The Young Turks - Rage Against The Machine

Episode Date: March 18, 2023

Two trains derail in Arizona and Washington as rail industry lobbies against safety bill. Enraging workers, Macron bypasses Parliament with 'nuclear option' on retirement age hike. A new poll shows Democrats sympathize with Palestinians over Israel for the first time. Fox News freaks out over energy efficiency standards for washing machines. Bulletproof whiteboards to protect against mass shooters fitted in Alabama classroom. Hosts: Francesca Fiorentini, Maz Jobrani, Farron Cousins Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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3x3. Drop it. It is a Piggottie power panel over here on TYT. Welcome, I'm Francesca Fiorentini. Over there is host of Ring of Fire, Farran Cousins, and comedian Maz Durrani. Happy St. Patrick's Day, guys. I'm the only one who got the memo. Is that what we're? I have it on my socks. I don't think I own any green at all, actually. It's kind of sad. Okay, everyone, next time I see you, I'm going to pinch you. I'm going to be that guy. I'm green with envy. There you go. Indeed. There you go. You're jealous of this shirt that makes me look like a comic book character,

whose name I forgot, but apparently she's pretty dope. Welcome, everybody. Thank you so much for being here. We have so much show to get to, so much news, of course. New culture war drop, very exciting, all about the spin cycle and saving money on that. Anyway, France is up in arms, of course, and they are fighting the retirement age. raising of the retirement age. What else? Trains are derailing. There's so much going on. And then a little bit of a sea change and opinion when it comes to Americans and specifically

Democrats' opinions on Israel. So we're going to get to all that in the meantime. You know what to do. You're liking, you're sharing. You're letting people know what you're watching on a Friday afternoon. And of course, chime in via super chat. We're going to read them and through all the breaks. But first, let's just get into this. Overnight, two BNSF locomotives hauling six empty cars derailed on Anacortes Island along a stretch of rail behind the Swinamish casino on tribal land. A derailment that drew a response from the Coast Guard, EPA, State Department of Ecology, and Skagit EMS. It also drew a crowd. Well, I'm concerned about the leakage, all the diesel that is being leaked into the ground.

Yeah, yeah, that's that's a normal concern when a diesel railroad derails as happened on Wednesday night. That's a BNSF train in Swinomish Reservation, again, a native reservation leaking 3,100 gallons of diesel into the soil. A few more details about state authorities said the fuel spill does not appear to have flowed towards the water, though such an assurance is cold comfort amid the disaster in eastern Ohio, where residents' concerns about the law. long-term impacts of the wreck on local water, soil and air quality remain high more than a month after that crash. Again, talking about East Palestine. So here we have it again. There's another derailment and just hang on to see what the rail industry is saying and doing. Have they changed their tune? Will it be this spill? For this particular spill in Washington State, there's no, no official statement on what happened and no explanation, no injuries were reported. Also on the back of yet another derailment that happened in Arizona on the California-Arizona border, it was carrying corn syrup, which sure is fine for the soil. I don't know.

Apparently, no, none of those, there again, no injuries necessarily, no immediate damage. But as a reminder, on average, the United States has three derailments a day. So this is not new. This is just par for the course and apparently a price that they're worth paying. Now, have rail industry leaders change their tune on what they're going to do? Not really. In fact, they are doubling down in lobbying. That's right. So while this month senators have introduced a bill to try and combat some of these derailments and the causes of them, it's called the Railway Safety Act, It enhances safety requirements for trains carrying hazardous materials and increases fines for safety violations. And yet, of course, the proposal is facing already some stiff resistance from Republicans.

And now we know why. All right. So new disclosures are revealing, and this is from sludge, new disclosures reveal that Union Pacifics PAC made $15,000 in contributions last month, all to Republicans in the House and Senate, given less than two weeks after the Ohio derailment. And then BNSF, again, the trains that derailed most recently, they contributed $2,500 from its pack. Again, somehow trains have packs these days to Republican representative Sam Graves of Missouri after last month's derailment in Ohio, according to just released FEC reporting. Graves is the chairman of the House Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure, which is jurisdiction over transit and rail transportation. And this is a fun quote. They got what they paid for.

hears Graves' thoughts. He says, told Fox News that he was in no rush to consider rail safety legislation. However, he wanted to fully understand the facts involved and wait for the National Transportation Safety Board to report on the incident. And in total over the past two decades, I mean, we're truly in Monopoly Times, open secrets, and their analysis shows that the rail industry has spent more than $650 million on federal lobbying. And that's just one aspect of this, But Farron, I wanted to kick it to you because it's like they're not even hiding it anymore. It's a lot almost like the gun industry. I mean, we have a shooting and then suddenly, oh, oh, we got to start giving all this money so they don't do anything to rain us in a little bit.

And we're seeing the same thing here with the rail industry. And they know exactly which lawmakers they need to target. They know who those key votes are. They know where their home bases are. They got to go after those folks, and that's exactly what they're doing. And this phenomenon, like you said, we're having three crashes on average per day. It's not like these crashes just started either. For about 10 years, I was working at or with DeSmog blog doing environmental writing.

We had a writer who's pretty much his main focus was on the rail disasters that were happening at an alarming rate. We called them bomb trains. That writer, by the way, was Justin Makoka. And he would write about these things, you know, every week, several train crashes where you'd have diesel spills, you would have oil spills, you'd have natural gas leaking out, and nobody paid any attention on the national level to the fact that this was happening. So I guess the one bright side now is finally people are starting to pay attention. They're starting to see how disastrous is. The fact that we've got railways in this country, the actual tracks themselves that are over 60 years old and have not been maintained. We have trains with breaking systems from the civil war still in operation. Yeah, I would say this is something that we have to focus on. And now that the light is being shown on it, we're also starting to see the money flowing. And we'll see as these disasters continue to mount,

whether or not these Republicans are willing to look the other way as their campaign coffers get filled. It's a touchy subject right now, so maybe the public pressure can be enough to undo that corporate money. It typically isn't, but we'll see. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, we saw a little bit of, you know, Marjorie Green. We've got to have a committee here and we need to talk about this. You know, Trump's there. He's selling his Trump water. Maas, what do you make of this? First of all, you said that they gave the guy $2,500 to lobby him. Like, I thought we, that doesn't, that's like nothing. Like, is that all it takes? Because I'm going to start having this guy lobby for me. I mean, $2,500, that's some cheap lobbying, but all right, I guess inflation doesn't apply as much to these members of Congress.

Secondly, I live in a world where I thought trains were safe, and I guess they're not, and we're seeing three times a day, we're getting derailments and accidents. You would think with all the, just like Farron was just saying, you would think with advancement and technology, we would have found a way to have the train remain hooked. on so that you might get one derailment a year. I mean, what are these guys? Are they speeding up around the corner? What's going on? And by the way, if you're carrying toxic materials, take your time. You don't need to rush toxic materials anywhere.

I know that. If I have hot water, I'm not running throughout the house with the hot water. I'm walking slowly to deliver the tea to whoever asked for the tea. Slow it down. So all of that to say, I didn't know this was a problem. know this was a problem, but now I do. And now I'm never going to be comfortable on any train that I travel on. Thank you very much. Yeah, the trains that are left that don't cost an arm and a leg and actually go to any of the cities that you're performing in. Like if you want to get

there, you know, at 10 times the time, it's yeah, I mean, look, if there's one takeaway, no, if there's a million takeaways from the pandemic, right? And the supply chain stuff, It's can we at least get our rails working properly, right? You'd think that it would be an economic investment for the Republicans and the Democrats and the Biden administration to actually invest more, have more people working them, get better tracks, get more tracks. I thought Biden was the train guy. You know, if there's one thing we should be able to do, it is move our own goods and

services and products within this country, right? We can't even do that. We can't even do that because corporations got a corporation. They got to have theirs and they're not stopping here. And I want to just turn because it's not just Republicans. Sadly, this week an independent government, excuse me, this week an independent government board controlled by appointees of the president, Joe Biden, okayed a massive $31 billion railway consolidation, a merger of two of the biggest rail companies, Canadian Pacific and Kansas City

Southern. So this is the service, this board is called the surface transportation board. It approved this merger of Canadian Pacific and Kansas City Southern. The sixth and seventh biggest railroads on the continent. The merger is creating a new railroad stretching from Vancouver to Nova Scotia all the way down to Vera Cruz, a port on the Gulf of Mexico. It's going to be the first merger of two class one railroads, which basically means large rail companies in two decades. Now, it's important to know also that five of the members on that board were appointed by Joe Biden himself. And so I don't see how you push this forward, especially in the wake of East Palestine, but we got the money. So Canadian Pacific in

Kansas City Southern spent $2 million lobbying in support of the merger, including hiring a former senator, Byron Dorgan. Tight, amazing. They're just there for hire. Kirsten Cinema, please retire yourself. And so this is happening all in the wake. Now, it's important to know like back in the 70s, there were 40 major railroad companies. And now, again, we're saying there's seven now, now six of this. And this is at a time where like Biden's administration has stopped things like the merger of JetBlue and Spirit Airways, which I think was a win. And yet here you have this, Farron, I'm just like, again, Biden, railroad guy, what's going on? You know, it never works out well for consumers when we see all of these major corporations start to merge with one another,

whether it's Dowd-Dupont merging, you know, two of the biggest chemical polluters in the country. It didn't work very well with the airlines. All it does is take away choice. And now we've got it with the railways as well. And to me, it's a very weird situation because just, you know, building off of what Ma said, like, how are they just not being more responsible with their cargo? And, And, you know, if I were the company, like, here's a good example, if UPS was at the point where three times a day, a UPS truck just tipped over and spilled all their packages, UPS would freak the heck out and say, oh my, okay, we got to figure this out because this is costing us money now. Let's stop flipping the trucks over.

Yet so far, there hasn't been a single rail company that said, all right, whoa, whoa, whoa, Well, why do we keep falling down? You know, that part of our job is to just be, be straight and go. And we somehow can't do that. We're tipping. We're costing us in the future. It's going to be, you know, tens of millions, if not hundreds of millions in lawsuits. We're losing cargo.

We're losing time. We're losing money. This is hurting us as a company. And we're just not going to fix it. Just from a pure business standpoint, whoever is making the decisions at these companies, all of them, they're idiots. I mean, that's the bottom line because you're costing yourself money by not fixing the problem here. And so now we're gonna have even fewer people making those horrible decisions that are going to affect a lot more railways with this merger.

Well, Farron, you know, they've been getting away with it. As I was just saying, I really didn't know there was this many derailments. So because it had been not as big news until this Palestine accident that happened, I think they were getting away with it, and they were thinking, well, listen, it'll help our stock prices go up. It goes back to this whole conversation of regulation and how a lot of times Republicans say, we don't want any regulation, let the company's private enterprise will lead the way. And you realize, no, when you let private enterprise lead the way, they just end up buying more yachts for themselves and letting trains derail and just, you know, sweeping it out of the rug. So unfortunately, that's the that's what

the capitalistic role that we live in, but we need, clearly we need more regulations. And you're right. You would think it kind of goes in hand in hand with the conversations we have about modernizing our energy sources and how people go, no, we can't do that. And you go, listen in the long run, it's good for us, as you were just saying, it's good for business, it's good for everybody. You just got to bite the bullet a little bit and invest. And we haven't invested. That's the whole thing with the infrastructure bill that just passed. I mean, you know, not if you guys have been in Japan, I got that, I got that on that bullet train in Japan. Yeah. I mean, they got it, they got, I don't know how many derailments they're getting a day,

but they seem to have their act together. And here we are, you know, every, every, every, every day three trains are going off the track. And yeah, we and exactly right. It's capitalism gone exactly the way capitalism is going to go when it is unchecked, which is, it is far more lucrative to to allow trains to derail to poison entire communities, to poison groundwater, to poison soil, because you're ultimately not going to clean that up. You're not going to live there. You're not, that is not factored into your cost benefit analysis. No one is holding you accountable. And sadly, waterways and soil, I think they should, but they don't have lawyers. They don't have teams of lawyers the way railways have teams of lawyers.

And they don't have shareholders except for all of us who survive on those waterways. and that soil for, you know, food and sustenance, but these blood suckers clearly don't eat what we eat. So that's it. And look, it's very predictable that it's very sad and predictable that Joe Biden would do something like this. And I'm looking at Pete Buttigieg. I'm looking at Secretary of Transportation, Buttigieg to do something. This is not about waiting on corporations to find it within their hearts because here we are a month after this spill and what's in their heart, it's just making more money. It's lobbying, it's buying their stock back and making no promises. So stop holding your breath and start actually forcing them to to implement these

regulations. All right, let's switch gears just a little bit here and get inspired, but also angry? Take a look. Across the country tonight, French cities grinding to a halt. In the capital, thousands of people taking to the streets after French President Emmanuel Macron forced through an unpopular bill that raises the retirement age from 62 to 64 years old. And he did it without a vote.

It's hard to watch that from the United States and not imagine what if we took our social security and retirement as seriously as the French. So their protests have been raging for many, many weeks now against this proposed retirement to change the age from 64 to 62. And it looks like Emmanuel Macron just decided he's gonna do it. He is sick and tired and he is just going to pass this without a vote. unilaterally, take a look. Afternoon, France's Prime Minister

Elizabeth Bourne, an ally of Macron, triggering a constitutional tool that allowed the bill through with no floor vote. We can not do Paris on the future of our retreat. This reform is necessary. The uproar immediate opposition

members shutting down Parliament belting the French national anthem. McCrawl has long insisted the reforms are essential to ensure the pension system doesn't collapse. Mathematically speaking, the argument is the country will not be able to support future generations. In the last three months alone, there have been eight consecutive national strikes. Millions of French workers, from teachers to police to refinery workers have joined in. A recent poll by AFP finds a majority of the French support the protest movement against pension

reform and 59% support bringing the country to a standstill over it. Okay, so there we have it. The prime minister has decided that he's had enough with the protests, you know, yay democracy, but we got to, we got to move it on and lower the age, or excuse me, raise the age to 64 from 62. So this is a, this is something that can only be overturned through Article 49.3, which I'm sure everyone is familiar with in the French Constitution. It is widely seen, however, as a perilous move for the government, as it allows MPs to put forward a motion of no confidence within 24 hours. The short term, the government will have to survive several motions of no confidence that are expected to be voted on on Monday.

This is graphic two. Macron's government has faced down motions of no confidence in the past, but the stakes are much higher this time around. So they could revoke this bill through this no confidence vote, that means also that Macron's government would have to resign. So I think the real question is do French people and workers and the 64% who oppose raising the retirement age, do they have allies inside of parliament? But I guess just overall thoughts on this move, Farron, from Macron to do this unilaterally? Yeah, I mean, it's certainly something that obviously just goes against the will of pretty much everybody that's out in the street. But watching this story and then comparing it to what's happening here, because we do have Republicans kicking around

the idea, let's raise the retirement age of Social Security. We don't have nationwide protests. We don't have people in the streets. We don't have this unified public saying, no, this is our safety net program. We've paid into it our whole lives. You're going to give it to us when it was promised to us. We're just sitting back saying, well, maybe they've got a point, which is what Republicans are doing. Like maybe it's not a bad idea. No, they're giving us the blueprint right now. When the government takes it away from you, after promising it to you, after you upholding your part of the bargain with these pension plans, it is owed to you. And when they try to take it away, you stand up, you fight back, you band together all, you know, political

parties, which is what's happening there, those people in the streets. And they're making their voices heard. And Macron may pay the price for it. We'll see. But, you know, right now it's not looking, based on what I've seen, super great for him in parliament. Faron, yeah, my question is, how lazy are the French? It's just two more years. Go to work. I'm kidding. But no, you're absolutely right about how we, I think the people that get affected by Social Security here, at least on the right, I think they fall for all the shiny objects, right? They say, oh, look, they're grooming our kids, LGBTQ, drag shows, all that stuff. And they basically lull those people into not realizing that they're going to be taking away

their social security. Or as Rick Scott had said famously, you know, we want to try to pass it every few years. And of course, Biden called them out in the State of the Union speech. and I think some people maybe woke up to it, but you're right, we are in no way, I think a lot of times the people that are affected most by the right pushing corporate agenda and taking away any kind of benefits that Americans have come in their way. The people that are affected the most also are the ones who support these people the most. A lot of times you go, how do you not see that these programs are going to hurt you? And they go, well, there's immigrants coming in. So whatever McCarthy and whatever else says, I'm going to go with it. So we could learn from the French and we should realize that our benefits are on the chopping blocks as well. Absolutely.

And interestingly, Trump is trying to hit DeSantis specifically and precisely on like his, you know, proposals to cut social security and Medicare. But I wanted to just early shout out a commenter, which I think is a really, it brings up a really important point. says, I mentioned yesterday, but this is going to sweep Le Pen into power in the next French election. The left will abstain out of dejection and protests and the right will win. Then this might kill the EU. That's getting very, very ahead of ourselves. But it's important to remember that Macron won by the skin of his teeth, that Le Pen got a huge percentage of the vote. And that absolutely the right populace, so faux populace, as they are, seize upon these moments, use it to then, again, ram down their xenophobia down people's

throats, but then attach it to like, oh, but workers' rights kind of, right? They pretend as if they're in solidarity with, you know, retiring folks. And then they come into power. And then you've got Donald Trump, right? That's what you will get on your hands. And neoliberal's and centrist consistently, consistently miss out on being able to stave fascism off. And here you go, once again. And for those who think, like, what are we talking about? I just quickly, before we break, have to show the kinds of protests that have been going on. We got oil, excuse me, we got, yeah, oil shipments halted by strikes at several refineries. Workers also cutting France's nuclear output, garbage collectors on strike, flights canceled, trains entirely

stopped, dock workers blockading seaports. You've got meatpacking. and auto manufacturing workers walking off the job, 60% of teachers walked off the job. So estimates are 3.5 million people have been involved in this protest. So nothing but solidarity and a shout out to the French. And we will see how this all shakes out. But we have to take a break right now, so don't go nowhere. Welcome back to TYT, Francesca Fiorentini here, Mazur Brani, Farron Cousins. And I just before we go into our next story, I got a shout out, Lance Reddick, who sadly passed away today, actor from The Wire, from John Wick. He was 60 years old. And yes, that is him.

wearing a TYT hat because he was absolutely a fan. He appeared on the main show with, I believe, Jank and Anna, and like, he was a supporter, a huge supporter, and he was an amazing actor. And so 60 way too young, it's unclear how, you know, what the cause of death is, but just, you know, shout out to his family and you're in our hearts and our thoughts. And like, it's amazing that someone so talented was part of the TYT army and the family. And yeah, I'm very, very upset and sad that he passed way too soon. So sending lots of love to Lance Reddick and please send him love as well in the comments and in any way.

But with that, let's jump to this. It's time for our officials to condemn anti-Semitism, not just with their words, but with their actions. You can't denounce anti-Semitism, but waver on Israel's right to exist and defend itself. I'm starting an organization called Progressives for Israel, and I'm going to call the question for Democrats. Do you stand with Israel or do you stand against Israel? Because silence is not an option. Oh, we're not going to be silent, Andrew Cuomo. We're definitely going to talk about this latest move from the former governor to try and pivot into raising money for a state that has been accused by human rights organizations of apartheid in terms of.

of what it has done to the Palestinian people and continues to do encroaching on their territory. But there's Cuomo claiming to be a progressive, starting the progressives for Israel PAC, and once again, conflating anti-Semitism with any critique of Israel, which is how Democrats consistently try to say that progressives, real progressives like Representative Ilhan Omar, Representative Rashida Talib, are in fact anti-Semitic when all they are doing is calling into question these support that we consistently give to a human rights violator. But anyway, if you thought, gee, Cuomo progresses for Israel, is he, what do the American people think? What do Democrats think? Are we on board with this? Are they on board with this? In fact, no, Cuomo, funnily enough,

is actually very out of touch with the people. Funny fact, because there's a new Gallup poll that shows that Palestinians actually hold now an 11 point lead in Democrats' sympathies over Israelis with 49% of respondents sympathizing with Palestine and 38% with Israel. 13% responded, neither both or no opinion. But this is a huge shift actually from just a year ago. The shift in opinions has caused sympathy towards Palestine to reach its highest point among all respondents at 31%. And a year ago, Democrats favored Israel 40% to 39%. And I think a lot of folks are pointing to younger generations, as Sharon Zhang does here, says the shift is driven by younger generations with millennials and Gen Z slightly favoring Palestine overall. Now, there's a number

of reasons why this could be. Let's talk about the violence. Last year, Israeli forces killed the most Palestinians in occupied Jerusalem and the West Bank in decades and are continuing that violence this year at a rate that could potentially surpass last year's grisly death toll. In January, just this year, Israeli forces carried out a rate against the Janine refugee camp in the West Bank in which they killed at least nine Palestinians in what the UN analysts say was the deadliest single Israeli operation since 2005. Since then, Israeli forces have killed dozens more Palestinians with at least 83 Palestinians killed so far this year. So when you kill a lot of people, civilians, folks are going to start taking notice and especially

younger generations who, again, have TikTok at their fingers and honestly are doing a pretty damn good job breaking down some pretty complex issues because it's not actually that complicated when it comes to trampling human rights like this. But I did want to ask, Ma's like, do you think, is this surprising to see this turn? Yeah, what are your thoughts on that? It's not surprising, you know, as you said, you know, they conflate, a lot of times people conflate anti-Semitism with any kind of criticism of what the government of Israel is doing. Clearly there's Israelis, Jewish Israelis who want to coexist and they want peace with Palestinians and vice versa.

And clearly there's, you know, members of the Palestinian government that are also committing acts of atrocities and killing innocent people. So that clearly exists. But if you criticize the Israeli government for doing some of the atrocious acts that it does, that doesn't make you anti-Semitic. And what sometimes boggles my mind is when I see conservatives say, oh, you know, if you criticize Israel, that's anti-Semitic. And then you go, what about when those guys were marching in Charlottesville and saying Jews will not replace us?

And they're far right extremists. You guys are okay with those guys being in your camp, and that's not anti-Semitism. But when you criticize Netanyahu and some of the far right actions that are being taken and killing innocent Palestinians, that's anti-Semitic. It's mind-boggling. And I think the statistics we're seeing, as you said, are coming out of once I think you decentralize where any information is coming to the American public, you're going to see a lot of people go, oh, wow, I didn't know it was like this. And you're going to see those numbers change. And that's what we're seeing. Totally. Yeah, fair. And any thoughts? Yeah, I think that fear of being labeled anti-Semitic has really what's been driving the coverage of what's happening over there for years and years and years and years. But as you pointed out, because we now have, especially the younger generation, they have different means of getting their news. You know, they're watching the videos on YouTube. They're watching it on TikTok. They see it on Instagram and Twitter. And suddenly it's without that filter and they are making up their minds for themselves. They're watching what's happening. They're seeing videos of the people there. So they're not getting this, you know, filtered version to avoid any, you know,

appearance of anti-Semitism and they're able to make these, in my opinion, better judgments about what's happening. And there is a world of difference that Republicans and even a lot of Democrats, apparently like Cuomo, don't want to acknowledge that you can criticize a government while not criticizing the citizens. You know, that's not what's happening here. We're not saying that, oh, everyone in Israel is guilty of this. You're all bad people. That's not happening. That is what people do to shut down these arguments so that we can't have these conversations. And they know it works and that's why they continue to do it. And they're going to continue to do it. And it's also disgusting that Cuomo has hijacked the word progressives for his little group. That's also, you know, very just. Very rich. He spent his time in office cutting deals with Republicans and punching left at progressives time and time again, working families party and many other grassroots groups. So spare us on the label progressive, which now that Cuomo is using it, It has no meaning, literally just no meaning. So as well as the words Italian and anti-Italian discrimination, which he loves. They were just handsy. I'm like, oh my God, stop.

But speaking of Israelis, and it's important, as this Farron pointed out, they are not adequately represented by this government. In fact, just recently, just in January, over 100,000 Israelis protested the Netanyahu government. 100,000 marched in the streets of Tel Aviv. one of the biggest protests in Israel in many, many years. So that's important to keep in mind here. And I think it's a really good point to say, look, when you see the bombing of the Alaksa mosque, when you see the IDF, the Israeli army, you know, basically throwing smoke bombs and flash grenades at worshippers, you don't need a filter.

You got your eyes to tell you what that looks like. When you see an own elderly woman having, you know, being beaten by a military police officer, by the army, like, you know, you're you're, you don't need a filter. So in a time of, you know, sort of believe nothing, everything's on the internet. It's all kind of a wash. I do feel like there are still these stories and videos and shocking images. We saw it out of Iran, you know, earlier last year that you cannot deny that still are there and cannot be, you know, falsified at least not. Not yet. And so I think it's really important. And the last thing I just want to say is that we are also on the other side of an election that in the United States, in the midterm election, where the Israeli lobby poured tons of money, like millions and millions and millions of dollars into defeating whom, progressive candidates. And who did they side with either centrist

Democrats or far right insurrectionist Republicans. So don't tell us that you're progressive and that you care, you know, about basic human rights, either here in this country or in Israel in the occupied territories because we see what you're doing and it's not lost on young people. All right, we got to take our second break. But more on the other side. All right, welcome back to CYT. Farron Cousins, Maz Durrani, Francesca Fiorentini here.

New culture war just dropped. Take a look. Here's something that is filthy and stinks to high heaven. Biden's agenda on washing machines. I cannot imagine this. Before long, they're going to have. us carrying our clothes back out back and doing an old ringer washing machine. The wash part again, Marsha.

What are they talking about? As if any of them did their own laundry, they're talking about the Department of Energy's proposed standards, stricter standards for household washing machines, refrigerators and freezers that will save energy and reduce carbon emissions. But of course, because I just said the word carbon, that is a trigger for the entire right wing to freak out because they want to burn as much of it as possible before they go into the grave. And so continuing with Marshall Blackburns, again, someone who hasn't washed her own clothing in 30 years, here's what else she had to say about the proposal. To take your washing machine and try to make it to the point that it is going to be less efficient. focused on appliance efficiency because why? It uses less electricity. It is a better product,

utilization of technology to make these appliances more efficient. So here comes something that you've got to have a different detergent, less effective. You've got to wash your clothes, not once, but probably two or three times to get them clean. So you're going to use more water, more electricity, you will get a worse outcome from the product. I cannot imagine this. You have to change detergents. I love how she slipped that in there because she didn't know what else to say. Again, this is a response to Department of Energy. New rules on household appliances that will save everyone and the planet, money and carbon. The rules would go into a in 2027, consumers who use appliances meeting the proposed standards will save about $425 on utility

bills over the life of the appliances. Appliance companies, however, would need to invest approximately $2 billion over the next three years to update product designs and manufacturing lines to comply with the new standards. So of course, they're freaking out about that. I'm sure what you've got like, World Pool Lobby is up in what Marsha's ear here, like paying her off, but what do you all think of this? Is this, I mean, remember the Xbox freak out? Because it went into sleep mode. I love her freak out. Like, they're coming for her washing machines. No, here's the thing. If, if the department, you know, had just said, listen, we're going to put these new standards in place to save you money. How can you argue with that? Yeah. And this is

something, like I said, I was an environmental writer for like 10 years. It's the messaging. that turns people off sometimes. And I'm not saying the department's wrong for mentioning carbon. They absolutely should. But at the same time, you got to understand we are dealing with quite possibly some of the dumbest people on the planet. Yes. So you've got to baby step them into it. There are ways to frame it. And it should have just been framed as listen, do you want to save 10, 20 bucks a month on your power bill? If so, we're going to do this thing. You're good to go. That's like boom, there's your message. You don't even have to have a press release.

You can send it out in a tweet and you're done. And that way everybody understands, oh, just going to save me money. And then later on, be like, oh, by the way, this is actually helping the environment. It's pretty cool, right? Yeah, yeah, we did well. But we get ahead of ourselves and we want to have, you know, this grand message of we're taking action. And of course, you're going to have the idiots that think it's a stupid idea.

And at the same time, these CEOs that you're talking about like, oh, they're going to have to spend money, the average tenure of a CEO is three to five years. So by the time these standards even are in place, most of these companies are going to be on to the next CEO. So the current person there sitting in the big chair gets to say, you know what, I'm not going to spend the money. I'm going to lobby against it. That's going to be the next person's problem. It's the same with the rail industry too. Like, we can incur the losses because they're not coming till the future. So let the next person deal with it. And that's why we get all of this corporate inaction and corporate pushback because they got to make as much money as they can and then move on out of there with their golden parachute. Well, fair, I don't think it's just, it's not just this messaging. It's also when I read the article, it said that Marsha Blackburn and everyone else who's trying to scare people about doing too loads of laundry, they're getting their they're getting their facts from. some association that was funded by, I believe, your warpools and May Tags. And so clearly this organization, whatever it is, put out some research and said, you know,

this new, these new environmental laws are going to make you do two loads of laundry. And you have to change your laundry detergent. And clearly the Maytag man paid Marsha Blackburn a visit and was like, look, let me tell you what's going to happen. Now here's what's crazy about all of this stuff is these are the same people who, you If you go back, I'm sure when like electric cars were coming around, they're like, you got electric cars, you've got to plug it in, and you're going to have to plug it and keep plugging and here we are. Everything's working out. It's moving forward. And I'm all for having, you know,

researchers really do the research and find out if these new washing machines are really going to help us. And if we can find just neutral researchers telling us that it is good for the environment and it's good for the economy, and it might cost these people a little two billion dollars, but in the long run, it's going to be good for everybody. Then I think there's no argument there. And you know what it is? They keep finding stupid stuff to get upset about. And it all started with freedom fries.

Remember freedom fries? Because the French didn't support the war with Iraq. And some Republican was like, oh, we'll get you. It's not like a French fries. It's freedom fries. And all the Republicans are like, yeah. And ever since then, it's gas stoves. and drag queen performances.

They just come up with stuff to get angry about. I can't believe that there's a senator on television talking about washing machines. It's like, lady, lady, get a hold of yourself, all right? Look yourself in the mirror and go do something big like, like, like, you know, fix the, fix the infrastructure. Go do something big. Get away from the washing machines.

You're going to have to wash your clothes twice. Come on, Marsha. How filthy are they getting hanging out with the lobbyists that, oh God, I'm going to have to wash this twice. There you go. These slippery little scum bags over here, ugh. I mean, that's the only thing. I don't think Marsha Blackburn is going home, crawling up under the car, changing the oil.

Like, oh, I'm going to have to wash this three times. That, no, that's like Trump with the toilets, right? Like, oh, you gotta flush like 15 times. No, that sounds like a personal problem. You need a doctor, not a plumber. And it's the same with these washing machines. like I've got an energy efficient unit. It works just fine. As far as I know, my shirt here is clean. I'm not washing things two and three times. It's absolutely ridiculous. And yeah, you got

talking points coming from industry because they don't want to invest the money. You know what? Shave $2 billion off the military budget. We'll just go ahead and cover the cost for you all to get this energy efficiency going. We'll just pay for it. We'll take it off the Pentagon's budget. Nobody's going to cry, right? Absolutely. No, it's so true. And I just want to just going into this graphic three, so we all know. Let's go to the article that probably Marsha Blackburn saw that she read that makes her think that this is what's happening. So this is from the free beacon noted right wing outlet saying how Biden's new washing machine regulations could ruin laundry day. Manufacturers say, oh, whenever manufacturers say anything, you know they're being honest, that government climate change initiatives would make your wash cycle. longer and clothes dirtier. Translation were too lazy to make any changes to anything, right?

And so they continue with a bunch of lies. I'm remembering, right, when fuel efficiency standards in California for cars were changed, right? And they were raised. So you had to not output that much smog from your vehicle. And the car manufacturers and industry fought it tooth and nail. And then when they finally relented, it became the standard federally across the country because it was just easier to produce those kinds of cars. And so it's, I don't know, does it have to start on the state level first? And then we can get, again, all of these, you know, is whirlpools, you know, shareholders on board with it. But like, here's my other thing. Biden, here we do. We install one of these washing machines in someone's home.

And then we check their bill before and after. Biden goes there and he's like, oh, this is cleaner than a dog face pony soldier, you know, whatever he says. And then there you go, he puts on the shirt, he puts on the aviators, new washers, courtesy of dark Brandon, you know, with dark Brandon, make sure you're separating your whites and your darks, you know, we're getting somewhere. Like, it's just a little bit of effort, as Farron mentioned. But you know, I also, go ahead. I'm just saying it's a bunch of mumbo-jumbo, these people come out and they spew. And the fact is, we're going to move forward. They're going to have to, you know, come up with more efficient washing machines. And these guys

can scream till they're red in the face. It does. The fact, again, that we're spending time arguing over washing machine. Have you tried to buy a washing machine recently? Those things are expensive. So these companies are already making a ton of money. And then when you call a guy to come repair it, he ends up, he ends up charging you another 500 bucks. So it's not like it's a cheap product. And yeah, so these greedy bastards who are not willing to put $2 billion towards more efficient washers should pay. I don't even want to take it from the defense budget. I think the defense budget should go to the teachers.

And then there you go. And then the washer, Mr. Matag got to pay his own ticket. You know, I just want to point out that article that you put up there like, oh, Biden's plan's going to ruin laundry day as if that's like the day of the week that everybody's looking forward to each week like, hell yeah, I got my baskets full. I got them separated here. Oh, thanks a lot, Biden. Now it's, I just, I would, man, I think about how much money, just everybody on the left could make if we just went into that grift and said, you know what, I'm going to be an idiot right winger. I'm just going to spew out the dumbest stuff. No research. We'd be rolling in the

dough, man. If we had, if we had no souls, if we didn't have morals, We'd get rich. You know, by the way, if they're going to do this energy efficient machine, I wish they could come up with a machine that would turn clothes inside out so that your clothes are in the right side when they come. You know what I'm saying? Like, I have kids and they're always inside out. So they have to turn clothes right side in. You know what I'm saying. But that would be a great invention.

And I would pay top dollar for that machine. I like that now we're just blue sky laundry talking. This is perfect way for the segment to end. And we have time for one more, one more piece of news. This just this week, another week in America. Here we go. Alabama is piloting something, they're going to stop mass shooters. Yes, we are. Yes, they are. They are going to nip them in the butt, especially if they're

mass shooters in schools. How? Strict your gun laws? No, no, no, it's not that kind of a day. They are going to invest $60,000 in this structure. Take a look. It is basically a bunker in side of a school. Coleman cities, there we go. It's sort of like a little pod, a little bulletproof pod. This is Coleman City Schools. The superintendent, Kyle Kalaff, said the system can make a difference between life or death and the unimaginable school shooter situation.

They were all designed by a local contractor named Kevin Thomas, who actually works in security solutions. So that's fun giving himself a job there. After Yuvaldi, the school shooting, apparently his wife came to him very, very upset and was crying. And instead of saying like, they're there, darling, we're going to pass comprehensive gun reforms so that maniacs and children don't get AR-15s, he said, no, honey, I'm going to make some money. And then he came up with this, the eight-foot-by-eight-foot, bulletproof shelter for classrooms. Let's watch it in action. There you have it.

So you pull it from the center there, seems real easy. And oh yeah, that's just taking no time. And then it sort of clicks into place. There's a small person operating it. I'm sorry, there's a child pulling it because that's not just the most depressing thing I've ever seen. So the room folds into the corner of a larger room, but it can also be pulled out to form a fourth four walled shelter in 10 seconds and it locks from the inside with a key. Kevin Thomas said he partnered with three construction companies to get the necessary materials.

He said he used a ballistics protection strong enough to stop gunfire from most handguns and rifles. He framed the structure with heavy steel to prevent bullets from creating small cracks and employed a locking system similar to those used at U.S. embassies. Then he also put in cameras where teachers can watch inside and outside. And when it's not being used, guys, it doubles as a whiteboard. Super cute. Thoughts, is this it? We tried bulletproof backpacks. Is this it? You know, I don't want to say that this is horrible because at least it's,

at least it's something, but it really is just, it is the we're giving up. instead of doing something to actually address the problem, we're going to make it to where you're less likely to die when it eventually happens in your school. So it is, it is just throwing up the hands like, just go ahead, pull the whiteboard out. You know, if you can't, you can apparently have a four-year-old do it. But it's terrifying, you know, as a parent, I've had talks with my kids about what you have to do if somebody comes into your school. wife is an educator. So that's a constant worry every day. They've had threats at their school, put it like that. And there's been times where I didn't think she was going to come home that day.

And so again, I guess this is better than nothing, but it's still not the relief that we actually need. And in defense of that, I read the article, the Kevin Thomas guy actually seemed to say, you know, I don't know what the, you know, what the government's going to do, meaning like he seemed to say in the article that he was a contractor and he decided, go, this is something I can do. But it's a sad day when as a country, this is the best we can do as opposed to actually going after the real problem. And it is sad that there's a generation of young people who have to live in fear and coming up with, you know, traps to jump into and safe. rooms and all that. I mean, what a world we're living in when really we could just turn around and say, let's really look at the problem, which is the guns. Absolutely. I mean, ultimately, it's a terrible learning environment. It's a terrible living environment to live in a

security state, to live in a surveillance state, to have more armed guards, to have more bulletproof shields, and to be constantly afraid, right? And I feel like broadly, it's in the service of kind of like a right wing fascist agenda had to have people constantly afraid. We could be living in a place and your wife could be working in a place where doors are unlocked, right? You know, teachers used to do that. Now everyone's worried about locking their classroom door. It's kind of one of the most basic things. But so, you know, we could be learning and living in that kind of environment and we choose not to. And you're totally right, Maas. You know, Kevin Thomas said it's not the solution, but until he says we've got deeper rooted problems. But man,

it's not that deep, right? Like guns, how deep are guns? I guess they're deeper than we thought. But still, it's pretty simple for passing this kind of legislation background checks. Hey, get guns out of hands of felons and domestic abusers. Easy. Anyway, I guess A for effort there, but that is the end of the first hour here on the power panel. Fair and Cousins, Maas Jabrani, everybody check out Maas and all of his dates. He tours across the country. And obviously ring of fire, Faron Cousins crushes it there every single day. I have the Bituation Room podcast. Everybody check that out if you like me and myself and follow me at Franie Fio.

Thank you guys so much. Bye. Thank you. episode of the young turks support our work listen ad free access members only bonus content and more by subscribing to apple podcasts at apple dot co slash t yt i'm your host jank huger and i'll see you soon