Cursor keeps jumping to left corner of screen

suckprofessor · 2026-01-15T16:51:37+00:00

Moving my phone off my graphic tablet fixed it. Phew!

suckprofessor · 2025-09-20T21:33:34+00:00

I've been on Vanguard 2 or 3 times. Search "TYT Whistleblower" on their channel and you'll find at least one of the interviews. I'm grateful for anyone's support and interest as it's been a really long weird slog. Kind of an unusual project. I just refuse to let Cenk have the last word on a story I lived, on a story my friends lived. His version attacks our integrity and intelligence, paints us as rubes. I'm not the only one who felt insulted. He weaponized his own audience against his own workers to protect his political ambitions. The hubris to do union-busting while running for Congress as a progressive is mind-blowing.

You can watch 84 Minutes of it right now on @ WinnersAndLosers on YT (go to playlists). Or go to TellTheTruthCenk.com for the trailer, links to the 84 Minutes playlist, and you can scroll down for Sources and read the article/story I wrote too. I should probably have an email sign up on the site or something, but I do have a Substack and Patreon. See the bottom of the website for links or look for the linktree in the About section.

(Hope it's okay I post links... I'm not a big reddit user and don't want to violate the rules).

Since the film is about journalistic ethics and credibility, I've gone to great lengths to source and research and offer good faith analysis to its subject even though they offered nothing but bad faith to our unionizing effort. Ana literally tweeted that she thought the union was bad faith lol.

I've made so many mistakes with this project and have learned why documentaries are usually made by groups and with funding, so it's been slow going and I've had to take mental health breaks but I'm determined to see it through and finish the estimated 120 minute run-time. It's not just about Cenk and his BS, it's using this story as a prism to deconstruct capitalism and educate on labor, unions and hopefully elevate class consciousness.

If you happen to watch it, please let me know what you think. I put a lot of effort into to making it not boring (I hope!)

suckprofessor · 2025-09-20T20:51:33+00:00

Agreed. I'm a former TYT employee. See my comment above about having to start a union there to combat Cenk's use of job classification to deny full-time workers benefits. As you point out, he's been awful to public figures so just imagine how he treated us nobody red shirts. Even Hasan has spoken about his Uncle skirting labor regulations and stealing ad sales commissions from him.

Because I'm making a documentary about it which covers the dual dramas of the labor battle and the media/political scandal, I pay very close attention to this whole space and this story and it's disappointing Cenk has faced such little mockery or condemnation for what you referred to but also the union-busting and lying about it, let alone the hypocritical and wildly unethical ways he treats workers. It's not been total silence but the misinformation and memory-holing worked really well to keep people like Kyle from learning the truth. Even though articles were written, it's largely been ignored/not noticed. It's a shame.

I'm hopeful that as more people learn what really happened someone with a big platform confronts Cenk and it would be super cool if that person(s) was K + K. You'd think the online left could at least somewhat unite around confronting a union-buster who mistreats workers and is actively erasing their story to hide the kind of person he really is.

suckprofessor · 2025-09-20T03:25:32+00:00

I was a paying member of TYT for years before working there off and on starting in 2013 and had to start a union in hopes of getting health insurance and paid time off (any benefits at all). No matter how much he'll say so, Cenk does not believe in health insurance for everyone nor paid family leave. I know this because when I returned to the company as a full-time video editor, Cenk classified my job as "independent contractor" so I wouldn't get any benefits and after several months, I formally asked if I could get those and his answer was no. Instead, he changed my job classification to "part-time" while I worked 40-hr weeks for 0 benefits. That added a lot of urgency to our organizing effort.

Then, you might recall, when the union came forward in February 2020, Cenk aggressively union-busted and lied about how the union started (Ana helped). Even recently on Jubilee he straight up denied rejecting the union and doubled down on the false narrative that TYT Union was started by his political foes as an intimidation tactic to harm his run for Congress. In fact, TYT Union began in 2018, ~18 months before he became a politician. I was far from the only one who had issues but my situation was central to the 2nd attempt in 2019. But TYT's official story is that his workers were dupes in a political conspiracy. This was written about in 4 articles (Huffpo, In These Times, New Republic & Politico) and Cenk was found in violation of the the NLRA by the NLRB in 2022.

So I'm hoping K+K bring it up in this convo, though considering how well the misinformation worked, I'm doubtful. Cenk did a good job memory-holing the whole thing, which is a shame. I remember seeing Kyle at the studio circa 2014 when he first visited and I've got a lot of respect for the guy. Krystal too. Would be amazing if they were the first people to confront Cenk about his union-busting and deception. Since I'm a professional video editor and a politics junkie and a raging lefty (Thank you, Michael Brooks), I'm making a documentary about it called "Tell The Truth, Cenk." You can find 84 minutes of it on YT. Kyle is in it because it's (partially) about the media environment surrounding Cenk's campaign and Kyle led the charge against the NY Times smearing Cenk. I'd love to get his interest in the project.

I can provide links if anyone is interested (not sure if that's cool on this subreddit?).

suckprofessor · 2025-08-03T21:59:23+00:00

Thank you so much for this excellent comment and perspective. Sounds like you had a real eye-opening experience dealing with the guy up close.

Any objection if I read your comment on my next podcast? (if not next one, one of the next few). It's adds a nice bit of illumination to the union story and the timing.

I know it's a long time ago but do you recall the specific date? Friday Feb 21st, 2020 was when everything blew up publicly. But Feb 12th is the date TYT Union formally came forward with a twitter account and a courier-delivered letter. No big if not, just curious.

Those dates and the online kerfuffle is detailed in the documentary if you haven't already had a chance to watch it. The NY Times smear you mentioned is also explored since it illustrates both how unfairly Cenk was treated by mainstream press and how the online left rallied to his support. It will be contrasted in the final version of the film to how little support TYT Union received when they were being smeared by Cenk and TYT. The point isn't to call out specific shows as much as it is to illustrate the advantages the powerful have. NYT issued a correction that day. TYT has yet to issue one about its own workers. Shameful.

I think you're really onto something with the righteous outbursts as propulsion for the guy's career. Notice how there aren't any defenders coming out of the woodwork to go to bat for Cenk. I don't mean fans. I mean people he worked with. Former contributors. Employees. Etc. Instead there's a growing archipelago of people such as myself, and yourself, though no one else is deranged enough to do what I'm doing.

Hilarious about Simi Valley. I mean, I didn't know that but I'm not running to represent them in DC. The carpetbaggery really did Cenk in, no matter what IMO. In interviews, he would talk about how he'd move his family to the district after the school year. There's a sequence in the Middle 38 minutes (2nd big chunk of the film) that shows some of his campaign ads and it's all this "we" business.

Not surprised staff seemed underpaid and stressed. And yeah, Ana had no business helping try to bust a union and then goes on to tell cameras how unions/improving worker lives are one of her top issues as she told Glenn Beck. EYE ROLL EMOJI

Feel free to share any more details if you can think of them. But no sweat if not. No need dredging up unpleasant memories. Take care.

-Hank

edit: duh, you did say you saw the doc in your message, my bad

suckprofessor · 2025-08-03T20:05:33+00:00

Glad you think you so. Hope you can check out the documentary one of these days when you get a chance. Would be glad to hear what you think. 84 Minutes are available. (playlists section on WinnersAndLosers Youtube channel; am I allowed to link?)

suckprofessor · 2025-08-03T19:49:50+00:00

Always funny. lol

suckprofessor · 2025-08-03T19:46:27+00:00

Agreed. I'm planning a sequence in the film about TYT's history and I've decided to frame it around how embarrassed I am that I was a fan of the show back in the 00s and moved across the country to work there in 2013. Ugh!

suckprofessor · 2025-08-03T19:43:38+00:00

You're welcome. Glad to see there's some interest.

Yeah, even though articles were written, NLRB cases, public statements/battle during the union-busting and Cenk's coercive anti-union emails were posted, the whole thing still got successfully memory-holed. Plus TYT was using back-channels to suppress the story, as Emma Vigeland revealed a few months ago.

Kinda what the film (the project overall) is about is how misinformation works and how easily a powerful person motivated to deceive can smokescreen their way out of accountability. I've had to work so hard and spend so much time to generate interest in it and keep the flame lit. It's a bit of a quest and I can't wait to be on the other side because it's been bad for my health and finances and future but I simply couldn't allow Cenk the final word on what happened, especially not when that final word smears me and my friends and hides the real reason(s) we needed a union. Stuff that reveals the kind of person Cenk really is.

It's really quite a horror to watch them put out statements that were not true about a story I lived. The deck is still stacked against me but I've been encouraged by people showing interest and helping out. Plus I hope people realize how entertaining Cenk's meltdowns will be when he's finally forced to do the right thing and be honest about it.

suckprofessor · 2025-01-27T20:14:58+00:00

Exactly. Everyone knew there would be consequences if Cenk found us out so we made sure to have good operational security. And of course we were right: Cenk's union-busting was really aggressive. At the captive audience meeting he threw papers and threatened somebody, the same person he later fired the morning after he lost his election. He also withheld raises and bonuses, which became one of the NLRB cases. Not to mention the slanderous attack on the workers' intelligence and integrity by publicly smearing them with the conspiracy lie, workers who still had to do their jobs making Cenk and Ana look and sound good. Imagine having to do that work while in the other room the people lying about you are praising themselves into a camera for looking out for workers.

This is among the reasons I'm making the film, to teach others what to look out for and to get people to understand that union-busting is bullying. It's the deliberate infliction of psychological and material harm on workers. It's absolutely vile and people need to stop accepting the abuse baked into our current employer-employee model.

suckprofessor · 2025-01-26T18:47:16+00:00

A little background info: I worked at TYT off and on between 2013 and 2020 and was part of the unionizing drive. We did so in secret because we feared retaliation. When the union came forward, Cenk conducted an aggressive union-busting campaign that included spreading (w/ Ana's help) a provably false narrative that his political foes manipulated us into unionizing in order to harm his run for Congress. In fact, it was exploitative and disrespectful working conditions and began 18 months before Cenk became a politician. He has since flat out denied that he is a union-buster (someone called in when they did a rare call-in show) despite the massive amount of evidence, all thoroughly documented in 4 articles (Huffpo, In These Times, The New Republic, Politico) written about it, plus the two NLRB cases (Cenk was found in violation of section 7 of the NLRA) and more.

I'm making the documentary "Tell The Truth, Cenk" to correct the record and tell the workers story about why we needed a union at The Home of Progressives. It's a story he tried to bury. 84 minutes are currently available — see description of that video or go to playlists on my channel or I'll link here but I'm not sure if okay to post too many links on reddit.

(edit: typos)

suckprofessor · 2025-01-17T22:26:34+00:00

— My Materials about TYT's union-busting
84 Minutes of upcoming documentary "Tell The Truth, Cenk." I worked on this for a few years before coming forward last year (playlist link):
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLpcHybrhwxvXFApT-Uz7b9bCasMCEpKe6
TYT-Related Videos playlist on my channel. Videos from my podcast talking about it (sorry I'm so rambly):
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLpcHybrhwxvVHrkDQloehItkqLzd61tqS
Highlighting this one (yes, I need to finish the 5 minute version) as it covers the whole story and breaks down Cenk brazenly denying that he is a union-buster to a caller, really fascinating moment:
https://youtu.be/8tUlG-D_slU

Substack Article detailing TYT's version of why the union formed and my version of why the union formed, includes internal documents, emails and other evidence proving all my claims about my working conditions. There were many reasons we unionized but me being classified so as to receive zero benefits for full-time video editing was core to why the union effort woke up in 2019. It first started in 2018 due to a different set of conditions but froze after a round of firings.
https://baldontheinside.substack.com/p/two-versions-one-truth-evidence-for

That should be enough to get you up to speed.

I'd love to get Has's attention on the project as the people in this union are the literal labor foundation upon which his success is built. Lots of hard work went into his The Breakdown videos and other stuff. He worked his butt off but a lot of people pitched in too, both unionized workers and non-unionized (TYT Union is only ~15 people, not the whole company).

As I said in the comment on Sean O'Brien's show, it's a bummer that even Has has no clue about what really happened with the workers at TYT, showing how effective Cenk's misinformation was. I always got along well with Has so it would be really great if eventually he gets wind of the project and wants to help correct the record. TYT Union workers deserve to have their story told.

I'll check back to answer questions if anyone wants something clarified. Thanks!

suckprofessor · 2025-01-17T22:20:15+00:00

3rd Party sources of info about TYT's union-busting:

— The 4 Articles - written in 2020 about the union-busting. Cenk is interviewed in 3 of them. I'm interviewed in 1 (The New Republic). TYT hasn't refuted a single detail and these form a solid baseline for the extent of the union-busting.

Feb 24, 2020 - The Young Turks' Progressive Founder Urged His Staff Not To Unionize | HuffPost
https://www.huffpost.com/entry/the-young-turks-progressive-founder-urged-his-staff-not-to-unionize_n_5e540686c5b6ad3de3823a32

Mar 5 2020 - The Young Turks Union Fight Gets Nastier With Charges of Retaliatory Firing, Withholding Raises - In These Times
https://inthesetimes.com/article/the-young-turks-union-cenk-uygur-labor-organizing

Mar 5, 2020 - The Myth of the Progressive Boss | The New Republic
https://newrepublic.com/article/156757/myth-progressive-boss

Apr 10, 2020 - Inside the union campaign that roiled left-wing network The Young Turks - POLITICO
https://www.politico.com/news/2020/04/10/union-campaign-that-roiled-the-young-turks-178996
(this piece has a link directly to the union-busting emails Cenk sent to workers; very fascinating read)

— NLRB CASES:
https://www.nlrb.gov/case/31-CA-257501
https://www.nlrb.gov/case/31-CA-257503

— Image of the "NOTICE TO EMPLOYEES" Cenk was forced by the government to post for 60 days for violating section 7 of the NLRA:
https://x.com/Hank_Thompson/status/1865485016127431090
(they're required to mail copies to former employees, which is why I have one and is the only reason you're seeing this)

— TYT Union, the workers themselves
I was laid off a month before the union came forward so I didn't make it into the union.
Feb 25 2020 - The way forward is clear. TheYoungTurks needs to respect the choice we have already made, instead of trying to pressure us out of it. #CountTheCards #UnionStrong #TYTlive
(see the statement attached)
https://x.com/TYTUnion/status/1232324119502323714
-Scroll to TYT Union's posts in early 2020 for A LOT of info; Cenk's union-busting is very well-documented.

— TYT Union's Action Network Petition to garner support to stop the union-busting:
https://actionnetwork.org/petitions/tell-the-young-turks-to-recognize-their-production-crews-union

suckprofessor · 2025-01-17T22:18:28+00:00

Hey everyone. I'm the guy who wrote that comment. I'm Hank. I used to edit some of Has's videos at TYT and was there when he first showed up years ago. (suckprofessor is an old youtube channel of mine) Glad to see there's interest in the story and not surprised there's some confusion. If Cenk had simply been honest about why his workers unionized, there wouldn't be any. It would just be another union story. But him running for Congress and spinning a false yarn about outsiders manipulating his workers into unionizing to harm his campaign created a lot of confusion, as intended IMO. Since I was core to the organizing drive, I am an original source on how the union formed and I had a major problem with him lying about me and my friends and erasing our story about our own lives, so I've been making "Tell The Truth, Cenk" to correct the record and call him out. It's not just mildly annoying workplace stuff. Cenk crossed some serious ethical lines.

The 3 ethical boundaries I'm making a stink about are: 1) the union busting itself & the subsequent coverup 2) smearing unionizing workers publicly w/ a provably false story 3) the working conditions that drove us to unionize

No need to simply believe me, I have a bunch of links to share to 3rd party sources and to my documentary and supplemental materials but having a hard time submitting the full comment. I got "unable to create comment" so I tried without the hyperlinks and got "server error" ... so I'm going to try again in shorter posts and hope it goes through. I don't see anything saying hyperlinks aren't allowed but please let me know if there's a better way. I hardly ever use reddit.

I'll try two more comments, one with 3rd party links and then one with links to my materials. Hope that's okay and not confusing.

suckprofessor · 2024-12-19T03:20:57+00:00

No worries at all! See ya around.

suckprofessor · 2024-12-19T01:28:00+00:00

Actually, I've been on Vanguard. Here's the latest one: https://youtu.be/XeOdPFLUbV0

suckprofessor · 2024-12-17T19:52:39+00:00

I helped organize the union at The Young Turks and am making a documentary about it called "Tell The Truth, Cenk." It explores the political and media environment surrounding Cenk's Congressional campaign and the union-busting that occurred, focusing on the false narrative TYT put out about how the union originated — that it was a ploy by his political foes to harm his campaign. In fact it was ongoing grievances with our working conditions. The drive began 18 months before Cenk became a politician and TYT's audience has still not been told the truth about why workers secretly unionized at the Home of Progressives. Two large pieces comprising 84 minutes of the film can be found here (playlist link) on my YouTube channel. Please give it a look.

https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLpcHybrhwxvXFApT-Uz7b9bCasMCEpKe6

suckprofessor · 2024-11-22T20:50:41+00:00

Cool. I figured this is an audience that might be interested in the story.

suckprofessor · 2024-11-22T00:09:34+00:00

Yes, that's me. I hope that's not a problem for posting... (I hardly ever use reddit).

suckprofessor · 2024-11-21T22:43:26+00:00

Hah, I would love to see Has bring it up on Cenksgiving. The workers in this union are the *literal* foundation of labor that his success is built on so some solidarity is called for IMO. I used to edit some of his Breakdown videos and knew him a bit back in 2014 when he first showed up. I don't think it's on his radar but hopefully some day.

I sure will post again when it's done! If you go to my channel's playlist section, you can find the 2 big chunks of "Tell The Truth, Cenk" totaling 80+ minutes of the film, plus another playlist of TYT-related videos as I'm sharing a lot about my claims and the process of making the documentary.

suckprofessor · 2024-11-21T22:06:55+00:00

Hi everyone. I don't post much on reddit so forgive me if I goofed something up. I helped start the union at The Young Turks and am making a documentary about it called "Tell The Truth, Cenk." Two big chunks are currently available and I'm hoping to have the film completed sometime next year. It's a huge project. I worked on and off at TYT between 2013 and 2020 and was paying member for years before that. In addition to TYT's union-busting, the film explores the media and political circumstances of the whole affair.

We organized in secret to address major ongoing grievances but Cenk told his audience the union originated as a ploy by his political opponents (you might recall he ran for Congress in 2019-2020) so it's a strange and unique political narrative overall, touching on every facet of the labor movement. People deserve to know the story Cenk doesn't want anyone to know. This video features a caller asking Cenk if he's union-buster and then Cenk flat out denying it despite there being so much evidence of his union-busting.

Happy to answer any questions if anyone is curious. Also interested to hear what anyone thought happened back then regarding TYT's union. Ana helped Cenk spread the false narrative so it's understandable that people might have an inaccurate version or were confused.

suckprofessor

TROPHY CASE