The Young Turks - Under the Gun

Episode Date: May 28, 2021

Senate GOP unveils its $928 billion infrastructure counteroffer to Biden – here’s what’s in it. ‘Enough’: Biden renews calls for a gun control bill after the San Jose rail yard shooting. Idiot former NYPD detective and Fox guest claims mass shootings are on the rise because people are getting vaccinated. 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 Ugrainer with you guys. So that means we are going to criticize both Democrats and Republicans because that's the reality of events and people will either catch feelings or they won't. But the facts will still remain the facts. So that's what we're going to deliver for you guys. And then we'll give you an analysis and perspective that you'll likely find absolutely nowhere else.

All right, Anna, take it away. Well, I wanted to start off with an update on the infrastructure negotiations because Republicans have in fact come out with another counteroffer. and it's very clear where their priorities are at. The Senate GOP has unveiled their infrastructure counteroffer to the Biden administration. As some of you may know, Biden is negotiating with GOP senators, about 10 of them in order to come to some sort of agreement on what will be included in the infrastructure bill and how the infrastructure bill will be paid for. Now, remember, the first proposal coming from Joe Biden was to the tune of $2.3 trillion. He's already conceded to cutting funding for the bill to $1.7 trillion. Republicans have now counteroffered with a spending that goes a little under $1 trillion

and, of course, refuses to raise any taxes on the wealthy or corporations. Biden's latest offer to Republicans came in at $1.7 trillion. That's $600 billion less than his original plan. he has urged the GOP to put at least $1 trillion into this infrastructure package, and they came back with something a little bit lower than that. So Senate Republicans unveiled a $920 billion infrastructure counteroffer to President Joe Biden. In their counteroffer, Republicans again rejected Biden's call to raise corporate taxes contending they could over, they could cover infrastructure costs with regressive taxation. So they want to use funds.

already allocated by Congress for the coronavirus relief plan. And also with transportation user fees, which would apply to everyone, including the nation's poor. So that's why I refer to it as a regressive tax instead of just raising taxes on corporations. One other thing I want to just quickly mention is that, remember, Biden's first proposal was to increase the corporate tax rate from 21%, which is what Trump had lowered it to from 35%. Biden wanted to increase it to 28%. Now he is saying, look, it's got to at least be 25% guys. And Republicans are saying, no, we are not interested in that. That is a non-starter for us. Yeah, before I get to how this has devastated the Green New Deal aspects of the infrastructure bill, which we told you it would.

Let me just clarify a whole bunch of important context here. So first of all, Anna pointed out that they're going to put some gas tax on you, et cetera. We're going to get to that in a second, but also use some of the funds already allocated. So that leaves the question of, wait, how much of this is new funding? Because 928, it sounds like it's close to a trillion dollars. Now, Biden started at 2.3, but it turns out, no, it's not 928. The new funding would only be $257 billion. So Biden started at $2.3 trillion.

The Republicans have, in essence, countered with a quarter of a trillion. Okay, so there's a giant, giant difference. Of course, I found that fact at the bottom of, like, the 18th article I read, most of it is being presented as nine, almost everyone is presenting it as $928 billion. Now let's talk about Joe Biden's weaknesses. So he says 2.3, then he immediately goes and negotiates against himself and before getting any offer goes fine, 1.7. It's ridiculous.

Like nobody that wants to actually. negotiate and do hardball, whatever, do that, right? You don't go to a car dealership and be like, I'll give you 20,000, fine, I'll give you 25,000 before the guy even says anything, right? And then look at what he said there. He wants the GOP to come up with at least a trillion dollars. I know. That means you're already settling for a trillion. It's so obvious. And a fake trillion at that. Yeah, you're right. I'm glad that you mentioned that because that statement from Biden is telling. It means that he is obviously willing to accept a one trillion dollar infrastructure bill, which means like the very nature of that low funding, well, first of all, please don't

ever compare that to anything FDR did in regard to his economic policies. And secondly, why are we needlessly, like cutting the funding that significantly, more than 50%. And so Republicans are like, if he's willing to settle for a trillion, let's come in even lower. So they came in at $928 billion. And what is also relevant to this is yes, Jake, reappropriating money that had been appropriated for the coronavirus relief bill is the same kind of trick that they played, Republicans played while they were negotiating for the coronavirus relief bill. They wanted to basically take money that had already been appropriated for other things and

reappropriated for the coronavirus relief bill. And the reason why they want to do that is to avoid having to raise. any taxes on the rich. Remember, those are the real people that they are representing here. And Elizabeth Warren in an interview with NBC decided to point that out, but also talked about what Republicans are leaving out in their counteroffer. And that's super relevant to this. Let's watch. Look, I don't really think this is a serious counteroffer. First of all, they don't have pay force for this. It's not real. They have this illusory notion of how we're going to take money that's already been committed to other places and other spending.

Second part is I'm not hearing about the green infrastructure, about the importance of when we make these investments that we're talking about moving our buses to electric, our school buses to electric, our mass transit to electric so that we're bringing down our carbon footprint and whether or not they put enough money in to do this. But the third one is notice who gets left behind, the women. infrastructure is about helping people get to work and helping businesses thrive because they've got workers. We build roads and bridges to do that. We invest in broadband to do that. We need to invest in child care to do that. Millions of women are out of the workforce right now and one

out of four says the reason I can't get child care. So just two more things I want to mention before I go to you, Jenk, because again, I have a few other telling aspects to this story to share with you all, including what we've heard from Shelley More Capito. That's the Republican senator who is essentially leading the charge among Republican senators in these negotiations. And she says this in regard to human infrastructure, okay? Remember, we're talking about providing funding for elder care. We're talking about providing funding for child care.

So people who want to work, for instance, are able to go to work and their wages don't end up getting completely wiped out by the cost of childcare. Well, Shelly Moore Capito is not in any way concerned about that. She says that the White House is still bringing their human infrastructure into this package. And that's just a non-starter for us. The humans are a non-starter for us. No, they say it openly, guys, openly and transparently. It's a non-starter for us, she continued, referring to Biden's plans to put money. into programs including care for elderly and disabled Americans as well.

And then let's go to the final graphic here because the statement from Jen Saki is also relevant to this. In a statement later Thursday, White House Press Secretary Jen Saki praised constructive additions to the Republican proposal, but said the administration remains concerned about the funding levels for rail systems, public transit, and clean energy. She added that the White House is, quote, worried that major cuts in COVID relief funds, funds could imperil pending aid to small businesses, restaurants, and rural hospitals. And of course, she's referring to them repurposing that money. But don't give them a high five for their counteroffer. Their counteroffer was garbage.

In fact, the way that Biden is negotiating on this is also pretty awful because Republican senators got him to cut funding for broadband. And who do you think broadband is overwhelmingly going to benefit? These Republican lawmakers' constituents in rural parts of the country. Yep. Like, what are you doing? Yeah. So first let's talk about what's already been cut, to Anna's point right there.

Broadband improvements gone. This is funny. Improvements of roads and bridges have been cut. That sounds like that's the core of infrastructure. So that's already out of Biden's proposal, let alone the Republican ones. That's where he went down from 2.3 to 1.7. He cut out funding for research and development and supply chain enhancements. Those are all already gone.

Now when I say roads and bridges, it's some of the roads and bridges. I presume they're going to do some roads and bridges. Otherwise, what are we doing here? It's called infrastructure. And now the GOP proposal says that they should also cut the $400 billion for home health care. That's what Elizabeth Warren was referring to. And then partly what she was referring to in, and then Schellingmore Capito says that's the human infrastructure. She doesn't want anything to do with, right?

So I'll tell you right now ahead of time as I told you about the green energy bill, parts of the bill that Senator Warren referred to there. I told you they were going to cop that. It was going to be the first thing on the chopping block. And Biden was going to agree to it. So all the progressives who were giving him credit for actually, you know, doing a part of the Green New Deal, I was like, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, he ain't going to do it, okay? And so unfortunately, I was right about that.

And now I'm telling you ahead of time, they will definitely chop that elderly care. And nursing homes, gone, gone, that's not going to happen, okay? And then $100 billion for electric vehicle consumer rebates or spending to upgrade housing in schools. So wait, spending on housing and schools, this is the Republican version now, right? Are gone, roads and bridges are gone. The human infrastructure is gone. Green energy is gone. Electric vehicle consumer rebates are gone.

What's left? Tax cuts for the rich. Tax cuts for the rich remain. Yeah. Right. So now let's go to that because they say, well, look, we don't have to pay for much because It's all accounting gimmicks. Most of it isn't real.

It's only about $267 billion, right, which is a fraction of what Biden wants. Which, by the way, let me just do an important side note here. This has got Dodd-Frank written all over it. So that was Obama doing incredibly weak financial reform and then getting the media to celebrate it as if it was historic. And the media played along perfectly. And everybody in Washington was ecstatic. It was, it barely touched the big banks, and then they called it historic as if it was fixed. And then to this day, every reporter, a historic Dodd-Frank reform, the people who were championing it, including a guy who was a legendary conservative, former head of the Federal Reserve, Paul Walker, came out and said, no, I don't want my name on any of this.

This is garbage. It doesn't actually rein in the big banks at all, okay? Paraphrasing, obviously, what he's saying there. So this has got that written all over it. Let's repackage stuff that we already passed. Let's actually put in a tiny amount of money. And let's call it historic. And probably the media will go along with it.

A good question is whether progressives will go along with it. So far, not good signs on that front. There's Elizabeth Warren trying to fight back. So that's good. But most progressives usually so far have told Biden, green light, do whatever you want and will never complain. So we'll see how that plays out. But now, guys, I want to talk about the taxes that Anna brought up. So the Republicans say under no circumstances, are we going to raise the corporate taxes?

We lowered them from 35 to 21 under Trump, and we're not going to go up a dollar above 21%. And Biden's begging them. Can you just please go to 25%, which is 10% lower the 35. I'm doing the math for you. And as a percentage of the 35, it's obviously a giant number 40% of it. they will remain in attack if Biden gets his way. So corporations are going to come out giant, giant winners if Biden gets his way. But the Republicans say that's not enough.

So user fees, but they're not against taxes. This is really, really, really important. For Republicans, they're not against raising your taxes. They just want taxes to be raised on you and not corporations. They're not in favor of human infrastructure. So in this context, they're saying not only user fees, that goes to all of you. It's very regressive, so that means you pay more as a percentage of your income and disposable cash, et cetera, than a rich person does.

So the poor in the middle class get hit much, much harder. And then the last part of it is a gas tax. Gas tax is for folks who are on a limited budget, it deals you a super heavy blow. Meanwhile, the corporations are perfectly protected. And then the last part of the trick guys will be, they'll turn around and say, after they increase your gas taxes, the Republicans will turn around and go, can you believe how much there are in taxes? The Democrats, they raise the taxes on you to do this terrible infrastructure bill, and now your gas taxes higher. So you should vote for Republicans. Even though they're the ones proposing the gas tax, guaranteed. That's what they do every single time. So the final analysis, not the Republican proposal is, it's trash and treating it as if it's a real proposal, which is what Biden's doing. They nearly had pom-poms going, oh, Republicans, yeah, gay, was that proposal.

We're so happy. It's so wonderful and constructive. Instead of pushing back in the ways that we're explaining to you, which is purely fact-based, right? I'm giving you my analysis, which is that it's trash, but the facts are indisputable. Republicans are pushing for a gas tax that would hurt you so badly because they are desperate to protect corporations. Now, you could easily say that. Genesaki could have said that.

Biden could say that, but they don't. Instead, they say, oh, the Republicans were wonderful and how constructive they were. Which always leads the question of which side are you really on? And guys, look, if you're wondering, you know, I keep telling you on the show, Joe Biden doesn't actually want to do his so-called agenda. And you might be wondering why. I mean, why does he present an agenda? And then he, and you could see in the facts that he's not really fighting for it, right?

Because the agenda is to get votes. He puts out an agenda that sounds really good and progressive. He knows the country is really progressive. Everyone in media prints it as if he already did it. And then everybody gives him credit and calls him FDR. And then he turns around and what he actually is planning to pass with the Republicans, if anything passes at all, is what corporations are 100% good with. And he turns around to the people that really matter, his donors.

And he says, I told you. you, nothing would fundamentally change. So he gets the best of both worlds. The press does his PR for him, and the voters get tricked in the voting for him, as opposed to another Democrat, and the corporations get their taxes protected. By the way, they will get a lot of the funding from this, and they make the American people pay for the funding that they are going to get. So in the end, it doesn't, this bill is not for us. It, again, for the billion of time in a row is for corporations. So I want to actually respond to Hottie Meter in our member section, I believe,

because it's a good point, and I want to respond to it. So it's, you know, don't just throw out numbers in regard to what the final bill will cost, but we need to focus on what individual states need, which is a great point. But the reason why we bring the numbers up in regard to the GOP's counteroffer is because when the GOP decides that they want to cut, I mean, at this, point, it's $1.7 trillion from Biden's original proposal, and you know what Republicans tend to prioritize, you can definitely bet your bottom dollar that they are going to specifically go after parts of the infrastructure bill that would overwhelmingly benefit working Americans.

And that includes people who might want to go to work, but they can't afford child care, People who are tasked with elder care, for instance, and they're certainly not compensated fairly for that work that they do. These are the things that are always on the chopping block for Republicans, which is why we bring up, you know, where the numbers are at when it comes to these negotiations. And you're absolutely right, Jank. They do see opportunities to bring in some money for their home state. So maybe they'll be a little more reluctant to cut funding on certain parts of the infrastructure bill. But I do find it fascinating that they were not only willing to cut money for broadband internet, which again overwhelmingly benefits people living in rural America,

but that Biden was willing to just like go along with it instead of using the fact that they wanted to cut that as leverage against them with their own constituents. Because I'm sure these constituents would want broadband internet. I'm going to give the last word to one of our members. We love doing the show together with you guys. The infamous Mr. Joyboy writes in, Republicans hate human infrastructure but love human taxes. They love corporate infrastructure, but hate corporate taxes. The equation means your taxes go to support the corporations. Yep, that about accurately summarizes it.

And once again, our members at the Young Turks understand politics infinitely better than most mainstream media reporters. All right, let's take a break. And when we come back, we will talk about the tragic, another tragic mass shooting that took place in California. But the reason why I'm bringing that story back today is because Joe Biden has weighed in on it. And he is basically saying that he's going to do nothing. I'll give you the context. I'll give you more. All the details when we come back.

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

The New York Times described UNFTR as consistently compelling and educational, aiming to challenge conventional wisdom and upend the historical narratives that were taught in school. For as the great philosopher Yoda once put it, You must not learn what you have learned. And that's true whether you're in Jedi training or you're uprooting and exposing all the propaganda and disinformation you've been fed over the course of your lifetime. So search for UNFDR in your podcast app today and get ready to get informed, angered, and entertained all at the same time. You know, Back during the social break, I'm going to go to Twitch first today.

Obie Mom, who's been with us for 14 months at Tier 3 and gifted five sums today, said, thanks for all you do to you ID. No, Obie Mom. Thanks for all you do. So I love doing the show with you guys. Wazdian Stacey Cat Dragon gifted a sub and gave 500 bits Both the gifting and the bits makes a giant difference Melissa Defender Dragon gifted five subs and gave 300 bits Platinum Yeti and Siris Business gave five subs each to the community Page Larry Rodin

Been watching clips on Facebook and fell in love And then link my Twitch account with My Prime and love it Page We love that too so thank you for doing that Go to tyt.com slash prime and you can see how you can get a free subscription on Twitch to TYT and takes about 30 seconds. Cat named Crow has been with us for 11 months and says this subscription goes to 11. It does indeed.

Thank you. So if you're Smirnov on YouTube super chat asked, today was a virtual rally day of action against anti-Semitism. Will TYT report on the rise of anti-Semitic attacks in USA? That sounds weirdly accusatory. Of course. Well, I'm not sure there's a show that reports on anti-Semitism more than we do. So we told you about the rise of anti-Semitism in 2015 and that David Duke interview as Trump was rising and Duke was supporting him was an amazing warning sign of the anti-Semitism to come.

And then you had Charlottesphere in the synagogue attacks and on and on it goes. And we have shown you reporting from on the ground where the Q&N on the Magar guys are believed that, you know, the old anti-Semitic tropes about how Jews are on the world, et cetera. It is super, super dangerous. So thank you for caring about the issue. Dr. Zippian McSkutz says, I have an idea. Let's take back the $5 trillion they gave to the rich during the national crisis and give it back to us. Don't be ridiculous. American politicians looking out for the voters.

That sounds nuts. Tannen in our member section says, Biden is the president we knew he'd be. Can't afford a house. Go to the doctors to check out a spray and ankle. Even with insurance, still costs $500. Saving for retirement is a myth. We'll be paying student loans forever.

The least our generation can get is elder care for when we're old and broken and can't work anymore. But that doesn't even look like we can have that. FDR, my butt. Unfortunately, that is more accurate than most of the progressive legislators. Rebel Dragon says, come on, they don't want broadband for rural communities. They would then have access to information. Good point.

You wouldn't want that, especially if you're a Republican. Tattered remnant writes in, Biden isn't negotiating. He's doing the periodic, Democratic fold, sort of like the macarona, but not as melodic. well that's certainly true and obviously as we keep telling you they fold for a reason it's not because they're constitutionally weak it's because they're doing it to please their corporate donors all right we'll be back All right back on TYT, Jank and Anna with you guys. More news?

Well, there was yet another tragic mass shooting this time in San Jose, California, where a rail yard employee shot and killed eight of his coworkers before allegedly, dying himself from a self-inflicted gunshot wound. Now, as the country seeks answers about what leadership plans to do, we're seeing an explosion in mass shootings in the country that really started in mid-2020, what they're getting in return is a bunch of nothing from President Joe Biden. And so let me explain. He did decide to comment on the mass shooting that took place in San Jose, but he is kind of passing the buck to Congress, which of course is unwilling to do anything about gun control. I mean, they're having a difficult time making decisions about

infrastructure, which is currently crumbling in the United States. Now Biden says this in response to the shooting, I have the solemn duty, he says, of yet again of ordering the flag to be lowered at half staff, just weeks after doing so following the mass shootings at spas in and around Atlanta, in a grocery store in Boulder, Colorado, at a home in Rock Hill, South Carolina, and at a FedEx facility in Indianapolis, Indiana. Once again, he says, once again, I urge Congress to take immediate action and heed the call of the American people, including the vast majority of gun owners to help end this epidemic of gun violence in America, every life that is taken by a bullet pierces the soul of our nation. We can and we must do more. But it's very

clear that we can't do more. We haven't done more. And even the executive orders coming from Joe Biden does little in helping this overwhelming problem that we're experiencing in the country that we had already been experiencing in the country. Now, I want to just give you some quick data about how gun violence has increased in the country, really beginning in April of 2020. Data from the gun violence archive shows that the number of multiple victim shootings, meaning mass shootings, first spiked in April of 2020 and has stayed high since. So if you look at this graph that uses the data from this organization, the gun violence archive, you'll see that in April of 2020, there's a giant spike in gun violence, the number

of shootings that involve four or more people who have either been killed or injured. Now, that trend continued. There have been 160 shootings from January 1st to April 26th, in which four more people were injured or killed compared to just over 90 during the same year in 2020. And this year's total is nearly double the average for the same time period for every year since 2014. I have more data, Jank, but I wanted to give you a chance to jump in. Yeah. So Congress has been urged. Well, consider the problem solved.

So if you get frustrated that nothing ever gets done, understand why nothing ever gets done. So there's two components to it. One is the classic corruption, Republicans take money from the NRA, and they're never going to pass any gun regulation, even the most basic protections. As you might or might not know, because makes your media barely ever covers it. Even cop killer bullets can't get banned in America. Oh, blue lives matter unless Republicans are attacking the cops on January 6th and unless they're protecting people who want to murder cops by using cop killer bullets. Those are the ones that could pierce their vests and protect people on the terrorist watch list and we can keep going and going and going. So point one is Republicans taking money from the NRA. And point two is Democrats are not doing a goddamn thing about it.

So the way that you would do something about it is you would use the power of your bully pulpit if you're Joe Biden. You'd put up pictures of the nine people who died in San Jose. And then you would say the Republicans have this on their hands. They have blood on their hands because they block every piece of legislation that would have prevented this. So politics is real. It affects you a real life. And sometimes it literally gets you killed. And so when the Republicans vote no on our proposals, understand, look.

Look at these nine faces and you will see nine faces just like that in the next shooting and the next shooting and the next shooting. So every time you see a massacre in America, understand that that was brought to you by the Republican Party. And then what you do is you build pressure and pressure until their poll numbers go down low enough that they want to do something about it. Now if you don't ever do that and you just urge them, that means you're doing absolutely nothing, Nothing at all unless the massacres will continue.

Yeah, exactly. And I mean, just to add to your point, in Texas, they just passed a law, and of course, Governor Greg Abbott signed it, indicating that individuals can carry their guns without a permit. They don't need a permit. So we're actually going backward in many regards when it comes to gun violence in the country. And during the pandemic, there really was an increase in gun sales.

It's hard to track the exact number because remember, there are private gun sales that happen that are not, they don't need to go through a federal background check. So these are some of the federal background check loopholes that need to be closed and they haven't been closed. But if you look at the number of guns that were purchased during the pandemic with a federal background check, the rise in shootings does correspond with an increase in gun sales, which jumped at the outset of the pandemic. FBI background checks can serve as a proxy for gun sales. It's not an accurate number, as I explained. But in the 13 months since March of 2020, the agency has seen three million background checks in a month 11 times after having just one such month between 1998 and February of 2020. And I mean, I remember reading reports about how people were freaking out about the pandemic, and they thought that it was just going to be absolute chaos, and they went out and bought guns.

So there's a correlation here, an increase of gun sales, and now we're experiencing an increase of gun violence. So I'm going to give one more set of facts, and then explain the phenomena because it's actually super simple. So nearly 20,000 Americans died of murder, homicide, unintentional, and defensive gun deaths last year, and 24,000 died of suicide by gun. And Anna's right, of course, if you remember back then there was like, oh my God, there's going to be zombies because again, people are going to attack my house. There's a quarantine panic. People panicked and they bought all those guns. More guns equals more death by guns. That's it, period. Super easy to understand. That's why there's a spike. Okay. Now, think about it, guys. Humans are interesting creatures and they're fragile creatures. And there is a spectrum of different people. Do not project your thoughts onto everyone else. Remember, there's a certain percentage of the population that is unbalanced, right?

I mean, later in the short, we're talking about how 15% of the country believes that democratic leadership is part of a satanic cult that harvests brain juice of kids. So that's 30 million adults that are totally unbalanced right there, in and of itself, and just once that. But you know, but you can divorce politics from it. You know in your personal life, that guy's a little, I wouldn't want to have that guy have an AR-15. And now everyone has massive weaponry.

So on a day that's going badly for a person who's on a spectrum of being unbalanced in whatever way, if they didn't have a gun, maybe they punch a wall, right? Maybe they bang their head. Maybe they, you know, walk around the block. But when they have a gun, they either kill someone, you should. Usually someone close to them, or they kill themselves. And the sheer number of deaths that aren't massacres doesn't get enough coverage either. It's because there's guns around.

The suicides are out of control. Humanity had the same exact urge for suicide pre these giant gun sales. But there wasn't anywhere near as many suicides, because it's hard to kill yourself without a gun. But with a gun, it's super easy and works over 90% of the time and it has led to an epidemic of suicides because guns are designed to kill people and they kill people more efficiently and that's what you're seeing it's obvious super obvious and you know the one other thing i just want to quickly add is it's we're living in this dangerous

cock like we're dealing with the dangerous cocktail of societal issues and then you put guns on top of that and it's not really that surprising that you would see gun violence first off violence or or violent crime, I should say, is up all throughout the country. There's been a spike, and I'm sure the pandemic has something to do with it. But also, we do have an issue with, we're seeing more and more of these mass shootings take place at work, right? So I'm not making excuses for anyone who does any of these things, right? Any of these mass shootings.

But we do have a mental health issue in the country that goes, you know, Republicans love to use it as a scapegoat whenever we have discussions about gun control. they want to avoid actually discussing gun control. They'd rather pretend like they care about mental health care. But we do have a problem with mental health care in the country. We do have a problem with people who are being crushed at their jobs, crushed at work, feeling hopeless and helpless, feeling desperate. Like all of these things are so incredibly dangerous, like to mix together.

And it's honestly not shocking to me at all that we're seeing an uptick in gun violence in the cut. Actually an explosion. An uptick doesn't really fully explain it. I think that minimizes it. And so to see Biden, who with many of his other policies, campaigned as like some bold progressive on wanting to do something. We've got to do something about gun control. I mean, he talked about it in the joint congressional session when he gave a speech in front

of a joint session of Congress. You know, we need to do something about gun control. But I know there's only so much a president can unilaterally do. and I also understand that the second Biden's out of office, a Republican president can easily reverse Biden's executive orders on gun control. But we got to do something. I mean, what we saw in the form of his executive orders were embarrassing, to be honest. Like, he, okay, he wants some regulations on gun modifications that turn pistols into veritable short-barreled rifles. Okay, that's probably the strongest thing. He is encouraging

red flag laws. Encourage it. That's not really an executive order. That's not an order. It's nothing. And also he is ordering a federal study on gun trafficking. Oh, a federal study. Here, I can conclude the study for you. We just gave you the numbers.

It's up. It's really, really up and it's never going to stop. So, in fact, as usual, our members are awesome. By the way, Lenny Holofield and John Simon just signed up by hitting the join button below on YouTube while we were doing this segment. And Maui Greg wrote in our member section, Oh, nothing is more unintentionally and darkly sarcastic

as an American politician is saying enough after a mass shooting. No, it's never enough. And then Gavin Newsom is in California. The governor of California comes out and says, What the hell is going on in the United States of America? What the hell is wrong with us? Gavin, stop the theatrics. We know what's wrong.

People are allowed to buy guns that endlessly and guns kill people. That's it. I solved it for you. Now, that's not the question. The question is, are you ever going to do anything about it? And the answer so far, for the last couple of decades, it's been, hell no. We're just going to have endless massacres.

Look, I'll give you last analogy. Now, people say, hey, I'm a responsible gun owner. Yeah, but you get that a huge percentage of people who buy guns are not necessarily responsible gun owners, right? Do you understand that? And so when you say, okay, I get to buy a gun, well, so does like the most unhinged people you've ever seen. So if you did it with another weapon, you could easily see why it would be a bad idea. Should we give everybody a nuke? Well, I'd be very responsible with my nuclear weapon.

I would protect it at all costs. I'd put it in the safest safe you could possibly find, and I wouldn't want anybody touching it. But then I know a couple of people that I definitely wouldn't want having nukes, okay? And a gun kills people at a lower rate, but that's what it's designed to do. So telling us that guns are wonderful and angelic and only responsible people use them, is absurd, and you know it, the minute you make the weapon larger, it's obvious. All right, well, let's move on to our next story, because a former NYPD detective has a theory on why gun violence is up. As gun violence has exploded in the United States, Fox News decided to kill two birds with one stone with their disinformation campaigns by bringing on a former NYPD detective, who's retired now.

His name's Pat Bronson, Brosven, I should say, to share his theory on why gun violence is up. Let's hear what he has to say. In a rational world where there's adherence to the rule of law and respect for law enforcement, say pre the summer of love of 2020, I think there would be more nuanced response in terms of opening a shooting and active shooting right next door to where there's a load of armed professional shooters on. under law enforcement, but the rules have changed, you know, crimes are no longer illegal. There's no longer enforcement of lots of laws and there's an empowerment of these active shooters. And you know, Harris, this is a time that I wish I was wrong with my prediction, which I mentioned to anybody who would listen, that once, once COVID starts to lift,

these cowardly shooters will come out exactly in tandem with the number of vaccinations. You can be sure they probably got vaccinated. They were just scared to come out and they're coming back and you see the numbers don't lie. The shootings erupt dramatically. He's just connected the increase in gun violence in the country to people getting vaccinated, which is obviously false, insanely irresponsible. Jake, I'm going to let you take that part of the conversation. But before I toss it to you, I do want to mention one thing real quick. Because in the beginning, he says, there's no enforcement of a lot of laws. There's no enforcement of a lot of laws.

That seems like law enforcement isn't doing its job. So a retired NYPD detective admits that cops aren't doing their job in enforcing the law. Okay, cool. Go ahead. Yeah. First of all, Republicans and Fox News, they're like, oh, everybody should have guns. Guns are the thing that kill people. in the every study, every study shows the more guns there are, the more gun deaths there are,

both homicides, mass shootings, and by the way, suicides. Okay, so, and but he says, no, that's not the reason why. The reason why is vaccinations. I mean, look, it's just, that's why if you have family members that watch Fox News, get them mental health counseling. Like, oh, I bet they were vaccinated. Why would you, what would be the basis of that? Right. Like, where do you, Do you have any information that the shooters are more heavily vaccinated? Of course, that's insane. Shooters that, and this guy, I think, also killed himself, right, are not likely to be concerned about getting coronavirus.

And so those two things are not at all logically connected. But at TYT, we frequently talk about all the ways that big tech companies are taking control of our online lives, constantly monitoring us and storing our data. But that doesn't mean we have to let them. It's possible to stay anonymous online and hide your data from the prying eyes of big tech. And one of the best ways is with ExpressVPN. ExpressVPN hides your IP address, making your active ID more difficult to trace and sell the advertisers. ExpressVPN also encrypts 100% of your network data to protect you from eavesdroppers and cyber criminals.

And it's also easy to install. A single mouse click protects all your devices. But listen, guys, this is important. ExpressVPN is rated number one by CNET and Wired magazine. So take back control of your life. and secure your data with a top VPN solution available, ExpressVPN. And if you go to ExpressVPN.com slash TYT, you can get three extra months for free with this exclusive link just for TYT fans.

That's EX, P-R-E-S-S-V-P-N dot com slash TYT. Check it out today. Right-wingers are generally speaking morons, so they just are looking to do propaganda no matter what. Oh, I'm a former cop, but you know what, I think there's no law enforcement anymore. Well, whose fault is that? I don't know. I do it. Probably liberals. Duh. Okay. And

God, we told you that if there was more guns, there'd be more shootings, and that's exactly what happened. Yeah, it's probably because of the vaccinations. And then people watch Fox News, ago, nailed it. And then I do want to give him credit, though, for getting one thing, right? He said, there's been empowerment of active

shooters. That's true. By Republicans. Oh, yeah, of course, man. He should have more guns, guns, guns. And then if the active shooter has to go, you have a gun and everybody shoots guns, guns, guns. Does anybody in this country think that the Republicans are not pro-guns? Nobody thinks that, right? Obviously, everybody agrees.

We can't, federal background checks, I've said this a billion times, 97% approval. Everybody, in this case, the Republican voters are not at all guilty. Even the Republican voters, over 90% of them say, of course, federal background checks. We want to know if it's a criminal that's giving the gun or not. The Republican politicians who get money from the NRA go, no, I don't give a damn what my voters want, what anybody wants. I don't, you think you live in a democracy? No, I'm a bootlicker for the NRA and they got to make money off of gun sales. So I'm going to do whatever the hell they want.

And what is that? It's empowering active shooters. We can't even get people on the terrorist watch list to not have guns because the Republicans think terrorists should have guns. What is that? It is empowering active shooters. So thank you for being honest about how much Republicans are right wingers encourage massacres in America, hashtag facts. And you know, this is an indictment. of our intelligence communities who have tried to convince us that in an effort to save us

from any type of threat, in an effort to maintain national security, they need to indiscriminately spy on Americans and do all this surveillance on us. But in the case of the San Jose shooting, there's indication that the shooter was talking pretty openly about killing his coworkers. So it's weird that like this keeps coming up over and over again and somehow our intelligence community misses it. And I should also note that the shooting took place in San Jose near the county sheriff's office. I mean.

Yeah, I mean, according to the right wing, that's loads and loads of good guys with guns. Lots of good guys with guns. What happened? Huh. Funny. Last word goes to one of our members. T.yt.com joined to be part of the show. kid tested, Pulip Bureau approved, writes in, holy crap, guys, I just realized that ice cream

sale so spike, just as mass shootings have as well. You can be sure that all of these shooters went and got their ice cream before they committed a massacre. That's pretty good, man. Fox News is probably calling you right now as we speak. Oh, we got to get you on there, man. It's not the guns, right? It's the ice cream cones? Ice cream cones, it is. Let's go say it on air. Okay, yes, if you believe in totally unregulated guns, which is exactly what Republicans are right wingers and Fox News believes, then you are actively promoting massacres in this country. And if one of your family members got killed in there, look, it's politics. They're not actually doing a shooting, and I don't want you to ever do anything physical, okay? But take your understandable frustration

at the injustice and use it politically to make a difference. Vote out the bastards. And then, by the way, if you voted in a Democrat and that Democrat sits on his hands and does nothing, then vote out that bastard. So you get somebody who says, no, I'm going to pass the law. We're going to get federal background checks. And all these other things that we need, just keep on voting them out. Because everything else is total utter nonsense, including Joe Biden's urging of Congress to act and his goddamn studies of gun.

So we're going to study gun violence. Like we need to study it. It's absurd. None of these politicians ever want to do anything about it, cowards all of them. All right. When we come back from the break, this story about Senator Chris Coons, a Democrat, and how he's fighting against the vaccine waivers is a story you do not want to miss. There is so much corruption involved.

Honestly, I feel like I'm never surprised by corruption these days, but this wonderful report by David Day and blew my mind. Don't miss it. We'll be right back. I'm going to be able to be. Back during the break, I'm going to start on Twitch again. Deep Space Monk gave a thousand bits, that's very wonderful and generous, and said, TYT, thank you for always reporting on mass shootings, and thank you for continuing to press for reform. We cannot allow this to become commonplace as it is becoming.

Well, unfortunately, we have allowed it to become commonplace, and there's almost nobody doing anything. So I ran for Congress, and I ran on a ticket of righteous rage in the L.A. Times said, don't. Don't. Don't put anyone in Congress who's actually angry. We want tepid politicians who do nothing. Well, congratulations, mainstream media. You got exactly what you wanted. And we all keep dying. Dixie, the black cat, said nine months funneling Bezos bucks. We appreciate it. T.YT.com slash prime to learn how to get us basically free Bezos money to TYT to do progressive programming if you have Amazon Prime. Okay, the chicken fried dragon says, just simply, Anna's the best. Thank you. Okay, agreed.

We move forward. You know what, you're the best? There you go. You're the best. And chicken fried dragon sounds delicious. I know, seriously. Garner in Paradise says, been watching, says 2012. Love the show.

Thanks for providing some honest news. Wow, 2012, you're awesome. T. Verm writes in on YouTube super chat. Conservatives, it's the video games. So the guns in video games are dangerous, but not the actual guns. That's such a great point. I love our audience. Guys are so smart.

All right, Manuel Puente, just joined by hitting the join button below on YouTube. Bit of an American hero. Manuel, give yourself a pat on the back, okay? You did a good job. Now, let me go to Just Be Anti-Racist, where I sit in our member section. Tell me again how many lives have been saved by thoughts and prayers and half-staffed flags and urging Congress. Yep, Jess, approximately zero, and yes, that's what Biden just did. Mickey's seen the Silver Hair Dragon points out something that I wanted to kind of clarify with you guys for a while.

He says, it's not called a mass shooting unless at least four people die. Three and under don't count. At the rate we're going, we're going to have to change the definition of at least. six dead. So just to be clear, half of the people, the news organizations or groups like count mass shootings say four dead or injured, and those are the stats we shared with you earlier in the show. And some like the AP just say it must be at least four dead for it to be a mass shooting. I just wanted to be clear on that. Chicago and I writes in, we have former committee to studied the possibility of submitting an addendum to a previously rejected bill in preparation

for the consideration of expediting further discussions of the topic at hand. IOW, we ain't doing crap. Okay, that is exactly right, unfortunately. Let me give you a programming note coming up later tonight. Speaking of Twitch, Jordan Yule is on at 8.30 p.m. Eastern Deep dive with Jordan Yule. That's at Twitch.tv slash TYT. So make sure you're checking that out. He's awesome. Oh, look at that. Ken Klippenstein, former TYT reporter, current Intercept Reporter,

current awesome reporter joining Jordan for deep dive you should as well and we will be back All right, back on TYIT, Jane Canana with you guys, news. All right, well, let's talk about the vaccine waiver, which Biden says he's in favor of, but there could be some obstacles in the way. Even though President Joe Biden has finally publicly supported the idea of coronavirus vaccine waivers, which would allow for poor countries to manufacture their own generic version of the vaccine. It looks like one senator who's a very close ally of Biden, Senator Chris Coons of Delaware, could serve as a massive obstacle in getting this done. In fact, he wants to make sure that he

has a lot of say in a key appointee that would make key decisions about patent laws. So few Democrats, as David Dayan writes in this wonderful American prospect piece, lined up on the side of maintaining vaccine patent protections. But one of them was Senator Chris Coons, a long-time proponent of patents. Coons' pro-IP, pro-patent stance and his long friendship with the president has elevated the issue and turned the selection of the next director of the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office into a flashpoint. So David Dane does a good job in pointing out all of the conflicts of interests at play that are, of course, motivating Senator Chris Coons' decisions here and why he wants a say in this key position when it comes to patents. Coons has been aggressive in working with the White House to secure a director who shares his viewpoints, and his top candidates have represented patent owners as lawyers or trade group leaders. Okay, so I want to give you a few examples that were laid out in this piece.

According to sources on Capitol Hill and from outside groups, Coons has claimed that he was granted the power to weigh in on this. As long as he stayed in the Senate as opposed to working with Biden in his administration, I guess he was expecting to be named Secretary of State. That didn't happen. and he's like, all right, homie, so since I'm not Secretary of State, and since I'm remaining in the Senate, I'm expecting a little bit of a reward here for doing that. And so that's part of the, I guess, leverage he's planning on using against Biden. Coons has, go ahead. I'm sorry, let me just jump in for one quick second on that.

Look, guys, there's a lot of terrible things in this story about Coons and his personal interest and political interests. But it is normal politics, because I want you to understand, Coons, in his own way, helped Biden and was a huge part of Biden's campaign. And people do political favors. Buttigieg drops out, endorses Biden before Super Tuesday, helps him beat Bernie. He gets transportation secretary. So Coons always wanted state.

And since he didn't get the State Department, they owe him a favor. So what's interesting is the favor that he asked for. Because this patent office is, most people would think, like, that doesn't influence policy that much. First of all, you'd be wrong. But second of all, why him and why does that? He cares so much about this relatively low wattage position. Yep.

Okay, well, he cares about it because he wants to make it ring, right? He's going to personally benefit from installing someone who is going to make decisions that go along with his personal business interests. So first, let me just note that Coons has repeatedly expressed, often with Mazay-Hirono or Republican colleagues like Senator Tom Tillis, support for accelerating patent approvals, expanding patent eligibility, and ensuring nothing gets in the way of additional patents. His stronger act introduced with Senator Tom Cotton and others would have significantly strengthened IP protections for property owners.

In fact, he actually said that the coronavirus pandemic was a teachable moment when it comes to US patents because he believes that we need to strengthen them. Now why? Why would he want to strengthen them? Well, because he would personally financially benefit from them. In the form of campaign donations, of course, that's the old school way, but also through his own personal business interests. So Coons received over half a million dollars, for instance, from the drug industry since entering Congress. That's quite a bit of money. So I want to jump in on that too, because I tell you about how mainstream media reporters don't do their jobs. But I want to give credit to amazing, wonderful, independent progressive reporters like David Day and David

Sarota, Ryan Grim, our own Jonathan Larson, etc. There's these brave, real journalists in the country who actually discover the things that are happening behind the scenes and explain politics really well for what's actually, how power actually executes itself, how you get power and how you use power for your own enrichment. And that's why, through their example, And that's why they're not beloved by the mainstream media. They embarrass the mainstream media. Because isn't it amazing that you never read on ABC, CNN, New York Times, about the half a million dollars that a senator from Delaware, a tiny little state, guests from the drug industry, and that the New York Times and Senator don't think that that's relevant. Like, oh, a half a million dollars in campaign contributions.

No, Chris Coos is an honorable gentleman and would never be swayed by that. you're a reporter, you're an editor, and you think that? Well, no one else in the country believes that. So even just simple act of pointing out their campaign contributions by day and is an act of courage and actual real journalists. Right, because I don't think it's journalism to just simply regurgitate or, yeah, to serve as a stenographer for people in positions of power or to regurgitate something they said during a press conference. journalism is to uncover what the motivating factors are. And in this particular case, the motivating factors are clear. They're apparent, and people deserve to know about them.

So there's the half a million dollars in campaign donations from the pharmaceutical industry. But then let's talk a little bit about Chris Coons and his own business interests. Coons benefits directly from strong intellectual property rules as his family's business. the W.L. Gore Company benefits greatly from its patent on the fabric known as Gortex, as well as 3,400 inventions across a range of industries. What coincidence. It's Christ. So patents, enriching themselves through patents, and there's nothing wrong with that in general.

The question is, how long do the patents get to last? Do they have a monopoly, et cetera? But that is the core way that his family makes money. And it turns out the one thing he wants to influence is patents. I'm sure that's a coincidence. And I'm glad none of the rest of the media covered it because it probably has nothing to do with his motivations. There's more, there's more. Coons' stepfather, according to David Dane's reporting, founded the company and Coons served as its in-house counsel for eight years before entering the Senate.

He still owns $5 million worth of company stock. So, like, he's still literally financially invested in this, right? And I've been talking about this quite a bit lately because I, the fact that it's okay just shows you how much of a failure our whole system is in ensuring that our lawmakers represent the best interests of their constituents. The fact that lawmakers can be invested in individual stock, it's unacceptable. It's unacceptable. They're tasked with regulating these private companies.

you think they're going to regulate them if they think these regulations are going to hurt the bottom line for these companies, thus hurting the value of the shares that they're invested in? Come on, come on. I mean, it's just, it's, you don't have to be the smartest person on the planet. This is super easy to understand. The corruption literally persuades them and motivates them to work against you. That's the problem. You almost have to actively try to ignore it, not to cover it in this way. I mean, do the other reporters at the other outlets go, look at this fact and go, no, I bet the $5 million of personal money that he has invested in this does not affect him? Nobody could believe that. Nobody in their right mind could believe that. At a bare minimum, he should recuse himself with anything having to do with patents because of how much money he makes off of patents.

But instead of recusing himself, he does the exact opposite. He says to Biden, the one thing I want is the ability to enrich myself. And in Washington, no one even makes note of it other than progressive reporters because they think we literally, they don't even understand what we're saying. They're like, what do you mean? That's totally normal. Of course. I mean, how is the poor guy going to get his kids through private school if he doesn't personally enrich himself by using his government office for his own benefit? And so the hypocrisy on it is unreal.

But remember, this is a Democratic center. He's a Democrat, yeah. Well, when you have a system of legalized bribery, it doesn't matter if you're talking about a Democrat or Republican, right? That money corrupts. And even if you take Coons out of the equation, the way the system is set up also incentivizes a monopolistic system, right? Because as David Dayton points out, the year.

USPTO funds itself through patent award fees, okay? So think about that. Patent avoid fees so that more patents it cranks out, that means the more money that it actually makes for the government. The public advisory boards to the USPTO are stacked with industry supporters. It gets worse and worse. You should really read the piece. And we'll put a link down below if you're watching this later on YouTube or Facebook just so you can read it. Because there's these patent trolls, companies that just start up to buy patents, some of which aren't even used at defunct companies, just to sue people. And when they sue people, they actually block real innovation that could save your life.

While pretending to do it to encourage innovation in the industry, that'll create more jobs and save more lives in the case of medicine. It's the exact opposite of the truth. Now, why is nothing ever done about it? because a lot of those companies are owned by private equity firms, which are the most powerful things in America. And now, I want to just talk one last time, make one last point about Chris Coons' greed. The patents that his company, Gortex, makes, or the patents from Gortex, I should say,

are not really related to coronavirus at all. But he's saying, if we release the patents and we have a patent waiver, in the memo, in the medical issue in front of us, we'll save millions of lives. But it might one day affect my family's patents later. And so I don't want to risk that even 1%. So I'm okay with all those people not getting the vaccine as coronavirus rages through India and so many other countries. Think about how callous they are. They throw away people's lives on an off chance that it might effect their multi-million fortunes down the road. That's exactly right. And by the way, in the meantime, I think that it's also worth noting

that this, of course, hurts the American people as well, because when you have patent laws that are as, I mean, overwhelmingly strict as they are right now, which give these companies the monopolistic power that they have, they're able to price gouge you, right? And so that leads to Americans overpaying or overspending to the tune of $315 billion. And that's according to a study that was done by Dean Baker in 2018. So we're paying more for all sorts of things. Of course we know paying quite a bit for pharmaceutical drugs, especially in comparison to other countries. And also in the context of the coronavirus vaccine, as we know, there are, you know, countless people dying in poorer countries because they,

they haven't been able to get the waiver. Now, Biden has supported waiving the patent, right? But it still takes a while for that to go into effect. It could take about a month for it to go into effect. But it took a while to persuade Biden to even support waiving the patent. So it's just, it's really disgusting what greed does. Obviously, it harms people financially. But more importantly, I mean, we're seeing people die when they don't need to die as a result of that greed.

All right, we got to take a break. When we come back, we have more news for you, including Aachenklaas, Representative Akinclos, and how he is fighting tooth and nail against lowering drug prices in America and tell you that and more when we return. Thanks for listening to the full episode of the Young Turks. Support our work. Listen ad-free. Access members, only bonus content, and more by subscribing to Apple Podcasts at Apple.

slash t yt i'm your host jank huger and i'll see you soon