Via America’s Lawyer: The DOJ begins its landmark antitrust case against Google. Also, the fiancée of the late Jamal Khashoggi sues Saudi crown prince Mohammed bin Salman for his involvement in Khashoggi’s murder, filing the suit in U.S. district court. Mike Papantonio & Farron Cousins discuss more.
Transcript:
*This transcript was generated by a third-party transcription software company, so please excuse any typos.
Mike Papantonio: The department of justice filed a major antitrust lawsuit against Google last week, but the tech giants hoping that the election could make that lawsuit go away. Farron, this thing with Silicon Valley, let’s talk about it. We think it looks, it looks like we have the chance to actually take these folks and, and stop the monopoly that’s taken place with Google and Amazon and actually accomplish something. But now they’re pumping so much cash into the Democrats. The Democrats who are, who are up front, Nadler, one of the, you know, Nadler, Nadler has been a real, he’s been pushing this constantly that we have to do something about it. All that cash is changing things, isn’t it?
Farron Cousins: It is.
Mike Papantonio: To the Democrats.
Farron Cousins: And Silicone Valley knows that. They’re not, I mean, these are very bright people and they understand how the game is played. I mean, they saw how Microsoft, you know, kind of got their little sweetheart antitrust deal back in 2000, 2001 ish, right at the last days of the Clinton administration. And so what they’re doing is they see a sea change coming most likely next week. So last couple of weeks, they have really pumped up the donations to the Democrats because they’re hoping that if Biden comes into office, obviously we get a new attorney general, you know, a whole new DOJ, to be honest. And they’re hoping that this antitrust lawsuit filed last week by the DOJ, maybe it goes by the wayside. Maybe they get, you know, a little bit a slap on the wrist. Maybe they can’t do one or two things, but they’re still allowed to do 20 bad things. That’s what they want out of this and they’re paying off the right Democrats to make sure that that happens.
Mike Papantonio: Did I read this Truthout article right? In the Truthout article, it’s a great article, by the way, it really nails it and says there’s nothing going to happen because the Democrats are going to back down on doing anything about antitrust. But in this article, it talks about a meeting that Biden had with wall street and the Silicon Valley types and he says, corporate America is not going to be affected by my presidency at all. It’s going to be business as usual, basically is what he said.
Farron Cousins: Yeah.
Mike Papantonio: Business as usual. That’s not what he’s saying publicly, is it?
Farron Cousins: Oh, absolutely not. He’s, he’s telling us he’s going to go, he’s going to take care of us. He’s going to raise their taxes. He’s going to do all these things that, that do need to happen.
Mike Papantonio: Yeah.
Farron Cousins: But as we saw with Obama who promised similar things, none of it ever comes to fruition.
Mike Papantonio: Isn’t that the heart of the story though? The story is bigger than, look, everybody believes that Biden, when he wins that everything’s going to change. There’s going to be a democratic sweep. It’s going to be just like everything, everything’s beautiful now. It’s not beautiful. We still have the same corporate problem that we had the Dems during the Obama administration for those first two years. They didn’t do anything to, to reign in corporate America. Wall street, they did nothing. You remember the promises.
Farron Cousins: Yeah.
Mike Papantonio: They ran on the idea that, hey, when we win, the folks who caused the burn down are going to go to prison. What happened? Nothing. And now we, we, the same thing’s happening here. You know, we expect that, that with a new presidency, it’s going to be a new day. We’re going to gain control over corporate America and, and consumers are going to be in good shape. Give me a quick take on that.
Farron Cousins: When Eric Holder and Obama, you know, Eric Holder gets approved as, as attorney general. And he and Obama basically together announced as a country we want to look forward and not backwards.
Mike Papantonio: Yeah.
Farron Cousins: And that’s why nobody, none of the war criminals from the Bush administration, none of the bankers.
Mike Papantonio: Yeah.
Farron Cousins: None of the polluters, nobody got prosecuted because they wanted to look ahead. Biden will be the same.
Mike Papantonio: You want to hear a real irony. The last president who actually did anything as far as putting these corporate thugs in prison was Ronald Reagan.
Farron Cousins: Yeah.
Mike Papantonio: 800 bankers went to prison or was prosecuted for the S&L crisis. Nothing like that has happened since. I don’t anticipate anything’s going to change with corporate America. They’re still going to abuse the environment. There’s going to still gonna abuse consumers. They’re still gonna abuse, abuse mom and pops pension programs. And we’re not going to see any change. So all these people that are saying, oh my God, it’s going to be a new day. Forget it, man.
Mike Papantonio: The fiancée of Khashoggi has filed a lawsuit against the Saudi Arabian government for his murder. Wow, it’s about time. You know, this, this, this love affair that we have for, for Saudi Arabia is revolting to me. If you look at, you know, look at, obviously 9/11, look at the 1993 world trade center. Look at the September massacre. Look at Madrid, 2000, 2004 with a train bombing. Every one of those cases, there is some sign of Saudi Prince, you know, I’m, I’m talking all the Royals.
Farron Cousins: Yeah.
Mike Papantonio: Their money being involved in these atrocious events. So, so now maybe this is payback. I hope.
Farron Cousins: Right. And the Khashoggi story is very disappointing that people stopped paying attention to this because there have been massive revelations taking place with this over the past two years, since his murder. You know, we have confirmed, there are audio tapes of these people, including a direct aid to Saudi Prince bin Salman on tape, talking about dismembering him. Talking about how to move the body out of the consulate in Istanbul. I mean, I have to read this. This is word for word from one of those recordings. Joints will be separated. It is not a problem. The body is heavy. First time I cut on the ground. If we take plastic bags and cut it into pieces, it will be finished. We will wrap each of them. So they’re talking about wrapping his body parts in plastic so that they can each carry a piece of it out of the consulate instead of having to carry a whole body. We know they did this, we know they approved it. There, there’s no reason that this lawsuit shouldn’t be successful.
Mike Papantonio: What, what these Sau, what the Saudi Royal family is, is a gaggle of billionaire trillionaire, ruthless, psychopaths.
Farron Cousins: Yeah.
Mike Papantonio: I mean, let’s say it. Let’s say what it is, instead of having this love affair with them because they have the oil. The one thing that hopefully, you know, I hate the way we’re getting there with, by God, we’re looking for oil all over every piece of property that the US owns. But at this point, we at least have some independence. As long as we rely on the, they’re psychopaths. I mean, these people are murderous psychopaths, that happened to say, well, gee whiz, if you don’t do business with us, we’re going to, we’re going to change the rules on oil. Right?
Farron Cousins: Right. And Khashoggi was critical of them with his job at the Washington Post, wrote about how bad the Saudi government was. That was his crime. That is why he is dead. The Saudi Royal, Royal family was sick of it. They sent their goon squad over to Istanbul, waited for him in the consulate, chopped him up, killing him.
Mike Papantonio: Okay, let me make a prediction here. You, this is going to take place in the DC courts. They’re so terrified. Those courts are so terrified to do anything that harms Saudi Arabia. You understand, we, we’re handling one of the biggest anti-terrorism cases on the, on the planet right now as we’re suing the banks, for the banks washing money for the terrorists. We’re suing, I, we’re suing Iran. It’s all, but all of that money, as we follow everything ends up with these folks. They’re the ones funding most of this terrorism. But nevertheless, we look the other way and say, gee whiz, it’s business as usual, because we need their oil.
Farron Cousins: The only person that I’ve seen in modern politics call out Saudi Arabia on this was Bernie Sanders.
Mike Papantonio: Yes.
Farron Cousins: He was not shy about making that happen. And unfortunately with him not in a position to do anything with an upcoming administration, I doubt Biden’s gonna pick him.
Mike Papantonio: No, no, no.
Farron Cousins: To be a part of the cabinet.
Mike Papantonio: He’s not, he’s not.
Farron Cousins: We’re going to see more of the coddling, more of the protection, more of the, oh, well, they, they said they killed five people who did it. We’re just going to keep selling them weapons and making money.
Mike Papantonio: Farron Cousins, thank you for joining me. Okay.
Farron Cousins: Thank you.
