The Young Turks - Shady Business

Episode Date: February 8, 2022

Former President Donald Trump improperly removed multiple boxes from the White House that were retrieved by the National Archives and Records Administration last month from his Mar-a-Lago residence. Trump also spent his whole presidency ripping up documents that aides had to tape back together. Delta Air Lines has asked the Justice Department to help set up a national ‘no-fly’ list of unruly passengers. Iowa introduced a bill that would require cameras in public school classrooms. A former clerk for Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson spent the last week amping up his former boss's Wikipedia page while trying to plant seeds of skepticism about other high court hopefuls. The U.S. Navy lied about shutting down the Hawai’i oil spill. Hosts: Ana Kasparian, Cenk Uygur 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. All right, well, other young church, Jake, you ran a Casparian, there's a couple things I need you to realize. One is that we're about to have an awesome show. So that's really it, actually. Let's do the news. All right.

Let's get started with our first story. Let's do it. Well, I thought it was a terrible thing when she ripped up the speech. First of all, it's an official document. You're not allowed. It's illegal what she did. She broke the law. That was former President Donald Trump.

Speaking about Nancy Pelosi ripping up his State of the Union speech, He believed that that was an illegal maneuver by Pelosi, which is fascinating considering the fact that we've just learned that Trump took official White House documents with him to Mar-a-Lago and they needed to be retrieved from the National Archives. Insane. We also knew back in 2018 that he apparently loved ripping up any document, documents that should have been archived. If he didn't like it, if he wanted whatever issue was being addressed in those documents, if it upset him and he didn't like it, he would rip it up and throw it away. Well, he was breaking the law when he was doing that. But I think this story is a perfect example of how there are certain laws pertaining to people in positions of power that essentially have no enforcement mechanism, no teeth.

So let's give you the details on this. So the National Archives and Records Administration went to Mar-a-Lago about a month ago to retrieve official White House documents that Trump took along with him to Mar-a-Lago. He's not supposed to do that. So the Presidential Recovery Act requires presidents to preserve memos, letters, notes, emails, any type of correspondence having to do with official White House duties. Now, Trump advisors claim, look, Trump did nothing nefarious here. In fact, he was actually pretty indiscriminate when he would rip up documents, and the documents that he took along with him weren't a big deal. Well, one senior Trump White House official said he and other White House staffers frequently put documents into burn bags to be destroyed rather than preserving them and would decide themselves what should be saved and what should be burned. Now, the January 6th committee also asked for certain documents from Trump and his advisors.

and oh wow, would you see, would you look at that? There were certain documents that they asked for that they couldn't get because they've been destroyed by Donald Trump. So it seems like there's more of a problem here than some of his advisors would have you believe. The items included correspondence with North Korean leader Kim Jong-un, which Trump once described as love letters, as well as a letter left for his successor by President Barack Obama. Okay, so is this serious issue? Yes. It's not just, hey, oh, National Archives would like to document things a little bit better. No, the question is what's missing?

So I'm going to give you some examples in a second. But Trump has a history of doing this, but his supporters painted as a positive thing. There's nothing positive about it at all. The reason he has a history of doing this is because he's a lifelong criminal. And that's why he's always tried to get rid of the evidence. That's his MO. He does some sort of paperwork that shows that that might incriminate him. He immediately rips it up.

In fact, in the story, they explain that if he thought the document was more incriminating, basically, they didn't use the word incriminating, but that was the issue at hand. He would rip it up more times. You'd normally get one rip or two rips. If he thought the document was really bad, he'd rip it a bunch of times. Right. But even worse yet, if you thought the document was really bad, he would rip it and then pick it back up and put it in his jacket pocket to take home. You know why? Because his advisors realized that he was breaking the law when he was ripping up documents.

So they would retrieve the documents and try to puzzle them back together like a jigsaw. He was probably privy to that, which is why some of the documents he made sure to take along with him. Yes. And so now if you say, well, he's been doing it his whole life again. I don't think that's a good thing. I think it's a bad thing. But by law, he cannot rip those documents, right? Now, you might say, well, look, Trump's an idiot. And so he doesn't know the law.

That's what supporters would say. He knows. Except we just show you the video where he very clearly says he knows. He knows that he does it on purpose. And look, there's funny parts of this as to what he's done in the past, which I'll get to in a second. But there's really important parts as it relates to his time in the White House. There was five different meetings with Vladimir Putin where we don't have notes, including a three-hour meeting in Hamburg, where he literally snatched the notes away from the translator, the U.S. translator, and took it himself. Now, if you give me those Helsinki and Hamburg meeting notes, we find those, that'll give you all of your answers, right?

And by the way, if you're a Trump supporter, I swear to God, if you take those meetings and you find the notes on those, and it turns out he doesn't. doesn't have any secret deal with the Russians and there's no property, there's no money exchange, there's no nothing, right? Then I'm done forever and ever and ever with Russia. I'll even apologize and say, because I never thought about the election interference being the big deal. I always said that it was financial interest that he had with Russia. But my guess is the reason he snatches the notes and rips the notes is because there was incriminating stuff. Of course. And so the fact that we don't have those are deeply problematic. Right. And keep in mind that there, again, I'm going to repeat, there are certain documents that the January 6th special panel was looking for in order to, you know, be part of their investigation. Those documents are unavailable. But even in a non-Trump situation, the reason why this act is there in the first place is because, well, we as the public deserve to know we should be able to hold all government officials accountable, including officials in the White House, including the president.

president. And then there's also the problem involving foreign policy. So if there are certain exchanges between the president and world leaders or certain correspondences in regard to foreign policy decisions, the incoming president needs to be fully informed about it. Those documents are supposed to be available to him so he doesn't kind of come in blind. And so this is a disaster in many different ways. But again, this is yet another example, Jank, There might be a federal law, but the federal law has no enforcement mechanism. So like, they just break the law knowing that there will be no consequences. There will be no consequences for Trump.

Let me just get out in front of that and let you know if you're getting excited about like, woo, maybe there are criminal charges. There will be no criminal charges. This law has no teeth. That's the problem. Yeah. So look, theoretically, you can get a three year sentence. It's never going to happen, okay?

And they would never do it to the president. and even all the people in charge of enforcement say it's mainly a gentleman's agreement. Even though it is clearly law, it's mainly a gentleman's agreement on the enforcement part. Ain't no gentleman in the White House. Yeah, and there's no gentleman there. And they say, and I love what when people say with a straight face in the stories, they're like, Trump took these boxes of documents to Mara Lago, and even though he knew he shouldn't take them,

and even though he knew he was supposed to return them in the archives have been telling him and negotiating with him for the return of those documents, He kept him for over a year anyway. Gee, I wonder why. He kept them so he could look through them, find the incriminating ones, and burn them. That's why he brought the boxes to Mar-a-Lago, not to do, you know, oh, hey, I got that trinket from the South Korean leader, and I want to just make sure I keep that as a president. No. I mean, he did want to keep the love letters from Kim Jong-un.

Well, I don't know what he did with those love letters. That's his private business, okay? And I don't know that we want those- Different strokes for different folks. Yeah, well, maybe literally. Well, he called them love letters, not us, okay? And maybe we don't want those back. But guys, to Anna's earlier point, if, for example, we made a deal with, name any government, the Swedish, the Chinese, the Russians, the next president has to know what's in that deal. So you can't just rip up your notes with a foreign leader, especially one as important as the leader of Russia.

And God, don't worry about it. Take my word. But I don't even know what your word is because we don't have any of your agreements. Yeah. And so, and as I said, there's a hilarious part of this too, as to the type of documents he likes to keep secret, but more details. So I did want to provide more detail in regard to his staffers having to piece together documents that he had ripped apart. As the Washington Post reports, the archives has struggled to cope with a president who flouted document retention requirements and frequently ripped up official documents, leaving hundreds of pages taped back together. Some that arrived at the archives still in pieces. Some damaged documents were among those turned over to the White House or to the House Select Committee investigating the January 6th, 2021 attack on the U.S. Capitol by a pro-Trump mob.

And so I want to talk a little bit also about how common this is. Now, Trump is definitely the top violator of this act, of this law. But apparently there have been problems in previous administrations as well. all recent administrations have had some presidential records act violations, most often involving the use of unofficial email and telephone accounts. Remember, people were very upset at the use of private email, private email servers by Hillary Clinton. There's a reason for that. White House documents for multiple administrations also have been retrieved by the archives after a president has left office. Now, I want to go back to the lack of enforcement here and kind of give you the

details on what's taking place. So there might be the law, but if there isn't a way to enforce the law, the law is pretty much useless. While the law requires that presidents preserve records related to an administration's activities, the archives has very limited enforcement capabilities. The Presidential Records Act operates on a basis of a gentleman's agreement, as one archives official phrased it. And they spoke to a former counsel to the House of Representatives. and here's what he had to say about this, you can't prosecute for just tearing up papers. You would have to show him being highly selective and have evidence that he wanted to behave unlawfully. So you have to prove intent, which is why it's also incredibly difficult to prosecute

a president under these circumstances. And I don't know if this is true, it's his advisor saying it, so take it with a grain of salt, I would argue. But they would argue that, you know, he would indiscriminately rip up papers, but he had a special, like, burn pile. Yeah, no, no, there's no question. His advisors are full of crap. The one part that is true, though, I believe them on this, is that he normally rips up papers. He doesn't rip up all papers, but he rips up a lot of papers. That's his habit.

But he developed that habit because of all the incriminating things he's done in his life. But as I explained earlier, he would take special care to destroy certain documents. is ironically well documented. So that's the only thing that is documented. Now here comes a couple of funny parts. First, I want to go to our members who made a couple of great points here. John Bojino wrote in, remember how we weren't supposed to vote for Hillary because she was irresponsible with documents and emails?

And that was one of Donald Trump's main arguments against Hillary Clinton. So I love that irony. I love having the smartest audience in the world. Do the show with us. T.yT.com slash join to become a member or hit the join button below on YouTube. Dragon with a girl tattoo wrote in, we're lucky he didn't rip up the concept. Constitution and the Bill of Rights as well. Well, he's such a goofball that I bet if you he thought of it, he's okay.

The Constitution does not exist anymore. Mike Keston, Pence can decide the election. You don't, well, what do you mean? I ripped up to Constitution. There are other copies, Donald. It's not inconceivable that he would think that. Now, though, the funny part, you know, he broke in, he had his security break into his own doctor's office while he was president. and steal his medical files from his doctor.

That wasn't even a big story. Yeah, I know. It's unbelievable that he did that. And he did so many insane things that almost no one even remembers that story, right? I didn't want people to see how healthy I am. They would get jealous. I'm the most healthy. No one's healthier than I am.

But guys, think about it. If he wanted a copy of his medical files, he could just ask his doctor and his doctor will send the medical files. No, he didn't want his own doctor to have a copy. copy of those files. Now what's in those files? I don't know. It probably shows his either mental decline or the fact that he had nothing to decline in the first place, right? But a guy who's willing to steal his own files from his own doctor who was shocked by it, right, gives you a sense of what he's willing to do. He also, to this day, hides his transcripts from like high school

all the way through college. And he says he will sue and try to imprison anyone who tries to find out his grades, because the guy is pathetic. He thinks he does things wrong all the time, which is very likely true, and doesn't want anybody to find out about it. And the reason he took the stuff home to Mar-a-Lago, and even his advisors basically admit this, is because he thinks he's above the law. He's broken the law. Now the advisors won't admit this. But it seems like he is above the law. Yeah, he's broken the law so many times that he thinks, I've never gone to jail. I've never had almost any consequences for breaking the law.

Why would I care about the law? And I mean, to this day, prosecutors have never made them regret that decision. But we should also just quickly address the fact that House Speaker Nancy Pelosi ripping up a copy of your speech is not the same as ripping up official White House documents. There are many other copies of your speech. That was just symbolic. We also are not libs who gave Nancy Pelosi tremendous credit for that. Right. It was just nonsense optics, right?

Where the liberals were like, oh my God, Nancy's so strong. No, no, no. Actually opposing his policies is strong. Ripping up paper isn't strong at all, especially when there's a million other copies. The problem with the stuff that Trump ripped up is that there aren't any other copies. Exactly. All right, well, let's go on to our next story because there are some pretty terrifying proposals being made by airlines right now, and it's in regard to people who just want us to live in a

terrible, terrible country. So Delta Airlines is now asking the federal government to step in and do something about unruly airline passengers. Now, this has been a problem during the pandemic. Individuals who don't want to wear masks become unruly, sometimes incredibly violent on flights. It is a situation that needs to be dealt with. However, what they're asking for here is for the government to put unruly passengers on no fly lists. I don't agree with that. I'll tell you why in a minute, but first the details. So in a letter to U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland on Thursday, the Atlanta-based companies, this is Delta, the chief executive, Edward Bastion, said such a list would

reduce the number of future incidents involving disruptive passengers. It also would serve as a strong symbol of the consequences of the consequences of the of the consequences of not complying with crew member instructions, he wrote. Now, when you think of the no-fly list, you should think about what was implemented during the Bush administration in regard to anyone who might be suspected of being a terrorist. The no-fly list has had a lot of problems, including random private citizens being placed on it. They don't know why they were placed on it. It is a disaster if you're trying to get off the no-fly list.

But the no-fly list is exactly what it sounds like. you're not allowed to board a flight and fly anywhere. And that's what they're asking for when it comes to unruly passengers on these flights. Now, Delta recently submitted more than 900 names to the TSA so that it could pursue civil penalties, the CEO of Delta said. While such cases represent a small fraction of overall flights, the rate of incidents with unruly passengers on Delta has increased nearly 100% since 2019, he wrote, We fully support using the full force of the law in these cases.

Now Delta alone has put 1,900 people on its no-fly list for refusing to comply with masking requirements. So I worry about this. And I know people don't like slippery slope arguments, I'm gonna make a slippery slope argument. Who gets to be the arbiter of who gets placed on that no-fly list? What are the specific standards in place? I'm worried that the standards will loosen up a little too much to include people who might be a pain in the butt, right? And we certainly see people get combative at airports or on flights because let's keep it real.

Sometimes traveling is difficult. Sometimes it sucks. Maybe you're anxiety ridden. Maybe you're stressed out. I'm not making excuses for violent behavior. But I remember what it was like to fly. And I remember how easily you can get under a flight attendant skin or upset a T.S. say agent, anything, like you're terrified while you're going through security at the airport,

because anything could be considered an offense. So I think that what the federal government has already done is pretty significant. The U.S. Department of Transportation's Federal Aviation Administration has proposed another 531,554 in civil penalties against individuals who become unruly on flights. I mean, it'll ruin you. It'll bankrupt you. I feel like that's enough of a deterrent. I don't know. Yeah, no, I do know. I was thinking, we were thinking of doing a poll on this and decided not to because I think the answer is very clear. Hell no. So let me explain. Look, the guys who are doing our mainly right wingers these days and they're being completely unreasonable and it's causing a giant mess, should they have criminal and civil

liability? Sure, they're breaking the law. They're massively inconveniencing others. One flight from Miami to Dublin, I think, had to turn back around. And so, God, if you're on that flight, be livid for a great number of reasons, including physical safety, right? So, sure, do whatever you're going to do regarding that particular incident, right? But a lifetime ban, are you, that's crazy. Then the person can't travel at all. What if you live in Kansas? What are you, you're going to have to drive to New York, drive to L.A., drive everywhere?

Well, what if you have to go to Europe? What are you going to take a boat? Take three months to get there? No, no, this is way too heavy a penalty, especially because, It's not even a slippery slope. First of all, I wouldn't even do it for an assault, okay, let alone what it's going to devolve to. You know it. You've all seen in an airports and airplanes.

Did you just talk back to me? I mean, it's in a movie. It's in anger management. You know how, and that was way before any of this stuff. Adam Sandler gets tased, et cetera. Sir, calm down, right? Half of us are going to get banned from every, you know, from flying. And it over empowers people.

Now, right now, those flight attendants, the pilots, etc. need all the help they can get. So we're incredibly sympathetic to them. And obviously we don't agree with the politics of the people that are largely doing this these days, right? But this is too heavy a penalty and it gives too much power to the other side at this point. I agree, yeah. And by the way, any airline is a private corporation can make any individual decision

they want. Delta can ban that guy for life. That's easy. And there's nothing you can do about it. And that's capitalism, right? But for the government to say you're no longer allowed to fly anywhere is, no, that's preposterous and way too heavy a penalty. So this was addressed by Pete Buttigieg, who didn't want to give a straight answer in regard to what the federal government would be willing to do. But I still thought this was interesting. So let's take a quick look at this interview and then we'll discuss.

Certainly we support airlines taking steps to protect their passengers, their crews. And a number of airlines, including Delta, have done that. They've said that, you know, if you are behaving in a way that's unruly dangerous, you can't fly on our airline anymore. It gets a little more complex when there are proposals for the government to do that. The FAA is continuing to vigorously enforce and encourage referral, criminal referrals, where appropriate, for this kind of behavior. I mean, in 2022, we should not even have to say that when you're on an airplane, you need to behave in a way that it is safe and appropriate. It sounds like you think a no-fly list is really within the purview of the airlines, the private companies, not necessarily for the government to create.

Well, look, I think we need to continue to look at anything that will help keep our skies safe. What I'll say is that many of the airlines have already taken that step privately, and we should continue to look at what we can do at a policy level, knowing that there's a lot of complexity when you try to do that in a way that cuts across airlines and is developed by the government. This is why people hate politicians. Just answer the question.

No, we're not going to do that. Individual airlines can, you know, implement their own no-fly list. We're not going to do that because it is. Like, there are issues with the federal government putting American citizens on a no-fly list based on whatever interpretation, you know, the airline has in regard to that individual's behavior. There are already methods of prosecuting people who commit assault on a plane, right? It is serious. Like the consequences are not light.

And I think, you know, as long as that prosecution is something that they follow through with, I think that serves as enough of a deterrent. No, this, look, none of this is, it makes any sense. Okay, you had a car accident because you were negligent. That's it. We're banning you from all the highways. No, that's crazy, right? And Buttigieg, on the upside, glad to see that he hit puberty, mustache finally growing in, if you notice in that clip.

On the other side, dude, just say it. Say it, you're not going to do it. Everybody knows you're not going to do it. That's good. We'll even give you credit. Right wing will give you credit. Reasonable people will give you credit. Just say you're not going to do it because it's dumb, right?

Oh, no, but on the other hand, we're looking into committees and to study it and blah, blah, blah. And, oh, yeah, okay. And now, look, I have to confess to being a little bit by. on this issue for those of you who know. I was famously got a little angry at an airport, right? And I think I was completely justified. And people are like, oh, have you apologized? No, I got that plane for everyone else to take.

I was right and I didn't get on the plane. They were wrong. It doesn't matter. It isn't about me. Right now, we have, we don't have a no-fly list for terrorists. That to me is insane. If we think you're a terrorist, shouldn't we just arrest you as soon as you show up? Instead, we're like, no, no, no, we allow terrorists on flights.

But we're not going to let people on flights because they didn't put a mascot for the rest of their lives? No, no, no. Look, we're the fairest, most honest show in America. Agree with the right wing on this one. This is insane. Let's move on. All right. Speaking of moving on, we're going to take a quick break.

And when we come back, weird right wingers think it's a great idea to live stream your children while they're in the classroom, not thinking about the possibility of perverts taking advantage of that live stream. We've got that story and more when we come back. All right, back on TYT, Jank and Anna. Great showhead today for you guys, including Republicans attacking furries later in the program. Hilarious. All right. Favorite story of the day. Totally. All right. Well, the right wing lawmakers in the great state of Iowa are proposing legislation that would live stream educators and their classrooms in public schools to essentially attempt to intimidate the teachers. This is the ongoing manufactured culture war surrounding critical race theory and, you know, the scary notion of teaching American history in public school classes. But one thing that,

these lawmakers probably didn't consider is that offering a live stream for all parents to watch throughout the day also creates an opportunity for perverts to watch your children as they're in classrooms. Now, the purpose of the cameras would be to allow parents and guardians to view their children's classes via live stream. Republican State Representative Norlin Momson, who apparently gets some sort of excitement out of this idea, sponsored the bill, which could force schools to set up cameras in all K through 12 classrooms with the exception of physical education in special needs classes according to the bill. Why are they making those exceptions? Also, if you're a parent, really, you're cool with people watching your kid throughout the

day? It's not just you who would be watching the kid, your own kid. It would be anyone who has access to that live stream, other parents, other caretakers, teachers and other school staff who fail to keep their cameras on or if they obstruct the view from the cameras, could experience a 5% fine in their weekly salary. The right wing is also spinning this in weird, gross ways. The representative in Iowa who proposed this says, quote, I think we need to showcase the great work our teachers do. Similar to a body camera on a policeman, a camera takes away the he said, He said, she said, or he said, he said, type of argument and lets them know, hey, we are doing a good job. It takes the argument away.

Now, we know what this is really about, it's about surveilling teachers, intimidating teachers, making their lives even more difficult at a time when they're underfunded, underpaid, underappreciated, and overworked. And instead of using the resources necessary to buy these ridiculous cameras on things that students need, like the very supplies of the teachers are, paying for out of pocket, they're like, no, no, we're gonna create this insanely creepy surveillance state because freedom. Yeah. No, this is textbook political correctness. Big Brothers watching. And we told you not to teach history. Don't teach there was racism in America at all. God damn it. We caught someone teaching the fact that slavery existed and Jim, Jim Crow existed. Okay, send in the shock troops, make sure they never teach the truth again. They cannot think that teach things that are factually correct. They must teach things that are politically correct.

And so science is the perfect example. They did a war on history. They've done a war on science. We did a story at the end of last week. Oklahoma is considering banning teaching things like evolution, big bang theory, etc. You're not allowed to teach things that are true. You cannot teach things that are factually correct. You must teach things that are politically correct.

And so they're thinking of finding you, 10,000 teachers, $10,000 if they teach things that are factually correct. This is insanity. And overall, what is it? It's a war on teachers. Yeah. And like the bankers are ripping us off to no end. And we got a war on teachers? We got a war on teachers.

You know why? Because bankers fund politicians. That's why they never get any thing done to them. By the way, under Republicans, Trump was awesome. to the bankers. The bankroll them. They loved them. They were his top base, right? But Obama, same exact thing. In 2008, there was top donors. And what did Obama do? His attorney general, Eric Holder, said that the bankers were too big to jail. Too big to jail. They're above the law. But they're attacking teachers all across the country monitoring them. Now to the absurd

talking point about the police. The police, by the nature of their job, oftentimes have to use physical action against someone. Yeah, they make decisions pertaining to life and death, literal life and death. And sometimes it goes to tackling someone, putting them in cuffs, and sometimes it involves killing people. And so you need to have a second set of eyes on that to see if they made the right decision. If the teachers were killing their students, I'd say put cameras on, no question, okay? And by the way, the right wing also kind of wants that. Now you're going to say, oh, Jake, you've taken too far. Of course they don't want that. Actually, they do. Remember, their answer to gun violence in schools was arm the teachers and teach

them which student to shoot if there's a school shooting. Hey, oftentimes it's a current student or a former student, and then we should teach the teacher to spot which student might be the school shooter and have this teacher kill that student. So she's got to be, she or he's got to be the investigator, the sharpshooter, the underpaid educator, the person who has to follow all of these weird changing rules based on the sensitivities of right wingers who can't handle learning about this nation's history. I mean, and look, one of our audience members is asking is, are they just trying to get teachers to quit? And the answer is yes. Remember, the right wing in America.

does not believe in the right to an education. They have been underfunding education, public education, for as long as I can remember. And the reason why they do it, the reason why they'll take taxpayer money to fund vouchers so parents send their kids to private schools is because they want to gut public education and ensure that only a private option is available to you.

And for a lot of people, you're not going to be able to pay for a private school for your kids. So what does that mean? Education for the elite, for the children of the elite, and the rest of you can buzz off. Your kids will be illiterate, and that's exactly what they want. Yeah, look, if you've ever visited a plantation, I know the right wing says they didn't exist. But they did exist, and you can go to them. The very first rule when I went to look was in the barracks, no slave is allowed to be educated. That was the cardinal rule.

Now, I always found that ironic. What happened? I thought you said that they were not equal to white people and they were not fully human beings and they couldn't learn anyway. So why is it your first rule that they must not get an education? Because then people are harder to control because then they become free. They have free thought. They can take free action.

And the right wing, despite all their propaganda about freedom, hates the concept, has always hated it. The teacher's not teaching the things I want? They're teaching facts and not my propaganda. Put cameras in there and fire the teachers and duck their pay. They must do as I tell them, not as the facts dictate, right? And that's what the right wing is. They hate freedom. And this is a disgusting attack on our teachers.

And it's just creepy. It's super creepy. Remember, these cameras can be hacked into by various hackers. And I just, I can't imagine being a parent. who feels comfortable knowing that all these randos get to watch my kid all day through a camera. It's creepy. It's creepy. Do you guys not realize how creepy this is?

I guarantee you if the Democrats proposed it, Q and on would be like, oh, we know why they proposed it. Right? Come on. All right, and by the way, sometimes teachers do terrible things that I, of course, that we're enraged by, right? And they don't have to be political, but sometimes they are. Sometimes they'll be right-wing teachers who'll say racist things, et cetera. Does that mean I want cameras? Still, I say no, because the price is too much to bear, both on the front that we were just

talking about, but mainly on the nonstop nitpicking of all of the teachers to try to find one or two wrongdoers, right? Even in a best case scenario, let alone what the right wing actually plans to do, which is a witch hunt against teachers. Yeah, that's exactly right. One final graphic for you, because they're very clear about what they're trying to do here. So the Nevada Family Alliance recently proposed placing body cameras on teachers to ensure they aren't teaching critical race theory. Of course.

That's all this is about. That's it. Period. And guys, critical race theory largely isn't taught. And the reason we tell you that is because it's not because it's some terrible thing that should never be taught. No, their whole intent is do not teach racism at all. Pretend we were never racist. That's insane.

No, I'm not going to send my kids to a school where they get taught. Republican propaganda and fake history and fake science, no, we're going to teach them actual facts. And if you don't like it, go sign them up for a private propaganda school. You've got plenty of those. And they'll brainwash your kids into being idiots, you'll be thrilled. My kids don't know any real facts. They only know the stuff we taught them. That isn't true at all. Well, and you could put all the private cameras you want and do whatever you want with that. But in the public schools, leave our kids and our teachers alone. All right, we're going to take a break.

When we come back, a potential Supreme Court nominee has a former law clerk editing her Wikipedia page. Did she know about it? Did she not know about it? Is the guy doing the editing a bad guy or a good guy? We have a surprising take. Come right back and we'll tell you what it is. All right, back on CYT, Jenkinana, News. We still don't know who President Joe Biden will nominate for the Supreme Court.

However, it turns out that a former law clerk for a potential Supreme Court nominee went on a Wikipedia editing spree to make his former employer look pretty damn good while making. others look not as desirable to liberal voters. Now the page for Judge Kintanji Brown Jackson, seen by many as a Supreme Court frontrunner, was tweaked to paint her in a more favorable light for a liberal audience, while the pages for other potential nominees, South Carolina Federal District Court Judge J. Michelle Childs and California Supreme Court Justice Leondra Kruger were altered to make them potentially less appealing to a left leaning audience. Now H2 Artie is the handle that this former law clerk goes under. His real name is Matteo Gotti. He was identified by some of his

former colleagues and I say let him go. Now before before you you come at me me give you the details on the edits that he made. Okay, remember he isn't working for her anymore, hasn't been working or he hasn't been serving as a a law clerk for her. And so this is something that he appears to have done on his own. Judge Brown, Jackson claims, you know, she knew nothing about it, but here's the detail. So on January 30th and February 1st, the user H2RD made significant changes to the body of Jackson's page, cutting a reference to Jackson's position on an advisory board of a Baptist school. So I think honestly, that's probably the worst offense here.

In other areas, he just made a little embellishments. Honestly, they're like the kind of embellishments that you would see on a resume or a CV. So descriptions of two of Jackson's rulings against the Trump administration, both of which were reversed by the DC Circuit, were erased and replaced with a defense. Ahead of her confirmation hearing, Bloomberg Law reported that conservative activists were pointing to certain decisions by Jackson that had been reversed on appeal as a potential blemish on her record in order to tarnish her so she won't get picked for the Supreme Court. And then the portion detailing Jackson's decision to require former White House counsel Don McGahn to obey a congressional subpoena was also tweaked.

The New York Times noted Jackson's slow pace helped then President Donald Trump run out the clock on the congressional oversight effort before the 2020 election. Jackson's updated Wikipedia page seems to shift the blame for the ruling's timing from Jackson to the DC Circuit Court. But my read of that story is, yeah, the DC Circuit Court is definitely involved in that and definitely did play a role in making that process get drawn out longer than it needed to be, right? So I just feel like, with the exception of taking out the fact that she was on the advisory board of a Baptist school, like, who cares? Just keep that in.

That's not a big deal. I don't see how anything else here so far is really that big of a deal. Okay, so I have several things to say, one of which you took, let him go, let him go. Okay, so slash a bit of an American hero. That's where you go a little too far for me. Why is he an American hero? You know why? Because he cares about her, right? He works for her. He no longer works for her. I don't know what, I don't think they have any personal relationship other than I assume they're friends. I don't know, right?

But he thinks my former boss kicked ass and I want to make sure that she gets this position, right? And so he's trying to look out for her even though nobody asked them to. Well, think about this, though, he could also maybe be looking out for himself. Well, that's a fair point. You know, as I was saying it, I realized, damn it, maybe it has out this is important. It might work out for him, right? I get it, I get it. So maybe American heroes a bit much, besides which, I'm obviously kidding. You're not an American hero for editing Wikipedia.

But you know, you never know, because you have to clarify these things. Otherwise, the New York Times will lie about you. Anyways, old story. So, but I like that he's stinging out for her. But unfortunately, the downside is, he apparently knows nothing about politics. Making her look more liberal, ain't going to help. Yeah, for real. Have you ever, do you know anything about Washington?

No, if you would put in, if you'd edited Wikipedia and said, oh, she'll do anything corporations want, she'll get the seat right away. Right? You're making you're more liberal. Are you crazy? No, it's amazing. It really is. Because remember, when it started to kind of become clear that Biden's favorite, would be J. Michelle Childs, I was like, I want to learn more about her, right?

Every news article you came across just talked about the fact that she's an African-American woman who went to non-Ivey League schools, which means that she's totally blue-collar. I was like, I don't. She's a judge. I don't think that's, can we get a little more substance here? I want to know more about her past. I want to know about her rulings, what kind of work she's done. And I couldn't find anything.

We had to wait until the American prospect did an excellent report talking about her honestly anti-labor career passed. And so apparently what Mateo Gotti did here was not only make his former boss look good or look a little better, he went into the Wikipedia page for J. Michelle Childs to note her accurate job history. American hero. It's accurate. Like, okay, so let me tell you what he wrote. A passage on child's tenure at South Carolina-based law firm Nexon-Preson-Preson-Preson,

Pruitt notes her reputation for being an expert in employment and labor law. This is when Mateo added that Childs worked on behalf of employers dealing with allegations of race-based and gender-based discrimination, employee efforts to unionize, and other alleged civil rights violations. But that is accurate. She represented the employers who were being accused of racial discrimination, gender discrimination. She worked on behalf of a law firm that specialized in union busting. That is part of her work history. And I think people deserve to know about that. And I think that's a direct

quote from the American prospect. And if you have a link to it, et cetera, that makes sense. And look, did he edit it to include outrageous lies? That happens all the time, by the way. And so Wikipedia has policies and they kind of halfway fix it. I stop tracking anything on Wikipedia because I it's so many people hate me and there's been so many lies about me that it's impossible to beat them all back right and so they just let it go right but in terms of when you're trying to get a Supreme Court seat obviously it's gonna be more relevant and people are gonna look at it and it we get the relevance of it but at the same time it doesn't he didn't he did there's

not a single lie that he put in there and in fact even the shading is so tiny that it actually did make it more accurate, not less accurate. Yeah. And by the way, Wikipedia is a thing that people edit, the public edits. Right. So I don't even know if they have a rule against people who used to work their editing. That rule might not even exist. So there might not even be any real controversy here at all. Yeah, I don't see a controversy. And I want to be clear. I don't have a favorite in terms of the possible Supreme Court nominees. You know, we've done more detailed reporting in regard to Michelle Childs because of the fact that she has such strong support among Republicans like Senator Lindsey Graham. That was a red flag and I wanted to learn more about her history.

However, in this case, adding more information about Supreme Court justices in Wikipedia pages, A, isn't that big of a deal. But B, more importantly, doesn't really matter in the grand scheme of things. You know what? The idea that the public's perception of these potential candidates or the public having sway over the decision that gets made is laughable. We all saw what happened with Brett Kavanaugh. No one cared. No, can I just say, I'm sorry I didn't figure it out earlier, but I figured it out in the middle of the conversation. It's a story in Politico.

One of her opponents leaked this story. Maybe. Yeah. I wouldn't be surprised. I mean, what political found this on their own? Doing what? How? How would they have found out he was editing the Wikipedia page? No, this has got APA research written all over it. This is actually meant to smear this particular candidate. And so that's a class, and who would you leak it to? You would leak it to Politico.

So this is the opposite of a red flag in regard to this candidate. Yes, this is probably one of her opponents or a Chamber of Commerce type of lobbyists trying to defeat a judge that might actually care about people. not rule in favor of corporations every time. Well, it makes me definitely want to learn a lot more about her. And we'll definitely look into that and see what her career pass looks like, what she represents. Because it's important. Like that substance is important. And so, yeah, we'll get to that.

I'll just say this. You know, you said we don't know enough about all the different candidates. That's definitely true. I know enough about childs now to know. It's definitely, definitely should not be childs. The Republicans are salivating at the idea. They're like, what, she's a black woman. What, what, what, what, what, what?

She rules against black women all the time and has worked against black women the whole time. That's just a coincidence, though. But don't worry, we check the box on identity politics. No, if Republicans, the Chamber of Commerce and Clyburn on the Democratic side, the corporate Democrats, are in favor of her, guaranteed she's a terrible candidate. All right, well, let's give you an update on a story that we did a while ago. and unfortunately it's not a positive update. Jet fuel leaks from a military fuel storage installation in Honolulu

continues to threaten the clean drinking water for thousands of residents on the island. In fact, thousands of military housing, thousands of people living in military housing have already moved as a result of this situation. They've been put in hotels temporarily until the Navy figures out how to clean this situation up. However, the Navy is pushing back on calls to essentially decommission this fuel storage site. Now, the Navy is scrambling to contain what one U.S. lawmakers calls a crisis of astronomical proportions. Native Hawaiians, veterans, liberals, and conservatives across Hawaii are all pushing to shut down the tanks, even though the Navy says they're vital

to national security. The tanks are connected to underground pipelines that send fuel about 2.5 miles to Pearl Harbor and to ships and planes used by the Air Force Army, Coast Guard, Marines, and Navy. Now, this is a story that's been developing for quite some time now. It all started when residents in the area started getting incredibly sick. They figured that there was something going on with their drinking water. One resident shared her story of noticing her skin was peeling. She was feeling nauseous. She started getting better once she stopped using the tap water or the drinking water.

And so when the story came out, the Navy had agreed to essentially decommissioning this fuel storage site, but they have reneged on that promise. The Navy last month said it would comply with an order by the Hawaii governor, a Democrat, to drain the tanks and not use. them until it's safe to do so. But it reversed course this week and appealed to get more time to work on solutions. And just to give you a sense of how much consensus there is in regard to what needs to be done here, 48 of the 51 members of the state House of Representatives signed a letter to defense secretary Lloyd Austin calling for the tanks to be decommissioned. State senators are considering legislation to outlaw them. And so what is that? the Navy doing about this? They claim like we're cleaning things up. Don't worry. We're figuring out

other solutions here. The Navy has been trying to clear petroleum from the contaminated well and pump it out of the aquifer. Officials are also flushing clean water through the Navy's water system, which serves 93,000 people in military homes and offices in and around Pearl Harbor. teams have separately visited homes and workplaces to flush individual water pipe systems. But guess what? There have been complaints from residents in regard to how effective they've been at doing this job. I want to share one quick video of a resident who had the Navy come to his home and supposedly clean things up. Doesn't really look like it. Let's watch. So the Navy came and flushed our home today.

And they were done around 11 this morning. That's not wet. That looks like it's stained from oil. And if you look, part of it is still wet. So when I run my finger across it, it feels very oily. And you can see the oil. We're fuel, but this is the outside spigot of our home. National security, folks.

I mean, this needs to happen because national security. Okay, so that's definitely fuel. And it's not just based on that one video. So many of the residences that are saying that they smell petroleum in the water. And they said that before they heard any news story about it. What's amazing is that, you know, I realize this later in life. We've been talking about it for years now, of course, on TYT. But Chomsky figured this out a long time ago, manufacturing has sent.

Because in my whole life before I woke up to it, I always wondered, like, the articles would be written from a perspective of the locals say this. But is it really true? I mean, there'd be so much skepticism built into all the articles. And then they would say, but the Navy says this. And now that is a lot more likely to be true. Why would they all be lying about how the water smells like petroleum? Right. Like maybe after the story runs, people could say, oh, I wonder if it's Me Too, you know, et cetera.

I get it. But in the beginning, why would everybody in the community randomly make up the same lie? Right. But our media has been trained to believe the powerful and never believe the powerless. So this shouldn't even be a contested question. Yes, it's obvious that the fuel is leaking. Fix the damn water. And not only does it go to the locals, it also goes to the troops, as Anna just explained to you.

The military families, yes. So all those Republican talking points about support the troops, support the troops, they never meant any of it. And in this case, it happened under Republicans, it's now happening under a Democrat, right? None of them ever mean support the troops. They mean start more wars so my defense contractor lobbyist friends can make more money. That's what they mean by support the troops. And then the locals, the water protectors, et cetera, had said, well, the Navy's going to fix it. We don't believe them.

And again, the press is like, oh, like the Navy would lie, right? Yeah, the Navy was lying. Yeah. And they reneged on the deal and decided not to fix it, at least in the time frame that they promised. There's so much at stake here and considering that there is this consensus among lawmakers in the state, I do think that there will be enough pressure for the Navy to change course on this issue. They have to. And look, part of the problem is they're relying on this infrastructure that was built right after World War II.

And it relies on these massive tanks that are storing the oil or the fuel, I should say, just right above the water. And the tanks have corroded over time, and they're leaking, which is why you have to decommission them and replace them or create an infrastructure in place that is safer and will not leak petroleum into the water. By the way, guys, it always leaks. Yeah. We covered this standing rock here. We were one of the very few shows that did. We sent cameras up there. We're almost the only show for a long, long time to cover it.

And what happened in that scenario? It's the same exact thing. The company said, oh, no, no, our pipes will never leak. And of course, the cops are like, oh, the kind of, you know, of course it's never going to leak. And if you claim it's going to, we're going to assault you and beat you and imprison you, et cetera. And the media either didn't cover it or when they did, they're like, well, it's Native Americans say it's going to leak. And it's leaked every single time. But is it really going to leak?

I don't think it's going to leak. It's outrageous, right? And so, yeah, fuel leaks into water. It's a disaster. And here, let's be fair, always, right? AP covered this, so credit to them. And you do need actual print journalists to be able to get you stories. So journalism is really, really important.

It just has to be done right and done from the perspective of actual human beings and citizens, and not from the perspective of the powerful. That is it for our first hour. We're going to take a brief break. But when we come back, a real American hero, someone who, actually did attend the book burning ceremony in Tennessee, but decided to call out hypocrisy while doing it. Come right back. Thanks for listening to the full episode of the Young Turks. Support our work, listen to ad-free,

access members, only bonus content, and more by subscribing to Apple Podcasts at apple.com slash t-y-t. I'm your host, Shank Huger, and I'll see you soon.