Republican Congressman Ken Buck made headlines by announcing his early retirement last week. And in his announcement, Buck blamed the fact that Congress has become completely dysfunctional and said he just couldn’t be a part of that anymore. 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: Republican congressman Ken Buck made headlines by announcing his early retirement last week, in his announcement, he blamed the fact that Congress has become completely dysfunctional. And he said he just couldn’t be a part of it anymore. It was pretty telling, I mean, we’ve known this. You and I have talked about how dysfunctional it is. Nothing ever happens. But can you imagine taking your life. Okay. You’re saying, okay, I’m gonna be away from my family for months at a time. I’m gonna be dealing with this problem for months at a time, knowing there’s really never gonna be a resolution. That’s basically what he said.
Farron Cousins: Yeah. And it is very telling because we’re having more and more lawmakers, on both sides that have come out just in the last month or two saying, we are not doing anything. Look at what’s happening right now. We’ve still got another budget battle, which means for the, this was the fifth time in 10 months, we’ve been right at the precipice of a government shutdown. We can’t even get the budgets passed. They’re just kicking the can down the road each time, another month or two, five near government shutdowns in 10 months.
Mike Papantonio: Buck is not the first one. You understand, probably in the last year and a half, there’s been three or four of these folks. And they’ve all had the same story. Why am I wasting my life? That’s the headline. Why am I wasting my life in Washington DC with these numb nuts that really don’t want anything to move? Right.
Farron Cousins: Well, and it is so frustrating because these people should be leaving DC saying, wow, I’ve made a difference. I’m proud of my body of work. Instead they’re literally giving up because they look at the people around them and there are, it’s filled with freaks. Let’s be real. We have too many freaks in Congress. And they look at these people and they say, this is a circus. What am I even doing here? And Ken Buck even said, I think this place is dysfunctional. To me it’s important to get in the mix of this election cycle and start talking about the issues that people recognize are such a problem right now. So he says, I’m gonna go and I’m gonna work for an outside organization. Now, I’m willing to bet that outside organization probably offered a pretty big paycheck.
Mike Papantonio: No doubt.
Farron Cousins: But at the same time, at least he’s saying.
Mike Papantonio: Gonna look something like lobbying.
Farron Cousins: Yeah. He’s saying, look, I know we’re not doing anything. I know there are important issues that do need action. And I’m gonna leave. Whether or not he actually does it is one thing. But what he’s saying is true.
Mike Papantonio: I think it’s funny, over the years, I know you’ve been asked, Farron, why don’t you run for politics? Why don’t you run? The truth is, you accomplish so much more by doing what you do every single day.
Farron Cousins: Yeah.
Suspicious Activity: That it had helped dirty money flow through its branches around the world, including at least 800. Plaintiffs allege that the defendants provided money and medical goods to terrorist groups, Hezbollah and Jaysh al-Adl. This is a well organized business for these individuals that carry out these attacks. Terrorism is a business and they run it like a business. They knew about what was going on for a decade. They absolutely, absolutely no question about it knew that HSBC was washing money. They had every reason to understand it was for terrorism and it was for drug cartels. Took no action whatsoever.
These banks are involved, their accounts are connected, and they’re using them to mask the transactions. The more complicated they can make the transactions, the more distance they could put between the bad guys and a seemingly legitimate purpose of these funds. They pay $1.9 billion, which is a drop in the bucket compared to what they’ve made. And nobody goes to prison. These CEOs, these bankers that made this decision, they’re safe at home. They know what they’ve done. They know it’s resulted in the death of Americans, contractors and soldiers, not just hundreds but thousands. And we look the other way because they don’t look like criminals. The die cast, the people that are responsible for it, are on Wall Street. And they don’t look like criminals. It’s almost a suspension of disbelief. Sometimes I’ll have people call me and say, is this, is this real? Do they really get away with this? Yeah, they do.
