Cenk welcome to the the young turks. Oscar fume nated director detained at l. A. X. Airport. This is his movie. Cenk hes here in our studio. And the injustice of mandatory minimum. Serving 12 years in jail. His brother served almost 14. The repairman was sentenced to 18 months. Cenk repairman was the drug kingpin actually. Tonight on the young turks we fight for justice. And on a lighter note, bababoy. I didnt think i was. But it looks like i am. You were. Oh, man. When you see this video on tv. Cenk baba booey. On the show tonight. On the young turks. Guess what time it is. Go time. [ theme music ] cenk emad burnat was heading to los angeles because he was nominated for an oscar. What happened to him at the airport . They detain him. Apparently the fact the youre a palestinian is more important than youre an oscarnominated director. Urgent im in l. A. They need more information why i come here invitation or something can you help they will send us back if you late. It was sent quickly to try to get help. And in fact, after an hour he was finally released. Now were going to talk to him in a second about that, but i want to give a sense of his movie, five broken cameras an amazing account of what happens in the palestinian territories. [ music ] cenk all right, now emad burnat joins us in the studio. The first palestinian nomination for five broken cameras. Welcome. Thank you. Cenk first tell us what happened in the airport. You came with your family. Yes i came with my family this time. I came to the United States this time six times. But this time i came with my family. They asked me for more information, more documents to prove why i came to the United States. I told them that i am an oscar nominee and i am invite to the oscars. Just to get this to give an palestinian on oscar. I was trying to show memory emails and documents and on my mobile. But they didnt Pay Attention to what i was saying. Cenk thats interesting. Why stop you in the first place. You have a visa to come here right . Did they give a reason to why they stopped you . I had a visa for a long time. I had the invitation, and they asked me for more invitation for the oscar or more documents. The officer told me if you dont come up with these documents we will send you back. Cenk now, we reached out to customs and asked them about this. I want to read you their statement. They said, Law Enforcement services tells tmz burnat was embellishing the story and that he was only sent to a secondary screening area simply to answer questions and was only detained for 25 minutes total. Whats your response to that . The situation was very serious. When this lady told me when you dont come with this document we will send you back. So i was very worried about my family. My son asked me whats going on here . I told them that they will send us back. He was very angry. I start sending message or emails to get help. So i was stopped since i got to the airport until the end of this process its about one hour and a half. Cenk how is your son by the way. My son is very excited. Cenk how old is he . Eight years old. Cenk thats sweet. Its got to go an interesting situation because you cant be all together that happy with u. S. Policies towards palestinian considering the wall that youre against etc. And here you are in the United States you may get an oscar. I would be excited. How do you reconcile these two things. Yes im very excited. My son is very excited to come to the United States, and to come to be in this historic day. What happens to me in the los angeles airport reminds me where i live and where i come from because i get this in my country from israeli army, Israeli Occupation every day. We are under many pressures in our homes. So you know, i know this treatment. Its like a reminder, this reminds me of what happens to me in my home. Cenk so tell me why the movie is called five broken cameras and what you were covering . Five broken cameras is a film about my experience, my point of view, its about me. My story the peaceful existence in the village about my friends and the daily life in the village. Its a long period of shooting, about seven years. I was following the events of the village and following my life, my family growing up under this conditions. I was following my friends and how the situation affected us, affected me and my family, and my friends. I wanted to tell the story from my personal perspective. Its about whats going on in my country, in my village, about daily life. Cenk so i just put two to two together. This is the son that you originally bought the come are a for his birth, to document his life. Now hes the one who is joining you here at the oscars, right . Yes i bought the camera to film him and the village and after search years you see him hes eight years now and hes the first palestinian kids ever to be involved with an oscar. Its a very historic day. Cenk its been seven years that youve been documenting this. I think a lot of people dont know what is going on in your village, and they dont know what youre resisting and how youre resisting it. Can you tell us about that . Yes the people in the village decided to take nonviolence resistence to the israeli war. Others have been doing it the same way nonviolence. Because the media focus on violence this is nonviolence resistence. What has made this film, because i live there and i live the reality. I made this film about the truth. This gives the people outside the western people to know more about the reality and about our life about the palestinians. Cenk for people who havent seen the movie why they might be asking why are you guys protesting the war. Maybe you separate the israelis and the palestinians, thats not such a bad idea. So whats wrong with the wall . Whats wrong with the wall . The wall was built in the middle of our village, in the middle of our land. 55 of our land is given to the israeli side. Cenk if you have property on the other side what happens to it . If they want to build like a security wall, they could build it on the border. Cenk so the people who had property on the other side of the wall, thats now the israelis, theyre putting it on their side of the wall, what happens to the property. The people who live on the other side of the wall, they live in different conditions, and they live in different situation, they have everybody and they have access to our land and our home, but we dont have access to their side. And we live under many pressures and army pressures and the occupation pressures. So all parts of our life connected to the occupation. Cenk its fascinating. I dont agree with the occupation of palestinian territories. Now, you know, its a complicate complicated issue, and both sides have a long list of why it has to be that way and why it shouldnt be that way etc. But what i have been calling for for as long as i can remember is peaceful resistence. Thats exactly what you guys are doing in your village. What has been the reaction world reaction to that . Has it been positive. It has been very good and very strong. My village became like a symbol for international community. People come to participate and give support to the village and participate in the action and demonstration against the war. Its beensince the filming and people react very strong and very good and they feel that they are moved and touched by seeing the story in the film. Cenk thats why the movie is important. Its one thing when you know about it. Its another thing when you see it. When you see it you can connect to it, and you can connect with your son your brother etc. How about the u. S. Reaction. Has this been any effort by the u. S. Government to help not building the wall in the middle of your village . It was built for a long time. They started in 2005. My village started the struggle and resisting in 2005. The only change is that we got part of the land. But the wall is still on our village land. And occupation is still on our land. Its not just my village but its different towns and different villages in the west bank. You see it going inside the towns. Cenk i think when people find out the details they get a better sense of the injustice happening there. Thank you for sharing that story with us. We really appreciate you coming on the young turks. Thank you, thank you very much. Cenk thank you. When we come back weve got the issue of the cabinet appointments of president obama. Are they a little too cooperate corporate and well discuss this one from walmart. He helped us to oversee one one of our largest banks. Most of our most successful and environmentally conscious companies. Commercials . Those types are coming on to me all the time now. vo she gets the comedians laughing and the thinkers thinking. Ok, so theres wiggle room in the ten commandments, thats what youre saying. You would rather deal with ahmadinejad than me. Absolutely. And so would mitt romney. vo shes joy behar. And the best part is that current will let me say anything. What the hell were they thinking . Current tv is the place for true stories. With Award Winning documentaries that take you inside the headlines. Real, gripping, current. Documentaries. On current tv. Cenk were back on the young turks. Im going to show a bunch of president obamas nominees and see if you can find a pattern here. Today im proud to announce the appointment of an experienced public servant, a devoted patriot, my friend, fellow chicagoan bill daly to serve as my chief of staff. I cannot think of a better person to continue tims work at treasury jack lew. And im extraordinarily proud to nominate another strong capable leader to take the reins of interior that is ms. Sally jo. And another corporate executive. Today president obama goes to yet another corporate executive. It appears the nation is reporting that he will be picking Sylvia Matthew burwell who is going to be his director of office of management and budget an enormously important position that handles many of the Financial Issues in the administration. Now where has she been in the past . Well she was white house chief of staff back in 1990s. She was president of the Global Development program for the bill and Melinda Gates foundation, but recently president of the Walmart Foundation. Thats interesting. Lets take a look at what walmart has been up to. She has didnt run walmart. She ran the foundation. Understand that. Walmart hasser had 15. 7 billion in profits recently, and they only pay 8. 84 on average per hour in wages. A lot of profits for not paying a lot to your employees. All right, thats fine, but where does some of their money go . Well lobbying. Of course 27,520,000 in lobbying. Thats a tremendous amount of money to spend on lobbying for good reason. This is something that seems positive. They spend a lot of money on charity, and thats part of what burwell run. 175 million goes to charities municipalities churches, and different groups. And they give a decent amount to minorities groups. Organization of Chinese Americans received 164,000. League of united latin merge citizens received 813,000. And urban league, thats a pretty good thing. But theres a good chance they might want Something Back for that money. Lets bring in the contributor to the nation and who wrote about this recently. Before we go on to burwell josh, tell me what burwell might want back for some of their charitable. Contributions. This memo said that walmart needs to approve any media youre putting out about this. It says you should nominate the Walmart Foundation for awards. It says consider putting our logo on your website. It even says if you take our money, consider putting our logo on your employees uniform as a way to getting the walmart brand out this. Theyre giving money in a manner that is designed to advance walmarts interest. As has been made clear from transcripts from meetings, what walmart wants is to build more walmarts and neutralize critics who think the walmartization of the nation is a good thing. Cenk for this they want good press. Most people would say, of course the low logo is a bit much. Its charitable and now youve turned it into advertising. But its the last thing you said. Do they do it to try to get into areas that they couldnt get into. They give to all sorts of things. From gay crises. Its given money to mayor bloombergs foundation. His wifes foundation and given money to a couple of organizations we found whose leaders are on a walmart website talking about how good it would be for new york to have more walmarts. Cenk interesting. Michael none of these organizations have said thats the reason. Cenk of course not. I cant remember the last time money affected anyone in america. Exactly. Cenk lets go back to burwell for a second. I red read through the article, but im not sure you got her on anything significant. Did she do anything particularly wrong in her job at walmart . The question is what is the experience that she is bringing if appointed to the cabinet . Burwells experience is running a foundation that uses targeted gives to advance walmarts aims of having more walmarts and maintaining walmarts domination in the economy. Walmart drives a trend of lower wages, worse benefits, less legal accountability for companies, less opportunities for workers to sit across the tables and make demands of management. If you support those trends then there is every reason to support burwell. Cenk is there anybody at walmart that you would not have objected to . If the question is there anything who works full time for walmart advancing the companys agenda belong in the president s cabinet . We should know that his administration has praised walmart from the hiring the veterans but no, the question is should someone who works full time strengthening walmarts hold on the u. S. Economy be a policy make center deciding whether regulations are going to be approved, including those that affect walmart i would say no. Cenk Hillary Clinton was on walmarts board of directors for six years, too. Do you think she should not have been secretary of state . I think there is a whole range of issues that one should consider in terms of clintons record, but i think it was appropriate that her connection and others connections to walmart became an issue in the primary. We saw in 2008 Prominent Democratic Party officials speaking out about walmart. We have not seen in recent months since the strikes that took place on black friday or before very Many Democrats and certainly nobody at the top of the party speaking up about these strikes or speaking up about this challenge to the dominant employer in the United States at the moment. I think the fact that Hillary Clinton served in a role where she helped to improve walmarts image. She helped walmart get over its imagine as a whitemale company is something that she should have been asked to answer for much more. At the time she suggested changes, but she didnt speak up about labor issues in walmart, and something she should have been held much more accountable than she was. Cenk josh, i wish we had more time. Im mixed about what youre saying about walmart. I think its an interesting point to make. There is no one who is even considering that in washington. Thats so far outside of their spectrum, and it seems that the Obama Administration is so intertwined with Corporate America that this is one of many, many examples, and i hope we can talk about that broader phenomena as a later date. Thank you for joining us on the young turks. We appreciate it. Thank you very much. Cenk when we come back the injustice of mandatory minimums. Wait until you hear some of these cases. It makes the blood boil. Well talk about it when we come back. The United States versus jason collins. I believe in the minimum mandatory laws. Please, i just want to help my son. Its go time. They think this world isnt big enough for the both of them. But we assure you it is. Bites. Little greatness. Im not a drug dealer. I swear to you. You believe me right . Of course i believe. You the minimum mandatory laws are very simple. Jason is facing ten years in prison. The United States versus jason collins. I believe in the mandatory minimum laws. Please, i just want to help my son. We need your son to help us make arrests before we can help him reduce his sentence. I wont do it. Cenk now thats the movie snitch. Its about the injustice of mandatory minimum sentences and its taken from a true story. Now the amount of incarceration that we have here is astounding. Let me give you some stats. 1 in 100 adults are incarcerated now. We have 2. 3 million americans in jail as we speech. That incarceration rate is the highest in the world. We must be so proud. Were number one. When it comes to drug offenses, more insanity. 500,000 people are in jail for drug offenses ten times the number it was in 1980. Before the mandatory minimum sentences were imposed and 1. 3 million are in for nonviolent offenses. We have rick, the writer and director of snitch. And on satellite we have julie stewart. Thank you for joining us as well well. My pleasure, thank you. Cenk rick, let me start with you. Talk to me about this movie why you guys made it, and a lot of people at home might be thinking, look if they did the crime, they got to do the time. Its easy to say that until youre a parent. When i first read this story about a father whos son was facing mandatory minimum laws. The father went to the u. S. Attorney and said, what if i go in the drug room and get a bigger bust, and they signed off on this. Cenk did that really happen. I have seen the document where is they signed off on it. Now me as a parent, i have twin fiveyearold boys how far do we go to protect our kids . We would move heaven and earth. This father didnt talk the talk, he walked the walk. For me that was profound. But then when i got further in the story and found out about the mandatory minimums and i was shocked about how little evidence you have to have to be indicted, in fact, sometimes no evidence at all like the garrison brothers i met last night, it just shows you that this isnt one of those movies where its about a guy with a special set of skills and the c. I. A. This is not something happening in some other part of the world. This is in america and it can reach any of us. It doesnt matter what class you come from, what ethnicity youre from what the racial lines are it can reach any of us. Cenk you mentioned the garrison br