The Young Turks - White Supremacy With Fox And Friends, This Gadget Is RUINING People's Lives

Episode Date: June 22, 2018

A portion of our Young Turks Main Show from June 22, 2018. For more go to http://www.tytnetwork.com/join.  Hour 1: Kilmeade: It's Not Like Trump's Doing This To Kids From Idaho! Hour 2: Ziosks are making restaurant servers' lives much more difficult 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. You're about to watch what we call an extended clip of the Young Turks, and the realities is somewhere in the middle. It's a little longer than our YouTube clips, but it's actually shorter than the whole two-hour show, which you can get if you're a member. You can get an ad-free, and make sure you catch every new story we do that day. You're going to love it as a full show. That's at t-y-T-network.com slash join.

Oh, yeah, drop it. Young Turks Friday, power, power panel. And as we've been doing lately, we've got a candidate on the show. It's fascinating, different thing that we're doing. Amar Koppan and George joins us again. He's been on a couple of our shows. He's running against one of the worst Republicans in the country. I know I say that often, but there were a lot of really bad ones.

It's a competitive election. It really is. But Duncan Hunter Jr. is among the worst. And Amar won his primary recently. He's just Democrats, supported by Pete. Triple C, our revolution, and all the progressive groups fought by the Democratic establishment. He won, nonetheless. Be curious to see how much D-Triple C now turns around and supports you.

Should be full-hearted. You're the candidate, so let's see what happens with that. Nomi Prince joins us again. Nomi's great to have you here. You know, I was reading through the titles of all your books. And it's like a progressive lineup of things that people would want. you to write about, right? Collusion, how central bankers rigged the world, all the president's bankers, it takes a pillage behind the bonuses, bailouts, and backroom deals from Washington

Wall Street, other people's money, the corporate mugging of America. And so, great to have you back as well. Thank you very much. Yes. I got some reading to do. Yeah, that's right. Trying to get the message out. Trying to keep doing that. That's right. And I guess John's here. Right, before we get to start with the news of the day, I actually have a little bit of breaking news. Another candidate that we have featured on the show, Zach Ringelstein from Maine, has been arrested near the border. He went to go deliver toys and books and blankets to children, and he's now been imprisoned in McAllen, Texas. So we, when we have more information as to why he was arrested and where he's being held and how he's going to be released, we will let you know.

But he is a progressive Democrat from Maine, and he is challenging Angus King, who's an independent in Maine, and he has apparently been arrested by the authorities for trying to deliver toys and books. Oh boy, okay, so that's the state of America as we have it. Okay, and John, before you get started on the topics, Amar, if people wanted to help you in your race, is there a website they could go to? Yeah, let me see. Okay, hold on it.

He found the website. And we need your help because we're not taking any corporate pack money and you know my opponent, Duncan Hunter is the NRA, telecoms, pharmaceuticals, they're very entities that are holding our democracy hostage, so you want to help me free our country. from these hostile groups that are taking over, donate to campacampaign.com. See, that's catchy. Campa Campaign. Come on, too easy. It's like a stutter almost, right? And also, you were just saying, we're talking before the show started, that it's not even

just about the fact that you're not taking money from corporate donors, which is a really good thing not to do, because that way you get to have your own opinion and actually represent people here in the country everywhere. But you're also bringing new ideas forward. They can actually move things forward as well for the country and for everyone, regardless regardless of who they vote for. And I just, you know, I commend you and congratulate you for winning the primary so far. Thank you so much. And I think my ideas aren't that new.

I mean, you guys have been talking about it forever. It's just, you know, right now, you know, our education system, our immigration system is broken. It's because our government is broken for the reasons that the titles of your books talk about, the corruption and greed in Washington. So if we could have candidates who could get in without, you know, on the terms of corporations, we could make a difference based on the ideas you've presented for years now. And now that you won the primary, there's one other thing that's important, which is proving that progressives that run with an uncorrupted populist message can win in what was considered deeply Republican districts, like the one that Amar is running in. So, and I believe they can, I believe if you run on the corruption of the bankers that Nomi writes about and you run on the corruption of the system and how you are uncorrupted, I believe that that message will resonate anywhere and everywhere.

So we'll find out because he's obviously in the middle of that campaign now. All right, John, let's get started. What do you got? Okay, a lot to get to. Let's start off with the border, though. Throughout the day, Donald Trump and Republican politicians and right-wing pundits have not really been able to stop talking about the undocumented children down at the border that they were recently forced to mostly stop separating from their parents.

And they really haven't had anything nice to say about these kids. It's almost as if they didn't want to stop caging the children. and they're sort of bitter that they were, again, mostly forced to stop doing that. I want to start with the highest profile example of that from this morning on Fox News, where senior advisor to the president Brian Kilmead was talking about these children, and here is what he had to say. It wasn't President Trump's idea to have everyone leave from Central and South America in June and well up at the border.

We just can't let everybody in that wants to be here. And these are not, like it or not, these aren't our kids. Show him compassion, but it's not like he's doing this to the people of Idaho or Texas. These are people from another country, and now people are saying that they're more important than people in our country. So really fast, that last thing he said there is something that Trump also echoed today. No one has said that they're more important than people here. Everyone has said that they deserve to be treated exactly the same as people here.

But he doesn't agree with that. He believes that inherently people from Texas and Idaho, two states, he just chose randomly. There's no connection between those two states, are more important. They're not our kids. They're from some other country. Yeah, so there's a couple parts of this. Now, his beginning was fine. It was a conservative position.

I get it. I might not agree with it every part of it. But look, hey, we can't have everybody in the country, et cetera. And if he says, hey, John, don't treat them exactly the same. We can't give them citizenship. Okay, that's the debate. That's a legitimate debate, right? But when you say, hey, don't treat them the same in terms of treating the kids humanely or not humanely based on where they're coming from, that might actually be a real difference between progressives and conservatives.

And, you know, you guys might have differing opinions on this. But to me, as a progressive, I don't care if the kids from Botswana or Honduras or Honduras or. America. I just don't care. And maybe that's for a lot of conservatives. They think, like, you're nuts. We have to care about our citizens more. And you don't have to finish the sentence with screw everyone else. You can just think, hey, I just want to care about us more. But to me, if you showed me three kids and one was American and the other two, like I said, are from Honduras or Botswana, and say, should we treat them differently? I'd say, under no circumstances. Those are all kids, they're all human beings, and that goes to the heart of, in some ways,

the difference between progressives and conservatives, because progressives see us as a broader category. It's a category of all humanity for a lot of folks. And for conservatives, us is my church, my family, my community, and I'm great to those people, but people outside of us is them, and I'm not as interested in them. I think that was just an interesting example of that, rather than a new idea that kill me that. Yeah, and also the fact is, you know, this whole situation is almost like criminalizing

innocent people, that they're children, their human beings, you know, as you said. And we also have to understand that some of the reasons that these kids or anyone even comes into this country is because of very difficult situations in their own country. We're not necessarily not to blame in that overall scenario. So when we do sort of us versus them from the standpoint of a conservative viewpoint, even if this is something that's been said for years and years about people coming into this country, it's really also not examining our role in the world and therefore our responsibility in terms of helping people in other parts of the world, particularly ones that are right next door. I mean, the other thing that's concerned to me that this isn't happening, this isn't being reported by some fringe network. It's Fox News. Half of the country watches this. And I, for the life of me, you know, I don't spend my time in newsrooms.

I spend my time in dining rooms and living rooms and talking to people. And I don't know where this ideology comes from. It's not biblical, for sure, for those people who go to church. Jesus was a child refugee, right? And it's not American because America is a country of immigrants. And, you know, just because we have to dispel people of this notion that only citizens contribute to our economy, a way of life. 40% of all the Fortune 500s that Wall Street likes were built by immigrants. or the sons of immigrants.

One in five small businesses are created by immigrants. One in ten jobs are created by immigrants. $780 billion a year comes into our economy from immigrant businesses and our GDP. We need to talk about a relatively new show called Un-F-E-Bing the Republic, or UNFTR. As a Young Turks fan, you already know that the government, the media, and corporations are constantly peddling lies that serve the interests of the rich and powerful. But now there's a podcast dedicated to unraveling those lies, debunking the conventional wisdom. In each episode of Un-B-The-Republic or UNFTR, the host delves into a different historical episode or topic that's generally misunderstood or purposely obfuscated by the so-called powers that be.

Featuring in-depth research, razor-sharp commentary, and just the right amount of vulgarity, the UNFTRTR podcast takes a sledgehammer to what you thought you'd knew about some of the nation's most sacred historical cows. But don't just take my word for it. The New York Times described UNFTR as consistently compelling and educational, aiming to challenge conventional wisdom and upend the historical narratives that were taught in school. For as the great philosopher Yoda once put it, You must unlearn what you have learned. And that's true whether you're in Jedi training or you're uprooting and exposing all the propaganda and disinformation you've been

fed over the course of your lifetime. So search for UNFDR in your podcast app today and get ready to get informed, angered, and entertained all at the same time. The Latino community contributes $1.8 trillion to America's GDP. That's bigger than Mexico's economy. Mexicans contribute more to America than they do to Mexico. And so if you care about our economy and way of life,

you need to champion these immigrants. And so I don't know in what part of American life this is something that's supposed to be acceptable. Yeah, well, you mentioned a few groups of how wide the circle is for many conservatives, and they draw it at different points. Now, he is not being very explicit there, but in a lot of the conversation that I've heard up to and including today, you said church, neighborhood, family, race. Race is the most clear one. Brian Kilmead may not be consciously thinking about it, but many of the people who are watching

his show are thinking they are not worth as much if they are not of the same race as me. And I think they've spent so many decades training their audience that I don't think you have to say it anymore necessarily. Now I want to give him at least a little bit of credit because while we have other examples that I want to go to, Brian Kilmead at least has attempted to walk back what he said. He tweeted later on in the day on Fox and Friends earlier, of course I didn't mean to make it seem like children coming into the U.S. illegally are less important because they live in another country. Although that's literally what he said. That's the exact words he said. Maybe he's

like most people and he doesn't listen to what Brian Kilmead says. He said, I have compassion for all children, especially for all the kids separated from their parents right now. Nobody wants to see children in these circumstances and glad they're on the way to being reunited with their parents. So I'm glad that he walked it back, although again, maybe he's just talking off the cuff. But But here's the thing, that that is the exact message that his network has been broadcasting 24-7 since the situation started. 66% of the country does not support family separations. More a plurality of Republicans do, unfortunately, but if you're part of that 66% of Americans,

you have not been represented basically at all on Fox, maybe Shep, maybe somebody on outnumbered brought up that this seems inhumane, but certainly not the programs that Donald Trump actually tunes into. And that's why I'm not all that surprised that Donald Trump has. also been walking back the statements he made earlier this week when he signed his executive order saying it's so hard to look at these pictures. It just hurt him so much. And then he wakes up and he tweets something like this.

We must maintain a strong southern border. We cannot allow our country to be overrun by illegal immigrants as the Democrats tell their phony stories of sadness and grief, hoping it will help them in the elections. So 48 hours ago, he couldn't take seeing the pictures so he had to end the family separation policy that he began, now it's fake, phony stories of sadness and grief. If you have concern, if you have compassion for these kids, you have been duped by politicians. Do those politicians include him? He's the one who signed the order.

So and I, look, I can't, it's hard to relate to Trump supporters sometimes, it really is. Like during the election, they were worried about economic issues, some of them were, that That I could relate to. They were worried that the system was rigged against them. That I could definitely relate to and there's a lot of common ground there and we could reach out on that. But when they see Trump say, it breaks my heart and now I'm gonna reunite the families, when you know he's the one who did it, I don't know how you get past that hypocrisy.

Maybe he didn't know, but that's okay, so then you go to round two. Then he comes out and goes, it's phony grief and I don't care about it. So which one is it? If you're a Trump supporter, which Trump are you supporting? I don't know the answer to that and I don't know how you answer it. Are you supporting the Trump from that sign of the executive order saying don't separate the kids anymore? Are you for the Trump who just tweeted this morning?

It's all phony grief and sadness and I don't care. I don't know. We were talking about this before the program started. Obviously we live in a post-truth world and I believe that the only way back to the truth is trust. And I think a lot of Trump supporters who I know, because I talk to them a lot, if you talk to to them about the real issues and about, well, he did it the wrong way. If he was going to do this, he should have opened up the facilities made him bigger so the families could accompany or have more judges to be able to expedite the asylum claims. Then they're like, yeah, you're probably

right. We should have done that. Or I get it, we are concerned about, you know, human traffickers and drug traffickers. We have to make sure to modernize our immigration system to even quicken our commerce through it. They're like, yeah, that makes sense. So I feel like sometimes you have to concede that there are some problems. Maybe it's blown out of proportion, but we get it. And we're going to try to address it the right way. I think it's almost also just a wider issue even than that, is that if someone supported Trump, they probably assumed that they could trust him. And, you know, as you mentioned, but also there's an accountability level. There's the fact that Trump says what's expedient for Trump at that particular moment. And whether it's mean or racist

or walk back on mean and racist and then back to mean and racist, whatever it is, it's completely expedient for what he believes his base wants. And I do think, you know, the people that voted for him should make it clearer what values they have beyond the sort of mean-spiritedness of his actions. So I just want to touch on two things that you guys said. So Amar brought up, how do you reach out? Look, one easy way is we can disagree on whether they should stay or not and what are the rules that should apply to whether they stay or not.

We shouldn't disagree on how we treat them when they're here. So you can say, hey, listen, I care more about a kid out of Idaho than I do about Botswana. I might disagree with you on that. But okay, I get that that's your opinion. But if they're both here, for the moment being, even if you're gonna send the kid back from Botswana or Honduras or Nicaragua or wherever, right, can we not agree that in the two weeks, two months, whatever months, time that they're here, that we should treat them like any other kid?

Is that really too much to ask for? And if it is, then I think Nomi is right that perhaps being mean-spirited is not the bug. It's the feature, that you look forward to doing that. In which case, I'd ask you to look at yourself in the mirror and see if that's the person you wanted to be. And finally, the war on drugs that Nomi mentioned, I'm sorry, she mentioned the situation that created this in the first place, and that's the war on drugs. So a lot of those gangs, including MS-13, arose because we made marijuana, at least

legal in this country. So then we turn around and blame other cultures when it was our culture that started the war on drugs that created the mess in the first place. Yeah, and destabilized governments even before that. And we're buying the product. Right. Exactly. So I don't know exactly what Trump supporters are wanting out of Trump right now, but

I do know what they're getting and what they're getting is false equivalence between completely innocent undocumented immigrants, especially children, and criminals like in MS-13, because Because that has been outside of that one tweet in the morning, the rest of the day, that's what he's been talking about. Here he is once again appearing on stage with the families of victims killed by immigrants. I presume nine-year-old undocumented immigrants since he's doing it right now. But that is what his messaging is, so here is a bit of his speech. These are the American citizens permanently separated from their loved ones.

The word permanently being the word that you have to think about permanently. They're not separated for a day or two days. These are permanently separated because they were killed by criminal illegal aliens. These are the families. The media ignores. No major networks sent cameras to their homes or display the images of their incredible loved ones across the nightly news. They don't do that. They don't talk about the death and destruction caused by people that should not.

be here, people that will continuously get into trouble and do bad things. So every one of those cases is obviously a tragedy, and I'm sure that every one of those families appreciates having a politician who at least appears to have their back, even though he is transparently using them as props to distract people from the horrific policy that he's been forced to backtrack on. Those kids that were being separated had not recently murdered Americans, their family members had not murdered Americans. And we know, I'll say it again, doesn't matter, it will never sink into the heads of people who want to hate these immigrants.

Immigrants in America, both undocumented and documented, commit crimes at lower rates than native-born Americans. I'm talking about burglary, I'm talking about murder, I'm talking about rape, I'm talking about all sorts of crimes like that. They're far more law abiding for fairly obvious reasons, particularly if they're undocumented, because of the obvious consequences of committing crimes and it being found out. It doesn't matter. He wants you to think immigrant murderer, immigrant rapist.

And so that's why he continually has been tweeting in all caps today about people being murdered by immigrants. He talks about MS-13. And then Steve King, who might literally be the most high profile white supremacist in the country right now. He tweeted this. He sees a picture of some of these kids, and he says, oh yeah, they're young boys, all old enough to be tried as adults.

They're not being tried for anything, by the way, but he immediately goes to some sort of criminal liability. They can serve in the military. They're also prime MS-13 gang material and certainly grew up in the culture of one of the top 10 most violent countries in the world. Although to be fair, it could just be some sort of reflex because when I look back at photos growing up of me and my friends, sometimes I'll say they're prime school shooters. You know, they're prime rapists, they're prime, all these things.

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That white males in this country are far more likely to do than illegal immigrants. If you see it, you just have to say the crimes that they're likely to commit. That's what Steve King will say. Right. And I'm really glad you bring up the fact of facts, because there was a study that was just discussed today from the Cato Institute. And the Cato Institute is not known as a progressive institute. It's a libertarian institute.

But they basically were looking at the last couple decades of immigration and sort of isolating areas of extreme immigration and where immigration had increased the population in those areas. forth, and they found that in those areas, there have been a reduction in burglaries of 42% and reduction in murders of 47%. There's actually been facts and real numbers and real statistics to back up what's the real situation, as opposed to just throwing out the idea that somehow, because someone's coming from somewhere else they are- MS-13. MS-13 or listing for- Yeah.

Really fast. Just because the news moves so fast that we forget about so much. But Steve King is the guy who last week retweeted a neo-Nazi. A neo-Nazi with a long history, everybody knows who he is. There's absolutely no reason that he would be seeing this man's tweets unless he knew who he was. And nothing happened. Absolutely nothing.

No censure. Republican Party didn't want to say anything about it. None of his colleagues wanted to say anything about it. And weirdly now he's going on and he's attacking these immigrant children. Yeah, so when I see him saying that these are prime material for gangs like MS-13, what does that mean? So they're not part of MS-13 and they're kids. So when you look at a Latino kid, you think, because you just said it, I didn't say,

you said it in your tweet, oh, that Latino kid looks like someone who's going to be in a gang one day. So that admission of racism is startling. And it's, I'm kind of blown away that he gets, he's a United States congressman. If you don't know, I mean, it's not like he's a local country bumpkin that got elected to some board, but it was a mistake and they're going to get him out next time. And he's been reelected, even though his white supremacy is clear, he said earlier that we need, that white people need to make more babies because we don't, to protect culture, their culture. So his list of white supremacist things are through the roof, it reminded me of Dick Cheney when he wanted to obfuscate about Iraq. He was asked, well, did Iraq attack us on 9-11?

Now, the correct answer is they did not. He said, well, the attackers of 9-11 came from the same area of the world as Iraq, leaving out the fact that the area of the world that he's referring to is, yes, the Middle East in general, but specifically Saudi Arabia, 15 out of the 19 hijackers, which is one of our top allies. So we didn't want to attack Saudi Arabia, even though that's where the attackers came from. So instead we attack Iraq, and Cheney's logic was, they kind of look similar, don't they? So why don't we just attack the wrong country? So that's what you get out of racism.

And in Cheney's case, he was doing it for a political purpose, right? Steve King, yes, the demigree is a political purpose, but I think that he also means. it. He really is an actual racist. And if I can, I mean, you know, even on this campaign, like with my opponents, I was profiled, right? I'm Latino, Arab American. I get it. I get it. My existence is the resistance is what some people say. But the truth is, you know, we tell, we try to make sure that Trump doesn't overgeneralize my community, our communities, or any community. But we also have to make sure not to overgeneralize his supporters. We can't conflate Trump with his supporters. And I think they're just picking sides and they're tolerating a lot of this BS from Trump.

But if you drill down and you talk to them, for example, I tell them, look, you know who the biggest victims of undocumented immigrant crime are? Other undocumented immigrants, but they can't report it because they'll be deported. And if you gave them status, they would report those bad actors quicker than ICE could get them. And if you care about that issue, then the best thing to do is to give status to every undocumented person who doesn't have a criminal background and give them a legal pathway to. towards citizenship. They will report those bad actors quicker than anybody else because they came here to flee that.

So Amar, you and I have a shade of difference on that. And it is a shade, it's not completely different. So I do oftentimes criticize Republican voters, Trump supporters, et cetera, because this is the guy that you put into office and then you see what he's doing and you're still with him. So okay, then there's some degree of culpability. But I think that a lot of the Steve King supporters might see that tweet. And until you break down the stereotypes built into the tweet, they might go, yeah, yeah. I mean, those guys could be MS-13 one day.

When they hear Trump speak, they think, well, I mean, that's true. They're not in the news, they're not talking about all the crime and these poor families. But when you go, wait a minute, does local news report crime like that all the time? Oh, yeah, it does, doesn't it, right? Wait, why did he say the Latino kids look like they might be MS-13, but not about the other kids? Well, I mean, okay, and did those kids actually do anything to deserve that designation? Would it be fair if we did that to your kids? So let's say that there's whatever it might be.

Like in Mississippi, the majority of gangs are white gangs, for example. So if you're in part of Mississippi that has a biker gang, is it okay to assume that your kid's going to be a biker criminal that does murder and rape? That's not fair, right? And you break it down like that. And I think, I hope a lot of Kings voters will then go, well, yeah, no. you're right. That's not the right way to look at it. But I think that the shade of difference is in the beginning, they look at that and go, yeah, yeah, Steve King's right. Trump is right. And that is troubling. I see that. And also that's also true for Hunter supporters. They have these

views, but they're not rock-ribed. If you could drill down and point out the kind of inconsistencies, they're like, yeah, you're right. So I think there's hope there. But I think without us doing our job of communicating to people about the nuances and how we could make our country safer, It's not by demonizing everybody, but it sometimes requires to emboldened some people. You know, the anti-venom comes from the venom itself. So sometimes emboldening these communities might be the best antidote to addressing the concerns that come from them. Yeah.

And so last thing is, what John mentioned in the beginning, the percentage of crime. So the undocumented immigrants commit less crime. It's a fact. It's documented in all the studies. I can give you nonsense anecdote on top just because it's fun. And in California, a lot of times joke around that if you see someone driving really, really carefully, it's probably somebody who's undocumented. That's right.

Okay. And so, but you don't need that anecdote. The numbers bear it out. So when Trump and the others emphasize the crime committed by the people who commit less crime on average, that gives you a sense that it's not the crime they're worried about. It's who did it and they have a different purpose. And the purpose is to demonize those people that they have selected. Yes.

And really fast. There are some fairly high profile cases if you're a fan of reading history of governments talking over, unnecessarily focusing on the crime of a particular community to turn a country against that community. And it didn't end well. Yep. Okay. Let's take a quick break here because I think this segment did end well.

We all agree to me in. That's right. All right, but we do have more news. I don't unfortunately some of it is disturbing, but you're used to that. But actually, an executive that you might like who fought back against Trump. So that's interesting. A CEO kind of on your side. We'll be right back.

Thanks for listening to this podcast. You're only halfway through. So hold, hold, stay right here. Just want to remind you if you want to get all five segments of the Young Turks commercial free, these are just two of them. Every day we do it. So go to t-y-tnetwork.com slash join, and you'll get the whole five segments, two hours, ad-free. Do it now.

All right, back on a young turks. Just a couple of quick tweets for you guys. Laserbeam says, yay, Ida is my new favorite Turk. Please have her on more. Hell yeah. And Chris Aran says, after all this family separation and justification for it by the GOP, I never want to hear another conservative play that we act with reason, not a motion card. Our side has facts and logic.

They have virulence and racism. The emotion they have, they concentrate most on it's fear. And they're even afraid of little kids. One day they could grow up to be MS-13. God, you're such cowards. Anyway, it's member appreciation week at TYT. That goes June 21st or 25th. Interesting.

Trumps. Okay. So 40% off. by the way, on those limited edition pin packs. So not only are they limited edition, so we almost always run out when we do a campaign like this, but they're also 40% off. So shop tyt.com and you gotta be a member, so go to tyt.com slash notice if you're a member. You see that up atop, tyt.com slash notice to find out how to participate, and of course

to become a member, it's always tyt.com slash join. Okay, Anna, what's next? All right. Waiters and waitresses throughout the country are losing shifts and in some cases even getting fired because of these new tabletop tablets that allow customers and patrons to rate them at the end of their meal. So these are typically found at some of the larger restaurant chains like Chili's and Olive Garden.

And the employees are complaining that this rating system is unfair for a number of different reasons. So I want to get to that in just a second. But first, let's understand what these tablets are. So one of them is known as Ziosk. And it scores, the scores are tabulated as an average out of five stars. And on the device, it says four out of five stars being satisfied. But anything less than perfect drags a score down and has the potential to hurt the server. So I'll give you a few examples. Here are some specific employees who spoke out about this. When Felicia Hearn's Ziosk scores dropped, the Illinois Smoky Bones location where she worked cut a table from her section, costing her between $30 and $40 a night. Then there was

Steve Corso, a former chili server. A drop in scores meant getting stuck working in the kitchen where he struggled to make his rent. He lives in San Francisco. One person was quoted as saying, if we get more than three write-ups in a certain amount of time, we get terminated. And so some might be thinking, okay, well, I mean, if they weren't good at their job and the patron is complaining about it, I mean, it's on them, isn't it? Except they also get rated on parts of the restaurant that they're not responsible for. So if the food wasn't satisfactory, that's not on them, it's obviously on the chef or the cook in the back.

And so they shouldn't be penalized for it, but oftentimes they are. If the food took too long to get to them, it's not really their fault. So they give specific examples like that. Something's not on the menu. Exactly, let's say. So one person, one former employee gave an example of Fireball, that really disgusting like cinnamon drink that makes me sick every time I drink it. They didn't have it.

By the way, if you guys are thinking about being a sponsor, Fireball. is awesome. Just kidding. Kind of. Okay. I do drink Fireball. Fireball is pretty good. That doesn't surprise me.

I'll take a fireball. Yeah. I had one during the break. But like the restaurant didn't have that drink and so the patron, you know, marked points off of the waiter or waitress and that kind of sucks. Yeah. Okay, I'm the bad guy in this story, not buying it. So look, I'm conflicted on it.

On the one hand, it does feel like an episode of Black Mirror where we're all constantly getting raided and we're in like a cold sweat panic over being raided by our fellow human beings and there's something a little cruel about that. So I get it, I understand that part. On the other hand, have you been in an Uber and then a taxi recently? I have. Yeah. And in the Uber, well, let's start with a taxi.

I went in a taxi. I normally take Ubers and lifts. I take a taxi the other day. And it's super hot. Can we get the AC going a little bit? No, whatever, don't care. He doesn't talk to you, right? Right, nothing.

Yeah, it doesn't talk to you, yada, yada, yada. Okay, I hear you. That's up to you, whether you like that or not. You go into an Uber and they're like, can I fan you personally? I'll get you water. I'm going to get you this. I'm going to get you that. Why?

Because they're being rated. I know, but they're being rated for the job they're doing. Whereas at a restaurant, it's very different. I mean, if you're getting marked down because someone orders a medium rare burger and it comes out medium, that's not fair to you as a waiter and waitress. And we're talking about, like, we always talk about defending the powerless. People who work in the food service industry, they qualify as powerless. A lot of them don't even make minimum wage because of how pay is structured for people

who wait on tables. So no, I'm not buying it. I think this is ridiculous. Their jobs are already stressful enough. You know what, don't, have you ever? So as a stand-up comedian, those of you who hate when I say that I'm doing it just for you, I was writing a bit on yelp, and I started reading Yelp reviews. And I don't know if you've ever been that bored when you sit down and read Yelp reviews.

But what I learned about a lot of places, like people were yelping and giving people low ratings because the curtains didn't match the drapes. Yeah, people are the worst. There was a crying baby in a restaurant. So when you are responsible, like, come on, man, if the food is good and the place is clean and they meet cold and standard and they can't afford to have the nice drapes that you want or the paintings that you want, should they get a bad rating because of that? No, no. People are so vicious. So I used to write really, I used to write negative. Well, I still write Yelp reviews, but I have a rule now. I only write positive Yelp reviews unless someone has really done me wrong, right? But, but before. Yeah, I was not buying it. Hold on, hold on, hold on. You guys can check out my Yale reviews on.

They're accessible, but I realized one time I wrote a really negative one. I was about to publish it and I realized this could really cost someone their job and I stopped because at the end of the day, you know, I don't have to ever go back there and for me, you know, it's better to not ever go to that restaurant again and just save someone their job. Maybe they had a bad day, I don't want that on me, you know what I'm saying? You know, one of the most pernicious idioms in America is the customer is always right. It's the worst. It creates the situation where we feel entitled because we have departed with our money

that the person in front of us becomes our servant and has to cater to our every whim. And what it does is it creates a culture that's anti-soliditoristic that creates divisions among us, it forces us to compete with each other all the time, which is exactly what they want, obviously, right? That makes us weaker on the whole. You know, like this is something that is very, very much an American thing, that, you know, we are the king when we are at the Chili's and that they must do everything in their power to make sure that we are a satisfied customer.

Yeah, no, I'm still going to fight you guys. You're the worst. So, on the first, I give you guys this. Ben Mangowitz says this off and on the show. Nobody ever calls, how's my driving to say, fantastic, right? You know, those little bumpers things they have on the cars, right? And Ben does it every once in a while. He'll bother to call up and go, your driving's fine.

Nice. Right, but almost everybody calls and say, how dare you? You cut me off, et cetera. So I understand that phenomenon. I understand that, you know, they can't do anything about the baby that's in the restaurant. That's not the waiter's fault that somebody else brought on a baby. What do you want him to be? Donald Trump, ripped the baby away from the restaurant, et cetera.

I get all that. But look, those ratings, if the manager is. is shallow enough that three ratings came in this afternoon and you're done, well, he's an idiot and you should rate the manager poorly, right? But over a long period of time, they probably are indicative. Oh, you better check your privilege, okay? Because what you just said right now is such a Republican talking point. Well, if you don't like the way your boss is treating you, then it's free market. Just quit and go work somewhere else. That's how it came off. No, I didn't say that. Maybe arguably what I said is worse.

No, so what I'm saying is like, leave your manager a bad rating. See what happens when you do that. Yeah. It's fucking like a true boss. No one's ever going to do that. You know, it's like what you're asking. No, of course they're not. Managers aren't getting ready at all.

No, but look, guys, it's you need a way to evaluate the workers, right? You do. And so you could either do it by gut, like, ah, which then leads the manager to have more power. And to some degree, more indiscriminate power. I like the way that person looks. I don't like the way that person talks, et cetera, because they're making decisions. They're making decisions on who gets what shifts, how many shifts do they get, and are they hired or not hired?

You think the general public isn't going to do that? That's worse. So that's a great point, Ida. It is. So these are all good points. This is not a black and white issue where you guys are all 100% wrong and I'm 100% right, which is normally the case. But not in this case.

But in all seriousness, but what it does do is it, it does democratize it to some degree for better and for worse. So, do you see what I'm saying? Yeah, I don't want anybody serving me to be paranoid and nervous because you're going to be subject. It's the manager's job to employ a competent crew. It's the manager's job. Not the public, do you understand how moody some people are?

I watch other customers and sometimes I overtip my server. because another customer treated them bad or another server. You know what I mean? You're putting power in the wrong hands and it is like that Black Mirror episode and everywhere we go. Now even comedians are rated on Yelp

and so now the laugh factory is rated about if somebody comes in and they don't like cursing, they write reviews and they give the club a bad rating so the club doesn't want to book the comedians because they got a bad rating because somebody who doesn't like cursing

came to a copy. It turns us all into snitches. It creates anxiety in the culture. Yes, yes. You know, like, it leads to just you're constantly being, like, everything you do. I've never. You just live. You just live. Live your life. Yeah. Stop obsessing over how, you know, you can tear someone else down. And, Jake, like, think about it in this context, in our context. Imagine you're not, you know, someone who has any power in the company, you're just an employee, right? Can you imagine if you, if someone comes to you and says, hey, Jank, we're not going to let you host the main show, anymore because a bunch of viewers were complaining about how they don't like the titles to the videos.

You don't title the videos, right? So why are you gonna face the consequences for that? Yeah, look, these are all good points. Very good points. The best points. Tremendous points. Tremendous points. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

So I get all that guys, but the manager is gonna make a decision on who gets the shifts and who has the job and who doesn't have the job. Us, like turn, us not having to see that, it's kind of us not wanting to see how the sausage is made, so then we feel better about ourselves, but those decisions get made anyway, and that guy is going to have half his salary and not be able to pay his rent anyway based on the, because somebody's going to have the waiter job and somebody's going to have the dishwasher job. And so those are the realities.

Look, on the other hand, I do agree with you guys that I feel bad about it, I don't want to be put in that position as a customer because I fancy myself a good guy. I don't know if this conversation proves it, but like I don't want to rate them. I don't want it to be my job and my responsibility to determine their fate, because that makes me feel bad, right? And so that's a legitimate concern too, and now that we all know that that could cost people their jobs, now I feel more stressed out, eating it, eating out. But whatever happened to it shall reflect in the gratuity.

That is how you rate your server. And if they know that they're getting low tips, then they know they need to make some adjustments. But there are some really mean people out there. And there are people who look down on servers and people who don't know. I personally, when I was out on a dating market, I would watch to see who I was with would treat a server.

Because that's very, you know, that indicates how they feel about people and how they treat others. I just think we're giving the wrong people power. A lot of power. Did you see this thing about, like, conservatives? getting really angry when a server says, no problem, instead of you're welcome? Have you seen this whole thing?

Oh, Jesus. You know, like, but this is what encourages? You see. These are the kind of-beatable snowflakes. And I'm not the thing that triggered you. Yeah, yeah. It's like, you know, when you're like, thanks a lot, they go, no problem. It's like, well, of you, of course it's not a problem.

The customer is the customer is the dictator. Take it back, Jay. Take it back. Okay, super last thing. I'll give you guys this, too. I once wrote a script. I put it into Project Green Light. This was a million and a half.

years ago, right? And everybody, there was five people who rated, it was a community rating system, and everybody really liked it. Oh my God, it's funny, this, that, except one person hated it and gave it one star and killed it. Yeah, there you go. Yeah, there you go. So just desserts, okay?

Double-mead. Why are you trying to kill somebody's script, Jane? All right, we gotta take one more break. Let's do that. When we come back, more news, including- Let's do Alex Jones. Yes, okay. We'll be right back.

Thanks for watching what I hope was a lovely edition of the Young Turks. Now, you know that that is two of the five segments that we do because that's free. We want to have you support independent media and come watch the whole show that we do every day. That's five segments overall. No ads at all. That's at t-y-tnetwork.com slash join. Come become a member. Thanks for watching either way.

Thanks for listening to the full episode of the Young Turks. Support our work. Listen ad-free. access members only bonus content and more by subscribing to apple podcasts at apple dot co slash t yt i'm your host jank huger and i'll see you soon