Former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi was recently given an award by the healthcare industry for working tirelessly – for years – to prevent REAL healthcare reform that would provide relief to consumers from happening. Also, according to the latest data, Amazon spent $14 million dollars last year to fight labor unions, the largest amount in a single year, according to labor researchers. The anti-union industry is big business, and Amazon is their best customer. 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: Former House speaker Nancy Pelosi was recently given an award by the healthcare industry for working tirelessly for years to prevent real healthcare reform. And they wanted to give her an award for providing no relief to consumers for all the terrible things that have been done to consumers by the industry. Ring of Fire’s Farron Cousins joins me to talk about what’s happening on this issue. There’s no other way to put it. She was rewarded for being a corporate thug. I mean, she was given this award, what was it, you know, most likely to succeed, hell, I don’t know. For being a corporate thug, right?
Farron Cousins: Yeah. The, it’s the AHA, the American Hospital Association, which is not really an association. It’s a lobbying group. It’s where the high dollar hospitals put all their money to then go and whine and dine people like Nancy Pelosi and David Axelrod and Karl Rove to make sure that nothing happens. And I threw in those other names because those people also happen to be present at this wonderful little gathering that Nancy Pelosi received her prestigious award for continuing to screw over the American public. We had the numbers last time she was speaker to get Medicare For All and make it a reality, or at least bring it to the floor for a vote, and she wouldn’t even do that.
Mike Papantonio: Everybody you just described, especially the lizard like character Carville, they’ve just, they used to be progressives. And then all of a sudden, this situation, for example, it’s like every situation, the hospital industry comes in with $130 million, starts spreading it around. And all they say is to Pelosi, look, we want to, here’s what she did. Let’s be real specific. She blocked Medicare For All. She was the one that blocked it. She had a very strong voice init. She stopped lowering medicine, oh yeah, we’re gonna lower Medicare eligibility to where we had, you know, you could get Medicare earlier. But that’s bad for the hospital industry, you see, because then they can’t make a claim in insurance. So it’s all about money there. She stopped that. She stopped the Dems from voting on public options. Stopped that. She gave, government run insurance plan, she stopped that. And so for doing all these wonderful things that did nothing at all for consumers. Now this is our Democrat, again, you Democrats out there that get so angry when I talk about Democrats. If this is okay with you, so be it. But this woman had more to do with stopping reform in the healthcare industry than anybody I can name. And they’re mostly Democrats that did it.
Farron Cousins: I know. And if you’re a Democrat and you’re mad that we’re telling you the truth about Nancy Pelosi.
Mike Papantonio: Oh, go somewhere else. Go to another site.
Farron Cousins: Well, what I was gonna say, just wait till the next time you open up that bill you get from the doctor’s office or the hospital. Then tell me if you feel the same as you do right now that we’re mad that we’re talking about this because Pelosi is responsible. As the speaker, everything that did or did not happen in that House lands on her.
Mike Papantonio: Right.
Farron Cousins: And that’s what people have to understand. Just like today, it’s Kevin McCarthy. What happens or doesn’t happen, it’s on him.
Mike Papantonio: That’s right.
Farron Cousins:When she was in charge, it was on her and this is on her. And that’s why she got rewarded.
Mike Papantonio: Yeah. And if you can’t handle it, go to another site. Okay. Because we’re just, this is what we do. We call balls and strikes. I’m way progressive. You’re way progressive. But I’m not gonna be a cheerleader for Democrats when they do this kind of stuff. And I’m sure not gonna be, you know, apologist for Republicans. We, this is our job. And so, to me, this is an ugly story and you need to be aware of it that this woman that many of you revere, oh, she was such an important, she cost consumers so much money. She cost them their health. And she did that to the point to where the industry gave her an award for being such a sellout. I mean, there’s no other way to put it.
Farron Cousins: She’s also the one, according to reports, who’s making them parade around Dianne Feinstein, even though she’s, you know, got a foot in the grave at this point. Pelosi’s behind that as well.
Mike Papantonio: Yeah. Plenty of good Democrats out there. Katie Porter, man. You know, Bobby, you know, Robert F. Kennedy getting ready to run for president. You watch this. Oh my god, Bobby Kennedy. How awful. He, you know, because of the vaccine issue. Well, you know, I got vaccines. You got vaccines. We disagree with him on that. But what about all the other incredible stuff the guy has done for the climate, for people, for consumers? He’s always been there. And so to say, you know what? We can’t even think outside of the Democratic box is very dangerous. And as he runs against Biden, let me just tell you something. People think it might not, people think it’s gonna be a runaway, I don’t think so. I don’t think so at all. I know you’re a Biden guy. I’m anything but a Biden guy.
Farron Cousins: At the moment, at the moment.
Mike Papantonio: Yeah. But, you know, Bobby and I go a long way back. I mean, we practiced law together. We did TV together. We did radio together. We started Ring of Fire. We started this show years ago. It started with Air America. It was Janeane Garofalo, Rachel Maddow, Al Franken, Sam Seder, incredible lineup. And me and Bobby and Air America was the most progressive entity in America.
Farron Cousins: The only one.
Mike Papantonio: The only one. And then comes out of that Ring of Fire. And thank goodness we discovered you. Right?
Farron Cousins: Absolutely.
Mike Papantonio: According to the latest data, Amazon spent $14 million last year to fight labor unions, the largest amount in a single year, according to labor researchers. The anti-union industry, well, it’s big business, and Amazon is their best customer. I have never seen so many labor cases coming out as I’m seeing right now. Okay. When we started things like, you know, for example Starbucks. Oh my God. I mean, you know, you’ve got that cat showing up in front of Congress committing perjury about his labor. You’ve got all of these social media folks that are supposed to be warm and fuzzy, you know.
Farron Cousins: Yeah.
Mike Papantonio: Let’s, this is warm and fuzzy media. We don’t do this to our people. We’re different. Right? That we’re not part of the industrial complex in any way. We’re different. I’ll be damned if they’re different. They’re worse.
Farron Cousins: Right. These are the companies who, you know, they’ll put on their rainbow flags when it’s time to do it. Like, oh, look, we’re so inclusive. We love all of you. And then behind the scenes, they are beating the hell out of their workers, making them pee in jars and, you know, go to the bathroom on themselves in the delivery trucks. $14 million Amazon spent, which is a, you know, not even close to anything that touches their profits. They spent $14 million for these anti-labor law firms to go out there and bust up the unions that we’ve seen a big union drive for Amazon. We’ve seen a couple victories now.
Mike Papantonio: Does anybody do as much virtue signaling as the Starbucks and the Amazons and all of these internet startup companies? It’s all virtue.
Farron Cousins: Starbucks is the worst. They’re absolutely the worst on it.
Mike Papantonio: And then you seen, yeah, you look behind the curtain and they’re absolutely the worst. But, you know, Amazon, and as a matter of fact, Starbucks and Amazon even created a new way to deal with it. That is, let’s change the language. We did this story. Let’s change the language to where, you know, we’re warm and fuzzy. Gee whizz, if you engage in this type of union activity, you’re putting little Johnny over here, who’s trying to work his way through college, you’re taking his job away from him. Okay. And it’s disgusting. But they’ve got these lawyers that have taken this to a whole new level. It’s jargon. They’ve focused on jargon. What is it that, what’s people, what are people moved by? And it’s this, part of it is that virtue signaling. Yeah. We’re talking about unions, but we’re doing it for the right reason. Right?
Farron Cousins: Yeah. And these lawyers that they hire, they’re trained in how to skirt the labor laws so that they can kind of walk right up to that line of legal versus illegal with their union busting tactics. And it’s something, and by the way, $430 million annually in the United States is what these anti-labor firms pull in.
Mike Papantonio: Yeah. I saw that number.
Farron Cousins: So, it is a massive business and these lawyers make a ton of money. And as we always talk about, imagine you go through law school, you learn everything you can. You’re like, I’m gonna be a great lawyer. And instead you decide, you know what I’d really like to do? I’d like to make sure that these hundred people at Amazon can’t have healthcare.
Mike Papantonio: Yeah.
Farron Cousins: I wanna make sure that instead of $15 an hour, they get paid 10. That’s my dream legal career.
Mike Papantonio: I always talk about that as you know. I talk about it at the seminars I put on. What is it you want for your legacy? I mean, you wanna be a lawyer for these freaks to where you’re saying, yeah, I really had a good day. These people can’t pay their bills now because I was able to keep their benefits down. And you go home and you have dinner with your family and, or the lawyer who prevents when a pharmaceutical kills 10,000 people, who goes home and says, you know, I really had a good day. I won a motion in court to where these people may not be able to recover now. And that’s a big victory for me. Who in the hell thinks like that? But there are tens and tens of thousands of them working for these big silk stocking law firms. It’s disgusting to me.
Farron Cousins: Because they’re pulling in the millions, you know, they’re weeping into their, you know, $5,000 pillows every night and they’re, and they’re sick. These people are so gross.
Mike Papantonio: They have a license to do good. You know, they have a license to clean up the environment, to get bad products off the market, to make Wall Street do what Wall Street’s supposed to do. They have a license to help people, and they choose to take that license and say, I’m gonna work for some corporation that does the horrible things that Amazon does to their workers. And I’m gonna declare victory when I succeed.
