The Young Turks - Tough Labor

Episode Date: December 2, 2022

Judge approves intervention to improve Jackson Mississippi water system. The NYPD says that they were blindsided by Eric Adams notion to commit mentally ill individuals. Iranian forces kills a man celebrating the Iranian World Cup Loss. Hospice Care has now become a hustle. Millennial are struggling to buy houses due to high prices and low inventory. Host: Ana Kasparian, Cenk Uygur Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

You're listening to The Young Turks, the online news show. Make sure to follow and rate our show with not one, not two, not three, not four, but five stars. You're awesome. Thank you. Woo! It's up! All right, welcome to the Young Turks, Jake Huguer Anna Casparian. Dun-da-da-dun, let's be honest.

What was that jingle? That's a Christmas jingle. It's that time of year. You know it. You know I'm not starting too early. You know it. Okay, now we do have good news, bad news, lots of news. Crazy news. I just, I want to go to sleep. I'm tired. Very tired today. We have a new villain, the black condom. We'll explain later in the program. All right, let's go. Well, we begin with what I would argue is the most important story of the day, although everyone is obsessed with Kanye, we will get to that in the second hour. So yeah, I'm going to make you guys hold on for that. But for now, let's talk about

the rail strike. The Senate has officially voted on adopting a measure that forces a deal between the national freight railroad companies and their unions. There was a separate bill too. You know, the bill that would offer, would give the workers what they wanted. They don't want to just measly four days of sick leave. But the legislation, the separate legislation, was a little more generous, seven days of sick leave. One of them passed, one of them didn't. Can you, can you guess which? Now, the proposal to give workers seven days of sick leave failed. Well, what a shocker to pick up enough Republican support to overcome a 60 vote threshold set for adopting the measure and fell 52 to 43.

Now, my prediction yesterday in regard to people like Josh Hawley, a Republican, turned out to be wrong, but Josh Hawley very likely knew that this legislation wasn't going to pass. So let me give you the detail. Six Republicans voted for the sick leave measures. Senators Mike Braun, Ted Cruz, Lindsay Graham, Josh Holly, John Kennedy, and Marco Rubio, Get a load of this, though, Senator Joe Manchin is the worst person in Congress. He's the only Democrat to vote against it. So they always tell us, oh, but it's better that Mansions are a Democrat than a Republican.

Apparently not. He's apparently more right-wing than the Republicans. So there you go. Congratulations, Democratic leadership for keeping him in the fold. That worked out brilliantly. Okay, so let's pause, because I want to discuss. I actually want to discuss the House first, because that's where I believe the problem began. And part of the problem and what enrages me beyond words at this point is that the congressional progressive caucus went along with this maneuver when I also believe that corporate Democrats

knew full well that the bill to give the workers the sick leave that they desperately need and want was going to fail in the Senate. They could have voted on one piece of legislation, right? Think about that. One piece of legislation that both prevents the workers from striking, I guess, right? Because that's what the goal here is. They don't want the economy to shut down. They don't want to lose $2 billion a day as a result of a strike. But the bill should have included the sick leave. And so why did they separate it, Jank? Why do you think it was separated into two separate pieces of legislation? Why do you think that happened? Yeah. So here's why it

happen. Theoretically, conservative Democrats put pressure on leadership, but that's nonsense. They don't have to put pressure on leadership, because Democratic leadership is already very, very conservative on economic issues. So Hakeem Jeffries didn't need any convincing. The number one priority is make sure there's no strike and that the workers know their goddamn role. Number two priority is set up a fake vote where we know we're going to lose, but we get to do marketing, say, oh, we're with the workers. So that's the House version of it. And then on the Senate side, we'll have the Republicans block it through a filibuster,

but we'll have some prominent Republicans who are pretending to go populace, actually vote in favor of the workers. Exactly, exactly. So that those handful of Republicans can get all the credit for being populace, for fighting for the workers, while the Democrats take the blame. But either way, the donors that gave them the money to both the Republicans and Democrats are incredibly happy. They get a little pat on the head. Hey, nice job, Nancy Pelosi, Hakeem Jeffries, Joe Biden, okay?

And hey, look, who's the populist? Here's Josh Hawley and Ted Cruz. Will you look at that? I mean, you literally couldn't bungle it any worse than this. Josh Hawley voted against providing paid sick leave to federal employees. He was a no vote on that piece of legislation. He is not an economic populist. He does not care about ensuring that workers get paid sick leave.

And by the way, I mean, if there were a prevalence of economic populace in the Republican Party, we would have no difficulty passing, you know, mandatory family leave, something that we still don't have in this country. We do have in a huge portion of the country forced pregnancy and forced birth with absolutely no social safety net to catch women and families as they struggle financially and are forced to bring a child into the world. You know, but all of this, you're right, Jank, the strategy by the, you know, Republicans in the Senate who voted in favor of providing the paid time off. Genius. Yeah, of course. They know it's not going to pass. By the way, guys, just so you know, the Republicans talk to their colleagues. They know for a fact that's not going to pass. Exactly. It's not like they all go to the vote with like, gee, I don't know what's going to happen, right? So, and they have a certain amount of Republicans that say that raise their hand and go, I would like to pretend to be a popular. And they go, oh, okay, sure, you can pretend because we're going to win this vote, right? And then they, by the way, the Democrats do the same thing.

They tell Kim Jeffries, yeah, you guys can all pretend to be populist. And on the Senate, we're all pretending other than Manchin to be in favor of the American worker. We all know we're going to lose. So don't worry about it. And mainstream media, you know there are dogs, right? So they will unquestioningly report the Democrats, well, man, they tried so hard. But golly, gee, for the billionth time in a row. there was nothing they could do.

I mean, we should, you know, eventually, maybe you guys do it tomorrow. There should be a comparative analysis on independent media headlines on this vote versus how the corporate media headlines are written. Because from what I've already seen today, it's avert a strike, avert a strike, avert a strike, right? It's a good thing, it's positive. The legislation will prevent the strike from happening. Avert the strike.

It's not about how unbelievably cruel it is to force workers to essentially, what, to show up to work sick, right? Zero paid sick days? Zero paid sick days. I mean, it is absurd. And we're talking about a monopolized industry that intentionally cut its workforce to the tune of 20% since 2018. Why do you think they did that? They did that to maximize their profits, spend as little as possible. possible on labor maximize profits so they can do the corporate stock buybacks, so they can do

the dividends for their shareholders. That's all that matters to them. That's how the system works. And if anyone believes that members of Congress, especially Republican senators who are buying individual stocks themselves, who certainly do not want to see their stock portfolios suffer from a strike, but also they don't want their stock portfolios to suffer from corporations not maximizing their profits, right? So they always enable the corporate greed over and over and over again. This is how it's done. Most people can't see through this garbage.

I got to be honest, I'm real sick. This has happened multiple times at this point. I'm real sick of AOC in particular. Like one day on Twitter, she'll say, I'm looking out for labor. This is, it's unreasonable. We can't, we can't vote to prevent them from striking. They deserve the sick days off. Next day, she agrees to vote yes on the legislation that basically intervenes preventing

them from striking. But then the next day- Because they had a compromise. Exactly. There's always an excuse. It's always like high-minded, three-dimensional chess, except you got played. Do you not see that? So wait, but look, this is just factual. Jesus.

And so, look, she is an ostensible ally of ours. We're just being honest with you guys. If you really thought it was a compromise and the workers had a chance of winning, well, then you got played. That's a fact, right? Because they did not win for the billionth time in a row Democratic leadership lied to you. The only other option is you knew that it was a fake compromise. And you voted for it anyway because he didn't want trouble in Washington.

Trouble's a real pain in the ass, right? Oh, then everybody yells at you and everybody calls you the bad guy and they get their goons in corporate media. to harangue, don't get me wrong. There's a doubt, like, I get it. There's real pain associated with having courage in Washington. The courage in life. Right. And so, but every progressive, huffs and puffs, et cetera, in Washington,

and then goes along with the latest compromise with Democratic leadership, which always leads, 100% of the time, leads to the same result, which is, oh, golly, gee, we lost. So no one could have guessed that the trust Biden strategy wouldn't work. How many times does it need to happen? How many times? How many times do they need to hear that, oh, no, no, but we need to separate the bills. Oh, yeah, yeah.

And we're going to pass your part later. Yeah, no. How many times? How many times does it need to happen? I mean, it's laughable. Okay, so let's move on to what could happen next. Because it doesn't necessarily need to be the end, right? If Biden claims to be, you know, this pro-union president who's really looking out for the workers, there is something he can do.

even in this late hour, even after this legislation and everything. So Ryan Grimm notes that union source tells me that their next push will be to demand that Biden include railway workers in the executive order that mandates 56 hours of paid sick leave. And David Dayan also brought to everyone's attention, something that I had forgotten that's relevant to this, just to give you some historical context. Obama signed an executive order in 2015, requiring all federal contractors to guarantee seven paid sick days to their workers. Great. So there is precedent for that. If Biden wanted to, he could go ahead and issue an executive order where the rail companies have to provide

the sick leave. Will he do it? I doubt it, but we'll see. No way. We'll see. No way. Okay, but hold on. There's a second part to what David Dayan tweeted that I think is super relevant. Now, Obama did that for workers, but there was a catch. He specifically exempted the rail industry from it, even though they are federal contractors. Yeah, look, guys, let's get past the gaslighting in mainstream media. They're always going to tell you that Obama, Pelosi, Biden, et cetera, are American heroes. When they deliver a big fat donut, nothing to you, they always say, oh, there's nothing they could do. I mean, they want in their hearts, their hearts are golden.

It's just their actions suck out of totally by mistake and accident. Right. And there was, et cetera. Right. So I mean, I'm going to end you with three numbers here. The chance of the strikers, not the strikers, the workers in this case, prevailing and getting the seven days of sick leave is zero percent. Zero. If there was 10 Republicans to go along with the Democrats, they would have lost mansion.

If there was 11, they would lost cinema, okay? Or they would have lost one of the Republicans. that a Republican or a Democrat would have bailed to make sure they never got to 60 in the Senate. And everyone in Washington, including every reporter, knows that. They just all choose to lie to you and play this kabuki theater for you guys. We're the only ones that tell you what's the reality is. I mean, the right way is often Looneytown, right? And they're like, oh, yeah, Republicans love workers.

That's why we say they should have no goddamn minimum wages, no sick days, no nothing, no paid family leave. They're like, but we love workers, do you? and then the corporate media does these lies. So the last two numbers are $20 billion in profits from recently for the railroad companies. It's a record. So it's not like they don't have the money. They're just spitting in the workers' face. And every goddamn corrupt politician in Washington is helping them spit in the workers' face.

Total liars, okay? And the last number is 2 billion. Two billion a day is what the strike would cost the entire economy. That's why we say, they said, oh, we can't have a strike. Well, one of our viewers, one of our members, I love our members, t-y-t.com slash join, had a comment that I read. I gave a hundred bucks to it because it was so great. And now the strikers are, the workers are starting to use it all over social media. I mean, I'm sure they came to it from a different place, but it's so, or maybe they didn't,

but it's such the right idea. So our member wrote in and they said, oh, apparently the workers are worth $2 billion a day. Yet all of Washington just said they're worth nothing and should get zero sick day. that are paid. So okay, we have our answer. The workers are invaluable and Washington doesn't give a goddamn about them and we'll screw them at every turn, including the Democrats. Fact. All right, let's move on to a little bit of positive news, potentially, and then we'll take a break. The Justice Department taking action on the water crisis in Jackson, Mississippi.

In a statement, Attorney General Mayor Garland saying in part, we will continue to prioritize cases in the community's most burdened by environmental harm. That's right. It turns out that Merrick Garland is not only you know, awake and alive, he's actually doing some stuff that could be positive. So I guess hats off to Merrick Garland in this regard. Now, we've been talking regularly about what is taking place in Jackson, Mississippi. Their water infrastructure is crumbling. Many people living in Jackson, Mississippi are seeing disgusting brown water coming out of their faucets.

And so the department, meaning the DOJ, filed a proposal for, intervention this week, on Tuesday specifically, and U.S. District Judge Henry Wingate approved it later that day in Mississippi. The move authorized the appointment of a third-party manager to oversee reforms to Jackson's water system, which nearly collapsed late summer and continues to struggle. Now, Garland did a press conference on this. I'm glad he's paying attention to it. He sees this as part of the Biden administration's efforts to do something about environmental injustice in this country. To be quite honest with you, the fact that we have many parts of this country with unsafe drinking water, it goes beyond environmental injustice.

We are living in a country that is crumbling due to corporate greed, due to the privatization efforts of our infrastructure, of our utilities, of our natural resources. This is what consequences and Garland said that the purpose of the complaint is to allow the Justice Department to negotiate a consent decree which would empower a federal court to force changes to Jackson's water system. Now what exactly is going on with the water system? Let's get a little specific here. So for four days last August people waited in lines for water to drink, bathe, cook and flush toilets in Mississippi's capital as some businesses were temporarily forced to close for lack of potable

water. The partial failure of the water system that month followed flooding on the nearby Pearl River, which exacerbated longstanding problems in one of Jackson's two water treatment plants. In fact, some of the best reporting on this is by Jud Legum over at Popular Info. He was interviewed by Democracy Now about it, and he gets into the details of the privatization efforts in Jackson, Mississippi that has exacerbated this problem. Let's watch. Starting in 2010, Siemens came to the city of Jackson, who was already suffering under a very faulty water system at that time and said, we have a solution. You can pay us $90 million. That's the largest contract signed at that time in city history. We will install these new

automated water meters. This will not only pay for itself, but generate extra revenue, which you can invest back into the water system. They came to the city offering a solution, but this contract ended up being a disaster. Not only did it not meet their promises, the automated meters didn't work really at all. Many people stopped getting bills. Those who got bills received ones that were far too high and did not pay them. And so it created massive deficits. So yeah, I mean, get a German-based multinational corporation involved in your water infrastructure. And everything will work out just fine.

All you need to do is pay them $90 million for them to screw the system up even further. And that's exactly what happened here. There were other issues as well, including a cold snap in 2021 that left tens of thousands of people in Jackson without running water after pipes froze. The next video has more detail on that. Lines we're going to show you can be seen forming around the block at the water distribution centers throughout the area. Just to let you know how this all happens, severe flooding damage the city's water treatment

facility over the weekend, causing the plant to fail. But this is not the first time Mississippi's capital has experienced a water crisis. Many residents say this is a problem that has been grossly ignored. I really wanted you guys to see what people are going through just to get access to safe and clean water in Jackson, Mississippi. It is absolutely disgusting. And finally, if you're wondering if there's any leadership looking out for the people of Jackson, Mississippi, in the state of Mississippi, you'd be mistaken if you think there is. Because the governor, Tate Reeves, is an awful human being and has gone to great lengths to mock and insult the people of Jackson, Mississippi. Here's an example.

Mississippi Governor Tate Reeves came under criticism for disparaging his own capital city Jackson. This is Reeves speaking during the groundbreaking ceremony for Jones Capital LLC headquarters. I've got to tell you, it is a great day to be in Hattisburg. It's also, as always, a great day to not be in Jackson. always a great day to not be in Jackson. Jackson is overwhelmingly African American, over 80% of the city. I mean, what kind of leadership is that? And by the way, that's a guy who wants to ban abortion,

even in cases where a young teenage girl has been raped, because he's pro-life, right? except when it comes to the majority black population that's suffering right now with unsafe drinking water in Jackson, Mississippi. He's disgusting. Pig, absolute pig. All right, there's been one set of folks that have been on Jackson, Mississippi side the entire time. You guys. So we know about this problem a long time ago, Rashad Ritchie on our program, Indisputable, and the TYT Network was one of the first to cover it. He's covered it the most, probably of any show in all the media.

And because of him, we started a program called t-y-t.com slash relief to get water to the people of Jackson, Mississippi, because we knew how bad it was, and you guys delivered. So our goal was $28,000. We're actually just $286 short of it today. And my guess is if you guys can chip in or $5 or $10 right now, you'll put us over the top. And so what have we already done? We've served over 360 families with two boxes of clean water per family. One of the hardest parts of getting older is feeling like something's off in your body, but not knowing exactly what.

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A survey found 86% of women lost weight, 77% saw an improved mood, and 100% felt like themselves again. Start your next chapter feeling balanced and in control. For a limited time, get 15% off your entire first order at happy mammoth.com with code next chapter at checkout. Visit happy mammoth.com today and get your old self back naturally. We've also helped 135 people get their water tested and we're sending in the last set of water testing kits to make sure that everybody's got them and can make sure that their water is safe. So even before Merrick Garland, the Justice Department, the federal government came in to help Jackson, you guys, the TYT family, TYT Nation was already there.

Let's finish the job. I love you guys for being generous, for caring about someone you don't know. And look at the sorry state of our country. Yep. So we have to rescue cities within red states at the federal level and also at the private level. Like us just chipping in, you guys chipping in going, all right, let's just try to help, right? So, and why do we have to do that? Because the red states go, hey, you're a majority black town, you're, maybe you're a majority Democratic town.

We don't care about you, we're just going to leave you. But maybe we'll have no water, hey, oh, don't worry, our donors will make tons of money off of it. So the Republicans that run the state will cash in on the corruption, right? And then we'll leave you to die. And we're not going to fix a goddamn thing because you live in a vicious red state run by vicious Republicans. And finally, I do want to tell you what the Justice Department is seeking to do specifically here. The Justice Department proposal lists 13 projects. The interim third party manager Ted Hennifin will be in charge of implementing.

The projects are meant to improve the water system's near-term stability, according to a news release. Among the most pressing priorities is a winterization project to make the system less vulnerable to things like, you know, weather, cold weather. So hopefully the Justice Department is effective in what they're pursuing here. We'll see how it all plays out. But this is not just a Jackson, Mississippi problem. This is a nationwide issue. Obviously, it reminds me of what happened in Flint, Michigan. It just keeps happening over and over again because we don't have actual governing in this country.

We don't have actual political leadership in this country. We have a bunch of narcissists who seek political office to enrich themselves. Yeah. By the way, guys, always check the description box for links. So t.com slash relief will be a link in the description box if you're watching you on YouTube or Facebook later. So, and one last thing. So we criticize Democratic Party very heavily. Obviously, the Republican Party is filled with monsters, as I just told you.

But we also give credit where credit is due. So Garland doesn't like to pick big political fights. He's generally a person who's not very courageous. But behind the scenes, when there's not a big political fight, he does do the right thing. And here's an instance of him doing the right thing. And is there a difference between Democratic Party and the Republican Party? Why do we even bother voting for Democrats if they're on economic issues, oftentimes just as bad as Republicans? because a Republican administration would have never helped the people in Jackson, Mississippi.

And that's a fact, stone-quote fact. I mean, look at a Republican governor making fun of them. At least I'm not in Jackson. We left them to die. Right? That's the Republicans for you. Not only are they corrupt, but they rub your face in it and they brag about how vicious they are. The Democrats behind the scenes sometimes do the right thing.

It's not much, right? But yes, there is a difference. And yes, this is because of a Democratic administration. helping. When we come back from the break, I will tell you how I was right. We'll be back. And progressive cannot, American, well, funny, I was about to say American hero. He's actually a Canadian hero. And thank you, gifted five young trust memberships for the good folks watching on YouTube. So I love our community, TYT nation, sticking together.

Everybody, you can join at t.com slash join as well. All right, Anna. Well, let's give you an update on Mayor Eric Adams and his mental health plan. Just this week, New York mayor Eric Adams announced that he had a plan in place with guidance to involuntarily commit individuals who were suffering from severe mental health issues on the streets of New York. Now, when we cover that story yesterday, I had some reservations, and it turns out I was right. Now, what were my reservations? If you missed the clip, here they are. The backlash in a lot of ways is accurate because of the vagueness of what he's proposing here, the lack of resources that I'm noticing when it comes to treating mental health

patients, and also just the factors necessary to determine whether or not someone should be involuntarily committed. These are questions that need very specific answers to, and unless he can provide those answers, this could be a disaster. The city said it would roll out training immediately to police officers. Okay, the NYPD has not been reformed in any way. A lot of the issues that we've had with the NYPD persist. So, okay, you're talking about training. What does that training entail? Because the idea of having the NYPD respond to people who are suffering from severe mental health issues is already a major red flag for me. So the NYPD was blindsided with the announcement that Eric Adams put out there recently.

They were, they apparently had no idea this was going on. No one touched base with them on the training, which is concerning. So according to the New York Post, they spoke to some of the sources within the NYPD. Here's what we know. The NYPD was blindsided by Merrick, by Mayor Eric Adams' announcement that cops will start taking homeless people into custody for psychiatric evaluations and potential hospital committal and scrambled Wednesday to start making it happen. The source also said that the city, that city hall sort of jumped the gun on this, adding

not sure why they did it. One source even told the post, quote, it's kind of a hot mess. Guys, remember, we're talking about involuntarily committing people. Okay, this has to do with people's freedom, bodily autonomy, civil liberties. You have to be super detail oriented, specific, and well-resourced to do this right. And so far, none of that is in place. Let me continue. Another source said, like everything else, it gets dumped on our lap and we're expected to

solve the problem without any guidance. But Adams claimed during his press conference announcing the directive that he plans to begin the trainings right away. And by the way, there's one other issue that I had, which was, of course, the resources. What were the resources? What, like, what money was being allocated to this? And it turns out that there are issues here, including the lack of beds. I addressed that. Let's just quickly watch that video. Adams was asked, okay, well, do you have enough hospital beds for this? And he's like, oh, don't worry. Kathy Hokel, governor of New York, she's committed.

to providing 50 additional beds? What? That's your answer to a very important question, by the way. Good job to the reporter who asked that question during that press conference, by the way. Great question about the resources and the need for beds. That's your answer, though? 50 beds that Kathy Hokel said, like, sure, yeah, yeah, no, I commit to that. We'll get around to that eventually, sure.

I don't even know if the 50 beds will happen, but 50 beds, clearly not enough. Let's go to the last graphic here. This is the update. There are more than 1,000 people on waiting lists for community-based programs catering to people with serious mental illnesses per data I obtained. Eric Adams, who issued a major mental health plan yesterday, told us he was unaware of the waitlists. Yeah, it's just unbelievable. Okay, so guys, there are two different issues here, in my opinion.

One is the incompetence of politicians. And so if you're a young turf fear, you might not be surprised by that. If you're a sensured human being in America, you might not be surprised by that. But if you're an avid consumer of mainstream media, you will be surprised by that. Because you've been taught and brainwashed your whole life that these politicians are revered figures, amazing people. Ones that we should honor, right, and take serious. No, I've met tons and tons of politicians. They're not that bright, and they have almost no ability to plan.

They couldn't plan their way out of a wet paper bag. I say that sometimes about Trump, but really, there's others, including the Democratic Party, are not that much better, okay? So here comes a mayor of New York, the largest city in the country. You'd think he would ask simple questions like, how many beds do we have? If we're going to commit people, how much space do we have? Exactly. What are the standards for committing people?

I mean like just a very very very very basics before you go launch something that's going to affect a lot of people right no no they oftentimes they don't plan at all they're like I don't know let's just do something we need to do it for PR reasons no there's a crisis in the country right now especially in cities like LA and New York it the federal government needs to be involved it is a state of emergency it is the resources need to be allocated you can't just say We're going to involuntarily commit people, which again, is a serious thing. And as I mentioned and discussed in detail yesterday, I do think there is a place for that. Yeah. But you have to keep in mind that civil liberties matter. People's bodily autonomy matters. You have to be specific about what factors into the decision to involuntarily commit someone. What kind of resources are there?

What kind of treatment are you going to provide? But none of that. None of that exists. It's crazy. So what's going to happen is if he actually does implement this in the haphazard way that we see it's happening right now, it's going to lead to all sorts of horrific stories. And then it's just nothing's going to happen to actually improve the mental health crisis that we're experiencing across the country. Because they're going to look at what Eric Adams did and say, no, we can't do that because that fails, right? That's a failed method of dealing with this. Yeah, it's almost like he's setting it up to fail.

So, all right, guys, that leads to my second point, which is that the reason why we get attacked from all fronts, left wing, right wing, middle wing, whatever, is because we do something that no one else does, balance. Everybody else tells you that answer is always in extremes, right? We should never involuntarily commit anyone. It's an offense against their civil liberties. We should involuntarily commit people out broad range, just let the cops do their job, take every one away. That's what the two camps almost always say. Yep. Well, the answer is obviously

not at the extremes. What it is, is sometimes folks are in a situation where they're not making free choices. They're in a bad spot, and you're not helping them at all by saying, oh, yeah, yeah, hashtag freedom, go live in the streets. If you're on the left and you think that's helping them, I don't think, I think you have a very skewed interpretation of what help is, okay? On the other hand, the right wing, no, you can't just go lock up people because the cops thought they were mentally ill. The cops will think that looking at them wrong will make you mentally ill, right? I mean, they'll abuse a living crap out of that instantly. You have to have incredibly clear guidelines, and it has to be balanced.

So some people need help, and we need to get them that help, even if they can't volunteer to that because of the condition they're in. when you have a massive mental health issue and you're on the streets, let alone when you combine it with drugs, you're not in your right mind. You're not voluntarily doing anything. And so we need to get those folks help, but we can't do it willy-nilly. We can't do it in a way that tortures them and brutalizes them. 100%. So, and if you're an advocate on the left and say, hey, we need more mental health facilities so we don't over police and put everybody in prison when they don't belong. there, great. So we've got to get a lot more funding for mental health, okay? So you've got to

make sure that you close the loop, that if you are criticizing something, you've got to have a constructive answer. And mental health is a constructive answer, and I think we all agree to that on the left, right? But you've also got to get people into those mental health facilities when they need it, and don't talk to me about nonsense freedom for people who are for only the ones that are clearly not in their right mind. And can't- And I'm not the judge of that, by the way, professionals are. Mental health professionals. Exactly.

Yeah, all right, we gotta take a break. When we come back, some sad news out of Iran following the World Cup loss for the country's team. Apparently there are some protesters in Iran who have been celebrating Iran's loss, and unfortunately there are consequences for some. We've got that story and more coming up, don't miss it. All right, back on TYT, Jane Canana with you guys. We've got more news.

Earlier this week, Iran lost to the United States in the World Cup, with the U.S. scoring one goal and Iran scoring zero. Now, there are ongoing protests in Iran, and some of these protesters actually celebrated the fact that Iran lost in the World Cup. And unfortunately, one Iranian man has been shot dead by security forces for celebrating his country's exit at the World Cup in Qatar. Miran Samak, who is 27, was shot dead after honking his car horn, which in a city that's northwest of Tehran. according to human rights activists. Samak was targeted directly and shot in the head by security forces following the defeat of the national team against America, said the Oslo-based group Iran Human Rights.

We do have an image of him, and he's unfortunately no longer alive because security forces shot him dead. Now, the execution came as Iranians were celebrating the country's World Cup exit as a symbolic victory against the country's regime. And remember, there are mass protests against the country's regime following the death of a 22-year-old woman who allegedly wasn't wearing her headdress correctly, and they allege that she died from cardiac arrest, but there is a reason to believe that she was actually beaten to death after she was placed in custody. She was a healthy 22-year-old woman. There was no reason for her to die from cardiac arrest. Now, Iran security forces have killed at least 448 people in the crackdowns on the protests, including 60 children under the age of 18, obviously, and 29 women. Yeah, so I think that there's a couple of interesting parts of the story. One is how much popular sentiment was against the Iranian national team. So if you're not a soccer fan, it's hard for you to understand.

how much countries care about soccer, especially if you live in America, you probably don't get it, okay? Some of you do, of course, if you've been following along and played it, et cetera, when you were younger, but countries are mental about their soccer teams. Just, they live and breathe that stuff. And for them to turn on their own national team, it's extraordinary, especially on the World Cup, especially as they could reach the round of 16, which means they could win the whole World Cup. And that's how, and it has. And it has, has nothing to do with their team. And a lot of the guys on the team are good guys that, remember, protested against the government too. Their anger, the population's anger is

towards the government, right? So it is just extraordinary that they were happy that they're Iranian nationals. I've never seen anything like that, okay? And I've been watching the World Cup now for a depressingly long time. So now, then the Iranian regime shows you why there own people hate them that much by executing that guy in the street for honking a horn. Yeah. Summary execution on the spot. That's what tyranny looks like. A tyranny also looks like taking a young woman because she didn't dress appropriately and you wanted to dictate every part of her morality and beating her to death in a room full of

guys because they're the moral ones. Okay, they're the most disgusting pigs I've ever seen. And that goes all the way to the top. The Ayatollah is a tyrant. And now there's chants all over Iran about death to the dictator. And so now there's one last element of this that I've been telling you throughout these protests. Thank God America didn't intervene. If we had dropped one bomb in Iran, none of this would have happened. Because then the young people of Iran would have rallied around the flag and the Iranian regime would have

gotten to do propaganda and say, it's not the Iranian people, it's the goddamn Americans. And it would have helped their propaganda tremendously if we had done something as stupid as what the neocons wanted, dumbass, horrible Benjamin Netanyahu wanted. Oh, just bomb them, who cares? It's not just that they're bad people. It's that they're incredibly dumb. It would have been counterproductive. Instead, we have an organic revolt, maybe even revolution against the horrific

regime in Iran. And this is the way it's supposed to go. And to every person that does something as simple as honking a horn or clanging on a pod or shouting in the streets or showing up, your heroes, your absolute heroes trying to get freedom for everybody. And by the way, you're the moral ones for sitting up with that young girl who they beat to death, those goddamn tyrants. All right, let's move on to a horrific story. There have been a more There are multiple investigative reports on these hospice scammers, and when you look to how much of that industry has been privatized, you'll understand why this is going on. So let's discuss. Privatized hospice care includes a little oversight, mistreatment of patients, and a lot of fraud.

And recently there were two massive investigative reports by ProPublica and the New Yorker that you should know about, especially if you have a loved one who is, you know, in need of end of life care. Try to find a non-profit organization because if you rely on a for-profit private economic, Equity-backed hospice facility, you might be putting your loved one at a massive disadvantage. And you might be assisting these companies in scamming both the federal government and the state government of funds. Now hospice care has been increasingly privatized over the years. For instance, for profit providers made up 30% of the field at the start of this century. But today, they represent more than 70%.

And between 2011 and 2019, research shows the number of hospices owned by private equity firms tripled. Hmm. Yeah. So with privatization, what happens with privatization? Private companies have that one objective. What was it again? Profit. Profit.

Oh, yeah, that's right. That's right. Okay, great. And Anna, I'm just going to add something else that's very complicated. So I know most mainstream media reporters can't understand it. You get the profit by increasing prices and reducing costs. Now, in the context of a hospice, what do you think reducing cost means? And what do you think increasing prices means?

Well, you're about to find out. Exactly. Now, they love defrauding, but the federal government and the state government. When it comes to the federal government has to do with Medicare funds, state governments of Medicaid funds. And here's what we know based on the, you've got to read the New Yorker's report. It's lengthy, but it's excellent. So the aggregate Medicare margins of for-profit providers are three times that of their non-profit counterparts.

Under the daily payment structure, a small hospice that bills for just 20 patients at the basic rate can take in more than a million dollars a year. A large hospice billing for thousands of patients can take in hundreds of months. millions. So there is money to be made. But there are some regulations pertaining to, you know, claims for Medicare funds when it comes to hospice care. Okay. So I should note, those federal payments are distributed in what is essentially an honor system, which anytime we're talking about private industry and an honor system, we're in a lot of trouble. That's absurd. Yeah, exactly. So there's very little oversight. And even in some of the instances where

there is oversight and the DOJ steps in to do something about it, there are some really corrupt judges that side with the hospices. And I have a specific story to get to on that in just a moment. But first, the federal government recognizing that an individual patient might not die within the predicted six months effectively demands repayment from hospices when the average length of stay of all patients exceed six months, right? Because the reason why they want to do this is they want to ensure that hospices, especially the privatized ones, aren't trying to collect Medicare funds by bringing in patients who are not eligible. You get what I'm saying, people who aren't close to dying, people who are not at the end of their lives. So they have

this regulation that essentially says after six months, you have to start like giving our money back because clearly this is not a person who is like who needs the end of life care. Okay, now they found ways around it like, of course they did discharging them as soon as they're about to hit the six months. So think about that. They have elderly people that they're providing services for and they're collecting Medicare funds as a result of providing these services because that's all they really want. That's all they really care about. And then as soon as they get close to the six months, they're like, oh, yeah, we're done with you. We're done with you, okay? And they intentionally seek people, patients who are not near the end of their lives,

who are not eligible for hospice care, but they don't really care because they know that they're going to discharge them as soon as the six months is up. Now, in Frisco, Texas, according to the FBI, a hospice owner tried to evade the Medicare repayment problem by instructing staff to overdose patients who were staying on the service too long. He texted a nurse about one patient saying he better not make it to tomorrow or I will blame you. The owner, luckily in this case, was sentenced to more than 13 years in prison for fraud in a plea deal that made no allegations about patient deaths. Now, and one other graphic I want to read, and I want to hear your thoughts on it, Jank. although a quarter of all people in hospice enter it only in their final five days,

most of the Medicare spending on hospice is for patients who stays exceed six months. In 2018, the Office of Inspector General at the Department of Health and Human Services estimated that inappropriate billing by hospice providers had cost taxpayers hundreds of millions of dollars. Yeah. So first there's the issue, the hospice issue, and then the general issue. So again, in business, you strategize about how to maximize profit. And you talk in words like metrics. So they would have metrics. And I guarantee you that if you investigated these private hospices, all of them would have

one metric that would stand out for you, length of stay. Because however long they stay is however much money they're going to get. So then that will incentivize management to lengthen the stays to the maximum, six months. It will also incentivize them to dump folks right after six months because they don't get paid after six months. These are stone cold facts. Now, if you're a regulator and we had an honest government, that'd be the first thing to occur to you, right? And you would say, first of all, you would say, well, that means almost by definition we should not have these privatized, right? But if we're going to have them privatized, we should have them heavily regulated

because we've built an incentive for people to abuse the system. Yep. In how we are paying them, right? And so they're going to try to increase their revenue, and they're going to try to cut their costs. Cutting costs is, hey, if you haven't died in six months, you've got to go. You've got to get out of here.

Increasing their revenue is, well, maybe that guy was on the edge of that, but maybe he isn't. Maybe we can milk it for six months. Let's put him in the hospice wrongly, right? But the problem is that we've turned our government into a casino. So it's an open auction. Everybody comes in and bribes whoever they want. They get whatever result they want.

So of course people are going to come in and bribe the government to make sure they don't regulate. Oh, but jank, it's not just the government that gets bribed. Doctors be rolling in that dough because these hospices are looking to recruit new patients. And what better place to recruit new patients than hospitals? And so this is just so unbelievably gross. some hospice firms bribe physicians to bring them new patients by offering all expenses paid trips to Las Vegas nightclubs, complete with bottle service and private security details. The former mayor of Rio Bravo, Texas, who was also a doctor, received outright kickbacks.

Yeah, boom, there you go, both the government and doctors in one fell swoop by just finding the mayor, who's a doctor, and you save on bribe money as well. And get a load of this. Other audacious for-profit players enlist family and friends to act as make-believe clients, lure addicts with the promise of free painkillers, dupe people into the program by claiming that it's free home health care or steal personal information to enroll phantom patients. In fact, here's an example of a phantom patient, a 22-year-old, I'm sorry, 29-year-old. 29 year old pregnant woman learned that she'd been enrolled in Revelation Hospice in the Mississippi Delta,

which at one time discharged, get a load of this, 93% of its patients alive only when she visited her doctor for a blood test. So she goes to the doctor for a blood test, and the doctor's like, are you receiving hospice care? Like, what's going on here? But like, yeah, and it's from this one place that discharge 93% of their patients because, I mean, they were probably quickly approaching that six month period, right? Now, finally, there are some rare instances where the DOJ gets involved. And that certainly happened back in 2014. They opened up a case against this one company called Asira Care. And here's what happened. So the judge ruling on that case, or the judge presiding over that case, there was a judge.

jury and everything. She was pretty corrupt. Judge Karen Boudry said that she had great experiences with hospice care for both her mom and her dad. But principles in the case disagree about whether she disclosed that the firm handling Sarah Care's defense, Bradley Errant, had just hired her son as a summer associate. I mean, that judge should not preside over that trial. Okay, and guess what happened? There was all sorts of evidence that she wouldn't allow to be presented in the case. The defense team had petitioned Boudry to separate the proceedings into two parts. The first phase limited to evidence about the falsity of the hundred and twenty three claims in question.

And the second part examining, among other things, the company's knowledge of falsity. The Justice Department objected to the arbitrary hurdle, arguing that the purpose of the False Claims Act was to combat intentional fraud, not accidental mistakes. The fact that Asira Care knowingly carried out a scheme to submit false claims is highly relevant evidence that the claims were in fact false, the government wrote. Nonetheless, in an unprecedented legal move, the judge granted Assyra Care's request. After nearly two months of testimony, the jurors deliberated for nine days on phase one on October 15, 2015. They found 86% of the patient sample ineligible for some period of hospice care. And so what ended up happening was the jury found the hospice company guilty. But you know what the judge did?

She's like, oh, it turns out I made a mistake in my instructions to the jury. Oh, what a coincidence. I made a mistake. And since I made a mistake when I was giving the instructions to the jurors, we need a new trial. They have a new trial and because of objections from the DOJ and all of that, she did a summary judgment and guess who she sided with, the hospice. Oh, wow, what a stunning coincidence yet again. So guys, if you're wondering, hey, whatever happened to the bank robbers?

Remember we had Bonnie and Clyde and the gangsters, Al Capone, et cetera. They wear suits now. And so if you're a smart crook in America, why would you bother robbing a bank? It's not that you're going to get caught. That's not even the issue. It's just an inefficient way to steal money. Instead, you start a corporation, you pay off, find a way to pay off government officials. That's super easy that we've legalized bribery.

You just give them campaign contributions. They'll do anything you want. Give to both sides. Sam Bankman-Fried, we're going to explain another story today. So, oh, yeah, you give the Republicans, Democrats, you get everything you want, right? And then you go and you bribe doctors, you go bribe judges, et cetera. There's nobody minding the store, man. And so all the smart crooks have set up corporations and are robbing the American taxpayer

to the tune of hundreds of millions of dollars, billions of dollars. No smart crook in their right mind would just simply do a robbery anymore. You set up a company to do the robbery. And that's exactly what we have now. So, and then you would have a mainstream media tell you that the robbers are actually the most honorable people in the country. Oh, corporate executives, they are great men. It's we have meritocracy because of their great merit they have risen to the top and they

guess who's there is right there with them the politicians because of merit they have also risen to the top yeah no it they've risen to the top by robbing the rest of us when we come back for the second hour of the show yes we will talk about Kanye west again getting even more extreme and with his anti-Semitism we'll also discuss many of hers Walker's ex significant others coming out and sharing pretty terrible details about the violence he used against them. That and more coming up. only bonus content and more by subscribing to Apple Podcasts at apple.com slash t yt. I'm your host, Shank Huger, and I'll see you soon.