Both corporate media and social media companies are hoping for big pay days during this year’s campaign cycle, and they’ve spent millions lobbying Washington lawmakers to make it easier to hide where the money is coming from. Plus, a federal judge has tossed a lawsuit by drug companies who claimed that the new Medicare drug price negotiations aren’t legal. Mike Papantonio is joined by Independent newspaper publisher Rick Outzen to discuss.
Transcript:
*This transcript was generated by a third-party transcription software company, so please excuse any typos.
Mike Papantonio: Both corporate media and social media companies are hoping for big paydays during this year’s campaign cycle. And they’ve spent millions, millions lobbying Washington lawmakers to make it easier to hide when they give money to big campaigns. They don’t, for example, if you have a group that gives a hundred million dollars to 10 or 12 senators, whatever it may be, don’t you want to know if that group is a weapons manufacturer? Don’t you wanna know if that group is exclusively a pharmaceutical group that’s trying to change the law? And don’t you wanna be able to say, well, that Senator took all this money for pharmaceutical, from the industry, and oh, by the way, he voted 100% for the pharmaceutical industry? Isn’t that something we ought to know, even with Citizens United, as bad as that decision is?
Rick Outzen: Well, it is. And the other thing that’s happening, and we see it in state legislatures, Mike, is that because of term limits for state legislatures, the lobbyists are writing the bills. They’re actually creating.
Mike Papantonio: Talk about ALEC. Talk about ALEC.
Rick Outzen: ALEC, oh yeah. You look at ALEC, all the gun control, or anti-gun control, all those bills are coming. They have a big conference. They write it. They drafted, I know of state senators that had their bills drafted by ALEC.
Mike Papantonio: By ALEC. We’ve seen the same thing with the weapons industry. Now understand, let’s say it again, the group actually drafts the legislation.
Rick Outzen: Exactly.
Mike Papantonio: We’ve seen cases where its word for word.
Rick Outzen: State to state.
Mike Papantonio: State to state.
Rick Outzen: You see it state to state.
Mike Papantonio: The exact same. So, this money that’s coming from the pharmaceutical industry, or it’s coming from Wall Street, or it’s coming from the weapons industry, the point is, we ought to be able to look behind that. Now, media’s not gonna tell you. You’ve got corporate media hiding. I mean, they’re doing everything to lobby against this, aren’t they?
Rick Outzen: Right. They are.
Mike Papantonio: National Broadcasters are saying, oh no, we don’t wanna have to disclose this. Why?
Rick Outzen: Well, because, they’re making too much money on it. And one reason you have this America’s Lawyer is because the stories that you need to tell about PFAS about, gosh, you know.
Mike Papantonio: Opioids.
Rick Outzen: Opioids, you’re looking at all of this, they were making so much money you could not get the story told.
Mike Papantonio: Yeah, that’s true. There were times, Rick, when I would show up for MSNBC, I was a commentator with Ed Schultz primarily. And I’d be ready to do the show. I’d be ready to do the segment. Bayer corporation is making a product that’s killing people. I should be able to tell that story, shouldn’t I? And in the count, no, we gotta change the story. In the count 10, 9, 8. Gotta change the story. Talk about some inane kind of topic like constitutional law, some idiotic part of constitutional law. And so the industry that’s supposed to be telling us this story is actually part of the people who are hiding the truth of the story. Why do you think, for example, we talk about this often, why do you think MSNBC has commercials for Raytheon? Are you gonna go buy a Patriot missile? Probably not. But they do that because Raytheon gives them advertising dollars. And when Raytheon wants to start a war, what do you think MSNBC’s gonna do? They’re gonna do the same thing they’ve always done all the way back to Iraq. They’re gonna jump on the weapons industry bandwagon. Who was it they fired that used to, they fired early on because he was telling the story about what a, Donahue. Phil Donahue.
Rick Outzen: Yeah, Phil Donahue.
Mike Papantonio: MSNBC fired him because he was telling the truth.
Rick Outzen: Well, Ed Schultz is another example.
Mike Papantonio:: Ed Schultz, they got rid of because of TPP. He said TPP, and first of all, they hated that he thought Hillary Clinton was an idiot. Second of all, they hated that he talked about TPP, and they made it look like he was fired. Well, no, a lot more to that story. But the point is, if you don’t have the media telling us who is, who’s the money behind this hundred million dollars that went to through this organization, who are they? How do we ever know the truth about anything? Right?
Rick Outzen: Well, that’s the challenge. And you look at, that’s why we’re seeing documentaries so much, playing a big, they’re becoming where we’re getting it.
Mike Papantonio: Wow.
Rick Outzen: You know, this channel’s doing it.
Mike Papantonio: What an important point.
Rick Outzen: Oh, it is.
Mike Papantonio: Mark, in less than a month, I’m interviewing Mark Ruffalo on this very topic out in Vegas, the program I put on out in Vegas. And the topic is, since corporate media is dead, how do you replace it? You see, one way is independent news that you do with your extraordinarily successful newspaper. The other way is documentaries and movies. Right?
Rick Outzen: Right. It’s, documentaries are becoming the way to really get a full idea out and that has taken a big place. Channels like this, what y’all are able to do on YouTube and to get the message out helps because it is, I mean, I still like New York Times. I still like the Washington Post. But I know we’ll disagree on that. We’ll have a discussion later. But also.
Mike Papantonio: But we won’t yell at each other and call each other idiot.
Rick Outzen: Well, no guarantees. No guarantees. But I do think that what we’re seeing is, particularly on television now, more and more. I remember watching you one time on Fox and they cut your mic off.
Mike Papantonio: Oh, yeah.
Rick Outzen: You know, when you’re trying to say.
Mike Papantonio: Oh, that would happen all the time.
Rick Outzen: But you look at, when they bring on these regular guests that they have, they don’t tell us, we get their pedigree, but we don’t know they’re on the board of this company or that company, or they’re a consultant or an advisor. We’re not given that information.
Mike Papantonio: No. For example, right now, MSNBC, CNN, loading up with generals. Have you followed that?
Rick Outzen: Yes.
Mike Papantonio: And they don’t tell the story, yeah, that he’s not a general, active general anymore. And oh, by the way, he’s on the board of four companies that produce weapons and do military contracting. They don’t say a word about it. No disclosure at all. So the people listening to it, they go, well, God, this guy’s a smart guy. Well, you have no idea that he’s got, it’s all propaganda. That he’s just telling the corporate story. Not one talking head on MSNBC or CNN or any of the networks for that matter, have the sense to say, now wait a second. Let’s tell the viewers, you have an interest here, don’t you? You’re on the board of Boeing, aren’t you? You’re on the board of Raytheon. They don’t even ask the frigging question. And that’s where we are with the relationship on disclosure in corporate media.
Rick Outzen: Right. And dark money.
Mike Papantonio: Dark money. Right.
Mike Papantonio: A federal judge has tossed a lawsuit by drug companies who claim that the new Medicare drug price negotiations aren’t legal. This is a rare victory for consumers. It’s not a huge victory. That’s the word. You know, we have to claim victory where we can. You understand, we’re only talking about 10 drugs. There are 3000 or more drugs. Okay. Out there. And we’re talking about 10 drugs that the administration just happened to pick. What about the other 3000 drugs where price gouging is so serious that there’s 5000% increases. Marked up 5000% and the company says, oh, well, we had to do that for R and D. They didn’t have to do it for R and D. They did it for advertising. That’s why you have an ad on every nine seconds on TV.
Rick Outzen: Right. And as they, the high prices impact taxpayers all over the place. You look at what we pay in Medicaid and Medicare. You look at what cities are paying for medication. You look at all the clinics, how it’s impacting across the spectrum there. Also what’s happened with the drug companies is they’re getting more linear in how they, they’re controlling more parts of their market than they ever did before. They’re heavily into the pharmacies. They’re heavily, they’re supposed to be, 340B money is money they’re supposed to be as a sell to a discount to federally managed healthcare clinics. And that money’s supposed to go back and help fund healthcare. And they’re keeping the money. And nobody’s caught. Nobody’s gonna call ’em out on it. No legislator is gonna look at it.
Mike Papantonio: How many articles on corporate TV have you seen where they say, let’s talk about drug markup? Let’s show you this drug where there’s a 2000% markup. Let’s show you insulin where it costs them $7 to make, but it’s gonna cost the user $250 a month to get. Let’s talk about that. Why don’t they do it? Because every 10 seconds, every nine seconds, every eight seconds sometimes, there’s an ad on television talking about drugs. Being paid for by the pharmaceutical industry that’s increasing the bottom line for corporate media’s TV.
Rick Outzen: And the people that are hurt don’t have advocates. They don’t have anyone there going in front of the lawmakers, and they’re not contributing to the campaigns. But this is impacting, I mean, Mike, we’re looking at, this is a kitchen table issue with a lot of families. If they’re living paycheck to paycheck, the price of insulin, someone had to make a decision to buy that insulin or food.
Mike Papantonio: I’ve had to sue the industry. Right now, I’ve got a case pending against the industry on price fixing. I’ve never seen better documents. It’s just like the documents are overwhelming. But in this situation, Rick, you’ve got an entire industry that they’re upset that 10 drugs are being looked at. 10 drugs. They understand that if they have to come down on the price of one of those 10, they’ve got thousands that they can make up for. But they’re spending millions, tens of millions of dollars on lobbyists. Because their point is, Pfizer and Merck and Johnson and Johnson, their point is, oh my God, if we let this pass, what’s gonna happen next? Right?
Rick Outzen: Right. They’re worried about the peek under the curtain. That we’re gonna get, really understand how much they’re overcharging us on so many different drugs.
Mike Papantonio: Well, even Bernie Sanders, who you know I’m a big fan of Bernie, Bernie says, eh. You know, what does this legislation really do? We’re talking about 10 drugs. But they can’t even take that. We’ve had two victories, this one, and then last year there was a victory on a similar issue. We gotta win on something. Consumers have to win on something where it comes to these drug companies.
Rick Outzen: Well, and people need to follow the insulin case that y’all are working on because that’s a really dramatic difference here, because that patent was donated. It should be no cost to get.
Mike Papantonio: Yeah. A Canadian doctor said, I’m gonna give this to you free. And all of a sudden you’ve got Lilly making $250 every time somebody says, I have to have this to live. I have to have this to live. And people are having to cut their insulin in half just so they can afford it, or go without food, or go without a place to live.
