Twitter Declares WAR On Trump By Censoring His Tweets AND The White House Official Account's
Twitter Declares WAR On Trump By Censoring His Tweets AND The White House Official Account's. The tweet from Trump was deemed to glorify violence in the opinion of Twitter.By injecting their editorial opinion over Trump's tweets and hiding them from many users Twitter has clearly said to the world that they are not just a platform bu a publisher like the New York Times.While leftists and Democrats engage in falsehoods same as anyone else Twitter takes special effort to target Trump.They're asking every person on their platform to engage in a game of chicken where they mass report everything as glorifying violenceNow that Twitter said game on they either prove their bias or ban every tweet like thisSocial Media censorship is no longer questioned, its fact. Unless Twitter starts nuking Nancy pelosi and Adam Schiff (or other Democrats) its just them pushing their thumb into the scale to hurt trump#Censorship#Democrats#Trump
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In what may be one of the biggest mistakes Twitter has ever made, they inserted their editorial opinion over tweets from Donald Trump and the White House, effectively declaring war on the president.
Trump had tweeted earlier about what's going on in Minnesota and the riots.
He said that the military was basically standing by, but that when the looting starts, the shooting starts.
This was likely in reference to a pawn shop that was being looted and the owner shot and killed the looter.
It also is a reference to the civil rights era riots and many people took offense to it.
Well, Twitter decided this was glorifying violence.
That is entirely their editorial opinion.
To make it worse, Michael Moore and many others actually did glorify the violence and call for more.
In this, it appears Twitter has declared war on Trump.
They're not targeting other high-profile verified accounts that are glorifying what's happening and calling for more.
Now, the argument on their side is, well, it's the president.
The president tweeted this, so we need to flag this.
We saw something happen a few days ago, which was also unprecedented.
Donald Trump tweeted his opinion about mail-in voting, and Twitter injected their editorial opinion, linking people to the opinions of The Washington Post and CNN.
This, to many people, was shocking considering these news organizations donate to and endorse political actors, including Hillary Clinton and other presidential candidates.
Twitter was pressing their thumb on the scale to hurt Donald Trump.
It's the only way you can look at it.
That's their bias.
But now they're placing an editorial opinion over Trump.
I'm sorry.
There's no other way to look at this than Twitter is no different than The New York Times.
I understand there's some arguments that could be made, right?
The New York Times has a staff of journalists whose intent is to publish content.
But Twitter crossed the line.
They aren't a neutral platform.
They are the same as the New York Times because they literally wrote an opinion and then placed it over the president's tweets.
Trump didn't make that message.
Therefore, you could only argue that Twitter is choosing to publish this with their opinion attached and they would be liable.
This is a disaster for social media.
In response to this, Trump is tweeting, revoke section 230.
This is the provision, the policy or the law that protects social media companies like Twitter from being personally liable from the statements made by individuals on the platform.
If someone tweets something that's defamatory, you can't sue Twitter.
But if the New York Times posts something that's defamatory, you could sue the journalist and the New York Times.
Therefore, it would seem that Twitter has crossed the line in what may be a serious, serious mistake.
I'm sorry, man.
I went on the Joe Rogan podcast last year talking to Jack Dorsey, and I said this was going to happen.
That it was only a matter of time before conservatives realized you were negatively impacting their chances at re-election, and they would use the full brunt of policy to come after you.
And I was met with arrogance.
Now, Jack Dorsey, I believe he does want to do the right thing, but he keeps saying over and over again that we're aiming for decentralization.
He puts out these big tweets, look at who we're funding and what ends up happening.
He goes in the other direction.
I can't tell you why.
He says he wants to do the right thing.
The right thing isn't happening.
Maybe we will eventually get to a proper decentralized internet and maybe Jack really wants it to happen, but instead all we see Is Twitter using their power, controlling this platform, to interfere in elections by manipulating content, by shadow banning political actors, and then placing their personal editorial opinions on top of content?
And I'm going to show you.
I'm going to show you the evidence as to why.
The first story we have from the New York Times.
Twitter places a warning on a Trump tweet, but I don't want to bury the lead here.
Take a look at this.
I tweeted.
The official editorial opinion of Twitter is now live.
Trump's tweet saying when the looting starts, the shooting starts is glorifying violence, but calling for violence that supports the riots is not.
Twitter is insane to think they can run editorial for 340 million people.
And there it is.
Twitter safety.
Straight up saying.
We have placed a public interest notice on this tweet.
Let me show you what this notice is.
There's Michael Moore.
Let me see.
I got a bunch of tweets pulled up.
In this tweet, they write, this tweet violated the Twitter rules about glorifying violence.
However, Twitter has determined that it may be in the public's interest for the tweets to remain accessible.
What is Twitter's official editorial opinion?
That Trump saying this phrase glorifies violence.
But Michael Moore, who tweeted, good citizens burning down the evil police precinct in Minnesota after all the police were out and safe, that's not glorifying violence?
I don't see any flag or notice on Michael Moore.
And how many followers does Michael Moore have?
6.1 million.
And now we can see.
Well, many people will point out, oh, but that's the president.
That's the president.
Sure.
What about dozens of verified users?
If one person tweets and you think it's bad and want to flag it, I understand.
But why would you ignore the dozens of high-profile verified users with millions of followers who are endorsed via verification?
Why would you ignore that?
All right, let's read the New York Times story because I don't want to... I needed to show you that.
We'll read the New York Times story before we do.
Head over to TimCast.com slash donate if you'd like to support my work.
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We are facing unprecedented social media censorship.
And people right now are arguing, nobody censored the president, they just put a tag on it.
That is absolutely not true.
It says right here, this tweet is unavailable.
If I want to see this, I need to use a Twitter extension.
Otherwise, I have to go through some weird thing where there's a flag.
I can't see it.
I pulled up Trump's tweet.
There is nothing there.
That's censorship.
Now, you want to argue the scale of censorship?
You want to argue that I can still get the tweet by other means?
No dice.
Just because they throttled it so most people can't see it, and some people can, doesn't mean it isn't censorship.
They're directly censoring the President and the White House.
We can't have this.
I'm sorry.
This is interference in elections.
Now, of course, you can argue Twitter is a private platform.
They have become too powerful.
This is where people are having these discussions.
It's where news is breaking.
They control too much.
I have always, always been in favor of regulation when companies start seizing the commons.
Where's the left on this one?
Hey, no idea.
Okay, that being said, if you want to help out in the face of what is likely going to affect me on my platforms and other platforms, consider sharing the video.
I can't compete with the mainstream media, and YouTube props them up while pushing me down.
But your shares are more powerful, at least for the time being.
Now, if you just want to watch, hit the subscribe button, the like button, the notification bell.
Hopefully that's enough to keep YouTube recommending my content.
But let's read the story from the New York Times.
They say Twitter places warning on Trump tweet saying it glorified violence.
The president's tweet, which implied that protests in Minneapolis could protesters in Minneapolis could be shot.
No, no, no, no, no, no, no.
Stop.
Stop Twitter.
I mean, I'm sorry.
Stop New York Times.
It was a quote from a police chief during the civil rights era.
And you can criticize the president for saying it, but he's not talking about protesters.
The word he used was looters.
It literally happened.
A man was charged with murder because another guy was looting his pawn shop and he shot and killed him.
The New York Times says, Amid the unrest in Minnesota, the president took time out to expand his feud with Twitter.
This is just so awful.
I can't stand the New York Times.
Report the news.
Stop editorializing.
Accusing it of targeting conservatives and him in particular and calling for legislation
to revoke the company's legal liability protections that are foundational to its business.
The official White House account then reposted the tweet that had been flagged in a move
meant to defy the company.
Twitter responded by adding the same notice on the White House account.
I'm sorry, man.
I'm just so tired of all of this.
The New York Times, this is an opinion piece in a move meant to defy.
That is an opinion that is not news.
That is your opinion.
I could argue it was a move to trap Twitter so they could enact legislation by arguing that Twitter was censoring the White House.
But in your opinion, it was meant to defy.
We don't know what the intention was.
You made that up!
I can't stand this anymore, man.
These media companies lie all day.
They inject their opinions.
This is not the news.
The news is Trump tweeted a sentence, a phrase.
Twitter placed a block on that.
You had to click in order to see it.
Trump then, or the White House, then retweeted the quote and Twitter did the same thing.
The news.
Now, if you want to speculate beyond that, as I am doing, that's fine.
That's political commentary.
But the New York Times needs to drop the pretense.
You are just giving us your opinion.
The company said Mr. Trump's original post violated its rules against glorifying violence, and it prevented users from viewing the tweet without reading a brief notice.
The first time, it has restricted one of the president's messages in this way.
Twitter also blocked users from liking or replying to Mr. Trump's post, though they were still allowed to retweet it if they had added a comment of their own.
But Twitter did not take the tweet down, saying it was in the public's interest that the message remain accessible.
Who determines whether or not it's glorifying violence?
The editorial opinions of the staff at Twitter.
Now, some people feel that this is direct retaliation against the president for his executive order on Section 230.
He wants the FCC to clarify what Section 230 means and whether or not they could provide guidance that would result in lawsuits against Twitter.
I don't think it will happen.
But now here we are.
Twitter's policy tweeted, this executive order is a reactionary and politicized approach
to a landmark law. Section 230 protects American innovation and freedom of expression,
and it's underpinned by democratic values. Attempts to unilaterally erode it threatens
the future of online speech and internet freedoms. I'll tell you what, this is your fault.
It is your fault, Jack, Vijaya, and everybody at Twitter.
I warned you it was going to happen, and now we are all going to be facing the brunt of this.
If Section 230 is revoked, say goodbye to my YouTube channel.
It will go back to the days of only getting your news from CNN and Fox News, because no company could bear the brunt of a wave of lawsuits with or without merit.
Without Section 230, you will see hundreds of thousands of lawsuits pop up immediately.
And whether they're real lawsuits or frivolous, it doesn't matter because Twitter will not be able to mount a defense.
It will shut down overnight.
What makes sense, potentially, is the clarification of Section 230 and the actual enforcement in some capacity of companies that are violating what Section 230 is.
Section 230 says that there are certain reasons why companies may be able to take things down.
But is it objectionable to say, learn to code?
No, it's not.
And sure, maybe there needs to be a court to determine what that means.
Well, Trump asked for clarification.
Twitter can't just be immune, censoring, taking all of this power away, and then just banning whoever they want.
Here's a tweet from Michael Moore.
Hey man, when it comes to what's happening in Minnesota, 99% of people are on board that the police were wrong.
but he referred to the people burning it down as good citizens and the evil police. Hey man,
when it comes to what's happening in Minnesota, 99% of people are on board that the police were
wrong, but the riding isn't doing anything to solve these problems. Now, if you want to argue
the takeover of the police precinct, I think it's wrong, but I get it.
If you want to argue the burning down of low-income housing, that makes literally no sense.
Or the firefighter who lost his dream sports bar, a dream come true that he was so close to achieving, crossing that finish line, taking it away from him.
If you haven't seen that story, go to TimCat, youtube.com slash TimCastNews, I just did it.
This guy's raised a bunch of money, I'm very happy for him.
But if you want to argue about rioting, fine.
But this is glorifying violence, and that is not okay, in my opinion.
Should people be allowed to post this stuff?
I think they should be.
It's free speech.
I don't like it.
But why did they only flag the president?
The argument is, well, it's the president, right?
What about his opponents?
This would mean that the weight would be always placed against the incumbent, and now Twitter is using its power with 340 million users, even international users, non-American users, putting their weight on this, negatively impacting our elections.
Sure.
There's no regulation yet.
I want it.
I want it done right.
I've talked about the dangers of doing things wrong.
What Trump is doing is wrong.
He's calling for revoking 230.
Well, you know what, man?
At this point, what can I say?
You reap what you have sown, and your billion-dollar company and your stock may be smashed overnight by angry Republicans and Democrats looking to shut down our free speech online.
And it all comes together.
Look at it this way.
The Democrats don't like the fact that we can go on and we can say whatever we want.
And I mean that.
It's true.
Joe Biden said, revoke 230.
It's fake news.
It should be removed.
Well, now you get a bunch of Republicans who are saying, because of this and because of social media, the Democrats are getting a major benefit.
We'll take our chances.
And they absolutely will start talking about shutting this down.
And then every YouTuber you know and love is gone overnight.
No, I don't think that would happen.
That would be insane and dramatic.
But we could enter a world again where there's... I think the new world may look something more like... My channel might exist.
I might be okay.
Because I have a bigger channel, I have multiple channels, I make money, I'm professional, and I've been approved by the YouTube Partner Program, and many others have been purged.
It may end up just being a new kind of Hulu or Netflix.
There will be no place where a user can sign up and just start tweeting.
You'll have to get vetted and approved, and sign contracts, and liability clauses, and all that stuff.
I don't know exactly what'll happen, but I know this is Twitter's fault.
Now, let's move on to some other things.
Here's the first tweet from Trump, where he said, I can't stand back and watch what's happening.
Here's the second tweet, and the notice.
He then referenced, you know, when the looting starts, the shooting starts.
Here's the tweet from the White House, where they say the same thing.
The tweet violated the rules about glorifying violence.
The president did not glorify violence.
He clearly condemned it.
At Jack and Twitter's biased bad faith fact checkers have made it clear Twitter is a publisher, not a platform.
They're right.
You could actually argue That the New York Times has Section 230 protections for their own staff.
They arguably do.
But would the New York Times win a case?
They probably would not.
A court would deem, no, New York Times, you chose to publish this.
If Twitter is editorializing all it takes now, in my opinion, and I'm not a lawyer, People can start suing.
I would argue that you may actually see the end of Twitter's 230 protections.
They may have lost it already.
They made moves.
They have editorialized this content.
This statement underneath the White House is published in tandem with a statement from the White House.
This is Twitter's opinion about what constitutes glorifying violence.
It may be a single step over the threshold, but it may be enough.
Lawsuits may now start emerging where people will say, I'm suing Twitter for defamation.
Why?
They defamed me with a statement of fact.
It is not a statement of fact.
The courts may say, well, what about section 230?
Aha.
But take a look at this.
They accompanied that statement on my post, meaning they posted it.
Welcome to the New World, man.
Twitter may have just ended everything.
We may be watching the end of free speech, independent commentary and news, and it may be because Twitter wants it.
To be honest, they may want this to happen.
Jack Dorsey has said over and over again that he believes in decentralization and federate, you know, there's something called the Fediverse where it functions much like the regular internet.
He's talked about funding these new platforms.
Let's look at this.
I got a bunch of tweets pulled up.
So now we can see this tweet from Ryan Kelly.
Gab had been reserving an account for Donald Trump since August 2016, and they're just mirroring it, and they want Trump to sign up.
They want him to take it over.
Trump might do it.
I mean, they're smearing Gab for sure.
It's stupid.
Gab is mostly a libertarian thing.
But Trump may actually move, and that may be a good thing.
And Twitter might want this to happen.
Jack Dorsey said this in December of 2019, Twitter is funding a small independent team of up to five
open source architects, engineers and designers to develop an open and
decentralized standard for social media.
The goal is for Twitter to ultimately be a client of this standard.
Twitter was so open early on that many saw its potential to be a decentralized internet standard
like SMTP email protocol for a variety of reasons.
All reasonable at the time, we took a different path and increasingly centralized Twitter.
But a lot's changed.
First, we're facing entirely new challenges.
We're facing entirely new challenges centralized solutions are struggling to meet.
For instance, centralized enforcement of global policy to address abuse and misleading information is unlikely to scale over the long term without placing far too much burden on people.
I gotta stop.
It sounds great.
It sounds awesome.
Why then go after Trump?
I can only think of two potential reasons.
The first is that advertisers on Twitter don't like the fact that they're not doing anything and the media is smearing them because the media hates Trump.
The advertisers then say, we don't like the lack of enforcement, we don't want to advertise here.
So they make a move against the president to appease the negative press to protect their bottom line.
They want to survive.
It's possible, however, Jack wants to force Twitter to collapse.
It would force people to move to other platforms.
Why isn't Donald Trump on Gab or Parlay or Minds or any of these other platforms?
I honestly have no idea.
I can only imagine because he doesn't really care.
But the solution is simple.
It's not to revoke Section 230.
I think it should be enforced.
It's hard to figure out the right moves.
But I think the president should just go to another platform.
And then everyone will be forced to move, the press will be forced to cover it, and this could open the door for a real decentralized network like Jack is talking about.
Think about it this way.
There's something called the Fediverse, federated networks.
Most of these are dominated by social justice activists.
If Twitter was open to this protocol, or whatever it is they're building, Twitter would function in this way.
If I use Twitter as the main platform where I have many followers, I can follow anyone on any other network.
Let's say you set up your own private server that is just you.
I'll put it this way.
Let's say I use TimCast.com.
That's my website.
And instead of posting to Twitter, I post to Tim at TimCast.com.
You then, on Twitter, search the network, the Fediverse, not just Twitter, and you find my, essentially, email address, and follow it.
It would just be like email.
It would be inverse email.
Instead of sending something directly to someone, you post for everyone to be able to... When you post, everyone gets it.
So, users subscribe to your posts, they can get them through Twitter, and Twitter can't ban you.
Because it would be like looking up a website.
That's how the Fediverse works.
And it's probably one of the smartest things I've ever seen.
It would end all of these problems, all of the censorship.
No one could do anything to stop the president.
He could literally say anything he wants.
And we all could.
And you could use any one of these companies to follow any of these people.
Now it's possible Twitter would say something like, we have banned this network because it has too many bad people.
So people would just move to a different network.
If you created your own platform, you could follow the Twitter platform, you could follow anybody across anything, it would be just like the Internet.
The issue is, Twitter is a micro-blogging site completely centralized with centralized authority, and Jack needs to give it up sooner rather than later.
And there's one simple thing they can do to make that happen.
Open up Twitter to be able to follow people on the Fediverse, which includes websites like Gab.
You might not like them, But if you choose to follow them, that's your choice.
They're not breaking the law.
You don't have to like it.
It doesn't matter.
Jack can then ban anybody on Twitter, and all you gotta do is create your own server or join a different federated server.
Some networks might ban other networks, but ultimately, it wouldn't matter.
Because you can just go to the free speech network and follow whoever you want.
Let's say someone creates something called OpenSpace or whatever.
You sign up and you choose to follow me on Twitter.
You get all my tweets.
You can interact with them.
You can retweet them within your network.
And then I stay on Twitter like normal.
Jack can't ban you because you're not on his network.
Technically, this could all exist right now because you can repost tweets to other websites.
You could theoretically make a website that just browses Twitter and shares it.
But Twitter, I don't know if they have the API open so that people can actually do that.
I can't tell you why they're doing what they're doing, but I can say it's getting scary, especially with, you know, directly censoring and shutting down the White House and promoting people like, you know, Michael Moore.
This is a tweet posted by a woman named Olivia Gatwood, verified Twitter user.
She said to burn it down.
Six Hexenhammer, YouTube commentator said, Twitter approved.
That's the problem with Twitter taking an editorial position.
They have 340 million active users, and there's nothing they can do to fact-check everybody.
If they're only fact-checking Trump, then it's clearly an issue of personal bias, and it's clearly an unintentional endorsement.
So what do you do?
Twitter needs to drop it all.
They need to get to the decentralized system they're talking about building.
Jack says he's doing it?
We'll see.
He says, recently we came across M. Masnick's article, Protocols Not Platforms, which captures the numbers of the challenges and solutions.
But more importantly, it is a reminder, it reminded us of a credible path forward.
Hire folks to develop a standard in the open.
Then why are you going in the other direction?
Why won't Donald Trump just leave?
These are stupid questions and it's a stupid problem.
The president just needs to get off the platform and it would change everything.
For now, we are facing an election cycle where Jack is using his weight to negatively impact Donald Trump's chances to win.
That's just the way it is.
And the press is doing it.
Jack recently put a fact check on Trump's opinion, which was a huge mistake.
And I believe he's admitted it, saying, oops, we shouldn't have done that.
He talked about a bunch of really awesome stuff that hippies have been hoping for for a long time.
Decentralization.
Libertarian ideals on these social media platforms.
Taking away the power so it can't be centralized.
Just do it already.
Open up Twitter to the Federated Network is a good start.
I can go in the search bar and I can type, I can type in Bill at Gab.com and, boop, it pops right up.
How about that?
And then people will complain and say, Jack, you need to, you know, ban this network.
And then someone will make a new network and you can follow whoever you want.
You can do it.
And I assume you can do it fast.
But for the time being, this is where we're at.
Michael Moore can glorify violence, but Trump can't.
Because Twitter has made their editorial opinion clear.
It's personal against Trump.
Doesn't matter if he's the president.
Michael Moore's got 6 million followers.
What about the other verified users?
It really does seem like it's a combination of personal bias and laziness.
We'll see how things play out.
I'll leave it there.
Stick around.
Next segment's coming up at 6 p.m.
YouTube.com slash TimCastNews.
It is a different channel.
And I'll see you all then.
What's happening in Minneapolis is the worst I have ever personally seen.
I've seen historical footage of the LA riots.
I've seen historical footage of other major incidents in my lifetime, however.
And the things that I've covered, because I can't speak to the past, this is the worst I have ever seen it.
I have been in several countries.
I have seen actual revolutions.
And this is worse than that.
In a lot of ways, at least.
I was on the ground in Baltimore, Ferguson, many other places.
In Minneapolis, just last night, protesters stormed the 3rd Precinct police station and they burned it.
The city reported, unconfirmed reports, that they may have been trying to cut the gas line and blow the building up.
And they warned people to get away.
Apparently some other police departments may have been evacuated as well.
It's just all around absolutely insane.
And I'll tell you what, man, it's sad stuff.
I got a video for you.
We'll walk through it.
A man in the community, a small business owner who happens to be black, His business was destroyed, and while they were filming the story, looters came to steal his safe, and he's crying.
His life savings put into this business, destroyed.
What are they doing?
I honestly don't know why these people are doing this.
They're not getting justice.
They're destroying themselves, and it's the opposite of what they think they're doing.
The wealthy people who control things, the rich people in power, and the police will not be stopped by this.
In fact, destroying your own community, stripping your own wealth and power ensures it continues and continues.
This morning at six, this is the big breaking story.
CNN reporter Oscar Jimenez was arrested live on the air during Minneapolis protest broadcast update.
In the video, I'm sorry, Omar Jimenez.
In the video, Omar is saying, tell me where to go.
We'll go.
You want me to move?
I'm just here.
You know, we got you.
Just let me know what you need.
And they arrest him and his crew.
It was all live on CNN.
I hate CNN.
I think they're destroying journalism.
I think Jeff Zucker has turned them into reality TV trash.
But I will absolutely, defiantly, absolutely always defend their First Amendment rights.
And I am glad that they had people on the ground for all of their faults and all of the mistakes they've made.
Even mistakes when I've been personally reporting on the ground and they reported wrong.
I was in Ferguson.
They reported there was no tear gas while we were being tear gassed.
Yeah, great.
They said it was just smoke.
Because they didn't know what they were talking about.
Yeah, it was CS smoke.
It was tear gas.
Not the strongest stuff in the world.
But they didn't know what they were talking about.
But that's okay.
I want them on the ground reporting.
I want them to do more of this.
For all of their faults.
And they got arrested.
We have an update here from Deadline as to what happened after the arrest of the CNN reporter on the air.
They say, CNN reporter Omar Jimenez and his crew have now been released from police custody, they wrote policy custody, after being arrested live on the air this morning mid-broadcast from the Minneapolis protest.
As per below, State Governor Tim Walz intervened directly in the incident after calling CNN President Jeff Zucker to apologize.
After being released, Jimenez immediately took to the air again to recount the story and update the situation.
Everyone was pretty cordial after my arrest happened, said Jimenez, who added the police officer told him he was just following orders.
They weren't violent with me.
We were having conversation about how crazy this week has been for every single part of the city.
A lot of these people are on edge, the reporter continued.
The one thing that gave me a little bit of comfort was that it happened on live TV.
When you talk within the community about, let's say, what happened with George Floyd, there's discussion that what's happening isn't new.
It's being filmed.
That speaks to the power of having something that happens on camera.
You can have people speak up without you saying anything.
Apparently the governor is going to address it, apologize.
Not good enough.
Not good enough.
Each and every one of these officers needs to be fired, in my opinion.
I don't care.
A lot of people have said, well, the CNN reporters are bad.
Some people have said, well, it's CNN, who cares?
Nah, I don't care.
Listen.
We cannot allow agents of the state to shut down the press, even on accident.
I get it.
Maybe on accident.
Now the problem we have here is these guys, they're in a tense situation.
I can respect that to varying degrees, so I'm willing to say, alright, maybe I should be a little bit more of a milquetoast fencer on this one, but here's my problem with this.
If they come back and they say, we apologize for this, it was a mistake.
We have two problems.
The just following orders comment.
Violating the constitutional rights of people because someone told you to?
It's just following orders?
Nah, you can't do that.
I understand if you arrest a rioter.
That's not First Amendment, okay?
You're not speaking, you're burning buildings down and smashing windows.
This guy's clearly with CNN, clearly with the camera crew, and you could have said, get out of here.
I've been in these situations.
The cops absolutely can just tell you what to do.
Journalists, even the awful ones, are complying with everything you tell them to do almost all the time.
When those cameras get shut off, we don't know what the police do after that.
We cannot allow agents of the state to say, I'm arresting this journalist, then they can do whatever they want with impunity because no one's filming it, and then later come out and be like, I'm so sorry, it was just an accident.
I'm willing to respect that there is potentially some nuance in the situation, but I just don't like seeing it.
And I probably have a harsher reaction on this than many other things because, well, we need to see what's happening on the ground.
We need to see what everyone's doing, that includes the rioters.
CNN may not be the best, but I'll take a camera over no camera, so no.
The police are actually even hurting themselves by doing this.
The people have a right to know.
I've been on the ground, I've been attacked by protesters, I've been attacked by police, and the people have a right to know what's happening.
If the journalists are complying, don't touch them.
Now, let's talk about bad reporting.
This is a clip that was tweeted out by Caleb Hull, MSNBC reporter, claiming, I want to be clear on how I characterize this.
This is mostly a protest.
It is not generally speaking unruly.
While the police department, I believe, burns down behind him.
Now that to me is absolutely insane from MSNBC.
This is the big breaking story many of you may have, if you haven't been following, this is huge.
This is absolutely huge.
Right now on Twitter.
Pundits and personalities and journalists are arguing the merits, the worthiness, or the quality, or whatever you want to call it.
The justifications.
Why are they burning down these buildings?
Why set fire to Target?
Why set fire to affordable housing?
And it doesn't really make sense, does it?
Why rob a pawn shop?
And a lot of us ask these questions because they're just damaging and destroying their own community.
But they did actually go to the police station where the officers, I believe, who are arresting George Floyd were working out of, where they were stationed, and they burned it to the ground.
In fact, they may have almost blown it up.
The city of Minneapolis tweeted, we're hearing unconfirmed reports that gas lines to the third precinct have been cut and other explosive materials are in the building.
If you are near the building for your safety, please retreat in the event the building explodes.
Absolutely insane.
Michael Tracy tweeted this. A political decision was clearly made last night in Minneapolis,
perhaps by the mayor, to be extra deferential to protesters in light of the legitimately
depraved George Floyd killing. Then this then enabled riding left wing activists to seize a
police precinct building crazy. Mike, Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey indeed confirmed early this
morning, quote, I made the decision to evacuate the third precinct. So he did order police to
surrender the building to riders who proceeded to ransack and light it on fire, even according
to them, breaching an evidence room. That is is not justice.
Now, you want to make an argument about targeting the police department because of what happened to George Floyd.
I mean, there's an argument.
They're going after the police department, right?
The housing doesn't make sense.
Target doesn't make sense.
Protesting the police department makes sense, but destroying the evidence?
We got serious problems, especially with the policing in Minneapolis.
And I'll tell you what, man.
I've seen a lot of tweets from people saying that the arrest of the CNN journalists were justified.
I kid you not.
Actually, I wouldn't say the majority, but some of them.
And it's because they said they're in an intersection, they're there during a riot and all this stuff.
It doesn't matter, okay?
Fine.
You feel free to disagree with me if you think, you know, if you like what the cops did, sure.
I think you're wrong.
First Amendment.
First Amendment comes first and foremost.
The peaceful protesters should be allowed to peacefully protest, but now we're seeing rioting.
So that's why I understand the police coming out.
The journalists, however?
Here's what happens next.
The police are doing the opposite of endearing themselves to the public, myself included.
People are now going to demand answers.
Why the journalists are being arrested, why Floyd was killed, and what's really going on.
And there's some really weird things going on that we got to talk about.
I think I might have this story right here.
Check this out.
George Floyd and the fired police officer overlapped security shifts at the same South Minneapolis club.
That's crazy.
Maybe it's a coincidence.
Maybe it is an absolute coincidence, and these guys didn't know each other.
But according to the story, for around a year, I believe, they overlapped shifts where they worked at the same place at the same time.
Now, the owner of the club says that the off-duty officer security was, like, outside, and, like, Floyd was in the back, so they maybe never interacted.
Maybe I don't buy it.
I'm sorry.
I think it's possible, but I have to lean towards... I worked at a venue.
It was the Metro Chicago.
It's a big venue.
They have a club downstairs called Smart Bar, and upstairs is a theater.
I worked security, believe it or not.
And I generally knew everybody there, at least on an acquaintance level.
Now, mind you, this has been 14 years since I worked there, but I'd see somebody and I knew that was the ticket guy.
I'd be like, yo, what's up?
Some of these people I never even talked to, but I still knew them.
This raises a lot of questions.
Again, at the very least, he didn't know.
But now, regardless of that, people are looking for excuses.
So let's put it here.
I don't know if they knew each other.
I think it's fair to say a reasonable person assumes, because they worked at the same place for around a year, they probably, at least to some degree, Maybe not though, okay?
To be fair, but it doesn't matter.
Protesters are going to see this and they're going to say, this police officer knew him and used the power of the state to end him.
That's what they will see from this.
Maybe they're wrong.
They're probably wrong.
It's probably not true.
I don't know.
But I'll tell you what.
This story is probably going to go out.
It's going to go nuts.
And people are going to think the worst.
And they're going to use it as justification to go around smashing and destroying.
The worst possible thing that I've seen from all of this is that innocent people are having their lives destroyed.
The community is destroyed.
Their life savings destroyed.
I'm going to show you a historical clip.
And then I'm going to show you a recent clip.
And it's about the destruction of the black community amid these riots and how they are gutting their own power.
The power systems in place exist mostly due to the money they have.
While there are issues of racism in this country, you can find that even very, very wealthy black people talk about being profiled.
When you've got money, you've got power.
You can get the best lawyers.
You can engage in lawfare.
Let's say you're rich and you get wrongfully arrested.
You sit back and say, I'm gonna put $500,000 into a team of lawyers to end you.
And what happens is, you get bogged down with paperwork, they go off to the precinct, they never stop, and the city relents.
But when you're poor, and you can't do this, you get wrongfully arrested and you beg.
The problem here is that in the wake of this unjust killing of George Floyd, there are people now taking the opportunity, for whatever reason, to destroy this community, stripping the wealth and resources away from the people who live there.
The small business owners, the people who have dedicated everything to try and come up.
One of the reasons we see historical poverty and racism, they're intertwined, is because, and this is something I've explained to a lot of people, although it may not be for everybody, one thing that needs to be considered when dealing with the idea of historical racism is that among people who, among white families, many Asian families, you are more likely to have inherited something than say a black or Latino family.
This can create disproportionate Class issues between... I should say, it'll create class disparity between the races.
Many people then take that to assume racial issues when they see poverty breeds crime.
It's just one factor.
I'm not gonna pretend like it's everything.
What we need are people to establish family businesses, property, and wealth that they can pass down to their children and they can come up.
They can get out of the gutter.
I'm fortunate enough to be someone who's come out of the gutter for the most part.
My family was the opposite of rich.
We lost our home, could barely afford it in the first place, and I grew up on the south side of Chicago.
And now I recognize the importance of being able to build something and how powerful inheritance can be.
I'm not gonna inherit anything, and I'm gonna be very careful about my kids and what they do inherit, but they will be better off than I was, and that's power.
They'll grow up.
I was falsely arrested once, and I lost.
They tried to force us to plead guilty, and I was lucky enough that we got them to dismiss the charges because I remained defiant and I refused to plead guilty.
So ultimately, they said fine.
I'm not going to get into the full story, but it was downright crazy.
Now that I'm older and successful, anybody who dares do that to me again will face the brunt of lawfare.
I will spare no expense getting lawyers to go after those who, you know, unjustly target me.
And the reality is, from the hard work that I've done, I can ensure that my children never go through what I did growing up on the south side of Chicago with cops kicking my door in.
So I can certainly empathize with a lot of the anger.
I can empathize with those who are mad But burning down your own community ensures that those with power will keep that power, and you will lose yours.
I'm going to show you these clips, but I want to say it one more time.
The police department, the city, the wealthy, they will not be affected by you burning these things down.
The Target Corporation isn't sweating one of their stores being looted and burned.
They don't care.
But when you burn down your own affordable housing, when you loot the local small business, you ensure that your community never comes up and they will never have the power to challenge the system and those who would have the power.
So when they come and they oppress you or they pin you down or they kill somebody, what can you do about it?
You can riot.
But when you riot and destroy your own community, it just means that this cycle will never stop.
I want to show you this clip.
It's heartbreaking.
This is a clip from the L.A.
riots.
Heartbreaking.
Here's a tweet from this guy, Brian Fraser.
He says, This is heartbreaking listening to this black man watching his business being looted.
Watch right to the very end.
I'm not going to run the audio for you.
It's just a man holding a hammer.
During the LA riots, well, they smash through his windows, steal his computer, and he's begging them, why did you do this to me?
He's like, I came from the ghetto.
Why did you do this?
Why me?
Why not them?
You're mad at them.
Why are you doing this to me?
It's a good question.
And therein lies the big problem.
There's a there's a rumor going around right now that the person who started all the violence was a cop.
This is not proven.
There's no evidence.
It's a screenshot of a text message and a picture of a guy wearing a mask in all black with an umbrella smashing windows with a hammer of the smashing AutoZone.
Some people claimed he started fires.
I think it's absolutely.
Legit.
This guy wasn't a protester.
He shows up, he's wearing all black, he's got an umbrella, and he starts smashing out windows, and then he immediately leaves.
And people chase him like, yo, what are you doing?
Who are you?
It's possible there are more people like him, but it's not proven, and we don't know who this guy is.
So, some people believe that the targeting of these businesses is intentional to make sure these communities never come up.
Maybe that's the case.
I don't know.
But welcome to the future, man.
Here's the video from, I believe it's from the other day, Minneapolis riots.
This isn't even protesting anymore.
People go too far.
This is a video about a man who put his life savings into a bar and they say it was raided, looted, and people were trying to steal his safe as the news crew came in.
And the guy who owned it A local black man is crying saying he doesn't know what he'll do now.
They destroyed this guy who put everything, who worked so hard and was trying to come up.
You got to explain to me how you going and targeting these marginalized oppressed peoples and destroying everything they've fought for to challenge that system is justice.
It's not.
100% not justice.
It's scary, man.
It's scary and it's unfortunate why this is all happening, but the cycle continues.
People from outside the city come into these communities and they take advantage and they destroy.
And I will tell you this, that rich white person you point the finger at, the social justice warriors, they do this.
They look at those rich, you know, Jeff Bezos.
Oh, look at this guy.
Even if you went to Jeff Bezos' mansion and you threw a brick through the window and you laughed, it would do nothing to him.
He wouldn't even blink.
The property damage you'd inflict is a rounding error to people like this.
You have done nothing to challenge the system.
But I will tell you this, when you torch, destroy a small business, especially that of someone in a marginalized community, you take everything away from them and they can't recover.
This is what creates the class disparity the left claims to fight against.
And through their own emotional unintelligence and ignorance, they perpetuate this system and ensure that they will always be the oppressed.
Because whenever they have the opportunity, they burn themselves to the ground.
That's why you can't allow this.
That's why you protect these businesses.
That's why you protect them and you don't let this happen.
That's why, like those young men in Ferguson when I was there, who linked arms to defend the liquor store that was being looted.
That's why they do it.
Because they are taking from you.
But so long as people just keep robbing each other, then those in power will stay in power and there's nothing you can do about it.
I did see a very interesting tweet, however.
Ian Coldwater on Twitter says some context for people who don't live here.
Target HQ is in Minneapolis.
Lake Street Target, which got looted tonight, is literally Target's experimental site for loss prevention and surveillance policies geared toward poor people.
Very few people in the neighborhood like that Target.
Someone responded, I always wondered why that Target existed in the hood when everywhere else I've been Target has left the poor areas to Walmart.
Ian responds, this is exactly why.
It's also why Lake Street Target is so consistently awful in different ways to all the other ones.
It's engineered to be that way.
A bit conspiratorial.
I can't confirm this.
What I can tell you is that Target is headquartered in Minneapolis.
And if you do a Google search, you will find that Target does a series of testing at different Minneapolis stores.
I would actually lean towards this being true.
I also would agree.
Targets, in my experience, tend to be in more suburban, middle-class areas.
So it is interesting if it's true that it was in the hood.
It is true when you look at it.
I've got stories going back to 2011 about test locations in Minneapolis.
They're headquartered there, so they try out new things.
Whether or not it is true that they do this, I will explain this much to you.
These people believe that that target was used in the poor area because they knew it would lead to high crime, and it was their opportunity to test out new methods of loss prevention.
That's why they targeted and destroyed it.
Not everybody.
Some people just wanted a TV.
Some people thought they were coming up by taking some of those electronics.
And some of them will make some quick cash, probably, if they sell it.
But perhaps the reason they went to Target, among all the other businesses they could have gone to, was because they feel this way.
Maybe they're wrong, but as long as some of them feel this way, it could be why the first brick was thrown.
So, I bring this up to make that same point again.
This Target, if this is true, it's there as an experiment.
You just did everything they wanted.
I don't know if it's true.
Again, I want to stress that.
But if this store was placed there on purpose as an experiment to test what you would do, they just got all the data they were hoping for.
What would happen in an event like this?
What will happen to our stores?
This is our store dealing with loss prevention and security and surveillance.
Let's see what they do.
Let's use that to bolster our power.
So yeah, targeting a major corporation like Target does nothing.
In fact, this helped them.
If that's what you think.
Again, maybe it wasn't.
But if you really believe that this target was doing this, so that's why you went after him, you're basically saying you worked for Target.
You knew what they were.
You knew why they put that target there.
And so you thought, let me help these people out.
Let me help a massive billion-dollar corporation better secure their stores around the country by giving them all the data and evidence and understanding they need at their experimental store dealing with loss prevention and surveillance.
You gave them what they wanted.
You gave them what they wanted.
You didn't hurt the machine.
You didn't hurt the man.
And when the riots ensue following this, you hurt your own community.
Man, this stuff breaks my heart.
I'll leave it there.
I got more segments coming up for you, but I think today may be a day just based around all this.
So stick around.
Next segment's coming up at 1 p.m.
on this channel.
And I'll see you all then.
The National Guard is patrolling what looks like a war zone in Minneapolis.
A new video has emerged showing the death of George Floyd.
And you can see that there are three men kneeling on him while he cries and begs.
And this stuff, this stuff is heart-wrenching, man.
And it's scary.
Could you look at these photographs and we look at what's going on this this new video coming out and I got to tell you I think it's just it's we're nowhere near the end of this.
We're entering the weekend and now people are going to be out crazier than they've been and we got the National Guard patrolling these streets, but it won't matter especially with this new video coming out.
This new video coming out is some of the most rage-inducing stuff I've ever seen.
But that's not what I want to lead with on this segment because you clicked this video for another reason.
I want to lead with this video right here.
I'm going to play this video for you.
I want you to see this because I've got really bad news.
I've got some good news.
I got some bad news, too.
But we got some hope coming out of this, at least a little bit, and all this destruction may be something good.
It won't make up for all the damage and destruction that's ravaging Minneapolis and other cities.
But there's some good stuff here.
A man who had his business destroyed by rioters may be seeing a recovery.
First, let me play this video.
unidentified
Today, we found Corboy Bala, who invested his life savings into opening this sports bar, cleaning up.
While our camera was there, looters came back to try to steal his safe.
Because these riders came and destroyed his dream.
His life savings.
Well, check this out.
There's no real big story about this.
I'm not seeing the news cover it beyond what we just saw.
But take a look at this.
A GoFundMe.
I tweeted this out.
You know, I'm a fence-sitter on almost everything, but not this one.
This guy's an innocent victim.
He was trying to set up what was his dream, and they tried to take it from him.
Why?
I don't know.
All I know is you want to demand justice for George Floyd.
I'm right there with you, man.
I want justice too.
I'm going to show you this new video that's come out.
But what can I really do beyond just express my opinion?
Well, I'll tell you what.
With this GoFundMe, we can contribute, and I can share it, and I did.
Because this is a guy who had his dream, they tried to take his dream from him, they destroyed it.
Maybe his dream, maybe now he can get something back.
Maybe now...
Something good will come out of all this bad.
Check out this story.
Scores Sports Bar, Minneapolis Rebuild.
It's not so much a story as it is a GoFundMe.
But in it, he tells everyone about what's happened.
We got an update.
Now, I'll just show you the update and we'll go to the photos later.
They burned the entire building to the ground.
But here's the initial story.
I want you to see who this guy is.
This is a firefighter.
This guy's a firefighter who saved money because he wanted to open a sports bar.
That was his dream.
And before he could even get it open, he's standing at that line, you know, like, you've fought so hard for this, you've saved everything, you've worked and you've worked, and there it is.
Grand opening.
You take that first step over the threshold, the door unlocks and opens, you've done it.
Your dream is real.
And you can finally experience that, what you've longed for for so long.
A guy who risked his life as a firefighter to save others, finally now getting a taste of that sweet dream.
Before it could open, COVID happened.
And they were hoping to reopen soon, and before they could do that, some evil people, evil, angry, callous, destroyed his dream.
And I say evil, I mean it, because these people don't care about what justice is.
Attacking innocent people isn't justice.
Now I get it, maybe they're angry.
And you can say that in their anger, some people would argue they were justified No, man.
There's the banality of evil, the recklessness of evil, the disdain for other people, for their hopes, their dreams, for their lives.
Targeting the innocent because you're angry is no excuse for destruction.
Somebody who wasn't paying attention and said, yeah, well, everyone was doing it.
That's not an excuse either.
I'm sorry, man.
You can be evil in the sense that you just want destruction.
You can be evil in the sense that you just don't care about other people and you would use your force against them.
Let's read this.
He says, Scores Sports Bar was set for a grand opening this spring, but when COVID-19 hit, that was put on pause.
Now, just as Scores was gearing up to welcome customers with updated guidelines from the governor, George Floyd was murdered and everything changed overnight.
Scores Sports Bar was looted, vandalized, and destroyed on May 27, 2020.
This black-owned business is left trying to pick up the pieces amidst mourning with the community.
About the bar owners.
KB Bala and his wife Tuana are active members of their community.
KB is a firefighter on the Brooklyn Center Fire Department and Tuiana was a member of the Sounds of Blackness.
They have four beautiful children and the toll of this entire situation is heavy.
KB has been a community entrepreneur for decades and coaches and contributes to the community in which they live.
Anything you can donate to start the rebuild process will be a blessing.
I'm gonna link the GoFundMe if I can.
I gotta make sure I, you know, but I'll link it in the description below.
This story, when I first, I covered this a little bit.
I showed the video in my first segment this morning.
Seeing this man cry saying they took, you know, I worked so hard for this was sad.
And so I saw this post going around that they're trying to raise money for him.
Dude's raised $64,000 already.
They got a goal of $100,000.
Seems like a lot of money.
You know what?
Before I say anything, I hope this man gets back tenfold, gets back 100-fold what they took away from him.
I hope that in five years, in a few years from now, he looks back on this day And when they destroyed his business, and he remembers it not as the worst day of his life, but as a turning point that led to some of the best days of his life.
I understand the anger and frustration around George Floyd, and I'm going to show you the story, and it should make you angry.
You should want justice.
But targeting a guy who risked his life, he's not a cop, man.
You met the cops, I get it.
We're talking about a firefighter.
This is a guy who's trying to save you.
That's all he wants to do.
That's all firefighters wants to do, wanna do.
And they decided to destroy it just because they didn't care.
But he actually, I believe he wrote a story about what happened.
Check this out.
This is from KB himself.
Hello, everyone.
I would just like to start saying the amount of gratitude in my heart right now is outweighing the sorrow and heavy-heartedness I feel.
Yesterday, I was able to share my story and the outpour of financial, physical, and emotional support has been overwhelming.
As I think about my losses, I also want to extend my condolences to the Floyd family.
My business can be rebuilt, but his life cannot be regained.
Honorable.
Honorable statement, man.
I agree.
I've been an entrepreneur in the state of Minnesota for many years, and my community really showed their love in the rawest form.
Many of you know that Scores Sports Bar was my dream.
It was all coming together, and when COVID hit, the reality of not being able to open for a grand opening was difficult.
With the help of my family and friends, I pushed through.
To find out that the countless hours, hard work, late nights away from my kids and family had all been for nothing was soul-shattering.
It is not the material things, more so the time that cannot be reclaimed.
There is nothing more valuable than time, man.
I went to scores yesterday, and all I could do was cry.
As a firefighter and public servant, I am used to saving lives and being strong, but this broke me.
The glass was broken, it was looted and vandalized.
While filming for CNN, people came in trying to steal the safe, and I wondered what next.
My community, that's what.
Strangers showed up with brooms, cleaning supplies, trash bags, and food.
They helped me and my family clean up in 20 minutes what would have took days.
This is what gives me hope.
I want to thank and shed light on the real true Minnesotans who helped many of us small business owners clean up yesterday.
I was doing my shift at the fire station this morning when I got the call that the entire building had been burnt down last night.
My heart was heavy, and I had to leave work because the emotional toll was too substantial.
Right now is a tough time for my family and I, but also the community and the whole state.
I know it will take some time, but we will rebuild and come back even stronger than ever.
To the countless people who donated on the GoFundMe page, sent emails of encouragement, and those praying for us and supporting us around the world, thank you.
We are all in this together.
Stay safe, stay blessed, and keep praying for Minnesota.
If you would like to donate, please visit.
And there's the link.
I'm gonna put this link in, man.
Let me tell you a sad story.
A firefighter, working to this day, sitting at his station.
Somebody serving the community, who only wants to save your life.
They don't enforce laws.
They don't arrest people.
No, they get on a truck, and they rush, full speed, towards the danger.
Towards the burning building.
Now look, I'm not saying this to disrespect cops in any way.
I'm saying I understand there's anger right now towards the police.
I respect the police who also rush towards Danger 2, the good cops who are there for you.
Because I've experienced the good and the bad when it comes to the police.
But right now I'm just talking about this man as a firefighter.
He has nothing to do with your anger.
Nothing at all.
These fires are being set and they risk people's lives.
And they're gonna get people hurt.
And he's the guy who's gonna kick that door in even though he knows it might be the last day that he gets to kick a door in.
That he does kick this door in.
Because he's gotta make sure people survive.
So this guy's sitting at his station and he gets word, after coming off of seeing his business destroyed, he still returned to work to be that guy who's ready, on call and waiting, so that he can save your life.
Save your life, if he has to.
When they call ambulances, because someone's dying, firefighters come out.
It's an ambulance assist.
This guy is... He's the guy who saves you.
He's still there in the fire department, and he finds out that following this really awful day where he could do nothing but cry, they torched the entire building.
Why?
Why did you burn down where this guy was gonna be setting up a bar?
It's just a place for people to hang out, to live, love, and laugh.
Enjoy a drink, forget about the world's problems, and try and carry on to live another day.
You're not targeting the billionaires.
You're not targeting the rich.
You're not targeting the oppressors.
You're targeting the dude who himself struggles to make this dream come true.
And at the same time, in service of you.
They talk all day and night about how they want healthcare as a human right.
They love using the fire department as an example.
Hey man, everybody gets fire safety, firefighters to save them.
Why can't we do the same?
Alright, I'll entertain that.
Why destroy this man's dream and his life?
I don't know, man.
This morning, I saw the GoFundMe.
They had an original goal, or at least the first time I saw it, $25,000.
I saw it, $25,000.
It's now at $64,033.
I'll tell you what, man.
That's not enough.
They burned the whole building to the ground.
He can't build a new building.
It probably wasn't his building.
He was probably renting or leasing a part of the building.
And they just annihilated the whole thing.
Now, maybe insurance can rebuild it, but for how long?
When?
This guy's dream has been put on hold, to say the least.
I mean, they destroyed it outright.
I should say, at the best case scenario, his dream will maybe come true at some point with our help.
But they shut him down.
That's not okay, man.
You know, we want to advocate for those who are doing the right thing, who are in our community, who want you to live better, to be better, who want to protect our rights, and this is exactly who this guy is.
Now, okay, look, let's be real.
There's always some circumstance where you find out some person was really a bad person.
You go to a funeral and everyone says only the best things about the person because that's what we do.
I don't know this guy.
I know he's a firefighter and so I give him every benefit of the doubt and then some.
I don't know how much it would cost to rebuild this building.
The time.
Gone forever.
Even if you give him a million dollars, he will never get that time back.
And that's the most precious thing we have.
So I really do wish this man the best.
And my heart is warm to see that 2,400 people have contributed.
That there have been 6,000 shares, $64,000 raised so far.
I'm glad to see it, man.
And you don't got to do anything.
I contributed.
I'm happy to do so.
It's one of the rare times where I'm going to make a video where I'm like, here's what I'm doing.
Here's what I think people should do.
We can argue about policy all day and night.
And you know what, man?
I don't have the answer.
So I usually stand back.
I usually say, I don't know.
But you know what I do know?
This firefighter deserves to have his dream come true.
And it was taken from him.
He's not asking for a handout.
No.
This guy actually built his dream.
He worked hard for his dream.
He accomplished his dream.
And before he could cross the finish line, they burned it to the ground.
I'm happy to say that although there's destruction surrounding this story, and we have a negative, it's one of the few times I can tell you something with hope in my heart and a positive feeling.
This is good news.
It's bad news.
The good news is a little bit less than the bad news.
But the good news is there are good people who have his back and are now putting their money to make sure that this man's dream, he can follow through with it.
It'll be a lot of work.
All the work he did, he bought chairs, TVs, he did the advertising, everything.
It's all gone.
The building's gone.
He's gotta, what, apply for new permits?
He's gotta source new distribution?
He's gotta start everything over.
I can't imagine what that must be like, man.
I can only jokingly say, you ever play a video game?
You get really far in that game and then you, you know, you die or whatever, the power goes out and you didn't save and you're like, all my progress is lost.
That feeling you get after playing for a couple hours and then you lose it has nothing compared to how long he probably worked for this and everything he lost.
Imagine losing years.
But I'm happy, man.
I'm happy that he's happy and that, you know, he's gonna get some money out of this.
Man, I hope this dude raises a million bucks.
I hope that he gets a hundred times.
And then he can sit back, he can enjoy a nice drink on the beach and have a smile on his face and say, for all the bad, at least, you know, at least he wasn't left high and dry by the good people who know he didn't deserve this.
He posted photos.
He said, Just a quick update.
The campaign amount will be updated.
The building and my business was completely burned down last night.
I am devastated, but I know something.
But I know something positive will come out of all this.
Stay blessed, everyone.
Photos from this morning.
Posted one hour ago.
Take a look at these photos, man.
It's despicable.
I'm sure he's got a different opinion on the rioters.
I don't know what his opinion is.
I'm not going to pretend like I do.
My opinion is that these people are evil because they would target an innocent person who did nothing to them.
And for what?
It doesn't get you justice.
It takes the power away from the people trying to fight back.
This guy, a firefighter, it takes his power away, his ability to fight back.
No, not okay.
Well, man, I'm going to show you this right now, and we'll wrap up on this last point.
I'm worried that it's going to get worse.
I'm glad this guy was able to raise money, and I hope he holds onto it for a little bit.
Because if he goes at it now, you gotta wait, man.
You gotta wait.
You gotta wait.
New George Floyd video shows the man begging to be allowed to stand so that he can catch his breath as three police officers kneel on him.
This one's brutal.
This is a new video that's just coming out right now.
If you thought the destruction yesterday or the day before was bad, I can't imagine what's going to happen after this video.
It's a video of this man crying.
As three people kneel on him, he's crying and wailing and everybody just watches.
And this is a guy.
I don't know if you saw the video.
George Floyd, I'm told, has some kind of bad past.
He was maybe arrested or went to prison.
I don't know anything about that.
I don't care if he did.
He didn't deserve this.
And this video is terrifying.
It's terrifying.
And there's another video that went viral of George Floyd angrily telling the young people to stop the violence.
So let's say this dude did go to prison.
After he gets out, what happens?
He works at a club?
He works security?
He makes a video telling young people they can't do this, they can't go down this path, because sooner or later it's gonna come to you and God.
You're gonna go up or you're gonna go down.
I saw that video and I said, that's the message we need.
That's the message these young people need.
Even if he did wrong in his past, then he's the one who can tell them, I've been down that road, you can't do that.
Mad respect.
I group on the south side of Chicago, man.
I have seen people who have gone down that road.
And it is bad.
And they need more people to say, been there, done that, you shouldn't do it.
So, I got respect for this guy, for the video that he put out.
And then this happens.
This rage, man.
It's not going away anytime soon.
And it's not just happening in Minnesota.
We saw in Louisville, Kentucky.
Shots were fired.
I don't know what that was all about or if that video was old.
I don't know.
Because it got deleted, I guess.
30 people arrested in New York.
People in Los Angeles.
If you thought that was bad, let me remind you of something.
The weekend starts now.
This video just dropped.
May 29th.
10 a.m.
Eastern Daylight Time.
I don't know if I can show the- I don't think I can show these videos.
I don't think I- You know what?
I don't care.
I'm gonna do it anyway.
It's just a photo.
You can't really see much, so I think this might be okay.
I just don't want YouTube to take this down, because I want you to be able to see this.
I want you to be able to know this.
Three cops kneeling on this guy.
And he's just crying.
He's just crying, man.
Saying please over and over again.
Why did they have three people and they couldn't put him, you know, sit him on his knees?
Why did they have to do this?
I got no idea.
It's gonna get bad.
The story we saw earlier about KB and his sports bar won't be the last.
He's not the only one affected by this.
And I'm not trying to disregard or disrespect the other businesses.
There's some other stories about business owners who lost everything.
But this story hit really hard to me to see this guy crying on TV.
Like, they're actually trying to steal his safe while he's, like, while the CNN crew is filming.
It's just insane, man.
It's just so, such a brutal stake in the heart.
But then, you know, when I saw that story, I was sad.
And there's some other stories.
And then I saw that he was a firefighter.
And that one hit me really, really hard.
Because, you know, I come from a family... People in my family worked for the fire department.
And in my extended family.
And served in the armed forces to varying degrees.
And so that one's just personal, man.
It's my bias.
Here I see this guy who I know that concern.
You know, I've heard the stories.
I've been to departments.
These are just guys that hang out, they cook, they smile, they laugh.
The alarm bell rings and they rush full speed.
And then I saw that, man.
That was sad.
I'm worried about what's gonna come tonight.
I'm worried about what's happening now.
Hopefully the National Guard can keep things under wraps.
I mean like, you know, keep things calmed down.
But we'll see how it happens, so...
I'll leave it there.
Stick around.
Next segment is coming up at 4 p.m.
You can check it out by going to TimCast.net.
It links to my main channel, which you may not be familiar with.
Most of you are, but many people aren't, so TimCast.net, easiest way to find it.
This one's gonna be talking about Twitter.
Because in the wake of everything happening here, Twitter is censoring the president.
It's not an exaggeration.
They're blocking his content.
I actually have to use an extension to see it.
A modification of the browser.
This is crazy times, man.
2020's been nuts.
I'll see you all at 4.
Thanks for hanging out.
The main police officer involved in the George Floyd incident has been arrested and charged with murder, as well as some other charges.
We'll read through this.
Now, there were other officers involved.
I don't believe they've done anything yet to these other officers, but they have said the investigation is ongoing.
Ladies and gentlemen, we have a report from the medical examiner, and it's bad.
This guy, Derek Chauvin, is, in my opinion, going to get convicted.
I think they're doing third-degree murder, and I think he will get convicted.
I'm not going to bear the lead for you on this one.
The medical examiner said that this guy, Chauvin, had his knee on the neck of George Floyd for almost nine minutes, like eight and a half to nine minutes.
They gave us the full number.
I'll read through it.
But more than two and a half of those minutes, Floyd had become unresponsive.
They were ignoring his pleas.
And for two and a half minutes, he stays on this guy.
Yikes, man.
The medical examiner says that the police are trained.
That this is inherently dangerous.
And the defendant is in custody, so... Let's read the news and go through what's going on in the latest update.
Now, I did record this earlier than by the time you've watched it.
Things may have changed by the time you see or hear this segment.
Ex-Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin charged with murder in George Floyd case.
Quote, The investigation is ongoing, the county prosecutor said.
We felt it was appropriate to focus on the most dangerous perpetrator.
He added, referring to the former officer Derek Chauvin.
Couple important points before we move forward.
It turns out this guy actually worked the same club for around a year with George Floyd.
The restaurant owner doesn't know if they knew each other, but some people think this may have been something else.
However, there were other officers involved in holding down George Floyd, so it's hard to know for sure.
The other thing I want to say as we move forward, I do not believe this will stop the riots or the violence across the country.
I really, really don't.
It might.
It might.
And they got to move fast.
They got to figure this one out, but the weekend is here, man.
The weekend is here, so let's read.
The former Minneapolis police officer shown in the video putting his knee on the neck of George Floyd was arrested on Friday.
Derek Chauvin, who was fired on Tuesday along with three other officers involved in the detainment of Floyd, was taken into custody Friday and faces charges of third-degree murder and manslaughter, Hennepin County Attorney Mike Freeman announced.
Floyd pleaded, I can't breathe, as Chauvin, who is white, kneeled on Floyd's neck for around eight minutes on Monday night, over eight minutes.
In an arrest that was videotaped by bystanders.
The police department initially said Floyd, who is black, physically resisted the officers and that he died after suffering medical distress.
I believe the report says that's not true.
I think so.
We'll see.
Freeman said he anticipated more charges to come, possibly against some of the other three officers.
The investigation is ongoing, we read that part.
Just 24 hours earlier, Freeman said the case still needed more investigation.
But by Friday, Freeman said enough evidence had been gathered.
All of that has come together and we felt, in our professional judgment, it was time to charge.
The Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension and the FBI are both investigating Floyd's death.
The BCA arrested Chauvin at 11.44 a.m.
in Minneapolis, the state agency said.
A conviction for third-degree murder could land an offender in prison for up to 25 years.
Third-degree murder means an officer did not, the offender, did not intend to kill, but that someone died by perpetrating an act eminently dangerous to others and evincing a depraved mind without regard for human life.
I agree.
I think he's getting it.
I think he's getting it, man.
Look, you gotta, I gotta do this.
I gotta jump, I gotta jump to this.
I got a lot here we want to read through, but I want to show you this passage because you gotta, you gotta hear this first.
The defendant had his knee on Mr. Floyd's neck for 8 minutes and 46 seconds in total.
2 minutes and 53 seconds of this was after Mr. Floyd was non-responsive.
Police are trained that this type of restraint with a subject in a prone position is inherently dangerous.
Defendant is in custody.
The bill fits.
I think they got the charge right on this one.
I think the medical examiner said it straight up.
Listen, the dude was pleading.
Mama, please.
The new video that's come out that shows the other officers has Floyd basically crying as they're doing this.
You want to talk about depraved and reckless indifference?
What do they specifically say?
Without regard for human life.
If someone's begging you, And you know you're not supposed to do this.
And this position is dangerous and you're trained for that.
And you keep your knee on their neck for three minutes after they stop talking.
That's reckless disregard.
That is no regard for human life, man.
This guy's gonna get convicted.
I don't think people are gonna stop the riots, though.
And you know what, man?
I think a lot of these people are opportunists.
I think a lot of the destruction is horrifying, is evil.
But I can feel that anger, you know, so I can empathize for sure, but I just wish people wouldn't take it out on innocent people.
You know, I did that segment earlier on the firefighter, you may have seen it.
It's over $200,000 raised.
You guys are awesome.
I really, really respect everybody who pitched in.
The innocent people don't deserve this anger.
I understand the anger, man.
I'm mad.
And the more I read about this, the angrier I get.
I don't know if you guys have seen the video of him crying As they pin him down But I just want you to imagine This officer And we had a bunch of- So we do the Timcast IRL podcast live every night And we had a bunch of LEO Law enforcement officers Telling us, no way man You never do that with a knee on the neck Imagine that, nine minutes This guy's begging you to stop And then for three minutes he's just not talking And you don't care Lock this dude up He hasn't been convicted, so... I'm gonna be a bit more calm on this, but I think... I gotta be honest, I think most of us have seen... We've seen enough.
And we got the report from the medical examiner.
I'm open to seeing new evidence come out, but I just don't... At this point... Lock him up, dude.
Lock him up.
It's always tough and I'm always careful because even though we've seen all of this and even though it's horrifying, you still want to be careful and make sure you handle the law properly and that this guy faces justice in the most appropriate manner.
This has got to be airtight and this guy needs to see it, you know, to face justice.
And he does deserve his day in court.
We all do.
That's the Fifth Amendment.
I don't believe we should deprive anybody simply because they deprived somebody else.
George Floyd shouldn't have died that day.
I looked over the transcript of the 9-1-1 call as well, and it's just... You know what, man?
It's just so pointless.
The guy said he gave us some fake bills or something, and I'm like, and that's it.
And that's it.
Let's read a little bit more.
Freeman noted that these charges mirrored the same criminal complaint filed against former Minneapolis police officer Mohammed Noor in another high-profile local case involving excessive force.
I'm not going to read through that.
It's another case.
I get it.
I got to show you this right here, though.
Amy Klobuchar previously declined to prosecute Derek Chauvin in Floyd's death.
Amy Klobuchar What, is she undergoing vetting for Joe Biden?
Get her out.
Get her out, man.
You mean to tell me you knew this dude?
He had been called out before?
Former Democratic presidential candidate Klobuchar failed to get charges brought against police officer.
Okay, hold on.
failed to get or declined.
We know about the story, but what is it?
They say, in 2008, a grand jury, okay, you know what, New York Post, what is this?
Once failed to prosecute.
All right, I shouldn't have brought that up.
Okay, if she, a lot of people were saying that she refused.
They say Klobuchar also did not criminally charge other cops involved in more than two
dozen officer-involved fatalities.
I still think, you know what, man?
It's still her jurisdiction.
It's still under, you know... I'm not interested.
I don't like that lady, man.
Look at this report.
They talk about some important context you need to see.
This is the Statement of Probable Cause.
They mention a bit about what happened, but I want to read this for you to give you the fuller context of what I read a moment ago.
They say, Once handcuffed... Let me go back.
Officer Lane ordered Mr. Floyd out of his car, put his hands on Mr. Floyd, and pulled him out of the car.
Officer Lane handcuffed Mr. Floyd.
Mr. Floyd actively resisted being handcuffed, they say.
Once handcuffed, Mr. Floyd became compliant and walked with Officer Lane to the sidewalk and sat on the ground at Officer Lane's direction.
In a conversation that lasted just under two minutes, Officer Lane asked Mr. Floyd for his name and ID.
Lane asked Mr. Lloyd Oh, that's supposed to be a typo.
Is Mr. Lloyd somebody else?
They changed it from Floyd to Lloyd.
explain that he was arresting Mr. Floyd.
Is Mr. Lloyd somebody else?
They changed it from Floyd to Lloyd.
I don't know.
Officer Quang in Lane stood Mr. Floyd up and attempted to walk him to the squad car.
Mr. Floyd stiffened up, fell to the ground, and told officers he was claustrophobic.
MPD officers Derek Chauvin, the defendant, and Thao Thoa then arrived in a separate squad car.
The officers made several attempts to get Mr. Floyd in the backseat of squad 320 from the driver's side.
Mr. Floyd did not voluntarily get in the car and struggled with the officers by intentionally falling down, saying he was not going in the car, and refusing to stand still.
Mr. Floyd is over 6 feet tall and weighs more than 200 pounds.
While standing outside the car, Mr. Floyd began saying and repeating that he could not breathe while standing.
The defendant went to the passenger side and tried to get Mr. Floyd into the car that side, and Lane and Kong assisted.
The defendant pulled Mr. Floyd out of the passenger side of the squad car at 819, and Mr. Floyd went to the ground face down, still handcuffed.
Okay, this is what the important context is.
The defendant pulled Mr. Floyd out of the passenger side of the squad car at 819.
Mr. Floyd went to the ground face down and still handcuffed.
Kong held Mr. Floyd's back and Lane held his legs.
The defendant placed his knee in the area of Mr. Floyd's head and neck.
Mr. Floyd said, I can't breathe multiple times and repeatedly said, Mama and please as well.
The defendant and the two other officers stayed in their positions.
The officer said, you are talking fine to Mr. Floyd as you continue to move back and forth.
Lane asked, should we roll him on his side?
And the defendant said, no, staying put where we got him.
Officer Lane said, I am worried about excited delirium or whatever.
The defendant said, that's why we have to have him on his stomach.
None of the three officers moved from their positions.
BWC.
Video shows Mr. Floyd continuing to move and breathe at 824.
Floyd stopped moving at 825.
The video appears to show Mr. Floyd ceasing to breathe or speak.
Lane said, want to roll him to his side.
Kong checked Mr. Floyd's right wrist for a pulse and said, I couldn't find one.
None of the officers moved from their positions.
827, the defendant removed his knee from Mr. Floyd's neck.
An ambulance and emergency medical personnel arrived.
The officer placed Mr. Floyd on a gurney and the ambulance left the scene.
Mr. Floyd was pronounced dead at Hennepin County Medical Center.
The Hennepin County Medical Examiner conducted Mr. Floyd's autopsy on May 26.
The full report of the ME is pending, but the ME has made the following preliminary findings.
The autopsy revealed no physical findings that support a diagnosis of traumatic asphyxia or strangulation.
Mr. Floyd had underlying health conditions including coronary artery disease and hypertensive heart disease.
The combined effects of Mr. Floyd being restrained by the police, his underlying health conditions, and any potential intoxicants in his system likely contributed to his death.
That's when they go on to mention the timing.
I think it's absolutely important and fair to point out the nuances and the complexity of what happened.
But I think the charges are going to stick.
The man was apparently in the vehicle.
I like how they gloss over that, right?
They say this.
They tried to get Mr. Floyd into the car from that side and Lian Kang assisted.
Then what happened?
Because then we can see it say, the defendant pulled Mr. Floyd out of the passenger side of the squad car.
Why?
We don't know.
And I'm sure some facts will emerge.
But they put him down.
He mentions excited delirium.
We honestly don't know.
But I can tell you, if someone's begging, if you pull them out of the car, this is the important point, he pulled him out of the car.
There's a lot of reasons that may have happened.
But if you pull someone you've already restrained, detained, and gotten the car out and put them on the ground, why was he doing that?
I can make a lot of assumptions.
I'm not gonna.
I'm not gonna.
They're negative.
Negative assumptions.
But it sounds like they pulled this guy out.
The other officers are like, we gotta roll him.
No.
They were trained, this was dangerous.
He kept his knee on his neck three minutes after he stopped moving and the dude said no pulse.
He killed him, dude.
Now they say there was no traumatic asphyxiation or whatever, it was underlying conditions.
If you take an old person, okay, and you pin them on the ground and you call it whatever you want, standard procedure, and they die, you did it, man.
You gotta understand.
I warn people, I gotta wrap this one up, but listen.
There was a story I was told when I was younger of two guys.
One, Guy A hits on Guy B's wife.
They get into a fight and Guy A punches Guy B. Guy B falls back, hits his head, and dies.
Guy A goes to prison.
He wasn't intending to kill him, but he did.
I don't think the officer wanted this guy to die, but he pulled him out, threw him down, put his knee on his neck, and just sat there while the guy died.
He did it.
Call it what you want, man.
I wish people would stop targeting the innocent, but I'll wrap it up there.
I've got a couple more segments coming up in a few minutes, and I'll see you all shortly.
The Republicans are bringing out the big guns against Twitter and Ted Cruz is now calling for a criminal investigation of Twitter for violating Iranian sanctions.
Now, this is where things are getting spicy.
I warned Jack and Vijaya.
I said, if you keep doing this, they will come for you.
And you know what I was told?
Well, I know people in Washington, something like that, and they're OK with what we're doing.
They're finding ways, man.
Look, Trump's talking about Section 230.
And a lot of people are saying it won't work.
Ted Cruz found a better way to go after you.
And whether it's legit or not, you, listen, you know why you don't want to, you want to choose your battles?
You know why you want to be careful?
I always get annoyed when I see people argue online and starting fights, and I'm like, you have no idea what that person's going to do.
And why do you want the hassle?
I avoid the drama.
I avoid the conflicts.
A lot of people rag on me.
I'm going to back off.
I don't want it.
Because you never know if one of these people is a crazy person.
This is why I can't stand when my friends do road raging.
You know, we're in the car and they start yelling.
I'm like, stop, dude!
You don't know how one of these people is going to be crazy and they're going to crash.
You never know.
Choose your battles.
Don't waste your time on the petty nonsense.
Well, Twitter's been censoring conservatives.
They've been shutting down people for dumb things like saying, learn to code.
And so you know what?
You've gotten the ire now of the Republican Party.
Now, Trump might not be able to pull off Section 230, but what happens here?
Whether or not anything happens, you can see they're coming for you, right?
Here's a story from Axios.
Senator Ted Cruz, in a letter Friday to the Justice and Treasury Departments, is calling for a criminal investigation of Twitter over allegations the company is violating U.S.
sanctions against Iran.
Twitter is already under fire from President Trump for adding fact checks and a warning label, respectively, to misleading and incendiary tweets he made in recent days.
Now Axios, I'm not interested in your opinions on this.
Don't call them misleading or incendiary.
Just say tweets.
Cruz's letter adds another dimension to the tech company's woes in Washington.
I think they got him, man.
I will see.
leaders to maintain accounts on its service and Cruz is asking Attorney General Bill Barr
and Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin to probe whether that violates US sanctions prohibiting
American companies from providing goods or services to the country's top officials.
They are. I think they got him, man. I will see. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know.
I was once planning a trip to Iran for Vice and I had to make calls and ask about what I could or
couldn't do when it came to how these sanctions functioned.
And they said in the normal course of travel, you can spend money and come and go as you please and be safe and all that stuff.
I never ended up going, right?
Never ended up happening.
Would have been fun, but there's a lot of countries I never went to.
But this is different.
Twitter is allowing them access to a service which can function as a platform for them to speak.
They are providing them this space.
And Twitter's monetizing it.
So, let's read more.
Quote, I believe that the primary goal of the International Emergency Economic Powers Act and sanctions law should be to change the behavior of designated individuals and regimes, not American companies, Cruz wrote.
But when a company willfully and openly violates the law after receiving formal notice that it is unlawfully supporting designated individuals, the federal government should take action.
Twitter has said it's in the public interest to have political figures' speech on its platform, even if some find that speech objectionable.
We're not talking about free speech right now.
We're talking about the US imposing sanctions on Iran, and Iran using Twitter as a means to embolden and empower itself by spreading its narrative.
Now, whether or not they're right or wrong isn't relevant.
Twitter is providing a service delivering that message to other people.
But before we move on with the story, I've got to give a quick shout out to today's sponsor, Virtual Shield.
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Now I always tell people, Look, you have locks on your doors and windows, but you don't expect people to break in, but you still do it.
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The link will be in the description below.
But let's get back to the main story.
A company on Friday labeled a tweet from Trump about the unrest in Minneapolis as breaking its rules on glorifying violence.
The White House FCC Chairman Ajit Pai, among other prominent conservatives, questioned why Twitter hasn't applied similar labels to tweets from Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.
Cruz led an earlier letter from Republican senators to Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey in February, calling on the company to ban Iranian leaders, including Khamenei and Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif.
The senators suggested providing the accounts may violate U.S.
sanctions.
Twitter responded in April, arguing that its service is exempt from the sanctions and that the public conversation on the platform is critically important during the coronavirus pandemic.
Well, I want to see why they think they're not subject.
Fundamental values of openness, free expression, public accountability, and mutual understanding matter now more than ever.
Vijaya Gade, Twitter's legal, public policy, and trust and safety lead wrote, regardless of the political agenda of a particular nation state, to deny our service to their leaders at a time like this would be antithetical to the purpose of our company, which is to serve the global public conversation.
It doesn't matter.
Could you imagine if she said something like this?
Regardless of the political agenda, in particular nation-state, to deny our service to the leaders at a time like this would be antithetical to the purpose of our company, which is to arm people for self-defense.
You get the point?
It doesn't matter why you're giving them access to goods and services, it matters that you're not allowed to.
That's a bigger and more dangerous question on the issue of material support to terrorist organizations who use Twitter and for some reason don't get banned.
I don't know if they still do, but I remember, like, didn't Hamas have a Twitter account and aren't they designated a terror organization?
What makes Twitter immune from all of these things?
I honestly have no idea other than no one enforces any of it.
This is what happens then when you goad your political opponents, and especially the ones who are in political power.
Trump is in the executive branch.
The Republicans control the majority of the Senate.
I mean, you got a few months, maybe things will change, but I can't imagine what's going to happen to Twitter if Republicans regain control of the House.
It's going to be...
It's gonna be bad.
I think it'll be bad for all of us.
It's one of the reasons I'm so angry.
We had a good baby.
The internet was awesome in the 90s, 2000s.
I mean, it wasn't perfect, but things were building up.
It was like the Wild West.
But you know, we did alright.
Now they want to turn it into a couple big, powerful, major corporations.
And that's what we're gonna get, because you don't know when too much is too much.
Here's what they say.
Twitter declined to comment on the new Cruz letter.
And then they link to a flashback.
Cruz talks to Axios' Dan Prymak of last year to discuss allegations of the bias against conservatives.
So, here is a letter from Vijaya Gaddai.
Now, you may be familiar with her because she was the woman who appeared on the Joe Rogan podcast with me and Jack Dorsey.
And I want to read some of this because they talk about why they're exempt from the law.
She writes, thank you for your letter, dated February 6, 2020.
Now, I do think it's fair to point out, I believe Vijaya is a lawyer, so... To be honest, she probably knows way, way better than I do, and is gonna make a way better legal argument than I ever could.
So, I gotta be fair.
Thank you for your letter dated February 6, 2020 regarding Twitter's approach to potential sanctions issues.
We appreciate the opportunity to share more about our policies and our work to enforce them.
There is no place on Twitter for terrorist organizations, violent extremist groups, or individuals who affiliate with and promote their illicit activities.
The violence that these groups engage in and promote endangers the physical safety and security of people throughout the world.
A fine statement, I agree with.
She goes on to mention how they classify extremist groups and those that meet the following criteria.
Identify through their stated purpose, publications, or actions as an extremist group.
Have engaged in or currently engage in violence and or the promotion of violence as a means to further their cause.
Target civilians in their acts and or promotion of violence.
We examine a group's activities both on and off Twitter to determine whether they engage in or promote violence.
Under this policy, a Twitter user is not allowed to affiliate with, let me stop you right there, what about if, I don't know, the US government says they are?
You're an American company.
If the U.S.
says this group is this, and you are providing support to that group by giving them a channel because you disagree, well, I think the U.S.
is going to storm your doors and enforce this at some point, especially if you keep poking at the Republicans.
So let's see.
She says, under this policy, a Twitter user is not allowed to affiliate with and promote the illicit activities of terrorist organization or violent extremist groups.
Examples of the types of content that violate this policy include engaging in or promoting acts on behalf of a terrorist organization, recruiting, providing or distributing services to further their goals, using the insignia or symbols of these groups.
Twitter does not apply this particular policy to military or government entities because of the public interest in learning about these types of statements.
Full stop.
I don't think you can just decide the law doesn't apply to you.
Could you imagine if someone was like, I humbly respect the law.
However, in my house, I'm allowed to have this prohibited object because I use it.
No, no, no.
You can't just draft an argument like why you're not exempt from, why you're not Why you are exempt from the law.
It reminds me of a lot of these sovereign citizen types who say they don't have to pay taxes because they're sovereign.
It's like, it doesn't work that way.
I mean, I get the argument, but you can't just do that, right?
So let me see, they go on to mention the outbreak of the coronavirus.
With Iran's people uniquely impacted by COVID, Twitter is also a place where officials can communicate the challenges they are facing, as well as be held to account by global audience for their actions.
You know what?
That's fine.
I don't think I need to read the rest of the message because I think it's clear.
She's basically just saying, I understand their sanctions, but because we think it's important, we're not going to comply.
Well, this is going to be really interesting, man.
I understand Twitter is powerful, Twitter is important.
But Twitter's been getting away with so much for so long.
And it's not just Twitter.
It's Facebook, it is YouTube, it's a lot of these platforms.
I'll tell you what, man.
The system of YouTube greatly benefits me.
I quit working for these big mainstream companies.
I don't want to be under the boot of these nasty people.
I want to be my own boss.
I wouldn't have the same opportunities if these systems didn't exist.
But I'll be the first to call them out while using them.
And I'll make it clear for you because some people say, why don't you leave, Tim?
Well, hold on.
YouTube rocks.
It's awesome.
Twitter is awesome.
Facebook is awesome.
The problem is the bad things they do need to be stopped.
Overall, Facebook, Twitter, YouTube are a tremendous net positive for the ability of people to speak and challenge the establishment.
If we don't hold them to account for breaking the rules, it will cease to be this.
So no, we don't want to leave Twitter, Facebook, and YouTube.
We want to make sure they're playing fair to maintain the power that has been granted to the people.
The ability for us to speak and share ideas and not have to go through the CNNs and the MSNBCs or the Fox News.
News is whatever.
The point is, I got to create a YouTube channel, say what I wanted to say, and now you can hear it.
Good.
Let's not lose that.
But when you strip that power away from only one political faction, they'll come back and they'll come a-swingin'.
I hope things work out for the best.
I'll leave it there.
I got one more segment coming up in a few minutes and I will see you all shortly.
Considering that you clicked the title of this video, you already know where we're going and why I have this article pulled up because we're gonna have a good ol' larf.
Take a look at this.
Can you imagine a group of black men walking around with masks and guns?
Gun rally sparks questions of racism and privilege.
And this is from the newcivilrightsmovement.com.
I saw this going around and I just had to laugh for several reasons.
It's not just this one website.
There are a ton of websites all saying the same thing.
There are a ton of high-profile personality celebrities, Sarah Silverman, for instance, saying, look at these white men with rifles standing on the steps of the state building in Michigan, and nothing happens?
But when you get these peaceful protesters in Minnesota, then the police come out.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
It truly is an excellent argument for the Second Amendment, isn't it?
I've never been a super, super pro-2A, but I'll tell you what, the more I see this stuff, the more I start leaning in that direction.
The more I'm like, you know what?
I think the conservatives were right about this one.
Now, we gotta make sure that responsible people are the ones getting access and things like that.
And there are real, I think, good-faith questions being brought up by many people who are on the left about firearms.
But hold on a second, man.
Can you imagine a group of black men walking out with masks and guns?
Not only are these dudes armed at the Capitol building, these... Look, I'm sorry, you know what?
There's no news here.
I gotta stop.
There's no news.
There's nothing to report, nothing to see here.
Oh, there's a picture!
Oh, it's a picture of a bunch of black men just standing.
It doesn't mean anything.
You know why?
Because these black men are doing everything under their rights.
They are armed with rifles.
They are wearing masks.
I have no complaints.
They look like good dudes.
Much respect to these guys.
They are just basically being people.
So can I imagine a group of armed black men with masks and guns?
I can.
I'm actually looking at a picture of it right now.
I'm tired of this narrative, man, that, you know, these libertarian two-way activist types, these conservatives, Trump supporters, who are defending their rights on the steps of the Capitol building or whatever, did anything wrong.
It's their First and Second Amendment rights.
It's the Constitution.
These guys, I see this.
Yes, absolutely.
I'm glad they're doing it.
100% glad they're doing it.
To stand up for their rights, the same as everybody else.
I mean, I've had criticisms of a lot of the lax gun laws in this country, but you know what?
Your rights are your rights, man.
It was an argument made to me a couple of years ago, and it really kind of shifted me a little to the right on 2A.
Because I used to be like, I think there can be a reasonable approach to controlling things.
And I got a comment straight at me saying, then I think we should have a reasonable control on what you say, Tim.
Because if you want to have controls on 2A, I should have controls on 1A.
And I was like, fair point.
Duly noted.
I agree.
So when I see a bunch of these dudes, you know, standing, marching around armed and stuff, I say, hey man, they're not breaking any laws.
You got nothing to worry about.
Things could get bad.
These things happen.
But I'll tell you what, strangely, when these guys showed up in Michigan armed, nothing happened.
When all these people showed up in Virginia, Nothing happened.
In fact, they won!
The protesters won in Virginia.
It was truly spectacular.
Now, to go back to this original article, and I want to read this other article for you.
I want to laugh, too, because this article was talking about, I believe, the Virginia gun rally.
Richmond, Virginia?
The Black Panthers were there.
In support.
Because the Black Panthers used to march with weapons, too.
Legal.
Here's what I see when I see this story.
I saw somebody post this earlier, and I was like, whoa, that's really cool that they're doing that, you know?
Like, you have your rights, good for you.
And then I stopped and I thought, it's not news.
Why is it news that Americans are just doing normal American things?
Why would it be news that these men, who are wearing masks and armed, how's that news?
Everything they're doing is legal.
It shouldn't be.
To see an American exercising their god-given rights should not be news to anybody.
But it is.
Because of the political pandering, the racism, and the tribalism.
Check out this story.
This story is from yesterday, and these people were protesting the killing of George Floyd.
Good on them, man.
These dudes rock.
After a series of events where mostly white protesters carried guns at the Michigan Capitol and drew national attention, a group of armed black demonstrators hoped Thursday to send their own message.
I want to present myself as an adult black man, fully armed, and not a danger.
Said Stephen Alexander, 46, of Lansing, who carried a pistol outside the Capitol building during the event.
If you are not a danger to me, I am not dangerous.
It's as simple as that.
Bravo, good sir.
Much respect.
That's a great statement.
Organized by the group Legally Armed in Detroit, the Thursday event drew about 50 people to Lansing in protest of brutality, including the shooting of Ahmaud Arbery in Georgia in February and George Floyd's death while in police custody in Minnesota on Memorial Day.
Among those in the crowd Thursday were many individuals who were openly carrying firearms.
Rick Ector, 52, of Detroit, who helped organize the event, said the nation is still dealing with the issue of hate.
Ector said he hoped to bring together black and other minority individuals who share concerns about violence, especially racial violence.
If you look at what's happening, you might want to take a more active role in your personal protection, said Ector, a firearms instructor.
Here, here, good sir.
I was in Texas.
The Trump rally.
A bunch of dudes were walking around, they had armor on, and they had guns.
And then it was a bunch of white dudes.
And a black dude walks up, and he had a shirt on that said, Black Guns Matter.
And they walked up, shook hands, and they were hanging out.
I was like, you know, a lot of people try to play this race-baiting game and this anti, you know, firearms game, and here I see people that are supposed to be these evil white bigots with guns, and they were laughing and enjoying themselves, and they're talking about their culture, the things they like, the things they enjoy.
Like, you know, look, I'm a skateboarder.
I'm not a gun person.
If I saw somebody of any race, even somebody who didn't speak English, I could still talk to them using skateboard terminology and language.
And if I saw somebody of a different race with a skateboard, I'd be like, oh, man, you're rocking the Fanner Antihero 8.5, right?
Dude, that is epic.
I use that board.
I like them a little bit longer.
I'm using a Tony Trujillo 32.5 by 8.5.
Made it a little bit longer.
I like it better for skating ramps.
That's it.
You're laughing.
And he's going to say, no, no, that's too wide, man.
You can't go too wide.
That's the jargon.
And that's the mutual respect.
And we're communicating because we have something in common we enjoy.
Here at this rally, I'm like, I understand exactly that feeling.
I have met with people and seen their boards and talked skateboarding, and they're talking what they enjoy, their hobbies and stuff.
I'm like, cool.
So why do we got to have all this fake animosity on social media?
I can't understand for the life of me why people like Sarah Silverman, why these leftists want to keep showing these right-wing dudes with their guns in the state.
and attack them as though they did something wrong. I'm like, look man, a bunch of dudes
with Gadsden flags and Trump flags with guns, they're doing everything legal. They're minding
their own business. If you don't want to be there, then you can leave, but they're allowed to do it.
And so are these men all the same. And that's what they keep trying to claim.
And there's the big point.
Sarah Silverman saying, look at these peaceful protesters.
Nah, I'm sorry, man.
You got a riot on your hands.
And I blame the cops in Minnesota for a lot of what's happening.
For sure, they arrested a CNN reporter.
I'm not down with that.
It's a violation of 1A, let alone when they violate 2A in New York City by stopping and frisking people who they suspect of having weapons.
But I'm looking right now and I'm saying if you want to do a real one-for-one, if you want to do a real comparison, take a look at these dudes.
Nobody gave them any of the business.
They got to do their thing.
I think that's great.
Maybe if there were people like this, legally armed in Detroit, these men, firearms instructors, responsible gun owners, Exercising their God-given rights in this country.
Maybe if they were around and marching with these protests, things would have been more orderly.
The police would have been more careful.
Maybe things would have been better.
It's possible things would have been worse.
You got a riot situation.
You don't want people throwing bricks and stuff.
Maybe they don't know there were apparently people armed there.
I'm not a psychic.
I think there's a potential Potterkegg moment if you do have armed people, for sure.
But I'll tell you what, man, I've been to a lot of protests and riots, and I've seen when people show up and they're armed and they're walking, things remain calm.
And someone told me it's because nobody wants anything to go crazy, so everyone is extra careful.
They're thinking, like, we're actually playing for keeps.
You know, when you see people go out with water bottles and rocks and the cops using rubber bullets, they think it's not that bad.
But when you see real weapons, that's when people realize you're playing for keeps.
And we had this riot the other day.
Guy tried to loot a pawn shop.
Lost his life.
It's not a game.
This could end you.
You know what I mean?
Now I want to show you one tweet.
It's going to get me a little bit in trouble, so maybe I'll try to make sure the video doesn't play here.
Ryan Saavedra tweeted, remember all those right-wing people that showed up to their state's capitals with firearms and how everyone in the media and the Democratic Party were, I'll just say upset about it.
I'm paraphrasing because he said a different word.
They never acted this.
And it's a video from, I don't know who it's from, but Ian Miles Chong posted it.
And it's a bunch of unarmed people smashing windows and just generally destroying and vandalizing the Ohio, I believe it's Ohio, Columbus, Ohio State House building.
Let me tell you something.
These men right here, who are doing everything right, and have their legal right to do so?
So if the police come and arrest you because you're smashing things and you're violent and you're destroying property, Why would you be shocked if you're a legal gun owner doing everything within your rights?
Why would anybody do anything to you?
So listen, man.
There have been videos I've seen where there's one video that went really viral.
It's a black man with a rifle and he's just walking down the street.
Squad cars and SUVs swarm him.
They yell and they point guns at him.
Get on the ground!
Get on the ground!
They come and disarm him.
I'm not happy about that.
That's what we gotta protest.
That's what we're mad about.
That's violating this guy's rights.
Because there was another video that came out around the same time, where two white guys are doing the same thing, and the cop walks up, and he's like, you know, they're yelling at him, he's like, I just want to check your weapon, make sure it's not full auto, you're good, you're good.
And so, you can't really compare these two situations, because who knows what the context was, different jurisdictions, but you should be allowed to exercise your rights.
As much as I might have an issue with, like, I'm not a big fan of people walking around all the time, like, I would just choose to go the other direction.
I see somebody with a bunch of weapons, I'm gonna choose to go the other way.
So, I think accidents happen, and I don't want to be necessarily involved.
But I'll tell you what, though.
To be honest, I see people like this.
These guys, firearms instructors, I'd actually rather be closer to these guys than, you know, than in some kind of a disaster or whatever, because these guys are trained and know what they're doing.
So you see videos like this and you can certainly see there are racial issues involved.
I think it's fair to point out.
But it's not fair to claim a riot and legal gun owners doing their thing is comparable.
Because here we can see these men doing something cool.
And what's wrong with that?
All right?
You know what?
If I took issue, I wouldn't be there.
I just wouldn't go.
It's that simple for everybody, right?
I'll leave it there.
Thanks for hanging out, everybody.
I will see you in the next segment tomorrow at 10 a.m., unless you go to the podcast tonight at 8 p.m.
at TimCast.com's... I'm sorry, YouTube.com slash TimCastIRL.