The Young Turks - Terrorists & Arsonists

Episode Date: January 11, 2022

Several Democratic candidates are moving away from anything that identifies them as “moderate” or "progressive." Joe Manchin reportedly no longer supports his own Build Back Better counteroffer. The War on Terror has failed. Terrorist groups have more than doubled since 2001. The Omicron variant has overwhelmed hospitals in early hit cities across the U.S. A fire that destroyed a Tennessee planned parenthood has been ruled arson. A right-wing Indiana state senator has backtracked on his shocking instructions to a history teacher during a legislative hearing this week not to criticize Nazism or fascism to his students. 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, welcome to the Young Turks, Jank Ugar and a Gisperian. This time with audio, a new and improved. So big show ahead for you guys, as usual, because we cover the news Republican and Democratic wrongdoings. We're going to start with the Democrats in a second. But also now Republicans turning against Trump in droves, as we predicted, it is beginning to happen.

And we could also tell you about why, as usual, you won't get that on any other show. They think it's a random series of events. It most certainly isn't. And you know the biggest context clue you need, follow the money. That's what we do. That's why we're better journalists than everyone else. All right, Anna, go ahead. All right. Well, I want to start off with something I came across on Axios this morning that I found hilarious. So let's get started. The hybrid dem, what is it? And why is Axios pitching this as if it's something new that the Democrats are doing? Well, it demonstrates yet another move away from progressivism to appeal to soft Republicans or never Trump Republicans. And again, Axios is presenting this as if it's some new and improved strategy by the Democratic Party

when in reality the establishment Democratic Party has done everything and anything to reject progressivism in an effort to appeal to so-called moderate voters, but more importantly, as of late, to appeal to so-called never-Trump Republicans or so-called soft Republicans. Now, as Alexei McMahon writes in Axios, some Democratic strategists say a high, candidate model is one way to try to appeal, not just to the Democratic base voters, but also those like independents and soft Republicans who feel politically lost, especially after the Trump era. Now, never mind the fact that progressive voters or leftists feel politically lost without a political home to belong to, those people don't really matter

too much to the mainstream Democratic Party. It seems as though they're going to continue moving on with a failed policy of running as Republican light. But the way Axios tries to differentiate the previous strategy from the strategy that Democratic candidates are using today, is that today they're just refusing to use any and all labels, whether it's moderate or progressive. A glimpse of this played out, and Jank, get a load of this, last summer in the special election for Ohio's 11th House district, when progressive Nina Turner didn't run with Senator Bernie Sanders' endorsement front and center. Now, that perspective is, in my

opinion, inaccurate, but you are a little more involved with Nina Turner. You're certainly more involved with her campaign. So, Jenk, is Alexei McAmmond over at Axios correct in this interpretation? This interpretation is absurd. So look, it's not to say that Nina Turner didn't run a little bit more of a safe contest last time, meaning that she's not as, she was not as aggressive as she normally would be. But that had nothing to do with policy. And did she get Bernie Sanders endorsement and AOC's endorsement? And did they show up? And did they put that front and center? Absolutely. Not putting it front and center is not doing a giant event with them. And they both did enormous events. So there was no effort to hide it at all. This is, look, Anna, that's

just one part, as you know, of this story, which is just absurd from A to Z. That part was already crazy enough, but what they said about Terry McCullough is mind numbing. I mean, it just means you don't know anything about politics. Can I just do that quote? Because then I'm going to come back to some of the other examples because no no we're going to hold off on that because that in my opinion is the best part of this delusional piece written at Axio. So you guys are going to have to sit tight for that. I wanted to give a few other examples, Jank, before we go to Terry McAuliffe and then you can go nuts. Is that cool? Yeah, of course. All right. So they also write about current candidates in the Democratic Party, particularly Democratic Senate candidate Mandela Barnes.

He is currently the lieutenant governor of Wisconsin. And apparently he is running not as a progressive, not as a moderate. He is shying away from any and all labels. And so they write that Democratic Senate hopeful Mandela Barnes is one of these several Democratic candidates this year who aren't embracing or issuing labels like progressive or moderate. Instead, they're campaigning with a foot in both worlds and demonstrating a new mold and potential electoral path for their embattled party. The thing that gets to me about this so-called new, it's not new strategy, is that these candidates, or more importantly, their Democratic consultants, seem to think that voters are stupid. Seem to think that voters are just like, oh, no, man, like what does he say? Is he

says he says progressive or he's moderate? No, people want to know what you are fighting for. What do you represent? Why are you running? And it seems to be the case that Democratic candidates don't feel the need to tell you why they're running. They just shy away from anything that they might deem unpopular when in reality, progressive policy proposals, as we know from polling, tend to perform pretty well with the overall electorate, even Republican voters in some cases. For instance, the build back better agenda, when you take each provision in that agenda, which of course is now dead, each provision polls incredibly well, not just in one poll, but we've seen that play out in several different polls. But nonetheless, Mandela Barnes says

this, I know that the only way we can govern at our best is when we have all of these varied interests at the table, all of these varied experiences at the table. In 2022, we have to do more to make sure that we are not just listening to the intra-party debate, but listening to what the voters are saying, the real world experiences people are dealing with. Yeah, but what are you offering the voters? Who are you? What do you represent? What are you fighting? for simply saying like we got to listen to everybody. That's not that's not substance to me. That's not substantive. That doesn't tell me anything about who you are and what you represent. So Anna, I'm going to cut to the chase here to the conclusion. And then I'm going to go backwards and tell you the

amazing quotes from the story that show you that that conclusion is correct. This is not an effort to bridge progressives and moderate Democrats at all. If it was, then you would have a policy discussion about how do we bridge those divides? We say we should, Medicare should negotiate drug prices so we can have lower drug prices. They take money from drug companies and say, no, drug prices should be higher. Well, tell me how we bridge that divide. You guys are corrupt and we're not. No, I don't want to meet you halfway towards corruption. Anyways, no, this is an effort to say, oh, don't worry about all of your policies. We're not going to do any of them, but it doesn't matter. because progressives and moderate Democrats are the same thing, because they're now a hybrid.

Now, who are they trying to trick? Because the older voters already listened to MSNBC and are brainwashed into corporate Democrats are the greatest thing in the world. So they don't need to convince those guys. They're already bought. What they're worried about, I don't mean bought in a bad way, like they're corrupt. No, the voters are not at all corrupt. They just bought into Nancy Pelosi and Joe Biden are the greatest thing on earth because Rachel Amato told me. We're done with that.

There's like, that's already hopeless. They're 100% cult, right? So they're trying to now brainwash the younger generation into saying, hey, don't worry about your policies. Nobody, we're not going to do your stinking policies. We're not going to give you higher wages. We're not going to give you a health care. But I'm going to give you a conservative Democrat that's a completely owned by corporations. And I'm going to call them progressive and I want you to not care about the difference.

Okay, now here's the how they're doing it. Now, for example, look at these absurdities. They say Eric Adams, the guy who just won the mayor's office in New York, they acknowledge because he's so conservative, painting him as a progressive would be absurd, right? So they say, he's by no means a progressive hero. Wow, but they say, but he did get the endorsement of the city's biggest public sector union. Sorry, but Axios, right, you have no idea about current day politics, giant unions almost always support the corporate Democrats, the more conservative Democrats. Now, does that make sense? No, it doesn't make any sense at all, but does that make you a progressive? Hell no, if you told me the nurses union is backing a candidate, I'd say, oh, then they're more

likely to be progressive. If you tell me random giant union is supporting a Democrat, I would say, they're more likely to be a conservative Democrat. I don't know why Union leadership is weirdly maniacally conservative. I didn't do it. I'm against it, right? But you're a political reporter and you don't know unions generally back to more corporate candidate in Democratic primaries. You don't know that. You never heard of that. That's amazing. Now, so she then later says they're bucking ideological silos to try to build a winning coalition, these new candidates. Well, who the hell isn't trying to build a winning coalition? They make it seem like, oh, if you care about policy, that means you're not going to win. But if you care about building a winning

coalition, then you'll shut up and do as your corporate donors tell you to do. They make it seem like progressives are so fecklessness, silly. Oh, winning, we never even thought of that. Oh, do we want to win? Do we want to build a winning coalition? Well, then we better listen to Lexi McCam and, sorry for the name, and Axios and all the corporate Democrats. Stop patronizing us, especially when you don't know our goddamn thing about politics. The Tara McCall of quote is just the nail in the coffin here. But more, they quote a Harvard Kennedy School of Institute of Politics saying that 76% of young voters are rejecting partisanship and looking for, quote, more open-mindedness in politics. Now, that's a super interesting poll.

And what it shows you is they're tired of calling themselves Democrats because they're younger and they're so progressive. and Democrat is becoming a toxic brand because it stands for doing nothing, right? And they take that amazing, interesting political fact, and they turn it into, look at the twisting, look at the lies through the framing, right? They turn it into, that's why younger voters are saying they don't care if it's called progressive or moderate Democrat. That wasn't in the poll. That wasn't in the poll.

You made that up so that you could. try to trick younger voters. Now remember when you said you loved moderate Democrats? No, they said the exact opposite. It's unbelievable. And then, Anna, before we get to McCall of, last one for me, is they say another Hillary Clinton alumni, because that's all they quote in the piece. I'm glad you're doing a hybrid of progressives and moderate Democrats when all you're doing is quoting the worst Democratic consultants in the country. Jesse Ferguson. Quoting losers. Quoting losers. Let's be clear about that. Losers. Quoting losers. So loser Jesse Ferguson said this to Axios. It's more important for people to believe the candidate and see them as authentic

than it is for them to have the right label on their jacket. Well, this piece says do not be authentic. Pretend you can't tell the difference between policies and that progressives and corporate Democrats are the same. And you see how we're being authentic? No, you're trying to do marketing on behalf of your corporate crap, and they called out authentic. And Axios goes, Bravo, well played. Those are such excellent lies. Can we print them on your behalf? And they did. And what's incredible is that they're just kind of like repackaging this and making it with the help of Axios, making it appear as though they've come up with some groundbreaking, savvy strategy, which is laughable to say the least because we've had issues for many election cycles

involving Democrats who attempt to run as Republican light. And what happens? They get destroyed in midterm elections. They lose control of the House or they lose control of the Senate. It's just not a winning strategy. And to really reinforce the point that I'm trying to make here, Axios just keeps citing or quoting people who have lost in their elections like Terry McColliffe. So let me give that to you. In last fall's Virginia gubernatorial race, Democrat Terry McCalloff, who fought for progressive touchstones like Medicaid expansion and increased ballot access in his state was careful in appearing too far left in his race against conservative Republican Glenn Yunkin. How did that turn out for him? He lost.

He lost. They continue to write, while McColliffe invited and campaigned with Abrams, meaning Stacey Abrams, who also sent out fundraising appeals on his behalf, he avoided other prominent progressives. Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez told the Times. And it's just, it really does, it's incredible. Because you're right, Jank, this is a way to essentially shed any type of responsibility in real policymaking, in fighting for actual substantive policies that would really fundamentally and materially improve people's lives. But also in addition to that, this strategy, it rewards the kind of behavior that you see from conservative Democratic senators like Joe Manchin, right? It shows you that the party really values and upholds like

the magic of incredibly divisive Democratic lawmakers like Joe Manchin who has stood in the way of any real fundamental change, including the passage of the build back better agenda. And real quick, I just wanted to give you guys an update on that. So everyone's in a tizzy because Mansion's doing what Mansion is supposed to do. This is Mansion's role. He has essentially said that he is not in favor of voting in favor of any build back better agenda, including the paired back version of that legislation that he had proposed. According to Common Dream, Senator Joe Manchin came under under fire Saturday after the Washington Post reported that the West Virginia Democrat,

quote, does not currently support passing even his own recent $1.8 trillion counteroffer to President Biden's build back better agenda. So what is the point of appealing to politicians like Joe Manchin within the Democratic Party when all they do is serve as a massive obstacle to what the Democratic Party's alleged agenda is? And I say alleged, because we, Because we've seen just how weak Joe Biden and other Democrats have been in terms of fighting for the build back better agenda, in terms of actually passing legislation that would actually increase social spending to improve people's lives. Okay, if you're watching or listening to corporate media, you know, what people

normally call mainstream media, you're being lied to by serious professionals. They're professionally lying to you. So we told you that Joe Manchin is controlled by the millions of dollars that he gets in donations. And hence, he would not do build back better. He would either just water it down until only the corporate provisions were left in, or he would do nothing at all. They told you he was having an honest principal debate and that later he was going to do it and then decoubling it from infrastructure had nothing to do with it. His donors had nothing to do with it. His coal company had nothing to do with it. He's just such an honest, politician and he cared so much about the voters of West Virginia. We showed you the polling,

the voters of West Virginia, disagreed with him on all of the provisions by wide margins. Now, who was right and who was wrong? We were right. Joe Manchin killed his, I mean, it's such a joke, he killed his own proposal for Bill Back Better. That's what that news story is. And corporate media still's like, I can't figure out why he did that. It's such a big mystery. Well, then you suck at your job and you should go retire, be a plumber, be a plumber. You're not a reporter if you're not reporting the donations, or you think that millions of dollars does not affect a human being. So back to McColliffe. Alexei McCammon, you might remember that name. We actually defended her. Why do we defend her on policy or her writing,

etc? No, because there was an absurd case of cancel culture against her when she became editor of Teen Vogue, okay? Because we are honest and principled. But I told you at the time, I don't really agree with her writing because she writes corporate drivel like this. To say that Terry McCallough well, quote, fought for progressive touchstones like Medicaid expansion and increased ballot access. Now, no, come on, come on, you're either lying or you don't know one thing about politics. You think those are progressive touchstones, Medicaid expansion? No, that's the bare bare minimum. You don't know the progressives policy is Medicare for all universal health care, not tweaking expansion of Medicaid? You don't know that? Holy cow, you don't know that. It's increased ballot access.

Every Democrat agrees to that. That's not a progressive thing or a moderate thing. And that is nowhere near progressive touchstones. That is the bare, bare minimum for any Democrat. You don't know that? Come on. Now, either she knows it and she's getting a good laugh and our editors and Axios are getting good laugh. Have we tricked younger voters into being hybrids yet so that corporate consultants can win? But my guess is that's not what's happening. It's less conspiratorial than that.

They genuinely don't know a thing about politics. They just get paid to write this marketing. They're low level marketing executives. And they just write this on behalf of corporate rule. And they don't even know that they're a machine, they're a cognitive. in that machine. It's really sad. We got to take a break, but when we come back, a fantastic piece in Jacobin in regard to the failed war on terror. In fact, in the 20 years that the United States has been fighting

the war on terror, the number of terrorist organizations has increased quite a bit. We've got those details and more for you when we come back. All right, back on T.J. Jenkins, Anna, Carrie Woods Harris checks, me on super chat, says, Jenkins takes skill to be a plumber. It takes no skill to repeat drivel. Carrie, you're 100% right. And so I don't want anybody mistake when I say go be a plumber. I don't mean like go do a lower job. Hell no. That is a much more noble profession than marketing clowns who think they're reporters. Plumbers actually help people instead of hurt the country. I'm saying it as any random job that is not a reporter.

Hell yeah. Plumbers are heroes, especially considering the Western diet. So thank you to the plumbers out there. seriously. All right, let's move on to the war on terror. So the war on terror began more than 20 years ago with the Bush administration. And the whole point was to root out terrorism globally. And as you might already suspect, that war on terror has been a complete and utter disaster. But did you know that it actually significantly increased the number of global terror organizations? And who knows, maybe that is part of the design. Now, there was a great piece written in Jacobin by Nick Turs, and I want to give you a few excerpts of it, because he did a really great job in detailing just how much of a failure

this war on terror really ended up being. He writes that the State Department had counted nearly 32 foreign terrorist organizations scattered around the world when the 2001 AUMF was passed. And real quick pause on that, the AUMF, of course, gave the executive branch unilateral power to essentially wage war across the globe. 20 years of war, around $6 trillion and nearly one million corpses later, the number of terrorist groups, according to that congressionally mandated report, stands at 69. So we went from 32 foreign terrorist organizations, Jank, to 69 today. And that's according to a new report. Now, a little more information on the AUMF.

In the two decades since, that 2001 authorization for use of military force has been formally invoked to justify counterterrorism operations, including ground combat, airstrikes, detention, and the support of partner militaries, in 22 countries. So this wasn't just about Iraq and Afghanistan. This was essentially a way to provide additional power, unilateral power to the executive branch. And when you have that unchecked power, what ends up happening? This ends up happening. The United States wages war or engages in wars in literally dozens of countries around the world without the majority of the population even knowing about it.

Many of these countries, by the way, are in Africa, including Mali, Nigeria, and also Kenya. So Niger, I mean. So few war on terror watchers would, for example, be shocked to see Libya on the list of countries where the authorization was used to justify airstrikes or ground operations. They might, however, be surprised by the date cited, as it was only invoked to cover military operations in 2013. And then from 2015 to 2019. So just when you thought that the United States was done completely destroying Libya, we weren't done yet.

We were actually still involved in Libya between 2015 and 2019. And guess what? Biden continues these failed policies. While we did give him some credit for pulling troops out of Afghanistan, he recently wrote a letter to Congress letting them know to rest easy because the failed U.S. foreign policies of previous administrations continues. Last month, in fact, Biden informed Congress that troops continued detention operations at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, and support counterterrorism operations by the armed forces of the Philippines.

He also assured Congress that the American people, Congress and the American people, that the United States, quote, remains postured to address threats in Afghanistan, continues its ground missions and airstrikes in Iraq and Syria and has forces deployed to Yemen to conduct operations against al-Qaeda. And there's much more to that, which I can get to a little later. But I wanted to get your thoughts first, Jake. Okay, there's two other devastating stats here. So the first authorization included $40 billion in funding. And they basically implied that'll do it.

You know what it's cost now? All of these different operations, $5.8 trillion. So we wasted $6 trillion and created twice as many, way more than twice as many terrorist groups. And they said we were going to wipe out terrorism. We increased terrorism. I'm going to get to why in a second. Okay. How many people have died in all of these operations? about a million. We've spent $6 trillion killing a million people, which led to far more terrorism rather than less terrorism. So any rational policy person would look at this and go,

well, obviously, this didn't work. And it's not like we barely tried it. We tried it for 20 years. There's no question that it is a spectacular failure. It's one of the biggest failures in American policy history. Yet everyone in Washington, both Republicans and Democrats, say, no, they look at the same exact numbers and go, nailed it, let's keep it going. No, that makes no rational sense.

Hence, there's got to be a different explanation. Like when you go to the right wing, they'll say, oh, it's the Soros and the lasers and whatever the hell, you know, insane theory they have. We on the left have a different theory. It's called money. Wow, we're such great journalists. I'm saying that sarcastically about us because it doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure out, hey, that 5.8 trillion went somewhere.

And it went to defense contractors that got about a third of it at the top five alone. We did in a story last week, got 2.1 trillion. So that's about a third of the money over $2 trillion. trillion dollars went to guys who have hundreds and hundreds of lobbyists and give millions of dollars to American politicians. But I'm sure that's a startling coincidence. Otherwise, all the other reporters in the country would have covered it, right? And look, the failures, and this is me speculating, but I think this is an educated guess. The failures of the war on terror, it's not a flaw in policy. I really think that this is a feature.

of the policy. I don't think that the United States government, I don't think the Pentagon, the Defense Department looks at these failures as, oh, wow, I think we need to maybe recalibrate our approach here. They see this as fantastic. It's working the way it's supposed to work, which means year after year, Congress can continue approving more and more appropriating more and more of our resources toward defense spending. And while we continue failing, we'll get rewarded for that with additional funding, right? Look, there's an entire industry that profits off of war, as we've talked about so many times before. So this is not the bug, this is the feature. And what we're seeing now is the exact opposite of what the American people have been sold

in regard to our system of government and how we have checks and balances. In regard to foreign policy, there are no checks, there are no balances. The only checks that we see in the system are those being sent from Congress to private military contractors, period. That's all it is. So Anna, again, our points are not about us, but they're indisputable. They just are. It's just facts. So do you, here, I can prove it. Do you see nightly coverage of our troops that got killed in Africa? You might be thinking, what do you mean? What troops that got killed in Africa? Yeah, we've had troops killed several times in different African countries. And it's almost ever reported, and it's certainly not emphasized, we've got over 3,000 troops in Jordan.

Did you know that? We've got over 2,000 troops in Saudi Arabia. We've got all these troops everywhere and sometimes they die because they're in the middle of conflicts. But no, no, no, no, no, no, no. If you listen to the Democratic Party, they are not conflicts or hostilities. When we launched 243 hellfire missiles in Libya, the Obama administration said that did not qualify as, quote, hostilities. If you're on the business end of a hellfire missile, I guarantee you, you would classify it as a hostility. So we launch, they're called hellfire missiles. We launch hundreds of them. And politicians say, no, that's not a hostility. And the reporters go, yes, sir, absolutely, sir, that is not hostile. No, those, when it landed, it spread out

rainbows and flowers everywhere. Well, let's switch gears a little bit and move on to what I see as kind of irresponsible reporting in regard to the latest COVID surge. Look, we're not interested in needlessly making people panic about things. So I just want to have like a moment of clarity about what we're seeing with COVID numbers, what hospitals are experiencing, and why you shouldn't be too concerned if you're fully vaccinated and boosted. So let's talk about it. There have recently been some pretty terrifying headlines in regard to the latest COVID surge. And to be sure, hospitals do appear to be more and

more overwhelmed with coronavirus cases. But it is important to have a moment of clarity in regard to the new variant Omicron and what we're noticing in regard to the symptoms and what is likely to happen if you are fully vaccinated and boosted and happen to catch COVID, specifically the Omicron variant. I also want to be clear that the Omicron variant is very different from the Delta variant, which is also still spreading. So this is why it's so important for people to not only be fully vaccinated, but to get the booster because the booster protects you from both Delta and Omicron. With that said, let's take a quick look at this graph. It's from the CDC's COVID tracker. And it shows you the number of COVID cases over the last 30 days, which is high.

Okay, so nearly 60 million new COVID cases over the last 30 days. And deaths over the last 30 days are also increasing. However, if you can notice the differences, you know, the arrow doesn't shoot up quite as much when it comes to the number of COVID deaths over the last 30 days. However, there has been an increase. So it's important to understand why there's been. in an increase, what you can do to keep yourself safe. And more importantly, how to kind of approach this in a way that doesn't needlessly lead to panic and paranoia and stuff. So the good news is that most Americans have in fact received at least two shots of the COVID vaccine, which to be quite honest with you guys, I was a little surprised by. So let's take a look at this next chart.

Again, this is from the CDC. And it shows the number of fully vaccinated individuals. It breaks it down by age. So for instance, those who are older than the age of five, children older than the age of five, 66.5% of them are fully vaccinated. Yes, okay, so full number of people overall doesn't even depend on age. You have 62.5% of the total population vaccinated. That's good. The number should be higher, but that's good. These are people who, for the most part, are in better shape than those who aren't vaccinated at all. But the numbers are much lower when it comes to the booster. So let's take a look at that.

If you look at the chart showing the number of people who have gotten both the vaccine, both shots and the booster, it's only 36.3%. And that's where you run into problems with the Omicron variant. If you have the booster, you're very unlikely to be hospitalized and you're very unlikely to die from COVID. And of course, I'm talking about people who are mostly healthy, not those who have, you know, issues like being immunocompromised. Now, there is more good news in regard to the Omicron variant, okay? So according to the New York Times, an analysis of patients in Houston found that Omicron patients were only about one third as likely to need hospitalization as Delta patients. In Britain, people with this variant were about half as likely to require hospital care, the government reported.

The pattern also looks similar in Canada. A crucial reason appears to be that Omicron does not attack the lungs as earlier versions of COVID did. Amicron instead tends to be focused in the nose and throat, causing fewer patients to have breathing problems or need of ventilator. This is good news. But again, I just want to reiterate, this is clearly different from the Delta variant, which in fact does attack the lungs and is much more dangerous. So what are health experts saying? Well, I want to go to this video. It's a Fox News video, but again, it addresses the best way to keep yourself safe as we see the new COVID numbers search.

Let's watch. Right now, I think the most important thing to do is to protect Americans. We do that by getting them vaccinated and getting them boosted. Yeah, and I know that's the message, but the Omicron variant is infecting the vaccinated. and the vaccinated are transmitting the virus, correct? That is true. It's infecting them at a lower rate. And importantly, those people who are vaccinated and infected with Omicron are not the ones

who are ending up very sick in the hospital. Those are the people who are unvaccinated. And she's right about that. If you are not fully vaccinated and you don't have the booster shot, you are far more likely to need hospitalization. And that's why we're starting to see overwhelmed hospitals across the country. And then, Jank, one more data point that I want to share with the audience has to do with what we're noticing with hospitalizations, because some of that data isn't exactly accurate or lacks the nuance necessary to kind of ease people's nerves. So for instance, as the New York

Times reports, hospitalization figures are not without flaws. National data don't allow us to distinguish between people hospitalized because of COVID-19 and those who happen to test positive while admitted for something else, said Jason Salemi, who is an epidemiologist at the University of South Florida who tracks COVID data. These incidental patients may be more prevalent right now because Omicron is so transmissible. Some hospitals are reporting that these patients may make up as much as half, 50% of their hospitalizations. So you might go to the hospital for some other reason, some other ailment. They inevitably will give you a COVID test because we're still in the middle of a pandemic. And you'll end up testing positive because again, Omicron is very

transmissible. But the symptoms are much milder. And if you're fully vaccinated and have the booster shot, you may not have any symptoms at all. You might be asymptomatic. So it is important to kind of draw that distinction as well as you read these kind of like fear mongery headlines right now. Okay, so the way I see it Anna, there's basically four quadrants here. So one distinction is, are you vaccinated or unvaccinated? And then the other distinction is do you care about getting a cold and being really sick or you only care about whether it's going to be fatal to you? Okay, so everybody has a different, you know, sense of it. And that's okay, that's your personal proclivity. In fact, the member just wrote in, Grego said, vaccinated and boosted here,

contracted Amacron, and it's no walk in the park. I totally believe that, right? And I had a friend who got on Amicron and no walk in the park, for sure. Me, I'm in the quadrant where I'm vaccinated and don't care at all about getting sick. I don't care how little of a walk in the park it is. I probably don't even care 1%. All I care about is not die. And so for me, overall, this stuff is getting to be, getting to a point where I'm nearly done with COVID entirely. So when you look between the vaccinated and the unvaccinated, now the numbers are so stark, It's absurd. It's the unvaccinated are 15 times more likely to get hospitalized than die.

Okay, if you're a right winger and you don't believe it, that's okay. That's okay. Because now when you infect us, it's like a cold and I can live with it. So as long as I'm positive, my parents aren't going to die from it, which is I think close to imminent because the pill's going to come out. And I'm just waiting for more studies for the Omicron search to go past us a little bit and studies to confirm that it is basically like a common cold. And maybe even a more severe version of the common cold. But it's not going to kill my parents. If it's not going to kill my parents, I'm a billion percent done with it and I'm ready

to burn the mess. The right wing says, oh, no, you guys love the mess. Nonsense. Horse crap. I hate the mess, okay? Oh, you guys want to control people's lives? Dude, I don't care about your life at all. Okay, I'm trying to care. I'm a person with empathy. I've got, you know, a do-gooder live heart, right? But if you keep telling me, I don't care about my life, I don't care, man.

I'm going to endanger my life. All right, dude, I told you a thousand times not to jump off the cliff. I'm not going to tell you the thousand and the first time. And if it turns out it's only killing the unvaccinated, then that becomes your problem. And guess what? That's great that we don't have to argue about it anymore. You'll get to enjoy your freedom inside a hospital, and I'll get to enjoy my freedom outside a hospital. Good luck to you.

Well, we got to take a break. When we come back, we'll talk about a Planned Parenthood Clinic in Knoxville, Tennessee, which has been targeted by domestic terrorists again. And we'll give you the details on what they did to it. And later in the show, we'll also catch up with some of the Capitol rioters and kind of debunk some of the nonsense. sense that we've been hearing among right wingers about how these people have been placed in solitary confinement and have been treated so poorly. What's the reality? We've got that story and more when we return. All right, back on TYT, Jane Canana with you guys. And it's got so much more news. Let's do it.

All right. Well, a story you probably didn't hear too much about. A Knoxville, Tennessee planned parenthood was set on fire. And now it has been confirmed by the fire department that this is a case of arson, meaning that it was intentionally set on fire. This happened on New Year's Eve, the morning of New Year's Eve, to be specific. Knoxville Fire Department investigators along with assistance from the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and explosives have conducted a thorough seen investigation of the December 31st, Planned Parenthood fire and determined the fire to have been purposely set by an individual or individuals who at this time remain unidentified, the fire department said in a statement. Now, they are offering a $10,000 reward for anyone who has any

information that could lead to the suspects. And the president of Planned Parenthood of Tennessee and North Mississippi said in a statement that they're going to continue doing what they can And they're going to continue fighting to provide these services to women, despite the fact that they've been targeted by these domestic terrorists. She says our priority is to establish a safe operating site and reconvene services for our patients as soon as we possibly can. We are committed to our patients in East Tennessee and will not let this attack take away the essential health care services on which they rely. Now, this clinic luckily was under renovations when this attack happened. So luckily no one was harmed or hurt. But this is not the first time that this particular Knoxville, Tennessee, Planned Parenthood

has been targeted by right wing extremists. In fact, in January of just last year, a gunman shot out the clinic's reception area before it opened, shattering its front door. Now, since it was before it opened, luckily no one was hurt in that. attack either. But it's not like these types of attacks haven't led to literal, like, injuries and deaths in the past. And unfortunately, things have continued to get worse for abortion clinics across the country as these anti-reproductive rights measures have been passing in tandem. While purporting to protect human life, anti-abortion activists have

firebombed clinics, opened fire on facilities, and murdered providers. This in addition to more commonplace intimidation tactics like vandalism, doxing, and everyday harassment of patients and staff. And by the way, I want to remind you all of one of the more extreme examples that took place back in 2015, where a man by the name of Robert Lewis Deere engaged in a five-hour-long standoff at a Planned Parenthood in Colorado Springs. That five hour long standoff led to the death of two civilians and one police officer. To give you an update on that case, apparently a judge ruled that this man is unfit to stand trial and must receive mental health treatment prior to standing trial. But as we know for now, he's just receiving that treatment and really hasn't been prosecuted as a result of what he did. he killed, he murdered three different people during the standoff. And, you know, this story, unfortunately, continues to get worse. You know, we've been covering the just deterioration of

reproductive rights jank. And it doesn't just stop there. There's extremism behind this. There are real physical, violent attacks behind this. And Americans are paying a price for it. Women are paying a price in the form of their reproductive rights and their reproductive freedom. And this all comes from individuals who claim to be pro-life. Yeah, so what's more disturbing is that right-wing terrorism in America is considered normal. So it's not a big news story when there's a right-wing terrorist attack. This same clinic was attacked a year ago, and they shot out the front door. Did that make national news? None of this ever makes big news, right?

Oh, abortion clinic was bombed. It was set on fire. It was shot at. So what? That's right wing terrorism. That's perfectly normal. By the way, this is a trend that has been happening in America for as long as America has existed. When the clan did right wing terrorism, it was also considered normal. Like, oh, well, I mean, that's a, you know, a cross burning in somebody's house. Of course. Look, the lynchings were so normal. They had picnics around the body. So now if you did left wing version of that, which you absolutely positively shouldn't, it would be a massive story. If you did a Muslim version of that, obviously, everybody would talk nonstop about the terrorism,

the terrorism, we're going to stop all Muslims from entering the country. If Muslims were going around saying, hey, Allah told us this is that life is a stake and life is sacred, so that's why we went and attacked these doctors, everybody would go nuts. And it would be a national scandal of epic proportions. When right wingers do it, they're like, oh, well, hey, they're pro-life. They get to murder. Or it's not that they get to do it, but it's not that big a deal. So over the last four decades, what's happened, the number of attacks against abortion clinics and doctors and people that are patients, et cetera, have increased dramatically. And in the last couple of years, when Republicans have pushed out more bills on this topic, the violence has risen because the right wing believes in violence.

Now, for the right wingers who say, well, wait a minute, Jake, this is about life. That's why I had to kill people. Okay, hold on. Let me understand this right. Because this is an important standard. Health care, privatized health care leads to 45,000 people a year dying because they don't have health insurance. That's a lot of dead bodies. That's a stadium full of dead bodies. So does that mean left wingers can just go and shoot health insurance executives? The answer to that is, hell no. Don't do that. And that's insane. But right when you're talking about it, like, oh, that's normal in our context, hey, you know what? I thought a life was involved. So I just went and shot it or burned down their house or burnt down their office. No, you don't get to make that decision unilaterally. That's called terrorism when you say I get to kill other people because of my beliefs. And just saying it's because you're doing it because your pro life doesn't make it any better. It just makes it more ironic and hypocritical.

And remember, the pro-life argument comes from individuals who can't even be bothered to do something as simple as wear a mask during a global pandemic to keep people safe. And so it's impossible to take their alleged concerns seriously because they're not real concerns. I think the vast majority of anti-abortion activists in this country really just want to punish and control women. There's really nothing else to it than that. And their actions bear that out. The fact that they're willing to target, injure, and possibly even murder individuals at abortion clinics tells you everything you need to know about just how disingenuous they are when they make these so-called pro-life arguments.

It's not about pro-life. It's about control and punishment. And one last thing, Anna, propaganda is a hell of a drug. So they cherry pick every religious text, every religious leader does it. If they're good guys, they cherry pick the good parts. If they're bad guys, they cherry pick the bad parts. And since every religious document is filled with contradictions, they can pick anything they like. So the reason I bring that up here is now you know, because if you watch the Young Turks that, of course, the Bible is pro abortion.

But let's skip that part. Let's take another part that the Bible is actually against shellfish. So now why do I bring that up in this context? It's because if right wing leaders told you that God hates shellfish, they would be shootings at red lobsters. And they would try to burn down and bomb red lobsters. They would. You think, no way, they're not going to do that. Guys, all it is is made up propaganda. They just happen to pick a thing that's not even in the Bible. And they decided then you have to think why. Why did they pick that clause that doesn't even exist as opposed to the one that does? And that's what

leads back to Anna's point. The reason they pretended that that was their religious preference is because they want to control women and it drives them nuts that they don't get to treat them like chattel anymore. They used to be able to say, stay at home, do as you're told, produce babies, and cook while you're at it. Now you can't control women and it's driving them crazy. Religion is just a BS excuse they use to commit that violence in their frustration. All right, that does it for our first hour. When we come back, we'll catch up with the Capitol rioters and see whether or not they've been treated unfairly by our justice system.

Come right back. Thanks for listening to the full episode of the Young Turks. Support our work, listen ad-free, access members-only bonus content, and more by subscribing to Apple Podcasts at apple.com slash t-y-t. I'm your host, Shank Huger, and I'll see you soon.