America’s Lawyer E70: The passing of Senator Dianne Feinstein last week gave California governor Gavin Newsom the chance to save Democrats in both the House and the Senate – and he refused to do it. We’ll explain what happened. The Supreme Court has agreed to take on two cases regarding social media companies and how they ban users – we’ll tell you what’s at stake. And President Biden is working with physical therapists to avoid embarrassing himself at campaign events before next year’s election. 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 passing of Senator Dianne Feinstein last week gave California governor Gavin Newsom the chance to save the Democrats in both the House and the Senate and he refused to do it. We’ll explain what happened. The Supreme Court has agreed to take on two cases regarding social media companies and how they ban users. We’ll tell you what’s at stake. And President Biden, well, he’s working with physical therapists to avoid embarrassing himself on the campaign trail. All that, it’s coming up, don’t go anywhere. America’s Lawyer starts right now.
Senator Dianne Feinstein passed away last week at the age of 90, and California’s governor Gavin Newsom immediately put on the spot to appoint a replacement. But instead of picking one of the people currently running for Feinstein’s seat, he chose someone with ties to powerful California politicians. Ring of Fire’s Farron Cousins joins me to talk about why, along with a lot of other topics. Farron, when I look at this, all I see is this is a decision that furthers Gavin Newsom’s career. He makes this pick that she’s tied into all the money. I mean, she has the ability to raise huge money for him, and it’s just a sign of what he intends to do, isn’t it?
Farron Cousins: Right. And of course she worked side by side with Vice President Kamala Harris. So she has those connections to the White House, kind of cozying up that deal a little bit. But Newsom screwed the pooch here.
Mike Papantonio: I think he did too.
Farron Cousins: I mean, look, we’ve got three Democrats running for Feinstein’s Senate seat, Schiff, Porter and Lee. Those three seats will be gone from those people in that California Senate race. Because you cannot run for both. So Porter’s seat is in a district that is a bit of a swing district.
Mike Papantonio: Yes, a Republican can win there.
Farron Cousins: Absolutely. Especially if they’re not running against Katie Porter. Barbara Lee, it’s a little bit safer district, but still a risk. Schiff’s district I think is fairly safe. But either way, three people that the public likes and Gavin Newsom could have put an end to that Senate fight, saved two of those seats for pretty good lawmakers. But he said, nope, I’m gonna pick somebody else because I don’t wanna get involved. And now the woman he picked, Laphonza Butler, Senator Laphonza Butler, she says, maybe I’ll run next year.
Mike Papantonio: Of course.
Farron Cousins: So his whole thing just blew up in his face.
Mike Papantonio: There’s no promise that she’s not gonna run again. Okay.
Farron Cousins:: Right. I would.
Mike Papantonio: There wasn’t any kind of agreement. Although he made the statement, she’s a placeholder, which of course, offended the woman, said, no, I’m not a placeholder. Don’t put me down as a placeholder. But her ties to Emily’s List, huge ability to raise money. The labor movement, she’s one of the leaders in California, and that’s what it’s all about. She sees that that’s where he’s going to have her in his political structure going forward. Schiff does nothing, does absolutely nothing for Newsom. I don’t know, Barbara Lee probably looking at things probably does the most for him. Katie Porter does nothing for him because of the district she’s in. So, look, it’s all about his political future and I think that’s what this comes down to.
Farron Cousins: It really is. And even Barbara Lee, who was angling to be appointed, and I think she’d do pretty good, but she pointed out that, look, Newsom already told us a month ago, he said, I’m gonna pick a black woman. And Barbara Lee, as a black woman said, that’s offensive. Like, this is ridiculous. You’re not picking somebody based on merit, you’re pandering.
Mike Papantonio: I loved to see her come out like that and say, what the hell? Have we really come down to where you’re just gonna pick on color rather than experience and ability? She was pretty vocal on that and it was great to hear, that was refreshing to hear her say that. Frankly, I think she’s a good pick. I think she’ll be a good senator for California. I don’t know if she’d be a good senator in most states, but she’d be a good senator for California, and the chances of her not running again almost are zero. They’re almost zero. And so as you point out, they’re gonna split the ticket four ways, which could create a runoff. Right? Create a runoff, a Republican could win. I mean, that’s where this is all headed, but only time will tell.
The Supreme Court has agreed to take up two cases that could dramatically alter how social media companies work. But there’s some really serious legal issues and most people don’t understand what those issues are. We talk about this case all the time, don’t we? We’ve been talking about the fact this is going to the Supreme Court, how these two cases are huge, and basically it has to do with something fairly simple. It is that you have Florida that says, look, you can’t ban politicians. Florida says, and oh, by the way, you can’t remove content because you disagree with user viewpoint. And those are picking up in states all over the country right now. Right?
Farron Cousins: Yeah. And Texas also has a nearly identical law and those are the two the Supreme Court’s holding up. I do take issue with the way the laws were written just in general, because they’re making assumptions that they couldn’t prove. Sure, like, oh, you can’t ban people based on their political viewpoints alone. There’s no evidence that the political viewpoint alone was the reason. When you look back at some of the users who were banned, it’s clear that they violated the terms of service. But at the same time, parts of these laws absolutely do make sense, because you cannot have these vague terms of service that are determined by people in a back room, because that is when ideologies and things of that nature do come into play. So we need to have these open forums and certain types of things should be banned from these platforms. You know, death threats, things of that nature. Doxxing somebody.
Mike Papantonio: But I don’t think, yeah, that’s the problem. Okay. Who interprets what that is?
Farron Cousins: Exactly.
Mike Papantonio: And so they’re gonna have to clear that up. But the argument for the tech industry, of course, is First Amendment. That you can’t tell us what we can say and can’t say, and by their actions, it is an action that actually creates a First Amendment issue. I think something has to shake up the tech industry.
Farron Cousins: A hundred percent. Yeah.
Mike Papantonio: With these Supreme Court judges, something’s gonna happen and I don’t think tech industry’s gonna be really happy with it.
Farron Cousins: No.
Mike Papantonio: One of the decisions coming out of 11th Circuit, 11th Circuit is a very conservative circuit. And they’ve ruled in a way that it’s pretty good for the people who wanna say to the tech industry, look, you need to stop.
Farron Cousins: And the main point of all of this is, again, I disagree completely when they say, oh, you’re censoring conservatives. The studies have actually proven that ain’t the case at all. But.
Mike Papantonio: But I wanna tell you something. I wanna point something out. You’re right. Some studies do and some studies don’t. Statistics can lie. Right. And that’s what’s happening here. That’s what you’re gonna see in front of the Supreme Court, two sides of it.
Farron Cousins: Well, and the big thing is that there has to be the transparency. And I think that’s kind of the best we can hope for out of any decision we get, is the public needs to know. Right. You need to be open as a company, whether you’re Facebook or Twitter or LinkedIn for god’s sake. Whoever you are, if you have these standards, make them to where everybody knows ’em, everybody can follow ’em so that if somebody gets taken off your site, they’re not up in arms saying, oh my God, I was deleted because of my political views. No, you actually called to kill somebody.
Mike Papantonio: In other words, post what the rules are, is what you’re saying.
Farron Cousins: Yeah. Make sure everybody knows it.
Mike Papantonio: It’s not, well, I’ve got a secret algorithm and nobody knows what it is. That’s kind of where things are right now. So at least post what you’re gonna do to moderate all this, I think is your point.
Farron Cousins: Yeah. And it needs to take people’s opinions out of it. That has to be removed from the, and it has to be a strict set. Like, did user do X, Y, or Z? Yes, they did. Alright, we have the permission to ban you now.
Mike Papantonio: You know, Farron, you raised the issue about the statistics overwhelmingly show that it’s not a conservative issue, but there are statistics on the other side that show it, that’s gonna be the fight in front of the Supreme Court.
Farron Cousins: Sure.
Mike Papantonio: They’re gonna talk about, I mean, anybody can buy statistics and they’re gonna evaluate what’s most credible, on its face they’re gonna do that, but in their heart, they’re saying, what is my political, what’s my political leaning on that? And I don’t think there’s one of these Supreme Court judges, at least on the conservative side, that have any love for the tech industry.
Farron Cousins: Oh, absolutely. I mean, we got a six three majority, we know how this court’s gonna rule.
Mike Papantonio: Yeah. Yeah.
A school district in New Jersey is trying to crack down on bullying at school, but their efforts to save lives might be a violation of the constitutional rights of the student. You and I probably disagree on this one. I think there are times, well, basically lay the case out.
Farron Cousins: Yeah. What happened is you had a student several years ago that was just bullied to the point where she took her own life. And it was later revealed that there were complaints. There were other students that had said, look, I’m being bullied online. Here’s what’s happening. They’ve got these groups, they’ve got these, they’re posting stuff on TikTok. It’s all on the phones. We tried to tell y’all. You did nothing. And now we have a young girl who is dead. So New Jersey says, or the school district in New Jersey says, okay, here’s the deal. We now have the ability to take any student’s cell phone, look through it, see what you’re doing, see what you’re posting. And that’s the new policy, which certainly raises constitutional issues about whether the district has the ability to just snatch and grab. So, that’s where things, you gotta stop the bullying, absolutely.
Mike Papantonio: Well, apparently there are just tons of mean little freakish kids in this district. I mean, the list is endless. I mean, they put together 30,000 complaints, violence, weapons, drugs, bullying. Maybe it’s just a freakish little area in New Jersey, but they’re gonna win on this. You know why? Because in the constitutional analysis, there’s something called police powers. Police powers are so strong, they have to do with health, safety, and welfare. And they may have to dress it up a little bit. They may have to tweak it just a little bit. But the argument that there’s a reason that we have to police what’s going on is a health and safety issue. And that falls within police powers. Most of the time police powers are going to trump pretty strong constitutional concepts. I think they need this, whatever the hell’s going on in New Jersey. I mean, these freakish little kids, like I said, this Adriana, this is an awful story.
Farron Cousins: It really is.
Mike Papantonio: They went back and they saw that it was clearly an intent to get this child to commit suicide. And so when you have a list of 30,000 complaints, violence, the term is serious violence. Weapons, drugs, bullying, I mean, come on, Jesus Christ. That’s just between ’21 and ’22. That’s where they got these statistics. So, I don’t know if it plays out everywhere, but New Jersey.
Farron Cousins: Well, Okay, so I have a question because you know this. I do not. So does a school district, the school board, would they fall under an entity that would be able to exercise police powers? Or is that relegated to local governments or police?
Mike Papantonio: Yeah, it’s really relegated to any part of the government. It’s not, doesn’t call in law enforcement. It sounds like it would, but it’s not. And anybody in government has to say, well, police powers are going to trump this. They certainly have the argument to do it. And I think that there’s a good chance they could win on this. And if it does, you’re gonna see this happen across the country.
Farron Cousins: So this will probably be one that ends up, we’ll talk about it a from now, we’ll see it the Supreme Court.
Mike Papantonio: Yeah. Yeah. That’s the way I see it.
President Biden’s handlers are so worried that he’s gonna make a fool of himself at campaign events that they’re now having to work him with a physical therapist to make sure he doesn’t trip and fall in front of large crowds and embarrass himself and embarrass the Democratic party. Is it too late? I mean, isn’t it just a little late for this? I think they should have started dealing with this a long time ago. One thing we know they’re pumping this guy up with steroids, you know, mind, all this stuff that makes him operate better. It’s obviously not working. So once you put these chemicals into somebody’s body, then the body has to still respond with being able to walk. Tell me your take. This is awful if you think about it, that we’re at the point that we’re having to pump this guy up with drugs and then we’re having to teach him how to walk again. Right? That’s kinda the story.
Farron Cousins: It really is. His handlers have him working with a physical therapist. They’ve taken him out of dress shoes. He’s now wearing sneakers to have a little bit better traction. And so it is a very, it brings the age issue, obviously right back to the forefront. And it’s so disappointing. I mean, look, we look at everything that has happened on the Republican side for the last two weeks.
Mike Papantonio: Oh. It’s been a clown show.
Farron Cousins: It’s been a clown show. And we’re to the point where it’s like, okay, well if we can just get our guy walk without falling down.
Mike Papantonio: We can win.
Farron Cousins: Yeah. And we shouldn’t be in that situation. Biden should have seen the writing on the wall at the start of the summer and said, listen, I’m enjoying what I’m doing, but I think I’ll step back and let somebody else run.
Mike Papantonio: Both Harris and Biden should have enough decency and to care enough about this country to say, okay, we did our four years. Every time I say this, somebody says it’s wrong. My memory is, either I read it or I’m imagining it, he made a promise when he was running.
Farron Cousins: He did.
Mike Papantonio: That he was gonna run one term because he knew, you know, he understands what his health is. He knows he can’t keep this up. Hell, he’s not making decisions right now, Farron. He’s not making these decisions. He’s got a staff of people that are running government without him. All he is is a face, a figurehead. So as this goes on, I’m still hoping that somebody will have enough sense to, or maybe have the right words to say, what the hell are you doing? Okay. Let’s let a Democrat run that can beat Trump. And it’s, right now, depending on what the polls are, they’re all over the place. Some show a tie, some show Trump ahead, some show Biden. You don’t know. But it shouldn’t look like that.
Farron Cousins: Exactly.
Mike Papantonio: It should not look like that. Okay. He’s an incumbent president for God’s sakes.
Farron Cousins: And with the biggest clown show in the world on the other side.
Mike Papantonio: Exactly.
Farron Cousins: He should be beating them by 20 or 30 points. And I think if it was almost anybody else, we would see that. But instead we’re having to say, okay, well let’s put you in comfortable shoes. Let’s, we’re going to, here’s how you walk downstairs.
Mike Papantonio: It’s weekend with Bernie. Okay. He’s still alive, but barely. But it’s weekend with Bernie. Kamala Harris, she knows what an anchor she is around his neck. She knows that she ought to just try to move on and pick another area of politics that she can run because it’s killing the Democratic party. Now you have a potential split with the independents. Now you’ve got Bobby running as independent, right? You’ve got several, you’ve got.
Farron Cousins: Cornell West.
Mike Papantonio: Cornell West is very strong. I’ve spent a lot of time with Cornell West. Cornell West, first of all, is great with crowds. He’s crazy smart. He is crazy smart. But he’s crazy intuitive too. And if they’re not believing that those two independent candidates are gonna drag mostly the Democratic party, I just don’t know why they don’t say, look man, physical therapy’s not an option. We gotta stop shooting you up with chemicals. It’s time to go home and keep your promise that you’re only gonna run one term.
Farron Cousins: Well, and we’re in October now. He’s got about a month to make a decision if he wants to get out.
Mike Papantonio: Well, they’re worried about the aspect of it. When you get to be his age and you have a broken hip, it’s very difficult. I mean, a broken hip for somebody his age is critical. And any one of those falls could have done that to him. So I think the people making the decisions or trying to surely talk him into some good sense here, we’ll see. Farron, thanks for joining me. That’s all for now.
Farron Cousins: Thanks.
Mike Papantonio: That’s all for this week. But all these segments are gonna be posted right here on this channel in the coming week. So make sure you subscribe. I’m Mike Papantonio and this has been America’s Lawyer, where we tell you stories every week that corporate media won’t tell you because their advertisers don’t allow ’em to do that, or the political connections, they just don’t permit it. It’s either too Republican or too Democrat, and they stick with those party lines to their detriment. We’ll see you next time.
