America’s Lawyer E95: Congress passed fewer bills last year than at any other point in American history, and they could be on track to pass even fewer bills this year. Multiple new studies have found alarming amounts of micro plastics in early every food and animal product that were tested, and these tiny particles can have a major impact on human health. And we have two senior citizens running for President again this year, but younger leadership could be around the corner for Congress. 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. Congress passed fewer bills last year than at any point in American history, and they’re gonna be on track to pass even fewer bills this year. And multiple news stories have found alarming amounts of microplastics in every food and animal product that were tested. And these tiny particles can have a major impact on human health. And we have two senior citizens running for president against each other this year. But younger leadership could be around the corner for Congress. All that and more, it’s coming up. Don’t go anywhere. America’s Lawyer starts right now.
If it feels like Congress is doing nothing, it’s because they are. There’s no imagination here. They’re doing nothing. Last year, Congress passed fewer bills than ever before, and one of the main reasons is the refusal of the two parties to work together. It is the most divided politics in American history, and this Congress is doing less in American history than have ever been done. I’ve got Farron Cousins to talk about this with me. Farron, what do you think?
Farron Cousins: This is not surprising at all. I mean, look, we were at the point where in a span of 10 months, we almost had five government shutdowns because Congress was so incompetent and so incapable of working with each other that they couldn’t even pass just regular, let’s keep working budget bills. So, because, you can’t even get past a budget, let alone try to work on something like another infrastructure package or revamping healthcare or literally anything, because they can’t even do the basic, fundamental job that they have of passing a budget every year.
Mike Papantonio: Yeah. Did you just say in less than six months, it’s happened eight times?
Farron Cousins:: Well, it was 10 months, five times.
Mike Papantonio: Okay. 10 months, five times, either way.
Farron Cousins: So every other month we’re on the verge of a shutdown.
Mike Papantonio: That is way crazy. So they were successful in passing a record level, low level, dysfunctional, disgusting, low level of 27 bills. It’s the lowest in American history, right?
Farron Cousins: Yeah. Usually every year Congress will pass hundreds of pieces of legislation, or at least they had in the past. And some of those are minor. They’re let’s pass a quick resolution to do this. Let’s do a quick resolution naming this day, you know, Mike Papantonio day. But we can’t even do that anymore. 27 pieces of legislation and when you’re looking at a group of people that only work about 150 days a year, it’s insane how little is getting done. And like you said, it’s getting worse. We’ve done even less this year than we had by this point last year. And it is, you’ve got political scientists looking at this, you’ve got historians looking at it, and they’ve all kind of come to the conclusion, the number one factor is these people hate each other so much they won’t even talk to each other anymore.
Mike Papantonio: Actually, what’s so amazing about it is most of these folks don’t have to work. We’ve got a congress that has, as far as people who had to work for a living, labor people, what, we did a story on this couple of weeks ago, was it 3% or 8%? Something like that.
Farron Cousins: It’s insane. It’s in the single digits.
Mike Papantonio: Single digits of people that actually had to work for a living. So these people, our Congress that we have, well, they might not have started out like that, but they’re multimillionaires because of insider trading, because of all the scams they’re running. I mean, these are stories we’ve done. I’m not just saying this, we’ve done several stories about the insider trading. How somebody has started off and they got a hundred thousand dollars in the bank and within years, within a couple years, they’ve got $10 million in the bank. So they don’t have to work. So what they do is, what is it, they go home on Thursdays, right?
Farron Cousins: Usually, yes.
Mike Papantonio: Tell us, in other words, no matter what’s pending, they’re gonna go home on Thursdays and come back Monday, supposedly. Right?
Farron Cousins: Right. Congress is technically in session three days a week. Okay. Seven day week, Congress has to be there for three. They show up Monday evening. Sometimes they’ll do a couple of votes Monday evening. They’ll work a full day Tuesday, Wednesday, about a half day Thursday. Then everybody flies home. Now sometimes when you got a busy week, they don’t get to fly home until like Friday morning. So those are the really rough weeks when you only get a three and a half day weekend. But they just took for Easter, their two week vacation. We don’t get that. Even kids in school don’t get a full two weeks for spring break. They take most of the month of August off. They take summer breaks. A month at Christmas. It’s insane how much time off these people take and deny us any kind of federally mandated leave.
Mike Papantonio: They don’t go home because they have to work. Because like I said, they don’t have to work. They’re, you know, the numbers are staggering, the statistics are amazing, the number of people that really have to work in Congress. So what they do is they airdrop in. Okay. They airdrop in just in time for the C-SPAN segment. Right. They’re standing in an empty room. If you get the impression that they’re talking to nobody, it’s because they are, they’re talking to nobody. But they step in for 10 minutes, they airdrop in and they do this show for us to make it look like, oh my God, you know, they’re still at it. It’s 10 o’clock at night, they hadn’t done anything all day. It’s 10 o’clock at night. You’d go, you think, what a hard worker. Right?
Farron Cousins: Right. And a lot of people think, oh, well, they have to go back to their districts because they man their district offices, they’re doing campaigning. But studies have also shown us that the amount of time federal lawmakers are actually spending in their local offices has dwindled down to virtually nothing in recent years. So, no, they’re not actually working in their local offices. They may pop into a little local restaurant, shake a couple hands, smile for the camera and get on local news. But they’re gone in 10 minutes, off to do whatever the heck they want to do.
Mike Papantonio: Fundraiser.
Farron Cousins: Exactly. So they’re not working. And again, it cannot be understated enough, they won’t even talk to each other if they’re not a member of their party. And now we’ve got both parties just at each other’s throats in their own party.
Mike Papantonio: There are no more statesmen.
Farron Cousins: No.
Mike Papantonio: There are no more statesmen.
Farron Cousins: It’s a bunch of children.
Mike Papantonio: It’s like kids. It’s the same, and we see it, don’t we? We see it with what we do for a living, just on people that go crazy when we try to say something that they disagree with. They go nuts. Didn’t used to be like that. You and I have been doing this for over 20 years. Right. We started all the way back to the Air America days where you could have a conversation and people didn’t go nuts. That’s not the case anymore. But you would expect better in Washington.
You may not realize it, but you’re consuming microplastics every single day. It doesn’t matter how clean your diet is. These tiny particles are everywhere, including your brain. And we’re only just learning about the dangers they pose because the industry’s kept it quiet for so long. Right?
Farron Cousins: Yeah. We have just so far this year have had about half a dozen new studies come out about microplastics, nanoplastics, and all these other plastic fibers. And each study has looked at a different part. We had one study that looked at bottled waters and they found out, hey, wait a minute. Every bottled water we tested had microplastics. A ridiculous, dangerous amount. Every vegetable we tested, oh, you got microplastics. Every piece of meat, every store cereal and whatever it is on the grocery store shelves, they’re telling us about 99% of ’em have levels of microplastics that would make you ill if you even knew the numbers. That’s how bad this problem is.
Mike Papantonio: We consume almost 12,000 microplastics every year going into our body. Matter of fact, you talked about bottled water. Just to put in perspective, you’re talking about 370,000 plastic particles that we find in one. When they tested, they found 370,000 plastic particles. Well, this doesn’t just move through your system. As a matter of fact, what it does is it migrates through your system in a way it can migrate systemically through your blood. It can actually cross through the blood brain barrier and end up in your brain. And that’s what’s happening. And you have from a gastrointestinal problem, it actually moves through the lining of your gut and sets there in the lining for your life. There’s no way to get rid of it. You see, that’s people, well, I can choate my system and everything’s gonna be okay. Or maybe I’ll stop drinking now, bottled water, and I’m gonna be. No, you’re not. It’s there. And the worst thing about it is they’ve known about this for a long time and they kept it real quiet.
Farron Cousins: Yeah, they did. And listen, people could try to say, okay, well, I’m only gonna eat organic. I’m not gonna go to these places that have horrible factory farm practices, which is great, by the way. But you’re not gonna get away from the microplastics because, uh-oh, another study found out it’s in the rainwater. So unless you can eat food that is a hundred percent not produced anywhere in the environment, you are consuming these plastics.
Mike Papantonio: Farron, talk about it, explain to ’em why it’s in the rainwater. It’s taken up into the clouds. Talk about that just a second.
Farron Cousins: Yeah. What we’ve got here is these fibers are actually so small that when you get this evaporation, because they’re everywhere in the environment, they actually get evaporated with the clouds. And you have a lot of it that goes up there, not just through evaporation, but through actual pollution. Fossil fuel pollution, a lot of their plastic production, which is what fossil fuel companies are also hugely involved in and it’s big clouds billowing up into the sky filled with these particles that rain down and we consume.
Mike Papantonio: Let me put it in perspective how dangerous it is, other than the fact we know now that it migrates through your entire body, including past your blood brain barrier, which is supposed to be protection for your brain. Now the problem is it has clear connection to high blood pressure, reproductive issues. Sometimes it’s so severe that it will actually mimic early menopause. Because what it does is it mimics estrogen. It mimics estrogen, and your system reacts, it disrupts your endocrine system. And so all of a sudden these things are going sideways. And I’d like to say, we just found out about this. You and I did a story what, couple years ago?
Farron Cousins: Right.
Mike Papantonio: But the truth is nobody talks about it. Again, set out, go ahead and Google. Google the internet and find out how many times you have seen this done on corporate television. The reason why, do I have to finish the sentence? Why don’t you finish it for me?
Farron Cousins: Obviously we’ve got the big advertiser stuff, and of course we also have a problem with the news consumers themselves in which we have found out over the years because we talk about climate change a lot.
Mike Papantonio: Big point, big point. Talk about it.
Farron Cousins:: And people just seem, okay, oh yeah, the environment’s dying and we’re basically killing off our own species. Yawn.
Mike Papantonio: Move on.
Farron Cousins: Give me something more fiery. Talk about how this person said something stupid on Twitter. They don’t care. People seem to really not care about the fact that you are being poisoned by corporate America. There is nothing you can do to avoid it. We can demand accountability and we can change it. But not if y’all just say, well, what can you do?
Mike Papantonio: Just so you know, as you know, we do the big cases, tobacco, opioids, human trafficking, PFAS, I think we’ve done most of the major environmental cases in this country. We’re already getting calls on this. We’re taking a look at it. And there’s no surprise here. The industry’s known about this a long time. A long time. And so as I consider it, you hit it on the head. Give me something to get mad about that politician. Give me something to get mad about with that political party. But where it comes to give me something to think about to protect my health, like climate change. You wanna kill the traffic on a site, do a story on climate change. You will destroy the traffic. They all say, oh, this is bad. We’re all dying. But they don’t even wanna listen to the story. Same way here. Exactly the same way here.
A majority of Americans believe that marijuana should be legal, but federal government, well, they refuse to take action. Instead, they’ve classified marijuana as one of the most dangerous drugs in the country alongside heroin. God almighty. I mean, really? Tell that to Willie Nelson. Right. Call Willie Nelson. Did you know how dangerous it is, Willie? Pick it up.
Farron Cousins:: Yeah. This is ridiculous. We’re in the year 2024 now and marijuana is still scheduled as a schedule one drug, meaning the federal government says there are no medicinal values in this at all. It is dangerously addictive. It is deadly. Marijuana will kill you just as quickly as heroin, according to the government. Even though, as far as I have seen, and I’ve researched this a lot, I have not found a single person that has overdosed on marijuana.
Mike Papantonio: Well, full disclosure, I’m in the business in Florida. We have the license, one of the licenses in Florida. We started off with this, doing this, because we found that CBD oil would stop children from having epileptic seizures. So we were approached and they said, well, look, would you invest in this? Can you get it out? Can you talk about the value of CBD? And we did. And all of a sudden it was legalized. We had medical marijuana legalized in Florida. Lot of different reasons because finally scientists were willing to come forward and say, yeah, we’re not, we don’t have all the studies yet. We can’t and I can’t tell you 100% that everything’s okay, to tell you the truth. But I do know that there’s enough history to know that it’s not like heroin.
Farron Cousins: Right.
Mike Papantonio: And so, but this, so you have a government that they won’t change the rules at all. And just, this whole issue remains in limbo. Right. And people in the business have a tough time even staying in the business because the tax rates are so high that companies can’t even keep up with the tax rates. 82% or some ungodly number like that.
Farron Cousins: Right. It is absolutely ridiculous what they’re doing because we don’t have federal action on it. And anytime you don’t have federal action, what happens? Which a great example of that is with Covid. We’d had no federal Covid regulations to get everybody on the same page. So just like with legalization of marijuana, we end up with a patchwork of different states with different rules where it’s legal here, it’s kind of legal here. It’s mostly legal.
Mike Papantonio: We’re gonna look the other way here. But it’s not really.
Farron Cousins: Right. And nobody knows if you’re crossing the border from one state to another, suddenly you could be committing a serious felony.
Mike Papantonio: Oh, it’s a federal. I mean, it’s a federal law that says, yeah, this is a controlled substance and it’s as dangerous as heroin. And if you use it, you have the risk of going to prison. So.
Farron Cousins: And the government says it’s also more dangerous than cocaine and meth.
Mike Papantonio: Yeah. Interesting.
Farron Cousins: And those are schedule two drugs.
Mike Papantonio: Yeah. 70% of the American public supports it. You know, as I look at it, the studies that are coming out, I think are quick. There’s some real signs that this could be a problem. I mean, heart attacks, heart problems. But it’s, at this point, there’s not any empirical data. There’s not epidemiology that says one way or another. But the government, I can tell you, they’re not going to change this law. That’s the DEA. They’re not going to change this law. Really, it helps support the DEA doesn’t it? I mean, it’s kind of.
Farron Cousins: Oh, yeah. It’s their bread and butter. That’s where they get their money. We arrest these people. The private prison industry is fighting to keep it illegal. The pharmaceutical industry is fighting to keep it illegal.
Mike Papantonio: Oh yeah. They’re.
Farron Cousins:: So you’ve got these two billionaire powerhouses that it’s almost impossible to fight against them. And what it’s gonna take is a leader from some party that is not bought and paid for, and cannot be bought and paid for, to make this happen. And I don’t know if we get there in my lifetime. I really don’t.
Mike Papantonio: Oh, you don’t because you’re gonna be so much pushback from the feds. It’s just gonna be, first of all, they’re making, just the tax base on it state to state, these states are making a lot of money on the tax base. But they don’t understand, they’re basically gonna be putting the people who are trying to sell this outta business because you can’t, you simply can’t keep up with the tax responsibilities. But I think the way to look at it is to say, okay, we need some epidemiology. I’m the first to admit, you need to take a closer look and just see what the science really says. Not science that’s been, that’s phonied up. You’re gonna, if I look at any science by the pharmaceutical industry, I always start from the standpoint, yeah, it’s been phonied up. Clinicals have been messed around with. I always start from that position. And when I’m involved in the case, most of the time I’m right. You know.
Farron Cousins: Yeah. And look, we’re talking about the pharmaceutical industry that has a very large body count. And so, take what they say with a grain of salt because we are seeing real results from this. And the public agrees it is time to get out of these dark ages of making this, or classifying it, at least classify it lower on the schedule.
Mike Papantonio: Well, you got alcohol and tobacco, Jesus Christ. I mean, how many people have been killed with that? We just look the other way on that. It just doesn’t make any difference. But I think you have to, at this stage where you have states that are saying, yeah, we’re gonna legalize it. It provides an opportunity and the opportunities to say, let’s study it. Let’s have some serious epidemiologists take a look at it and let’s see where it goes. Right?
Farron Cousins: Yep.
Mike Papantonio: Call it what it is. Like we do. Balls and strikes.
Most Americans agree that our politicians are too old. You think? With the average age of lawmakers in the Senate somewhere being around 64, that’s a year away from retirement age. But new, slightly younger leadership could be on the way to change all that. What do you think?
Farron Cousins: You know, I really like this story. Politico put this out, said, hey, we got two almost octogenarian guys running for president here, but hey, don’t worry.
Mike Papantonio: Old man. Old man versus old man. I mean, that’s just the truth. One of ’em is orange. The other one’s bumping into walls. I mean, look at these guys. McConnell. Is he alive? You look at the guy, is he really alive? Pelosi, Jesus, she has been shellacked or I don’t know what she’s done to stay preserved. But the point is, this is it. This is it. And the story says there’s younger people coming, but they ain’t that young.
Farron Cousins:: Exactly.
Mike Papantonio: They’re in the sixties. And that’s young. Right?
Farron Cousins:: Right. They’re like, hey, don’t worry. We’ve got people in their mid fifties to mid sixties to usher in this younger generation of politicians, which I guess technically it’s still better. But at the same time, we need the 30 year olds. We need the 40 year olds. We need the people to represent a majority of the people that went through the same things coming of age that they did. And that’s the difference. These are the people who sat in office, except for Trump because he didn’t get into 2016. They oversaw the financial disaster of 2007, 2008. They got us into Iraq. They got all of these endless wars. All of these financial problems. All of this deregulation.
Mike Papantonio: Climate change.
Farron Cousins: Exactly. They were all in office while these disasters were shaping our lives. And we don’t really have voices in there.
Mike Papantonio: Have we been unfair or are these, have we doctored these pictures at all?
Farron Cousins: A little bit. A little bit, little bit. Yes, we did.
Mike Papantonio: Yeah. The truth is this is who they are.
Farron Cousins:: It is.
Mike Papantonio: And we’re looking at it and we’re saying, this is the future. Oh, but don’t worry about it, we got some 60 year olds coming too. What about the 30-year-old? What about the 40-year-old or the 50-year-old that says, you know, I got some good ideas? Get outta the way Pelosi. Get outta the way Biden or McConnell, get outta the way. Let us try something new because we sure couldn’t screw up as bad as you have. Isn’t that kind of the argument here?
Farron Cousins: Exactly. And what’s remarkable too is that when you get to those younger generations, there actually is a lot more agreement than you have with some of these folks. You’ve even got younger conservatives that say, yeah, I’m for all of these traditional conservative things. But I also think climate change is a very big threat and we should do something about it. So there’s more common ground with these younger generations than there is with the older ones.
Mike Papantonio: What do you think these people have in common with a generation Z or millennial that can’t even afford a house? Okay. That the goal, their big goal, God, I hope I can afford a house. Instead, they’re living with mom. They’re living with mom and pop. What do you think they have in common with that person? Nothing. And so that new blood has got to come in and people have to say, I gotta listen to what this young person, this young woman is saying, this young man is saying. And I guess what we thought is we thought, well, we’re gonna revolutionize politics if we just let women in. Well, it did help. But now we need to move to the next stage. We gotta revolutionize politics by letting some young women, some young men, some more people of color in. And let’s mix it up a little bit. because these folks, they’ve created a disaster.
Farron Cousins: They really have. And part of the reason we don’t have many more young folks there is because these people are all still here.
Mike Papantonio: Why do they.
Farron Cousins: All four of ’em.
Mike Papantonio: Why do they stay? What is it that possesses McConnell and Pelosi and Biden and Trump to come in and say, this is so important to me?
Farron Cousins: See, that’s what I really don’t get other than just, I want power. Because you look at everybody up here, these people could have retired decades ago.
Mike Papantonio: Oh, 20 years.
Farron Cousins: And lived a lifestyle that we could only imagine. Just been happy and free the rest of their lives, playing golf, out on the water, fishing, doing whatever.
Mike Papantonio: Is it a sickness of some kind, do you think? Maybe.
Farron Cousins: It’s gotta be some level of narcissism.
Mike Papantonio: I was just gonna say, it sounds a lot like narcissism to me. You know? Anyway, Farron, thanks for what you do. You keep the important stories out there and I know you come on this show and sometimes I disagree with what you’re saying and you disagree with what I’m saying. But we’re always gonna land at the end of the show to say that was a good discussion.
Farron Cousins: Really, it was.
Mike Papantonio: And that’s all we can hope for. Thanks a lot.
Farron Cousins: Absolutely.
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 subscribing. I’m Mike Papantonio, and this has been America’s Lawyer, where we tell you the stories that corporate media won’t tell you because their advertisers don’t let ’em tell the story. Because if they do, the advertiser’s gonna pull the money. Or their political connections, they don’t allow for it because God almighty, if you’re Republican, you better color within the lines. Or if you’re Democrat, you better color within the lines. Well, I gotta tell you something, we forgot around here how to color within the lines. Hopefully we’ll 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.
