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 humanistreport 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 309 of the program. Today is Friday, October 8th and before we get started, I want to take some time to thank all of the folks who make the show possible. All of our newest Patreon, PayPal and YouTube members, all of which either 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 Alexander Walden, Karen Webster, Rick and Steve and Teresa Jimenez. Thank you so much to all of these kind individuals. If you'd also like to support the podcast, I would very much appreciate that. You can do so by going to humanistreport.com slash support to join us via PayPal. You can support us at Patreon. If you go over to patreon.com slash humanistreport or underneath any one of our YouTube videos, you can click join and easily support us that way. So this week we kind of randomly have a gigantic episode and I'm pretty stoked for it. Here's what's coming up. Kirsten Sinema was confronted by protesters in a bathroom. We'll talk about that. And we'll also talk about how she was confronted on an airplane and at an airport, which led to the far right rushing to her defense. I wonder why they're sticking up for her. But she wasn't the only one to feel the heat because Joe Manchin was confronted by protesters while he was on his luxury yacht. Also on this episode, a Facebook whistleblower exposes how the company deliberately uses his algorithm to promote hate for purposes of profit. And we'll also talk about why Senator John Hickenlooper seemed very concerned about that. The Pandora papers exposes how elites hide their wealth. Dave Rubin's grift begins to unravel, but for it not because a new grift from Russell Brand has emerged out of the ashes of Dave Rubin's old grift. Anti-vaxxers protest New York City's vaccine mandate by destroying the COVID testing tent. Okay, makes sense. New studies reveal that the COVID-19 vaccines not only reduce transmission, but have already saved hundreds of thousands of lives. Caitlyn Jenner reveals that Republicans were embarrassed to be seen with her in public. I mean, this story is just shocking to me, frankly. The Alabama governor uses COVID relief funds to build prisons. And finally, we end the show by talking to 2022 congressional candidate, Isaiah James. And also I will talk to Sam from Reset Race about reparations. So that's what we've got on the agenda for today's episode. It's a lot, but let's get right to it if you don't wanna watch the stories as they come up. You can use the bar to fast forward here and choose topics if you're watching this on YouTube. So yeah, folks, let's dive right in. So last week, the Democratic Party was trying to hash out details of the reconciliation proposal named the Build Back Better Act. And Kirsten Sinema stated that she was opposed to it. So rather than trying to state why she's opposed to it or pick at any particular provision within that package that she doesn't like, she chose to just abandon negotiations altogether and she left DC. Now, her spokesperson claimed that she had a good reason, right? She had a doctor's appointment. Turns out that was actually a lie because she was doing something else. So as Brian Tyler Coleman explains, Kirsten Sinema has left DC amid negotiations. Her spokesman says it's for a doctor's appointment for a foot injury, but a hotel just confirmed she will be at her pack's retreat with donors for cocktails and dinner at a high-end resort and spa in Phoenix. Yeah, so that's why she wasn't in DC. She is abstracting her entire party's agenda, refusing to even engage in negotiations. She's not even saying what specifically she doesn't like about the Build Back Better Act. She's just choosing to not participate altogether, holding up everything for everyone. And she lied about why she couldn't be there. She was with her donors.  But when she was at ASU, her constituents found her and they decided to confront her and this was incredible to watch. Enjoy. The moment that our people need in order for us to be able to talk about what's really happening, we need a Build Back Better Plan right now. We knocked on doors. We need solutions to the Build Back Better Plan. We have the solutions that we need.  We need seven million citizenship for seven million. We need the Build Back Better Plan right now. My name is Blanca. I was brought here to the United States when I was three years old and in 2010 my grandparents both got deported because of SB 1070. And I'm here because I definitely believe that we need a pathway to citizenship. My grandfather passed away two weeks ago and I was not able to go to Mexico and visit him because there is no pathway to citizenship. And if we have the opportunity to pass it right now, then we need to do it because there's millions of undocumented people just like me who share the same story or even worse things that happened to them because of SB 1070 and because of anti-immigrant legislation. And this is the opportunity to pass it right now and we need to hold you accountable to what you promised us that you were going to pass when we knocked on doors for you. It's not right. I'm a survivor of human trafficking and it's because of the lack of worker protections that we don't have in the gay economy. I need you to stand like workers, lots of people who are like me who came home with us. That was absolutely amazing because you know that she was seething but she was trying to hold it together. You know she was uncomfortable. And look, here's what I would argue. Anytime Kirsten Sinema shows her face in public, she should be worried that more protesters, more constituents are going to confront and heckle her because people's lives are on the line. Those folks who were heckling her, they were actually very polite. They had real issues and they actually helped get her elected. One of them was a dreamer who was brought here when she was three years old. Couldn't even leave the country to see her grandfather who was dying because our immigration system is completely broken. You had somebody who was a gig worker at the end there and to her, this is all a game. She's lying about why she can't negotiate and get this done because she's meeting with her donors. It's despicable. This is all a game to her. So since she's not taking this seriously, you have to find her, confront her and force her to take this seriously.  And until she buckles, until she does what her constituents want her to do until she does what she promised she would do when she ran for Congress, you absolutely do things like this. I think it's absolutely necessary and I love it. But she was mad. She was not happy about that and she released this statement, which says, yesterday, several individuals disrupted my class at Arizona State University. After deceptively entering a locked secure building, these individuals filmed and publicly posted videos of my students without their permission, including footage taken of both my students and I using a restroom. In Arizona, we love the First Amendment. Oh, I'm sure you do. We know it is vital to our democracy that constituents can freely petition, protest or criticize my policy positions and decisions. The activist group that engaged in yesterday's behavior is one that both my team and I have met with several times since I was elected to the Senate and I will continue engaging with Arizonans with diverse viewpoints to help inform my work for Arizona. Yesterday's behavior was not legitimate protest. It is unacceptable for activist organizations to instruct their members to jeopardize themselves by engaging in unlawful activities such as gaining entry to closed university buildings, disrupting learning environments and filming students in a restroom. In the 19 years I have been teaching at ASU, I have been committed to creating a safe and intellectually challenging environment for my students. Yesterday, that environment was breached. My students were unfairly and unlawfully victimized. Oh my God, this is wholly inappropriate. It is the duty of elected leaders to avoid fostering an environment in which honesty held policy disagreements serve as the basis for vitriol, raising the temperature and public rhetoric and creating a permission, structure for unacceptable behavior. So really, she's just angry that her students were victimized. First of all, why are you teaching at ASU? They should fire you. You have nothing to offer your corrupt politician.  It should be someone else who's using you as the basis for informing others.   She doesn't like that she was heckled. It seems as if those protestors struck a nerve which is all the more reason to do it again. Keep protesting her if you see her at a restaurant, confront her, protest politely, of course. You're not going to endanger her or assault her or anything but I think that politicians, if they do things like what she's doing, brazenly disregarding what her constituents and all of America wants, the Build Back Better Act is incredibly popular.  I mean, that's proof that it worked because she had to release a statement. Now in terms of what the president thinks about this, his response was honestly amazing because he was not outraged and she's obstructing his agenda so he should be mad. And it turns out he didn't care that she was protested and protestors followed her into a bathroom. This was awesome to see. President, you're talking about how you have 48 Democratic votes right now. The other two have been pressured over the weekend by activists. Joe Manchin had people on kayaks show up to his boat, T.L. Adams, Senator Sinema last night was chased into a restroom. Do you think that those tactics are crossing a line? I don't think they're appropriate tactics but it happens to everybody from the, the only people that doesn't happen to people who have secret service stand around them. So it's part of the process. Yes. It happens to everybody, it's part of the process. Precisely, it's happened to Joe Biden and as people in America continue to get desperate, these sorts of protest tactics are going to become more and more common.  That's one thing, but she's not. She's going to continue to get heckled in public.  When in actuality, this is her own actions. Had she not left DC and actually tried to engage in good faith and negotiations with her party, perhaps this wouldn't have even been necessary. But she chose to leave to go to a retreat with her donors. So I'm sorry.  And she's not the only one, right? Because Joe Manchin, there were protestors that showed up to his yacht and we'll talk about that in a different video. And they confronted him for obstructing this agenda as well. So this is great. I hope that we see it again. Unless she actually stops being a corrupt corporate shill, then this should continue to happen so long as she's a member of the US Senate. You serve the people, but you're only serving your donors. So they're gonna get more desperate and things like this will become increasingly necessary if you continue to do what you're doing. And that is screwing them over at the behest of your corporate donors. So I've talked about why I absolutely love the protests that we're seeing of Senator Kirsten Sinema. I love the protest of ASU students following her into a bathroom confronting her about her refusal to support or even negotiate with other Democrats about the Build Back Better Act.  So they have to do things like this.  You're not even gonna listen to them. Staffors will listen to them. So this is the only mechanism that they have. It's the only tactic that they have that's effective. And we know that this is an effective tactic because it actually led to you putting out a statement to talk about how much you hated this tactic. She released a statement claiming that this is not a legitimate form of protest. But I mean, protest is supposed to make you feel uncomfortable. So if you don't want them to follow you around on airplanes and at airports and in bathrooms, meet with them and stop refusing to negotiate with your Democratic Party colleagues in order to head to private donor retreats. Just do better and maybe this will stop. But you know, most people actually seem to be against Kyrsten Sinema and they're in support of these protesters. One of the protesters was a dreamer. But do you wanna know who is siding with Kyrsten Sinema here? The far right and they're rushing to her defense. Hmm, I wonder why that's the case. One of them is white nationalist Stephen Miller who used to work with Donald Trump's administration. He tweeted out support saying, as you can see below, illegal aliens are unlawfully harassing a US Senator to demand passage of Biden's budget reconciliation bill because it will give them amnesty. A confident country would not allow lawbreakers to criminally harass lawmakers to reward their lawbreaking shameful, shameful. But this is exactly who Stephen Miller is and this is one of the allies that Kyrsten Sinema is making. Someone who is against immigration, period. If he had his way, he would close off all borders indefinitely. He doesn't want anyone here who doesn't look like him, who doesn't have the same complexion as he does. And now he's defending Kyrsten Sinema because she is an obstacle to passing immigration reform and any priority that would benefit normal Americans, including that dreamer who is an American. And Mike Lee also came to her defense saying Senator Sinema is a friend. I am appalled by this behavior. There is no place in civilized society for the type of harassment she suffered. First of all, she was not harassed.  I mean, this is all the result of her own actions or inaction I should say, had she actually took the time to meet with her constituents and hear their concerns, they wouldn't have to follow her into bathrooms. This is a public servant. She serves them. One of the people who confronted her helped get her elected. They canvassed for her. And you're gonna say that this is terrible and this behavior is so appalling.  If you're gonna clutch your pearls, clutch it at the suffering that we're seeing in this late stage capitalist hellscape that far right wingers like you helped build.  I wish I were kidding about this.  So now here you have a Democrat senator from Arizona on a college campus, which is like a home turf that is being followed into the restroom by illegal aliens. These are illegal aliens. These are trespassers in our country. They should be deported immediately with all of their friends, which won't happen. And the question is, how many Joe Biden have realized, how many Joe Biden voters have now realized that build back better is actually just a Marxist incantation. I know so many people that voted for Joe Biden that are now regretting it for good reason. Senator Sinema has responded to the left-wing protesters who recorded her inside of the Arizona bathroom, calling it a lawless demonstration, which it was, and they should all be arrested. But they won't be because if they get arrested, well, they might get arrested, but they definitely won't be deported. What would happen if a Republican chased a Democrat senator into the restroom? Insurrectionist, domestic terrorist, we would know their name and they would be arrested. If a Republican did what the illegal alien Democrat activist did at Arizona State University, they would be indefinitely incarcerated in solitary confinement.  He says illegal aliens, these trespassers in our country, they should be deported immediately with all of their friends, they should be arrested. If I had my way, I would take 100 Dreamers like that girl who confronted Kirsten Sinema in exchange for you. If we could send you to some other country, just anywhere, I would prefer that. I'd prefer that Dreamer over you. She's the real American. You're not the real American. You're the traitor to America.  And notice how embedded in everything that he says, it's always this persecution complex, this right-wing victim complex. He said that if a right-winger did that to Kirsten Sinema, they would be indefinitely incarcerated in solitary confinement. No, they wouldn't. No, they wouldn't. They've done this before. In fact, just a couple of years ago, Alex Jones harassed Bernie Sanders in an airport and he didn't have a legitimate reason to harass Bernie Sanders. He was just following him around, just spouting off random nonsense about how he has three mansions and how socialism is bad and it's destroying the country. Was Alex Jones arrested? No, it happens all the time. But Charlie Kirk really wants to believe that right-wingers are always the victims. But in actuality, it's the people who he called an illegal alien, the human being who he called an alien. That's the victim here. They're victimized by right-wing senators like Kirsten Sinema who refuse to act. Now, this became such a huge thing for right-wingers that one actually questioned the White House press secretary about Joe Biden's comments because he was pretty unsympathetic and his response, I think, was perfect. He said, yeah, it happens. This is part of the process. And Ducey's son, I'm blanking on his name, is it Steve or Doug? It's one of the Duceys, the failed son, the imbecile. He questioned Jen Psaki about this and look at the feigned outrage. It's so insufferable. A group of activists followed Senator Kirsten Sinema into a ladies' room screaming about to build back better plan yesterday. The president said today, I don't think they're appropriate tactics, but it happens to everybody and it's part of the process. He is an expert on the process. Has he ever been chased into a restroom? By activists? Let me be clear here because I think the context of what happened here is very important. And Senator Sinema put out a statement this morning. So as she said, and I would reiterate from here, the protection of the freedom to protest, to speak out and to criticize is fundamental to our democracy. The president believes that. Maybe he shorthanded it, but he wanted to make that clear this morning. What happened this weekend was that her classroom, her students and the safe and intellectually stimulating environment she's worked to create during the years she's teaching at ASU was breached. That's inappropriate and unacceptable. And I think the context of what happened here is important despite the fact that of course we stand for, the president stands for, the fundamental right of people to protest, to object, to criticize as they often do outside of the gates of the White House. So does the White House condemn these protesters who chased her into the right? I just said it was inappropriate and unacceptable. I think that pretty much. Not to do that again. I think that's pretty clear that they shouldn't breach the classroom and make the students feel like their privacy, their intellectually stimulating classroom and their time as students in college is being broke. Okay, I can't take anymore. That was a weak response from Jen Psaki. Don't back down, never back down. Only double down when it comes to right-wingers. See, they're pretending as if it's Kirsten Sinema who's the victim. That's the narrative that the right-wing media sphere and right-wingers in general are trying to put out there, right? They're trying to make it seem as if Kirsten Sinema, she was victimized. She was falled into a bathroom. This is so terrible, except that's not the case. She wasn't victimized. She's the victimizer.  You know, these right-wingers, they'll call that dreamer an illegal alien, which no human being is an alien. But they'll say, you know, she should be deported and anything she says is invalid because she's not a citizen. But yet, she pays taxes probably. I'm assuming she's a worker. She's been here since she was three years old. She pays taxes. She's more of an American than most billionaires are in the United States who dodge taxes. But yet, they get representation. The corporate donors who give thousands of dollars to Kirsten Sinema, she hears them out. I wonder why that is. So, I mean, long story short, Kirsten Sinema has made a bunch of new friends with the far right. So, she needs to be primaried and excommunicated from the Democratic Party and anything that they can do to punish her in Congress, they should do that. Meanwhile, her constituents need to continue to keep the pressure on her and confront her and heckle her every single day, everywhere she goes. So, in response to Kirsten Sinema getting confronted at ASU with protesters following her into the bathroom, I, of course, endorsed that protest. It is a legitimate form of protest because she's left her constituents with no other means of engaging with her. And I also stated in the video that I did talking about that that I really hope that it happens more everywhere Kirsten Sinema goes. She should be heckled. She should be confronted. And guess what? That's happening. So, on a plane, one of her constituents decided to ask her whether or not she would commit to passing reconciliation. And as you're going to see, she said nothing. Senator, I don't know if you remember me. I just want to know if you can commit, as my senator, if you can commit to passing a reconciliation that could provide a pathway to citizenship for immigrants. We have been waiting for this for too long. I need to know if you can commit to passing a budget reconciliation that would include immigration and citizenship for people to be protected like me and many others. Can you commit to that, Senator? I'm gonna watch it. I mean, I'm vulnerable right now to you. My back passed away. If you, but at the same time, I just want to see if I can get a commitment from you, Senator. This is my life and the life of millions in the line. I just need to hear from you to get a pathway to citizenship through the budget reconciliation to protect me and millions like me. Can I get a commitment from you? No answer. Refusing to engage at all. Just blank face, completely unmoved by the protestor, trying to get her to answer a simple question. And she doesn't even have to commit right then and there. She can say, listen, I understand your concerns. I'm working on something. We'll try to get it done. She doesn't say anything. She doesn't even attempt to placate her constituents as Joe Manchin even does. She just ignores them. But that wasn't all because off the plane, she was also confronted by protestors and they asked her again, will you commit to support and reconciliation? If not, what do you want to cut from the bill? Take a look. I'm planning on cutting from Joe Biden's built-up letter plan.  Is it elder care that you want to cut? Or is it child care? Senator, please. Are you asking for your help? Senator, we need you. What are the priorities? I'm going to come to you. I'm just trying to get an explanation for the American public now. Great pass. All I want to know is, what does this say? Well, I don't know what's working. Senator Cineva, I just want you to read me the news. Senator Cineva, my phone call is really hard to be on. So I'm gonna refiner, I'm just gonna get the newsbook. What are the things that you would like to cut? Senator, my phone call is hard to be on. Senator, we need you to read me the news. I'm gonna refiner. I just want you to read me the news. Senator Cineva, my phone call is really hard to be on. That is awesome to see and that really is the perfect question. What do you want to cut? She's not saying what she doesn't like about the $3.5 trillion build back better plan. She's just saying that she won't support it. So do you want to take out climate priorities? Do you want to take out childcare? What do you want to take out from it? But she refuses to answer and you can tell that she's irritated. She's not really showing it, but you can tell she is seething. But it didn't end there. Protesters followed her up the escalator as well and out the door of the airport. Watch.  Who would you leave behind? Senator Sinema, who would you leave behind? Senator Sinema, who would you leave behind? Who would you leave behind? The seniors? The immigrants? People without dental care? Who would you leave behind, Senator Sinema? We just want to have a conversation and you're just ignoring everybody. It's just what you think leadership is. Senator Manchin talks to people. Senator Sinema, all we want to do is have a conversation about who you would leave behind. Who would you leave behind? Who would you leave behind? Who would you leave behind? Who would you leave behind? Who would you leave behind? I love this so much. I love this so much. These activists truly should be commended. This is how you put pressure on senators. What do you want to leave out, Senator Sinema? Do you want to leave behind seniors, immigrants? Who do you want to leave behind?  That person even pointed out that even Joe Manchin engages with constituents and everything that he says is disingenuous and he lies to them, but at least he engages at a minimum. That's the bare minimum that we should expect from public representatives, but she just she doesn't care at all. Now, there was a woman holding up a sign as she was going up the escalator. And if you're wondering what that said, it reads hot bisexual against Kirsten Sinema. And I love that so much. I love that so much. Anything that they can do to embarrass her, hackle her, put pressure on her over, I'm all for it. Because guess what? This is what is necessary when she refuses to engage. And as people for Bernie points out, she hasn't held a town hall in three years. So what does she expect if she's not talking to her constituents refusing to even negotiate with her colleagues in the Democratic Party because she is leaving D.C. to go meet with her donors for a private retreat? How does she expect them to reach her? They have to have some way to communicate with her. There has to be some line of communication. And since she's refusing to talk to them, this is what they're doing. They're desperate. This is what they have to resort to. This isn't just some sort of a game contrary to popular belief. This is people's lives. This is the future of the planet. This is the lives of so many immigrants in this country, so many people who just want a chance. And she's just, she's, she's callous. She's cold. She doesn't care. So guess what? If you don't like this Kyrsten Sinema, tough because I suspect that this is going to be her life from now on until she agrees to support the bill. Because if you hold so many people's lives in your hand, that is a tremendous amount of responsibility. And you should be expecting this. And the fact that you have refused to communicate with anyone, this is just going to keep happening. And I'm here for it. I love it. Keep it up, activists. Don't, don't back down.  Heckle her, make her life a living hell if she doesn't actually buckle because there's got to be a breaking point at some point, right? She's got to get tired of this at some point. So keep it up. This is phenomenal. So I've talked a lot about the protesters at ASU that followed Senator Kyrsten Sinema into a bathroom. But before we got that epic protest, we got the protest at Joe Manchin's yacht. So there were climate activist protesters who kayaked to his yacht and they confronted him about his refusal to support the Build Back Better Act. And I think that this is perfect. This is exactly what activists should be doing. And you're going to see that he actually did choose to engage with them, unlike Kyrsten Sinema. But he also tries to placate them and lie and they call him on that immediately. Take a look. There's a lot of poverty. What are you going to do for the poor in West Virginia? We're going to be working everything we can to create good opportunities. And we need to tax the rich. Well, I agree with that. I definitely agree. That's the one number thing we should be doing is fixing the tax goats. Everybody pays their fair share. We should be also negotiating for lower drug prices. We should be doing all these things. They say that. Holy, they're not accountable. I agree with you 1,000%. We're all on the same page, gang. We really are. Well, we have here. Let me just explain on that one. We will get to that eventually. But right now we can't even take care. I just want to go broke in 2026. Let us fix it. We're taxing the rich. I agree. We're going to make the rich and the famous pay. $6 trillion. How much do you think that we spend every year on non-discretionary, basically non-defense? Not enough. Really not enough. Let me just give you all this. Wait, I got one little bit of information for you. The Republicans are likely to take over the Senate. This is our one chance right now. They're not going to pass things like this for the people. They're not. This is our chance. I love this so much because these senators, they're also oligarchs. These are very, very wealthy people. These are multi-millionaires who chum it up with elites. They think that when they go to their yachts, there's not going to be any peasants around. It's a peasant-free area, but they actually invaded his safe space. They went into his bubble. That's really, really effective because that makes them uncomfortable, which is the point of protest. You go there and you make these elites feel uncomfortable. It's not like he's just some detached billionaire or millionaire. This is a U.S. senator. He's in a position of power and influence. What he does or doesn't do directly impacts the lives of millions of Americans, hundreds of millions of people. I don't care where they are. A yacht, the bathroom, protest them wherever they are because they hold all the cards right now. If they choose to not support the Build Back Better Act, how many people will go hungry, become even poorer? How many people will die if they don't get that Medicaid expansion? It's not what we wanted. I wanted Medicare for all, but it's better than nothing. It's a marginal thing to make a slight difference in people's lives. And if they can't even support that, they deserve to feel uncomfortable. They deserve to be heckled every single where a place that they go. Now, the good thing about Joe Manchin is, I mean, he at least talks with them. Kirsten Sinema, she was followed through an airport, and she just didn't even say a single word to them. She keeps saying, oh, well, I don't negotiate in public. Okay, well, your job is to serve the public. So I think that you owe it to them to explain your position. But one thing about Joe Manchin is, even if he is engaging, it's not a good faith conversation. He says it is, but it's not an actuality. He's trying to placate them. He's trying to tell them what they want to hear. Because unlike Kirsten Sinema, I actually do think that he wants to remain in D.C. for a while. Kirsten Sinema, she might literally want to be a one-term senator, so she can then go cash in and become a lobbyist. I think that's highly likely. So he wants to at least keep up the appearance that he cares, but we all know that he doesn't. Now, he said a lie, and they called him out on that like this. And I love that. He said that Medicare would go broke in 2026, and they said that's not true. They called him out immediately. We keep hearing this lie about Medicare, about social security, that it's becoming insolvent, and we have to make changes to it in order to save the program.   Because what they're basically saying is, I really want to open the door to changes, i.e. privatization. And that's basically what he's saying there. And we don't need more privatization. We need less privatization. Now, one person there, that last person said that Republicans are likely to take over the Senate. This is our one chance. This is our last chance. And that to me, I think that is something that can potentially persuade Joe Manchin. I think he thinks about that. And this is a really great point that Hassan Piker made. He said that Joe Manchin loves the attention. He loves being the swing vote. He loves being in power. So I actually don't think that he wants Democrats to lose power. He wants them to keep a really thin majority in the Senate so he can kind of be the power broker. You know, he's the one who can green light deals. He can kill them or save them unilaterally. But one person there made a great point that we spend 6 trillion over 10 years on the Pentagon budget. And he made some points about, oh, well, that's half of our discretionary budget. You want to know how much of our budget is not discretionary? The other half. I don't care what you're saying. The point that she's making is that we spend a lot of money on the military. That is our discretionary budget. Most of the time, most years, it's more than half of our discretionary budget, meaning the money that Congress can control what they do with it. Why are we spending more money on killing people as opposed to spending more money on helping people? It's ridiculous. And nothing that they say, really, I don't know that it's going to resonate with him. He doesn't at least listen to them. But I think it's going to fall on deaf ears. It really depends on what is in his best interest. If he thinks that this will help him maintain his position of power, he'll support it. But if not, I don't know. I mean, think about where this man makes his money. He's essentially a modern-day oil baron. As Mark Hertzgaard of The Nation explains, it turns out that the senator wielding this awesome power, America's climate decider-in-chief, one might call him, has a massive climate conflict of interest. Joe Manchin, investigative journalism has revealed, is a modern-day coal baron. Financial records detailed by reporter Alex Koch for the Center for Media and Democracy and published in The Guardian show that Manchin makes roughly half a million dollars a year in dividends for millions of dollars of coal company stock he owns. The stock he held in EnerSystems, Inc., a company Manchin started in 1988 and later gave to his son Joseph to run. So he knows that all of the investments that the Build Back Better Act makes in clean green renewable technology, that's going to hurt his bottom line. And he's a greedy oligarch. So the money that he's making, it's not enough. He wants more. But maybe he'll sacrifice it if, for whatever reason, he thinks this is going to be beneficial to his long-term political career. It's the same reason why he didn't support an increase of the minimum wage, because I believe he has stock or he's a shareholder in one of the West Virginia and La Quinta Inns. So if it were the case that those workers got a $15 an hour minimum wage, that would hurt his own bottom line. So this really is about him and nobody else. Although, side note, there was a weird substory that emerged out of this yacht confrontation and journalist Matthew Chapman, who's basically just a Democratic Party loyalist. He wrote this, which I think he believed was important, but it isn't. He says, people need to stop calling this a yacht. It's a houseboat. It is worth $220,000, which is pretty much exactly the median home price in the United States and considerably less than what most senators spend on their second DC residence. My house costs more than this one. Okay, I mean, it looks like a yacht to me, but I'm no expert. The point is that what he's on is very clearly a luxury item that most Americans can afford. It's called almost heaven. It's supposed to be a luxury thing. So regardless if it's a houseboat or a gigantic raft, it doesn't matter. The point is that it's a luxury item that he was at away from the rest of the peasants. He thought he was insulated and they broke his bubble. They invaded his safe space. So I don't get what Matthew's point was, but good job being a hack.  Stop protecting the powerful people like Matthew Chapman and Axios, who keep writing these fluff pieces for Kirsten Cinema. It's just so bizarre, but that's kind of like a different point. Point is people have to keep doing this. They have to keep exerting pressure on U.S. lawmakers. I don't care where it is, bathrooms, yachts. Again, it doesn't matter to me. I'll reiterate that point because it's important. It doesn't matter where it happens. If they're at a restaurant, heckle them. If people like Joe Manchin and Kirsten Cinema are going to obstruct an agenda that would improve the lives of millions of Americans, they deserve the pressure that they're facing right now. And there's really nothing left to say about this. It's deserved. It's warranted. And most importantly, this is necessary. This needs to happen. Otherwise they're not going to listen. I'm not sure how many of you noticed, but on Monday, Facebook and its family of apps were down for hours, causing Mark Zuckerberg to lose $6 billion and also leading to the company's stocks tanking. Now, for some additional details, we go to The New York Times, who explains Facebook's apps, which include Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp, Messenger, and Oculus, began displaying error messages around 11.40 a.m. Eastern Time. Users reported within minutes, Facebook had disappeared from the Internet. The outage lasted over five hours before some apps slowly flickered back to life that the company cautioned. The services would take time to stabilize. Technology outages are not uncommon, but to have so many apps go dark from the world's largest social media company at the same time was highly unusual. Facebook's last significant outage was in 2019, when a technical error affected its sites for 24 hours in a reminder that a snafu can cripple even the most powerful Internet companies. But it is now over, and when it came back, Facebook's CTO, Mike Schrofer blamed the outage on, quote, networking issues. But, I mean, if I'm being 100% transparent here, I really wish that Facebook never came back. If we could delete Facebook from existence, the world would literally be a better place, I think. And not just delete it from existence, but we need one of those flash pens from Men in Black so we can make all of humanity forget that it ever existed. That's how damaging to the world Facebook is. Not only is it a cesspool of misinformation, but on top of that, Facebook is profiting off of hate. And that's not just hyperbole, that's not speculation, that's confirmed by a whistleblower who explained in a 60-minutes interview how the platform's algorithm literally prioritizes hateful content above all else because that's what keeps people engaged and it keeps them on the platform. Now, that revelation isn't necessarily surprising. In fact, it's pretty obvious, but it runs counter to what the CEO of Facebook, Mark Zuckerberg, said. Everything that the whistleblower is alleging here, Mark Zuckerberg claimed that that's not actually the case. So take a look at this video of Mark Zuckerberg juxtaposed with the whistleblower's interview on 60 Minutes, courtesy of the recount, and it shows you that this man was lying to everyone about his platform and the way that it operates. Do you believe your product can be addictive? We certainly do not design the product in that way. Facebook has realized that if they change the algorithm to be safer, people will spend less time on the site. They'll click on less ads, they'll make less money. The research that we've seen is that using social apps to connect with other people can have positive mental health benefits and well-being benefits. Facebook's own research says that as these young women begin to consume this eating disorder content, they get more and more depressed and it actually makes them use the app more. The way we design our algorithms is to encourage meaningful social interactions. Its own research is showing that content that is hateful, that is divisive, that is polarizing gets engagement, our reaction. But election interference remains an ongoing threat, so we continue to improve as part of our ongoing commitment to supporting the civic process. They basically said, oh good, we made it through the election. We can get rid of civic integrity now. We strengthened our enforcement against malicious and conspiracy networks like QAnon to prevent them from using our platforms to organize violence or civil unrest. But after the election, Facebook was used by some to organize the January 6th insurrection. Now for some additional context, apparently the platform got worse as of 2018 when it changed its algorithm and from there, that's when they really began to prioritize hateful content because that's the thing that gets people coming back. And just for a moment before we go to what the whistleblower says here, think to yourself how these social media platforms keep you engaged if you're arguing with someone. If you see someone that says something racist, even if you yourself aren't racist, but if you confront someone who said something that's insensitive, you wait for that person to respond, you respond back, it's almost addictive in a sense, in some weird way. So those things, the algorithm picked up on and they knew that that's what keeps you on the platform. So that's why they prioritize hate, they prioritize misinformation, which is why we see so much anti-vax misinformation. They prioritize things that keep people coming back to the platform, even if it's detrimental to humanity, even if it's detrimental to public health, even if it makes society worse off. The whistleblower explains this. You have your phone.  But Facebook has thousands of options that could show you. The algorithm picks from those options based on the kind of content you've engaged with the most in the past. And one of the consequences of how Facebook is picking out that content today is it is optimizing for content that gets engagement or reaction. But its own research is showing that content that is hateful, that is divisive, that is polarizing, it's easier to inspire people to anger than it is to other emotions. Misinformation, angry content is enticing to people and keeps them on the platform. Yes. Facebook has realized that if they change the algorithm to be safer, people will spend less time on the site. They'll click on less ads. They'll make less money. Yeah. So Facebook profits off of making people more hateful, off of making people more misinformed.  And again, I want to reiterate that I was disappointed to learn that Facebook came back.  We post two minutes reported videos to Facebook. And I've actually thought about leaving Facebook, but at the same time, I decided against it because with how much misinformation is on Facebook with how popular sites like The Daily Poster and Ben Shapiro is on Facebook, any additional voice that's trying to debunk these conspiracy theories about the vaccines, debunk right wing misinformation, I think it's important. I think that Facebook overall is a net negative for society, but so long as it remains a very popular platform, I do think it's important for leftists such as myself to occupy that space to try to combat it at least a little bit. Maybe somebody shares one of my videos about COVID-19 with their anti-vax uncles and it gets through to them. I don't think that the success rate is that high because again, the platform is accessible. But if it helps a little bit, then I think that it's worthwhile. But still ultimately, I think that the platform is horrible. That's not to say that no good has come out of it because there has been a lot of people that organized on Facebook. It's a way for people who have disabilities to communicate with others. So it's not all bad, but the way that they designed it specifically is to bring out the worst in people, to misinform people, and that's where the issue comes in. That's why Facebook needs to be broken up. If I had my way, it would be nationalized and these social media companies, they have to be regulated. They're basically unregulated and that's why they're doing things like this. Of course, a multi-billion dollar multinational corporation is going to prioritize profits over people. That's not surprising. We're seeing it with all types of industries as it relates to climate change. So this shouldn't be a shocker, but what it should do is catalyze action from lawmakers and they should force Facebook to change their algorithm or at a minimum be more transparent with their algorithm. I don't know what else to say about this, but Facebook is awful and if you have the option, you should definitely delete your Facebook account. But for those of us who are trying to produce content to counter the right-wing misinformation, I think at least for now it's important to remain on there, but I don't know how much longer I think it'll be worthwhile.  The International Consortium of Investigative Journalism published what they're calling some wallpapers on steroids. I'm of course referring to the Pandora Papers. Now this shows that elites hide their wealth. Not necessarily that shocking of a revelation, but still what they published here is truly substantial and I suspect that not a lot of mainstream news outlets are going to talk about this. So what is the Pandora Papers? Well for a summary, we go to Brett Wilkins of Common Dreams who explains what's being called the biggest ever leak of offshore data, a cache of nearly 12 million documents published Sunday laid bare the hidden wealth, secret dealings, and corruption of hundreds of world leaders, billionaires, public officials, celebrities, and others. The leaked documents reveal how some of the world's wealthiest people avert the financial consequences of their misdeeds by using offshore entities. Dozens of current and former world leaders feature prominently in the files including Russian President Vladimir Putin, Jordanian King Abdullah II, and former British Prime Minister Tony Blair. While most of the richest Americans do not appear in the files, the Washington Post reports that perhaps the most troubling revelations for the United States center on its expanding complicity in the offshore economy. Chuck Collins, author of The Wealth Hoarders, how billionaires pay millions to hide trillions, and co-editor of Inequality.org at the Institute for Policy Studies said in a statement that the US has become the weak link in stopping global crime and wealth hiding. States like South Dakota and Delaware have morphed their laws to attract billions, sometimes illicitly obtained from around the world, he said. We in the US should be embarrassed that we've become a magnet for kleptocratic funds. Collins added that the Pandora papers show it is time for US lawmakers to shut down the hidden wealth system that allows for such aggressive tax avoidance and the sequestering of wealth. Now, I want to show you this graphic which demonstrates how US trusts play a role. As you can see, South Dakota with 81, Florida with 37, Delaware with 35, Texas with 24, and Nevada with 14. They also explain how America's biggest law firm, Baker McKenzie, drives global wealth into tax havens and there's millions of documents here. And the Pandora papers is basically if you go to their website, I'll link to it down below. This is the ICIJ website. It's basically a bunch of different articles that explain some of the findings here. But the TLDR version is that rich people are tax cheats. Not necessarily the most surprising thing in the world. The Panama papers kind of already proved what we already knew. But this is just further confirmation. The sad part about this is I suspect nothing will come of this. We keep hearing about things like this and nothing happens. We've basically seen not just the race to the bottom in the United States, but the race to the bottom around the world. Oh, and by the way, Shakira was named in the Pandora papers as well. Another tax cheat, yeah. I'm not a fan of her, but I know a lot of people who are fans of her and that's going to hurt. So Shakira is canceled, folks. But I mean, look, in all seriousness, this is serious, but I kind of feel a sense of ambivalence. But that shouldn't be the case. We shouldn't be numb to this kind of corruption. And maybe I'm projecting, but when we see this, we should feel a general sense of outrage and frustration, but this is just the norm. And I think that everyone knows there's a problem. Most Americans, according to public opinion polls, see that there are issues here with global wealth inequality, but nothing has changed yet. And I feel like there's going to be one catalyst. There's going to be a moment where the dam bursts open and perhaps this is that moment. But I mean, I think that this will continue to happen and most people will live their lives and the wealthy will continue to do things like this, hoard their wealth. And that's really sad, but it is an inevitable consequence of capitalism. And when you're in a late stage capitalist society, this kind of thing is exactly what you'd expect. It's not some sort of inadvertent consequence of the system. This is the intended outcome of capitalism always. Capitalism always gets so big to where it overpowers governments and eats itself. And I mean, this kind of confirms that. But I don't know what to say. I'm not shocked by this at all. And I think that so many people see this and I think, yeah, that's what I expected, but nothing is going to change, so why should I care? And they may be right about that, but this is important. And as desensitized as we all are, we still should care about things like this as unsurprising as it is, especially to those of us who've been following the corruption of elites for years. So I hope that people actually read some of these details or some of these summaries because this really is unacceptable, regardless of how desensitized we are. It kind of seems as if Dave Rubin's grift is starting to fall apart a little bit. I don't think it's going to hurt him financially or in any way shape or form, but I think that he's kind of inadvertently revealing himself and part of this is his own problem, right? He had so much more room for his grift to grow what he still identified as a liberal, but he came out as a conservative and as a conservative, you have to say certain things. There's this expectation that you will toe the line, but if they think that you're a liberal or a classical liberal, you have more room to kind of reason out of difficult situations. So let me give you a couple of examples of that. He was on a television show and he was debating someone and she asked for his vaccination status. They were debating vaccines and vaccine mandates, I'm assuming, and watch the way he melts down like a triggered little snowflake. I'll tell you why he got so offended. Yes, children could transmit the disease, although they rarely do, but parents are all vaccinated if they're good, decent citizens. So I don't really understand the connection, actually. Are you a good, decent citizen or are you vaccinated? It's nobody's business whether I'm vaccinated. That's like me asking you the last time you got laid. I mean, it's just irrelevant. All right, so you know what's really relevant is that it's one thing if you have the right to choose for your... My medical history is not your business, nor yours is mine. That hit a nerve. That's a question. And I think we all know the reason for that. It's because Dave Rubin is vaccinated. Dave Rubin is vaccinated 100%. The second he was able to get the vaccine when he was eligible, he was first in line, guaranteed because he knows that the vaccines are safe and effective. But he doesn't want his audience to know that and that's why he's pushing this line. Oh, it's nobody's business whether I'm vaccinated. I mean, when's the last time you got laid? Is it though? Because I don't think that that's the same thing.  We all know that you don't want to disclose your vaccination status for the same reason that Tucker Carlson doesn't want to disclose his vaccination status because that undermines your credibility and I use credibility very charitably. You undermine your credibility among the anti-vax community that you're pandering to. So if they know that you're vaccinated, then when you tell them that the vaccines are bad, they're going to think, well, wait, if you say that the vaccines are bad, why are you getting the vaccine yourself? Why did you get the vaccine? And the more smart people in his audience, there's not many of them, but the more smart ones might put two into together and think, wait, maybe this person is not walking the walk because what he's saying is bullshit. Maybe he's telling me what he thinks I want to hear and maybe the vaccine actually is good. Maybe I should get the vaccine because he got it.  Not many people are going to realize that.  So that's why he doesn't want to reveal his vaccination status. It's not because it's a deeply personal thing to him. He doesn't care that much. He just doesn't want to give up the game, right? And this is why I say that he had a lot more room for his grift to grow had he remained a public liberal. I don't think that Dave Rubin really has an actual political ideology that he cares deeply about. He's just going to follow the money and wherever that leads him, whatever makes him the most dollars. But I think that if he pretended to be a liberal, he could then say, look, as a liberal, I got the vaccine, but I'm for people making their own medical decisions. I'm for medical freedom.  So here he is. I mean, look, I am more than willing to disclose my vaccination status. I am fully vaccinated, probably so, and that doesn't impact my viewership at all, right? You know that I'm vaccinated. You know where I stand entirely. I got the vaccine because I know it's safe and effective and I want you to get the vaccine because I want you to protect yourself and those around you. I also support vaccine mandates because it's either we mandate vaccines or we have basically this permanent state of plague because anti-vaxxers who are misinformed by people like Dave Rubin, Tucker Carlson, Jimmy Dorr, they would keep us in a prolonged state of plague forever if that were possible because they know that anti-vaccine misinformation if you're mongering about the COVID-19 vaccines, all of that is very, very lucrative. You can monetize that on YouTube and Facebook, whatever platform they're using and, you know, you build up support and trust among your right-wing audience. So they love that. But listen, this is how you know that Dave Rubin is a total fraud because he's using one set of talking points to describe the vaccines when this whole freedom talk contradicts what he says. So he was on a libertarian podcast and they questioned him, why are you talking about personal liberty as it relates to vaccines if you're not in favor of legalizing drugs? I thought this was about bodily autonomy and individual liberty. Take a look, he has no idea how to respond. So you describe yourself as a classical liberal and as such you're against, I'm assuming, mandating masks and vaccines even if they can be effective in protecting public health because that can interfere with personal liberties of what to do with your body and life. Yet in your book you oppose the legalization of Schedule 1 drugs because addiction hurts communities. Why are you willing to sacrifice the civil liberties in one case for the public good but not in the other? So when I talk about the drug part, it's like, yeah, I'm for legalizing marijuana. I'm not for mandating that everyone smokes it. I'm for the most psychedelics. But then there's another class of drugs basically that are so highly addictive. We all know about, I'm sure you guys cover the fentanyl problem we have in the United States, the heroin problem. I was just in New York City, the amount of people that you see on the streets that are just laying there that are obviously on drugs. You go to San Francisco, I mean go to most progressive cities that you just unfortunately have to balance people's ability to make choices with some level of public good. Here's the thing, Vincent Dave, like the classical liberal position is that individual liberty is paramount and there's nothing more that has to do with your own liberties and freedoms is what to do with your own body. So if you are going to say that I can't ingest whatever it is in my body, I think the classical liberal position would be where does it stop? Can I not drink a big gulp because it may harm my body and they say sugar is addictive? Where does this actually stop? So my question to Dave is really about how he identifies as a classical liberal or even a libertarian when you're saying that there should be the strict guardrails and then again when we're talking about ingesting drugs, that's what I'm putting into my own body, but when we're talking about COVID, that is something that could affect the people around me. So that's a little bit different and so I'm trying to understand how it is you marry those things. That was embarrassing and whenever Dave Rubin is challenged even slightly, his entire worldview just collapses, which is why he doesn't usually bring on people who's going to challenge him and it's not just that he gets embarrassed when he brings on other people who at least are more intellectually curious and honest and know what they're talking about, he embarrasses himself on a daily basis.  Some people who don't even work in offices nor ever have worked in offices because they won't get jabbed. I got an email from a guy who's a hospital administrator who has been working at home in his basement for years before COVID. He has now been laid off. Give up a few more of your rights, guys. Why not, you know, give them access to your bank accounts and your phone records and all that stuff. It's for your own good. They're looking for somebody, a bad person, you know. So just give up some of your rights and don't worry. I just don't know how anyone could take Dave Rubin seriously. Even right-wingers. If I were a right-winger I would feel insulted. I would feel like this man was pandering to me. I would feel like he's trying to insult my intelligence. But most right-wingers, to be frank, are rubs and they just want to be told what they want to hear. They just want their worldview to be reinforced. That's why they tune into people like Dave Rubin and Tucker Carlson. So I'll leave that there. Dave Rubin's grift, it's kind of unraveling. It's kind of unraveling and it's kind of uncomfortable to watch because we know that he's vaccinated. We know that deep down if you really could hook him up to a lie detector test or give him a truth serum, he would say yes, the vaccines are safe and effective because that's what facts dictate. I mean, that's objectively objectively true. But he's not going to tell his right-wing audience that because then he looks like a fraud. And I love this. Whenever there's an opportunity to expose or embarrass Dave Rubin somebody should take that opportunity because this man spreads misinformation. He monetizes hate and the spread of bigotry and misinformation and overall he doesn't believe a single word that's coming out of his mouth. He's making the world or making the country rather a worse place and he's doing this because it's profitable.  I don't know how he sleeps with himself at night, but it's probably on a gigantic bed of money and it's really gross. I mean, there are some things that are more important in life than money. One of them is living with yourself being honest with yourself and with your audience but that's not what he prioritizes. So that's why things like this happen where he looks silly because he doesn't believe in anything.  Lately we've been talking more about more unorthodox forms of protest following senators into bathrooms showing up to their yachts on kayaks to confront them and I think that's all really important if these people in power refuse to meet with their constituents if they're actually doing things that hurt people but not all protests is made equal.  So there have been protests in New York City over the vaccine mandates and the vaccine mandates for teachers went into effect officially this week and people are very angry about this. So they were marching in the streets and approximately 8,000 teachers or people with the Department of Education of New York City are going to lose their jobs as a result of this. Now that sounds like a large number but it's actually a minority of the total people working for the education system in New York but there was a large protest they're marching through the streets of NYC and at Union Square there is a COVID testing tent. Now people who were supposedly against vaccine mandates decided to target the COVID testing tent. You think that this wouldn't be relevant to what they're protesting about because if you're against mandates in theory you should be in favor of testing right because testing is what many people can do in lieu of getting vaccinated if they refuse to take the vaccine but that's not what these people did they chose to target this COVID testing tent. It's a mobile tent that is popped up to help people to help slow the spread and they trashed it. Take a look. It's really bizarre to me because these people are supposedly against the vaccine mandates specifically but yet they're booing a COVID testing tent and they're chanting shame on you but wait is this about vaccine mandates or COVID testing because you claim that you're protesting vaccine mandates but yet you seem to be pretty offended by a mobile COVID testing tent and shout out by the way to the guy who was doing the running man that nurse is truly incredible that is a Chad move right there there's really no other way to respond to these people these people are freaks these people are genuinely misinformed and this isn't an image of that protest my knowledge it's from a different event but look at how misinformed they are NYS freedom to fascism so they believe that city was in a state of freedom until the vaccine mandates took effect and then all of a sudden boom fascism that's the way it works apparently except vaccine mandates have always existed they've always existed they just don't like the COVID vaccine and maybe many of them are anti-vax period they don't like any vaccines either way this isn't some new phenomenon so these people don't know what they're talking about and even the thing that they were ostensibly protesting vaccine mandates well they chose to target a COVID testing tent which has nothing to do with mandates if anything that COVID testing tent helps them in many instances not necessarily here because there's no test out option when it comes to the vaccine mandates pertaining to New York teachers but still getting tested is the way that you avoid the vaccine if you're an anti-vaxer but yet they trashed the tent I mean this is why it's not about the vaccines it's not about the vaccine mandates this is about them believing that the government has no responsibility or authority to take any measures to try to mitigate the spread of the virus they're just COVID deniers period and they can hide behind medical freedom they can hide behind what they believe is a violation of the Nuremberg codes which it's not they can hide behind their aversion to vaccine mandates and freedom but these people are just COVID deniers at this point and they are functionally fighting on the side of the virus otherwise why else would you attack a COVID tent you just want the virus to spread you want less people to get tested and you want more people to be exposed and the reason why so many people are against vaccine mandates is because guess what they work so as AP reports a COVID-19 vaccination requirement for teachers and other schools affected New York City sprawling public school system Monday in a key test of the employee vaccination mandates now being rolled out across the country Mayor Bill de Blasio said 95% of the city's roughly 148,000 public school staffers had received at least one vaccine dose as of Monday morning including 96% of teachers and 99% of principals some 43,000 doses have been administered since the mandate was announced August 23rd. Bill de Blasio said vaccination rates rose in the city school job category after the mandate was announced District 37 of the American Federation of State County and Municipal Employees which represents some 20,000 city Department of Education employees said 93% of those workers had provided proof of at least one COVID-19 vaccine dose as of Sunday up from 68% at the beginning of September in other words vaccine mandates don't just work they work really damn well they're very very effective and this isn't the first time that Americans have rebelled against some sort of a mandate in the name of freedom we were having a really good conversation about this on Thursday on my Patreon chat where before the last thing before seat belts of course was public smoking right people were so up in arms when they couldn't smoke indoors anymore then there was segregation functionally there was smoking sections and non-smoking sections and they were angered about that because they felt as if they were inferior to their peers because they had to be quarantined in some smoking section but eventually smoking was just banned in all indoor spaces and we still have freedom does anyone deny that we have freedom in America because you can't smoke indoors no it was a big deal and then people moved on the same thing with seat belts there were literally people who claimed that they wouldn't drive through states with seat belt laws because they would not condone that violation of their freedom do you see anyone protesting seat belt laws now I mean when it comes to the original vaccine mandates that are required for your children to be enrolled in public schools that was controversial not really a thing anymore so this is just another chapter in the long history of Americans being dumb fucks and using their entitlement to not do what is in the interest of public health but these people are the fringes they are the minority and history will view them as such history will look down upon them polls show that there is broad support for vaccine mandates so don't let these fringe lunatics trick you into thinking this is some new authoritarian thing or that it's unprecedented for our country George fucking Washington supported vaccine mandates and I don't think that these flag humping fuckwads would say that George Washington founder of the country is against freedom would they as they chant 1776 this is not a new thing it's not a new thing vaccine mandates are good and they're good because they're effective and one of the main ways we're gonna get out of this pandemic is by vaccinating as many people as possible not just in the united states but around the world and it's especially grotesque to know how petulant Americans are being when you consider there are so many people billions of people in other countries who are begging for a vaccine and yet Americans are taking that for granted this life-saving medical miracle for lack of a better word they're protesting it and the reason why they're so hostile towards that New York vaccine mandate is because it is more strict than other vaccine mandates it still provides medical and religious exemptions medical exemptions are a necessity of course but religious exemptions that's that shouldn't be a thing that shouldn't be a thing but one reason why they're mad is because this doesn't allow you to test out so unlike other mandates like the one that Joe Biden instituted and is using doing through OSHA you can test out you can get weekly tests but still that isn't sufficient and that's not a good way to contain the spread of the virus because in that seven day period you can get exposed to COVID contracted and spread it to other people so really the surefire way to contain the virus is to get vaccinated and when you consider that a University of Oxford study just found that when it comes to the Pfizer and AstraZeneca vaccines they actually reduce transmission of COVID-19 including of the Delta variant albeit to a lesser extent vaccinations isn't just about protecting yourself it's about protecting others it's a public health crisis so vaccine mandates are good and those people there are absolutely petulant imbeciles they're morons and history will remember them as just that alright so I am well aware of the fact that whenever we talk about COVID-19 on this channel it's almost always negative and there's a lot of bad news it's a public health crisis a global pandemic of course there's not going to be that many rosy stories having said that though this time in this video we're going to break the cycle because we actually have some genuinely encouraging news so first of all COVID-19 cases in the United States are in fact down and they're down substantially so we've seen a 24% decline in new cases over the last two weeks which signals an end to the Delta variant surge which is great news now second of all we have multiple studies now confirming just how effective the COVID-19 vaccines are and they are very very effective so in early July researchers at Yale University and the Commonwealth Fund estimated that the COVID-19 vaccines have saved 279,000 lives because of these vaccines incredible and a report from the Department of Health and Human Services found that nearly 40,000 elderly lives were spared between January and May because of the COVID-19 vaccines and they also prevented hundreds of thousands of new infections now as Kenny Stensl of Common Dreams explains under the study on the relationship between county-level inoculation rates and COVID-19 outcomes among Medicare beneficiaries which was conducted by researchers at the US Department of Health and Human Services vaccines helped ward off 265,000 infections 107,000 hospitalizations and 39,000 deaths during the first five months of 2021 that is absolutely incredible hundreds of thousands of lives saved because of the COVID-19 vaccines and 40,000 elderly lives saved during January and May that is truly remarkable the vaccines work and they're not just beneficial for you as an individual but they're great for society as well in fact they're really good for society because new research by British researchers at the University of Oxford found that they also reduce transmission if you've been fully vaccinated you are less likely to spread COVID-19 to your peers now Dr. Akshai Sahel gives us the breakdown about this new data in an NBC news article and explains people who are vaccinated against COVID-19 are less likely to spread the virus even if they become infected a new study finds adding to a growing body of evidence that vaccines can reduce transmission of the Delta variant British scientists at the University of Oxford examined national records of 150,000 contacts that were traced from roughly 50,000 to 60,000 in initial cases the samples included people who were fully or partially vaccinated with either the Pfizer, Biontech or AstraZeneca vaccines as well as people who were unvaccinated the researchers then looked at how the vaccines affected the spread of the virus if a person had a breakthrough infection with either the Alpha variant or the highly contagious Delta variant both vaccines produced transmission although they were more effective against the Alpha variant compared to the Delta variant they were 5% less likely to test positive if the person from whom the exposure occurred was fully vaccinated with two doses of the Pfizer vaccine with AstraZeneca a given contact was 36% less likely to test positive if the person from whom the exposure occurred was fully vaccinated the risk of transmission from a breakthrough infection was much higher if someone had received just one dose of either vaccine so this is really, really encouraging it's great to hear it's another reason to take the vaccine if you don't care about yourself then you should take the vaccine if you care about other people now this study has not been peer-reviewed as of yet but researchers are confident that this is actually a very high quality study in fact Dr. Aaron Richmond of the University of Pennsylvania says this about the study it's the highest quality study we have so far on the question of infectiousness of vaccinated people that are infected with Delta so this is really, really encouraging news the vaccines are saving hundreds of thousands of lives and we're really privileged to have them to have them not just be free but widely available especially considering there are people in developing countries that still haven't even been able to get their first dose so the fact that we have this here this truly speaks to the innovations and the amazingness of modern medicine thanks to government funding as well but it's important so the reason why I'm talking about this is because if you're one of the few people who watch the show that aren't vaccinated and you come here just to troll for whatever reason I mean the data speaks for itself this is actual science unlike the memes that you're sharing on Facebook by your racist aunts and uncles this is data, this is evidence so at this point we know with all of the data that we have available anyone who's discouraging you from taking the vaccines any other YouTuber whose video catalog looks like this they are not to be taken seriously in fact with the evidence that we have confirming how effective these vaccines are this kind of misinformation at this point is bound to get someone killed but I mean when you have a conspiratorial right wing audience who appease you have to make some sacrifices and if you gamble with people's lives some people are willing to pay that price but for me, no I'm not willing to pay that price I want you to protect yourself and others I want you to get vaccinated I don't care who you are if you're a right winger if you're apolitical, if you hate me if you hate the humanist report I don't believe you should die when we have a cure we have a vaccine that isn't just highly effective as this research shows it's incredibly safe millions of people in this country have taken it billions of people around the globe have taken it it's fine, I took it I'm fine, I haven't spontaneously combusted but you know, some people have an agenda like Jimmy Dorr, some people are incredibly irresponsible with their platform and they don't care if people die in fact, I don't know what Jimmy Dorr believes but he might believe that he's the one who has the truth but he doesn't these studies show that the vaccines are incredibly effective and anyone who's telling you to not get them isn't looking out for your best interests they don't care about you they care about views and clicks but this is a public health crisis and for those of you who are tired of all this talk of lockdowns and masks, the quicker we all get the COVID-19 vaccine the faster we all go back to normal which I desperately want because of the pandemic and if you're as tired of this nonsense as I am get the fucking vaccine so we're not in this perpetual state of plague forever now thankfully, again, cases are down so I don't want to turn this into a negative video so I apologize for digressing but we've got to get the vaccine it's available, it's safe and the best part about it is it fucking works really well so I think that most of my longtime viewers know that when it comes to pop culture topics, I'm pretty illiterate in fact, I would argue that I'm totally clueless most of the time however, when it comes to this particular celebrity that we're going to be talking about today I actually do have some insight because I used to consider myself surprisingly a pretty big fan of Russell Brand I love his movies for getting Sarah Marshall get him to the Greek is probably one of my favorite movies ever and I actually used to watch his YouTube videos all the time I don't necessarily agree with everything that he talked about, some of his views were more unorthodox he would talk about spirituality which doesn't resonate with me but he was solidly left leaning at least when I watched him but eventually I stopped watching his YouTube channel not necessarily for any particular reason just because I kind of lost interest but now I've learned that he may have taken a very, very bad turn to the right at least according to this article published in The Daily Beast titled Comedian Russell Brand has become a powerful voice for anti-vaxxers and the subtitle reads the comedian seems to have found a loyal fan base and conservatives and anti-vaxxers who have flocked to his YouTube and Facebook accounts for his rambling vaccine skeptic views so after not watching his content for years I will admit it's a little bit heartbreaking to see him take this turn and I have read through this article already obviously in preparation for this video and I do have some disagreements with the concerns raised by the author here having said that though when you actually look at his channel there's a lot left to be desired to say the least if I being incredibly charitable and we'll look at his YouTube channel but first I want to get to the arguments presented by the author in this article so she writes the forgetting Sarah Marshall actor has always presented himself as a contrarian a free thinker who isn't afraid to challenge established views or spout off at the government both UK and US but recently brand who has always seemed to skew left in his political beliefs has found a loyal fan base in right wing conservatives and anti-vaxxers who have flocked to his YouTube and Facebook accounts hailing the 46 year old as a so called voice of reason he's played heavy to this fan base interviewing right wing trolls Ben Shapiro and Candice Owens although he does disagree with them on certain points in June he asked his watchers if he should accept Fox News's invitation to appear on the network most agreed he should I would suggest Tucker he's very fair one fan commented the titles of his videos are often designed to delight or infuriate depending on the viewers political stance leaning heavily on incredulous clickbait titles such as thought Biden couldn't sink any lower think again did liberals use feminism to justify Afghanistan clusterfuck shocking Wuhan evidence did Fauci lie and so Trump lied about Clinton and Russia but for the past few weeks brand has taken issue with the vaccine casting doubt on the trustworthiness of the FDA asking if vaccine mandates aren't assault on people's bodily freedoms calling the vaccine a gold rush and pondering whether people could trust Bill Gates most recently brand declared that there was a vaccine apartheid going after CNN anchor Don Lemon after he called out people who refused to get vaccinated while these videos don't necessarily flop and only recently found his core viewership when he began discussing COVID-19 and political hot topics after Donald Trump left office so I'll explain to you some of the objections that I take with the author's argument here but just that last paragraph it really says a lot it speaks to a phenomenon known as audience capture which is when you have this YouTube channel you've had it for a really long time and all of a sudden you post a video that gets lots and lots of views it just ends up so then you see the positive feedback you do it again and the same result happens so you enter this sort of feedback loop where you give your audience something that they want and in return they reward you with views clicks and engagement which is everything on YouTube the issue with audience capture and the issue with this feedback loop in general is that in the long term ultimately cultivate this audience makes you to give them a particular thing and the more you do it the more difficult it is to break out of that cycle and that's an issue having said that though I don't agree with all of the points made by the author Bill Gates is a trash person who's untrustworthy I think that you can be pro-vaccine and also hate Bill Gates and think that he's a scumbag especially if you are pro-vaccine because he doesn't want to release the patents for the COVID-19 so developing countries can manufacture their own versions generic versions of the COVID-19 vaccines so I don't take issue with that the clickbait titles I mean this is something that we're all guilty of on YouTube it's just part of the game I don't blame him for that a lot of the topics I don't really find interesting but it's general anti-establishment type of topics that he talks about on top of that when it comes to him platforming people like Candace Owens and Ben Shapiro I don't really care if he is in fact challenging them which the author does say that he does now some of the portions of this article that I actually take issue with and disagree with is how they pick out certain comments and they essentially attribute these bad comments to Russell Brand now I will say that you can kind of get a sense of what the creator talks about pretty frequently by gauging the audience and how they talk about things so it can be useful but the couple of anecdotes here it's not sufficient to lead me to believe that he is as bad as the author is implying at least just by reading this but there's a big but here if you look at his YouTube channel it does point to a really really bad trend there's a lot of things in here that give me Dave Rubin vibes to say the least now this is a sample of videos that he posted from the last month and some of these titles were actually named in the article but I mean just right off the bat you can see how clearly all of his videos overall are skewed towards the right just based on the titles alone that doesn't mean that all of his videos are bad but just overall I mean what is the message that you think he's sending who do you think he's appealing to based on this superficial glance so far at his video titles so I mean look at this one Joe Rogan and Ivermectin should COVID be politicized well no it shouldn't be politicized obviously but this title suggests that Joe Rogan isn't the one who's politicizing the pandemic by making his refusal to get vaccinated about freedom and by opting for alternative treatments that haven't been proven to actually be successful at treating COVID-19 like Ivermectin so who's the one that's politicizing it I mean that's left up to interpretation but if you look at all of his videos and some I mean I think you kind of get a sense let's look at some of these titles here is the vaccine an assault on your bodily autonomy question mark no can we really trust vaccine fact checkers COVID and health why can't we talk about the science this is why you can't trust big pharma and you see the FTA logo right there implying that maybe the emergency authorization sufficient enough for us to trust it because you see some sort of a pay-to-play thing going on on the you know that thumbnail so without even clicking a single video just by browsing his catalog you can easily deduce that he's appealing to one particular crowd of people anti-vaxxers by looking at all of these titles if you step back in some you kind of put them together like pieces to the puzzle when you see the complete puzzle there's this tacit implication that maybe the vaccines are bad if the FTA is lying to me and COVID-19 is being politicized and Fauci is lying maybe the vaccines are bad now he doesn't explicitly say that so he does give himself plausible deniability having said that though when you actually watch the videos which I have a couple that we're going to take a look at here he's not doing himself any justice here so take a look at exhibit A this is the video titled our vaccine mandates and assault on your bodily freedom vaccines are now being mandated for businesses with more than a hundred employees this is going to affect 80 million American people is this an intrusion on your rights do you trust your government to have that amount of authority are these necessary measures or is this situation being mobilized for political ends now as ever when talking about this subject it's necessary for me to express my neutrality I am Switzerland when it comes to this subject no view at all I am merely a floating series of molecules spores in space that through the spike protein got attached to something now I'm completely neutral let's see what this New York Times journalist Robbie Sove had to say in December 2020 the prospect of imminent mass vaccination against COVID-19 was becoming a reality and Biden said he would not force anyone to get the jab no I don't think it should be mandatory told reporters I wouldn't demand it be mandatory so Biden however you see Biden and increasingly post Afghan war withdrawal situation he is receiving a little more criticism even from his traditional supporters is changing we're seeing that ordinary process campaign promises what takes place in action you know what my position is this is an area where I can declare what I feel I'm neither left nor right because I don't believe in centralized bipartisan democracy so I'm not a socialist or a Marxist I agree with kindness compassion sharing service supporting one another and I can talk about the administrative underwriting of those emotions because all governmental systems are ultimately leaning into an emotion somewhere along the line they have to because I thought you know what is humanitarianism why protect human beings at all so just by watching the short clip you kind of get a sense of what he's doing here he's not explicitly saying that vaccine mandates are an assault on your freedom he's not saying that vaccines are bad but he kind of gets you to think about these things he gets you to a certain conclusion by using innuendo and priming and I think it's really slimy especially because you can see what he was doing there he was presenting himself as an enlightened centrist I'm not left I'm not right I'm neutral except no you're not you can try to pretend to be neutral but when we look at your video catalog and in particular your titles you're very clearly creating this content for one particular group of people and when you title a video vaccine mandates an assault on your bodily freedom and the entire setup is that Biden went back on his promise I mean even if you don't explicitly say that vaccine mandates are indeed an assault who is this supposed to appeal to and the person who you're obviously appealing to what do you think their conclusion is going to be when you present them with this question I think it's pretty obvious what he's doing now let's go to another video I present you with exhibit B the left versus right culture war conflagration continues to increase in temperature and many people are asking are we on the brink of civil war well Tim Poole when I spoke to him on my podcast under the skin available from Luminary you can get it on Apple link in the description says we're already in a war the war has begun it's just being practised on the level of psyche we're in the middle of a psychological war being subtly fought through media and sometimes not so subtly fought an invasion of the mind policeman of the brain Tim Poole is a great and influential orator have a look at this clip from under the skin let me know what you think in the comments below stay to the very end because some interesting points are made actually there's a story right now a journalist was attacked by anti-fascists and I believe it was in Portland there's a video of it you can actually watch the video of them calling her a slut shoving her to the ground spraying her with paint and and and macing her and right now if you go on Twitter all of left Twitter says it was actually the proud boys they're they're so tribalist on on on their worldview they will not accept fault for their own side and obviously I think the right has its faults I think the proud boys who show up to fight are causing you know equal trouble to a certain degree and people have just they have their sides they want to fight they're they're not interested in what is true they're interested in what they believe and they're interested in confirmation bias I think when independent voters start swinging away from Biden which they are and they might vote for Republicans which I don't necessarily think solves any of the problems you'll end up with a massive reaction on a scale much worse than we saw in 2020 with the riots because people are entrenched you know they don't want to back down from what they believe to be true or their worldview and I think just one final thought on this a simple way to explain the difference I do not think you will ever see a large movement of Trump supporters embracing critical race applied principles critical race praxis you will see that you know the left will obviously be very much in favor of their vision of equity and equal outcomes and racial quotas the right won't do that and so long as you have two governments fighting over control of one centralized system where they want to implement their moral framework I think it ultimately ends up with some kind of implosion so ask yourself who is this for is this for left wingers you have Tim Pohl here attacking the left saying that they're as bad as proud boys and that they're tribalistic and they're very biased and the right has their problems too but I mean the left let me tell you about the left with their critical race theory peddling non-sense racial quotas who is this for come on this isn't for left wingers this is for right wingers right wingers who are tuning in because now they realize that Russell Brand is going to tell them exactly here he's gonna reinforce their world views and maybe he doesn't reinforce their world views explicitly but he gives them enough presents them with enough information to where they can make their own decision even though they've kind of been led to that particular place now one last clip that I want to show you this is from the Nicki Minaj covid vaccine testicle discourse that I thankfully missed when it was taking place take a look is there to have an opinion on a controversial subject and is now getting the ire of the government and commentators everywhere should public figures and celebrities and that be able to say stuff or is it irresponsible and should it be stamped out or does it depend if they're parroting your perspective or not let's work it out right now and became impotent after getting the covid jab also like this news is framing it as a series of anti-vax tweets ie it belongs to a genre which I think is a little unfair because some of the most personal and particular information I've ever read in text form I should clarify at this point that I have no opinion on any medical crisis or pandemic treatment of what you should do as an individual or any opinions about anything see me as sort of like a glass sphere floating through space the information just goes through so just pray on it and make sure you're comfortable with your decision and not bullied now that suggests that Nicki Minaj's general view is that it should be an individual choice made by each of us individually cool Nicki Minaj I guess it's like Nicki Minaj is being utilized by any side on this argument people that are circumspect, hesitant cynical about the vax concerned about the reporting of anomalies will think ah Nicki Minaj freedom fighter people that are like no just get vaccinated this is an unprecedented crisis Nicki Minaj she stepped out of line if a celebrity says something that's a bit mad they're a celebrity and if you agree with them cool you're into them and you like them if you disagree with them well you know they're a celebrity everyone gets all serious oh no but with your platform with your platform you should be saying what I would say if I were your platform that's not how reality works people are all different no see that right there is what I take issue with using your platform responsibly doesn't mean that you can't share your own opinions even if they're spicy but using your platform responsibly means that you very clearly differentiate between what are facts and opinion if I say it's my opinion and people know it's my opinion no harm no foul but what Nicki Minaj did there is she didn't just dare to share her bold opinion she presented an anecdote and made it seem as if this is some widespread phenomenon she implied that there's a cause and effect relationship between the vaccines and impotency that's not her just sharing her opinion that's her sharing incorrect facts or what people will perceive to be facts about the COVID-19 vaccines that may persuade people to not get the vaccines themselves and what we know so far based on facts is that the vaccines have saved hundreds of thousands of lives so by her saying that having one of her impressionable fans view that they might think wow I don't want my testicles to swell up I guess I should probably avoid getting the vaccine that's dangerous and again he presented himself as a neutral arbiter of information here but when you look at his channel he's obviously deliberately trying to appeal to a very specific group of people so I find it especially disingenuous and slimy if you're going to clearly pander to anti-vaxxers that's what he's doing come on but yet still claim oh well I'm neutral no you're not you're pretty clearly taking a position you don't have to take a position explicitly to take a position you can take a position implicitly you can say things without saying them directly and that's what he's doing here it's pretty obvious so I've seen enough this is not good Russell Brand I mean I'm not going to say that he's as bad as Tucker Carlson or even Jimmy Dore for that matter and I don't agree with all the points of contention in the article but I mean he's undeniably a powerful voice for anti-vaxxers given how big his platform is at this point and how famous he is and even if it could be a lot worse than I was expecting after having read that article it's still not helping us during a public health crisis this isn't helpful you're pandering to anti-vaxxers he knows it he could be in denial but this is the result of audience capture and it's bad overall you're not helping us get the virus under control by implicitly discouraging people to take the vaccine and during a public health crisis I don't appreciate that and I find it especially gross when you very clearly present a particular skewed image to people and a narrative to people but yet you claim that you're just some neutral arbiter who's sitting in the middle you're not taking a stand you're not left you're totally above the frame no you're not you're now functionally in the camp of right-wingers at least on this issue and it's not a good look when it comes to John Hickenlooper there's two things that everyone should know the first is that he watched porn with his mom I'm not kidding about this so I took my mother to see deep throat told you and the second thing you should know there's some reason conspicuously concerned with the profits of Facebook so during the Facebook whistleblower's testimony before the senate commerce committee he inquired about Facebook's profits and at first this isn't necessarily too weird but I'll show you his question followed by her answer obviously Facebook can manipulate its algorithms to attract users and I guess what do you feel in your humble opinion that you know simply maximizing profits no matter the societal impact that is justified and I think the question then would be that's the short question which I think I know the answer what impact to Facebook's bottom line would it have if the algorithm was changed to promote safety for change to to save the lives of young women rather than putting them at risk Facebook today has a profit it makes approximately 40 billion dollars a year in profit a lot of the changes that I'm talking about are not going to make Facebook an unprofitable company it just won't be a ludicrously profitable company like it is today engagement based ranking is one of those amplification problems that leads young women from innocuous topics like healthy recipes to anorexia content if it were removed people would consume less content on Facebook but Facebook would still be profitable and so I encourage oversight and public scrutiny into how these algorithms work and the consequences of them okay so in short yes Facebook would indeed lose profits if they changed the algorithm now this isn't the most bizarre question for a lawmaker to ask knowing that these private companies have a fiduciary responsibility to increase shareholder value of course they're not going to willingly do something that hurts their bottom line so you need to know whether or not this is the case so you can figure out the right course of action to take and in this instance of course you should do regulations because knowing that Facebook is a greedy company with one goal to make money they're not going to willingly change something that makes them so much money so that means you have to force them to make this change via regulation so at that point in time you get your answer of course you move on to the next topic except John Hickenlooper stays on the topic of Facebook's bottom line a little bit longer with another question I'm a former small business owner I started in 2008 and really it was always we worked very hard to look again we weren't doing investigations but we were very sensitive to whether someone had had too much to drink whether we had a frequent customer who was frequently putting himself at risk and others obviously I think the Facebook business model puts well it poses risk to youth and to teens compared to cigarette companies which I thought was rightfully so I guess the question is is this level of risk appropriate or is there a level of risk that would be appropriate okay so that's kind of a weird question this is the former Facebook product manager not an expert in sociology John so I guess I just don't really follow what your point is are you implying that overall it's worse for society if Facebook loses their profits I what are you getting at right and she made a pretty solid point about the fact that you know it might hurt them in the short term but in the long term if they change this algorithm and they don't willingly promote hate for purposes of profit it could help them to revenue because if less people are leaving the platform because it's so toxic maybe that helps them in the long term so you think alright we've got two questions about Facebook's profitability it's time to either yield back your time or move on well no he brings up profits again I also thought that the the question of how do we assess the impact to their bottom line we had a representative Facebook in here recently who talked about that 8 out of 10 Facebook users feel their life is better and that their job is to get to 10 out of 10 maybe this is the 20% that they're missing I don't know how large that the demographic is of people that are caught back up into this circuitous circuitous sense of really taking them down into the wrong direction how many people that is in the idea okay this is strange you no longer sound like a politician who's inquiring about a company's policy you sound like a businessman who's weighing the pros and cons about the short and long term profits of a company it's almost like he has stock in the company that's what it sounds like to me except that's exactly the case he's asking these questions he's so concerned about Facebook's profits because he literally has stock in the company as Donald Shove sludge reports while inquiring on Facebook's bottom line Hickenlooper is invested in the company the senator's Facebook shares are worth as much as $500,000 so he was presumably concerned about Facebook's profits because it also impacts his wallet as well this is an obvious obvious conflict of interest and lawmakers shouldn't be allowed to have stocks why are they allowed to own stocks in companies that they're supposed to be regulating doesn't this seem kind of fucked up doesn't this seem like a system that is designed to fail and skew towards the business class of the United States that's exactly the case and it gets worse than that because it's not just that he's overly curious about Facebook's profits it also influenced him as a lawmaker it influences what he chooses so Shah adds the senator is not a cosponsor of the major democratic antitrust bill the competition and antitrust law enforcement reform act introduced in February by senator Amy Klobuchar the only bill Hickenlooper is cosponsoring in the science technology communications policy area according to congress.gov is a bill from republican senator Roger Wicker that according to a summary from senator Hickenlooper and Wicker would require the national telecommunications and information administration establish a testbed to develop and demonstrate innovative supply chain technologies and applications and establish a grant program to promote the participation of US companies in international standard setting bodies. The bill is intended to help US companies develop new products to compete with Chinese competitors Hickenlooper was worth at least $7.8 million on stock in several other tech companies including Microsoft automatic data processing alphabet, Amazon, Apple Intel and Nvidia so there you have it that's why he's so concerned with Facebook's profits that's why presumably he's not signing on to legislation that would hurt Facebook because it would hurt their bottom line so this is why these sorts of conflicts of interest shouldn't exist this is why lawmakers shouldn't be allowed to own stocks in companies that they're supposed to be regulating but it's sort of a difficult situation to get out of because how do you convince lawmakers who all own stocks in different companies and industries to pass legislation that bans them from owning stocks in industries I mean it's like them cutting off their own noses to appease everyone else and they're not going to do that they're not going to do something that would impact them and their bottom line and John Hickenlooper is a multi-millionaire he doesn't need to be concerned with Facebook bringing in additional profits but this is the game this is the way that it's played and it's sickening but it's not surprising so by now I'm sure that most of my audience is kind of tired of these Caitlyn Jenner gubernatorial run stories especially considering that she barely got one percent of the vote but I want to talk about this story because it's just one of those stories that I enjoy so much for no particular reason maybe it's a shout in Freudia maybe it's just that I like seeing dumb people get proven wrong when things are pretty obvious either way she basically explains that she had a lot of meetings with Republican politicians and many of them did not want to be seen publicly with her they were embarrassed of her I wonder why why would Republicans who are transphobic not want to meet with somebody who's transgender why even if she's a Republican perhaps it's because they're bigots but either way what she says is it's fascinating to me to say the least so LGBTQ nation reports Caitlyn Jenner said that during her failed California gubernatorial campaign some Republican Party leaders and elected GOP officials refused to be seen in public with her despite supporting her in private I had elected officials and party leaders who would gladly take private meetings with my campaign team and me but would balk at the mere notion of being seen publicly with me Jenner wrote in a recent USA Today column she would have been the first transgender governor in the United States had she won to a point I understand they have to protect themselves from their voters and base who might not be as open minded as they are she explained noting that the problem for someone like myself is partly generational but leadership means standing up for what is right and if you thank me privately for running for office you should be able to do it publicly despite association with her being treated like a dirty secret Jenner assures readers that she is still a Republican and will fight for inclusivity in the Republican Party that's going to go well she even complains that coming out as a Republican was more difficult than coming out as transgender so I just love that even as she explains to all of us how Republicans were literally embarrassed to be seen with her in public even if they privately supported her she's still a Republican she's still loyal to the party she still is making sure that that Republican victim narrative is a thing no it's harder for me to come out as a Republican than it is to come out as transgender is it though is it though really okay maybe that's true in her case because she is a multi-millionaire and she's older and she's not living with her parents who you know you may rely on for housing as is the case with trans youth I just we're to a point where I can't do anything but laugh at this what did you expect Caitlin what did you expect this is a classic Leopards ate my face situation where somebody was totally surprised that a leopard ate their face after they voted for the Leopards eating people's faces party I just I don't understand how you would expect something like this it's like you are running as a Democrat and your your number one thing is that you want to ban abortions the party kind of is against that so what are you trying to do here I mean perhaps when it comes to economic issues she is conservative because she's rich and she's looking out for her own self-interest but still I mean you can't pretend to be surprised that this transphobic party that made it their mission especially in 2021 to demonize trans youth they're against you how is that surprising to you this party has always been bigoted this this party has always used social issues and culture war issues to get elected they offer voters nothing so what do they do they prey on people's bigotry they prey on racism and xenophobia and transphobia and homophobia that's what they do they've been doing this forever so for you to be shocked to have a surprised Pikachu face when they're like I don't want to be seen with you in public what did you expect Caitlyn what did you expect Jesus Christ she's like a less self-aware version of Blair White it's just she's insufferable now to make matters worse I want to remind everyone that it's not just that she was transgender as part of the reason why she lost and didn't even barely reach one percent or she did but she barely got one percent either way remember how bad her campaign was and that also tells you a little bit about why she wasn't successful so during her campaign she pulled at six percent for public support lied about not voting for Trump in the 2020 election had an inconsistent stance on COVID-19 mask wearing complained about seeing homeless people in the streets expressed some support for Texas has bounty hunting anti-abortion law left her campaign to go record a reality show in Australia and ended up having to fund her own impoverished campaign I mean you might think that she's just a really bad candidate but I'm sure she'll use the footage that she shot from her campaign to make some reality show she might already have a reality show that I'm unaware of maybe it's like in its ninth season I don't know but she's just so insufferable so clueless so insufferable I don't know what else to say so I mean when she says things like this yeah I can't believe that the Republican Party is transphobic they literally chased you out of CPAC chanting transphobic bullshit at you this party doesn't want you Caitlyn Jenner so you have to choose do you actually care about transgender Americans and their suffering and the bigotry perpetuated by the party that you identify with or do you care about your own personal wealth so what do you care more about class solidarity or solidarity with the LGBTQ plus community well I think that she's already made that decision she's already stated her position loud and clear so now she shouldn't be surprised when her party rejects her because they're against you they don't support you having the freedom to be you they're against you their bigots this is kind of obvious so don't be surprised when they treat you like shit so I wanted to share a story with you out of the state of Alabama it's a really encouraging inspiring story and it really demonstrates what's possible if political leaders actually listen to the will of the people of course I'm just kidding it's Alabama it's a train wreck the story is depressing it speaks to how morally depraved our late stage capitalist society is and I mean I don't even know what to say about it I can't really supplement this article that I'm about to read to you with much commentary because I think it kind of speaks for itself the details here they're gross enough to where there's not much to be said about this but still I can't not talk about this because it's just it's so it's so egregious it's so gross so CNN's Rebecca Reese and Devin M. Sires reports Alabama governor KIV signed into law Friday a number of prison infrastructure bills that will use coronavirus relief funds to build new prisons in the state calling it a pivotal movement for the trajectory of our state's criminal justice system how inspiring Ivy a Republican had convened a special session of the Alabama legislature to discuss how to fix what she has called a decades-long problem of prison infrastructure challenges the governor said Friday's bill signing was the culmination of hard work and conversations between lawmakers on both sides of the aisle I like to personally offer my thanks to the legislative leadership who are standing behind me right here for a successful special session and what we believe will yield untold benefits to all Alabamians in the days ahead Ivy said you can't be serious earlier this week Ivy defended her proposal to use the state's allotment of COVID-19 relief funds to build prisons after receiving criticism from Democrats their proposal included using up to 400 million of federal COVID-19 relief money up to 785 million in bonds and no more than 54 million from the state general fund to add prisons and renovate others the state legislature gave the package final approval on Friday yeah that's the story now I shouldn't have to say this but there are virtually endless possibilities for that money I mean she should actually be using it for COVID relief Alabama has one of the lowest vaccination rates in the country with only 43% of residents fully vaccinated and 53% with at least one dose of the COVID-19 vaccines so she could have used this money to set up mobile COVID vaccine sites in the most rural areas of the state you could do that you can do a lot of things you can put it towards education housing you can set up a fund for low income residents to give them health care if you know Medicaid isn't doing the trick there's so much that you could do she's using it to build prisons I just what do you even say that really speaks to her priorities as a governor and this is kind of just microcosm of a bigger issue we always spend more money when it comes to killing people at least when it comes to what we're allowed to change right the discretionary budget in Congress most of the time more than half of that is spent on killing people and blowing up people and in Alabama they're using it to send people to prison when are we as a society going to stop accepting this from politicians what are we going to stop electing politicians that prioritize locking people up and killing people over actually helping people I don't know but there's not much left to say about this I just wanted to share it because this is kind of not the most shocking story to see out of a late-stage capitalist society and it's never been a shocking story as it relates to Alabama because it's Alabama but having said that though I could not talk about this because Jesus Christ what what a fucked up thing what a ridiculous thing to use COVID-19 relief funds while the pandemic is still going on to build prisons just Jesus Christ I'm here with Sam aka the Khaleesi from the Reset Race podcast and she is here to talk about a really important issue and that is the disappearance of Black Wealth in the United States of America and there's a really clear solution for this it's preparations and she has all the details that I think you need to know so Sam thank you so much for coming on the program thank you so much for having me like I'm really excited to be here like I was telling I'm a casual watcher so I'm like thank you to Brian because Brian when you ask he jumped in right away so I want to make sure I say thank you to Brian shout out to Brian Brian is very excited that this is happening Brian is great I love him he's one of my mods so yeah thank you so much for the recommendation I've heard of the Reset Race podcast before I didn't know that it was Actify but rebranded but yeah I've known Michael Graham for a while I brought him on the show at one point to talk about reparations so this isn't necessarily reparations 101 for my viewers but since then I've had more people tune in and I casually will mention reparations here and there but I think from time to time it's really important to revisit it and dive back in because every once in a while what I'll notice is that there's people that will talk about reparations but it's not necessarily an intellectually honest conversation or if they talk about reparations it's their interpretation of reparations which isn't the interpretation of the people who actually are fighting for it on the ground Eidos 101 the Reset Race podcast so I want you to kind of give my viewers the precise definition of reparations because there's and maybe it's not necessarily maybe it's hard to do that but oftentimes what I see is reparations broken down into two different distinct categories reparations is either one distributing wealth into black communities that's missing or two cutting a check and as my understanding is it should be both but ultimately the bottom line is you should cut a check a check is really what's owed not just morally but legally and there's so many different ways that you can attack this argument they're all compelling to me but in your view what is reparations and if somebody doesn't necessarily know how should they understand it so I'm going to actually pull up the official definition and then I'll go in deeper there we go because I think we should just start with a good old-fashioned encyclopedia that's always the safest bet yeah I think it's just easier for people right because yeah everybody's like you know these days people are like oh we should do some we should do a we should do a housing program that's reparations it's just everything separates itself reparations just the basic the making of amends for a wrong one has done by paying money to or otherwise helping those who have been wrong the action of repairing something so reparations the way that black Americans who descend from chattel slavery the ados movement us freedmen we are looking for we are actually looking for multiple programs and also a check to be involved as well because the thing about the racial wealth gap is you can't close it with just program because this is the thing so everybody's like well let's give people free college which you know it sounds great right free college that's the gateway to opportunity well black college graduates have less wealth than white high school dropouts so that's not the equalizer we try that for 3040 years so it says there's a bunch of there's a bunch of different things that people like well if we do this we'll give people free college oh well we can help people with down payments for homes well that sounds great but if I have a 450 credit score your 25 or 30 thousand dollar assistance is not getting me into anything because I have bad credit or I don't have a good enough job or I'm not stable so basically what reparations would do for black Americans is basically just make us stable so with Darity's numbers he's talking about seven around 17 trillion dollars per family 17 trillion dollars total so for that I like to look at it as a down payment but you know people should go with Darity first because you know the rest of us are like no we want more so go with the man who's trying to go with the man who's trying to be sensible because we like Thomas Kramer's numbers and he's talking about quadrillion so you know maybe I should listen to Darity a little bit more but it would basically be about eight hundred thousand dollars per family give or take and that actually when somebody hears that they might think oh that's inconceivable but a lot of people don't realize that we actually did distribute reparations before not to descendants of slaves but to the families of victims of Japanese internment and the individual who signed that into law the president who signed that into law was Ronald Reagan of all people so to think that it's inconceivable it's not just in this political context that we're in I feel like we're made to believe that this is such a weird absurd tricky concept but it's not just a necessity because Black wealth is disappearing at a rate that should alarm everyone but it's also morally necessary and the legal argument is sound it is what is owed and it's a debt that has never been paid and I think that there's a variety of ways that you can reason yourself into supporting it legally, morally out of necessity but either way it's something that to me is non-negotiable and with how fast Black wealth is disappearing I don't see how this isn't a really huge topic now one thing that I wanted to ask you about is for the first time ever in the House of Representatives there was actually a hearing on HR 40 which was originally not the hearing the hearing was last was 2019 that was the first one the markup was the first markup okay right we got it to a markup because it's the hearing first then a markup then if they vote or you hit 218 cosponsors and they have to vote which is honestly it's incredible to know that it got that far and we're far behind but the fact that it's there is great talk to us about the significance of that process and your thoughts on how it played out overall because I think this is really important because this is the first time we've seen movement and all that I expected from politicians to try to placate supporters of reparations but this is a little bit different we have members of Congress actually pushing it which is incredible so talk through that process so I'm going to start off by giving Evette Carnell credit so Evette Carnell basically motivated a lot of people across this country to get active so basically what happened from there is people started organizing they started doing campaigns I literally berated my congresswoman on twitter for about four weeks she was like no no no I already signed HR 40 they just haven't added my name to the list like because originally I think when it started when we started dealing with it had like 40 or 50 cosponsors we're up to 196 that's incredible we did a campaign we would call their offices we had scripts we were not playing around so we still haven't gotten where we need to be with it but to be honest it was a grassroots joint effort of a bunch of 80 OS people who were like you were going to pay attention to us and our issues and we haven't gotten it to the vote yet but you know if we could get what I think we have 196 you need 218 the force of vote so we can get more people to start calling their congressmen and asking about why they haven't done HR 40 and it'd be great if they're not all black people if they start hearing from white people about this too it's going to matter because a lot of times they feel like oh white people don't white people aren't going to like this so I'm not going to talk about it so if you start calling them and talking about it they're like uh-oh this is going to be something that I have to add into what's going on so I'm excited about the movement but we're still not where we need to be yet yeah yeah exactly and what I wanted to ask you is in terms of having conversations about reparations white people how do we and I mean I'm the white ally so I'm the one who should be trying to facilitate this but it's difficult because at the same time I want to be an ally but I don't want to talk out of turn so how do you think we bring people on this is one thing that I find that is kind of the issue is that people there's this tendency even on the left especially on the left they kind of prioritize universal policies and anything that disproportionately helps one group of people they tend to think you know what that's not going to be popular it's not going to gain any momentum but I think that we've really kind of misconstrued what reparations is to an extent at least as leftists broadly speaking I don't view this as a race-based policy even though it is that right um this is basically a program that does more than help ados this is a program that would boost the economy overall if black Americans have wealth then unlike billionaires they reinvest that into the economy into their communities and kind of like this is like the inverse of trickle down where a rising tide lifts all boats where if you actually invest money into the economy black people will spend that money in white businesses in black businesses and so it's not necessarily just a policy that exclusively benefits ados but at the same time there's almost this assumption that we can't walk and chew gum at the same time there's this implication where it's like if I support reparations that I have to put Medicare for all in the back burner when we need all of it we need universal programs and that I feel right now I'm just like listen we can no longer do piecemeal anything we're reparations first but we want to bundle we're like give us reparations in the same day put the other bill next to it federal jobs guarantee and some Medicare for all and some housing as a human right like we are down for the fight we are down to everybody to get everything that their families need but reparations is the cost of doing business because historically so this is the thing right when Thomas Kramer who is a I think he's like a historian but he also works on he does some economic work with he talks about reparations and he did calculations that's how he got to the quadrillion number so he talks about the reason why he likes likes America because he's from Germany the reason why he likes the history of America so much is because of the fact that there was always white resistance there was always like the abolitionist people don't understand that abolitionist there are white people who died fighting to protect and to secure freedom for black Americans this country has a rich history of white people fighting with black people but the problem is we don't really talk about in the history books it's not something that's really promoted but this has happened and we just have to get back to coming together working together again you can look at Bacon's Rebellion when everybody came together like they rioted for a year there was a whole rebellion for over a year that it took them to quash and if we would have won it would have been a very different thing so I think instead of it's frustrating for me as as an ADOS person as US Freedmen it's very frustrating for me because like I want reparations but I have four white God sisters and they all pretty much have children except for one I want their kids to have a wonderful life too I want their kids to have access to good education because they live in the country so they're not city kids and they're not rich people either so like I want them to have access to healthcare I want them to have good resources I want them to if they decide they want to go to college be able to go to college if they want to stay in their town and work in their town I want them to be able to do that so I just don't understand how I can want so much for so many people and it's just such a fight for people to want reparations for us even if you're not down for reparations why don't you just say okay well if you'll fight with us for this we'll fight with you for that and let's just call it a deal and that's such a good point to bring in I mean the problem with a lot of American politics maybe not even politics maybe just American cultures every single thing is presented as a zero sum game if you get something I lose something if I get something you lose something when that's not necessarily it so when you brought up how this is kind of all part of a package but you put reparations first that makes sense to me because I mean anyone who's watching this they're gonna be left as socialist communists and they know I mean if I could make a list of all the things that we need to do yes to fix this country it would be long so we need a gigantic package and we're kind of seeing this build back better plan 3.5 trillion and it's it's nice to see not enough at all but it's nice to see a bunch of things to do without the racism can we bring back the new deal without the racism it would be perfect it would be perfect they had writer's projects you and I could get some money to do this people can get money to to take care of their grannies you get money to read to old people write films open juice bars food trucks like yeah bring it back yeah yeah and that's what that's kind of like something that we need on that scale where we there's so many issues you can't just address one thing or incrementally address lots of things we need Medicare for all we need climate change reform we are not reformed but action we need reparations guarantee so we can start rebuilding the infrastructure of the country because we're gonna have to move whole groups of people from one place to another in this country like we gotta stop fighting each other start getting ready for what's coming right and and I love the way that you put it it's like if you fight for me with me on this I'll fight with you on that that's the thing that's missing in modern day politics and I don't know if it's just the product of the era where there's social media and we're all kind of decompartmentalized we're all in our own bubbles and so we don't necessarily speak with each other anymore but I think that solidarity is really lacking especially with leftists and really what we have to do is reconnect again as a movement and it's tough because it's in my opinion having a movement flourish it really does need leadership but there has to be some point where all these different groups come together Ados the sunrise movement and they kind of have the solidarity and they flex their muscle because together I think that it actually is doable if there is enough noise and maintain pressure and that's what I wanted to ask you