The Young Turks - Obama Portrait, Anti-Muslim Activist, Teacher Died, and Kirsten Gillibrand

Episode Date: February 14, 2018

A portion of our Young Turks Main Show from February 13, 2018. For more go to http://www.tytnetwork.com/join. Hour 1:  Segment 1  Cenk. Fox News host Sean Hannity on Tuesday offered what was perhaps the most bizarre assessment yet of former President Barack Obama's official portrait by suggesting an artist included "sexual innuendo" in his depiction of the 44th president. A now-deleted post on Hannity's website claimed the portrait, painted by Kehinde Wiley, featured "secret sperm cells," seemingly referencing the detail of Obama's temple in the painting. In a since-deleted tweet on this, Hannity wrote, "Obama's portrait - a stark contrast to predecessors with inappropriate sexual innuendo." A conservative activist in Minnesota introduced a resolution last week to “minimize and eliminate the influence of Islam” in the state’s Republican Party. Jeff Baumann, a notorious anti-Muslim activist in Minnesota’s Senate District 36, also urged in the resolution that “no Islamic leader, religious or otherwise, shall ever be allowed to deliver the invocation at any Republican convention or event.” The resolution further called for “legislation, policies, and educational programs [to] be implemented... so as to evermore minimize and eliminate the influence of Islam within Minnesota, including Minnesota schools.” Two members of the Central Park Five spoke to CNN’s Anderson Cooper on Monday night, and they argued that President Trump‘s defense of Rob Porter fits in quite well with Trump’s pattern of behavior. Yusef Salaam and Raymond Santana were wrongfully convicted of raping and assaulting a jogger back in the ’90s. Trump not only called for their executions with a full page New York Times ad, but he still believes the two men are guilty despite both of them being exonerated by DNA evidence. Federal records show that Michael and Donna Nicholson, parents of the GOP candidate Nicholson, both gave the maximum $2,700 donation in December to U.S. Sen. Tammy Baldwin, the Wisconsin Democrat Nicholson hopes to unseat later this year. Segment 2  A second grade teacher from Texas died of the flu after she skipped treatment for the virus because it "cost too much." The president’s long-awaited $1.5 trillion proposal, which was released Monday, seeks to leverage $200 billion in direct federal spending over the next decade into an additional $1.3 trillion by relying on state and local tax dollars, as well as private investment. One way to attract private investors to finance infrastructure projects would be to toll roads. Trump’s infrastructure plan would give states more flexibility to toll existing interstate highways ― under the rationale that if you use a road, you ought to pay a price in order to maintain it. Democratic Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand, considered a potential presidential candidate in 2020, announced Tuesday that she will no longer accept contributions from corporate political action committees. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

You're listening to The Young Turks, the online news show. Make sure to follow and rate our show with not one, not two, not three, not four, but five stars. You're awesome. Thank you. Thank you for watching or listening to this free podcast of the Young Turks. We want to make sure that you get some portion of the show every day. But if you want the full show, which is actually five segments, come become a member and support independent media as well. TYT network.com slash join.

Meanwhile, enjoy the free podcast. All right, well, the young Turks and another gigantic show ahead for you guys. So a little bit later in the program, unfortunately more evidence of how sick our system is. And then in the second hour, a tiny bit of justice on a story that unfortunately showed how our system was sick and in a different way. But like I said, a little bit of redemption today on that story. and then a world leader actually more misogynistic than Donald Trump, if you can believe it. We have a story about that today and also a sea change in American politics potentially. And that's a big statement.

Well, it's a story that's not getting a lot of coverage, but it really, really should. We're going to highlight it here. An argument could be made that an establishment Democrat has switched over and begun to come. come to our side, the progressive side. That's a big deal. So that's later in the program. I don't want you to miss that story. That's really important. All right, we're going to start with fun in a second and then, of course, disaster, which in essence can describe the whole history of the Young Turks, fun, then disaster. Speaking of the history of the Young Turks, by the way, if you want to watch our Sweet 16 birthday party,

we're holding it at the Globe Theater here in L.A. tickets have sold out, but if you become a member, you can watch it live from wherever you are in the world. So go to t-y-tnetwork.com slash suite 16, that's sweet-16, and sign up for membership. It's 10 bucks, just like a ticket would have been. Okay, so let's go over here and have some fun. Well, well, recently, President Obama had his portrait revealed, and it was accomplished African-American artists who did it. So I was waiting for when the conservatives was strike because the immediate reaction to it was generally very, very positive, not from the right wing, of course, but from everyone else.

Now, I don't have much of an opinion on it. Let's show you the portrait. And some people joked around that it was Obama between two ferns. But it's artistic, I don't know or understand much about art. God bless. Okay, so I have actually no opinion on it whatsoever. But Hannity and Alex Jones do not agree. They have a very strong opinion.

Now, buckle up, embrace for impact for what it is. Sean Hannity's website had this headline. Portrait perversion. Obama portrait features secret sperm. Plus, artists joked about killing Whitey. Okay, now we go to the heart of the article. I'm not kidding. That was a real article on Sean Hannity's website.

Okay, it says the widening scandal. What scandal and how has it widened? Anyway, the widening scandal surrounding former President Barack Obama's official portrait continued to swirl, if you will, on Tuesday was shocking allegations. The artist included secret sperm cells within the painting. What are we going to do, man? One side of this country has lost this eff in mind. So, okay, all right.

So what's their evidence? Here, let's show you. Aha! Well, I've got to retract my skepticism. Well, there it is. No, I don't see it either. I don't know what you're talking about. Okay, so let's say that you see this thing on his forehead, right? How do you conclude it sperm unless you got sperm on the mind? Like, how did that even jump into your head?

Man, these guys are a bunch of unbelievable weirdos. So every once in a while we joke around about how the smallest Donald Trump, scandal would have been the largest in Obama's eight years in office. They're still inventing non-scandals to call scandals about Obama to this day. Aha! His portrait of sperm and the hair!

Okay. Mediaid explains, while the conspiracy theorist accused the painter of being, quote, obsessed with sperm, Jones appears to be quite the seaman expert himself. Now, oh, we're going to Alex Jones. Okay, so hold on, and come back from me. So I'm not positive, because this is all breaking right now, whether Alex Jones started

or Sean Hannity started. I think based on the timeline I saw that Hannity started, but what difference does it make? Like in the old days, Alex Jones would start to lunacy, and then it would go jump to some of the conservative websites, bright parts, whatever, daily wire, daily caller, daily anything, right? And then it would jump to Fox News. Now Sean Hannity's kind of short-circuited all that. He's like, what is the most insane thing that's going on with Donald Trump?

Well, I'm in, all right? So now Alex Jones also jumps in on the fund. That's when we go to mediate. They say, while the conspiracy theorist accused the painter of being, quote, obsessed with sperm, Alex Jones appears to be quite the semen expert himself. As he made sure to inform listeners, the bit of alleged sperm in question is actually a GMO sperm that is fully formed, as opposed to the other kinds of sperm viewers may be aware of. Okay, I have to confess, I don't know what GMO sperm is, nor do I wish to know.

And I'm not sure I know the difference between fully formed sperm and non-fully formed sperm and how that relates back to the GMOs. But I do know that Alex Jones apparently does fancy himself quite the expert on semen. What is it with the right wingers and their obsession with Siemen? You remember when we had Pastor Manning on here, the conservative pastor who ateed Barack Obama? And he claimed, well, of course Seaman's delicious. Why do you think Starbucks is putting it in the coffee? Okay, I know, I know, you're against gay rights.

Anyway, you say, Alex Jones now, this is quoting Info Wars and Alex Jones. You say, but it doesn't make sense. So I'll do it in Alex's voice. It's so degenerate. But it's a religion of degeneracy. I'm already tired. Okay, it's what globalism is, he continues to explain. It's what Satanism is.

So there you go. President Obama covered his sperm in the new national portrait, and it's all part of the joke in your face because they don't want upright strength. They don't want to have everything. I'm sorry, they want to have everything be a ritual of abomination. I lose track sometimes with Alex, you know, because either things are an abomination or not.

The sperm's on his face. No, the sperm's on your face. Okay, by the way, why would a really liberal African-American artist, which is what they charge him with being, want to put sperm on Barack Obama's face? If you did a portion of Donald Trump and had it all over, okay, I at least get the motivation. Okay, it doesn't matter. They're all saying this, globalists. It's all part of the abomination. How can you listen to these guys with a straight face? Come on. All right. So Hannity realizing this isn't playing well. put out a statement saying earlier today, my web staff posted content was not reviewed by me before publication. It does not reflect my voice and message. And therefore, I had it taken down.

In other words, that is my staffer right there underneath a bus that I've thrown him under. Okay, fine. But that does not explain the next blog post they had, which was about George Washington's portrait. So let me show you that. They claim that he's got sperm all over his head. All right, fine, they don't, but if you think that's not next, you're not paying attention. Okay. And I'm supposed to not call them lunatics? Okay. God help us, man.

People listen to those folks and go, oh, yeah, oh, yeah, absolutely. Man, Sean knows what he's talking about. He's got this shit on lockdown. All right, anyway, let's go to the next start. So now it gets a little bit more troubling. Okay. So in Minnesota, the Republican Party has decided that they're going to take a bold stance against infiltration of the Republican Party by Muslims. Which Muslims are trying to infiltrate the Republican Party in Minnesota?

Okay, maybe we'll find out at the end here, because there is one group that they're concerned about. So conservative activists in Minnesota introduced a resolution last week to, quote, minimize and eliminate the influence of Islam in the state's Republican Party. The Huff Post is reporting this, okay? They explain who it is. It's Jeff Bauman, and a notorious anti-Muslim activists in Minnesota's Senate District 36 also urged the resolution that, quote, no Islamic leader, religious or otherwise, shall ever be allowed to deliver the invocation at any Republican convention or event.

So, because Muslims were threatening to come over and pray for Republicans, but God forbid, I suppose maybe literally, no, we don't want your prayers. We know it's a trick. Okay, fine. The resolution further called for legislation, policies, and educational programs to be implemented so as to

evermore minimize and eliminate the influence of Islam within Minnesota. including Minnesota schools. All right, well, this is obviously wildly unconstitutional. In America, we're not supposed to discriminate among the religions. There's supposed to be a separation of church and state. And it says very, very clearly in the United States Constitution, which apparently Republicans have never read,

that we shall not establish a religion. And so when you exclude other religions to the benefit of Christianity or other religions, that is obviously deeply unconstitutional. But they don't love this country. They hate this country. They don't believe in freedom of religion. They would like to live in a theocracy. So that's why guys like Jeff Bauman go and try to discriminate against other religions.

Now, I don't happen to believe in any of the religions. But I'm an American, so I believe they have the freedom to practice that religion and even pray for me if they want. I'm not sure it's going to do any good, but they go for it. And certainly I don't need to pass laws that specifically and only, discriminate against one religion. I think that is preposterous and as un-American as it gets. Now, Bauman continued that there is a natural

tension, he said, between Islam and the U.S. Constitution, ironic, because apparently Bauman's never read the U.S. Constitution. Calling the religion a collective where there is very little room for Muslims to have independent thought. He also said Muslim Americans currently involved in politics are, quote, dishonest. All

of them? Blanket statements about one religion. I suppose we shouldn't be surprised at all. And the adherence of that religions. And then my favorite is Muslims, they have no independent thought. Whereas the other religions in this country, particularly evangelical Christians, have a lot of independent thought. That is why their leaders tell them, God has selected Donald Trump. So you must bow your head and vote for Donald Trump. And they did. 81% of evangelicals voted for Donald Trump. And now when asked by pollsters, if they have changed their mind, they have quotes.

such as, when we previously reported this on the show, people saying, well, God chose them, so obviously God can't be wrong. Now, what was that about very little room for independent thought? Okay, but I'm sure it's only the Muslims. Okay, and by the way, if you made this case against all the religions, then I'm right there with you. I've got issues with religions. I'm agnostic. I don't believe in any of the religions, but we can have a debate about the religions, but we cannot exclude the religious in America. That's not how this country works. Okay.

Bauman claimed that Muslims have a fundamentally different vision for how society and governments should be organized and that the future of Muslim Americans in leadership positions would be one of civil war, genocide, concentration camps, and other horrible, horrible things. Well, if the rest of it wasn't clear enough, he wants you to understand. No, no, no. The Muslims who are about to take over the Republican Party in Minnesota. That's why you need all these laws. And they're about to take over the whole state. They're going to set up concentration camps for everyone else.

He says this without a hint of irony, as he tells you, let's remember, we should, we should discriminate against them. We should separate them out. We should not give them equal justice. We should treat them differently. You see how they are in favor of discrimination. Almost everything with Republicans and conservatives these days is projection. Okay, in the past, Bauman has spoken against building masts in Minnesota, describing it as treason and aiding the enemy. Okay, unsurprising. Now, it's not just Bauman. It is other Republicans in Minnesota as well.

By the way, they reached out to the whole Republican Party in Minnesota. They have yet to comment. They're still thinking about it. Muslims, are they going to do concentration camps or not? not quite sure. Should they be banned completely and their moss rated? I'm still debating it. But here's some other Republicans from Minnesota. Jeff Johnson, a leading Republican candidate for Minnesota governor, defended the GOP lawmakers in a conservative podcast earlier this month. He said there is some here who are trying to change what America is, he said, and we can't

allow that. God, that is so ironic. Now, we want to make sure that we establish a religion in America and we're discriminating against one religion in particular. Can you believe they want to change America? They're the worst. Okay, so, but they're not alone. If you remember Michelle Bachman recently spoke out against Muslims as well, she's also a Republican from Minnesota. Now, there was a case recently in Minnesota where a mom who was a yoga instructor who was shot by a cop, and now you'd think, why would Michelle Bachman speak out against that? She normally protects all the cops who've shot on armed people. Well, in this case, the person who was shot was a white woman. And the cop who did the shooting was Somali, and hence Muslim and black.

So now all of a sudden she hates the cops, depending on, of course, what race they are and what religion they are. So here's what she had to say at the time. Look at Saturday night. Look what happened Saturday night in this state. We had a man, Mohamed Noor, who was an affirmative action hire by the hijab wearing mayor of Minneapolis, Betsy Hodges. We don't know exactly what happened. We don't know.

All we know is that a beautiful 40-year-old Australian woman thought she heard a sexual assault ongoing in the alley behind her home at Washburn and 51st Street in Minneapolis. So she called 911. Mohamed Moore, we know, unholstered himself, pulled out his gun, violating protocol reached across the chest of his. is partner riding in the car and shot the woman through the window in her abdomen, killing her. I'm not condemning this police officer because I don't know. But I do know in that culture

the women are covered from head to toe. And a woman in her pajamas standing out in the alleyway, we don't know again why it happened. But what I'm wondering is, this. Will the question that the BCA is conducting, will they ask cultural questions? God, they're so abhorrent, man. There was a thousand things she said in there that were outrageous. We've covered it in the past, so just, I'll mention one thing there. You know, in their culture, they have, the women have to be covered head to hoe, I mean, head to toe, and she was in her pajamas. She's implying that the cop shot that woman because he was offended that she didn't, wasn't wearing a hijab.

What percentage of people in Minnesota wear a hijab? Do you think that cop was shooting every woman who wasn't wearing a hijab? Are you nuts? Are you insane? And the answer to that is, of course she is. Of course she is. So, all right, one more about the Republicans here. And then I got a message for Muslim Americas.

So, Huff Post says his resolution, Bowman's, comes at a moment of acute prejudice against Muslims in the North Star State. Recently, two Republican state lawmakers and a local GOP official in Minnesota came under fire for reportedly sharing a Facebook post that accused Muslims of preparing to, quote, infiltrate the party's caucuses after a group of Muslims had attended a caucus training session held at a local mosque. So here's my point, you guess. Look, is it a giant surprise that Republicans, particularly in the state of Minnesota, apparently, and it's not just one person, it is now we've talked about? six different people in this story, all Minnesota Republicans, are against Muslims. It's not that surprising. But look, and it's terrible, and if they had said it about any other religion, everybody would be going crazy right now.

Almost no one has heard of this story. So if they had said, oh, man, the Jews, the problem is the Jews, they're going to set up concentration camps, and we need to raid their temples and make sure that no Jews have ever allowed to give a prayer. I mean, people would be outraged, and rightfully so. I mean, your hair should be on fire when you hear and stuff like that. But now in America, unfortunately, we've gotten used to it when it's about Muslims, and you go, okay, yeah, yeah, those people despise Muslims, and I guess that's okay. It isn't okay.

But if you're a Muslim American, my main message to you is, you're going to vote Republican? Any of you? Have you lost your mind? Look at what they think of you. They loathe you. I remember growing up, I grew up in a Muslim. family. We were secular, so, you know, we never really went to mosque and, and eventually I became agnostic and so did my dad, et cetera, et cetera, and my sister and everybody else

about it. Anyway, but we knew Muslims, right? And they were split. They were split 50% Republican, 50% Democrat, roughly. It's obviously anecdotal, but, you know, but that was our sense of it. Now, unless you're a Muslim billionaire and you think, hey, look, man, maybe one day they lock me up and I know that they don't want me to have equal rights, but I am going to get a giant tax cut. You know, at least I understand it. But if you're not a billionaire and you're a Muslim American and you're voting Republican, you're insane.

They hate you. They can't stand you and they can't wait to pass laws that discriminate against you. Buyer Beware, that's all I'm saying. Okay. Now, let's go to, unfortunately, more bridges and hypocrisy. But that's what the Republicans do. All right, so, recently, of course, it was a Rob Porter scandal in the White House, the very important staffer, who, it turns out, was alleged to have beaten a couple of his wives,

and then a third person as well who was seeking advice from the wives on how to get the abuse to stop and Donald Trump of course defended him. Now, he has resigned and he's no longer at the White House, but when Donald Trump was asked about it,

he said that he wishes him a wonderful career. Here we go. We need to talk about a relatively new show called Un-Fing the Repubing the Repul. or UNFTR. As a young Turks fan, you already know that the government, the media, and corporations are constantly peddling lies that serve the interests of the rich and powerful.

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

The New York Times described UNFTR as consistently compelling and educational, aiming to challenge conventional wisdom and upend the historical narratives that were taught in school. For as the great philosopher Yoda once put it, You must unlearn what you have learned. And that's true whether you're in Jedi training or you're uprooting and exposing all the propaganda and disinformation you've been fed over the course of your lifetime. So search for UNFDR in your podcast app today

and get ready to get informed, angered, and entertained all at the same time. said he wished him a wonderful career and said that he felt bad for him. But he did not talk about the victims at all. And he said there was no talk of feeling bad for them. He just felt bad that the person who was accused of all this violence and domestic abuse had to suffer through the allegations. And then he tweeted out

people's lives are being shattered and destroyed by a mere allegation. Some are true and some are false. Some are old and some are new. There's no recovery for someone falsely accused. Life and career are gone. Is there no such thing any longer as due process? Well, that's a good question.

So I'd like to ask Donald Trump the same question. Because if you don't know this story, you should. It's an amazing one. Back in the late 1980s, there was this woman who was raped in Central Park. And it was a giant news story in New York. And five young African-American men were accused of raping her. Now, at the time, they had not had due process. And no one knew for sure that they had done it.

Now, later we found out they had not done it. But Donald Trump at the time was not interested in due process. he's as mediaid explains Yusuf Salam and Raymond Santana were wrongfully convicted of raping and assaulting a jogger back in the 90s Trump not only called for their executions with a full page New York Times ad

but he still believes the two men are guilty despite both of them being exonerated by DNA evidence we have the actual rapist we have his DNA he's been convicted we know who the actual guy is look before I go to the videos actually of the of the two guys now, they were on CNN

last night. I want to show you what Donald Trump did back then. So this is 1989 and then it stretches into the 1990s as the case goes forward. But he took out an ad in actually four different papers including the New York Daily News. He spent $85,000

on the ads and also put a full page ad in the New York Times. And here's that ad. It said bring back the death penalty. Bring back our police. This is before they were convicted, is it before anybody had any idea if it was true or untrue. As it turns out, they were wrongfully convicted, but he didn't even wait for the conviction. Due process.

He called for their execution. She, I wonder what's the difference between those young black guys and his own staffer. I can't quite tell. He said in that advertisement, they should be forced to suffer. And when they kill, they should be executed for their crimes. I want to want to hate these murderers, and I always will. I no longer want to understand their anger. I want them to be afraid. Two process. Donald Trump, new process. I'm going to show you his tweet after they were exonerated. But first, let me go to Yusuf Salam. He was on with Anderson Cooper. He was one of the ones who were wrongfully accused, wrongfully convicted, and now a free man. And what we're seeing is clearly that there are two separate Americas, one America for blacks and people of color and another America for whites and people of affluence.

You know, I mentioned the fact that with what he's doing for the good old boys club, you know, in his own affluenza, he's saying, hey, look, let's not rush to judge. You know, the guy said that he's innocent of these kinds, these particular charges. As a matter of fact, he strongly said it. We strongly said the same thing back in 1989. We strongly said that we weren't the ones who did this. crime in their rushed to judgment at the behest, I want to say, of a person like Donald Trump, taking out those ads early on. The whole city, the jury pool was muddied, and so they looked at what was going on and said, man, these guys have to be guilty of something. Look at that.

Due process. What a joke Donald Trump is. Here's Raymond Santana. At the end of the day, race does play a part in this, right? Because here we were black and Latino boys who were 14 and 15 years old, and he didn't mind giving it the death penalty. Now, you know, here you also have women who he's speaking out against, you know, with the sexual assault stuff. And, I mean, at the end of the day, this is his character. Exactly right. So when we find out that they didn't do it, we get the guy who did do it, DNA match conviction, the whole thing. There's no question about it at all.

Did Donald Trump apologize? Of course not. Instead, he sent this tweet at the time. He said, tell me, what were they doing in the park? playing checkers. Wow. In other words, they must have been guilty of something. Who cares that they weren't guilty of the rape or the murder or anything?

Let's, what, keep them in jail anyway? If you'd gotten your way, they would have already been dead. You would have already executed them. Due process? Now he's got the nerve to talk about due process. Look, for conservatives like Donald Trump, rule of law doesn't mean equal justice. It means I get to rule over you. So if it's me and my allies, we're above the law, and the law doesn't have to apply to us.

And we get every protection. If it's you, I get the Lord over you. And I get to use the law to keep you down. That's what they mean by rule of law. Donald Trump is the world's biggest hypocrite. And you know why he viewed those young black men different than he viewed his own staffer. It is obvious. He's a despicable guy.

And he certainly doesn't believe in due process. Okay. Now, last story in the segment for you guys. This one's a little bit lighter. Okay. So there's an interesting election going on in Wisconsin. Tammy Baldwin is the current senator there. and she's being challenged by Republican Kevin Nicholson,

and he's given her a run for the money, and I'll tell you why at the end. But something curious happened in the race. Just months after Republican Kevin Nicholson announced his bid to run a yes incumbent Senator Tammy Baldwin in 2018, Nicholson's own parents donated the legal maximum to Baldwin's primary campaign. Damn, that hurts.

shots fired man if you can't get your own parents to be on your side oh ouch okay not only did they donate to his opponent forget voting for his opponent

they donated to his opponent and then they gave them backs Nicholson's parents Donna and Michael reportedly donated $2,700 to Baldwin in December of 2017 when presumably nobody knows Kevin Nicholson better than his parents.

And they're like, you don't want him as a senator. I don't want him as a senator. I'm going to give the max I can to his opponent. Oh, wow. Oh, that's cold, man. That's super cold. Nicholson says, My parents have a different worldview than I do.

It's not surprising that they would support a candidate like Tammy Baldwin, who shares their perspective. Look, you know, it's certainly possible. Of course, even if it's your own son, if you don't agree with his policies, you can vote for the other person. Voting is one thing. maxing out donations to your opponent is another thing. Man, if my son grew up to be a right-wing douche and I couldn't stand him so much,

I had to give the max to his opponent in a race, oh, that would be heartbreaking. And I wouldn't do that. I feel like under penalty of law, man, you really, really got to be worried about your own kid. If you're doing that and giving that much to his opponent to make sure. he doesn't get anywhere near the Senate. Wow. Now, Baldwin's going to need all the help she can get. You know why? Because our system is insane. It is totally corrupted. It's a total open auction. Get a load of this. The election is months away. It's in November. We're in February. By early January, nine groups had spent more than $4.7 million on ads that attack Baldwin or boosts one of their Republicans vying to a

her according to her campaign. They've already spent $4.7 million in ads against Baldwin. Who are they? No one knows. It's rich people who decided they would rather have a Republican who cuts their taxes and gives them all the

tax breaks who deregulates their businesses. And we've got an open auction so they're like, I don't care, I don't care who this Republicans, what he's for, who supports him, who's against them, what his character is. I want the tax cuts. Lobowski. So they don't care. Tammy Baldwin, you voted against tax cuts for the rich. You

want to do anything to help the actual citizens and not the donors. You got to go. So they're hammering her with ads. Does this look like a democracy to you? It's a freaking auction, man. You allow private financing. You get people working for private interests. It's gross. get all the money out. Wolf dash pack.com slash join. Go to your own state, volunteer, work hard. Wolf dash pack.com slash states. Find your state, go volunteer, donate, do whatever you got to do because our warriors have to beat these mercenaries. It's a funny little story about a guy whose parents apparently are very worried about him having any degree of power. But the overall story is not funny at all because right now there's right

wingers trying to buy that seat. And in our system, because we've legalized bribery, they can. The system is totally gross. All right, we got to take a break here. When we come back, speaking of a sick system, I have a heartbreaking story that is quite literal about how sick this system is. I hate to do it to you, but it is a powerful story. And you'll see why we absolutely positively must have universal health care coverage. You're right in the middle of this podcast. We've got another great segment coming up for you. If you'd like the full show, which is actually five segments,

go to t-y-tnetwork.com slash join. You become a member, you support the show, you support independent media, and you get the whole two-hour show ad-free every day. Let's go do it now. All right, back on a young turks. A couple of tweets for you. Control Left says, why are evangelical Christians so scared of Muslims?

If the Old Testament is to be believed, the Christian God is the greatest terrorist of all time. Well, read the Old Testament. I hear you. He does kill a lot of folks. And by the way, at the end, through Armageddon, he kills almost everyone on the planet. But if you read it carefully enough,

there is actually a verse in there where, quote unquote, our God loses to another God. So I'm not quite sure why we're not praying to that dude. Okay, read the Bible. It is fascinating. Jeremy Kohler says, can we talk for a second about how that Trump tweet sounded like he had just finished reading a Dr. Zeus book? Some are old and some are new.

I know, I thought the same thing. And then Jay Thomas Gordy said, I feel like Donald Trump's about to experience a lot of new process. Well, from your mouth to God's ears. Okay. So, now, let's go over here and do some more stories. So we've got a story of a lovely second-grade teacher in Ickard Elementary School in Weather, Texas. Her name is Heather Holland. There she is.

And like I said, she's in the middle of Texas. She's teaching elementary school. And then she gets sick. It happens to a lot of us, okay? And it is flu season, and she got the flu. Holland went to a doctor and was prescribed flu medication. But when she went to pick it up and learned that about the $116 copay, she decided to forego the prescription believing it wasn't worth the money.

Now, this has happened to a lot of us. Co-pay is too much. In our crazy system, and we're the only development nation in the world that does not have universal health care coverage, we're all supposed to fend for ourselves, just bootstraps. Okay. And so some people have good insurance. Some people have insurance that isn't so good. Under the Affordable Care Act, you were supposed to get some degree of minimum coverage. And now under the new rules, they can make your coverage worse and worse. So your deductibles are higher and your co-pay is higher. But either way, and to be fair, I don't know the kind of coverage that Heather Holland had.

I do know that her co-pay is really high for medication for the flu. so she decided that they just, he's got two kids, didn't want to spare the money. When Holland's husband found out about the co-pay incident on Thursday night, he went back to the pharmacy and bought the prescription himself. But by that point, her condition had swiftly deteriorated. The flu, unfortunately, is nothing to mess with. And it kills a lot of people.

So you got to act and you got to act quick. But in our brutal system, people are worried about $160. That's a lot of money to people. On Sunday morning, Holland passed away from flu complications, leaving behind her husband, 10-year-old daughter, and a 7-year-old son. We're not supposed to do this to our own citizens. So we have private health insurance. Their job is not to take care of you.

Their job is to maximize profit. I mean, I don't blame them for that. They're a corporation. We created corporations. They're written into the law. They did not exist in nature. You can't go into the woods and find a corporation. We created them.

And we wrote the laws. And the law says maximize profit at all costs. And then we said, oh, by the way, you can get into healthcare. But if you're into health care, you don't really have to worry about the patients or your customers. Your only directive is maximize profit. So you got, somebody's got the flu, they can't afford it, who cares? Charge them $116. Charge them every single dollar you think you could squeeze out of them

because that's going to maximize your profit. Now, other developed countries believe that they should protect their citizens. That democracy, the whole point is to look out for your citizens. Not in America. Our whole government has now been captured by corporations. and their job is to look out for corporations. And if we get crushed along the way, it is what it is. Universal health care coverage.

No, we're not going to get it. If you don't have insurance at all, you certainly will die. Even if you have insurance, your copay or deductible can be so high, it bankrupts you. And now we're going to go back to the days of preexisting conditions. And on and on it goes, this brutal, brutal system. I'm going to quote Frank Holland, the husband here. I have to be strong for the kids, but it's still surreal. It hasn't all set in.

We've been together a long time over half my life. She's my best friend, my soulmate, by everything. But Heather Holland is gone because her co-pay was too expensive. At TYT, we frequently talk about all the ways that big tech companies are taking control of our online lives, constantly monitoring us and storing us. selling our data, but that doesn't mean we have to let them. It's possible to stay anonymous online and hide your data from the prying eyes of big tech. And one of the best ways is with ExpressVPN. ExpressVPN hides your IP address, making your active ID more difficult to trace

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Let's go to another policy position where Trump was supposed to be on the progressive side. We're going to figure out how this story ends. Okay. So Donald Trump said during the campaign that he was going to devote a lot of money to infrastructure. Well, that sounded like a really positive thing. thing. And I told you during the campaign that he had a lot of positions that were actually progressive and populist. He wanted to end the Trans-Pacific Partnership. He talked about ending loopholes for the hedge funds. And he wanted to go after the bankers. And he said he would

protect Social Security and Medicare. Now, I told you that almost all of those were lies. And it turns out, yeah, he kept the loophole for the hedge funds in his tax bill. He doesn't care. He was I knew the whole time. He just proposed the budget where they're going to cut Medicare by hundreds of billions of dollars. Why? Because there's no money left, because they gave so much in tax cuts to the rich. TPP, he did actually stop the negotiations, but he just went to Davos with the globalists and said, oh, no, we'll make that deal better and get back in. Well, how about infrastructure? He'd promised infrastructure. Well, there is $200 billion in his budget for infrastructure, but overall spending is $1.7 billion. I'm sorry, $1.3 trillion, I should

say. So where's the rest of the money coming from? From private corporations. Okay. Is that a good thing? Well, let's find out. We go to, first of all, what the White House says. Tolling restrictions, they explain, foreclose what might otherwise serve as a major source of revenue for infrastructure investment. Providing state's flexibility to toll existing interstates would generate additional revenues for states to invest in surface transportation infrastructure. So let me translate that for you. We're going to build tolls everywhere. For a long time in America, the great majority of the national highway system and the interstate highway system was toll-free. Well, Donald Trump would like to end that.

So he's saying, well, private corporations are going to put money in, and then they're going to want to maximize profit. So not only will they get their money back, but they'll get some money on top of that. So at the end of the day, who's going to pay for the roads? You are. Now, look, you put taxes in, we build them at a reasonable rate, and it helps everyone. It helps you to get from point A to point B. It helps businesses. When Eisenhower helped to build the interstate highways, it helped business, boom.

And we did that through taxes. And it still made sense. And it still created a bigger, larger, more successful economy, it lifted all boats. Now we're not going to do that. We're going to privatize all the roads. And then you are going to be paying tolls forever. This is actually deeply unpopular, even among conservatives. I'm going to explain that in a second.

but of course that means it's bipartisan. If there is something that is for corporate interests only and against all the citizens, then both parties agree to it. So whenever you see on TV that there's no bipartisan agreement, that is not true. They often agree on things that would rob us. In this case, Obama agreed to this too. Barack Obama's administration, for example, repeatedly proposed lifting current prohibitions on states placing tolls on existing highway lanes.

Proponents of the move argued that it would create new sources of bad lady to revenue, one that could find more support in Congress than an increase in federal gas tax. So, as usual, Obama didn't plan to do it at the scale that Trump is planning. But he thought, yeah, privatize the roads, bring in tolls. Congress will then agree. Why will Congress agree? Because they're owned by the donors. Democrats agree, the Republicans agree. The only people who don't agree are the citizens. Now, let me show you how deeply unpopular it is. Not just among progressives, but again, among conservatives. So we go to the

deep red state of Texas. A statewide push to privatize highways in Texas suffered a backlash from angry commuters who complain about exorbitant late fees and costly toll bills. In December, the state's transportation officials voted against constructing

new toll roads after opposition from Governor Greg Abbott and Lieutenant Governor Dan Patrick. Those guys are very, very conservative. So they're like, okay, donors, you're going to give us money? All right. I won't make all the citizens pay tax. By the way, in essence, a different form of tax, right?

But you pay it forever. We'll make them pay tolls forever on the highways. Turns that conservatives didn't like that either. They're like, I don't want to do that. That's terrible. And it's a pain of the ass, too. Not only are you paying, it's a regressive tax. So it's a tiny, tiny fraction of the income of the rich,

but it's a bigger fraction of the income of the middle class and the poor. But on top of that, you've got to stop at the tolls or you've got to get the thing in your car, that lets you go through the tolls, but God forbid, you let it lapse, or you didn't get it in the first place, or you went in the wrong lane, and then you got fines and tickets, and it all adds up. Those are all a way of taxing you, the middle class, and the poor, and like I said, it's a fraction of the income of the rich, so it's a way of redistributing the wealth to the top and taking it from you. And it turns out that was a bridge too far and a road too far, apparently for even Republicans in Texas, they're like, yeah, this one I get, okay? No, I vote no.

And then all of a sudden Abbott and Patrick are like, back pedal, back pedal, back pedal, back pedal. Did we say tolls? No, no, no, no. Tolls are an outrage. We're against tolls. Doesn't matter. It's now coming to the national level to the tune of trillions of dollars. Hopefully, we will stop it. But if we don't, get ready to pay no matter where you drive for the rest of the time. of your life. Okay. Now, let me go to the sea change event. It might give us a little bit of hope in politics.

So I gave you some bad news as usual, but here's some potentially very good news. Senator Kirsten-Jelbrand is from New York. If I'm being honest, and that's what we do here, she has been more in the establishment wing of the Democratic Party. We believe that she is likely to run. in 2020 for president. So today, she came up with a dramatic announcement, and it really is dramatic. And I would argue that it is even maybe a harbinger of a sea change in democratic politics.

Let me show you what it is, and then I'll tell you the consequences and why it's so important. So a fact of corporate money in politics, I've decided from this point on, I am no longer accepting corporate pack checks into my campaign. So one of the reasons why I'm so concerned about money in politics is because of the Supreme Court decision Citizens United. We have a system where corporations can spend unlimited money that isn't even disclosed. So there's no transparency. Since I was first elected in 2006, I've made it my mission to create more transparency and accountability in Congress. And so I was the first member of Congress to actually post my schedule, my earmark requests, and my financial disclosure online. line and I've since added to that my taxes. So I hope you will stand with me. We really need to

make every effort we can to get rid of the corporate money and dark money that is flowing into politics. And my effort to ban corporate pack checks is just a first step in that direction. Okay, that is a giant deal. So it started a little bit at a time and there were a lot of us who were saying, hey, corporate pack money is corrupting. And those are true blue progressives who were saying that. And then some congressman started saying, you know what, I'm not going to take any corporate pack money anymore. So Congressman Rokana stopped taking corporate pack money. Beto O'Rourke in Texas now running for Senate against Ted Cruz, no corporate pack money. And then it grew and it grew. And then there's a separate wing of the Democratic Party called the

Justice Democrats. None of them are allowed to take corporate pack money. They're all uncorrupted. There's now 51 Democratic candidates across the country that are all just Democrats, all not taking corporate pack money, and then more incumbents. Roel Grijalva, is now a Justice Democrat. Tulsie Gabbard, no corporate pack money. And then the Senate, Elizabeth Warren, no corporate pack money. And now, Chillebrand,

what most people in politics would consider bedrock establishment Democrat, now saying no more corporate pack money. Now, look, I have a sense that some progressives will be skeptical. And I'll give

you the full context here. in a second. But know when you have won. Okay, we're nowhere near getting money out of politics. We have a very, very long road to go. But when someone comes to your side, for God's sake, celebrate it, rewarded, and feel great about it. If you had asked me if Senator Gillibrand is not going to take over PAC money a year ago, I would have said, no way, no way she's going to do that. But here she is. If you think, oh, it's because she wants to win in 2020, great. You know what that means?

That means people as savvy as Senator Gillibrand have realized the Democratic Party is actually progressive. If I want to get those voters, there's no more tricks. There's not enough ads I could buy. I actually have to stop taking the corporate money. That's wonderful. So here's more context from Roll Call. her prohibition includes contributions from PACs connected to trade associations and law firms. Her spokesman Glenn Kaplan told roll call on an email, saying the goal was to, quote,

get corporate money out of politics. Okay. Now, she's still taking some PAC money. Let's explain. Pack money from labor unions is still welcome, Kaplan said. Also, PACs have amounted to about 15%. This is more context of Jill Brand's donations over her career in the House and Senate, according to data from nonpartisan Center for Responsive Politics.

And one more here, labor PACs represent about 14% of Jill Brands' PAC dollars, while ideological or single-issue PACs amounted to more than 20% the center's data showed. But the overwhelming majority of the PAC money was corporate PAC money, 65% of it. And now that is gone. She's putting that money aside and saying, I don't want it. I just can't praise it enough. Look, Barack Obama said that he was for change. To me, change is systemic change.

When you change the system, you change the rules. Why do we need to change the rules? Because our democracy has been corrupted by the corporate money in politics. Now, Obama talked a good game in the hand. A lot of placards that said change. But when he got in office, he did almost nothing for real change in that regard. And the system remained exactly as it was. I remember Obama ran an ad saying, I'm not going to try to play the Washington politics and games a little bit better.

I'm going to change the game. Changing the game was getting money out of politics and he didn't do it. So sometimes the Democrats will say, what do you want? You know a lateral disarmament where we don't take the money and they do? Well, I want you to be uncorrupted. I believe that that actually will give you better electoral results. But most importantly, I want you to work towards getting money out of politics. And if you are no, if you're a candidate, you're no longer taking corporate money and corporate PAC money, you know what that means? you're going to work really hard to make sure that no one can take corporate PAC money. Great. It's mission accomplished on two fronts. One, you're no longer corrupted by the corporate PAC money as a candidate and as a senator.

And number two, you're incentivized to work super hard to get that money out of politics. So no matter what you think her intentions are or why she did it, you have to understand that this is a wonderful moment, not just for Senator Gillibrand, But for the progressive movement, it doesn't mean that we have won that victory. When we get a constitutional amendment to get money out of politics, still a good distance. And organizations like Wolfpack, wolfdashpack.com are working hard and you should join them to make that happen. Once you get the amendment, that is rewriting the rules. That is real change.

That's changing the game and bringing our democracy back so that the politicians serve their voters and not their donors. But this is a very important step in that direction. It doesn't mean we've won, but it does mean we have begun to win. Hopefully, soon we'll get tired of winning. Get all the money out. Okay, I got to take a quick break here. I have some news out of the Republicans and Democrats. Some of it's surprising, some of it not remotely surprising when we return.

thanks for watching we're listening to this free version of the young turks podcast you know that the full show is at t ytnetwork.com slash join if you become a member you get the full show ad free we love you for watching or listening either way there's going to be a new free podcast tomorrow you can keep on doing that but if you want to get the full show ad free t yt network dot com slash join thanks for listening to the full episode of the young turks support our work listen ad free access members only bonus content and more by subscribing to apple podcast at apple.com at apple.com slash t-y-t. I'm your host, Shank Huger, and I'll see you soon.