The Young Turks - Total S***show

Episode Date: August 19, 2023

Trump cancels press conference intended to dispute Georgia election interference charges. Trump-appointed judge’s anti-abortion ruling followed payments from group leading case. A Wyoming public library board fired its head librarian after she refused to remove books. Arkansas schools will defy GOP law and teach AP African American studies. Mike Pillow has WMD’s for sale. Prosecutors are seeking 33-year prison sentences for former Proud Boys chair Enrique Tarrio and his ally Joe Biggs, who they say aimed to foment a revolution on Jan. 6 to keep former President Donald Trump in power. Charlie Kirk suggests conservatives are “being provoked” into violence by Democrats. Donald Trump says he’ll be ready to go on trial on federal charges over his bid to subvert the last election...in April 2026. Oil companies are hiring TikTok influencers to court young people. Awkward Americans see themselves in Ron DeSantis. HOSTS: Cenk Uygur (@CenkUygur), Yasmin Khan (@YazzieK) and Rayyvana (@RayyvanaTTV) SUBSCRIBE on YOUTUBE: ☞ https://www.youtube.com/user/theyoungturks FACEBOOK: ☞ https://www.facebook.com/theyoungturks TWITTER: ☞ https://www.twitter.com/theyoungturks INSTAGRAM: ☞ https://www.instagram.com/theyoungturks TIKTOK: ☞ https://www.tiktok.com/@theyoungturks 👕 Merch: https://shoptyt.com 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. Why just survive back to school when you can thrive by creating a space that does it all for you, no matter the size. Whether you're taking over your parents' basement or moving to campus, IKEA has hundreds of design ideas and affordable options to complement any budget. After all, you're in your small space era. to own it. Shop now at IKEA.ca. All right, fun power panel for you guys, Young Turks, Jake Uger, Rayvana, Yasmin Khan, both of them, Rebel Headquarters, contributors.

Great to have you guys on. Yasma's also the host of Modern Context Podcast. Great to see you both. Thank you. Glad to be back. All right, excellent. So guys, fun show ahead for you all. Trump concedes on two different things, runs a little bit of mock, mock, mock, mock action.

We got that in both hours. And then the war on librarians continue because that's the top problem in the country. And then later in the program, a Nick Fuentes fan decides to take on a Jewish MMA fighter. How did it turn out? You're going to want to see. All right. Now, having said that, Rayvana, you take it away. Yeah, so I'm sure everyone out there is just as disappointed as I am to hear the news of something we were all very excited.

to learn about was Trump's his pressing information that the irrefutable claims of election fraud out of Georgia. He was going to host a huge press conference on Monday to discuss them, but now it's canceled. And he posted to his social media site, Truth Social, why it was canceled. And apparently it's the first time in his entire life that he's decided to actually take the advice of his attorneys because he posted this, rather than releasing the report on the rigged and stolen Georgia, Georgia 2020 presidential election on Monday, my lawyers would prefer putting this, I believe, irrefutable and overwhelming evidence of election fraud and irregularities and formal legal filings as we fight to dismiss this disgraceful indictment by a publicity and campaign finance-seeking

DA who sadly presides over a record-breaking murder and violent crime area, Atlanta. Therefore, the news conference is no longer necessary. But the New York Times said that the report that Trump was expected to release was a hundred-past-page document compiled by one of his communications aides who is said to be a true believer. And the former president's claims that the election was rigged and stolen. Apparently that communications aide has drank the Kool-Aid because how do you even, how are you a true believer? for something like that, I will never understand. Someone else who apparently doesn't understand is Jordan Peterson, because he tweeted this out, what is going on?

I mean, and Jenk, that was my thought because to be honest, I was surprised that Donald Trump was actually going to take the advice of his lawyers, who I'm sure I've been trying to get him to shut up about this kind of stuff for quite some time. Yeah, no, I'm actually not surprised. And I explained why yesterday, even before he made this decision, because the Donald Trump has on a couple of occasions relented when literally everyone in the room says not to do it. And gave a couple examples like he wanted to increase the American nuclear supply by tenfold, which would have bankrupted the country. And he wanted to basically, he was discussing martial law

and rolling in the tanks after the election and everyone in his administration, almost everyone in his administration, other than the guys who were indicted, said they would resign immediately if he did that and he chose not to do it. So there are a couple of occasions when people can talk him out of it, but they have to be near unanimous and overwhelming. So, but he has put himself in a very bad situation here because at the same time, his lawyers went to court just now and said, oh, we would love for this trial to start in 2026, 2006.

So two and a half years from now. And so why do you need two and a half years to prepare if Donald Trump has an irrefutable case that he was going to put together on Monday? So if you've got irrefutable evidence, you're going to win this case super easily. And he says he has it. So Meg, I'm going to ask you guys one more time, does he have it or doesn't he have it? Because if he has it, they should go to trial tomorrow. Trump says he's ready.

And remember, you guys all said, you already have the evidence. And if he has evidence that the election was stolen, all the cases that are regarding that, Atlanta, the federal prosecution, he wins immediately because they're predicated on the fact that he lost. If he won, he wins. So now you all know, and I mean, that's why I think it's kind of interesting. Jordan Peterson tweeted that. I mean, maybe Trump's doing what he said he was going to do with Muslims.

We've got to just stop everything until we figure out what the hell is going on. Okay, but is Peterson so unintelligent that he doesn't know that, of course, Trump was lying, he doesn't have any evidence, and all he was going to do is implicate himself more with even dumber lies. Is there still anyone left in the country who genuinely thinks the election was stolen and Trump has the mules in his garage, he's just not going to release it. He's got to do that. He's going to put the mules back in the garage and wait for the trial too.

in his wishes two and a half years from now. No way, no way. You guys all know he doesn't have any goddamn evidence. He's a liar and a crier. And if you don't know that by now, you're in a world of trouble. You live on a different planet. Yasmin. Yeah, you know, is Jordan Peterson so unintelligent?

Well, you know what his supporters are going to say? Of course not. It's impossible for somebody like Jordan Peterson to be unintelligent because he has all these accolades and all these degrees and he's a college professor and everything like. that. But Jordan Peterson is a great example. The fact that you can be very, very educated and still have major blind spots as to what is going on in the country. Everyone can see what is actually going on in the country. And with Trump specifically with this evidence that he keeps teasing and we still have never seen it. It's kind of like it kind of makes me feel like

people who predict the rapture and then whenever it doesn't happen, then they're like, oh, it's coming later, it's coming later, it's coming later. It's kind of baffling to me that these people still have any kind of faith whatsoever that Trump has this evidence, this irrefutable evidence that for some reason, none of us have ever seen. If he had it, we would have seen it a million times by now. And not everything is a conspiracy, right? Not everything is this huge conspiratorial agenda that's out to get whoever. I don't even know, I can't even keep up with their stuff anymore. But it's kind of, you know, like Trump supporters are always going on. they're always mad about Occam's razor because maybe that flies in the face of the fact that

everything to them has to be conspiratorial because none of it makes any sense. The simple example or the simple explanation for any of this is not in their favor. Doesn't work in their favor. So they have to make it more and more complicated. And it sounds like somebody who's lying, right? The more complex your lie is, the more untrue it probably is. And we know that. Every child can tell you that, But these Trump supporters seem like they haven't really learned that lesson. Right. And unfortunately for Trump, this was only one of the things he was getting a lot of backlash for this week. This is the only first instance of his backpedaling because it was only yesterday

that he posted this regarding his attendance at the debate on the 23rd. He said on his social media site, too social, many people are asking whether or not I will be doing the debates. All Americans have been clamoring for a president of extremely high intelligence. As everyone is, I'm sorry. Okay, it continues. As everyone is aware, my poll numbers over a quote, wonderful field of Republican candidates are extraordinary. In fact, I am leading the runner up, whoever that may now be by more than 50 points. Reagan didn't do it and neither did others, Reagan at all apparently.

People know my record, one of the best ever. So why would I debate? I'm your man, make America great again. And so Donald Trump wants a president of extremely high intelligence. So let's just play this clip of him displaying his extremely high level of intelligence. Right, and then I see the disinfectant where it knocks it out in a minute, one minute, and is there a way we can do something like that by injection? inside or almost a cleaning because you see it gets on the lungs and it does a tremendous number of the lungs. I mean, Jake, he set himself up for this one.

100%. Look, I give many examples because there's literally hundreds of examples of Donald Trump's incredibly low IQ. My favorite example is he took the dementia test. That's the one where you can see if you can remember five words and other simple things like, hey, what animal is this and it's like a giraffe or a lion, right? And he came out and he's like, it showed, I remember the five words. I knew the animus. It shows I'm a very stable genius. No, it shows that you're a moron who doesn't even realize that he's taking a dementia test.

Like, that ends the conversation. No, like, it's not just Maga guys. It's dumbasses on television that keep treating him as if he's an intelligent guy. He's just a moron who likes lights. He's like, spot like, I like it, camera light, I like it, I run towards lights. I say things, verbal diarrhea, uh, and by the way, if you're saying, oh, yeah, well, then the Democrats couldn't beat him, you're totally right. That's why I can't stand how weak the Democratic Party is.

This guy, max 70 IQ, max, okay, he thought that the stealth fighters were invisible to the naked eye. He thought it was like Wonder Woman's Jet, you can't see it. He said it out loud twice, okay? Now on that clip, I mentioned it in a tweet on X or Y or whatever that thing is called. And right where he's like, no, that's not true. No, it's a media hoax. He didn't say bleach into the lungs. He said disinfectant to clean out the lungs.

That's what you're hanging your hat on? Okay, do you know that Donald Trump is still hiding his college grades and his high school grades? And he has threatened to sue anyone trying to get them? How pathetically embarrassing are your high school grades that you're still hiding them as a grown-ass man in his 70s? Who cares how you did in high school? But obviously, he's mortified. He doesn't want you to find out. Part of the reason why is not just that he's a dumb dumb.

That is obvious to everyone except MAGA. It's that if you find out how awful he was in school and how awful is every score he's ever taken is, you'll realize it was his daddy who got spoiled little Donnie, everything he's ever gotten. He got him into schools, he started him in business, gave him him $400 million, and he's just spoiled little brat. And now you can talk about it. The Americans need a president with high intelligence. I couldn't agree more. God, I'd love one, right?

The last one we have, look, I'm not super high on Biden's intelligence either, but he's nowhere near this guy. This guy can barely function, and he has the nerve to talk about high intelligence. And guys, that's what is amazing to me. Like, he doesn't get it at all, just like the dementia test. He thinks, you know what? Passing a dementia test means I'm really smart. He really doesn't get how painfully stupid he is.

I remember that dementia test, it's so funny that you mentioned that, that was the funniest thing when it first came out. And all of his supporters who are like, look, look, this proves it. He's not an idiot. And it's like, why would you need proof that? someone's not an idiot. If they're not an idiot, everyone would just know that they're not an idiot and no one would require proof. And then of course the irony of the dementia test being his his benchmark for his intelligence is hilarious. But just the idea that Americans are clamoring for an intelligent president and we are clamoring then for Donald Trump to be the

next president as a way of finding our intelligence again as a nation is ridiculous, right? It doesn't make any sense. Donald Trump, even his own aides used to say that they used to have to dumb down their memos to him, right? They would give him pages of literature, he wouldn't read it, so they would write it out in bullet points like what you would give to a child to explain very, very detailed and very complex, you know, even foreign affairs and even domestic relations, everything that a president should be able to handle, he couldn't handle it. He would ask for pictures and things like that. You know, he likes to see pictures like an actual child. But, you know, as far as the debate, I think I was talking about this. with John on the damage report a while ago whenever he was saying, maybe he will, maybe he won't do the debate. And I was just like, who cares if he does the debate or not, right? His supporters don't care. We don't care because he has nothing new to say. He's been saying the same exact thing for the past five or so years, if not longer, right? We've heard all

of his talking points. He has nothing new. Even this press conference that he said he was going to give, he has no new information, right? It would only be lies because that's all he. He has, that's all he has is lies. We know that he has no evidence for the things that he's saying. So we know that whatever he says on a debate stage or at a press conference or at a rally is going to be a lie. And right now, he literally can't afford to, you know, three years and 91 indictments later, he can't afford to tell any more lies. Yeah, I'll add, it'll impact me if he doesn't do the debate, but only in so much as it'll change the rules I'm making for my Republican primary debate drinking game because that's the only way I can get through that.

Yeah, I think I'm going to play the, and we're going to cover it for you guys. So make sure right after Republican debate, come watch us on the Young Turks and we're going to give you an analysis. But I might, instead of doing a drinking game, do an edible game so that I get hired two hours later. Anyways, okay, seriously, guys, I like what Yasmin's saying. You know, normally you need proof of life when someone's kidnapped. Here, we need proof of IQ, just a single IQ point for Trump to go forward.

But we're not sure we're going to get one. Remember when he became president and he was like, I'm going to solve health care. He said on the campaign drug, no problem, easy. So I'm going to solve it. Whatever is solving health care means, right? And then he comes in, they're like, okay, why come you didn't solve it? And he's like, turns out, no one knew this, but health care is complicated. No, dude, everybody knew that the health care situation in America is complicated.

You're the only moron who didn't. And okay, let's put aside his intelligence. But that's, and he's obviously empirically wrong that Americans need proof of intelligence. We elected him. So apparently we didn't need that proof, let alone Bush, let alone Reagan, let alone all those guys. But finally, look, Maga, here's something that you guys can, it's hard for you to disagree with this. He ran twice now. He said he had irrefutable evidence and the ones that you guys think he has.

And he was going to present it on Monday. And now he says, no, I'm not going to present it. And you're going to have to, if he gets his way, they don't have to wait two and a half years for me to present it. He don't have no evidence. But even if you think he does, he ran. He ran. And now on the debate, he runs again.

Who runs away for, I mean, I thought he was the world's greatest debater. Why doesn't he show up and kick their ass? I mean, you guys think he'll kick their ass, right? By the way, I think he'll kick their ass. The other guys are no winners either. Desantis is like, ah, ha, ha, ha. So why don't you show up because you're scared? Right. I mean, this is the man who during a debate told Ted Cruz that his wife is so ugly,

no one could ever love her and then had Ted Cruz phone banking for Trump like a month later. I mean, he what is exactly as he's scared about when he's for not going to these debates though? I mean, he'll definitely be able to steamroll these guys unless he's lost even more of his faculties, which I mean, highly likely that he has. But I mean, does he really need them to win over a Republican audience? I don't think so. I think he's just probably afraid of sticking his foot in his mouth and his lawyers probably don't want him on that debate stage. That's probably what it actually is.

If I was Trump's lawyer, which I can't even believe that he still has people who are willing to represent him legally anymore. But if I was his lawyer, I would say, no, definitely say as little as possible. Just whatever you're about to say, just say less of it. And then maybe we'll have a shot at this. So that's why he's not doing it. No, there's no chance in the world of that strategy would work. Trump can't help himself. He's going to verbally vomit everything, every dumb thought that comes into his head. And you're probably right that his lawyers warned him about the debate too, but he's got to engage in debates at some point.

And look, we're the fairest show in America. And so there's of course, there's another reason why he doesn't want to do the debate. He's up 40 points. And people who are up don't want to do debates. And by the way, Biden's not doing any debates either and you can call him a coward too. We're fair. We don't play this only one side is right stuff. And then, but finally, there is one person he might be afraid of. He's not afraid of DeSantis and other weaklings that are already on their knees like Vivek. Was he going to be afraid of Vivek? Vivek's like, oh, you're the best, Daddy, I can't believe. I'm on the same stage as you. Mom, Dad, I'm on the same stage as Donald. I'm on the same stage as Donald.

So he's not worried about any of that. They're just going to kiss his ass and humiliate themselves. But Chris Christie, he's a little worried about Chris Christie, because Chris Christie's not going to play ball and he's going to hit him in the face politically. And Trump cannot debate anyone who's smart. Last time Chris Christie chose not to fight him, and so did every other Republican. This time Chris Christie wants to fight and Trump doesn't want any piece of that. Yeah, I think what's funny about Chris Christie is that he always polls so, poorly that there's no way that in his mind, he even thinks that he has a shot at winning any of this. So I'm, you know, if he's there just to be antagonistic and just to troll, then maybe that's

his role in America at this point. That's his role in the United States. He's never gonna be president, but he can do this one thing for us. Yes, but I wouldn't be so sure. I, he's now polling at number two in New Hampshire. So here comes Chris Christie. And finally. Yeah, so look, Trump could get knocked out by all these trials. I mean, with that verbal diarrhea that he has, he could be in a world of trouble, especially if he takes the stand. So there's tons of landmines out there for Donald Trump that have nothing to do with his political opponents.

But if he goes under, I wouldn't bet against Chris Christie. I know they hate him because he criticizes the beloved, but he's an actual fighter. And the rest of them are incredibly weak. So we'll see. We'll see how that goes. But there's one person who apparently agrees with me, and that's Donald Trump, because he don't want any part of Chris Christie. All right, we got to take the break, guys.

When we come back, we've got more news for you, including the Republican War on bankers. No, of course not. On donors, of course not. On the powerful, on the rich, the people who are oppressing us, of course not. On librarians, they're going to get those evil librarians. We'll be back. All right back out to Yank Rayvonne and Yasmin with you guys, Ray, take it away. Yeah, so this next story has me so angry. I want to throw my phone across the room and I'm sure by the end of it or hell, maybe even by the beginning you'll all

be feeling the same way because a three judge appellate court panel in the Fifth Circuit issued a decision ending the ability of the medication abortion pill, Miffapristone, to be received through the mail amongst other things. Now one of those judges is being called out for receiving payments from the group that brought the case in the first place. And we'll get into more on that later. But first, let's discuss what this ruling means for abortion rights. From AP News, the decision by three judges on the fifth. The new Bimo, V.I. Porter MasterCard is your ticket to more.

More perks. More points. More flights. More of all the things you want in a travel rewards card, and then some. Get your ticket to more with the new BEMO VI Porter MasterCard and get up to $2,400

in value in your first 13 months. Terms and conditions apply. Visit BMO.com slash V.I. Porter to learn More. The US Circuit Court of Appeals in New Orleans overturned part of a lower court ruling that would have revoked the FDA's 23 year old approval of Miffipristone, but it left intact part of the ruling that would end the availability of the drug by mail, allow it to be used

through only the seventh week of pregnancy rather than the 10th and require that it be administered in the presence of a physician. Now, I really want to highlight that administered in the presence of a physician portion because Miffipristone is safer than Tylenol and Viagra. So when you have to ask yourself, what is the difference between Mipristone and Tylenol and Viagra? One is specifically a medication for abortion and particularly covers women's reproductive health than the others are not.

So there is a massive difference in the way that they are treating this medication. than they would more dangerous medications. So keep that in mind. And also this type of judicial overreach into the FDA is completely unheard of. And more on that from AP News, there is virtually no precedent for a U.S. court, excuse me, overturning the approval of a drug that the FDA has deemed safe and effective. While new drug safety issues often emerge after FDA approval, the agency is required to monitor medicines on the market, evaluate, emerging issues and take action to protect US patients.

Congress delegated that responsibility to the FDA, not the courts, more than a century ago. And it's intuitive because who would you rather be making these decisions, the experts or judges who have no particular expertise in these areas? The answer is clear. Now, the Biden administration does plan on appealing the decision, which means that if SCOTUS decides to take it up, they would be the ones who make the final decision. Jennifer Sullivan of the ACLU highlighted how this decision and the potential decision of the Supreme Court will harm abortion seekers in an online press conference. She's had this to say, if the Supreme Court affirms this decision, it will prevent patients from receiving their medication in the mail in all 50 states in the nation. That means that patients will have to travel often hundreds of miles,

especially if they're coming from a state that has banned abortion for the sole purpose of picking up a pill. So there's that. But now let's shift our focus to one judge, namely James Ho. He wrote a concurring opinion, which means he agreed with the outcome of the court, but came to that conclusion in a different way. In fact, Ho believed that Miffiphristone should be banned entirely. And to give you an idea what heinous and idiotic things this man believes, here's an excerpt from his concurring opinion. I'll read it in part. It says, It's well established that if a plaintiff has concrete plans to visit an animal's habitat and view that animal, the plaintiff suffers aesthetic injury when an agency has approved a project

that threatens the animal. I'll just say as someone who's gone to law school, graduated law school, it's well established that using that term of phrase in legal writing is absolutely not proper. That was a really long one sentence paragraph that any legal writing professor at at any law school would wallop their student upside the head for writing, but I digress. The actual content of what he said in this next paragraph is so much worse than any error he had in his writing. It says this, unborn babies are a source of profound joy for those who view them. Expected parents eagerly share ultrasound photos with loved ones. Friends and family cheer at the sight of an unborn child. Doctors delight in working with their unborn patients and experience

an aesthetic injury when they are aborted. Jenk, my blood is boiling, an aesthetic injury because they don't get to delight in seeing ultrasound photos. Okay, so let's talk about activist judges because remember how we got into this. They row v. Wade and the right wing has been saying now for decades, a bunch of activist judges decided that it was, that abortion was legal. and banning it was unconstitutional because it was in the right to privacy in the Constitution. And they talked about three trimesters and how you can't get it in the third trimester, but you can in the first two in the state's interests, et cetera. And they said that was two activists.

I actually have a lot of sympathy for that argument. And I've said that many times on the show. So now let's look at this case and see if we could find an activist judge. So somehow it's in the Constitution that Miffittford-Pirstone is okay to be approved by the FPDA, but only for seven weeks and not 10 weeks, really? Where? Where in the Constitution does it say that? And then on top of that, you can approve it, but a doctor has to be present. Where? Where? Where in the Constitution does it say that?

You can approve it, but you can't send it by mail. Where? Where? Is it in one of the amendments? Is it in one of the articles? Where is it in the Constitution? No, they're just making this up 100%. And then you ask, wait, what is the state's interest in this at all? And he comes up with that beauty, man. Well, I think ultrasound pictures are cute. So the state has an interest in aesthetic injuries suffered if you don't see the ultrasound picture. And that's why we're going to make you have a baby against your will.

Are you serious? This is like full-blown three-ring circus clown. And we haven't even gotten to his corruption yet. yet this is now we're having look in the old days politicians are full of crap one guy would say something that was halfway true and halfway lie the other guy would say a full lie and would have debates over that now idiocy has permeated into the judiciary and we're not just having you know intellectual conversations that disguise their actual political motive which is what judges have been doing for a long long time now we've got morons on the bench going like I

I like little baby pictures and that's an aesthetic entry. And I think that it's not activist, not activist, to say seven weeks, but not 10 weeks, do it, but don't do it by mail, make sure there's a blah, la, la, la, get out of here, man. You get to, they're just, it's a conservative court. Three of them are appointed by Trump, one appointed by George W. Bush. They don't care about the law at all. It's totally unprecedented to say that an executive agency is going to be overruled by the, by the courts in this way. They're just saying this is our political opinion and we're going to write it as if it's law.

And us complaining about activist judges our whole lives, we were full of crap as always. We didn't mean a word of it, Yasmin. Yeah, yeah, and I think you mentioned it, but this guy, James Howe, he was a Trump appointed judge. And, you know, so I think Ray Bado and I were talking about earlier in the show or before the show started. I live in Texas. So I think I'm just used to just being disappointed all the time by the things that my state government does, especially when it comes to things like abortion rights and just women's health care in general, health care in general, I should say, not even specific to anybody. But it's always disappointing.

And all these rulings that they come out with, they always feel so arbitrary, right? You know, seven weeks versus 10, whatever, you know, whatever kind of rules that they have that they put in place, they just pull them out of their, you know what's. And it's like they just want to make things more inconvenient for people so that we just give up trying to get any of the things done. they do it to us with health care. They do it to us with voting, all kinds of things here. So I'm used to being disappointed. I don't really expect any kind of good thing to happen in my state in particular. So whenever I read about rulings like this one, I'm just like kind of numb to it, which is very sad because I'm, how old am I? I'm 34 years old right now,

almost 35. If I was going to have a child, it would be now, right? At this stage in my life. But for some reason, all these Republicans are influencing my personal decision as to what or not I want to have a kid right now and it doesn't make any sense to me. It's so wild to me that all this stuff is happening and it just so happens to be at a time that's critical, not just for me, but for a lot of other people. You know, they're taking that whole decision, which is my life decision and taking it out of my hands and out of the hands of so many other people just like myself. And it really, it's hard to wrap your head around in a lot of ways. And I've told my fiance, if I have a kid, we got to move. I have to do it outside of Texas.

I don't want to have a child in my home state. This is where I live. I would have to uproot my entire life, but this is such a major decision and they're not going to let me make it for myself. So there is a very personal aspect to all of these stories that we cover, except, you know, it's easy to get very upset about it in principle and theory, but it really, all these stories affect actual people's lives. And I think it's important all the time to just come back to it and remember that. And also I'm going to make a plug to vote in your local elections. You vote for For judges, you vote for people like this in a lot of different ways.

You vote for people on the courts. You got to vote in local elections because this is how it affects you, right? A lot of people only vote for the president, they think that that matters the most. It does, but local is what's going to get you. That's what you're going to feel the most. Right. And it becomes even more frustrating, particularly at the federal level, because we don't have that sort of direct say over our judges, which is why it's even more imperative to make sure that you're doing that at the state local level.

But it becomes even more frustrating when you realize that in some cases, these decisions are made being made by these judges for money because there's a really strong argument to be made that Judge Ho should never have heard this case at all and absolutely should have recused himself. And the lever did some excellent reporting on this. They reported that James Ho did not recuse himself from the case, even though his wife Alison Ho has regularly participated in events with and accepted speaking fees from the Alliance Defending Freedom, the conservative Christian legal group whose lawyers argued that the Miffa Pristone case before his court according to the judge's financial disclosures. And that name Alliance Defending Freedom might sound familiar

to a lot of you because just last Friday we covered a story where a judge ordered lawyers to attend the organization's explicitly Christian religious freedom training. Now the ADF is also the organization that brought the anti-LGBQ SCOTUS case about designing a website for a theoretical gay couple that never even existed or was getting married. And they were also involved in the Dobbs decision as well. So let's get more into how she was making this money from the ADF. James Ho's financial disclosures show that Allison Ho, a top appellate lawyer at the multinational law firm Gibson Dunn, participated in events with the Alliance Defending Freedom and accepted honoraria or speaking fees every year between 2018 and 2021. The group also paid her travel

expenses for some events. The judge's 2022 financial disclosures is not available. So this could have been as recently as last year. We don't know that yet. But it continues on. Alison Ho was paid, excuse me, $3,000 in 2020 for an event listed as the Alliance Defending Freedom Academy and received $1,000 in for another Alliance Defending Freedom event in 2021, according to this disclosure. So this was exceptionally recent. I think it's important to point out the judge hoe wasn't technically required to recuse himself, although any person with half a brain can tell you that there is impropriety, at least the appearance of impropriety happening there.

But and it doesn't mean just because he didn't technically have to do it that we can't highlight how grossly and obviously wrong this is. Now from that article, the bottom line is that any entity that is putting money in your spouse's bank account raises a potential for impropriety if you sit in, if you sit on, excuse me, one of those cases said Gabe Roth, executive director of fix the court, a watchdog group that advocates for federal court reform. The money was put there in the last couple of years. It's not like that's easily forgettable. And because as Jenk always says, this is the fairest show in America, Judge Ho did defend himself. So I will read that for you all. James Ho told the lever in an email, I consulted the judiciary's ethics advisor prior to sitting in the case and was advised that there was no basis for recusal. In any event, Allison's practice is to donate honoraria to charity. Jank, I'll say, I don't give a damn. I don't give a damn if she donates the money, which we don't know if that's true or not.

I don't give a damn if there wasn't a technical basis for recusal. everyone knows that there is impropriety happening here. I mean, I don't care. This guy was going to probably rule this way on this case regardless. But it just is logical that if you are getting money from the organization that's bringing the case, you don't get to make the decision on that case. Yeah, it's really a no-brainer, but the courts are totally out of control now. There's no accountability.

Because guys, look, in this case, do I think that he ruled that way just because his wife got $3,000 and travel a couple of different times? No, as Ray pointed out, I think he was going to rule that way anyway, he's a knucklehead. And she's at Gibson Dunn, which is a huge law firm, which means she makes a lot of money. That $3,000 is probably not going to sway her. But that's not the point, guys. The point is they've got a case in front of you, and they've put money into $2,000. your bank account? No, we can't have that. That's obviously the appearance of impropriety. I don't know if you're affected by $3,000 and fancy travel. But it doesn't matter. You shouldn't

allow that to happen because it looks like corruption. And since they're both mega-conservatives, him and his wife, you don't need it. You don't need that corruption. You don't need the appearance of corruption. But they do it anyway. And there's no accountability. Nothing. Nothing will happen to that guy. Nothing's going to happen to Clarence Thomas and the guys on the Supreme Court. And the Clarence Thomas situation is so much worse because his wife is just paid her entire salary, a very large salary by people that come in front of Clarence Thomas all the time and he doesn't recuse himself. Basically, conservatives, whether it's at the presidential level or at the judiciary level now, we're saying ethics are irrelevant. We don't, we don't

care about your values or your ethics or the appearance of corruption or corruption itself. We don't care. We think we're above the law. We're going to break any law we like and any code that we like because we're Republicans. Yeah, I mean, you said the courts are out of control. That was all by design. You know, we saw the GOP stacking the courts around the country for years leading up to this. We saw all those Trump appointed judges, people who have very, very, very little experience actually judging cases and actually working in law and in the legal system. And now they have positions of authority of power across the entire country, small towns, big cities, wherever, they're in power, they're in control. So everything is rigged, right? If you want to talk about conspiracies, it's not, it's proven. You can look it up. We have the evidence. We saw that it was happening. And even just look at the Supreme Court. You can see it there, plain as day for everyone to see. And it sucks that we are stuck with all these rulings that these people have put upon us, right?

And the Republicans love to do this whenever they want to pass something that is unethical or even unpopular or maybe doesn't have as much of a legal ground as they would like for it to have. They just kind of play the game and game the system and make sure that all of these ideas, regardless of how popular they are in this supposedly Democratic country, are put upon a people who doesn't want them, right? If you look around the world, you always see this minority ruling the majority, and that's very much what's happening here in this country. But it's less obvious than you would see in a lot of other countries, right? We here in the United States like to think that we're immune to things like that. We like to think that we're immune to corruption. We like to think of ourselves as very ethical people, right? Because we're a Christian nation and we rule based on Christian values or whatever it is that the GOP is telling their people that they do.

But the reality, and we know it, and this has always been the case, this isn't anything new. The reality is that we are not ethical, we do whatever we want, and we do it, whether, whether or not we even have a good justification for it. Even this, from James Howe, what he was saying, his explanation for why he ruled the way he did, it wasn't even good, what do he call it aesthetic value or whatever? It doesn't even make sense, right? He didn't even have a good way to justify his own ruling. Yeah, last quick thing here, guys, Republicans, think about shoe on other foot.

Imagine if George Soros gave him the 3,000, gave his wife the 3,000 bucks and paid for her travel over and over again. Imagine if George Soros paid a huge salary to the spouse of not Clarence Thomas, but Sotomayor, one of the liberal justices. What would you guys think? You would definitely think that there was at least, at a bare, bare minimum, the appearance of corruption. You can't even pretend that you wouldn't think that. And obviously, that's also true when it applies to conservative justices. All right, we got to take a break here.

When we come back, war on librarians and shockingly good news out of our constitutional. Huh? All right, we'll be right back. American Hero by hitting the join button below. Chris Birch gifted a membership on YouTube and Samantha GK and paper dragon gifted one on Twitch and Dave Schmidt 311 gifted two. You guys are all amazing. Thank you for looking out for one another. We love that.

Ray, what's next? Yep, the war on librarians. So everybody take a look. When you start outlawing books because of your personal, religious and moral beliefs, In this country, you're going against the Constitution, you're going against what we were founded for. This is a show, and I'm embarrassed for this board. Those were the powerful words of a resident of Campbell County, Wyoming, where that board decided to fire its longtime public librarian for refusing to remove books, conservatives in the community deemed too sexual. Before we go on, Jank, was that man right about what the Constitution says?

Of course. Look, as you're going to see in a second, this had nothing new with being too sexual. It had everything new with banning it because it had LGBTQ material in it. And why would you want to ban that? Well, there's only one reason, and that's because of your religious beliefs. And so in case you're unclear about it, and apparently almost every Republican is unclear about this, the establishing clause of the First Amendment says, Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion or prohibiting the free exercise thereof. That means you get to exercise your own religion any way you like at your home, but you cannot have the government say, oh, the librarian won't take out books that have gay people in them.

We hate her because my fundamentalist religious views says that there should be nothing mentioned about gay people in a library, and hence the government should do what my religion says. Sorry, but you're in the wrong country. Saudi Arabia might work out for you. Iran might work out for you. But America, we do not establish a religion. So your particular religious beliefs are wonderful for you, but irrelevant for the rest of us and for the government.

By the way, I appreciate that brother and all the good people at Wyoming that came out to fight this. Unfortunately, they lost. But at least there's good folks in Wyoming fighting back. Ray, back to you. Yeah, and it was great to see him and so many people come out to support her. So let's get into some background on this librarian from HuffPost. Terry Leslie had been an employee of the library system for 27 years, including 11 years as director. According to members of the community in the town of 30,000, she was widely beloved at the special meeting in which she was dismissed.

Hundreds of people showed up to support her. So how did this all end up going down? So for two years the library board and right wing activists had been trying to get Leslie to remove books. They were alleging are inappropriate for minors. So some info on that. In the spring of 2021 community members came to the library to complain about alleged sexual content and books in the teen and kid section targeting titles like how do you make a baby by Anna Fisk and doing it by Hannah Witten. That June, a teen volunteer wrote a Pride Month blog post for the library celebrating LGBTQ authors. And some people living in Gillette pushed back, including a local officer who's official,

excuse me, who said it was harmful to the community. And when the library hired Michaela Oz, a children's magician who happened to be transgender for an event a month later, all hell broke loose. So more on the hell that broke loose and the absurdity of the response to that, One longtime library staffer spoke under the condition of anonymity and had this to say. The magician was simply a well renowned magician who was hired for a summer program. Her gender identity was irrelevant, but that was the match that lit the Tinder box. So in October of 21, supporters and critics of the library gathered at a board meeting to voice their concerns about the library supposedly providing sexually explicit and abusive material to minors.

One woman said during public comment that her personal survey of the teen section indicated that 60% of the books were witchcraft. While another said that the library had become an indoctrination center, which I'll say, I think that in this country, any library should be allowed to have books on witchcraft. It's your right, it's your constitutional right to be able to pick that up and read it. But I digress. Leslie claims that some activists actually went to the sheriff's office to try to get her arrest for not removing these witchcraft books. Now, community members challenged 29 books in 2021 and 2022. And she stuck to her guns, Leslie, and absolutely refused to remove them. She said she did it because for one, her belief that a diverse collection of books is crucial to running a successful library.

And also because she was worried about being sued for violating the First Amendment, which prohibits government sanctioned censorship. She had to say this, I believe the community is harmed by not having access to a wide variety of information. Public libraries are for everyone. Our collection should serve all citizens of the community. So because she upheld the constitution, stuck to her guns, the board voted to fire her. And she did an interview with CNN just yesterday. Here's what she had to say about whether or not the books in her library were actually inappropriate.

There is nothing in the library that could be classified as pornography in any way, shape, or form. We do have some sex education books and biology books, things like that, that are, you know, are important for youth to have access to in case they have questions. There were some LGBTQ themes in these books. And I felt like the LGBTQ part of that was a big part of what the complaints from the public were about. Jenk, the party that supposedly loves free speech in his anti-censorship, censoring a public library, not even a school's library, just a public library, because they didn't like some of the information and some of the books. Okay, so first of all, mask is off. They were pretending that this was because they were worried about rumors and worried about protecting the kids when all this started, right? Now there's not even an allegation of that.

For example, the person who was going to read happens to be transgender. Nobody even knew it. It's just because there's a certain percentage of transgender people in the country. And they're like, oh, it's a transgender person. We hate them so we don't want them to read to our kids. So wait, there's no allegation of anything inappropriate at all, at all. The only thing that they think is inappropriate is her existence. So mask is off, just admit it, you're bigots.

It's okay. It's not okay, but that's your life and that's your choices. But I need you to understand. Don't come and tell us, oh, no, no, I don't mind. Look at how they always phrase it like, I don't mind. Like, oh, thank you. We appreciate it. No, no, I don't mind gay people or transgender.

No, no, no, no, I just don't want him to read books or something. and be in public or something. And they're always flaunting things. Straight people are never flaunt anything, right? They never kiss in public. They never hold hands in public. It's that, no, guys, it's super obvious. Sex Ed, we've been teaching sex ed for decades in this country.

All of a sudden, they're like, LGBTQ people are also in there? And they acknowledge their existence in those books? Oh, no, that's it. Just admit that you're doing this because of hate. Remember, they fired her. The people who were in favor of hate, one. There was good people there in Wyoming, but unfortunately they lost. Okay, so that's

point one. Point two is that it's turned into a literal witch hunt because that lady said it was she was worried about witchcraft and that's why she wanted to fire the librarian. They think she's a witch and that's why they fired her. Cuckoo for cocoa puffs. Like what am I supposed to? I'm supposed to humor you? She thought 60% of the books in a library in Wyoming, 60% percent, we're about witchcraft. Cuckoo for Cocoa Puffs. Do you not see that? Are there, apparently there are people in this country,

almost all right wingers. You have to acknowledge that. Almost all right wingers. I don't mean all the right wing. I mean the people who do it are all right wingers. Did they come in to go, ah, yeah, witchcraft, man. A gay person, witch, witch, witch, I've found a witch. I'm not against gay people.

No, you're bigots. It's okay. That's your personal opinion. But you now you're firing librarians over. And the last thing I'll say is, so you're not going after the bankers who are robbing us blind. You're not going after political donors. I mean, look, Republicans claim they care about corruption. I'm here to tell you you want to take out the private donors like George Soros. I'm with you. Let's go take out all the donors and make sure they never buy our politicians again, right? No, you're not worried about any of that. You're not worried about the powerful that are screwing you, you're worried about librarians? You're worried about librarians and you've got a war on librarians. Congratulations, Republicans. You have wonderful

priorities. And if you're proud of this, well, all right, well, I guess you belong in the Republican party. Yes. Yeah, can I just say discrimination against witches is also not okay? But you're absolutely right. The fact that this happened in a public library and not a school library completely destroyed all of their previous book banning arguments, all whatever reasons that they had, those are out the window now. And, you know, book bans really grind my gears for lack of a better idiom right now. I don't know why people don't understand that reading a book, even owning a book, having it on your personal library, it doesn't mean that you're endorsing the ideas within the book. It doesn't mean that you agree with the ideas in the book. It just means that you have been

exposed to the ideas within the book. And that's really telling me because that's what they're actually afraid of, right? These are the same people who read the same book over and over again and have convinced themselves that that's all they need to know about the world and history and science and morality. It's all in that one book and they're terrified of everything else. And that's why their worldviews are so myopic and fine, you know, live your life, but I want to read. I want to read all of it. And also what counts as porn? You know, Nicholas Sparks books have sex scenes in them. Are they banning those two? I don't know. We got time for one more story, Ray, so hit it.

All right, so some interesting news coming out of Arkansas. So the Arkansas Department of Education or the DOE announced just before the beginning of this school year, that students may not receive class credit for taking the AP African American Studies course. But instead of backing down, and this is the good part of this, the six schools who had originally planned to teach the course this coming year have announced that they are not going to move it from remove it from their curriculum. They are going to go forward and teach this class as they intended to. So here's how it all went down. Now last Friday, the Arkansas DOE notified teachers that AP African American studies may not count for credit anymore. Schools were still allowed to teach it if they wanted though.

Now the timing couldn't have been worse because the school year for this year had just started this Tuesday. Now the timing was likely deliberate, but that's just a strong suspicion. Can't confirm that for sure. But to add insult to injury, the Arkansas DOE informed teachers that the state would not give students any financial assistance with the $98 fee that comes with the AP test. And the state usually covers the cost of the AP tests for the students. Now this move wasn't completely unexpected because Sarah Huckabee Sanders, who's the governor of Arkansas.

I can't believe that that's the case. But she is. She built her platform on culture war grievances such as these. No, just as an example, she signed an executive order on her very first day in office that that bans indoctrination and critical race theory in school. It's really good when these state governments pass these really broad laws that even they don't quite understand what they mean. But this course as USA Today describes it doesn't even seem to contain either of the things that they're using as the reasoning for, you know, for not giving credit for this class. So from USA Today, AP African American Studies is an interdisciplinary college level course that

that covers themes ranging from early African empires and the transatlantic slave trait to reconstruction and black power and pride. Shortly after Florida Governor Ron DeSantis denounced the course in January, the college board removed or made optional topics such as intersectionality and the Black Lives Matter movement, which I think is harmful to these students, because if they're getting credit for a class that they would take in college, there's not a single African American studies class at any university that wouldn't be teaching about those topics, but I digress. The state's excuse for derailing the course was that the course is still in its pilot phase, which is when the college board offers courses in a select number of

high schools and sometimes changes the curriculum before finalizing the course. Now the Arkansas DOE also noted that the state has a regular African American history course available. I mean, Jake, this is obviously a grotesque attack on teaching black history in this country. I don't care if they They have different African American studies courses available. It's not the AP course, it's not the one that, you know, they need to take to get college credit for. Yeah, look, you have to teach actual history. And the Republicans, there's a reason why they're attacking teachers and librarians, because they want to replace actual history with propaganda. So let's minimize what happened during slavery because it hurts our feelings.

So I don't know why it hurts your feelings. You didn't do it. Why are you taking it on like it's your responsibility? And so they're trying to replace it with their version of reality, which isn't true. So look, I love that the teachers in Arkansas fought back here. And Arkansas is a complicated place. So now we live in a world where everything is perceived as blue state or red state. But remember, first of all, the teachers are doing this also in Little Rock.

Little Rock was the first school in the South, or generally in that area, to get forced desegregation. So after all these years, the Republican governor wanted to go back to a situation where we were going backwards on civil rights. And the teacher stood up and said, not on our watch. I love that. And remember, Arkansas elected Bill Clinton, not when he was an elitist, but back when they thought he was a populist, as governor. So in Arkansas very recently passed a higher minimum wage at over two thirds of people voting yes. So there are actually a lot of good people in Arkansas who are willing to fight back against this. And here is a group of them that fought

back and for now have won and are defying the powerful. So I love it. That's the populist root of Arkansas. And at least these folks have found it. And it is rare good news. And I can't thank them enough for standing their ground. Yasman. Yeah, Jank, you're absolutely right. And I love this story because of exactly that. You know, as a blue person in a red state,

I feel like I'm always telling non-Texans that there are a lot of progressive and liberal Texans. But for whatever reason, they keep trying to tamp down our voices and make sure that we're not represented accurately. So I feel like no one believes me when I tell them that. But I love seeing blue victories in red states because I promise you, those victories are hard fought and hard won. But this whole thing kind of reminds me of there's like that Christian propaganda movie, God is Dead, had Kevin Sorbo, Hercules was in it. And there's a scene at the beginning depicting a college philosophy course. And it's so obvious that no one involved in making that movie has ever actually sat in a college classroom. I don't know what these people think is actually happening in college courses.

I don't know how they think these things are being taught, but they really seem very misguided or misinformed. And I don't know if they've ever gone to college or what. It's hard for me to imagine that so many people have not gone to college, but college courses do not function the way that they seem to think they do. It's not propaganda. You know, you tend to get a pretty balanced factual account of things in college classrooms, or there's at least discussion about certain things, right?

There's never a professor who's just like, you know, spoon feeding you and forcing ideas down anyone's throat. So I don't like the things that they tell people to be afraid of are the wrong things that they're telling people to be afraid of. And unfortunately, well, they know what they're doing. But unfortunately, the people that they're targeting don't realize that they're being targeted, don't realize that they're literally being lied to. It's not even a matter of opinion at this point that you are being lied to. That's not what's going on. That's not what this is. People still think CRT is being taught in like elementary schools. It's not like just factually it isn't. So anyway, I know we're out of time.

Yeah, so everybody check out Rayvana and Yasmin on Rebel Headquarters. You guys are going to love it. We've got a whole other hour for you guys, including the Nick Fuentes fan who decided to take on a Jewish MMA fighter. How'd that turn out for him? I think you're going to want to find out. Ray and Yasmin, thank you so much, guys. Thanks so much. Yeah, love to see you next time.

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