Democratic Senator Bob Menendez was hit with even more indictments for his corruption, but Democrats in the Senate don’t think it’s a good idea to kick him out of office. Plus, a new book by authors Paul Waldman and Tom Schaller claims that voters in the South are actually the biggest threats to Democracy. Mike Papantonio is joined by Independent newspaper publisher Rick Outzen to explain why that’s not actually the case.
Transcript:
*This transcript was generated by a third-party transcription software company, so please excuse any typos.
Mike Papantonio: Democratic Senator Bob Menendez was hit with even more indictments for his corruption. But the Democrats in the Senate, well, they think it’s okay. We don’t allow having, it’s fine to have this freakish criminal sitting there denying that he’s a criminal when it’s overwhelming. Everybody who talks about it, it’s overwhelming. Finally, you got a couple of people that says, really? Let walk what we talk about. Let’s get rid of this guy like they did Santos. You know, Republicans got around to getting rid of him. This guy’s 10 times worse than Santos. Talk about it.
Farron Cousins: Yeah. This is, it’s almost laughable at this point because this is the third superseding indictment, meaning it’s in total, the fourth time he has been indicted on new things. Because every time they get a new witness to flip, what’s happening is that the prosecutors are uncovering even more information. So these latest rounds of indictments, what’s gone from conspiracy charges against Menendez and his wife has now grown into full-blown, you did it. So it’s not a conspiracy to commit the crime. They’re saying, you actually did do what we thought you were only trying to do. So it is so much worse.
Mike Papantonio: And this isn’t his first time. You understand he got away with this one time before, with a hung jury. The jury didn’t acquit. It was a hung jury and they didn’t re-prosecute. Exactly the same thing. Here we’ve got gold bars being hidden in his closet. We got money that is sewn into the lining of his jackets. She gets new cars. He’s got all of these perks that people are going, where the hell did all this come from? And finally, somebody starts asking questions and he’s a criminal. Bob Menendez is a repeat, repetitive criminal. That’s what he is. He’s incorrigible criminal. And he’s sitting in the Senate with the Democrats. He is a blue Democrat, and they’re saying, ah, this is okay. We’re just gonna let it play itself out. Well, they don’t let it play itself out with other folks, but with Menendez, they’re doing it. Why is that?
Farron Cousins: Well, Menendez has been a powerful fundraiser, but I think the biggest issue is that if we get rid of Menendez, uh-oh, we’re down to only that one, we have 51 senators right now, we’re down to 50. And, uh-oh, suddenly then if we can’t get Sinema and Manchin, we’re screwed.
Mike Papantonio: But don’t you say hell with that sometimes?
Farron Cousins: Oh, exactly.
Mike Papantonio: Don’t say, hell.
Farron Cousins: You have to put politics aside.
Mike Papantonio: We have a criminal sitting in our body. We know he is a criminal. He’s an incorrigible criminal because this is his second time doing this. And we’re just saying it’s okay.
Farron Cousins: Well, not to mention, okay, you kick him out of office. So what happens? The governor is gonna just appoint somebody else to the seat. You’re still gonna have the seat. Get rid of him. You know he is not going to make it through this trial at all.
Mike Papantonio: Trial May 6th. What an extravaganza for the Democrats. Can you imagine watching that public trial May 6th and hearing the story, and then people gonna scratch their head. Well, I don’t get it. Why did they let him sit there for an entire year while this was all going on? Why did they do that?
Farron Cousins: Well, and the funny thing is, if he goes through that trial and gets convicted, if he doesn’t voluntarily resign, they’ll still have to go through the process to expel him. And that’s gonna be humiliating because he’ll be in jail and they’ll still have to say, okay, well, I guess now we can get rid of him. It’s gonna be embarrassing if they don’t do it now.
Mike Papantonio: If they’re not already humiliated. I don’t know how you humiliate ’em anymore.
Mike Papantonio: A new book by authors Paul Waldman in Tom Schaller claims that voters in the south are actually the biggest threats to democracy. I’ve got independent newspaper publisher, Rick Outzen, with me to explain what a crazy statement. You know what, Rick, I looked through this article. I looked at the interviews that they did with him. I tried to find that golden side to what they were saying, it was.
Rick Outzen: Oh, without a doubt.
Mike Papantonio: I mean, that’s all I can do is tell you. And I, can I tell you Waldman, I like the guy. We’ve interviewed him. Farron Cousins has interviewed him. I’ve interviewed him over the years. He’s actually brilliant. I was so disappointed to see him involved with this, where his, the diatribe is it’s just partisan hatred. I don’t know how else to describe it. Like we’re southern idiots who are driven only uniquely by racism and misogynism. It just goes on and on forever. And I want to just say, really? This is how you’re gonna break through by telling us that everybody in urban America are a bunch of idiots.
Rick Outzen: Right. Well, it breaks it down to the argument is that rural America, we are just too stupid. Our values are inconsistent with American core principles, and that we’re waiting on Democrats to rescue us, and they’ve come back with the magic formula. We need to elect better Republicans. Which Mike, we heard this argument 40 years ago when Republicans were complaining and about Democrats, blacks voting with Democrats all the time, or Hispanics voting, that they’re not electing the right Democrats. What did the Republican party do? They started listening more.
Mike Papantonio: Yeah, that’s exactly, as evil as Lee Atwater was, he listened. He didn’t go out there and say, look, you guys are just a bunch of losers, hate-filled losers that have no, and it wasn’t, he’s not just talking about the south. You understand, he’s talking about the entire United States that’s urban. Okay. So what is it, what is it that he says these folks are focused on that if we don’t do something about, democracy is gonna fail. He says, I can’t believe they focus on CRT or DEI or college professors, or Antifa, or California or New York. This, look, the point is this, we’ve become so divided in this country that these writers actually felt comfortable basically pulling a Hillary Clinton, the deplorable argument. That’s all this is.
Rick Outzen: Well, and they’re getting touted for it. They’re getting touted in the mainstream media by the elites.
Mike Papantonio: Like, this is brilliant. This is absolutely brilliant.
Rick Outzen: They found something really unique. And this argument’s been used over and over again for one group of people against another. I mean, the other thing that’s really insulted, Mike, in looking at it, is they talk about the brain drain. That so many young white people have left.
Mike Papantonio: Oh, look at the demographics on that, buddy.
Rick Outzen: Have left the rural country.
Mike Papantonio: Yeah. Look at the demographic. Look at the movement back to the rural areas.
Rick Outzen: Right. Well, that’s what they’re not, they don’t want to admit that. And the other assumption is because they leave, because they get better educated, this is their view, is that the core values of of the rural part of our country are so bad. But, it doesn’t work that way.
Mike Papantonio: We can disagree. I mean, we can disagree. Farron and I, Farron Cousins and I have been doing shows together since he was 20 years old, 21 years old. And he doesn’t agree with me on most things. I don’t agree with him on a lot of stuff. But we don’t attack each other. We can disagree, and we can still have an intelligent conversation without it digressing into attacking intelligence, attacking faith, attacking passion. That’s what’s happening here. That these are qualities that we’re going to attack because in our elitist ivory tower, we see it as a drag on democracy. This is just nothing more than the Hillary Clinton deplorable attack. And you know what? It cost Hillary badly. And if candidates believe that this is something they’re gonna tie into, and they’re gonna make this they’re talking point, it’s a mistake. I remember, you might even done this story, I think you might have. We did an article on, it was when we did the Ed Schultz radio show, and it was talking about an analysis that was done of liberals, and it said, they tried to make it look like it was a mental illness.
Rick Outzen: Right.
Mike Papantonio: Okay. The mental illness of liberals. They were total left brain without capacity for precise analysis. They had an overwhelming tendency to be angry and unhappy. Do you remember this?
Rick Outzen: Right.
Mike Papantonio: They were unimaginable. They could not handle objective evaluation if they disagreed with it. It goes on and on. This was an evaluation by these so-called shrink sociologists who were telling us what the mind of a liberal looks like. We attacked that then.
Rick Outzen: Right.
Mike Papantonio: We said, this is ridiculous. I’m attacking this right now. This is ridiculous.
Rick Outzen: Well, we have to, I mean, they blame rural white America for not voting democratic. Well, look at how little time Democrat candidates spend in the south.
Mike Papantonio: Talk about that.
Rick Outzen: Because here we’re in Pensacola, this is definitely a Republican stronghold. A lot of independent voters. You know, over, gosh, the last 20 years, 25 years, we’ve had George W. Bush, George HW Bush, we had Mitt Romney, John McCain, Donald Trump, all come here, hold huge rallies. Not one Democratic presidential candidate has been here.
Mike Papantonio: But the point is this, your point is they wanna say that, and it’s again, they’re not talking just about the south here. You know, you got rural right outside New York City.
Rick Outzen: But it’s talking about my home, so that’s why I get.
Mike Papantonio: He did talk about your home Mississippi. It’s called, White Rural Rage and how it’s destroying democracy. If candidates believe this is a selling point and this is a positive thing to be talking about in elections, boy are they in for a surprise.
Rick Outzen: Right.
Mike Papantonio: Rick, thanks for joining me. Okay.
Rick Outzen: Glad to be here.
Mike Papantonio: That’s all for this week. But all these segments will be posted right here on this channel in the coming week, so make sure you subscribe. 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 they’re advertisers, they won’t allow it. They just won’t allow ’em to tell the stories without them losing advertising dollars or their political connections don’t allow for it. They’re either so Republican or so Democrat that they can’t shake the tree at all. They can’t say anything that colors outside those lines. Obviously, we don’t have that problem here. Hope to see you next time.
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.
