America’s Lawyer E09: The whispers from Democrats about replacing Biden in 2024 are growing louder, as more and more Party members start to realize he doesn’t have it in him. We’ll explain what’s happening. Starbucks has declared war on unions within their company, but workers are refusing to back down. We’ll bring you the details. And a group of Olympic gymnasts are suing the FBI for failing to listen to their warnings about being sexual abused – we’ll tell you all about it. 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. The whispers from Democrats about replacing Biden in 2024 are growing louder and more and more party members are starting to realize maybe this isn’t the guy for us. We’ll explain what’s happening. Starbucks has declared war on unions with their company, but workers are refusing to back down. We’ll bring you the details. And a group of Olympic gymnasts, well, they’re suing the FBI for failing to listen to their warnings and really failing to do their job where it comes to sexual abuse. All that and more, it’s all coming up. Don’t go anywhere. America’s Lawyer starts right now.
Democrats are slowly starting to raise the alarm bells about president Biden’s chances in 2024 and they desperately want someone else to run. Ring of Fire’s Farron Cousins joins me to talk about this and many other issues. You followed, I mean, I think when I, when I start looking at everything you were the first person I read or heard that started talking about, really? I mean, you know, is this what we want? Now, now the New York Times and Washington Post and some of the mainstream kind of things that have always been there for him, they’re starting to say, ah, maybe not.
Farron Cousins: Yeah. I mean, look, you and I had actually talked a couple weeks ago, there was a report that there were some whispers, you know, in back rooms, oh, we don’t want Biden. But now those whispers are turning into very loud voices with members of Congress, strategists, party donors and regular voters too, saying, this guy’s not gonna win in 2024. He’s gonna bring us all down. We have to do something. And, and when you think about it too, you’ve got two years, I mean, less than two years, really, to find a good replacement.
Mike Papantonio: Exactly.
Farron Cousins: And, and the clock’s ticking.
Mike Papantonio: Well, we should have started already. He needs to do what’s best for the country. He needs to announce and say, I’m not going to run. He needs to clear the field and say, I’m not going to run because I’m gonna be 82 years old when I run and I’m gonna be 82, 86 if I finish my second term. It’s just the right thing to do. So you have, you have the Democrats now finally venting their frustration. They can’t ignore it anymore. The Democrats that were so horrified to say anything critical because they were afraid it was gonna hurt the Democratic party. The Democratic party is already hurt.
Farron Cousins: Yeah.
Mike Papantonio: I mean, I mean, let’s get, let’s get. So, so now what we have is we have the public, maybe that’s driving the train. They’re ignoring what Washington thinks and they’re saying, maybe the public is driving the train and New York Times is reacting to it, Washington Post, all the big newspapers that with real journalism reacting to it.
Farron Cousins: Well, and another thing too is you gotta look at what’s happening over on the Republican side. Sure, Trump is still at the top, but there’s cracks starting to form. And you have a lot of Republicans saying, look, we don’t want a 78 year old guy who’s just gonna be talking about his bitterness about 2020. So we look at Ron DeSantis, he’s younger. You know, he, he doesn’t have the gray hair yet. He’s still, you know, a regular looking guy. So they’re flocking to him for the same reasons that Democrats are starting to get upset with Biden.
Mike Papantonio: And Trump needs to do the same thing. Trump needs to say, I’m not gonna run. I’m gonna cause all this chaos, but I’m not gonna run. I mean, after these hearings, the January 6th, I mean, there’s so much there. I mean, come on. The guy, he just needs to come out and say, look, I’m gonna step aside. I’m gonna be the person maybe that I can go around and help in the midterms, but I’m not gonna run. Look, but what, what’s happening with with Biden right now is this, it’s, it’s fear. It’s disappointment. It’s, it’s resentment to some degree that’s festering. And look, you can’t ignore. You’ve got, you’ve got the disaster with, with gas prices. You got the disaster with inflation. You’ve got his gaffs, you know, his gaffs that are now starting to create really a question of worldwide power structures. You know, he’s saying things that can start another war. Can start some type of conflict where they shouldn’t. So all of this stuff is finally being talked about, these things I just read are all being talked about in the New York Times.
Farron Cousins: Yeah.
Mike Papantonio: And they’re saying, this is the problem. It’s not just physical, it’s mental and it is age. You just can’t ignore the fact that he’s gonna be 82 years old when he runs.
Farron Cousins: Well, and Biden has a perfect out as well. You know, he could easily come out right now and say, listen, folks, my goal was to be your bridge president. You know, we, we had four dark years of Donald Trump and I, I came along. I wanted to pull us through from that. I’m the bridge. I’m not the vehicle. I’m not the driving force to take you into the future. I yield that to someone younger. I think somebody else in the party can come out and continue you on this path that I have put you on. There’s very diplomatic and statesmen like ways to do this.
Mike Papantonio: Of course, he can still be an important part of the party.
Farron Cousins: Right. And he can save face and it also kind of saves him from having to worry about, again, another election. It, it’s a smart thing to do for him personally and for the party politically.
Mike Papantonio: I, I completely agree Farron, and you know, the, the most troubling criticism is that, look, you had the presidency, you had the House, you had the Senate and you still couldn’t do anything. And they’re gonna say, ah, but Manchin. Ah, but Manchin, You know, really, I mean, no, not, ah, but Manchin. It takes leadership and the guy just doesn’t have the kind respect that gets anything done. And, and he’s gotta come out and say, no, I’m not going to run. He can’t be selfish about this. And nevertheless, today the White House says, yeah, he’s gonna run.
Democrats in Congress are getting sick and tired of Biden’s inaction and they realize that it’s going to cost them big in November. I mean, I, you know, the writing is all over, isn’t it?
Farron Cousins: It, it is. And you know, this is kind of a continuation. Obviously we talked about some of the other big issues that Biden is facing, you know, personally, professionally, but now it comes down to what are you doing right now?
Mike Papantonio: Mm-hmm.
Farron Cousins: We are facing multiple crises on several different fronts. We’ve got foreign policy disasters. We have domestic policy disasters, inflation, still going through a baby formula shortage that, you know, everybody seems to have stopped talking about. Massive gun violence epidemic. All of these things laying right on his desk. And now you have Democrats in Congress pounding their hands saying, what are you doing?
Mike Papantonio: Mm-hmm.
Farron Cousins: And the answer of course is nothing because he wants to yield to Congress. Congress says, look, we’re gridlocked. You’ve gotta start with that executive order pen immediately.
Mike Papantonio: They’re like, the leadership is like a ship stuck in mud. Really. That’s, that’s the best description that I’ve heard about it. And as, as you look forward, I mean, it’s not just gas, it’s just not inflation. It’s not just lack of, lack of trust, you know, it’s, it’s, it’s not just those things. It is the idea that between now and November, he’s gonna have other problems on his desk. He can solve maybe one or two, but he can’t solve everything that’s coming at him. There’s just too much coming at him. Everything from the supply chain to, to you name it. Every day there’s a new gaff. There’s a, the media talking about something stupid he said somewhere around the world and those things just add up. So right now we’ve got the, the latest prediction if you’re following it, the latest predictions is that Ukraine is going to turn into one of those big mud puddles for him. What is your take on that?
Farron Cousins: I, I, I agree a hundred percent on that. I, I think we’re watching a very unfortunate situation unfolding in Ukraine. I think that’s kind of the best way to say it. There’s no real clear strategy I think from the US standpoint right now. We’re just feeding ’em all these weapons. We have to change course on this because obviously the parties involved are not.
Mike Papantonio: Mm-hmm.
Farron Cousins: And we’re just gonna keep bleeding our own money as we tell citizens, hey, sorry, you can’t afford things at the grocery store. Sorry, you’re still dealing with COVID, but we gotta send more weapons.
Mike Papantonio: Well, that’s what’s happening already. You see, that’s what’s happening. How dare you, you know, pay the weapons industry $40 billion and send it to Ukraine when we, there’s not stuff on our shelves in some parts of the country. We’re paying, you know, outrageous amounts for gas, in California $9 a gallon. We’ve got inflation, we’ve got recession and now Ukraine. And so, you know, the, the, the point is he’s gotta have a plan and if that plan, he doesn’t have a plan by November, it’s just gonna be another brick in the wall. Isn’t it?
Farron Cousins: Well, it is. And you know, there are very simple things he can do. The student loan debt crisis.
Mike Papantonio: Sure.
Farron Cousins: Is a humongous one. Everybody’s been, you know, pounding their hands for a year and a half now saying you can issue an executive order and end it all.
Mike Papantonio: Mm-hmm.
Farron Cousins: You can do that very easily and he still won’t even do that. He won’t take the easy victory in front of him. He needs nobody else to do it. You actually have groups that have drafted executive orders and said, here, use this as your blueprint.
Mike Papantonio: Go sign it, go sign it.
Farron Cousins: And he just won’t do it.
Mike Papantonio: Most of the time if you look at it, it’s because it’s going to offend Wall Street, or it’s gonna def, offend corporate America. That’s where you get the term corporate Democrat. That’s what we’re looking at right here, corporate Democrat. And, and, and it’s, I don’t know why it’s, it’s almost like a, a train wreck in slow motion that nobody will acknowledge.
The women who were abused by Larry Nassar during their gymnast careers are soon the FBI for failing to take action that they were warned about. They were told upfront, look, this is happening. They were told in 2015, they had reams of information in 2015, understand. Most of the, most of the bad, really bad stuff happened between 2017 and 2019. But in 2015, they’ve got witness statements. They’ve got, they’ve got victim statements. They’ve got doctor statements. Yeah, this is all true. The FBI did not do their job and they, you know, they were sued, what the lawsuit that took place for the school shooting, you know, they were hit for $125 million. That should happen here, shouldn’t it?
Farron Cousins: Oh, absolutely. And, and, you know, like you said, the FBI was told and he was allowed to stay on the job while the FBI was just kind of toying around with, well, do we launch an investigation? Do we not? Do we even approach him? Do we talk to him? And all the while this was happening, the FBI’s ringing their hands, this man was still, as far as we know, abusing more and more women. They allowed, allowed more victims to, to happen.
Mike Papantonio: Give me your landing on it. What was it about? How in the world does somebody, this is their only job. I mean, that’s the job the FBI’s supposed to take care of. And I, I realize there’s laziness. There’s just half kind of thinking with every governmental agency. But we hope the FBI that, that, you know, we don’t constantly see ’em screw up after screw up like we saw with 9/11, like we saw with, with the Marjory Stoneman high, where the shooting took place, they were warned ahead of time it was gonna happen. They did nothing. At some point, what, what is that about?
Farron Cousins: Um, I, I think at this particular instance, you still have this mentality that permeates this, that, oh, these girls are making it up. You know, these are young women. Oh, look, you’ve accomplished so much. What are you really complaining about? I still think you have a lot of that mentality, not just with the FBI, but throughout all the country. You know, we, we’ve seen it a lot with people coming forward with allegations of abuse. The first reaction of half the country is, ah, she’s making.
Mike Papantonio: They’re making it up,
Farron Cousins: She’s making it up.
Mike Papantonio: Yeah.
Farron Cousins: So, so a lot of that, you know, Larry Nassar was in this big position of power with USA gymnastics. Nobody wanted to ruffle any feathers, because that’s where all the Olympians were coming from.
Mike Papantonio: So how many, how many young girls were molested because of it, 90 claimants conservatively that have come forward ,more than a hundred they think the claim. Now here’s, here’s where it really gets ugly. They didn’t, it’s not that they were lazy. They actually phonied up reports and didn’t tell the truth to the Inspector General’s office. When the Inspector General started looking at, they were phoning stuff up to make it look like they had done their job. They phonied up stuff to make it look like, ah, there’s nothing to see here. That’s the frigging FBI and we ought expect more. And I, I was so glad when, when they, they hit ’em for $127 million with the high school shooting there at Marjory Stoneman high, because they had been warned years in advance that there was a problem here.
Farron Cousins: Well, and, and I hope that this lawsuit is successful. Right now, they’re suing for about a billion and of course you do have those advising FBI, you need to make a settlement. You know you messed up. The evidence against you right now is absolutely overwhelming. You’re not gonna win if this goes to a jury trial.
Mike Papantonio: Yeah.
Farron Cousins: And you owe it to these women to resolve this quickly.
Mike Papantonio: And they know there’s an uglier story that needs to be told. And we’ll tell it right here and hopefully the media.
Farron Cousins: Yeah, absolutely.
Mike Papantonio: I don’t think, I don’t, maybe corporate media will actually tell that story, but I know we’ll be telling it right here.
Starbucks CEO, Howard Schultz has declared war on unions, but employees, well, they’re not backing down. I love that. You know, I thought back, do you remember when Hillary Clinton was going to make him secretary of labor?
Farron Cousins: Yeah.
Mike Papantonio: Did I just imagine that or have I? I’ve.
Farron Cousins: Nope. That was, uh.
Mike Papantonio: Okay. So, so tell me his position. What’s he doing? How outrageous has Mr. Schultz gone?
Farron Cousins: Well much like Amazon, Starbucks has had this big effort to unionize their stores across the country and we’re starting to see successes pop up all over the place. So Schultz was recently asked, are you going to sit down in good faith and negotiate with these unions? You know, negotiate with the people to form the unions. And he flat out says, no.
Mike Papantonio: Yeah.
Farron Cousins: No, I am not.
Mike Papantonio: Well, he’s, his, his argument is really a little ridiculous. He said, we’re a family here. We’re a family. This is the Starbucks family. These people working here, we, we’re just one big family that gets along. And if you allow, if you allow these union types to come in here, they’re gonna distort the process to where there’s gonna be a customer experience that’s bad. They’re, our employees are gonna actually be unhappy in the long run. And his position is no, we will not negotiate. Where does this go for Starbucks? I mean, there’s plenty of great coffee shops around the country.
Farron Cousins: Right.
Mike Papantonio: I mean, this started up in what, Seattle, right?
Farron Cousins: Yeah.
Mike Papantonio: Well, there’s like a thousand more that could do the same thing.
Farron Cousins: Yeah. Or, or you can, you know, make it at home too, if you choose.
Mike Papantonio: Yeah.
Farron Cousins: So Starbucks is really kind of pushing the limits on what they need to do here. If there’s one thing we can find, it’s a cup of coffee in this country.
Mike Papantonio: Yeah.
Farron Cousins: But he, he also, you know, he runs the risk of running a foul of the national labor relations board or the national labor relations act, I should say, by openly stating that he is not going to negotiate in good faith. Right there, that’s a violation. You know, you get a good lawyer on that, you can hit him with that pretty easily. So you have that big red flag for him. But most importantly, the workers say we’re still gonna do it.
Mike Papantonio: Mm-hmm.
Farron Cousins: You know, we have seen just the last year or two, this massive push for more unions here in the United States, something that we’ve talked about’s been necessary for 20 years, but we haven’t seen it like this in this generation.
Mike Papantonio: Well, this gen, you bring up something, it’s kinda like the Starbucks cool. You know, is that aura of the Starbucks cool. We’re gonna take our computer in there, we’re gonna drink latte and we’re gonna just chat. It’s, it’s kind of like Starbucks cool kind of feel. It’s, it’s rapidly losing that Starbucks cool kind of feel. And I thought it was really important that, that his position is permanent. Permanently we will not negotiate with unions. We’ll see.
Inflation is rising at an alarming rate, but the earnings report from the corporations tell us that price gouging is a major factor. Wow. How about Tyson? Let’s lead off with that. It’s the Tyson story, right? Again, how many Tyson stories do we have to tell over the years? The Tyson story is $500 million is what they have gouged just in the last six months.
Farron Cousins: Yeah. That, that really tells the whole story. That number, that $500 million, because that is exactly what they say in their earnings are report. Now, they admitted their prices had increased, you know, for them by 1.5 billion. So they admit in their earnings report, so we increased our prices by 2 billion. So you’re talking about a 25% increase above what your costs were.
Mike Papantonio: Yeah. This isn’t us making it, it’s right there in the report.
Farron Cousins: Yeah.
Mike Papantonio: I mean, anybody reading the report, well, do the numbers.
Farron Cousins: So they are, they’re basically admitting that yeah, we had to raise prices on consumers because they went up, but we tacked on an additional 25% Tyson tax. Let’s call it that. That’s what it is. It’s the Tyson tax.
Mike Papantonio: Okay. So people say, well where, you know, what am I gonna do? Well, there’s a lot of people, there’s a lot of different companies. There’s Cargill, there’s JBS, there’s Sysco, there’s Hormel that you have a lot of manufacturers of meat products. Right. And so you have to make the decision to say, well, first of all, in the grocery, the cost of groceries, meat is the number one cost.
Farron Cousins: Yep.
Mike Papantonio: So don’t you say, well, I either go talk to this store and I tell ’em I don’t want that. I want some alternatives or you go somewhere else. I mean, takes some action on your part to say, this is wrong.
Farron Cousins: It really does. And you know, another good option too is for people to go try to find a local butcher shop. They they’re, they’re hard to find in some areas, but if you look hard enough, you’re gonna find one or at least, you know, a grocery store that has their own actual meat counter where they’re packaging and breaking it down. And that’s a good alternative because Tyson is telling us what so many other corporations are also telling us.
Mike Papantonio: Yes, we are gouging you.
Farron Cousins: We’re ,we’re raising your prices because we can, it’s always because we can.
Mike Papantonio: 37% just in the last quarter is what they raised it. One, one thing about it that I, that I think about on this case is that so often you listen to a story like this and you go, ah, you know, Tyson. Well, you gotta do something about it, right? You have to say, okay, that’s wrong. I’m gonna go to Publix and I’m gonna say to Publix, you know, I want some alternatives. I don’t wanna buy Tyson. And if the Publix won’t do it, then you go to another chain and you say, I wanna buy from you because I know A, meat is the number one cost on a grocery list. And B, you’re not doing anything to push back against Tyson. Go somewhere else.
Farron Cousins: On top of that, meat is actually the number one driver of where people shop. They will go to a different grocery store if the quality of meat is better over here and buy the rest of the groceries there as well.
Mike Papantonio: Yeah.
Farron Cousins: So you can really drive that conversation with these local grocery stores by saying, I’m not going to you because you’re only offering me Tyson. I’m taking my whole grocery bill down the street to the other market.
Mike Papantonio: But it takes you doing something rather than just watching a segment like this and say, ah, that’s not right. And then you just go do the same thing.
Your tax dollars are being used to prop up defense contractors and the Ukraine conflict is giving them everything they want. It is like a bonanza out there for the defense business. And you know, there’s a story behind there that everybody misses and I don’t know why because it sits right there. Okay. First of all, you got a Pentagon, that’s got an $800 billion budget. Okay. So what, anytime there’s a conflict, whether it’s Ukraine or South America or Africa, wherever, we ship out all of our missiles, for example, we might ship out, you know, 500, 600 missiles to a certain place. And then the Pentagon goes back to the producer of that missile and says, make us 500 more. So do the math. I mean, who’s making the money here. The money is the weapons industry and that’s what, you know, it’s what we’re seeing with Ukraine with $40 billion being sent there.
Farron Cousins: Well, you know, that’s a really good point that I think a lot of people don’t quite understand when we talk about these military budgets every single year. You know, 700 billion, two years ago, 740. Now over 800 billion this year, we are buying all of these things every single year, but we’re not necessarily the ones.
Mike Papantonio: Right.
Farron Cousins: Using them. What we do just like you said, oh, there’s a conflict over here. Nobody’s paying attention. Take a third of our javelin missiles.
Mike Papantonio: Right.
Farron Cousins: Hey, by the way, Raytheon, gotta resupply.
Mike Papantonio: Make us some more.
Farron Cousins: Here’s your money. There’s money off the trade here.
Mike Papantonio: Yeah.
Farron Cousins: And so we just, we’re basically the grocery store of the defense industry.
Mike Papantonio: Well, here, here.
Farron Cousins: We buy the stock and then sell it.
Mike Papantonio: Here’s what shocks everybody. When you tell them that every tax dollar that you pay to the government, one half, one half goes to the military and most of it goes to the defense contractors. And I mean, that’s a staggering number. You pay a dollar and 50 cents of that is gonna go for this type of thing, buying missiles and sending ’em all over the world. But with, with a budget of $800 billion, there ought to be some. And I, by the way, Massachusetts, I don’t know if you saw that Massachusetts is coming up with a standard where they have, there’s a responsibility for the government to report how they’re spending tax dollars. See, this is how this has happened. If you ask, if you ask the average person out on the street, did you know that half of your tax dollars go to things like missiles and airplanes and Pentagon, yada yada? No, they don’t have any idea. So Massachusetts is saying, we gotta, we gotta end that.
Farron Cousins: Yeah. They, they wanna make it completely open to where the breakdown of how your taxes in the state are spent is available publicly to everyone. And it’s a great piece of legislation. Something that we absolutely should have nationally. But I still think even if we had it nationally, even if we had it printed out and delivered to everybody’s front step,
Mike Papantonio: They wouldn’t read it.
Farron Cousins: Still half the country would say, I’ve never seen it. Because they choose not to care about these things. You’re, you’re losing your tax dollars. You know, the national Institute of health, right, the people that are supposed to be curing cancer and Alzheimer’s and all these deadly diseases, they get 45 billion a year.
Mike Papantonio: Yeah.
Farron Cousins: And, and almost half of that I think is spent on just the Medicaid part of Alzheimer’s treat, treatments.
Mike Papantonio: Mm-hmm.
Farron Cousins: Not even cures. We’re wasting so much money enriching your Raytheons and your Boeings and, and Lockheed Martins.
Mike Papantonio: Yeah, exactly.
Farron Cousins: And, and people are dying of things that if we actually put the 800 billion towards it, even for one year, we’re gonna start curing some things pretty darn quickly.
Mike Papantonio: How, how about education, education? How about infrastructure? How about food and shelter for people who need food? Well, like you say, how about taking that and saying, we’re, we’re gonna put everything we have into curing Alzheimer’s disease, or we’re gonna put everything we can into curing whatever the disease is. But the point is you can’t do that when you’re taking one half of every dollar and you know that you’re sending it all over the world. They didn’t even, you know, it was unanimous with Democrats, unanimous. Yes, let’s send $400 billion worth of missiles and military arm and, and military weapons to, to Ukraine, unanimous. Nobody said, well, can we do anything else with that $40 billion?
Farron Cousins: Well, and, and again, if we were to take the military budget and just say, you know what, for next year, for 2023, the only budget items we’re gonna spend money on will be the military salaries. That’s it. And your housing and your benefits. The rest of the money we’re gonna put towards diseases, or we’re gonna put towards infrastructure. We’re just gonna do it one year. So for one year, we’re not gonna send weapons. We’re not gonna get the newest model of the fighter jet you want. You gotta live with a year old one.
Mike Papantonio: But right now you gotta everybody ginned up, oh, we gotta come to the aid of Ukraine. You know my position is, get the hell out.
Farron Cousins: Yeah.
Mike Papantonio: Okay. That’s my position. But there’s, there’s people that’s, they, they don’t buy into the idea that sending $40 billion is just one incident. I mean, we, we do this all the time and the people who are making all the money are the defense contractors, $600 billion, $600 billion paid to defense contractors.
Farron Cousins: We, we couldn’t get $1,200 checks when we’re outta work for six months due to COVID.
Mike Papantonio: Yeah.
Farron Cousins: And we approved $40 billion like that to send over there.
Mike Papantonio: President Biden has decided to make nice with Saudi Arabia. He’s gonna ignore the history of human rights abuses. He’s gonna ignore everything that he talked about when he was running for president. When he went on, when he went on the rampage and he said, you know, that, that Saudi Arabia, what did he call them? That they were, that they were a, a, a bunch of pariah. He called the prince there a pariah. And he says, I’m different from Trump, vote for me because I’m different from Trump because I know that Saudi Arabia is covered with a bunch of, of, of pariah. I mean, he was very clear. He said, I’m not gonna deal with this guy. He’s gonna become a victim. What’s changed?
Farron Cousins: Uh, he wants oil. And I mean, that, that really is so sick, but now they’re willing, they’re gonna overlook we know you killed Jamal Khashoggi. We know you did it. The blood is on your hands. All of our reports have said you did it. But we really need that oil. We know you’re committing atrocious human rights violations in your own country. We know you’re doing it to your neighbors. But we really gotta have that oil because we need a win in the midterms. Because at the end of the day, that’s what this is about. You know, politicians only care about the cost of things that affect us when it’s an election year.
Mike Papantonio: He’s being told to go there.
Farron Cousins: Yeah.
Mike Papantonio: Okay. He’s got a problem with oil, which everybody, I agree.
Farron Cousins: Sure.
Mike Papantonio: But there are alternatives to going to. Look there’s, here’s the vision I have of him. You got an 80 year old man showing up in front of these murderers, these, these psychopaths on bended knees saying, hey, you know what, if you’ll just help me here. I got midterms coming up. If you’ll just help me here, what I’ll do is I’ll train all of your people in how to use all these sophisticated weapons and I’ll sell you anything you want. And in the hands of Saudi Arabia, that’s pretty scary stuff, isn’t it?
Farron Cousins: It, it, it is. And, and I don’t think people understand that that’s actually not hyperbole either. We do bring Saudi military over here to US military bases. We trained them. We paid for all of this. We teach them how to use these weapons that we just sold to them.
Mike Papantonio: Hell, I’m handling a case where one of the folks that they sent over murdered, murdered soldiers on the base, because he was directly tied to a terrorist cell. And so, but, but do you have that picture in your mind? An 80 year old man on bended knees is supposed to be the president of the most powerful country in the world saying, oh, you know, please we’ll send you more weapons. How disgusting is that picture?
Farron Cousins: What he needs to do is he needs to show up, not in Saudi Arabia, he needs to go to Ford. He needs to go to General Motors.
Mike Papantonio: Good point.
Farron Cousins: And he needs to say, listen, I’m gonna fully subsidize all of this.
Mike Papantonio: Good point.
Farron Cousins: But we’re gonna go a hundred percent electric.
Mike Papantonio: Right.
Farron Cousins: And we’re gonna make it, I’m giving you the money to do this so that these vehicles are affordable. Not everybody can go out and buy a hundred thousand dollar electric car. Make ’em $15,000.
Mike Papantonio: That’s, Farron, that’s brilliant. As a matter of fact, that’s what was done with the Volkswagen in Germany.
Farron Cousins: Yeah.
Mike Papantonio: That was, it was government’s gotta produce it. We gotta be standing behind it and the Volkswagen emerged, you know, the same thing can happen here. I mean, it’s, it’s kinda like when, when John F. Kennedy said, we’re gonna be on the moon, we’re gonna put everything on being on the moon. It happened. This guy could do the same thing, but he doesn’t have any leadership ability. He doesn’t even have people advising him. Instead, they’re telling this 80 year old guy, hey, you know, why don’t you just go over there and grovel because that’s what it’s gonna look like.
The Supreme Court issued a ruling on Monday that’ll make it almost impossible to sue federal agents. Wow. Tell me about this case.
Farron Cousins: This, this is a very bizarre case and, and it’s one that basically undo a ruling from 1971, because the Supreme Court precedent isn’t a thing anymore. But it says, listen, if you have these FBI agents or whatever federal agents it are, it is, that violate your fourth amendment rights.
Mike Papantonio: Mm-hmm.
Farron Cousins: You know, illegal searches and seizures. You can’t go after them anymore. Instead what you’re gonna have to do is you’re gonna have to sue the US government instead.
Mike Papantonio: Mm-hmm.
Farron Cousins: So instead of taking an individual agent who acted, you know, in a rogue manner and holding them accountable, you now little average claimant have to go up against the power of the United States Department of Justice. And I think we both know how that’s going to end for the person trying to file a lawsuit here. You, as the average person are not going to beat the whole DOJ. That’s what they do.
Mike Papantonio: Yeah, they can.
Farron Cousins: And it screws you outta your rights.
Mike Papantonio: Well, they can put limitless money up against you. They can make it impossible for you to even show up in court. They can, you know, they, they can handle it all kinds of ways to where they put so much pressure on you that you just say, look, you know, maybe it’s not worth it. And that’s what this ruling does.
Farron Cousins: It, it really does. And what it also does is it gives the green lights for any of these federal agents who maybe think like, ah, I don’t wanna waste time on trying to get a warrant. I know now that I can’t really be held liable for this. I’m gonna go ahead and do this. We’re gonna violate your constitutional rights because you.
Mike Papantonio: I can get away with it.
Farron Cousins: You can’t do anything. Yeah.
Mike Papantonio: I can get away with.
Farron Cousins: It’s the same thing we see with police officers with qualified immunity. This is basically just expanding it to defense.
Mike Papantonio: Yeah. Here’s a ticket to go be a bad cop. That’s what it is. Go be a bad cop. You have our blessings. Thank you for joining me this week, Farron.
Farron Cousins: Thank you.
Mike Papantonio: That’s all for this week. But all 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, this has been America’s Lawyer where we tell you the stories that corporate media won’t tell you because their advertisers won’t let ’em or because their political connections just don’t allow for it. We’ll see you next time.
