 This is the Humanist Report with Mike Figueredo. The Humanist Report podcast is funded by viewers like you through Patreon and PayPal. To support the show, visit patreon.com forward slash humanistreport or become a member at humanistreport.com. Now enjoy the show. Welcome to the Humanist Report podcast. My name is Mike Figueredo and this is the 186th edition of the program. Today is Friday, March 29th and before we get into the show, I want to take some time to thank all of our newest Patreon, PayPal and YouTube members. And I also want to thank the people who increased their monthly pledge who are already supporting us. And that includes Ather, Alison Reinhardt, Amy Learman, Francisco Cardenas, Glenn Cochens, Jacquees Faces, James Allister, Juan Carlos Bueno, Juan Rodriguez, 10 Peoples, Melissa Carruthers and Peter Willett. So thank you so much to all of these kind individuals. If you'd also like to support the show and join the independent progressive media revolution, you can do so by visiting patreon.com forward slash humanistreport, humanistreport.com slash support or you can click join underneath any one of our YouTube videos. So on this week's episode, we kicked off the week talking about the end of the Mueller investigation and I give you my thoughts on that based on the limited amount of information we currently know about it. Also, the D triple C introduced a new role meant to kneecap primary challengers to incumbent Democrats. So we'll talk about that and Beto O'Rourke's past came back to haunt him because an old video resurfaced of him pitching right wing reform with regard to social security will also talk about the consequences of nonstop hatred spewed towards AOC from the right wing hate machine. And additionally, Steny Hoyer takes shots at Ilhan Omar at APEC. Trump's going after Obamacare. Once again, Mike Lee attacks the Green New Deal and makes a fool of himself in the process. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez then responded to his attack on the Green New Deal and made a really powerful case for climate change action. And then we closed out the week with the discussion about Bernie's badass appearance on MSNBC, talking about Medicare for All, as well as Joe Biden's response to Anita Hill that I think you're gonna find is just too little, too late. So that's what we've got on the agenda for this week's episode. I hope you guys enjoy the show. Here's what we talked about. So after more than two years, Robert Mueller's investigation into whether or not the Trump campaign colluded with Russia to interfere in the 2016 election has come to an end. And boy, do I have a lot to say about this. There's plenty of implications. However, before I talk about this, before I give you my take, I do think it's important for us to establish the facts of the situation, but keep in mind that we are working with limited information because at this point, nobody but Robert Mueller himself and Attorney General William Barr has seen the full Mueller report. So I do hope it's released soon. And it does seem like there's a bipartisan consensus that has emerged where both Republicans and Democrats want the report to be released. However, as usual, Mitch McConnell is Mitch McConnell-ing if I'm allowed to use his name as a verb. And he's trying to block the effort to call for the release of the full Mueller report. So I mean, this could have been predicted, but regardless, what we have currently is a four-page summary of Mueller's findings from William Barr. Now, here's what that states. This is a summary from Mark Mazzetti and Katie Benner of the New York Times, and they report the investigation led by Robert Mueller found no evidence that President Trump or any of his aides coordinated with the Russian government's 2016 election interference according to a summary of the special counsel's key findings made public on Sunday by Attorney General William Barr. Mr. Mueller, who spent nearly two years investigating Moscow's determined effort to sabotage the last presidential election, found no conspiracy despite multiple offers from Russian-affiliated individuals to assist the Trump campaign, Mr. Barr wrote in a letter to lawmakers. Mr. Mueller's team drew no conclusions about whether Mr. Trump illegally obstructed justice, Mr. Barr said. So he made his own decision. The Attorney General and his deputy, Rod Rosenstein, determined that the special counsel's investigators had insufficient evidence to establish that the president committed that offense. He cautioned, however, that Mr. Mueller's report states that while this report does not conclude that the president committed a crime, it also does not exonerate him on the obstruction of justice issue. So with that being said, given what we know thus far, I think there are three main takeaways based off of William Barr's assessment. The first takeaway is that he confirms it was Russia that hacked into the DNC's email servers. The second is that Donald Trump did not collude with them to do that. And the third is that Mueller seemed agnostic on this question of obstruction, because even though it was obvious to everyone with common sense that Donald Trump fired James Comey specifically because he wanted to shut down the probe. Well, the contention here is that since Donald Trump isn't actually guilty of colluding with Russia, then you can't necessarily confirm that he was trying to obstruct justice with the intent to hide his criminality, which is why Mueller seemed agnostic on this particular issue. And he didn't explicitly say that Donald Trump did in fact commit obstruction of justice, but he also did not exonerate him. And really the question then went to Attorney General William Barr to make the ultimate decision. And he already came to that conclusion before Mueller reached his conclusion, because I think more than a year ago, William Barr released a letter essentially arguing that a sitting president cannot be indicted for obstruction of justice. So because Mueller didn't reach a definitive conclusion there, then William Barr was able to, as one of Trump's lackeys, say, nope, he's innocent, even though America saw him fire James Comey. So I mean, you may or may not agree with everything here, but the point is that the main claim of collusion and treason, that's not there. There's no evidence there. And that's essentially the biggest thing that Donald Trump focused on, but we do have to understand that in spite of that, this was not a witch hunt because it's still unveiled a lot of criminality. George Papadopoulos, Paul Manafort, there were serious crimes that were unveiled here. So to say that this was a witch hunt would still be a stretch, even if the main claim was not validated. And this also does not mean that Donald Trump is innocent when it comes to other acts of criminality and impropriety, because when it comes to illegal hush money payments, bank fraud, tax fraud, violations of the emoluments clause, and more, of course, Donald Trump is guilty of other crimes, just when it comes to this question of collusion, there's just no evidence to back up that claim. And it makes me feel sad that so many pundits and mainstream media worked people into a frenzy believing that Donald Trump was this Manchurian candidate and was a treasonous traitor, because what they were doing there was ignoring all of the other issues that Donald Trump has that are actually legitimate issues. And if they wanted to focus on the aspect of criminality, there's no shortage there, but they didn't do that. I mean, the New York Times report from last year, talking extensively about how his family committed tax fraud. I mean, if you wanna focus on criminality, why would you focus on collusion when this from the get-go seemed like it was going to go nowhere? But by raising the specter of collusion and treason, mainstream media pundits like Rachel Maddow was able to capitalize on that, capitalize on this story for views and ratings. And then the Democratic Party, they were using this to attack Trump for political purposes. And they kind of just kept feeding into one another to where we were living in a Cold War era, paranoia political climate, which was just devastating to political discourse. So what people like Rachel Maddow did by consistently speculating about different ways that Vladimir Putin was the puppeteer to Donald Trump and how Russia was covertly controlling the Trump administration, she really harmed political discourse. And she's not alone. She's not the only one who did this, but she's certainly one of the worst offenders. And she would always speculate about how Rex Tillerson, for example, was doing Russia's bidding by hollowing out the State Department and keeping such a small staff. And that was what Russia wanted. And she then moved on to bigger fear-mongering, more alarmist fear-mongering, and speculated about what would potentially happen if Russia wanted to theoretically cause direct harm to Americans. And she speculated about what would we all do if they shut off America's power grid while the Dakotas were at negative 50 degrees. And all of this Cold War hysteria may have did wonders for her ratings, but meanwhile, it didn't really help the country. And what Democrats like Adam Schiff did, for example, by focusing so much on collusion was they were ignoring the main problem that they were raising, which was election interference in the first place. So they always talked about the prospect of collusion and treason, but they never brought up bills that would increase cybersecurity. They completely ignored Tulsi Gabbard's bill that would move us to paper ballots, which that was one of the worries that people thought. You know, they thought, well, if they're willing to hack into the DNC servers, then what's to say that they wouldn't do the same thing and change votes? Now, there's no evidence that they changed the votes, but if you want to emulate that fear once and for all, you move to paper ballots, you take action, but none of them did that. They stayed focused on collusion and treason. And what that did was that gave Donald Trump a pass. It distracted all of us from talking about the real instances of criminality. Donald Trump is complicit in a genocide right now because he is refusing to back down from the sale of weapons to Saudi Arabia as they drop bombs on children in Yemen. Trump is ignoring the water crisis in Flint. He botched his version of Hurricane Katrina when it comes to Puerto Rico. So we're ignoring the policy substance all because this story itself, it helps the mainstream media get views and ratings and it helps Democrats attack Donald Trump for political purposes while not proposing a real policy alternative to Donald Trump. So the saddest thing about this entire story is that it's gonna embolden Donald Trump going into 2020 because now whenever we call out legitimate instances of criminality like the hush money payments, he's gonna say fake news. I told you no collusion and Mueller found no collusion and now he's gonna use this as evidence to justify any and everything he does. So what we saw over the past couple of years was the Democratic Party establishment and media elites act in an irresponsible way and rather than informing us as American citizens, they fear-mongered and they got us to worry so we would constantly be glued to our TVs and tune in and give them more ratings so they can explain how we're in danger of Russia attacking us. And it's honestly really sad to see that. And I was one of the individuals who sounded the alarms in the beginning about Russian hysteria, about Keith Olberman saying that we're at war with Russia and Donald Trump is an illegitimate president. Instead, he is a puppet. He's a trader who was imposed on us unilaterally by Vladimir Putin and I started out trying to get people to calm down and stop being hysterical about this story. But then I realized that I was also feeding into the frenzy so I chose to stop talking about this because in trying to constantly debunk hysteria and get people to think logically and not base their political decisions and perspectives of fear and instead on facts, I realized that I was also contributing to the conversation itself. One of the first Patreon chats we had once the Russia story really started to ramp up was us complaining about all the Russia, Russia, Russia stuff but then I realized, well, I'm still talking about how they're talking about Russia and I'm inadvertently contributing to this Russia, Russia, Russia narrative myself. So I decided to just back off, let it play out and now after seeing everything that unfolded, it's clear that this, I was right all along, this was incredibly damaging to American political discourse. The American people, they don't know about how he's actually breaking the law or all of the horrible policies that he's implementing because for two years, we were focused on whether or not he was a Manchurian candidate and Mueller was even deified by the left. You have the Mueller subreddit and he was hailed as basically the only person who could save us from the orange menace when all along we were distracted from the fact that the only ones who could save us from Donald Trump was ourselves and we have to propose an alternative to Donald Trump. So this was damaging overall. I think that the investigation itself was important but the discourse surrounding this investigation, primarily because of individuals like Adam Schiff, Ted Lu and Rachel Maddow, they are the ones that really turned this into something that was detrimental to American political discourse and what will ultimately I think help Trump and it pains me to say that because I don't want Donald Trump to feel emboldened going into 2020. He shouldn't but he will use this and brag endlessly which is why people like myself, people like Kyle Kalinsky cautioned people. Be careful when it comes to this claim of collusion because we just don't have the evidence yet but you see when you get intertwined in this type of conspiracy theory, anything and everything becomes evidence that your conspiracy theory is valid. Even if he took a harsh stand against Vladimir Putin, well that was just evidence that he was doing Putin's bidding all along. Oh, what's that? There's NATO troops on the border and we keep saber rattling against Russia and he keeps ramping up with Vladimir Putin. Oh, well this is all to prove to us that really there's no collusion there and he's just trying to pretend to be tough. I mean every single thing was evidence to people who follow this story that Trump was a man sharing a candidate and he was a treasonous traitor but now the left has to come to grips with the fact that we should never ever get away from what is our biggest strength and that is policy substance. And I'm not even one to say that we should focus exclusively on Trump's criminality but if you are, you don't focus on the thing that's not yet proven, you focus on the thing where there's overwhelming evidence like the emoluments clause violations, how he hasn't actually put his businesses in a blind trust and it's therefore still in control, therefore it's a conflict of interest and he's still profiting off of them. So is he conducting himself on behalf of the US government in a way that helps to enrich himself? Is that how he's crafting policies? These are the real questions that we can ask if we wanted to worry about Donald Trump and this agenda that he has but the collusion story, as I predicted, there was no evidence and you shouldn't make these extraordinary claims without having the evidence to back it up and I'm not saying that you're not allowed to speculate but if you're gonna speculate then you have to do it in a responsible way. So there's a lot of individuals in the political establishment and in the media class that use their platforms irresponsibly and what they did for personal gain, ratings, political fame, it hurt the totality of the left and we've gotta come to grips with that and we've gotta figure out a way to actually stop Donald Trump in 2020 based on policy making a real case against him but now it's gonna be harder because he's gonna feel emboldened. So I'm glad that this story is seemingly coming to a close. I will reiterate that we've gotta see the full report but with that being said, the main claim of collusion was not proven to be true. So anyone who contributed to this, I hope that you will acknowledge how this was damaging and detrimental to the left's agenda and I hope that you are introspective and you'll learn how to improve. That's all that I hope that we can not take away from this because nobody's perfect. There are people who do things that are wrong. I'm always trying to learn how to use my platform more responsibly but I really hope that just the people who were the most vocal about this try to learn from this and just do better and be responsible because Americans bought into this hook, line and sinker and now Trump's gonna benefit because of it, which is sad. I think it's evident that successful primary challenges to corporate Democrats like Joe Crowley it absolutely terrified the Democratic Party establishment because if they see that there's this new insurgent left and they're successful at taking out the old guard individuals like Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez then that poses an existential threat to them. So what are they now doing? Now that 2020 is upon us and there's gonna be a lot of primary challenges that will be emerging. Well, now what they're doing is they're going to try to use whatever institutional advantages they have to beat back any potential challenger to a corporate or incumbent Democrat. And it's dirty, but it's not too surprising. So the DCCC, which is an organization that is supposed to get Democrats elected that's supposed to theoretically be their one and only job. Here's what they're doing to essentially protect the status quo. As Akilah Lacy of the Intercept reports the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee warned political strategists and vendors Thursday night that if they support candidates mounting primary challenges against incumbent House Democrats the party will cut them off from business. The news was officially announced Friday morning paired with a statement on the committee's commitment to diversity and consulting which obviously is just to give themselves cover a Democratic political consultant who learned of it Thursday told the Intercept. The consultant asked for anonymity given their relationship with the DCCC and the party organizations professed strategy of blacklisting firms that don't fall in line to apply to become a preferred vendor in the 2020 cycle firms must agree to a set of standards that includes agreeing not to work with anyone challenging and incumbent. I understand the above statement that the DCCC will not conduct business with nor recommend to any of its targeted campaigns any consultant that works with an opponent of a sitting member of the House Democratic Caucus the forum reads. It's no secret that the DCCC and national party leaders often interfere on behalf of preferred candidates or that they otherwise jump into the game too late if they don't completely write off newcomers who don't meet their standards. The DCCC is known for prioritizing candidates and direct them to its own consultants most of whom are alumni of the DCCC which is known in Washington as a consultant factory. The latest move only reaffirms that reputation and sends a warning shot to grassroots and progressive consultants. So this isn't a new tactic and it's certainly not surprising because of course the Democratic Party establishment is going to do whatever they possibly can to beat back any existential threats to the status quo and the DCCC has essentially become the organization that safeguards threats that any progressive may pose to establishment Democrats. And even if it's not necessarily surprising it doesn't make it any less problematic and to show you how big of a deal this is it's already having an impact. It's already discouraging potential primary challengers from running in 2020. And as Monica Klein of Seneca Strategies reports in an article for The Intercept she says that her consulting firm is already seeing a potential primary challenger wanting to drop out since consultants are essentially jumping ship because if you're a consulting agent you wanna make sure that your firm isn't going to be blacklisted by the DCCC because that's essentially a death sentence. So if the DCCC can find a way to threaten these consultants financially then they could be that much more successful at thwarting off potential primary challengers. They're not gonna thwart off every single primary challenger but they can at least make their lives more difficult at the very minimum. And as Waleed Shahid puts it they're essentially using financial leverage in order to thwart off primary challengers. Now the good news is that progressive organizations are still refusing to back down. Democracy for America tweeted we see exactly what you're doing DCCC. Don't think for one second that it'll stop us or the grassroots army we stand with from backing bold inclusive populists who will better represent their districts in Congress over neoliberal corporate Democrats. And that is encouraging to see now certainly not every single progressive organization or progressive consulting firm will be this bold but it is important that democracy for America takes the stand. But I just wanna think about how strategically idiotic this is because what you want to do is if you're the Democratic Party establishment the way that you win is you make sure that your party is dynamic and they're constantly changing to better reflect America. But what they're doing here is they're saying no we don't wanna change. We don't wanna adapt to the evolving political climate that's increasingly more left wing, more progressive. We want you to fuck off. That's essentially what they're doing. Now, why is this harmful to them? And why is it hurting their own interests in the long run? Because if the Democratic Party is less appealing to voters, they lose. They lose. Republicans win. Because what you see on the opposite side of the political spectrum is a Republican Party that is dynamic. Like it or not, they're constantly changing and even if they're changing in the wrong way they're moving more and more to the right and becoming more and more extremist. Well, they're still changing nonetheless and they know that they have to adapt in order to reflect their base which is not static, it's dynamic. It's constantly changing and reshaping itself. And that's one thing that the Democratic Party establishment needs to learn. And I think that they probably know this because you can't not know this. You've gotta be at least somewhat savvy if you're gonna be a consultant or be part of the establishment. But they know this, they just don't care. I think it's clear that a lot of individuals within the establishment would rather lose than win with progressives. And we kind of got a glance of this on a recent episode of Morning Joe when somebody said, I can't remember who it was in particular, but they said, I would rather vote for Donald Trump than Bernie Sanders. And then he had to correct himself. And then he said, well, you know, Bernie Sanders would be horrible for this company. I mean, country. So I mean, it's clear that they're all about safeguarding the establishment and it's not necessarily because they just have this intrinsic love for the establishment. People like Nancy Pelosi or Joe Crowley. It's because the establishment will do the bidding of the Democratic Party's corporate donors. And what they really care about, the underlying issue here is that they wanna protect the gravy train. So I'm not even surprised reading this. You know, it's par for the course. I expected this. And it's probably not going to be the last we hear of the DCCC doing some type of fuckery or the DNC doing some type of fuckery to screw progressives because they're constantly doing it. They're constantly trying to concoct new ways to fuck over the new left. But all we're hearing are screams and cries from dinosaurs who see the asteroid coming. They know they're going extinct, but they're trying to prolong something that they can only prolong for so long. They're only delaying the inevitable and the long run, I don't think this is gonna work. A video recently resurfaced of Beto O'Rourke when he was running for the House of Representatives and him talking about social security and what he would do to reform social security. And to be clear, I'm not sure that he still holds this stance, but what he said back then, running as a Democrat, it's incredibly troubling because essentially the way he describes how we should reform social security is 100% a right-wing approach to social security. Take a look. The people who paid into social security who are earning their checks back from their investment in social security, that needs to be protected. That's inviolable. But going forward for future generations, for my kids' generation, five, three and one year old right now, we need to look at things like means testing. We need to look at perhaps a longer, a later age at which my kids are gonna retire. That's a tough decision. It's not easy to say it's gonna be politicized by my opponent, but those are the tough things that you're gonna want me to weigh in on when I'm in Washington, DC. This is precisely why the US almost defaulted on its national debt this summer. And the incumbent voted against the compromise that was reached so that they prevented us from defaulting on the national debt. So he wants to both means test it and raise the retirement age. Make it so that way you can only qualify for social security later in life. He didn't name a specific number, but nonetheless raise the retirement age, means test it. Okay, so why is this problematic? And also why would this only be applicable to people in the future? Why wouldn't you do this for current beneficiaries of social security? Well, a lot of Republicans talk about it this way. Marco Rubio included, because they don't want to do anything that would affect current beneficiaries of social security because they know there would be hell to pay and they wouldn't let them do it. There would be fierce public backlash. This has always been the case when a Democrat or Republican has tried to reform social security. So what they're trying to do here is they're trying to reform it for future generations because young people who will one day benefit from social security, they currently don't really know how crucial this is going to be when they are older. They don't know how important this is and will presumably put up less of a fight than current beneficiaries. And the problem here is that if you're going to wait to quote, save social security and you're only going to reform it for future generations, you're already undermining this implicit premise that social security is insolvent and needs saving in the first place. And what Beto O'Rourke is feeding into is this manufactured crisis that social security, look guys, we've gotta do something. We've gotta reform it if we wanted to be here for future generations but this is nothing but propaganda. It's all a ploy to privatize it. And it's been the ploy of Wall Street now for decades because they have been salivating over social security and they desperately wanna be able to dip their hands in the cookie jar but because it's such a loved program by Americans, they haven't been able to do that. So they've been thinking of ways to covertly undermine the appeal of social security. Means testing is their primary goal because what do you do if you means test social security? You transform it, you turn it into a welfare program where it only benefits poor people as opposed to everyone. So it's no longer a universal program. Now that may make sense in theory on paper but the problem with means testing it is that you undermine public support for it because if everyone is no longer a beneficiary of social security, if it's now deemed a welfare program that undercuts public support for it and then that opens the door to privatization because you'll no longer have this overwhelming backlash if you try to touch it and privatize it but that's their ultimate goal. But really anyone who's on the left, we have an answer to the question as to what you do to social security. It's simple, you lift the cap on taxable income because currently depending on the year, if you make more than 120,000 or 130,000 you just stop paying into social security, which is absurd. Wealthy people shouldn't not benefit from social security but they definitely should not stop paying into the program that they'll also be benefiting from. So the fact that there's a cap to begin with is absurd and if you're on the left, it's easy. You just say we lift the cap. This is what Bernie Sanders has been talking about. This is what a lot of even some corporate Democrats have been talking about but for better or worse to just overly say we need to meanstest it and raise the retirement age, this is what Republicans wanna do. Individuals like Marco Rubio, Chris Christie and understand that you've gotta be savvy and acknowledge that this is nothing more than a ploy to ultimately cut social security in the form of privatization because if Wall Street can get in there, privatize social security and make a profit off of it, do you honestly think that it's still gonna be something that pays out as much as it does now? Do you honestly think that it will still be beneficial to the American people? You can look to some instances of privatization in Latin America where they privatized social security and the prospect of retirement has essentially diminished entirely now because of what they did and we have to be cognizant of the fact that if you do that in America, we're gonna see the same results. So again, I wanna emphasize to be fair to Beto here. I don't know if this is still the stance that he would take with regard to social security but the fact that he was pitching this as a Democrat, it's a non-starter. It is very clear that Fox News and the right-wing propaganda machine has become fixated on Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez because they view her as a threat. Everything she's talking about, the policy ideas that she's proposing, if you just remove her name from it and look at public opinion polls, they're overwhelmingly popular, Medicare for All, Green New Deal, a federal jobs guarantee. So because Fox News views her as a threat, because the right-wing propaganda machine views her as a threat, they're focusing on her more so than perhaps any other lawmaker. And as a result, this is what's happening. As Lee Moran of HuffPost reports, Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez blamed right-wing media this week for the death threats she said she receives on a daily basis. The freshman lawmaker told New York Daily News that it's very clear that when right-wing media starts to heat up, that's directly correlated to the amount of violent, targeted threats we get. Ocasio-Cortez said there was clearly a correlation between the intensity of the critical coverage of her on widely watched conservative cable network Fox News and far-right media outlet Breitbart and all those folks and the amount of threats that we get. She feels safest when I'm home in the Bronx, she added and revealed how Capitol Police had now advised her against sharing her schedule due to the ongoing threat to her security. Fox News hosts Tucker Carlson, Sean Hannity and Laura Ingram regularly rant about the progress of Congresswoman. And she has also talked about on Twitter how she receives really bigoted and misogynistic phone calls and messages on a daily basis. So what's happening here is the right-wing hate machine is trying to target her to bring her down a notch specifically because they view her as a political threat but their viewers extract from that this view that she personally is a threat and this is the result. She's being sent death threats on a daily basis. And look, it's not just Fox News. If you look at the anti-SJW right-wingers on YouTube like half their videos is Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. Oh, she did this and she did that. She farted the wrong way. And all that they're doing is contributing to this narrative that she's a threat, she's bad, she's evil. Low-information right-wingers who listen to them, they believe she's the threat that you're trying to get them to believe she is and it's working. And really what makes this even more disgusting is that we finally get someone elected who actually genuinely cares about normal Americans who's fighting for us, fighting to expand healthcare, fighting for the future of the planet and this is the response. She gets death threats and it's not just her. Ilhan Omar is a target of the right-wing hate machine. Rashida Tlaib is a target of the right-wing hate machine. It's absolutely disgusting. It's morally reprehensible and anyone who's contributing to this should be ashamed of themselves because it's not just like they're trying to isolate certain policies from her and disagree with them and propose a counter-policy. They're fear-mongering. They're saying she's not just a socialist, she's a communist. She wants to steal from you. She wants to turn America into Venezuela. She poses a direct threat to you. Well, if you keep using this rhetoric and repeating it over and over and over and over then your right-wing viewers are going to feel justified in sending her bigoted messages, in sending her death threats because they'd rather threaten her before she threatens them like you say she does. So it's fucking disgusting. And the right-wing hate machine, all they have is smears and fear-mongering because they don't have any policies that are actually popular because if you just look at the policy positions again that she's promoting, they're overwhelmingly popular. So what do they do? They demonize and dehumanize and vilify their political opponents. She's not the first one that is the victim of the right-wing hate machines fear-mongering and she certainly won't be the last. I think what was it like a few years ago back when Glenn Beck was still on Fox News, Frances Fox Piven, which is a phenomenal political scientist, was basically deemed an existential threat to America by someone like Glenn Beck. And she put up with the same thing. And what's ironic is that the people who complain about Alexandria Ocasio-Guartez and contribute to this atmosphere of hate against her are the same people who will whine like little fucking babies any time they see someone like Mitch McConnell confronted in a restaurant and say, oh, that's harassment, that's harassment. Okay, well, if you think that's harassment, why won't you condemn the hate that you see from your own viewers against Alexandria Ocasio-Guartez? It's almost like they want us to unilaterally disarm while they keep peddling hate. And you don't even have a substantive critique. When someone like Christian Nielsen is confronted by DSA activists, it's for a policy reason. But for Alexandria Ocasio-Guartez, we don't know any of the direct threats, but they're death threats, completely illegitimate that's never acceptable under any circumstances. So to all the right-wingers who peddle in hate, maybe try something new for a change and actually propose policies and argue based on the substance and stop trying to fear monger. Representative Steny Hoyer is basically one of the worst, if not the worst, when it comes to right-wing corporate Democrats. And what makes matters worse is that he's actually in line to be the next House Speaker. So he's in Democratic Party leadership and he is incredibly right-wing. But on top of that, he decided to do what leadership in the Democratic Party theoretically shouldn't do and take some swipes at newly elected freshman Congresswoman, Alexandria Ocasio-Guartez, Rashida Tlaib, and Ilhan Omar. And what he ended up doing here was proving Ilhan Omar right. So as Jake Johnson of Common Dreams reports, Representative Steny Hoyer, the number two Democrat in the House, came under fire from Progressive's Sunday night after he used his address at APAC's policy conference to attack left-wing members of his caucus and throw his full support behind a resolution condemning the boycott divestment and sanctions movement. I stand with Israel proudly and unapologetically, said the Democrat from Maryland, whose remarks were immediately interpreted as a thinly veiled attack on Representative Ilhan Omar. So when somebody accuses American supporters of Israel, of dual loyalty, I say, accuse me. I am part of a large bipartisan coalition in Congress supporting Israel. I tell Israel's detractors, accuse us. There are 62 freshman Democrats, not three Hoyer added in an apparent swipe at representatives Rashida Tlaib, Alexandria Ocasio-Guartez, and Ilhan Omar. So let's just take a moment to go back to what Ilhan Omar initially said, that everyone deemed as anti-Semitic. She basically asked if we're allowed to call out the monetary influence of gigantic lobbying groups and special interests like the NRA. Why can I not talk about the influence and lobbying power that APAC has? And he just proved how much influence APAC has by calling her out at their conference. So I think that the irony is probably lost on him. And I know that he thinks he's making a solid point, but all he's doing is proving Ilhan Omar right, because as he pledges unequivocal loyalty to Israel, it's obvious that his views were probably influenced by the pro-Israel lobby, which he took more than a million dollars from throughout the course of his career. So why is it reasonable for us to say it's pretty apparent that the NRA influences the Republican party's position when it comes to gun reform, but we're not allowed to say that American lawmakers' stance on Israel is likely influenced by a very powerful lobby. Why is that not allowed? Because money and politics influences the positions of lawmakers. That's not me saying this. This is political science, because you can look to probably one of the most cited studies in the recent years by Gilan's and Page of Princeton University where they found that when you juxtapose our interests, interests of normal Americans with the interests of elites and special interests, well, they have an impact on policy outcomes whereas we do not have an impact on policy outcomes. Our impact is statistically insignificant, which tells us that money in fact does have a gigantic influence on policy outcomes. And taking it a step further, if you go to Dara Strolovich, who wrote the book Affirmative Advocacy, what she revealed was that these interest groups are often driven by elites. And the reason why elites are driving these interest groups and shape the interests of the overall interest group is because they're funding these interest groups. So it's not controversial at all to say that we need to be looking at the impact the pro-Israel lobby has on lawmakers. It's not because money in politics affects lawmakers. And to give you another example as to how that influences Steny Hoyer specifically, he took 2.1 million from health professionals, one million from the pharmaceutical industry, and coincidentally, he doesn't support Medicare for All. I think we're reasonable to deduce that those campaign contributions which pose a direct conflict of interest has something to do with the political position that he's taking because he knows if he endorses Medicare for All, those health industry donors that he has will be less likely to support him. In fact, they may support a potential opponent. But now that we're taking the time here to shine a light on just how bad Steny Hoyer is, I think it's worth noting that he's also terrible, basically all around. He supported the Iraq War, he supported the Patriot Act. He has basically been against ending the drug war. And if he were just one lone lawmaker who was very conservative, that wouldn't necessarily be a problem. But again, he is in line to become the next House Speaker, which would be horrible for trying to push the Overton window to the left and get the Democratic Party to be more progressive. So I've maintained before that we've got to oust Steny Hoyer before he even gets there. And thankfully, I have some very good news. We have a chance to do that because Steny Hoyer is being primaried by a progressive named Makayla Wilkes. And unlike Steny Hoyer, she actually does support progressive policies like Medicare for All and the Green New Deal. And if you go to her website, she already has a preliminary policy platform that's more fleshed out than a lot of presidential candidates. So if you support her, then I would strongly encourage you to send her a donation, go to makayla2020.com to do so and show her your support at meet Makayla on Twitter. And be sure to do what you can to get involved because if she's actually going to be successful at Joe Crowleying, Steny Hoyer, which would be amazing, it's gonna be the fight of our lives. This will be harder than Joe Crowley. So it's difficult to oust incumbent Democrats, but it is especially difficult to oust individuals in Democratic leadership. The most powerful individuals, which really makes Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez as Davido Joe Crowley, that much more remarkable when you think back about it because it was so unlikely and it seemed impossible almost. So if we want Makayla to have a shot, this has to be an all hands on deck approach. We've gotta make sure that she has our full support because she is someone who chose to be bold and to step up and challenge the establishment at its time when the DCCC is trying to blacklist consulting firms in order to discourage individuals from jumping in and primaring incumbent Democrats. So what she's doing here is bold and most importantly, it's brave. So please show her your support, send her a contribution, follow her on Twitter and tell her that Mike from the Humanist Report sent you because I definitely am interested in bringing her on the show. This is what needs to happen. And she's sending a message to Steny Hoyer that just because you're in leadership, it doesn't mean that you're untouchable and it doesn't mean that you can attack the left from the right when you're supposed to be a leader in the Democratic Party. So I am 100% behind Makayla's campaign and I really hope that she can give Steny Hoyer a run for his money, but mark my words, this is not going to be the last that you hear about Makayla. She's our shot to stop Steny Hoyer from ever becoming House Speaker, which is important because believe it or not, he's to the right of Nancy Pelosi if you can imagine. He's basically one of the worst and we've got to stop him at all costs from rising to the top of the ranks in Democratic leadership. And you can do that by helping his opponent, Makayla Wilkes. Since the Republican Party was unable to repeal the Affordable Care Act legislatively, what they've been doing is trying to attack it judicially and Trump has been using his executive power to chip away at the Affordable Care Act and basically they're trying to destroy it with death by a thousand cuts. That's essentially been their tactic. And the most disgusting part about all of this is as they try to strip away the Affordable Care Act, including provisions that protect us, protect people with preexisting conditions, they're trying to assure you that they support protections for people with preexisting conditions. It's a lie, but now they can't even hide behind this false sense of, oh, we support protections for people with preexisting conditions because they're just out right now supporting a lawsuit that would repeal the Affordable Care Act, bull stop. And as Dan Diamond of Politico reports, the Trump administration on Monday said it supports a federal judge's ruling that the entire Affordable Care Act should be thrown out, signaling a shift in the Justice Department's position and alarming Democrats who vowed to oppose the move. The Department of Justice has determined that the District Court's judgment should be affirmed three Justice Department lawyers wrote to the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals, which is now considering the case. The United States is not urging that any portion of the District Court's judgment be reversed, regardless of the outcome legal experts anticipate that the Fifth Circuit's ruling will be appealed to the Supreme Court. If the courts ultimately strike down Obamacare over the objections of a group of Democrat-led states, which have spent more than a year defending the health law in court, the consequences could be substantial for patients, healthcare organizations, and other groups that have adapted to the nine-year-old law. More than 20 million Americans are covered through the Affordable Care Act's Medicaid expansion and its insurance exchanges. The sweeping law, the object of repeated legal challenges since its 2010 passage, has transformed the nation's healthcare system, creating new patient protections and reshaping payments for doctors and hospitals. Some of the Trump administration's proposed drug price reforms depend on provisions contained in the ACA, senior Trump health officials, haven't detailed how they would respond if all of Obamacare is struck down. So this is all around bad news, but I think there's two primary reasons why this would be a disaster. Because if you dismantle the Affordable Care Act, or what's left of the Affordable Care Act, we are put in an objectively worse place. All of the people who got the Medicaid expansion, 20 million people would presumably lose their health insurance, and many others would. You could expect the cost of healthcare to skyrocket since if the ACA goes away, then the subsidies with the ACA to insurance companies would presumably diminish as well. So this would be a disaster, and it would put us in a far off worse position than we are today. Because the ACA is essentially this right-wing healthcare law that just pumps money into the healthcare system to try to keep the costs down. It's a subsidy-based reform. So if you get rid of the ACA and then get rid of the subsidies, what do you think's gonna happen? The costs will increase. Now, since Trump took office, more people have lost health insurance, millions more people, and the costs have increased. But he's trying to make us worse off than we are now. Why? Because Obamacare is bad, because Obama didn't. That's really the only reason he has to do this. Now, the second reason I think this is awful is because with this renewed attack on the totality of the Affordable Care Act, this will embolden corporate Democrats who don't wanna back Medicare for All. People like Amy Klobuchar who say, look, I don't support Medicare for All, but I wanna do what I can to defend the ACA. That's where we should be dedicating all of this energy, not towards pushing for Medicare for All, but instead in defending the ACA. And now, this is going to give them the cover that they need. It's going to allow them to hide behind this mantle of defending the ACA so they don't have to back the policy solution that will solve the healthcare crisis in America once and for all. So all around. This is just horrible news. And I don't understand how if you're a Trump supporter and you're a beneficiary of the Affordable Care Act with which many Trump supporters are, you can be okay with this. Because the ACA, it wasn't great, it wasn't substantial, but was it a step in the right direction? Of course, you can't deny that if you're on the left or the right. Because it allowed individuals to stay on their parents' plans until they're 26. It stopped health insurance companies from discriminating against people with pre-existing conditions. These are protections that are common sense, but Trump's administration now, they're just openly saying, just get rid of the whole thing because Obama bad. Well, I mean, come up with your own healthcare policy. They can. They tried this multiple iterations of Trumpcare, a skinny repeal, and they all failed because Obamacare was their plan. It was the right wing policy that they initially supported that was created by the Heritage Foundation and implemented by Mitt Romney. So because they decided to so vociferously and passionately oppose Obamacare because the left decided to adopt it, well, now they're stuck in this awkward position where they know they don't like Obamacare, but they can't really propose anything that is a free market alternative because Obamacare was that. So they look like unserious people because they're not serious about crafting policy. They're only interested in playing politics, which is why they try to repeal the Affordable Care Act dozens of times, even when Obama was president and when he would obviously veto it because it's all about getting the left, it's all about triggering libs, and this is what they wanna do. But in the process, being in this position where you have power, people are going to suffer because you wanna play politics with people's lives and repeal a half measure that wasn't even a half measure. Obamacare was essentially a quarter measure if you wanna be kind and charitable, but I mean, they can't let it stand. So in the end, I think that ultimately, what this will do is this will increase the push for Medicare for all because what people will see is that, oh, well, since the Obamacare proposal failed, then we have no choice, but to do the next best thing, which is Medicare for all. And we already have people on our side here. It's just that we don't need to make matters worse in order to get to the best solution, which is Medicare for all. We don't need to go backwards before going forwards. I'm not of the belief that things have to get worse before they get better because this would damage people. This would kill people, potentially thousands of people because Republicans wanna play politics with people's lives because they don't like the ACA. So it's just, it's disgusting. And it really goes to show you how extreme the Republican Party is, how irrational they've become. They don't care at all about improving people's lives. It's just about beating the left and maintaining power. That's all this is about. And it's absolutely morally reprehensible. Mike Lee is the senator from the state of Utah. And today on the Senate floor, he decided to talk about the Green New Deal and the issue of climate change with the seriousness that he thinks it deserves. And in the process, he tries to be funny. He tries to channel his inner edge, Lord, but it just comes across as completely cringe-worthy because it's not just that he's trying and failing at comedy, but he's outright lying and strawmanning his opponents. So he's not even making a good faith case against the Green New Deal. He's trying to be smug about how bad it is when he's actually not even explaining it to you in a factual way. So take a look, but just be warned, this is incredibly idiotic and you will in fact lose IQ points by watching this. You've been warned. This is of course a picture of former president Ronald Reagan naturally firing a machine gun while riding on the back of a dinosaur. You'll notice a couple of important features here. First of all, the rocket launcher strapped the president Reagan's back and then the stirring unmistakable patriotism of the velociraptor holding up a tattered American flag, a symbol of all it means to be an American. Now, critics might quibble with this depiction of the climactic battle of the Cold War because while awesome, in real life, there was no climactic battle. There was no battle with or without velociraptors. The Cold War, as we all know, was won without firing a shot. But that quibble actually serves our purposes here today, Mr. President, because this image has as much to do with overcoming communism in the 20th century as the Green New Deal has to do with overcoming climate change in the 21st. The aspirations of the proposal have been called radical, they've been called extreme, but mostly they're ridiculous. There isn't a single serious idea here, not one. To illustrate, let me highlight two of the most prominent goals produced by the plan's authors. Goal number one, the Green New Deal calls essentially for the elimination of airplanes. Now, this might seem merely ambitious for politicians who represent the densely populated Northeastern United States, but how is it supposed to work for our fellow citizens who don't live somewhere between Washington, D.C. and Boston? In a future without air travel, how are we supposed to get around the vast expanses of, say, Alaska during the winter? Well, I'll tell you how. Ton-tons, Mr. President, this is a beloved species of repto mammals native to the ice planet of Hoth. Now, well, perhaps not as efficient in some ways, as airplanes or as snowmobiles, these hairy bipedal species of space lizards offer their own unique benefits. Not only are Ton-tons carbon neutral, but according to a report a long time ago and issued far, far away, they may even be fully recyclable and usable for their warmth, especially on a cold night. What about Hawaii? Isolated 2,000 miles out into the Pacific Ocean. Under the Green New Deal's effective airplane prohibition, how are people there supposed to get to and from the mainland? And how are they supposed to maintain that significant portion of their economy that's based on tourism? At that distance, swimming would of course be out of the question and jet skis are notorious gas guzzlers. No, all residents of Hawaii would be left with is this. This is a picture of Aquaman. Talking points released by the sponsors of the resolution the day it was introduced cited the goal of, quote, fully getting rid of, and I'll paraphrase a little bit here, flatulating cows. Now, Mr. President, I share their concern. But honestly, I think you've got to remember if they think the cows smell bad, just wait till they get a whiff of the seahorses. But back to the cattle. I've got a chart to illustrate this trend. As you can see, Mr. President, on the left, these little cows represent the bovine population of America today. On the right is the future population under the Green New Deal. The rights getting better at comedy and it's making lefties nervous. I feel like that tweet from Paul Joseph Watson will never stop being relevant. But what a disingenuous liar. If you're going to try to make fun of the Green New Deal, then you have to try to not look like a fucking moron yourself, Mike Lee, but he couldn't help himself. He had no choice but to straw man the Green New Deal. And he said, quote, the Green New Deal calls for essentially the elimination of airplanes. He then went on to talk about how it wants to get rid of cows. What does that even mean? Do you honestly think that United States Congresspeople are calling for the elimination of cows? I feel like they're not stupid. They know that they're lying, but it's just basically become a talking point that the totality of the right has picked up on, but I don't think that they realize it's hurting their case, because it's so extreme, it transcends the realm of reasonability, and it makes them look fucking foolish because nobody's calling for us to ban air travel and cows. And really the specific reference to airplanes and farting cows in the Green New Deal that he cites there, it talks about how we can't get rid of cows. We can't stop air travel anytime soon. So what we need to do is we have to come up with a way to offset that and cut greenhouse gas emissions elsewhere. So we are net zero when it comes to our greenhouse gas emissions. Since we can't reduce our carbon footprint because of the necessity of air travel, then we have to look for other ways and innovative means of tackling this issue and cutting it where we possibly can. But of course he's not going to be nuanced. Of course he's not going to present his opponents arguments in a reasonable way because this guy's a fucking moron and he's not a serious person, but he wants you to think that his opponents, Ed Marquis and AOC are the ones that aren't being serious and that this is all just a joke. No, it's not a joke. Climate change is in fact a serious issue and he doesn't care because he has a vested interest in maintaining the status quo, which is doing nothing. And what I don't think he realizes is that this doesn't come off as him being edgy or humorous. It just looks disingenuous because he's basically saying, look peasants, I'm just like you. I like Star Wars. I know what Tantans are. I like Aquaman. Aquaman is awesome. I'm cool. No, you're a fucking moron dude and your lame as fuck. That's all that this is. This is lame and you look stupid and foolish. Because you're not presenting an argument and you're not going to get millennials on your side by pandering with memes. The May Maze isn't gonna win us over if we're worried that we're gonna fucking die when we're older because dipshits like you won't take action on climate change. So he goes on now to conclude his remarks about the Green New Deal in this next clip and I wanna show that to you and then I'll have some concluding remarks myself. The Green New Deal is not a serious policy document because it's not a policy document at all. It is in fact an aesthetic one. The resolution is not an agenda of solutions. It's a token of elite tribal identity and endorsing it a public act of piety for the sheik and woke. And on those embarrassing terms, it is already a resounding success. A speaker Pelosi herself put it, quote, the green dream or whatever they call it, nobody knows what it is, but they're for it, right? Right. Critics will no doubt chastise me for not taking climate change seriously. But please, Mr. President, nothing could be further from the truth. No Utah needs to hear pious lectures about the gravity of climate change from politicians from other states. For it was only in 2016 as viewers of the sci-fi network will well remember when climate change hit home in Utah, when our own state was struck not simply by a tornado, Mr. President, but by a tornado with sharks in it. The Green New Deal is not the solution to climate change. It's not even part of the solution. In fact, it's part of the problem. The solution to climate change won't be found in political posturing or virtue signaling like this. It won't be found in the federal government at all. You know where the solution can be found, Mr. President? In churches, in wedding chapels, in maternity wards across the country and around the world. Mr. President, this is the real solution to climate change. Babies. Climate change is an engineering problem. Not social engineering, but the real kind. It's a challenge of creativity, ingenuity, and most of all, technological innovation. And problems of human imagination are not solved by more laws. They're solved by more humans. More people mean bigger markets for more innovation. More babies will mean forward-looking adults, the sort we need to tackle long-term, large-scale problems. So the overall takeaway is that we don't have to get the government to take action with regard to climate change because we are the solution we've been looking for all along. Isn't that beautiful? Isn't that a wonderfully optimistic way to look at the apocalypse? Except the problem is that it's not true and it's also unreasonable because when just 100 corporations emit 70% of global greenhouse gas emissions, the problem is that the markets are too free and we need the government to rein them in and compel them to stop ruining the planet also that way they can boost short-term profits. That's what we need because regardless of how many individuals take action, if large multinational corporations are not going to stop producing greenhouse gas emissions and ruining the planet, then it doesn't matter what we do at the individual level. This is a global crisis that requires the action of governments and what Mike Lee doesn't want you to know is that he was paid to tell you that more regulation is bad because the industries and companies that think more regulation is bad helped him get elected. He literally took hundreds of thousands of dollars from oil and gas companies and now he's trying to sit here and tell us with a straight face that government doesn't have to get involved. Is that you saying that, Mike? Or is that your corporate donors who are the puppeteers controlling you that are saying that? And he is essentially part of this new wave of denialism when it comes to climate change because even if he doesn't outright think that climate change is a hoax like Donald Trump, well, nonetheless, he's still a climate change denier because he denies anthropogenic climate change. He denies the reality of man-made climate change. This is a quote from him during a 2016 debate with his Senate opponent. Quote, a big debate in our society about climate change, there can be no dispute that the climate is changing. Climate change, it's what they do. They always have, they always will. In other words, you know, the climate, it's always gonna be changing. And there's nothing that mankind can do to stop the climate from changing. So it looks like we should just continue to allow these large multinational corporations to destroy the planet for their short-term profits. But don't forget to contribute to my campaign, oil and gas companies, wink, wink. I mean, that's essentially what's happening here. And nobody's contending that a changing climate is abnormal. But what we are saying is that a climate that is changing this fast is not natural. It's due to human activity. And if we don't take action, the results will be catastrophic. And we have 12 years to take action. But he's not even proposing a solution because he's not even someone who believes in climate change. And essentially, if you don't accept that climate change is man-made, that it's anthropogenic, you are functionally the same as a climate change denier because your overall goal is to stop us from taking action. So as he sits here and tries to take down the Green New Deal in a humorous way while not proposing his own climate change legislation, this is par for the course. To people who don't like the Green New Deal, notice how they're not proposing their own alternative that says ambitious as the Green New Deal. And even Obama came out recently and said, look, I think that people need to realize that the Green New Deal is gonna be really, really expensive. It's almost like they don't want you to believe that investing in green, clean renewable technology won't have a long-term economic payoff because Bernie Sanders and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez rightfully point out that climate change actually presents us with an economic opportunity to be a world leader when it comes to renewable technology like wind to solar and hydro. But when you are bankrolled by oil and gas, then why would you wanna invest in different technology when you're already doing just fine with the status quo? And understand that the climate doesn't care how expensive climate change mitigation will be. It doesn't care if it increases the deficit. Try explaining to mother nature that I'm sorry we can't stop destroying you because it's just not politically feasible currently and it's really gonna be too expensive to change course. The climate doesn't give a fuck about that. The climate is changing whether you like it or not and we've got 12 years to act in order to stop catastrophic levels of climate change. And even if we take bold action that still may not change very much. We still may very well be faced with catastrophic levels of climate change. So we don't just need to invest in climate change mitigation but adaptation so we can learn how to live with climate change and the reality of climate change and all of the unforeseen consequences that it will ultimately produce but people don't wanna think big and during the New Deal era there were other people back then shitting on the New Deal saying this is so impractical. Well if you needed a new heart would you just shrug and say well you know it's too expensive so fuck it? No because it is in your human instincts it's embedded in your DNA to want to survive to fight for survival. But because climate change is one of those issues that it doesn't pose a visual threat it's something that's a lot more insidious. It's not like an asteroid is headed toward us and you could get a telescope and see it and see the threat since it's a lot more difficult to measure and since it's less tangible people don't take it as seriously but like it or not it's coming and it's already here in fact to say that it's coming is actually misleading because look at the frequency of hurricanes it's like a yearly phenomenon now look at extreme weather patterns. So I mean I don't know what else to say these people are not going to change so we just have to vote them out of office and get people in office who believe in science who actually care about the survival of our species and the habitability of our planet. What a dipshit Mike Lee is I mean I don't like to resort to ad hominem attacks and insult his intelligence but in fact I don't really even need to insult his intelligence because I really don't think he is dumb I think he's playing dumb so he can basically maintain the status quo and it's sad what a shill he is this is what shilling looks like. So yesterday after Republican Senator Mike Lee of Utah made a fool of himself on the Senate floor attacking Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez's Green New Deal after the Republican Party has been trying to paint this as something that only elites care about which is hilarious because it's actually going to affect us peasants more than elites they'll be protected and insulated from the consequences of climate change and after three Democrats chose to side with Senate Republicans and block the Green New Deal block a vote on the Green New Deal including Doug Jones, Joe Manchin and Kirsten Sonoma it was clear that Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez had enough and I think that she would probably contend that reasonable criticism is not just fair but it's warranted in fact I would welcome criticism and a lot of input over a policy like the Green New Deal but unfortunately discourse surrounding this issue has not been constructive it's been batshit fucking insane because think about the things and the claims really that Republicans are making she wants to ban cows, she wants to ban hamburgers she wants to ban air travel nonsense complete nonsense so it's clear that she's done with the bullshit so she took the time to not just roast all of the liars who've been talking shit about the Green New Deal and lying about the Green New Deal but she also took the time to make the case for climate change action and she made what I think was probably one of the most powerful cases for action on climate change I have ever seen, take a look. Aside from that when we talk about the concern of the environment as an elitist concern one year ago I was waitressing in a taco shop in downtown Manhattan I just got health insurance for the first time a month ago this is not an elitist issue this is a quality of life issue you want to tell people that their concern and their desire for clean air and clean water is elitist tell that to the kids in the South Bronx which are suffering from the highest rates of childhood asthma in the country tell that to the families in Flint whose kids, their blood is ascending in lead levels their brains are damaged for the rest of their lives call them elitist you're telling them that those kids are trying to get on a plane to Davos people are dying they are dying and the response across the other side of the aisle is to introduce an amendment five minutes before a hearing and a markup this is serious this should not be a partisan issue this is about our constituents in all of our lives Iowa, Nebraska, broad swaths of the Midwest are drowning right now under water farms, towns that will never be recovered and never come back and we're here and people are more concerned about helping oil companies than helping their own families I don't think so I don't think so this is about our lives this is about American lives and it should not be partisan science should not be partisan we are facing a national crisis and if we do not ascend to that crisis if we do not ascend to the levels in which we were threatened at the Great Depression when we were threatened in World War II if we do not ascend to those levels if we tell the American public that we are more willing to invest and bail out big banks than we are willing to invest in our farmers and our urban families then I don't know what we're here doing I don't know what we're here doing you know we talk about cost we're gonna pay for this whether we pass a Green New Deal or not because as towns and cities go under water as wildfires ravage our communities we are going to pay and we're either gonna decide if we're gonna pay to react or if we're gonna pay to be proactive and what we know is that prevention you know when you spend less money on prevention you would you can prevent a lot of that damage from happening in the first place so it's not a question whether we're gonna spend the money because I'm very sad to say that the government knew that climate change was real starting as far back as 1989 when NASA was reporting this and the private sector knew way back in the 1970s so we had until around the time I was born to address this issue I wish it didn't have to cost so much but I'm gonna turn 30 this year and for the entire 30 years of my lifetime we did not make substantial investments to prepare our entire country for what we knew was coming so now it's coming all up at the end it's like when we live our whole lives and we don't eat healthily and we don't move and we pursue unhealthy activities and then at the end of our lives our healthcare costs are very high we have the choice to lower the cost now because I can tell you the cost of pursuing a Green New Deal will be far less than the cost of not passing it and with respect to our brothers and sisters and neighbors that are in agriculture bring them to the table let's hold hearings let's add provisions let's amend the legislation to accommodate for the just transition and for the encouragement of those industries to grow and I would also encourage to my colleague on the other side of the aisle that thinks we're trying to ban cows to actually read the resolution and understand that there's nothing to that effect in the legislation and not only that but we're trying to invest in these communities and our agricultural workers so that they can enjoy prosperity into the next century That right there is why hands down she's one of the best because what you see is someone who actually cares about you she's not there to advance her career she's not trying to position herself for a career in the private sector to become a lobbyist she's fighting to improve our lives to stop climate catastrophe and that was just such a passionate and powerful case that I feel like I wanna share it with everyone because she's really the only person in Congress or one of a few people who's taking this crisis seriously which is sad because if there was some other situation that could lead to the planet becoming uninhabitable let's say hypothetically there was an asteroid headed to Earth people would be scrambling but the thing about climate change is that it's not a threat that's visible I said this before there's really no way that you can see climate change itself it's kind of this amorphous idea so it kind of creeps up on you in a really insidious way and that kind of makes it seem as if it's not really the threat that it is but that couldn't be further from the truth so this may be redundant but I do wanna get to some specific quotes even though you just heard her I think that these are really powerful things that she said, she states quote this is about our lives it should not be partisan science should not be partisan and I think that because it is partisan it goes to show you just how poor of shape our country really is in just how right wing the Overton window is and I admit that it seems like the Overton window is starting to shift a little bit to the left in certain areas but by and large the fact that something as objective as science has been politicized it's baffling she also said if we can't ascend to the level to take this on then I don't know what we're here doing and that's exactly it because we keep hearing from people on both sides of the aisle that it's really expensive and you know it's just not feasible Diane Fine Science said it's never gonna pass well then leave if you're not willing to step up to this challenge then you should not be serving you should step down and allow someone to get in who actually is willing to take on this issue it's a wicked problem that can only be dealt with by people who understand just how damaging this will be if we don't take action a lot of people don't understand it she also made I think such a fantastic point that I really haven't heard many people make quote we talk about cost we're gonna pay for this rather we pass a Green New Deal or not because as towns and cities go under water as wildfires ravage our communities we are going to pay that is such a perfect point and it's clear that we're already paying Puerto Rico is paying California is paying there are small island territories who are paying who are seeing sea levels encroach on their land so we may not see some of the most catastrophic consequences manifest that scientists initially warned us about but we will and we're seeing the start of that she also says I wish it didn't have to cost so much but I'm gonna turn 30 this year and for the entire 30 years of my lifetime we did not make substantial investments to prepare our entire country for what we knew was coming so now it's coming all up at the end it's like we live our whole lives and we don't eat healthily and we don't move and we pursue unhealthy activities and then at the end of our lives our health care costs are very high the cost of pursuing a Green New Deal will be far less than the cost of not passing it that was said perfectly it was brilliant I wouldn't change a single word and I've made this point for people who are fear mongering about the potentially bad consequences that passing the Green New Deal may have on our economy which I would argue that the economic consequences are actually all good because we could be a world leader investing in renewable technology but really even if let's say hypothetically speaking the worst case scenario comes to fruition and we pass the Green New Deal and it hurts the economy is that still preferable to doing nothing and allowing climate change to ravage the world and make our planet become uninhabitable? Yes, reasonable people who have a self-interest in living should come to that conclusion because think about this the economy can't exist without a habitable planet if the planet becomes uninhabitable if humans go extinct what do you think happens to the economy? See, but what we're thinking with regard to action is how it would affect our short-term profits and since a lot of companies are more worried about their short-term profits than the long-term health of the planet then this is why it's so difficult to take action now I do want to address some of the criticisms that I've seen with regard to the Green New Deal and how Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez may have undermined them because I think that this is genuinely people not understanding why she included provisions in this that she did so she includes Medicare for All in the Green New Deal and people say that she included identity politics so let's say why would you soil something that would otherwise be fantastic climate change specific legislation with identity politics why include Medicare for All if that's irrelevant and I'll tell you why so if you've watched any of my videos about the Green New Deal and climate change I always say we can't just talk about climate change mitigation because it's here and it's getting worse so we also need to start talking about climate change adaptation how we as human beings live with the reality of climate change so what AOC is doing here is she's meeting that requirement I initially set out because Medicare for All is crucial when we are talking about climate change because climate change will inevitably increase the necessity of medical care the thawing of the Arctic ice may give rise to archaic diseases and make people that are already unhealthy susceptible to new diseases that we weren't aware of that we don't know how to cure right away and her supposedly including identity politics is an acknowledgement that climate change is not going to affect everyone equally poor communities and communities of color will unquestionably be the ones that suffer the most especially in coastal states like Florida which will be underwater a large part of Florida will be underwater when sea levels rise so this will force them to flee their homes so obviously it's going to be the case that if you are poor you will be more vulnerable you will be displaced because of climate change so she's being sensitive to the reality that it's going to hurt specific people marginalized communities and affect them more than it will affect other people so what she's doing is she's meeting the standard that I set out not because of me but because she is thinking about this in a thorough way because she's taking a holistic approach and she's trying to say listen this is what's going to happen so we need to start crafting policies and devising plans that can stop the inevitable harm it will ultimately do to marginalize people we need to be able to meet the need for increased healthcare concerns that will arise that's what she's doing so she's focusing on both mitigation and adaptation and I get that it may seem as if Medicare for all and you know thinking about the impact this will have on marginalized communities may seem irrelevant it may not seem germane to the Green New Deal but understand it is it absolutely is so we've got to do everything we've got to take a kitchenzing approach and just attack this from every single angle because this is going to be the challenge of our lifetimes and it poses an existential threat to humanity so we can't afford to be purposefully obtuse here and pretend as if this won't have unforeseen consequences as if climate change won't lead to more medical concerns and won't further exacerbate the suffering of poor communities and communities of color so what she's doing is she's demonstrating that she understands this issue better than anyone I have ever seen in elected office because anyone I've ever seen because you can't just focus on what you know will happen you have to be able to not only try to predict but prepare for things that you couldn't have predicted we have to arm ourselves with the capability to fight this she gets it I wish other people would so my hat goes off to her because what she's doing here is incredibly important but even if she's taking heat from the right wing even if Fox News and even Democrats are attacking her for how unrealistic the Green New Deal is she's the only person who's putting forward a plan that meets the IPCC's 12-year deadline and even if in the moment she's going to be attacked and vilified and smeared history will look back and remember her as the hero and everyone else as the cowards it's only a matter of are you going to jump on board and help her or are you going to sit on the sidelines as everyone else smears her I know I'm not I'm going to defend her because she's fighting the fight for our lives that nobody else is willing to take on and I applaud her for that a lot of the presidential candidates are being asked to clarify their position on Medicare for all and they're being asked to clarify specifically what they do about health insurance companies would you or would you not get rid of them now Kamala Harris at her scene in town hall she said yes we should get rid of them which was the correct answer but less than 24 hours later she backpedaled and we're seeing more and more presidential candidates who purport that they support Medicare for all walking away from this standard position that we need to get rid of private health insurance companies which is problematic because if you support Medicare for all truly then you have an interest in wanting to get rid of private health insurers now I get that you're running for president and you don't want to ruffle any feathers you don't want to invite all of these right wing attacks but if you support Medicare for all then you've got to explain it and part of the process in pitching Medicare for all is explaining that if we move to Medicare for all a single payer type system there will no longer be a need for private health insurance companies now Bernie Sanders was recently on MSNBC and he was talking to Chris Hayes and he wasn't necessarily asked about whether or not he wanted to get rid of private health insurance companies instead he just said it himself and it was absolutely badass and what happened afterwards made me incredibly confident in his ability to push not for some half measure but for Medicare for all specifically take a look there's lots of people running on Medicare for all but there's been some interesting sort of debate about what it means and there's sort of two different ways of people are talking about it now one is what you've talked about a four year phase and you lower it and you get Medicare for all the other is the idea of sort of a Medicare buy in right so you don't say everybody's in the Medicare system you just say everyone has the option to you can actually buy in at Medicare rates that's called Medicare for America there's a bill with that name in the house that is polling very well right now 51 to 30 percent whereas the sort of more traditional medical affair for all the use support is even what do you think about that as an alternative why not sort of slide towards the system in an optional way because ultimately we have to recognize that the current system is incredibly dysfunctional and wasteful its goal is to make profits for the insurance companies and the drug companies you are not going to be able in the long run to have cost effective universal healthcare unless you change the system unless you get rid of the insurance companies unless you stand up to the greed of the drug companies and lower prescription drug costs that's the only way that you could provide quality care to all people I look at healthcare Chris the same way as I look at public education the same way I look at police protection fire protection all people get it regardless of their income it is publicly funded that is the most cost effective way to provide healthcare to all this is exactly what I want to see because if you allow these health insurance these for-profit private health insurance companies to exist within our Medicare for all system understand what you are inviting you are allowing them to corrupt our single-payer system because these for-profit systems are going to be greedy they're going to want a bigger piece of the pie and they're going to be bribing politicians and get them to chip away and national and privatized portions of our one-day hopefully single-payer system which is something that you don't want to do so the best thing we can do if we want single-payer and we want to protect single-payer is get rid of the private insurance companies it's not that hard to say that and Bernie did say it but expectedly what happened was right-wingers decided to attack him and as a kind of gotcha the RNC posted a clip of his interview with Chris Hayes saying Bernie Sanders on eliminating private health insurance get rid of the insurance companies and his response rather than backing away like everyone else was to say you're goddamn right that was brilliant and if you support Medicare for All if that's essentially your number one issue Bernie is your candidate because he's the only one who planted his feet firmly in the ground and demanded Medicare for All whenever somebody tries to offer some type of half measure he repeats Medicare for All if it's not Medicare for All he sends it back he's been consistent on this and he's the strongest on this because when he talks about Medicare for All he's unequivocally saying Medicare for All very clearly and I want you to think about what's currently happening so we've seen proposals such as Medicare for America by Beto O'Rourke we've seen Medicare for All who wanted from Pete Booty Judge we've seen Medicare Extra for All from the so-called Center for American Progress so we've got to be savvy enough to recognize what's happening and how the establishment is trying to play kick us we're demanding chocolate cake and they're putting sprinkles on a turd and they're trying to sell that to us as chocolate cake when we can smell the shit so acknowledge that this is what they're doing here that's a horrible analogy by the way but just why did I pick that just acknowledge that that's essentially what's happening they're trying to take the word Medicare and they're inserting it into their non-Medicare for All policies to get us to accept anything that would protect the profit incentive in the for-profit health insurance industry but what Bernie did here was he just said very clearly and loudly go fuck yourself now of course I'm paraphrasing he didn't say that but he's saying we're not going to accept that healthcare in America is going to be driven by profit because healthcare the health industry in America should be motivated to cure sick people to get people the help that they need you shouldn't be profiting when people's lives are at risk when that poses a conflict of interest because I want my doctor to treat me full stop I don't want them to have to worry about whether or not you know my insurance company will cover a particular procedure and really we're the only people in the modern industrialized world that do have to worry about this everyone else in the UK and Canada they've moved on to other progressive issues we're still having to argue for something that is a policy everyone else takes for granted essentially and it's not acceptable anymore when we say Medicare for all when you say Medicare for all if you're running for president then mean it and part of that means you accept the reality that having a single pair system means that yes the ultimate goal is to do away with these for-profit health insurance companies they should be done away with because if you think that they should exist then you're essentially buying into this notion that I believe death panels should determine whether or not someone gets care and not their doctors don't accept the premise reject it from its root and acknowledge that Medicare for all would in fact involve us moving beyond for-profit health insurance companies and that means getting rid of them Bernie gets this and that's why Bernie is the best on this issue by a mile and a fucking half nobody comes close to Bernie on this issue I was worried that a lot of politicians who are running for president in 2020 initially would be able to do the left and the thinking that they support Medicare for all but they've shown within a couple of months of the primary that they're not serious about Medicare for all even Elizabeth Warren is not doing great on this particular issue so if you want Medicare for all then the only person who you can be confident in that will fight for Medicare for all itself is in fact Bernie Sanders and he made that crystal clear in this interview and standing by the statement he made and not running away from it that's important that says something so I think it's safe to say that a Joe Biden 2020 presidential campaign is imminent and he's currently grappling with the fact that he has a lot of skeletons in his closet and a lot of the things that he's done in the past in his political career is now coming back to bite him in the ass hard I mean he voted for the Iraq war he voted for the Patriot act he was somebody who authored the 1994 crime bill so he's gonna have a lot to explain when he enters the already crowded field of 2020 candidates but one thing that is clearly bugging him the most is Anita Hill because in a Me Too era after we just witnessed how horribly Christine Blasey Ford was treated it's clear now that he has a little bit of guilt on his conscience and here's what else he says about that this is from the Daily Beast during an appearance Tuesday night at his foundation's award ceremony Biden acknowledged he had regrets over the matter I wish I could have done something to this day I regret I couldn't give her the kind of hearing she deserved he reportedly said she paid a terrible price she was abused during that hearing he said Hill showed the courage of a lifetime talking about her experience being harassed by Clarence Thomas and claimed the judiciary committee at that time didn't fully understand what the hell this was about make no mistake about it when he says that he wishes he could have done something he wishes he could have done something he's insulting your intelligence he knows that he's being disingenuous because at the time he was the chair of the senate judiciary committee he was fully capable of doing something he could have tried to limit the scope of the discussion so other senators wouldn't ask embarrassing questions to Anita Hill and essentially victimize her for a second time he could have brought in witnesses who could have validated her accusations or at least lent further credibility to them because they were essentially saying well if nobody else came forward then why are we to believe you, Anita Hill Joe Biden could have allowed the witnesses to come forward but he chose not to and it's not just that he couldn't have done anything in fact he encouraged there's videos of him saying look I think that pretty much anything is fair game all questions are fair game it is appropriate to ask professor Hill anything any member wishes to ask her to plumb the depths of her credibility so for him to claim I wish I could have done something no you don't Joe you wish now that you did do something but back then you chose not to do something that was something that you chose to do as the chair of the senate judiciary committee and really all that you wish you could change is the political ramifications that you're now having to pay because you know that this is probably going to harm your chances going into 2020 it's a crowded field and you're polling at number one currently so you certainly have a reason to jump in to be fair to you but understand these are issues that are not going to go away especially now that were in the Me Too era so it frustrates me that he's trying to play innocent here oh well you know I really wish I could have done something the way that they treated her was horrible you could have done something that would give you a sense of just how disgusting that line of questioning against Anita Hill was here's a compilation that Vice News put together I shared this on the program back in I think November of last year but here it is again because it really does go to show you how awful Anita Hill was treated tell the committee what was the most embarrassing of all the incidences that you have alleged you testified this morning that the most embarrassing question involved this is not too bad women's large breasts that's a word we use all the time you testified you drew an inference that Judge Thomas might want you to look at pornographic films but you told the FBI specifically that he never asked you to watch the films is that correct the fact is flatly he never asked you to look at pornographic movies with him you said you took it to mean Judge Thomas wanted to have sex with you but in fact he never did ask you to have sex correct no he did not ask me to have sex he did continually pressure me to go out with him continually and he would not accept my explanation as one is being being valid so that when you said you took it to mean we ought to have sex that that was an inference a mere allegation senator I would suggest to you that for me these are more than mere allegations how reliable is your testimony in October of 1991 on events that occurred eight ten years ago how sure can you expect this committee to be on the accuracy of your statements I guess one really does have to understand something about the nature of sexual harassment it is very difficult for people to come forward with these things I've got to determine what your motivation might be are you a scorned woman do you have a militant attitude relative to the area of civil rights do you have a martyr complex the issue of fantasy has arisen are you interested in writing a book you are not now drawing a conclusion the Judge Thomas sexually harassed you yes I am drawing that conclusion that is why I don't understand pardon me that I don't understand do you have anything to gain by coming here has anybody promised you anything by coming forth to this story now all we've heard for 103 days is about a most remarkable man and they scoured his every shred of life and nobody but you has come forward if what you say this man said to you occurred why in God's name would you ever speak to a man like that the rest of your life that's a very good question and I'm sure that I can't not answer that to your satisfaction that is one of the things that I have tried to do today I have suggested that I was afraid of retaliation I was afraid of damage to my professional life and I believe you do you have to understand that this response and that and that's one of the things that I have come to understand about harassment that this response this kind of response is not atypical and I can't explain it takes it takes an expert in psychology to explain how that can happen but it can happen because it happened to me well I just it just seems that so incredible to me that is it that is the most contradictory and puzzling thing for me so just try to be empathetic towards Anita Hill and understand what she was going through and try to put yourself in her shoes so she was sexually harassed repeatedly by Justice Clarence Thomas allegedly and she was forced to answer all types of embarrassing questions about pornography and large breasts and whatnot and it's sad that she had to go through that and these politicians were essentially playing defense and running interference for Justice Clarence Thomas so that's what she had to put up with Joe Biden as the chair of the senate judiciary committee could have said listen we're going to rein this in we're not going to allow embarrassing questions to Anita Hill because that's not the respectable thing that we as us senators senators should be doing we're going to ask questions that are germane to the issue at hand we don't have to get into the embarrassing specifics to make her feel more uncomfortable than she already fucking feels but he didn't do that so understand that Joe Biden is someone who is knowledgeable about the authority he had as the chair of the senate judiciary committee so save it if you're going to try to convince us that you wish you could have done something well we have the internet now Joe you can't pretend like you didn't do the things that you did because we have the receipts now the internet exists we can quickly google how you performed at that time and it showed that you absolutely mishandled that situation and that's being charitable I think you utterly bungled it and embarrassed yourself and permanently discredited yourself but that's just me so certainly he's got to explain this and trying to pretend as if you didn't play a bigger part or couldn't have done more that's not going to help you in the situation Joe just admit that you messed up and own it own it and say going forward I hope that people learn from my mistakes I hope that people understand that we have to handle these types of situations with a lot more care and a lot more sensitivity that I lacked and I hope that you'll watch what I said back then to Anita Hill and learn from my mistakes that would be I think a more appropriate response because you can't take back the past but what you can do is choose not to lie about it and we see that he is in fact trying to lie or at least at a minimum be incredibly disingenuous well that's all that I've got for you guys today I'm officially done talking thank you all so much for watching if you support the show on YouTube, Patreon or PayPal thank you all so much and I want to give a special shout out to all of our SoundCloud SoundCloud and iTunes listeners I don't know why I blanked on SoundCloud I was going to say Spotify but we're not currently on Spotify but SoundCloud thank you all for listening I'm Mike Figueredo this is the Humanist Report I will see you all next week have a great weekend