America’s Lawyer E98: A new report has revealed how the Pentagon has spent decades sending top military brass to work at the top defense companies in America – while also sending them TRILLIONS of dollars worth of contracts. Senator Bob Menendez is currently on trial on multiple felony charges, and his plan to get out of trouble is to blame everything on his wife. And a very large majority of President Biden’s supporters say that they wish they could vote for anybody else in the upcoming election. 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 report has revealed that the Pentagon has spent decades sending top military generals and brass to work at the top defense companies in America. The corporate defense types. We’re gonna be talking to you about that and how it’s made trillions of dollars go to these folks that they’re working for. Senator Bob Menendez, well, he’s currently on trial on multiple felony charges, and his plan is to get out of trouble by blaming his wife. No surprise there. This guy is an absolute bottom feeder who the Democrats won’t get rid of. And a very large majority of President Biden’s supporters say that they wish they could vote for anybody else in the upcoming election. All that and more, it’s coming up. Don’t go anywhere. America’s Lawyer starts right now.
A new report has uncovered the disgusting pipeline between the Pentagon and defense contractors, where the Pentagon sends trillions of dollars worth of contracts to these companies in exchange for getting lucrative jobs for themselves. I’ve got Ring of Fire’s Farron Cousins to talk to me about that. Wow. This is like lobbying on steroids. You take a top general in the country, maybe in the world, and you give them to this little contractor over here, and they’re supposed to be schooled up by that little contractor. Well, the little contractor is Raytheon, it’s all the huge, it’s all of the huge weapons manufacturers. And then that guy that you’ve sent over goes to the Department of Defense and gets trillions of dollars for those contractors. I mean, really? This is something that was put in place by Bill Clinton of all people.
Farron Cousins: Yeah. And it’s really funny because a lot of times we talk about this revolving door between industry and government agencies, but this isn’t even a revolving door. It’s not something secretive. This is literally a government program. Okay. This is called the Secretary of Defense Executive Fellows Program. It is a documented thing that they do every year where they send about 20 of the top generals, the majors, the high ranking folks, and they send them off to the Boeings and Raytheons and Lockheed Martins for a year. And then those people come back and they tell the Pentagon what the contractor needs or what the contractor sees as the problems with the Pentagon itself. And every time, and this is a wonderful report by the Lever, which is by the way, just the best outlet out there right now.
Mike Papantonio: No question about it. If you’re not reading the Lever, you’re just not getting news. If you think you’re turning on MSNBC or CNN or ABC and getting the news there, you’re kidding yourself. Lever has got the news.
Farron Cousins: Yeah. And so what they do is these people come back after spending a year at Raytheon and they say, well, Raytheon wants us, because now I work back at the Department of Defense, Raytheon wants us to contract them more. They want us to outsource all of our jobs over to Raytheon, and I think we should do it. Oh, and by the way, Raytheon needs more money. They’re not getting enough from you, even though we have sent over the last 20, 30 years, $7 trillion to these contractors.
Mike Papantonio: To contractors, yeah. Now it’s not just weapons contractors. It’s information contractors.
Farron Cousins: Yeah, tech companies.
Mike Papantonio: Tech companies, all kinds of subcontractors, contractors that the Department of Defense sends these trillions of dollars to. I mean, it is so obvious. The general goes over there. He does the bidding for that little company, and then everybody sits when he’s making his presentation like, oh, wow. That sounds objective. Hell, there’s nothing objective about it. That general ends up getting a job at the end of the day for Raytheon. It’s the worst system. And look, not only that, but they’re dealing with companies like, well, what is it? L3Harris Technologies. That’s one of the big ones. $22 million they had to pay because of false claims to the Department of Defense. They, arms trafficking in 2021. And so, Lockheed Martin, $18 million to resolve multiple allegations of fraudulent government contracts. These are the people that these generals are going to be sent to by the, they’re working through the Pentagon. Pratt & Whitney, $52 million for defective jet engines, that are still getting money from the government. Enron, how about that one? How about Enron? We sent one of our generals to Enron, and we all know the story about Enron.
Farron Cousins: Right.
Mike Papantonio: But the point is, it still is happening. It’s something that came up, what was it, under Bill Clinton.
Farron Cousins: Yeah. 1995 I think is when it began.
Mike Papantonio: 1995.
Farron Cousins: And this is comical, right? This is something you would see in a bad movie, lazy plot. Oh, okay, we’re sending our people over there. That’s not creative. But it’s real life. This is actually happening. And these generals and military brass that go to these companies and come back, every time the report says, every time they say, my guys over here need more money. We’ve really gotta come through for them. So half of the Pentagon budget every year, the $900 billion we’re at now, half of it goes straight to defense contractors. And that’s still not enough for them. They want more than $450 billion a year and they’re gonna keep getting it. This program is not stopping. We’re gonna keep feeding them. They love all these global conflicts we’ve got right now. They’re making money hand over fist and this is what’s driving it. This right here.
Mike Papantonio: There are more multi, multimillion dollar mansions around the DC area that are built by weapons contractors than any time in American history, right now.
The disgraced Democratic senator Bob Menendez is planning on throwing his own wife under the bus because of his criminal trial. According to recent court filings, Menendez lawyers want to paint the wife Nadine as a master manipulator who managed to con the good senator, one of the most powerful men in the Senate. What a bottom feeder. First of all, why don’t the Democrats get rid of this guy? They know what a scumbag he is. But nevertheless, they have dinner with him. He shows up. He’s one of, you know, let’s put our arm around Menendez. He’s one of us. Why won’t they?
Farron Cousins: He’s showing up and voting every day.
Mike Papantonio: He’s actually voting, and he’s, this guy is a criminal from way back. He was acquitted one time. He just barely got by. No, it was a hung jury, wasn’t it?
Farron Cousins: A hung jury, a hung jury.
Mike Papantonio: It was a hung jury. Wasn’t even an acquittal. Same kind of thing. This time we got him with gold bars, got money sewn into his jackets, buying cars. It’s just the worst thing ever. Now he’s saying, I was so unsophisticated that I got manipulated by my evil wife, Nadine. I mean, come on.
Farron Cousins: You know, he better hope that she ends up getting locked away forever because if he goes to court and makes that argument, uh, he’s not ever gonna wanna face her again. I know if I ever blamed my wife for anything, even something like, hey, you forgot to sweep the kitchen when you said you were gonna sweep. Yeah, I’m never gonna hear the end of it. And he’s literally going to court, he is in trial right now saying, listen, I’m just a lowly senator who was on the high ranking Foreign Intelligence Committee and what do I know? My wife is out there making these deals and getting these gold bars and all this cash and it’s insanity to think that he didn’t know this was happening and didn’t know what he was doing.
Mike Papantonio: Moreover, his pals, his Democratic pals who won’t get rid of him, they understand that some of the information was national security information that was going to Egypt.
Farron Cousins: Yeah.
Mike Papantonio: He engineered that. But nevertheless, now what is the argument that I’m hearing? Oh, well, they can’t do anything. The Democrats can’t do anything. Really?
Farron Cousins: Yeah. And I’ve heard a lot of people say, well, they are asking for him to resign. No, they’re not. Okay. Look, don’t say that to somebody who sits here all day consuming political news. I know that there’s like one loud voice calling for him to resign and it’s John Fetterman.
Mike Papantonio: Fetterman is just, he’s up in there.
Farron Cousins: Most others, which we’ve sat here and read the quotes from these idiots, well let’s let the courts decide what to do.
Mike Papantonio: Okay, well what could they do? There’s gotta be, theres ethics folks.
Farron Cousins: They can oust him. They can hold a vote.
Mike Papantonio: They can vote immediately.
Farron Cousins: Yeah, expulsion.
Mike Papantonio: Immediately. There’s nothing to prevent them from doing that. So don’t contact us and say, we didn’t have all the facts. Oh yeah baby, we got all the facts. Democrats could do this immediately. But nevertheless, oh, by the way, did you follow this where Santos, so Republicans get rid of Santos, have you followed his latest gig where he’s supposed to, he’s gonna start doing videos under the name Kitara, where he is a crossdresser drag queen? What’s, tell, help me with this. What’s that all about? Is there something in his history where he was Kitara the drag queen?
Farron Cousins: Yeah, he was back in, I think 2005, 2008 ish, somewhere around there. He did do some drag performances. And he’s so desperate, by the way, to be in the spotlight that he’s now doing this because he needs the money for his criminal trial, which is coming up, I think September.
Mike Papantonio: Is he gonna run again under the name Kitara?
Farron Cousins: Not for office, just on the Cameo. But a fun fact too, he is running for office again and he has raised $0. So that’s why he’s having to do whatever he needs to do to raise money.
Mike Papantonio: He’s dressing up like Kitara and saying, hey, let me try this.
Farron Cousins: Yeah.
Mike Papantonio: It is the weirdest story. At least they got rid of this freak. Okay. Not Bob Menendez. Democrats, no, he’s one of us. There’s nothing we can do. That is total.
Farron Cousins: What Menendez did was so much worse than what Santos did.
Mike Papantonio: Oh, absolutely.
Farron Cousins: Not even close.
Mike Papantonio: When I hear Democrats saying, well, we can’t really do anything. Really? That’s total utter.
The cost of groceries in America is out of control and a new report says the prices can no longer be blamed on inflation or supply chain issues. It’s all due to corporate greed. Grocery store chains used the pandemic to raise prices on everything and those higher prices are here to stay. Now what’s so interesting about this, when I was reading this story, I thought about you because you were doing some of the first stories, I remember when we were saying, these prices go crazy, where you said, this is here to stay. They’ve used the pandemic as this big fraud and they’re here to stay. Pick the story up for me, because you were early on in this story. I remember that.
Farron Cousins: Yeah. And listen, we had that period of super high inflation when we had the supply chain issues. So yeah, that was market trying to fix itself and it never does a good job of it. And while that happens, while inflation hits 10% on prices, the corporations come in and say, okay, well we gotta raise ’em 10%, but what if we raise ’em 20%? Because eventually that first 10% from inflation does go away. But that second 10% never does. That becomes the new base price. So they, the corporations that do this, their profits are already up that 10% on every good. But consumers think, oh, well the price came down because it was $3 last week, but now it’s $2 and 70 cents. Well, it should be $2. You’re getting screwed out of that extra 70 cents.
Mike Papantonio: They learned from the healthcare story, didn’t they?
Farron Cousins: Yep.
Mike Papantonio: They learned from the healthcare story. And now we’re seeing grocery prizes five times the inflation rate, where you’ve got families that are working two or three jobs and the White House could do something about it. You can have price control mandates. But really, the economists are saying, it’s basically, it is some activity by the corporations, but we have an inflation problem that’s here to stay, period, until something dramatic happens. Add that, this greed, I don’t know how people even buy eggs and milk anymore. It’s that bad.
Farron Cousins: Right. If it were just inflation, that would be difficult enough, but it would be manageable to a degree. With that price gouging that’s coming on top of that, that as you said, is far more than inflation could ever dream of being, that’s what’s really killing these people because we know these grocery store CEOs every year, they’re pocketing tens of millions of dollars because we’re doing such a good job of making sure this single mother can’t feed her kids because we’re stealing extra money from her, for her eggs and milk.
Mike Papantonio: How about the argument where you hear ’em, well, if we can get bigger? Okay. If Walmart or whoever, if we can just get bigger and more of a conglomerate, we can pass the savings onto you. That story. You hear that all the time. It’s nonsense. It’s just ridiculous. It sounds good. Yeah, they get bigger. Gee, I guess the economy of scale, they can give us better prices, right. Just the opposite is taking place.
Farron Cousins: Well, and it used to be, you had your, typically in a state you would have your grocery stores that you wouldn’t see in any other state. Publix originally was only a Florida thing. Now it’s all over the country. Same thing with Kroger’s or Albertsons, which I think those two have now merged.
Mike Papantonio: Right.
Farron Cousins: You used to have your Winn-Dixie’s and your Food Worlds and all these options and slowly they’ve all been consolidated. So that’s all you see. It’s homogenous across huge swaths of the country because we don’t have your little local grocers anymore or maybe a grocery that owns two or three stores in the state. They have been snatched up by these, by the Walmarts and your Kroger’s and all these folks.
Mike Papantonio: Yeah.
President Biden’s poll numbers have gotten slightly better recently, but he’s still lagging far behind in voter enthusiasm. A new poll shows that even a majority of his own supporters, I’m not making, this is what the polls show, a majority of his own supporters wish that he wasn’t running and that lack of enthusiasm could be very painful in November. Now, again, I always ask, are we allowed to talk about this? Because people are gonna start crying and send us ugly hate mail because we’re talking about this. Are we allowed to talk about this?
Farron Cousins: We have to, whether we’re allowed to or not. And sometimes folks, we do have to address the ugly truth here. And this poll shows us that 62%, not of 62% of voters, 62% of Biden supporters say, man, I really wish it wasn’t him. I wish it was anybody else on that ballot in November. But they say we’re probably still gonna vote for him. You know, maybe we’ll see what happens. But it’s a lack of enthusiasm and that’s horrible for Biden.
Mike Papantonio: Yeah, it is. The enthusiasm issue is and the way it’s manifesting itself, it’s, let me, your enthusiasm issue. Fewer voters say in 2024 that the presidential race really matters, fewer voters than happened just the last cycle. Now you’ve got this crazy man Carville, James Carville, believing that we can just beat everybody into submission, which is just the opposite. This guy’s gone nuts. He’s this curmudgeon old lizard looking guy with his cap going on television and saying that the youth, that the effing, we’ll play it, the effing youth are just stupid and lazy and this is gonna cost them the election. Now, really? Are you that desperate to where you send your biggest voice, James Carville, who’s been the voice for the Democrats for decades now, and now he’s out there saying these words, you effing young voters basically are so stupid and so lazy that you’re not gonna show up for Biden. What the hell? I mean, when have we gotten to where that’s what we ought to be doing in politics?
Farron Cousins: Yeah. Just screaming at these people that, eh, you’ve gotta do what.
Mike Papantonio: I want to show, we’ll show this. You’ll see it and you go, what?
James Carville: Are you kidding me? Is this the United States of America? Is this the nation that was founded on the principle that no person is above the law? And then you tell these young people, if you don’t get involved right now in this election, they’re gonna be involved in your life for the rest of your fricking life. And if Trump and Roberts and Alito and Gorsuch and Thomas and Leonard, Leo, and The Heritage Foundation, if they get a hold, there will be no government left. There will be no rights left. You’ll live under theocracy. You’ll end up Christian nationalism. But that’s all right. You little 26-year-old. You don’t feel like the elections important to me. They’re not addressing the issues that I care about. Well, the New York Times, Harvard, well, sorry about the Harvard youth poll, which is a pretty good, well regarded thing. Guy named John Della Volpe. And very recently they gave youngsters the 10, 15 most important issues. Clocking in at number 14 was student debt. You wouldn’t know that if you read the press. Number 15 was the issue of Palestine. High on the list was abortion, was interest rates, was housing, affordability, were all of these other things. You are being insufficiently served by the commentariat, and to some extent, you’re being insufficiently served through Democratic messages. So my advice to tell these young people to get off your and go vote, because you should vote like your entire future and the entire future of this United States depends on it, because quite frankly, it does. And that’s not an exaggeration.
Farron Cousins: Look, the problem is, once again, we got a repeat of 2020. These guys are not exciting. Even Trump’s own base, not as energetic.
Mike Papantonio: Oh, they’re not.
Farron Cousins: Like, he’s not getting the same crowds at the rallies.
Mike Papantonio: No.
Farron Cousins: Everybody right now just has this fatigue because politics has become front and center for so many years. It used to be we’d be doing this and we’re talking to the kind of outliers, the few people that follow politics. Well, now everybody does and they’re tired of it. I know we’re tired.
Mike Papantonio: Saturation, isn’t it?
Farron Cousins: Exactly.
Mike Papantonio: Well, you talk about it more. I mean, you do show every single day where you’re talking about politics. I don’t. So, but I already feel the saturation of both these guys. I’m tired of talking about them. I’m just absolutely tired of talking. And so that probably is one of the biggest problems, the enthusiasm problem, something they have to overcome.
Farron Cousins: Well, and there’s a way for Biden to fix that. He says, okay, obviously, yes, I’m old. I’m a little slower. Y’all aren’t excited about me, so let me give you something to be excited about. What if I pick a new running mate? What if I promise a bit of a shake up in my cabinet? Because the cabinet has not been great. You know, look, here’s the people I got lined up. These will be the folks in the White House if you pick me again. Give them something to be excited about because it’s not you. So give them a new person somewhere.
Mike Papantonio: You know why you’ll never go to Washington? Because you’re too smart. It’s a problem. Farron, thanks for joining me. Okay.
Farron Cousins: Thank you.
Mike Papantonio: That’s all for this week. But all these segments, well, they’re gonna be posted right here on this channel in the coming week, so make sure that you’re subscribed. I’m Mike Papantonio and this has been America’s Lawyer, where every week we tell you the stories that corporate media won’t tell you because their advertisers will cut off their advertising if they tell that story or their political connections are so Republican or so Democrat that they can’t color outside the lines there. We don’t have that problem, as you can see watching this program. 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.
