 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 the 196th edition of the program. Today is Friday, June 7th and before we start the show, I want to take some time to thank all of our newest Patreon, PayPal and YouTube members, all of which either signed up for the first time to support us just this last week or increase their monthly pledge. And that includes Charles Insolo, Danny Ray-Christar, Hector Lloyd, Heidi Boynton, Jared Nielsen, Jason Navarro, Kat Baloo, K. Smith, Michael Cuomo, Paul Cotton, Ranger Jenny, Stephanie Aishlemon, Tweekos, Tyler Seisaloff and Will. So thank you so much to all of these kind individuals. If you'd also like to support the show and join the Independent Progressive Media Revolution, you can do so by going to humanistreport.com slash support or by checking out patreon.com forward slash humanistreport. Or you can also click join underneath any one of our YouTube videos. So this week on the Humanist Report podcast, we'll talk about the centrists that aren't picking up much steam in the Democratic Party primary, why Bernie Sanders stole the show at the KDEMS convention. And we'll talk about why Stephen Crowder is an anti-gay bigot who's bullying members of the LGBTQ community. We'll talk about a 2020 corporate Democrats attack on Bernie Sanders. And on the subject of Bernie Sanders, he's going to talk about what it's going to take to defeat Donald Trump and on the subject of Donald Trump. We'll talk about his tax cuts and how it's not actually accomplishing what he told everyone it would accomplish. We'll discuss a new report that claims human extinction could begin as early as 2050 due to climate change. A friend of the show, Ron Capone, drops by to tell us about net neutrality and what you can do to make some noise about the internet. Bernie Sanders warns Democrats to not repeat the same mistake they made back in 2016 with Joe Biden. And he also crashes Walmart's shareholder meeting. On top of that, Joe Biden supports an anti-abortion law. So we'll talk about that. And Tommy Loren is straight and proud. So deal with it, Snowflakes. We'll talk about that. And finally, we closed out the show by talking about Stephen Crowder and the Carlos Mazza situation. And I will share my thoughts about that once again. So that's what we've got for today on the agenda. Hopefully you guys enjoy the program. So over the weekend, the KDEMS convention took place. And even though Joe Biden was conspicuously absent, I believe that pretty much every other presidential candidate attended. And there were some really exciting moments. Some of them were incredibly heartwarming and, you know, it really made me feel good. And no, I'm not talking about that hug between Bernie Sanders and Tulsi Gabbard because even if I think that was adorable, what was really heartwarming to me was seeing some of these centrist Democrats faceplant and faceplant hard. So the first one I want to show you is a video of the guy who watched porn with his mom, John Hickenlooper. This is what happened when he thought it'd be a good idea to denounce socialism in front of a crowd of liberal voters. Now, I don't know about you guys, but whenever a Democrat tells me what we can't do and what we can't have, there's nothing that makes me feel more inspired than that. I mean, learn how to read a room. You're talking about how horrible socialism is in front of a crowd of liberal voters who know exactly how capitalism has not just devastated our country, but literally devastated the planet. Learn how to read a room, John Hickenlooper, but he can't, hence why he's polling at 0%. Now, speaking of another candidate who's polling at 0%, John Delaney. We're going to spend some time on him because at this convention, he literally thought it would be a good idea to take to the stage and denounce Medicare for All, a policy that is overwhelmingly popular, not just among voters, but among Republicans and especially popular among people in that crowd. Here's what happened when he tried to tell them that Medicare for All is bad. Democrats can build an economy that works, but it's got to be with smart policies. Medicare for All may sound good, but it's actually not good policy, nor is it good politics. I'm telling you, Medicare for All kicks 100%. He just kept going, was getting booed, and he still continued to talk about how horrible Medicare for All is. I don't think they agree, John. I don't think they agree. Now, for those of you not counting, he was literally booed for over a minute. That is insane. It goes to show you that the base of the Democratic Party, they are progressive. Really, Americans in general are progressive because when you look at public opinion polls, they support the Green New Deal. They support a federal jobs guarantee. They support raising the minimum wage. They support Medicare for All. They support legalizing marijuana. So when you tell them that their ideas and the policies that they support are bad, what do you think is going to happen? He says Medicare for All may sound good, but it isn't good policy, nor is it good politics, except it is good policy. Medicare for All is designed to function very much like Canada's healthcare system functions, and it has a high approval rating, and not only is it good policy, it's good politics because, guess what, people like it. So good politics is doing things that are supported by the overwhelming majority of the electorate. So by definition, it's good politics, but it's also good policy because it's policy that stops medical bankruptcies. It stops people who die because they don't have health insurance, or maybe they do have health insurance, but they're underinsured and they need a particular medical procedure that isn't covered by their insurance provider. So it's both good policy and good politics. So you're wrong, and they were telling you that you're wrong by booing you. Additionally, he says, quote, we should have universal healthcare, but it shouldn't be a kind of healthcare that kicks 150 million Americans off their healthcare. That's not smart policy. So I need you to understand that he's being intentionally disingenuous here. He's framing Medicare for All, which expands healthcare to 100% of the population. He's saying that that is kicking people off. I mean, what a deceitful liar you are. And the reason why he's doing this is because he's a shill for the health insurance industry. He said multiple times, look, I am in support of a universal healthcare plan, but I'm in favor of keeping the health insurance companies. Oh, okay. So you're not in favor of universal healthcare. You're not because so long as you don't eliminate that profit motive, guess what's going to happen? People will continue to die and go bankrupt because if we have to depend on these profit driven healthcare companies, that's what will keep happening. And we know that he's being disingenuous because he was actually confronted about this lie that people lose insurance by getting Medicare for All in an interview with Cenk Uygur of the Young Turks, where Cenk Uygur pressed him on this. Look at his response. I just think if we run on taking healthcare away from 150 million Americans- Well, you're not taking healthcare away. Right. Nor are you even taking insurance away. But we're taking their healthcare in 70% of the- And giving them a better one. What is that? That's him not knowing how to respond when he's called out for his bullshit. Because to literally say that giving people Medicare for All is them losing health insurance, you're just being a disingenuous liar. And guess what? The good news is people see through it. Hence why you were booed. Now, he has been disingenuous when it comes to this issue in a number of other areas. So I want to show you another quick clip of Cenk Uygur's interview with him, which I'll link to the full thing. Because Cenk did a phenomenal job at pressing him on this. He revealed how ignorant he is, but he explains why we shouldn't do Medicare for All. This is reason number two, why he thinks it's a bad idea. You acknowledge that Medicare is incredibly popular. Medicare is popular, but remember, one of the reasons Medicare is popular is because Medicare beneficiary is the overwhelming majority of them by supplemental plans. No, no, no, no, no, no. That is completely backwards. Medicare is popular in spite of the fact that people have to buy supplemental insurance. Why do people get Medicare Advantage plans in the first place? It's because Medicare in its current state, in spite of it being popular, still does have some gaps. Hence why when we talk about Medicare for All, we say expand and improve Medicare for All. Because we can't expand it in its current state because that won't be sufficient. So the reason why people buy these supplemental plans is not because they want to. They would prefer to not have to do that, John, but they do that because they have to. Imagine, like this line of thinking, someone who buys Medicare Advantage, but they do it because they like it. Oh, I just love that there's these gaps that force me to buy Medicare Advantage. I like that. Don't close those gaps. I want to keep paying extra money for this supplemental care. Who thinks like that? Who would want that? Like, you'd have to be delusional to accept John Delaney's argument here. And this is what we hear from Democrats. Oh, well, people on Medicare currently, they buy these supplemental plans that they don't want to lose. They buy them because they don't have a choice. Nobody wants supplemental care. 10 times out of 10, if you ask these people on Medicare, hey, would you like those gaps in Medicare to be closed so you don't have to buy supplemental care? They're going to tell you, yes, because that's rational. That's reasonable. That's what a self-interested individual wants. So by you saying that they somehow enjoy the fact that they have to go out of their way to buy supplemental care is borderline just idiotic. And I'm trying to refrain from calling him names, but you make it hard, John, because you're lying. You're just straight up lying. You know better. You're a smart guy, but you're lying. You're being intentionally deceitful because you want to protect the health insurance companies. Now, someone else who saw right through him is Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. And I love what she tweeted out. She said, since there's so many people running for president and not enough for Senate, instead of obsessing over who's a front runner, maybe we can start with some general eliminations. This awful untrue line got booed for a full minute. John Delaney, thank you, but please sashay away. I mean, you're pulling at 0%. Nobody likes you. You're getting booed by Democrats, the people who you have to win over. What are you still doing in the race? You're not going to win. Nobody likes you. You're lying about Medicare for All, something that is overwhelmingly popular. She's got a point. Now she followed up by saying Medicare for All is sound policy. One may disagree with it, but plenty of other countries have single-payer and better outcomes than the United States. Medicare for All is good politics. It pulls very well in swing states. Third way, AKA lobbyist-backed Democrats will lose the presidency to Donald Trump. And she's exactly right, because guess what? We tried running a centrist against Donald Trump. Do you remember what happened? He won. So you've got to do things that excite the base. And the base is very explicit in telling you, I don't like when you attack Medicare for All. I'm booing you for attacking Medicare for All. Now, can you guess what his response was? We call him a centrist to be polite, but really he's more of a right-winger, because if you are a centrist and if you're in between Democrats and Republicans to right-wing parties, you're just a right-winger. If you are to the right of Tories in the UK on healthcare, you're just a right-winger. Now, his response was basically, Debate me. In typical right-wing fashion. He says, hey AOC, we have the same goal, universal healthcare for everyone. No, you don't. We just have different ways of getting there. Healthcare is the number one issue for voters, so let's debate the way forward. Any show of your choosing, healthcare is too important for tweets. We need real discussion. Now, he followed up with some more tweets about this because he was clearly irritated that he was booed, and each time he tweeted, he got ratioed. Sometimes ratioed into oblivion. He says, intolerance to alternative points of view is not what the Democratic Party should be about. Don't we get enough of that from Trump? So he's comparing people who booed him and who don't like what he's saying to Trump when you're actually closer to Trump. John, because ideologically speaking, if you're in favor of the same policy that Donald Trump supports, not in favor of Medicare for all, you're closer to him. We're the furthest from him. And I love how he says, oh, you're being intolerant. So he's playing the victim. I mean, he's basically a right-winger. Just run as a Republican. Wait four years. You're young enough. Run as a Republican. You could be a moderate Republican. You could be John Kasich 2.0. Like, what are you doing running in a Democratic Party that you're clearly not aligned with? He also says another point. If you are booing Democrats, do you really expect the country to trust what you have to say? If you can't listen respectfully to people in your own party, let's raise the discourse and not fall down to the level of the president. Except the great thing about this is we're not the ones running for president. The people booing you, they're not the ones running for president. You are. So they don't have to win over anybody's trust. They don't have to win over your trust. They don't have to win over the rest of the electorate's trust. You are the one who has to win over their trust. Not the other way around. Not the other way around. So to even bring up this point is absurd. Hey, don't you know that if you boo people, you're not going to be able to win them over? You're not going to win over their trust? Okay. Do I need to? So I mean, this K-Dem's convention was certainly interesting. I'm going to get to what Bernie Sanders said in a speech that I really like, but I just, I had to shine a spotlight on the Democrats polling at 0% because they got the exact reception that they deserve and that they should have expected. You're not going to win anyone who's liberal over by shitting on socialism and talking about how horrible Medicare for all is. That's not going to work. Maybe a couple years earlier back in 2016, you know, you would have had some sway, but progressives are surging and we've won people over. So now you don't get to just shit on our policy that we've been fighting for and shit on the policy that grassroots activists have been fighting for and think that they're going to welcome you with open arms. No, they're going to boo you because you deserve to be booed because you're a liar. So over the weekend, Bernie Sanders spoke at K-Dem's and I think it's safe to say that he absolutely stole the show. He gave a speech that was phenomenal. He basically said exactly what somebody who's running for president needs to say because in an environment where Republicans are off the spectrum crazy, bipartisanship isn't going to be what saves the country. It's not going to be what saves the planet. It's not going to be what saves the middle class. There's no middle ground when we're talking about these really serious issues. There's no middle ground when it comes to war and healthcare. There's no meeting Republicans halfway because if you meet a party who's crazy halfway, then you're conceding that being 50% crazy is acceptable when it's not. So what Bernie Sanders said in this speech, it's relatively long. The clip is about three minutes or so. He says no middle ground. Period. And this was phenomenal. Take a look. We have got to make it clear that when the future of the planet is at stake, there is no middle ground. We will take on the fossil fuel industry and transform our energy system. We have got to make it clear that when this country drifts toward oligarchy, there is no middle ground. Large profitable corporations like Amazon will pay their fair share of taxes. When it comes to healthcare, there is no middle ground. Healthcare is a human right, not a privilege. And we will guarantee healthcare to all of our people through a Medicare for all single-payer system. When it comes to abortion, there is no middle ground. A woman has the right to control her own life, not the government. When it comes to prescription drugs, no middle ground. We are going to take on the pharmaceutical industry. Cut prescription drug prices in half. And when it comes to mass shootings and the fact that 40,000 people were killed last year with guns, no middle ground. We will take on the NRA. And when it comes to criminal justice reform and immigration reform, no middle ground. We will take on the prison industrial complex. We will take on racism at the border. And when it comes to foreign policy, no middle ground. We will finally put an end to a bloated military budget and endless wars. Brothers and sisters, Trump wants to divide us up. We will stand together. Black and white and Latino, Native American, Asian American. We will stand together and create the nation that we know we will become. Brothers and sisters, at this momentous moment in American history, we have got to be thinking not just about ourselves, but future generations. Let us go forward together. Thank you. That may now be my favorite speech from him. Because you see all of these other candidates, they're boasting about how we really need bipartisanship and civility and middle ground. You have morons like Howard Schultz saying, you know, my administration will be 50% Democrats, 50% Republicans. I think Eric Swalwall even proposed the same thing if I'm not mistaken. But we can't compromise or negotiate with Republicans. We have to defeat them. That's our only option. We don't have a choice. They don't believe that climate change is even real. So how do you meet them halfway? They're trying to take health care away. So how do you meet them halfway? They don't believe that women should have control and autonomy over their own bodies. They don't believe that gay people are equal. How do you meet them halfway? How do you propose that we come up with some sort of compromise between insanity and justice and being reasonable? How do you do that? The answer is you can't. You can't compromise when you're right. To do that means you are weak. And that's a problem with Democrats. They've always been so willing to compromise that they do it before negotiations even begin. Like we all know, going back to the Obamacare debate, Obama was in favor of a public option, but he didn't even bring it up. He compromised before negotiations began. So Democrats have always been so weak where they want to make sure that they communicate to you that they're the grown-ups. And part of being a grown-up is to compromise. Try to bring people together, but we can't do that. What Bernie Sanders is saying is, no, we're being the grown-ups in saying we're not going to compromise with these loony tunes. You can't get anything beneficial out of a compromise if you are engaging in negotiations with bad faith actors. You can only defeat them. That's your best chance at being successful. Period. And this was demonstrated to us once again because, if you'll recall, Mitch McConnell stole the Supreme Court seat from Barack Obama. Now, I was no fan of Merrick Garland because Obama once again compromised before negotiations even began. He put up a conservative Supreme Court justice in hopes of getting them to maybe just give him a hearing, consider it, but they didn't do that. And what happened? Trump filled that seat. And Mitch McConnell was just asked, what would you do if a Supreme Court vacancy popped up in 2020? Guess what he said? We're going to fill that seat. Oh, we'd fill it. Now, after seeing him smirk, knowing that what he said in 2016 was a load of shit, and he played Democrats like a fiddle. How can you possibly ask yourself how you can possibly engage in good faith negotiations with them? You can't. You can't compromise with them. You have to defeat them. And it seems like Bernie Sanders is one of the few candidates who actually get this. Because time after time, Democrats will extend their handout to Republicans and it'll get slapped down. They don't want to negotiate with you. They just want to beat you. Obama literally took Romney here, a heritage foundation, health care, right wing reform, and they gave him zero votes for that. There is no compromise. To compromise with Republicans means that you lose. So the overall message is that when you see these Democrats like John Delaney, Amy Klobuchar, anyone who is proposing bipartisanship, what they're telling you in actuality, what they're effectively saying is, I'm willing to lose just so I appear reasonable. Now, maybe the optics are great for that. Maybe you get a nice fluff piece written about you in mainstream media. But at the end of the day, you lose. We all lose. Because you keep trying to compromise with these ghouls. You have to defeat them. That's the crux of the argument that Bernie Sanders is making. They should say that that's the crux. That's the implication. The crux in actuality is you can't compromise because these are non-negotiable matters. You can't compromise on health care. When people are dying in this country and going bankrupt, the only option is Medicare for all. No compromise there. Not willing to negotiate. You can't compromise when it comes to war. Not willing to negotiate. We're not going to compromise when it comes to women's rights. They're going to have autonomy over their bodies whether you like it or not. We're not going to compromise on LGBTQ rights. Gays aren't going to be discriminated against so religious bigots feel better about themselves. We're not going to let CEOs continue to make record profits and increase their salaries while their workers are suffering. No compromise there. So what Bernie Sanders is doing is he is approaching this from a position of strength. And you have to be unapologetic. People in mainstream media will see this and they'll say, well, Bernie, he's so unreasonable. We need someone who's going to work with the other side. When you're the one who's being unreasonable because we've seen time and again that they don't want to work with you. They don't like you. They hate you. So you have to be uncompromising and defeat them. Bernie gets it and that's why he's our only hope. I've got a Steven Crowder tweet up and he's been in a little bit of hot water lately if you haven't noticed. So Vox journalist Carlos Mazza posted basically a year or two's worth of content of him basically just hurling middle school level insults at him. He's criticizing Carlos Mazza not necessarily because, you know, he's a Vox journalist who puts out bad content and he's criticizing the content itself. What Steven Crowder is doing is critiquing him because he's a lispy gay guy. That is what he's doing. And as Carlos shows here, you know, it led to him being doxxed, debate Steven Crowder by all of his homophobic fans. And it's just, you know, it's ridiculous. I actually, I'm relatively mixed when it comes to Vox. However, Carlos Mazza is kind of the exception. If you don't like Vox, you should like Carlos Mazza because he actually is an objective journalist. He puts in a lot of research and effort into his videos. So for this to happen to him, I mean, nobody deserves this, right? But of all people, he really doesn't deserve this level of scrutiny. And if you're going to criticize him or debunk him, then you need to criticize him because of the content. But what Steven Crowder is doing here is just being a dickhead to him and criticizing him because it's clear. Now it could be a dranny, your honor. But how many lispy, angry sprites in Vox sashay across your screen and try and tell you otherwise. Or you, by the way, the gay Mexican guy, the gay Latino v-neck. Gay Mexican. The Mexican gay guy used to work. Mexican gay Latino there at Vox. Gay Latino from Vox. The token Vox gay atheist sprite with surprisingly, surprisingly flaccid chest considering how thin he is. It is, it's very bizarre to me. At homonym? Yes, but it was an addendum to fact. So ridiculous. So I mean, this is what we, and I didn't even get to all of it. You know, I mean, he just so much content of him lobbing these ad hominem attacks. Just, it's so childish. Like this is literally middle school level insults. But you know, on top of that, we have him making this stupid point. Remind me how is one's preference in sexual friction a point of pride? Now, I don't know what sexual friction means. I'm assuming that he means like sexual preference. But the reason why I wanted to talk about this is one, because Stephen Crowder is a gigantic, hateful asshole. And second of all, he's bringing up a point that I often see during pride. You know, there's always this, well, when about straight pride? Like you see it all the time, right? And I feel the need to respond because it's such an obnoxious point to make. It's just people who, they make this point because they don't like that gay people are trying to be happy and trying to celebrate. So they'll bring up points like straight pride, or they'll say, you know, why are you, why are you prideful about the fact that you're attracted to men? Well, wouldn't it be nice if we didn't have to be prideful of that fact? Because, you know, this is something that shouldn't really be an issue. But because of people like you, Stephen Crowder, you make it an issue. You make it so pride is a necessity. And it's funny because like as a gay man myself, and I hate to say as a gay man, really, every time pride rolls around, I become less and less excited. And I get a little bit more anxious because it's not like I'm prideful. Like I don't, I'm prideful as an individual. But what I see is just a reminder that people in America, they still really fucking hate gay people. And I'm not going to lie. It is, it's pretty soul crushing. And I'm reminded constantly, like you see these brands like large multinational corporations, like for example, Xbox, you know, they'll change their logo. They'll make the Xbox logo rainbow of fight and say play with pride. And you know, I would much prefer that they treat their LGBTQ employees and all of their employees with dignity, pay them a livable wage, give them health care. But that's besides the point. What always bugs me is the horrible comments that you see in response to these posts. You know, I saw Xbox's post on Facebook and they said something about pride or they just updated their logo and underneath were a bunch of responses by a bunch of pricks basically shitting on gay people. The Bible says Adam and Eve, not Adam and Steve. Wow, that's brilliant. Why didn't anybody tell me this before I came out of the closet? Because it would have saved my family a lot of headache. If you just told me that God created Adam and Eve, not Adam and Steve, I would have not been gay. Brilliant. So it's just, we see a lot of reminders as gay people when we're supposed to be prideful or celebrating who we are in identity that is demonized, that we're still really fucking hated. So remind me how is one's preference in sexual friction a point of pride? Well, this was my response. Because bullies like you belittle and dehumanize gay people to the point where they feel worthless and want to end their lives. Pride is them pushing back against goons like you, acknowledging their worth as human beings and trying to feel proud about what they deem icky. So as someone who, like, I never participate in the festivities. I'm someone who I don't like to be in large crowds of people. I've never attended a gay pride parade. I am basically a nerd who likes to stay at home and smoke weed and play video games. But with that being said, is pride a necessity? Absolutely it's needed. Absolutely. Because every single day, if you are a gay person, there's some reminder that you are the other, you're icky, and a lot of gay people, myself included, like we go out of our way to censor ourselves in order to accommodate possible homophobic feelings that individuals have. Like for me, in order to avoid any bullshit or even any reaction whatsoever, sometimes I'll just censor myself and not mention my husband in the conversation just to make sure that they're, you know, they don't feel uncomfortable or that I get any response. Because really, I mean, the point that Crowder is making here about, well, why is this such a point of pride? In an ideal world, that would be the case, right? Like nobody cares that somebody is gay. I mentioned my husband and it's just, it doesn't register, right? It's just like you mentioned your wife or your partner of the opposite gender in the event you're a straight person, but that's not the world that we're living in. So this is why these identities need to be celebrated. Not because, you know, people want to flaunt, quote unquote flaunt their sexual orientation. We have to celebrate this because we live in a world where pieces of shit like you, Steven Crowder, make gay people feel so terrible about themselves that they want to commit suicide. So when we celebrate Pride Month, what we're trying to do is remind gay people that, hey, you're worth it. Your life is meaningful in spite of all the noise, in spite of people like Steven Crowder who want you to feel like shit. I mean, look at, if you go to his banner here, it's literally him advertising his t-shirt that says, socialism is for fags. He literally has the nerve to put a fucking gay slur on his shirt. But then I love how he's trying to be edgy, but at the same time he censors it. Just put fags on your shirt. Don't be a pussy. Call us faggots if that's what you want to call us because we know that that's the way you feel, you piece of shit. So call us faggots. And maybe I'm getting a little bit too ranty here, but it's just irritating, like, every single time, or almost every time, certainly, I haven't seen it this year, but whenever Pride Month starts, you see straight pride trending. And it's, it's irritating to me, you know, like, it reminds me of like the scene from the office where I don't know if you remember when Phyllis and Bob Vance were getting married and Michael Scott was trying to do everything he could to insert himself in the event. That's basically the equivalent when you invoke straight pride when gays are trying to celebrate. It's not that you shouldn't feel prideful if you're straight. It's that we don't really get that much of an opportunity to celebrate our identities without feeling uncomfortable or trying to accommodate someone who may or may not be homophobic. But every single day of the year is straight pride. You never have to worry about making somebody feel uncomfortable if you reveal that you're straight. It's just something that you don't think about. So in an ideal world, Steven Crowder, I would love for, you know, us to not have to worry about pride or feel prideful. But because of people like you, this is why we have pride parades. And this is why we celebrate pride. So gay people don't feel horrible about their identities. But that's not the world that we live in. And, you know, speaking as a gay person, like, I'm in such a privileged position compared to trans people. Like the Hodge twins, I don't know if you know them, they're other big YouTubers. They put out basically a two-minute rant just talking about how horrible and icky trans people are. So we have people like you, Steven, who traffic and hate. You monetize this hate, make money off of it. And that's why we have to go to such great lengths to celebrate pride. But even when we're supposed to be celebrating, we're still hit with these reminders that, hey, I fucking hate you if you're gay. That's what we see in these comments, you know, on the Xbox page and whatever McDonald's, whatever large multinational corporation advertisers, whenever you see it, there's always this response. And it's so irritating. And I think it's genuinely because a lot of people, they just don't know that this is why pride is needed. It's needed because we need to remind gay people that they're not the other, that they're not less than, that they're not icky, that they are human beings and their lives are meaningful. Their lives are worthwhile and they shouldn't hurt themselves. They shouldn't end their lives. They need to celebrate who they are because each individual life is absolutely a beautiful thing. The fact that we exist is a wonderful thing. We have short lives, you know, celebrate who you are because we all are, you know, we all are susceptible to hatred or whatnot, but it's targeted at specific groups and gay people and especially trans people have been targets. They've been targets. So it's just this irritated me and, you know, I went on my little rant because it's like, really? You're going to complain now about gay people who are celebrating? Can you just give them like this? Let them celebrate pride? You shit on them like all the time so you can't give them like this one fucking month to celebrate and really just like the weekend, like the kickoff weekend is the big thing. I mean, you sell t-shirts with a gay slur on it. You can't just give people who are gay like a little bit of time to celebrate after you make them feel like shit for the year. And it's funny because he goes on to play the victim. If you look at some of his other tweets here, he was basically talking about how, oh, well, you know, Vox wants to get my channel deleted. And it's because Carlos Mazza had called for him to be deplatformed. Now, I don't know that I would agree with something like that. But certainly it does irritate me that like you have someone like David Dole who puts out phenomenal content. Every video he produces is well researched. It's produced fantastically. And like there's a 50% chance that one of David Dole's videos will be demonetized. But then you have people like Steven Crowder who puts out this hateful content that makes people feel like shit. And he monetizes it. He's literally profiting off of middle school insults that he is hurling towards gay people. And this is what passes as comedy in conservative circles. This is him being edgy, selling a shirt that says socialism is for fags. Wow, that is fucking edgy. And I already know the response. You triggered? You triggered? Conservatives are such one-trick ponies. You know, they don't like to be called out on their bullshit. And then when they are, then they immediately play the victim. Like there's this conservative persecution complex, especially within the Christian community. That evangelical portion of conservatives, they love to play the victim. They love it. And another response is from Michael Knowles. This is something that Steven Crowder retweeted. He said, what do you think the queue stands for? Because somebody said, the fact that you call Steven Crowder a guy older than 12, who constantly calls a gay man, gay man queers, a prominent conservative is the perfect encapsulation of modern conservatives. A fucking joke. And yeah, he uses queer. He uses it in a very, like, demeaning way. And then Michael Knowles responds by saying, well, what do you think the queue stands for in LGBTQ? Well, it stands for queer questioning. But here's the thing, dipshit, Michael Knowles, context matters. And this is my response to that. When gay people call each other queers, it's a term of endearment. And even when straight allies refer to gay people as queers, they say queer rights or the queer community. They're not doing it to be to be hateful. But when people who hate us use the word queer as an insult, well, it's it's demeaning, right? Older gay people, I'm assuming are especially sensitive because growing up, that word was just used to hurt people, right? And for me, it was kind of 50-50. I was called a queer as a kid because I was pretty girly and effeminate. So it just depends on the context. Now I'm not here to language police anyone. I'm not here to say, hey, guys, let's ban the word queer. But all I'm saying is that everything that you say and do, actions have consequences. So you don't get to say, oh, well, you know, I'm just doing what gay people are doing when you're literally trying to get our rights undone. What progress we've made, you're trying to get that undone and you're fighting to stop further progress. So you don't get to say, oh, well, they say queer. So it's okay for me to say it and I'm definitely not an asshole who hates gay people. No, fuck you. Fuck you. You're an asshole. You're basically a middle school bully. And now Steven Crowder is trying to play the victim. Unbelievable. But this video, it's not necessarily about Steven Crowder. It's just basically me saying, look, whenever you get irritated by the fact that gay people have the audacity to feel prideful one month out of the entire fucking year, maybe just like, don't shit on them. Maybe give them a little bit of a break. Maybe refrain from talking about how irritated you are that they're quote unquote flaunting their sexuality because it's desperately needed. It's desperately needed. But Steven Crowder doesn't care. During the trans day of remembrance, he took the time to shit on trans people. So this is just a bad person and even a conservative like Blair White gets it. The point is acknowledging, celebrating freedom and the fact that even being suspected of being anything but straight is a death sentence by the government in many countries still. It's not about sexual friction. And I think you know that that's a shallow observation. And look, I think that Steven Crowder does know that he just doesn't care because his audience is probably, if I had to guess, it's largely like 12 year olds, 14 year olds. So this type of like edgy humor where you just basically make fun of someone for being gay and call them lispy queers. Like that passes as comedy, but I think he knows better. He just doesn't care and he wants gay people to feel like shit because one, he's a bad person and two, you know, he gets to monetize that and profit off of it and sell socialism is for fags. So that's my two cents. Just a little bit of a rant because this shit is, it just gets on my nerves, right? I don't like to invoke as a gay man very frequently, but you know, it's just, it's irritating to see this every fucking year that pride happens. There's always this response where straight pride is trending. Look, I don't give a fuck if you want to feel prideful that you're straight. Of course you should feel prideful about your identity. Who gives a fuck? But the point is like you're not beaten over the head with how disgusting your straight identity is, right? If you're holding hands with your wife, Steven, you're not, you're not being called a breeder by people driving down the street in their cars. Like that's not a thing. Like so being prideful is important for gay people because they're marginalized because they're under attack. And look, I'm fine. This isn't about me, but there are people who feel very vulnerable because of their identity. They're ashamed and embarrassed about the fact that they're gay and it's because of dickheads like you, Steven. So I'll leave that there because I'm just going to ramble at this point and I just wanted to throw my two cents in. This is irritating me. If you see gay people celebrating and you don't like that, just shut the fuck up for like a little bit. Give them this. Let them have this one month, baby. Don't be a dickhead. So let's talk about Michael Bennett. He is another one of the self-proclaimed moderate Democrats running for president in 2020 because we definitely need like 15 of them. But nonetheless, he's a moderate Democrat and like the rest of the moderate Democrats in this field, he's polling at 0% with the exception of Joe Biden, of course. But if you tuned into his town hall on CNN, it's going to become clear to you why he's polling at 0%, why he's failing to pick up any steam whatsoever. It's because he's dull. He isn't offering an insightful point of view. He's not really offering anything inspiring to Americans. And more importantly, a reason why he's failing is because it's clear that he's trying to actively deceive Americans. Not even kidding. He was trying to gaslight people when it comes to the issue of healthcare. So this is an individual who is a cancer survivor. So he knows personally how important healthcare is. So he talks about how, you know, he had this journey battling cancer and he got surgery like five months ago. So this is very recent and he is really thankful that he had the insurance needed to cover the cost of his surgery and do the medical screenings that actually led to him finding this cancer. So he talks about how this is a serious issue and he starts out really strong. Although towards the end of this clip, he is going to nosedive because after you diagnose the problem, then that's one thing, right? But you also need to propose a solution to the problem. But he's then going to go on to attack Medicare for all and call out Bernie Sanders by name and attack Bernie and say that he is wrong. So it starts out great and it just goes off a cliff. Senator, you were diagnosed with prostate cancer right before you announced your candidacy. How are you feeling? I'm feeling great. Thanks for asking. It's hard to believe it was about five weeks ago that I was on an operating table and maybe two months ago that I was diagnosed and I feel really good. But I got to say I feel awfully lucky that I had health insurance. This cost $93,000 and if my family hadn't been insured, it would have been a disaster for us and it would have been a real disaster for most American families. And I think about not only that, but what it would mean if you were an American citizen and you didn't have a primary care doctor who could give you a screening that would let you know you had cancer. I had no symptoms and if I hadn't had that screening, I'd be sitting here tonight and I'd be sick and I'd be, you know, at some point dying of cancer and that's what's happening to millions of Americans and it doesn't happen in any other industrialized country of the world. It only happens here and that's why we need universal healthcare in this country. I'll ask you about that because you support a public option for healthcare and you call your plan MedicareX. A number of your opponents, as you well know, support Bernie Sanders' Medicare for All Plan, which essentially eliminates private insurance. Why are they wrong? I think I might have to get up for this one. Go for it. I think you asked the question well, Dana. I think they are wrong. I think what we would be much better off doing in order to get to universal healthcare quickly is to finish the job. We started with the Affordable Care Act and have a true public option. In my case, the one that I have designed would be administered by Medicare and it would give all of you the chance to choose what's right for you or your family. If you want a public option, then you can have it. Basically it's Medicare for All if you want it. But if you want to keep the insurance you have, which many people do, you'd be able to do that as well. I don't know if you guys remember when we were passing the Affordable Care Act, the whole thing about if you like your insurance, you can keep it. That few people lost their insurance and all hell broke loose. And now Bernie is proposing that if you like your insurance, we're going to take it away from you from 180 million people who get it from their employer, 80% of whom say they like it. Every single labor union in America that's negotiated a benefits package for their workers, for their members would have to give it up under Medicare for All. I just don't think they're going to give it up. And that's why I think Bernie's wrong to propose it. I think what we should do is give the American... And if we give them a choice, it's going to be very hard to argue with the case that we're making. And I think that's essential because people in my state and people in Georgia and people all over this country don't need insurance 10 years from now or 20 years from now. They need insurance now. And we haven't been able to give it to them for the last 10 years. We can't afford to do this for another 10 years in my view. So that was something. I mean, this is one of those videos that are very difficult for me to supplement with commentary because he threw out so much things that are wrong that I'm not even sure where to begin. So first of all, we'll kind of go through some of the specifics here but let me just say there's a very specific reason why he's saying the things that he said. But we'll get to that later. So he says that I think people who support Medicare for All are wrong. Okay, he's saying this about his 2020 Democratic Party primary opponents. What we'd be able to do in order to get to universal health care more quickly is to finish the job we started with the Affordable Care Act and have a true public option. So what he's saying here is that there are numerous types of health care crises currently, right? I mean, we all know there's 25 million people who are underinsured. There are 30 to 45,000 people dying every single year. There's medical bankruptcies. 65% of all bankruptcies are due to medical bills. So he gets that there's a crisis, but he is essentially purporting that if we really want to solve this crisis the quickest way then the quickest way to get to universal health care is through a public option. Except that's not actually true and that doesn't even make sense. The quickest way to get there is with Medicare for All. It's easy and it's quick. You pass it and then four years later, once it's rolled out, we have Medicare for All. Now certainly Bernie Sanders needs to adjust his plan to match Pramila Jayapal's plan in the House of Representatives, which has a two-year rollout. But with that being said, it's easy and it's quick. So why would a public option be the quickest way to get to universal care? If you want true universal care where health care is free at the point of service the quickest way to do that is to pass the bill that would deliver that policy. So what he's saying doesn't even actually make sense because the quickest way to achieve something is to just do that directly. Now he also says that his plan would give people the choice to choose what's right for their family. I don't know if you remember when we were passing the Affordable Care Act the whole thing about if you like your insurance you can keep it. Do you remember that? And a few people lost their insurance and all hell broke loose. Well, that's your fault, not ours. And you should have known that if you were designing a right-wing health care plan if you were designing a right-wing health care plan where people will be mandated to purchase insurance on the private market that the government is subsidizing you have to understand that if you're going to impose these new regulations there were a lot of garbage health care plans that didn't actually cover people. They were underinsured and they didn't know it. So they were angry when they lost that not knowing that actually what they got in return was better health care. That's a failure on your part Michael Bennett because Democrats didn't actually communicate this. They allowed Republicans to monopolize discourse here and they didn't fight for what they believed in and they ran away from the Affordable Care Act. And on top of that he says, you know, now Bernie Sanders is proposing if you like your insurance we're going to take it away from you from the 180 million people who get it from their employers. So here we're seeing this talking point again. It's almost like there were some news pundits and Democratic Party presidential candidates who all met to say this is how we're going to frame Medicare for All. It's us taking something away from you. We're more specifically it's Bernie taking something away from you but nothing is being taken away from people and he knows this. But he's gaslighting you. He wants you to think that you're losing something with Medicare for All but in fact you're gaining something. You're gaining comprehensive health care that is free at the point of service. The only loss here is on part of the insurance companies because if they get out of the health care business, if Medicare for All makes them go extinct, that's a loss for them. It's not a loss for us. It's a huge win for us because they're ripping us off. We have to pay a monthly health insurance premium and then if we want to see a doctor, well, we've got to pay copays or if we need a particular procedure, we have to pay a deductible. I mean, it's such a rip-off. So you're telling Americans, hey, all of this hassle that you deal with every single year with enrolling in health care, don't believe your lying eyes. It's actually really great and I know that you love it. And yes, he cites polls that say people like their insurance but people like their doctor, that's what they care about. They want to keep their primary care physician if they even have that. But nobody cares about the insurance companies. Nobody's going to cry if Aetna files for bankruptcy. Nobody cares and he knows this. This is a United States senator who is smart enough to know that but he is actively lying to you and he's trying to scare you into believing that the plan that would expand health care is really something that you're losing. That doesn't make sense. He also says that people don't need insurance 10 years from now. They need it now. Okay, so pass Medicare for all and then they'll have that. Health emergencies can't wait for us to have some theoretical debate about some better idea that will never, ever come to pass. If people need health care now, which we both agree with that, then wouldn't it make sense to give everyone health care now? Because think about this, even if you have a public option, that would be a step in the right direction but the problem with the public option is that it doesn't make health care free at the point of service so people who need it, if they're homeless, if they're broke and they can't afford even a public option, what happens? They don't get it. So the quickest way is not to do a public option. Objectively speaking, the quickest way to get to universal coverage is with Medicare for all. Universal in the sense that it's free at the point of service which is the true sense of universal care. And another problem with the public option even if it's better than the status quo is that when you live in a capitalist system and these health insurance companies see that they now have to compete with the government run plan, what's going to happen? They're going to bribe lawmakers to water that plan down to punch holes in the public option plan so they can end up doing some type of public option plus plan that they offer. And we know that in the event something like this would happen if there's any gaps in the public option that's offered by the government well these health insurance companies would lobby them to not close those gaps so that way you'd essentially be required to get supplemental care and when you're doing something like if you're rolling out a public option there's bound to be some hiccups, right? There's going to be some gaps. There's going to be some unforeseen things that will need addressing when you leave the for-profit health insurance companies in place well they're going to attack that system. So 10 years down the line we get a public option you're going to almost certainly need a public option plus supplemental care like Medicare is one of the most popular or maybe it's the most I think popular public program in America but people still many of them on Medicare buy supplemental care. Now they talk about that like John Delaney talks about that as if it's a benefit like oh people like the supplemental care well no wouldn't it make more sense to close the gaps so they don't have to pay for supplemental care? See this is what happens when you try to do this tap dance and you try to craft a policy deliberately because you want to make sure that you save the health insurance companies and furthermore people get their insurance through their employers and he basically talked about this as if it was a good thing but that creates instability. You said it yourself Michael people can't wait 10 years for health care they need it now so what happens if the insurance that's tied to your job what if you lose that if you become unemployed what if your job gets shipped overseas and you lose that? What if you are a full-time worker but you get pushed to part-time you get relegated to a part-time job and you lose that benefit what then? So everything that he claims he wants he's proposing a policy that doesn't actually deliver that in a way that is as effective as Medicare for All and the things that he claims he wants while he's railing against the one policy that would solve the problems he claims to care about but the thing about Michael Bennett is that I don't believe a single thing that he says because he is a liar and he's a shill now let's go back to the beginning of the clip remember when he said this about if he didn't have insurance this cost $93,000 and if my family hadn't been insured it would have been a disaster for us so that makes sense you know a $93,000 surgery would be a disaster if you don't have health insurance you might just have to forego it altogether so he said that would be a disaster if I didn't have insurance would it though? because Michael Bennett's net worth is over $16 million he's the 16th richest senator in the country so even if he didn't have insurance he would have been fine so he doesn't have this insecurity that other Americans have so what he's really communicating to you here is that if you can't afford insurance and you're in a similar position that I was in too bad I know that I never have to worry about being vulnerable if I need a particular medical procedure because I am a multi-millionaire but you well if you can't afford even a public option too bad I don't believe healthcare should be free at the point of service and I'm going to attack people like Bernie Sanders and other presidential candidates who are advocating for that that's essentially what he is communicating to you now why is he doing this? why is he being so hostile towards Medicare for All if he knows first hand the importance of being able to get healthcare it's because he's a shill and I'm not using that word as an ad hominem I'm using it in the literal sense he sold out when you look at his 2018 campaign contributors he took thousands of dollars of PAC money from Goldman Sachs Citigroup, JP Morgan Chase and these are all big banks that invest heavily in the healthcare industry in fact one of his donors Goldman Sachs actually asked whether or not curing patients is a sustainable business model and it's not like he's only indirectly taking money from companies that are tied to the health insurance industry because he's taken hundreds of thousands of dollars in PAC money from health professionals the pharmaceutical industry, insurance companies, hospitals so he's quite literally a sell out and yet on national television he's trying to convince you that Bernie giving everyone healthcare is you losing something it's you getting something taken away from you that's what he is trying to convince you of he's gaslighting you, he's logging to you one of his donors literally questioned if curing patients is a sustainable business model and he took their money I mean you would think that as someone with personal experience when it comes to the necessity of healthcare he'd have a little bit more empathy for humans but no, he's attacking Bernie Sanders and the one policy that would once and for all put an end to medical bankruptcies and put an end to people dying because they don't have healthcare well Michael if you wonder why you're polling at 0% this is why because we see right through you how's your Spanish? uh... no muy bueno Bernie Sanders recently appeared on Telemundo and everything that he said during this interview with regard to electability and the correct electoral strategy needed to defeat Donald Trump we've all been saying in independent media for years now so it feels really good to be to feel validated that he actually hears our concerns or maybe he just thinks in a similar way because these are common sense things, right? I mean if you want to win obviously you don't try to win over moderate Republicans you try to excite your own base you've got to win them over first you appeal to independence and voters who don't often vote you galvanize young voters so I mean these are things that if you are a Democratic Party strategist then you should know this like the back of your hand but the fact that only a fraction of people are saying it it's a little bit worrying because it tells me that if we nominate someone who is not Bernie Sanders or Progressive that they may not necessarily know the correct strategy to beat Donald Trump and hey guess what if he gets four more years that means that Republicans control the Supreme Court possibly for decades longer because he will almost certainly appoint another one or two Supreme Court justices so we can't mess this up we have to get someone as the nominee who will know how to win who's electable and that person is Bernie Sanders and he demonstrated that I think very clearly in this interview President Donald Trump has called many Democrats radicals and socialists and many believe that for the Democrats to go back into the White House they need to nominate a much more moderate candidate what do you say to that? They're wrong we tried that in 2016 it didn't quite work that's why we got Donald Trump I think we need a candidate who can clearly defeat Trump and all of the polling out there has to be defeating Trump especially in battleground states like Wisconsin Michigan, Pennsylvania and others we're doing very well against Trump what you need to do to defeat Trump are two things number one you have to energize what I call the Democratic base and that is the African-American community the Latino community the young people of this country who are overwhelmingly progressive you need to get them excited and energized I think our ideas can do that second thing you have to do is go into those states where Trump was strong and he won and explained to Trump's supporters that he lied to them that he's just tried to throw 32 million people off of health insurance that is not supporting working class people that was the perfect answer because we keep hearing this from moderate Democrats who are running for president look if you're a socialist you're gonna lose to Donald Trump someone like me John Delaney or Michael Bennett who's a grown up who's a moderate who's gonna tell voters what they can't have rather than what we can possibly achieve that's not gonna work Bernie's response was absolutely perfect we tried that before and it's not like we tried this in 1994 or 1996 whenever the presidential election was back then I think it was 1996 it's not like we tried this back in 1972 we tried this in 2016 and it didn't work out too well because the reason why we got Donald Trump in the first place is because there were a number of conditions that facilitated his rise I mean Democrats they were just doing status quo keeping neoliberal nonsense and it wasn't addressing all of the concerns that people had so they were desperate and what happened well that desperation led to radicalization as it usually does and now we have Donald Trump and they think that oh we just need someone who acts like a grown up who's a moderate that's how we defeat him no that's not what you have to do you need to be unapologetically progressive now more than ever because that's how you excite your own base and you need them to win that's how you excite millennials who are one of the largest voting blocks if not the largest voting block depending on if we actually turn out which is highly contingent on who runs who's the nominee it's gotta be someone progressive otherwise I think our chances are very slim of winning back the White House now additionally he said look we've tried that before and also polling has me defeating Donald Trump when you look at these swing states the rest belt where Donald Trump was successful where Hillary Clinton lost Bernie is polling higher than Donald Trump so I think it's likely that Bernie would probably win the popular vote as did Hillary Clinton but what we really need is him to win the right states we need him to have a strategy that will allow him to win both the popular vote and the electoral college and when you look at polling early polling but polling nonetheless he's outperforming Donald Trump in Pennsylvania Wisconsin in these states that are crucial to want to be Trump Bernie Sanders then lays out the exact strategy needed to take back the White House one you energize the base yes this should be common sense but not many people get that surprisingly he then says you go into states where Trump was strong and you explain how he lied and you can kind of already get a snapshot as to how Bernie Sanders strategy will work because he's posting these ads from states like I think Wisconsin this is what Donald Trump promised how has that been working out for you when he talks to real people who acknowledge look we were duped we were lied to by Donald Trump that's the exact strategy you need to win but yet there's a lot of people who are opting for Joe Biden simply because they think he is more electable you voted for someone in 2016 that you thought was more electable didn't pan out that way maybe just vote for someone who excites people or vote for someone who you genuinely believe in because maybe it will also be the case that other people think the same way so I want to get to another video so he was asked what I think is a ridiculous question I don't necessarily know that the interviewer believed this maybe he was playing devil's advocate but nonetheless it's an absolutely preposterous notion but Bernie Sanders swats it away and he says something that we've all been saying he would have won against Donald Trump in 2016 that's Wall Street and the drug companies and the insurance companies we're taking them on so a lot of people will say a lot of things last that I heard in a Democratic society one is allowed to run for office that we don't anoint people I suppose there are some folks out there who say let's anoint Joe Biden why do we have 24 candidates I don't agree with that so I'm proud by the way that my campaign brought in a whole lot of young people who transformed this country politically including a lot of Latino youth so Bernie's answer was really good I'm just I'm sick of having to entertain this idea that Bernie Sanders of all people is responsible for Donald Trump's victory that is absurd it's so stupid so we need to move past this notion that Hillary Clinton and the Democratic Party wasn't at fault themselves and we need to acknowledge that they lost because they sucked because they demonstrated that they were out of touch so to even speculate about whether or not Bernie Sanders had anything to do with Hillary Clinton's defeat after he campaigned for her and to assume or assert rather that he divided the party like it's just downright offensive like you're saying something that's undemocratic do you believe in democracy or do you not well then you need to live by democracy or not just say you're against democracy if you believe that Bernie Sanders divided the party by running against Hillary Clinton it's absurd and I think that Bernie Sanders had the perfect answer look the only way I feel responsible is because I didn't win myself if I would have won the nomination I would have become president and he's right now last clip that I'm gonna show you he was asked why he thinks what he's saying is resonating with millennials who again, Democrats really need to energize if they want to win and why do you think that young people feel so identified with you because clearly I'm a very young person what other answer is that no I think two reasons young people today the younger generation in this country is the most progressive generation in the history of this country they're anti-racist anti-sexist anti-homophobic anti-religious bigotry they are concerned about climate change so it's an idealistic generation and I think we speak for that second answer is everything being equal unless we change it and I intend to change it the younger generation will have for the first time in modern American history a lower standard of living than their parents and why is that for the richest country on earth for all this technology, all this computers all this robotics, why are kids looking to have a lower standard of living than their parents and we speak for that we say if you have the ability and desire you should be able to get a public education you should be able to go to a public university or college tuition free, we're going to forgive student debt we say that healthcare is a human right we're going to have Medicare for all we say that climate change is real we're going to transform our energy system that if you are able to work in the United States we are going to guarantee you a decent paying job those are ideas that younger people gravitate to it really is that simple he's talking about the issues that we care about and more importantly we believe him Bernie Sanders says he wants to tackle climate change not because he thinks he will win him votes, not because that's the politically expedient position to take if you are running to be the presidential nominee of the Democratic party I believe him when he says that I do, so he comes across as authentic and believable because he practices what he preaches he doesn't take PAC money so when he says that he supports Medicare for all I believe him when Michael Bennett for example says that he doesn't support Medicare for all because he thinks that it's bad policy I don't believe him I think he's saying that because he takes money from health insurance companies so there's a credibility gap that's missing with other Democratic party presidential contenders and millennials see it we really need someone who will actually fight for us Bernie has a phenomenal record and he's talking about the policies that we care about that's why we support him that was a really interesting interview I'm going to link you to the full thing he also talked about immigration and what not but I didn't cover that because Bernie Sanders already largely said the same thing in other interviews but what he said here about his strategy in the event he's the nominee and us needing to energize the base and how he would have beaten Donald Trump if he were the nominee in 2016 great stuff I knew that he thought this it's just nice to really hear him say it finally we're back in 2017 after Trump and the Republican party passed their tax cuts and there were all of these companies like Home Depot and what not all giving their employees $1,000 bonuses and then 2018 rolls around and they're not giving their employees any bonuses why do you think that's the case why would they give their employees bonuses and say that this is specifically because of Trump's tax cuts before it even got implemented and why would they not do the same thing once it actually is law and once it became implemented well there's one very specific reason for that it's because that was nothing more than corporate PR they were trying to dupe you into believing that them getting more money it's somehow good for you because hey turns out they want more money but their one goal is to get more and more money so it's in their interest to convince you that them getting bigger tax cuts will also benefit you and trickle down to you turns out that hasn't happened so it's not just that like when you look at it from the perspective of the optics it's bad optics but in practice what did Donald Trump's tax cuts end up achieving what we said it would achieve it gave tax cuts to the rich and poor people got dicked so as jonathan shape of the new york intelligence or writes the biggest effect of the trump tax cuts is obvious people who own businesses and other sources of concentrated wealth will have a lot more money and the federal budget will have less but the advocates of the tax cuts insisted it wasn't about letting the makers keep their hard earned money rather than handing it over to the takers it was about incentivizing business to repatriate funds and ramp up its investments thereby increasing growth and wages the congressional research service a kind of in-house think tank for congress has a new paper analyzing the effects of the trump tax cuts it finds that none of those secondary benefits have materialized shocker growth has not increased above the pre tax cut trend neither have wages after a brief and much smaller than expected bump repatriated corporate cash from abroad has leveled off it's of course possible that the growth in wages would take longer than the year or so that has passed since the tax cut to show up if the trump tax cut had encouraged new business investment it might take years for the new investment to bear fruit but the study looks directly at business investment and finds nothing now as you can see from this chart here not much has changed so what Donald trump claimed would happen did not actually happen now chate continues supporters of the trump tax cuts insisted not only that they would promote growth but that they would promote so much growth the measure would pay for itself even moderates like susan collins repeated assurances by the parties pseudo economists the plan would not increase the deficit so far the growth feedback from the tax cuts has made up about 5% of the plans revenue loss a mere 95% shy of the predictions the passage of the plan was met with a coordinated wave of corporate public relations announcements of worker bonuses but the paper finds no widespread increase in bonuses or worker compensation no shit well I for one am completely shocked I mean I know that we already saw that trickle down economics doesn't actually work and that the money and the wealth never trickles down to the working glass but you know I just thought this one last time if we tried it maybe things would go different turns out I was wrong I mean who believes this who believes this I know that the Donald Trump Kool-Aid drinkers the MAGA chuds just the core base they believe this right Donald Trump can fart and claim that it's poetry and they would accept that but you have to have common sense you have to see that after the Reagan Revolution when both parties essentially embraced trickle down economics to an extent the wealth hasn't been trickling down income and wealth inequality is as bad as it's been since the fucking gilded ages what more has to happen in order to demonstrate that trickle down economics doesn't work if Trump truly cared about workers which is why he claimed we needed to give their bosses the tax cuts then he would have just put that money directly in their hands why do you have to funnel that money down through businesses if you truly care about workers then give them a tax cut he had to make sure that the business class and the wealthy they all got a tax cut because trust me they're gonna share that wealth no they don't share the wealth they never do that they give their CEOs bonuses they invest that in stock buy backs which should be illegal and this is what happens I mean we've seen it time and again how many more times does it have to happen until people see oh this is clearly the rich trying to dupe us but I mean they don't get it if you want to know what is going to empower workers it's Bernie Sanders new plan that would allow for worker owned co-ops putting workers in direct control to an extent of these businesses so they actually have a say so you're democratizing the workforce to an extent that's something that would actually benefit workers not these trickle down tax cuts that never trickle down so I couldn't not talk about this because how many times did I tell you guys this back in 2017 and early 2018 this corporate PR would be fooled by it they're giving their workers these one time thousand dollar bonuses but they're not going to do it next year and they didn't they didn't they were just trying to sell you on Donald Trump's tax cuts because it benefited them and they really really wanted you to think that them getting more tax cuts is great for you no if you are against taxes then ask yourself this why didn't Donald Trump give me as a working class American more tax breaks why did he give them the lion's share of the tax benefits ask yourself that right you got a couple of things he doubled the standard deduction but the overwhelming majority of those tax cuts went to the top I had to say I told you so if you didn't believe me but this is the way politics works if there's a policy that's being proposed history is usually going to be the best indicator as to what will happen when it's rolled out again if it didn't work before odds are not gonna work again triggerdown economics has not and will not ever work period so a little bit of a forewarning before I start talking here if you are in a good mood currently click out of the video don't watch it because this is definitely going to spoil your mood but if you're just kind of already feeling meh then stick around this is very very important news so let's talk about climate change and how the situation looks even more grim than we had previously expected because back in 2018 we all kind of had this wake up call when we saw that the IPCC gave us 12 years to act in order to avert catastrophic levels of climate change now predictably right wingers accused them of being too alarmist well it turns out there's a new study that purports that actually the IPCC wasn't being too alarmist they were actually being too conservative if we don't take massive action it's highly likely that humans go extinct by 2050 2050 I think when a lot of people talked about the prospect of human beings going extinct in the event the planet became uninhabitable you know we always pictured 2100 2150 and that's even if human beings were to go extinct because you know climate change isn't necessarily a death sentence for human beings per se it is for a lot of species but maybe human beings can figure out some way to still survive after climate change just destroys our environment but what this new study shows based on a model is that it's highly likely that we could go extinct by 2050 alright so let's dig into this as Nafiz Ahmad of Vice reports the analysis published by the Breakthrough National Center for Climate Restoration a think tank in Melbourne, Australia describes climate change as a near to midterm existential threat to human civilization and sets out a plausible scenario of where business as usual could lead over the next 30 years the paper argues that the potentially extremely serious outcomes of climate related security threats are often far more probable than conventionally assumed but almost impossible to quantify because they fall outside the human experience of the last thousand years on our current trajectory the report warns planetary and human systems are reaching a point of no return by mid century in which the prospect of a largely uninhabitable earth leads to the breakdown of nations and the international order the only way to avoid the risks of this scenario is what the report describes as a kin in scale to the world war two emergency mobilization but this time focused on rapidly building out a zero emissions industrial system to set in train the restoration of a safe climate the scenario warns that our current trajectory will likely lock in at least three degrees Celsius of global heating which in turn could trigger further amplifying feedback unleashing further warming this would drive the accelerating collapse of key ecosystems including coral reef systems the amazon rainforest and in the arctic the results would be devastating some one billion people would be forced to attempt to relocate from unlivable conditions and two billion would face scarcity of water supplies agriculture would collapse in the subtropics and food production would suffer dramatically worldwide the internal cohesion of nation states like the united states and china would unravel wow that is a lot to take in so just take a moment let it marinate and we'll kind of talk about some of these implications because I think that what this is saying here in that you know they're trying to post climate catastrophe because what other reports like the IPCC say is that look if we don't prevent a two degree Celsius increase in global temperatures that will lead to climate catastrophe but they stop there right but to be clear what this study is doing is it is taking this a step further they crafted a model that would happen after climate catastrophe happens how would that impact governments how would that impact international stability and because there would be so many swift changes governments wouldn't be able to adapt there'd be mass hysteria mass chaos and that's why they're saying their prediction is a lot more grim than the others now let me just be one thing they're not purporting that human extinction is a certainty by 2050 but what they are saying here is in their scenario that they constructed based on current projections and what they can't anticipate well if we take into account a plausible worst case scenario something that could possibly come to fruition then this is what could happen it could lead to extinction in the near to midterm so let's just be extra clear here this is not saying the world's ending and we have 30 years or 31 years you know so do what you can now this is not what that is saying okay this is based on a model and we haven't really heard from other scientists because usually when these types of studies come out I like to hear from the rest of the scientific community so we can you know just kind of gauge how accurate they think this is looking at the methodology and whatnot but I mean is this believable yeah I think it's believable this is no longer of future generations this is now going to affect us like when we're older in a very serious way because even if the worst case scenario doesn't come to fruition well what if you know extinction of human beings happens in the mid range we're still going to in the midterm range we're still going to see civilization unfold in a really disgusting apocalyptic way and you know if countries can't adapt then of course they're not going to know how to deal with mass migration they're not going to know how to deal with political instability on global levels it's just going to be pure fucking chaos so I still haven't really processed this study again I want to hear from other scientists about the plausibility of this model because I can't assess this model and say that this is incredibly accurate right like the IPCC what they say generally speaking you can accept because these are global scientists that are coming together and they're producing these studies but this is you know one study and it's just one thing to consider but basically the takeaway and the reason why I'm sharing this with you is because once again I think it needs to be made very clear that we have to get our shit together there's nothing else I can say about this we need to get our shit together otherwise we are totally fucked not just as a planet but as a species we're the dinosaurs right now but the difference is we see an asteroid zooming across the sky but we actually know that it's coming and we have the capability to take action and stop it it's just a matter of will we or won't we we're playing chicken with the apocalypse and that's a game that I don't want to play hello everyone I'm here with Ron Placon net neutrality activist and friend of the show how's it going Ron good Mike how are you man I'm doing well man so you are here to talk about the next big event concerning net neutrality because as many people know the fight is still going on it's an ongoing process it's a legal battle but Ron is teaming up with fight for the future which is a pro net neutrality organization and they are planning another day of action so Ron let me hand this off to you and let everyone know what this is about yes so on June 11th it will mark one year since the FCC repealed net neutrality the trump FCC repealed net neutrality which as I know pretty much all your viewers and listeners know net neutrality is what assures we have a free and open internet without it the internet will not look it will be an unrecognizable internet that's the potential if we lose net neutrality so since that time as you indicated we've been fighting very hard there have been state bills there have been attempts to get congress to overturn what the FCC did there's been a growth of municipal broadband there's been all kinds of fights going on here one of those fights was to save the internet bill that bill was just a three page bill I know you covered it a lot on the humanist report I covered it on get your news on with Ron and that bill basically said hey those net neutrality that repeal of net neutrality we're nixing that we're going back to what we had we're getting that neutrality back it was a three page bill it was very simple it passed the house but then Mitch McConnell promised that it's dead on arrival in the Senate so unfortunately what we've seen now is that some of the Democrats have kind of withered a little bit and they're saying well we're willing to compromise on this and again as we both know there have been some quote-unquote compromise net neutrality bills that Republicans have proposed that don't give us net neutrality at all we don't have title to protection we don't have net neutrality it's that simple so fight for the future is organizing an epic live stream on June 11th to let the FCC and congress know that we the people demand net neutrality net neutrality has over 80% support amidst citizens it is extremely popular all across the political aisle and it's essential to the free and open internet that has become an essential tool in our lives so we're going to be streaming and you can tune into that stream at epiclivestream.com the URL is real easy it's just epiclivestream.com there's going to be guests throughout the day I'm going to be there Mike I'm hoping you're going to be able to make some appearances and it's going to be a really cool time fight for the future does amazing work I'm I'm honored to be collaborating with them on this project we've been really going full speed ahead trying to build up as much momentum for this as we can we've been flooding reddit, twitter, facebook we've been contacting people to get involved we've been you know I've been recording segments on this everywhere that'll have me I've been calling out every favor I can from every content creator I know yourself included and we really just want to make this an amazing thing so epiclivestream.com for the day of action for net neutrality and if you don't mind I also got to mention I'll be in Washington DC that day and we're still working out the details on this but it looks like we might be giving a petition to Mitch McConnell's office that will have signatures and so forth of people demanding that neutrality so it looks like we're going to try to do that we're going to try to live stream that event as part of the live stream on June 11th and the reason I'm going to be in DC is because we have the east coast leg of the progressive comedy tour right after June 11th June 12th we'll be doing DC June 13th Baltimore June 14th 15th Philly June 16th we're in New Haven Connecticut June 17th New York City and June 19th Boston Massachusetts tickets for all those shows are available at romplacone.com come hang out with me because it's really cool to work on this campaign it's been it's been a long haul and it'll be fun once it's all over to just hit the road for a little bit so come grab some tickets all you out on the east coast romplacone.com and epiclivestream.com on June 11th on the internet be there and you can go there now to submit your comments to be read during the stream well that's that's a lot you are all over the country so I commend you for doing that because getting me to leave my house to go to the grocery store is a lot so the fact that you're doing this is phenomenal and if you actually got footage of you delivering a petition to Mitch McConnell I'm assuming one of his aides that would be amazing because really he's the one obstacle like in the event this was voted on if the Save the Internet Act was voted on in the senate in the event a vote were allowed what do you think the chances would be of that passing I think there's a chance I don't think it's a very high chance and I don't think there's like a very high chance of Trump signing it either but what that would give you is it would really give leverage heading into 2020 it's incredibly unpopular to go against net neutrality on both sides on the left and the right to go against net neutrality so this is something that you know the Democrats could I we can't guarantee they will but they could you know really bank on and really make it a big platform point the only candidate who has spoken about universal broadband across the country thus far to my knowledge has been Bernie Sanders Bernie Sanders talked about it a little bit in Iowa he actually brought up a lot of kind of key issues that often get overlooked because of everything that's going on right now but there's still some very important key issues he talked about getting back to local farming which I think is a huge issue in our country that often goes on you know not talked about but it would solve a lot of other problems too as far as food deserts and stuff like that and he brought up the idea of universal broadband across the country which of course would be the ultimate way to preserve a free and open internet and you know the way I look at it and we've had this conversation Mike if we don't have a solid communication platform which today is the internet that's what we rely on how can we get anything else done you know if we're just basically just tethered to the corporate media think of all the information and all the ideas and all the perspectives that would just knock it out there we wouldn't have had a clue what was going on at DApple we wouldn't have had a clue what was going on with Black Lives Matter we wouldn't have had a clue what was going on with any teacher strike anywhere you know it's the bloggest fair and it's citizen journalism that gives us access to all this stuff so without a free and open internet we're screwed the idea of any type of positive change it is that much harder to me I've been saying that the internet now has become so ingrained in our lives that it is inextricably linked to democracy itself so it's crucial and you've got to maintain openness 100% you know know if ands or buts so the way that I kind of view this and you can kind of add to this is that Mitch McConnell is kind of protecting Republicans and even some Democrats arguably who don't want to put their name on that new trial because there's a lot of people being bankrolled by the industry Comcast Donates AT&T Verizon Donates so if they can kind of not vote then they shield themselves in a way is that kind of what you see or is Mitch McConnell just being a douche and blocking everything like he usually does because I think this is a little bit more tactical hey those are my if those are my only two choices I'm going to go with both yeah yeah but no I mean no you make an excellent point and that's very very true of course now that's not to say he isn't also just a douche I feel like I feel like you nailed it on both of those but Lucy agrees yeah she likes you man she's just chilling here Lucy and I go way back Lucy do you have anything to add to the conversation no she's just chilling she wants a free and open internet but yeah like I think that is very true because yeah it would have a long hurdle to overcome in the Senate and it would certainly not be likely to get a signature from Trump but it would then give leverage you know for pro-net neutrality which there are a couple pro-net neutrality Republicans out there even there aren't many but there are a couple so you know it would kind of have a good amount of political leverage going into 2020 and if we can hold the line until 2020 hopefully something positive happens and then we're able to get solid net neutrality on the books so you know we have everything to gain by having this day of action and telling we the people of the internet telling Congress telling the FCC we demand net neutrality we're not going to settle for less we're going to be able to pull the wool over our eyes the way you were with the telecom act in 1996 we're awake and we're not going to back down the reason why I say that it's because everyone wants you to think that they support net neutrality like even Marshall Blackburn I'm sure everyone remembers she proposed like the shell net neutrality bill that actually was anti-net neutrality but everybody wants you to think that they support net neutrality but if they don't support the Save the Internet Act they don't think they want to show their cards just yet so one more time before you go Ron tell us where to find the live stream and let people know how they can help spread the word EpicLiveStream.com that is the URL for the live stream it's just EpicLiveStream.com June 11th is the day of action it's going to start around 8 in the morning eastern time and go all day how you can help please do share that URL spread that URL you can go to that URL now and submit comments if you want them to be read if you want to participate in the stream itself there's an email where you can do that as well and yeah that's happening on June 11th EpicLiveStream.com I'll be on the east coast right after that for the Progressive Comedy Tour romplacone.com for those tickets and yeah as Fight for the Future likes to say it's up to us to keep the internet weird and that's what we're going to do absolutely and look it's important that we make a lot of noise because I mean with any political issue the momentum kind of tends to die down after a while currently we're in this stage in the net neutrality fight where we can't really do too much right it's it's happening legally we're pressuring lawmakers and whatnot but if we still make noise as individuals and let people know let lawmakers know in particular that we still care deeply about net neutrality then I think that this benefits all of us so June 11th I'll be there and yeah I'm definitely looking forward to this kudos to Fight for the Future they have been on it ever since this issue became an issue and I really appreciate everything that they're doing yeah me too they do some great work and it's been a privilege to work with them and yeah EpicLiveStream.com Mike and myself will see y'all on June 11th be there be there or I'm going to be very disappointed in you don't disappoint me so McDonald's recently announced that they would no longer be lobbying the government to not raise the minimum wage Amazon recently announced thanks to Bernie that they would be raising their workers wages to $15 per hour and Disney did the same thing and Bernie Sanders has been going after these large greedy corporations one by one putting pressure on them and guess what it's working and as you all know his latest target has been Walmart and he's calling them out for the way that they are exploiting their workers and what he did was he decided to crash their latest shareholders meeting here's what happened he blasted their greed as well as the starvation wages that they are paying their employees and he did this to their faces and it was absolutely amazing let's watch next we'll consider the proposal mentioned in the other matters section of the proxy statement it was submitted by Ms. Carolyn Davis Senator Bernie Sanders will present this proposal on behalf of Ms. Davis Senator Sanders you have three minutes thank you Madam Chair and let me thank Walmart employee Kat Davis for introducing this resolution and it states and I quote resolved shareholders of Walmart urged the board to adopt the policy of promoting significant representation of employee perspectives among corporate decision makers by requiring that the initial list of candidates from which new nominees by the nominating Governance Committee include hourly associates the policy should provide that any third party consultant ask the furnish and initial list will be requested to include such candidates end of quote end of resolution Madam Chair the issue that we are dealing with today is pretty simple Walmart is the largest private employer in America and is owned by the Walton family the wealthiest family in the United States worth approximately $175 billion and yet despite the incredible wealth of its owner Walmart pays many of its employees starvation wages wages that are so low that many of these employees are forced to rely on government programs like food stamps, Medicaid and public housing in order to survive frankly the American people are sick and tired of subsidizing the greed of some of the largest and most profitable corporations in this country they are also outraged by the grotesque level of income and wealth inequality in America as demonstrated by the CEO of Walmart making a thousand times more than the average Walmart employee last year Walmart made nearly $10 billion in profit it paid its CEO over $20 million in compensation and it has authorized $20 billion in stock buybacks which will benefit its wealthiest stockholders surely with all of that Walmart can afford to pay its employees a living wage of at least $15 an hour and that is not a radical idea because many of Walmart's major competitors like Amazon Costco and Target have already moved in that direction further Walmart should give a voice to its workers by allowing them seats on the board of directors the concerns of workers not just stockholders should be part of board decisions today with the passage of this resolution Walmart can strike a blow against corporate greed and a grotesque level of income and wealth inequality that exists in our country please do the right thing please pass this resolution thank you very much thank you Senator Sanders for your presentation and for your viewpoint while we don't support this particular proposal the importance of listening to and investing in our associates was reflected in Doug's remarks and you'll hear more about it later in the meeting that was absolutely fantastic and the way that he called out their greed like my thought was this is really awkward because the things that he said there I mean he's right you have their CEO who's at that meeting making a thousand times more than their employees but yet they have to live these starvation wages that doesn't sound fair to me and when they made 10 billion they didn't use that money to help out their employees what do they do they spent what was it 20 million in stock buybacks so they are a greedy corporation the CEO should be absolutely ashamed of themselves they shouldn't need someone like Bernie Sanders to tell them this to infiltrate their own shareholder meeting and tell them this but these people have no shame they're so openly greedy that they don't care about the optics they don't care how it looks and Bernie Sanders also said that what it should do is give its workers a voice allow them to be on the board of directors and that will allow their workers to voice their concerns so that way Walmart CEOs and executives aren't just listening to what shareholders say they're listening to their employees and you've got to give Bernie credit he doesn't stop he's constantly advocating for workers and you can't just say he's doing this because he's running for president he never stopped doing this he's always been doing this he joins striking workers he's been advocating for unions and he just cares and think about all of these changes with Amazon and Disney they're happening in spite of congress' refusal to act they're happening because Bernie Sanders and guess what remember how awkward I told you I thought it probably felt well, it's clear that Bernie Sanders did have an influence on Walmart CEO because according to an Nathaniel Mayer son of CNN Walmart CEO Doug McMillan thinks the federal minimum wage is too low now the head of the country's largest private employer is calling on congress to raise it beyond $7.25 an hour the federal minimum wage is lagging behind Doug McMillan said at Walmart's annual shareholder meeting in Bentonville, Arkansas on Wednesday McMillan said it's time for congress to put a thoughtful plan in place to increase wages it was the first time he has pushed congress to raise pay nationwide according to the company so in other words what he was saying is Bernie please get off our backs I agree with you I concede just turn your attention to Taco Bell or something now what he said there was so tone deaf even though he's trying to concede to Bernie Sanders in a way it was still tone deaf because he's saying well you know he actually boasted about how Walmart pays some people in certain markets $11 per hour in order to recruit and retain talent but one that's not enough and two if you think that congress should raise the federal minimum wage you do realize that as the CEO of Walmart you can just do that unilaterally right you don't have to tell congress hey force me to raise wages you can just raise the wages yourself like you know that right these companies are so full of shit they're so full of shit and they will do whatever to save face but people see through it the workers at Walmart know that they're being taken advantage of because if you're working you'll have to get Medicaid and food stamps the wages of that company are being subsidized by the taxpayer it's corporate welfare so overall I really don't have much to add to this Bernie Sanders this was great to see him at this shareholder meeting and to just see that stone faced response after he said all of that that was um that was glorious so it seems like maybe kinda sorta Joe Biden's dominance is starting to slide hopefully it starts sliding rapidly maybe the debates will you know help shed light on the conservative that he is a lot of people who support Joe Biden they're supporting him one because I think there is a generational gap within the Democratic Party base older people like Biden younger people like Bernie but two a lot of people support Biden because they believe he's just more electable against Donald Trump so if you really want to make an appeal to those people you've got to let them know that they are plaguing with fire and my hopes was that Bernie would scream this at the top of his lungs listen if you care about electability are we really going to put up someone who's similar to the conservative we put up in 2016 are we gonna do the same thing again try out another centrist Democrat who won't energize anyone who won't excite new voters to come out and vote and who will probably lose to Donald Trump are we really going to do that again so I've been desperate to hear Bernie make this case and make it passionately and make it loudly and he needs the name drop Joe Biden he's kind of been dancing around it in a way by saying look we need someone who can excite the base but he needs to be very clear in saying Joe Biden is not more accountable contrary to popular belief Joe Biden is another Hillary Clinton and you risk losing to Trump if you nominate another centrist so he finally really said this if the Democratic Party selects Joe Biden as its nominee would it be making the same mistake that it did in picking Hillary Clinton who lost to Donald Trump I fear that it could be I really do I fear that you would have a campaign without a lot of energy without a lot of excitement Trump yeah I think he could I'm not saying that he can't but I think you know we don't want to make the same mistake that we made last time and sometimes this is where the establishment talks to itself I think that what the American people want right now is not only defeating Donald Trump they want a candidate to speak to the pain that millions of people are feeling right now and to get those people involved in the political process to stand up and fight back so that we can improve the lives of all people in this country Naomi Klein once said on The Young Turks if we just get rid of Trump we'll be back to a situation that was so bad it created Trump she's exactly right that's exactly the point and that is look we all want to beat the worst president in American history no ifs, buts, and maybes about it and I will support if I lose this thing I will be there doing everything I can to defeat Trump but you want to address the reasons why Trump got elected in the first place that is because for too long the democratic establishment has ignored the needs of working people all over this country people work longer hours for low wages 40 million people living in poverty the only major country not to guarantee healthcare to all people is right a vigorous effort to combat climate change dealing with criminal justice reform immigration reform those are issues that are not only the major issues facing this country income and wealth inequality how do you not talk about that we have got to talk about that because it's the right thing to do and it's the way you win an election so that was such a good question that jen uger asked if I were able to ever get Bernie on my show and that hadn't already been asked I would have asked that question because what Bernie sander said there he needs to repeat that over and over and over again people want a candidate that can speak to the pain that millions of people are feeling now and we need to address the reasons that got us to Trump in the first place if Bernie Sanders started talking very loudly about this I think that could potentially draw in some of the people who are voting primarily on the basis of electability and a quote from jen can this is he says Naomi Klein once said if we just got rid of Trump will be back to a situation that was so bad it created Trump that was so poignant because he's got to make this case look going back to the pre Trump era that's not going to give anyone economic stability it's not going to make the country better because if you don't take care of these underlying conditions that facilitated the rise of a demagogue like Donald Trump we're going to get another demagogue like Donald Trump one thing though that Bernie said that was wrong as he said we all want to beat the worst president in American history now I get why he would say this because Trump could be his potential opponent but just objectively speaking Trump is not the worst president in American history we just had George Bush George Bush is measurably worse than Donald Trump in a plethora of ways but with that being said if I'm Bernie what I call Trump the worst president in American history I probably would just for the sake of being strategic because there are a lot of anti-Trump Democrats who will just vote on the basis of being anti-Trump so I think that it is important to to point that out now another question that he was asked along those lines is you know what happens if Democrats do what they did to you again if we see another 2016 because they're already trying it you know you see these stop Sanders Democrats you see them holding private meetings Nancy Pelosi Chuck Schumer and your attendant Terry McCullough Pete Buttigieg and they're trying to figure out what to do about Bernie Sanders so here's what he had to say about that now you mentioned there that if you don't win the primary you'll support whoever the Democratic candidate is and you get asked that question all the time what I've noticed is that the other candidates don't get asked that question or whether they'll support you but the New York Times had a very interesting story about how some Democratic donors are going to dinners to work to make sure that you lose now those are Democratic donors and now even more controversially and this is not me it's the New York Times they said Nancy Pelosi Chuck Schumer Pete Buttigieg and Terry McCullough were at some of those dinners does that put a lie to party unity well you know I'll let the individuals you name speak for themselves but you know two things I think we are going to win the Democratic primary and I think at the end of the day we will have the support of Democrats across the board they may not be the Democratic establishment and the big money donors may not be excited about a Bernie Sanders presidency but I hope and believe they will be far more supportive of me than they would be if seeing Donald Trump get reelected are you a little worried that some of Democratic donors will betray the Democratic Party if you're the candidate or any progressive as a candidate and support a third party and allow or at least risk Trump winning? Chuck at this unbelievably dangerous moment in American history I have it a hard time believing that anybody with any sense at all would do anything to see that Trump remains in the White House because if he does democracy itself is being threatened certainly there will be no serious effort to deal with the global crisis of climate change etc etc so I don't know the answer very much that enormous pressure would be put on anybody who claims to be a Democrat who would think for one moment of doing anything that would aid Donald Trump so I take it that what he's saying there maybe he's saying that to save face maybe his feelings are different but he says you know I'm not really worried about being betrayed by the establishment and Democratic donors I really hope that he doesn't actually feel this way because it's fairly naive and I'm not saying that because I think Bernie Sanders is naive overall and I suspect that he's saying this just to save face but you have to anticipate that they want to fuck you over because they do they absolutely do now he kind of left the door open on this question here quote I don't know the answer but I hope very much that enormous pressure would be put on someone who identifies as a Democrat that would aid Donald Trump I don't know I'm not too sure about that I think you're going to see a lot of moderates if Bernie were to win support someone like Howard Schultz or vote third party or even Donald Trump so I think that he should be as loud and calling for people to unify behind him preemptively as everyone else is being you know loud and calling for him to unify behind someone else he asks Joe Biden will you endorse Bernie and unify behind Bernie and campaign for Bernie nobody does it's always posed to Bernie so why is the onus on Bernie for party unity when the Democrats are the one who are trying to undermine him and they're the ones being divisive so these are really fantastic clips here I'm going to link you to the full interview it's one of the most phenomenal questions Cenk has been on a roll with these interviews lately so watch the whole thing because it was absolutely fascinating these were great questions and I'm glad that Bernie Sanders seems to be on the right track in terms of strategy I just I guess I want him to be more direct in calling out Democrats if he sees any meddling because if you don't then they're going to do it more openly and try to get away with it so they don't do that so that way they don't want to do it so they feel as if they won't be exposed by Bernie so for those of you who missed the last week there was a report that came out that detailed how Joe Biden's electoral strategy during the primary is to essentially hide his face don't say anything don't attend many events attend as little as possible to still be considered a player in the race and it's funny because I think he actually knows that that's his best bet because he's one of these politicians who like Hillary Clinton the more he speaks the more people dislike him the more that they're reminded oh yeah this dude is he's a gaffe machine he's prone to always say something that pisses off his own bays Hillary Clinton had the same problem however I think he may be even more out of touch than Hillary Clinton which in my view it seems absurd I think maybe strategically he knows a little bit more but in terms of just policy he may be worse than Hillary Clinton he may be to the right of Hillary so if he were to win I mean could you imagine how much of a disaster that could potentially be so here's why even if I think it's a good idea for Joe Biden to hide his face as much as he can during the primary ultimately it's still not going to change the fact that people know that he is a conservative because guess what he's in favor of an anti abortion law one that in my view I mean this is just non-negotiable so as Morgan Stalter of the Hill reports former vice president Joe Biden's presidential campaign confirmed that he still supports a controversial ban prohibiting the use of federal funds for certain abortion services campaign aides told the Hill that the 2020 presidential hopeful still supports the Hyde amendment which has prevented government health programs like Medicaid from paying for abortions except in cases of rape incest or to save the life of the woman Biden's campaign did say that Biden would be open to repealing the amendment if abortion cases currently protected under Roe v. Wade was threatened NBC News first reported Biden's stance on the measure the support appears to differ from what Biden told an American civil liberties union volunteer when asked about the Hyde amendment last month quote I can't say he said the Biden campaign told the Hill that Biden misheard the ACLU volunteer and thought she was referring to the Mexico City rule which prevents federal aid money from going to organizations overseas that perform abortions Biden has never changed his support for the Hyde amendment the campaign clarified okay so let's just uh call it what it is you're not that serious about protecting women's health care and women's rights because abortion is health care health care is health care is health care you don't get to pick and choose which procedures people get or don't get either you support health care or you don't but what Joe Biden is doing is yet again he's taking a right wing position how infuriating is that women's rights are under attack and of all times for his campaign you know what I kind of want to concede a little bit of ground to the right here I mean then how can women who are voting for you expect you to fight for them if you're already conceding on this issue then can you imagine how he'd act if he were president in the event a real issue came up where he needed to defend a woman's right to choose let's say hypothetically speaking worst case scenario these heartbeat bills and effective abortion bans make their way to the supreme court they end up overturning Roe v Wade as president what would Joe Biden do would you just say oh man that's too bad or would you fight would you say well you know what fuck that women's health care rights that's not negotiable so we're going to propose a constitutional amendment to guarantee the right of abortion for women in every single state would he even fight or would he just roll over and die I mean this tells me that he would roll over and die so one thing that is kind of an interesting twist to this story is that even if Joe Biden is the only democratic party presidential contender who's openly still supporting the Hyde Amendment there's a little bit of a gray area when it comes to other candidates because they voted for a 2018 appropriations bill that contained a provision that's pretty damn similar in language to the Hyde Amendment this includes Michael Bennett Corey Booker Kirsten Gillibrand Kamala Harris Amy Klobuchar Elizabeth Warren even Eric Swalwell and Beto O'Rourke now as the week reports of the current and former congress members running for president only Senator Bernie Sanders voted down the 2018 bill still Booker, Gillibrand, Harris, Warren and others have all joined this call to repeal Hyde I'm gonna be kind and give them the benefit of the doubt and I'm not gonna assume that they voted for the appropriations bill specifically because they support the Hyde Amendment like Joe Biden I'm assuming that they voted for the Hyde Amendment in spite of it right because there are these laws that people will vote on that maybe have some good maybe have some bad a good example is the crime bill Bernie Sanders voted for the crime bill but he talks about how look I was against the crime bill but I voted for it because there were specific provisions that I really really supported like the violence against women act you know the assault weapons ban I supported that but at the same time the overall bill I acknowledge it was damaging so I'm assuming that the same is true here so what really matters is if you voted for that 2018 appropriations bill you should come out and say I'm against the Hyde Amendment I don't agree with Joe Biden here and some have to be fair but I mean the main take away overall is that Joe Biden really is the worst offender here the fact that he doesn't support the or that he supports the Hyde Amendment rather I mean this is just non negotiable abortion is non negotiable Democrats already are terrible when it comes to economic issues they are fiscally conservative their right wing economically speaking so the only draw at this point for the left in voting Democrats is because they support LGBTQ rights and women's rights but if you're not even going to do that if you're not even going to meet the bare minimum requirement of our expectations why are you running Joe you don't appeal to the base you just don't you shouldn't be running if you're this out of touch you're not going to accept this if you're against abortion rights for women if you think that that should be restricted in any way whatsoever then you're wrong and you're a right winger so I mean this really is unforgivable and I hope that the Democratic Party base realizes that if you vote for him this could be a disaster I know that a lot of people support Joe because they're older and there's this generational gap and they also think he's more electable don't make the same mistake that was made in 2016 Joe Biden is bad business for Democrats because if he wins Trump could win a second term which would be a disaster so there's a group of people who are trying to start a straight pride parade in the city of Boston and whether or not it will actually take place is up in the air because I'm not sure if there's any issue with the permits from the city I don't know but the response to this is absolutely hilarious because it really goes to show you that when we talk about the oppression Olympics conservatives are the snowflakes that they always speak out against they're just as snowflakey as these SJWs that they so frequently denounce on college campuses they're so quick to say no no no you're not the victim and then they'll go on to play the victim themselves it's absurd so Timmy Lauren of Fox News decided to talk about the straight pride parade and I think the impression that I got from her is that she thinks we care I don't care that being said do I think that the idea of a straight pride parade is silly yes why is a straight pride parade needed why is that needed are straights under attack are their rights being threatened are their hate crimes against straight people do they feel the need to you know hide their identities in order to express themselves in a more socially acceptable manner no so I mean it's silly if you want to march I don't give a shit I literally could not care less but Timmy thinks we care like she literally thinks we care and that we're outraged nobody really cares you're the one who's outraged so let's watch her take she's gonna make a really courageous declaration here let's watch we can be proud of about everything these days so long as it's not straight, white, male or god forbid conservative but as it turns out the city of Boston may not be so tolerant and accepting of a straight pride parade either it's time for first thoughts yes folks it's gay pride month and let me be clear I have no issue with LGBT people being proud of who they are I could do without seeing men in speedos and buttless shafts parading through the streets but whatever you do you sadly at least in Boston straight people aren't allowed to parade their heterosexuality for all to see the rumored straight pride parade may be over before it started the group calls themselves happy fun America and their mission is simple straight people will embrace our diverse history culture identity in order to promote engagement with the community now you wouldn't think that would be a problem right? wrong don't forget it is open season on straight white men in this country and y'all aren't allowed to celebrate your straightness it's 2019 don't you know that's been off limits for at least the last 10 years but nevertheless the super happy fun America straight pride group was planning their parade for August 31st they even had a route mapped out now although the group touted they were working with Boston city officials to get their parade permit city officials have said otherwise apparently they have not been issued said permit but the group is not going away quietly oh no last week on facebook the club's vice president announced the group has filed a discrimination complaint against the city city officials weren't the only ones who didn't seem to enjoy the idea and it didn't take long for twitter social justice warriors to attack the parade isn't it funny how the so-called loving and tolerant leftists and members of the LGBT community demand respect for their events and celebrations but are so quick to diminish demonize and mock groups they disagree with listen this straight pride parade was probably intended to be a joke of sorts but regardless why is it so taboo nowadays to recognize and be proud of heterosexuality or traditional values in general can that not be a thing anymore according to who I'm sick of this the very groups that preach tolerance love and acceptance are anything but loving tolerant and accepting in this era of 64 gender options female boy scouts and pronoun enforcement all things traditional or conservative are deemed hateful and deplorable enough I'm not afraid to say I am straight and proud there deal with amazing that must have been so hard to say you are so brave Timmy again great if you're proud to be straight that's awesome good for you now I don't know what she said during that jump cut towards the end but I mean you get the gist of what she was trying to say so let me just say this I'm gonna try to put this as nicely as possible and try not to be a dick you're being a gigantic fucking snowflake about this you're being a gigantic snowflake about this because straight people are not under attack the city isn't denying them a permit because they're anti straight like what? I don't know what the city is denying them a permit but I mean this is just this is such a dumb story and I don't get it it's just another story where conservatives felt the need to talk about it because it allows them to present themselves as the victims when in actuality they're the oppressors they're the ones in favor of taking away rights from gay people and transgender people but yet it's us who's the victims so she says you can be proud of everything so long as it's not straight white male or conservative really though because I don't think that that's the case I don't see anyone straight bashing dudes I've never seen that before has that ever happened have you seen a gay guy with a rainbow t-shirt on walk up to a straight couple and like hit them over the heads has that ever happened so I mean to suggest that you can't be proud to be straight is preposterous that doesn't make any sense she says at least in Boston straight people aren't allowed to parade their heterosexuality for all to see you do that anyway you do that anyway for all this talk of a gay person or gay people in general flaunting their sexuality what is it when a straight couple posts a photograph of themselves kissing on Facebook is that not flaunting their sexuality straight couples hold hands in public is that not them parading their heterosexuality around see it's a double standard when gay people do it they're flaunting their sexuality however when straight people do it well we live in a heteronormative society where straight is normal so it's not flaunting it's just the norm I mean think of how purposefully up to she has to be being right now like I can't believe that she actually believes the bullshit she's saying I mean come on she says the very groups that preach tolerance love and acceptance are anything but loving tolerance and accepting again who like cite an example Tommy of somebody saying no you're not allowed to have a straight pride parade I mean I think it's silly but you can have it if you want to cite an example she hasn't cited a single example she just said oh well you know the city might not give them the permit so I mean I thought you were against the oppression Olympics Tommy she also says don't forget it's open season on straight white men in this country and y'all aren't allowed to celebrate your straightness there you are I mean what a preposterous thing to say you're suggesting that straight people are basically under attack all because what you want to be the victim like I just this doesn't make sense she also says in this era of 64 gender options female boy scouts and pronoun enforcement all things conservative are deemed hateful and deplorable enough she literally doesn't know what she's talking about what is pronoun enforcement just somebody saying hey could you maybe call me by the pronouns that I prefer that's pronoun enforcement because there's no law that mandates pronoun enforcement we're just trying to make that a social norm so trans people feel more accepted so they don't feel like they're being misrepresented by their peers why is that so difficult why can't you just accept that somebody wants to use a particular set of pronouns and then shut the fuck up why do you have to be a snowflake about it and say oh you're using these pronouns that I don't like like you were born male so I don't want to use female pronouns like you're being a snowflake Tommy you're being a fucking snowflake and you don't even realize it she says this is the era of 64 gender options female boy scouts okay well cool then don't have a gender that's one of those options like this is such a non-issue like the way that people express themselves is what her contention is you can't have 64 genders or this and that these are all non-issues she's trying to distract you from real issues by focusing on these wedge and social issues because she isn't bright enough to actually talk about policy substance she's not so what she does is she sticks to these same themes that conservatives always stick to oh it's the white people who are being oppressed it's the stray people who are now demonized they're the new gay people listen for every single SJW you find on a college campus there's about a thousand more right-wingers who are actively trying to oppress the rights of vulnerable people including white people economically disadvantaged people it's Republicans who don't believe we should raise the minimum wage it's Republicans that are taking away healthcare it's Republicans that took away net neutrality it's Republicans that are rolling back trans rights and LGBTQ rights it's Republicans that are rolling back women's rights it's Republicans and the thing is that with what little gains vulnerable communities have made well that threatens their social hegemony so when other people start to get rights you feel as if you're being oppressed so they really really want to be oppressed they want to participate in the victim Olympics that they often denounce why? because they don't want you to be the victims they want to be the victims Republicans are the ones who are hurting people now Democrats are doing it too but the extent that Republicans are doing it is far worse so with that being said I just I can't watch this and not think how do people take conservative commentators seriously I mean these are the things that they care about they screech at the top of their lungs about abortion literally never say a goddamn word babies that are being murdered in Yemen with our weapons never say that they screech about freedom of speech and how they're being oppressed and censored never say anything about teachers for example that are fired because they refuse to sign an anti BDS pledge these are the biggest snowflakes ever I'm really glad that she popularized that term because it's very fitting for her ironically this is snowflakery it's just that she doesn't like left wing snowflakery but when she does something that is obviously snowflakey it's fine get the fuck out of here you're a joke conservatives are so hacky it's just left bad right good and that's as complex as their analysis on anything is I am straight and proud they're dealing with me so I think I speak for pretty much everyone when I say I am more than ready to move on from this issue I spend pretty much the entire week arguing with people about this on Twitter and I'm just I'm done with it but with that being said I want to make one last video giving you my two cents about this whole situation involving Carlos Mazza of Vox and Steven Crowder and let's just let's lay it all out because there's a lot of moving parts to this story and there's a lot of people with some really good takes and there's a lot of people with some really bad takes and I'm incredibly disappointed with some of the takes that I have seen from people who purport to be on the left people who purport to be allies to members of the LGBTQ community so to get you caught up basically Carlos Mazza claimed that Steven Crowder for years now has been responding to all of the videos that he's producing for Vox by debunking them now it's not just that he's debunking Carlos's videos that he deems bad but he's also adding into these videos homophobic slurs and when I say homophobic slurs a lot of homophobic slurs before we get to the video with our favorite Lispy sprite from Vox it's ridiculous it's bonkers you're being given a free pass as a crappy writer because you're gay that's a little queer graph there well now the graph is queer violence, filth okay so the little queer could eat his chips all nonchalantly it's code for rape Mr. Queer Eating Chips on the Vox Channel chip chip chip can eat just one like dicks yeah now Carlos has been made a target by Steven Crowder Steven Crowder has been attacking him on the basis of his sexual orientation it's incredibly bigoted and Steven Crowder is unquestionably racist he doesn't like gay people he's criticizing someone on the basis of his sexual orientation and that is completely unacceptable on top of that he sells a shirt with a literal homophobic slur on it and I know you're gonna say but Mike it says socialism is for figs I mean really are we going to buy into that what do you think he wants you to when he puts a picture of Che with a limp wrist and the A or I bleeped out he wants you to think socialism is for fags so it's a thinly veiled bigoted shirt and on top of that he advocates against LGBTQ rights he makes fun of trans people he parodies trans people by dressing up as a trans person and pretending to be a trans person in order to convey an anti-trans message so this is an individual who's a bad person and as a direct result of his repeated harassment of Carlos Mazza he made him a target and his viewers ended up harassing Carlos and doxing Carlos now is that Steven Crowder's fault per se no I don't think it's his fault because I don't believe you really can control what your audience does with that being said as a YouTuber with what more than 4 million subscribers you have a responsibility you have to understand that your actions sometimes have consequences and you need to be able to realize that hey if I constantly target this gay dude and call him a lispy queer for years maybe some of my more unhinged viewers will take action and that's exactly what they did so you need to be more responsible and what Carlos did was he called for Steven Crowder to be deplatformed as a result and he understands that what Crowder is doing clearly violates YouTube's own terms of use this is harassment, this is harmful it's targeted towards someone because of their sexual orientation quite explicitly so he called for Steven Crowder to be deplatformed now personally I don't know that I would agree with something like that because one I don't know enough about Steven Crowder so I don't know that that would be warranted but I also don't necessarily agree with that because if you're approaching this issue then you need to be able to realize the way that the right will respond and it's always that they're going to play the victim and that's exactly what Steven Crowder did he made it about himself he turned it into him being the victim and he said hey Vox is trying to crush me the little guy and he literally even said this is David versus Goliath hahahaha well this isn't Vox trying to crush the little guy this is Carlos who happens to work for Vox who's saying can you maybe stop harassing me because I'm gay I mean would you say that Taco Bell is coming after you if the night manager was mean to you of course you wouldn't say that so what he's trying to do is make this about oh this is the mainstream media trying to crush YouTube now there's actually reason to believe that that is the case because we all know that the original adpocalypse happened when the Wall Street Journal I believe published an article saying hey Coca-Cola your ads are being played before these racist videos so we know that mainstream media is already out to get YouTube and independent content creators so knowing that people would be sympathetic towards that message that's exactly how Steven Crowder presented this situation this is about Vox a large corporation by NBC universal coming after me so understand the way he brilliantly I think flipped it so the original person who's being targeted for harassment and doxxed is no longer the victim all of a sudden it's Steven Crowder who's the victim he was punching down in the first place but all of a sudden Steven Crowder is the victim wow right wingers are so good at retaking the narrative this is why they're so good at winning elections because they monopolize discourse so quickly that the left doesn't even know how to respond but with that being said he's absolutely right to call out Steven Crowder's harassment and I think some recourse needed to be taken you have to be able to have some way to voice your grievances and expose people who are harassing you you can even agree that YouTube is a public utility and still understand that targeted harassment wouldn't fly I believe in freedom of speech but there are limits to free speech you know if we're in a public square I can't constantly harass someone and call them gay and gay and gay they're gonna call the police on me right so I mean you have to have some type of way to punish people who are bad actors on the platform so Carlos even though I don't necessarily know that de-platforming is the right answer here he just was expressing hey help me out and you don't have to agree with him but what people have done is they've jumped so far to the opposite side to where they've essentially minimized the homophobia and they're defending Crowder now to the detriment of Carlos and LGBTQ people and the overall implication the overall takeaway that I got is if I'm ever harassed or doxxed in the way that Carlos Mazzo was I need to shut the fuck up about it because people aren't gonna take my side if this could have broader implications if somebody gets punished for it and you have to understand that this is a multi-faceted issue on one hand we need to acknowledge that YouTube doesn't know how to handle these situations and in the event Carlos calling out Stephen Crowder leads to an adpocalypse you can't blame Carlos Mazzo for that personally and this Tim Pool tweet basically highlights my exact fear as to what would happen send a special thank you to Vox and Carlos Mazzo which has just begun and legit journalists are getting stripped so it's not hey, YouTube maybe you should handle this better and not punish everyone else for what Stephen Crowder did it's this gay dude he decided to speak up and thanks now we're all gonna get demonetized okay you need to be able to walk and chew gum at the same time if you disagree with Carlos Mazzo's call for deplatforming to minimize the homophobia to say you're responsible for this I take issue with that I absolutely take issue with that and you could also blame Crowder for this and in fact I put a lot of blame on him because understand this as gigantic content creators on this platform they should know that they make us all susceptible when they do things like this like Stephen Crowder he was selling this socialism is for fags shirt produces content that is riddled with conspiracies, misinformation and just bogus information and he is openly bigoted against vulnerable and marginalized communities so as a big creator you should know that you're making us all susceptible because it's only a matter of time before an organization like the Wall Street Journal or the Washington Post who wants to take down YouTube uses you as an example I mean look at what happened after the Logan Paul Suicide Forest situation because of the actions of one dipshit how many people were demonetized after that so Stephen Crowder should know better that he's making us all susceptible here because YouTube doesn't know how to differentiate between hateful content and content that is not hateful so if you want to blame anyone don't blame the victim, blame the asshole who is not the victim who started all of this who harassed Carlos Mazza Carlos Mazza didn't ask to be harassed by Stephen Crowder for two years Crowder did that this is his fault and also blame YouTube because they don't know what to do both that being said with him being demonetized is that the right answer of course it's the right answer of course I'm not gonna cry for that look at this tweet from David Dole all of these videos from David Dole were demonetized so I'm not gonna cry for Stephen Crowder because he was demonetized for spreading hatred and bigotry that video that I did on Monday where I called out Stephen Crowder's hatred and bigotry that was demonetized immediately and confirmed by YouTube that was not monetizable so why should he be able to monetize bigotry but those of us who try to monetize us pushing back against his bigotry we get demonetized him getting demonetized is just leveling the playing field in my opinion I'm sorry but that's what that is because if we have a disincentive to push back as creators against this type of hate speech then he should have a disincentive to not post it in the first place now with that being said a lot of people don't get why you can do two things simultaneously you can also be against the platforming I'm fine with you if you take that position I think Kyle Kalinsky played out his views really well on this I don't agree with everything he said but he didn't minimize the homophobia but what people did is they tried to rationalize and justify Stephen Crowder's homophobia because they don't necessarily agree with the premise that Carlos claimed we should be platforming people like Stephen Crowder and let me show you an example of what I mean by that you're gonna demonetize his entire channel which I presume is what his livelihood is based on because it is whining adult adult not a child an adult professional journalist who gets paid to make provocative political statements online you're gonna say oh you poor little boy we'll help you out and we'll get rid of this mean guy who's been so who's been taunting you on the playground like we're in middle school it's just pathetic and it does get me a little riled up harassment harassment is a malleable concept okay this guy was claiming he's being harassed or being gay okay maybe so maybe he's being mocked on the grounds of being gay get over it I'm sorry so that was an absolutely horrible take it's not surprising because Michael Tracy is a bad take machine but here is another very bad take that's where it's like okay what is he doing is he's kind of mocking him right and he's mocking him by saying he's queer but he says he's queer yeah but that's like saying I mean listen just because the N word is in rap songs doesn't mean that that it's defined to go but the N word is not in like it's not like the LBGTN you know what I'm saying it's not like a part of their I think the principle though is you're suggesting that because a certain word is sometimes used self-referentially by members of a group that any use of it from the outside is by definition not problematic and I'm just saying it's more complicated you do have to look at specifics I'm going from memory but wasn't Steven Crowder also wearing a shirt that said fags with the A with an asterisk it said socialism is for figs while he's calling a gay guy the A is a fig instead of an I as he's calling a gay guy a queer in Mexico I have seen other takes where they said Carlos is a pussy he just needs to grow a pair and stop being so sensitive I mean, is it really that easy though do you really think it's that easy because he got doxxed so it's like you can't just turn off Twitter or turn off YouTube and then walk away he was text to his personal phone so this bleeds into your real life and the harassment from Steven Crowder became so prevalent that it started to bleed into Carlos Mazos personal life which is why he felt compelled to take action so if you're blaming Carlos here and saying he needs to get over it and saying that he's being too emotional here I need you to understand you are minimizing homophobia you're giving Steven Crowder a pass for being openly bigoted and you're essentially victim blaming again, if you disagree with him on deplatforming disagree with him on deplatforming disagree on that basis but to try to minimize the suffering and harassment of someone that's fucked up and if you did that then I hope you really reflect on how this affects the LGBTQ community and not just Carlos Mazos how a young person will see the response and realize and it's difficult if you're not gay but gay people they are a target on YouTube and it's not just gay people it's especially trans people trans people of color in particular it is minority people women on YouTube they are targeted they're targeted and some people I posed this hypothetical I said well look you're a fan of me maybe you don't like Carlos Mazos and the response that I saw was yeah but Mike Carlos kind of asks for this he makes himself a target because he has gay wonk in his name he calls himself a queer and you know he's just overly flamboyant you Mike you don't get to deal with you don't have to deal with that because you're not talking about your sexuality every five minutes right you're not acting overly gay you're not going out of your way to be effeminate and I need you to realize that that is incredibly incredibly harmful to members of the LGBTQ community incredibly harmful what a lot of gay people do I'm assuming I certainly in this way as well is we mute the most stereotypical aspects of our personalities while we're on camera in order to shield ourselves from criticism in order to accommodate more heteronormative feelings of people not necessarily heteronormative in the sense that if you break that social norm of not being straight and not acting straight and living up to what a man should be and acting masculine and expressing himself in a masculine way you're going to be a target you're going to be called a lispy queer so for anyone to suggest that Carlos Mazza is being you know a little baby about this or that you know he's asking for it he's making himself a target and how problematic that is he's making himself a target oh but he's acting gay Mike and you don't act that gay so you're cool you hide your gayness enough to where I don't feel inclined to make fun of you so it's cool but him it's a little bit too much I mean you need to realize that that's harmful and the message that you are sending to people who are young and they see this LGBTQ youth it's really harmful and they're especially vulnerable anyone who's gay can talk about certainly millennials right the newer generation I hope that it's better for them but when I was very young whenever I would see this type of gay bashing and whatnot and people saying fag and using queer in a derogatory way it really made me feel like I hated myself right and this was before I even came out but certainly it made me repress those feelings even more and you just have to understand that there's no such thing as someone who acts gay or acts straight we are what we are and another argument is well look gay people you know they call themselves queers so why does that matter well I'll tell you why that matters you know and why it's different than when someone like Steven Crowder says it so if a gay person or a straight ally says queer and they're referring to us as a descriptor I understand that there's no daggers in that word there's no negative connotations they're not using the word queer to belittle me but Steven Crowder does not like gay people he is pushing for our rights to be taken away and for us to not have further rights he believes that a business owner who bakes cakes for example should be able to deny the same service to gays that he offers to straights so he actually is bigoted so when he uses the word queer he's not saying it in a loving way he's not saying it as a descriptor he's saying it to basically say fuck you you're a queer there's more negative connotations to it and he says oh it's just playful ribbing but it's not playful ribbing there actually is reason to be offended by that because he actually doesn't like gay people and trans people like you've got to understand this type of shit it really does affect gay people and harm the community after this week what I've seen because people are really worried about the prospect of demonetization or the creators that they love getting demonetized the sense that I got was oh just shut the fuck up Carlos don't ruin it for all of us can we not disaggregate different areas of agreement and disagreement can you not be sympathetic towards Carlos being harassed for two years we can do better we can all do better we can we can do everything in our power to protect vulnerable communities from bigots like Steven Crowder and when it comes to YouTube again I don't know what the right answer is I think demonetization is certainly fine I'm okay with that I'm not gonna shed a tear for him when leftist YouTubers are being demonetized all the time he's not a victim the oppressor is pretending to be the oppressed when that's not the case so I don't know what else to say about this let me go over my notes yeah my thoughts are scattered on this because this is a really complex topic but maybe you know I don't know I don't know what else to say I just thought that you know the left would be a little bit better at defending a gay person against a right-winger's homophobia but many people shit the bed on this and that's sad well that's all that I've got for you guys today thank you so much for tuning in if you've made it this far as usual I want to thank all of our Patreon PayPal and YouTube members for helping a show to survive and thrive you guys are absolutely amazing and thank you all so much shout out to all of our iTunes users and our listeners as well well anyways I'm done talking I will see you all next week my name is Mike Figueredo this is the Humanist Report take care everyone