The Young Turks - Violence & Vengeance

Episode Date: January 12, 2024

You’re vital to our work. Support as a member: https://go.tyt.com/signup. Watch in full: First day of ICJ hearings in South Africa's genocide case against Israel in Gaza. WATCH: Gunmen storm TV studio during live broadcast in Ecuador. Federal judge rejects Turkey-born pundit’s bid to get on South Carolina presidential ballot. Hundreds of formerly homeless people get evicted after L.A. nonprofit fails to pay rent on time. HOST: Ana Kasparian (@AnaKasparian) SUBSCRIBE on YOUTUBE: ☞ https://www.youtube.com/user/theyoungturks FACEBOOK: ☞ https://www.facebook.com/theyoungturks TWITTER: ☞ https://www.twitter.com/theyoungturks INSTAGRAM: ☞ https://www.instagram.com/theyoungturks TIKTOK: ☞ https://www.tiktok.com/@theyoungturks 👕 Merch: https://shoptyt.com ❤ Donate: http://www.tyt.com/go 🔗 Website: https://www.tyt.com 📱App: http://www.tyt.com/app 📬 Newsletters: https://www.tyt.com/newsletters/ If you want to watch more videos from TYT, consider subscribing to other channels in our network: The Watchlist https://www.youtube.com/watchlisttyt Indisputable with Dr. Rashad Richey https://www.youtube.com/indisputabletyt The Damage Report ▶ https://www.youtube.com/thedamagereport TYT Sports ▶ https://www.youtube.com/tytsports The Conversation ▶ https://www.youtube.com/tytconversation Rebel HQ ▶ https://www.youtube.com/rebelhq TYT Investigates ▶ https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCwNJt9PYyN1uyw2XhNIQMMA 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. Hey, we know you probably hit play to escape your business banking, not think about it. But what if we told you there was a way to skip over the pressures of banking? By matching with the TD Small Business Account Manager, you can get the proactive business banking advice and support your business needs. Ready to press play? Get up to $2,700 when you'll open select small business banking products. Yep, that's $2,700 to turn up your business.

Visit TD.com slash small business match to learn more. Conditions apply. Woo! Get some! Welcome to TYT. I'm your host, Anna Kasparian, and we have a lot of fascinating stories to share with you today, including a story involving possible FBI entrapment of a 60s. year old. Unbelievable story that the intercept broke. We're going to give you the details on that later on in the show. We're also going to discuss the first day of hearings at the International Court of Justice. Of course, this has to do with South Africa's allegation, charges that Israel is engaging in a possible genocide. So we'll talk about what occurred during the first

day of this hearing. We'll make some predictions about what's to come. And it is an incredibly important story, so we are going to spend some time discussing that. Later, we'll also discuss the ongoing violence in Ecuador, the drug gangs that have basically created terror for Ecuadorians and how the government is responding to that. So you can look forward to that in the first hour as well. And yesterday we had quite a marathon day. Not only did we have our normal programming, but we also decided to work super late and do some coverage of the GOP debate between Nikki Haley and Ron DeSantis and also Trump's counter programming over at Fox News at the exact same time. We covered both. And we worked real late to get you that coverage. So if

you'd like to support that work that we do, please consider becoming a member and keeping us free and independent of any corporate influence. You can do so by going to t.yt.com slash join. Or if you're watching us on YouTube, just hit that join button that you see on the screen. All right, without further ado, let's get to the details of what occurred during the first day of the hearings on Israel in the International Court of Justice. Every day, there is mounting irreparable loss of life, property, dignity, and humanity for the Palestinian people. Our news feeds show graphic images of suffering that has become unbearable to watch. Nothing will stop the suffering except in order from this court. Without an indication of provisional measures, the atrocities will continue with the Israeli

defense force indicating that intends pursuing this course of action for at least a year. Today, Mark, the very first day of hearings before the International Court of Justice, following South Africa's decision to bring genocide charges against Israel due to its treatment of the Palestinian people in the Gaza Strip. The Washington Post reports that South Africa alleges that Israel is violating international laws and committing and failing to prevent genocidal acts that seek to destroy Palestinians in Gaza. Now, Israel's top ally, the United States, our government, which continues to supply the weaponry to Israel to carry out these acts, rejects the claim.

that Israel is engaging in these acts. The US is siding with Israel, while 16 other nations have decided to join South Africa in its allegations, and that includes Saudi Arabia and the nation of Turkey as well. So before we get to what the testimony was, what the opening statements were during the first day of hearings, I think it's important to understand

what the International Court of Justice is. It was established after World War II, mostly to settle, you know, disputes between countries and to prevent the kind of atrocities that were committed during World War II. A 1948 convention ratified after the Holocaust made genocide a crime under international law and gave the International Court of Justice in which Israel is a member of, the authority to determine whether states have committed it. And the UN General Assembly and Security Council elect the court's 15 judges to a nine year term. And they are basically the judges in charge of kind

of adjudicating whether the charges that South Africa is bringing against Israel have any merit to them. And so, you know, we'll see how this all plays out. And its president currently is Joan Donahue, who is a former legal advisor to the U.S. State Department. Now, South African human rights specialist John Duggard is leading the country's legal team in these charges against Israel. And he has extensive experience investigating Israel's alleged rights violations in the occupied Palestinian territories, which of course includes Gaza. I would think, I would consider Gaza more blockaded by Israel rather than occupied. But you get the point. And has served as an ad hoc judge on the International Court of Justice. And then Israel's defense team,

which we didn't hear much from at all today, we will soon, is led by British lawyer Malcolm Shaw, a specialist in territorial disputes who has defended the United Arab Emirates, Cameroon, and Serbia before the International Court of Justice. Now, South Africa and the 16 other countries that have joined along with South Africa are alleging something very specific. So let me get to the details of that. In an 84-page filing, South Africa accused Israel of intending to destroy Palestinians in Gaza as part of the broader Palestinian national, racial, and ethnical group, Israel has reduced and is continuing to reduce Gaza to rubble, killing, harming, and destroying its people, and creating conditions of life calculated

to bring about their physical destruction as a group, the country alleges. And so they pointed to so many different elements of this military operation by the IDF under the orders of the Israeli government. They talk about the siege and the inability to get humanitarian aid into the Gaza Strip. At this point, they are alleging that more Palestinians are dying from hunger and dehydration than they are from the aerial bombardments that have also killed tens of thousands of Palestinian civilians. South Africa points to Israel's large-scale killing and maiming of civilians. It's use of dumb bombs, also known as unguided munitions, the mass displacement and the destruction

of neighborhoods, deprivation of access to adequate food and water, medical care, shelter, clothes, hygiene, and sanitation to civilians. It's obliteration of Palestinian civic institutions and its failure to to provide any place of safety for Gazans. And I have to say, as I watched the hearing today, I was pretty shocked even though I shouldn't have been at how much more damning evidence South Africa had that we haven't really seen or heard here in the United States, certainly not from the reporting that's done here in the United States. And I say that while acknowledging that for the first time in my career, I feel that the

legacy media has done the best I've ever seen in trying to cover this, you know, this war as fairly as they can. You know, in previous wars between Hamas and Israel, typically or Israel and Palestinians, typically what you would see is this one-sided narrative that just regurgitated some of the talking points coming from the Israeli government. That's really not the case this time around. And even so, I was shocked to learn some devastating evidence that we haven't really seen widely reported here in the US. And here is some of that evidence presented during the first hearing, making the case that the South Africans want to make about Israel's military actions. The destruction of Palestinian life in Gaza is articulated state policy.

senior political and military officials encouraged without censure the 95-year-old Israeli army reservist, Ezra al-Yakhine, a veteran of the Dair Yassin massacre against the Palestinians in 1948, to speak to the soldiers ahead of the ground invasion in Gaza. In his tour, he echoed the same sentiment while being driven around in an officially Israeli army vehicle dressed in Israeli army fatigue, I quote. Be triumphant and finish them off. And don't leave anyone behind. He raised the memory of them.

He raised them. They are families, mothers and children. These animals can no longer live. If you have an Arab neighbor, don't wait. Go to his home and shoot him. We want to invade, not like before. We want to enter and destroy what's in front of us and destroy houses, then destroy the one after it.

With all of our forces, complete destruction, enter and destroy. As you can see, we will witness things we've never dreamed of. Let them drop bombs on them and erase them. So that was a speech given to the Israeli defense forces right before they engaged in their ground operations in the Gaza Strip. South Africa also accuses Israel of preventing Palestinian births by displacing pregnant people, denying them access to food, water, and care, and killing them. And South Africa also laid out the argument that there is a orchestrated effort to prevent the entry of humanitarian aid into the Gaza Strip.

Let's take a look at that argument. In the words of the UN Undersecretary General, on 5 January 2024, I quote, You think getting aid into Gaza is easy? Think again. Three layers of inspections before trucks can even enter. Confusion and long cues, a growing list of rejected items. A crossing point meant for pedestrians, not trucks. Another crossing point where trucks have been blocked by desperate hungry communities. A destroyed commercial sector. Constant bombardments, poor communications, damaged roads, convoys shot at, damage delays at checkpoints.

A traumatized and exhausted population crammed into a smaller and smaller, smaller sliver of land. So the refusal to allow for the entry of humanitarian aid, adequate humanitarian aid, was cited multiple times during today's hearing. And honestly, based on the reporting that we've done, that the reporting that we've shared with you, I should say, it does appear that they have quite a bit of evidence to work with. Now, before I show you this video, I want to note one other thing that they made clear during the first day of hearings. They said that they don't want to use these hearings to show a ton of gory videos of what's been going on in Gaza.

I'm curious to see how that plays out because I feel that that's an important part of the evidence. They really focused on the various statements made by various members of the Israeli government that are akin to pursuing genocide. as part of their evidence today, I don't know if they're going to change their tactic moving forward. And I am very curious to hear what Israel's defense is going to be to these allegations and to the evidence that's being presented. But in regard to the lack of humanitarian aid, remember they would have about 500 trucks enter the Gaza Strip every day prior to the war. And the conditions on the ground were already dire under that amount of humanitarian aid. But imagine now they get about 1 to 200 humanitarian trucks. And oftentimes, you know, there are issues with even delivering that aid once they do enter the Gaza Strip.

And they're going to talk a little bit about that in this next report by Channel 4 News. Flower, tomatoes, canned beef, essential, desperately needed scarce supplies, blown up in a car which Israel hit in a strike in Rafa. People gather around. Three were killed and 15 injured. We were scared, so we ran, she says. We don't want the war. They bombed the car and we're scared. So the humanitarian aid is a problem, the number of aid workers who have been killed as they attempt to deliver humanitarian aid is something that was cited multiple times during today's hearings. They also discussed the rounding up and killing of academics. They allege that. They did not provide evidence of that today, but multiple statements that were made alluded to that. And in order to be successful, South Africa will have to show that Israel's goal, their intention was not to just wipe out Hamas, but to destroy Palestinians as such in Gaza. And to make its case, South Africa is using quotes that Israeli leaders have uttered that call for mass expulsions from Gaza or denying that anyone there is innocent.

And we've talked about some of these statements before. Here are some examples. starting with Israeli president, Isaac Herzog. It's an entire nation out there that is responsible. It's not true. This rhetoric about civilians, not aware, not involved, it's absolutely not true. They could have risen up. They could have fought against that evil regime, which took over Gaza in a coup d'etat. But we're at war.

We are at war. We're at war. we are defending our homes. We're protecting our homes. That's the truth. And then when a nation protects its home, it fights. And we will fight until we'll break their backbone. When you have the president of Israel saying that there are no innocent people in Gaza, it gives you a sense that they see everyone there is Hamas. Everyone there is a legitimate target. So those are the kinds of statements that South Africa is bringing to the table as they try to prove their case, then you have members of the military, military command.

For instance, you have Israel's defense minister Yoav Galant. This is what he said on October 9th. We are matilim, a mazor, muclat, al-Ara. Ain't chasmal, and mazone, ain't mime, and delek. All is a-gum.

We're will nircham in by people, and we're not going to ag in them. And for our podcast or audio listeners, he said this. We are imposing a complete siege on the city of Gaza. There will be no electricity, no food, no water, no fuel. Everything is closed. We are fighting human animals and we are acting accordingly. Now, unfortunately for Israel, Galant really seems to put his foot in his mouth quite often

because he makes statements like this all the time. On October 13th, for instance, he said, Gaza won't return to what it, was before. We will eliminate everything. And if you look at footage from the ground, and especially if you focus on what's happened to northern Gaza, they've practically raised it, and many Palestinians are left without a home, left without a safe place to return to if this war comes to an end. And in an effort to soften Israel's image, just a day before the hearing began, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu put this statement out on social media. I want to make a few points absolutely clear. Israel has no intention of permanently occupying Gaza

or displacing its civilian population. Israel is fighting Hamas terrorists, not the Palestinian population. And we are doing so in full compliance with international law. The IDF is doing its utmost to minimize civilian casualties, while Hamas is doing its utmost to maximize them by using Palestinian civilians as human shields. So he put that out again right before the first day of hearings began. And of course, there is dissent. There are Israelis who disagree with the charges being made by South Africa. The United States is obviously Israel's top allies. So the United States denies that there's any genocidal intent with what Israel is carrying out.

And you also have various individuals who have been interviewed by the press about what their thoughts are, including Amakai Cohen, a law professor at Israel's Ono Academic College and senior fellow at the Israel Democracy Institute. He said that South Africa's case reflects classic cherry picking, even though, I mean, And we just showed you some of the statements that South Africa is pointing to as evidence. The statements are coming from the president of Israel. It's coming from the defense minister, the person in charge of the military in Israel. We showed you the video where they describe verbatim the speech that was given to the IDF prior

to their ground invasion. And you know, Amakai Cohen also says there have been things said and tweet. and written by Israeli politicians that are extremely problematic. But these are not the decision makers. But they are the decision makers. The people that he's referring to are absolutely the decision makers. I don't know what he means when he says they're cherry picking. We're not talking about like a handful of reservists who are saying unhinged things.

We're talking about members of the current government. These are individuals who have power to enact various, you know, Think about it as Congress, right? These are the members of Congress saying things like that. Imagine if the defense secretary in the United States was saying the kind of things that we've heard from Yoav Gallant in regard to the Palestinians living in the Gaza Strip. And then there are statements made, you know, by the prime minister as well, Benjamin Netanyahu. So I want to give you an example of something that we actually haven't shared with you before because the prime minister is the top. decision maker in Israel. And following the October 7th, Hamas terror attacks, he gave a speech in Hebrew

about what he plans to do in Gaza. And here's the translated version. The IDF will immediately apply its full force to destroy Hamas's abilities. So far, so good, no problem with that. We will strike them until they are extirpated and exact mighty vengeance for this black day, which they have visited upon the state of Israel and its citizens. All right, so far, but then it starts to get super dark. As Haim Nahan Bailik has said, vengeance of blood of a small child, the devil has not yet created.

I mean, what does that mean? And when you consider that the majority of people who have been killed in Gaza consist of women and children, that last statement, vengeance of blood of a small child, the devil has not yet created is concerning. And it's not the first time that Netanyahu's actually used this quote.

He's actually used it back in 2014. It comes from Israel's national poet. And in 2014, there was just a horrific, tragic instance where three Israeli boys were killed. And so in response to that, the Times of Israel reported that the line Netanyahu quoted, such vengeance for blood, of babe and maiden hath yet be wrought by Satan is often interpreted today as promoting or heralding a fierce revenge for murder. And going back to BB speech on October 7th, he also said this, all the places where Hamas is formed at of this evil city, all the places where Hamas is hiding, acting from, we will turn them into rubble. I'm telling the people of Gaza, get out of there now, because we will act everywhere in full force.

Now keep in mind that Palestinians in the Gaza Strip have nowhere to go. They are unable to leave. And more importantly, when they are listening to these orders and they're evacuating to portions of the Gaza Strip where they're told they're allegedly going to be safe, those areas suffer from airstrikes as well. And that was another thing that was brought up today multiple times during the International Court of Justice. hearing on Israel. Now, back to the hearing itself, the ICJ case also adds to international

pressure on Israel to scale back or end its war against Hamas, which health officials in Gaza say has killed more than 23,000 people, many of them women and children. The war also has rendered much of the enclave uninhabitable and pushed the population to the brink of famine. And the only way to enforce any order by the International Court of Justice, assuming that South Africa and its allies are able to make their case, you would need the UN Security Council to basically enforce whatever it comes from the judges from the International Court of Justice. But any of the Council's five permanent members, including the United States, could veto any such measure. And so Secretary of State Anthony Blinken this week decided to chime in on his thoughts about the

genocide allegations. I'm sure you won't be surprised by what he had to say, but let's watch anyway. We believe the submission against Israel to the International Court of Justice distracts the world from all of these important efforts. And moreover, the charge of genocide is meritless. On this trip, I came to Israel after meeting with the leaders of Turkey, Greece, Jordan, Qatar, the United Arab Remerance, Saudi Arabia. All of those leaders share our concern about the spread of the conflict. All of them are committed to using their influence, using the ties that they have to prevent it from escalating, to deter new from opening.

In addition, all expressed great concern about the dire humanitarian situation and the number of civilians killed in Gaza. We know that facing an enemy that embeds itself among civilians, who hides in and fires from schools, from hospitals, makes this incredibly challenging. But the daily toll on civilians in Gaza, particularly on children, is far too high. You guys get how crazy that statement was, right? Like on one hand, he's like, genocide charges are outrageous. No such thing, that's not happening.

Man, but that's civilian death toll really bad, especially when it comes to the kids. A lot of kids have been killed. It's like he's trying to have his cake and eat it to. It's an attempt to appear as if the United States government has a moral stance on this issue by acknowledging. Just what a great government. We're such great people. We're acknowledging that a lot of kids are being killed. We are.

But, you know, Israel is. doing what it needs to do and it's Hamas's fault because they are using them at Palestinians as human shields. I mean, just basically going back to the same talking point. But I do want to remind you of something that we learned thanks to some pretty decent political reporting because they had reported during the humanitarian pause, when the humanitarian pause happened. Political reported this, there was some concern in the Biden administration about the the unintended consequences of the pause, that it would allow journalists broader access to Gaza and the opportunity to further illuminate the devastation there and turn public opinion

on Israel. Fascinating. So I think that it is a great opportunity for Israel to make its case before the International Court of Justice. Today was not the day that they did that. Today was the opening statements from South Africa. And I'm sure that there's going to be more coming from them in the coming days as this case is adjudicated. But I am curious to see how Israel defends itself in this international court. What are the responses or the debunks going to be to some of the claims that are being made here, some of the evidence that's being provided by South Africa? We don't know yet because it hasn't happened, but you guys can obviously rely on us to give you updates on this story as it unfolds. For now, we're going to take a quick break.

And when we come back, we have a little more international news for you, including some unbelievable violence that broke out in Ecuador. Don't miss it. Welcome back to TYT. Let's do a little more international news. And then after that, we'll take a trip back to the United States and get into election-related topics. So let's talk about Ecuador. This is the chilling moment. Armed men stormed the set of a public TV channel in Ecuador, firing off guns and waving apparent explosives during a live broadcast. The studio crew taken hostage for at least 15 minutes on air as the country watched.

That absolutely horrifying scene took place in Ecuador, where several days ago, a notorious gang leader escaped from prison. Now, his escape ended up setting off a torrent of chaos and violence in the country, which has now been basically plagued and plunged into a, um, a state of chaos. state of emergency as a result of that gang violence. The government is now going to war with these criminal organizations. And to be honest, it reminds me a lot of what happened in Mexico when President Calderon decided to engage in this war on drugs. He wanted to aggressively go after the Mexican drug cartels. And it really increased the bloodshed in the country. I'm hoping that won't be the case here. But let's go back to Ecuador and talk to

a little bit about how Ecuador got into this breaking point. Now the country was once seen as a more more peaceful than its neighbors. For instance, think about Colombia. Colombia has, you know, historically been plagued with drug gangs and drug crime. But drug trafficking gangs unfortunately have gained power in Ecuador as well in recent years. And to just give you an idea of how bad the situation was before this awful wave of violence, in August of last year, presidential candidate Fernando Villaseniccio was assassinated after he said he received threats from Adolfo Fitton Masias, the imprisoned leader of the Los Choneros, which is considered the country's most powerful gang with ties to the Sinaloa cartel. Apologies to our Spanish-speaking audience for how much I might butcher names. I'm going to do my best. Now, Fito was the gang leader who recently escaped from prison. and according to Ecuador's president, Daniel Noboa, he had received word that the government had plans to basically move all top gang leaders into maximum security prisons.

And maybe that should have been the case from the very beginning because clearly this gang leader was able to escape and that led to another outbreak of violence. Now, the outbreak of chaos erupted after Fito went missing. Eight people were killed in Guaya, Guaya kill on Tuesday, according to local police. Two police officers were also killed in the nearby city of Nobol. National police said on X. Meanwhile, 10 people were arrested after three kidnapped police officers were freed in the southwest city of Machala. National police said. And then earlier, police said at least seven officers had been taken captive in three cities since the state of emergency was announced.

Again, I can't emphasize enough if you go back to the war on drugs in Mexico and what that led to. I mean, very similar. You have some hardliners in government. They want to do something about the drug trade and the gang violence coming out of that trade. And as they become increasingly aggressive in finding these criminals, imprisoning these gang members, The violence kind of increases, it's like a retaliation and backlash to any government policy seeking to hold them accountable for the illegal activities that they're engaging in. At least 70 people were arrested across the whole country. Police said Wednesday morning, eight explosive devices were seized along with 15 Molotov cocktails, nine firearms, 308 firearm cartridges, six motorcycles and six vehicles. And look, as we previously mentioned, the president has declared a 60 day state of emergency in response to the violence.

And his government has declared that 22 criminal organizations will now be considered terrorist groups that the military has authorized or has been authorized to neutralize within the bounds of international humanitarian law. Now I like that last part, I'm always worried that the aggressive, you know, policies to bring gangs and drug criminals to justice, unfortunately will end up harming innocent people. I mean, we've seen situations like that in countries like the Philippines, for instance. And I really hope that's not going to be the case. You have to be careful and ensure that innocent people don't get caught up in this. But yesterday, the president also stated in an interview. We are in a state of war. and we cannot give in. The military and police had apprehended 329 terrorists by Wednesday afternoon and killed five according to the head of the Armed Forces Joint Command. His name is Jaime Patricio Vela. And as for that insanely terrifying raid that you witnessed the very beginning of this story, the one that took place at that television station, well, thankfully and miraculously, no one

was hurt. But the 13 suspects luckily were arrested. So that chaotic event, that debacle luckily ended in the best possible way, given the circumstances. And the president won his race on the promises of tackling crime in the country of Ecuador. Much of the violence in Ecuador has concentrated in the prison system where clashes between inmates have left more than 460 people dead, many beheaded or burnt alive since February of 2021. So obviously a big part of this needs to be reforms in their prison system. I don't think that it's enough to simply go after these. I mean, they definitely should go after anyone who is causing violence, you know, breaking laws, engaging in criminal activity. Obviously, they should go after them. I'm not saying they shouldn't.

But you're going to continue like reproducing this problem if you have a situation in which the prisons, you know, make these people even more brutal that they might already be. Right. Like the whole point of prison isn't just to lock people in there and throw away the key forever. And obviously they're having a problem with security in their prisons as well if a gang leader is able to escape like this. So they do need to, in my opinion, reinforce the security measures at these facilities. But more importantly, and it's probably not something they're thinking about at the moment, but should, they should consider reforming these prisons so they don't breed more terrible violent behavior and crime. Now, the country's murder rate has increased significantly. For instance, it quadrupled in just a few short years from 2018 to 2022, and a record of 220 tons of drugs were seized last year and no, this was not Coachella, this was in Ecuador. But even if the short-term violence is addressed, there are deeper systemic issues in Ecuador, as there always are, right? When you see situations like this, they don't come out from nowhere. They don't just sprout

from nowhere, right? Why are there so many different drug gangs in the country? Why has violence increased? And, you know, there is definitely a correlation. I'm curious to see if there's any, causal relation here, but there are problems with the inequality there. Human rights groups have been complaining about some of the inequalities. For instance, Esmeral does, has seen massacres of local fishermen, bodies hanging from bridges by nooses and rounds of car bombs going off. A normal day there is waking up and fearing that what you're hearing aren't fireworks but gunshots. And so, you know, apparently this violence has been percolating for some while. And she also said that years of government neglect and poverty have fed the ranks of

armed gangs with young people who see few options for themselves. More than additional guns on the streets, such Ecuadorians, more than additional guns on the streets, such Ecuadorians need access to education, health care, and jobs. Francis Bone said, Francis Bone is from Mujera, I'm sorry, Esmeral does, which is a human rights group. And finally, deep inequality is always going to be the breeding ground for recruiting people into criminal groups. It's very hard for someone to speak of peace and security when they're starving. You can't simply wash your hands of any blame by just saying you're going to militarize.

And there's a lot of truth to that. But I think that this kind of statement really does require a little bit of nuance, right? I can't stand when you're dealing with violent criminals and you'll hear some of the more progressive minded individuals say like, no, no, no, no, no prison for this person who just like brutally beat or maimed or slaughtered someone. They just need a good job and they need, they need health care and they need a home. Well, they actually need to be taken out of society for a while. And if there's any possibility in rehabilitating them, that's what should happen. But the idea that you just, you know, I like the idea of preventing. criminality ahead of time by ensuring that you deal with inequality and you ensure that people have opportunities so they don't get sucked into any criminal enterprise. But I don't begrudge the government for wanting to go after violent drug gangs as they're committing violence against people living in Ecuador. So we'll update you on this if the story develops further. I'm sure it will. We're going to take a quick break for now. And when we come back, we're going to

give you an update on Jank Yugar's court case in South Carolina. He is fighting for the right to run for president as a naturalized citizen. And he's not just doing it for himself. He's doing it for the 24 to 25 million Americans who are also naturalized citizens. It doesn't feel that they should be treated as second class citizens. And I agree with him. So we'll give you an update on that and more when we come back. Welcome back to the show, everyone, I'm Anna Kasparian, and I'm happy you're here because we've got a lot more news to get to. And since Jank Yugar is not here today in his capacity as a host, I thought it would be a perfect opportunity to give you all an update about Jank Yugar, not the host, but the presidential candidate. because as you all know, he's been fighting to ensure that naturalized American citizens have

the right to run for president. And this is based on his interpretation of the 14th Amendment. So let's get to that legal battle and what the latest updates are. A federal judge has denied Democratic presidential candidate Jank Yugar's request to be included on South Carolina's Democratic presidential primary ballot, despite being a naturalized citizen rather than a natural born citizen of the United States. Now, the judge rejected Uyghur's argument that the Constitution's 14th Amendment overrode the natural born citizen clause of the Constitution. But I thought that there were some exchanges in this court proceeding that are worth knowing about

because to me, this is actually the first indication that there is a possibility that as Uger, you know, appeals this and he is appealing this decision, you know, the appeals court might have a different opinion here. So let me make my case. Here's what happened. Now, the 14th amendment, which states all persons born or naturalized in the United States are citizens of the United States and that all citizens have a right to equal protection under the law, created one single undiluted citizenship and repealed the obsolete vestial, vestigeal, I can't say that word, sorry about that, words that linger in the natural born citizen clause. And that's according to Uger's attorney. His name is Dwayne Sam. That's what he said

in his oral argument. So that's the heart of the argument that Yugar is making, right? Now, the lawyer also argued that the state party, meaning the state's Democratic Party, which is keeping Jank off the ballot, discriminated against Uger based on national origin, a protected class like race or gender when it rejected him from the ballot. But the U.S. district judge, his name is Joseph Anderson, ruled from the bench on January 10th, that he was not convinced that the equal protection clause of the Constitution or the due process rights afforded in the Fifth Amendment effectively repealed the constitutional requirement that a president or the president be a natural born citizen. And so for anyone who doesn't

know, Jank Huger was not born in the United States, which is why he's a naturalized citizen. He was born in Istanbul, Turkey, to Turkish parents. And so he told reporters after the ruling that he does plan to appeal to the fourth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. And he has been accepted on ballots in other states, six other states, for that matter. By the way, South Carolina did something super shady where, you know, in order to appeal, appear on a ballot, you have to pay for it. I didn't even know this. This is yet another example of how you need to be a wealthy individual or fundraise like crazy in order to run for president. And it's just, I feel find it to be incredibly undemocratic.

But you know, there are people who believe in what Jank is doing. They've been donating to him, small dollar donations, and he's been using it to make this case and also to run, because he really does want a primary challenge to Joe Biden. But basically, his campaign paid $25,000 to do the application to appear on that ballot. And the state's Democratic Party just took the money and they won't return it. Like, that's, that's insane. Anyway, during oral arguments, the judge Anderson called the legislative history of the amendment basically inconclusive. Okay, so let's just stop there.

He's basically saying like, you know, the interpretation of this amendment and how it applies to the case that Uyghur is bringing forth here, it's kind of inconclusive. So that's where I see a little sliver of hope, to be quite frank, but I, it's a sliver. And clearly, since Jank is planning on repealing or appealing this, he sees some hope in, you know, pursuing the appeals. But nonetheless, let me continue. But said that specific language, like in the natural born citizen clause, should be given more weight than general language, like in the 14th Amendment. And finding that a legal text implicitly repeals another is generally discouraged. That cuts against you, Anderson told Uger's attorney, Sam. There's also some precedent

that the judge turned to in making his decision like a 2012 Colorado federal court decision that found that a Guyana-born, naturalized citizen could not be barred from, I'm sorry, could be barred, my apologies, could be barred from the Democratic primary ballot. And that ruling was affirmed in an appeals court decision authored by then judge Neil Gorsuch, who's now a Supreme Court justice. So that precedent is also working against Jank Uger here. But interestingly enough, an attorney for the state's Democratic Party tried to like sidestep the 14th Amendment argument, which I thought was interesting. An attorney for the state party argued that the Democratic Party has a First Amendment right of association and is free

to choose from or choose whom they allow to participate in their primaries. Quote, we get to say who we want in our primary. Richard Hurek, the attorney for the state party told the judge, this is so gross. The Democratic Party is not stopping Uyghur from running for president in the general election, he said. What does that even mean? I mean, like, you're not allowing him to participate in the Democratic primaries. is he's running as a Democratic candidate.

And so the, like, anyway, he knows what he's doing, he knows what he's saying, but just absorb the admission there. The admission is, no, no, no, no, no, we call the shots. So is it really a democracy when a bunch of Democratic officials in a state decide whether or not a Democratic candidate will even appear on the ballot? Because remember, they're not even addressing, they're sidestepping, Uyghur, 14th Amendment argument. They're not even addressing that, which I thought was interesting. Instead, they're arguing, well, we have a First Amendment right to say no to Yugar because we just

don't want him. How about that? Which is, I think, a pretty gross thing to say. And what I thought was interesting was that Anderson, the judge, seemed pretty skeptical of that First Amendment argument and even mentioned a 1944 Supreme Court ruling that stopped the Texas Democratic Party from excluding black people from voting in their primaries. At that point, the lawyer representing the Democratic Party in South Carolina said that the party cannot and would not discriminate against a candidate based on race or gender, but it could exclude someone like Uyghur because they are not constitutionally qualified. Okay, but whether he's constitutionally qualified or not is currently being adjudicated.

So you could put him on the ballot and then see what happens after this case is adjudicated, but they're refusing to do it. Six other states have chosen to put Uyghur on the ballot and will change course if the court case plays out and indicates that, no, the Constitution does not give you the right to run for president as a naturalized citizen. Now, in his brief oral ruling from the bench, Anderson indicated that his decision turned on the 14th Amendment question at the heart of this case, and he was not at all providing credibility. to the First Amendment argument that the state's Democratic Party was making. And so the judge said it was a strong assertion by the Democratic Party that they definitely, oh, I'm sorry, this is actually a statement from Jank. It was a strong assertion by the Democratic Party that they definitely want to discriminate

based on national origin, Uyghur told reporters. It's good for 24 million citizens in America to know the Democratic Party does not want you and does not respect you, he said, referring to the number of naturalized citizens. And in response to that, the lawyer for the South Carolina Democratic Party said, quote, we did not say, oh, Mr. Uger, Mr. Ugar is a foreigner. We don't want a foreigner in our election. The goal was we don't want to step into a controversy with you. And so the controversy is his naturalized citizen status. They think that that is going to waste their time. and potentially waste delegates if he appears on the ballot and actually gets enough

boats. And so that is the argument that they're making. But we'll see how this plays out as Jank appeals this to the Court of Appeals. We're going to move on now and talk a little bit about something I've brought up on the show a few times. And it really has to do with the failure of municipalities and even the federal government, basically contracting work to private organizations. Oftentimes they're nonprofit. And when we hear nonprofit, we think, well, nonprofits are great, right? They do good work. Except nonprofits sometimes tend to be. a money suck from local state and federal governments and don't end up making situations any better. And we have a lot of that going on here in California and Los Angeles in particular.

So let's discuss. Hundreds, literally hundreds of formally homeless people in Los Angeles were evicted from their apartments after a nonprofit that helped house them in the first place, failed. to pay the rent on time. This story is insane and it gives you a sense of how much money is wasted and how much dysfunction we are experiencing in local government here in Los Angeles. I'm sure that this model has been replicated in other parts of the country as well, but this is something that has cost a lot of money and in the end has not yielded the results

that people would expect and that homeless people should expect as individuals who deserve dignity, who deserve a place to live without these incredibly disruptive situations coming about because of the incredibly irresponsible nature of these nonprofits. So altogether, 306 people lost taxpayer-funded homes in South Los Angeles as a result of Hopixes, failure to pay rent on time, the nonprofit said. While more than half were then placed in permanent housing or sent to temporary sites, Hopics and Los Angeles housing authorities did not say what happened to the other 119 people. So at the heart of this is that nonprofit known as Hopics. Now, I'm going to keep calling it Hopics, but for the sake of knowing its full name, it's the homeless outreach program integrated care system.

And former disgraced congresswoman Katie Hill has an executive role with this nonprofit, which I thought was fascinating. We're going to hear a statement from her in just a second. But one of the evicted tenants told the press the following. It's about time somebody stepped up and exposed what Hopix is doing, said DeMario Swate, a 59-year-old who was evicted. The nonprofit gets a grant to make sure that people are housed and people are not being housed. and I'm one of them. Now, Cal Matters, a publication here in California, obviously, interviewed three of the participants who landlord said were evicted from Hoppix funded houses, and they reported ending up

back on the streets or living in their cars. And according to an investigation done by Cal Matters, the prominent, very prominent, once you look into how much funding they've received, Los Angeles nonprofit has repeatedly ignored, explicit eviction warnings from their landlords, did little to vet middlemen that it entrusted to execute the program. So like not only are these nonprofits serving as like middlemen themselves, they then contract middlemen. There are middlemen to the middlemen. Like that's how like crazy and bureaucratic the system is when in reality you should have a government agency that's well staffed and well resourced to handle a situation.

situation as devastating and as disgraceful as the homelessness crisis here in Los Angeles and in California. Also, they took on far more clients than the case managers could serve. They were only supposed to have, you know, about 20 clients and this nonprofit had high turnover and they were understaffed. And so the staff would take on far too many clients. And when you do that, unfortunately, you're not going to be able to provide adequate service to these individuals. And so what does Hopics do? Like, what is their mission? Well, they're supposed to help unhoused people find a place to live. What they do is they will pay a portion of the rent, subsidize a portion of the rent for up to two years. And also, they're supposed to

provide social services like employment training and assistance applying for public benefits. The idea is to kind of get people on their own two feet and give them an opportunity to grow and progress to a point where they are independent. They can take care of themselves. Ideally, the clients gradually contribute more to their rent until they're able to stay housed on their own. And I think that's a great idea. And I think the social services that are attached to this, I mean, theoretically, if it was actually working, is a great idea. But it seems as though there was a lot of mismanagement here. So landlords are all. often, and I hate that this is true, but it is true. Landlords are often reluctant to rent their properties to people receiving government rental assistance, whether due to bias against them or just aversion to some of the red tape that comes along with, tenants who are subsidized by local government. So instead, what Hoppix would do is they would turn to these middlemen and they would call them brokers, right? And the brokers would then rent the properties

And then sub-lease the rooms in those properties to the participants, to the clients. Norj Jones created the nonprofit housing one-by-one in August of 2020, for instance, to help with Los Angeles's housing and homelessness crisis, he said. A month later, he welcomed his first Hoppix tenant. Jones and his partner, DeJohn Dixon, sublet more than a dozen units, housing more than 80 people for about $950 a month for a private room. They charged $2,800 as a security deposit according to several signed lease agreements. Now, things unfortunately devolved from there. Jones rents units from ocean properties on behalf of the clients that are being served by Hoppix. Jones and three other brokers said Hoppix would go months without paying rent, causing them to fall behind on

paying the property owners. As a result, he says he owes ocean properties more than $200,000 in rent and fees. Can you imagine? You're like relying on this for profit to reimburse you and ensure that you're paying the rent to the landlords that you are, you know, renting from on behalf of these clients. And he can't get them to do what they're supposed to do and pay him. And so Popics officials say that Jones has overstated how much it owes him. And in some cases said he submitted invoices far too late to get reimbursed. I don't, that's not a thing. Let's just let's be clear about that. There's no, oh, you sent in the invoice a little too late. So now we're not going to reimburse you. That's not a thing. You have to pay people. You can't

just say, I don't even believe it, right? But even if it's true that he took his time to send the invoices in, you've got to pay the man. Okay, especially when you're receiving hundreds of millions of dollars from the city. Anyway, but still in February, in a February email to Jones, Hoppix acknowledged owing him $135,000 for 2022 and upwards of $90,000 for 2023. So in other words, he was right. They absolutely do owe him, you know, around $200,000 for the work that he's done for them. And Hopics, there's also evidence that Hoppix failed to do the proper vetting of some of the middlemen brokers that the nonprofit contracted to work with. For instance, it acknowledged that it went into business with some brokers without doing so much as a Google

search. For instance, the agency leased 24 locations from Donnier Mitchell of L.A. supportive housing. Cal Matters found that Mitchell left federal prison in 2014 after serving a sentence for defrauding California's employment development department. Like, what you guys need to understand is that when it comes to government grants, there are people looking for a quick payday, right? And so you have these nonprofits sprout up during the coronavirus pandemic because you see all this legislation passing that grants a lot more money to, you know, government to ensure that they're housing people who are on the streets during the pandemic to try to keep people safe. And so,

Some see that as a great opportunity to improve people's lives. Others see it as an opportunity to get rich quick. And so get a load of Katie Hill, a former United States congresswoman who was ousted from Congress because of her inappropriate relationship with staffers. We didn't have the habit of Google searching everybody's names. And probably that's a simple fix, said Hoppix deputy director and former U.S. representative Katie Hill. Unbelievable.

In other words, she is admitting that the simple. vetting didn't happen before hiring some of these middlemen. Hopics, which has received about $140 million in Los Angeles City, County, state, and federal funding over the last three years for a program known as Rapid Rehousing was months behind on paying rent. And it's rent for the tenant that we heard from a little earlier who was like, I'm glad that someone's reporting on Hopics because they need to be exposed for what they're doing. And look, the homeless this crisis in California is different from any other state. Because oftentimes when there are issues, it's because local government isn't allocating the necessary resources to adequately

respond to the crisis. That's not the case in California. So for instance, Gavin Newsom's administration has allocated more than $20 billion to fight homelessness. But the state's homeless population has exploded to 170,000 people in 2022. I'm sure the numbers are even higher now. And by the way, we need to build housing. Like that's also a huge part of it. We need to have drug rehabilitation programs, not just harm reduction. Some people actually really want to get clean and they need to go through detox and rehabilitation. That's incredibly expensive and people can't afford it.

That needs to be an expanded model. And due to COVID, the federal government also spent $100 million in emergency aid to Los Angeles County specifically to address homelessness during the pandemic, along with the pandemic, along with another $220 million to six cities in the region, including Los Angeles. And so revenues at special service for groups searched from $84 million in 2018 before the pandemic to $149.1 million in 2022. It also gets rapid rehousing funding from Measure H. That was something I voted in favor of in 2017, the Los Angeles County sales tax and a mix of federal state and city funds. Basically, Californians, like, I'm sorry, Angelino, so people in L.A., through a ballot

measure, voted to increase their own taxes so we could build housing and house people, because we see what's happening to, you know, our fellow Americans on the streets. And where's that money going? Obviously, they're not building the housing necessary to respond to this adequately. And when the money gets funneled to some of these nonprofits, and those nonprofits aren't being held accountable, there isn't enough government oversight, a lot of that money ends up getting wasted. And so there's also this like non-profit model situation where it appears that corruption might be taking place. For instance, Hopix director Veronica Lewis was paid $261,000 last year according to the organization's tax records. But get a load of this. She also sits on the state council on

homelessness, which Governor Newsom has charged with developing policies to prevent and end homelessness in California. Do you guys see the conflict of interest there? Because if you're collecting a $261,000 salary every year and it's to respond to the homeless crisis, are you really going to have a vested interest in solving the problem that's getting you paid? I just think that this model has all sorts of issues, obviously mismanagement. of funds, but also there's a corrupt element to it as well. And perhaps some of that money should be used, you know, to actually hire more caseworkers at Hoppix. Instead of paying her, you know, $261,000, they're understaffed. And being understaffed leads to inadequate care for the clients that

they're trying to serve. One employee said that the agency was badly understaffed because of high turnover and unable to keep up with the number of tenants that it was supposed to serve. And Los Angeles County requires each case manager to work with up to, up to 25 clients. But in some cases, they're dealing with 30, 35 clients. When I signed my acceptance letter, it was for 20 clients. And within 30 days, I held 60, 60 said Neil Glasgow, a former caseworker for Hoppix, who said he left in 2022 after about a year. I was playing catch up every month.

So in response to this reporting and in response to this investigation, the leaders over at Hoppics are now saying, we need to reconsider hiring middlemen who rent units on our behalf. We'll see how that plays out. And they're also claiming that maybe, maybe they'll consider doing Google searches here and there when it comes to vetting people that they decide to work with. But I think this entire model is broken. I think that it would make far more sense to have a robust local government agency that directly provides the services and those services need to go beyond simply putting someone in temporary housing. There is a very real mental health crisis. There's a very real drug addiction problem. Those issues need to be dealt with as well. And right now I'm seeing

very little of that on the ground here in L.A. I'm sure that's the case in other places across the country as well. Anyway, we got to take a break. When we come back, we've got a special guest. Don't miss it. I'm going to be. I'm going to be. I'm going to I'm going to be. I'm going to be able to be.