America’s Lawyer E83: A new lawsuit is accusing TikTok of mis-labeling their own app so that they could skirt child protection laws – we’ll bring you the details. Drug companies have already raised the prices of nearly 800 different pharmaceuticals so far this year, and more price hikes are on the way. And why the hell is Bob Menendez still in the Senate after the overwhelming evidence that has been found against him? We’re gonna try to get to the bottom of that. 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. A new lawsuit’s accusing TikTok of mislabeling, their own app so they could skirt child protection laws. We’ll give you the details. Drug companies, well, they’ve already raised the prices nearly on 800 different pharmaceuticals. So this year they’re gonna make even more money than they did last year price gouging. And why the hell is Bob Menendez still in the Senate after the overwhelming evidence that’s been found against him? We’re gonna talk about that. All that and more. It’s coming up. Don’t go anywhere. America’s Lawyer starts right now.
State Attorneys General are accusing the popular app TikTok of mislabeling and misrepresenting the safety of their own app in order to get around laws designed to protect children from harmful content. Now they’re getting sued. I’ve got a Ring of Fire’s Farron Cousins with me to talk about it. I think this is, as I read this, it’s gonna be a stretch. I think it’s gonna be a stretch. Unless there’s specific, well, they’ve got some specific consumer fraud acts, laws there in the state. Maybe they can rely on that. But, you know, TikTok’s no worse than any rest of ’em, man.
Farron Cousins: Well, that’s what’s so interesting to me about this lawsuit because you got the Iowa Attorney General and they came out and said, listen, TikTok says that it is suitable, the content on there is suitable for children 12 years of age and up. The Attorney General comes out and says, well, not so fast. There is nudity, there is drug use, there is profanity, all of these things that otherwise, if it were in a movie or a TV show or in music, this would be regulated and you would have to say that, no, it’s not appropriate for age group. Same thing with video games.
Mike Papantonio: Right.
Farron Cousins: So TikTok has nobody looking over their shoulder. And I think that’s the problem. This lawsuit might be able to address that. I don’t think they’re gonna get any actual damages.
Mike Papantonio: Yeah, it’s gonna be a supervision kind of argument. I’m not, okay, but really, what about Google and the people that ultimately are the top of the food chain, don’t they have responsibility here? If this is really a lawsuit. I mean, this, women dancing provocatively, thong bikinis, butt and crotch shots, I mean, a kid can turn that on anywhere. But your point is that they’ve represented, they made this affirmative representation. No, this doesn’t happen with us. Everything is age appropriate. Talk about marijuana, hallucinogenics, all this stuff that a child can look at. And as I look at it, the only thing that you can really hang that on is their consumer act in that state and the representation. But talk about, to me, the Google factor is a big factor here, isn’t it?
Farron Cousins: Yeah. Because you have both Apple and Google that run their respective app stores the two biggest in the country. And what they do is they say, okay, you’ve got an app. Wonderful. Why don’t you tell us who this is suitable for? We’ll take your word for it. Slap it on there so parents can see, oh, this is 12 and up, you’re 12 and up. Here you go. But the responsibility to me doesn’t necessarily fall on TikTok. It goes back up to the top. It should be Apple and Google that are the ones trying to be held accountable here.
Mike Papantonio: And they’re not going to because it’s money. I mean, they’re not gonna, no, TikTok, you can’t come here. It’s all about money. So this case probably isn’t gonna go anywhere unless there’s some, I can see it maybe settling with some kind of mild kind of agreement between the AG and the state, but I’m just not seeing this as a real case.
Farron Cousins: No. And it almost seems like it’s a confusion of some of the legitimate cases that are out there against TikTok and other social media companies.
Mike Papantonio: The stuff that’s protected by 230.
Farron Cousins: Right. Iowa says, hey, let’s get in on this. And then they just miss the field goal on it. And it is what it’s.
Mike Papantonio: Yeah. I think kids can find most of this stuff that they’re complaining about, about anywhere.
A civilian employee of the US Army has been arrested for allegedly stealing $100 million from the federal government. The employee was using a shell company to get millions in grants and payments from the government by lying about the services that the company was performing. Isn’t the real question. I mean, really, isn’t the real question, how in the hell does our US government not understand that this is going on? Why did they not do anything for years? This went on for years, man. We’re talking about this woman had a fleet of 70, I’m not making this up. I can see some pointed headed bureaucrat in charge of this whole thing. Okay. And while this is going on, let’s see, embezzled real estate, 31 individual properties, a $3.1 million estate in Maryland, 58 acres with a 55 car garage that had a fleet of 78 vehicles, apparently. Everything from Ferraris to Mercedes to Chevy Chevelles. What the hell? How does she get away with it? Because we have a bunch of dunces in charge of regulatory here. One hundred million dollars, Farron.
Farron Cousins: This was the better part of a decade that this scam was carried out. A hundred million dollars. Nobody in the office apparently noticed that she’s driving a different car to work every single day. But here’s the thing. She had this group that was called the Child Health and Youth Lifelong Development entity. And it says, hey, look, we’re gonna take the children of military service members and I’m gonna help them with stuff. And the military says, well, we like stuff, we like kids.
Mike Papantonio: What was the stuff? When I read it, I didn’t even figure out what the stuff was.
Farron Cousins: I don’t know that she ever told anybody. But she says, okay, so let’s give lots of money to my organization, write me checks every year.
Mike Papantonio: To help children with stuff.
Farron Cousins: Exactly. And so they did. And instead of this being a real group, obviously she spent the money on the cars, the homes, the real estate, jewelry. I mean.
Mike Papantonio: Taxpayers bought all that.
Farron Cousins: They did.
Mike Papantonio: Okay. Because, you know, you’ve got a dysfunctional bureaucracy that is, especially, if it’s attached to the military at all, it’s dysfunctional. That’s why we gave ’em a trillion dollars basically this year. So they could do this kind of thing. But this story, to me, this is a little different. But you’re constantly reading about, American tax players are totally fleeced on this, but we didn’t have any control of it. There’s some things you do have control over and this, as I was researching this, Black Lives Matter stole $20 million over a period of time. $10 million in one tranche. European, another $10 million. You’ve got GoFundMe. GoFundMe is, it’s a situation to where, do you remember the story, the Johnny Bobbitt story?
Farron Cousins: Yeah.
Mike Papantonio:Johnny Bobbitt. That’s where a fellow was, he was supposed to be a veteran who was homeless. And the story was that he gave $20 to this woman that didn’t have any money to buy fuel and it was his last $20. So they get online and they start the GoFundMe thing. Well, we all want to help. Right. $400,000 stolen in a scam. It wasn’t real. And if you look at some of these, some of the ways where, now here, we didn’t have any control over it. Right. This is the army. This is the government supposed to be watching a hundred million dollars. And it doesn’t make any difference because they’re paid a trillion dollars by the White House and our Congress. But these stories, like GoFundMe, there’s stuff we can do, due diligence. Now, GoFundMe says, well, we only have about 1% of these scams that take place. I ain’t believing that. But it’s these small charities that we don’t check into. We send, you know, it looks like a good thing we send them a hundred, $200. And there’s no way for us to really keep up with it is there?
Farron Cousins: Well, no. And I feel like the military, our veterans and veterans children, they are ripe for fraud, to be the victims. Or at least, kind of like she did. Like, oh, I wanna help the children of the veterans and of our active duty service members. Who’s gonna say no to that? That is a good cause. Helping homeless veterans. Who’s gonna say no to that? Nobody. So people take advantage of our generosity towards those who have served and their families. And that’s what the GoFundMe folks have done. That’s what she has done. And it unfortunately taints the whole system.
Mike Papantonio: Well, okay, I talk about Black Lives Matter. It was a reasonable organization that wanted to do some reasonable things. Right. But then the leadership, it’s not rank and file. It’s leadership that, at least in once instance, we know $10 million came missing buying things like houses and all. And so we wanna do the right thing, but we don’t, it’s almost to the point to unless we really do due diligence, we’re gonna be a victim to this. I always see stuff on GoFundMe that I want to give to. And I think you have to do that extra thing and you have to check it out. What is this? That Bobbitt story is horrendous. The guy that was supposed to be the veteran, he’s splitting the money with the husband and wife that are running the entire scam, making it look like we’re gonna build a house for Johnny Bobbitt. You know, we’re gonna do all these nice things for Bobbitt.
Farron Cousins: Well, when you look at this woman too, with what she did here, a hundred million dollars. And that is a ton of money, don’t get me wrong. But at the same time, you’ve got your Boeings, you’ve got your Lockheeds, you’ve got all these other military contractors.
Mike Papantonio: Oh, good point.
Farron Cousins: That have been busted time and time again for ripping off the government. All these qui tam cases that we’ve seen come through over the years. They’re providing faulty equipment, faulty services, billing for services, KBR was huge for this, that didn’t actually take place. Like, oh, we’re gonna do your laundry for the service members in Iraq.
Mike Papantonio: Oh, yeah.
Farron Cousins: We sat and we did those stories, and they just literally never did it and took the money.
Mike Papantonio: We’re gonna wash the dishes.
Farron Cousins: Right. And those people, nothing happens to them. She could be facing over a hundred years in prison, which, listen, she deserves it. Don’t get me wrong. If she did it. You know, we always gotta say allegedly. I mean, I think it’s, yeah.
Mike Papantonio: 78 vehicles, you know, come on.
Farron Cousins: But, why did nobody in the office notice that this woman who makes the same amount that they do, like, wait a minute?
Mike Papantonio: Oh, you’re driving a Ferrari today. Where’d that come from? It’s just kind of basic.
Farron Cousins: So somebody in that office had to have known something was up. So I think this story’s a little bit bigger as time goes on.
Mike Papantonio: It is bigger.
Farron Cousins: We’re going to find some other bad apples that helped her with this.
Mike Papantonio: When you have a trillion dollars that the government says here, Pentagon, here US Army, here’s your money, you don’t pay attention to a hundred million dollars. That’s the problem. They spend like drunk sailors, and this is a great example. They don’t even have any checks and balances to find out. But more importantly, you have, some of these things are just so, they’re so right. You know, there’s stuff you want to give to. And if GoFundMe is correct, but like I said, they said about it’s only 1% of these programs that are fraud. And they’ve been saying that for years now. So it probably is true. But when you hear stories like this, you go, maybe I oughta do my due diligence.
We’re only a few weeks into the new year, but drug companies aren’t wasting any time raising their prices. So far in 2024, close to 800 different drugs have had their prices raised and more price increases are planned for later this year. All right, wow. Okay. First of all, what are the drugs that they’re raising prices on? Okay. Trikafta, for example. Okay. Is it Trikafta? Yeah, Trikafta. It’s a cystic fibrosis drug. Okay. It costs $26,000, $26,000 for a 28 day supply. You’ve got Fasenra. Fasenra is a drug that has to do with asthma, kids suffering from asthma. It’s $5,000 a month just to have it, to have access to it. Look, I’m so tired of hearing these drug companies, this is, oh, well, it’s research and development. BS. This is not research and development issues. This is, they’re spending money advertising. If you turn on television, every three minutes there’s a drug advertisement. So that’s where the money is being spent. But I see Congress, oh, we had a great victory this year. We controlled 10, the price of 10 drugs. Let’s talk, pick it up there.
Farron Cousins: Yeah. Look, we sit here like clockwork every January, and we do this story every single year and we have for about seven years now that we’ve been doing this show, talking about the latest drugs that these pharmaceutical companies raise the prices on, because they do it like clockwork. You can schedule your watch to it. They raise the prices every single January. Now, what most people don’t pay attention to is that they do it again in June or July. They make the big headlines in January for about a day and a half. Everybody forgets about it. They’re gonna do it again middle of the year. They do it every year. You and I have been following this long enough. We see the patterns emerge here. But, and people may think, okay, well look at some of these prices. They’re only raising ’em 4% here, maybe 6%, some of them 10%. But when you do that every single year, that four to eight to 16, we are talking about in the span of less than a decade, the prices of these drugs will be a hundred percent more than what they are today. Because they can get away with it and nobody’s stopping ’em.
Mike Papantonio: This year it’s 10%. Okay. It’s usually 6%, 5%, this year it’s 10%. They’re just going for it. And we don’t, US government don’t, here’s their argument. Well, it’s okay because insurance pays it. Well, really? That’s the whole problem with the healthcare system. Insurance, well, let’s just pass it on to the insurance company. They’re gonna pay it. And with PBMs, we’ve talked about before, there is no way to control this. PBM is, it’s just almost like mobsters moving into the pharmaceutical industry. That’s what a PBM is. It is absolute mobster quality kind of work. And we’ve got several cases pending against PBMs right now. Most people don’t even know what a PBM is. Talk about that a little bit.
Farron Cousins: Yeah. The pharmacy benefit manager, and we’ve discussed it recently, and what they do is they kind of act as the middle person between the pharmacies and the insurance companies as well as the drug companies. But what most people don’t understand is that these people get a cut. You know, whatever we can increase the price for the consumer, I’m gonna get a kickback. I’m gonna get these rebates, I’m gonna get more money. So if I raise your prices. And they’re also bullies. So not only do they have a hand in the price gouging, they also go to the insurance companies and say, listen, you have to cover this drug and you cannot cover this drug. If you do this, bad things will happen. If you do not play ball with us here, bad things are gonna happen. So they’re just, it’s one of those things I can’t imagine going home at the end of the night, like you talk about with the defense lawyers and saying, oh, wow, you’re not gonna believe it. I made these poor people, now they can’t get their cancer drugs.
Mike Papantonio: I doubt more than 5% of people watching this right now even know what A PBM is. There’s no reason they should. But it’s this hidden little deal that was created at first to, let’s have something to watch over the drug industry to where it’s controlled. Then the drug industry captures the PBMs. And it’s all, they call it rebates. It’s payoffs. If you put my drug on the formulary list, I’m going to pay you off. That’s what it is. It’s as simple, matter of fact, I’m writing a book about it. It’s a fiction book. It’ll be out next January. But it’s about, and the whole theme of the book is there’s an Irish mob coming in to take over the PBM business and all they’re saying, well, all we’re doing is displacing Wall Street. Because that is absolutely the truth. It is a corrupt system that we’ve let stand now for decades, and nobody will do anything about it. Most people have no clue why this happens. Why are these drug prices able to go up like this? And part of it is that the PBMs are involved in it, aren’t they?
Farron Cousins: Yep.
Mike Papantonio: There’s a terrifying new consumer scam happening across the country with scammers using AI to convince parents that their children have been in horrific accidents or they’ve been kidnapped. These types of scams are on the rise and you need to know how to protect yourself. It is one of the ugliest scams I think I’ve seen in a long time. They’re able to rip, if you have a voice, anytime they can get your voice on a video or anything like that, they rip that voice. They create the words they want. They make it sound like your child or your mother or your father’s in distress. Send money now to help ’em. Right?
Farron Cousins: Yep.
Mike Papantonio: Didn’t this happen to you?
Farron Cousins: This actually did, about two or three weeks ago, this exact scam. The one talked about in this article here, happened to me. My wife got a phone call in the morning from allegedly our son, who had been in a horrific car accident. Injured a pregnant woman because he was texting and driving and ran a stop sign. So the public defender, allegedly, gets on the phone with my wife and says, look, you gotta send me $15,000 because we gotta get him outta jail. That’s how much it is to get him out. And I will represent him. And she did talk to our son on the phone. He was crying, and he said, his voice sounds a little weird because he broke his nose in the accident. So she heard a little bit like, okay, well, it definitely does kind of sound like him. And if you factor in, oh, well, he’s got a broken nose. So yes, it’s definitely him. After a little bit of digging, obviously I know a lot of lawyers, so we’re looking in, we’re trying to find the arrest records because they update in real time here in Florida. We couldn’t find anything. So eventually we realized, through some more digging, that this was a scam. But it was hours of sheer panic that we were going through. It was hell. It was hell.
Mike Papantonio: Well, America is the number one target for it and then India, oddly enough, is second target for it. And it’s down to such a science. They have this entire scam that the parent, the been involved in an accident with a pregnant woman is very common. But there’s all kinds of variations. And whether you’re being kidnapped, whether you need money to get out of, for bail. But these things are at an all time high. But, hey, here’s the good news. The White House has put Kamala Harris in charge of solving this problem. Does that make, I’m serious, it absolutely says, in May, Vice President Kamala Harris met with the chief executives of Google and Microsoft to work through the AI scam problem. You feel any better about that?
Farron Cousins: Not exactly. But, like you said, they only need to find a video of you speaking online, which of course, between videos on Twitter, TikTok, YouTube, Instagram, it takes two to three seconds for these AI programs, two to three seconds of your voice, and they can replicate it and have you say anything. And there’s an instance where one parent got a call that her daughter had been, she’s in the trunk of a car kidnapped and going to Mexico, and they’re demanding a million dollars.
Mike Papantonio: They have her yelling in the background.
Farron Cousins: Yeah. And it is, again, I can’t quite even vocalize it because of how horrible the experience was. And to think that some people are getting it even worse, like, I’m being kidnapped. People are gonna have heart attacks because of this.
Mike Papantonio: Of course, of course.
Farron Cousins: I mean, this is insane that this is even happening.
Mike Papantonio: One way to protect yourself is to have keywords. You know the key word. I know the key word. Your child knows the key word. Everybody in the family knows the key word. And that key word is something that you, if you don’t hear the key word, you know, it’s BS. And you hear it a couple times, you certainly know that it’s total BS. So the point being, there’s ways to protect yourself, but this is gonna get a lot worse before it gets better. It’s gonna come down to the more sophisticated AI. You’re gonna have videos, videos of this child, looks like they’re wrapped up in rope, being carted off to Mexico or Saudi Arabia, wherever. And so I don’t see a quick solution to this. But one way you can protect it is to have those key words that everybody in the family knows. And then once you hear that and the other way, there’s ways to track it and stop it. And it just takes a little bit of research to figure out how do you get these folks. A lot of times it’s people just right in the neighborhood. It’s somebody right around you who knows enough about your life to know the things that you’re gonna react to.
Democrat Senator Bob Menendez is still serving in the Senate, even though the evidence against him is absolutely crazy overwhelming. And his criminal conviction is gonna be an absolute. This guy’s gonna be convicted. The question is, why have the Democrats stopped calling for Menendez to get the hell out of the Senate? He’s a frigging thug. He’s a criminal. This is his second run down the road as being a criminal. The first time he wasn’t acquitted. It was a hung jury. They simply couldn’t decide. But he got away with that. And so the Senate is saying, well, you know, he’s not such a bad guy. We outta wait till. Well, how does that, what’s the comparison here? What’s his name? The crazy.
Farron Cousins: Santos.
Mike Papantonio: Santos.
Farron Cousins: Yeah. Look, Santos, although Santos did survive, I think three expulsion attempts before he was finally expelled. Maybe it was two. But once the report actually came out and it said, look, we have determined beyond a reasonable doubt, this man did this, this, this, this. Everybody in the House got together and said, all right, screw this. You’re done. Menendez, the evidence and the things he is accused of are so much worse.
Mike Papantonio: They’re terrible.
Farron Cousins: Than what Santos did. The photographs, they’ve released the text messages, the evidence is available. I mean, I know.
Mike Papantonio: Oh, you go online and see the gold bars, the money is stuffed down in his jacket lining.
Farron Cousins: And so look, again, all of this is alleged against him because nobody wants to get sued.
Mike Papantonio: Oh, BS. It’s not alleged. I’m not gonna, I’m saying he did it. I’ll tell you what, if he wants to sue me, he did it. There’s no question the guy did it.
Farron Cousins: But, look, I don’t disagree with you. But we’re looking at a situation here where these Democrats in the Senate are more concerned about power. They’re more concerned about his maybe fundraising ability, his connections, than they are about actually doing the right thing here. And the right thing is to get him outta Congress. And so far the only consistent voice is Fetterman. Fetterman’s the only one who still says get rid of him.
Mike Papantonio: Absolutely. Has enough courage to say, what more do we need to know? Fetterman stands up and says, even the voices that you would expect to come out and say, Bernie Sanders, what a disappointment. I mean, you know.
Farron Cousins: Sheldon Whitehouse.
Mike Papantonio: Sheldon Whitehouse, all these folks you’re looking at and you’re saying, really? You know better than this. And all it is is just another, well, what is their approval rate? 15%? Is it past 20% right now?
Farron Cousins: No, God, no.
Mike Papantonio: I think it’s 12 to 15% approval rate for the Senate. And people wonder why. Well, God, it’s sitting right in front of you, man.
Farron Cousins: Well, look, I’m obviously super plugged into the online left community. We mocked Republicans relentlessly when they refused initially to call for Santos to get out. We all did videos on it. Where’s everybody on this? You cannot have it both ways. You cannot pretend that Santos was evil and horrible and had to be removed and then say, well, let’s let it play out for Menendez. You can’t. You have to take off the blinders every now and then.
Mike Papantonio: There’s no difference, is there?
Farron Cousins: Right.
Mike Papantonio: There’s absolutely no.
Farron Cousins: Well, what he did was much worse.
Mike Papantonio: Oh, yeah. Not only stealing millions. The foreign agent issue, the tax evasion issue, the theft. How do you end up with stacks of gold bars under your bed?
Farron Cousins: He abused the power of his office. Put the United States potentially in danger. I mean, that’s how serious what this man did. He shouldn’t be allowed to be near the Senate.
Mike Papantonio: How about this, Senator Michael Bennet of Colorado. This is what he says. I’m not so sure there’ll be any role for the Senate to play here. What’s the role of the, or Ray Luján from New Mexico? Well, it’s up to the voters in New Jersey. They’ll make the determination.
Farron Cousins: Those are the same things Republicans said when they were defending Santos. And it was ridiculous then and it’s ridiculous now.
Mike Papantonio: Yeah. Well, and oh yeah. I love this one. Well, he’s charged, I’m not making this up, he’s charged, Blumenthal, by the way, who I’m a big fan of Blumenthal, but he’s charged with things that are so extraordinarily bad and serious that we can’t make a decision right now. I mean, it’s so bad that we can’t make a decision. His exact words, he’s been charged with extraordinary, serious felonies. So because of that, we’re not gonna do anything. That’s basically what they’re saying here.
Farron Cousins: Like, it’s so horrific, we don’t even want to talk about it.
Mike Papantonio: You know what I’m interested in. I love these, you know, they’re just so, they can’t help themselves. They’re so Democrat, or they’re so Republican, they can’t even think outside that tiny little headline box. I’m interested to see their reaction to this. They’ll be a defense. It’ll be as ridiculous as this. But they’ll type in with their comment, I can’t believe you’re overreacting to Menendez, you know, and they’ll give us some ridiculous reason why this is different than Santos. It’s not different. It’s worse.
Farron Cousins: Yeah. He’s looking at a lot more years in prison than Santos is.
Mike Papantonio: Oh yeah. Thanks for joining me. Okay.
Farron Cousins: Thank you.
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’re subscribed to this channel. 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 it. They say, if you tell the story, we’re gonna cut back on advertising. Or their political connections are so Republican or so Democrat that they don’t wanna say anything that’s gonna cause any harm to their parties. It’s that tribal. But you know what? Around here, it doesn’t make any difference. We’re gonna call balls and strikes. We’ll see you next time.
