 This is the Humanist Report with Mike Figueroaido. 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 Figueroaido and this is the 200 and first edition of the program. Today is Friday, July 12th and before we get started, I want to take some time to thank all of our newest Patreon, PayPal and YouTube members, all of which either sign up for the very first time to support us this week or increase their monthly pledge if they were already supporting us. And that includes Amin, Brittany H, Charles Jones, David Joseph, Giles McBroom, James R, John Coyne, Joshua Bessem, Martin D. Rollins, Matthias Gable, Michael Ajik, Miss Oble, Patricia Stevenson, Pilar Padilla, Rasta Fergheller, Terry Hassan, Tina Sergio, Travis Burgess, Tyler Hobson, Viciente Petricaiti, and Zach Heller. 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, then you can do so by going to humanistreport.com slash support or by checking out patreon.com forward slash humanistreport. So this week on the Humanist Report, we'll talk about how Nancy Pelosi continues to resist progressives more than Donald Trump and the Republican Party. Joe Biden takes a shot at Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, a Fox News guest claims retirement insecurity is actually a blessing. Sean Heddy denounces media bias, but doesn't seem to realize how ironic it is for him of all people to be doing that. Orb gang leader Marianne Williamson harnesses love to get Mike Gravel onto the debate stage. Bernie Sanders and AOC team up to declare climate change a national emergency threat. Joe Biden attacks Medicare for All for the most bogus reason ever. Bernie Sanders unveils his list of anti-endorsements, Nancy Pelosi scolds progressives once again, Tucker Carlson viciously attacks Ilhan Omar, and finally, we close out the week by talking to Nancy Pelosi's 2020 Democratic Party primary challenger Shahid Buttar. So that's what we've got on the agenda for today's show, hopefully you guys will enjoy it. When Democrats retook the House in 2018, there were a lot of progressives, myself included, who very strongly made the case against Nancy Pelosi and why she should absolutely not become House Speaker again. It's because she's not progressive. In fact, she's pretty conservative, contrary to popular belief. Now when we made this case against Nancy Pelosi, there were people who were outraged. People who are Democratic Party loyalists, liberal celebrities like Whoopi Goldberg, Solid Auto Brian is someone who also spoke out against progressives who thought Nancy Pelosi shouldn't be the Speaker again. Nancy Pelosi got most of that Obama bill through. Their argument was, how can you possibly say Nancy Pelosi isn't progressive enough when she spent her entire career fighting for gay rights and women's rights? How can you say this about her? It's blasphemy to even criticize her. Well, I hope that all of these people who denounced the progressives and really who try to scold us into submission, I hope you're paying close attention right now because what Nancy Pelosi is doing is she is revealing her true colors to you. She's really conveying to you that she's not very progressive. In fact, contrary to popular belief, she actually is pretty conservative for someone who's supposed to be the leader of the party that represents the working class. Now she put her conservatism on full display by attacking where the energy is currently in the Democratic Party. She called out Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Ayanna Presley, Ilhan Omar, and Rashida Tlaib. And by attacking these popular progressives, what you're doing is attacking the Democratic Party base because those four women, they're where the energy is in the party. So Nancy Pelosi attacked them in an interview with Maureen Dowd of the New York Times. Here's what Maureen writes. Some House liberals have been furious with the speaker since she capitulated to Republicans and Democratic moderates and agreed to pass a bill to send more funding to the border, giving up demands for stronger protections for the migrant children ensnared in the nightmare of shelters there. I asked Pelosi whether, after being the subject of so many you-go-girl memes for literally clapping back at Trump, it was jarring to get a bad headline like the one in HuffPost that day. Quote, what the hell is Nancy Pelosi doing? The article described the outrage of the squad as AOC of New York, Ilhan Omar of Minnesota, Rashida Tlaib of Michigan, and Ayanna Presley of Massachusetts are known. Pelosi feels that the four made themselves irrelevant to the process by voting against quote, our bill as she put it, which she felt was the strongest one she could get. All these people have their public whatever and their Twitter world, she said, but they didn't have any following. They're four people and that's how many votes they got. So just pause for a moment and think about how insulting and condescending this is. I don't care about AOC and Rashida Tlaib and what they have to say about the bill that I passed. I don't care if they think it was a capitulation to Republicans. I say it was good. So that should have been good enough for them. They should have voted for it. No questions asked. And if they don't think that it is progressive enough, too bad. That's what she's trying to convey to people. I don't care about these very popular progressives, fuck them. That's basically her sentiment. Now she was asked by Maureen, you know, how do you, how do you respond when progressives continuously call you out for not being left wing enough? Here's what she said. If the left doesn't think I'm left enough, so be it. She literally does not care. And this shouldn't surprise anyone. This is what progressives have been saying because Nancy Pelosi only cares about one thing and one thing only and that is appeasing her corporate donors. If they tell her to jump, she asks how high that's what it's about. See, she doesn't like members of the squad, as they call it, like AOC and Ilhan Omar because they often pit her against her donors, right? They make her look bad because when AOC comes out and says, look, we should have Medicare for all that forces Nancy Pelosi to defend her corporate donors and the health industry and say, well, you know what, maybe we shouldn't have Medicare for all. Now she can't present you with a good reason because her lack of support for Medicare for all hinges on the money that she's receiving. It's corrupting. So she has to find a way to make it seem as if, well, just being against Medicare for all is the rational position when in actuality we all know this is a capitulation to her donors. If her donors say, look, I want you to back off of Republicans because we want to make sure that we can make money off of these concentration camps that Donald Trump is locking immigrant children in, then she's going to back off because that's what Nancy Pelosi does. She raises a lot of money. She is a prolific fundraiser. How do you think she became the Democratic Party leader? She became the Democratic Party leader by raising more money than anyone else. In other words, she sold out more than anyone else. When you raise that much money, that corrupts you. When you take money from every single special interest in existence, that has a very corrosive influence. That influences you to think about what they want as opposed to what the American people want. You know, it wouldn't be as bad if this was just contained to Nancy Pelosi. And she was the only one who was getting corrupted by money in politics. The problem is that since she's the leader, she also is making a lot of other Democrats dependent on her corporate fundraising, which in turn makes them also sellouts because they're selling out by proxy of Nancy Pelosi. She acts as a conduit for corruption and she's bringing everyone down. She's making the entire aggregate Democratic Party less popular. I mean, it's not surprising that Democrats lost more than a thousand seats in state legislatures across the country under her leadership. It's because voters aren't excited to come out and vote for this brand of corporate Democrat who doesn't want to do anything for them and is only appeasing their donors. So do you understand now? I need people to understand that when we called out Nancy Pelosi, unlike what you were saying we were motivated by, ageism and sexism, we were calling her out because this is what she represents, corporatism. And it's not just that she alone serves the donors exclusively, but then she is also going after people who don't serve the donors, who actually represent the people because these new progressives make her look really bad. When you juxtapose AOC with Nancy Pelosi, the difference is night and day you see how conservative Nancy Pelosi is. So AOC responded to Nancy Pelosi and she said that public whatever is called public sentiment and wielding the power to shift it is how we actually achieve meaningful change in this country. Ilhan Omar also chimed in saying, they're just salty about who is wielding the power to shift public sentiment these days, sis. Sorry, not sorry. And that's exactly right. You see these progressives, Rashida Tlaib, Ilhan Omar, AOC, they make corporate Democrats look so bad because basically all that we've had is corporate Democrats. So when you actually get to see people in power who are fighting for the people, it really forces other Democrats to step up and do better. And they don't like that. They like just being able to be slightly less shittier than Republicans and then keep getting elected into powerful positions because it's easy that way. But when you actually have to put up and present progressive policies, they hate that because that means they're going to be pitted against their corporate donors, which again is something that they absolutely do not want because Nancy Pelosi got to where she is today because she's cozy with these corporate donors. She's as corrupt as you could possibly be in DC. So that's why she's lashing out. Now, I also want to show you what Rashida Tlaib said because she was interviewed by Martha Raditz of ABC News. And you can tell she was not happy with what Nancy Pelosi said here. And here's what she said about why their voices should be respected and not dismissed as Nancy Pelosi frequently does. The speaker that has Nancy Pelosi said that you and the three other progressives made yourself irrelevant to the process by voting against the bill. All these people have their public whatever and their Twitter world, she said. But they didn't have any following their four people and that's how many votes they got. Do you know people like us, people like me and Ayanna Alhan and Alexandria, we're reflective of our nation in many ways. But many of us didn't run to be first of anything. But more people like us have been missing in the halls of Congress. More people like us, people of color have been missing in the chamber. Because most of us, and Ayanna Pressley says it more beautifully, people that are closest to the pain need to be at the table making these decisions. Guess what? We know what it feels like to be dehumanized. We know what it feels like to be brown and black in this country. And I'll tell you right now, we're not going to stand by and sit idly by and allow brown and dark skinned children to be ripped away from their parents to be dehumanized to feel like- What would you say to Nancy Pelosi? What would you say directly to Nancy Pelosi? I would honor the fact that we are there, that 650,000 people are represented by each and every single one of us. That there is some sort of, I think in many ways something special about having a refugee, having a woman that has experienced alone what incarceration has done to her family, right? All of us have these experiences that I think have been missing in the halls of Congress. Honor that, respect that, put us at the table. Let's come up with a solution together. But there is a better approach. They passed something out of the house. Still, I will not support anything that is broken and that dehumanizes people. But guess what? Mitch McConnell sent you back something that was worse. And I'll tell you right now, I was focused on him. Uplift the women, especially the women of color within your caucus, that are out there because I'll tell you more people like us, more people like me that come out to vote, we win. All of us win. And they think I'm gonna have to stop you there for time. It is very disappointing that the speaker would ever try to diminish our voices in so many ways. Again, I appreciate your comments. That was great. I feel for Rashida Tlaib. And she made a really powerful point a few months ago when Nancy Pelosi attacked her and said, look, we're often trotted out to show people how diverse the Democratic Party is. But when it comes to actually listening to what we have to say, then we're told to go away. I'm paraphrasing Rashida Tlaib. But that's basically the sentiment. This is what Nancy Pelosi does. She doesn't want their ideas because they're saying something that goes against the status quo, that goes against the donor base. So that's why Nancy Pelosi stands up against progressives more so than she stands up to Republicans. Because Republicans don't really pose a threat to her donors. Republicans aren't forcing her to take stands against her own donors. It's progressives who are doing that. Which is why we see her be more strong of a resistor, so to speak, against progressives than actual Republicans. It's all about the money. And I wish it weren't that simple, but Occam's razor. It's that fucking simple, unfortunately. Now AOC talked about the recent capitulation to Republicans. And here's what she had to say regarding Nancy Pelosi. I don't believe it was a good idea for Democrats to blindly trust the Trump administration when so many kids have died in their custody. It's a huge mistake. This admin also refuses to hand over documents to Congress on the whereabouts of families. People's lives are getting bargained and for what? Now in response to that tweet, journalist Jay Caruso urged AOC to not quote insult Pelosi and to instead try and learn from her even though she absolutely has no clue what she's doing. But AOC then responded with all the times where Nancy Pelosi basically insulted her. Quote, a glass of water could have beat a 20 year incumbent. The green dream or whatever it's called. They're public whatever. Those aren't quotes from me. They're from the speaker. Having respect for ourselves doesn't mean we lack respect for her. It means we won't let everyday people be dismissed. So Pelosi can take all the shots she wants at AOC, but the minute AOC responds, even if it's a tepid polite response, well she's still framed as the bad guy. Because how dare you ever question the wisdom of Queen Pelosi? How dare you? I mean, it was the same way that progressives were responded to by people like will be Goldberg when we said she shouldn't be speaker. How dare you speak out against Nancy Pelosi and say she's not progressive? She's been fighting for your rights before you were born. It's frustrating because if you go against the status quo in DC, then this is the response. You are automatically framed as the bad guy because people like Nancy Pelosi, people in power, they're inherently good. And anyone who challenges power, anyone who speaks truth to power, they're smeared. They're labeled as the bad guys or the bad girls in this case because you shouldn't question authority. You should just be blindly obedient. But I wanna switch gears because I think it's evident to everyone Nancy Pelosi is a conservative. But thankfully, we don't have to sit by and just allow her to condescendingly rich-splain to us how she's better than everyone else and how she's a master legislator and AOC and Rashida Tlaib, they have no support. We don't have to stand by and just let her do this. We have an option now. She has a very progressive primary challenger named Shahid Butar. And here's the way that he responded to these types of corporate Democrats like Nancy Pelosi. Here's a snippet of his speech from the CA Dems Convention. I'm running to challenge the leader of our party because when corporate centrists tell us that we have to accept a for-profit healthcare system that kills Americans every day, we have to be ready to say, we're not gonna take it anymore. I'm running because when corporate centrists tell us we have to accept fossil fuel extraction committing us to climate chaos that will kill your kids and your grandkids, we have to all say, we're not going to take it anymore. And I'm running because when corporate centrists tell us that we have to accept a prison industrial slavery complex making a mockery of justice, we must say we're not gonna take it anymore. Now just by listening to him speak for 45 seconds, you already see the difference between him and Nancy Pelosi. It's clear. He is not afraid to say I support Medicare for all because he's not being corrupted by these pharmaceutical and health industry campaign contributions. Do you understand? Everything goes back to the common denominator in politics, money in politics. Democratic Party loyalists and operatives, they're never afraid to call out Republican Party corruption because it's pretty raisin. For some reason they give Democrats a pass. They say, well, it can't possibly be because of corruption which is why Nancy Pelosi is so horrible. It has to be just due to an ideological disagreement but it's not. Democrats are just as easily susceptible to money and the corrosive influence it has as Republicans are. And you see the difference when you look at Shahid Butar challenging Nancy Pelosi and Nancy Pelosi herself. It's all about the money. Now I'm gonna leave you with some more of Shahid Butar because he's your ticket. He's offering you a way out of this nightmare with Nancy Pelosi as leader of the Democratic Party. And I think it would be who all of us to support him and send him whatever support we possibly can manage be it a dollar or phone banking because he's someone with actual principles and values and he's fighting for real progressive policy positions because he's not sold out, he's not corrupt. And I think he makes that very clear in this ad. So I'll leave you with this support Shahid Butar. Watch out Washington. We the people are coming to take back Congress and we're bringing with us some big ideas like Medicare for all and a Green New Deal. We did it in New York. We did it in Minnesota. We're doing it on the national stage and now we're bringing that voice back to San Francisco. My name's Shahid Butar. I'm running for Congress. I'm an immigrant. I'm a Muslim. I grew up in rural Missouri when I was 16 years old. My family lost our house as I graduated from high school. I got my undergrad degree while working full time after 10 years of night school. Then I went to Stanford to study and teach law. I've fought for your rights for 20 years from San Francisco to Washington DC as a constitutional lawyer, policy advocate, writer, educator and grassroots organizer. And now I'm running to serve the people of San Francisco by fighting corporate corruption in Congress. We don't have the corporate cash that's kept Nancy Pelosi in office for 30 years. In fact, we just don't take corporate money. That's why we're mobilizing the community, meeting in living rooms and neighborhood centers, why we're out in the streets fighting for change, demanding universal health care, fighting for your children and grandchildren's rights to a future free from climate crisis and a government for, of and by the people instead of the 1%. A voice for school teachers, working class families and immigrants, the 99%. This movement is just getting started. After 30 years of the same representation, San Francisco deserves a champion willing to return our city to the front lines of the progressive movement. Our city stands for inclusion and pride, peace and justice and environmental sustainability. We can't wait another 30 years for our leaders to evolve on climate change. Delay is no better than denial. The time for action was yesterday. So I think it's obvious that progressives like Rashida Tlaib, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Ilhan Omar, they are all forcing incumbent Democrats and Democrats who have been around in politics for decades to do better. They're forcing them to actually put up, come up with these new innovative policy ideas which aren't technically new. They're just new to us because we're finally talking about them again. But I mean, it makes them look bad when you see all of these young up-and-comers like AOC start proposing all of these bold policy ideas, progressive ideas, and then automatically get more popular than they've ever been. Some of these Democrats like Nancy Pelosi and Joe Biden and they don't like that. So this is why we see them take whatever chance they can to shit on progressives like AOC. Joe Biden did it in an interview with Chris Cuomo on CNN. How do you convince the party that these more advanced ideas are all in on Medicare for all that matter to them? I would call them advanced. I would call them. But they're popular in the party. Well, by the way, watch. That's what this election is about. I'm really, I'm happy to debate that issue and all those issues with my friends because guess what? Again, look who won the races. Look who won last time out. We had, and by the way, I think, I think Ocasio-Cortez is a brilliant, bright woman but she won a primary. In the general election fights, who won mainstream Democrats who are very progressive on social issues and very strong on education, healthcare. Look, my North Star is the middle class. When the middle class does well, everybody does well. I am thoroughly just, I'm done with Joe Biden. I mean, I've been sick and tired of him but the more I hear from him, it's not just that I like him less. I hate him more and I use hate very seldomly because I think it's a strong word but he represents everything that's wrong, not just with the Democratic Party but American politics in general, like this adherence to neoliberalism which is the conservative ideology. Like, I'm sick of it. Think about what he said. So when it comes to the issue of Medicare for All, he said that he wouldn't call an idea like that advanced. So what's his plan? If Medicare for All isn't an advanced plan, then clearly he must have something superior to Medicare for All. What is it? He would bring back the individual mandate from the Affordable Care Act. Now that's an advanced idea, guys. Something that everyone hated before, that was dismantled by Republicans. That's an advanced idea. Like what use do we have for people like Joe Biden? What use do we have for them in 2019? They bring nothing to the table. What policies has Joe Biden proposed? He's proposing nothing. What is he even running on other than, you know, I'm not Donald Trump, please vote for me. And also I'm sorry, not once, not twice, but three times. I know I have to keep apologizing, but you know, vote for me because something, something, I'm more electable. I mean, what is he bringing to the table? If you support Joe Biden when there are more than 20 options, what is wrong with you? I mean, you don't even have to support Bernie even if you should. But when there are so many options, if you support Joe Biden, you clearly need to consider what you're doing with your life because how could you support this man? How can you listen to him speak when he is so vapid and represents nothing and still say, you know what? I'm gonna support him over everyone else. It just makes no sense to me. Now let's get to the argument he used against AOC and why we shouldn't really opt for more left-wing policies, you know, the kind that she's promoting. He says, look who won the races. Look who won last time. How about rather than looking at 2018, which is one year where there were a ton of progressives and a lot of progressive momentum, let's go ahead and look at a bigger snapshot in time. Let's look at a 10-year period. Let's look at the time when you and Obama were in power. You lost more than 1,000 seats in state legislatures across the country. So how can you possibly say that your brand of centrism is what's going to help us going forward when it decimated the party, Joe Biden? How can you possibly say that with a straight face? How can you say that? He doesn't know what he's talking about. Either that or he does know the statistics and how the party was decimated under his leadership. And maybe he just doesn't care. Maybe he's lying because he's looking out for his own ass. You know, it really behooves Joe Biden to get us to think that centrism is the way we should be going because that's what's gonna help him win the nomination. He also says, I think Ocasio-Cortez is a brilliant, bright woman, but she won a primary in the general election fights. Who won? Mainstream Democrats who were very progressive on social issues and very strong on education and healthcare. So what he really wants to say is, look, in this last election, centrists were the ones who won because they were progressive on social issues and strong on healthcare education. So he really wants to say it was centrists, but he doesn't use the word centrist in particular and he uses the word progressive to describe them. In other words, I'm gonna call them progressive, even though in actuality, I'm trying to promote centrism and moderation. He's doing that and he's choosing his words very wisely because he absolutely knows that that's not how you win a primary when the party is screaming for you to represent their ideas and stop trying to win over moderate Republicans because again, this strategy has lost. Trying to construct some type of a platform that appeals to Trump voters who the Democratic Party lost in the rest belt is a fool's game because you didn't lose in 2016, you haven't been losing because you haven't appealed to enough moderate Republicans, so-called moderate Republicans, you lost because you're losing support among your own base. I don't even have to say this, we all know it. If you wanna win, you energize your own base, get out the vote, go after non-voters, this is how you win elections. You don't win by convincing people who support Donald Trump to vote for you because you're going to lose if you do that. Hillary Clinton lost by trying to do that. This strategy is a proven failure. So by trying to double down on a losing strategy, it just shows that contrary to popular belief, you aren't the most electable, Joe Biden, and I don't even really have to go on much further about this because I think you all know, and Rashida Tlaib, who is a progressive, she put it best. She said, when will Dems realize that it's only when more people like us come out to vote that we all win? Depending on old-ass approaches of persuasion doesn't work. Good luck in persuading Trumpers. It's a dangerous ideology that we're fighting against, not just trying to win a seat. And she's exactly right. And if you want to know why this strategy doesn't work, Republicans have been winning, right? They've been very successful under Joe Biden and Barack Obama. But ask yourself this, were they successful in trying to appeal to moderate Democrats? Like how many times did you see Ted Cruz, for example, try to win over, quote, unquote, moderate Democrats? Did they win by doing that? Did they win by trying to appeal to you or me? Absolutely not. They won by moving further to the right and energizing their base, appealing to their right-wing base by getting more xenophobic, more extremist in their views. That's how they won. So if it worked for them by appealing to their base, then for some reason, Democrats haven't taken a hint that if we do the same, if we appeal to the left-wing base, we could also win. But it's because they know what will and won't be conducive to an electoral victory. What they're trying to do is appease their donors because the donors overall are right-wing economically. So they can be as progressive as they wanna be on social issues, but when it comes to economic issues, they know they've gotta walk a fine line between trying to appease their left-wing base and also trying to appease their corporate donors, which in their view is more important. That's what this is about. But getting to the responses here to this, Rashida Tlaib was correct, and Bernie Sanders also came out to defend AOC, saying, I'm proud to be working with AOC and so many other Democrats to pass Medicare for All, Deffry College and a Green New Deal. This is the agenda America needs and that will energize voters to defeat Donald Trump. That's a key word there, energize voters. AOC then responded saying, thank you, Senator Sanders. It's an honor to work alongside you and the millions of other people fighting for education, healthcare, and a living wage as rights. So it's important that whenever a centrist repeats the same line that, oh, well, you can't go too far to the left. You've gotta hold the center. It's really important for everyone who is perceived to be far left to come out and rebut this notion because it's harmful. It literally leads to Republicans winning, which means we get harmed because of incompetence, because of people like Joe Biden and even Nancy Pelosi, who just can't take the hint that trying to maintain the center is a losing strategy because all you do is you suppress your own base because they don't wanna come out and vote for you. If they don't perceive there'd be some type of substantial payoff because if they just see, oh, well, you know, Democrats, they're a little bit better than Republicans, but it's really not a big enough difference to where I feel as if it's worthwhile to come out and vote and wait in line for hours. If you don't actually do something for them, then they're not gonna come out and vote for you. It's as simple as that. So whenever this line is repeated, we all have to unequivocally denounce it because it's wrong, and most importantly, it's incredibly harmful. And I wish that Bernie Sanders, I'm glad he defended AOC here, but he's gotta take the gloves off. He's gotta take the gloves off and actually go after this flawed line of thinking because Joe Biden isn't the only one who says this. Other Democrats repeated and it's wrong. Like we just saw what happened in 2016 when Democrats tried to utilize this strategy. It didn't work. But in 2018, when you had strong progressives come out, turnout was up in a midterm year and additionally, they took back the house. So we have the winning strategy. Bernie Sanders has the winning message. So he needs to take the gloves off and not just defend AOC, but also respond directly to Biden's claim and call out Biden by name and tell him why he's wrong because Bernie Sanders is right here. He saw how Kamala Harris got a boost in the polls when she went after Joe Biden directly and fiercely. So it would be who of him, I think to do the same exact thing, especially because he has the winning argument and he's right. Democratic voters, they care about electability. So if Bernie Sanders can appeal to that, especially knowing how correct he is and how he has the right argument in terms of electability, this can only help him. So you've got to take the gloves off and go after Joe Biden hard. Hit him hard because he's wrong and we need to dispel this myth because that's what it is, a myth. So it's pretty discouraging to think that people in my generation, millennials, Gen Zers, we are faced with the reality that when we are older, we probably won't ever be able to retire. We're gonna have to work until the day we die in order to survive. It's just not going to be a possibility, it seems. And there's a lot of people that share the same sentiment because a new poll released showed that almost 25% of people, nearly one in four people, they also think, yeah, they're probably never gonna be able to retire. I mean, the previous generation, they would dream about what they're gonna do when they retire, travel the world, get a boat and sail it or just sit at home and watch Judge Judy reruns or whatever show they watch then, I don't know. But I mean, this is something that we're dealing with. Like this is unique to our generation because we're reaching late-stage capitalism where it nears its final conclusion. It hollows out the state, it corrodes democracy and now it exploits people until the very day that they die. There's just no rest for them. So you can't read this poll and come away thinking, oh, wow, isn't capitalism amazing? Because I mean, this isn't like a flaw of capitalism. This is a feature of capitalism and you can try to fix it and course correct. That's what I think the new deal did. But I mean, eventually capitalism does what it always does, exploits people to the point where, you know, they are commodified and their humanity is completely denied. So a normal person who sees a poll like this where one in four Americans nearly don't think they're ever gonna be able to retire, you'd think, man, this really makes capitalism look bad. But if your Fox News, the way that they covered it, completely hilarious, they actually tried to spin it and rather than make it seem like people working until they die is a really bad thing, they tried to convince you that it's actually awesome. Not even kidding. Not even kidding. Let's watch. Well, retirement inching closer to becoming a thing in the past for a lot of Americans. In fact, a recent poll finds nearly one in four people don't expect to ever leave the workforce. This, as a number of people working multiple jobs, also spiking. So why are so many people financially unfit to call it quits? Well, it's up for debate. So let's ask Trin Micro, CIO, Donald Lustin. These kind of polls are always around, right? Bank rate does some things and other folks, but it's always alarming. 32% of people say they retire before 865, which might be unrealistic, but 23% say never. Is that worrisome for you, Donald? Doesn't worry me personally. I guess I'm one of those people who plans never to retire. I mean, I gotta tell you, what do people do when they retire? How do you spend a day? I mean, is bowling that interesting? Is fishing that interesting? I mean, I happen to love my work. Why do I wanna stop it? You know, it's not like it hurts. Why would I stop it? This is great. What a great country where we have the opportunity to keep working. What a miracle where our lives are long enough and we're healthy enough and mentally alert enough so that we don't have to retire like generations before us. This is a great blessing. You should embrace it. This is why you don't try to defend capitalism because you end up looking so foolish. This reminds me of Kirsten Gillibrand's line at the Democratic debate. I'm gonna paraphrase here, but she said something to the effect of, well, look, there's a difference between capitalism and cronyism. No, there really isn't. It's an oxymoron. Capitalism is inherently cronyism. It's literally working exactly as it was designed to. I mean, this isn't surprising, but the people who benefit from capitalism, the few people who benefit, they have to do things like this. They have to look silly and try to convince us that working until you die is actually really cool because who wants to take time off for themselves? And thankfully, John Whitehouse on Twitter, he transcribed this, so I don't have to. I wanna read through it again. This may seem redundant, but I have to go through what he said because it's so ridiculous. I'm honestly, I'm having trouble wrapping my head around what he said. It's that laughable. It doesn't worry me personally if people have to work until they die or one in four people feel as if they're never gonna be able to retire. It doesn't worry me personally. I guess I'm one of those people who plans never to retire. I mean, I gotta tell you, what do people do when they retire? You know, how do you spend a day? I mean, is bowling that interesting? Is fishing that interesting? I happen to love my work. Why do I wanna stop it? It's not like it hurts. Why do I stop it? This is great. What a great country where we have the opportunity to keep working. I love how the underlying assumption is that people are choosing to work until the day that they die. It's not because, you know, they have no choice. It's because they're willingly choosing to work until they die and they love their job at Walmart so much. They're gonna do it until they die. This is the assumption here. That's the assumption. How detached from reality are you? The normal American does not like their job or even if they do like their job, they're still overworked. Like you can enjoy your job, but be overworked. He doesn't get that. He's so detached, but he's a corporate executive. So to him, you know, exploiting workers is exactly what he has to do in order to increase profits for his company. So he has to promote this idea. He literally has a vested interest in getting us peasants to think, well, you know, working until we die is good. But there's more here. What a miracle where our lives are long enough and we're healthy enough and mentally alert enough so we don't have to retire like generations before us. This is a great blessing. You should embrace it. Wow. Why do you think more and more people are warming up to the idea of socialism? It's because capitalism has been exposed. We keep making tweaks to capitalism, you know, make it a little less rough around the edges. So it works fairly well. And you know, we can at least live fairly good lives and get by, but capitalism does what it is designed to do. Take over everything, commodify everything. The New Deal era is over. A lot of people say that the New Deal saved capitalism. And I think that that's persuasive to an extent. But the New Deal era is over. It's been undone. The New Deal reforms have been undone. And if we get a president, Bernie Sanders, and you know, we do all of these things to reform capitalism, we'll all kind of forget about what capitalism is and why it's so problematic and harmful to our lives. But decades later, it's gonna take over again and again and again because capitalism is like a virus. It corrupts everything it touches. We're to a point in American politics where capitalism has literally corrupted the democratic process itself. It corrupted democracy. Now if you wanna get elected, you have to raise money and sell out to the capitalist forces. Capitalism ruins everything it touches. So this is why more and more, I just can't even justify being a social democrat. If you don't end the threat of capitalism and eliminate it entirely, then you're just gonna be back to the same situation where every couple of generations, we're gonna have to reform capitalism, but it's only gonna be a temporary period of reform until once again it takes over and corrupts everything it touches again. There's gotta be a better way for us to create this economic system to where we're not incentivized to literally destroy the planet and exploit people until the day they die. Like capitalism, it has one goal, one goal. And that is to make everything about money. That means you exploit workers and milk everything you possibly can out of them until there's nothing left, until they are dead. And now you have clowns going on Fox News trying to rationalize that and sell it to us as if it's a good thing. What a joke, what a joke of a system we have. Capitalism is a fucking joke. And you know it's a joke when you have people now trying to convince you that it's really good that you're never gonna be able to retire. See the difference between that guy and you is that he actually does have the choice. He can choose to make the choice to not retire because he has enough money to get by and to actually retire. But you don't have a choice, you may like work but if you choose to retire someday you may not have that chance. A lot of people don't believe that they're going to have that chance. And that's sad because our lives are short. So we shouldn't only be focusing on work and making money and getting exploited. We should be able to pursue our passions, travel, sculpt. I don't know, play video games. Just do things that make us happy, pet dogs. Our lives shouldn't just be driven by the need to increase money for our employer. It's not right, it's not fair. And I'm glad that people are finally starting to wake up to this and realize that it's the system, it's flawed. Capitalism is flawed. This clip is just, it's brilliant to me because it really shows how they're running out of arguments. They can't sell capitalism to young people anymore because this is what they have to resort to. They just look silly and it's sad for them. I feel bad for them because good luck. You're not going to keep convincing people to be in favor of an economic system that is killing them and killing the planet. It's just, it's not going to work. It's why people are moving away from capitalism and inching closer and closer towards socialism. It's because capitalism is really, really fucking flawed and it doesn't work. It's a killer. Sean Hannity of Fox News, otherwise known as Fraud Hannity, he went on an anti-media rant that is so ironic. I don't know how he said the things that you're going to see him say with a straight face because he's going to complain about media bias. He's going to complain about other news pundits shilling for political parties, not even kidding. And he's going to say all of this while not acknowledging that he's the biggest shill and political hack in America, hands down. I don't think you're going to find a bigger media hack than Sean Hannity, but he's going to pretend as if, you know, this is a problem that affects everyone else, but not him. Let's watch. Now, if we're up to the so-called journalists, there are none in the mainstream media, none of this would ever get reported. Biden would never be fully vetted, just like in 2008 with Barack Obama. Remember, this show investigated Obama's ties to unrepentant domestic terrorists, Bernadine Dorn, Bill Ayers. It was us on this show that were digging into his deep personal connection to Reverend Wright, the church of G.D. America and black liberation theology that so inspired him and Acorn and Olinsky and community organizing and even the Choon Gang and so much more. And remember throughout his presidency, it was really up to us to cover his scandal plague administration because, well, journalism's dead and it's been buried quite a while, unfortunately. And most of the members of the media are nothing more than shills in an extension of the Democratic Party. They don't care about you, we the people. Things have improved so much under Donald Trump and they hate him. Why wouldn't they be championing success for the American people first? Interesting question. Now this was perfectly exemplified during the president's recent trips to South Korea, paid very close attention. All right, the president goes to the DMZ. President Trump met quickly after he tweeted out to North Korean dictator Kim Jong-un. Became the first sitting U.S. president across the DMZ. President Trump, let's see, he offered no concessions to North Korea. He sanctions are still very much in place. In other words, President Trump did not try to bribe the North Korean regime, like Bill Clinton did with your money in the mid-90s and tells this is a good deal for the American people. Nor did President Trump drop $150 billion in cash and other currency on a tarmac to mullahs in Iran, like Biden and Obama did during their failed Iranian nuclear deal. No, this president won't try to appease bribe dictators, but he also hates unnecessary wars. So that's about all that I can stomach of Sean Hannity. Once we get past like three minutes, I start to get physically ill, hearing this dipshit speak, but think about what he's saying. This president is altruistic. He just wants to stop unnecessary wars. He's saying this while not acknowledging that just a couple of weeks ago, we were this close to war with Iran, this close. And why were we this close? Specifically because Donald Trump has continuously escalated with Iran. He withdrew from the Iran deal, reimposed sanctions. We were this close because he kept poking them. So spare me this speech about how he wants to end unnecessary wars. He's the commander-in-chief. If he wants to bring the troops home from Syria and Afghanistan, he could do it right now like that, but he's choosing to not do it because he is easily influenced by neocons in his own administration that he chose to hire. So spare me, Sean. Additionally, Sean Hannity says, this president won't try to appease bribe dictators. He says this after Trump just last year refused to cut off an arms deal to Saudi Arabia when he knows the weapons we're selling to them will be used on children in Yemen. And this comes after Saudi Arabia was proven to have murdered a journalist. So he's not gonna bribe and appease dictators. Are you sure about that? Are you really sure about that, Sean? Because being up the ass of Saudi Arabia 24-7, I don't know what you would call that other than appeasing dictators. They are a totalitarian regime where women are third-class citizens. He's going out of his way to appease them. So I mean, what do you call that? But we have to remember this is Sean Hannity and this is his Trumpy we're talking about. So his Trumpy would never do anything wrong. Heart emoji. What a fucking fraud and a hack. But here's where the irony really comes in. The crux of his problem here with mainstream media is that members of the media, they're more shills and an extension for the Democratic Party. So they don't care about you or the people. So Donald Trump can do something that is beneficial, foster peace with North Korea, crossover into the DMZ. But they're just going to be opposed to what he does, any and everything he does, because they are political hacks. They would have definitely given Obama credit for this while simultaneously criticizing Donald Trump. And look, you've got no disagreement from me there. That's true. The media are hacks and journalism is dead. But what this moron is telling you is that it's dead because people like him helped kill it because out of all the hacks, you can list. Nobody's a bigger hack. Nobody's a bigger shill for a political party than Sean Hannity. But he won't tell you that when even people in his own network, his own colleagues are willing to admit, yeah, we are gonna give Trump credit for this when we absolutely would have called out Obama for doing it. Of course they're going to attack him. That's what you would do. And let's be honest, if it were the adversary, an adversarial from your party on the other side doing it during, we would do the same thing. Yeah, so if you're gonna be concerned about political bias and shilling for political parties and call out media bias, you better clean up your own house first, Sean, because no network is a bigger shill for any party, any extension of a political party than Fox News. And within that Fox News propaganda arm, you are the worst of the worst. You are absolutely unequivocally the worst of the worst. And a compilation put together by now this of Fox News and the way that they reacted to, you know, fostering peace between Obama and Trump, it tells you everything you need to know. Would you, as president, meet with the leaders of a country like North Korea? Obama extraordinarily said, I'd meet with him. Senator Obama made his intentions crystal clear on the campaign trail. I will meet not just with our friends, but with our enemies. President Obama likes talking to dictators. He would meet with some of these madmen without any preconditions. You know, I'm gonna reach out to these crazy people around the world and try to get things done. I think that's a mistake. Obama is bowing and scraping before dictators. What is Team Obama doing, establishing formal context with these people? A remarkable turnaround in relations between two historic adversaries. The Commander-in-Chief's leadership is now leading to a major foreign policy breakthrough. Another stunning Donald Trump breakthrough. President Trump scoring a big win. It's time to celebrate a great victory when it happens. President Trump proves the experts wrong again and scores a stunning diplomatic triumph. How about this? The fact that all he wants is to get them back to the table as a precondition. Not, I'll give up. If you give up your nuclear weapons, then we'll talk. Why would the administration think that this is a group they could do business with? You know, I have no idea. Those who hate us will always hate us. And the hatred for America is never going to go away. It is a definite win for the president. And it's a huge win for this country. It's breathtaking. It's audacious. It's bold. It will be historic. I'm juiced about it. It will be magnificent for the people of Korea. It will be magnificent for the world. Obama would personally negotiate with leaders of terrorist nations like Iran and North Korea without preconditions. Wow. The world will probably be a little bit safer. The media should be giving President Trump credit for that. I'm not sure there's any real discussing issues with Kim Jong-un. He may be the one president who would actually do this, who would go meet the North Korean leader. Look, it's a bad idea for the president to speak to Kim Jong-un. Why wait till the end of May? Let's do this by the end of March. The current president truly believes that he's the chosen one. Cannot deal with criticism. We are really in danger of living in a sort of pretty little dream world where Barack Obama thinks the power of his personality is going to have this incredible transformative impact. He's crazy. President Trump made the decision himself to meet face-to-face with Kim Jong-un. This guy has a very unique quality of leadership. He is so charming. He can deal with people. He can get along with people. I think that this will only work out well. The idea, which has been fanciful from the start, is that we could talk North Korea out of its nuclear weapons program. You cannot make such a promise, not when you're dealing with these madmen who do want to destroy America. Is he going to stop on his way in Oslo to get the Nobel Peace Prize? If it works, he should get the Nobel Peace Prize. You give that man the Nobel Prize. There's no question. But let's be... I mean, the chances of that are right around zero, I think. It will always be fair and balanced, left-wing, destroy Trump media. Quote, the media are nothing more than shills. Sean Hannity. The irony just, you know, flew right over his head. Let's not pretend as if you're not included in that same category of all these other media shills. In fact, you're the worst offender here, Sean. Now, I want to stress, I'm not trying to debunk the notion that, you know, media aren't shills for political interests, because I think that cable news pundits, these are owned by large corporations, multi-billion-dollar companies. So, of course, there's a conflict of interest. There are, of course, there are underlying biases and agendas that are being driven here. But with that being said, talk about the pot calling the kettle black. I mean, Sean Hannity, of all people, you should not be speaking out about this because what's the obvious rebuttal gonna be? Look in the mirror, dipshit. So, I'm just honestly a little bit taken aback that he'd have the confidence to say this so boldly and call out media bias while not being introspective about his own overt bias. And it's not even, you know, to say that Sean Hannity is biased, that would be an oversimplification. You could say that I'm biased because I talk about how I am a progressive and a democratic socialist and I'm supporting Bernie Sanders. So, you can say that's political bias and I'm telling you my bias so you know, you know, the way that I think and how I'm influenced. But Sean Hannity isn't just biased. He's a shill. He is doing the bidding of Fox News's advertisers, which also happen to be donors to the Republican Party. So, it's not just about political bias. This is about shilling. This is about a conflict of interest. You see, because even if Trump did something that goes against his own political biases that are inherent to his core ideology, he wouldn't speak about it. But for me, someone who tells you where I stand, if Bernie were president and he did something I disagreed with, in fact, I've already openly disagreed with him on issues like Israel-Palestine, reparations, drones. I call him out. And it's because there's a difference between bias and being an outright shill. And Sean Hannity is firmly in the shill camp. So, he has the nerve to call out anyone else's political bias. At the first 2020 Democratic Party primary debate, Marianne Williamson pledged to harness love in the face of hatred that is oftentimes spewed by our commander-in-chief. Now, what she's proving is that she's not just going to harness love in the event she's elected. She is already harnessing love because she did something that is really... It shows her true character and she's starting to win me over based on her personality alone. Like, I don't support her for president because I just don't think that she knows about the policy specifics or is running a very policy-based campaign like I like certain things, right? I love that she's bringing reparations for American descendants of slavery to a national audience. I think these are important issues. But overall, I just... I don't see the policy substance there that is sufficient for my needs. With that being said, she's really a lovely person and she really is proving to us that she's harnessing love. Now, I'll tell you what I mean by that. She just put out a fundraising email for Mike Gravel, the meme god himself. And the email is short, so I'm just going to read the entire thing to you. This is really great. She says Mike Gravel served as a U.S. senator from Alaska from 1969 to 1981. And this is a 2020 Democratic presidential candidate. You may not have heard of him because he hasn't yet qualified for any debates, but his voice is important. During his time in Senate, he garnered wide respect for his unabashed opposition to the Vietnam War and for reading the Pentagon Papers into the congressional record, risking expulsion from the Senate. Democracy is, by definition, for the people and by the people. Democracy thrives when brave men like Mike Gravel risk their careers to do what's just and right. That's why diverse and provocative voices like Gravels are so important to move the debates and conversation about our nation's peace and prosperity forward. Thanks to you, I'm on the debate stage. And that's why today I am using this platform granted to me by you to ask for your help. Gravel is only 10,000 donations short of qualifying for the July debates. Please send him to the July debate stage by donating $1 to the Mike Gravel campaign here. Thank you for your commitment to articulating and amplifying the ideas that matter most. So this is just such a kind gesture. You know, it's in good faith. It's a wholesome thing and it does make me really like Mary Ann Williamson and it kind of demonstrates to me that she does believe the things about love that she says. And you know, sometimes it's goofy, right? Sometimes she starts to kind of trail into territory. That's a little bit kooky. But still, I think that overall she's a very nice person and she just really showed what a sweet person she is by doing this because she absolutely has, you know, not very much to gain. I'd say that she gains respect from people by doing this. But I mean, you don't have too much to gain by propping up someone who's technically your opponent. So by doing this, you know, it's such a kind gesture and it shows what a sweet person she is and she has the right idea. We all need to see Mike Gravel on the debate stage because even though we have our favorites, like Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren, Mike Gravel is better than everyone else on the debate stage. He's leagues better than all of them on foreign policy. He's against drones. He is in favor of, you know, calling out Israel's apartheid state. He's the real deal. So we need that voice to penetrate national political discourse and he's the only one who's vowing to bring these issues to light. He's the best. So we need him on the debate stage. So I'm really glad that she's doing this for him because one, it's drawing attention to Mike Gravel's campaign, which you should all donate to. It's MikeGravel.org, by the way. But two, she also is raising his name recognition and getting people to look into Mike Gravel who may not know because I mean, I can talk about Mike Gravel and use my platform to kind of boost these issues that he's promoting. But I mean, unless you give him that national spotlight, it really isn't going to matter at the end of the day because indie media shows like mine, they're just not going to make that big of a difference. So absolutely kudos to her and I want to share my favorite tweet from her. So this was brought to my attention by a friend of the show, Matt Binder, who shared this tweet. So this is from 2012 and this is what Marianne Williamson said. This is my favorite tweet of all time and it's why I really am starting to fall in love with her. She says this about Syria. Mentally quarantine the government of Syria. See them and their minions surrounded by a golden egg that their malevolence cannot penetrate. Within the egg, let's see them showered with light to awaken them. And Matt Binder says to that, and they say Democratic candidates have been weak on foreign policy. My brain is still in recovery mode. What's not to love. She's wholesome. She's bringing the meme. She's bringing the good positive vibes. I'm all for it. So she's going up in my book. She's winning me over. Not because I think she should become president, but because she really does seem to be a super nice person who has the purest intentions. And what she's saying is important. Let's get Mike Gravel on the debate stage. He's super close. Within 10,000. And they claim that the Marianne boost is working. So let's give them the humanist report boost while we're at it. Let's all harness love to get Mike Gravel on that debate stage. Mikegravel.org. Donate to him. He's super close. We've got to get his voice because he's a true anti-war voice who's shining a light on the horrors of the U.S. Empire. And Americans just don't know about these things. And Mike Gravel is going to bring this to their attention. And we need that. They need that. The American people need to be educated. So I'm all for it. Mikegravel.org. We're super close. Let's not give up. Let's get him on the debate stage. Bernie Sanders and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez teamed up once again to declare climate change a national emergency that demands a quote, national, social, industrial, and economic mobilization of the resources and labor of the United States in order to restore the climate for future generations. Now this comes about a day or two after Donald Trump gave an entire speech about the environment and environmental issues and mentioned climate change a total number of zero times. Imagine that. The president talks about environmentalism completely omits climate change. How absurd is the timeline that we're living in? We have this existential threat that could lead to the planet becoming uninhabitable for not just humans but all types of species and the president doesn't even address it. So what they're doing here is they're saying, look, this is step number one. What we are getting people to agree on is the fact that climate change poses a national emergency threat to the country. It's simple. It's not controversial. It's not even debatable. So if we can establish that climate change is a national emergency threat, then it logically follows that we need to take action in order to mitigate said national emergency threat. And there's already a number of lawmakers to their credit that signed on to this. We have Corey Booker and Kirsten Gillibrand and all the usual progressives in the house that signed on to AOC's companion piece. But the fact that not everyone, like not 100% of lawmakers have signed on to this, it shows that we still don't have our priorities in order because this isn't even saying we're going to do X about climate change. It's just establishing the fact that this poses a national emergency threat. It's easy. But still, there are a number of lawmakers, in fact, quite a bit of lawmakers, that aren't signing on to this for some reason. So now here's where the grassroots comes in because they're putting pressure on lawmakers because if you can't even agree that climate change is a national emergency, what use are you to the American people? This is easy. This is easy. It's like saying the sky is blue or the earth is a sphere. If you can't admit that climate change is a national emergency, just retire. We have no use for you. And I think that a lot of people are agreeing with that same sentiment, hence why there's grassroots pressure now to get people to sign on to this. Now, as Jake Johnson of Common Dreams explains, after Senator Bernie Sanders and Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez on Tuesday introduced the resolution declaring the climate crisis a national emergency, grassroots environmental groups, pressured members of Congress to back the declaration and heat it's called for transformative action. Instead of remaining complicit in worsening the effects of climate change, members of Congress in both the House and Senate must respond to this resolution with the urgency and support that this moment demands, said climate group Extinction Rebellion, which is holding a rally in Washington, D.C. Tuesday evening to urge lawmakers to sign on to the emergency declaration. Today we stand in solidarity with tens of millions of people from around the world in calling for a mass mobilization of our social and economic resources, Ocasio-Cortez said in a statement, working to solve the climate crisis will create tens of millions of union jobs, empower communities and improve the quality of life for people across the globe. So it's not controversial. 100% of people in power should sign on to this without hesitation, but they're not. So it's not controversial, but if we had to speculate about why this could be hypothetically controversial, I think you and I both see why it could potentially be viewed as controversial. Because if you declare something a national emergency threat, the implication is, well, that threat should be followed by action. And there's so many shills of the fossil fuel industry that don't want to take action. And we all know that the Republican Party has been bought off by the fossil fuel industry. But there's a lot of donations that go to Democrats as well from the fossil fuel industry. And even if they may still pay lip service to the idea that we should take action when it comes to climate change, those donations from fossil fuel giants that encourages them to demobilize and not talk as much about climate change so they effectively align with Republicans to not take action. This isn't me saying this or speculating. This is backed up by political science studies. So, you know, campaign contributions, they often get funneled to both sides of the aisle to people who will actively fight for them and people who will deactivate and not fight against them. So we've got to call out everyone and this is a really important litmus test. Watch out for who does and doesn't sign on to this. Because if they don't sign on to something so simple that just declares climate change in emergency, a national security emergency, they don't give a shit about you. They don't give a shit about you. So this is a great litmus test and it's important because it's just, like I said, it's step one. We declare that it's a national emergency. We're not saying we're going to take X, Y, and Z actions in order to address said emergency. We're just saying it's an emergency. It's that simple. This isn't hard. It's not controversial. But when you have a congress that is that corrupt, then even things that are not debatable become controversial. Which is sad. So good on Bernie and AOC because they're getting people in congress to reveal their cards. Are you with us or against us? Whoever doesn't sign on to this clearly doesn't have your best interest. Joe and Jill Biden were talking to CNN's Chris Cuomo about mental health and the need to destigmatize it. And I absolutely agree with everything they were saying in this portion of the interview because of course mental health awareness is something that we all need to focus on. There are so many people who still in 2019 downplay the need for mental health awareness and dismiss mental health issues altogether. Which in my view is just an idiotic position to have because if you believe that other portions of your body can sometimes be defective in some way or require attention, require healthcare why would you exclude the brain from that list of things that can go wrong with your body? If you can say, well you know sometimes the body doesn't produce insulin so we need to take insulin shots to fix that why can't you also extend that logically to the brain and think well you know if the brain isn't getting enough serotonin that can also cause problems. Like there are literally people who argue that mental health issues are just all in your mind, they're made up and that to me is infuriating and it's absurd because I have struggled with mental health my entire life so to hear people talk about this in such a dismissive way like Keemstar for example it's infuriating. So I loved everything that Joe Biden was saying here was the first time he actually said something that made sense and was actually substantive and important. However the conversation just fell off a cliff once the issue of health care came up. Because if you genuinely believe that we should have health care parity when it comes to physical health and mental health which is the only right position in my view, then there's only one policy solution that has been proposed that will do that. It's Medicare for All. But he's gonna give you a reason as to why we shouldn't do Medicare for All and his reason is so bizarre so juvenile that I don't even know how he takes himself seriously. How he doesn't reflect on what he's saying because it's that dimwitted. Let's listen. Think of all the people out there Chris who don't. I mean one of the things we should be debating in this campaign is health care. Whether or not we have the adequate and what's the best way to get to health care. When Barack and I when Barack did I helped when the Affordable Care Act we made parity between mental health and physical health that was a fundamental breakthrough in how we thought about how things should work. So look I just think the party now wants to get rid of the ACA. Medicare for All cannot exist with the ACA. Cannot and that's why I'm opposed to any Republican who wants to dismantle it or any Democrat who wants to dismantle it. The idea that you're gonna come along and take the most significant thing that happened that any president has tried to do and they got done and dismantled makes no sense to me. Four out of the top five people in your polls right now on the complete opposite side from you. Well I understand that and that's worth debating about. That's about the future. What are we gonna do? I believe they're totally sincere. I think they think they have the right answer but look starting over would be I think a sin. They say you're either all in or it's half measures that don't work. Well let me tell you something. I noticed the measures and the Affordable Care Act worked pretty well. Put 20 million people back and gave them health care. 100 million people who had pre-existing conditions. You notice none of them are saying they want to do that, right? And you notice none of them are saying that but there are saying they want to if you satisfy with your employer based health care you got to give it up. Look we provide a Medicare option. That's exactly what Rock and I talked about in the beginning. But you get it through though. No we couldn't get it but now things are changing because guess what's happened. You know the thing Rock and I would talk about God love him. He never took credit that he should have because it was like everything was dropping on his desk. We had to make the case that people know what you did. It wasn't until they started to take it away they even realized it was a consequence of what Barack had done. And so now if you notice in 18 we went out in all those campaigns you find a republic is that I want to get rid of pre-existing conditions covered. I want to get rid of so it's a different place and the the punishment educated in a way that I believe they've embraced it. I'm ready to take that on. So he's essentially admitting here that he doesn't want to do Medicare for All because that means you'd essentially have to get rid of the ACA to do Medicare for All and what he implied there was you know the ACA is valuable because Obama did it. I know you know Medicare for All would lead to universal coverage for every single American but Obama did it so there's sentimental value in the ACA and we started on this trajectory so let's just follow that trajectory and you know improve the Affordable Care Act. He literally is communicating to you that he doesn't want to do Medicare for All because he wants to protect something that Obama did because Obama did it. What an imbecilic way to view politics. He's functionally the opposite of Trump because Trump wants to dismantle everything that Obama does because Obama bad and Joe Biden wants to protect anything that Obama did because Obama good. It doesn't matter if Obama just made really incrementalist fixes to things. Well we should protect that incrementalist fix because we all love Obama and we want to protect everything he did even if he didn't really do much and he left a lot of room for improvement. I mean who views politics this way? Let's say hypothetically speaking that Bernie Sanders were elected president and he fought for Medicare for All but only got a public option. I would be disappointed. I would be frustrated but I like Bernie Sanders so let's say we get a president you know whoever after Bernie Sanders subsequently and that individual says well I want to now move to Medicare for All. What progressive would say no we shouldn't move to Medicare for All but we don't have a public option because Bernie Sanders did it and we like Bernie. Nobody gives a shit about the legacy of a president we care about policy this is what being the president is about it's not about your fucking legacy it is about governance and producing good policies that benefit the American people. I don't care that Obama did the ACA I don't give a shit. It was Romney care effectively which was cooked up by the Heritage Foundation about the ACA. What I care about is expanding healthcare to every single American. That's what I care about but Joe Biden here is telling you you know I would never dismantle the ACA because Obama did it and Obama you know anything he does is get that warm and fuzzy feeling pathetic absolutely pathetic Joe Biden you are pathetic he also says starting over I think would be a sin so we already laid down the foundation with the ACA so why would we start from scratch except this is a lie he's lying to you because with Medicare for All you're not starting from scratch you're taking a policy that's older than the ACA which is the most popular social program in America Medicare and you are fixing it you're closing all the gaps you're expanding coverage and then you extend that to everyone. We're not starting from scratch with Medicare for All we're building off of a more solid foundation that has stood the test of time that people love so to say oh well Medicare for All is starting from scratch either you're dumb or you're disingenuous when you say something like that Joe Biden but this isn't just Joe Biden other corporate Democrats say that as well but it's a lie we're not starting from scratch we're not saying a new single-payer system where we wipe out Medicare we're taking what already exists and we are improving it making it better and making its coverage universal so how can you possibly say with a straight face that Medicare for All is starting over that makes no sense because it's factually incorrect and you're being a liar Joe Biden and then he also uses the line that we've been seeing lately that somehow constitutes people losing something because if you get Medicare for All then as a result you lose your private employer-based insurance except people will lose that anyway if their employer decides on a whim we're gonna change providers or if they lose their job and is it really accurate to say that you're losing something if you're getting something that's better in return I mean if I'm holding a turd in my hand and you take that turd out of my hands and give me a Snickers bar instead I guess you could technically say well I lost the turd but you're getting something better and I don't know why whenever I talk about healthcare I always use, you know, analogies related to shit but it's on my heart so we'll roll with it I mean you're not losing anything you are getting Cadillac coverage this is what an anti-Medicare for All person Michael Bennett called it of course even though you're losing your private insurance sure I'll admit that you're getting Cadillac coverage you're getting something better you're not losing anything you're gaining something and you're not just gaining better coverage you're getting money in your pocket because guess what you may see higher taxes a 4% payroll tax for example which is one of the proposals to help fund Medicare for All but you're no longer gonna be paying for monthly health insurance premiums which go up all the time you're no longer paying for co-pays deductibles the average American will save more than $4,000 every single year if we get Medicare for All so we literally have absolutely nothing to lose and everything to gain however because people like Joe Biden are bankrolled by the health insurance industry which is clinging to life right now because of his support for Medicare for All skyrocket he's spreading this misinformation not because he believes the bullshit he's saying I think he's probably also misinformed but I think he's well aware of the fact that Medicare for All is better he's spreading this misinformation at the behest of his health industry donors so it's not a coincidence that people like Michael Bennett John Delaney and Joe Biden they all have the same lines against Medicare for All oh well you lose your employer based insurance oh well why would we start from scratch do you ever wonder why these people all have the same exact talking points it's almost like these are talking points that are disseminated by these companies that have something to gain because their CEOs happen to say the same thing this is how you know who is and isn't on your side Medicare for All if you truly care about all healthcare physical health mental health then Medicare for All is what will truly make physical and mental health reach parity and guess what Medicare for All covers everything dental, vision and mental health care but Joe Biden won't tell you about that he doesn't want to admit that because he's a liar specifically because he's shilling for his health industry donors and that's a damn shame I don't know what to say Bernard just keeps continuing to impress me with everything that he does he made a move recently that I think is absolutely brilliant that I think we're going to see going forward for political campaigns that's how brilliant I think it is so we all know that endorsements are an incredibly crucial aspect to somebody's campaign if you're running for elected office then when somebody with legitimacy in a powerful position say that you know this is the person who I endorse that really is important but Bernie Sanders he's a true threat to the status quo so there's been so many people in positions of power people entrenched within the system billionaire CEOs who have spoken out against him, attacked him or criticized him for him to construct a list of what he calls anti endorsements people who don't like Bernie Sanders and because so many of these types of people are essentially speaking out against Bernie Sanders what he's saying is look at the people who hate me these are the anti endorsements that I've received now I want you to put two and two together what does that say about me if these are the types of people that dislike me so let's check it out when you go to his page he includes a quote from FDR which says I ask you to judge me by my enemies I have made and adds as we fight for an agenda that guarantees basic human rights for all Americans we will be opposed by the most powerful forces in America now let's get to the list of anti endorsements because there's about 13 in total the first one is Haim Saban who is a billionaire that has spent millions of dollars buying elections for candidates he called for the bombing of Iran in 2014 he criticized President Obama's attempts to bring peace to the Middle East and attacked senators for urging humanitarian aid to the Gaza Strip so overall he's just a horrible human being but this is what he has to say about Bernie Sanders we love all 23 candidates no minus one I profoundly dislike Bernie Sanders he thinks that every billionaire is a crook he calls us the billionaire class and he attacks us indiscriminately Kenneth Langone who's the co-founder of Home Depot is worth $3.7 billion and he pays Home Depot employees so low that they are forced to rely on food stamps here's what he said about Bernie Sanders in 2016 I saw Bernie Sanders and the kids around him I thought this is the Antichrist we have Andy Puzder who is a former fast food CEO and this is what he says about Bernie Sanders all these proposals Sanders proposals they are just going to kill growth now this is what he said in response to Bernie Sanders saying that we should raise the federal minimum wage getting to Lowell McCatham who was the former CEO of Verizon who made $20 million a year this is what he said in response to Bernie Sanders issuing support for striking Verizon workers the senators uninformed views are in a word contemptible Jamie Diamond CEO of JP Morgan Chase says that just because it resonates doesn't make it right in response to Bernie Sanders saying that he should pay his fair share Disney CEO Bob Iger said this in response to Bernie calling on him to raise the wages of workers at Disney how many jobs have you created Jeffrey Immelt former CEO of GE said this when Bernie Sanders called out his greed GE operates in the real world we're in the business of building real things and generating real growth Lloyd Blankfein former CEO of Goldman Sachs said this about Bernie's candidacy it has the potential to be a dangerous moment Allen Greenspan former Federal Reserve chairman said remember the basic problem of inequality is a fact that people are born that way it doesn't have anything to do with the system people are just born that way this is what third way said about Bernie Sanders Bernie Sanders is an existential threat to the future of the democratic party Leon Cooperman who is a former partner at Goldman Sachs said Bernie Sanders in my opinion doesn't have a clue Bernard Marcus co-founder of Home Depot said Bernie Sanders is the enemy of every entrepreneur that's ever going to be born in the country and has been born in the past Stanley Druckenmiller who is a billionaire hedge fund manager says if Bernie Sanders became president I think stock prices would be 30% to 40% lower than they are now now I'm going to link you to the full list of anti endorsements down below I didn't read every single word but you get the gist of it these people who are rich they exploit labor they're billionaires these are the people who hate Bernie Sanders and there's a common theme they all call him a threat they say oh well you know this is bad for growth translation this is bad for me and my pockets so I need all of us to take a moment and kind of put two and two together when there are so many candidates running in the race and you have this many CEOs and billionaires and hedge fund managers only targeting one candidate what does that tell you about that candidate I mean let's just take a moment and parse this out Elizabeth Warren for example I've always been a supporter of Elizabeth Warren now you all know I don't have to tell you she led me down but I mean she's running and she is continuously releasing policy after policy every single week but let's look at the response that she gets from these same people who have given Bernie Sanders anti endorsements for example third way says that she is a potential compromise candidate if you know Democratic party voters want a progressive I guess you know they're saying we can settle on Elizabeth Warren it's better than Bernie on top of that Wall Street even though she's not funded by Wall Street there are reports that they're warming up to Warren not necessarily because they're trying to bribe her or butter her up perhaps they're trying to do that but she isn't taking their money yet and she may do that in the general in the event she becomes the Democratic party nominee but for now she's raising money via grassroots small-dollar fundraising but here's what they say they're saying if we have to pick someone and the Democratic party base is going to go for someone who's a left wing candidate or more left wing then you bet your ass we'd rather go with Elizabeth Warren than Bernie Sanders so what does it tell you when you have people entrenched within the establishment who have all this money and power screaming at the top of their lungs about the threat that Bernie Sanders is but simultaneously they're trying to convince themselves that maybe Warren isn't as bad as they initially thought what does that tell you that says everything you need to know about this entire election cycle there's one candidate who these oligarchs continuously denounce and speak out against it's Bernie Sanders and it's because they know Bernie Sanders is the only candidate that can bring about fundamental change and he may not even be successful at bringing about fundamental change but they know that he's the only candidate who's actually going to try who has the grassroots following that could potentially catalyze a political revolution in the same way we saw FTR catalyze a political revolution during the Great Depression with the New Deal reforms so it can't get much clearer than this how many more signs do we need the stars are aligned and they're spelling out Bernie Sanders name telling us idiots you have a ticket out of the misery of this rigged economy you have a ticket it's Bernie Sanders why aren't you taking this you're complaining you're frustrated with the system you see how you're being exploited this is your ticket why are you not listening we're screaming the universe is telling you every sign is indicating that Bernie Sanders is actually what we all wanted Obama to be and when we look back at this very moment in the future I truly believe we are going to realize that Bernie Sanders was our one potential ticket out of this hellscape and if we don't choose Bernie we are going to be kicking ourselves I absolutely beyond a shadow of a doubt believe that but it's not too late we have a short window of opportunity and opportunity like this maybe won't ever come knocking at our door again at least in our lifetimes possibly so are we going to just be dense and say well you know he's too old so I'm going to go with Elizabeth Warren no I want the candidate who has these people like Lloyd Blankfein and Jamie Dimon shitting their pants I want to go for the candidate who is called the antichrist by CEOs and rich people that's who I want because I know in my heart of hearts that that's the only person who is truly not compromised who will in fact fight and again it's not a guarantee that Bernie Sanders will be successful even if he is elected but this is our window of opportunity are you going to capitalize on it and actually support Bernie Sanders or are you going to go for someone who is a little bit more easier for the establishment to digest I think the answer is clear there's very few people in congress that are actually left wing actually truly progressive you know there's AOC, Ilhan Omar Pramila Jayapal, Ro Khanna, Tulsi Gabbard to name a few but progressives in general even if we don't necessarily have power we do have one very important advantage and that is we have very large platforms because the ideas that we're talking about are incredibly popular people in congress like AOC she has millions of twitter followers she'll use that platform to promote progressive policy ideas she'll use it to name and shame people even within her own party who do the bidding of Donald Trump and the Republicans and so you know on that note I've talked before about how Nancy Pelosi puts more effort into resisting progressives within her own party than actually resisting Republicans like Donald Trump and Mitch McConnell and you're going to see that example come up again because when you see AOC use her platform to her advantage to get the word out well Nancy Pelosi is now saying don't do that stop doing that so the reason why this is a problem AOC's use of twitter and social media is a problem for example to Nancy Pelosi is because this makes people like Nancy Pelosi and blue dog Democrats look really bad because if you see people like AOC Ilhan Omar tweeting about student loan debt cancellation everyone's going to see that when a progressive does it since progressives are more popular and then constituents across the country will ask their representative hey why aren't you supporting what these popular progressives are supporting like AOC and Ilhan Omar it essentially forces other lawmakers within the Democratic party to do better and they absolutely hate this progressives are popular and they have the winning message I mean think about this it's not just about like people in elected positions of power how many centrist YouTube channels actually exist that are popular like how many pro-establishment Democratic party YouTube channels exist I can't name any but I can name a bunch of anti-establishment progressive channels like Mines, Kyle Kolinsky's David Dole's and you know the reason why progressives are popular is because we're saying things that are common sense that the establishment can't say because they don't want to offend and upset their donors so Nancy Pelosi what she tried to do in a closed door meeting was scold progressives who are using Twitter to their advantage to further the progressive movement and we got a little bit of you know what happened according to insider accounts and it just it proves yet again Nancy Pelosi does not care at all about progressive policies I mean she could be saying hey AOC let's use your Twitter account to promote this anti-corruption bill that you know the Democratic party is pushing but she's not she's just saying don't use Twitter for reasons X, Y and Z so Heather Cagle and Sarah Ferris of political report speaker Nancy Pelosi chided progressives in a closed door meeting Wednesday calling on them to address their intra-party grievances privately rather than blasting their centrist colleagues on Twitter Pelosi's comments which were described as stern came during the first full caucus meeting since a major blow up over emergency border funding last month between progressive and moderate lawmakers as well as a recent spat with Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and her freshman allies so again you got a complaint you come talk to me about it Pelosi told Democrats according to a source in the room but do not tweet about our members and expect us to think that that is just okay Democrats inside the room said they interpreted that remark in part as a shot at Representative Mark Pocan co-chair of the Congressional Progressive Caucus who called moderate Democrats members of the child abuse caucus in a tweet over their support for the Senate's version of the emergency humanitarian package speaking behind closed doors Wednesday morning Pelosi also gave a phatic defense of the moderates in the caucus of course according to multiple sources telling the room that they're critical to holding the House majority Pelosi told Democrats not to make the blue dog coalition their targets and instead criticize her publicly if they need to go after someone Pelosi also indirectly criticized Ocasio-Cortez's chief of staff according to Democrats in the room as she told members to tell their staffers to think twice before they tweet psychoshockrobot Ocasio-Cortez's chief of staff when after Pelosi in a series of tweets over the weekend criticizing everything from her comments on the squad to her stance against impeachment shocker body also tweeted scathing criticism of the blue dogs calling them the new southern Democrats they certainly seem hell bent to do black and brown people today with the old southern Democrats did in the 40s shocker body wrote on Twitter before deleting the post so this is interesting because it conveys to us Nancy Pelosi knows how powerful a tool social media is and what she's essentially trying to do is defame the bite that you know social media has so AOC feels less inclined to air her grievances about corporate Democrats on Twitter but I say to hell with that because these are people who if they're not going to do the right thing then they need to be named and ashamed and think about Nancy Pelosi's priorities here she's defending blue dog Democrats saying please don't go after them because they are helping us keep our majority but she has no regard for the progressives who are also helping Democrats keep the majority don't you care about appeasing progressives too if you truly want to keep a solid majority of course she doesn't because Nancy Pelosi is firmly in the camp of the blue dogs hence why she constantly goes after progressives and there was a lot of pearl clutching from centrist Democrats after Mark Polkan made that tweet because they didn't like that he put them in their place and called them out for their negligence quite frankly Abigail Spanberger was one of them who said how dare he say this about us we care about the children right but your actions are telling us otherwise that you don't actually care about the children because you literally voted for a bill with no accountability at these migrant concentration camps the way that people continuously defend Nancy Pelosi after week after week we get articles like this it boggles my mind I don't get it if you're on the left how can you keep defending Nancy Pelosi how can you keep defending her and let's not pretend that AOC is you know condemning people overtly and explicitly you know show oftentimes air agreements with people in her party on Twitter but it's never anything that's a scathing is something that Donald Trump would put out or any Republican would put out I mean these are very tepid and mild criticisms but the fact that Nancy Pelosi can't even handle that it really shows you how fragile her ego is so I don't know what else to say Nancy Pelosi has got to go she needs to lose her next election and there is someone Shahid Butar who is offering us a way out of this nightmare with Nancy Pelosi dictating the direction of the Democratic Party it's going in a very increasingly corporatist and moderate way and that's unacceptable so if you want to affect change go to Shahidforchange.us support Shahid Butar's campaign imagine if Shahid pulled an AOC and beat Nancy Pelosi it would absolutely terrify everyone in the establishment and that's what we need so let's do it let's work towards that because it's not undoable it's going to be difficult but we can do it it's just a matter of how much effort we put into it Twitter user Andrew Lawrence clipped out a video from a recent airing of the Tucker Carlson show and it's just downright appalling I would like to say Tucker Carlson is finally showing his true colors but he showed his true colors to everyone years ago for people having paying close attention to Tucker Carlson the rhetoric that he espouses is so deeply dangerous so deeply bigoted that I don't know how you haven't seen him for what he is sooner but yet there's a lot of people that tend to give him a pass because every once in a while he'll say something that is seemingly populist economically he'll say look Amazon is being too greedy I agree with AOC on this or he'll be anti-intervention it's gonna say we shouldn't wage wars and these are all fine but it gets people to think well you know what since he's good on issues X, Y and Z I'm gonna give him a pass for everything else but it's a fucking trick and we can't buy into it because the rhetoric that he is espousing is deeply, deeply dangerous so listen to this clip here and judge for yourself this is what he has to say to the only people in Congress who's fighting for you and me Ilhan Omar Omar isn't disappointed in America she's enraged by it virtually every public statement she makes accuses Americans of bigotry and racism this is an immoral country she says she is undisguised contempt for the United States and for its people that should worry you and not just because Omar is now a sitting member of Congress Ilhan Omar is living proof that the way we practice immigration has become dangerous to this country a system designed to strengthen America is instead undermining it some of the very people we try hardest to help have come to hate us passionately maybe that's our fault for asking too little of our immigrants we aren't self confident enough to make them assimilate so they never feel fully American or maybe the problem is deeper than that maybe we're importing people from places whose values are simply antithetical to ours who knows what the problem is but there is a problem for the cause this cannot continue it's not sustainable no country can import large numbers of people who hate it and expect to survive the Romans will last to try that with predictable results so be grateful for Ilhan Omar annoying as she is she's a living fire alarm a warning to the rest of us we better change our immigration system immediately or else I think that clip speaks for itself what else do you even say let's supplement that video with my commentary because he said everything he said everything it's right there the only fucking thing that was missing is a hood over his face this isn't dog whistle racism and bigotry this is a bullhorn that he is screaming in your face take him at his word he very clearly just told you who he is he showed himself so if you didn't pick up on his cues before now it should be crystal clear and watching that I couldn't help but think you know it's no wonder why Ilhan Omar frequently gets death threats it's because of things like this let's go through what he said quote she has undisguised contempt for the United States and its people that should worry you Ilhan Omar is living proof that the way we practice immigration has become dangerous to this country she's a living fire alarm a warning to the rest of us we better change our immigration system immediately or else do I really need to break that down any further he's telling you be very afraid of Ilhan Omar can you believe that we let her into our country not her country but our country and this person is criticizing the United States how dare she criticize the United States this isn't her country this is our country she doesn't even look like us she's not one of us and she's dangerous to people like us we're the real Americans so how dare she criticize the United States we need to stop letting people like her in that criticize the United States we need to stop letting people like her in who have the same skin tone as your eye and who have drunk in the pro-American Kool-Aid and won't criticize us ever what more do you need this is fucking despicable and weeks ago I couldn't help but laugh when people were freaking out because Carlos Mazza after that blow up with Steven Crowder and him he had it in his twitter bio Tucker Carlson as a white supremacist people actually took issue with that if that isn't white supremacy that you just watched then what the fuck is does he literally have to put on a fucking clan hood I mean what else is that what else is that how much more brazen does he have to be for people to realize holy shit this person is deeply deeply bigoted and he's dangerous maybe these views shouldn't be broadcasted to millions of people every single night maybe we should call for an advertiser boycott because what he's saying is deeply harmful he's stoking the fans of hate and fear against immigrants I mean why is this so difficult for people to admit that Tucker Carlson is obviously bigoted and he often times espouses white supremacist rhetoric on his show is that really hard for people to admit because it's inconceivable to me that you could reach any other conclusion if you just watch a little bit of him if you watch this clip here he's telling you basically without saying that he doesn't like these immigrants because they're not American enough for him how dare you criticize America and the reason why I think people they you know their hands off Tucker is because he found a way to I think brilliantly legitimize himself by plucking out certain issues that are largely agreeable you know economic populism talking about anti-interventionism of course Americans hate wars so he can play on that to get you to think he is someone who is an ally potentially and then he often times will spew white supremacist propaganda and rhetoric on a daily basis I mean I just don't know what else to say if you don't see it um I can't help you I can't make you see it if you haven't already saw it the dudes are fucking white supremacist using white supremacist talking points and um this is just become normalized now Ilhan Omar responded to this and this is what she said not gonna lie it's kind of fun watching a racist fool like this weeping about my presence in congress no lies will stamp out my love for this country or my resolve to make our union more perfect they will just have to get used to calling me congresswoman and I think that really is the perfect response because you know that people like Ilhan Omar in the eyes of someone like Tucker Carlson thinks that she should be relegated to you know just poverty how dare this person who isn't even a real American like you and me how dare she become a congressperson actually achieve power in our society when she's critical of us unbelievable so he's saying you know if you criticize America ever you're an American well protesting and criticizing America is the most American thing ever that's why we have the first amendment Tucker and it protects people in congress as well but I mean how much more brazen does he have to get before people stop taking him seriously all together how much more brazen does it have to get this is absolutely despicable absolutely despicable but you know every once in a while he'll say AOC was right about Amazon or he will say we shouldn't go to wars okay but if you acknowledge that don't minimize the harm that he's causing with this type of rhetoric it's deeply deeply disturbing and problematic overall and he should be absolutely ashamed of himself but he's not because he makes millions of dollars going on TV every single night fear mongering about immigrants I mean if Ilhan Omar isn't the model immigrant to him who is I can't quite figure out what type of immigrant would be acceptable to someone like Tucker Carlson it's so obvious he's so brazen and if you don't see it I don't know what to tell you the man is a white supremacist hello everyone I am here with Shahid Butar who is running against Nancy Pelosi in California's 12th congressional district he's taking on a political behemoth and he is here to talk about his campaign Shahid thank you so much for coming on the show thanks for having me figure it out I'm really excited the minute that I found out there was going to be a challenger to Nancy Pelosi I got on board immediately and then when I started to learn about your policy positions then it was even sweeter because you're a true progressive and you don't just call yourself a progressive like you actually walk the walk so I looked over your platform before I went on the air Medicare for all you know ending US militarism this is a very robust platform and there's a lot of people running who are progressive around the country but your campaign is very unique because you're taking on someone that is going to be very very difficult to unseat so can you explain why you chose to challenge Nancy Pelosi and why you think you're qualified to defeat her why you could be the one who could actually take her out and why many have ran against her before I appreciate the question so the simple reason why I'm running against Speaker Pelosi is because she's my representative in Washington I live in San Francisco if I'm going to run for Congress she's the person I would particularly need to take on and because frankly I have spent 20 years as an advocate watching our concerns in the intersectional movement for justice that is to say the immigrant rights movement the movement for black lives the peace and justice movement the occupy the movement to relieve student debt the movement for climate justice I've watched all of our movements various concerns fall on unfortunately deaf ears in Nancy Pelosi's and being the speaker of the house wielding as much influence as she has and watching her defer to our kleptocrat in chief on issue after issue from impeachment to fiscal austerity rules to funding his concentration camps to supporting his foreign policy it is frankly intolerable to me and I in 2018 when I ran against Pelosi from the left and got more votes than anyone challenging her from the left in a primary in 10 years despite entering very late in the cycle against a very crowded field of people who describe themselves as progressive having achieved that result in three months without media attention in 2018 I'm very confident of at least taking second place in the top two primary in March 2020 which will position me to then challenge speaker Pelosi in November and the reason I'm quite confident that we'll win in November 2020 and speaker Pelosi's career and end the bipartisan consensus on corporate rule user stakes much bigger than a single congressional seat the reason I'm sure we're going to win is because well for several reasons the first the field is tilting at our favor and the wind is at our back if only due to generational transition we've already seen the early tremors of a political earthquake that is only starting to unfold and we haven't yet seen the half of it Bernie's race in 2016 and the remarkable demonstration that he showed that across the electorate is a deep and broad support not just for progressive policies but for socialist policies and I don't describe myself as a progressive I describe myself as a democratic socialist and it's because I recognize that not only our education and emergency medical care human rights but so are housing and food and a meaningful opportunity to compete with everyone else right clean air and water are human rights that we denigrate constantly so that there's a little bit there my 20 year history of fighting at the vanguard to establish and defend and advance the left is one reason I think I'm going to take this seat in 2020 and finally as much faith and I have as I have in our campaign I have a great deal of faith in my neighbors and the people of San Francisco and I think the people of San Francisco are more committed to our communities than they are to corporations and because we're running to put people before profit I think they'll be with us and this is why I absolutely have faith in you because what you described that you were able to accomplish in 2018 with no media coverage is remarkable and you also didn't have any in the media coverage like a lot of candidates they'll go on these shows like the humanist report and they'll promote their campaigns but your campaign I didn't think you were running so the fact that you still did that good with zero media coverage whatsoever it really shows that you are a force in politics and if anyone's going to take out Nancy Pelosi I think we're looking at them right now so let me ask you this because this is what I really like about you you know we see Nancy Pelosi and she says we're a capitalist party that's just the way it is but then you're running unapologetically as a democratic socialist and I find that so refreshing so let's say you take out Nancy Pelosi this is your first year in congress there's so many issues you've listed a number of issues that you know we need to address immediately but if you had to prioritize a couple of issues let's say like two or three what do you think you'd focus on within that first year because if I were a lawmaker I wouldn't even know where to begin because there's so much so just from a personal level what do you think you would try to focus on there is indeed so much in your right to raise it my early priorities would be to dial up and for instance if I'm able to get on a committee that would have some jurisdiction over ICE and CBP the DHS committee there's a huge need frankly to scrutinize the executive branch and its serial ongoing seemingly mounting human rights abuses with respect to the legislative agenda I think one area that's very ripe a bill that we could frankly move very early in the next congress would be a bipartisan measure to remove cannabis from the controlled substances act that's going to have support from Republicans it's going to have support from Democrats by moving that we're going to both establish a civil rights imperative which is to say one crucial step forward in dismantling the prison industrial slavery complex we're going to protect generations of young people and low income people and people of color across the country from being railroaded into pretextual crimes here in California we're lucky enough to have legal access to cannabis that's still that's not the case in most of the country and it's still a pretext in many parts of the country for people to find themselves sucked into the gaping mob or criminal injustice system another area that I think is important at least to start the work on I don't think I'm going to get the bill passed in a first term but I certainly want to get a bill introduced to introduce 18 year staggered terms for supreme court justices there's a lot of people who are talking increasingly about packing the court and as a constitutional lawyer who's been concerned about the court's politicization since I was in law school in the early 2000s under the bush administration I wrote 10 years ago under Obama a proposal for 18 year staggered terms on supreme court to address the court's established political bias it's pro corporate bias for instance here's the important part without reintroducing another bias that's the danger of a court packing plan a court packing plan might smell nice to progress this for the moment because we've lost the court to fascists but replacing one bias for another only undermines the independence of the judiciary and the independence of the judiciary is a crux on which liberty rests I want to make sure that the older longest serving justices Ruth Bader Ginsburg aside but to cycle people off the bench that would change the incentives in the nominations process it would diminish the incentives for stealth nominees for younger nominees it would allow people to still establish expertise on the bench and allow for new blood to come so that the next generation is not beholden to the stale consensus of two generations past yeah and I absolutely love that plan I've previously advocated for a court packing plan but as I hear arguments like this it does sound more appealing because something has to be done like I think a lot of people would agree that we can't just allow the next generation to be dominated by a fascistic pro corporate court that's unacceptable so I do like this plan I think it's well reasoned I think it's something that would potentially pass now one thing that I really wanted to get your take on was this narrative that you are battling because any time I post a video about Nancy Pelosi I just did this week and I talked about the way that she capitulated to Mitch McConnell when it comes to immigration the pushback that I get is people don't even want to hear the argument like I saw someone on Twitter say I'm not even willing to hear anyone criticizing Nancy Pelosi you know she's a progressive and she you know one person brought to my attention look she was campaigning for rights as a gay man before you were born so how can you say she's not a progressive so let me ask you this how do you go against that narrative that is so ingrained in people because people think Nancy Pelosi she's from San Francisco she is just by definition a progressive what do you do to differentiate yourself in this situation because I see it I see how different you are but how do you get other people to see it because this is something that I'm finding really difficult to accomplish I appreciate the question and you're right this is one of our central challenges particularly for low information voters who don't pay that much attention and they only get their news from broadcast network news and so they see Pelosi cited as the seeming antithesis to Trump and so they presume that she's acting in opposition and I share with those people basically information there's a both a critique of the incumbent and a sort of positive rationale right for why my voice is a better one for our district to be represented in Washington just to focus on the first I have to remind people often who don't pay a lot of attention that for better or worse and I wish that this were not the case the speaker of the house has been complicit with our criminal administration in Washington on for instance imposing conservative fiscal austerity rules constraining the progressive majority in the house from pursuing social spending into the deficit to meet the needs of the American people the speaker of the house is unfortunately complicit with our criminal administration in Washington by refusing to initiate articles of impeachment she swore an oath every member of Congress swears an oath to defend the Constitution against all enemies foreign and domestic and the biggest threat to our Constitution indeed the biggest threat to our Republic to working American families to future generations to peace around the world is our criminal president and for the speaker of the house for two years bang the drum of supposed resistance among her supporters and then fail to show up now that she has the opportunity as the speaker to pursue executive accountability in my mind is unconscionable it is disqualifying it is the abdication of a constitutional responsibility moreover speaker Pelosi for better or worse supports our criminal administration's foreign policy from Venezuela where he wants to execute a right wing resource extraction to Palestine where he supports human rights abuses right and the use of our military industrial complex foment and expand those human rights abuses this nonsense at the border the idea that speaker Pelosi would sign the bill would would stump for the bill to give President Trump billions of dollars to build concentration camps and the only human rights protection we get is a verbal assurance from the vice president that the next time they kill a child they'll let us know within two days that is thin gruel to accept for billions of taxpayer dollars it's unacceptable those are some of the critiques of the incumbent I could get into her funding Bush's wars and sweeping CIA torture under the rug and being complicit in an era of mass incarceration that's laid waste to communities across the country but I don't want to beat the donkey that I hope is dead when next year we replace the bipartisan consensus on corporate rule with instead a new vision for the Democratic party that places human rights before profit that places human rights before the interest of fossil fuel extraction companies that places human rights before the interest of the military industrial complex that places human rights before the interest of the pharmaceutical industrial complex and health insurance companies it ultimately the reason I present a sharp distinction with the speaker is that I've you know some of my earliest political acts were organizing demonstrations to try to stop wars that she was voting to fund you know I've done a ton of work trying to seek executive accountability for CIA torture that she facilitated by failing to raise the alarm when she was read into it as the speaker of the house last time a decade ago a particularly crucial distinction for our district here in San Francisco were one of the mechas of the LGBTQ communities around the world frankly and when I was fresh out of law school as a cis hetero Muslim lawyer I was fighting for marriage equality for LGBT couples in the state of New York in 2004 this was almost a decade before Pelosi showed up to even acknowledge the rights of her constituents my neighbors and I think the fact that I was fighting in the courts for rights a decade before she even to acknowledge them on the eve mind you of a right-wing Supreme Court enshrining those rights for all of us I think that's a very revealing distinction and my client at the time Jason West who is the mayor of New Paltz New York you know describes those moments is there weren't a lot of people willing to stand with him and certainly the Democratic party leadership was not willing to stand with him speaker Pelosi did not stand with him I stood with him in his constituents long before she chose to and I think that that distinction is revealing to people of the district and I think that as we make the case over the next year both for why speaker Pelosi has been quite disappointing in her supposed resistance and unfortunately effective in her advancement of the Trump administration's policies and also the history I've had of resistance for real building the last of the party establishing rights that at some point people long thought were impossible I've helped make the impossible real before and I'm looking forward to doing it again yeah and everything that you say is completely irrefutable you don't just make a good case as to why Nancy Pelosi isn't a true progressive or even really that left wing but you also simultaneously are building this really strong case for yourself as to why you absolutely are the correct representative for that position now one thing I want to ask you is because you lay out this case very um articulately and perfectly I think do you see people being actually receptive when you talk to them like do you do you notice cognitive dissonance or are they actually you know responding well to that yeah I mean the other reason I'm sure I'm going to win the seat in November 2020 is we win any crowd I have a chance to get in front of and in public outreach you know people on the street understand what is happening here first a lot of San Franciscans pay a lot of attention and many of them have been long over Speaker Pelosi I think the complaints about her relative conservatism date back to the Bush administration when she was funding Bush's wars you know the last candidate to challenge her who does as well as I did in a primary and frankly beat me by a little bit a significant amount actually was Cindy Sheehan she was a gold star mother who had lost a son in Iraq and she ran against Pelosi raising this issue of Speaker Pelosi's fidelity to the military industrial complex instead of the peace and justice movement for which this city has historically been more known and while on the one hand Cindy didn't break through a lot of people in this district have long been very concerned about Speaker Pelosi's co-optation of our city's voice in Washington what's kept her in office for 30 years is vast troves of corporate capital and she will still have access to that but one thing that's very different in 2019 and 2020 years before frankly is that the electorate is woke people have grown increasingly alarmed and while the Trump administration's litany of crimes and serial human rights abuses might be the thing that forced them to wake up I think in the context of people coming to greater awareness about their own lives in the broader context of our society the historical arc of justice and whether it's bending in our favor or against us I think increasingly as people do investigate policy issues they discover just how unfortunately conservative Speaker Pelosi has been and as someone who's long but long before running this race you know I was dedicated to building the left edge of the movement in some respects the fact that that I am even running for Congress often surprises me the idea that I am now representing the voice of an entire generation and I do think millennials being the most progressive generation our Republic has ever known they are solidly behind me in addition to many boomers and certainly people in my generation who have a critique of the failures of the corporate paradigm that's preceded us the idea that I am now firmly where an entire generation is is frankly surprising when I see Bernie in 2016 touch this nerve across the country and I'm watching this being like oh okay we're not alone apparently and then witnessing Representative Ocasio-Cortez in 2018 score a tremendous upset against a very very firmly entrenched incumbent you know those things were very hard to overlook and recognizing that the field here in San Francisco that preceded me in 2018 didn't have my depth of history in the movement and expertise across issues from marriage equality to campaign finance reform to privacy in the context of government surveillance to due process in the face of detention, torture, drone strikes my history of work organizing particularly resistance to profiling by law enforcement authorities at the local and the state level and the federal level these were a few things that inclined me to jump in and I think that as I make the case to people here in San Francisco everyone frankly is very receptive and I'll be clear about this if Bernie or Liz Warren are at the top of the ticket in 2020 I win the seat period I'll have a harder road to climb to the extent one of the centrists but if it is a progressive if it is a left-wing a left-wing populist on the ticket in 2020 I'm absolutely confident that with the combined force of that campaign's GOTV operations plus the campaign that we're building now our ground games are stronger already than it ever got last year and we still have another you know over a year before the general election in November 2020 I have a great deal of confidence that we're going to surprise a lot of people and help continue the generational earthquake that's going to transform our political system over the next five years that's encouraging and as you speak I am a believer now let's fast-forward into the future let's assume you dethrone Nancy Pelosi and I mean that's going to send shock waves through the entire country but we can anticipate exactly what's going to happen I already know that there's going to be a Fox News segment where they say Nancy Pelosi apparently she's too conservative for the Democrats and now there's this new guy that's even more liberal so you know what the right wingers in Fox News and right wing propagandists are going to do but I think that people within the Democratic Party they're going to use that example of Fox News against you in order to try to marginalize you within Congress and say look this guy isn't a representative so my question is how do you fight back against the forces within your own party that desperately don't want you to get the message across they don't want to change the status quo they want to maintain this capitalistic system where people are exploited and voices aren't represented how do you push back because this is my my thing I don't know how I would respond if one I need power in Congress because I'm aware of the fact that leadership can strip me of committee appointments but at the same time I also need to push back because if I don't then I'll also be taken advantage of so how do you respond to the establishment what do you think is the correct approach super thoughtful question I have a lot of different interests you know in addition to politics and music, I DJ, I'm a martial artist that's so awesome in a couple different martial artists martial arts I should say there are principles around deflection and evasion simultaneous with attack this is one thing that characterizes Kung Fu or Kapa Wada, I practice Kapa Wada and a lot of strikes in Kapa Wada are also evasions and all that is to say just like Judo or Aikido, there are opportunities to use the other sides force and momentum against them so I want to focus on the first part of your question which is to say what happens when Fox News brings me back on again Fox News nationally before in 2005 I was the principal or one of the spokespeople for the counter-inaugural demonstrations that were responding to President Bush's second term and so I was on Hannity and Combs in January 2005 and I made a fool of Sean Hannity on his own show particularly because frankly if you speak to conservatives even in the middle of the country and the south in terms that they can understand they agree with us right the key is not to call it socialism the key is to call your right to get your aging parents to a doctor without having to go homeless getting them there right it's not and there's another piece here I'm not just a socialist I'm a democratic socialist I have a lot of things to say about how the democracy is threatened short of socialism you know we have restraints on voting rights and attacks on the franchise we have a crumbling independence of the judiciary and the capacity to defend individual rights threatened by political majorities we have rising executive secrecy impeding the right of the press to the public to understand how our government is using our tax dollars and conducting its business and we have mounting surveillance that inhibits dissent so at least among four different dimensions our democracy is being attacked by a bipartisan consensus and emphasizing those issues that is very appealing particularly to the libertarian wing of the right wing so you know Trumpies come in a lot of different flavors and a lot of them are simply iconoclasts who understand that they're being fleeced and bought a bunch of snake oil right so if you go in there speaking the truth you can speak to their very legitimate concerns about how the bipartisan consensus to put Wall Street before Main Street for the last generation has led to all of us not only being fleeced but raced off of either or both of two cliffs either climate catastrophe on the one hand or rising fascism attempting to consolidate itself on the other I think many people on the right end of the spectrum share those concerns so I just want to push back and say I think I can co-op some of those fora that we would expect otherwise to demagogue people like me and we've seen that happen before Bernie Ocasio-Cortez they've been very effective co-opting those right wing for I mean I frankly I think the reason that AOC is known today by an acronym is because for six months before they figured out that she's an unassailable target the right wing made her a viral sensation they went after her on every news cycle and it just turns out that their base was with her and all Americans are with her frankly I mean she is the future and we democratic socialists are the future and we're just waiting for the rest of the political system to figure it out and I think as we make the case and we present to voters the choice between do you want your aging parents or your kids to be able to get to a doctor without you having to risk bankruptcy do you think that human beings should have a right to housing and food or would you rather squander those resources and missiles and nuclear weapons programs and fighter planes that don't even meet the security needs of our country's future right wasteful fraudulent corporate boondoggles that leave your own children impoverished do you want a viable future for our species on this planet or not I think these are questions that when presented in sharp terms that recognize the complicity of corporate democrats that we can speak to the populace on both sides of the spectrum one key here and I do want to make this explicit is I am both more partisan pardon me more progressive and less partisan than Pelosi in other words the attempt to defend democrats is part of the reason why we've seen the country slide to the right if we articulate bold principles that our own state most treasured values the tired poor huddled masses yearning to be free peace equality liberty values we're all taught to believe in if we boldly defend those values especially in a time of crisis like the one we live in now I think we will pull Americans with us and I take very seriously both the responsibility and the opportunity as an immigrant to remind other Americans what makes our country great and has made our country great and it's not the promises of a tyrant it's the conclusion of people from all over the world it is these principles that's what makes America great and I'm very excited to breathe new life into them and to defend them not just as an advocate in our communities but in congress as well I don't think you're going to have anyone who watches this who's a regular viewer not going to be convinced so tell us what we can do if you want to support you because I'm assuming a lot of people are very excited and they want to help you get Nancy Pelosi out not just because we want to defeat Nancy Pelosi but we want to elect you because we've got a plan for everything in the true sense not in the false sense so what can we do to support you where can we go and how can we support your campaign if we don't live in that district in California appreciate the question so you can visit us online at www.shawhid4change.us that's S-H-A-H-I-D-F-O-R C-H-A-N-G-E .U-S you can make a donation there campaign contributions help level the playing field with the most prolific fundraiser in Congress and so I certainly have a hard target and any support would be really helpful we have 1400 supporters from around the country it's a very humbling experience to see so many people pitching in to enable this campaign and so you'll be in very good company folks can also sign up to volunteer that can include if you're in the Bay Area any number of opportunities to join us in street outreach dropping lit canvassing and even if you're not in the Bay Area there are also any number of volunteer opportunities from data entry there's a whole set of research opportunities we have social media teams that are supporting us so if you're inspired by what you're hearing and you want to help end the bipartisan consensus on corporate rule we'd welcome you to reach us at www.shawhid4change.us or on any of the major social media platforms Twitter, Facebook or Instagram at www.shawhid4change all right well thank you so much for coming on and watching very closely because I've got a really good feeling about you and I think a lot of other people do as well I think now is going to be the time that we get someone in that position in that district who's actually going to truly represent the people not just there but across the country because this point that I like to make is even if you don't live in that particular district if Shahid won't be your representative what he does will affect you because Ilhan Omar would actually a bill that would cancel all student loan debt Pramila Jayapal in Washington she sponsored Medicare for All these are things that affect all of us so it's not just about that one district this is a national movement and if you could participate in any way chip in a buck or two you are helping the cause so Shahid thank you so much we will be following very closely you're very kind thanks so much for having me on I'll leave no stone unturned well that's all that I've got for you guys today thank you so much for tuning in if you made it this far in the program as usual we can't end without thanking all of our Patreon, PayPal and YouTube members and if you listen on iTunes as well that is one additional way that you can support the show if you watch this through YouTube you can always like the video and share our content that goes a long way I assure you so yeah I think that's about everything let's wrap up I'm Mike Figueroa I will see you all next week this has been the Hue and Support Podcast take care everyone