If you want your children working with bone saws in a pile of animal guts, then Wisconsin might be the state for you. Recently, more than 100 children were found to be working in a Wisconsin meat-packing plant in clear violation of state labor laws. Plus, a new study of human intelligence has found that the IQs of American citizens have been DROPPING for nearly two decades, as we continue to lose our skills in logic, math, and vocabulary. Mike Papantonio & Farron Cousins discuss more.
Transcript:
*This transcript was generated by a third-party transcription software company, so please excuse any typos.
Mike Papantonio: It’s up to the Supreme Court right now. And the, and I’m hoping that these folks have good clerks because the babble that this Schnapper presented, when, when my lawyers are saying, what the hell, what is he talking about? He missed the whole point. And it was so bad the Supreme Court justices said, sir, we don’t know what’s, we don’t know what’s coming out of your mouth right now. We don’t even know what you’re saying. Where he came from, I have no idea. One of the most important cases in the country right now and this cat’s up there arguing it.
If you want your children working with bone saws and a pile of animal guts, then Wisconsin might be the state for you. Recently more than a hundred children were found to be working in a Wisconsin meat packing plant in clear violation of every kind of state labor law. No surprise. We’re, we did a story on this last week. The US Chamber of Commerce is giddy, the association, the associated industry is giddy, because we’re bringing all these children across the border. Right?
Farron Cousins: Yeah.
Mike Papantonio: What are we gonna do with them? We’re gonna pay ’em below average wages because they’re gonna be working part-time. We’re gonna put ’em in situations where they can be maimed or killed, lose an arm, lose an eye, and we ship ’em back home. US Chamber of Commerce, buddy, they love that because they don’t have to spend the money going across the border. They bring ’em in from Nicaragua and Honduras, wherever. Right?
Farron Cousins: Yeah. And this is truly disturbing because when we had talked about this, we were talking about legislation that had been proposed to allow this.
Mike Papantonio: Right.
Farron Cousins: And then we turn around, find out a week later, uhoh, this is already in practice, illegally in practice, but that shouldn’t surprise anybody. And this company, this Packers Sanitation Services, which is a meat packing plant and they own plants across several states, all of them with children as young as 13, working around these animal carcasses, in unsafe conditions with tools they don’t know how to use. They don’t understand, you know, what happens if you lose an arm at age 13 because they can’t process that kind of future, you know, injury yet.
Mike Papantonio: Mm-hmm.
Farron Cousins: And, and it’s terrifying that this is happening in the United States. But it is, and I guarantee you this Packers Sanitation is not the only place doing it.
Mike Papantonio: But Farron, look. Look, US Chamber of Commerce, I can’t tell you what an ugly, ugly bunch of people these are. First of all, it ain’t your mom and pop business down the road. We’re talking about 19 of the biggest multi-global corporations in the, I mean on the planet. Okay. So these are the people who run the US Chamber of Commerce. So what they, when they, when we, when the media started reporting, oh my god, these poor children, we have to let ’em in the country. They missed the story. They, the story is US Chamber of Commerce is now saying go Biden, go Biden. You know, they’re all behind Biden on this. They were doing it because now they don’t have to go out of this, they don’t have to leave the country and pay bribes. They don’t have to engage in corruption to be able to, to manage workers like child workers. Now they just bring ’em into the United States, put ’em in a meat packing place, put ’em in the coal mines. Story we did, they were in coal mines. They were in every kind of mining business. They’re in every kind of meat packing business. This is the way that US Chamber of Commerce is they’re delighted by, right?
Farron Cousins: Yeah, it is. And, you know, you and I actually did a story during the Bush, W Bush administration, we haven’t been doing this since HW but we’ve been doing it a long time. So all the way back in the Bush administration, I remember you and I talking about Tyson Foods and Tyson Foods through the US Chamber of Commerce was directly influencing the, the W Bush administration to do nothing about immigration, to continue letting everybody across. Talk about it publicly, oh, we’ve got a crisis just like we hear every day now. But these businesses, these industries, the US Chamber of Commerce, they control both parties. So that’s why we hear politicians talk a big game about we’re gonna stop all this immigration. They never will.
Mike Papantonio: No.
Farron Cousins: Because their donors need this source of labor.
Mike Papantonio: Republicans won’t stop it and it’s like Democrats don’t have enough sense to know that they’re getting hustled. That this is not about being humane. This is about feeding the US Chamber of Commerce labor market. That’s all this is about.
Mike Papantonio: A new study of human intelligence has found that the IQs of American citizens have been dropping for nearly two decades as we continue to lose our skills in logic, in math, in vocabulary, in critical thinking, we are turning into a nation of dummies according to this study. Right?
Farron Cousins: Yeah, we are. And what’s really interesting to me is, you know, not just the drop in IQ, but the way they explained it and they said, you know, look back in the day before we had washing machines and dishwashers, those were manual labor type things. You had to do them every day. It was physical, you did it. And then as technology came in, you didn’t have to do it. So we lost a little bit of that physical activity and they’re saying it’s no different with the brain. So what we have seen in the years that we’re seeing the drop, you know, 2006 to basically today, so almost two.
Mike Papantonio: It’s significant. It’s two to three points is what’s dropping.
Farron Cousins: In such a short amount of time. And they’re saying it’s because we don’t have to think anymore. We have this little phone in our pocket that contains all of human knowledge. And so we don’t have to.
Mike Papantonio: Alexa do this. Siri do this. Is that what you’re saying?
Farron Cousins: Yeah, absolutely. And so we don’t have to use our brains. We don’t have to put ideas together because we can just wait for somebody else to do it and then we say, okay, well that sounds right. I’ll go with that. And that also confirms our, you know, confirmation biases. It makes people more tribal one way or the other depending on what you’re consuming. And it is making us dumber to put it as bluntly as possible.
Mike Papantonio: There was something called the Flynn Effect. You might wanna check it out. Google it. Flynn Effect is where our IQs were raising, I mean, just going sky high. And so now the question is, have we reached a ceiling that is irreversible? I mean, is it gonna go, is it now gonna start going down the other way? I mean, I think you’re mensa, if I’m not mistaken. I’m not trying to put you on the spot, but I think you are mensa and I don’t see any signs that your IQ is dropping. But this is very, this is problematic to me. I see these videos on where they go on a college campus. Have you ever seen these videos?
Farron Cousins: Yeah.
Mike Papantonio: They’re man on the street. Mr. Joe, could you tell us who won the Civil War? Oh, the British won the Civil War. Could you tell us how many planets there are? Well, there’s, I think there’s four planets. And you go, my God. What is happening? Can you name a Supreme Court judge? Oh yeah, Herbert Hoover. You know, and doesn’t it scare you just a little bit?
Farron Cousins: It really does. And I will say, you know, the one thing actually that I feel great about is, you know, yesterday my son came up to me, he’s like, I’ve been seeing all these videos on TikTok for this thing called the Willow Project, like up in Alaska. What? Explain that to me. So I was like, oh my God. And he’s, you know, 13 years old. So I was shocked. I thought, okay, if we can utilize the technology properly, we can use it as a tool instead of a replacement for actual knowledge. And that’s the problem is far too many people want to use it as a replacement. I don’t need to think anymore. I can just say, Alexa, what does this word mean? Instead of me looking it up, reading it, which does, it is a difference in learning that way.
Mike Papantonio: Okay. You and I have done a couple of stories on not just kids, not just, you know, how’s the IQ of kids in school? The, how is the IQ of the American public? And you, they read and comprehend the American public, reads and comprehends on a sixth to seventh grade level. Okay. Now, you’re gonna get all these Europeans coming, oh, well, we’re so. No, you’re not that much smarter. Don’t get on our site and say, well, I’m in Europe, and we’re, you know, we’re much smarter. No, that’s not what these studies show.
Farron Cousins: Yeah. The studies show that even over in Europe, you guys are losing a couple points.
Mike Papantonio: Just be clear, it’s not just America. Okay. Farron, thanks for joining me. Okay.
Farron Cousins: Thank you.
Mike Papantonio: That’s all for this week. But all of these segments, well, they’re gonna be available throughout next week. And make sure you follow us on Twitter @AmericasLawyer. I’m Mike Papantonio and this has been America’s Lawyer, where we tell you the stories that corporate media won’t tell you because their advertisers don’t let ’em, or their political connections are either so Republican or so Democrat that they don’t allow for it. We’ll see you next time.