Suzanne Spaulding’s attacks on consumer advocates and attorneys like Ring of Fire’s Mike Papantonio drew the attention of Sam Seder.
“When you think about, like, the supposed disinformation that’s coming out, she singles out Papantonio.” Seder said a recent episode of his podcast. “She talks about the most predominant, you think about RT you think about what’s the most predominant vehicle of this disinformation coming out there. She writes the most predominant, or she said, is America’s Lawyer.”
Sam goes on to dig into some of the organizations Ms. Spaulding is associated with and asks questions about why she may be so interested in promoting that attorneys fighting to protect consumers from the greed and harm caused by corporate America are the leading source of disinformation about America’s justice system
Sam Seder:
We had started the show with the, the clip of what was happening in Ohio and there’s gonna be, I mean, I would imagine, I would hope that there’s gonna be some class action lawsuits that take place in that. And this just came on my, as you know, I usually go twice a year, started to go since post Covid, went in October, was planning to go into April to this Mass Torts conference that is held in Vegas every year. And people really like the interviews. I love going. It, it is incredible, the, what some of these attorneys are doing in terms of like corporate malfeasance and a lot of stories that we bring up over the years. And in fact, at one point I interviewed Fred Gray, Rosa Parks attorney, and there’s a new Rosa Parks documentary out, but I don’t wanna lose the sight of what I’m talking about.
But, one of the guys, the way I got into going to the, this Mass Torts conference because I had worked with Mike Papantonio, who is one of the biggest plaintiff’s attorney in the country, a trial lawyer. And it has been fascinating watching that. Mike does a show called America’s Lawyer. It’s online now. It was on RT for a while. But it’s about, it was about these court cases essentially, and also at different times like what the DOJ is or is not doing, what we’re seeing in terms of like the right wing takeover of the court system, both on a federal level, but also a lot of state courts are elected. And over the years, there’s been all sorts of like real malfeasance that has gone on there. And why does that happen?
That happens because states get, you know, state governments, they’ll get paid by corporations or lobbyists to put judges on these courts who are going to be friendly to corporations. Pap was the lead attorney in that C8 DuPont case, or I should say the lead Litigator when it finally came to trial after like 20 years of this saga and basically put DuPont outta business, because they were dumping chemicals into a tributary of the Ohio River there. And this just came up, like somebody had sent this to me, and I know there’s some other people talking about this a little bit, but, and I haven’t paid too much attention to, you know, this think tank, which is called CSIS, the Center for Strategic and International Studies. They’re a think tank that’s been going around, they’ve been around since the Cold War. And I know Matt, like, you know, has followed some of this a little bit better than I have in terms of like, they’re sort of like the supposed misinformation, like, think tank, right?
Matt Lech:
You mean, to police misinformation?
Sam Seder:
Yeah.
Matt Lech:
Yeah. I mean, it’s very, I think very official, like, folks that work with CSIS.
Sam Seder:
Yes.
Emma Vigeland:
Very establishment, right? Is the, is the.
Sam Seder:
Well, that’s the thing, is like, you haven’t paid too much attention to it. Look, misinformation is a problem. I don’t like it being so closely associated with government officials and whatnot, but I mean, we do have a problem with that, but there’s different mechanisms. But the problem is that it sort of feels like they’re running out of stuff to do, or that these apparatus can be, can be twisted. And there’s this woman, Suzanne Spaulding, who’s one of the people there, and apparently, somebody had sent this to me. She had been in like some forum in 2021, and she’s singling out about RT at that time. And RT, there was a lot of garbage on that network, to be honest.
Emma Vigeland:
Yeah.
Sam Seder:
But when you think about like the supposed disinformation that’s coming out, she singles out Papantonio and I got a copy of this and she just retweeted this like a couple, like a week ago. This is from 2021. She just retweeted this out like a week ago. And she talks about the most predominant, you think about RT, you think about what’s the most predominant vehicle of this disinformation coming out there. She writes the most predominant, or she said, is America’s Lawyer.
Emma Vigeland:
What?
Sam Seder:
A weekly program on RT. It’s hosted by Pensacola trial attorney Mike Papantonio. His weekly theme is that the justice system in the United States is broken. That corporations and corrupt politicians have taken control and have turned the once impartial judiciary into a tool for the elite to use for their own gain.
Emma Vigeland:
Yeah. No, lies told.
Sam Seder:
I was gonna say like, wait, what? And so I did a little bit of digging down. You don’t have to do much, but the Center for Strategic International Studies turns out to be funded by the Smith Richardson Foundation, the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation, the Charles Koch Foundation, Bank of America Corporation, Northrop Grumman Corporation, BP, which the words Pensacola and BP may ring a bell because BP was involved in one of the biggest spills, if not the biggest spills, of oil. And his firm was sat on the plaintiff’s, essentially, committee that dealt with BP.
Citigroup, which got a lot of attention during the Obama years because you had Holder, which I know Papantonio is highly critical of Eric Holder, for not going after. Johnson and Johnson, one of the biggest cases that they, that his firm and other firms frankly, are doing is about the talcum powder, which we had reported on. I think I interviewed somebody about that for years and years ago, that it was carcinogenic and there are other, Raytheon, et cetera, et cetera. And so I guess my point is, you know, it’s one thing to have like a think tank out there talking about disinformation, allowing people to make their assessments. It’s another when they start to weaponize this as a way of attacking trial lawyers.
Emma Vigeland:
Yep.
Sam Seder:
And this is the biggest thing. When I entered into doing this, one of the biggest themes out there was like tort reform. And over the years, you watch and what happens, they attack the regulatory apparatus, and then they attack the one sort of like private enterprise that is more or less deputized by our government to hold people to account. And when you hear the words tort reform, when you hear the, like, understand what they’re doing, they are trying to prevent Americans from getting redress in our court system against corporations. Supreme Court has gone full scale on trying to shut essentially the courtroom doors to people. And the idea that they are now using the context of misinformation, that our court system is great, that there are no right wing judges that are favor, in favor of corporations. That we don’t have politicians, particularly on a state level, that are trying to sway courts.
The idea that that becomes misinformation is very problematic, to say the least. And so people should just be aware that, of this type of stuff, because I understand like, you know, people are very sensitive to the idea of misinformation being out there. This is just one, you have to be vigilant. And you have to make sure that to the extent that misinformation is being called out by these organizations, that it’s not being used to be weaponized on behalf of corporations that wanna make sure that they escape accountability for what they’re doing.
Emma Vigeland:
Yeah.
Sam Seder:
So.
Emma Vigeland:
Yeah, well said.
Matt Lech:
Because you have, on the one side, you have like the right wing sort of fascist style of lying that you’re trying to, like AOC was mentioning, were trying to clear, there’s a project to clear the sort of communication channel so that stuff can be effective. And it’d be a big, sort of like, on the other hand, you have the overreaction to that or the guard dogs against that being empowered going after Papantonio instead.
Sam Seder:
Well, yes. And again, going against the whole sort of like tort law establishment, because then they start going out and they’re working for these corporations that fund these organizations. They gotta keep the business rolling in, but.
Emma Vigeland:
And it’s just, it’s just insane to disqualify anybody just based on RT being associated, like Abby Martin and Pap are two really great people that were with RT, I believe in the past. There are some cranks on there, but for the most part, a lot of those people are really good, some of them at least, really good progressives and fighters for the people. So.
Sam Seder:
And the idea that, you know, criticizing the court system is somehow misinformation. Um, I mean, really?
Emma Vigeland:
Yeah.
