the U.S. was plagued by severe storms and once-in-a-century tornadoes that ravaged communities, homes, and businesses. So far there are dozens confirmed dead and even more still missing. Six workers in an Amazon warehouse died after a tornado leveled the building. The retail giant is being criticized for not allowing workers to carry their mobile phones on the warehouse floor, preventing them from receiving weather warnings. Education in the U.S. is so underfunded that teachers are reduced to collecting dollar bills on their hands and knees for entertainment. In response to the recent Texas abortion law, California Gov. Gavin Newsom says he is working on a bill to allow private citizens to sue anyone who makes or sells assault weapons. Julian Assange is about to be extradited to the United States. Hosts: Cenk Uygur, Ana Kasparian Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

You're listening to The Young Turks, the online news show. Make sure to follow and rate our show with not one, not two, not three, not four, but five stars. You're awesome. Thank you. Welcome to the Younger, Jake Ugarana, with you guys, is it around, with you guys. Is it around the holidays, I guess. Are we festive generally? You should see Craig, our stage manager, walking Christmas tree over here with the red and the green.

But anyways, so we have a fun show for you guys. And we also, of course, have disastrous show for you guys. As in literally, there are disasters. We have to talk about them. But we have to give you context, as usual, a lot of folks don't give you. But later in the program, we make fun of some of the worst people on Earth. Okay, so you have that to look forward to. So without further ado, unfortunately we start with the disasters.

Yes, but again, stay tuned for the bangers in the second hour. There are bangers. There are bangers. But we do start with some unfortunate devastation over the weekend, so let's do it. Tornadoes tore through several states and killed dozens of people, possibly hundreds of people over the weekend. parts of the country include Arkansas, Illinois, Kentucky, Mississippi, Missouri, and Tennessee. Now, according to reports, Kentucky was, in fact, hit the hardest with Governor Andy Bashir

saying the death toll is north of 70 people. In fact, as of right now, the death toll in Kentucky is 74, but is expected to rise, and could exceed 100. Bishir said a candle factory in Mayfield, Kentucky collapsed with 110 people inside. Now, in regard to that factory, here's what we know so far. Troy Probst, who is the chief executive of Mayfield Consumer Products, which runs the candle factory that was demolished by the tornado, said that only eight people had been confirmed dead at the factory, and another six remain missing. Bob Ferguson, a company spokesman, said that the roughly 110 workers who were on the late shift at the factory on Friday night, of them, More than 90 employees had been accounted for.

And of course, there's quite a bit of backlash surrounding the fact that these workers were in the factory working as these tornadoes were ripping through several states. And of course, we're posing a risk and a threat to these workers. Now, when asked why the factory remained open, asked why the factory had not shut down on Friday night, Probst, who again is the chief executive, said that the company, had made the best decisions under the circumstances, insisting that having employees hunkered down inside the factory was safer than sending them home on the roads. Now, in regard to other states,

the death toll, as we know right now, is not as bad, but we do have fatalities in other states. In Tennessee, for instance, at least four people were killed. 60 miles north of Memphis, a tornado hit a nursing home in Manette, Arkansas, killing one person. One other person died in the state of Arkansas as well. Six people are also dead in Edwardsville, Illinois, where the roof of an Amazon warehouse collapsed during a storm.

The storm pummeled the building until a wall, the length of a football field caved in. 45 people have been rescued from the rubble. It's not clear how many remain missing. Now, I'll get to the federal government's response to this in just a second, but before I do, Jenk. Yeah, so there's a couple things here. First, you get tragedy, obviously, and our hearts go out to all the people affected. You see the devastation, and houses totally ripped apart, entire neighborhoods, giant slabs of concrete falling in the Amazon warehouse and in the candle shop, etc. And so in terms of the ramifications of this, what can be done.

couple of angles here. Number one is climate change. So the climate change clearly affects droughts, floods, wildfires, for sure, and make storms more extreme like hurricanes. So there's no question about any of that. There is a little bit of a question still about whether it affects tornadoes. Scientists say that it does, but they're not as unified on that, and you should know the real context of that. And so it has to do with the warming air colliding with the cooling air, especially if you have warmer temperatures in what are supposed to be cooler months like December. And so it appears that it, a lot of scientists believe that it makes those storms more extreme

and more likely. And so because they start with from tropical thunderstorms overall. And so that's why you can see why climate change might affect the severity of the thunderstorms. So look, we've got every kind of natural disaster ripping the country. apart, the world apart. And yes, we had them before, yes, they're clearly worse. Now this one, people are saying, you know, whether you think it was related to climate change or not, the worst in a hundred years to hit the country in terms of tornadoes and the damage that it's done.

Last one that was as bad as this was in 1925. So yet another 100 year event happening fairly frequently, in this case tornadoes. Now we're going to get into the political ramifications. Biden says there aren't any. He's absolutely wrong as usual, and we're going to get to Rand Paul as well, because of course, it affects Kentucky, and he's the lonesome senator from that state. Yes, so Rand Paul, a senator from Kentucky, has a pretty lengthy track record in regard to wanting to reject any type of federal government program that helps people.

In fact, he's been on the record in regard to opposing relief funds to various states that have been hit with natural disasters. I'll give you specific examples in just a second, but before I do, oh wow, what a surprise. He's a massive hypocrite when it comes to his own state because he signed on to a letter directed toward President Joe Biden urging him to provide disaster relief funds to the state of Kentucky. And let me just get this off, you know, out of the way. Kentucky and all the other states affected absolutely should get federal relief funds.

That's why we have FEMA, that's why we have federal programs meant to assist states when these types of natural disasters happen. But here's the difference, I'm consistent on that, whereas Rand Paul is not. Now Rand Paul apparently wrote this letter to Biden saying, quote, as the sun comes up this morning, we will begin to understand the true scope of the devastation, but we already know the loss of life and severe property damage. The governor of the Commonwealth has requested federal assistance this morning, and certainly further requests will be coming as the situation is assessed. I fully support those requests

and ask that you move expeditiously to approve the appropriate resources for our state. And of course, Biden obliged because that is the right thing to do. Now, Rand Paul has not been consistent on this. I'll give you a few examples before we go to a fun video of Rand Paul. In 2013, for instance, Senator Paul opposed a disaster relief measure for the Northeast following the devastation caused by Superstorm Sandy. He was quoted as saying, I would have given them $9 billion and I would have taken the $9 billion from somewhere else. Paul explained at the time, citing the price tag for the measure. Now, clearly, he isn't asking for cuts in spending in other areas before providing the disaster relief funds to Kentucky. So it's fascinating that he has a different standard for his own state.

And then here he is also talking about the possibility of funding disaster relief efforts after storms hit other states in a different time. Let's watch. The people here will say they have great compassion and they want to help the people of Puerto Rico and the people of Texas and the people of Florida. But notice they have great compassion with someone else's money. Ask them if they're giving any money to Puerto Rico. Ask them if they're giving money to taxes. Ask them what they're doing to help their fellow man. And you'll find often that it's easy to be compassionate with someone else's money.

It's easy to be compassionate with someone else's money. Let me be clear. Our tax money funds FEMA and other disaster relief efforts. We're supposed to come together as Americans to help out our fellow Americans when these types of disasters strike. But of course, Rand Paul doesn't see it that way unless it has to do with his own state. Yeah, so you're going to see Joe Biden is, of course, as soft as putting as always on this issue. I would handle it very differently. So would I give aid to Kentucky and all the other states affected?

Of course, it's not even in question. But what I would also say is your hateful senators from the state of Kentucky, like Rand Paul, have opposed aid when given to other states in similar tragedies where people were killed. But Rand Paul didn't care about the other states. So if I was a citizen of Texas, by the way, Florida, these are red states at this point, Puerto Rico or anywhere else, I would ask you guys to ask her accountability from the senator from Kentucky. So Rand Paul, are you going to apologize to the citizens of Texas that you didn't want to be there for them when they had their tragedy? Are you going to apologize to the good people of New York, New Jersey, Puerto Rico? Are you going to do that? No, okay, well, yeah, we're going to give you the money.

But understand it's because the citizens of Kentucky, not because of the senators from Kentucky. The senator from Kentucky did not want to help when it was anybody else. The senator from Kentucky is a monster. Luckily, us Democrats are not monsters, I would say, if I was in Biden's role. And we are here for every state, whether they're red, blue, or anything else in between. Obviously, Rand Paul, being a hypocritical monster, does not agree. Luckily, there's a Democratic president instead of an incomplete and utter jerk like Rand Paul. And that would be the lightest of the things I said.

So before we go to this video of Biden, I will make one note. Listen, I'm very critical of Joe Biden for a whole host of issues. I think he is incredibly weak. He's awful in messaging, but his response to this disaster really was a relief because when you juxtapose his reaction to it and his willingness to do anything and everything to help our fellow Americans, regardless of what state they're in, just juxtapose that to how Trump reacted to the wildfires in California, how he didn't want to actually assist people who were devastated in the state of California as a result of those climate-fueled wildfires.

fires. In fact, he went on a ridiculous rant about how, oh, California is dropping the ball because they're not raking the forests enough. So if I were Biden, that's another thing that I would mention. I wouldn't just be a decent person, but I would juxtapose my decency to the disgusting behavior that we saw from Donald Trump, his lack of leadership in response to natural disasters in various blue states that he obviously is not in favor of because they didn't vote for him in the presidential election. Now, with that said, here is a brief portion of President Joe Biden's press conference. This is after he announced that he would be declaring a state of emergency and providing disaster

relief funds to various states. This is one of those times when we aren't Democrats or Republicans. Sounds like hyperbole, but it's real. We're all Americans. We stand together as a United States of America. And so I say to all the victims, you're in our prayers. and all those first responders, emergency personnel, and everyone helping their fellow Americans, that this is the right thing to do at the right time, and we're going to get through this.

So, Jenk, overall, I liked that message, but there was something missing from this press conference, which was Biden's ability to just message how different he is from what we would get from a Trump presidency or even a Republican administration. Yeah, so look, on the first day, I'm totally fine with it, and it's a good message. And if both Republicans and Democrats did it, then you don't need to make this issue political at all. What's the need? There's no need at all. So the problem is Republicans already made it political when they said, oh, if it happens to California, we don't give a damn. If it happens to Puerto Rico, we're going to call them lazy and say that it's their fault.

So they already made it political. That isn't the question. The question is, are you going to respond, or are you just going to let them beat up on the non-red states when they're in charge and not do a goddamn thing about it? Okay. So on the second day or the third day, if I was Biden, I would come out and play that video of Rand Pauling and say, we are sending a giant check to the state of Kentucky because we are better than Rand Paul. But if it was up to your senator, he would have left your fellow American citizens to die in the other states. And so we're sending despite Iran Paul, not because of Rand Paul. And the people of Kentucky should know what a terrible person your senator is.

And that we're doing this because we're decent people, unlike Rand Paul. And then I would juxtapose it to Donald Trump. And I would talk about exactly what you said about the California wildfires, et cetera. And him in Puerto Rico throwing around paper towels like he's having a grand old time, et cetera, et cetera. So now, guys, if I know a lot of Democrats trained by NPR think, oh, no, don't fight back. Don't fight back. It's a national tragedy. Oh, please, please.

The Republicans will say we're making it political. They do it every time. If you don't fight back, you get clobbered. Politics is all about media. You know that right now, a super quick example, unemployment claims are at a 52 year low, 52 year low, okay, the economy is red hot, which causes some degree of inflation. But no one has ever heard about the hot economy, the great, overwhelming, amazing economy. All they've ever heard about is inflation. Why? Because Biden's an idiot who decides,

oh, I don't need to do any media. I don't need to fight back. I just let Republicans steamroll me and talk about inflation to no end, and I'll stay mum about the good economy. Because he's an idiot, and he doesn't know how to do politics. So what will happen is at the end of all of this, Biden will go, no, don't make it political. I'll send you everything and I'll ask for nothing in return. I won't do any talk. I won't do anything that helps highlight the difference, the real difference between Democrats and Republicans. And a couple of weeks from now, there'll be a poll out saying that Biden is at minus 20 approval rating for how he handles natural disasters. That's what will happen, because he's a natural

disaster in terms of politics. All right, agree with you largely on that. But I wanted to move over to the Amazon warehouse that collapsed in Illinois. Just absolutely devastating. As we speak about this issue right now, at least six Amazon employees have died thanks to the tornadoes in Illinois. That tornado not only ripped through the state, but it also led to the collapse of an Amazon warehouse. and the death toll could increase in the coming days. Now, Amazon has been slowly reinstating its longstanding policy of banning mobile phones in its warehouses after easing the prohibition amidst the COVID-19 pandemic. As such, Amazon's warehouse workers may be required to leave their phones in lockers as well as clear metal detectors.

That is the issue that's now coming up as a result of what happened at this Amazon warehouse, because, workers are saying, listen, we need access to our phones. If there's an emergency, if we need information about upcoming storms, it's better to have our phones on us. And so if you look at this image, you'll see what the Amazon warehouse looked like before and after the tornado ripped through it. So you can see how the roof of the building had collapsed, which again led to the deaths of six Amazon workers. Amazon workers, by the way, have also pointed out the company's anti-phone policy cuts them off from important information such as weather safety warnings. Further, their lack of phones means that workers may be unable to quickly contact

emergency services or their loved ones in the event of a disaster, particularly if they're trapped in rubble. And as we know, Amazon is so obsessed with product. and speed. They want to ensure that they get packages delivered as quickly as possible. And so as a result, they control everything that their workers do, including whether or not they can have their own cell phones on them as they're working. Yeah. So again, this is a situation where you need strong leadership in government. And we are very, very unlikely to get it. The Republicans do not want to regulate a big business because they get campaign donations from them.

The Democrats, on the other hand, do not want to regulate big business because they get campaign donations from them. Exactly, exactly. Okay, so on social issues, there are a big difference between republics and Democrats. On economic issues like this and corruption issues like this, there's almost no difference at all. And so if I was president, and I say that to give you a contrast to what the softness and the weakness that we have now, what I would say is, look, we don't yet know all the facts.

and they should do a real investigation here. It's possible, for example, that the managers on the site really genuinely thought that they would be safer inside of the bunker inside these factories rather than on the roads. Because the factory remained, the warehouse remained open in the case of Amazon. And there was a factory that remained open in Kentucky despite the tornado warnings. And so there's, I think, justified backlash as a result of that. And in both instances, you have the executives, both for Amazon and for the candle factory in Kentucky, arguing, no, no, no, it was much safer for them to stay at work and to remain in the bunker or the shelter provided for the employees. I'm not really buying that. Yeah, that's unlikely. And people died in those factories. And there were reports of, for example, a girlfriend who was texting with her partner. And they had 16 minute warning, she said he could have driven in my house in 13 minutes.

We were perfectly fine at my house. And so, but we don't know for sure. So I would be careful about it and say, hey, let's find out all the facts. But we're going to find out the facts. We're not going to take Amazon's word for it. We're not going to take any big businesses word for it, right? And if it turns out that you just wanted to make an extra buck, hey, it's holiday season, and I need you to keep working through a tornado, well, then there aren't going to be criminal.

consequences, not just civil, but we're gonna come for you. We're gonna arrest you and put you in jail because those people are dead. Now that's under a just society, that's not actually gonna happen. Oh, in America, there's a 0% chance that will happen under a Republican or Democratic administration. They're more likely to give funding to Amazon for, oh, we could build a better bunker. Maybe they could work in the bunker while the tornadoes above them, you know? I wouldn't be surprised. That's more likely, they'll do subsidies and tax credits.

credits. Yeah, I wouldn't be surprised. And I want to give you the details about the woman who's come forward to talk to the press about her boyfriend working in the warehouse and the communication that they had as this tornado was ripping through the state. So Larry Verdon is the name of the Amazon warehouse worker. He started working at Amazon five months ago. He was among these six employees who died in the destruction. His girlfriend, Sheree Jones, said that she was texting him shortly before the incident. Verdon had texted her 16 minutes before the tornado was said to have touched down, leaving him enough time to have gone back to their house nearby Collinsville, which she said was a 13 minute drive away. And then she says this,

we heard the tornado didn't touch down until 8.39 p.m. So we had 20 minutes to get home. But the question that I have, I don't know the specific details on this. I know that there's some warning that there's a tornado coming. I want to know just how far in advance do the executives and employers know that there's a tornado coming and if there's enough time to shut down operations temporarily so people can go home and be safe, why didn't they do that? But I doubt that that investigation is even going to happen. Yeah, that's the most important part, Anna, because look, the people who are

died, it ranged from age of 26 to 62. And one of the stories was of this young guy who worked at the factory. His dad also worked there at the warehouse. And so they get a message that, oh, they're going to bunker down at the warehouse. And they're really worried about it. The parents are. So they start driving towards the warehouse because they're so scared for what's going to happen to their son. And they get there, and it's already collapsed. And they wait and wait and wait. And around 4.30 a.m., somebody comes out and says, oh, by the way, I should tell you, the dad also worked at their warehouse. And on Wednesdays, he used to work together with his son, which was a really wonderful moment for the family. They

worked together there. And at 4.30 a.m., they come out and tell him, no, your boy is passed. He's one of the ones that died. Now, we live in a brutal country that is under corporate rules. and corporations are never held accountable. And they're considered human beings with all of the constitutional rights. And then you have extra rights like limited liability and other tangible rights that they have that are greater than a human being's rights. This was invented by the Supreme Court, which has been brutal from the 1970s to now, and is totally a wing of corporate rule, a very important wing of corporate rule.

Especially now. Yes. And guys, you should know this. And this is very important. There are two Supreme Court justices that got on the court now because they said corporations can kill people and get away with it. Kavanaugh said was the only judge in this particular case as it went through the different levels. They said, oh, in Seaworld, one of the killer whales killed one of the employees. And he said, oh, who cares?

Yeah, of course. No liability. The employees should have known, and that's his problem, not the company's problem. Gorsuch was worse. Yes. There was a freezing truck driver. His truck is damaged. He's got to get it off the road because he's literally freezing to death.

And he calls it in and the company says, no, sit there and freeze to death. It's against company rules. He doesn't, thank God, he drives a truck in. Gorsuch at every level, every judge disagreed except Gorsuch. He said, if the company orders you to freeze to death, you should freeze to death. No, you will get no, if they fire. you stay fired. They told you to die and you didn't die. It's your fault. And Trump saw that, but it wasn't just Trump. It was the entire Republican Party. And they moved him up the ranks.

They're like, oh, he's willing to kill it in favor of corporations. The federalist society. That's our boy. Yep. The Federalist Society picks those judges for the right wing and for the Republican Party. And when they see that, they don't see that as a negative. They see it as a huge positive. This guy will do anything for corporate rule. And so that's how Gorsuch made it to the Supreme court. So you will have no recourse in the courts here, okay? And our politicians are bought by Amazon and every other corporation, including the Democrats. So they'll do absolutely nothing for you. From now on, all the people of Kentucky, Illinois, and every other place that the tornado is affected, where the company's told the workers to go back to work, you know, you might get

compensation from the government, because that's easy. But you'll get no justice from those companies, because our government doesn't look out for you. It's just another wing. of corporate rule that's meant to oppress you. All right, we got to take a break. When we come back, we'll talk about other news, including a video you may have seen over the weekend, teachers on their hands and knees collecting dollar bills in a humiliating fundraiser because education is so underfunded in this country. We've got that story and more when we come back.

TYT at Jankan out with you guys. During the social breaks, we read some of your comments. Somebody was saying they ordered Christmas packages for Too Strong Coffee.com slash TYT. That's awesome. Thank you. But somebody said about the disaster that they might not have wanted to drive away in the middle of the tornado from those factories. That's an interesting point. But I wanted to give you one other from Twitch. Octo Squitty said they had 20 minutes warning when the tornado touched down and hours of warning of the very real potential. of a tornado touching down. Amazon on the rest of the companies that force their employees to

stay are absolutely liable for these deaths. So that's really interesting. And that's among the things that needs to be investigated and corroborated. And then at that point, probably people will sue for civil damages. And there, they could get a monocum of justice. When it goes to criminal liability, the government will never help you in this country because of corporate rule. All right, Anna. All right, let's get to our next story. Teachers were reduced to frantically collecting money on their hands and knees in a scramble to secure enough cash to buy supplies for their classrooms. This was something promoted by a hockey team in South Dakota.

They set this up as a so-called dash for cash event along with a mortgage company. And it's awful because it shows you the state of our public education and just how severely underfunded it continues to be. Now the dash for cash is a new addition to the Sioux Falls Stampede hockey team schedule this year that aims to help local teachers fundraise more than $5,000 for their schools. Why not just give them the $5,000? Now during the first intermission of the December 11th game, 10 teachers competed against each other to grab as much cash as they could on the ice. There were $5,001 bills on the ice and teachers can keep all the money they grab for their

classroom. So just think about it. If you divvy that up among the 10 teachers, we're just talking about $500 per teacher. But again, it really depends on how much cash they're able to grab during this incredibly, in my opinion, humiliating fundraiser. This is not cute. This is not supposed to be entertainment. If you really want to help teachers, if you really want to help to fund education. First off, try to do that on a national and state level where you're going to get more bang for your buck. But more importantly, do it in a way that doesn't force educators on their hands and knees to collect $1 bills on the ice like that. It's just awful. But it's just it's hunger games. We're living in hunger games already. Yeah. So I think

There's two separate issues here, and both are very problematic. Look, I get wanting to do a promotion. If you just give the teachers $5,000 that doesn't give any incentive for people to show up, but they're trying to do a promotion. And $5,000 is not bad for a minor league team, hockey, et cetera. But somebody should have thought, do we really want teachers on their hands and knees scrounging for money, $1 bill? Yeah, Hunger Games is a good enough analogy. But given like the pot of money that they're scrambling over, it felt more like squid game. Now nobody died or anything like that, but it's humiliating. And you should have thought that through.

But to me, that's the smaller issue. The larger issue is they're trying to get money for their own classrooms. It's not like they're keeping it. It's not for Christmas presents for themselves. It's not a bonus. We're making teachers grovel on their hands and knees to get decent funding for their students. That's not how it's supposed to work.

While they grovel on their hands and knees for dollar bills to help provide supplies for their classrooms, you know, private defense contractors are experiencing the same thing, begging on their hands and knees. I mean, they just can't secure the defense funding to line their own pockets with unnecessary, you know, war efforts. Like, it's, obviously, I'm being sarcastic. There's never any question about whether or not we fund defense. Never any question about whether year after year that defense budget increases.

I think once under the Obama administration, there was a tiny cut. And Obama faced so much criticism for having the audacity to question the hundreds of billions of dollars that gets allocated for private defense contractors every single year. But when it comes to our educators, when it comes to the people that help, you know, educate generation after generation of Americans in this country, we just kick them off to the curb. When it comes to the Republican Party, I mean, what do they do? They just criticize teachers as if they're the heart of every problem in this country. And by the way, let me just remind you, this is during the pandemic where teachers had to really deal with the brunt, the consequences of the pandemic in having to, you know,

adapt to online teaching and having to deal with, you know, students who have all sorts of mental health issues as a result of the pandemic. I mean, these are people who are constantly neglected and taken advantage of in our system. And it happens in every state. This isn't a red state versus blue state thing. This is about our national priorities and how education always sits at the back burner. Yeah, I want to say one more thing. But first, a couple comments from our members. We love doing the show with you guys, and members make this show possible. On YouTube, we could hit the join button below. Everybody else, t.yt.com slash join to be part of the show. So Little Mac McChie, who often writes and says Squid Games, Teachers Edition, and actually, as I read that, I thought, you know, like, it's funny and it's haunting.

It's, you know, this is the crazy situation where we're in, Dragon with a Girl Tattoo said, props to the teachers humiliating themselves like that for their kids. Exactly. And I love those teachers. They're not keeping a dollar of that. They're on their hands and knees fighting for their students. But we shouldn't treat our teachers like that. What does it say about our society that we do that?

And give more context and numbers to what Anna was saying. So when Progressives suggested $3.5 trillion for Build Back Better Bill, that had things like paid family leave, lower drug price, et cetera, all of mainstream media, cable news, everybody was outrage. Why, they're asking for so much. This is just going to go to the average America. We don't want that. Then they cut it down on 1.75, and they haven't passed anything yet, right?

The Pentagon is going to get a minimum of not 3.5, not 0.175. They're going to get $7.8 trillion over the same period, at least and without any questions asked. No questions. No question. $7.8 trillion. Oh, but you want supplies for your kids for our kids? Now you have to scrounge around and grovel and grab one dollar at a time. Okay, hey, guys, you want to do that to the teachers?

No problem. I want to see Lockheed Martin and Raytheon on their hands and knees, scrounging for dollar bills. Are they going to do that? No, they're going to get trillions handed to them. They're going to laugh their ass off. Their executives are going to take home literally billions of dollars, and then they're going to make the teachers get on their hands and knees so they can teach your kids with decency.

This is a sick, sick state of corporate rule in America. Well, it turns out defense contractors have more money to provide in political corruption than teachers' unions do. Of course. So that's why teachers get kicked to the curb, even though they're an incredibly important part in an incredibly important part of our society. I also wanted to look into where South Dakota sits in national rankings on spending for education. And unsurprisingly, according to the National Education Association, they're pretty low on the list. So for instance, they rank 33rd in spending on salaries for instructional staff, meaning teachers, 38th in expenditures per student, and wow, 48th in the state, or 48th in state spending on education.

So the lawmakers in South Dakota clearly do not prioritize education in their state, which reduces these educators to doing exactly what you saw in that video. And they're not doing it for themselves, as has already been noted. They're on their hands and knees collecting dollar bills on behalf of their students to provide better supplies in their classrooms. And guys, everything is political. Whenever somebody says don't make it political, that means the Republicans already did something terrible and they do not want the Democrats to respond.

South Dakota has been run by Republicans for a long time, run right into the ground, Exactly like Mississippi, Alabama, and long-term red states, they're all at the bottom, the total bottom. It's not an accident, it's not because the people of South Dakota aren't great. Look at those teachers, killing themselves to help their students. They're also from South Dakota. It isn't the population. It's a Republican Party. They say, no, I don't want to give money to teachers.

I don't want to give money to schools. But that same South Dakota, again, the people were great. They're Republican voters. But what did they do? They passed a ballot measure a bunch of years ago saying we don't like the corruption. We don't want lobbies to be able to give money to the legislators. We don't want money, big money in politics. They passed a great ballot measure.

And by the way, Republican voters are terrific in fighting against corruption, okay? Look at a progressive show saying that. Oftentimes it's better than Democratic voters on the issue, right? And what did the Republicans in South Dakota do? They laughed at their own voters. And they ripped up that ballot measure. They said, we don't care about stinking democracy. No, we want the lobbyist money and we want the lobbyist gifts.

Then they took a picture with lobbyist gifts to rub it in your face. Because Republicans only care about corporations and their donors and whatever bribe they're going to take. They don't care about teachers or students or your kids at all. That's a fact. Look into it and you'll see everywhere where you have a Republican governor for a long time, you'll see education is at the very bottom. The voters are at the very bottom and corporations are at the very top. That's the whole point of the Republican Party.

All right, we got to take a break. When we come back, believe it or not, Governor Gavin Newsome of California does something that might be worthwhile. It's shocking. We've got that story and more when we come back. Back on TYT, Jankana with you guys. Look, it's to the holiday season. One thing you can do is give the gift of TYT.

So whether it's to a progressive or to a conservative family member, maybe open up their minds a little bit, plant a seed. TYT.com slash gift. That's how you do it. It's real, real simple. Thank you guys. All right, Anna, what's the next story? All right.

California Governor Gavin Newsom says he's working on legislation that would allow private citizens to sue anyone who is suspected of making or selling assault weapons in response to Texas's anti-abortion bill. It's modeled after Texas's anti-abortion bill, which would ban abortions after six weeks and of course empower private citizens to sue abortion providers or anyone suspected of assisting a woman who is seeking an abortion past six weeks. Now I think this is actually a smart idea, not because I think this is a smart way at doing something regarding gun control,

but because it draws attention to the precedent that will be set if the Supreme Court decides to uphold Texas's anti-abortion law. So the office of the governor of California tweeted the following, if states can shield their laws from review by federal courts, then California will use that authority to help protect lives. We will work to create the ability for private citizens to sue anyone who manufactures, distributes, or sells an assault weapon

or ghost gun kit or parts in California. And Gavin Newsom, the governor of California, quote tweeted that and added his own statement, arguing that the Supreme Court of the United States is letting private citizens in Texas sue to stop abortion. If that's the precedent, then we'll let Californians sue those who put ghost guns and assault weapons on our streets. If Texas can ban abortion and endanger lives, California can ban deadly weapons of war and save lives.

And I also wanna give you an update on the Supreme Court and where it currently stands on Texas's anti-abortion law. So the latest ruling was that as this debate rages on and as the Supreme Court considers the constitutionality of the law itself, they will allow the law to remain in effect. So they have not blocked the law. Okay, however, their latest ruling indicates that abortion providers in Texas can challenge the abortion ban. So it was a bit of a mixed ruling, and that doesn't mean that the Supreme Court has decided to uphold the law and has considered it constitutional.

They're still deciding on that, they're still hearing oral arguments. But as of now, that law has taken effect and the Supreme Court has refused to block it. All right. I have a little bit of skepticism about this story. If it's true, I want to give a lot of credit for it, but hold. First piece of skepticism actually comes in from one of our viewers, actually a member. Colorado Blueblazer regular said Newsom says he's working on legislation. Translation, I'm looking to get some press coverage for my corporate ass, but I'll never actually do anything. Now, that is the usual play for Democrats. If Biden is not going to do anything, he will do. study on it. Biden's studying a lot of things. Right, he'll call for a commission to study gun violence or to study police violence or in response to the tornadoes that ripped through several states. He's called on a commission to study the possibility of climate changes impact on tornadoes. So he loves the studies, yes. Yeah, in fact, I think he's doing a study on studies.

And that right there is a definition of the Democratic Party's incompetence and corruption. So when we get to the corruption, it's the second thing that I'm worried about. Biden also said, well, I'm going to get tough on guns. That's why we're going to be against ghost guns. Now, ghost guns are a real problem, but they're very easy to attack because not only do they not affect corporations or hurt corporations' bottom line, because if you go after gun manufacturers, that hurts a corporation's bottom line, the manufacturers, right? Ghost guns, in fact, compete with weapons manufacturers.

So if you go after ghost guns, corporations go, out of boy, okay, now protect my profits. So that's a very easy thing to do politically. That's why I was curious to see that Gavin Newsom's tweet said ghost guns and automatic weapons. But what I believe is in a press release, the quote is from Newsom's staff, anyone who manufactures, distributes or sells an assault, weapon of ghost gun kit or parts in the state of California. So that's not and assault weapons, that's assault weapons made of ghost guns, right? In which case it's the same old horse crap, I'm gonna even Democrats protecting gun manufacturers and their profits by going after their competitors, which are ghost guns.

So again, ghost guns are a real problem and I'm glad they're going after ghost guns, but But you should go after assault weapons as well. Now, right now they haven't done a damn thing, so it's unclear. Right now there's just been some PR, right? So to our viewers point, there is some press attention based on what Gavin Newsom has tweeted, based on the press release. But it's really hard to decipher which direction state lawmakers are going to go in because we don't have policy or proposal in front of us.

It hasn't been written yet. Yes, but if he actually means and assault weapons, then great. I'd love giving credit where credit is due. He's corporate on every other issue and, in my opinion, pretty awful governor. But why didn't anybody else think of this obvious thing? Look, I talk about it all time and then other Democrats attack me. I say, if they're going to gerrymander red states, we should gerrymander the hell out of blue states. If they're going to shut down voting areas and democratic areas in red states,

We shut down voting areas in Republican areas of blue states. That's where people lose their minds. You can't do that. That's fighting fire with fire. Yeah, the point is to get not so that we do it forever, is to get them to stop doing it in red states. Yeah, so that's the point that I wanted to draw attention to because this isn't actually about doing anything.

The intention here isn't about controlling guns in the state of California. This is about drawing attention to the unintended consequence. that would arise from upholding Texas's anti-abortion law. Because the argument by the lawmakers who support that anti-abortion law is, well, it's not really unconstitutional because it's not the lawmakers in the state of Texas who are enforcing this abortion ban. It's really private citizens who are suing abortion providers or anyone who is suspected of assisting a woman in obtaining an abortion. Right. You know me. As always, I would go way further, okay? I would do it on almost every issue that affects our side. But if you're just talking about guns, I'd say, all right, I'm banning all guns in California. But I'm not doing it. The government's not doing anything. You can't sue me. I'm saying I'm going to give a $10,000 bounty to anyone who finds any weapon that is illegal in any way, shape, or form, right? And reports it in. What, what? Vigilante justice, right? Look, guys, I think all of this is disaster. overall. The government needs to set rules and abide by them and not form it out to individuals and vigilantes. But if the red states are doing it, the blue states should do it to make sure

that the Supreme Court rules in a certain direction. Because the court is going to be like, ooh, you're banning abortion in this backdoorway. I kind of love it. Exactly. But if you ban guns in a backdoor way, the Supreme Court should be like, wait a minute, wait a minute, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. We love our guns and you can't do that. And it puts them to a real deal. decision. So if Gavin Newsom means it, even though I think it's relatively mild, it's still more than any other governor's doing. And it's a good idea, and I appreciate it. I mean, every blue state should be attempting the exact same thing, right? Call their bluff. I mean, and I think it does send a message to the Supreme Court. I don't know how much of a sway it's going to have in their

final decision about Texas's anti-abortion law. But I just want to note that part of the anti-abortion law in Texas empowers private citizens to file these lawsuits by providing a bounty, essentially, a $10,000 reward if they succeed in successfully suing someone or an abortion provider, okay, for violating the law. And the same type of tactic, if this is really going to be pursued by Gavin Newsom, would be used in their policy. And by the way, if you want to protect abortion on this particular type of law, what you would really do is you'd pass a law saying anyone who catches corporate malfeasance will get $10,000, okay? Oh, the Supreme Court, their number one goal is to protect corporations. So if they see that, they're like, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, not any kind,

do not turn the citizens against our beloved, beloved corporations. Oh, my God, that would be so much more powerful, like yummy in my tummy. Yes, and you will never see that for my Democrat. Last note on this guys, if you see Democrats only talking about doing regulations on ghost guns, understand they're cowards and don't actually want to do gun control, they're actually just helping gun manufacturers with their profits. All right, important story to get to now about Julian Assange, a pretty terrible update in his extradition case. So the possibility of WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange getting extra diet,

to the United States has become more likely as the United States government has won its appeal of a British court's ruling that would have barred that extradition from happening. So Assange is facing espionage charges in the United States in response to his decision to publish leaked classified documents that were provided by Chelsea Manning. A lower court had ruled in January that Assange would be at risk of suicide or other harm if held in American custody. But following reassurances by U.S. authorities that he would be held in the most strict confinement, a judge found that Assange can be extradited on the charges related to his publishing of classified State Department documents. This is terrible news and it shows the weakness in the British courts ruling on this extradition because it wasn't about protecting journalism or preventing the United States from pursuing espion hush charges against Julian Assange for simply publishing incredibly important information

for the for the world to know about. It was just about, oh, we're worried that he's going to be harmed in the awful U.S. prison system. And obviously here in this update, all the U.S. government really needed to do was argue, no, no, no, don't worry, we'll take care of him. Everything will be okay. And apparently that was enough of an argument for the courts to side with the United States. Now, in a statement given after the ruling, Assange's fiancé said that the ruling was dangerous and misguided and that the U.S. assurances about the conditions of Assange's confinement, once state side could not be considered reliable.

And I completely agree with her on that, especially when you consider the treatment of Chelsea Manning, when she was imprisoned for leaking the information to WikiLeaks, she was held in solitary confinement, tortured. It was awful. And so I don't believe the United States at all when they say, oh, don't worry about it. We'll treat them totally fair, totally fine. He'll be all right. Now, doctors have testified that Assange suffers from severe depression and other mental illnesses triggered by the years he has spent on the run from the U.S. government, and that he would be at grave risk of suicide if extradited to the United States.

And yes, I have a lot more details to share with you guys, but, Jank, I wanted you to jump in. Yeah, so three things here to start with. Number one, the UK should have never agreed to any of this. So look, here's one easy way to tell. If Saudi Arabia said, oh, no, that's okay. Extradite, you know, by the way, maybe a Washington Post columnist who writes terrible things or tough critique of the Saudi royal prince, extradited him to Saudi Arabia. He violated a law here.

He did espionage, which, by the way, the Saudi government did actually say. And don't worry, we'll treat him just fine. The UK should not extradite him. That's absurd. And am I comparing America to Saudi Arabia? Yes, I am. First of all, we're the people who let Saudi Arabia do that and had no cost for them at all. Said, oh, well, there are beloved allies that make a search.

Donald Trump did that. By the way, Joe Biden hasn't done anything to fix it. Exactly. And so, well, how do I know American government will do terrible things to Assange? Well, this is the Chelsea Manning case. They already did terrible things to Chelsea Manning. They put her in isolation, they stripped her naked, they did different things, including isolation, which are considered torture by international law and by UK law.

So UK should, by the way, I don't think the UK should extradite anybody in the United States as long as we keep doing torture like isolation, okay, solitary confinement is, especially at the great degree to we do it in America, the lengths at which we do it, is definitely torture. And so, but on this particular case, we've already proven that we torture people in this case. So it'd be insane to extradite. So if you're a UK citizen, you should be furious at your own government, who apparently hates the press and can't wait for Assange to get tortured by America. Okay, now, if you're in the American government, well, obviously we know our officials are the worst, right? They already did it, it's Chelsea Manning.

what did Assange do anything in this case, nothing at all, okay? He did journalism. Yes. It's the same thing as the Pentagon Papers, the same thing the New York Times did back in during the, during Nixon's reign and the Vietnam War. And the New York Times is celebrated because they're mainstream media. When Assange does it, criminal, you know, espionage, get him, torture him, take out the pitchforks. Look, some of the press has been good in defending Assange, but over.

Overall, their level of disdain. Their level of fighting back against particularly Democratic administrations has been terrible. So right now, every question Jen Saki is getting should be, wait, does the Biden administration respect freedom of the press or don't you? Because if he goes to jail for that, any whistleblower and any journalist that covers a whistleblower can go to jail. So are you going to imprison this entire room? That's an easy and obvious question that should be asked of Jansaki. But there aren't very many real reporters in that room, if any. And so no one bothers to ask it.

Oh, Democrats, Obama and Biden, when you destroy freedom of the press, it's wonderful because you're a Democrat doing it. On the other hand, by the way, a lot of fake new Assange fans, because they think, oh, he helps Trump, et cetera. Well, where's Trump? He was in charge for four years. Yeah, let me let me give some context because that's that's a good point. And I want to provide context that I think will help people understand that there are government officials who understand the First Amendment ramifications to prosecuting Assange for espionage.

Now, first, let's back up for a second, right? Because I mentioned the Chelsea Manning leaks and how WikiLeaks published those leaks. Those were newsworthy leaks. And they embarrassed the United States government and military, which is exactly why the United States is going after Julie DeSage. WikiLeaks helped uncover evidence of civilian killings carried out by U.S. troops during the war in Iraq, including shocking video footage of the crew of an Apache helicopter, killing Reuters journalists and others during a 2007 attack in Baghdad. So there's a little context for you. Now, during the Obama administration, of course there was consideration in going after Assange for espionage.

But ultimately, the Obama administration decided against it, knowing that there were constitutional issues at play. So for instance, Matthew Miller, a former chief spokesperson for the Justice Department under the Obama administration, told Politico that the Obama administration declined to pursue an indictment of Assange out of concern for the press, freedom precedent and doubts about whether charges would hold up in court. Now, Obama's administration decided against going after Assange. And then in comes Donald Trump, who decided, I'm going full steam ahead, going after Assange. We want to extradite him to the United States. We want to try him for espionage. But Trump's no longer in office. His administration is no longer in power. So the question is, why is Biden continuing on with the awful and dangerous policies and precedents set by the Trump administration? Why would you do that knowing full well that when you were vice president under the Obama administration, they decided against going after Assange because of the fact that it had First Amendment violations involved?

Yeah, well, there's, again, a couple of things there. Number one, Obama is half full of crap. any one of these administrations could have said Assange did nothing wrong we will not pursue him period end of investigation end of this entire issue Obama didn't do that

he did a usual Obama half measure okay by the way Obama did use espionage act against other great journalists so Obama generally on this issue was terrible don't listen to the mainstream media liars who kisses ask for a living

oh the great Obama no he would have put you in prison if you'd actually done your job and did cover uncovered a story that embarrassed the Obama administration. I mean, he was notoriously awful when it came to whistleblowers, including whistleblowers like Edward Snowden. Yes, you know, and by the way, this, the stuff that Chelsea Manning and Assange uncovered happened during the Bush administration. So that's why Obama goes, well, I'm not going to protect them. But at the same time, I won't use the espionage act. But if you did it during my administration,

espionage act, how dare you embarrass me? Okay, that's Obama. Keep it real. At the end, he did pardon, Chelsea Manning. We should give that context. So he at least did half things right, okay? Trump came and did nothing right, nothing. All those pardons to all those white-collar criminals.

Oh, you ripped off millions of dollars, billions of dollars. Pardon, pardon. Oh, you're one of these corrupt criminals that was helping Donald Trump. Pardon, pardon. You ripped off Trump's own supporters like Steve Bannon did. Build a fake wall, keep the money instead. Laugh and laugh about how you're using it for yachts? Pardon.

Assange, no pardon. No pardon. Do not ever embarrass the government, especially if Trump's in charge. By the way, if, I mean, look, I'll diverge here for an important point. There's a lot of people not pretending to be Assange fans. I'd be super curious to see what they would do if Assange ever leaked something about the Trump government that embarrassed Trump. My guess is all those Assange supporters would instantly go,

oh no, he's terrible. He's working with this and that, Russia, Russia, Russia. They turn on Assange in a second because they don't actually care about freedom of the press. They're just trying to find ways to support Trump and Republicans, right? So now I've got my own issues with what Assange did later in his career, where he paid bounties for stories. And I don't know if he did selective leaking, He would say that he has things and not publish them. And I couldn't tell if he was just publishing everything or holding things back for political

reasons. But that does not affect this case at all. That's point number one, he did nothing wrong in this case. And yes, people do different things at different times. He might have done something right then and something wrong later. Use your mind, use your judgment, okay? But by the way, anything that Assange might have done where I disagree with it or you disagree with it later in his career, that also shouldn't put anyone in prison.

You might disagree with his journalistic ethics, but that has nothing to do with putting him in prison. Hell no. Look, at this point, I think, all right, I don't even want to get into the clowns on the right. Anyways, so back to what should actually happen. What they're gonna do is they're gonna bring him here. And every charge against the sign so far seems to be a complete and utter fabrication. I remember when Sweden was so concerned and they, of course, what were the charges against

them, they were related to sex. If you want to do character assassination, always do it about sex. It worked on LA Spitzer, worked on almost everyone involved. And so Assange was the first thing they said, oh, do sex, oh my God, he did something wrong and et cetera. And then when you defend him, oh yeah, but yeah, of course, you're doing it because of the sex crimes, et cetera. It's a classic character assassination done by the United States.

United States government, and yes, oftentimes, and especially in that case, it didn't abetted by the mainstream media. Yep. Okay? So Trump was horrible on this, Biden is terrible on this, don't listen to anyone in mainstream media or right wing media pretending that they both sides weren't awful on this issue and just want to protect their own power and destroy freedom of the press. Well, we've got some more criticism for the press when we come back for the second

hour of the show, including some of CNN's latest former Trump campaign hires. We've got that and more coming up. Thanks for listening to the full episode of the Young Turks. Support our work, listen to ad-free, access members, only bonus content, and more by subscribing to Apple Podcasts at apple.com slash t-y-t. I'm your host, Shank Huger, and I'll see you soon.