The Young Turks - The Young Turks 01.02.18: Legal Weed, Fox & Friends, Iran Protests, and Lorde

Episode Date: January 3, 2018

A portion of our Young Turks Main Show from January 2nd, 2018. For more go to http://www.tytnetwork.com/join. Hour 1: Cenk. Sales of recreational marijuana are now legal under a 2016 voter initiative that created the nation’s biggest legal drug market. Even as lines begin to form at local dispensaries, LAPD officials are expected to hold a news conference Tuesday to discuss rules, regulations and enforcement of legal adult use and sale of cannabis.  It’s now also illegal to ingest pot and drive a vehicle under bill taking effect Jan. 1 that outlaws smoking and ingesting marijuana, just as it’s already unlawful for drivers or passengers to drink alcohol while driving. A separate law that took effect in June bars the possession of open containers of cannabis while driving. Fox & Friends: illegal immigrants will come to CA to smoke weed. Senator Marco Rubio (R-FL) is publicly expressing concern for the same tax reform bill that he recently voted for. Rubio said the bill may help corporations too much and that the special counsel led by Robert Mueller should continue. Hour 2: Cenk & Ana. The US has branded as "complete nonsense" Iran's accusation that its enemies have been behind a wave of violent protests sweeping the country. Iran's supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei had made the accusation in his first comments on the protests. US envoy to the UN Nikki Haley said the protests were "spontaneous", adding that the US planned to call an emergency UN meeting on the situation. The unrest began last Thursday and has seen 22 people killed. The demonstrations, which started in the city of Mashhad, were initially against price rises and corruption, but then began to express wider anti-government sentiment. 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. You're about to watch what we call an extended clip of the Young Turks, and the reality is somewhere in the middle. It's a little longer than our YouTube clips, but it's actually shorter than the whole two-hour show, which you can get if you're a member. You can get an ad-free and make sure you catch every new story we do that day. You're going to love it as a full show. That's at t-y-T-network.com slash join.

Thanks for watching. All right, well, in the Young Turks, Happy New Year. All right, well, we'll see if that's how it turns out for 2018. I did a video on our Facebook page, Facebook.com slash Deion Turks, where I said basically brace for impact. 2018, I don't know. I don't know what's going to happen. If anybody tells you they know what's going to happen at this juncture, they're crazy, dog. So this is potentially the wildest ride will ever take this 2018.

I have a far better sense of the short term and the long term, but 2018 is a midterm and in more ways than one. So, man, anything can happen this year. Anything, okay, for better or for worse. and certainly a lot of options out there for worse. But I want you guys all to rally and we all got to fight together, okay? So we'll talk about that as the year unfolds, as the day and the week unfolds. Today on Rebel headquarters after the Young Turks, I've got Benjamin Jealous, from our head of the NAACP running for Maryland, governor of Maryland on the show.

and so that's going to be really interesting. And then we've got someone who puts together a local campaign in Michigan that might actually end gerrymandering the state. It's amazing. So, but I tell you that because I want you guys to focus on doing things together. And we'll start small, we'll go midsize. Hopefully by the end, it'll be gigantic. But as we take this roller coaster ride, let's make sure that we take action together, okay?

All right, that's my little public service announcement to begin the show. In this program, we've got a wild ride for you guys. Michelle Bachman might be coming back to take Al Frankenstein. Oh, no. Okay, we'll talk about that. I'm actually going to start off with some great news in a second, as you'll see. But also Donald Trump might release a deadly virus into the world that might be airborne. Great.

Okay, we'll show you that story. A revolution is, well, I don't know about it if it's a revolution, but certainly a rebellion has begun in Iran. That's a fascinating story. There's no end to the fascinating stories on today's show. Donald Trump wants to put more of his political opponents into jail, and, and, but yet one of the worst Republican senators is retiring, which is great news. So I'll give you all the twists and turns, so let's do it.

Let's start with good news. Okay. Ladies and gentlemen, we got it. Weed is now legal in California. Now, if ever there was cost for celebration, this is it. And I'll tell you why, it's not just because people want to get high. It's because it has huge policy ramifications. And it's not just because it's California.

It's because it's over. Here, I'm going to declare it over right now. Marijuana will be legal everywhere. Once I pound the gavel, it is OV-A-H-O-V-A-H-O-A-H. So let me explain why. Let's go to Huff Post for an explanation of the law in California. Adults who are at least 21 years old can legally purchase recreational marijuana from select retail shops in California beginning Monday. So that was yesterday.

A milestone that instantly makes the state the world's largest legal of marijuana marketplace. Okay. So it's gigantic. California, if it was its own country, would be among the top seven economies in the world. So that's how large California is, both in size and an economy. But there are even wider ramifications. The state's new recreational marijuana industry has a projected value of as much as $7 billion, enough to make it the world's largest legal marijuana market,

and is predicted to eventually generate $1 billion annually in low. and state tax revenue. OV-A-H-OVA. Once the government gets hooked on that billion dollars, it's a gateway drug to having marijuana legal forever. You know, I'm using gateway drug, of course, mockingly of the right wing and the preposterous argument they made about marijuana for decades and decades.

But it's not just about the government needing that tax revenue. Much more importantly, guys, and what is not mentioned in these articles nearly enough, almost not at all, not at all is, once you have corporations profiting from marijuana to the tune of $7 billion in California alone, we're done with this thing. Then all of a sudden, corporate power flips to the other side and goes, marijuana, what do you mean, gateway truck? Schedule one.

It's fantastic. It's wonderful. Do you know how much money we're making? And then you grease some politicians, and this thing is done. It's done. Nobody's going to turn down that kind of profit. and then they're going to want it in all the neighboring states, then all the states, and then all across the world. So corporate America, unfortunately, has a lot of downsides, including bribing almost all of our politicians here in America.

But the upside is if you let corporations do marijuana, you will have legal marijuana everywhere. Okay, California produces vast amounts, as Huffbook continues to explain, Matt Ferner writing here, vast amounts of marijuana and has done so for years. Now more than 20 years after the state legalized medical marijuana, 28 other states allow cannabis for medical purposes. Eight states, including California and the District of Columbia, have also legalized the plant for adult recreational purposes. You're not going to roll back 28 states legislation. This is not an issue that goes back and forth.

Oh, look, the right wing is winning now and the left wing is more momentum later. And it goes, no, once marijuana becomes legal in California, as it has now become, there's no rolling it back. You're not going to roll back to 28 states. You know why? Because we've been right all along. There's nothing wrong with marijuana. So does it have a couple of downsides? Of course, as anything does. But is it more dangerous than heroin and cocaine and meth and fentanyl? No, is it more dangerous than painkillers you're taking? No. Is it more dangerous than alcohol? No. So if it was, you know what would happen? After California legalized it, let alone all the other states, which have already done so recreationally, let alone medical

marijuana. People would have started dying, right? They would be like, oh my God, did you hear about the 13 guys who died yesterday from smoking marijuana? But that doesn't happen because it was all lies. So instead what's going to happen is, hey, did you hear about the 13 guys or 13,000 guys who smoked marijuana the other day and felt a little bit better, either in terms of actual pain relief, which helps soldiers suffering from PTSD as one of many, many examples? Or did you hear about the 130,000 people who smoked marijuana yesterday and had a good time? And that was that. They made a good time illegal.

I thought this was a free country, but it's going to be free again. And so this is fantastic news. Now, in California, they went a little farther. Now, why this legislation is actually even better and more progressive than, you know, in some of the other states, and then, and honestly, I could have imagined when they started this process. The law goes beyond the regulation and taxation of marijuana and aims to repair damage from the companies failed, from the countries, failed war on drugs, individuals with prior

marijuana-related convictions that wouldn't have been a crime under the new law or would have resulted in a lesser punishment can petition courts to have their record reclassified or cleared altogether. That is great news. Now remember what of Richard Nixon's top aide said in the 1990s, yes, we started the war on drugs to go after our political enemies, hippie liberals and black people. He said it. He told you why they did it. Now to free those prisoners that for smoking marijuana, when all of our presidents lately have smoked marijuana, George W. Bush, Barack Obama, Bill Clinton, And they've all done it, right? But they never went to prison because they're among the elites.

To free those people who are not in the elites, who are imprisoned and arguably enslaved working for a dollar a day in slave wages in some of these prisons. That is a monumental difference maker. It's a great day in America. They should do this all across country. And they're not done yet. In addition, some local jurisdictions are giving priority or other assistance to marijuana business license applicants previously convicted of low-loven. marijuana offenses or who come from low income communities hit hard by harsh drug war policies. For years and years, for decades, they crushed those local communities.

The only economic opportunity they had, unfortunately, was the booming drug trade in their neighborhood. Now they've turned it around and said, we were wrong. So if we're going to start up shops, and this is going to be legal, and these are going to be real businesses, we should give those same communities which we oppressed and crushed and imprisoned for all this time for something that was actually perfectly saved. We're going to give them an opportunity first. In my mind, that is wonderful.

And all these states, there are no cases of people going wild on marijuana. It was all propaganda. Nobody's lost their mind. That's not the gateway drug. The gateway drug, unfortunately, is legal prescription. killers, as we've seen with the opioid epidemic. These steps are wonderful. One last piece of news for you in regards to this for the whole country. A recent Gallup poll found that 64% of Americans favor making marijuana legal. The highest since the pollster first posed the question

almost five decades ago. Majorities of Republicans, Democrats, and independents, all voice support for legal marijuana. It's over. marijuana will be legal everywhere. And as well as should be, and California has, in my opinion, struck a death blow for this insane war on marijuana that has been going on for far too long. Another great job by one of the most progressive states in the country in leading the way towards righteousness, justice, and rationality. We need to talk about a relatively new show called Un-F-The Republic or UNFTR.

As a Young Turks fan, you already know that the government, the media, and corporations are constantly peddling lies that serve the interests of the rich and powerful. But now there's a podcast dedicated to unraveling those lies, debunking the conventional wisdom. In each episode of Un-B-The Republic or UNFTR, the host delves into a different historical episode or topic that's generally misunderstood or purposely obfuscated by the so-called powers that be, featuring in-depth research, razor-sharp commentary, and just the right amount of vulgarity, the UNFTR podcast takes a sledgehammer to what you thought you knew about some of the nation's most sacred historical cows. But don't just take my word for it. The New York Times described UNFTR as consistently compelling and educational,

aiming to challenge conventional wisdom and upend the historical narratives that were taught in school. For as the great philosopher Yoda once put it, you must unlearn what you have learned and that's true whether you're in Jedi training or you're uprooting and exposing all the propaganda and disinformation you've been fed over the course of your lifetime so search for UNFDR in your podcast app today and get ready to get informed, angered, and entertained

all at the same time all right um Now, that's our interpretation. Let's turn to Fox News' interpretation. Okay. So today, California made marijuana legal, of course, voted on it earlier, and now it's in effect starting actually yesterday on Monday. And they also passed a law on sanctuary state, making California a sanctuary state.

Now, this has made Fox News, of course, lose their minds in like almost literal reaper madness. So I'm going to show you two clips to South City with that, and then I'll break down their lack of logic, but they're just fun anyway. Look at these goofballs. Let's watch. January 1st, California became an official sanctuary state, not a sanctuary city, the entire state, a sanctuary. This is incredible. So what they say, oh, for the immigrants here among our population, you don't have to feel deportation. They're not immigrants. Immigrants are allowed to be here. Illegal immigrants aren't. They snuck in. That's a little dissemination. So now if you are in a... a public school and a public library, a health facility, they are safe zones from Donald Trump.

They say it's you against Donald Trump. They said no such thing. Okay, we're going to get to the marijuana in a second. And this is apparently California craziness. So if you have only heard right wing propaganda or you've never heard it explain before, what is the sanctuary city or state? What does it do? Does it say to undocumented immigrants, hey, you all come here, we're having a party, okay?

Let's all get together and have nothing but fun. and you do anything you like. No, it says if the federal government wants to turn our local law enforcement into their actors, meaning, okay, you're going to enforce federal laws. Okay, one of those federal laws is laws about immigration. Then you have to pay me for it. You can't do unfunded mandates. Remember when conservatives pretended to be against unfunded mandates?

So you can't tell me, all right, keep that guy who's undocumented in your prisons for three years. Now, if the guy broke a law, they're going to keep him in California, prison anyway, and then they're going to deport him anyway. That's already part of the law. We're talking about people who did not break the law. And the federal government says, I think that guy is undocumented. Now, I want you to keep him in prison indefinitely. California says, first of all, you didn't pay me to keep him in prison indefinitely. You sent me the money. We'll have a conversation. Second of all, what do you mean indefinitely? That's against our due process laws not only in the country nationwide but also for california so no we're not going to

just do whatever the federal government tells us to do and doesn't pay for etc they make it seem like we're all going nuts here like we're just we're finding undocumented immigrants and bringing him here and giving them cake hey that's not what's happening all right now let's move to marijuana not only if you're illegal you're welcome in california also if you want to get high you're welcome there too. So you can be illegal and wasted on marijuana. Right. And live in that state and be just fine. The sixth state to legalize marijuana as of January 1st. And by the way, it's amazing how long the lines were. 50% higher than they even anticipated. Underneath the welcome to California signs, someone posted a sign that said official sanctuary state, felons, illegals,

and MS-13 welcome. Democrats need the votes. Absolutely. How amazing is that? That's the message. No, it's not. MS-13 is a brutal gang that, by the way, was created because of the insane war on drugs. We made it illegal for no reason, so people started dealing with it. And since it was illegal, black markets formed. And in those black markets, terrible gangs formed, just like when we had prohibition of alcohol. Nobody wants anybody to commit any crimes in California because we live in California. Why would we want crimes here?

They think that that's how liberals are. Oh, somebody come and committed a crime against me. No, you morons. If they committed a crime, they get not only prison time, but deported anyway. So the other reason, by the way, is sanctuary cities and states, on average, have crime statistics that are lower. Why? Because if you say to the federal government, you come and take away all the undocumented

immigrants and I'll work with you and I'll keep them in my prisons forever or however long you want them, et cetera. and then you know what happens? Und Documented immigrants then are reluctant to report crime to the police, which breeds lawlessness. It's a terrible idea. And you know what marijuana breeds? A good time. And oftentimes better health.

But these guys on Fox Express, by the way, I don't even believe them. The chances of those three of having never smoked pod is infinitesimally small. I would be shocked if Kilmead and Deucy weren't high consistently, let alone that they never did it. But now, according to them, California, they're nuts, man. They got big lines of smoking marijuana, and they actually want to treat people as human beings. No, no, no, no. It's all about MS-13. And probably Trump saw that and thought, oh, yeah, that's right, man, California.

It's so. Ducey nailed it again. All right, God bless California for passing rational laws. And if you made Fox and Friends angry, you've probably done a great thing. Okay, let's move forward. This happened over the weekend, right before the weekend started actually, but I'm not going to let it go because it's, it's both too good and too grading for me. So Marco Rubio recently did an interview, and he mentioned a couple of things. one was the investigation of Donald Trump.

On that, he actually had good things to say. But then he talked about the corporate tax cuts, and that was infuriating. First, let me give you the quote about the investigation. He said, I think the best thing that can happen for the president, for the country and for everyone, is that he'd be allowed to complete his investigation, referring to Mueller, as thoroughly and completely as possible, and that we allow the facts from that investigation to lead where they may. Now, that is the correct thing to say, if you care about America and you care about the rule of law,

all senators, regardless of what party they're from, should want to enforce the law and let a special counsel do his investigation and not interfere or obstruct in that investigation. There's, of course, a second reason why Marco Rubio is doing it, because he's clearly going to run for president in 2020. And he already got his ass kicked by Donald Trump. He doesn't want to get his ass kicked by Donald Trump again, and he thinks Donald Trump and he probably did it, and you let the investigation go, and it's a little bit of turmoil, but I'm right back in this thing. Now, if that was his only quote, though, I'd compliment him and say, good job and be done with it, okay?

And the 2020 comments and his run are more about the second part, okay? But both are related. So when they asked him about the tax cuts that they just gave to the rich and most importantly to multinational corporations, giant tax cuts. First he said, well, look, it's significantly better than what we had. But then he had the nerve to say this. I said, I thought we probably went too far on helping corporations. By and large, you're going to see a lot of these multinationals buy back shares to drive up the price.

Some of them will be forced because they're sitting on historic levels of cash to pay out dividends to shareholders. That isn't going to create dramatic economic growth. Ah, that's what we said, but we said it before you voted on the bill. This guy votes for the bill, then the next day turns around and goes, oh, college heat, turns out we might have given the corporations too much. Did we do that by accident? Oops. Oh, it turns out they're not going to create jobs.

The whole time the Republican Party was telling you that they were going to create jobs with the money they're going to get, we were lying. That was a funny joke. So, no, I actually think they're going to do stock buybacks and dividends. That's what we said. We did a whole investigation on TYT investigates where we asked company after company after company, wait, are you actually going to create jobs? And the reality was when you looked into the facts, no, no, they're going to do exactly

what Rubio says here. They have historic levels of cash. They're going to pay out dividends to shareholders and they're going to buy back shares. He says they're going to be forced. They're not going to be forced to. They want to. They're going to make unbelievable amounts. some money for their executives. So why does Marco Rubio admit this today? First of all,

it's not like you just found out yesterday. What were you doing, watching Young Turks archives and go, oh man, I didn't know that. Oh, damn it, I voted the wrong way. No, he wanted to vote and help those corporations. They're his donors. The reason he makes this comment after the vote is because he's probably going to run for president again. And when he does, he'll turn around and you'll see it with your own eyes and might even go back to this clip. And he'll turn around and say, well, I told you after the, you know, that the corporations wouldn't create jobs. I said it. I said, I said they do mainly buybacks.

I thought we were helping them too much. So he gets, tries to have his cake and eat it to. Hey, corporate donors, don't worry, I delivered for you. Hey, voters, after I gave the corporations, in his own words, too much, I then said, well, golly gee, I feel a little bit bad about it. He doesn't feel bad about it. That was the whole point. He's owned and bought by those corporate donors. For him to disingenuously say this afterwards is appalling.

I'm going to show you one last chart here. So I show you guys this a decent amount if you watch the show. And this is a pie chart of 1952 taxes and 2015 taxes. Back in 1952, corporations used to pay almost a third of all the taxes, 32%. In 2015, that's down to 10.8%. So a little less than 11%. They have massively reduced their tax burden. They shifted that tax burden onto you, the middle class.

Now, after this gigantic tax cuts that even the Republican Senator Marco Rubio says were too much in helping corporations, their share of taxes will go down even lower, your share of taxes will go even higher. The system is rigged. It's rigged in the most obvious way. donors, privately financed elections, the politicians who are corrupt, who took those, that private financing, work for private interests. They work for those corporations.

And then later, they try to trick you into getting your vote by saying, oh, golly gee, I've had second thoughts. I think I might have helped corporations a little too much. Yeah, that's very cute, Marco, but nobody's buying it. If you had these reservations, there was an easy way to show it. You should have voted no. You voted yes, because you serve those same corporations. That's your job.

You're a water boy for them. Okay. All right, let's take a break. When we come back, a deadly virus or a series of deadly viruses that Donald Trump just said could get created. it. What could go wrong? I'll explain. Thanks for listening to this podcast. You're only halfway through. So hold, hold, stay right here. Just want to remind you if you want to get all five segments of the Young Turks commercial free. These are just two of them. Every day we do it. So go to t-y-tnetwork.com slash join.

And you'll get the whole five segments, two hours. Add free. Do it now. All right, back on the Young Turks. Let me read a couple of quick tweets for you. SITY live to tweet to us during the show, you'd also use YouTube super chat. ZyceCube says we should tread lightly here. This wouldn't be the first time our government created an enemy where there wasn't one. Well, indeed, which leads to Jake's tweet. Also, the USU CIA funded protests to overthrow the Iranian government in the 50s, so they might be afraid of us doing it again. Well, that is unfortunately very true.

We're the ones who started the fire. They had a democratically elected leader that was deposed in a coup set up by the CIA. The U.S. government has now admitted to that. And we ruined their democracy, and we put a dictator in charge so that he would give our oil companies cheap oil. British and U.S. oil companies cheap oil. We never got the benefits of that oil. Only the companies did. And then their frustration with the dictator led to the Mullahs and the Ayatollah, and here we are.

And Gabby writes, and if this continues to escalate in Iran, we need to be watchful of any right-wingers trying to use it as an excuse to intervene militarily. They are desperate to go to war there. Yeah, I mean, I think that's, my speculation is that's exactly what's happening. Yeah, they're totally out of control. And so you think Trump is bad and he is? And he might go along with them because he doesn't know any better, just whoever comes in the room last, right? But the neocons, the guys like Bill Crystal, who go around get a lot of credit on TV for saying bad things about Trump now. They deserve no credit at all.

They're worse than Trump. Trump has not yet started a war. Bill Crystal did help start a war that got hundreds of thousands, arguably millions of civilians killed. Those guys are monsters. And under no circumstances should we let them do it again in Iran? Okay, more stories for you guys. All right. Musical artist Lord is being called a bigot in a full page ad that was published in the Washington Post.

Now, who took out that ad? Rabbi Shmuli Boitiyak. He is, of course, a huge public figure, an Orthodox Jewish individual who is very pro-Israel and against anyone, supposedly, who would, ever dare to boycott Israel's right wing government. Now, I'm just going to jump into, to say my point of view on two things that you just mentioned there. Yeah.

One, Shmuli Bhattak is not pro-Israel. I'm not saying he's anti-Israel. He's just pro-Israeli right-wing. That's true. Right? And so it's like saying being in favor of Dick Cheney is being pro-American. No, it's not. Being in favor of Trump is being pro-American.

No, it's not. There's a right wing and a left wing in America and a middle. Same in Israel. So he is. He's pro right wing, period, even if it goes against Israel. There's a little twist to this story, which I'll get to in just a minute. But you're absolutely right about that. And the second clarification is, look, Schmulli's been around a long time.

I know him a little bit. In person, he's a very decent guy and very personable. You know, he gave love advice on Oprah's show. No, I know. He's a character. He's a character. And it's... Shalom in the home.

I mean look I get it he's a character right but but without the backing of of billionaire benefactors as you're about to explain he'd be nothing he doesn't have a large audience at all at all he's you think he's got the money to buy a full page watching and post that no it's other people behind the scenes that are doing that so yes okay so lord young pop star I don't know if she's a pop star but either way she's a musical artist that I happen to enjoy. And she was set to perform in Tel Aviv in June. However, there was a bit of controversy because those who believe in boycotting Israel over its treatment of Palestinians urged her to not perform there to be part of this boycott. And she eventually

decided to follow suit. And she canceled her appearance in Tel Aviv. She said the following in regard to her decision, I have had a lot of discussions with people holding many views. and I think the right decision at this time is to cancel the show. I'm not too proud to admit I didn't make the right call on this one. Okay, nothing particularly rude or mean, not even close to anti-Semitic in that statement whatsoever. However, Rabbi Shmuli decided to take advantage of this opportunity to put out this ad and allege that she's anti-Semitic for canceling her show

and that New Zealand as a whole is anti-Semitic. New Zealand is where she's from. Now, the headline of this ad said, Lord in New Zealand ignores Syria to attack Israel. Who said they were ignoring Syria? Yeah, I... Did she move the concert from Tel Aviv to Damascus? No. Is she doing a concert in Syria?

No. Is she, do you have any idea what her opinion on Syria is? No. It's a form of distraction to say, well, Israel might be occupying millions of people illegally under international law, but squirrel, or in this case, Syria. Right, and okay, so yes, that's a distraction. And then I was curious about this allegation that New Zealand is anti-Semitic. I wanted to know why.

I wanted to know why. And it turns out New Zealand happened to be one of the countries that voted along other countries or in addition to other countries against or in favor of a UN resolution calling for the U.S. to withdraw its decision to recognize. Jerusalem as the capital of Israel. Also in 2016, New Zealand voted along with other UN countries to essentially call out Israel for building illegal settlements. So that's the reason why New Zealand is considered anti-Semitic in Rabbi Shmulli's eyes. Okay, let's just stop there for two more points. Okay. One is, can a whole country be

anti-Semitic? That sounds a little preposterous, let alone New Zealand. Like everybody in New Zealand and woke up one day, and they're like, what should we do today? Should we all be anti-Semites? Sure. Second of all, 127 countries voted for that resolution. But for Schmuli and his backers, yeah, that's what they want to do.

They want to smear the whole world. They don't think 127 countries voted against us. Maybe we're doing something wrong. They think, no, that's it. We knew it. They're anti-Semites. Look, the world has a history of anti-Semitism that runs super deep. So if you're concerned about it,

I get a brother and you're right about that. But to then use that as a excuse and a shield when all these countries are legitimately worried that you're breaking international law and oppressing other people, well then you're actually doing the cause of alleviating anti-Semitism damage because you're crying wolf and you're saying, no, the whole world is anti-Semitic. Everybody in New Zealand is anti-Semitic. This random pop singer is anti-Semitic because they don't agree, not with Israel, but with the right-wing position in Israel.

Now, Lord is not random, okay? She's awesome. But look, you're right about that because it really does minimize real anti-Semitism, which is alive and well today, something that should be addressed, something that should be talked about. But if you decide that you don't want to hold your show in Tel Aviv because you don't like the way the Israeli government is handling things with the Palestinians, then that is your right.

You shouldn't be forced to go perform somewhere or otherwise you're going to be deemed an anti-Semite in a full-page ad in a mainstream publication. That's absolutely ludicrous. And by the way, I did not forget about the twist of this story. So, Jank, you mentioned his backers, his backers. Who are his backers? Well, it turns out that the Rabbi Shmuli's organization

is funded by Sheldon Aidelson. And who do we know is a little, questionable, not a little questionable, but considerably questionable toward the Jewish community here in the United States. The alt-right, okay? Steve Bannon has been on the record saying that Breitbart is, you know, the place where the alt-right have a voice. Well, Rabbi Shmuli should probably dislike Bannon, but he doesn't. In fact, he has defended Bannon after he was called out by the Anti-Defamation League. Let me give you the details to that. In 2016, Boyatech defended Bannon from accusations made by Jonathan Greenblatt of the U.S.

Anti-Defamation League, who criticized Bannon's appointment as a White House advisor, saying it was a sad day when a man who presided over the premier website of the alt-right, a loosened group of white nationalists and unabashed anti-Semites and racists, is slated to be a senior staff member in the people's house. So, like, when it comes to actual anti-Semitic behavior, he's all for it, because his funders are all for it. But when it comes to someone like Lord, who has all the right in the world to not perform anywhere she chooses, she's an anti-Semite. So, look, Shmuli and Bannon took a picture together, smiling, having a hunky-dory time in the White House back when Banna was in the White House. We have that photo, 58. Yeah, so there they are. Now, Bannon, in his divorce proceedings, his wife said he didn't want the kids to attend a Jewish school because he didn't, he didn't want them being around Jews. Now, that's a divorce proceeding.

They just get ugly. Take it with a grain of salt, okay? But Milo, Busby did a terrific analysis of this, so much so that even Robert Mercer, another huge backer of Breitbart, had to backpedal away from Breitbart a little bit. Milo, when he was doing the compilation of what the alt-right stands for for Breitbart, run by Steve Bannon, conferred with neo-Nazis to figure out what the alt-right positions were, and then put them into that treatise for what the alt-right stands for. So the treatise that Steve Bannon's website promoted was written partly by neo-Nazis. But what does Adelson want? He wants the right-wing position in Israel. He wants the unions crushed because they work.

The unions are in his casinos and he wants to pay workers less money. He wants deregulation. He wants lower taxes. So if Trump and Bannon are monsters and potentially anti-earnings, Semites, Trump went to a gathering of Republican Jewish leaders and said, if any room knows how to renegotiate, it's this room. My God, if Lord had said that, anybody in New Zealand had said that, Schmulli would be taken out seven full-page ads in the Washington Post.

So they do, but they back all those guys anyway, because they're not interested in making sure that the Jews are protected, et cetera. They're interested in using anti-Semitism as a club to beat. over the people over the head with, and more important than Lord, they want to intimidate anyone else who might say, hey, you should join the boycott divestment and sanctions movement, or you should be concerned about going and doing economic activity in Israel, as long as they continue the illegal occupation of the Palestinians. These people don't have an issue with Israel.

They never said anything about Israel itself. They want a two-state solution. They just want to make sure the Palestinians also have rights. At TYT, we frequently talk about all the ways that big tech companies are taking control of our online lives, constantly monitoring us and storing and selling our data. But that doesn't mean we have to let them. It's possible to stay anonymous online and hide your data from the prying eyes of big tech. And one of the best ways is with ExpressVPN.

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That's E-X-P-R-E-S-S-V-P-N dot com slash T-YT. Check it out today. Exactly. All right, moving on to other news. A popular YouTuber is apologizing today after his decision to publish a video showing the hanging body of an individual who committed suicide. Logan Paul is that YouTuber. And apparently during a recent trip to Japan, he went to a first.

forest that's known for suicides and hangings and ended up filming a man's body as it was hanging from a tree. Now, throughout the video, he is laughing, making jokes. During the moment that he saw that body, he became a little more serious, but then later on continued joking around. The video was uploaded Sunday under the title, We Found a Dead Body in a Japanese Suicide Forest, and it garnered more than 6 million views in less than a day. Now, his videos usually get his personal vlogs, which he does on a daily basis, usually get around 6 million views.

Now, when Paul and his buddies stumble on the body, this is an area near Mount Fuji that has become notorious for suicide. His reaction is initially one of disbelief. He was quoted as saying, yo, are you alive? Are you effing with us? Later on, he talks about how suicide is not a joke. Suicide is not a joke. Depression and mental illness are not a joke.

We came here with an intent to focus on the haunted aspect of the forest. This obviously just became very real and obviously a lot of people are going through a lot of shit in their lives. And he also included a link for suicide prevention in the description of the video. But people took issue with it because A, he filmed that dead body. B, the headline or the title to his video really capitalized on that. And see throughout the video, I mean, he's wearing this goofy hat, he's making light of things. It was just incredibly insensitive, especially when you consider that suicide is one of the top reasons for death in Japan. I'll give you the numbers to that in just a minute.

So look, full context here. Every day he does a 15 minute video, it's edited. So that cuts both in favor of him and against him. So in this case, he had done a video about all the quirky different cultural things that he saw in Japan. corcary, at least according to him. So in the rest of the video, not related to the forest, he's laughing and joking. In the middle, he's got the forest thing, which is appalling. And he blurred out the face, and he did say that serious stuff.

You know, let's give it both sides here. But when his cameraman basically is concerned about standing next to the body, he jokes, You never stand to a next next to a dead guy before and laughs, okay? And so obviously people are concerned that that is not taking it seriously. Look, you know, what he should have done is, I guess, broken his normal pattern of doing 15-minute vlogs or do a 15-minute vlog on Japan, leave this out, and then do a more serious one about this. I don't, I think him putting it up is not necessarily wrong, showing the full body, even with the blurred face, that's problematic.

Laughing in any portion of the video is obviously an issue. So what he says is, look, for 460 days straight, I've been doing this kind of video. And so I understand that because a lot of people don't understand. Like, for example, we do a two-hour show, and sometimes people only watch one clip, and they'll think, that's the only clip we've ever done. I'm like, no, we cover that issue 100 times. Go back and watch our videos on it on the channel. So I hear that.

But he also said as one of his excuses, like, it just happened to the spur of the moment and what could we do? You didn't have to publish it in this jokey, 15-minute-long video. Let me give you his exact apology. Yeah, okay. So he says people were alleging or accusing him of doing this for the views. He says that's not the case. I didn't do it for the views. I get views.

I did it because I thought I could make a positive ripple on the internet, not cause a monsoon of negativity. That's never the intention. I intended to raise awareness for suicide and suicide prevention. So suicide is a serious issue. I do not think he went into it with the intention of raising awareness about suicide. No way. Yeah, that's BS. But suicide remains a top cause of death for people between the ages of 15 and 39 in Japan.

So it is a serious problem. And yeah, it was just, it was really, really, really bad judgment and hopefully like a humbling moment for him so he can maybe think twice before posting that kind of sensitive material. And look, I don't, I'm not surprised that people reacted the way that they did. I mean, suicide is a big problem in the United States too. I'm sure that there are tons of his fans who had family members who took their own lives. So this is a sensitive topic. and including it in the middle of this jokey, quirky video is not the way to go.

Yeah, so the last couple of things here. Look, he edits the video. It's not a live blog, so he could have done it any way he wanted. He chose to put it in the middle. They had plenty of time to think about it and decided to present it in that way. So it was definitely wrong in that sense. And him saying he's not doing it for the views, both true and untrue. So some of the articles are painting it like, oh my God, it got six million views, and that's why he did it.

No, as Anna pointed out, almost all of his videos, gets six million views. It's just that mainstream news has never heard of YouTube. So they're like, six million views. That's the largest thing we've ever heard. No, he gets it every freaking time, right? On the other hand, is he doing it to get views in general? Of course he is. He went to the suicide force because he thought it'd be a cool thing.

I'm sure he didn't expect to run into a dead body. And then he made the wrong judgment calls on that. And he came out looking ugly. Last thing, though, is he's 22. Did I do stupid things when I was 22? Yes, right? So, you know, I think that there's bounds of reason, okay, like, I think he gets it that it was wrong. I just, I think that this is honestly, and I'm giving him the benefit of the doubt in saying this.

I think this is a symptom of like internet culture. And what I mean by internet culture is we've become so desensitized to things. Like people will do outrageous, terrible things on a regular basis for attention. And they become instant celebrities. Like bad behavior gets rewarded. And sometimes, you know, you go a little too far and people bite back. And I think that's what happened here. Look, young YouTubers especially, not all of them, but a lot of them do crazy things,

whether it's stunts or pranks, whatever it is, to make a name for themselves. And it's worked. It's worked handsomely in the past. So I think this is just a symptom of a culture that's been around for a little while now. So last thing on this is, guys, it's actually a combination of things. Yes, on the internet, people get a ton of attention, and he got a ton of attention here for this. And oftentimes people get rewarded for bad behavior.

But a lot of that is because of mainstream news. Now, the mainstream news very rarely reported about him or his brother, Jake Paul, who are both incredibly popular online and with millennials. Some of his, what music videos get 35 million views, but you guys never reported on that. So instead, the one time he does something wrong, you, in a sense, reward him with a lot of media coverage just to be able to say, you see this kid on the internet, he's such a bad guy, right? But what you don't realize is when you do that, whether it's for him or not, he's already popular. But it incentivizes other people to go, what can I do? That's so bad that'll get the media attention.

Because when you're doing good things, no one in the mainstream media will cover you. That's the case for any profession, though. I don't think so. Are you kidding me? If the TV guys get slightly better ratings, everyone will be like, what a star, right? he's larger than anyone in cable news by a landslide. And yet the only time anyone ever covered him was when he did something wrong. Yeah.

Look at you defending. What is his name again? Logan Paul. Because he has a brother named Jake Paul and I mixed them up. Jake Paul did Disney stuff. All right. And I only know that because I learned today. Okay.

All right. All right. Let's keep going. Distrust in government management of tap water has led to a movement known as the raw water movement. These are people who do not want to drink tap water. They want to consume water that's off the grid. And unfortunately, it is incredibly dangerous. Now, let's hear from one of these people who is a huge fan of drinking so-called raw water,

which, by the way, is completely untreated water. Untreated. Go. The water from Springs is the cleanest water in the world. It's been filtered by the earth itself, so water percolates down through the earth and is filtered by all that earth substrate, and it accumulates in deep aquifers. And when those aquifers are full, that water is brought up to the surface at springs. You know, water is so much more than just H2O molecules. Water, as it's found in nature, is a liquid crystalline matrix of H2O molecules that

suspends a variety of beneficial microbes and microalgies as well as a variety of dissolved solids like mineral ions. And we need all of that. That's what we're adapted to. We're not any more adapted to refined H2O than we are to refined carbohydrates like processed white sugar. One of the issues today with the water that contemporary modern people are drinking is that in the form of tap water, it's, I would say, contaminated with antibiotic substances like chlorine or contaminated with halides like fluoride, which we know is neurotoxic. And when we talk about bottled waters, one of the main issues that we have there is a contamination of plastics. So there are businesses popping up that offer raw water for a pretty hefty price. Of course. Yeah. So keep that in mind.

There's one business, let me look up the numbers. There's one business. There's one business. that sells 2.5 gallons for about 3699 each. And then you can refill that bottle for a cheaper price, $15 each time you refill. I hope that the refill is even roar. Raw. So live water is the business that I'm talking about. That video was from the live water website. But again, this is untreated water. They believe that the microbes and the algae in that water is good for you. But in But in reality, one of the best, you know, enhancements or developments when it comes to water consumption is the fact that we got rid of dangerous bacteria, viruses, things that cause typhoid or cholera. Also, there are parasites in so-called raw water. And so, you know, they're taking a risk here, and there are some companies that are profiting from it handsomely.

That due to the caveman in the woods, everything he said was wrong. So it's just not true It's like people say like Oh well you know When we were cavemen we used to drink the water from the streams Yeah when we were cavemen we died when we were like 13 So that doesn't make any sense In fact there is literature going back

1,500 years to the Greeks to the Egyptians etc And you know what they did with their water? They'd clean it I mean things as simple as animals Defecating in the water creates bacteria, and you've got to clean the water. But these guys are down the stream going like, oh, wonderful, raw water. No, there's bacteria.

So there's an interesting, there's an interesting trend among those on the far right who listen to Alex Jones, for instance, and who believe in all these conspiracy theories. And then those who are, you know, extremely far off to the left. Like, it's, they agree on this issue. And look, I get it. Like, I understand their perspective. because there are significant water issues in the United States.

That's true. Lead in our water, mismanagement of the water. So people are concerned about those things, and they have every right to be. However, they're unfortunately going in the wrong direction and consuming something that could really hurt them or kill them, and we need to find a better way to get safer drinking water without resorting to bacteria, viruses, microbes, algae, and parasites. But look, guys, not only are you endangering yourself and others around you by drinking so-called raw water, and you're paying through the nose for it, but you're actually hurting the cause of

clean water because so then when we go to do a report about lead in the water in places like Flint, people go, oh yeah, that's that dude hanging out in the woods who's drinking the raw water, right? No, no, there's real lead problems in the water. And, you know, if you're going to bring up issues about plastic and how it affects water, et cetera, we can have legitimate conversations about that, but when you go in this direction and you start talking about fluoride in the water, when it's actually cleaned the water for centuries, you lose credibility and you hurt overall cause of keeping the water clean in America. That's my opinion on it. All right, guys, we're out of time. Sorry, Rebel headquarters is next, and we got Benjamin Jealous up next.

You're going to love it. Okay, bye, bye. Thanks for watching what I hope was a lovely of the Young Turks. Now, you know that that is two of the five segments that we do because that's free. We want to have you support independent media and come watch the whole show that we do every day. That's five segments overall. No ads at all. That's at t-y-tnetwork.com slash join. Come become a member. Thanks for watching either way. 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-y-t. I'm your host, Shank Huger, and I'll see you soon.