America’s Lawyer E25: 33 states have laws that actually shield religious leaders from having to report child abuse to authorities – and lawmakers are protecting these loopholes across the country. We’ll explain what’s happening. The United States keeps sending billions of dollars to Ukraine as our infrastructure crumbles to the ground – we’ll tell you why this continues to happen. And President Biden’s most recent gaffe has political analysts once again asking if he’s mentally capable of doing his job. 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. 33 states have laws that actually shield religious leaders from having to report child abuse to authorities and lawmakers are protecting these loopholes across the country. We’ll explain what it means. The United States keeps sending billions of dollars to Ukraine as our infrastructure crumbles to the ground in this country. We’ll tell you why this continues to happen. And President Biden’s most recent gaffe, well, political analysts once again are asking, is he mentally stable? Can he do the job? All that and more. It’s coming up. Don’t go anywhere. America’s Lawyer starts right now.
Laws on the books in 33 states protect clergy members from having to report abuse of children to authorities. Ring of Fire’s Farron Cousins joins me to talk about what’s happening with that issue. Well, your take is probably the same as mine. A, there shouldn’t be any protection. B, if somebody has confessed, God bless ’em, maybe they’ll save their soul from going to hell. But that still doesn’t protect the child.
Farron Cousins: Yeah. And, and just this year alone, we’ve seen obviously, you know, the Southern Baptist Convention with their massive scandal, Scientology with their scandals, the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, the Mormons with their child abuse scandals. So we’re talking about off the charts right now, levels of child abuse being reported that happened for decades before anybody came forward.
Mike Papantonio: Well, you know, right, every, every attempt, whether you’re talking, there’s a whole list of states that say that there’s 33 states that say, yeah, we’re gonna give ’em some kind of protection. Every time there’s a run at that, the money that comes in to stop it, the lobbying money is the Catholic church. The, the Mormons, God, probably the Scientologists, I can’t say for sure. But the point is, there’s no, there’s no constitutional protection here at all. This isn’t like a lawyer, this isn’t like a lawyer client privilege. There, there’s some constitutional rights that attach to that. There’s no constitutional protection here. This is a, this is a legal fiction that has been created by these churches, really.
Farron Cousins: Yeah. And, and it’s very weird to me that these churches are in the business of protecting these individuals. You know, they, they don’t really stand to gain anything.
Mike Papantonio: Yeah.
Farron Cousins: From protecting people who are abusing children. That’s what really drives me crazy about this, is there’s no, you know, if a person comes in and confesses and said, yes, I, I raped an eight year old.
Mike Papantonio: Mm-hmm.
Farron Cousins: The, the priest or, or whoever is not gonna go and report that, but they don’t gain anything from not reporting it either. So that, that to me is what is weird.
Mike Papantonio: Ultimately the church suffers and the church, because they can’t seem to figure out, you have to clear them out. A pedophile is always going to be a pedophile. When I, I used to prosecute, and the same people would come up all the time, the same pedophile problems, and they’ve done study after study that says, you can’t change this. So when somebody comes to a priest and they, they say, I’m, I’m abusing children, sexually abusing kids, there is absolutely no precedent, there’s no constitutional precedent at all that says that, that priest should not have to go tell the authorities.
Farron Cousins: Well, and, and if a teacher sees signs of abuse, they’re legally required to report, doctors are legally required to report. I mean, the teachers and doctors can get in trouble if they do not tell this.
Mike Papantonio: That’s right.
Farron Cousins: And, and these pastors, priests, whatever, they can hear it from the person’s mouth saying, yeah, uh, right before I walked in here, there was a kid out there, and the priests won’t know anything.
Mike Papantonio: Well, of course the church is worried about lawsuits and losing money, and they don’t, they’re so shortsighted.
Farron Cousins: Right.
Mike Papantonio: That they don’t understand. It’s whether you’re gonna pay today or you’re gonna pay tomorrow, and if you pay tomorrow, it’s gonna be a lot more money.
Farron Cousins: Yeah.
Mike Papantonio: God knows how much money we have collected from, from churches and organizations that have tried to cover up, you know, where they’ve tried to cover up the, the bad deeds.
Farron Cousins: Because it’s people in the church doing it.
Mike Papantonio: That’s correct. That’s correct.
Billions of US dollars continue to flow to Ukraine, even as Americans go without safe drinking water that should be fixed for a fraction. Okay. First of all, I know you’re not as militant on this as I am. I don’t even think we should be in Ukraine. I think it’s a NATO problem. We’re spending, what have we exceeded a hundred billion at this point?
Farron Cousins: We’re getting close. I don’t know that we’ve hit that margin yet.
Mike Papantonio: Yeah. Oh, okay. Okay. So, so we got people in Mississippi that don’t even have drinking water and the, the, the government says, well, we’re, was it 70 million?
Farron Cousins: 20, 20 million.
Mike Papantonio: 20 million. We wanna spend 20 million. We know this stuff’s killing you. It’s causing cancer, causing neurological disease. They’re latency diseases that we don’t even know how bad they’re gonna be. We know there’s lead in the water that’s causing neurological disease for the children, but we’re gonna give you 20 million. And oh, by the way, we sent another $13 billion to Ukraine. And I know you’re not as militant on this as I am. We shouldn’t even be there, Farron. We should not even be there. It’s a NATO issue. And you make the comparisons, NATO’s spending chump change to try to, to try to fix the problem.
Farron Cousins: Look, I’m at the point now where I do think the United States is going to have to stop with this money that we are just absolutely sending out the window. And the reason we’re spending that money, of course, is because it goes to the weapons contractors here in the United States.
Mike Papantonio: Yeah.
Farron Cousins: We’re not sending them pallets of cash like we sent over to Iraq. We’re sending them that money’s worth of weapons.
Mike Papantonio: Mm-hmm.
Farron Cousins: So there’s a lot of profit to be made and that’s why it’s happening. But what we see in Jackson, Mississippi, which is also happening in thousands of other areas around the country, is that this water system has been failing and they’ve known it’s been failing for years. And for what they’re sending to Ukraine, it would cost pennies on the dollar to go in there and fix it. 20 million is nothing for a government.
Mike Papantonio: You know, I, I honestly thought it was 70, but it’s 20.
Farron Cousins: Yeah.
Mike Papantonio: I see, it’s 20. Okay. So here’s, here’s where this all lands to me. The people who really benefit are the weapons industry. They, they’re the ones pushing Ukraine. They’re the ones that were rattling the sabers about Ukraine. They were the ones saying, yeah, let’s push Ukraine into NATO. And, and Ukraine was saying, stay the hell out of our business, you know, but the weapons industry wanted a war. The, the, the media couldn’t wait for another war. My God, watch CNN. It’s the only thing that brought CNN back to a glimmer of life. MSNBC, the same way. So here we’ve got a war where we’re spending those kinds of billions of dollars and we have an infrastructure that is crumbling and we can’t seem to fix something as basic as giving children clean drinking water in the United States. I mean, really?
Farron Cousins: Well, and they’re still in Jackson, Mississippi, they finally have running water again. But they’re being told, uh, don’t brush your teeth with it.
Mike Papantonio: Yeah.
Farron Cousins: Don’t put it in your mouth. Don’t get it near any body orifice because this stuff could poison you, could poison your kids. And again, I, I think, you know, obviously on a personal note, $20 million obviously a big price tag. For a government.
Mike Papantonio: Right.
Farron Cousins: $20 million is absolutely nothing when we spend 800 billion a year on the Pentagon.
Mike Papantonio: And let me give you an idea of what NATO companies are, countries are paying. Albania, $1 million. Belgium, $20 million. Croatia, $16 million. Denmark, $400 million. So here, so at what point does this fall on us as responsibility? At what point do we say we are not the policemen of the entire frigging world? Okay. That we have a responsibility at home. And if this doesn’t get, hey, how about Puerto Rico? Puerto Rico just slammed. Biden says, well, we’re gonna give you, that’s where the 40 million came in. We’re gonna give you $40 million. They won’t even touch the destruction of what happened in Puerto Rico for $40 million.
Farron Cousins: Yeah. I, I mean most of the island’s still without electricity.
Mike Papantonio: Yeah.
Farron Cousins: You know, they hadn’t even finished all the repairs from Hurricane Maria from a few years ago. And, and we do nothing. That is a United States territory.
Mike Papantonio: Yeah.
Farron Cousins: Those are United States citizens. And it, whether it’s Puerto Rico or here on the mainland, we are letting our people get poisoned. We are watching as bridges and roads crumbled to the point where people die on them.
Mike Papantonio: Mm-hmm.
Farron Cousins: And we do nothing. These are cheap projects to fix and we’re just not doing it.
Mike Papantonio: Well, Farron, look, here, here, here’s the truth. I know you’re not as militant as I am on Ukraine. The reason we do so well together as a team is because I respect your opinion and you respect my opinion. Have you seen sometimes the comments on our site where there’s an attack on you because they disagree with you? They attack on me because they disagree with me as if that’s going to change anything. The difference of this kind of show is, is I respect your opinion.
Farron Cousins: Yeah.
Mike Papantonio: And I don’t think I’ve ever shown disrespect for your opinion. And, and, and we respect the idea that opinion, opinions evolve.
Farron Cousins: Yeah.
Mike Papantonio: So let me say this, I’m hoping that your opinion on Ukraine will evolve and maybe you’ll get to the point where you say, hell, it’s, it’s, it’s, it’s a waste.
Farron Cousins: Well, I’m, I’m already at the point where I think we’ve, we’ve done what we can and should do. It, it’s time to focus on what’s happening here at home.
Mike Papantonio: Yeah, we won’t.
A tech CEO admitted to Wall Street analysts that he’s been praying for inflation. I don’t think I could have made this up. This, this, this, the reason the CEO is praying for inflation is because as inflation rises, they get to hide, they get to hide behind this price gouging that they engage in. This guy admitted it. He said, I’m, I’m doing an Indian, what was it, I’m doing an Indian dance.
Farron Cousins: Yeah.
Mike Papantonio: To make inflation take place in the United States. And, and, and now he’s jubilant that it’s working.
Farron Cousins: Yeah, absolutely. This is the CEO of Iron Mountain, which is a data management storage company. So a, a tech CEO and he’s out there bragging to these Wall Street analysts about how they game the system. We watch as inflation goes up and, yes, we have to adjust our costs for the new cost of doing business, but then we’ll tack on a little extra here to pad our bottom line. And he, he admitted that’s where that money goes. We are, are living right now with corporate profits at the highest level they have been since 1950.
Mike Papantonio: 72 years. That’s right. 72 years these profits haven’t been as high, this high for corporations and, and this guy wants more inflation so he can raise them some more. Now you’ve, you’ve, you and I have talked about this idea. Once they get to, to a, a plateau, we’ve reached this plateau, we’ve raised the price to this plateau, whether it’s fuel, food, medicine, whatever, then it’s very difficult to get that plateau to change in a downward position.
Farron Cousins: Right.
Mike Papantonio: So once they get there, it’s a huge victory, isn’t it?
Farron Cousins: Yeah.
Mike Papantonio: And so that’s what this guy’s proclaiming. This is, this is a way for us to hide our greedy price gouging and once we get there, we’re gonna be in really good shape because people aren’t gonna mess with it for a very long time. But the truth is, what really bothers me about this story is the lack of effort by the Federal Reserve.
Farron Cousins: Yeah.
Mike Papantonio: They’re not doing anything to stop price gouging, but what they’re trying to do is put more Americans outta work by saying, we’re gonna increase, we, we’re gonna continue, continue to raise interest rates. And they know what that does to the labor market. Right now you got three, three jobs for every one person applying. They have a choice. They can go, well, who’s gonna pay me the most? The Fed wants it down to one, if that.
Farron Cousins: Yeah.
Mike Papantonio: So, I mean, this is an ugly.
Farron Cousins: It, it is sick, especially when you hear the comments that men like this make out there bragging about jacking up prices because they can. And then the government says, okay, well we’re gonna stick it to the workers.
Mike Papantonio: Yeah.
Farron Cousins: We need to get wages down is what they’re telling us because apparently the, the working class people making $30,000, you’re the problem. Not people like this. That is absolutely insane. Americans have to suffer so that guys like this can pocket more money every year. And we do nothing about it. A couple people, you know, Sanders and Warren of course the usual suspects.
Mike Papantonio: Mm-hmm.
Farron Cousins: They’ve called this out. They want to do something, but they can’t get anybody else on board.
Mike Papantonio: Yeah. No grounds. I mean, they can’t get any action, there on the ground to action. The Federal Reserve could do something.
Farron Cousins: Yeah.
Mike Papantonio: The, the, the president, the, the, the White House could do something where it comes to this price gouging. That’s all it is.
The founders of the group Occupy Democrats have been accused of funneling hundreds of thousands of dollars into their own pockets. The, these were the darlings of the Democrats. Remember? Oh these, they’re so funny. They have all these memes that they do and they, they, they, they’re all over Twitter with attacking the other side, attacking Republicans. The problem is they were attacking, they were spending money attacking politicians that weren’t really even a factor. You know, they weren’t even gonna be really running for anything. And they were attacking. But the real ugly story is now we find out, what was it, 570,000, $570,000 out of $790,000, 570,000 went back to the people to their pockets.
Farron Cousins: Yeah.
Mike Papantonio: I mean, that’s what this story says.
Farron Cousins: It is. And it’s important to remember, of course, the Occupy Democrats, of course sprang outta the Occupy Wall Street movement. They adopted the occupy phrase, ran with it, did a good job of raising money, over $700,000. They turned it into a political action committee.
Mike Papantonio: Yeah.
Farron Cousins: And then they said suddenly, just people who really aren’t even used to this said, oh my God, look at this money. What do we do? So they start paying their own companies as, as consulting fees, even though they’re running it, they’re paying themselves as consultants. Hundreds of thousands of dollars according to these stories. And then when they get busted and the news comes out, they say, oh, well, you know, we, we, there was some accounting errors. Sure. They don’t tell us what they were.
Mike Papantonio: Mm-hmm.
Farron Cousins: And then they say, but you know, we’re not allowed to donate money to candidates. If we were, we totally would do that. We just can’t do it.
Mike Papantonio: Surprise, they are allowed to donate to candidates and that was complete BS, because the Democrats were saying, you’re raising all this money. Why don’t you give it to some of these Democrats that are in trouble? Oh, we can’t do that because our charter doesn’t allow for it. That’s ridiculous. They absolutely could do it. Farron, I had to read this twice. When they were trying to, when they were trying to justify where’s that $570,000 going, one of the statements was this, you just don’t understand the time it takes to make memes for Twitter and Facebook. $570,000 worth. Well, okay, the point is, this had potential to be a really effective organization. It’s gonna be very difficult for them to pull out of this, isn’t it?
Farron Cousins: Oh, absolutely. And listen, oh, it takes time to make memes. There are people who can make a meme about a news story that just broke two minutes ago and have 8,000 people share it on Twitter within the next 10 minutes.
Mike Papantonio: Yeah.
Farron Cousins: It does not take a long time. You’ve got very creative people out there that literally do it all day, every day.
Mike Papantonio: Why would you even go there with a statement like that?
Farron Cousins: Because they’re backed into a corner and when you get somebody backed into a corner, they just get so stupid.
Mike Papantonio: Yeah.
Farron Cousins: They get so painfully stupid and that’s what we’re seeing come out of these guys right now. They don’t know what they’re doing. They got a huge pot of money. They’ve never seen money like that before. They got greedy, which is what always happens with these little popup groups.
Mike Papantonio: Yeah.
Farron Cousins: And now they got busted.
Mike Papantonio: Okay, well.
Democrats and Republicans are furious at Nancy Pelosi for once again killing the stock trading ban bill in the House. Okay. So she comes out initially, we’re never gonna pass the bill that bans my ability to be able to engage in insider trading because that’s what it is. I should be able to do insider trading. Everybody else should go to prison. So then she turns around with the public opinion is, you idiot. Why in the world would you say such a thing? Turns around and says, oh, well I’m gonna try to make it happen. Tell us what happened next.
Farron Cousins: And, and then when you actually had this bipartisan group, Republicans and Democrats working together, put together legislation. Pelosi’s office says, cool, I’m gonna take this and, and I’m gonna basically throw it away. I’m gonna go behind closed doors with a couple of my people. We’re gonna write our own legislation. It’s gonna be just as good. And they come out with this legislation that is, one, filled with loopholes that basically doesn’t do anything to solve the problem. And two, it’s basically kitchen sink legislation is what they called it.
Mike Papantonio: They just threw it together.
Farron Cousins: Yeah. And so they knew it would never pass.
Mike Papantonio: Well, she knew that.
Farron Cousins: Yeah, exactly.
Mike Papantonio: She’s been at this a long time. The people, look, everybody else goes to prison for doing what these cats do. They go to prison for it. These, these folks, if they’re caught, what do they pay $200?
Farron Cousins: $200, is their fee.
Mike Papantonio: $200 if they’re caught, basically insider trading.
Farron Cousins: And that’s only if, you know, Pelosi actually decides to put the, the fine in place because she ultimately has authority over that. She also defended, you know, her and her husband’s insider trading, for she said it was, it’s our free speech.
Mike Papantonio: Yeah.
Farron Cousins: We, we have the right to free speech, which means we can use this information that nobody else in the country sees to trade stocks.
Mike Papantonio: What’s important, Farron, and we’ve talked about this, where they get this information is they serve on committees. They might be on a committee for defense. So they know a war’s gonna break out and we know we’re gonna send more missiles over, so they buy defense stock. It might be healthcare. We know a new drug is coming out because we got our pals that are talking about it in front of the FDA and congressional hearings. So we’re gonna, if it’s great, we’re gonna buy that drug. Energy. We’re gonna, we see a, you know, there’s gonna be an uptake in energy, let go buy. That’s how they do all this.
Farron Cousins: And, and, and it’s also, you know, oh, we’ve got a Facebook whistleblower that came to Congress. So Facebook’s about to go down. Everybody sell your Facebook stock.
Mike Papantonio: Yes, yes.
Farron Cousins: So it is, you know, we know the bad before it happens. We know the good before it happens. And I can’t stress this enough, that you had a bipartisan coalition that said, all right.
Mike Papantonio: Let’s do something.
Farron Cousins: The public’s, let’s do something.
Mike Papantonio: Let’s do something.
Farron Cousins: This makes us look bad. She has to go. I mean, she cannot be left in a leadership positions.
Mike Papantonio: She, she’s pathetic.
Farron Cousins: Yeah.
Mike Papantonio: She’s absolutely pathetic. And, and you know, we’ve been talking about you and I predicted that she would kill this.
Farron Cousins: Yeah.
Mike Papantonio: You remember?
Farron Cousins: Yep.
Mike Papantonio: First time we did this story, we said, Nancy Pelosi will find a way to kill this, this issue that gives Congress the right to inside trade just like Martha Stewart did. Martha Stewart went to prison for it.
Joe Biden is under fire for his latest gaffe where he asked if a recently deceased Republican lawmaker was in the crowd at a conference. All right, well, so look, this is a lot worse than it sounds on its face because just a month or two months before she was killed in an auto crash, he actually addresses the family. He goes on a public statement talking about how awful it is and what, what a wonderful person she was. Now this is a month or two before he shows up to do this and doesn’t know where he is. I’m, we’ll show it. But he, it’s, it’s almost like he doesn’t even know where he is.
President Joe Biden: I wanna thank all of you here for, including bipartisan elected officials like representative governor Senator Braun, Senator Booker. Representative, Jackie, are you here? Where’s Jackie? I, I didn’t think she was gonna be here, to help make this a reality.
Mike Papantonio: What’s your take on this? I mean, is he gonna make it another two years?
Farron Cousins: Um, I honestly don’t know. That was, it was appalling. I know he didn’t do it intentionally.
Mike Papantonio: No, of course not.
Farron Cousins: But, at the same time he knew she had died. But what gets me too is the response from his administration trying to write this off. I mean, what did, she said.
Mike Papantonio: Top of mind.
Farron Cousins: Yeah, yeah. His, his spokesperson said, well, it was at the top of his mind because, you know, there, there’s gonna be a signing in her honor this coming Friday. So of course she was on his mind. She was top of mind for the president. No, that, that’s if you accidentally call somebody else by the wrong name. You’re not sitting out there, Jackie, are you there? Jackie, where are you? You know where Jackie is and you know she’s not in that room.
Mike Papantonio: Okay. So, so I mean this is, it’s, it’s, it’s pitiful, but it nevertheless should be something that late night comedy at least takes advantage of and maybe puts a program. Have they done that? Is there any real discussion about where they’re asking the question, this is serious, and is he gonna make it two more years? I mean, that’s, that’s the real.
Farron Cousins: I mean, there’s, there’s definitely been mockery of it for sure. But questioning whether or not he’s there anymore, I haven’t seen a whole lot of that, you know, from the late night type shows. But this does raise that question, you know, as you pointed out, he knew this woman had passed horrifically. He sends the statement to the family, he knows he’s got an event later on where they’re commemorating her.
Mike Papantonio: Right.
Farron Cousins: So there’s no, there’s no excuse for this unless something’s not.
Mike Papantonio: Signals, signals are screwed up.
Farron Cousins: Right.
Mike Papantonio: Okay. That is classic dementia. That’s absolutely classic. And you know what, the, the truth is both parties, I mean Grassley, the Republican, they, guy needs a cognitive test. Feinstein, who we talked about, she doesn’t even know where she is half the time. Needs some type of test to say, can you actually perform the job that, that taxpayers have sent you to Washington to do? Or now Nancy Pelosi.
Farron Cousins: Yeah.
Mike Papantonio: I mean, we’re, we’re, we’re. And so you have to, what’s wrong with saying maybe we should have some kind of cognitive test here?
Farron Cousins: Well, and, and again, what gets me is just the fact that this administration, the spokesperson could have come out and said, listen, he goofed.
Mike Papantonio: Yeah, he goofed. It happens.
Farron Cousins: It was, it was unfortunate and we apologized to the family.
Mike Papantonio: Yeah.
Farron Cousins: But obviously he’s a busy guy, knows a lot of people he goofed.
Mike Papantonio: But watch the rest of his speech and he seemed to sound okay. Anything but.
Farron Cousins: Instead of like, oh, well no. Just admit the truth for once in your life.
Mike Papantonio: Yeah, yeah. It’s a lot easier.
Rising violent crime rates all over the country could spell a problem for the Democrats in November. I saw this NPR story. You saw it. NPR, I mean, I, I don’t guess they’ve got, I don’t guess they’ve got anything to, to launch against the Democrats. But they said that this crime issue in the big cities is a problem and we, they, and that the Democrats treat it like the elephant in the room that they want to ignore. Pick it up from there.
Farron Cousins: Yeah. You know, the NPR folks went through, they looked at the crime statistics for this year, last year. Things are rising, you know, murders are rising, violent robberies, violent crimes, sexual assaults, all of it is going up. There is no denying that. You may wanna pretend that that’s not an issue, but it is. And that’s what NPR is talking about here. They’re saying, listen, the raw data shows us how bad things are. And a lot of it is happening in cities that have Democratic mayors. Again, it’s an unfortunate fact.
Mike Papantonio: You have.
Farron Cousins: But it’s a fact.
Mike Papantonio: You have a good analysis on why, why this happens. I mean, it’s, it’s not something that you can put into a commercial and people really understand.
Farron Cousins: Right.
Mike Papantonio: But the truth is, the Republicans now have this thing to work with and, and, and it is, they’re beating the hell, beating the Democrats in places like LA, New York. They’re, they’re, they’re, they’re taking what’s happening in LA, New York, San Francisco, Oregon, name it where the crime rates are off the chart. And they’re saying, well, is it a coincidence that Democrats are in charge or is there a connection? Now if you really do the analysis that if you look at the red states, the crime in the states probably are high, just as high or higher. But it’s, again, it’s the, it’s, it’s, it’s the optics man. What’s probably the truth behind it? I mean, really, if you really analyze what’s really going on, what is it?
Farron Cousins: I, I think a lot of it has to do with rising inequality here in the United States. I think that’s, you know, definitely issue number one. And I think number two is the fact that we got a prison system that is not focused in any way on rehabilitation.
Mike Papantonio: Well, never has been, has it?
Farron Cousins: Exactly.
Mike Papantonio: Yeah. It never has been.
Farron Cousins: And all, all it is is, okay, you gotta go stay in Club Fed for, you know, 10, 20 years, maybe less. But now we gotta get you out because we want to throw all these kids in there who were caught with pot. So you put the violent people out, you let the non-violent people stay in jail.
Mike Papantonio: Mm-hmm. And, and become violent.
Farron Cousins: Exactly.
Mike Papantonio: Yeah.
Farron Cousins: Like, it, it is this horrible system and we have to focus on rehabilitation for the people you can, I mean, obviously.
Mike Papantonio: Look, they’re, there are people out there who are gonna kill people.
Farron Cousins: Yeah.
Mike Papantonio: And there’s people, you know, that the truth is, the truth is, my take on this is what are the optics? How are the Republicans using the optics of all of it? And I think it’s effective. They’re tying it into the defund, defund the police. They’re hanging that around the, it wasn’t the Republicans saying defund the police. It was the Democrats. So you’re in a city and we’re, a city that by the way, may be offering 40,000, 30 to 40,000 signing bonuses to police. Did you see this material?
Farron Cousins: Yeah.
Mike Papantonio: Yeah. Offering 30,000, 40,000 signing bonuses to police because there’s so many resignations. Nobody wants to move into it anymore because of the defund, the defund the police movement. So, I mean, the optics are really bad for the Democrats. And I think they have to, I think they have to hit it head on. I don’t know what they do. What, what do they do?
Farron Cousins: Well, I mean, look, if you want to talk about crime, if you’re a Democrat wanting to run some ads to counter these, uh, you can show footage of January 6th. I think that’s a pretty good optic right there to say, these are the people that they think this crime is okay.
Mike Papantonio: Yeah, yeah.
Farron Cousins: So that’s one way to counter it. But at the same time, work on your message a little better. You know, defund the police became this blanket statement that.
Mike Papantonio: That was hung around the Democrats.
Farron Cousins: Right. And nobody knows what it means. What it means is, let’s put resources towards mental health. Let’s put resources towards new teams of first responders that don’t carry guns to go out there and shoot people.
Mike Papantonio: When did you ever hear that explained?
Farron Cousins: Never.
Mike Papantonio: Yeah. Never. And they, the, the Republicans again, have hung this around and NPR says, you might not like what we’re about to say, but it’s a big deal in midterms. It’s going to rock the world in midterms.
Farron Cousins: Yeah.
Mike Papantonio: That’s what NPR had to say about it. Farron, thanks for joining me. Okay.
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 has been America’s Lawyer, where we tell you stories that corporate media won’t tell you because their advertisers don’t let ’em, or their political connections are so one, one-sided that it doesn’t allow for it. We’ll see you next time.
