The Young Turks - Weak Sauce

Episode Date: July 8, 2022

President Joe Biden has signed an executive order that attempts to safeguard some key abortion rights in the aftermath of the Supreme Court reversing Roe v. Wade. Former Japanese prime minister Shinzo Abe was assassinated during a parliamentary campaign speaking event. Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh was forced to flee his dinner at a DC Morton’s Steakhouse as protestors tore into Kavanaugh’s decision to strip women of their reproductive rights. Progressive Rep. Ro Khana admitted on Fox News that Joe Biden is the Democrats’ “best bet” to defeat Trump in 2024. Celebrity chef Martha Stewart is his hoping some of her friends die early so she can swoop in and steal their husband. Hosts: Cenk Uygur, John Iadarola, Jessica Burbank *** The largest online progressive news show in the world. Hosted by Cenk Uygur and Ana Kasparian. LIVE weekdays 6-8 pm ET. Help support our mission and get perks. Membership protects TYT's independence from corporate ownership and allows us to provide free live shows that speak truth to power for people around the world. See Perks: ▶ https://www.youtube.com/TheYoungTurks/join SUBSCRIBE on YOUTUBE: ☞ http://www.youtube.com/subscription_center?add_user=theyoungturks FACEBOOK: ☞ http://www.facebook.com/TheYoungTurks TWITTER: ☞ http://www.twitter.com/TheYoungTurks INSTAGRAM: ☞ http://www.instagram.com/TheYoungTurks TWITCH: ☞ http://www.twitch.com/tyt 👕 Merch: http://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 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 #TYT #TheYoungTurks #BreakingNews 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. Bigot King! Bexie! Bigot team! Bigot King! Bigotee!

Bigotee! Bigotee! Bigot Dup! Poo! Poundrop! Power! Jake you or John I don't know Jessica Burbank. The dragons are in the house.

The rebels are in the house. All my rowdy friends are here tonight. All right. You know Jessica Burbank's on Rebel headquarters. Everybody knows that. And damage report. Who doesn't know Danny Burbank? I mean, how ignorant do you have to be not to know damage report?

The whole country knows about it. It seems like a lot of people don't know about it. No, no way. That's the impression I get. I think that it reaches, well, 99.7%. Yeah, I don't know. I would say in LA, I can't go anywhere without not being recognized. Do you get recognized a lot or no?

It depends on the context, but no, not especially. Okay, I guess you. Yeah, occasionally in my house. Occasionally. All right, anyways, we'll stay while that for the bonus episode for the members, although they won't be here, but it's okay, you get it. Members, you get special privileges, you get to have fun conversations like that. Anyways, t.y.com slash join.

I've mentioned that. We've got tons of news and, you know, the usual, good news, bad news, rage, passion, etc. Let's move forward. Here comes John. Let's in fact do that, although we're going to let Joe Biden get the first word in. Okay. I want to talk about an executive order I'm signing to protect reproductive rights of women. In the aftermath of the Supreme Court's terrible extreme and I think so totally wrongheaded decision to overturn Roe v. Wade.

In both formalized actions I announced right after the decision, as well as adding new measures today. Democrats have been pressuring the president, Joe Biden, to do something about literally anything. And one of the areas where they most wanted action was to do something in regard to reproductive rights, especially following the Supreme Court, destroying Roe v. Wade. And now finally, he's done it. The buck has to stop somewhere, and he has brought together a commission to figure out where it should stop off somewhere. What does this executive order that he passed actually do? Well, it's vague, you'll be surprised to find out.

leaves the details largely to Xavier Bacera, Secretary of Health and Human Services, who has said that there's no magic bullet that can restore access to abortion. It's the only type of bullet, not widely available in America today, actually. Yeah. The order directs Mr. Bacera to develop a report, quote, identifying potential actions to protect access to abortion, but doesn't say what those actions will be. Mr. Bucera himself will identify steps to ensure that pregnant women have access to emergency care. It says by, quote, considering updates to current guidance on obligations specific to emergency

conditions and stabilizing. This is like one of the most urgent things in the world, man. Are we going to have a commission to eventually figure out something that we can then pursue at some point, presumably after the midterms? That's what it's sounding like. Now, he is supposed to report back to the White House within 30 days. But the thing about this, of course, is that we don't need to wait a month to find out about many of the things that Joe Biden, the White House, the executive branch,

could unilaterally do to protect access to reproductive rights. And even in the areas where they can't directly restore that access, they can reassure people across America that they take this as seriously as tens of millions of Americans do. And it's not to say that this won't do anything, will give you more details, but considering all of the pressure that he's been facing, especially this week, this just feels so incredibly weak sauce considering the stakes. So look, we're always constructive, so I'll tell you at the end what he should have done, right?

But first let me tell you, I read this thing twice because it was like, am I missing? I must be missing it, right? Like, because they made a big deal. I was like, you're big an hour. And then he just spoke for 20 minutes and big. And I'm like, wait, what is it? Well, I'm pretty good at reading. What is this?

Nothing. Okay, it appears to be absolutely nothing. And here's some code words that tell you it's nothing. No magic, magic bullet is what they, Democrats always say when they're not going to do anything. Oh, you can do, no magic bullet. You don't need magic, you need government, let's say intestinal fortitude and leave out other body parts, okay? And then when you say you're trying to identify potential actions, what you're saying is you have not yet identifiable. them. So another month is going to help you. I mean, that decision leaked two months ago.

How long do you need to identify potential actions? Okay. And then finally, any mention of a commission is obvious, right? Democrats love commissions. You remember the last commission that got us, oh no, right, there was no commission that ever got us any results, ever, ever from the Democrats, certainly in my lifetime, okay? So a commission means we promise to do nothing, but this will help MSNBC trick older Democratic voters into thinking that we are doing something. So that's the game that was played here. Again, I'll get back to constructive solutions in a second. But so far, all I see is just a giant nothing burger, biggest nothing burger I've ever seen.

Jessica, did I miss something? Yeah, I mean, it's a lot of saying things that sound like they're doing something. It's a lot of talking about doing things. But the bottom line is, is that's not going to do anything for the women who are trying to access care, who can access care in the meantime. There's a lot of time before the midterms, even, that they could do something about this. And I think John's going to get into this in a second. But let's talk about voting because that's their big solution, right?

In the short term, we're going to talk about doing something and do nothing really. In the long term, we're going to ask you to please vote for Joe Biden again. 57% of women voted for Joe Biden. They already elected him to office to hopefully do something in this situation. And he's not. This is a situation where the executive branch should be taking action because it's very clear. that the judicial branch has overstepped. They've overreached with their power and it needs to be corrected by the other branches.

Joe Biden is in a position to do something about this. He could nominate more justices to the court. He just brokered a deal apparently with Mitch McConnell to elect this guy Chad Meredith. And of course, his name is Chad, who is a pro-life judge in Kentucky in exchange for federal nominations not being blocked. Do what's in your power right now, stack the court. Yeah, exactly. Yeah, there have been any number of people who have been giving them clear directives.

But maybe those people can call Xavier Bacera. Maybe that'll eventually get through. Hey, remember the commission that was going to look into whether he could unilaterally cancel student loan debt? And it got back to him like a year ago. And then they told us it'd be two weeks until he finally does something. And that was like two months ago. Yeah, commission's the best. Anyway, he does have things that he wants to be done that are semi-specific contained within this executive order.

So let's go into those. So addressing a few concerns. One of which is that those people seeking abortions can be prosecuted using personal information in emails, texts, or web searches. A lot of people have concerns about data being stripped out of app usage, those sorts of things. Executive Order asked the chair of the Federal Trade Commission to consider actions to protect consumers' privacy when patients seek information about reproductive care. This directs him to consider actions to protect information. So it's like they're, it's illegal in multiple states already. They're now working on the next steps, making it illegal for people.

in those states to access care in states where it's legal, they're going to be hunting you down and locking you up and they're looking into making it a little bit harder technologically. That's great. Yeah, and John, let me just pause, interrupt there for a second because that's the kind of stuff, that's why I read it twice. I was like, okay, protecting people's privacy so they can't, that's that's good, okay, so what's the proposal? Oh, considering action at a later time that is not actually outlined here at all. Yeah, okay, so that's literally nothing.

Well, and maybe it will be great, but it's not our job to just take their word for it months out. You go to CNN, go to some MSABC, I'm sure they're gonna be extending a lot of goodwill, a lot of olive branches of this executive order. But anyway, Mr. Baceres said his agency will work with the DOJ to ensure that people have access to abortion pills. That theoretically is very significant. It's also complex, and the proof will very much be in the medicinal pudding in this. will have to see if they can actually do that. There is a full court press from Republicans and state legislatures to make that as difficult as possible to lock up people who help you get access to those sorts of medications.

But that's for Becerra, that's for the DOJ, for the FTC. What about for you, as Jessica alluded to, Biden has something he wants you to do as well, as you'll see in this video. On the day the Dobbs decision came down, I immediately announced what I would do. But I also made it clear, based on the reasoning of the court, there is no constitutional right to choose only the way to fulfill and restore that right for women in this country is by voting, by exercising the power at the ballot box. I know it's frustrating, and it made a lot of people very angry. But the truth is this. And it's not just me saying

it. It's what the court said. When you read the decision, the court has made clear. It will not protect the rights of women. The court now, now, practically dares the women of America to go to the ballot box. It's my hope and strong belief that women will, in fact, turn out in record numbers to reclaim the rights that have taken from them by the court. If you want to change the circumstance for women and even little girls in this country, please go out and vote. Well, for God's sake, there's an election November. Vote, vote, vote, vote. Yes, and if you take his advice, if you go out and vote in large enough numbers, then someday we might have the miracle of a Democratic president and a Democratic Senate and a Democratic House.

And then surely they will do something. Look, voting is a part of this process. We understand that. But the fun thing about imploring people to vote is that, again, it puts the onus on other people, people who don't already have the political power. Joe Biden does, he has the majorities. And I understand there are tons of, you know, quote unquote centrist who will jump out in advance of this argument and say, yeah, but Chris and Sinema and Joe Manchin, okay, it is possible that Joe Biden could use every tool, take every bit of advice that we've ever given him to put pressure on those people and that even after that, he would fail.

And if that were to happen, you know who would be sympathetic? us, were he to try the fact that he preemptively surrenders and that so many Democratic voters are willing to just accept that preemptive surrender to imply that there's nothing they can do to pressure mansion or cinema. As we were talking about on Twitter earlier today, it's not like they don't know how to go scorched earth. Take a look at what they did in Needed Turner. Take a look at what they were willing to do to Jessica Cisneros. When it's progressives, they know how to use the resources, tactics, the tools of persuasion and all that that they have. But when it comes to protecting tens of millions of people's rights, suddenly it's, what are you going to do?

You should probably go vote more. Yeah, all right, now let me show you how progressives are useful and corporate establishment Democrats are useless as a perfect example. So first of all, abortion pill is actually protecting that and make sure that you can get it even in red states would be super useful. So they mentioned abortion pill, that's why I got excited, that's why I reread it several times. Like okay, abortion pill, how are we gonna get it to the red states?

Oh, there's no proposal. It's to further study the abortion pill. I don't need to study it. It works, it's good, we should get it to the red states. They're like, okay, yeah, maybe later, but we'll have to study the study of the study. Okay, you're useless, you're useless. Okay, so then they say, okay, give us more votes. All right, look, no problem, no problem.

How many? Give me a number. Give me a number. Give me a number at which you would do goddamn anything. I'm serious. Voting rights, women's rights, your entire agenda. Give me a number of senators, assume you control the House. Give me a number of senators where the Democrats say, well, that number, we would definitely get it passed.

They will never give you that number. Mainstream media probably will never ask them for that number. There's no way of knowing. No way. Well, is 54 senators enough? Is 56, 58, 62, 68? Is there any number of senators where you would actually do something? And the answer is no, because they don't want to do it.

do anything. You know what they're working on right now? In the Senate, Tim Kane, that useless corporate Democrat, who's Hillary Clinton's VP candidate, is trying to put together a bipartisan bill on abortion rights. That's gonna get 60 votes. No, come on, come on. Nobody's that stupid. Is Tim Kane really that, like, does he have an IQ of 15, 20, 25 is a single digits? You're gonna get a useful bill to protect abortion nights and you get 10 Republicans to vote for it. On which planet? No, why don't you tell me that you're lying and you're fake and you don't actually plan to do anything without telling me. Okay, so what's useful? Give me a number and if I was the president, I said, get me 54 sentence, whatever the number is. I would say 50,

but okay, but 54, and I will guarantee you that abortion is legal throughout the country. Will Biden do that? Of course not, because he's not going to do it. So, all right, number two, okay, how can you do something now? Like, for example, there's a lot of different ways. I actually don't agree with Jessica unpacking the courts. A lot of progressives say that. I don't like it. Okay, no problem.

There's a thousand other ways, okay? So, for example, right now, if I was president, I'd say, look, who's blocking access to abortion? Well, there is a very little answer to that. Joe Manchin and Christmas Cinema. So yes, every Republican is blocking it. That's clear. There's no question about that. But if Mansion and Cinema would lift the hold on the filibuster, we would have it today.

Today it would be over. We would have abortion legal in the entire country. So there's a very, very, very literal answer to who's blocking it. So what has Joe Biden done to fight Mansion and Cinema on that issue? Nothing, literally zero, nothing. Why? because he values them more than he values you. And reproductive rights, as a fact, stone cold fact.

He said, oh, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. My beloved Joe Manchin, my actual president, I could never defy him. Christmas cinema, what if she loses? She's going to lose in a Democratic primary anyway, you idiot, okay? Oh, beloved Democratic senators, I loved him so much. I love the parliamentarian, I love the filibuster. Yeah, you like it more than reproductive rights. It's a fact.

It's a fact because you haven't fought him at all. Okay, look, you bring in any kick-ass progressive, and we will, okay, and you say, oh, well, you can't, they would turn Republican. Guys, just think about this, okay. If Biden risks having them become Republican now, cinema and mansion, what do you lose? Literally nothing, because we're not passing anything anyway. Those two have blocked everything. Voting rights, women, they blocked everything.

So we would lose nothing if we lost into Republicans. But what you would gain is you would gain a Democratic party that is visibly, aggressively fighting for its voters. Where the voters might go, oh, well, I see it now. I see it. If I give them two more senators, they lost mention of cinema. But if I give them two more senators, these some bitches are going to pass it. They're going to pass it, okay?

But right now, nobody's going to show up to vote because we're positive that even if we gave you 58 senators in a miracle, you would find a way to go, oh, Cun's. Oh, he broke his saying, oh, the corporate twisted his leg. Oh, no, no, we can't do it. Oh, the parliamentarian. Oh, the parliamentarian. Testors with a steel chair. Yeah, you guys are liars.

This is journalism. The reporters are going, oh, yes, they will give them infinite. If you give them 200 senators, they would say they might form another commission. So that's why you should vote for Democrats. Demonstry of Democrats are awesome. You're not a reporter. Challenge them. Challenge the powerful.

They're lying. If Joe Biden wants votes, earn them. Do something to earn the votes. Do anything right now. Build abortion clinics on federal lands. There's a ton of federal land that they said you can drill oil on when we're experiencing an oil shortage that went unused. We're not talking about building abortion clinics in our national parks like in Yellowstone. We're talking about using federal land we already have to increase access to abortion. The abortion pill, great example of something you can do right now. We can mail it to people. But unless we have a strong administration enforcing the laws that they create and creating actual structures and systems for people to get these abortion pills, this is going to be ineffective. They are asking the alphabet soup of bureaucracy in America to think about it, just like we've been thinking about it.

And that's really not going to go anywhere because what's happening is people who work in places like Walgreens and in pharmacies are already declining to give birth control to people who are there to pick it up. What happens when people who deliver mail start refusing to deliver mail if it's from an address where they suspect it could be an abortion pill? That's really what we're going to experience in this country and we need an administration that's going to be strong and actually make laws to protect people of this real reality. We could talk about what's going on in Congress and the Senate a lot, but a lot of people who are on the ground who are regular people doing regular jobs are now taking matters into their own hands and taking other people's rights away from them. And it's not being taken seriously by anyone in this administration. That became very clear in this speech. Yeah, I got to say one last thing. So you know 10-year-old girl was raped and needed an abortion in Ohio.

The monster Republicans in Ohio said, no, we don't care. We don't care at all. Go have you were a rapist child at the age of 10, right? So now the senators are thinking about voting for rape and incest exception to abortion. And I would put Republicans in a really, really tough spot. So you know how they're thinking of doing? They're asking for unanimous consent votes. Now, if you don't know the Senate, that would mean you only need one Republican senator to object.

But wait a minute, don't you want to get all the Republican senators on the record? Isn't that the whole point? Hey, vote against, hey, Colin Markowski pretended to be pro choice, but look at how they voted. These guys pretend to be moderate, but look at how they voted. No, because that would get mansion on the record. No, Democrats aren't on your side. They're sons of bitch liars who never get called out by the press because they're all best friends. Let me see you pass one goddamn thing that your voters actually wanted.

Not an infrastructure bill that your donors wanted, not a semiconductor bill that your donors wanted, but something that you promised your voters. Nothing, nothing. They're the world's worst liars. With that, I think we should take our break. We've got some pretty important, tragic international news to get to you after this. All right, back on TYT, Jank, John and Jessica with you guys. We've got some tragic news.

We do. In fact, we're going to be starting with this. Shinzo Abe was mid-speech when suddenly two shots rang out. His security tackled the gunman immediately, but it was too late. You can see in that video, of course, both one of the shots that were fired by an apparently homemade weapon against the former Prime Minister of Japan. Shinzo Abe, you saw the man being tackled. Unfortunately, what happened not that many hours after that was Abe, who had been struck by the weapon. was rushed to the hospital, but died around 5 p.m. local time.

And in this segment, we're going to talk a little bit about what we know about the assailant, the killer in this instance. I talk a little bit about the context of firearms laws in Japan, but we also wanted to briefly let you know a bit about Abe in case, you know, for our largely American audience, you might not be familiar with the politician who was struck down. He gained prominence initially national politics in Japan in the early 2000s. First became prime minister back in 2006, but resigned just a year later. He was eventually, when he returned to politics, Japan's longest serving prime minister resigned not long ago in September of 2020 due to health problems.

But as you saw in that video, he was speaking at a campaign rally. Despite resigning as prime minister, he remained active and influential in politics there. And for Japan, obviously this is an incredibly significant thing. political violence anywhere is violence of any type with guns is so rare there that this is even more shocking, I think. Police have since arrested the suspected shooter, a 41-year-old. Former Japanese Navy member apparently had some sort of issue with Abe. There were references to Abe being involved with some sort of organization that wasn't specified that this man apparently had a problem with. They say it wasn't due to political differences, always take any sort of claims

about motivations in the initial aftermath of violence with a massive grain of salt. But you can see the individual there and you can also see the weapon that was used in the lower right hand corner of the frame. If it looks, you know, shoddy haphazard, that's because it was. It's pipes and a board duct taped together, apparently two metal barrels attached to a wooden board about a foot long. And so we're going to talk about gun laws there. And we're also going to talk about the prevalence of violence. But I want to make sure that both You've got a chance to talk about the fact that a former world leader was shot and killed. Yeah, it's shocking to see an assassination these days.

And so my first thought, honestly, was that, oh, he's a former prime minister, and he's at a political rally. That's weird, because here in America, we're used to, at least I'm used to Obama, who, like, hey, if once you're done, you just go into a cave or a mansion and a yacht. And you protect your legacy, right? George W. Bush did that. Obama did that. Or if you're Trump, you just whine all day long. Ah, I want, I want, right?

So, but our former leaders honestly don't care enough about policy to actually be at a rally to fight for anything. That's why I was like double surprised. So give Abe credit on that, that he cared enough to keep going and going and he had significant health problems. Now, Abbe in Japan's politics is right wing, okay, and he was known as a nationalist. Now, remember, international context is very important here. There's some countries where they have real right wingers in charge. Brazil and India are good examples, but most of the developed world is so much more liberal, progressive left wing than us. So Abe, as a right winger in Japan,

probably was to the left of AOC here, okay? So because there's, we're so conservative in America, we're so insanely right wing, not the people, the polling indicates the people are very progressive, but our politicians are so intensely right wing that it would be surprising them other than the slight nationalism that Abe had if he wasn't way more left wing than the most left wing Democrat here. And that says nothing about Japan, it says everything about America. Now, the guy who killed him, well, nine out of ten times, maybe 98 out of a hundred times,

these type of terrorists are right wingers. And so this is one of the right wing, oh, no, that's outrageous, what do you mean? Well, first of all, this guy turns out, he's like, oh, I didn't like his certain religious group he was in. Yeah, a religious, fundamentalist nut who wanted to kill based on religion. By the way, the right wing in the Muslim world is called al-Qaeda, Taliban, and ISIS. That's the right wing of the Muslim world, okay? Whenever you go to any place where there's a killing and assassination. So the most consequential assassinations of our lifetime was when Rabin was killed in Israel.

And Rabin was center right in Israel. Of course, they say labor and he could claim he was center left. But in Israel, also the politics are so right wing that even a center left guy is actually right winger, et cetera. and he was very tough on the Palestinians, but he was considering peace. And a religious right wing zealot murdered him and killed the peace treaty. So it's almost always the right wing in whatever country that resorts to violence and kills people because they disagree. Yeah, I'll also point out that the abenomics, the way he ran the monetary system and the economy in Japan is an amazing case study because they had an extremely high debt to GDP ratio with relatively low inflation, which just means. that you can increase the money supply and increase public spending without experiencing

runaway inflation, which is something that even mainstream economists in the United States would never dream of talking about. So he was very left of the U.S. in that way. And something weird happens when world leaders die, where everyone starts trying to categorize them as was this a good guy or was this a bad guy. And usually it's a mixed bag. Usually it's not a good guy or a bad guy. And I think what's really important to take away from this is not that a good guy or bad guy died, but that an election was happening. And this was a campaign event. And this means something for democracy. And this is a destabilizing moment in Japan. And we're going to see groups in Japan get blamed for this. We're going to see supporters of Abe

start blaming other marginalized groups, most likely in Japan. And we need to keep an eye on what's going on there. And J.R. pointed out this morning that this could inspire other extremists elsewhere to take similar action. So it's definitely a time for increased security as well. Yeah, 100%. Okay, in the wake of the killing of Shenzhou Abe, a lot of people are talking about guns and Japan, and I am sure there are right-wingers that are using the fact that Japan had very harsh gun control legislation. It was very difficult to get a gun, saying, well, he was killed anyway, so what's the point? They're always ready to surrender opportunistically, but we do need to talk about it, how difficult it is, because I don't think most people can understand exactly how stringent that they are there, those regulations,

that a different sort of approach to guns is possible. So let's talk about what it takes to get a gun and what some of the consequences are of the gun control that Japan has. So handguns are outlawed. Obtaining a shotgun or a rifle requires a full day class every three years, passing a shooting range test with at least 95% accuracy, a background check that includes interviews with family members and coworkers, as well as mental health evaluations, drug tests, and a report of where the guns in ammunition will be stored.

They also require a medical certificate that attests to the applicant's mental health. Police look into details like potential alcohol problems or whether the individual has a history of domestic or or even neighborhood disputes. An officer also will visit the applicant's home to inspect the locker that is legally required for storing a gun and should be affixed to a wall specifically. The rules specify that it must have three outer locks. There are extensive interviews where you have to explain exactly what it is that you need a gun for and some do need it. There are hunters, there are people who compete in sports with firearms. They can explain that during the rigorous interviews that they do. This is obviously very different than anything, not only that we have in America,

but that anyone has ever proposed for America. And as a result, the two countries have had very different results when it comes to guns. Back in 2017, there were 377,000 civilian firearms in Japan, about 0.3 per 100 people. In the U.S., there were 393 million guns, 120 for every 100 people. Yes, we are outnumbered by the guns here. And then, perhaps as a consequence, I will speculate, we can debate. Japan had nine firearm deaths back in 2018. The U.S. had 39,740.

More recently, just one person was killed by gun violence in Japan last year. the U.S. had over 45,000 gun deaths. So a bit of a difference. Now, if you, obviously, Japan's smaller, population is smaller. So we should really correct for per capita numbers. And so we can do that. Let's go to that, actually. The U.S. has about 4.12 homicides per 100,000 individuals.

Japan is down there at 0.02, the 20th, when ranked among high income countries. And by the way, just saying that it's the 20th makes it sound bad. But when you look at the actual numbers, look at the drop off from one to two, from two to three. I mean, it drops off a cliff. And that is complex. There's a lot of different things that are involved there. But you obviously cannot discount how rare guns are, particularly when so many of the things that are thrown out as potential explanations, things like marijuana, access to porn, violent movies, video games, all of that are all freely

available in all of these countries, including Japan. Yeah, conservatives make such a weird argument here by saying, well, if you really want a gun, you can get one. And so we shouldn't ban gun laws. It's like, yeah, some students can be really good at, you know, picking out their phone during a test and cheating. Therefore, everyone should be allowed to use their notes for every exam. I mean, this kind of logic just doesn't hold. It's comical. Yeah, I want to go back to that graph that John was referencing.

Because look at, look at Canada. Canada is the third worst, and it's at 0.5. We're at 4.1.2. That's per capita. We're eight times worse than Canada, which is the third worst, okay? Japan's a 0.02. That was almost no one. And they're not last. They're 20th. Because the other countries do gun control. So people don't die from guns. Yeah. Period. Let me show you one last graph. So there's Japan at the very, very, very bottom of that graph. This is gun related homicides compared to the number of guns. You have very little guns, and you have very little gun homicides, you're at the very corner of that on the left hand side, bottom left, right? You see all those countries, hey, did you notice what happened in the upper right there? Oh, there it is, that one country, the United States, tons of guns and tons of gun deaths. Gee, I can't, is there a correlation?

It's so hard to tell. The only people who tell you that it's not the guns are people who are completely ignorant or lying to you on purpose because they probably get paid by gun manufacturers. And by the way, that is almost every Republican politician. They all know that and they're all liars. And I'll close with this. If you ever hear a Republican talk about gun free zones in America and how, as Jessica alluded to, well, gun laws only mean that the good people can't get. guns, the bad people can. Well, here's an interesting test case. Japan is basically a gun-free zone. So why aren't the criminals running rampant? Why aren't they all magically just getting

guns out of thin air? Because it's a gun-free zone, obviously, and criminals don't have to abide by the law so they can just get a gun. Why hasn't that actually work? You will never hear a Republican actually seriously respond to that point. And individually, here's a challenge. If it's so easy to just get an AR-15 off the black market in countries where they're not available. Show me, go to Japan and buy an assault weapon. I would love to see it. I think it would be a powerful demonstration of how gun control laws don't actually work. Seemingly nobody can do it.

Even organized crime in Japan killed like eight people last year or in the last couple of years. Why isn't that they're not just running wild with the assault weapons that all of the innocent Japanese can't get, it's just BS. It's all BS and it's consequential BS. Do we want to get to this last thing in this block? I think that we probably can. We have a bit of breaking news to talk about. We're going to switch it up here. Shocking news no one could have predicted. Elon Musk is trying to pull out of buying Twitter. He was so dead set on it.

Not only because he could run it much better since he's a modern genius, but also because someone needed to look out for the free speech rights of so many downtrodden conservatives. And he really wanted to, he really wanted to buy it for months. And then unfortunately he was forced to try to back out of the deal. Why? Well, in a filing earlier today, his team claimed that he was. was backing out of the deal because Twitter was in material breach of the agreement they signed with Elon Musk and it made false and misleading statements during negotiations. What is that

about? Well, an excerpt from his filing with the SEC says that Twitter has not provided information that Mr. Musk has requested for nearly two months, notwithstanding his repeated detailed clarifications intended to simplify Twitter's identification, collection, and disclosure of the most relevant information sought in his original request. The so-called bot problem. How many fake accounts are there on Twitter. And of course, he's being honest. When he says he needs to do this because they won't provide information, he's not just weaseling out of this. He's not constantly asking for more and more information no matter what they do. They just won't provide it. And of course, as a modern genius, there's no way he could have suspected that maybe there were some fraudulent

accounts before he signed an agreement, a legal binding document to buy this company. It only occurred to this modern day Einstein to look into this after it started to affect. the stock price of the stock price of Tesla and it started to look like a bad deal. Only then did it occur to him. And so look, if you can't tell I'm being sarcastic, because everybody has seen this. We knew that he was going to try to back out of it. I'm going to jump ahead just a little bit. And I swear, I did not ask for them to pull this, but they did, so I'm going to use it. I tweeted back on May 25th, good Lord Elon Musk, stop being a weenie, just admit you want to pull out of the deal and we can all move on as a society. He could have saved this a lot

of time. He could have done this a couple of months. months ago. Jenk tweeted since Twitter, this is back on May 17th, actually, earlier than mine. Since Twitter isn't worth anywhere near 44 billion, Elon Musk is either going to massively and hilariously disappoint the right wing by backing out of this deal or eat a huge loss that might be in the tens of billions. Oops, hashtag Chadenfreude. And of course, he could end up having to pay a bunch of money.

First of all, he can't just leave. They might take him to court, which might cost him a ton of money. Even if he successfully gets them to allow him to leave, he'll have to pay a billion dollars, But of course he has over $200 billion. It's not real money. It's just a number somebody typed in a computer. It doesn't mean anything, so he's not really losing anything. And one last point, Elon Musk would have you believe.

He would have his unthinking followers who have never even seen critical thought, let alone exercised it, that you sign legal documents pledging tens of billions of dollars to buy a company and only then begin the process of due diligence into whether that makes sense to do. That is not how that works. I'm not a businessman, but I've read enough of what they say that that's what you do before you sign the deal. This is a cover story. It's not true. He's not actually worried about bots.

But even if we accepted the cover story, even if this was true, this shows that he should not be anywhere near the reins of power of any corporation because he's not qualified to be so. So good news, I am a businessman. So I can tell you with great certainty that, yes, you do do diligence. before you sign a contract, let alone a contract worth $44 billion. To not do due diligence on a contract of that size is as negligent as I have ever seen in business. It's Trumpian. So he could have put a provision in the contract about bots. He didn't.

The bots didn't occur to you. Later afterwards, after he signed the contract, he then says, oh, Twitter might have a bot problem. That's like saying Vegas might have a gambling problem. Yes, yes, Twitter. You didn't know Twitter has bots, that it might be over 5%. And you didn't protect yourself against that. No. So we knew the handwriting was on the wall because we saw Tesla stock.

We saw his sweaty, cold panic. It was obvious that he didn't know what he was doing and he bungled it. So I know that in the right wing ideology, the richer you are, the more merit you have, the smarter you are. Paris Hilton is very, very wealthy. So I don't know that she merited it. Now Elon Musk is different, right? And he did build some businesses, kind of.

And yet he does have all that money. But it doesn't mean that you are the person who is the smartest and have the most merit and know what you're doing in every regard. He clearly, clearly didn't know what he was doing here. In fact, if I was him, I would be mortified, totally embarrassed. at how dumb this makes you look. And then finally, my favorite part of this is what I alluded to in that tweet from that while back, now the right wing has no daddy to cry to.

Oh, I love that. Mm. Schaden Freud. It tastes so good. Because every tweet ended with like, Jordan Peters has been kicked off of Twitter. Elon Musk! Elon Musk, please help us, Elon! Oh, I called someone terrible, terrible words and I've been, and I threatened to violence.

threaten no violence against him. Help me by Elon. Help me, Elon. I said everybody was lizard people and they were going to attack you. Help me, Elon. Well, there's no Calgon to take you away here and there's no, that's an old school reference. There's no Elon to take you away. No, he was a fraud and now he's going to go to court for sure. They're going to sue him and he's probably going to owe Twitter at billion dollars. That's the penalty in the contract for backing out. I remember back when Elon said, oh, okay, I can cure world hunger with all of the money I have. Give me a plan. Give me a plan, where to put the money, what to do. They gave him a plan. And he just didn't do it.

And all of the Elon stands on Twitter were like, well, all of his money is not liquid. So he can't spend this money, right? It's all in stocks. How did he back this deal with Tesla stock? He took out a loan. It was financed. And Tesla stock started tanking. He's in a lot of legal trouble right now also because, he inflated the price of Dogecoin by using his social media presence to get a bunch of people to invest in cryptocurrency. He's in a lot of legal and financial trouble, but of course, there's still going to be people making excuses and saying he's a genius. And it's very clear that he just did this as a publicity stunt. He seriously did this because he wanted attention. He

wanted to keep his name in the newspapers. He's honestly got such an attention problem. This was never about actually wanting to buy Twitter. This was about wanting to be the biggest account on Twitter. And of course, he's using this excuse that there's bots to pull out, it's going to go, you know, to trial probably. There's, or they're going to settle. And it's just going to give him more attention that he does not deserve. Okay, I have one last thing. That doge coin point, look, I don't know the details of what happened there. But if he used his influence with right wing followers to manipulate the Dogecoin and he made tons and tons of money off of that, then he's exactly like Donald Trump,

because he targets his own fans. They're the easiest to rip off. So Donald Trump ripped off his own supporters to the tune of what, $250 million after the elections. So, oh yeah, I'm going to spend it on a legal defense to protect Demandje. He never spent it on legal defense. Never, none of it. Okay. And he's just been stuffing it into his hotels and his apartment buildings, etc, say, oh yeah, my legal defense is at Trump Tower and I had to shovel all of your money there, right? And Elon's like, oh yeah, Elon stands. We have to fight the power. Go inflate the stock of the price of that thing. According to the charges, we'll see if they can prove it. And then they all rush in. And he's like, oh, good. I have a bunch of right wing suckers here

that I can manipulate until the cows come home. And the funny thing is, after I ripped them off, they'll defend me the most. Yeah, that's why every con man immediately takes a beeline to the right wing and thinks they're the easiest marks in the country. They love it. Well, we're going to take a last break of the hour. When we come back, there's, you know, obviously there's a lot of political violence. We talk about it constantly.

It's a big issue. And the worst instance of political violence and intimidation targeting Brett Kavanaugh happened recently. We're going to break it down after this. Back on TYT, Jank, John, Jessica, Lisa and Cheryl. Lisa Dwyer and Cheryl Holmes just joined by hitting the join button below on YouTube. It's right below the video, it's so easy. And you all can do it anywhere at tyt.com slash join.

You make this show possible. You see us saying things that you agree with and wish more people would hear. First of all, share the video that doesn't cost you anything. Share the live stream. Always do that. It takes one second and super helpful. But if you could join and become a member, then you are us. Every time you see something you like, you get to say I did that.

And you really did. All right, John. Okay, let's go into one of my favorite genres of story. Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh was forced to flee his dinner without dessert, mind you, after a group of pro-choice protesters approached the Morton steakhouse that he was eating at. I don't know what version of this story you've heard. So I want to be very clear about what actually happened, because the idea that he had to flee a dinner rushing into the actual back alley,

which I think is a bit on the nose considering the content, isn't exactly what happened. Wednesday night, DC protesters heard that he was eating at Morton. And so protesters soon showed up out front. The manager, they wanted them to kick out Kavanaugh. So the manager had him leave through the rear of the restaurant. Supposedly, we later learned, Brett Kavanaugh never heard the protesters, he never saw the protesters. This wasn't him, you know, taking the last helicopter off of the roof of the Morton's or anything like that. Just to be clear, but despite that, Morton's has put out a statement defending him and trying to stop people from doing stuff like this, saying,

Honorable Supreme Court Justice Kavanaugh, putting honorable there is a choice. I'm just going to say that. Honorable Supreme Court Justice Kavanaugh and all of our other patrons at the restaurant were unduly harassed by unruly protesters while eating dinner at our Morton's restaurant. Politics, regardless of your side reviews, should not trample the freedom at play of the right to congregate and eat dinner. There is a time and a place for everything. Disturbing the dinner of all of our customers was an act of selfishness and a void of decency. I do the clown.

Specifically, the right to congregate and eat dinner, I will point out, not specifically enumerated in the Constitution, so it's void. We don't have to abide by it. Oh, wouldn't it be great to have a right to privacy at this particular moment, Brett Kavanaugh? Ah, you should have thought about that. But anyway, yeah, look, a lot of people have a lot of jokes to make. I understand there's a debate to be had about exactly what sort of protest is

acceptable or not. I personally think you should use the rights they still let you have. while you still have them and protesting is one of those rights but consider the content I want to start off with you Jessica what do you think about this yeah if our privacy is not respected why should we respect theirs that's pretty simple for me this is about the right to privacy right you don't want to be bothered when you're going about your personal life and yet you are making policy that impacts the most intimate aspects of our lives and at the end of the day they

really don't want us to be bothering them because they don't want to be held accountable to the public because they don't think that they are. They don't use their position of power in society in government, which is supposed to be a democracy to represent the interests of the people. They don't think that they're accountable to us. So of course, why should we bother them at their homes? They would rather use their power to pass policy that's in line with their ideology that if the majority of the country disagrees with, they don't really care. That's what they would like to do and not be accountable to the the public, these are not people who care about our fundamental rights and liberties.

Yeah. So first off, yes, let's note the delicious irony of them complaining about privacy. Yes, because abortion rights in Roe v. Wade were based on the right to privacy, and they just destroyed that. So that's fair. So also, I want to point out why it's happening. because we no longer have a democracy, by the way, also because of the Supreme Court. Now, those were decisions that were made in 76, 78, and then Citizens United. So those three decisions destroyed our democracy. Now it's an auction, also brought to you by this very, very corrupt Supreme Court. And so because we have no one to represent us, because the Democrats won't fight for us,

because they take donor money too, because the Republicans are so authoritarian, well, then now people are bottled up and going, I voted already. I voted a thousand times and it didn't do any difference. And now the Supreme Court seems like it's gone forever. So now my rights are gone. My rights are gone. I got nobody representing me. Well, I'm mad. So now when the right wing gets mad, they get violent. They break into the capital, they kill people, et cetera. When the left wing gets mad, they do protests. And look at the reactions. So the right wing does a full out riot where they try to murder their own vice president. And the Republicans are like, it's no big deal.

There's just a bunch of tourists, no big deal. Shouldn't even having hearings, et cetera. When the left wing does protest around near a political figure, everybody goes nuts. Oh my God, the beloved honorable. I mean, have you seen the reactions? Have you seen them when they were doing the protests at the homes and now, and, oh, beloved Mortons were, you know,

incredibly expensive steakhouse. Our three martini dinners might be interrupted. Where will this end? The madness and the chaos, right? Now, having said that, I'm not sure how I'm going to vote in our own poll, okay? So the poll in this case is, do you believe political figures should be confronted in person?

Yes or no? T.y.com slash polls. Now, confronted is the question there, right? Because protest, absolutely. I don't like going to people's homes. I think that that's out of bounds. I get it, but I don't like it personally, okay? But always remember when you're voting on a poll or when you're thinking about an issue,

what if the shoe was on the other foot? Because I worry about Sotomayor. I ran into Kagan once at a Starbucks in D.C. is so random, okay? And no one even knew who she was. She was just sitting there outside. It is America. In public. I'm like, that's a Supreme Court justice.

And I happen to be getting coffee and with someone else who we had a meeting. And so I was there for like 45 minutes, not one person came up to her, okay? They had no idea who she was people walking by left and right, okay? In DC. It's amazing. Anyway, I asked her if she ever gets recognized. That's, but I explain that to members. Become a member, get the bonus episode where I tell you those details, t.yt.com slash join.

Anyway, so, but what if it's Kagan or Sotomayor or now Jackson, right? And these idiot right wingers swarm them wherever they are. And you know them, they're not going to stop. You think they're just going to do a protest or a vigil like the left wing did in front of the houses? So I'm worried about it. With things that are devolving, I don't love it. I like protests a lot. I love protests.

But when you get into their personal space, I start to worry. So that's my opinion. Well, this one, now it's affecting corporations. And as Jank pointed out, our politics in America, it's basically an auction, right? Whoever makes the most money can influence the most policy. They lobby elected officials, make sure that they hold their seats and then govern on behalf of corporations. What's interesting here is now Morton's is realizing that public unrest in the United States is affecting business. This is when corporations might actually have a stake in having people have representation and government.

I don't know. Unrest is bad for business. Suddenly, do you care? Yeah, maybe. Yeah, well, look, protests of corporations is an excellent idea, giant multi-billion dollar corporations, that is the perfect target. Because then you're not going to somebody while they're having lunch or you're going to their home, no, corporations aren't even people.

I know the Supreme Court thinks they're people, but they're not, okay? So you go to their lobbies, go to their place of work, do sit-ins, et cetera, whatever you need to do, and have them stop bribing our politicians. because those bride politicians are the ones that pick Kavanaugh, et cetera, to destroy our democracy. Yeah. Yeah, look, I think context is key. What does it mean to confront? Even confront, there's a wide range of things that could be a confrontation.

Being outside of a building that a person is in, I don't know, I just, I feel too often like they can punch you in the face and how dare you bleed on them. And like, specifically because it's a high price stake place, this feels to me like, like the, like the, like the, like the, like the, like the, Like the media is trying to get the peasantry to be like horrified about the fact that an urchin approached the Lord's carriage. Like they will make a peasant of you if you let them. Don't confront them. Don't hit them. Don't don't do anything scary or dangerous or whatever. But but mere protest in the vicinity of a public figure, like there is a line we couldn't cross.

And I don't think we can see it yet. Yeah, as they're entering the Supreme Court building, that's their, I think that's. totally legitimate. That's a place of work, et cetera. So everybody draws their line in a different place. And I don't want people thinking confront me as physical in our poll. No, I would never ask a poll question about that. You should never do anything physical, right? I mean, confront through aggressive protests that are non-physical at places where they're eating or they're living, etc. And that one, that's the one I'm not sure about. But I love protests. So, and that's our job is to find those fine lines, figure out where it is, and do things the right way, the political

way, the democratic way. And people did some great stuff in this instance with Morton's, where they were booking reservations at Morton's across the country to disrupt their business in response to this, which is a really well-organized effort to say, hey, we don't agree that you're defending Brett Kavanaugh right now. Yeah, super last thing I'll say is, I don't like Morton. I've gone there, super mediocre. Okay, but they didn't really do anything wrong.

I mean, other than their I do declare statement, they put on afterwards, right? But I mean, they had a guy eating at the restaurant and they're like, please leave him alone. Yeah. It's not really Morton's fault. Just don't, don't mess with like the waiters or the host of the bartenders or whatever. Oh, definitely don't do that. For many years. They didn't have anything to do with this.

I have a feeling the waiter probably didn't like serving Brett Kavanaugh. Yeah. Or maybe he did like it. Okay, then you can mess with it. Okay, anyways. Oh. I didn't even think about it. You were saying, oh, geez.

All right, we gotta go. Everybody check out at Jessica at Rebel headquarters. Everybody check out John at the damage report. We'll be right back. I liked beer. Still like beer. After a workout, have some beers. Thanks for listening to the full episode of the Young Turks.

Support our work, listen to ad-free, access members, only bonus content, and more by subscribing to Apple Podcasts at apple.com slash t-y-t. I'm your host, Shank Yugar, and I'll see you soon.