America’s Lawyer E08: Dozens of members of Congress have been caught violating the Stock Act in the past year, but so far nothing has been done to stop this massive problem, and we’ll tell you the very obvious reasons why. And the defense industry is begging for permission to send even more high tech weapons to Ukraine – and the corporate media is helping them make that push. 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. Dozens of members of Congress have been caught violating the Stock Act in this last year. But so far nothing’s been done to stop it. It’s a massive problem and, and we’ll tell you about it. We’ll tell you the obvious reasons they need to get it under control. Johnson and Johnson is rewriting the rules in order to avoid paying tens of thousands of victims that have sued the company and a New Jersey judge has been more than willing to let that happen. We’ll bring you the details. And the defense industry, well, they’re begging for permission to send even more high tech weapons to Ukraine and the corporate media seems to be helping make that push. All that and more it’s all coming up. Don’t go anywhere, America’s Lawyer starts right now.
The public has been calling for a ban on congressional stock trading for months now, but so far virtually nothing’s been done about this growing problem. Ring of Fire’s Farron Cousins joins me to talk about this and many other issues today. Farron, as I look at this, we’ve been, I guess we’ve been doing this story for a long time now, saying why don’t they do something about it? It’s almost like they’re trying to run out the clock, isn’t it?
Farron Cousins: It, it, it really is because this has been an issue, you know, really in the last year it’s picked up. People finally started paying attention because I think we had a total of what, 126 members of Congress.
Mike Papantonio: Yeah.
Farron Cousins: From the House and Senate that have violated this.
Mike Papantonio: Yeah.
Farron Cousins: Using the knowledge that they’ve got from these bills to trade stocks.
Mike Papantonio: And the numbers are staggering, frankly.
Farron Cousins: Yeah, it really is.
Mike Papantonio: The, the, the money that they’re making, talk about some of the issues. You, in other words, they know that something’s gonna go on with drilling and then they go energy stock. They know something’s gonna happen with a war, they buy defense stock. Isn’t that kind of happening?
Farron Cousins: Yeah. It’s, it’s exactly right. When they’re crafting these budgets, essentially, especially the defense budget they know. Okay. Well Raytheon is about to get $2 billion from the government.
Mike Papantonio: Mm-hmm.
Farron Cousins: I’m gonna go ahead and make the phone call to my broker, say, hey, let’s uh, pick up some Raytheon here. They’re about to get a big thing. And that is a violation again of the Stock Act. But the Stock Act, it, it basically carries a $200 penalty if you violate it, but they’re making hundreds of thousands of dollars. So it’s just a $200 fee to do business.
Mike Papantonio: If you had that kind of insider information and you weren’t in Congress that can put you in prison, can’t it?
Farron Cousins: Oh yeah. For a very long.
Mike Papantonio: Is there, is maybe, am I missing something? Is there anything different here?
Farron Cousins: No. And, and as far as we can tell, this really is insider trading. You have knowledge that is not available to the general public that is directly going to affect the stocks of these corporations and you’re using that money, or that knowledge, to make money for yourself. That is textbook insider trading. But when you’re in Congress, they let you do it for, you know, the $200 fee.
Mike Papantonio: Well, both Republicans and the Democrats are saying that it’s Pelosi who is stonewalling this.
Farron Cousins: Yeah.
Mike Papantonio: And then it brings in this story about her husband who is like a stock trading maniac, made millions trading stock. What’s your take on that?
Farron Cousins: Yeah. I, I think at the end of the day it does come down to Pelosi. You know, she is the one in charge of the House of Representatives where this thing would really need to kick off. We’ve actually had some pretty decent talks in the Senate. Even Republicans came up with their own version of a bill.
Mike Papantonio: Mm-hmm.
Farron Cousins: You can get the numbers in the Senate if you actually try. But it’s Pelosi kind of stonewalling it in the House and like you said, it’s the Democrats that are saying, Pelosi’s not letting us move on this. She’s been reluctant. She says publicly she’s willing to do it. But that only came after she said, she’s not willing to do it.
Mike Papantonio: Yeah. Well she said it’s, she wasn’t willing to do it a few times. It wasn’t just one statement.
Farron Cousins: Yeah.
Mike Papantonio: I’m not willing to do this and then all of a sudden she says I am, but nothing’s happening. She’s stonewalling. And Schumer’s coming to her defense by saying, well, look, it’s the Russian invasion. It’s Roe V Wade. It’s COVID. It’s, you know, the, the baby formula. It is the president’s going down the tubes. So we don’t have time for this.
Farron Cousins: Right. We can’t do two things at once. We just don’t have that kind of skill, I guess, in the House of Representatives.
Mike Papantonio: Yeah. So the only person that I, I think seriously is taking a look at this consistently is Elizabeth Warren.
Farron Cousins: Yep.
Mike Papantonio: Elizabeth Warren is, is a true believer in making this stop. And what it would do is just simply say, look, while you’re, while you’re in this office, you can’t trade stock. I suppose you could have blind trading trust. You could, there’s a lot of things you can do.
Farron Cousins: Yeah.
Mike Papantonio: But you can’t rely on the information that you have.
Farron Cousins: Right. This isn’t going as far as to say, you’re not allowed to own it, which is what, what I would like to see. I know that’s extreme, but all this is saying is, listen, you don’t get to make the calls.
Mike Papantonio: Yeah.
Farron Cousins: It goes into a blind trust. They send you your statement every month. You can see what you made and beyond that, you can’t do anything else with that information.
Mike Papantonio: No, no communication with the person running that.
Farron Cousins: Right.
Mike Papantonio: That, that trust.
Procter & Gamble is being accused of discrimination after it was found that they’re paying a black owned contractor company far, far less like one, just almost half the amount.
Farron Cousins: It’s, it’s ironically three fifths. So they’ve come up with this little three fifth’s compromise, I guess you would call it, for this black owned contractor doing the same thing for Procter & Gamble that all of these other white owned businesses are doing. And it’s not like they were late to the game. This company again, owned by this black individual, has been doing business with Procter & Gamble since 1987.
Mike Papantonio: What is the, what is the company?
Farron Cousins: They’re, they do contract package, packaging, excuse me.
Mike Papantonio: Okay.
Farron Cousins: For Procter & Gamble. It’s QAI is the name of the company.
Mike Papantonio: So, so how do you come up with this formula that it’s, it’s owned, it’s owned by African Americans, let’s now pay, pay the, how much less is it?
Farron Cousins: It’s they’re getting 60% of what the others get. So three fifth’s.
Mike Papantonio: Yeah. Okay. So, but you know, I saw this story and you know what it reminded me of, Farron, it reminded me of what we’re seeing this virtue signaling from all of these companies. I mean, you see, look, you expect virtue signaling from celebrities in Hollywood. My God don’t you get tired of it. It just is endless, this virtue signaling. But, but corporate America has picked up on the idea, hey, that’s a pretty good idea. Let’s do some virtue signaling. Give me some examples.
Farron Cousins: Well, right. Well, well before that too, though, Procter & Gamble to your point here, they’ve got all kinds of pages online about how they’re an all inclusive company, no discrimination, zero tolerance. We accept everybody. We treat everybody fairly. And that is, as you say, that’s their virtue signaling.
Mike Papantonio: Mm-hmm.
Farron Cousins: Because when you get into the documents, when you start seeing what’s, you know, on paper, it has nothing to do with reality. And this month we see it happening with corporations all across the country because it’s pride month. So everybody changes their logos to the rainbow flag.
Mike Papantonio: Right.
Farron Cousins: Acting like we’re so inclusive. We care so deeply. No they don’t. None of these corporations give a about anything except for dollars.
Mike Papantonio: I think of Exxon, you know, you did the Exxon story. I don’t know, honestly, I don’t know anybody who really knows more about Exxon than Farron Cousins. But you’ve done these stories about where Ex, what Exxon knew all the way back to the fifties. About they knew that global warming was taking place. They knew exactly what it was. They knew they were, that they were in part responsible, fossil fuels were responsible. But Exxon, tell me what they do with that.
Farron Cousins: Yeah. They, they, they take all that money they make destroying the planet. They go to the corporate media, they buy these ads touting Exxon’s research into renewable energy. And it’s got all kinds of fun graphics and animations, showing we’re, we’re making fuels from biofuels. We’re, we’re looking into solar. We’re looking, they’re not doing any of that. They’re, they’re hoodwinking the public into thinking they’re one thing. But again, just like Procter & Gamble behind closed doors, they couldn’t care less
Mike Papantonio: Amazon, same story. Disney, same story. I mean, it’s the PR firms have this down pretty well. And you know what, it works. I mean, it does work.
Farron Cousins: Unfortunately, yeah.
Mike Papantonio: What it does is it creates doubt, because you don’t have enough, most people don’t have enough information. It’s not their fault. They simply don’t have the backstory and they don’t have the information to really figure out what’s going on. But this virtue signaling is like an all time high.
AOC delivered a scathing rant about American democracy recently and she makes some incredibly important points. As a matter of fact, these are points, I just love, I love this woman’s delivery about what she had to say about what’s really going on with democracy. You know, I watched this video. Maybe we can show part of it here, but I watched this video and you can tell she’s really speaking from her heart. You can tell she’s disgusted. She’s tired of it. She just, she just wants to be heard about what her really, her real view was. Talk about it a little bit.
Farron Cousins: Yeah. And this is all coming from somebody that hasn’t even been in there for four full years yet.
Mike Papantonio: Yeah.
Farron Cousins: And she’s already, like you said, tired of it almost because you deal with it day in and day out. So she talks about these issues, you know, the fact that we don’t really have any kind of representative body in this country, certainly not the presidency. That’s the electoral college. Popular vote doesn’t matter and sure was designed that way, but it’s a bad design.
Mike Papantonio: Mm-hmm.
Farron Cousins: The Senate, you, you’ve got as many senators, you know, I think that it’s like 46 of ’em from the same population that the state of California has with two senators.
Mike Papantonio: Yeah.
Farron Cousins: House of Representative, she points out this thing is gerrymandered beyond any recognition. There’s plenty of names, by the way, in Congress of people we know we talk about all the time that wouldn’t even be in Congress if it weren’t for gerrymandering, Dan Crenshaw is one of ’em.
Mike Papantonio: Yeah.
Farron Cousins: His district it’s shaped like a giant hook that scoops around all these Republican areas. He wouldn’t exist without it.
Mike Papantonio: This is her quote. It’s becoming increasingly difficult for people to defend the stance that we live in a real democracy. It’s just not true. I mean, that, that is a powerful statement coming from a courageous woman who says, listen, I’m tired of it. And, you know, to me, what I loved is I loved her delivery of this. She called it moral emptiness. That we’re surrounded by congressional decay and that, that is bringing about moral, her, her term was moral emptiness. She says that it’s, that it is, it’s democracy is imploding because of all these things that she talked about in that, in that video. But I think the thing I was most moved by the video is that, is that this is her sincerity. You could tell. It’s like, it’s one of those days, end of the day, you’re going, my God, I’ve been fighting the fight all day. I have to really say what’s in my heart and she delivered it. And I, I gotta tell you, it was, it’s remarkable. Everybody outta see it. Maybe we can play part of it here.
Farron Cousins: Well, well, you know, and just to add to that too, this wasn’t a partisan attack either.
Mike Papantonio: Yeah. Not at all.
Farron Cousins: She, she’s going after the actual institutions, because we see plenty of it from both sides about the other side, you know, complaining about drain the swamp. This wasn’t that. This was the whole system folks is broken.
Mike Papantonio: Yeah.
Farron Cousins: And we have to do something before it is too late. This was a huge warning from somebody on the inside and not enough people are listening to.
Mike Papantonio: Yeah. Well let’s hope that she’s reelected. Let’s hope that she keeps, that she keeps speaking truth to power. That’s what she was doing there.
Farron Cousins: Yeah.
AOC: And it also cuts to the basic structure of our democracy, if you can call it that, because when you have a presidency that’s not determined by a popular vote. When you have a Senate where million, tens of millions of people more can vote for one candidate, one party, rather one party and still be in the minority. Where even in the House of Representatives, that’s supposed to represent our population that it gets gerrymandered to all hell once in every, once every 10 years in order to ensure an outsize minority rule and voice in both the House, the Senate and the presidency, it is becoming increasingly difficult for people to defend the stance that we live in a democracy. In a true one. And what the real truth of the matter is, is when you look at the fact that our elections are bought, that corporations have and lobbies, powerful corporate lobbies have more say in our legislation than everyday people, we are living in oligarchy that has its democratic moments.
Mike Papantonio: Local leaders across the, the country are wondering when the next catastrophe is gonna happen, as Congress slow rolls the gun control measures that they’re talking about. Wow, this is a big topic. My, my take on this topic, you know what, let’s take a minute and, and talk about maybe some of the issues, Farron, that everybody’s not talking about. Why don’t you, why don’t you lead it off. What, what is your thought about, what, what are some of the issues that you think, you know, you hear gotta do away with AR, AR. Gotta do away with, whatever the, the attack rifle is, whatever the brand is. Gotta do away with it. But there’s so many other issues that they’re not talking about here that now’s the time to talk about. What’s your thought?
Farron Cousins: Right. I, I think right now what we’re seeing is the same solutions that they talk about after every mass shooting. And sure, it does feel like we might be a little closer to doing something about it this time, but if we’re gonna do something, it needs to be things that are not prohibitive, I guess would be the word I would use.
Mike Papantonio: Mm-hmm, mm-hmm..
Farron Cousins: And if you ban certain types of weapons, you’re always gonna have a fairly large section of the population that absolutely shuts down upon hearing that.
Mike Papantonio: Mm.
Farron Cousins: So how do you avoid that? Well, I think the big thing that we have to move towards is liability insurance for every weapon you own. Any gun you have, you have to carry an insurance policy with that gun. Basically make it cost prohibitive. You’re not taking away anybody’s rights. You’re not, you know, taking things off the market or pulling ’em outta their homes. You’re just saying.
Mike Papantonio: Don’t we always do. We, the insurance industry always does that. I mean.
Farron Cousins: Yeah.
Mike Papantonio: It’s not new.
Farron Cousins: Right.
Mike Papantonio: It’s like, if you wanna own a pit bull in your home, you’re gonna have to pay some extra insurance, if you can get insurance at all. And, or, or how about this? How about, so somebody hoards 10, 12, 15 guns, they have to have insurance on each one of those guns, right?
Farron Cousins: Yeah. That’s what I would like to see.
Mike Papantonio: And that, so that’s one of the things that’s being talked about. Unfortunately, it’s not being talked about enough. Another thing that’s being talked about, I just wanna know your reaction to this, I thought it’s an interest, it’s worth discussion. I don’t know that there’s any wrong or right about this because it’s gonna take a lot of discussion. But the, the discussion now is that the, that the desensitizing of violence with video games, with movies, with, with make believe TV. That, that all of this thing becomes a make believe process when you have a video game, for example, and the discussion is that, you know, kids sit for hours playing that video game where they, you know, kill 50 people in the video game. You and I probably disagree on this. What do the numbers show on this?
Farron Cousins: Well, I, I just wanna start by saying, you know, if it were the video games, just the way I see it, we have these same video games in other countries.
Mike Papantonio: Yeah.
Farron Cousins: But not the violence. So.
Mike Papantonio: Right.
Farron Cousins: That to me is kind of the big red flag, I would say. Like, well, you know, it’s not translating into other parts of the world.
Mike Papantonio: Right.
Farron Cousins: But you do have, as every age group is broken down, the higher the age group, you know, 65 and older 82% of ’em think that the video games are leading to increases in violence.
Mike Papantonio: Well, the general, the, the general desensitization. Okay. Right.
Farron Cousins: Yeah. And, and it’s a, it is a generational divide. It truly is. You see that in the statistics.
Mike Papantonio: Yeah.
Farron Cousins: But what I do think, and this is interesting, because I don’t, I personally, I don’t think it’s the video games, but what I do think we see an abnormally large number of children in this country, not mass shooters, but kids that get their hands on their parents’ guns.
Mike Papantonio: Ah, yeah.
Farron Cousins: You know, a four year old, a five year old and they don’t understand. They, they know it from TV and they know it from video games and they ah, pow, pow, pow and then every day, every day in this country, one of them shoots somebody dead.
Mike Papantonio: And that raises the next issue that’s, I love that these topics are surfacing. Okay.
Farron Cousins: Yeah.
Mike Papantonio: I’m just trying to go down the list of topics that are surfacing besides the old talking points, the same old talking points. The parenting. How about, how about parental liability? It’s like the last, I mean the, the latest shooting in Texas. The, the mothers asked, well, what’s your opinion and she says, well, he must have had a good reason to do that. I mean, that was her quote, must have had. And then she goes on and describes what, well, tell us about your kid. Well, he’s a little oddball. I mean, that’s what the kid is. He’s, he sits in his, he sits in his room eight hours a day, no contact with the outside world. Doesn’t come out of his room. Locks his door and stays there for eight hours a day.
Farron Cousins: Doesn’t have any friends.
Mike Papantonio: No friends. It’s just, you look at the kid, you go something ain’t right here. And isn’t there parent responsibility there to get involved? You can’t just say, well, he must have had his good reason to go kill all these children. That’s basically where she lands. So I think the idea of being able to proceed in a lawsuit against parents that, you know, it’s, it’s like if I have a, if I mean, I’ll take it down to the real basics. If I’ve got a pit bulldog, I’m responsible for that pit bulldog. I’ve raised it from a puppy. I’m responsible for that. What’s different here? You got a kid that’s a ticking time bomb sitting in a bedroom all day long playing video games, you know, shoot ’em up video games, watching tele. Don’t you have a responsibility as a parent and shouldn’t we put some responsibility over there on the parent? What, what is your take on that?
Farron Cousins: I, I, a hundred percent think that we need to be able to hold these parents liable, especially in instances too, where they’re the ones who buy the guns for the kids.
Mike Papantonio: Yeah.
Farron Cousins: You know, if the kid’s not 18 yet, absolutely, this should be your liability here. But the parents do need to be trained to recognize some of these symptoms, antisocial behavior, as the DSM-5 points out.
Mike Papantonio: Right.
Farron Cousins: Is a, a pretty good predictor of future violence.
Mike Papantonio: Couldn’t you go down the checklist of a DSM-5 with this kid and say, something’s not right here. Okay.
Farron Cousins: Yeah.
Mike Papantonio: You know, he’s being bullied, apparently. I don’t know the full story. But he’s so withdrawn, he has no friends. Then on top of that, he goes out with his birthday money and buys an AR 15, ridiculous that he should be able to buy an AR 15 at 16 years old. And moreover, the idea of changing that, changing the, the age that you can do that, that’s something that’s easy enough to fix. Right? But that, that brings in some other points. If you’re gonna buy an AR what about some kind of regulations where you ask, what are you going to use this for? I’m going to use it for hunting. Great. You can use it for hunting, which is crazy. How you use an AR for 15, 15 for hunting is crazy. I don’t think it’s even legitimate. But then you say, okay, if you’re gonna use it for hunting, you gotta take a week long hunting course, come back with a certification saying you finished the course. That’s an impediment, right? Or if you say, I’m gonna use it for self-defense. Great. You have the right to do that. But you have to take this self-defense course that might last two weeks and you have to come back with certification before we can sale. There are all of these impediments that we can put in front of it that you’re not taking away anybody’s rights. You’re just, you’re stepping up the threshold to where we’re not gonna take your gun away, but it, we’re gonna make you be more responsible with it.
Farron Cousins: Right. We’re, we’re not putting up roadblocks. We’re putting up speed bumps.
Mike Papantonio: Yeah.
Farron Cousins: That, that’s the point of this. You know, we obviously, you can’t do anything that is gonna be misconstrued as violating second amendment rights.
Mike Papantonio: Right.
Farron Cousins: You lose, again, half the country, even though they support these measures, they’ll still be lost on this issue. You get nothing done. So the, the insurance issue, the liability on the parents, the criminal negligence on behalf of the parents.
Mike Papantonio: Mm-hmm.
Farron Cousins: If you have a child that is locking themself away every day that you don’t even speak to, to talk about what’s on your, what’s going on, bud? Hey, you’ve been a little, is everything okay? Do you wanna talk to me? I mean, those are things, I’ve had conversations with my kids like that.
Mike Papantonio: Grandma in this case, in Texas shooting, grandma said, you know what? I think it’s a bad idea. You’re 16 years old and you got an AR 15. Mom doesn’t say word about it. Dad doesn’t say a word about it. So he shoots grandma in the head and then goes around killing children after that. You know, it’s, it’s there’s gotta be some responsibility that the parents take. And if you say you can lose your home, you can lose everything you have because you have a pit bull here. You have a pit bulldog. He’s a child, but he’s same thing. He’s equivalent as a pit bull. That’s what we do, insurance, the law, we make that person responsible. So there has to be a shift in responsibility, I think.
Farron Cousins: There, there really does. And you know, there has to be accountability with that too.
Mike Papantonio: Yeah.
Farron Cousins: You know, you, you can’t get homeowner’s insurance if you have a trampoline in some areas.
Mike Papantonio: How about life insurance?
Farron Cousins: Right. Life insurance as well. You have a weapon that is known to increase the risk of death in your home, we are gonna drop you for life insurance because you’re taking risky behavior. Same thing as health insurance. Well, you’re a smoker. So we’re not gonna give you health insurance.
Mike Papantonio: Right.
Farron Cousins: Because you’re making decisions that will lead to you getting killed.
Mike Papantonio: What I love about all these, this is not my list. This is a list that’s come out through after this, after, after all these events have taken place. But these are things worth talking about.
Farron Cousins: Yeah.
Mike Papantonio: Because you can, you can at least begin now. You can do something immediately. You can get something done right now. And this, this is easy enough to do. And so there, at least half of these things could be done very easily and would, would fly through Congress.
Farron Cousins: Absolutely.
Mike Papantonio: The state of Ohio has passed two highly controversial bills in the past week that have put the Buckeye state in the national spotlight. Wow. I, these, these are just off the. Go ahead and talk about them, go.
Farron Cousins: The, the first one is obviously just absolute madness and that’s actually how people in Ohio have described it, absolute madness. We’re talking about Ohio says we have now passed legislation that will allow teachers to carry guns in the classroom. So.
Mike Papantonio: What do policemen think about that?
Farron Cousins: Police hate it. The teachers hate it. The teachers unions hate it. Most of the parents hate it. And the only people who like this idea of course are the NRA and the gun makers because okay, now you’ve opened it up to where teachers can buy more guns. So you’re gonna sell a lot of guns and the only people that that benefits are the people who sell the guns.
Mike Papantonio: Well, so, okay. So there was one discussion where they’d have to have 700 hours of training, right?
Farron Cousins: Yeah.
Mike Papantonio: And now that’s been reduced to what? 24 hours.
Farron Cousins: 24 hours.
Mike Papantonio: 24 hours of training. And they we’re gonna arm the teacher to take care of the bad guy. Right?
Farron Cousins: Right. And the reason the police do not like this idea and I think, you know, for the crowd that always says, oh, gotta back the police. Well, listen to the police on this.
Mike Papantonio: Yeah. If they says it’s a bad idea.
Farron Cousins: Because they, if the police get sent into a school and they see multiple different people shooting guns, guess what the police start doing, they start shooting everybody that is shooting. They’re not gonna say, wait, wait, are you a bad guy or a teacher?
Mike Papantonio: Well, how about the, the border patrol guy that came, I mean really the guy who got something done in Texas, he didn’t have a uniform on. He comes in, he’s a sitin’ duck. The police officer’s a sitin’ duck. You got, you can’t train somebody to, to use critical thinking in that kind of dire circumstances. I don’t care how much training it is. It’s dangerous.
Farron Cousins: Well, not to mention if students know that there is a gun in the classroom, what you’re doing, even if it’s under lock and key.
Mike Papantonio: Yeah.
Farron Cousins: You’re providing access to something that a kid who may do something may not have previously had access to.
Mike Papantonio: Mm.
Farron Cousins: I mean, my wife who, who, you know, works with some of the more troubled students.
Mike Papantonio: Mm-hmm.
Farron Cousins: The, the physical aggressors. She has been overpowered by students.
Mike Papantonio: Mm-hmm.
Farron Cousins: She has had to have surgery because a student has, has injured her. So you’ve got lots of students in many schools that are bigger than the teachers.
Mike Papantonio: Yeah.
Farron Cousins: So you get two or three of them gang up on a small little teacher, suddenly this gun is in the hands of three kids who can now take a whole classroom hostage.
Mike Papantonio: Okay. So that’s one, that’s one madness story coming out of Ohio. But there’s another one. We gotta talk about this. The Ohio lawmakers, they, they advance this idea that trans sports ban, there needs to be a genital check to make sure that this girl who’s saying that she is trans woman or trans female is actually a trans female. How do, so, so this is, this is a law they’re trying to pass, what is it?
Farron Cousins: Yeah. They’ve.
Mike Papantonio: Has it pass, has it passed?
Farron Cousins: It’s gone through the House.
Mike Papantonio: Okay.
Farron Cousins: You know, we’ll see where it goes from here, but.
Mike Papantonio: So how do they do this? How do they, how do they go about this?
Farron Cousins: This, this is so weird because okay, right now, the way the law is, you know, you, you gotta be a girl to play girl sports. You gotta be a boy to play boy sports. So you go and get your physical from a real normal doctor and the doctor sends the results saying, yes, Susie is a girl. Johnny’s a boy. Well, if the school looks at this and they say, you know what, though? I’m not so sure. Doc, I’m gonna have to do a genital inspection to make sure there’s, there’s no funny business here.
Mike Papantonio: I mean, doesn’t that sound like a, doesn’t that sound like a train wreck from the very beginning?
Farron Cousins: It, it, it is, this would be Larry Nassar’s dream. You know, the guy that did the US gymnastics sexual assault.
Mike Papantonio: Of course, of course.
Farron Cousins: Or, or, you know, Jerry Sandusky.
Mike Papantonio: Mm-hmm.
Farron Cousins: From Penn State.
Mike Papantonio: Mm-hmm.
Farron Cousins: That’s what this opens the door for. There is no reason for any of this. If you already have a doctor who has certified these people, even though it’s not even an issue in Ohio, I think they’ve had 16 transgender athletes in, you know, 30 years.
Mike Papantonio: It’s symbolic, isn’t it?
Farron Cousins: It really is.
Mike Papantonio: It’s symbolic to say we’re tired of all of this wokeness. I mean, that, that’s, that’s what this is about.
Farron Cousins: Yeah.
Mike Papantonio: And, and without ever really thinking, what does it do to the child? The child is called back and we gotta check to see if you’re really a girl. What does that do to that kid in school?
Farron Cousins: Well, everybody in a high school is gonna know if somebody gets called back for a genital inspection.
Mike Papantonio: Mm-hmm.
Farron Cousins: You’re gonna have these administrators saying, well, she looks a little, her shoulders are a little too broad. Maybe, maybe it’s actually a, a guy.
Mike Papantonio: Okay.
Farron Cousins: And so all of the students are gonna start mocking that other student.
Mike Papantonio: Yeah. I mean, the child.
Farron Cousins: It’s ripe for abuse.
Mike Papantonio: Yeah. The child doesn’t have a chance.
Farron Cousins: Yeah.
Mike Papantonio: I mean, really not a chance. But what’s so amazing is this, this has actually been enacted in, in half a dozen states.
Farron Cousins: Yeah.
Mike Papantonio: Throughout the country.
Farron Cousins: We’re, we’re standing in one right now that already has it.
Mike Papantonio: Yeah. Right, right.
Ukraine is asking for highly sophisticated hunter killer drones and the defense industry, well, they’re begging the government to please make these, make these available in Ukraine. First of all, have you ever been more concerned? I mean, in, in your lifetime about how close we are to a potential nuclear conflict caused by Ukraine that now we’re, we’re giving them long range missiles that can hit Moscow. NATO is giving them long range missiles that can hit, hit Moscow. But this is a, this is a dream for the weapons industry. So they, they’ve tried to launch this idea about the hunter killer drone and we, we’ve used it in Afghanistan. We’ve used it in Somalia. We’ve used it all, Yemen, all, all over the world. But it hasn’t been talked about. Explain what this is, with the hell fire missile and the killer drone.
Farron Cousins: Yeah. These, these are the drones basically we send in when we’re not worried about civilian casualties at all.
Mike Papantonio: Mm-hmm.
Farron Cousins: We just want to kill as many people as quickly and quietly as possible. Sort the bodies out later. Then announce, hey, two of the people we got were bad, guys, you know, the other 10 weren’t. It was a family getting into a car. We covered that story.
Mike Papantonio: Mm-hmm.
Farron Cousins: But now Ukraine says, well, guys, we need these. We, we really need these over here. So what’s even worse is you have retired generals going out in the media, selling this idea to the public, you know, telling people that, oh, no, this might be our only way to help Ukraine. Oh, this might be the only way to stop this evil, brutal dictator over in Russia. And yeah, Putin is terrible. Nothing that he has done is justified. But we are inching closer to getting the US fully involved in a war in Europe.
Mike Papantonio: Yeah. $40 billion here. Now long range missiles. Now, what the weapons industry loves about this is it normalizes it, you see. Now, now people know, yeah, we got the hunter killer missile being used. Weapons, this is a gold mine, a gold mine for the weapons industry. And that’s what this is about. That’s what that $40 billion was about. That’s what Ukraine in general is about, is the weapons industry. This is a big payday for the weapons industry. Now I have tried to find just quick look where corporate media has even talked about this. This is, this is tail wagging the dog. It’s the weapons industry that is escalating a war into where this is the first time since the Cuban missile crisis, where Americans probably should have been very concerned about nuclear war. I, if, if you have children and you’re not paying attention to this, this is just another brick in the wall, isn’t it?
Farron Cousins: Right. And, and every time we send a new shipment of weapons over there to Ukraine, Russia amps up their rhetoric.
Mike Papantonio: Right.
Farron Cousins: They ramp up their attacks. Their media last week was already saying, we should basically already consider this World War III.
Mike Papantonio: Yeah.
Farron Cousins: Not approaching World War III. We’re pretty much in it right now. And we, you know, they’re not ruling out the use of nuclear weapons. Now, maybe that’s a, just a talking point.
Mike Papantonio: No, it’s not.
Farron Cousins: But that’s the thing, is.
Mike Papantonio: No, no. Putin is not a well person to begin with. Okay.
Farron Cousins: Exactly.
Mike Papantonio: You have the oligarchs who are very concerned about his mental health and his physical health. Okay. When he makes a threat like that, understand he comes from, he comes from a generation that was well aware that in the second World War Russia lost 26 million people, mostly from Germany. Germany was the people. That’s why you see, still see that hostility between Germany and, and, and, and Russia. And unfortunately, Germany has a big input as to these long range missiles. They’re talking about Germany here. When they talk about you, you know, you’re gonna give these people long range missiles that can hit Moscow, and oh yeah, you’re gonna give them killer hunter, hunter killer drones to go after our people. There’s no way that this guy’s just gonna back. He’s not gonna back down.
Farron Cousins: He would’ve done it already if he was gonna back down, I think.
Mike Papantonio: Yeah, yeah.
Farron Cousins: And, and that’s what people have to understand. He.
Mike Papantonio: How do, how do people talk about this and not understand what the risks are, Farron?
Farron Cousins: Well.
Mike Papantonio: I mean, this, this is escalating by the week.
Farron Cousins: It, it is. And the problem I see too, though, is then what do we do? Do we cut, because you claim the.
Mike Papantonio: We get out is what we do. We get the hell out.
Farron Cousins: So how do we?
Mike Papantonio: And we get control over NATO where NATO is not dictating policy that might put us in a world war. That’s what we do. Biden won’t do it. There’s no way he’s gonna do it. He is cap, he is captive of the military industrial complex, just like all the Democrats are and all the Republicans are. So he’s not gonna do anything. And this is gonna rock on until this threat of a nuclear, nuclear war really does occur.
Farron Cousins: Well and right now the US is engaging in military exercises with South Korea. They’re trying to do a show of strength against North Korea. We’re testing out missiles over the Pacific Ocean.
Mike Papantonio: What’s significant about that? You’ve got NATO on one side, you got the West, and then you got the US and Korea on the East and you got Russia in between. And Russia’s, you know, like it or not, they have a big capability where it comes to nuclear power.
Farron Cousins: They, they, they definitely, they’ve got, I think, equal to us, pretty, give or take a nuke or two.
Mike Papantonio: What do you do about it? I’m just curious. What do you do about it? Do you stay, do you stay in this and let it rock along? Or do you get the hell out?
Farron Cousins: Well, we cannot continue to send them weapons. What, what concerns me obviously, and I know it concerns you is the Ukrainian people and, and the Russian people. You know, the people who do not want this either. They’re at the whim of this madman in Russia,
Mike Papantonio: Total madman, absolute madman.
Farron Cousins: And, and in Ukraine, you’ve got people trying to flee the country. So we’ve gotta figure out how to help them that doesn’t send just bullets and bombs over there.
Mike Papantonio: Can’t do it.
Farron Cousins: Because that’s just gonna escalate.
Mike Papantonio: Well, Biden is not engaged enough to do it. I don’t think he’s alert to what really is happening here. I mean, you know, he’s got all these advisors look at who his advisors are. Look at who’s showing up on CNN and MSNBC to talk about Ukraine. Go take a look at who these folks are showing up on MSNBC and CNN, take a look at who they are. Look, they’re gonna, they’re from the, they’re from the military industrial complex. They’re, they’re huge lobbyists for the, for the weapons industry. They’ve come up through the military, you know, completely wed to the weapons industry. That’s who corporate media has, is the talking heads here. And they’re scaring the hell out of the American public, rather than telling the truth. A, we shouldn’t be there. That’s the first thing. B, if we stay there, it’s gonna continue to escalate.
Farron Cousins: Well, and, and these are they’re, they’re retired generals and so when people see that on the little moniker on the bottom, like, oh, well, this person knows what they’re talking about. I should listen to everything they say and not question any of it.
Mike Papantonio: Yeah.
Farron Cousins: And that’s another part of the problem.
Mike Papantonio: Yeah.
Michael Avenatti has been sentenced to four years in prison for stealing from his client Stormy Daniels. What everybody doesn’t understand is this guy has stolen from everybody. He, the most compelling story is he stole from one of his paraplegic clients where he just basically stole all the money that was supposed to go to the client.
Farron Cousins: Yeah.
Mike Papantonio: And so, so this, this is an awful person who, oh, by the way, oh yeah, the Democrats thought he might be the new great white hope for the Democratic party. You remember that?
Farron Cousins: Yeah. Right. When this guy emerged in 2017, 2018 with Stormy Daniels, he was on every single cable news show, every Sunday morning talk show.
Mike Papantonio: Yeah.
Farron Cousins: A whole profile was written about how this guy and his fighting style, this is what the Democrats have been sorely needing. Is he possibly gonna be our 2020 nominee? They were saying at the time, back in 18.
Mike Papantonio: Because he, he, he attacked Trump. He was good at the Trump, I mean, who couldn’t attack Trump?
Farron Cousins: Right.
Mike Papantonio: I mean, anybody, anybody had enough information to go after. But from the very beginning, you, you identified the guy as an absolute utter fraud.
Farron Cousins: Yeah.
Mike Papantonio: I mean, you had some of the first stories about this guy being an absolute fraud and on the other, because you had the stories where he had this long history of him stealing money from clients, committing fraud, complete, committing wire, you know, wire transfer.
Farron Cousins: Wire fraud, tax fraud, bank fraud. I mean, his firm was going under, by the way, before Stormy Daniels showed up and basically saved everything for him.
Mike Papantonio: Did I get it right though? My memory is that the Democrats thought, oh, this is the guy.
Farron Cousins: Well, they, they really did. There were think pieces in every major media outlet that, could this be the future of the Democratic party? I mean, people go, go look.
Mike Papantonio: Why, why does that happen?
Farron Cousins: It’s hero worship. It is 100%. We’re so pathetic. We need a leader. And this conman who is just like Donald Trump shows up and he says, hey, I’m your leader. Look at me. I’ve got a fancy law degree. I’ve, I’ve, I’ve helped people and forget the stealing part.
Mike Papantonio: Yeah, yeah.
Farron Cousins: And I’m, I’m, I’m a tough talker. I’m not taking any crap while I’m on cable news.
Mike Papantonio: Yeah.
Farron Cousins: And people said, wow, it’s so rare for us to see anybody on the left fight that, sure, we’ll follow you wherever you’re going, Mr. Piper.
Mike Papantonio: So right now he’s looking at potential six years, right? Two that he’s already been, two that where he’s, he’s, he threatened Nike. If you, if you don’t pay me 20, it was, it was ransom.
Farron Cousins: Yeah.
Mike Papantonio: You gotta pay me a ransom or.
Farron Cousins: Pay me $20 million or I’m going public.
Mike Papantonio: Yeah. And then, and then you got four years that are new. Correct?
Farron Cousins: Yeah.
Mike Papantonio: And then you’ve got other charges throughout the, throughout the country. Now I wanna point something out. Most all of that was already known.
Farron Cousins: Yeah.
Mike Papantonio: When MSNBC was putting him up as the talking head, when CNN said he might be the great white hope, all of that was already known, but they, the corporate media didn’t tell that part of the story. So the average voter thought, wow, this is the guy. He’s a tough talker. Right?
Farron Cousins: Right. And then of course, after Avenatti fell from grace, the next person they flocked to was immediately Andrew Cuomo.
Mike Papantonio: Yeah.
Farron Cousins: So.
Mike Papantonio: Jesus.
Farron Cousins: They, they don’t have a good track record on picking their next Democratic hero, if those are the two guys that at one point were supposed to save the party.
Mike Papantonio: Well, Republicans aren’t any better.
Farron Cousins: Right.
Mike Papantonio: It’s the Democrats the same as, I mean, it’s human nature. We need a hero and we are just so tied into hero worship in this country. We really are. It’s just so sad that we, you know, we’ve fallen so far that, yeah, he looks like a tough talker. That’s exactly what. Well, why don’t you go take a look at his background. Farron, thanks for joining me. Okay.
Farron Cousins: Thank you.
Mike Papantonio: That’s all for this week. But all of these segments are gonna be available this coming week right here on this channel. And you can follow us on Twitter @americaslawyer. I’m Mike Papantonio and this has been America’s Lawyer where every week we tell you is stories that corporate media won’t tell you because their advertisers won’t let ’em or their political connections just don’t allow for it. We’ll see you next time.
