This is the Humanist Report with Mike Figueredo. The Humanist Report podcast is funded by viewers like you through Patreon and Paypal. To support the show, visit patreon.com forward slash humanist report or become a member at humanistreport.com. Now, enjoy the show. Welcome to the Humanist Report podcast. My name is Mike Figueredo and this is episode 246 of the program. Today is Friday, June 19th and before we get started, I want to take some time to thank all of our newest Patreon, Paypal and YouTube members, all of which signed up for the very first time to support us this week or increase the monthly pledge that they were already giving us. And that includes Alex, who wants me to plug a free ebook titled The End of Policing. I'll put a link to that down below. We have Alan Moitosa, Cassandra Smith, Corey Thrall, Dina Gaiowich, Leslie Brown, Progress Gamer, Rob Flone and Vivian Hallmark. So thank you so much to all of these kind souls if you'd also like to support the show and join the independent progressive media revolution. You can do so by going to humanistreport.com slash support, patreon.com slash humanist report or by clicking join underneath any one of our YouTube videos. We've got another great show for you this week. We'll talk about a landmark Supreme Court ruling that outlaws workplace discrimination against queer people in America. We'll also talk about Donald Trump's attempt to legalize discrimination against transgender Americans in healthcare. Ali Velchie's explanation of defend the police. We'll talk about Black Lives Matter and the story of Ray Shard Brooks, Robert Fuller and others. Elliot Engle, who is being challenged by Jamal Bowman's race heats up as Hillary Clinton jumps in to endorse him. Individuals who have survived COVID-19 are now dealing with medical bills and possibly medical bankruptcy. If their insurance providers don't cover these bills, we'll talk about that. And also oddly, we'll talk about the newest foe for Hellboy. He's taking on Republican fascists and neocons. So we'll talk about that and we'll close the show by talking to 2020 congressional candidate Isaiah James about his race that is quickly approaching. So that's what we've got on the agenda for today's episode. Hopefully you all will enjoy the show. We've also got more statements coming up other than what we mentioned there. So let's just get to it. So I don't get to say this very often, but we actually have some surprisingly good news out of Washington, DC. The Supreme Court has ruled that employers can no longer discriminate on the basis of sexual orientation or gender identity. Now, with the conservative majority, with Kennedy being gone, I wasn't necessarily sure how they would hold on this particular case that we're going to talk about. But I wasn't very optimistic, to be honest. I kind of thought that they would err on the side of taking us backwards. So this really is big news. So for more details on this, we go to Mark Sherman of AP, who reports the Supreme Court ruled Monday that a landmark civil rights law protects gay, lesbian and transgender people from discrimination in employment, a resounding victory for LGBT rights from a conservative court. The court decided by a six to three vote that a key provision of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, known as Title Seven, that barge job discrimination because of sex, among other reasons, encompasses bias against LGBT workers. An employer who fires an individual for being homosexual or transgender fires that person for traits or actions. It would not have question in members of a different sex. Justice Neil Gorsuch wrote for the court. Sex plays a necessary and undistinguishable role in the decision. Exactly what Title Seven forbids. Justice's Samuel Alito, Brett Kavanaugh and Clarence Thomas dissented. Quote, the court tries to convince readers that it is merely enforcing the terms of the statute, but that is preposterous. Alito wrote in the dissent, even as understood today, the concept of discrimination because of sex is different from discrimination because of sexual orientation or gender identity. Kavanaugh wrote in a separate dissent that the court was rewriting the law to include gender identity and sexual orientation, a job that belongs to Congress. Still, Kavanaugh said the decision represents an important victory achieved today by gay and lesbian Americans. The outcome is expected to have a big impact for the estimated 8.1 million LGBT workers across the country, because most states don't protect them from workplace discrimination. An estimated 11.3 million LGBT people live in the US according to the Williams Institute at the UCLA Law School. But Monday's decision is not likely to be the court's last word on a host of issues revolving around LGBT rights, Gorsuch noted. Lawsuits are pending over transgender athletes' participation in school sporting events, and courts also are dealing with cases about sex-segregated bathrooms and locker rooms, a subject that the justices seemed concerned about during arguments in October. Employers who have religious objections to employing LGBT people also might be able to raise those claims in a different case, Gorsuch said. So, you know, this is a good decision. I obviously agree with their holding, but I am surprised that it was Gorsuch who wrote the majority opinion. You know, maybe he and Roberts are just trying to ease the blow as they, you know, strip away worker rights in other areas. But I mean, look, I'll take a win where I can get this is good news. And I absolutely am cautiously optimistic because even if they made the correct decision here, even if this kind of gives us an indication as to where this conservative court will go with regard to LGBTQ rights and maybe other social issues, you know, the other cases I still am worried that they could side with the bigots, quite frankly, you know, when it comes to religious objections to hiring LGBTQ people, where are they going to air? Which side will they be on? Now, this tells us that they might take, you know, the correct side of history or at least maybe there's a glimmer of hope. But I just don't know. But I mean, think about this.  I mean, it should be a no-brainer. But with the conservative majority on this court, we do have to be very cautiously optimistic. Having said that, Trump, after just attempting to gut LGBTQ rights when it comes to health care, was asked to respond. And he straddled that fence hard when when he was talking about this decision. Go ahead, please. Jimmy, what's the reaction to the Supreme Court decisions earlier today about LGBT discrimination saying that is protected under the Civil Rights Act? No, they've ruled. I've read the decision and some people were surprised. But they've ruled and we live with their decision. That's what it's all about. We live with the decision of the Supreme Court. Very powerful, very powerful decision, actually. But they have so ruled. They have so ruled. Very powerful stuff, Mr. President. Very powerful. Thank you so much. Very eloquent. So look, here's the thing. Donald Trump is against LGBTQ rights. He's proven that time and again throughout the course of his administration.  This is a bad look, you know, and maybe shows that Trump's judgment in selecting Gorsuch was flawed. But also, you know, he doesn't necessarily know how this is going to pull with voters because even though people are still very much homophobic, I think that these types of discriminatory practices are becoming less popular as time goes on. So, you know, this is a political move for him. Everything he says is calculated, even if he doesn't want us to believe that. And with his poll numbers down because of his fumbling of COVID-19 because of the way that he's responded to protesters.  Now, there were other cases that the Supreme Court ruled on and we learned about their decisions today. Another good thing that happened, surprisingly, is that the Supreme Court has chosen to not take up a case related to sanctuary cities. Now, Donald Trump wanted them to hear an appeal from rulings of lower courts that held that California can actually prohibit police departments from notifying ICE when undocumented immigrants are released from jails. But, you know, the Supreme Court said we're not going to hear it. So the lower courts ruling is automatically what will be, you know, the law of the land. So this is also a win in that regard. Although there aren't all wins today because there was this ruling as Scotis Block tweeted out. Scotis reverse his decision by Fourth Circuit Court upholds permit for eight billion dollar natural gas pipeline that will tunnel under Appalachian Trail. And as Eric Renner Brown points out, Ruth Bader Ginsburg actually ruled with the conservative majority in the seven to two decision. So there's that. Yasqueen, anyone know? Yeah, I didn't think so. So look, here's the thing. I'm going to take this win where we can get this win. And for those of you who are inclined to dismiss this, this really is important. I know firsthand as an LGBTQ American that this really is important. My husband at his last job could not come out and tell his pro-Trump bosses that he had a husband because they were very vocally homophobic, right? Now in Oregon, we're protected under state law from discrimination.  But, you know, that doesn't necessarily mean that we don't have to worry because they can fire you for some other bogus reason. And even if the underlying reason why they're firing you is for homophobia, they can just say, well, you didn't do this job properly or whatever. So we're going to let you go. When in actuality, we may know because of what they said. This is due to homophobia, but you can't prove that, right? So, you know, the federal law isn't going to completely change the game. There are a lot of states that already had these types of protections for LGBTQ plus workers. But the federal law will hopefully add more weight to state laws and change culture, because I think that's what's really important. You know, I think that, you know, public opinion for gay rights, it was moved in a more positive direction once the Supreme Court ruled that marriage equality is the law of the land. I mean, they can't make laws, but they said you can't discriminate. So this is important. I hope that, you know, we are making some progress in this area.  We make some progress with regard to LGBTQ rights, but we undo, you know, something that was positive for the environment, you know, the permit for the pipeline, right?  So, you know, this is a constant battle. The thing about civil rights and even civil liberties is that you never just win, right? You're never victorious, and then you can sit back and stop fighting. This is a constant, ongoing battle. And when you make progress in some areas, you're going to lose progress, right? The Voting Rights Act was gutted in 2013 when that was a landmark achievement of the Civil Rights era. So you're always needing to fight. You never stop fighting. Regardless if it feels like you win. But with that being said, this is really good news and I don't want to detract from this good news because we need good news desperately so more than ever in 2020. So I'm going to take this victory. This is great. I didn't think I'd be saying this, but good job, Supreme Court. It feels weird saying that, honestly. So before the Supreme Court announced their landmark ruling, which basically prohibits workplace discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation or gender identity, we got some pretty bad news that I think a lot of people missed. Donald Trump's administration just made a move to basically make it acceptable for health care providers to discriminate against transgender people. So I mean, we make a couple of steps forward. We move a few steps back. I mean, it's clear that progress doesn't move in a linear direction. This is a constant battle. But nonetheless, let's talk about what Donald Trump decided to do. As CNBC reports, the Trump administration Friday finalized a regulation that overturns Obama era protections for transgender people against sex discrimination and health care. The policy shift long sought by the president's religious and socially conservative supporters defines gender as a person's biological sex. The Obama administration defined gender as a person's internal sense of being male, female, neither or a combination. LGBTQ groups say explicit protections are needed for people seeking sex reassignment treatment and even for transgender people who need medical care for common conditions such as diabetes or heart problems. Behind the dispute over legal rights is a medically recognized condition called gender dysphoria, discomfort or distress caused by a discrepancy between the gender that a person identifies as and the gender at birth. That's incorrect. We'll talk about that later. Consequences can include severe depression. Treatment can range from sex reassignment, surgery and hormones to people changing their outward appearance by adopting a different hairstyle or clothing. Women's groups say the new regulation also undermines access to abortion, which is a legal medical procedure. No one should fear being turned away by a medical provider because of who they are or their personal health decisions they have made. Said Fatima Goss Graves, president of the National Women's Law Center, raising the threat of a court challenge. The ACLU has also said it would sue to overturn the Trump rule. So there's a lot to unpack here. But the first thing that we have to notice is the error in this article that the author made, which I think is a common error that we see, which really drives a lot of transphobia. It's just misinformation. It's ignorance. It's a misunderstanding of the difference between sex and gender. So they say here that gender dysphoria basically is this discrepancy between the gender that you identify as personally and the gender you have at birth. Except nobody is born with a particular gender. Gender is a social construct, right? You're ascribed to gender at birth, but you are not born with a gender, right? It was society who has determined that blue is for boys and pink is for girls and that women are supposed to wear dresses and have long hair and act feminine and men are supposed to have short hair and act masculine and be strong. Those are all qualities that society has determined should be attributed to men and women. You're not born with those expectations in a real biological sense. So that's why I think this article is incorrect. And that's why we have to correct people when they don't know, because this is it's an honest mistake. But I think that if we don't correct this, then this will lead to people not necessarily understanding what it means to be transgender, right? Now, furthermore, if we're just trying to figure out what this means, functionally speaking, what this means is that health care providers can discriminate against transgender people on the basis of their gender identity. And the reason why this goes deeper than just saying, well, I don't want to give you hormone treatment is because they can now say, well, I don't want to treat you because you're transgender. And I think that being transgender is immoral. Therefore, I'm going to, you know, object on the basis of my religiosity. That's what this opens the door to. This is going to kill trans people and may not happen, you know, in big cities, in liberal cities, but in rural areas where health care is a huge issue for members of the trans community, this is going to kill trans people. This is very serious. So it's frustrating because, you know, we get this really huge landmark ruling where discrimination against trans people is outlawed at the federal level. But now, you know, just before Trump decides to do this. Now, I don't know what motivates Donald Trump, but I can only speculate and say that since he's not doing too well, I think that he's trying to throw red meat to his base. He's been constantly doing this, right? Because when he first took office, what was one of the first things he did? He chose to institute this disgustingly bigoted ban on transgender people serving in the military. And he's doing this to appease the evangelicals. And lately, because of his, you know, photo op, that stunt where he gassed or his attorney general gassed peaceful protesters so he can go in front of a church and take a photo, that's actually losing him a lot of support. That publicity stunt backfired. And even Pat Robinson said, that's not cool. So what is he trying to do maybe to, you know, right the wrongs that he made or, you know, the political missteps he's made. He's trying to throw trans people under the bus. Now, I could be wrong about his motivations. Maybe he just thinks that this is an important move to make because he doesn't think that trans people deserve equal access to health care. But either way, this is wrong and the motivation doesn't matter. It's a distinction without a difference. I don't care why he chose to do it. I care that he did it and this is morally reprehensible. It's bigoted and we have to call this out. Now, what's interesting to me is that when Donald Trump was first elected, I had a lot of people that I argued with on Facebook in my personal social circles who assured me that we had nothing to worry about because Donald Trump, he held up a rainbow flag. So he's not going to discriminate against people. So even if you voted for someone who has a history of bigotry against LGBTQ Americans, who was against marriage equality still is, I'm assuming. Now he's doing this. So you can't be an ally to members of the LGBTQ community if you are going to support politicians who hurt us. You can't. This is harm. We made progress and Trump is undoing that progress.  And that's disgusting. Trans people should not have to be fearful of being denied service by their health care provider. If you are in the industry of health care, you should just offer that to everyone. You should want to help people. But now this opens the door to discrimination. And I wouldn't be surprised if we start seeing cases pop up because this will be challenged. And now after the Supreme Court rolled in favor of the LGBTQ community when it comes to workplace discrimination, I think they'd probably err on the side of LGBTQ activists if this were challenged. So I think this should be challenged. I hope that the ACLU sues. And I hope this is overturned because this is this is so disgusting. And an issue is that it's already really difficult putting bigotry aside for trans people to find health care. Like if you talk to anyone in the trans community, they will tell you that just finding a doctor in general that addresses their very specific needs is really difficult, depending on where they live. It's kind of the thing that we see with, you know, abortion. Sure, it's technically, you know, illegal to ban abortion, but Republican controlled states have effectively done just that by defunding Planned Parenthood, for example, and making it really difficult to find clinics that offer abortion. So they're going to try to do the same thing to trans people. And this is going to kill trans people. There's no other way to sugarcoat it. This is going to lead to trans people dying. And that's really disgusting when they're already under threat, right? They're discriminated against culturally. And when it comes to health care, they shouldn't have to worry about that as well. But they were already worrying about health care before this. Now they have to worry that much more. So I mean, this is really grotesque. And I hope that people are paying attention because I'm assuming Trump is doing this, one, because he actually is bigoted, but two, because he thinks there's going to be some sort of political payoff, at least when it comes to his base of evangelicals. But, you know, he can't be rewarded for this. This is absolutely disgusting. Speak up about this. Spread the word because people need to know that if they support Donald Trump, they're hurting their friends and family who are trans and LGBTQ. Another unarmed black American in Atlanta, Georgia, Ray Shard Brooks was murdered by police officers. So you'd think that police officers would be more cognizant about their actions, especially now that everyone is hyperfocused on them. And this is still happening. So let's talk about anti-black violence that has happened. Specifically, since these protests have started. Ray Shard Brooks, he fell asleep in the drive-thru of a Wendy's and police officers confronted him. And then minutes later, he was murdered, shot twice. The gunshots led to organ damage, which ultimately caused him to die. Now, I'm going to share this clip from CNN and this, along with the commentary, kind of shows you a little bit of what happened. But overall, there's a lot more questions than answers once you see this clip. Take a look. The engine's running. Look at the tail lights. You can see they knock on the door clearly asleep. Don't go back to sleep. Just pull over there. They ask him to pull over, right? At that point in time, they don't they don't know if he's been drinking or what the situation is. Do you have any weapons on you or anything like that? I don't have anything on me. Now, this is a critical point right here. And I'll mention it because it's easy to go by it. But they're doing a field sobriety test. Apparently, they get a breath of water as well, came out as a 0.108, I believe. And this is the point in which things change. They try to handcuff them for driving under the influence. And then you can see clearly the struggle takes place. And the taser at that point in time, which, by the way, the officer had in his hand must have been using what is called a drive stun, which is a pain compliance technique to get him to bring him under control. And then, of course, he flees. There's a foot chase and shortly thereafter now you'll hear the shots fire. But there is one point in this video that I think is critically important, which really then brings into question the actual shooting. And that is when you look at that tape, they ask a critical question. Are you on? Do you have any weapons? He says, no, can I pat you down? He says, OK, so they pat him down. Once you pat him down, now you know he's not in possession of a firearm. So the question is, did they run him or shoot him as he was running away? Like, what happened? Now, the coroner ruled this a homicide because the gunshots ultimately are what led to him dying. But I mean, this is the problem. If this is happening when we're all having a national conversation about police brutality, this shows you how much work we have to do, how much changes we have to make in order to stop anti-black violence. Now, the police officer who murdered Ray Shard Brooks was fired and the second officer who was involved was placed on administrative leave. But that's not good enough. His wife is calling for them to be charged. And I want to play this clip from his cousin at the town hall that they attended, or it wasn't a town hall, it was a press conference. But, you know, they spoke out after he was murdered. And this was just it was gut wrenching.  This is another black man that was killed by police. But it goes deeper than that. Right. This is real pain and suffering that is being caused by an issue that has not been addressed in America. He was always happy. He was always smiling.  Because he wasn't that type of dude. So to you people that are looking around the world and that you have your feelings. Before it happened to us, I could only guess at what you felt. But now I understand life shouldn't be this complicated. Life shouldn't be where we have to feel some type of way. If we see a police or somebody of a different color. I didn't come now to talk to the media. I came to love on my people. But if you ask how this young black man was.  That innocence, that joy, that pureness of soul. And you had a glimpse of what we lost. You have a glimpse of what it feels like because tomorrow we're going to have to deal with it again. We're going to have to bear it and we're going to have to say we miss you. And if we didn't say we love you enough. We got to apologize to him for not telling him that we loved him that much. Finally to my cousin. I can't believe it. I have to go. Y'all too. I can't believe it. I can't wish y'all to know that y'all too. Y'all took the wrong person. That wasn't the person to tell you because he wasn't a pro. Yeah. That was very, very hard to watch. They took a life that is going to be gone forever. He's never going to be able to be with his family again. They're never going to be able to hug him or talk to him ever again. And it's never acceptable for police officers to murder an unarmed black American. But I mean you just would hope that whenever one is watching as nationwide protests about this very issue have been going on for weeks. They try to do better. But it shows you how broken this system is. And it's not just that they're still murdering unarmed black Americans. They're still incredibly brutal. Militarized police officers are absolutely tyrannical in the way they try to shut down mostly peaceful protests. In fact, an Ohio activist named Sarah Grossman died after being tear gassed at a George Floyd protest. And while the official cause of death is unknown, well her sister speculated that it was due to respiratory issues caused by tear gas. Which tells you how serious this chemical weapon is that they use gratuitously. But violence against black Americans and white allies in some instances isn't just something that is done at the hands of police officers. Anti-black violence is a real issue in America. And you think that or you'd hope that we would never go backwards. Even if we're not really feeling like we're making progress we're always moving forward. But what people have to acknowledge is that racism, it didn't just not go away. Racism is able to adapt. Racism is able to change to the time. It's malleable. So when chattel savory was abolished, it's not like black people all of a sudden were free. Then we got Jim Crow. Once we did away with Jim Crow, then we got mass incarceration. Which functionally acts very similar to Jim Crow in targeting and locking up black Americans and denying them the right to vote. The right to housing and education effectively legalizing discrimination against anyone with the title felon. So it just keeps changing. And it's like we keep coming back to the same place where we were before. And if you think that we've progressed beyond our darkest days, the truth is we really haven't. In a Sandra E. Garcia of the New York Times reports, the families of two black men who were found hanged from trees in Southern California are asking the authorities to further investigate their deaths. The family of Robert L. Fuller, 24, disputed the authorities initial pronouncement that he died by suicide. The family of Malcolm Harsh, 38 is worried his death will also be ruled a suicide. Mr. Harsh was found at 7am on May 31st near a homeless encampment in Victorville, California where bystanders told the authorities he was living. A woman who identified herself as his girlfriend called 911 to say that others in the encampment had notified her that Mr. Harsh had been found hanging from a tree and cut down. The San Bernardino County Sheriff's Department said in a statement, There were no indications of foul play but the investigation was continuing a spokeswoman for the department said Sunday. Firefighters found bystanders performing CPR on Mr. Harsh when they arrived at the scene according to Sue Jones, the public information officer for the city of Victorville. Firefighters took over and tried to restore Mr. Harsh's heartbeat but they stopped after 20 minutes. Now in the case of Robert Fuller, the times continues around 50 miles west of Victorville in Palmdale, California. Mr. Fuller's family questioned the authorities pronouncement that his death was considered a suicide. At a rally for Mr. Fuller on Saturday, Diamond Alexander, his sister, said through tears that the initial resolution on her brother's death did not make sense. Everything that they've been telling us has not been right, she said, according to a video of the rally in Palmdale. We've been hearing one thing then we hear another and we just want to know the truth. A passerby discovered Mr. Fuller's body hanging from a tree in Ponsetlan Square across from Palmdale City Hall at around 3.39 a.m. on Wednesday according to the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department. Though the investigation was continuing, the authorities noted in their news release that Mr. Fuller tragically committed suicide. Mr. Fuller's autopsy has not been completed, the authorities said. Now the bodies of those two men were found 10 days and 50 miles apart and they're saying Robert Fuller was a suicide. This is not a coincidence and on top of that another black man was found hanging from a tree in Houston and this is happening in 2020. We have got such a long way to go when in 2020 lynching is becoming a prevalent phenomenon again. I mean, this is not something that can just be reformed away. You know, you can't expect real changes that are necessary to be made with some sort of incrementalist approach. The entire system which allows for this, which was built on white supremacy and anti-blackness, it has to be overturned entirely. Otherwise, you know, allow for racism to continue to spread and change when you think it's been rooted out. It hasn't been rooted out. It just, you know, is able to transform, to accommodate times, to make white liberals feel comfortable, make it seem like we've progressed and we're living in a different society now. But that's why it's called white privilege, right?  I mean, think about this. In 2018, people did not support the Black Lives Matter movement and all of a sudden support for Black Lives Matter has skyrocketed. The fact that Black Lives Matter was controversial at all. That tells you how prevalent white supremacy is. So this is something that as a society, if we actually want to defeat this, we have to get serious about it. It's not good enough now to just say, I'm not racist. I have a black friend. Sorry, that's not good enough.  It requires direct action. It requires us tearing down these existing institutions that have white supremacy embedded in them. So I mean, this is just a tragic, sad story.  This is a kid. And he was found hanging from a tree. This is so tragic and heartbreaking that I don't know what to say. Face it head on. Force yourself to grapple with uncomfortable truths about how you helped to uphold white supremacy. How we all uphold white supremacy, either wittingly or unwittingly, and just try to change it. But, you know, that's not going to bring back these lives that were lost. Not going to bring back Raichard Brooks or Robert Fuller or anyone who has died because of white supremacy or anti-black violence. It doesn't bring them back. So it's heartbreaking all around. And, you know, I'm just rambling at this point, so I'll end the video. But again, this is happening in 2020. History just keeps repeating itself. Either that or not much really changed in the first place. As the Black Lives Matter protests continue, I think that it is becoming increasingly clear that Defund the Police is a winning slogan. It's gaining traction. And as these protests continue to take place, it's evident that they are changing hearts and minds. Defund the Police is simplistic. It's easy to understand, but yet it's hard to obfuscate and try to co-opt if you're a politician. And according to a YouGov and Yahoo News poll, a plurality of Americans already believe that we should in fact reallocate resources away from police offices and funnel them towards other sectors of society such as healthcare and education. So, you know, this is something that I think is working. So we have to stick with this. It's a winning strategy. And if you're confused, then we just have to educate you about this. But I mean, of course, there is this predictable instinct of liberal lawmakers to try to temper people's expectations about what they're willing to deliver. And they're saying, hmm, you say Defund the Police, how about reform the police instead? So for example, Joe Biden said that he doesn't support Defunding the Police full stop. Jim Claiborne said nobody is going to defund the police and instead called for a quote reimagining of police, which I don't know what that means. And Stacey Abrams very stupidly, I think, said Defund the Police offers a false choice. Except no, it doesn't offer a false choice. We haven't been given a choice, right? The choice up until now has always just instinctively been to respond to crises that cities are facing with more policing. Instead of actually responding to the crisis of homelessness with housing, we just police the homeless. Instead of responding to drug addiction with actual treatment, we just try to police drug addiction. Instead of responding to mental health crises with mental health care, we just try to police these problems away. And that one size fits all approach has failed. It's failed. So what false choice do you think that the protesters are trying to offer by saying let's defund the police? By saying let's defund the police, they're saying use the money that we spend on policing these issues and actually try to selectively fix these problems by doing more than just trying to police them away. Because that doesn't make sense. It's not working, right? So I think that this instinct of liberal lawmakers to just try and anticipate what Republicans will say, how they'll attack it and then opt for an incrementalist approach that hasn't been successful, right? And part of the reason why politicians so often are actually able to do this is because the media goes along with what they say, right? I mean, the same thing has happened with Occupy Wall Street. The media took a very simple message of Occupy Wall Street and they tried to obfuscate. They try to make it seem as if the protesters, they didn't actually have a message. But you can't really do that with something as straightforward as defund the police. It means what it looks like. It means defund the police, right? And on top of that, you always see these types of attempts by the media to preemptively water down these policies for the politicians. MSNBC is notorious for this when it comes to Medicare for All. They did nonstop propaganda against Medicare for All. And, you know, they're basically doing the politicians jobs for them rather than acting as a check on the politicians, you know, rather than actually trying to be objective and look at the facts of the matter. So when MSNBC did a segment explaining what defund the police means, I was a little bit worried. I saw this pop up on YouTube and I immediately thought, oh my God, I'm going to have to watch this and I'm going to have to rip it apart. But to my surprise, this segment was a game changer. This was a phenomenal segment by Ali Velce where he actually low key kind of crushes it and explaining what it means to defund the police. Now, I know that, you know, you can already find explainer videos of people online like myself and David Dole explaining what defund the police means. But the problem is that if you are in that liberal mindset and you are an MSNBC brained boomer who only trusts the host, they're on MSNBC because you think that they're more legitimate, they have to say it, right? We have to have them say it. So if Ali Velce is saying this and educating his viewers about what defund the police means, this actually has a real substantial impact, right? Because it forces people to learn what defund the police means and not just, you know, instinctively try to turn away and opt for a more incremental approach because defund the police sounds to radical. No. So I'm going to play the clip of Ali Velce and then we will talk about it because I think this is probably one of the best segments I've seen from MSNBC in years. And I didn't think I would say that given how horrible their coverage has been in 2020, you know, over a number of issues starting with Bernie Sanders and how they botched that primary coverage. But I mean, let's get to this and we have a lot to say after. It has happened again.  The excessive and deadly force used by these officers requires many of us to take a deeper look at our policing systems. You may have heard calls to defund the police, a move that sounds drastic to some. I mean, how do we function in a society that has no police? I want to take a moment to step back and understand what defunding actually means. Defunding does not mean there will be no police force. It does not mean we abolish the police so that in an emergency we're left with no one to call. It means reallocating funds in order to solve the problems plaguing our policing systems. Our police departments right now respond to incidents ranging from homelessness to mental health welfare checks to rapes and murders and school shootings and everything in between.  You heard that right, 10 hours of training. And they are the first responders to most of those calls, calls that might be better received by people with expert training or at least more than 10 hours of it. Defunding, according to some people, doesn't mean abolishing the police entirely, not getting rid of the good police who work hard to keep us safe. It means we reshape their roles, their training, and our expectations of them. Reallocating resources from police departments to social services also isn't a one-size-fits-all solution. A small suburb may not need what a big city needs, but by reallocating police resources to help find targeted solutions to problems facing different communities means we can reinvest in things like housing, public education, mental health care, addiction treatment and hospitals. Feeling safe in our communities does not require a highly combative, aggressive or militarized police force. In Dallas, after a spate of incidents involving deadly force on residents calling for mental health assistance, the city started a program designed to respond with mental health experts. The program has been highly successful. Programs in California dealing with social services in schools rather than police show that not only can these reallocated responsibilities work, but they can work hand in hand with police departments. Police are public servants. Police deserve unions, but not to protect them when they fail in their mission. We should not be pouring millions of taxpayer dollars into policing systems that are discriminatory to large portions of our population. We should be actively working to better our communities and address the root issues. Reallocating some police funds won't take away from the sense of order and calm in our lives. It will allow us to tackle the very real problems we face and allow all of us to feel safer in our communities. That was absolutely incredible. Now, I don't know if he was always on the correct side of this issue, but a couple of weeks ago when he was covering the Minneapolis protests on the ground, he got hit by a rubber bullet. Police shot him on air live on MSNBC. We talked about this, so I don't know if that event radicalized him. But regardless, you know, you've got to give credit where it's due. This is a really great explanation. People who watch MSNBC for once might actually come away knowing more and not less about an issue. And that's really encouraging. The most powerful quote here is he says, Feeling safe in our communities does not require a highly combative, aggressive or militarized police force. And that is key here, right? Because again, we have responded to issues that society faces with the one-size-fits-all approach. Just throw the police on it. They've got this. We've treated police officers as social workers, but that doesn't make sense. That doesn't make sense. And he lists ways that we can use the money that we're giving to police departments to better help society. And these are not arbitrary, you know, things he's talking about funding. So let me get to that quote from him. He says, By reallocating police forces to help find targeted solutions to problems facing different communities, means we can reinvest in things like housing, public education, mental health care addiction treatment and hospitals.  No, what he's saying is we need a more targeted approach. Again, the way that we have addressed the issue of homelessness is not to provide people living on the streets with housing. We've just policed them. We've criminalized homelessness in effect. That isn't an effective way. It isn't leading to a decrease in homelessness. We're just getting more cruel when it comes to mental health.  But we have a health care crisis in America, not just with regard to mental health care, but health care generally speaking. So the problem is every issue that society has, every single thing that cities think they have to fix or find, you know, a solution to, they've always just said more policing. Oh, what's that? There's more mental health crises, more policing. I mean, it is incorrect to think that throwing more police into cities is going to reduce crime. The data just doesn't back that up. As we increase police budgets in cities across the country, that doesn't necessarily lead to a reduction in crime. And it's because we are not appropriately dealing with very specific crises. So, I mean, this is a powerful slogan. Defund the police makes sense because it is a very specific call to action for lawmakers. We're not saying reform the police because a politician can say, I reform the police. I voted to reform the police and that cannot really amount to much. Even Republicans are now on board with calls to reform the police, right? So it's really important that we be specific and we not allow Democrats to, you know, wiggle out of this. We've backed them into a corner by saying defund the police. And now we've got to hold them to it. When we say defund the police, it is not acceptable for them to say, OK, well, let's reimagine the police. No, I don't know what that means. And I don't want to know what you mean by reimagine the police. We're saying defund the police. Now, do it. Do what we say because we're your boss. You serve us, your public officials. And when we say defund the police, you defund the police or we find someone else who will. So I think that this segment from MSNBC is important because, again, I think that, like, your liberal aunts and uncles who consume nothing but MSNBC and CNN as part of their news diet, they're not going to listen to some tattooed guy on YouTube talk about why we need to defund the police. But Ali Velche, who's wearing a suit and a tie on MSNBC, they're going to listen to that guy, right? So imagine if, you know, mainstream media did a good job on not just this issue, but other issues as well. I mean, you see why there's this disconnect, right? Because when it comes to an issue like Medicare for All, there are corporate advertisers that would be offended. But I mean, I don't see much police unions advertising on MSNBC. So they have no reason to not do a good job here, right? Unless it were to be just to appease Democrats. But they're not here. At least Ali Velche isn't. And that's great. And I commend him for it because this is really important. This is going to do a lot to drive the needle, more so than, you know, a lot of people think. So I know a lot of people may have forgotten about this, but we are still currently living through a pandemic. COVID-19 is still very much an issue. And we have now passed two million Americans who are infected with COVID-19. And we're about to reach 120,000 deaths in America due to COVID-19. So this is a very, very serious issue still, contrary to popular belief. And the reason why I want to talk about this story is because it really speaks to how broken our healthcare system is. Because if you are lucky enough to survive COVID-19 after being unfortunate enough to get it, you may be hit with thousands and thousands, if not more than a million dollars worth of medical bills. Yeah. So there's a couple of stories I want to share with you. The first is from Madeline Carlisle and Tara Law of Time, who explained after spending months hospitalized for COVID-19 at Swedish Medical Center in Issaquah, Washington, Michael Floor 70 says that he knew his stay would be pricey. He'd spent 62 days in an intensive care unit, including weeks in an induced coma, and it comes so close to death that his family had called to say goodbye, but he says it was still heart-stopping to read the hospital's bill for $1.1 million. I had to look at it a number of times to see if I was seeing it right. Floor, Seattle resident, tells Time. The 181-page bill included almost 3,000 itemized charges the Seattle Times reported. His room in the intensive care unit alone had cost about $9,700 a day, Floor says. Floor says the total cost of his treatment will likely be higher because the bill does not include multiple items, including fees for his skilled nursing facility, dialysis, and the doctors who treated him. Floor says he may not ultimately need to pay for much of his treatment. He's insured by Medicare and Medicare Advantage through Kaiser Permanente. The healthcare company has announced that it will waive most out-of-pocket costs for COVID-19 patients through 2020. So this Seattle man almost died from COVID-19. In fact, he thought that his death was a certainty, so much so that his family had said their goodbyes. So this should be a time of celebration, but instead he's being hit with more than a million dollars and likely more in medical bills. And he is hopeful that, you know, a lot of this will be waived or covered by his healthcare provider. But I mean, that's not a guarantee. There's still that uncertainty. There's still that worry when again, he should be celebrating. He gets to live longer. He was not killed by COVID-19, but he's not alone. I've got another one for you. As Joseph Goldstein of the New York Times reports, Janet Mendez started receiving bills soon after returning in April to her mother's home from Mount Sinai Morningside Hospital where she nearly died of COVID-19. First, there was one for $31,165. Unable to work and finding it difficult to walk, Ms. Mendez decided to put the bill out of her mind and focus on her recovery. The next one was impossible to ignore. An invoice for $401,885.57, although it noted that the hospital would reduce the bill by $326,851.63. as financial assistance benefit. But that still left a tab of more than $75,000. Oh my God, how am I going to pay all this money? Ms. Mendez 33 recalled thinking. The answer came to her in about a second. I'm not going to be able to pay all this. Ms. Mendez is optimistic that her insurance company will cover a large part of the costs, but only after receiving a series of harassing phone calls from the hospital about payment. A spokesman for the hospital told the Times that Ms. Mendez erroneously received a bill that should have gone directly to her insurance company or the government. Coronavirus patients through a series of federal aid packages are supposed to be largely exempt from paying for the bulk of their care. But mistakes are likely to occur, particularly given the number of people who have recently lost their health insurance amid an economic downturn and widespread job loss. And when they do happen, patients like Ms. Mendez will be the ones to have to sort out the complicated billing process at a time when they are still recovering from COVID-19. Now, you may hear these stories and think, but Mike, isn't this kind of not that big of a deal if these all end with a happy ending? If these patients who got these bills are confident that their healthcare providers are going to pay for this? Well, no, because this is not something that people should be worrying about. The United States is the only developed world where you don't just have to worry about dying from COVID-19. You have to worry about drowning in medical debt if you are lucky enough to survive. And this really is a feature of our broken system. Because as Business Insider's Kimberly Leonard reports, Kristen Link-Young, a fellow at the USC Brookings Schaefer Initiative for Health Policy, said part of the reason patients are still getting large medical bills is that healthcare providers are dealing with a whole bunch of new payment options. On top of that, she said there are loopholes in the new laws and regulations. It's going to result in a significant amount of confusion on the consumer end, she said, adding that people's fear of bills could deter them from seeking care. So that kind of speaks to a different issue there in that last paragraph. I mean, the fact that people are worried about out-of-pocket costs makes us less capable of dealing with COVID-19, because if you are afraid of a medical bill and therefore you don't get tested, then I mean, that's going to proliferate the spread of the virus. So our system is so fundamentally broken. I can't even express how bad it is, right? The fact that there's all of this confusion and hospitals have to send the bill somewhere, so they've got to find out where to send it to. But the problem is that we've kind of relied on employers for healthcare. In fact, during the Democratic primary, remember when that was a thing, people like Joe Biden and Pete Buttigieg said that people love their employer-based health insurance. Guess what? During a pandemic and a possible depression, when people are losing their jobs and also their health insurance as a result, well, you know, now there's confusion because they have new healthcare providers that the hospitals don't know about. It just creates a headache when if there was just one insurer, the United States government, then guess what? It's simple. You always know where to send the bill to the U.S. government, Medicare.  I cannot emphasize this enough. And yes, that includes Joe Biden, who is the Democratic Party nominee.  And I know that that really is difficult for liberals to hear, but you've got to understand, you know, it is one thing to not be in favor of any fixes, as Republicans are, they just don't care that people are dying.  I don't know how else to put this. It can't be said any nicer. Anyone who's against Medicare for all before I view them as a moral, but now if you're still against Medicare for all during a pandemic, I view you as insane. You are insane if you don't think that this solution isn't just the more moral solution, right? The more compassionate fix to our health care woes, but it's also easier. Hospitals don't want to deal with the paperwork, right? We don't need this unnecessary private bureaucracy slowing down the process. Everything will function more properly if we adopt a single payer system like Canada. But guess what? As I get more impatient, my demands kind of go up, right? Because maybe having a single payer health insurer isn't necessarily the best. Like a socialized health insurance plan might not be sufficient for me. Maybe we should start talking about a real socialized health care system, as Republicans say we want, where we have publicly funded hospitals and doctors are on the government payroll. I mean, that's what the UK has with the NHS. So, I mean, the system is broken. And the fact that Medicare for all isn't seen as the compromise between a private system and a UK type NHS system is absurd. We have politicians running for office right now during a pandemic who don't support Medicare for all. That is so insane that we can't just say, oh, well, you're immoral. These people are okay with people getting these medical bills if they survive and worse yet, dying if they don't seek treatment, right? Because before this pandemic, 68,000 Americans were dying every single year according to a Princeton study because they didn't have health care. So now if we allow this to continue, let people just not go to the doctor if they're feeling sick because they don't want to deal with the costs or let them go to the doctor and then get these big bills, it's immoral.  So, I mean, I've said everything that I needed to say about this.  And I have zero respect for you. She's back. Remember Elliot Angle, the person who we've been talking about quite a bit lately? He's the politician from New York's 16th congressional district who recently equated AOC endorsing his opponent to dictatorship. He literally said this and on top of that, showing up to his district for the first time in months, he was caught on hot Mike saying he wouldn't care if he didn't have a primary. So this is an individual who has been exposed so much lately that even the mainstream media might not miss a huge political upset because back in 2018, nobody in mainstream media was paying attention to AOC and her primary challenge against Joe Crowley. They thought that he was untouchable. But now they're starting to realize that not all incumbents are safe and even CBS News realizes that this could be an upset. So as a result, because Elliot Angle is in danger here, well, the establishment is bringing out the big guns to try to stop Jamal Bowman from beating him. So first of all, House Majority Whip Jim Clyburn along with Adam Schiff have come out to endorse him and also Hillary Clinton has decided to throw her weight behind Elliot Angle. Now this comes after he was already endorsed by Nancy Pelosi and the Congressional Black Caucus. Yes, you heard that right. Congressional Black Caucus endorsing a white conservative over a black primary challenger who was progressive, who actually cares deeply about issues related to racial justice and social justice and economic justice.  So I need you to understand this represents everything wrong with the Democratic Party because they're coming out to endorse him after he put his foot in his mouth multiple times. This is an individual who is not a serious person. He literally said that AOC endorsing Jamal Bowman is like dictatorship. He says, this isn't a dictatorship. This is a democracy. So are all of these endorsements that you're receiving from establishment politicians is that tantamount to dictatorship as well? Or is it only a dictatorship when your opponent gets endorsed? Katie Porter and Bernie Sanders also endorsed Jamal Bowman because he's a good candidate, right? He's bringing together people from the Elizabeth Warren wing of the Democratic Party, whatever they represent, and Bernie Sanders Democrats who actually want people in Congress who are going to represent working-class Americans. And Hillary Clinton, I mean, it's especially egregious, right? Because she's not really in politics anymore. She doesn't necessarily have a role. She has no power. All she has is influence. And she's using it selectively at times to basically keep us from making any progress. You're endorsing Eliot Engel over Jamal Bowman. Like, what are you doing? Are you proud of this, Hillary? I mean, she really has no shame, so I shouldn't be asking that question. But this individual, if you weren't already discussed it with Eliot Engel, I think this article from The Intercept really explains everything wrong with him. And it speaks to how horrible Democrats are who choose to endorse this person. Quote, GOP money flowing to Super PAC backing Representative Eliot Engel's document show, and Ryan Grimm and Akilah Lacey explain, a Republican Super PAC is funding an outside effort to help reelect Democratic Representative Eliot Engel, locked in a tight primary against insurgent Jamal Bowman. The Super PAC is called Americans for Tomorrow's Future, following in the proud tradition of nonsensically named political action committees. The connections to the GOP are apparent enough that the Center for Responsive Politics lists it as Republican Conservative. The PAC's treasurer, David Satterfield, is a former aide to one-time Republican Senate leader, Bill Frist. Satterfield works now at Huckabee Davis Lisker, a prominent firm that does election compliance and accounting work for Republican campaigns. This cycle, the firm is handling the accounts for the National Republican Senatorial Committee, National Republican Congressional Committee, and the campaign of Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell among dozens of other GOP operations. The PAC, presumably due to its visible Republican ties, is not spending directly in Engel's New York primary. Instead, it funneled $100,000 to another Super PAC called Democratic Majority for Israel on May 27. DMFI, a controversial operation inside the Democratic Coalition, spent heavily against Senator Bernie Sanders in the Democratic presidential primary with help from the American-Israel Public Affairs Committee, or IPAC, the Intercept reported in February. Since caching the Americans for Tomorrow's future check, DMFI has spent more than $600,000 boosting Engel and hitting Bowman on TV and with digital ads, mailers, and paid phone banking. DMFI has not spent money on any other race since taking money from the GOP operation. The congressman, who's been in office for over three decades, is the chair of the House Foreign Relations Committee, where he has served since 1994. From that perch, he has been particularly conservative on policy toward Israel, even as the base of the Democratic Party moves leftward on the U.S.-Israel alliance. Pro-Israel groups have contributed more than $1.3 million to Engel over the course of his career. Nor PAC, another pro-Israel PAC, is Engel's second largest contributor this cycle, after the pro-Israel-America PAC, and has given his campaigns $132,509 throughout his career. While Bowman's campaign is focused on issues like healthcare, housing, education, and justice reform, more than foreign policy, he would certainly be more progressive than Engel, whose loss would be a major blow to leading pro-Israel political groups. So long story short, this GOP PAC is trying to covertly give this money to Elliott Engel, and they're giving this money to him through these pro-Israel groups. Now it's funny because Hillary Clinton came out to endorse Elliott Engel, and she has spent years screaming about foreign interference in our elections. Donald's very praiseworthy of Vladimir Putin, but Putin is playing a really tough long game here. So wouldn't these pro-Israel super PACs, pro-Israel lobbyists, be tantamount to foreign interference? Isn't that an issue? Isn't she as equally outraged as Russia interfering in our elections? Because Russia can do a lot of things to try to undermine our elections, posting memes online, whatever you want to say about it. But you literally have organizations lobbying on behalf of foreign governments, Israel, Saudi Arabia, and the people who scream the loudest about Russia, like Hillary Clinton, are A-OK with that. So I don't want to make this about a Russia game, but just note the hypocrisy there. Note that people in the Democratic Party are coming out to endorse the individual who's being bankrolled by a conservative organization who has spent his career being a conservative in Congress, serving on the House Foreign Affairs Committee, not actually representing his constituents. You know, I think we have to really emphasize, and we talked about this last time, this man did not enter his district a single time throughout the course of the pandemic. And it's not even over yet, but the first time he shows up in his district, shows his disgusting Weasley face, he's caught on the hot mic saying, I need to speak because I wouldn't care if I didn't have a primary, so let me talk. Now I'm paraphrasing, he didn't say explicitly let me talk, but he was trying to make his case as to why he should be able to speak at that event, which was a Black Lives Matter event, which was because he wants to show his community that he's there, but he's not there. This is the absence of leadership. The 16th Congressional District of New York has not had a leader, right? And now I think that members of the Democratic Party establishment, they see which way the winds are blowing and they realize they could be looking at another AOC type upset. But, you know, it's not a foregone conclusion. We all thought that Jessica Cisneros had a great chance against Henry Cullar in Texas. But in this instance, Jamal Bowman could actually beat Elliot Angle, and they know that and they're scared, which is why they're bringing out people like Jim Clyper, Adam Schiff and Hillary Clinton to try to stop Jamal Bowman's momentum. But what we have to do in response is have Jamal Bowman's back. Go to BowmanForCongress.com, donate to him. If you live in that district, please sign up to Canvas for him, a phone bank for him. There are things you can do to help make his victory a reality. We can't let people like this continue to win.  He admitted he doesn't care about these issues. So the fact that Hillary Clinton and Jim Clyburn and Adam Schiff and Nancy Pelosi and the Congressional Black Caucus are supporting someone like this and not unequivocally denouncing him because he claimed he didn't care or wouldn't care about Black Lives Matter if he didn't have a primary. I mean this speaks volumes to the types of people that they are. They're opportunists and they don't care about issues. They just want to maintain the status quo and prop up the establishment. He's got to go. Look, I rarely cover Twitter beefs because I think that this is the indie media equivalent of shitposting. So I try not to indulge in these types of, you know, quite frankly sensationalist stories, although I'm going to have to indulge in this instance because for whatever reason I really enjoy the Twitter beef between Ron Perlman and Matt Gaetz as well as Ted Cruz. Now, Ron Perlman, if you don't know, he is known for his roles in Sons of Anarchy and Hellboy and he dunked on Ted Cruz and Matt Gaetz in a really spectacular way and I don't know why I like this so much. I hope this doesn't make me a liberal because yasqueening to celebrities on Twitter is a very liberal thing to do. With that being said, I just want to talk about this because it put a smile on my face. So it all started when Ron Perlman responded to comments by Donald Trump and Matt Gaetz about the U.S. soccer team where he says the U.S. soccer team called and you guessed it said they couldn't give any less of a fuck about what you two dipshits think. Now I'm going to pause there because I'm not going to go back and find what Donald Trump and Matt Gaetz said but this is the initiation of the beef between the two of them. So Matt Gaetz responded saying this racial justice warrior had no problem in Hollywood portraying the white supremacist leader of a motorcycle gang, Sons of Anarchy. Ron Perlman responded saying yes sir so true, so rewarding playing assholes on TV. Tell me sir, how is it actually being one? Pretty good response.  Okay, you wouldn't be tweeting about me if my message weren't true and effective, threatened your wokeness. How triggered, oh he pulled out the T-word. Will you be when Donald Trump is re-elected more or less when Crooked lost? And I think that this tweet right here kind of expressed how most people read that. Actually it's a badge of honor. Because I mean the minute a Republican starts losing some type of beef or you know a spat they bust out the are you triggered? Are you triggered? You must be triggered.  They have nothing else like it's predictable. Absolutely predict with a relatively high degree of certainty exactly what they're going to say and the minute they start losing an argument they bring out are you triggered? I mean these guys are just one-trick ponies and in the case of Matt Gaetz this is someone who is a fascist who just two weeks ago said that the US government should hunt down Antifa as we do the terrorists in the Middle East.   So have a seat. Now they go back and forth for a while. We're not going to get into all of it. Ron Perlman brings up that his district is gerrymandered and then calls him out for bringing a Holocaust denier to the State of the Union and then he drops this gem. P.S. you're lucky for this guy Matt.  Now I don't know where that came from but I actually disagree with it. I think that if we are trying to rank ugliness you've got to put like Donald Trump, Ted Cruz. They're all definitely up there and also I'm blanking on his name now. There's another politician. Oh no I guess he's not necessarily a politician anymore. David Duke. Very weird looking individual. Looks plastic. But this was just out of nowhere and certainly I would put Ted Cruz near the top of that list if we're going to be immature enough to talk about the ugliness of politicians. But Ted Cruz then, speaking of him, jumps in for whatever reason and he tweets at Ron Perlman saying listen hell boy you talk good game when you've got Hollywood makeup and stuntmen but I'll bet $10,000 to the non-political charity of your choice that you couldn't last five minutes in the wrestling ring with Jim Jordan without getting pinned. You up for it or does your publicist say too risky? Now I want to pause for a moment because I don't know why Ted Cruz decided to insert himself into this beef between Ron Perlman and Matt Gaetz but this was a terrible idea for Ted Cruz. Because he got dunked on pretty hard. So Ron Perlman responded saying wait is this the Ted Cruz?  Yo can I get your autograph man?  I'll give $50,000 to Black Lives Matter and you can keep all the taxpayer money you were thinking of spending. Ted Cruz then responded kind of side stepping that offer saying I get it you're rich but apparently soft you sure seem scared to wrestle Jordan whom you keep insulting. Can't take the heat? Need to get a manicure? Now I acknowledge that if I read that in a Ted Cruz voice it would have been better but Ted Cruz like the biggest cock in all of the United States Senate is trying to I don't know make some comment about Ron Perlman's masculinity this is just weird like what are you doing you're a United States senator what are you doing and you are trying to get Jim Jordan to fight or Ron Perlman to agree to fight Jim Jordan and then he offers to box you instead or wrestle whatever they're trying to do and you side step it and then after side stepping it and basically running away from his offer you still have the nerve to say oh well you're the pussy I mean this is stupid this is America in 2020 so I think this story really represents it. Ron Perlman responds saying Teddy Teddy what kind of motherfucker offers to have another guy probably asleep at the time kick another guy's ass he also says you know Ted I've been giving this some thought leave Jim Jordan home and give me ten minutes with you and Mitch McConnell let's see what else you motherfuckers can obstruct besides justice all we needs a time place and a few EMT standing by let me know so that's pretty much it yeah now as an SJW I think it is my responsibility to acknowledge the toxic masculinity that was put on full display here but look this was a really weird exchange and I wanted to talk about this especially because it really I think demonstrates why Ted Cruz is always picked on by people in America he's so weird not only are his policies repugnant but he's just a weird person like you challenge Ron Perlman to a fight with someone else and then when he offers to fight you or box you whatever they're going to do again then you basically say you're a pussy you don't want to fight Jim Jordan no I want to fight you oh you don't mean must not want to fight Jim Jordan you're a pussy what is happening guys this is weird this is strange Ted Cruz needs to stop getting into Twitter spats because it's making him even more unlikable and I get his face is less punchable now that he has the beard it helps me have a less punchable face as well but you have to stop doing things like this Ted Cruz because look at the end of the day we can laugh about this we can say you know oh this is funny this isn't real news but you are a United States senator getting into a Twitter spat with an actor and you want to like have some sort of boxing match with them like how about you do your job pass legislation introduce legislation that will give Americans relief who have lost their jobs due to COVID-19 pass legislation curtailing police brutality do something other than sit on your ass and lick Donald Trump's boot like I don't I don't get it I will say Ron Perlman must be commended for doing a good job I think that in the event I were to ever get into a Twitter beef with him I would probably have better clap backs because his clap backs are very like cringy like the teddy boy I think that's weird like you want to leave that to the side that has very strong boomer energy but I mean I think he did a good job at dunking on Matt Gaetz and Ted Cruz and with how loathsome these two individuals are especially Matt Gaetz who is a fascist I think that anyone who's going to draw attention to their weaselness is important but I think that I'm trying to like extract as much substance out of this as I possibly can and now the well is dry this is just a funny story that I wanted to talk about and that's that's basically me that I will try to do better because I found this funny it put a smile on my face and in a year so bizarre as 2020 I think that we've got to really hang on to anything that distracts us from the chaos and this certainly did that helped me hopefully it'll help you but otherwise I will try not to cover Twitter beefs in the future but I'm only human I don't know how many people saw this video but I had to talk about a recent segment on Fox News from Tucker Carlson because lately he's been railing against the so-called leftist mob and you know usually we're supposed to believe that the left-wing mob is overly PC, hypersensitive and weak overall but now we're supposed to believe that the left-wing mob is intimidating and dangerous and we're supposed to be afraid of the so-called left-wing mob now what really struck me was one of the examples that he uses to prove how powerful and threatening quite frankly this left-wing mob actually is he cites Elmo as an example of the left's power and yes we're talking about that Elmo the one from Sesame Street a children's show that according to him is evidence that the left have become all too tyrannical for his liking I wish I were joking this is quite literally indistinguishable from satire but nonetheless this is a real segment from a real news channel who are the people trying to take over your country and cancel your rights eliminate our centuries-long tradition of tolerance yes tolerance and a free expression and the truth is we often don't know their names they're mostly faceless political agitators who exist primarily online they're trolls who thrive on cruelty and yet suddenly they have immense power over all of us weak leaders now reflexively bow to their demands no matter what those demands are why is that? what's changed? we probably ought to do an entire show on that topic and if the news ever comes down long enough to think in bigger terms well we will do that but for now it's enough to say that the country's defenses have been badly weakened by decades of relentless propaganda all of it designed to make us feel that we have no right to stand up for ourselves to stand up for our country we are too sinful to resist we deserve whatever we get shut up and take it America we can spend days showing you examples of this but here's just the very latest it's from CNN over the weekend hello yeah I'm bringing this sign to the protest at the community center later look upset are the protest they are sad and upset and they have every right to be Elmo people are upset because racism is a huge problem in our country across the country people of color especially in the black community are being treated unfairly because of how they look children's show got that Bobby America is a very bad place and it's your fault so no matter what happens no matter what they do to you when you grow up you have no right to complain I don't even know what to say to that look watching that Sesame Street clip what I got out of that was that Elmo was talking to his dad and his dad was trying to educate him about racism but what Tucker got out of that was America is a very bad place and it's your fault at what point was that the implication of this short clip at what point did Elmo's dad try to convince him that America is bad because he doesn't know about racism or whatever like I don't even know how he connects the dots here it doesn't make sense he's making a lot of logical leaps he's reaching I mean this is supposed to be a serious news person on a serious news network and he is literally conflating Elmo with some type of power that the left has and you know some nefarious plot to bring Americans to heal this is how we're gonna do it with Elmo I mean he's just stupid I don't know how else to describe what we just saw there now he says some other things that I want to point out who are the people trying to take over your country cancel your rights eliminate our centuries long tradition of tolerance yes tolerance and free expression he's asking you this question and it's supposed to be posed you know in a rhetorical way he wants to say the left but I have an answer it's Republicans Donald Trump literally just a couple of weeks ago threatened to use the United States military to violently crush protests taking place if you don't think that is a threat to free speech then you're just ignorant but if you think that the left and the left-wing mob whatever that may be is more dangerous than the president threatened to violently stifle people's first amendment rights then I mean you're just being disingenuous you are not cut out for a job where you do political commentary you're not you're just either lying or stupid and I think that he knows better I think he knows that he's lying and he made a comment about propaganda it's enough to say that the country's defenses have been badly weakened by decades of relentless propaganda all of it designed to make it feel like we have no right to stand up for ourselves I mean what are you talking about you are the propagandist Tucker you are the one doing propaganda you are the one that's relentless and you are not the victims you're not the ones who are being oppressed right-wingers in America are doing pretty damn good you hold the White House currently you have the Senate why are you crying it's black Americans and protesters who are finally standing up for themselves and you are the one that's demonizing them you're the one who initially said when these protests broke out that these protesters are being tyrannical so who is it who actually is trying to stand up for themselves I mean in actuality objectively speaking we know it's the protesters it's black Americans who are asserting their right to life their right to walk down a street and not have to worry about being murdered by a police officer but to Tucker Carlson it's the right it's normal Americans i.e. white Americans who is trying to suggest other ones you know under attack here he also says the left mob have immense power and weak leaders reflexively bow to their demands no matter what those demands are alright well if that's the case if the left is so powerful then why is it that we don't have Medicare for all why is it that we haven't done anything about climate change why is it that we couldn't actually get a left-wing Democratic nominee Bernie Sanders why is it that capitalism is still a thing if the left is so powerful no the left actually is powerless currently sure we're trying to you know elect people who are left-wing to government but I mean you can count the number on a couple of hands of people who are actually left-wing genuinely progressive but the right-wing neoliberal consensus has been the status quo but I mean let's all just go back to the point that he made or the example that he used more specifically to suggest that the left is trying to you know I don't know tear down America's values he cited an example of Elmo a puppet being taught about racism so I mean I've extracted as much substance from this segment as I possibly can but at the end of the day this is a joke about Sesame Street and this is a news person like what a clown but he's not alone because Dave Rubin of course had to chime in and he tweeted out good morning to everyone except Sesame Street and CNN no kid at the age they're into Elmo needs to be talking about racism especially via cable news this is brainwashing and child abuse so according to Dave Rubin who does not have children teaching kids at a young age not to be racist it's controversial it's tantamount to child abuse in his opinion so if you are worried about what we're teaching our children and whether or not we're brainwashing them have you called out religious indoctrination do you think that it's bad to brainwash children into particular religions at an early age do you think that it's bad to brainwash children into thinking that being homophobic is acceptable we'll know if we teach them to be racist that's where he has an issue there okay so would you call out Ben Shapiro who is most likely brainwashing his children to believe that gay people are icky and immoral I mean he wouldn't say that because Dave Rubin is a coward and he knows what he's doing he knows the role that he's supposed to play he uses the platform that he has to boost the very people who are against his existence as a gay man which I mean judging by you know the trajectory that he's on I'm assuming he will divorce his husband sexuality within the next year or two and quote me now I called it first because that's where we're headed with him I mean this is not a serious person if you are outraged at the fact that people want to teach children not to be racist then you have to admit here I mean the subtext is that you think that that's bad that being racist is okay why is it unacceptable to teach children that being racist is bad why is it unacceptable to educate children I mean when you are young you're like a sponge you absorb everything so I think it's a perfect time to try to instill some sort of values into children and especially values which you know I thought we all agreed on were good such as racism is bad but I mean according to Fox News, Tucker Carlson, Dave Rubin if you try to teach children that racism is bad this is evidence that the left is a mob that's trying to take over the country I mean get the fuck out of here this is nothing but fear mongering in the worst way possible because I mean like you're not even persuasive like who are you persuading who is going to watch this as a grown-up and think wow you know teaching children through Sesame Street that racism is bad really shows how far we falling as a country I mean the only people who believe this are racists so the fact that Tucker Carlson and Dave Rubin are outraged that Sesame Street is trying to teach children that racism is bad kind of shows you a lot about their views or you know the views that they are paid to espouse but either way I mean if you are outraged at Elmo trying to teach children that racism is bad you are ridiculous and you're part of the problem grow up racism is bad that shouldn't be controversial the fact that it is speaks to how far we've fallen in the opposite direction speaks to how much power right-wing reactionaries have so before we get into this next story I want to preface it by saying that John Bolton should not have even been allowed to serve in Donald Trump's administration as his national security advisor because this is a war criminal who should be in prison for the rest of his life and the fact that he isn't in prison for committing crimes against humanity shows that our country doesn't actually value human rights in fact he's so blood thirsty he might literally be psychopathic having said that he was in Trump's administration and usually one quality about him is that he doesn't necessarily lie he kind of tells you how thirsty he is for blood I mean on Fox News he said openly that it would be great if American oil companies were able to get into Venezuela right he said this he talked openly about wanting to overthrow the regime in Iran which leads me to believe that in his tell-all book that's coming out on Tuesday a lot of the things that he's saying about Donald Trump are to be believed and if we do believe what John Bolton is saying about Donald Trump these are absolutely bombshell revelations that may be more harmful than any other leak from the Trump administration this is absolutely concerning now Trump is trying to shut down the release of this book his administration literally filed a lawsuit to try to stop this book from being published claiming that it contains classified information and that the publisher has said that classified information included has been redacted so it's not actually going to you know publish classified information but I think that the reason why Trump doesn't want this to get out is because the revelations in here are genuinely jaw-dropping and I say this as someone who thinks that a lot of the stories about Donald Trump often times are overblown because he is clickbait for the mainstream media right so they try to find anything and Jenna but controversy but these are controversies that are real jaw-dropping revelations so there's a lot that is coming out of his book will probably learn more but I want to focus on two two that really speak to Donald Trump's character the first comes from J. Edward Moreno of The Hill who reports former White House National Security Advisor John Bolton claims in his forthcoming memoir that President Trump called journalists scumbags who should be executed Bolton said Trump made the comments during a last summer in New Jersey according to a copy of Bolton's book obtained by The Hill during the meeting Trump said journalists should be jailed so they would have to expose their sources Bolton wrote these people should be executed they are scumbags Trump said according to Bolton's account chronicled in the memoir the room where it happened so just pause for a moment and reflect on that the sitting president of the United States thinks that he should be able to jail and in some instances execute journalists U.S. journalists this isn't just authoritarian this is totalitarian and we know that he doesn't really care about the first amendment because just a couple of weeks back what did he do he threatened to use the military to violently crush protests we have a right to free speech protests as Isaiah James said are meant to make people uncomfortable but because they make him look bad because he is refusing to respond to the protests in an adequate way he wants to violently shut them down so we believe so we know that he believes that the first amendment you know can be disregarded he doesn't care about the eighth amendment or the fourth amendment as well but now we know he actually believes that some journalists should be executed or jailed until they reveal their sources I mean doesn't that defeat the whole purpose of journalism doesn't that make them incapable of being a check on government tyranny well yeah but that's the point now that doesn't necessarily say that he would execute a journalist but the fact that he thinks they should be executed and he's in the highest position in our country that is genuinely worrying now on top of that he may have encouraged the president of China to commit genocide as Dominic Mosburgin of HuffPost reports President Donald Trump didn't merely stand idly by as Xi Jinping detained Uyghur Muslims en masse but encouraged the Chinese leader to build facilities akin to concentration camps to imprison members of the minority group former national security adviser John Bolton claims in his new bombshell book The Room Where It Happened the excerpt contains several damning details about Trump's relationship with Xi and China in it Bolton claims that Trump had asked him in 2018 why we were considering sanctioning China over its treatment of the Uyghurs a largely Muslim people who live primarily in China's northwest Xinjiang province at the opening dinner of the Osaka G20 meeting in June 2019 with only interpreters president Xi had explained to Trump why he was basically building concentration camps in Xinjiang according to our interpreter Trump said that Xi should go ahead with building the camps which Trump thought was exactly the right thing to do the national security council's top Asia staffer Matthew Pottinger told me that Trump said something very similar during his November 2017 trip to China Xi's government has been accused of imprisoning at least 1 million Uyghurs in detention camps where inmates have reported torture, sexual assault and other crimes China has defended these camps as anti-terrorism re-education centers the Bolton's book was published on the same day that Trump signed legislation aimed at punishing China for its treatment of Uyghurs and other ethnic minority groups so think about that rather than using his influence to try to pressure China to do the correct thing when he has the ear of China he's saying, no I think you should build concentration camps and the signing of that legislation is really convenient does that not look like shameless damage control and if you don't believe that Trump would recommend this remember we have concentration camps in the United States currently we are putting immigrant children and their parents in these camps because of Donald Trump's zero-tolerance immigration policy where we literally break apart families at the border as a form of deterrence to tell other immigrants don't think about coming otherwise we're going to put you in these cages and break up your families as well so Trump is absolutely fascistic he has authoritarian and totalitarian instincts there is a real difference there between those two things and this should absolutely horrify everyone see I don't care that he believes that journalists are scumbags, whatever but the fact that he thinks they should be jailed until they reveal their sources or even executed I shouldn't have to say this but this is obviously antithetical to democracy Trump absolutely wants to be a dictator and if he loses this election in November which polls currently show that that's looking more likely even though things can change I mean can you imagine the shit show that that is going to be he's going to cry that the election was rigged and he is not going to want to leave I mean I'd be surprised if he actually acted like an adult and conceded but it's going to be a shit show because this is an individual who is petty he is entitled, he thinks he is entitled, power in this country and he has authoritarian instincts so you know things are really ugly right now he's not the first president with authoritarian instincts but I mean the fact that he thinks that journalists should be executed that really is troubling I mean this should scare everyone look if Joe Biden or Bernie Sanders or AOC or any politician if they said that they thought that journalists should be executed or gave us any indication that that was their belief we should all be outraged regardless of their party affiliation it's bad enough that both parties they don't actually care about the fourth amendment they don't actually care about protecting journalists none of them speak out on behalf of Julian Assange they are all for the prosecution of Edward Snowden so we've already kind of moved towards this mentality to where we are trying to criminalize real journalism in this country that's supposed to act as a check on government authority but this takes it a step further Donald Trump is in power and now he thinks that we should be able to execute journalists the fact that he has this mindset is absolutely chilling after two police unions in New York publicly accused Shake Shack employees of poisoning them we are learning more and more about the persecution complex of the police and this isn't just something to laugh at officer Karen's meltdown over an egg McMuffin is funny in a way and it's entitlement and we should shame people with this mentality but it speaks to a real danger that if someone has this mentality that they're always under attack this explains why police officers often times end up escalating rather than de-escalating because they always feel as if they're the ones who are under threat in this country and what's interesting is that we're learning about the police persecution complex after we've had weeks with dozens of videos of police officers beating and gassing peaceful protesters and even targeting medics in some circumstances but it's actually them who are the real victims they're not the oppressors they're the oppressed everyone is discriminating against them according to them so I'm sure that you've already seen this video of officer Karen but for those of you who have not seen it take a look we'll watch it and then talk about it I decided to come to the McDonald's at Love's on the Ford Avenue exit and I waited in line to get my food I had already done my mobile order so that people don't pay for my stuff because I just always like to pay for myself but I'm on my way home from work um to pull up to the window they hand me my receipt so I go to the second window to get my food and I'm waiting and I'm waiting and so the girl comes to the window and asks me what my order was I repeat my order and my coffee um order and they asked me to pull up so I pull up forward and a girl comes out with my coffee and just the coffee and she hands it to me and I have my window down and I'm waiting and I'm waiting and they ask me to pull up so I pull up forward and um a girl comes out with my coffee and just the coffee and she hands it to me and I have my window down and that's all she hands me is the coffee so I told her I said don't bother with the food because right now I'm too nervous to take it it doesn't matter how many hours I've been up it doesn't matter what I've done for anyone right now I'm too nervous to take a meal from McDonald's because I can't see it being made and I don't know what's going on with people nowadays but please just give us a break please just give us a break I don't know how much more I can take I've been in this for 15 years and I've never ever had such anxiety about waiting for McDonald's drive-thru food so just have a heart and if you see an officer just tell them thank you because I don't hear thank you enough anymore I mean I think that that video speaks for itself anyone who has gone through a drive-thru at a fast food restaurant it doesn't matter if it's McDonald's or Burger King or Wendy's sometimes you have to pull around and wait I mean this is a common practice it doesn't mean that they're trying to poison you because you're a cop you're not a victim Karen people are rightfully questioning the role of the police in our society because for far too long police have been able to be aggressive they brutalize peaceful protesters oftentimes and yes murder black Americans with impunity and so the fact that we are now drawing attention to this long practice of like over-policing communities that it's gone on for far too long all of a sudden she melts down she can't take it now someone who is melting down because they took a little bit too long to bring her her egg McMuffin that is someone who should not be in law enforcement that is someone who is not stable enough to have a gun because if you honestly think that everyone is out to get you then that's a really dangerous situation that you're creating like if you respond to some sort of situation we can see that you're already on edge and you're gonna want to escalate rather than de-escalate and handle it in you know a more common rational way so this is a really huge thing it's not just you know let's all laugh at officer Karen over her egg McMuffin this is about a broader issue this persecution complex can literally be deadly the fact that officers think that way that everyone is out to get them is exactly why people get killed all the time by police officers even if they're unarmed right I mean this is really a microcosm of a broader issue here with this one viral video and in an article for the Los Angeles Times I think that Maria Kruder actually made some really fantastic points if your typical American consumer got sick after drinking a shake shack milkshake tainted with a bleach based cleaning solution she would be rightfully upset if that consumer then accused shake shack employees of intentionally poisoning her publicly crying that she can't even take a meal without coming under attack she would almost certainly be considered paranoid if not outright delusional but for the typical American police union paranoia is beginning to seem par for the course on Monday night two NYPD unions the New York police benevolent association and the detectives endowment association issued statements alleging that three New York police officers had been intentionally poisoned at shake shack the NYC PBA tweeted a statement since deleted from its president Patrick Lynch claiming that the officers discovered a toxic substance believed to be bleach had been placed in their beverages if the intent to signing diction of placed didn't clue you in Lynch and the PBA made it even more obvious when NYC police officers cannot even take meal without coming under attack it is clear that the environment in which we work has deteriorated to a critical level we cannot afford to let our guard down for even a moment meanwhile the detectives associations president release the statement alleging that police in New York City and across the country are under attack by vicious criminals who dislike us simply because of the uniform we wear emboldened by pandering elected officials these cowards will go to great lengths to harm any member of law enforcement the us versus them warriors under assault party line couldn't have been clearer in a not so shocking twist however these claims turned out to be false the NYPD's own investigation cleared the shake shack employees of any criminality Tuesday morning the bleach was more likely part of a cleaning solution that had been improperly removed from the milkshake machine sloppy consumer protection sure sub far food safety practices yeah that too a conspiracy to attack cops not in the slightest and yet the police unions fast food focused fragility felt pretty familiar over the past few months headlines about cops getting erroneously mad at restaurants have become surprisingly common like the cop who accused fast food worker of taking a bite out of his McChicken because he forgot he'd taken the bite himself or the cops who threatened to boycott a Philly sandwich shop for the dire sin of not giving officers free lunch or the cop who lied about a McDonald's worker writing fucking pig on his coffee cup while these stories might seem merely stupid and embarrassing for the officers in question which to be clear they are this apparent police obsession with the imagined specter of an antiva fast food worker is a sign of a much deeper problem as police brutality has become a more mainstream source of outrage over the past few years police have increasingly closed ranks blue lives matter back the blue and thin blue line imagery all have their roots in the same idea the world is full of dangerous cop fighting criminals and the poor persecuted police officers are the only thing standing between order and chaos what's so dangerous about these slogans and indeed about the frequent police accusations against restaurants is how they encourage cops to interact with the rest of the world everything from the increase in SWAT usage of tanks and machine guns to warrior style training that teaches cops they need to either kill or be killed is rooted in the idea that police are always under attack Seth Stoughton a law professor at and a former police officer wrote about law enforcement's warrior problem for the Harvard law review arguing that this warrior mindset is both common and destructive Stoughton cites a 2010 article from police one a site offering police training news and career services that recommends police remain humble and compassionate be professional and courteous and have a plan to kill everyone you meet Stoughton argues that this mindset creates a substantial if invisible barrier to true community policing concluding that the assertive set the tone of encounter can also set the stage for a negative response or a violent interaction that was from the start avoidable the same paranoia that leads a police officer to assume he's been poisoned by a milkshake can lead him to needlessly escalate encounters with civilians and as we've seen all too often needless escalation can have tragic consequences these stories aren't frivolous they're an illustration of how deep and pervasive the toxic police persecution mindset can be excessive police violence isn't going to end as long as too many law enforcement agencies are people with or led by fragile skittish warrior wannabes who have deadly weapons qualified immunity and the knee jerk assumption that the people they're meant to serve and protect especially black people are trying to kill them until then it's a lucky break when the only victim of police paranoia is a burger chains reputation so that article is absolutely perfect in my opinion I mean this warrior mentality this view that everyone is out to get you and your job is super dangerous this leads to people getting killed by the police and it has to stop it has to stop and understand that when you compare police training in the united states to other countries it isn't as long I mean this is why they just they aren't capable of de-escalating they always end up escalating because these are individuals who are absolutely skittish as the article points it out and my niece just made I think a brilliant facebook post she works with kids she's a social worker and she's had more training than police officers so I mean you can't just claim that people like officer Karen you know are to be laughed at and disregarded absolutely not this is a dangerous mentality that she is showing us she's giving us insight into police officers in America and the way that they feel about the people that they're supposed to protect you know she feels as if they're always out to get them they want to poison her and we know if you've ever gone to a restaurant that having to wait a little bit longer for your egg McMuffin does not mean that your life is in danger but the fact that something as you know insignificant as that leads her to fear for her life literally I mean it shows you how fundamentally broken and beyond repair our system of quote unquote policing is in America this is why people say defund the police this is why abolitionist arguments are gaining action it is because what we've come to recognize as policing has failed and now is the time that everyone is paying attention that we actually fix this issue both culturally and from an institutional standpoint hi everyone I'm here with Isaiah James he's back on the show to talk about his campaign he's running in New York's 9th congressional district against incumbent Yvette Clark and a lot has changed since we last talk Isaiah so welcome back thank you for coming back on thank you so much for having me man yeah it's a different world now the last time since we talked the Democratic primary was still going on remember when that was a thing COVID-19 wasn't a thing you know these protests the murder of George Floyd hasn't happened it wasn't a thing back then so I mean like how has your campaign been doing give us a little bit of an update and let us know how you've been able to adapt to campaigning in a COVID era when you can't knock on doors and you have to basically change the strategy that you were using like how's everything going because June 23rd next week is the primary so we're coming down to it so how are things currently so I want to not push back but correct something you said we said it's a different world it's a different world for some but for some people they've been living this reality their entire existence yeah me as a six foot eight black man I know what it's like you know to look like the suspect when you walk out of the door my wife has a pre-existing condition you know 40 million people are now out of working out health care but 35 million people didn't have health care before this all started wages were still low so it's a different world to those who weren't paying attention but for millions of people this is nothing but more than the same so that's that two our campaign has changed everything's online now it's all digital you know like we talked before we came on you're one of the first people to ever give me a platform and interview me and let me speak to people about the campaign I'm running because grassroots campaigns you either have to have a ton of money or you have to have a ton of momentum we don't have a ton of money but we have the momentum so all of our town halls have switched online we can't go out and knock on doors but believe it or not literally before I got on this interview with you a potential constituent left me a voicemail and called me how she got my number I don't know but when I called her back she was so shocked and surprised she was like oh my god you actually called me back she said she had reached out to the other campaigns and team members and other folks had said they're going to look into it but she left me a voicemail and I called her back I've done that with numerous folks who called me because I'm just an everyday person so everything we've done we've done now is online all of our ads we're releasing ads literally twice three times a week on ads and digital digital town halls coming on shows like this and other shows I was on a few other shows last week I got a few other shows tomorrow just to get a message out there because my strongest strength as a candidate is getting out there and talking to the people letting them know that somebody resonates with their problems but we can't do that now because literally the entire world is shut down so we've had to in the military we had improvise, adapt and overcome so we were improvising at first because we were just a grassroots campaign now we have to adapt and hopefully on June 23rd we'll overcome yeah it's a lot going on and I'm glad that you said that in the beginning about this being really the same thing for everyone because I think that what a lot of people are realizing now a lot of white people in particular are realizing is that racism didn't go away people with white privilege like to live in that bubble and think well you know I haven't seen racism I'm not racist so it doesn't affect me but the thing is that racism is a force that is malleable it's able to adapt it doesn't just go away you know with time if we just ignore it I mean if you think about this like when it goes to slavery that was abolished and then we got Jim Crow Jim Crow went away and now we functionally have a version of Jim Crow in mass incarceration where we're still able to where the system it has institutions that still disenfranchise mostly black Americans it denies them the right to vote you know this label of felon on people I'm reading the new Jim Crow right now which is a phenomenal book and it's going through all these things yeah it's such a great read and I'm reading it for the first time and really it's eye-opening and you know what happens is that everything is cyclical like you think that things have changed but in actuality you know the forces that they corrupt our system they just adapt you know it's not just racism it all adapts so I wanted to get your perspective on this because you said you're a black man in America you know you see black men being killed with impunity the videos are up there we're now getting reports about possible lynchings with Robert Fuller in California and Malcolm Harsh how are you able to basically educate people while at the same time be human because it bogs you down where's you down so how do you deal with this as a black man in America in 2020 well you know you said that a lot of folks don't see racism so it doesn't affect them I mean you don't see gravity but jump your ass off a building and watch what happens to you just because you don't see something doesn't mean it's not there and it's not affecting everybody and even if you are white racism affects you because your fellow countrymen and women are being persecuted number one number two how do I not get me down I mean I've been black my whole life so this is all I've known this is my existence I know what it's like like I said for people to cross the street when they see me for people to clutch their purse when I walk by you know to get followed around stores so it doesn't it doesn't affect me in that sense is I'm used to it sadly I'm used to it you know I mean and also I'm I'm buoyed by seeing so many people continue to fight like as a black man I'm the seventh generation in this country of crimes committed from 1619 when those slaves landed in Jamestown the the strength and the heritage that I come from if my people could make it through whatever they made it through and my particular background is Jamaican so my folks come from Jamaica those are the some of the worst conditions on the sugar plantations and the tobacco plantations and if they can make it through that we can make it through this and if they didn't give up if we I'm where I am today because they didn't give up so in order for us to get the next generation of all Americans and black and brown folks to where we need to be I can't give up I understand what I'm fighting for you know the greatest tree you can plant is one who shade you will never sit in I'm where I am today because somebody sacrifice somebody set it at lunch counter in 1963 somebody got bit by that dog and got that water hose turned somebody got their head cracked by a police baton marching for rights that's why I'm sitting here today and I want to be the last generation to have to deal with this because like you said racism isn't out in the open anymore you know so instead of burning across in front of your yard they'll put a police car on the corner they've now taken off their white robes and now they have on black robes in the gavel so it's the same racism I like my racism out front and I've open so at least I can see it I know how to combat it but racism has now been it's pervasive it moves in the cracks and in the shadows of our government and that's why we call it systematic racism because it's in housing it's in education, it's in healthcare it's in the military, it's in police it's in everything and if you know anything about racism as a cancer you can't just you know cut away a slice of the tumor you have to excise that entire tumor and remove that cancer from the body and what will metastasize and eat itself like every other great empire around the world the Turks, the Romans, the Greeks the Syrians, the Ottomans, the Russians all of them have collapsed because they did not take care of what they needed to take care of internally at the time and America is headed long in that way unless we correct ourselves right now this is a task that is so huge that it's difficult to know where to begin and I think that the thing about racism is that it's so embedded in all of our institutions, in culture white supremacy it's everywhere, so you know people who are privileged they don't necessarily understand it so my hope is that white people in general they actually wake up, I mean when we're looking at all of these videos of police brutality them gassing peaceful protesters this is really jarring to white people that I talk to in my social circles who they trusted the police but I mean this is knowledge that black communities have been privy to since the founding of this country, this isn't a new phenomenon it's just that white people are learning about the black experience more so but I think that really what I hope that can come out of this besides institutional changes of course is a cultural shift to where you are not just apathetic or ambivalent and what I mean by that is nobody wants to say oh well I'm racist of course but the difference is you have to go a step beyond that, you can't just be comfortable saying I'm not racist because I have a black friend or a black family member, that's not good enough and that's not going to do away with racism it requires more than that and it seems like we are on the cusp of a cultural shift but at the same time we've been there before where it feels like there would be change Rodney King, there's so many instances where it feels like we're finally going to change but racism just adapts my question to you is as a black man in America what would you like to see if you had a magic wand and you could do actually let's get into a little bit more concrete scenario let's say you win your primary, you're elected a congress and you are able to craft legislation that's perfect, that will get passed, what would that look like in your opinion because I think that people are branching out liberals at least some liberals are trying to run away from that instinct to just opt for incremental reform, that's clearly failed incrementalism I think isn't going to suffice this time, so we're talking about defund the police we're even entertaining abolitionist arguments but for you legislatively speaking how do you root out racism from the institutions that it's embedded in is it able to be reformed like what do we do in terms of like a policy approach to this because it's such a huge thing I don't know where to begin Okay so let's unpack a few things that you said there so when we talk about individuals and being racist I don't think individuals can be racist and I'll tell you why everybody has a prejudice prejudice just means to prejudge you have a prejudice when you walk into a buffet and you look to see which food you're going to get because it looks good or that looks bad that's a prejudge, racism is a system and racism is like I said when I say it's a system I mean it controls masses so when we talk about racism in America I'm not talking about you know the the kathy that calls the police or the caring that doesn't want the black person to barbecue that's them being prejudiced and ignorant but the racism comes in to the fact that she can call a police system that she knows will do something or have an adverse effect on a black person that's the system that we need to deal with everybody that's prejudice people can be taught and learn to get rid of their prejudice but racism as a system has to be dismantled you can't reform racism because police have body cameras now they're still beating people they're still killing people they're gassing protesters peaceful protesters on the damn news so a camera is not the way you can't retrain them because the system is set up policing in this country literally stemmed out of slave officers who would go and capture escaped slaves and bring them back so the entire system is corrupt if I could craft a perfect piece of legislation I don't think there is such thing as a perfect piece of legislation because legislation has to evolve with the times of the day but if I could craft some legislation right now we need to demilitarize our police police officers are using the same exact equipment that I use when I was in Afghanistan and Iraq literally I could get inside one of those big ass up armored vehicles flip all the switches turn it on and move it because I've driven it a million times they're using the same vehicles in Iraq not only that they have qualified immunity which allows them just imagine this my wife is a teacher in New York City you get a teaching certificate a license to teach do you think she would be able to be on the job if she had 10 complaints of misconduct or 10 complaints of abusing a child no lawyer could have you know 20 years worth of contempt citations against them they would be disbarred she would lose her license to teach no police officer who is a public servant what should be able to allow to commit acts of violence against people and be shielded because of this silly ass law on the book so we need to end qualified immunity we need to demilitarize that police we need we need to end broken windows policing and communities of color a lot of folks like to say well black communities have more crimes they have more crimes because they have more police if all you have is a hammer everything looks like a nail police officers have to be justified some way so they arrest people to justify their existence it's a never-ending cycle that reformation is not going to change it has to be dismantled so there's not one perfect piece of legislation but there are things that we can craft and put into bills we need to tackle this stuff now like right now New York City just passed an anti-chokehold bill that's the problem that you have to pass a bill to tell an institution not to choke people to death that's that's a summation of the problems in the fact that you have to pass an anti-chokehold bill how about we reduce the number of police so we don't so that money can go to mental health services that money can go to diversionary programs that money can go to outpatient programs that money can go to mental health services so we're not using our police officers as police force as end all to all these other social things that we should be doing we're not using our jails in lieu of mental health facilities we're not using police officers as immigration officers all these other things we talk about police we don't just have to think about 9-1-1 NYPD we have to also talk about the Department of Homeland Security we have to talk about ICE and Immigration Customs Enforcement we have to talk about all these other pseudo quasi police agencies that the state the government has to police people in all forms and fashions so we don't just need to look at NYPD we need to look at all of this damn stuff with the Patriot Act and the National Defense Authorization Act and all these things Yeah and I'm glad that you said that because I feel like if you just try to reform the existing police as it is you're not really getting to the root of the problem because it doesn't address the underlying issue that our response society has collectively been just to throw more police at whatever the situation is so rather than addressing the homeless crisis with housing we just throw more police on it we you know criminalize homelessness so it's like we've had this one default setting to where oh there's crime there's these issues X, Y and Z well that just means we increase our police budgets even further we throw more police at it and I think that people are starting to wake up and realize this isn't like it's not acceptable to have a one size fits all solution to all of a city's problems that doesn't make sense right like we we have to be nuanced we have to acknowledge the fact that mental health care requires or mental health crises require mental health care you know it doesn't require police officers domestic violence isn't something that you can solve with policing these are these are issues that are complex and so I'm glad that we're actually talking about going beyond reform it is a little bit frustrating that you know you see Democrats such as Joe Biden Jim Clyburn try to co-op the language say you know I don't support to fund the police but I want to reimagine the police that can mean anything and it's not necessarily I mean it might be reimagined to even what maybe his reimagination is giving them more money and more power Joe Biden did give us the crack though so I don't trust Joe Biden on policing anyone who is part of the problem who created the you know the issues that we're dealing with I can't trust them and I'm glad that you brought up chokehold in New York because you responded to something that Andrew Cuomo said that I wanted to ask you about because this is insane to me so Andrew Cuomo said people are still out protesting you don't need to protest you won you won you accomplished your goal society says you're right the police needs systematic reform so my question to you is your response was that basically he ended racism it's over guys as a black man how's it feel living in a post racial America Isaiah I mean it's marvelous when he said that I was like what the hell I was like that right there again is a summation of the fact that Andrew Cuomo has never lived a day in the shoes of a black man or black person or person of color or any marginalized community think about it Andrew Cuomo's father was governor his brother hosted TV show on CNN he's now governor of New York he's never lived the day I don't give a damn how much he tries to sympathize or empathize he doesn't know what he's talking about people are still protesting because this is not over you just saw a man get shot in the back running away in Georgia or wherever it was few days ago you know I mean they made the song after police in the 80s and we're still dealing with this stuff now you know they were getting dogs and water hoses turned on them in the 50s and 60s this isn't a new problem and it's not going to end just because some person in high power says it's over nothing has changed nobody's defunded the police nobody's pulled the police back we still have a six billion dollar budget for the NYPD six billion dollars meanwhile New York State just cut four hundred million dollars from hospitals so he doesn't get the problem he doesn't even get the solution doesn't get anything he's just trying to placate everybody and give me these nice pat on the backs but that doesn't work with the people you know and that's supposed to make people uncomfortable if it didn't make people uncomfortable nothing would come of it look at Occupy Wall Street they sat down on the ground they chanted stock market got bigger the rich got richer the poor got poorer nothing changed because it didn't make people uncomfortable you know what there's no such thing as a peaceful protest protest in and of itself is an act of defiance show me an act of defiance that's peaceful you ever tried to pick up a little kid they don't want to be picked up and they let themselves fall crazy like that it's still hard to wrangle them you're using muscle that's them defying you even when Martin Luther King marched across the Edmund Pettus Bridge he was marching peacefully but it was the the violence that bull Connor did when he start beating people and attacking people that turn the eyes of the nation on this stuff so black people get arrested every day get assaulted every day by the police just because we don't all get killed like what happened to brother George Floyd doesn't mean it's right it's wrong in every instance and he doesn't understand that he's speaking from a position of privilege and you know even I have privileged as a male privilege as a man so I know about privilege everybody has a certain type of privilege but in this instance he's speaking from a position of way privileged he has absolutely no idea tell us has to come down in the Crown Heights and just sit in the bush somewhere and watch the police officers do to young black dudes in the subway just just come on and I invite him to come down here right now let's go to Flatbush at each Flatbush let's go to Bedsty or Brownsville let's go anywhere around let's go to the Bronx let's go anywhere and see what happens for absolutely nothing just living in your skin and then tell me that people should get off the streets and go home I think that his remarks it really speaks to this liberal a centrist instinct to get everything back to normal whatever that means but I mean what is normal I think you kind of spoke to this in the beginning like it seems abnormal right now to people who have been in positions of privilege you know if you have healthcare then you're living a pretty normal life if you don't have to worry about police officers you know murdering you at a routine traffic stop then this seems abnormal right now but the thing is that I think you really nailed it when you said protests are supposed to be uncomfortable and the fact that we see protesters squirming trying to find some way to quell the protests that shows how effective that they are I mean it's not just Democrats not to pick on them I mean Donald Trump threatened to use the military to crush protests they don't want these protests to happen which is all the more reason why they should continue to happen because they're working I think that you know you don't change hearts and minds by retreating you don't you know run away from your values the minute you get a little bit of pushback from Republicans which is what I'm kind of seeing from lawmakers like Joe Biden for example you know defund the police oh that's too radical no hold your ground and if it seems too radical that just shows how comfortable people are that they think a slogan like defund the police is radical educate people try to get through to people who otherwise don't know about the things that are happening who have white privilege or rich privilege or all types of privileges so I wanted to get to you or ask you a question about you know more root causes of this system so you just put out an ad recently that is fantastic and we'll play that now for people who are watching we better wake up and understand that we have to center all of our policies around poor people and working people and people of color and marginalized communities every policy we have because the rich people don't need any more money all those gig workers millions of jobs in the rest of our industry millions in the hospitality industry millions of jobs in the service sectors that don't have those protections that have been lost because our country has allowed union membership to be decimated those are the millions of people who don't have any protection tens of thousands already dying every year because they didn't have health care is there going to be a hospital bed for me if I need it is there going to be a ventilator if I need it am I going to lose my job if I get sick or I can't go back to work capitalism does not care about working people it damn sure doesn't care about poor people or sick people it only cares about replicating and making more capital these are the viruses that still plague our body as an income and equality and racial injustice and health care and security and housing insecurity and food insecurity because once this virus has and it will pass the systems that are in place that are exploiting people right now must be dealt with but it's going to be up to our generation to get this ball rolling because we cannot rely on the white house we cannot rely on Republicans we cannot rely on corporate deliverance show me what you believe show me what you do and I'll tell you what you believe with regard to that ad the first thing really it stood out you said black Americans they were the first capital in this capitalist system their bodies were literally capital so I'm curious you know tying capitalism to all of this I want to know your take on this is it possible to change to root out racism effectively I mean it will never go away but I mean can we change it enough without actually tackling capitalism itself I'm curious what your take is on this because you always break things down you know so beautifully in a way that's easy to digest I mean these are big issues and it's kind of tough to wrap your head around it but what's your take on capitalism's role in all of this because I feel like it's present everywhere and we also have to address this as well well it's a great question so again no you can't do it peacefully it's systematic so like I said in my ad you know black people literally were the first capital you know the more slaves you owned the more property you owned you know the bigger your plantation could be and so on and so forth and the richer you could get so we were the first capital if we want to capitalism it's online it runs through all these things criminal justice policing because if you think about it for profit prisons have to make a profit so they need bodies to fill those prisons that's what they have that's what they funnel money to the police forces to make them quasi military forces to arrest more people to lock them up to fill up for profit prisons so now all the contractors can provide the beds and the foods and the meals and then we can we can get the guards we can pay the guards now because now they're part of this capitalist system this capitalist system that's funneled super super amounts of money into the military industrial complex well we have surplus equipment so what do we have to do with it we're going to sell it to other countries to kill their poor people and we're going to sell it to the high police force so we can keep our poor people and our working class people and check capitalism it's a vein that runs through all these things and in my ad when I say that capitalism doesn't care about poor people and working people it really doesn't I mean if it did it wouldn't be capitalism it would be socialism it cares about making more capital and replicating that and criminal justice is a big big business it's about the second biggest business everybody thinks you know it's pharmaceuticals or technology no one is the military industrial complex and then it's criminal justice because it runs the vein through all that stuff and if we don't systematically reform or systematically dismantle this capitalist system it's never going to change I mean we've been talking about these things for a hundred years for two hundred years the first slave that said let me be free wanted to end capitalism they didn't like it so we've been talking about this for hundreds and hundreds of years and we've never nothing's going to change unless we get a critical mass of people like me and AOCs and Rashida Tlaiz and Ilhan into office who actually given them about to people lived experiences I can go out this door right now as a highly decorated disabled veteran medals, ribbons letters from the president thanking me for my service and my bravery and be shot dead by some damn idiot because my blackness is seen as a threat that system cannot be reformed that system has to be dismantled yeah and you said something in that ad that also stood out to me that only cares about replicating and making more capital and that's so simple and it's easy to understand capitalism is like a virus like it has led to the commodification of everything like human lives are commodified but this isn't necessarily a new phenomenon this has been a thing that's happened since the founding of the country and these problems the rate that capitalism is able to replicate it's faster than the rate of change which is