America’s Lawyer E04: Starbucks is working overtime to stop unions from forming at their stores, and a new report says they’ve broken the law 200 times with their union-busting efforts. We’ll bring you the details. An oligarch close to Putin says that the threat of him using nuclear weapons should be taken very seriously – we’ll bring you the latest details on the ongoing conflict. And both Biden and Trump’s people want a rematch in 2024 – but the public wants ANYONE but those two to be the candidates. All that, and more is coming up, so don’t go anywhere – America’s Lawyer starts right now.
Transcript:
*This transcript was generated by a third-party transcription software company, so please excuse any typos.
Mike Papantonio: Hi, I’m Mike Papantonio and this is America’s Lawyer. Starbucks is working over time to stop unions from forming at their stores and a new report says they’ve broken the law 200 times when their union busting efforts took place. We’ll bring you the details. An oligarch close to Putin has said the threat of him using nuclear weapons should be taken very seriously. We’ll bring you the latest details on that ongoing story. And both Biden and Trump’s people want a rematch in 2024, but the public, not so much. All that and more coming up. So don’t go anywhere. America’s Lawyer starts right now.
Mike Papantonio: Starbucks is fighting unionization efforts at their stores and the company appears to be willing to break the law to get there. Ring of Fire’s Farron Cousins joins me now talk about this in many other issues. And the guy I say is honestly the best voice in progressive media. I really do mean that.
Farron Cousins: Thank you.
Mike Papantonio: Everybody, I say it a lot, people I wanna make the point. You, you’re really good at what you do.
Farron Cousins: Well, thank you.
Mike Papantonio: And, and so I appreciate that. I, it’s, it’s a pleasure talking to you. I want to ask you about this. As I looked about it, as I looked at this story, the most incredible thing that I found is that they’ve been down this road before. We’ve seen big corporations get spanked for doing exactly what Amazon is doing. I mean, yeah, well I say Amazon.
Farron Cousins: Well, yeah.
Mike Papantonio: Amazon’s doing it. Starbucks is doing it. But I looked at this it’s, it’s their video, the, the things they can’t do. The employees can’t take videos of their shop. They can’t take photos. We’re gonna threaten their benefits. We’re gonna threaten their pay raise. We’re going to, we’re going to have surveillance. We’re gonna watch ’em with cameras and then we’re gonna terminate ’em to set an example. All this is Starbucks, it’s Amazon all over, isn’t it?
Farron Cousins: Right. I mean that, that actually we have done plenty of segments where Amazon was the carbon copy. They did everything you’re mentioning here. And now of course, Starbucks says, well, hey, Amazon had some success with it. Let’s try it ourselves. And so the National Labor Relations Board has hit them with this massive lawsuit, alleging at least that we know of 200 instances of breaking federal labor laws. And a lot of it, of course, does have to do with the retaliation against these employees. You know, firing anybody who says, hey, what if we started a union? Starbucks immediately steps in and says, hey, what if you didn’t have a job here anymore?
Mike Papantonio: Yeah, exactly.
Farron Cousins: And, and even worse, last week it was revealed that Howard Schultz, the guy that runs Starbucks said on a call, hey, we’re gonna give everybody raises except the unionized workforce. We’re not giving them any new benefits, but I’m gonna take such good care of all my other non-union employees, which of course that tactic illegal. And that is seen as a, a form of union busting by, by not giving the benefits to everybody.
Mike Papantonio: Okay. So he, you know, his big talking point when he put all this together, the whole Starbucks picture is we’re partners. A, we’re partners and oh, by the way, we’re one of the most progressive companies in the market. Really? Progressive company. So, so progressive has a whole new meaning if I look at what this guy did and I look what, what Bezos is doing with Amazon and so many of these tech companies. I mean it, the tech companies plus this, it, it’s the same, it’s the same foundation every time we see it. Look, people need to look if, if you’re watching this and you’re, you’re, you’re wondering what rights do I have? The section seven of the, the NLRA tells you everything that you can and can’t do. And I think it’s really important that people understand this kind of thing has digressed to where you have Starbucks saying you can’t even wear a pin on your, on your shirt that talks about union. That says, I’m a member of a union or I want to, or please start a union. You can’t wear a pin like that.
Farron Cousins: Well, no, you can’t. But of course you can wear your, you can wear your black lives matter pins. You can wear your, your rainbow pins because we’re progressive.
Mike Papantonio: Yeah.
Farron Cousins: And we care about only social issues on the surface. And that’s how they get away with this crap too, pretending to be progressive companies. They say, well, look, look we’re, we’re letting you wear these buttons. We support the LGBT community.
Mike Papantonio: Yeah.
Farron Cousins: No, you don’t. What you’re doing is you’re union busting, you’re corporate, you know, psychopaths.
Mike Papantonio: Yeah.
Farron Cousins: And that’s all you care about is your bottom line.
Mike Papantonio: Bring your computer in, drink a latte and you’re gonna be among friends.
Farron Cousins: Yeah.
Mike Papantonio: All, everybody in here is your partner. It’s just the biggest it’s, it’s just the biggest bunk I’ve, that we, we see this so often now though, Farron.
Farron Cousins: We do.
Mike Papantonio: It’s, it’s like, it, it comes from progressive organizations. It comes from people who really do wear that mantle, we’re progressive for the very reasons that you point out. Yeah, we’re good on some social issues. But where it comes to you making money. Nah, we’re not so progressive.
Mike Papantonio: MyPillow CEO Mike Lindell is out with a new conspiracy theory claiming that SCOTUS leak was done to hurt his efforts to overturn the election. I couldn’t even get my arms around this story when I read it. I’m, I’m trying to get the connection. Yeah. This, the Dinesh D’Souza. Okay. He, he comes out with a movie it’s called 2000 Mules. Right. And it stands for the proposition that there was fraud involved in 2020. He proves, according to his, his thinking that it was all fraud. This guy of course is the biggest supporter. I’m sure he paid for a lot of that. And, and now he’s, give me his talking point, give me his talking point.
Farron Cousins: He says that, oh no, right before, we’re about to premiere this film, the, the Roe decision leaks from the Supreme Court, which was perfectly scheduled, he says, to interrupt the film. So nobody would pay attention to the film. That is exactly why whoever’s sitting there in the SCOTUS who leaked this, regardless of, you know, political affiliation, they only did it to hurt Mike Lindell because everything in his world comes back to, this is about me. Everything is about me in this little pillow land that this lunatic has created here. And, and I’ve been following this guy for so long. Every time he comes out I always like to talk about it because I like to paint him as the face of just this loony fringe.
Mike Papantonio: Yeah.
Farron Cousins: Well, it’s not even a fringe. It’s a majority now.
Mike Papantonio: Yeah.
Farron Cousins: That still thinks this 2020 election was stolen. He has funded audits and recounts and two documentaries now. None of it could prove anything.
Mike Papantonio: Look, I, I ask everybody when they talk to me about the great fraud that took place in 2020, I said, well, show me something. Have you found anything? Because I have been looking. I’ve, I’ve found some, I gotta tell you I’ve some real irregularities. I found some stuff where people were trying to commit fraud. But did it change the election? And that’s, that’s really the bottom line. It was like, it’s the same analysis with Hillary Clinton when she got clobbered by this sociopath Trump, you know, and then she tries to blame it on the Russians. Like it was the Russian’s fault. There’s no, there’s, it’s no showing of that. This is the same kind of thing. I don’t see anything that shows that there was any kind of systemic fraud that took place in that election. If you found it, now’s your time to say it.
Farron Cousins: No. And that’s every time I mention this guy, I always talk about like, if, if he has what he claims he has, he would’ve shown it to people. Everybody has to understand this is probably the king of the grifters.
Mike Papantonio: Mm-hmm.
Farron Cousins: He does this and every time he does it, he always has a new promo code for you to go use on his website to buy his products, which is exactly by the way, what Dominion Voting Systems has said in their lawsuits. Like he knows he’s lying.
Mike Papantonio: Yeah.
Farron Cousins: He’s only doing it to sell more product.
Mike Papantonio: Yeah. Are his pillows any good? I mean, how many, how many videos have you done on this guy?
Farron Cousins: I, I wish I even knew. It’s so many at this point.
Mike Papantonio: It’s, it’s at least a dozen and I got to thinking, well, Farron you’re doing these videos. Have you tried his pillow?
Farron Cousins: I, I actually have. My wife and I did try them out one time. We decided to not go with that. We went with the Bamboo pillows instead.
Mike Papantonio: Yeah, yeah.
Farron Cousins: So for me personally, you know, not a fan of the product either.
Mike Papantonio: If anybody’s watching has tried his pillows and you think they’re great, please comment. I’d like to, I would really want the answer to that.
Mike Papantonio: An oligarch close to Putin says that we shouldn’t underestimate the Russian leader’s desire to use nuclear weapons in the ongoing conflict in Ukraine. You gotta take this seriously. Okay. Because this guy’s putting himself out there. Let, just in the last month there have been seven of these oligarchs murdered, not just them murdered, their entire family’s murdered. And so for him to step out and say, you know what, there’s a problem here.
Farron Cousins: Yeah.
Mike Papantonio: There’s gotta really be a problem. Take it from there if you would.
Farron Cousins: There, there really is. And he says, you know, we have to take this seriously, mainly because this guy’s mental health and possibly his physical health as well, it’s gone. He says it is just shot. And he sees this, this is a guy again, who is very close to him. These oligarchs people have to understand it’s not necessarily like US billionaires that go out there and do, you know, say stupid stuff. These people are basically advisors to the Russian government. These oligarchs control entire industries. They are the right hand men and women of this administration. They know him personally. They meet with him.
Mike Papantonio: Yeah.
Farron Cousins: So for one of them to come out and say these things like one, he has not ruled out using nuclear weapons. Two, his mental health is shot. Three, we think there are serious physical ailments with him. Cancers, possibly Parkinson’s. This guy’s got nothing left to lose and that’s why he’s so dangerous.
Mike Papantonio: Well, we’ll think about, think about this. This is oligarch knew that he was a dead man walking. When he came out and said that, you know, why do it? Well, here’s what I see happening. The oligarchs at this point are understanding that everything they’ve acquired illegally that was given to them by, by Putin to begin with, you know, these are people that came from the KGB. They came from special operations in the Russian government. And when the wall fell, they were handed this. Here you take, you take the heavy metal industry. You take the energy industry. You take the shipping industry. They were given these things. And so when we see, when we see an oligarch coming out and saying, this, what he understands is they’re losing all of that. You’ve got, they’re, they’re taking all this property away. You’ve, you’ve got a ship in Italy, $700 million boat. That was confiscated just last week. You know, they got problems with it. They’re taking their homes, they got homes all over the world. They’re taking their money. They’re targeting with sanctions. And so the, the oligarchs are kind of understanding this guy is not helping us anymore.
Farron Cousins: Yeah.
Mike Papantonio: And if you take a look at his medical history, as you point out the thyroid cancer, the Parkinson’s disease potential. One other thing, the Doomsday plane that was in the parade, did you see that? They, they had a, they had the, the, their big parade, 11,000 troops were in their parade. It was a show of force. That Doomsday plane was in there for a reason, it’s to say, yeah, this is, this is what we’re gonna fly away in as we start a nuclear war.
Farron Cousins: Right. And, and that’s exactly why it is called the Doomsday plane. This is their, you know, last final option if they hit that point, which of course would be devastating. And I think the biggest problem here too, is, is Putin willing to use nukes that close to his own border?
Mike Papantonio: Yeah.
Farron Cousins: Eh, I think they’d be going somewhere else.
Mike Papantonio: Well.
Farron Cousins: That’s the biggest problem.
Mike Papantonio: They do have Chernobyl, you know, they, they lived with it. Look, this guy’s gonna disappear for a while. I think he’s gonna have to have some surgery. He’s gonna have to have medical care. My prediction, he’s not gonna be on the grid and when he moves off the grid, he sure better have somebody in charge that’s gonna keep things like they remain right now.
Mike Papantonio: Bernie Sanders wants to know why corporations that break the law are receiving billions of dollars worth of government contracts. And that’s a really good question. He came out and he said, look, why would we have Amazon, why would we give $10 billion to this, to this union busting freak who tries to make everybody believe that life is good for the workers around Amazon? Why do we give him 10 billion? Because Mr. President, oh by the way, all you have to do is do an executive order and you can stop all that. What’s preventing Biden from doing that? That’s the question that, that Bernie Sanders is raising.
Farron Cousins: And, and I think, honestly, this is a question that is probably decades overdue at this point. Why, not just Amazon, but any company, which is pretty much all of them that we know of that breaks the law, they’re out there doing horrible things like laundering money for terrorists, you know, poisoning the environment, poisoning humanity and we just give ’em all this money because, well, you’re the best there is at what you do. So here’s another $10 billion, Mr. Bezos. Have fun with your Washington Post. Have fun, you know, with your workers, peeing in bottles because you don’t even give them bathroom breaks. Oh, and don’t be afraid to spend a little bit of this on your union busting law firms you hire.
Mike Papantonio: Yeah. Some great articles come out about what the trade off was. Washington Post of course loves everything, no matter how crazy it is, that this administration does. It’s all okay. Washington Post is always there for him. So on the other side, you’ve got Biden who’s taken all that in. Thanks a lot. Appreciate it. But he, all he has to do is sign an executive order and said, we’re not going to give this corporate welfare to people who do union busting. because we care about workers. And if you’ll think about it, that was one of, that was one of Biden’s campaign promises. He came into office, he said, look, I’m gonna stop this, this, this union busting. He was talking about the tech companies, the tech companies are doing all these terrible things to unions. He was talking about Amazon. And that was one of the things he ran on and he’s, he even used the idea I can do an executive order if you put me in, in office. Instead he gives these creep, these creeps around Amazon $10 billion, along with, along with $3 billion worth of subsidies.
Farron Cousins: Right. And, and then of course, you know, the additional $40 billion, whatever for the microchip research.
Mike Papantonio: Yeah.
Farron Cousins: That this billion dollar company allegedly wants to do, the 10 billion of course is just kind of a, a gift in and of itself. That’s not necessarily earmarked for anything. That is just a, a gift on top of the, the rest of the tens of billions to.
Mike Papantonio: Well.
Farron Cousins: Research.
Mike Papantonio: Somebody’s gotta ask, you know, again, you know, we can’t, I refuse to allow you or I to stand up here and, you know, let’s clap for B, for Biden again, when we can see it. I mean, all he has to do is do an executive order. He could stop all this immediately, but he’s getting great, great articles coming out of the Washington Post.
Farron Cousins: But you know it also reminds you, we, what we almost had here, because I guarantee if he was in that White House, we would’ve had that executive order day one.
Mike Papantonio: Oh, oh absolutely.
Mike Papantonio: Billionaires have added a staggering $1.7 trillion to their wealth since the pandemic began, while Americans are being crippled by rising prices. You know, I looked at this story, I love, you know, Truthout they do a great job. I didn’t get the connection here about, okay, yeah, people are making trillions of dollars and it somehow has to do with COVID. The two didn’t, they didn’t fit. I mean, one is yeah, they’re making money for a lot of other reasons. Not really COVID. But you raise an issue in, in one of the, in, in the way you, you analyze this. Talk to me about it.
Farron Cousins: Well, one of the big things that happened at the start of the pandemic obviously is you had a lot of small businesses close their doors. You know, people lock down orders, whatever it is you want to call them, small businesses did have to close down. Most of them thought, okay, two weeks and we’re good. But it became longer than that. And so Americans needing things had to turn to companies that could deliver it to their homes.
Mike Papantonio: Big box companies.
Farron Cousins: Exactly.
Mike Papantonio: And delivery companies.
Farron Cousins: You know, Amazon already had, you know, the market edge on that. Walmart had rolled out their, you know, two day delivery on items just a couple years prior to that. So they were a direct competitor as well. But it became the only people that could stay in business. The only people that could really profit off of this were the big box stores while your local, you know, maybe a little Minimart that you have, that you use a local grocer, they get pushed out of the way. And, and again, the Krogers and the Publix’s as well made bookoo money.
Mike Papantonio: Right.
Farron Cousins: While at the same time, raising their prices.
Mike Papantonio: Farron, what, what are, what is the money? What, how much we talking about increases in the wealth of these folks?
Farron Cousins: Well, we’ve got, you know, overall the 1.7 trillion and the, they did of course here, you know, you’ve got Bezos went from 113 billion to 150 billion. Bill Gates from 98 billion to 130 billion. The Walton family, they saw their wealth grow by 27%.
Mike Papantonio: Yeah.
Farron Cousins: So they’re at 207 billion.
Mike Papantonio: So I, I think you raised a good issue. When I first looked at this and went, ugh, you know, Truthout you’re really trying to force an issue. I think that’s at least part of it.
Farron Cousins: Yeah.
Mike Papantonio: I think it’s, I think it’s a good answer to what’s going on here. It created a, you know, like Bezos, you just described a $40 billion increase. That makes sense when they’re delivering it to the peoples houses.
Farron Cousins: Well, and, and all of this inequality comes at the same time obviously Americans are losing their jobs. They’re being furloughed, laid off, whatever it is, their income goes down, their buying power is still down because of inflation and because of price gouging.
Mike Papantonio: Yeah.
Farron Cousins: While these people are hoarding all of this money. They’re not reinvesting it. Right. They’re not giving people raises. They’re not expanding and saying, well, come work for us.
Mike Papantonio: Yeah.
Farron Cousins: That’s the problem is the wealth inequality.
Mike Papantonio: Well, in other words, the rush, the, the race to the bottom continues even when the bottom was really ugly during the COVID, COVID crisis.
Farron Cousins: Oh yeah.
Mike Papantonio: Trump and Biden wanna fight each other again in the 2024 election, but the public would prefer to see anyone other than these two candidates going at it. You know, I gotta tell you something. I, I looked at this and I said, okay, here, here’s the way, it’s a tired old man fighting dementia verse, versus this sociopath with no moral compass. That does not bring a warm and fuzzy feeling to me when I’m saying those are the two candidates that we’re gonna be talking about. You know, the, they, it’s almost a gag reflex when I think about it.
Farron Cousins: Well, you know, excuse me, I think it was back in 2014 you and I were doing segments because in 2014 it looked like we were gonna have Hillary Clinton versus Jeb Bush. So we had talked about another Clinton verse Bush, everything is just repeating itself. But now this is even worse. America had Trump for four years. They said, my God, at the end of it, we’re sick of this. They’ve had Biden for 15 and a half months and they’re already saying, oh my God, we’re sick of this. So to put these two back up there, which unfortunately looks like that is what’s gonna happen.
Mike Papantonio: I just can’t even.
Farron Cousins: The numbers are astounding though. It’s about 60, 65% of Americans say I would support a third party candidate.
Mike Papantonio: Yes.
Farron Cousins: If these are the two guys that you give me to choose from and, and that’s actually a wonderful opportunity for anybody that’s not, you know, horrible like these guys to jump in and possibly take this election and maybe put us on a different path, a better path.
Mike Papantonio: Oh my God.
Farron Cousins: Breaking the duopoly.
Mike Papantonio: Just take us out of where we are right now. So on the Democratic side, you, it looks like the Democrats are desperate to hold onto what they remember, even though it’s not quite accurate, they remember is the golden Clinton years before he completely lost his moral compass. And, and on the Republicans, they’re so angry. They’re so tired of woke and, you know, what they call snowflake politics and, and they’re just saying we, we would put Rasputin up if we can just get past this. So it’s this, it’s this, they believe, both, both sides believe not to a, a big majority, but certainly a significant majority say that this is a good idea. You know, this is a good idea. Let’s run Biden against Trump. I, I, to me, I don’t, I can’t even get my, I can’t even comprehend that that’s the way people are thinking now.
Farron Cousins: Well, and the Democrats are making the same mistake that Hillary Clinton made in, in 2016 because their camp said, oh, we definitely want to go against Trump. He’s so easy. He’s so beatable. And now Biden’s people are out there telling the media, oh man, we would love for Trump to be the person we go up against. No you wouldn’t. Right now, election held today, Trump’s beaten Biden by I think six points.
Mike Papantonio: Yeah. Six or seven points.
Farron Cousins: And, and Trump’s people know that.
Mike Papantonio: Yeah.
Farron Cousins: And, and that’s the scary part for them.
Mike Papantonio: But, but isn’t it bothersome that they’re willing to say, yeah, we’re gonna let you run again knowing what we just, knowing what we went through and knowing that we’re gonna take advantage of the fact that this is, this is what Biden’s facing, inflation. He’s, he’s facing an economy that is in the tank. A, you know, if you take a look at the GDP, it’s in the tank. Stock market’s in the tank. You’ve got a recession right around the corner that’s gonna time itself right into the midterms. And you’ve got the Dems believing that gender rights or abortion issues or unisex bathrooms are what mothers, you know, voters care about. Biden has lost the, the woman at home taking care of a family. He’s, he’s, he’s lost.
Farron Cousins: Yeah.
Mike Papantonio: He’s lost her because they’re going to the store. There’s nothing. It looks like Moscow, 1965 in some places around this country where the shelves are empty. They go to, there’s not even any, there’s not enough baby formula even to take care of their children. They look at prices that have gone up 40% on just items like bread and milk. And Biden seems to think, well, we can get past all that by talking about the standard woke issues, he’s dead in the water.
Farron Cousins: Right.
Mike Papantonio: And unfortunately, this crazy man Trump could actually beat him.
Farron Cousins: Well, he absolutely could. And unfortunately, the Biden, you know, administration came out recently told the media, our plan is to make the midterms all about Trump.
Mike Papantonio: Yeah.
Farron Cousins: About how bad Trump is.
Mike Papantonio: Is that a good idea?
Farron Cousins: Absolute, look, everybody that’s not, you know, hoarding MAGA gear in their closet, everybody knows how bad Trump was. You don’t have to go out there and say it every day. What they want to know is, listen, I can’t afford groceries. And hey, guess what? When I can afford them, sometimes they’re not there. That, that is a thing that happens. I know liberals, you know, they do get mad when you say that, oh, the shelves are empty. No, we have experienced that.
Mike Papantonio: No, no, it’s true.
Farron Cousins: In our local grocery store.
Mike Papantonio: Of course, there’s.
Farron Cousins: Where there’s no chicken for months.
Mike Papantonio: I don’t know where these, these folks are that say, Pap, this is no problem. You’re making that up. You’re talking like a right wing nut.
Farron Cousins: It is a thing.
Mike Papantonio: I hate to hear that kind of stupidity.
Farron Cousins: Right? It’s a thing that does happen. And the baby formula is obviously a big issue.
Mike Papantonio: How about, how about this? There are still, there’s still 20% of voters who say, yeah, the economy is really good. Where in the hell do they live? I mean, honestly, where are, 55% say Biden is the cause of a failed economy. That’s, that’s the headline right there. 55% say Biden, whether it’s true or not, whether it’s hold over from Trump, it doesn’t make any difference. They hang it around Biden’s neck.
Farron Cousins: Right.
Mike Papantonio: And Biden is incapable of defending himself at this point. If it’s not on a teleprompter, it’s word salad. And that’s what you’d have in debates. You’d have, you would have absolute, it would look like word salad versus this sociopathic babble. That’s what the debate would look like.
Farron Cousins: Right. And look, is Biden the reason the prices are up right now? Personally, I don’t think I, I don’t think he is responsible.
Mike Papantonio: I, I don’t think it is.
Farron Cousins: For this.
Mike Papantonio: I don’t think he is either.
Farron Cousins: Right. He’s not out there saying gas companies, raise the price of gas. That, that’s beyond his control, but he is the president.
Mike Papantonio: Right.
Farron Cousins: And so yes, it does fall at his feet.
Mike Papantonio: Most economists that look at it, it’s much more complicated than Biden. It really is. It, I mean, you’re coming out of, you know, you’re coming out of COVID. You’ve got people that aren’t even back to work yet. You’ve got part of the economy or they’ve stopped working. They’re going home. They’re I don’t need to work anymore. I’ve got something else I’m gonna do. So you got all these, you’ve got all this stuff happening. But 55% of the American public are saying it’s Biden’s fault.
Farron Cousins: Right.
Mike Papantonio: And he, the, the terrible thing about it is he can’t seem to defend himself. He’s putting Kamala Harris out there to defend him. Well you talk about psycho babble? Listen to that woman sometime trying to defend the president. It’s useless.
Mike Papantonio: A Capitol rioter who dressed up as a caveman on January 6th has been sentenced to eight months in jail for his behavior that day. Now, last week we did this story. You found this story, it was a wonderful story about this Capitol rioter, January 6th, who kept a, he kept a log.
Farron Cousins: Yeah.
Mike Papantonio: Today I did this. Today I did that and, you know, right on the grounds and I did all these terrible things. And they used that to prosecute him. This guy is a judge’s son, right?
Farron Cousins: Yep.
Mike Papantonio: Up in Brooklyn. He dresses, I mean, just look at this guy. This, this is what, this is what unfortunately, progressives have to overcome when they do it, but it doesn’t seem to bother the GOP when this is, this is the picture. This is who we’ve become on the GOP side. And so take it from there.
Farron Cousins: Well, I, I, I love the fact that in this, in the decision, in the prosecution’s arguments, they pointed out exactly what I was thinking when I saw this story, this individual was living in a fantasy. And, and I don’t even know if he fully comprehends just how serious what he did was and I think that’s this case with a lot of these Capitol rioters. I mean, look, I got no problem with the convictions at all, but I think some of these people need more than just jail.
Mike Papantonio: Oh, this guy needs.
Farron Cousins: I, I think they need serious help. Like the man, the guy with the big horn helmets,
Mike Papantonio: The Viking.
Farron Cousins: These people thought it was like Renaissance fair in the park or something.
Mike Papantonio: You talking about the Viking.
Farron Cousins: Yeah.
Mike Papantonio: Comes in like a Viking. Okay. So here’s what hurts both parties. This is the extreme that the, that’s published for the Republicans. The same thing is over there with the Democrats. I mean, if you talk about, you know, freakish looking characters, but it doesn’t take many photographs like that to where you say, yeah, that’s what the GOP has become. So, so tell me, where did this land for this guy? Where’s he going?
Farron Cousins: Well, he’s, he’s going to prison for eight months and I, I, I hope they understand that, look, just simply locking these folks away doesn’t do much of anything. And, and even this guy had mentioned to his friends on, on an encrypted app, he said, yeah, listen, look, I did all this, but don’t worry.
Mike Papantonio: I’m okay.
Farron Cousins: My dad’s a judge, so I’m gonna be okay.
Mike Papantonio: Don’t worry. I’m okay.
Farron Cousins: Well, it, it didn’t work out so well for him. But no, I think these people need deep, psychological help and, and, you know, get to the root of why they because everybody always says, well, they got swept up in the moment.
Mike Papantonio: I kind of like the Democrat side of the, of crazy. They dress up like super heroes. You know, I like the whole super hero thing, but it’s still peculiar. It’s still odd. And somebody that says, wow, is this what they’ve become? Is this what the GOP’s become? That’s the question. Farron Cousins, thank you, another great week. Appreciate your input.
Farron Cousins: Thank you.
Mike Papantonio: That’s all for this week. But you can find all of today’s videos on YouTube channel at youtube.com/the ring of fire. And the videos are gonna be posted throughout the week. And you can follow us on Twitter @americaslawyer. I’m Mike Papantonio and this has been America’s Lawyer where we tell you the stories that corporate media won’t tell you because their advertisers don’t let ’em tell those stories and their political connections won’t allow for it. We’ll see you next week.
