The Young Turks - Trump Halts Palestinian Refugee Funding And Wisconsin Republicans Undermine Democracy

Episode Date: December 4, 2018

Trump goes against Israeli advisement and ends funding for Palestinian refugees. Incoming Democrats are facing Republican pushback. Get exclusive access to our best content. http://tyt.com/GETACCESS Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

You're listening to The Young Turks, the online news show. Make sure to follow and rate our show with not one, not two, not three, not four, but five stars. You're awesome. Thank you. All right, welcome the Young Turks, Jake, or John Iderlo, with you guys. We've got an awesome day ahead for you guys for a number of reasons. Not about an hour, in exactly an hour, Bernie Sanders will be doing a town hall that we will be covering on the issue of climate change. Now, here's how it's going to go. We got an hour programming for you guys, as we always do.

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If you give under $1,000, it goes to journalism students. And that, according to some of the folks we've talked at the journalism schools, has been deeply appreciated, and then above $1,000 is those media and political figures that you saw a little while ago, okay? So lots of news to get to, including our own, Ken Klippenstein with an excellent story that he broke, a really interesting one. So John, take it away. Okay, and I just want to know, Stephen Cooper needs to have somebody from T.YT on.

He had the Potsave America people. Yeah, okay. That's kind of the same sort of thing. You could do it. Okay, we've been around for a while. Yeah, well, hopefully some of his writers and bookers have TYT membership now. Maybe they're like, wait a minute, these guys would make great guests. I cannot believe that they have 200 people working there.

It's a great show, but geez, okay, let's move to the news then. Earlier this year, Donald Trump announced that he would be drastically cutting back humanitarian aid to Palestinian refugees as he does on Twitter. He said, we pay the Palestinians hundreds of millions of dollars a year and get no appreciation or respect, why should we make any of these massive future payments to them? That is a very, very mature way to express those thoughts. And it turns out that that was not just boasting, I'm sure somebody probably covered that tweet and then people told them why you're just covering what he tweets.

But two weeks later, the U.S. withheld $65 million of a planned $125 million payment to the The United Nations Relief and Works Agency. By August, the Trump administration announced that it would cut all U.S. funding for the agency. So once again, what he says on Twitter ends up becoming reality. And what's interesting is that just one day before that tweet, a cable actually went out from Israel to our State Department announcing that there were concerns inside of their government about what a cut in this aid would actually do. And we know about this thanks to TYT Investigates.

Klippenstein doing great work here. And so first of all, let's talk a little bit about why that cut in aid actually matters. So why would you hypothetically be concerned about that? Well, in September, the World Bank warned that the economy of Gaza was in free fall, noting that half the population lives in poverty, youth unemployment is over 70%. And according to Sarah Leah Whitson of Human Rights Watch, cutting that particular aid agency that we were talking about earlier, their assistance, medical care and education for Palestinians will only escalate their grievances and anger.

However much Trump and Netanyahu's goal is to bring them to their knees to acquiesce to giving up their rights and land. So sensitive documents coming out of Israel, we now have access to. Let's talk about a couple of little quotes from that. Speaking off the record, our contact cited particular concern with any move to reduce UNRWA funding in Gaza. He said that while the existence of UNRWA was a political poke in the to Israel, it nonetheless provided valuable humanitarian relief to Gaza.

And Kogat, that's the coordinator of government activities in the territories, has long held the view that economic stability in Gaza is linked to its political and security stability. So Kogat is an element of the Israeli military, actually, the Ministry of Defense, I should say. And so they're assessing that Gaza's security situation will continue to worsen as the economic situation progressively deteriorates. This individual highlighted continued rocket activity from Gaza and said the dire economic situation was placing significant pressures on the general population. And so Donald Trump likes to say that, you know, this aid is just some optional thing that

we give, no consequences. You might imagine that Israel might not even be in favor of it, but at least some components of their military and government are worried that worsening humanitarian situations inside of the Palestinian territories could be bad for Israel as well. So one way of looking at this is, of course, if you make this situation in Gaza unbearable, uninhabitable, well, then you're going to leave very little choice to the inhabitants of Gaza. Now you might say, oh, it doesn't matter.

They should never do anything. They should just keep bowing their heads. I hear you, and that's a fine position to have, but that's not the conversation. The conversation is about what are they actually going to do, not what you want them to do, okay? And so, but in political circles, it is nowhere near and of course. We live in a black and white world when it comes to politics. So the answer is either you crush them and then they say, okay, we submit, we'll get back

to that in a second as to whether, how tenable that is, right? Or we give them some level of money, et cetera, and I guess the right wing would say we're appeasing them and then the left wing would say, no, we're going towards peace. Now the reality is, even though the right wing government of Israel on our Netanyahu says, no, we don't want you to give them aid. Secretly, they're telling, and because of this, we now know, telling the US government, no, don't do that, don't do that, don't take away the aid, ignore what we're saying about not giving them aid, it's a poke in the eye, wink, okay?

But the reality is, if you take that aid away, it's gonna make an unstable situation even more unstable, which is terrible for Israel. This is that the guy talking to our embassy is from the Ministry of Defense for Israel. He's not overly concerned about the Palestinians, that somebody else is. problem. He's concerned about how it affects Israel, okay? And he's saying, it's gonna be terribly unstable, don't do that. So it's interesting on a couple of fronts.

One is the different message you get behind the scenes as opposed to what you see on television, where Netanyahu and Trump come out and go, oh yeah, God damn, and don't give the Palestinians anything or what do you give them anything for? And Trump, apparently, maybe you would think to his credit, means it, goes, yeah, goddamn, what do I care about the Palestinians, let's crush him. Meanwhile, the Israeli government's like, okay, good feeder, okay, but let's be careful here. And John's right, and Ken mentions this in his story.

This guy that is quoted by our diplomats in the embassy in Israel doesn't necessarily speak for the entire of the Israeli government either, and neither does in Netanyahu, but there are significant branches within the Ministry of Defense that go, no, we can't cut the aid. really bad idea, again, not concerned about the Palestinians as much as they are for Israel, because clearly if you're a thinking person, it is actually a complicated matrix, and there are reverberating consequences. In the black and white world of the right wing, there are never any consequences, nothing's ever complicated, you just crush people and you move on.

So finally, I want to come back to that for a second. So the idea is to make them accurate and submit the Palestinians. I mean, do they really think, submit to what? I mean, they already submit to the occupation. And any effort to fight against the occupation, of course, if it's violent, is condemned by everyone, including us, obviously, right? But even if it's diplomatic effort or an economic effort, Israel screams from the rooftops, unacceptable!

So I already know that part. But what else do you want them to submit to? just like a one state rule forever? Do you want them to come out and do a public statement? Okay, everybody's broke, nobody's got jobs, we're all crushed, okay, we submit to Netanyahu for the rest of our lives, we don't even want a state anymore. We just want to be ruled by you. Is that what they want?

Is that what they're expecting? That could be. Yeah, I mean, and that is the insanity of the conversation we're having now. So now some on the left are so frustrated, they're going, yeah, goddamn right, one state solution. Let's have a democracy in the Middle East where we have a one-state solution and everybody votes the Palestinians and the Israelis. See how you like them apples? Well, the realities for me, I never waver from the two-state solution and I don't like

either one of those apples. I don't like the apple where the Palestinians have both the Israelis, and I don't like it when Israel permanently occupies the Palestinians. And not only is it deeply, deeply immoral, and yes, it is immoral. For God's sake, if you care about Israel, get them on the moral high ground, not the moral low ground, which is exactly where they are after many brutal decades of occupation of another people, right? But yes, it's crushing for the Palestinians, but it's terrible for the Israelis as well.

It's got to be a two-state solution, and so I do not accept it where it need to have a permanent occupation. And if you do, besides the morality of it, if you only care about Israel's security, you couldn't give a damn about any Palestinian or their lives or their kids. Okay, it turns out, it's gonna turn out terrible for Israel's security and they know it. So thank you Donald Trump for making a situation worse as usual. And even if you're a right winger in America or Israel, wake up. Even the Netanyahu government knows there's only a certain limit as to how much we can

crush these people before there are consequences for us. Yeah. Yeah, there's a couple angles on this that I really love. Again, we do it, we have to acknowledge that this is a view from inside of the government. Obviously, it's not their public view, and it might not be the majority view, but it seems so reasonable that if you beat these people down and leave them with no jobs and no electricity in many cases, medicines are to come by food, it's hard to come by all of that, that's going to be bad, like security-wise, not just economically, while you're maintaining a blockade

against them and stopping people from sending in the sorts of things that would reinforce the situation and to make it more stable. That is a weird thing and that on the one hand you call for other people to effectively through aid organizations circumvent the blockade while maintaining it and stopping them from getting into a generally better situation. At the same time, I guess there's three things. Donald Trump was the guy that was gonna come in and he was gonna fix this whole thing, right? That's what we were told, or Jared Kushner, I guess, he's an expert on that.

He went to a conference or something. People actually believe that, that's absurd. at what effect he's been able to have in just a limited period of time. So that's amazing. And then in terms of what we get incensed about as a culture and what there's actually action for, Donald Trump cut the aid. Got only know, like we see this number, 65 million, it'll end up being the full 125 million will be cut.

In future years, you won't have it until you get sensible government again. So what effect does that actually have an individual Palestinians? I don't know for sure, it's difficult to know. But we know it's going to be bad for them, is it crazy to think that it will result in deaths? that people will actually die, not have access to food, not have access to medicine, things like that? I don't think that's crazy at all. And yet, you know, thankfully Ken found this. I hear the Daily Beast picked it up. That's great. There'll be a little bit of talk about it. Think about

like proportionally, last week Mark Lamont Hill gave a speech. He already lost one job, and they're coming for his academic job as well. He didn't cut aid to any group. He didn't lead to people dying in the streets or anything like that. He might actually lose his position. And Donald Trump, it's just something he tweeted about and we move on. It's a ridiculous world that we live in. So on Mark Lamont Hill, what happened? I thought the right wing was in favor of free speech. Not so much.

I told you, they're liars. They never cared about free speech. They use our constitution as a gimmick to actually make money for themselves and to fight against democracy. If they cared about free speech, they would be up in arms over. what happened to Mark Lamont Hill. Instead, they are celebrating in the streets. If I was Trump, I tell you there was thousands of a New Jersey celebrating after that decision,

okay? The intellectual dark web would have said something, but it was a three-day weekend. They just weren't there. Yeah. No, and by the way, I saw a tweet from Dave Rubin celebrating. What happened, Mr. Free Speech? What happened? Turns out you were a terrible, outrageous liar all along, all along.

We defended Ben Shapiro being able to speak on college campuses. I defended Megan Kelly saying she shouldn't be fired from NBC for her comments. We have been perfectly consistent, whereas they are frauds, frauds of the highest order. And the minute they get a chance, oh, someone disagrees with us. Get them, get them, fire them from everything, right? And it is free speech, yes, is a governmental issue. And yes, employers can make any decision they like, as we have said consistently throughout. But it is not a decision that we support because we support the government.

concept of a free marketplace of ideas and speech. In fact, it is progressives who fight for that and conservatives who hate the idea of a free marketplace of ideas because their ideas generally suck. They're deeply, deeply unpopular. That's why they don't like it when there are consequences usually to their actions. Okay, now, back to this, I got Ken Klybisda, a wonderful job. This is why we did TYT Investigates, and I want to thank every single Young Turks viewer that contributed to that campaign.

Now, yes, it is being reported in other outlets now that Donald Trump has made the situation worse, and now we know it because we did research, we did our jobs, and Clippinside went and found, did a freedom of information request and found the information from our ministry, basically, our diplomats in Israel. And now you know that in fact, and this is really important to know, even Israel's as concerned about their own security because if badly the United States of America and Donald Trump is treating the Palestinians. Yeah.

Imagine if we had like 10 kens. I know, I know, that would be amazing, one thing at a time, guys. And look, t.com slash join because membership builds homo progressives, it also builds our investigative unit going forward. And that's how we make this possible so you could actually get real opinions here based on facts and that is disciplined and principled. And so great job by Kenan breaking this story. Yeah, the only issue I have is that you mispronounce my name.

It's not join, it's John. T.y.t.com slash John. Okay. Okay, let's move on. I have a feeling that you're gonna love this story. Which one? The next one? The Wisconsin story.

Oh yeah, I'm ready. Okay, let's move on to this. Wisconsin voters chose the Democrat in last month's elections for both governor and attorney general, giving the Democratic Party new powers to shape the future of that state. At least hypothetically, that is if the last-ditch effort of Republicans to strip those positions of all of their authority doesn't actually go through. But the Republicans are really making a go at it. So here are some of the things that the Republicans are trying to do to get rid of the power

in those positions before the Democrats can actually take those positions. Among other measures, the bill they're talking about would take away the governor's ability to approve major decisions by Attorney General Elections. Josh Call, who ousted Republican Brad Schumel in the November midterm, granting this power to Republican lawmakers instead, it would give the legislature not call the authority to determine how money is allocated from court settlements. Lawmakers would also be granted the authority to intervene in legal challenges to state laws, including by hiring private attorneys to oversee the litigation instead of the attorney general. That particular power, if they were to take

that over would drastically change the future challenges to Wisconsin's approach to the ACA in that state. So there's other aspects too, those are some of the big ones. Yeah, so let me begin the rage, and then we'll give you the details on more of the changes. So this is the Republicans, as usual, not believing in democracy and exposing their hypocrisy in one fell swoop. So they did this in North Carolina as well. They are now considering it in Michigan.

Whenever they have a state where Democrats have won the governorship and other important races, but they still control the legislatures, the Republicans are going in and going, all right, strip the power right away of the governor. And now in this case, the Attorney General as well. Just get rid of their power, that way we'll maintain power, no matter what the people of Wisconsin voted. Who cares? Democracy.

It's just a gimmick, they don't believe in it at all. And so why doesn't the press call it out? In this case, it's super obvious, there's not a single blue state that says, oh, we got a Republican governor, Phil Scott in Maryland, Paul Hogan, or Paul Hogan, Larry Hogan in Maryland, okay? That's not a legislature, this is a legislature. Okay, that's right. So Hogan and Maryland, well, why don't they strip away his power since they've got legislatures

that are controlled by the Democrats? I'll get back to that idea, because I think they should do that right now, I do, I'll explain that in a second, okay. But the press calls it even. Now, why? Because they're stuck in the 1990s. For some reason, Washington got stuck in a time bubble, and they still think that everything is like, oh, all politics is local.

They said that, that was from the 1970s. Yeah, in the 1970s, there was no internet. That's why all politics was local, right? All politics is local. No, it's not. That's totally outdated. Oh, everybody's bipartisan and roots for the country over party. Now, there's good reason to say that in the past.

I know it hasn't been that way for so long, especially for millennials, you think, no way, when have the Republicans ever thought that? No, they did. In fact, George H.W. Bush, who passed away recently, wrote a letter to Bill Clinton, and I want to read you a part of it because I think it gives you a sense of how Washington perceives the Republican Party, because this was their past. So he wrote a letter where just to Bill Clinton and left it at the Oval Office, and remember, Bill Clinton defeated him in the election, defeated him.

And he said, there will be very tough times made even more difficult by criticism, you may not think is fair. I'm not very good one to give advice, but just don't let the critics discourage you or push you off course. You will be our president, and he underlined R, when you read this note. I wish you well, I wish your family well, your success now is our country's success. I am rooting hard for you. Look, George H.W. Bush.

See, now that is a magnanimous guy. It wasn't just a transition of power. It was a transition of power to a guy he'd lost to. And it was a tough campaign. It's not like Bill Clinton was overly fair to George H.W. Bush in that campaign. But he believed in the country, Bush did. Okay? And so he really did root for a Bill Clinton.

But that is not today's Republican Party. Today's Republican Party doesn't give a damn about the other side. In fact, wants to crush the other side, fair or unfair, cheating or not cheating. You want to block voters? Great, let's block voters nonstop. You win, despite the fact that we blocked voters, took away voting booths, did voter purges, et cetera, then we strip away your power. They will cheat under any and all circumstances.

And that is what they're doing now. And the mainstream media is failing the country by not pointing out that it is one-sided. And now to the hypocrisy. Mitch McConnell blocked Obama's Supreme Court nomination, the nominee that he picked, Merrick Garland, for over a year, say, hey, we gotta let the people decide. I care about democracy, wink. But wait, the people did decide, that's why they elected Obama as president, and he gets to make their decision.

Yeah, but only twice. They only elected him twice. Yeah, he said, nope, no, no, we had to wait 14 months and let the people decide. Well, in this case, the people in Wisconsin decided they want Tony Evans as their governor. The Republican is like, we were lying the whole time we were lying. We don't care about democracy, we don't care about the people deciding. No, we're gonna strip away the powers of the guys that you elected. That's who the Republican Party is.

Yeah, yeah, the Merrick Garland thing. It is amazing to look back on that and see the way that it was covered. The minimal outrage that was expressed at that historic theft. Let's talk a little bit more about some of what the Republicans are attempting to do. The bill would also limit early voting to two weeks ahead of election rather than six weeks in some parts of the state currently. So, not a big fan of elections, which is sort of understandable, considering that they didn't win the last set. And it's because they're authoritarian by nature. You know, they have this stupid thing about like, oh, you know, we're not a democracy, we're a republic.

Why do you hate democracy so much? We're a Democratic Republic, the Republic where we have representative democracy. That's the point of the republic, is representative democracy. But if you think you're not going to win elections going forward, then you hate democracy. They don't care about the country, and they hate our system of government. All they care about is power. Yeah. Well, similarly, I would say that their love for the electoral college certainly has spiked recently.

I don't know how attached they were to it a couple decades ago. Okay, the proposed legislation would also change the timing of the presidential primary in Wisconsin. A strategy Democrats say that is aimed at reducing voter turnout to impose. the re-election odds of conservative state Supreme Court justice. So he's gonna be up for reelection at that point, rather than holding on an election date where there will be a lot of people voting, they want to change it to a time when there will be less interest in the election, less likely that some challenger will be able to get out enough people to actually win that.

So they're looking a couple of years in advance in that change and willing to completely manipulate state law to potentially maybe save the career of one judge a couple years in the future. That is pretty amazing. Okay. By the way, really fast. In mid-November, Governor Walker said he approved of this idea and other plans to limit the authority of his Democratic successor.

We don't know for sure if he would have been okay with it when he came in as governor to limit it. Just on the way out, he's okay with it. Yeah, interesting how that works. All right, so look, you should always be checking out Facebook.com slash Rebel HQ. Why? Because whenever there's a progressive event, we tried to cover it. proportions of this, the protests against this move today in Wisconsin, partly led by Randy

Bryce, Iron Stash. Nice. And so whenever there's an event like this, like I said, Facebook.com slash RebelHQ. Now my bold proposal that we do likewise. Too many Democrats, not too many, almost all of them, my entire lifetime, I have always said, oh, that's not fair, it's offensive, it's objectionable, it's not right, and they leave it at that? No, it's time to strike back.

So I do believe that Democratic legislatures that have Republican governors should immediately look to strip those governors of almost all of their power. Now, do I want that to be permanent? No, of course not. Do I believe that that's the right way of running things? Of course not. But the Republicans don't care about anything but power. So asking them to be nice is borderline stupid.

They don't care about nice, they find that laughable. So when we object to their plans, they're amused. You think we're gonna move them by asking them, by pleading with them, by saying that we're offended? No, you only move them through raw power. So in all those blue states where you have a Republican governor, you should immediately strip them of as much power as you could possibly imagine. Get rid of it all until they cry uncle.

And they go, okay, okay, okay, okay, okay, yeah, of course, we meant democracy. We meant democracy. Just kidding about stripping away power in North Carolina, Wisconsin, and Michigan. Until you do likewise, they're never, ever, ever going to listen to you. They're just, it's going to continue to be one-sided. The press is going to help them by calling it even and equating lies and fascism with truth and democracy. So until then, strike back.

Strike back right now. Make sure that those Republican governors in the Northeast have no power at all. And then go, how you like them apples? Okay, now you wanna sit down and negotiate? And so we do this right? If not, you know what, we can go further. You like taking away voting boosts? I don't know why there's any voting boosts in Republican areas in California and New York.

I mean, look, I'm sure there's very good reasons why they all had to be moved into blue. areas of California and New York, just like they do in Republican states, very good reasons. Strike back immediately until you break them. That's the answer. Now, will anybody do that? Of course not. Because the Democrats are soft, soft, soft, soft, soft, and the Republicans will strip away every power they can and they don't care.

One side cares about democracy, the other side doesn't. So that's why the Republicans constantly take democracy hostage. because they know we care too much about it. First break? All right. I'm revved up, as you can tell. Yes, we will take our first break. When we come back, well, man, Neil deGrasse Tyson.

Oh, that's a hell of a question. And he has been charged to some degree in a matter of speaking, accused of some sexual impropriety. I'm curious what you're taking on it is. I'm going to have a unique take as usual, okay, so buckle up, and then it's the Pope a good guy or a bad guy. We have some conflicting evidence, all that when we return. We hope you're enjoying this free clip from the Young Turks.

If you want to get the whole show and more exclusive content while supporting independent media, become a member at t.com slash join today. In the meantime, enjoy this free second. All right, back on the Young Turks. Let me read names of folks who gave to the Amplify program. Chris Tumi from Lake Charles, Louisiana. Thank you, Chris. Appreciate it three memberships to...

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and entertained all at the same time. Journalism students, and by the way, when you get $150 or above, you're going to get an exclusive T-YT T-shirt for this campaign. And like with the investigative reporters, when I see you guys with those T-shirts, I know you made stories like the one we just reported possible. That was totally you. for doing that. Catherine Gata from Oregon, same thing.

Catherine, you'll be getting a T-shirt. Umberto Moriara from San Francisco. Just gave $500. So he's also going on the honor roll on t-y-y-t.com. Umberto, you are awesome. Thank you. Scott McGregor from Wisconsin of all places. He will be getting a T-shirt as well.

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Adam, thank you, brother. Really, really appreciate it. It helps the show, it builds home of progressives, and he gets the message out to other members of the media. And so that's why we thought it was a win-win for everybody. TYT.com slash Amplify to participate. There's so many more out there on that. And then, of course, if you haven't joined yet, this is a perfect time because we're doing

free trials, it's free trial for a week, and then it renews after that, and renews, meaning you get charged after that. So if you want to get out of it, make sure that you do, t.t.com slash holiday, okay? There's, and speaking of membership sign-ups, so I smoke this guy. He's gonna have to try to catch back up now that he's back on the show, that's what you get for taking a vacation or being off the air for any reason. It's so stupid of me. That's right.

On the other hand, I can't, there's, Anna keeps pulling ahead. I don't know how she's doing it. I brought it down to under 40 and she's back up to a 50 person lead. So t.t.com slash jank to sign up for membership, okay, for God's sake. She is, she's got alligator blood. She does, she does, bless her heart. I've got to tell you two other things real quick. One of the things you're gonna get for membership is we did a special show for the members

called Hostmates. It's a takeoff of the Newlywood game where we paired up different hosts, me and Anna versus John and Brooke versus Michael and Ben. Wait till you see it, guys, we already shot it. It was very fun. It was hilarious. Very funny. Can we guess what each other is gonna say?

You're gonna love that show, okay? It's one of the most fun special events we've ever done. TYT.com slash join to become a member. And then finally, you need to panic over the shop because in order to get your gifts by December 25th, you have to buy them by December 5th for us to be able to guarantee delivery. And we are, we are guaranteed delivery by December 25th for U.S. domestic orders only, okay? So shop, tyt.com, December 5th, obviously a couple of days left before that. So make sure that you buy off there for your Christmas presents, or apparently as Fox News thinks

we say, for your holiday presents. Okay. All right, we'll read comments later after the Bernie Sanders Town Hall. Let's keep going for now. Okay. If you're not terrified that marijuana in gummy form could kill you and your family, then clearly you have been watching Fox News recently. A kid in Florida brought some gummies to his school.

And this is how Fox and Friends covered it. We ended up with six 12-year-old children who overdosed on Green Hornet gummies full of marijuana. Right. Sheriff, do we know, did this kid know it they were marijuana-based or did he think it's just candy? And if so, did he take him to the gym class because it's like, hey, look what I got? Or was it just an accident? No, it wasn't an accident at all. He knew exactly what it was.

It was a complete package, 100 milligrams of gummies. They're divided up or segmented into 10 individual doses for adults, sold legally in California, and somehow it made its way here. I love when just sold legally in California is said as the ultimate scare tactic. By the way, it's also sold legally in many other places like Colorado, so I don't know why California, it gets to quote unquote blame. But I will generally take credit for the edibles in California. Okay.

Okay. So look, as one of the biggest edible advocates in America, I think that they are generally wonderful. But we're not like Fox News, so let me be clear that should you be careful? Of course, the world's not black and white. Either edibles are awesome and everybody should have them, okay? or they're dangerous and they kill people and no one should have them. The reality is, I am a little worried about all the candy and the cookies because kids

and other people can accidentally take them. In fact, I got news recently that, and a woman who's a little older, took, ate a cookie at someone else's house not knowing that it was an edible and obviously she'd never smoked before, she'd never done anything before. And she freaked out and went, and she had to go to the hospital. Now, was she okay? Yes, I told her, like, give it a couple of hours. I know she's going to want to go and bless her art, let her go, right?

And she reported back that she began to see pink elephants, okay, which is possible, and hence the reason to take edibles. Yes. But they must be clearly labeled. And generally speaking, they are. But sometimes- Those are. Yeah, but sometimes people do leave it out. You really should be very careful about that.

Because if kids take it or even people who are unfamiliar with it, they're going to get freaked down and it could have trouble. But do people die from it? No, no, there's never been a reported case of anyone ever dying for marijuana. Now you wouldn't know that if you watch Fox News, it seems, oh my God, oh D's and everybody they go there. You'd think that there was a massacre at the school, oh no, that's the guns that you advocate for.

That's what creates massacres of schools, but they're trying to tell you, no, the real dangerous pot in the schools. It's gummies. It's gummy bears. They're coming for your kids. Yeah, you got label things. I mean, I've told the story about when my friend left out of tray brownies and I ate a bunch. I got higher than I've ever been in my life. It was a bit of a disaster, but it wasn't labeled. It should have been. And it was kind of fun in the end. And so here's the thing. We've been sort of alluding to their worries about death coming. Well, we've got two more videos for you. In this next one, before they're concerned about death, they're first concerned about advertising. Why is it that they're advertising to kids, as you'll see?

I'm thinking 12 years old. We were sixth grade, fifth grade, sixth grade then. I mean, you're, you're just learning about life. No one's even thinking about, you haven't even kissed a boy at that point. How in the world are you seeing more of this where teenage or kids, not even teenagers, they're 12, where they're getting their hands on drugs? But think about it for a minute. If this is truly medicine for the very sickest, why are we packaging it to four children? Why are we calling it Green Hornet and it's, stung all of those kids really hard. And by the way, we have stung the one kid that sold it with six felony counts. It is difficult to be a guest on Fox and Friends and be the person that says the stupidest thing. But he managed to, one of the most disingenuous arguments I've ever heard in my life. If it's legitimate medicine, why are we marketing it to kids? First of all, they didn't market to kids, they called it Green Hornet. It's green because everything marijuana related is green, a nice hornet joke, I guess.

That doesn't mean that it's for kids, okay? They're marketing it to adults in a fun way, like we market everything in the world. And it's also medicinal. It can be used for medicinal things. It's for both things, actually. And him pretending that you only get to use it in one way. Either it helps your grandma with her glaucoma, or you can have fun with it on a Saturday night. You gotta choose one, America.

It's ridiculous. I love that he set up that it would, it stung those kids line. You know, he thought of it, and he's like, oh, I gotta say it. I gotta say it when we're out. It didn't work, brother. And hey, for one bad joke guy to another, okay, now glass house and all that, but it was super corny. Yeah.

Anyways, now, I don't think they'd do it anymore, and I don't know if any of you are old enough to remember, but Exxon used to have a tiger in their heads. The tiger would come out of the gas tank and it was, and Frosted Flakes also is a Tony the Tiger. They're great, right? I can't believe they're trying to sell gas to kids with a tiger mascot like that. Yeah. Exxon. And this is really bad of the weed companies because, like, cigarette companies would never

use cartoons to sell cigarettes potentially to appeal to kids. Like a cartoon of a camel or something. Maybe. No, just- And what conservatives were thrilled with and defended for the entirety of the time of the cigarette companies were doing that. Do you want us to- like, I don't- I have another? I don't know that this exists. Do you want me to Google guns advertised to kids to see what I come up with?

You don't think there's anything out there in America, some cartoons, pink guns? Just take a look at any of Sasha Baron Cohen's skits from his recent Showtime show, where the conservatives couldn't wait to market the guns to kids and toddlers, a teddy bear where you pull the string and it fires a bullet into whoever's on the other side. That was literal. Yes, I remember. Okay, one more video for you. But no one talks about this TEC is addicting.

People like, I know so many people, they say they were told one thing and they had to get addicted to it. And that's an addicting substance. There is a price to pay for pot. There absolutely is a price to pay for pot. You know, I spent my entire adult life in law enforcement and a lot of it investigating traffickers of drugs. And it's not a minor nonviolent felony. It's ruining families and killing people. people every day across the United States and we stand here in denial thinking that it's

not a gateway drug to drugs that's killing people. Yeah, you don't start on cocaine. You probably start with marijuana and it leads to other things, right? That's absolutely right. And still today, we have a meth problem across this state and country. If someone's in possession of meth, they're in possession of marijuana because it kind of cuts the edge of the meth. And then they use the marijuana and the meth and they go out and kill themselves.

or overdose or kill someone else. Right. Yeah, that makes sense. Yes. Brian Kilmey, has he ever smoked a single bit of weed? Has he ever, it's an addictive, everybody just getting addicted to it. There are very addictive things in this country. Yes, there is social addiction, you can be habituated to things and stuff like that.

But on the list of addictive substances, marijuana has got to be placed very low. And it's not killing people constantly. It's not selling or using marijuana, is not a violent crime. crime and look, the most important thing is if someone out there, maybe you live in a state that hasn't legalized marijuana yet, and you might see advertisements and every time that they go to their ballot measure or something like that, you're gonna have the fear campaign to scare you in and not legalizing it. And they will tell you that your kids are gonna have a gummy and they're gonna die.

That's not actually true. Judge Francis Young, back I think in it was 1999, wrote in one of her decisions, a smoker would theoretically have to consume nearly 1,500 pounds of marijuana with, about 15 minutes to induce a lethal response, which is difficult. They did it on MythBusters once and lost a host, but it was difficult. They had to set up a whole thing. I'm kidding, they didn't do that. You can't do that, it's ridiculous.

And in order to fatally overdose on a cannabis edible, a person would have to eat over half a gram of THC per kilogram of body weight. According to a recent study, for the average adult male, he would have to consume over an ounce and a half of pure THC, which I have heard is more than a marijuana user is expected to consume in their lifetime. in the form of edibles. Yes, and so last thing here, first of all, I did appreciate the tutorial on meth. Oh, you're going to want to cut it with a little bit of marijuana.

I'm like, oh, things I did not know, luckily. By the way, don't do meth. So, but the final thing is, yeah, there is a gateway drug, to be fair. It's called Oxycontin. Yes. And it's a gateway drug that is actually killing people. First of all, it doesn't even need to be a gateway. A huge percentage of people who die in this country from being addicted to opioids just

die from the legal pharmaceutical drugs. And then another percentage die because it's a gateway drug to heroin and heroin kills them. And if heroin doesn't kill them, fentanyl kills them. So the idea of a gateway drug is true, it just happens to be for the pharmaceuticals that are perfectly legal in America and that have spent a great deal of money bribing politicians. Number one donors to political figures is the pharmaceuticals. The pharmaceutical industry.

Yeah. Why? Because they sell a drug that is deeply addictive, does kill people, but they just got the politicians to make it legal. Yeah. Marijuana is none of those things. As usual, with Fox News, take what you hear and turn it upside down. It's the exact opposite of what's true.

If you did have a murderous person on meth, wouldn't you want them to take the edge off a little bit? That sounds like it would be helpful, actually. Okay, let's move on to one more story. I think that's probably all we're going to be able to fit in. Well-known scientist, Neil deGrasse Tyson, is facing sexual misconduct allegations from three women now. This is coming from last Friday, and I want to give you a rundown of the different allegations. One woman, Tchia Amet, says that Neil deGrasse Tyson drugged and raped her when the two were students at the University of Texas Austin. Another, Ashley Watson, says he made unwanted advances when she was his assistant, causing her to quit her job.

A third, Katlyn Allers says she was felt up by Tyson at a party in 2009. So you have three different women. Two of these sets of allegations are new, as of just a few days ago. One has been known about for a number of years at this point. Let's talk a little bit more in depth about each of the sets of allegations. So Ashley Watson, who was one of the aides on a show that he was filming, was asked to come to his apartment for some one-on-one time, a wine and cheese thing, he said, and she did end up going. In his apartment, Assistant Ashley Watson said he told her that, as human beings, we all need release and asked if there were any releases

that she needed. Shortly after, she said, she went to leave, and he asked to show her what he called a Native American handshake, which involved clasping their hands together and finding the pulse on the other person's wrist while looking into each other's eyes. She broke it off after about 10 seconds and stood up to leave. So that's the first allegation. Now, he has since a couple of days later, he posted on Facebook addressing all of these allegations. And so for each of these, I want to give you a little bit of what he said in his defense. In his Facebook post, Dr. Tyson described the handshake as one he uses in appreciation of people with whom I've developed new friendships, he says. He said that at work, Ms. Watson freely offered hugs,

which he typically rejected, but that on a few occasions, he clumsily declared, if I hug I might just want more. My intent was to express restrained, but genuine affection. So that is the first and most recent of the allegations coming from earlier this year, actually. Okay, so let's break this down. First of all, the source is enormously relevant. So if I see a report in the New York Times, that is different than if I see a report in an all right blog, okay?

And in this case, the report is coming from Pathios, which is a magazine apparently dedicated to faith and spirituality. And my guess is they are not allies of Neil deGrasse Tyson. So they generally hate science. And so they're like, oh, he's a prominent scientist. Hey, look at this thing I found out about a handshake that he did, okay? So now, hold on, let's judge the merits of it, okay? But yes, I do have a grain of salt on this because of the source, I do.

So if you think that no, even if Roger Stone gave it to me, I would trust it immediately and think it's absolutely true, that's your call to make, but I wouldn't, okay? So, and context matters is that people who have fought for women before, is it people who have fought against women before, et cetera, okay, now, and they, and let's say in one By what? There's a tattoo. Okay. Well, I can go through the other allegations if you want.

And then I want to give you my sense of how legitimate it is. And I know that people will say, oh, you can't do that. Well, I am going to do that. So let's give you the details and I'll give you what I think. Okay, so stepping back in time, the second allegation comes from Catlin Allers, an associate professor of physics and astronomy at Bucknell University. She was at a party with Neil DeGrasse Tyson. Now she has a tattoo of the solar system stretching from an orange.

arm to her collarbone. She said Dr. Tyson was, quote, obsessed with whether the tattoo included Pluto. She says he looked for Pluto and fall the tattoo into my dress, she told the website, describing it as uncomfortable and creepy. Dr. Tyson in his message on Facebook noted that Pluto had been declared no longer a planet just three years earlier, so whether people included or not in their tattoos is of great interest to me. And then as we alluded to, there was the, if you're going back the farthest back in 1984,

Chia met, a graduate student that he says on Facebook that he had dated briefly. He says that they did have sex. He doesn't remember an incident like this, but she alleges that she took a drink, and when she made her pass out, when she came to, he was having sex with her. That's what she says. Okay. So first on Pluto. So do I challenge that the person was uncomfortable?

I do not challenge that at all. That is their decision to make and she thought it was creepy, et cetera. Is this something that you fire someone over that they wanted to look at a tattoo of a Pluto on someone's shoulder? It makes it seem like, oh my God, under the dress, et cetera. No, no, no. It stretched to her collarbone and she says, yes, it's on my shoulder. Okay, your call to make too, you could say, hey, you know what?

No, zero tolerance, and I judge everyone 100%, no matter what the severity is, you wanna look at somebody's shoulder, you're gone, you're fired. You could make that call. I wouldn't make that call. I don't know if anyone's making that call. Okay, I don't know. I don't think anyone's saying that he should be fired for it. Okay, over this stuff?

No, no, over that particular one. Okay, so I'm going one by one. Okay, so number two, look guys, it's the reason. The reason I break this down, even though almost everyone will criticize me, the right wing will and probably the left wing will. How dare you? You can't do relativity. Yes, you can.

Attempted rape is way worse than seeing someone's shoulder. Al Frankenen had a lot of different accusations of different varying degrees, and it should be taken very seriously. One of them was, as he was taking a picture, he put his hand on the person's waist. I don't know where else you put the hand. That's not a thing. Now, that doesn't mean none of the other things are true. true or important or serious, right?

So let's go to charge number two here. So the woman who worked under him, well, now we got a different situation here, and she felt uncomfortable. She seems very genuine, so I take that super seriously. Now, whether you want to fire him over is a good question, because the only thing physical he did was do a handshake, and he says, and for now I don't think that she's on the record disputing this at all, but I definitely want to hear her out on it. She said, he says, the next day I told her, oh my God, I didn't know it made you uncomfortable.

I'm so sorry and that she accepted that apology, but she was uncomfortable enough to leave. So that's a serious matter, okay? But he never did anything more physical than a handshake. Again, you're called to make, I'm just telling you what happened, right? But he did invite her over the whole wine and inviting her over. I could see how you think that's creepy, I totally get it. And that you'd be uncomfortable working there in the future. Yes, and then Charlie Rose did similar things, but Charlie Rose would then take it to the next step,

and he would come out of the shower naked. Now, none of that is alleged for Neil deGrasse Tyson. Again, uncomfortable situation, he immediately rectifies it and did nothing but a handshake. Okay, it's up to these folks, okay? And then finally, the rape allegation is super serious, as serious as it gets. Now, how do we judge that? If he was up for the Supreme Court, you know what I'd say? Do an FBI investigation and do it for long enough until we figure it out.

Because if he did actually a raper, I wouldn't want him on the Supreme Court, I wouldn't want him on Cosmos, I wouldn't want him on anything, okay? Now he's not in a situation like this. I don't know how the employer investigates an allegation that old. It is very similar to the Bill Cosby allegation. Did they have the same M.O. from all that time ago or, you know, or was that in the news a lot? I'm not qualified.

I have no idea. I know, I'm not, and I'm saying that totally serious, I have no idea, right? But it is an allegation from a long time ago and I don't know how an employer deals with that. And all of this in a publication that probably despises Neil deGrasse Tyson, just for context. Okay. Okay, we gotta go. Bernie Sanders Town Hall is next. Bye, bye.

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 Yugar, and I'll see you soon.