 This is the Humanist Report with Mike Figueredo. The Humanist Report podcast is funded by viewers like you, through Patreon and PayPal. To support the show, visit patreon.com forward slash humanist report or become a member at humanistreport.com. Now enjoy the show. Welcome to the Humanist Report Podcast. I'm Mike Figueredo and this is episode 273 of the program. Today is Friday, January 15th. Had to double check because I forgot which day we're on. It seems like we're like years into 2021, but before we get started, as usual, I want to take some time to thank all of the people who make this show possible. All of our Patreon, PayPal and YouTube members, all of which either signed up for the very first time to support us this week or increased the monthly pledge that they were already giving us. And that includes Aaron Strain, Aaron Washington, Adam Praul, Alfredo F. Garza, Andy A., Benandra Jones, Charlie Sierra Bravo, Diana Cason, Ellie Nordfeldt, Heather Adele Tate, Inez Williamson, Janine Cox, Myron Rivas, Savannah Cooper and Tara Chapman. If you'd also like to support the show, you can do so by going to humanistreport.com slash support, patreon.com slash humanistreport or by clicking join underneath any one of our YouTube videos. This week we have another GM packed episode, we're gonna continue of course our coverage of the Capitol Hill insurrection that took place on January 6th and that includes the new effort to impeach Donald Trump that was successful as of Wednesday and we'll discuss the implications about whether or not you know this is going to pass in the Senate. We'll also talk about what happened during that day. Susan Collins recalls how fearful she was because she didn't necessarily believe it was Donald Trump supporters who stormed the Capitol. Yeah, we'll talk about that and also AOC with a more level headed response explains how she genuinely feared for her life and she talks about how Republicans who are refusing to hold Donald Trump accountable that the blood is on their hands. Now we'll talk about more details that have emerged since the insurrection and how there are Republican lawmakers sitting Republican lawmakers who were co-conspirators who literally helped to organize the coup attempt. We'll talk about the implications of what could come afterwards because Joe Biden is promising a crackdown on domestic terror and Ilhan Omar has a warning that everyone needs to hear. Also we'll talk about Trump's Twitter ban. He reportedly went ballistic when he was banned from Twitter. We'll also talk about his first public appearance since the coup attempt because of course he decided to fan the flames once again and also Bernie Sanders he is talking about what he can do as Senate Budget Committee Chairman and what that means for policy going forward and finally we closed the week by talking about justice for Flint, Michigan because years after Governor Rick Snyder has poisoned the 100,000 residents of Flint we're learning that he will finally be charged so that's what we've got on the agenda for today's show hopefully you will enjoy it let's waste no time and get right to it well this is going to be a really busy week because it seems as if there will be a vote on impeachment this Wednesday. Democrats have basically called on Mike Pence to utilize the 25th amendment to forcibly remove Donald Trump since he's mentally unfit to serve and seeing that Pence is not going to do that because I don't think he has the spine to do such a thing then it looks like impeachment is going to be the route that Democrats pursue to hold Donald Trump accountable for inciting an insurrection now I think that the 25th amendment is something that it should be utilized it probably is a little bit too late because it's much more complicated than actually just impeaching him but I mean if we have the 25th amendment that allows us you know gives us this mechanism to remove a president that's unfit to serve if we don't use that on Donald Trump then what's the point of even having it because he very clearly meets the criteria of being unfit to serve but having said that though impeachment is the route that Democrats are likely going to be pursuing and progressives are clashing behind the scenes with House leadership democratic leadership that is because the way that they're going about this they're kind of stalling unnecessarily so and if you're going to impeach them you got you got to move fast because time's ticking he's got you know less than two weeks in office so common dreams breaks all this down this is from Jake Johnson who explains progressives late Sunday voiced growing frustration with what they perceived as dangerous foot dragging by the democratic leadership after House Speaker Nancy Pelosi laid out a plan of action for the coming week that will likely push off an impeachment vote until Wednesday a full week after a violent mob incited by President Donald Trump attacked the US Capitol we are calling on the vice president to respond within 24 hours Pelosi said if Pence doesn't take action and he's given no indication that he will as cabinet secretaries begin jumping ship only then will the House move forward articles of impeachment against the president for his role in encouraging the mob that stormed the Capitol in a failed attempt to stop the certification of president-elect Joe Biden's victory if the House votes to impeach Trump for the second time it is far from clear when a trial would begin in the Senate which is still controlled by Republicans ahead of the swearing in of democratic senators elect Raphael Warnock and John Ossoff of Georgia a two-thirds majority is required to convict as the New York Times reported House majority whip Jim Clyburn on Sunday argued in favor of delaying the start of any Senate trial for several months to allow Biden to take office without the cloud of an all-consuming impeachment drama let's give president-elect Biden the 100 days he needs to get his agenda off and running Clyburn said in an appearance on CNN Clyburn's comments provoked widespread frustration among Democrats the Washington Post reported citing unnamed aides and lawmakers they worried that Clyburn's remarks would undermine the party's case for Trump's quick removal that he is an immediate danger to the nation and I tend to agree with that last line there it seems like a contradiction if you're saying we've got to act quickly and he's an immediate danger then stalling his removal which would come if the Senate votes to convict it doesn't really make sense like you're kind of like your own worst enemy in here if you genuinely believe that Trump does need to be removed now I want to address something I think a lot of people rightfully so think this is so pointless because he's going to be out of power in a couple of weeks is it really necessary to focus so much time and energy on impeaching a president that's already been impeached even if you know again he's unlikely to be convicted and to that I'm going to play a video from Bernie Sanders who explains why this is still important if even if you know it's going to largely amount to not much we will talk about that I want to talk about the current issue right now impeachment you tweeted on January 8 some people ask why would you impeach and convict a president who has only a few days left in office the answer precedent it must be made clear that no president now or in the future can lead an insurrection against the U.S. government I take it that means that if if the impeachment gets to a senate trial you will support impeaching the president of the united states yeah I will you know and again people say well why are you wasting your time why are you doing this you know Trump has a week left isn't it stupid and the answer is no it is not the word has got to go out not just for this president but for future presidents that we have a constitution we have a rule of rules of law in this country and you cannot aid in the vet an insurrection and not be impeached so I think from a precedent point of view going forward and impeaching Trump is the right thing to do so let's talk about it from a practical point of view it does look like the house can get this done possibly this week uh Mitch McConnell says an impeachment trial could not begin in the Senate until January 19th January 20th is the inauguration you're a guy who actually understands parliamentary procedure because you engaged in it I think about two weeks ago with respect to these relief checks how do you understand this from a process perspective my understanding is Mitch McConnell does not want to do it if he had the will to do it it could be done we would have to accelerate normal processes but if uh leader mcconnell wanted to do it it certainly could be done and in my view it should be done so I think that Bernie Sanders is totally right here he's totally right and this is about holding people accountable if you are a leftist and you don't like the fact that we functionally live in a two-tier justice system where poor people get you know uh jailed for doing what elites get away with then you have to remain principled and expect that the president should be held accountable like it doesn't matter that there's a couple of weeks left if you incite an insurrection it doesn't matter if you've got a day left there should be accountability because if there is accountability for us then there should be accountability for the president of the united states I mean if you were working at Taco Bell and you put in your two weeks noticed and you had a week left and you ransacked the place and you like stole money from the cash register do you think that your managers would just like let you continue working there and think oh well you know you only got a week left no there would be consequences if you stole enough money they would press charges against you they would fire you and you uh you know you wouldn't be able to get a job there they wouldn't give you a recommendation like there are consequences to our actions so we can't just excuse Donald Trump's behavior because you know time is running out for him I think that that's not a very consistent thing to advocate for if you genuinely want justice to be applied universally you know and to be uh blind so to speak blind justice doesn't matter if you're rich or poor black or white it should be applied evenly and even if that's not the reality in America oftentimes I'm gonna push to make sure that we fight for consistency and that we hold rich people accountable now I do think there is a legitimate concern here that this could be a distraction right you're at an unprecedented time like we're basically witnessing a great depression there's a global pandemic is this really what lawmakers should be focusing their time on and to that I say we don't have to choose like that's kind of a false psychotomy it's not like we can only choose to focus on impeachment and if we choose impeachment then we can't focus on a stimulus or health care we can walk and chew gum at the same time we could do multiple things at once we can both focus on impeachment but also we can make sure that people get what they need so I just feel like you know there's there's more than enough evidence to suggest that Donald Trump literally incited a riot if you think that he's not responsible that we can't draw a line between point A and B you know him inciting a riot and the riot happening then I think that you're being pretty naive so of course if he did this then I expect him to be held accountable it's about accountability if you let him up the hook then what does that say for future administrations like this is why I wanted Obama to prosecute George W. Bush for war crimes and I was mad when he didn't like I felt betrayed immediately because if we allow you know a presidential administration to get away with torture and committing war crimes then future administrations are going to do the same thing and guess what that's happening so look accountability it hasn't been a thing we've seen when it comes to people in power in America but you've got to start somewhere and I'm not going to allow members of Congress to abdicate their duty if Trump broke the law hold him accountable if that means impeaching him you've got to do that so unless you're living under a rock then by now you know that Donald Trump was banned from twitter and expectedly he lost his mind in a way that nobody is surprised by but it's just it's really nice to see like we're reaching the end of his administration and after all of the pain that he's inflicted on you know the united states and the world it's nice to see some poetic justice so Politico reports president Donald Trump has many prized possessions but few seemed to inspire as much personal joy as his twitter feed Trump routinely boasted of the social media bullhorn he possessed he credited it with launching his political trajectory and he used it as a tool to lacerate his foes on friday night he lost it and then he lost his mind the president is ballistic a senior administration official said after twitter permanently took down his account citing the possibility that it would be used in the final 12 days of Trump's presidency to incite violence the official said Trump was scrambling to figure out what his options are so too was much of the political universe which has become blurry eyed obsessive about twitter these past four years as trump used the medium to fire advisors sync legislative initiatives encourage social duress and lastly praise the scores of mega faithful just days after hundreds of them violently ransacked the capital in a statement issued by the white house trumps said he'd been negotiating with various other sites while we also look at the possibilities of building out our own platform in the near future but aides did not reveal what plans were in the works when trumps eldest son dawn jr offered up a url to those hoping to keep tabs on his father's whereabouts it was a site that had been purchased in 2009 and in recent years a place where his books were sold for those who did sign up an email was sent plugging his latest book liberal privilege so it's all a grift like it doesn't matter what the circumstances are trump and his family will use whatever situation to try to make money off of it and it's like you think that trump supporters would be insulted by this but they're not smart enough to figure it out that like these folks are using you they don't actually care about you or the country now there was an image from fox news that i got a share it shows all of the websites that trump was banned from i mean this is this is pretty comprehensive like he is not welcome on any platforms and of course we had the memes showing that he was banned from porn hub and only fans i love this i absolutely love this not only do i think it's funny that trump was banned i think it's good now i've got to address the folks who are against trump getting banned because my reaction on twitter was that this was funny and of course you know i was laughing about it and i was sharing the memes about it but some folks even folks who purport to be on the left they claim that this is bad and i've been called a fascist because i'm happy that a fascist was banned from twitter doesn't that make sense if you are against fascism you can be a fascist if you support fascist tactics but that's not the situation and there were even some folks who were like photoshopping images of donald trump with like duct tape over his mouth with the words censored on it and if you believe this you are not a serious person and i say this because this is not like some ordinary case where some like random maga chud was deplatformed this isn't this isn't a normal situation we're talking about the president of the united states here if you incited a riot in the same way that donald trump did do you think that you would be deplatformed off of twitter uh yeah i think you would i think you'd all expect we'd all expect that and not only that we'd be in jail so the fact that some folks are like angry that trump is deplatformed and seem to be like going out of their way to like feign outrage even folks on the left i find it bizarre but i don't think it's very many folks on the left but let me just say like if you are one of the folks who believe that uh because right-linger x in this instance donald trump was deplatformed that'll just lead to more censorship on the left like let's try to entertain that argument a little bit but i don't want to dive too deep and go down that rabbit hole because this is not like a unique situation usually when it comes to deplatforming it's a case-by-case situation it depends but this is not like this is a very different a unique circumstance so the fact that there's any question even on the left is bizarre to me so what is freedom of speech or as the kids are calling it nowadays free speech uh well it is freedom to say what we want without fear of government retribution it's the first man right we all we all know this but in america we kind of like use our sense of american entitlement to apply free uh peach literally said free speech to apply free speech to like instances where it's not appropriate so if i am protected from the government prosecuting me for saying something that they don't like that doesn't necessarily mean that i'll be protected from private corporation so if i walk into a cosco and i yell racist things or i scream about politics or i act like a fool and they escort me out that doesn't mean that my first amendment rights were violated that doesn't mean that my free speech rights were violated that means that a private company didn't like what i said while i was on their property so that's not a first amendment violation and i think that even if you expand the principle of free speech to private platforms as well which some people do some people don't it kind of depends this is still a situation that's very different because even if we accept that you know the first amendment only applies to what the government says and that the government can't prosecute us for speech that we use there's still limits limits to that as well like we can't lie about people we can't commit libel or slander we can't yell fire in a crowded elevator so protected speech it's pretty absolute in america but there are some limits and trump breached that limit we are not allowed to incite insurrections if we did that we would be jailed so this isn't about trump losing his freedom of speech this isn't freedom of speech you don't have the freedom of speech in america to incite an insurrection and that's exactly what he did that is exactly what he did see if i said that uh there was a fire in a building on this street and somebody called the ambulance or the fire department and uh that wasn't actually a thing you could say that my speech led to people taking action and trump by saying that the election was stolen from him led to people taking action on his behalf you could draw a direct line between point a and point b he incited a riot that my friends is not protected speech so the fact that donald trump repeatedly used his platform on twitter to stoke the flames this led to the violent insurrection that we saw last wednesday it's a direct result of his actions so by him getting the platformed his freedom of speech was not violated no you don't have the freedom of speech to incite literal insurrections to incite folks to take up arms stage the capital and literally stage a coup we don't have the freedom of speech to do that the government doesn't give us that right privately owned platforms do not allow us to have that right it's a limit of free speech so the folks feigning outrage over donald trump getting banned i find it bizarre now individuals will make this case and they'll say well look it's not necessarily about donald trump i i see you i hear you mic you know trump he did something bad yes and i can understand why you want to punish donald trump individually but you know these things it turns into a slippery slope because if you punish donald trump then these these tech oligarchs they're gonna say well you know we gotta appear fair so if we're gonna ban trump then we've gotta ban bernie sanders and you know this is just gonna facilitate more and more left-wing censorship and you know the left they truly challenge power and institutions in this country so you know they're going to find more reasons to ban us and to that i say um a slippery slope is a logical fallacy the left is already getting censored and the platformed at uh in greater numbers than right wingers that's already happening it's a common occurrence that's a common occurrence that's that's already happening and whether or not trump is banned from twitter isn't necessarily going to change that i think it is a legitimate conversation if you want to talk about whether or not big tech has too much power yeah that's true i would agree with you they do i think that whether or not you know these these companies should be instituting things like deplatforming is as a legitimate you know uh measure against bad faith actors on the platform sure i think you can have that conversation um even you know about right wingers in a way when they break the to s on these websites sure you can have that conversation but this is such a unique case like we're talking about the president of the united states and to defend him and say he shouldn't be banned functionally what you're arguing for is a two-tiered system of justice and we're not talking about like justice in terms of our judicial system you're basically saying that there should be a different standard for rich people and as a leftist that's not a leftist position you shouldn't be in favor of trump staying on twitter because we should treat everyone equally there should be you know the same exact standard that's applied universally if i incited a riot i get deplatformed and i expect that if trump incites a riot he should be deplatformed as well you don't get special powers because you're the president and so to like argue on behalf of donald trump to stay on that platform what you're functionally arguing for willingly or unwittingly is for the president of united states to have more power than average citizens because again if you incite a riot you're gonna go to jail if he incites a riot what there should just be no consequences so if you don't think trump should be deplatformed what should happen as a result of him breaking the law what should happen should he just remain on twitter and possibly incite more riots i just don't understand what you want there to happen and it's funny because you know folks usually these are the same actors you know they'll say well look see trump was banned and i'm already proven right because now left winger x was banned and i think it was red scare pod that was banned also i don't know who they are i'm not familiar with them uh but here's the thing left wing podcasts and personalities are getting banned all the time like you and i we know people who've been banned on twitter this isn't something new so it it's weird to me that the only time some folks on twitter will defend uh left wingers and point out them getting deplatformed as bad is to prove why right ringers shouldn't be deplatformed they'll say well see trump was deplatformed and as a direct result red scare pod was deplatformed as well except correlation doesn't necessarily equal causation and the same folks who use these examples to prop up their argument that deplatforming of right wingers will lead to deplatforming of left wingers they never actually like speak up on behalf of left wingers when they're deplatformed like how many folks who are against this said anything when the serfs was deplatformed off of youtube thankfully they got their channel back but that wasn't the case how many like free peach warriors were speaking up on behalf of them now had the serfs been deplatformed when a popular right winger was deplatformed i think that maybe folks would have talked about that because that could be used as evidence that their argument is correct and the people who are pro censorship are wrong but i mean it's it's not that simple like that's not a very persuasive argument that's an oversimplification so if you are a leftist i think that like your reaction to this should be pretty pretty straightforward uh did he break the law yes do you believe that folks who break the law even if they're popular politicians or powerful politicians or popular people should they be held to the same standard as peasants uh yeah then okay this is fine so let's laugh about it it's not a big deal no need to you know uh die on this hill of a fascist president with a lot of power who incited an insurrection shouldn't be banned like i don't get why folks are making this their number one issue and if you truly care about censorship which you should then there's a left wing way to do this like freaking out every time a fascist is banned isn't necessarily the best thing that a leftist should be doing if they genuinely care about you know freedom of speech and the principle of freedom of speech you can start talking about anti-trust and how we break up these big tech oligarchs and monopolies and whatnot and reign in their power regulate them more nationalize them possibly i don't know but like freaking out feigning outrage whenever a right winger is deplatformed that doesn't necessarily seem like the best use of our time especially considering that the fascists would never speak out on your behalf the fascists don't believe in freedom of speech the fascists want to deplatform you and they would laugh if you were deplatformed as you you know defend them and i know the response will be well yeah but i'm just i'm just principled i'm not a hypocrite okay well great then actually find a way to like enhance speech in the united states and you know target you know these actual big tech companies in a leftist way not by like defending right wingers and fascists when they're deplatformed that's all i'll say about this i think trump getting banned is hilarious and i hope that he is mad i hope he's stewing over this i hope he is uh miserable that he can't you know tweet any longer and and criticize people and incite insurrections good this should have happened a lot sooner than it did i wasn't sure that i was going to talk about this but i have to i can't resist so we've got to look at susan collins she recounts what happened on that really horrifying day when a bunch of megachuds stormed the u.s capital in an attempt to i guess install donald trump as president permanently because they believed that the election was stolen from trump you know i don't doubt that that was horrific and and terrifying like if you're a lawmaker and you were like sectioned off in some portion of the senate or the house and like you heard all of these lunatics like running through the halls of congress i have no doubt that would be terrifying and a lot of them feared for their lives aoc said that she feared for her life uh so it's scary uh but susan collins reaction as she recounts the events of that day is really uh interesting i should say uh so susan collin says that as the capital was attacked her first thought was that the iranians had followed through on their threat to strike the capital she thought that it was iranians as she saw a bunch of trump flags and american flags and blue lives matter flags and you know don't tread on me flags her thought was oh my god we're getting invaded by iran even if she had no idea what was going on and she heard zero maniacs screaming and they just said senator collins you've got to go there's a threat currently to think that iran would be capable or have the balls to carry out a ground invasion of the united states i mean that's so detached from reality so irrational that i can't not laugh at her like i i i get that she was worried and when fear takes over you're thinking really irrationally right you're not thinking logically you know you have flight or fight triggered and you don't know like your adrenaline's pumping but i think iran i'm assuming she saw at least like some of them you know with with mega flags to think this was iran like i just i don't know i don't know how to respond to that you think this was iran susan susan jesus i she thought this was iran let me get the exact quote again iranians followed through on their threat to strike the capital there's not much to say about this susan collins is a dumbass and she shouldn't be a united state senator she should not be a united states senator and like even if let's say you know you had that moment of uh i don't know irrational thinking and you were just fear had taken over and you thought it was iran or north korea or whatever would you say that though afterwards like wouldn't you keep that to yourself like if you have an embarrassing thought in a moment where there's no clarity and there's only confusion like wouldn't you keep that to yourselves like to say iran followed through on their threat she just she doesn't understand like anything about the world and it's just sad oh my god there's nothing left to say that this is not a substantive segment i i just had to point this out because susan collins is a she is a unique unique person very unique person will say that to be polite while the democratic party will soon retake control of the senate and the individual who will be the senate budget committee chairman is none other than bernard sanders and uh this is really really encouraging to see and for the first time in a long time i do feel somewhat cautiously optimistic and it's part of the reason why i didn't want bernie sanders to become joe biden's labor secretary not that he doesn't deserve a promotion because of course he does but because i think that he's more useful in the senate to make sure that this centrist center-right party for being realistic here pushes out the most progressive legislation possible if they you know put out this incremental policy push them to be even further to the left push for whatever benefit they're putting out to be more comprehensive like we need someone who's going to hold them accountable and that individual is not going to be elizabeth warren it's not going to be edmar ki it's going to be bernard sanders who has a lot of influence and now as you know budget committee chairman he could do a lot and in an interview with ali velce of msnbc he kind of talked about how he'd be using this role to push the envelope to push biden in a more progressive direction and he has a pretty solid plan let's talk about health care this is a the thing you and i have talked about for a very very long time because we share a view on how there can be a better health care system obviously you and joe biden don't exactly share the same view of what should happen but you do definitely share a view that a lot more americans should be insured than currently are and that situation is only worsened because of coronavirus because stupidly we connect health care to our jobs in this country so lots of people have lost their jobs and a whole lot of people got coronavirus which then puts them into the category of having pre-existing conditions and making it harder for them to get insurance what's the working solution to this in the immediate and and even the midterm future look ali i agree with you at the end of the day this current cruel dysfunctional and wasteful health care system has got to the end uh we need to do what canada does we need to do with countries all over the world to guarantee health care to all people as a human right not a jobs benefit and the absurdity of spending 10 times more in some cases for prescription drugs than to countries all over the world that has to be addressed immediately that's my view that is not the president elect's view but short term what we can do for a start is lower the eligibility age of medicare from 65 i would go down to 55 in the first year uh joe biden wants to go to 60 we can certainly expand health care coverage in a variety of ways we can make sure that we have community health centers are located new community health centers all over this country so that anybody without insurance will be able to walk into a medical home and get the care that we need and also we've got to have the courage to take on the greed and corruption of the pharmaceutical industry lower drug costs in this country one of these days you and i need to sit and have a conversation just about community health centers and the role they the remarkably important role they play in this country and how to fund them better one of the things that that joe biden has talked about is is not getting too crazy about the deficit republicans always have this issue with we can't spend we can't spend we can't spend when it's on the backs of regular people getting money but zero issue when it comes to tax cuts joe biden seems to share a little more of your view on the idea that maybe we shouldn't be as as as sort of perversely obsessed with deficit increases as republicans are ali you don't know how much this republican rhetoric drives me crazy when it comes to tax breaks the billionaires hey no deficit problem spending 740 billion on the military not a problem are massive amounts of corporate welfare that's just that's fine but when it comes to helping people who are struggling to feed their families or to prevent being evicted from their homes oh my god we have this terrible deficit bottom line is joe biden is exactly right interest rates are now low we've got to invest in the american people we got to deal with the pandemic make sure these vaccines getting out if the timeline that they should much faster than it's currently the case we have to create millions of jobs as we rebuild the economy and it seems obvious right with interest rates as low as they are we can have some current version of an infrastructure project in this last administration kept holding the infrastructure weeks but nothing ever happened we know our health infrastructure is weak we've learned that there can be some real ways in which you can utilize low interest money that can benefit america for 50 or 100 years ali that is absolutely correct in there's no nobody in the united states congress will deny that our infrastructure roads bridges tunnels wastewater plants water systems affordable housing we have desperate infrastructure needs in this country in terms of health care we need more doctors we need more nurses we need more community health centers so we can create millions of important meaningful jobs rebuilding our infrastructure combating climate change improving our health care system and that is exactly what we have to do that i should tell you i will be the chairman of the senate budget committee and when we put together a reconciliation bill which will need only 50 votes 51 votes i have those ideas in mind that is really really great to see i will be the chairman of the senate budget committee and when we put together a reconciliation bill we'll only need 51 votes i have those ideas in mind the ideas that ali velez she brought up which are good ideas this is uh this is great democrats really have an opportunity to get a lot done and with bernie sanders as the chairman of the senate budget committee if they squander these next couple of years then they'll have nobody to blame but themselves i mean when you are a party that controls all branches of government all eyes are on you you get all the blame if something goes wrong so democrats they really they have a lot to do they've got to deliver expectations are high i mean in actuality my expectations are low but what we want i mean the bar is very high so they have to deliver and i think that bernie sanders is going to make sure that whatever they put out it's going to be better than if we had someone else as you know the chairman of the budget committee now what i also liked is that you know he talks about the hypocrisy of republican deficit hawks and it's hilarious that these folks still pretend to care about the deficit after passing tax cuts for the rich and bailouts for corporate america and it seems as if according to what ali velez she said that you know after being pro austerity joe biden is kind of leaning towards the bernie sanders approach i'm gonna have to wait and see what he actually does but to have a senate budget committee chair who doesn't buy into that garbage that could really make a difference and when it comes to health care like i'm not under this delusion that you know um joe biden is going to give us medicare for all even if it passed he said previously he would veto it but what bernie sanders could do what he could push for is to make a lot of progress this is all short-term progress but it would really help so if we got community health centers and more of them that would be huge for people it would literally save lives because right now if you don't have health insurance what you have to do is go to the er that's basically your doctor because they're the only people who will see you because of mtala which was signed into law by ronald reagan of all people but we need something that's better than that if you're uninsured you have to be able to go to a community health insurance place and we need more of those like how many of you can point to a community health place in your area not very many people right now the problem with this is this isn't a long-term solution it's not the end all be all because you know when republicans take power it's inevitable they will at some point i assume you know what they'll do is defund them so these programs so these centers rather are less effective and so really the only long-term solution is medicare for all and you don't stop in medicare for all after you get medicare for all secured you try to nationalize hospitals move towards a national health system like the uk has because the thing about capitalism is that it acts like a virus right even if you eradicate the threat it's only a temporary victory if you get medicare for all private health insurance companies if we don't eradicate them and abolish them are going to try to push for you know less comprehensive coverage so it's a never-ending battle and if you get community health centers that is a really good short-term thing especially now during a pandemic but it's not a long-term solution but what bernie sanders can do here is get people's feet a little bit wet let them acknowledge that these community health centers are actually great and they work and they're useful and then they warm up to this idea of the government giving them health care and i mean it's not like we have to convince that much more people since we already have won the hearts and minds of americans when it comes to medicare for all but you know this is a step in the right direction and you know this wouldn't be possible if bernie wasn't in the position that he's in a position of real power and not only that he has a lot of influence so he's better off now than if he didn't run for president so this is really you know it's encouraging and it's not it's not what i wanted i wanted bernie sanders to be the president i don't want to be debating you know how much more community health centers we get i'd rather be debating you know the specifics of medicare for all itself but that's not the reality of the situation and when people are hurting we need relief and when you have someone there who is truly an advocate of the people like bernie sanders in that position you know a lot can be accomplished so democrats better take advantage of this unique opportunity because if they if they fuck up it's on them if they lose ground in a couple of years which all parties in power you know do it's going to be because they didn't deliver enough so i hope they use this opportunity to actually help people otherwise we're going to be right back to square one with republicans retaking control in a couple of years it's official donald trump is now the first president in u.s history to be impeached twice and um rightfully so there may only be a few days left of his administration but it's very clear that he is not mentally fit to serve as president and it's why the house also officially approved a resolution calling on mike penns to invoke the 25th amendment this passed in a 223 to 205 vote although mike penns has rejected the idea outright it seemed as if he was considering it with other cabinet secretaries for a moment but for the most part he's not going to be doing that but the house did vote to impeach donald trump 232 to 197 with just 10 republicans voting to impeach and this includes liz cheney adam kinsinger and others so this really is uh historic uh congratulations mr president i guess you just made history you have officially secured yourself a spot in history books permanently getting impeached twice wow now the question is will this actually pass in the senate because it requires a two-thirds majority to convict and officially remove donald trump now the question is what does mitch mcconnell think about this because if mitch mcconnell says no i don't support impeachment he can unilaterally kill it just like that but we're getting some reports that mitch mcconnell is seemingly on board with impeachment which is uh surprising but it's not because he had some like coming to jesus moment and you know he's having this change of heart there's a very specific reason why he's saying at least publicly he supports impeachment but practically uh it doesn't seem as if his actions are telling us that he does support impeachment because he is refusing to call an emergency session so they can deal with impeachment immediately but nonetheless he is signaling support for it so as the new york times reports senator mitch mcconnell of kentucky the republican leader has told associates that he believes president trump committed impeachable offenses and that he is pleased that democrats are moving to impeach him believing that it will make it easier to purge him from the party according to people familiar with his thinking this was before they officially voted on impeachment by the way at the same time representative kevin mccarthy of california the minority leader and what a mr trump's most steadfast allies in congress has asked other republicans whether he should call on mr trump to resign in the aftermath of the riot at the capital last week according to three republican officials briefed on the conversations while mr mccarthy has said he is personally opposed to impeachment he and other republican party leaders have decided not to formally lobby republicans to vote no and an aid to mr mccarthy said he was open to a measure censuring mr trump for his conduct and private mr mccarthy reached out to a leading house democrat to see if the chamber would be willing to pursue a censure vote those speaker pelosi has ruled it out taken together the stances of congress's two top republicans neither of whom has said publicly that mr trump should resign or be impeached reflected the politically challenging and fast moving nature of the crisis that the party faces after the assault by a pro-trump mob during a session to formalize president-elect joseph r biden juniors electoral victory so yeah this makes me think you know if kevin mccarthy actually did try to whip the votes for impeachment would the numbers be higher and of course i think the answer to that is yes only ten republicans vote into impeach and you know you don't really want to go on the record and basically reject someone vote to impeach someone who there's a lot of overlap with his base and your base and if you want to get reelected it's best not to piss them off so you know these republicans who did not vote to impeach even though they know what trump did is wrong they're cowards what else can you say this is someone who not only incited a riot but shortly before that i know it seems like so long ago he literally pressured a public official the secretary of state from georgia to commit fraud find the votes needed for him to win the state of georgia so anyone who's against this they're just either a coward or they're against democracy and at this point i don't care it's a distinction without a difference they're terrible people now i guess i was wrong mitch mcconnell isn't saying he supports impeachment publicly these reports are leaking out but i mean let's be real here he wouldn't allow this to get out if he didn't want this to get out so this is him kind of doing a little bit of a wink wink nudge nudge because he's sending a message not to donald trump not necessarily to republicans but to the donor class who are very very agitated with donald trump right now so he gets no credit mitch mcconnell hasn't suddenly had a change of heart but rather you know he is there to deliver for the republican party's donors and the reason why only some republicans are changing their tune right now is because corporate donors have threatened to cut off republicans that part took in trump's effort to undermine the election this includes health insurance companies like blue cross blue shield the marriott fossil fuel donors like bp and also wall street firms big banks uh such as uh golden sacks city group jp morrin chase so the thing about mitch mcconnell that we've all got to realize is that when donors say to jump his only question is how high so had donors not basically put this pressure on the republican party mitch mcconnell would not be moving to impeach donald trump or even signal support at all to impeach donald trump because mitch mcconnell he he's not even like i don't even picture him as like a human being at this point in my mind i've dehumanized him to the point to where he's just like this machine that acts at the behest of the republican party's donors and even if his actions undermine democracy and destroy our entire system our regime he doesn't care he just does what the donors ask and if the donors ask him to you know uh do something if they reprogram him and get him to seemingly take a 180 that's not him he's not like a rational actor here he's not acting uh as as like a human being would this is this is a robot basically so yeah there you have it we don't know where this is going to go odds are it's not going to get through the senate even if it does pass uh before inauguration we'll have to wait and see uh it seems like there's a possibility that there they will reconvene on the 19th which means that you've got one day to convict donald trump uh before biden is inaugurated and then at that point once biden is inaugurated that urgency will vanish so likely won't happen um so you know this is this is really this is fascinating and it's really difficult to try to like digest all of the details as it happens but this really is a historic moment like a sitting president has been impeached twice impeached twice that is a well deserved for uh someone who is a terrible human being who has done irreparable harm to our country and our democracy i am sympathetic towards the argument that some folks were making about donald from getting impeached a second time that um you know why do this when we're so close to him being out of office anyway um and by now he has already been impeached twice and i'm sure that you've seen this video but his first public appearance since the january 6 attempted coup like he proved why his immediate removal is necessary because he can't not fan the flames he's he's incapable of cooling the temperature so basically he was asked about this new round of impeachment and what we see here is an inadvertent threat uh i feel like i don't know if he knows what he's doing but i think he is smart enough to acknowledge that what he's saying here is very deliberate uh so this is what he says about the uh plans to impeach him a second time uh as far as this is concerned we want no violence never violence we want absolutely no violence and on the impeachment it's really a continuation of the greatest witch hunt in the history of politics it's ridiculous it's absolutely ridiculous this impeachment is causing tremendous anger and you're doing it and it's really a terrible thing that they're doing for Nancy Pelosi and Chuck Schumer to continue on this path i think it's causing tremendous danger to our country and it's causing tremendous anger i want no violence thank you very much thank you everybody and that right there is why you were impeached a second time because you just made a threat you made another threat they're impeaching you because you already incited an insurrection and here you are responding to them holding you accountable by encouraging more violence potentially uh he says impeachment is causing tremendous anger and it's really a terrible thing that they're doing for Nancy Pelosi and Chuck Schumer to continue on this path i think it's causing tremendous danger to our country and it's causing tremendous anger i want no violence so if you read the subtext there what he's saying is look you saw what happened on january 6th you know i have a bunch of lunatic followers it's basically a cult and anything that i say to them they listen they believe if i tell them to do something they're going to do it so if i say to you that you doing this impeachment is putting the country in danger because maybe my supporters will get mad at you and do another siege of the capital well that's on you this is a threat this is a threat whether he acknowledges it is or realizes it is this is a veil threat and everyone sees it everyone sees through it it's exactly why he has to be removed it's exactly why representative aoc is correct to call the individuals like Mike Pence cowards for not actually invoking the 25th amendment you see folks like Betsy DeVos Elaine Chao um Chad Wolf all resigning after that event on january 6th abdicating the responsibility to actually invoke the 25th amendment to hold Donald Trump accountable but they don't want to do that everyone is afraid of him he's like a wrecking ball and you just want to get out of the way but these folks are cowards so i mean he proved why it was right to impeach him again because he is a threat to democracy and he keeps fanning the flames he can't not fan the flames further and in the same interview he claimed that he didn't incite the coup attempt that's just laughable like he literally said we're going to be marching on the capital like that's not verbatim but he told folks on january 6th that they need to be at the capital and he's going to be right there with them which he was not but voters they don't agree they see through his bullshit not only has his approval rating gone down since that event but 63 percent of americans actually do blame him for the insurrection and they also hold lawmakers like Ted Cruz and josh holly accountable saying that they share some of the blame this is according to respondents from that same survey so it's not just donald trump who should be held accountable i think it was good that he was impeached and i hope that the senate votes to convict but anyone who was involved in this effort who led donald trump's deranged base to believe that this election was actually stolen Ted Cruz josh holly these folks have got to resign or be expelled either way i don't care what happens but they can no longer be in politics because you can't lie to the point where your lies are actually putting our democracy our entire regime in danger like that's completely unacceptable so there's got to be accountability and donald trump of course is the utmost guilty here in this situation but everyone else his g.o.p. enablers they've got to pay a political price and a legal price if that's what it takes these folks have got to be held accountable and um the pressure has got to be maintained josh holly Ted Cruz any house republicans who were part of this effort to lie to people about the free and fairness of our election like this can't stand we can't have a democracy if you literally have lawmakers undermining the legitimacy of our democracy so there's got to be accountability and uh you know when it comes to impeachment i think that that video that interview with donald trump the first thing he said publicly since that coup attempt it shows why impeachment was in fact necessary and i hope that some folks who were reluctant to support impeachment uh at least politically you know not in congress but like outside of congress just observers consumers of news i hope that you see now why this really was important and it wasn't you know uh meaningless as we learn more about the attempted coup that took place on january 6th we're learning just how interconnected the entire web of republican party politics was in like orchestrating this event like it wasn't just a bunch of pro-trump mega chuds that did this on their own accord it was you know the far-right pundits like steven Crowder who egged them on and charlie kirk who supplied them with the means necessary to get to the capital but on top of that literal sitting members of congress republicans actually aided and abetted this coup attempt that's what the founder of stop the steal ali alexander alleged before he was de-platformed from twitter he uh has since gone into hiding because i'm assuming he doesn't want to go to jail for inciting a riot and a literal insurrection but the videos that he posted to social media they show a lot happened a lot of crimes were committed by members of congress in particular andy biggs mo brooks and paul gozar now the intercept uh they did a phenomenal job putting all of this together this is kind of a long clip it's about four minutes but it is worth watching because what we're going to see here is very very incriminating for these three members of congress in question the head of the house freedom caucus republican representative andy biggs of arizona helped plan the january 6th event that culminated in a storming of the capital that's according to ali alexander a lead organizer of the gathering alexander a pro-trump personality was an early founder of the stop the steal movement helped bring together various right-wing factions around a mass event on january 6 it was aimed to coincide with objections to the counting of the electoral college alexander made his claim in three separate livestreams in late december adding that representatives paul gozar of arizona and mo brooks of alabama were also involved i was the person who came up with the january 6 idea and i'm the guy who came up with the idea of january 6 when i was talking with congressman gozar congressman andy biggs and congressman mo brooks so we're working with members of congress while other people are trying to show about um we're really working hard because look i believe that the president should do something brave i think that the vice president should do something brave i believe that that's how we maintain the white house and i believe that we need to maintain the white house i think it's a moral imperative his claim is buttressed by another video from a december 19th rally at the arizona state capitol at which alexander played a video that biggs had supplied congressman gozar has been the spirit animal of this movement one of the other heroes has been congressman andy biggs congressman andy biggs sent us a video i'll be right down there in the well of the house with my friend from alabama mo brooks in the video biggs mentions brooks as his ally in the fight gozar spoke in person at the event freedom isn't cheap folks freedom isn't cheap but you know what imagine this that you get a step and go back home once we conquer the hill donald chump returns and be the president and amazing things will happen in four more years biggs connection to alexander was reported on sunday by the arizona republic which quoted his spokesperson daniel stafenski congressman biggs is not aware of hearing of or meeting mr alexander at any point let alone working with him to organize some part of a planned protest to font ski said he did not have any contact with protesters or rioters nor did he ever encourage or foster the rally or protests when asked why biggs would record a video for someone he doesn't know siphonski told the intercept representative gozars team asked for the video and he provided it that day trump posted to his since suspended twitter account big protest in dc on january 6 be there will be wild on the day of the riot gozar used his official twitter account to call for peaceful protests urging trump supporters not to get carried away so no one gets hurt while spreading an entirely different message on parlor a right-wing alternative social media platform created in opposition to twitter americans are upset he wrote sharing a photo of the rioters climbing the capital walls brooks after the event sought to legitimize political violence in a radio interview in a republic your principal form of redress of political grievances is at the ballot box what are your options if you no longer have faith that the ballot box is a way to address grievances because it is no longer honest or accurate neither goss nor brooks responded immediately to inquiries from the intercept alexander did not respond to a text or phone call his voicemail was full and he has told the daily beast that he's gone underground as the mob broke into the capital gozar was in the middle of his speech objecting to the certification of arizona's electoral college votes once the capital was cleared and members of congress returned gozar continued to object as blood dried on the marble floors just steps away very very interesting again that was andy biggs mo brooks and paul gozar all working with the organizer of the so-called stop the steel rallies ali alexander who has now gone into hiding because he is worried that he will go to jail for inciting a riot and he should be worried but also these republican lawmakers should be worried as well i mean paul gozar on video is saying we're gonna quote unquote conquer the hill what are those folks who believe the election was stolen from donald trump expected to take away from that language when you use that sort of an incendiary rhetoric what do you expect them to do paul gozar mo brooks andy biggs all of these individuals very very clearly culpable here now they're trying to uh either do damage control or outright reject this like mo brooks put out this like batshit insane statement uh saying that this is a political attack on him but make no mistake about it we have the evidence now we've got receipts you all worked with the organizer of this coup attempt and now it's time to pay for that right they should be not only expelled from congress but there should be legal consequences for this and it's not just these three folks because while we don't have evidence that newly elected qanon conspiracy theorist laura bowbert aided and abetted the organizers in the way that those three members of congress did she did tweet out on the day that the riot happened this is 1776 and while the siege was taking place she was actually tweeting out the location of nancy plosie does that not seem odd and suspicious while there's a coup and you have pro trump chuds trying to take over the capital very clearly hate nancy plosie isn't it weird that you're tweeting out the location of the speaker of the house that sounds like you're trying to work with them get them to find nancy plosie now it's not just laura bowbert because louis gomer one of the dumbest members of congress tacitly suggested that you know since this election was stolen from donald trump there's only one thing that we can do get violent this is what he said in an interview on newsmax but at bottom line is the court is saying we're not going to touch this you have no remedy basically in effect the ruling would be that you got to go to the streets and be as violent is empty for me leon because let me ask you he knows what he's doing he knows exactly what he's doing and of course we can't forget about the role that ted cruz and josh holly played in basically leading the charge in the senate to get trump supporters believe to believe that the election was stolen and that they're the fighters here who are going to save democracy from the evil democrats who stole the election from donald trump but these are just the lawmakers like the right wing bubble is really vast and there were other individuals who did in fact act as co-conspirators i'm talking about charlie kirk of course he broadcasted the fact that his organization was sending 80 plus buses full of patriots to dc to fight for this president so charlie kirk helped these fascists get to dc to storm the capital that's what he did now in a recent episode of his podcast he did a little bit of damage control and tried to downplay the fact that this was an insurrection keep in mind that like if this were a black lives matter he'd be saying something entirely different but this is what he says now we sent our students home on our buses and they left however some people went to the united states capital and just decided to kind of sit there and watch and look and wave flags perfectly and permissible with first amendment rights now a lesson that my parents taught me early on is as soon as you see trouble go the other way i do not think it was good judgment for people that started to see things happen and they're all this and they rushed to the now that's just here's a good rule of life you start to see trouble just go the other way okay unless you feel as if your independent action can save an innocent person okay that's one nuance i'll say if you see someone getting beaten up in a subway or something then you could do something but all of a sudden if you start to see mass trouble just go the other way as you know very wise people say nothing good happens after 2 am right or happens after midnight and nothing really good happens as soon as tear gas starts getting spread on the us capital right and so is that a crime no it's not is it bad judgment yeah it's bad judgment okay it's bad judgment all of a sudden to climb the capital steps and walk in the rotunda and it's just it's not wise okay however not wise does not mean you're an insurrectionist okay let me be very clear just because you do something stupid does not mean you're Timothy McVeigh just because you do something that is regrettable does not mean that you're planning an armed insurrection against the united states government now the guy that had the zip ties i hope he goes to jail that's just weird creepy wrong evil okay the guys that were assaulting police officers jail but the guys that were just kind of air waving flags and they're walking up the steps and i'm sure that they regret it i'm sure that a lot of them have said that in fact in a lot of these arrests a lot of these people say this was the worst decision of my entire life that doesn't exactly talk like a domestic terrorist trying to overthrow the government okay well their actions indicate otherwise and look let's be a little bit charitable let's assume that Charlie Kirk supplied these terrorists with buses so they can go to the capital and peacefully protest and you never expected it to get out of hand like that but ask yourself this Charlie if you on your podcast daily are feeding these folks lies about the election being stolen and you have evidence of fraud that took place in Georgia and you tell them literally that democracy was stolen are you that surprised that they stormed the capital because if they genuinely believed that the only way to save democracy was to storm the capital don't you think that you are responsible don't you bear some culpability here doesn't it seem as if they would deduce that storming the capital was a logical response to save democracy and uh other folks who haven't said a word but we hear you your silence is deafening Steven Crowder at the time i record this video he hasn't said a single thing but um he fed his viewers lies about the election being stolen and in one video in particular he uh titled it calling all patriots to disobey and in that video you can see him holding up a gun in the thumbnail perhaps Steven Crowder is culpable as well culpability here is uh it's gonna i think it's gonna be far and wide there's a lot of republicans who aided and abetted this effort folks who lied about the election who knew what they were doing i'm talking about charlie i'm talking about Steven Crowder i'm talking about elected republicans such as Ted Cruz and josh holly there's a lot of blame to go around but it's not just that like politically and socially we should shun these people this is a coup attempt five people died we can't just shame you that's not enough you can't just be blamed and be shamed there has to be accountability there needs to be members of congress get expelled for what they did especially Andy Biggs Paul Gosar Mo Brooks possibly Laura Boebert you all helped with this coup event like this is an attack on democracy so we can't take that lightly you can't serve in a democratic institution in a democratic regime if you literally are a threat to that regime these republicans regardless of how patriotic they they want you to think they are how much they hump the flag these are fucking traitors these are traitors who hate democracy i want to have a somewhat complicated discussion about the implications of the january sixth coup attempt i mean i think it's obvious to say that i want every single individual who was a part of it to be held accountable and any lawmaker or you know far right pundit who was involved who instigated that riot they should be held accountable both legally and politically uh but it's not the end and there's going to be more of this happening at least according to the fbi who is warning about more incidents leading up to the inauguration of joe biden and uh there's even a warning that there's going to be protests at capitals across the country so this is really it's a serious issue and this is likely to be an ongoing issue you know far right violence according to the fbi has been a threat for quite some time the question is what do we do about it and that's where we get into really shaky territory because after 9 11 we all saw what happened we saw that we didn't actually effectively take on terrorism itself we waged a war on terror that led to death destruction and our own civil liberties being violated through the patriot act so now having the knowledge that we didn't have once 9 11 took place we have to tread very cautiously here because while accountability and calling for us to take drastic action to stop white supremacist and far right terrorism is necessary and important we can get down a very dangerous path if we're not careful and ilhan omar warns against this now daily beast writer spencer ackerman shared some wise words from ilhan omar warning against the possible domestic war on terror quote we should not lose sight of our disgust at the double standards employed against white protesters and black ones or against muslims and non-muslims omar told the daily beast but at the same time we must resist the very human desire for revenge to simply see the tools that have oppressed black and brown people expand and she's absolutely right and the reason why this is so important is because the incoming administration has already stated that they intend to prioritize new laws taking on domestic terrorism this is what joe biden says he wants to do now if this were bernie sanders saying that we're going to tackle domestic terrorism and you know authorize uh you know different government entities to study it i would be less worried because bernie sanders has spoken out against the patriot act but when it comes to joe biden someone who used terrorism to crack down on american civil liberties we have to be very worried about what this could turn into because we could very well be walking into a trap and americans could inadvertently give joe biden permission to crack down on their civil liberties even more and i think that writer luke savage of jackabin he really put it best in an article where he argues we should be very worried about joe biden's domestic terrorism bill joe biden used to brag that he practically wrote the patriot act the bush era law that massively increased government surveillance powers now he's hoping to pass a further domestic terrorism law once in office the danger is real that the january sixth capital attack will be used as an excuse to severely curtail our civil liberties so if we collectively as a country being horrified at the january sixth event give joe biden a mandate to crack down on domestic terrorism what is this going to turn into and i want to explore luke savage's argument a little bit more because he echoes the same sentiment that ilhan omar said this can very easily be used against us in other words the terrorists can win again because rather than cracking down on the domestic terrorists we could end up taking away our own civil liberties if we in fact allow joe biden to do this so savage continues nearly two decades since its initial passage in the aftermath of the 911 attacks the patriot act has continued to linger in our collective memory though few americans probably remember much about its provisions or specifics the bush era legislation long ago entered into general usage as a synonym for heavy-handed domestic surveillance and institutional overreach the words patriot act now being practically synonymous with secrecy eavesdropping and the rolling back of civil liberties under the intentionally broad guise of national security given the law's contents and implications in practice this reputation is well deserved passing the senate with only a single dissenting vote the patriot act dramatically expanded the power of federal authorities to spy on ordinary americans with minimal oversight enabling the fbi to obtain detailed information about citizens banking history and personal communications without having to seek judicial approval and even allowing sneak and peak searches of homes and offices the patriot act in the rather blunt words of a brief prepared by the aclu turned regular citizens into suspects ahead of the nearly unanimous october 25th 2001 senate vote on the patriot act joe biden was regularly claiming the law as his own boasting in an interview with the new republic i drafted a terrorism bill after the oklahoma city bombing and the bill john ashcroft sent up was my bill biden wasn't wrong in fact key parts of the bush administration's signature national security law were drawn from provisions contained in biden's own 1995 anti-terrorism bill this particular episode aside biden's career and voting history suggests a decidedly dodgy record on civil liberties in 1996 he voted for bob dole's anti-terrorism and effective death penalty act deemed by legal scholar lincoln kaplan to be one of the worst statutes ever passed by congress thanks to its undermining of habeas corpus though he eventually took to criticizing the administration's surveillance programs once they became unpopular biden's positions later in the bush era often earned him only middling ratings from the aclu given this history and recent events biden's purported plan to introduce a new domestic terrorism law gives us plenty of reason to worry and he is absolutely correct we cannot we cannot allow history to repeat itself we we can't let that happen now we should have learned from our mistakes we should have learned that our lawmakers took advantage of us they capitalized on a terror attack to clamp down on our civil liberties and we can't allow that to happen again we can't allow fear to override logic and rationale and certainly i expect the government to do something about far-right extremism if they are in fact taking it seriously but any widespread law that allows them more authority to crack to crack down on civil liberties and you know violate our constitutional rights as americans we can't allow that to happen now we don't necessarily know what joe biden has planned in particular but given his history and given that he wants a new domestic terrorism bill and he's very explicitly calling for that we have more than enough ammunition to be worried about this and to put maximum pressure on him to make sure that this doesn't become the patriot act 2.0 so look we've got to be able to walk and chew gum at the same time of course we want to make sure that lives aren't lost due to far-right extremism in this country but we're also in the process not going to allow government officials to impede on our civil liberties we we just can't let that happen because once you lose civil liberties it's very difficult to get them back in america so be very cautious proceed forward knowing what you're getting into if you're calling for some sort of sweeping law to crack down on domestic terror because it could very easily turn against you as an american citizen during the capital siege on january 6 both republican and democratic lawmakers had to shelter together while the siege was taking place and some republicans decided to refuse to do even the bare minimum to protect their own colleagues from covid 19 they refused to wear masks and this was caught on video so you can't really make out what they're saying but you can see that they are refusing to wear masks that were offered to them and uh you know when it comes to marjorie taylor green uh you see her just condescendingly smirking as if she's too good to wear a mask i don't wear masks that's stupid you believe in a lie like these folks are absolutely they're insane and the fact that they would recklessly endanger the lives of their colleagues like your co-workers it's astonishing to me now the folks who refuse to wear a mask this includes q anon conspiracy theorist of course marjorie taylor green who we saw on camera markway mullen who we also saw on camera andy bigs who actually helped organized that coup by the way scott perry michael cloud and doug lemalfa now as a direct result of these folks refusing to wear a mask guess what happened well the result was predictable they ended up infecting their own colleagues three democrats so far have stated that they have covered 19 and they are blaming their republican colleagues this includes democratic representative brad schneider who tested positive and blamed maskless republicans during the capital riot and also this includes cancer survivor bonnie watson colman who uh tested positive according to ida chavez and she believes she was also exposed while sheltering with colleagues who refused to wear a mask during the capital riot now another democratic lawmaker who believes they were infected by their republican colleagues is premilla jaya paul who tweeted out i just received a positive covid-19 test result after being locked down in a secured room at the capital where several republicans not only cruelly refused to wear a mask but recklessly mocked colleagues and staff who offered them one only hours after trump incited a deadly assault on our capital many republicans still refused to take the bare minimum covid-19 precaution and simply wear a damn mask in a crowded room during a pandemic creating a super spreader event on top of a domestic terror attack yeah i think she put it perfectly this became a super spreader event i mean when you can't even do the bare minimum and put on a mask to protect your colleagues especially when you're not taking it seriously like you downplayed the severity of covid-19 and you you brag about not wearing masks in georgia that's what marjorie taylorine did it just there's no no respect and it goes beyond a lack of respect for your colleagues it speaks to how out of touch with reality they are they don't want to wear masks when they're sheltering in closed quarters during a fucking pandemic i mean at this point one month are we in uh month 11 10 of the pandemic and there are folks who still don't get the message we have thousands of americans dying every fucking day and you still don't take it seriously these folks should not be in a position of power like you infected your democratic colleague bonnie watson colman who survived cancer her immune system probably is one that isn't very strong you might want to protect these folks but they don't care they don't care because if they were seen with a mask then they might um they might pay a political price because they have this base of psychopaths that they want to maintain i don't know marjorie taylorine she was wearing a mask on the house floor during the impeachment proceedings for donald trump and on the mask it said censored so like on one hand i'm glad that she is wearing a mask but she still takes that opportunity to like project how stupid she is to the world because as you wear a mask and you claim that you're censored you're literally speaking to the world like everyone is watching it's being broadcasted on so many different networks you have the largest platform imaginable and you're claiming you're being censored like the stupidity is i don't know what to do with this like how do you move forward as a country with these kind of folks like these aren't just like one of the militarians that we see in viral videos these are lawmakers these folks have power they write legislation that controls our lives and these idiots refuse to do the bare minimum during a pandemic i don't know what to say it is absolutely outrageous and if i were one of these folks brad schneider bonnie watson colman premilla jayapal i'm looking at holding them accountable in some way i don't know if this constitutes reckless endangerment but i mean if one of these individuals ends up dying as a result of these republicans behavior refusing to wear a mask i mean how do we not consider that manslaughter when they know what they're doing like if you're smart enough to at least get elected to congress you've got to know that during a pandemic not wearing a mask could spell doom for one of your colleagues who might be immunocompromised or might not be able to survive covid-19 like it's just the state of american politics because of the republican party is just it's it's a circus and i don't know what else to say this is a circus and uh you know the animals have taken over the zoo it's just i feel bad for anyone who has to work with these idiots don buyers someone who uh is a democratic lawmaker actually tweeted or retweeted a video of marjorie taylor green where she's seen like walking the halls of congress explaining why she voted against impeachment because it's a waste of time and he said imagine working with this woman i'm paraphrasing but that's basically the sentiment like i couldn't imagine it like working with someone like that is just insane and you know in my years uh working in fast food and retail i've worked with crazy people but i don't think any of them even come close to someone like marjorie taylor green like these folks are just next level insane and they are very very obviously not fit to serve in congress like they're now endangering you know they're uh they're colleagues and that that just can't stand there has to be repercussions legally politically i don't know but this is not acceptable in an instagram live stream aoc talked about the siege on the us capital that took place on january 6th and basically she talks about how she thought she was going to die and it's it's horrifying to hear this story because you know that qanon conspiracy theorists trump supporters uh white supremacists they were targeting aoc we know that their goal was to stage this coup and um stop biden from taking power and becoming president but i mean aoc has been a target of donald trump for a really long time so you know when you have the president constantly like egging on agitating against specific members of congress aoc ilhan omar you have to imagine that when his lunatic supporters storm the capital there's going to be certain members of congress that are going to be particularly susceptible to victimization and aoc talks about how there was a moment where she genuinely believed she was going to die listen to her as she shares this story i had a pretty traumatizing event happen to me um and i do not know if i can even disclose the full details of that event due to security concerns but i can tell you that i had a very close encounter where i thought i was going to die um and you have all of those thoughts um where you know at the end of your life and all of these thoughts come rushing to you and um that's what happened to a lot of us on wednesday um and i thought i i did not think i did not know if i was going to make it to the end of that day alive wednesday was an extremely traumatizing event um and it is not an exaggeration to say that many many members of the house were nearly assassinated um it's just not an exaggeration to say that at all we were very lucky that things happened within certain minutes that allowed members to escape the cap the house floor unharmed because there were qanon and white supremacist sympathizers and frankly white supremacist members of congress um in that extraction point who i know and who i had felt would disclose my location that is uh horrifying horrifying to think about and you know these white supremacists they they want to kill aoc they want to kill ilhan oh my they want to harm the very people who trump has been demonizing trump is claiming that you know it's the squad they're part of the issues aoc plus three so of course you know these members of congress had they come into you know the paths of one of these extremists storming the capital trying to stage a coup of course they would be vulnerable uh they would be put in harm's way and so it's terrifying and to that last point that she made where she talks about how some of her own gop colleagues possibly would be putting their lives in danger by giving out their locations she's not wrong about that because there actually is evidence that newly elected qanon conspiracy theorist laura bobert did in fact give away the locations of politicians such as nancy pelosi during the siege in fact she tweeted out we were locked in the house chambers and then she tweeted out the speaker has been removed from the chambers and that was after she tweeted today is 1776 so ask yourself this question why is laura bobert tweeting about the location of the speaker of the house someone who would very obviously be a target for these extremists who are trying to stage a coup why would she just randomly tweet about nancy pelosi and where she is after tweeting 1776 ask yourself that it's almost as if she was coordinating with these terrorists in real time so somebody should look into this somebody needs to determine whether or not laura bobert was acting as a co-conspirator and helping to organize this coup by letting them know where to look for individuals like nancy pelosi so when aoc says that my gop colleagues qanon conspiracy theorists you know white supremacists might give away our location she wasn't wrong because in real time laura bobert was doing just that it's insane like these folks they have so much hubris they can tweet out the locations of their colleagues and not feel as if there's going to be any accountability no legal repercussions nothing it's shocking the goal on these folks and still to think about like these extremists who are in the capital like they're opposing for photos with big smiles on their faces they literally thought that they would get away scott free and it's shocking like i mean it's it's pleasing to see some of them get arrested because i thought that they would get away scott free but you just you see it in their faces they never thought that they would be held accountable because they're entitled this is our country how dare it be taken away from us and taken away from donald's room even though he lost by millions of votes i'm choosing to believe otherwise now getting back to aoc um she says that many members of the house were nearly assassinated and that's not an exaggeration think about this like this really could have gone a lot worse than it did i mean it's tragic that five people died but this could have gone a lot worse this could have been really bad i mean we know that pipe bombs were found ied's were found an individual had molotov cocktails a dude showed up with zip ties presumably to take hostages this is i mean it's a tragedy but it could have been a lot worse and that's what this video tells me also she says i thought i was going to die and um to have that thought like when you're so young aoc is like a couple years younger than me to have that thought when you're just like starting out just doing something where you feel as if you're gonna make a difference like this is gonna stay with her for the rest of her life you know this sort of trauma and it's just it's crazy it's crazy to me um that folks even on the left are downplaying this she said before before she did this live stream on instagram that she did thought you know she she was gonna die she feared for her life and like there's so many folks that are like downplaying it like oh she's just being melodramatic i mean when you have armed thugs staging a coup d'etat in our nation's capital and one of the most like visible members of congress who the president who they support demonizes all the time tells you that they feared for their life why is that something that's like questionable of course she feared for her life because she was a target she's been a target of donald trump so you know this shouldn't happen in a civilized society i know that folks oftentimes get frustrated because our government just it doesn't seem to work and it doesn't work it seems as if we operate at the capacity that you'd expect a state a failed state to operate at but trust me you don't want violence you don't want political conditions where politicians are getting killed by political opponents because that certainly is not going to move any of us closer to our goals you don't want this the more i think about this the more horrified i am because it could have been so much worse and i'm just glad that folks like aoc and everyone made it out okay you know everyone like i don't want violence to be done you know in the name of of donald trump or or anything like i don't think that violence is a way to achieve political means i unequivocally condemn violence basically like i consider myself to be a pacifist not an absolute pacifist but i really loathe violence because i think that human sentience is a really unique thing uh and we have to respect human life and all life and to see violence it's not something that i want i don't think it's going to get us closer to our political goals so i hope that folks really like look at this and learn from this because this really is a turning point you know in our nation's history during an instagram live stream representative alexandria ocasio-cortez powerfully tore into the republican lawmakers who have basically enabled this president who are abdicating their responsibility to invoke the 25th amendment and remove him and everything that she says here she just she puts it perfectly it's concise it's eloquent and this is what someone in power has been needing to say and the way that she says this it really is the just perfect so this is relatively long it's a five minute clip but it's worth every single second and i want everyone to hear this because what she says i think this is this is really really crucial and i truly believe that we're gonna look back at this moment as a turning point in us history take a look we know that donald trump cannot be president we know that we cannot wait until january 19th we cannot wait until january 20th we cannot wait until inauguration day he cannot be president right now he should not have been president yesterday he should not have been president the night of the attack um because republicans and the people around him are cowards they will not do it the president's cabinet you have secretary elaine chow who is uh the wife of mitch mcconnell by the way seems does that seem a little uh conflict of interest inappropriate i don't know but regardless um she was the secretary of transportation um she resigned besi devos has resigned acting secretary of um dhs department of homeland security has resigned and all of them are resigning rather than fulfilling their duties in enacting the 25th amendment and removing the president of the united states uh i have a message for anyone who is resigning after wednesday too late too late you you're not going to resign after wednesday and act like you weren't a part of it were you secretary on wednesday yes you were you were a part of it were you secretary every single step leading up to wednesday yes then you were a part of it you don't get to allow for an attack that kills five people and then afterwards you say i wasn't a part of it yes you were you were a part of it when you caged kids you were a part of it when you repealed title nine you were a part of it when the president committed the first dozen number of crimes that he committed you were a part of it when you excused the law breaking you were a part of it you were a part of it you were a part of it those five people's blood is on your hands what are you going to do and they think that resigning is going to clean that blood off their hands it is always on them they are forever stained with the deaths of five people especially when they did not invoke the 25th amendment to remove this president when they had the power to do so cowards cowards couldn't even stand up in the memory of these officers that they pretend to care about that they pretend to care about i don't want to hear or see the republican party talk about blue lives ever again this was never about safety for them it was always a slogan because if they actually cared about rule of law they would speak up when people break the law they would speak up they would enforce fairness and equity but they don't give a damn about the law they don't give a damn about order they don't give a damn about about safety they give a damn about white supremacy they care about preserving the social order and the mythology of whiteness than the the grand door of our democracy that's what they care about they lust for power more than they care about democracy that's what those people did when they voted to overturn the results of our free and fair elections and you can barely call them that with the amount of voter suppression that they have engaged in across the country it is generous to say the least to call them that and so with all of the rules rigged in their favor the electoral college is built on a compromise with slavers the senate is rigged in their favor gerrymandered districts are rigged in the republicans fever this presidency and the law breaking and the pardons of people who have betrayed our country all of it rigged in their favor and they can't even win with the whole deck stacked with them they can't even win with the deck stacked in their favor and so what they are willing to do is set a match and light our entire democracy on fire so that they can so that they can uphold the social order of white supremacy that's what this is about straight up this is about thinking that if an election doesn't reinforce your power then you believe it is fundamentally illegitimate and why do you think it's illegitimate and how do you try to delegitimize our elections by saying black people shouldn't vote by saying latino people shouldn't be full u.s citizens by saying by trying to take away the take away strip citizenship away from people who already have it not even we're not even getting to the denial of citizenship a full civic personhood that this party engages in we're talking about them trying to strip the citizenship away from non anybody who isn't them anybody and um that's what this is about that was incredible i don't have much to say like i don't think that my commentary uh supplementing what she said is even meaningful at this point everything she said was absolutely on point you know the trump era is coming to an end and it may be coming to an end sooner than i thought like i had previously believed that even if trump is out of office you know trumpian politics is still going to be a thing he's still going to have influence within the republican party but i think that this um this event the january sixth coup attempt you know it may have accelerated the demise of the trump era in american politics and what's going to happen after we leave the trump era is there's going to be a lot of republican politicians who are going to do in a bat face they're going to try to pretend as if they didn't have any role i mean they're already um scattering like cockroaches betsy divas elaine chow chad wolf they were there you know all along as she said when kids were getting locked in cages chad wolf was allowing donald trump to be an authoritarian he enabled it to very directly he was complicit while trump was sending you know unmarked vehicles to to abduct people in portland origan all of the things that trump did they enabled and now they think that because they're resigning because they're jumping ship at the very last moment well you know they'll they'll be okay and they may not necessarily be wrong because what we've seen is that whenever you come from the trump administration no matter how egregious your actions were in enabling donald trump and the damage that you caused directly so long as you speak out against donald trump you get welcomed to the resistance with open arms i mean we see john bolton who constantly agitated in trump's administration tried to go trump into war with iran and immediately like he gets welcomed he publishes a book profits off of his time in the trump administration when folks like that should be marginalized folks like anthony scaramushi should not be brought on msnbc and cnn you wanted to work for this fascist so all the things that you're saying about donald trump now that's so terrible well it wasn't terrible enough for you to uh not want to take a job seems like you're an opportunist seems like these folks are grifters and we shouldn't actually take them seriously and anyone who worked for donald trump and enabled donald trump should be permanently marginalized not be welcomed in politics in political discussions because these folks are traders especially now like if you sat by while the president literally lied about this election and got his cult following to believe that the election was stolen stolen if you like stood by during those times to the very end i mean what is a matter your jumping ship at the last minute come on come on so you know i can expect folks like betsy deboss and chat wolf to have their own little autobiographies about my time working for donald trump and they're gonna have some tea and you know mainstream media is gonna eat it up for clicks it's gonna be sensationalist stories and everyone is going to forget the role that these folks played in aiding and abetting a fascist but i want you to be smarter than that what aoc is doing here is letting them know that they're never going to escape culpability the blood is directly on their hands and not just the blood of the five folks who died on the day of the siege on the capital but all of the blood that trump has caused his drone strikes that he ramped up in afghanistan the children in cages the families that were separated everything that donald trump has done it should be a stain on their legacy forever and you know even though mainstream media is going to forget and rehabilitate these goals we should never ever let these folks live it down and constantly remind everyone that these are not allies these are not american patriots these are fucking traders and we should never ever let them live down this moment well in a surprising turn of events it does seem as if there is a possibility that the residents of flint michigan who were poisoned were talking about 100 000 people most of the people of color they may actually see some justice because the former governor rick snider who poisoned them is going to be charged so as ap reports former michigan governor rick snider his health director and other ex officials have been told they are being charged after a new investigation of the flint water scandal which devastated the majority black city with lead contaminated water and was blamed for a deadly outbreak of legionnaires disease the associated press has learned two people with knowledge of the planned prosecution told the ap on tuesday that the attorney general's office has informed defense lawyers about indictments in flint and told them to expect initial court appearances soon they spoke to the ap on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak publicly the ap could not determine the nature of the charges against snider former health department director nick lyon and others who were in his administration including rick baird a friend who was the governor's key troubleshooter while in office courtney covington wattkins a spokeswoman for the attorney general's office said only that investigators were working diligently and will share more as soon as we're in a position to do so snider a republican who has been out of office for two years was governor when state appointed managers in flint switched the city's water to the flint river in 2014 as a cost saving step while a pipeline was being built to lake heron the water however was not treated to reduce corrosion a disastrous decision affirmed by state regulators that caused lead to leech from old pipes and spoiled the distribution system used by nearly 100 000 residents snider's attorney brian lennon released a blistering statement on tuesday saying a criminal prosecution would be outrageous he said state prosecutors have refused to share information about these charges with us snider apologized for the catastrophe during his 2016 state of the state speech and said government at all levels had failed flint so this story has me cautiously optimistic i mean we certainly we have to see what the indictments entail what the charges will be but the fact that there's any accountability at all when we thought that this wasn't a possibility just a year ago it really is encouraging to see and make no mistake about it this man is a criminal he should be in prison for the rest of his life because to save money he poisoned 100 000 residents if that doesn't speak to how evil capitalism is then nothing else will and look we've got to give credit to status coup and jordan charidan for constantly reporting on this story keeping folks engaged and i want to link you to the documentary flushing flint because it goes over exactly how damaging this was and he talks to folks you know with children who were poisoned and after they were learning to talk they stopped talking and it's just honestly gut wrenching and you know some of you may have tuned out of the story because it's happened a long time ago by now seemingly and not all of the lead pipes in flint have been replaced like they still don't have clean drinking water in flint michigan believe it or not but if you've kind of like checked out and you find this story like old because so much has happened since then trust me even if you don't care about flint care about yourself stay engaged with the story make sure that accountability happens because guess what the next flint michigan could happen anywhere in the united states this is according to experts now one potential pitfall that i want to talk about and this is a completely like premature discussion is that um rick snider has aligned himself with joe biden in the 2020 election he endorsed joe biden and disgustingly enough joe biden didn't reject that endorsement joe biden embraced that endorsement and bragged about that endorsement obviously because he wanted to you know bolster his uh conservative bona fides and uh brag to republicans that hey i even got this republican governor to endorse me completely ignoring the fact that this man is a criminal who poisoned 100 000 people so in the event we see a situation where justice is served and he does get locked up what if joe biden pardons him now that's only a possibility if he's charged federally if he's charged at the state level then joe biden can't do anything a president can only pardon someone um when they're charged with federal crimes um but i mean him aligning with joe biden it could have been like a strategic ploy in the event federal charges do you know take place after the state charges him we don't know what's going to happen and again this conversation is really premature but just the mere fact that joe biden and kamala harris like bragged about getting endorsed by this criminal it shows to their lack of integrity it shows to their desperation and they don't even care about the human cost so look we don't know what's going to come of this it's still really early but just the fact that charges are coming this is a really good thing to see uh the residents of flint who are poisoned um who will have led in their blood forever you know they're going to never be healthy again like they'll never get their former lives back but to see him get jailed that's like the minimum that they should expect for everything that they've gone through and again i've got to give credit to jordan shared in a status coup who has never taken his foot off the gas who has constantly kept viewers engaged on this very important subject and you know it's about flint but it's not just about flint this can happen anywhere in the united states because when you live in a late-stage capitalist society trust me this isn't going to be the last time that cost saving measures are used that are to the detriment of humanity uh so you know this this is something that we're going to have to be watching very closely but for now i do feel cautiously optimistic that there's going to be at least some justice for the residents of flint michigan in an interview with far right news outlet newsmax tv newly elected qanon conspiracy theorist marjorie taylor green announced that she has some big plans for the biden administration uh perhaps retaliation for democrats voting to impeach donald trump a second time take a look congresswoman i understand though you have something uh pressing something important and something new you'd like to share with everybody yes i i would like to announce on behalf of the american people we have to make sure that our leaders are held accountable we cannot have a president of the united states that is willing to abuse the power of the office of the presidency um and be easily bought off by foreign governments uh foreign china or chinese energy companies ukrainian energy companies so on january 21st i will be filing articles of impeachment on joe biden wow oh marjorie i feel like there's no way that anyone can take this individual seriously like she reminds me of the uh three kids like trope in a trench coat where they're like all standing on top of each other's shoulders trying to pretend to be an adult that's basically like marjorie taylor green because everything that she says it's so immature and juvenile like she even like if she genuinely wanted to impeach joe biden and that was her mission she's gonna look for anything you know she's gonna go on a fishing expedition and find something to impeach him over you might want to wait if you want people to take you seriously to announce that once he's sworn in but to announce that you will be introducing articles of impeachment before he's even sworn in that doesn't make you look like a serious person that makes you look like an idiot especially after the republican party purports that democrats didn't actually impeach donald trump because he incited a violent insurrection it's because you know they they just don't like him politically so way to make yourself look like a hypocrite dumbass we cannot have a president of the united states that is willing to abuse the power of the office of the presidency and be easily bought off by foreign governments or chinese energy companies ukraine and energy companies so on january 21st i will be filing articles of impeachment on joe biden this is a donald trump supporter saying this he has been in violation of the emoluments clause repeatedly and since the day he was sworn in since he refused to put his businesses in a blind trust so all the conflict of interests that we see with donald trump she doesn't care about that like let's just go through some of the headlines and go back to her concerns uh because anything that she says about joe biden and her concerns there is also applicable to donald trump look at these headlines quote ivanka trump brand secures china trademarks on day u.s president met jisun ping 500 rooms were booked by saudi connected lobbyists at trump's dc hotel in 2016 through 2017 report says jared kushner's company curiously raked in 90 million since he joined the white house you'll never believe it but trump and kushner businesses got millions in ppp loans before his claims of corruption trump tried to build a resort in ukraine trump's businesses raked in 1.9 billion of revenue during his first three years in office and i mean we can go on and on but you get the point she is impeaching joe biden uh because we can't have a president of the united states that is willing to abuse the power of the office of the presidency and can be easily bought off by foreign governments well what do we call that what do we call donald trump i mean to her it really is like a team sport she just believes look i am on team republican and whatever we can do to score points over the democrats that's what i'm gonna do it's just honestly uh it's insane and look i am not a partisan hack i am not a fan of joe biden he's a conservative and i am a socialist so if marjorie taylor green is willing to give back her contributions that she received from goldman sacks and coke industries uh maybe i would actually take her seriously when she claimed to care about you know conflicts of interest and money in politics but the problem is that she is a fraud she's a hack she's inconsistent see i would love for someone to actually try to decommodify our elections in the united states the reason why i don't support joe biden and supported bernie sanders over joe biden is because i do believe he's corrupt i do believe that there are conflicts of interest created by those financial contributions i supported bernie sanders over joe biden because my number one issue is medicare for all and the health insurance industry was bank rolling biden's campaign and they were betting on him to kill momentum for medicare for all so joe biden of course is a corrupt politician this sort of corruption like pay for access you know basically um legalized bribes this is common in dc so if she wants to do something about that i have no qualms with that but she doesn't actually care this is about uh her defending daddy trump who she stands with 100 percent that's basically her campaign pitch it was on her website uh save america defeat socialism and i stand by donald trump 100 percent like this is not a serious person this is not someone who anyone should be taking seriously but unfortunately we're in this predicament where literal qanon conspiracy theorists are elected to congress so we have to kind of take them seriously because what she does the legislation that she introduces will have a direct impact on our lives now in terms of like her introducing articles of impeachment against joe biden genuinely not even mad i think it's hilarious i love this because as joe biden tries to extend an olive branch to republicans once he's sworn in they're going to repeatedly spit in his eyes you know slap him down at every chance and this just proves it like before he even is sworn in they're already telling him to go fuck himself so i love this because this helps make the left case that you can't work with republicans stop trying to reach across the aisle acknowledge that these folks are absolutely insane and maybe try to actually galvanize the democratic party's base who wants popular policies like medicare for all a 15 dollar an hour minimum wage uh marijuana legalized federally but i mean i think that it doesn't matter what they do like she can introduce articles of impeachment and like immediately i think there's going to be at least a dozen republicans that support it i'd be surprised if that weren't the case and joe biden is still going to say well look we have to work with them republicans are good people we need a republican party i showed you how tone deaf yes so look i think this is hilarious um you report you so you know try to um make friends with a monster or a wild animal joe biden don't be surprised when fucking bite you because this is what they do republicans are going to republican and uh that's never going to change so even if there is some cause for optimism since we have two vaccines and a third one that will be seeking uh emergency approval by the fda shortly um you know there's still a long road ahead to actually ending this pandemic and the numbers are absolutely horrific and we can all anticipate it getting worse if the new variant of covet 19 does spread as widely as it looks like it's going to spread now it's not necessarily more deadly but it is more contagious and experts are now worried that it could make our vaccines less effective in treating covet 19 not that they'd be useless you know and completely unable to stop this new strain but that this new strain this new mutated version of covet 19 could reduce the efficacy of the vaccines and if this is the case that's a real issue now we are working with incomplete information we don't know for a fact that this is the case but it is a real concern so cnn's elizabeth cohen reports scientists have identified an escape mutant that may decrease the efficacy of covet 19 vaccines the mutation called e 484 k has been found in a variant of the corona virus first spotted in south africa two months ago that variant has now spread to 12 other countries penny more associate professor at the national institute for communicable diseases in south africa called the mutation alarming we fear this mutation might have an impact and what we don't know is the extent of the impact she said e 484 k is called an escape mutant because it's been shown it might be able to escape some of the antibodies produced by the vaccine i'm worried that alex sigel a virologist at the africa health research institute sigel more and other scientists who are studying the e 484 k mutation still have to complete their work in the lab to see if the vaccine is less effective against this new variant based on what they've seen so far they say they highly doubt e 484 k will render the corona virus vaccines useless rather they think there's a possibility the mutation on its own or in combination with other mutations could decrease the efficacy of the vaccine against the variant now if this is in fact the case which we don't know yet then the question is how much does it decrease the efficacy is it by five ten percent fifteen percent because if that's the case then having you know a vaccine that's eighty percent effective is still pretty good but if it decreases the efficacy of these vaccines substantially then that could be a problem but it is encouraging to see them say that they don't necessarily believe that this new mutation will uh make it useless so that's encouraging uh the problem is that you know we at this point in time we don't know when the vaccines are going to be widely available in 2020 late 2020 we heard spring possibly summer and now seeing the rollout how many Americans have been vaccinated so far i mean i'm not that optimistic we just have not been able to get these vaccines out to people it's been a logistical nightmare and this has been expected part of the problem is we have a president who's kind of just checked out uh but still uh it's going to be difficult and as a result i think that folks don't want to hear this but vox published an article with the headline that we all kind of need to hear even if it may be somewhat discouraging quote still going to the grocery store with new virus variants spreading it's probably time to stop health experts say you should avoid optional trips whenever you can you probably need a better mask too so we've kind of learned to live with covid 19 right we mask up when we go out and we just try to live our lives as normally as we possibly can but we have to do everything in our power to flatten the curve now especially more than ever i mean in states like california the conditions there in some la counties are just horrific and we have to treat this as we did when we first learned about covid 19 being as serious as it was when we first saw that it became a pandemic but folks just aren't taking it seriously and you know it's it's troubling because if we're ever going to get this under control and we will at some point we have to at least be somewhat serious and you know you see a lot of folks doing a 180 uh in andrew quomo he was never you know deserving of the praise that he received but look at the way that he's changed his tune so back in march of 2020 he tweeted out my mother is not expendable your mother is not expendable we will not put a dollar figure on human life we have a public health strategy that is consistent with an economic one no one should be talking about social Darwinism for the sake of the stock market now fast forward to january 11th of 2021 and he has completely changed his tune saying we simply cannot stay closed until the vaccine hits critical mass the cost is too high we will have nothing left to open we must reopen the economy but we must do it smartly and safely now shout out to real steve cox on twitter for pointing out those tweets um yeah this this is not what we should be hearing public officials saying now part of the issue is that the federal government has not acted right they've got the power of the purse state governments can only do so much and they should be responsible and impose more lockdowns and mask mandates but there's got to be economic relief and we just haven't seen that at an appropriate level um now when it comes to vox's point about masks i've actually noticed that capitalism um in an attempt to profit off of cover 19 has you know led to a boost in sales of masks that are dog shit like i've ordered some masks online that just are completely inadequate and one way that you can check if a mask is actually worth a damn and will stop you from spreading your droplets is to perform what's known as a candle test so if you light a candle and you wear your mask if you're able to blow out that candle with your mask on the mask isn't worth a damn you might as well throw it away but if you are unable to blow out a candle with the mask that you have that's a good mask it's going to protect others and it's going to protect you a little bit as well um but let's get to the argument that uh vox writer julia baluse makes because i think that what she's saying here is uh really a wake-up call she writes recent developments in the covid 19 pandemic have exposed a grim reality if we keep doing what we're doing now to prevent infections we're screwed well even more screwed that's because the virus appears to be getting even better at infecting us since at least december new more contagious variants of the star's cove to virus that causes covid 19 have been out competing earlier versions of the virus in countries as far and wide as brazil the uk and south africa the advantage the new variants carry seems to be that in any given situation where people are gathered they'll infect more people an estimated 30 to 70 percent more people in the case of the b117 variant first identified in britain which has now been identified in 50 countries even after a lockdown in the uk november the virus ripped through the population overwhelming hospitals and forcing the government to implement even stricter stay at home orders by january while these variants haven't been shown to be more deadly a more transmissible virus is actually worse in many ways than a more lethal one cases snowball at a faster rate harvard epidemiologist mark lipstick said on a recent press call with a 50 rise in infectiousness for example in less than two weeks you get twice the number of cases lipstick said and in a month or so you have four five times as many cases but that's very approximate the case growth could be even more dramatic as foxes brine resnick reported so this is concerning and i you know i'm reluctant to make videos like this because folks are gonna say look you're just being alarmist no i'm trying to get you to be cautious this is it's very serious and even if we've all become desensitized and we're sick and tired of the lockdown orders you know that doesn't change the fact of reality uh and it sucks but understand that we have to take this seriously if you're able to don't go to the store to buy groceries see if you know a grocery store in your area offers curbside pickup um see if you can do instacard or something like that like we we just have to reduce the amount that we leave our homes because if we don't this is going to continue to spread and um at this point it just seems like normality is so far away like back in 2020 during the christmas season i was really depressed because i couldn't see my family like i haven't been able to see my new great niece who was born i've had two relatives get married haven't been able to see them it's just it's really frustrating but you know what kind of kept me going was this thought that next year around this time things should be more normal we should be vaccinated and we should be on a better path but at the rate we're going with this new variant that really is in jeopardy now i don't know everything that we're talking about with regard to the timeline it's all speculative because we just don't know right we're operating with incomplete information but given what we do know about COVID-19 we now know what we need to protect ourselves and folks in our community and that is to stay home if at all possible now some of you cannot stay home but if you can then definitely stay home um and i think that the government aside from more economic relief they have to incentivize businesses to you know allow people to work remotely i think this is going to help and certainly anyone who does have to work if you're a retail worker and you're in fast food like you deserve hazard pay and the fact that a folks only got a hazard pay like two months to the pandemic is ridiculous so look i'm not going to talk further at this i think we all know at this point what we need to do i'm not trying to fear monger or be overly sensationalist or alarmist i just want folks to protect themselves get a good mask and stay home if you can um and that's all you really can say at this point um we're all tired we're all tired but um it doesn't matter if we're tired and we're we're sick of the lockdown orders there's still a pandemic well that's all that i've got for you today thank you so much for tuning in if you've made it this far as usual i want to thank all of the folks who make the show possible all of our patreon paypal and youtube members all of you help the show not just to survive but thrive you all are absolutely amazing thank you so much i am done talking i don't think there's much that i can say you know we're really struggling to cover everything that happens in a week but at this point in time it's just it's impossible because i'm struggling to keep up i'm constantly behind and i anticipate that things are going to be really chaotic until donald trump is uh is out of office but you know it's american politics that we're talking about here so i'm sure that there will be more dumbfuckery and insanity that uh will keep me more than busy so uh having said that though i'll see you next week i'm mike figurado this has been the humanist report take care everyone you