The Young Turks - Teatime Tyranny

Episode Date: December 16, 2022

Club Q bartender Michael Anderson testified about the mass shooting at the Colorado Springs LGBTQ+ bar. Texas lawmakers are drafting legislation to censor abortion pill websites. A Wisconsin man was prescribed a medical device that could save his life, but his insurance provider has denied coverage, calling the device “not medically necessary.” 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. It's up. Thank you. Welcome to the Young Turks, Jake U Granite Kusparian with you guys. Do we have an exciting show for you? Of course.

When do we not? When do we not? Okay, so let's get, I'm gonna get right to it, what the heck, let's get started. What the heck, okay, so we're gonna begin with some disastrous news, but it's the reality of this country and the people in it, so let's get to it. We have received hundreds of hate. comments. I cannot read them all, but I'm going to read you a few examples. That's Matthew Hayes, the co-owner of Q Nightclub in Colorado Springs, which was the

target of a mass shooting less than a month ago. To add insult to injury, they're getting hate male. I woke up to the wonderful news that five mentally unstable and lesbians and 18 injured. The only thing I'm mad about is that the had courage to subdue the wonderful killer. I hope more shooting has happened. Have a blessed day. The shooter was doing God's work. Five less. Not enough. Those that stopped him are the devil. All gays should die. This is hate. It absolutely is hate. And it's hard to imagine feeling totally comfortable sending those hateful messages to people who had just been through a pretty traumatic and tragic event, a mass shooting at a gay nightclub where several people were gunned down.

Five people died, 17 were wounded as a result. And the, you know, the shooter is obviously inspired by the anti-gay hatred in his heart, anti-trans hatred in his heart. And this testimony is important to hear about because while we might talk about it here on the show, it's important for these lawmakers to hear about it, both Democrats and Republicans. Now, this was a hearing that took place to kind of discuss how the rhetoric and discourse in this country might fuel some to carry out acts of violence. There were two victims of that shooting at the hearing to testify, and also, as you heard from the co-owner, he was there as well.

I've got more video to share from the testimony, Jank. But any thoughts? Yeah, he's about to say something I think that's the most important. But look, guys, so there's the gaslighting of society and mainstream media, et cetera, where you're not supposed to say things that are obvious. Republicans have proposed over 600 bills that are against the LGBTQ community in just the last four years. Republicans are the ones that are driving hatred towards gays. I mean, you could say broadly the right wing is.

You might find a couple of Republicans who genuinely don't hate gay people. But overall, the majority of the right wing and the Republicans are the ones that, drive that ideology. Is it the left wing that is saying, oh, you should hate gay people, they're sinners, there's something wrong with them. Oh my God, watch out for the trans, watch it. They're in the wrong bathrooms, wrong sports. It's no, it's definitely the right wing. So the right wing creates monsters, people who are unstable that could go in a lot of different directions. An unstable person could get obsessed with random things. But right wing media tells them, I hate gay people, hate them, hate them, hate them, hate them, hate them. And then they not only drive

some of them to go pick up a weapon and murder gay people, as happened in this instance. But then it drives others to write in and go, oh, thank God the gay people were killed. That's what my right wing media monster like Tucker Carlson, you fill in the blank, Ben Shapiro told me. Oh, I told me to despise gay people. By the way, so did my pastor. So did my Republican politician. And so, gee, I wonder where that hatred got into my head. That's where it got from. It's the right wing that are creating these monsters. Also very likely self-hatred as well, right? If individuals who were raised in a hyper-conservative environment might start feeling that they might be gay themselves.

I mean, that leads to a lot of self-hatred, they lash out in violent ways. So it's an incredibly toxic environment that we're currently living in, and what's further making it or exacerbating it is some of the lies that get told about various individuals based on political motivations, right? The groomer word gets thrown around left and right, just because the person claiming it, saying it, doesn't like the political opponent they're directing that language toward. And it just creates an incredibly hostile, dangerous environment for groups of people

that historically in this country and around the world have been incredibly powerless. Now, as I mentioned, this was testimony before a House committee. They're talking about hate crimes against various groups of people. obviously we're talking about the LGBTQ community. And there were others who also testified, including 25 year old Michael Anderson, who was actually working behind the bar when shots broke out. Let's watch. Well, I prepared for my life to end in that moment, I prayed, I panicked, and I prayed some more. God must have heard my prayers because two brave men stopped the shooter moments before he would have inevitably found me. I saw my friend lying on the floor,

bleeding out, knowing there was little to no chance of surviving that bullet wound. I had to tell him goodbye while I continued to fear for my life, not knowing if the attack was truly over. So he had to say goodbye to his friend as he was laying on the floor bleeding out from a gunshot wound, and no one should have to go through that. And in this country, people go through it all the time because of the regular occurrence of mass shootings, but this one takes it a step further. It's allegedly a hate-inspired mass shooting, again, where five people were gunned down and killed, 17 others wounded.

So look, we talk about the cultural wars all the time. So does right wing media. And they say that it's a culture wars are super important that Fox News is obsessed with them, et cetera. What are the cultural wars? Culture wars are be like us, don't be like them. They're the bad guys, right? And so, and both sides do it.

But how do they do it? So we tell you that they're the bad guys because they're driving hatred. And they're saying, oh, okay, somebody's born gay. You should hate, hate, hate them. and make sure that they're never mentioned in any schools because their very existence is problematic, right? And they should be banned from this place and that place and they should not have the same rights as others and getting married. They should just be inferior. They're inferior to us and they should have less rights than us.

That's a fact that the right wing pushes for that. They put it into bills and they try to pass those bills and oftentimes they do. That is a stone cold fact. So anyone lying to you about that and pretending that, oh, I can't tell us. Democrats or Republicans, is it right wing or left wing? They're absolute liars and they're lying on behalf of the right wing. So we fight the culture wars and we tell you they're immoral for an excellent reason because they are immoral. They do drive hatred. Now, what do they say? They say, oh, no, no, don't worry about what that person thinks. Don't worry if that person is

kind or not. Just hate them for who they are. That guy's born gay, that bartender? Well, I mean, if somebody tries to murder him, I mean, look, he made a slight mistake. You're supposed to hate the sin and not the sinner, wink, but in reality, of course, both all the religions, all of the religions, along with all of right-wing media, and almost all of the Republican party, tell you to hate gay people and that they're different and inferior. They're the ones that cause the goddamn hatred, and yes, definitely the shootings. So, look, just quick note, I mean, not all religions and not all interpretations, of religious doctrine.

Not all interpretations of religions, but the fundamentalist interpretation, the right-wing interpretation of every religion, yes, does hate gay people. Okay, so now that we've moved on to the right-wing angle to this story, which I think is incredibly important, you know, Republican congressmen decided to use this hearing as an opportunity to draw false equivalences between the right and the left in terms of their rhetoric. And I'm going to debunk what is about to be claimed. So Representative James Comer of Kentucky, the ranking Republican on the committee denounced violence in all forms, but pointed the finger back at Democrats.

Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. He says, quote, this is not an oversight hearing. This is a blame Republican so we don't have to take responsibility for our own defund the police and soft on crime policies. We're not having a discussion right now about defund the. the police or soft on crime policies, which to the, I guess, distress of some leftists, I've been talking about a lot lately, and I do not agree with them on some of those policies. But nonetheless, we're not having a conversation about crime.

We're having a discussion about a hate-inspired mass shooting where innocent people were gunned down by a person who might have been motivated by some of the garbage that we hear from conservative media and right-wing politicians. And I'll give you the latest example. Latest example comes from the state of Texas. Their attorney general, Ken Paxton, apparently wanted to make a list of individuals in the state of Texas who had changed their gender on their state issued ID or driver's license. How do we know this? Well, apparently he reached out to the Texas Department of Public Safety in June, and he asked them to compile a list of individuals who had changed their gender on their Texas driver's license.

and other department records in the past two years. What was he going to do with that list? Real interesting. And he did so by essentially going through, not going through the appropriate channels, right? He went directly to the individuals who work within the, like, I guess DMV, right? I mean, that's where the driver's licenses are issued.

Now, he said, based on documents that the Washington Post has reviewed, These were the communications amongst individuals working in the department. Need total number of changes from male to female and female to male for the last 24 months, broken down by month. The chief of the DPS driver's license division emailed colleagues in the department on June 30th, according to a copy of the message obtained by the Washington Post through a public records request. We won't need driver's license ID numbers at first, but may need to have. have them later if we are required to manually look up documents. The records which document

communications between DPS employees are entitled AG request sex change data and AG data request. They indicate that Paxton's office sought the records a month after the state Supreme Court ruled that Paxton and Abbott had overreached in their efforts to investigate families with transgender children for child abuse. So like just Look at the accusations that get thrown around toward parents who are accepting and loving toward their transgender children. They're accused of child abuse by these right wing politicians. Anyone who might be transgender. I mean, just think about how the transgender debate was transpiring in 2015.

I mean, that's when things really started to heat up. And they kept referring to literal students, transgender students, who might want to use the bathroom that they identify. identify with as sexual predators. That was the branding that they used from the very beginning. So when you're constantly putting out into the world, into the country through your discourse, that these are dangerous people, they're looking to sexually assault your daughters. They might rape your daughters, oh, we should be so scared of them. In a country, by the way, full of people who don't have mental health care, and very likely,

in a lot of cases, have mental health issues that are undiagnosed and untreated, great. And then we live in a country, of course, where we're swimming in guns at the same time. Yeah, so two things. First, on the, defund the police stuff. Look, as Anna said, two completely separate issues. So if they were related, we would tell you, because we've been, as some of you know, being very aggressive in saying, look, I think that there was overreaching on the issue of sentence reductions, et cetera.

That's a very long and complicated story. there should be sentence reductions, but they were done in the wrong way. And what that has led to is, yes, an outbreak of crime, it is real. So a lot of the leftists hate us for saying things that are obviously true, et cetera. But we're telling you, that has nothing to do with this shooting here. Because these kind of shootings happen all the time under previous laws, under these laws. It's not because they're like, oh, there aren't cops around. No, they do it no matter how much security there is, no matter how many cops there are,

that has nothing to do with a completely separate issue. Paxton going around saying, who are the transgender ones? Let's identify them and target them. And then don't tell me that you're not immoral. Don't tell me that you're not trying to hate people. Don't tell me that you're not trying to identify people that you're going to go after because you're a disgusting pig. By the way, this pig, Paxton, is actually a criminal.

For seven long years, the authorities have wanted him. He became Attorney General in Texas so that he can avoid the law. He goes, oh, I'm attorney general. And Republicans love criminals, so they elected me. So now you can't touch me because of, but I'm going to target transgender people who've done nothing wrong based on their identity. Why do Republicans try to misdirect you and get you to hate people based on identity? Because if you actually judge people on their actions, the right wing would be in terrible

shape. They're like, no, no, no, no, not on actions, just on random features, whether you're gay or black or whatever else. because if we looked at your actions, right-wingers, you're disgusting. All right, we got to take a break. When we come back, though, we're going to speak with Andrew Hartsler, whose aunt, a former congresswoman now, Vicki Hartsler, had a pretty gross and embarrassing anti-gay message on the House floor.

Can't wait to talk to him. Stick around. We'll be right back. All right, back on CYT, Jane Canana with you guys. Now we've got a great interview for you guys. So let's start that story. Today, a United States congresswoman, my aunt Vicky, started crying because gay people like me can get married. I hope.

The gentleman you just heard from is Andrew Hartsler, who is about to speak some truth about his own aunt, Representative Vicki Hartsler. Let's watch and pray that my colleagues will find the courage to join me in opposing this misguided and this dangerous bill. So despite coming out to my aunt this past February, I guess she's still just as much as a homophote. Now, Vicky Hartzler did not get her way. Luckily, the legislation meant to somewhat codify same-sex marriage and offer protection should the Supreme Court reverse protections for same-sex marriage did in fact pass. And got to say, through that story, as fascinating as it was to see a United States Congresswoman cry on the House floor over equality for folks, the benefit of that story was that we got to learn about Andrew. And he joins us today. Andrew, thank you so much for coming in and speaking to us about your story. Yeah, thank you for having me. I wanted to start off to just by, you know,

you've talked a little bit about what it was like to disclose to your aunt, to come out to your aunt and how, you know, you guys had a great relationship when you were younger, but she didn't take it so well when you told her who you really are. Can you talk a little bit about what that was like for you and what your relationship is with her today? Yeah, it's always difficult when coming out with someone and they think that it's not really a big deal that they will say they still love you, but they like to come over the fact that they don't accept you or that they're like, oh, you know, that's not like what I believe and you know that that's wrong, but I'll still love you.

but it's and then it's like I don't think our relationship's going to be the same because how can you love me if you don't accept me and you fundamentally disagree with who I am as a person that doesn't really track yeah Andrew how how was your relationship with her growing up was she warm kind did you guys you know see each other all the time how was it yeah um so me and my aunt Vicki actually, like, be lived like on the same tract of land on the same street. And in the summers, because I have a cousin that's my same age, we would go to D.C. with my aunt. And we would like, I remember me and my cousin would like run around the tunnels underneath the capital and like try to escape the summer intern that was like supposed to watch us. So like we, I spent a lot of time with her and I had a lot of fun.

But whenever I came out to her, I was met with that same message of, I love you, but I don't accept you. So it was interesting in July when the Congress first voted on the Respect for Marriage Act, like the initial vote, I forget exactly what the term is on it. But I remember looking at the roll call and seeing that my aunt abstained from voting. And then she voted, she invited me to Thanksgiving dinner, which I was unable to come to because of other obligations. So I kind of have this idea that, oh, she might be like have a different view because she abstain for voting. And then I wake up this past Thursday a week ago today. And I see this video of her on the house floor. And I was like, wow, this is my aunt right now.

This is what she thinks. And it's, yeah. Yeah, you know, it's been a week. It's, yeah, I bet, I bet. And, you know, I just want to give you so much credit for the courage that you've shown, not only in your specific situation in speaking out against your aunt, which does take courage. I mean, I can't even imagine what kind of reaction you've gotten, both from the public and maybe even from other family members, but also the activism that you've been engaged in, how you've been trying to change the country from. for the better legislatively. For instance, one of the things that you're, you know, working on is getting federal funding taken away from private institutions that somehow still get federal funding, even if they engage in homophiles. One of the hardest parts of getting older is feeling like something's off in your body,

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Visit happy mammoth.com today and get your old self back naturally. Phobic policies, discriminative policies. Federal money shouldn't be going to that. No public funding should go toward that. So can you tell me a little bit about that effort? Yeah. So when I was a junior in college, I went to Orwell Roberts University, I was reported to the dean's office because I brought my boyfriend onto campus who went to another university. And I was called in with reports of homosexual activity. And ultimately, I was told that if I didn't go to these accountability meetings, then I would be expelled. And these meetings were like conversion therapy. And anyways, like I kept my head down, got through that. And then this was like right in January before COVID started in 2020.

So like COVID kind of helped. And then I graduated. And then the summer after I graduated, I got involved with REAP, the Religious Exemption Accountability Project. And what they're doing is partnering with students from religious institutions across the country. And together we're in a class action lawsuit that is suing the U.S. Department of Education because right now all of these religious institutions receive federal money through students who get Pell Grants who receive FASPA and that's government money that's

been given to the students which has been given to the university and for instance during the CARES Act like during the stimulus package that Congress passed during COVID like the university that I went to receive like several hundred thousand dollars and then they're being able to to discriminate on the basis of sexual or gender identity. And well, not only that. I mean, they're forcing students into conversion. I mean, I don't even want to call it conversion therapy. It's not therapy.

It's torture. You can't change someone's sexual identity. Look, not to get into some, I'm sure it was not a, I can't imagine how traumatic it is. But when I think of conversion therapy, I mean, we've done stories. about really terrible methods used. I mean, obviously there's propaganda that's supposed to make you feel shameful about who you are. There's been electroshock therapy in the past. Do you mind talking about what kind of tactics they utilize to, you know, try to change the sexuality of students?

Yeah. So I have a lot of experience with conversion therapy. When I was 14, I was first subjected to it. And then I like saw a conversion counselor off and on until my senior year of high school. But what they do is they basically teach you to hate yourself in a way that you're required to use a large part of your brain to constantly repress and suppress like these emotions and attractions that you're feeling because you're being told that that is inherently wrong. And a big thing that they push is that the more attractions or temptations you have, that means that you're not spending enough time with God. And I remember when I was like 14, 15 sitting across from this conversion counselor,

and he was an ex-gay in his late 50s. And he was telling me that, yeah, to this day, I still have attractions towards other men. But that just means I like must have missed Bible study that week or something. And I was like at that moment I knew like, okay, this isn't for me. This is not real. This can't happen. This is torture. Yeah.

And no one. Yeah. Yeah. So Andrew, I have more questions about that. So do they ever give you a non-religious reason not to be gay? Or are they just like, oh, God hates the sin and it's terrible and immoral? Like just garbage. That doesn't make any sense.

not logical, it's not anything. It's just, hey, some rabbi maybe 2,500 years ago said this maybe, but we're going to just haunt you with it. Is there anything else? Or is that it? That's their big idea is I talk to the invisible guy in the sky and he says he hates it. Most of it's all really backed up with religion. I mean, Christians love to use the religion, like as a shield to hide behind. And like my aunt Vicky did on the house. house floor, she was, like, weaponizing her own religion and using it to frame queer people as a threat to her religion and a threat to society, which then makes other people who believe my aunt's rhetoric, then, like, demonize queer people. And that's why there's so much violence

in today's society towards us. Like, we saw the two club shooting in Miami and all these drag story hours which are being plagued with violence and I would say my aunt's a direct proponent of that violence. Does your aunt know how embarrassing she is? I think my aunt has really strong convictions. Like I would say when she was crying, I would say that those were like genuine tears. just because, like, I've seen my aunt cry. Most of the time, she's only ever cried on the house floor when it's about abortion. Can I just, I mean, look, this is not a question.

It's more of a comment, but I can't help myself. I find her to be incredibly embarrassing. And the fact that, and I agree with you, I think that she was genuine in what she was saying. I don't think that those were fake tears. I think there are all sorts of Republican politicians out there who want to earn political brownie points with evangelical voters. So they'll say all sorts of things that they don't believe. And then behind the scenes, you know, their mistresses are getting abortions.

They're having all sorts of affairs. I think I think your aunt actually believes what she's saying. And you know what? Too bad for her because she is cutting wonderful family members out of her life in order to believe in a doctrine of. hate, a doctrine that somehow looks down at you when in reality what she's advocating for is essentially propagandizing and traumatizing individuals who are born with a sexual identity that can't be changed, a sexual orientation that can't be changed.

So I know that's not a comment, that's not a question, it's more of a comment, but I just wanted to let you know about that because, you know, we live in a country that's diverse in so many different ways, not only through race, gender, sexual identity, we have so many different people with different beliefs, different values, and we have to live together. And she has chosen a path that treats an entire population of people within the United States as second class citizens. And someone who has that kind of ideology in my mind has no place serving as a lawmaker or serving as a

representative. So if you ever speak to her again, just let her know that there are people in this country, including myself, who celebrate the fact that she lost her primary race and will no longer serve as a United States Congresswoman. Which actually has made a question, Andrew. Have you

spoken to her since? Since her speech? Since like a week ago? Yeah, no, I haven't. I mean, I was pretty convinced that if like I had already had my conversation with her and like she knew that she had a relative in that was gay and she still thought that it was okay and acceptable and like she felt good about making that speech then I knew that nothing I could say could ever really change yeah no Andrew because ultimately I think if yeah Andrew from your perspective I totally

get it. What are you going to do? Call her and say, hey, by the way, aunt, I'm not immoral. Like what kind of conversation is this? This is absurd, right? But on the other hand, I know I have nephews. If, you know, if I had said something that made them obviously upset and then they were speaking out in public, oh, the very first thing I would do is call them and say, hey, are you okay? How do you feel? And even if she thinks, oh my God, the homosexuality is so immoral because I and why by the way because she was brainwashed into that ideology when she was young right and she doesn't know she's been brainwashed and that she's an occult so and she was taught hatred and she now believes in

hatred but in her mind she probably still loves you and you're her nephew and she remembers you when you were going up and she like so has she not reached out to you at all Jesus okay yeah seems like such a nice person yeah I know being gay is immoral, but being terrible to your family members, apparently moral. Yeah, that makes sense. Yeah, and it kind of flies in the face of hate the sin, but love the sinner. Because if she genuinely loved you, she would reach out. And maybe reflect on how her public statements make you feel and make countless others

feel, not just in this country, but across the globe. I guarantee you she's angry at you. She's like, oh, well, you wouldn't let me just hate you? Now you're going and doing public appearances talking about that I'm the bad guy when all I was just trying to do was make sure that people like you don't have the same rights as other people because you're obviously inferior. What, what, what? I guarantee you she blames you instead of herself. But Andrew, look, I just want to end this by saying thank you for the work you're doing because, again, it goes outside of your personal life and your personal experiences. You're not just fighting for yourself. You're fighting for a community that's really under attack aggressively right now. and I just have so much respect for really anyone who's a strong fighter and you represent that. So thank you so much for what you're doing. Keep fighting and just know that you have friends here at TYT who have got your back anytime you need it.

Thank you. Thank you. Thank you, Andrew. All right. Well, we got a little bit of time left. So why don't we do one more story before we go to break, everyone? So turns out that the anti-choice, anti-abortion conservatives are not satisfied with reversing row. They want to go further. Republican lawmakers in Texas are preparing to introduce legislation that would require internet service providers to block abortion pill websites in order to essentially prevent not only people in Texas from accessing these pills, it would have an impact on every state

because the internet and the regulations that impact it would impact every state. Now, first, some props to the good guys because there are some good guys in this story and they're not the anti-abortion conservatives. Abortion rights activists have ramped up efforts to funnel abortion pills, a two-step regimen of Mithopristone and Misoprostol that is widely regarded as safe into states with strict new bands working with rapidly expanding international suppliers as well as U.S.-based distributors to meet demand. Now, how widespread is the use of the abortion pill in the states that have now effectively banned abortion or have severely restricted it? And who are the wonderful people behind this effort to get the abortion pill to women?

Well, this video, I think, tells you quite a bit about some of the suppliers and what really motivates them. So let's take a look at that. Okay. Veronica Cruz is founder of a feminist human rights group in Guanojato, Mexico, called Las Libres, or the free ones. Since the U.S. Supreme Court overturned the constitutional right to an abortion in June, the group has been bombarded with calls and messages from people in the U.S. looking for abortion pills. Las Libres receives abortion pills through private donors and pharmaceutical companies. The pills, Mifapristone, and Mizeoprostol, are approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration up to 10 weeks of pregnancy.

And since 2021, also approved to be sent by mail from certified providers. But as more states moved to criminalize abortion, Texas, Arizona, and at least four other states, have passed laws banning the distribution of abortion pills, pitting federal protections against state laws. In Texas, dispensing pills for abortion is a felony offense, punishable by jail time. We can send medication and we're going to give the information virtually prescribing abortion pills and supporting a woman through the procedure is now prohibited in 19 states. But they're doing it anyway. And the activists who want to maintain reproductive rights here in the United States are working with various organizations internationally to get these abortion pills to women who live in the states that have a severely restricted abortion. So one major pill supplier in Mexico estimated that her organization is on track to help terminate 20,000 pregnancies by years end, while another Europe-based group says that after the Supreme Court decision, it received roughly 3,600 questions per month with about two-thirds of those coming from women in states with abortion bans.

So clearly, this is the workaround to the restrictions that have been implemented. but the anti-choice religious zealots are privy to what's going on. They're furious that the abortion pill bans haven't really been enforced, and they're calling on lawmakers to do more. So as a result, Texas lawmakers are drafting legislation that would compel internet providers to block people from accessing abortion pill websites like Europe-based aid access and other online pharmacies within state borders. though even anti-abortion lawyers say that that effort would raise free speech concerns. But more importantly, it would have a huge impact on states that have legal abortion. Because you can't just wall this off to your state. So look, it's unlikely they're going to be able to win on this, but you never know.

So it raises free speech concerns because it would take away your free speech. This is from the Republicans who are such gigantic liars that they pretend to be in favor of free speech. They pretend to be against cancel culture. They pretend to be in favor of freedom. They say that that's their biggest thing. If you pick one word for Republicans, they say freedom, right? And they go, well, I mean, unless you're a woman. Or you're these companies, or you're trying to find out information on the internet,

or you do anything that we disagree with in your personal life. Then we want to take away all of your freedom and say, now here's what I'm going to make you do. And here's what I'm going to make you not do. And here's how I'm going to control every part of your life and rob you of your freedom. Republicans own it. It is an indisputable fact. You hate freedom. You don't want anybody else to have freedom.

Now you're saying, oh, blue states, by the way, we're hateful pricks. And we pass these laws to control women's bodies. and we're the body snatchers, and we love it. And we're like, oh, freedom. Just kidding. Women, you are now under government charity. We take over your body. We use you as a vessel, okay?

And then we take the baby and good. We've got another white baby or whatever else they have, right? That they're so desirous. Okay. Now you're coming into blue states telling us what we can and what websites we can go to and can't go to and what medicine we can get and can't get? Yeah. Because you're like, oh, no, no, not good enough to oppress my own people.

Now I want to oppress the people in blue states. My answer to that is hell effing no. They want to pass legislation, get this, that would treat these abortion pill websites the same way that child pornography websites are treated. Yeah, absurd. Absolutely absurd. No. I mean, it's crazy.

So yes, I mean, when we think about authoritarianism, when we think about a group wanting to force its ideology onto everyone, I mean, the right wing has been at it for some. such a long time, but it's incredible how much they twist the story and make it seem like the left is forcing its ideology on everyone. Look, all we want is for people to be left alone, okay? Respect people, we're diverse, we're different, just leave people alone and don't treat them differently or discriminate against them based on who they are, based on their identity. That's all we're asking for.

I know. It's like literally the opposite of what they want. They want to get involved in every single intimate moment of your life. I mean, you literally have right wingers now. Like Marjorie Green, we did that story earlier this week. She's flipping out over CVS selling sex toys. What's it to you? Sit down, maybe you need to buy one, okay?

Relax, like, why are we having Republican lawmakers freak out over what adults do during their personal time? Insane. Yeah, so look, I'll do civil disobedience. If in any, there's no way this is going to happen. But if somehow, miraculously, they got all internet providers to say, okay, or websites or whatever, no, okay, we'll block these particular outlets and won't let up. We'll sell abortion pills on TYT.com. And I'll take it to the Supreme Court.

I'll take it to wherever we need to go. We'll go to international courts. We'll go anywhere. But we're not going to let these monsters come in and say, okay, we now live under Taliban rule. from now on fundamentalist religion for all of you, whether you believe it or not, we're going to take away all of your American freedoms. No, the answer is no. I know you hate freedom, but we love freedom, and we're going to fight for it.

All right, we got to take a break, everyone. But when we come back, we've got more news for you, including Katie Porter, the latest target of the Libs of TikTok, that and more coming right up. All right, back on TYT, Jank and Anna with you guys. Also, The Joker and Joseph, Joker also wrote in a great comment. I'm going to read that later. All right, Casper. Well, I just wanted to give you a reminder that our health care system is still severely broken.

A heart attack patient in Wisconsin was denied coverage for a device that would keep his heart beating because as insure argued, good argument here, Cenk, very good argument, that the device wasn't medically necessary. Because you know, having your heartbeat, not medically necessary, according to Blue Cross Blue Shield. Now, the 47-year-old Dan Sakamondo, needed this thing called the Zol Life Fest, which I've never heard of before. And this story is going to be fun because I'm going to have to say defibrillator multiple times. And I have to say it slowly. But basically what it is, it's a wearable defibrillator.

Defibrillator. And what it does is let's say after you suffer a heart attack, your heart is weaker. And the likelihood of your heart just stopping, like it'll stop beating. that risk increases. And so you have to have a surgery to implement an internal defibrillate, which is that thing, okay? The thing that you need to get your heart to beat. So there's a surgery you do to get that to happen.

But having that surgery immediately after a heart attack is risky. So to bridge that gap, people can use what's referred to as the Zol Life Fest. However, the insurance company didn't want to cover it. You might be wondering, well, I mean, how much could it possibly cost? A lot. We'll get to that in a minute. But first, Sakamondo wore the life best for more than six months in between his heart attack in May and his ICD surgery on December 6th. He says the device was costly between $2,000 and $3,000 a month.

So he spent anywhere between $12,000 to $18,000 out of pocket for that life vest just to stay alive. And this is what Democrats would call the wonderful free market system of choice, right? Choice. Choice. We've got a choice to die? You got a choice to live? You have the choice to either, yeah, either die or go into debt. Lots of choices.

And keep in mind, he has insurance. Blue Cross, Blue Shield, that is his insurer. Now, the press reached out to the insurer to ask, like, yo, what's up with this? You know, he's paying his premiums. He's paying his deductibles. Why are you not covering something that he needs to survive, which means it's medically necessary? While Anthem Blue Cross and Blue Shield does cover wearable cardioverter defibrillators. Nice.

In certain situations, medical research and current standards of care do not support the use of these devices following a heart attack? What? That's a lie. And they do, they are not covered under Anthem's medical policy in cases such as this one. They also made clear that Medicare oftentimes doesn't provide coverage for it. And they are unfortunately correct about that, which is depressing to say the least. And Medicare should probably revisit that policy because it's a terrible one. But nonetheless, again, like he needs this in case his heart stopped beating before he gets the surgery he needs. And they just didn't want to provide the coverage for it.

Yep. All right. So I remember the Republicans saying, oh, my God, if we have government run health care, there's going to be death panels. Yeah, Chuck Grassley was one of those Republicans. Yeah, remember that? Here, let's go back. I think 2009.

There's some people that think it's a terrible problem that grandma's laying in the hospital bed with tubes in her and think that there ought to be some government. policy that enters into that. In the House bill, there's counseling for end of life. That's it. And from that standpoint, you have every right to fear. You should, you shouldn't have counseling at the end of life. You ought to have counseling 20 years before you're going to die. We should not have a government program that determines you're going to pull the plug on grandma. Okay, can I just jump in real quick? Because what Republicans tried to do in attempting to defend the Affordable Care Act.

Remember, that's back in 2009 when the Obama administration and Democrats are trying to pass it. They tried to make Americans think that there would be a government panel that would determine whether or not you should live or die based on whatever ailment you have. First of all, that was never a provision in the Affordable Care Act. The Affordable Care Act did include a provision which they later scrapped that would allow for patients to talk to their doctors about end of life care. So, you know, the medical establishment is aware of what an individual wants done with them, their care at the end of life. But you know, for someone like Chuck Grassley and Republicans and corporate Democrats, it's far better to have a death panel consisting of private insurers who get to decide whether

you live or die. Yeah, so Sarah Palin talked a lot about death panels, that's what Chuck Grassley was referring to in that clip, and back then it was a huge time for one for the Republicans. If you have, you let the government run healthcare, they're gonna do death panels that decide whether you live or die. Well, Anthony Blue Cross clearly has a death panel. They decide, okay, no, if you need that defibrillator, you're not gonna get it. So you're gonna, you're on the die list.

And some others might be on the live list, but they have a death panel. And but when private insurance has it, and coincidentally, they then send huge checks to people like Chuck Grassley and corporate Democrats and corporate Republicans, all of a sudden, Chuck Grassley can't find a way to care about death panels, doesn't care at all. He's like, oh, Anthem, you're making good money, profits, and you're giving me a tiny piece, a taste of that? Ah, do the death panel, love it. Okay, just be honest.

You're never going to, but they're politicians, they're all crooks. They're never going to be honest. Don't believe the media. The media tells you they're honorable. Chuck Grassley is a piece of dirt. He's the least honorable man I've ever met in my life, lies to you about how the government's going to kill you, but in fact, Social Security and Medicare are the most popular. programs in this country because they work, okay? And Medicaid is intensely popular.

They work, their government programs, Medicare and Medicaid that oftentimes save your life. Whereas how do private insurance make money? Does anybody ever tell you this? Certainly no one in mainstream media would ever tell you this, right? Because they're all advertisers. So they make money by offering the best product and the best coverage and they compete with one another in the free marketplace. That's the way it works, right? Oh yeah. I mean, if you listen to Anderson Cooper and Jake Tapper and people who write at the New York Times. Best healthcare in the world.

Oh, we're number one. Okay, absurd, absurd junk. We're actually number 37 in healthcare. Life expectancy is a disaster in this country. Now, why do we rank lower than all the Northern European countries and Japan and Canada and all of these other places? Well, because they have universal healthcare and we don't. We allow private corporations to profit off of medical treatment. And then you know how they profit by you dying.

And that's literal, that's literal. That's literal. So let me explain it real quick. Revenue is the premiums and deductibles, etc. that you pay. So they have an incentive to try and charge you as much as humanly possible. And the government doesn't protect you at all. So, I mean, it's so absurd. Now the good drug companies go, oh yeah, I can charge anything I want. And Medicare can't even negotiate. Well, that's not even capitalism, right? They're like, yeah, I know. I bribed all these dirty politicians like Chuck Grassley, Sarah Palin. And by the way, almost in, I mean, huge chunk of the Democratic Party, including Joe Biden. Okay, including Nancy Pelosi, including Chuck Schumer. They all got

bribed. And then they go, oh, golly, gee, we're not going to negotiate drug prices with drug companies. When it comes to health insurance companies, we're going to say, oh, did they let you die for a profit? Oh, we missed it, golly gee. So that's, I told you about their revenue. They're driving up the prices. What's their cost? Their cost is treatment for you. so do you get logically as a business they have to deny you as much treatment as possible that they can get away with without government regulating them which is almost everything right because government is in their back pocket they're going to deny you deny deny deny because you're their cost but if you die is that a cost to them no they saved a lot of money if you die

because then they don't have to treat you anymore so this is the sick sick system that we have in America. No other developed country has it. None. All of them have universal health care. They don't let you die in the street like we do, okay? I mean, countries that we provide tens of billions of dollars in military aid for have universal health care. Israel has universal health care. I mean, it's insane. We're providing foreign aid to countries that have better health care than we have here in the United States. And then when you say, well, why can't we have at least as good health care is Israel or Canada or somewhere else, they go, how are you going to pay for that? Well, then how am I paying for Israel in the United Kingdom or wherever else I'm sending the money

to? What do you mean, how am I going to pay for that? So, and by the way, you know what it costs? On average, for all of those countries, which is every developed country, it costs half of what we pay for our health care. And then liars, grotesque, sick liars like Jake Tapper, go on CNN and go, How are you going to pay for that? All you progressives trying to help people. I look down my nose at you. Oh, next is an ad by an insurance company and a drug company. I'd be careful, Tapper.

I'd be careful. They moved you to prime time. You didn't do so well. That CNN provided health insurance might not be around for too long. Yeah. Anyway, he failed at 9 o'clock because nobody likes corporate stooges. They got promoted by a corporate stooge to be a corporate stooge at 9 o'clock. didn't work, his ratings were terrible. They moved him back to 4 o'clock. But my favorite

part of that story was like, oh, Jake wanted to move back to 4 o'clock. He wanted to make sure to spend time. Yeah, with family. No, people love that work in cable news. They love turning down millions of dollars. Totally. That's what they're not for. And 9 o'clock, do you have any idea how much more he would have gotten paid? But, oh, no, I want to spend time with Willie at dinner. Sure you do. Sure you do. No, you suck. Nobody's interested in you. That's why you're in the situation that you're in now. All right, I've, you know, I feel a little sodium depleted today, but you're bringing it, Jank. You're bringing it. Yeah, I got plenty of salt. All right, we're going to take a break. When we come back for the second hour, we're going to give you that Katie

Porter story, because it is so incredibly absurd. And yes, we are going to discuss Donald Trump's big announcement. Big announcement. Even Steve Bannon has turned on him. Oh, it's so good. Don't miss it, we'll be right back. We've got that bet all day long. 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. co slash t yt i'm your host jank huger and i'll see you soon