House Democrats have given more than a million dollars to a dark money group that has been actively fighting against lowering prescription drug prices. Plus, the US Department of Justice has teamed up with 15 states to file an anti-trust lawsuit against Apple. Mike Papantonio & Farron Cousins discuss more.
Mike Papantonio: House Democrats have given more than a million dollars to dark money groups that have been actively fighting against lowering prescription drug prices. That’s the Democrats behind this. This is a group being run by a former Pelosi staffer and has ties to all sorts of industries and former Democratic officials. I’ve got Ring of Fire’s Farron Cousins to talk about this. God, can we talk about this since we’re talking about Democrats? I mean, are we allowed to talk about this? What do you think?
Farron Cousins: You’re definitely gonna have some keyboard warriors getting angry about this. But the fact is, you have the House Democrats chief fundraising arm that has pumped more than a million dollars into this dark money group that then turns around and spends that money lobbying these same lawmakers to not lower prescription drugs for Americans.
Mike Papantonio: The story is never told. Okay. All that you hear is Democrats want to lower drug prices. Republicans don’t. That’s what you hear. Democrats want to increase regulations. Republicans don’t. But behind the scenes, the truth is this is what’s going on. And we’re not just talking about minor players. As I just said, this is coming from the Pelosi camp. As a matter of fact, you had Alixandria Lapp, she was a former lobbyist for the pharma industry, and she is like in charge. She’s the one that calls the shots on Pfizer and the Chamber of Commerce. These are folks that are ingrained, deeply seated in the DNC, right? So we don’t ever hear about it. And the people at the end of the day, these are the folks. Center forward is the name of the organization. Conoco, Chevron, Business Roundtable, Altria, Honeywell, US Chamber of Commerce, Global Strategies Group. This is like the who’s who of corporate America and the Democrats, again, I know it kills people when we talk about the Democrats, don’t talk about ’em. How dare you talk about ’em. We have an election coming up. Well, that doesn’t make any difference if all you have is a party that we’re gonna say, oh, they’re always for us. They’re not. Just like the Republicans aren’t. The Democrats aren’t either. I have an advantage. I’m independent. I know you’re a Democrat and you’re great, you’re a great voice for the Democrats. They’re so lucky to have you. Okay. But I’m not. I’m independent. I have to look at a story like this and say, what the hell? Why are we kidding ourselves?
Farron Cousins: Well, exactly. If we can’t hold our own side accountable, then we are no good at what we do. And that is the point of this. This is coming from a left-leaning website and it’s not to say, oh, look at just these people are horrible. It’s to shine a light on it and tell people, listen, we’ve got some serious problems over here on the left, and you can choose to bury your head in the sand. Act like none of this matters, because the only thing that matters is if we win or lose elections, or we can shine the spotlight on these people, shame them and get them out of office and replace ’em with somebody better.
Mike Papantonio: Are we allowed to do that? Are you as a Democrat, are you allowed to do that?
Farron Cousins: According to people online, no, I’m not.
Mike Papantonio: No, I don’t think, yeah, according to people online, you’re not allowed to do that. I’m allowed to do it because I really don’t give a. I’m gonna talk about Republicans and I’m gonna talk about Democrats. And so, but let me just give the quick lineup. Paul Brathwaite, this is one of the strategists here. Well, who’s he lobbying? He’s lobbying for Amazon, Bristol Myers, petro manufacturers. This is the guy at the heart on the board of this organization. Kate Dickens, biotech company, EnergyX, in other words, the biggest companies in the country. Pete Manchin, or what is it? Meachum, director of, this guy was a director, he still is, state director for Donald Trump’s presidential campaign. Alright? He is seated though in the center of power that the Democrats use secretly. One hand they’re saying, oh, we are the party for the people. And the truth is where it comes to social issues, you know, they’re much better than the Republicans. There’s no question. But where it comes to mom and pop issues that puts food on the table for these folks, they’re just as bad. I mean, they’re just as bad.
Farron Cousins: Well, and it’s because you have these, and this was all founded in part too, by the guy that created the blue dog Democrats.
Mike Papantonio: Right, right.
Farron Cousins:: And those are the Democrats who say, listen, everything is perfect and fine the way it is right now. Let’s not rock the boat. Let’s not put new regulations. Let’s not do anything that’s gonna make anybody upset. And the people they’re worried about upsetting are these same corporations we’re talking about. And that’s why it’s save the status quo. Don’t do anything to rock the boat.
Mike Papantonio: Okay. So we hear MSNBC, CNN, oh, let me tell you what the Democrats are doing. They’re pushing back to get more regulations of banks. That’s what the American public thinks. So while that’s going on, you have an entire arm that everybody knows about. Understand the guy in charge came directly from the Pelosi organization. So the guy in charge is doing everything he can to defeat that. He’s pumping money, spending money like a crazy man. Or how about this? Come on television, the Democrats, they’re for lowering the price of drugs. So everybody thinks, well, great, great. They’re gonna get something done. The truth is, the Pelosi guy is in the back rooms trying to defeat that effort by the Democrats. It’s just so wrong. Why are we not able to say this is wrong and we need to do something about it?
Farron Cousins: Well, part of the big reason is because all of these companies that we’ve sat here talked about linked to these groups, these are the advertisers. These are the ones that go on MSNBC and CNN every commercial break. So you can’t expose this level of corruption when you’re also dependent upon these people to pay your bills. So that’s the biggest issue here. And we also have too many people that aren’t willing to go and read a story that’s eight pages long. Right. You gotta keep it small, short, quick. They gotta be able to digest it in 30 seconds or they lose interest. And that’s part of the reason why journalism is dying in this country, is because people stop caring.
Mike Papantonio: You hear me say all the time, and I really believe this, you are the best voice the Democrats can have. Okay. You really are. I’m not a Democrat, I’m not a Republican. I just look right down the middle as an independent. But even when you do come out and say, wait a second, let me tell you the story. How about this, Farron? Build Back America. Okay. The Build Back America Act, what was it called? Build Back Better Act, BBB. It sounded wonderful. And I’m sitting there thinking, oh, go Democrats. What was really happening?
Farron Cousins: There were huge handouts. And by the way, there were a couple of organizations that did talk about this at the time, very far left groups, but there were just these massive handouts to these same corporations that are working behind the scenes. So that’s part of the reason why it was scaled down to a degree. But when you start looking at where a lot of this money is going, it’s not going to your local construction company. It’s going to the big conglomerates. It’s not going to help average people. There’s tons of money going to the fossil fuel industry, to the pharmaceutical industry for some reason. And all of that is in that legislation. If you actually read it.
Mike Papantonio: Why don’t they cover this? Why do we turn on MSNBC on liberal issues? We turn on Fox for conservative issues. And it’s always, we gotta color in the lines. We can’t talk about this because people would be so mad if they knew that the very people who were up there on stage, on television saying, this is what we’re doing for know as they’re saying that, that behind the scenes this is going on.
Farron Cousins: Well, look again, a lot of it has to do with the advertising, but a lot of it has to do too with, it has become so tribal and so much of team sports that people can’t stand to even hear something, not even negative, but critical of their own party anymore.
Mike Papantonio: Well, I’m glad you’re out there talking. I’m glad you’re out there as the voice for the Democrats. But you know what? I’m gonna talk about it. You do too. And I respect the hell out of that. I gotta tell you.
Mike Papantonio: The US Department of Justice has teamed up with 15 states to file an antitrust lawsuit against Apple. The lawsuit claims that the company’s created a monopoly. Really? Like this is new business. With their devices that squeeze out competitors, they make it harder for independent developers to get their apps on an app store. Again, how many times have you done this story, that you have done this story just on your segments? How many times have you and I done this story? We’ve been talking about this for years, right? So this is the new development.
Farron Cousins: It really is. And look, okay, it’s a good thing that they’re finally taking this on. But let’s compare it to what’s happening in Europe. Okay. In Europe, a couple months ago, maybe even just a full month ago at this point, they passed this new law that outright calls out these social media companies and says, you essentially have to be broken up because of what you’re doing. So less than a month after passing that, they’re already enforcing it. And they’re saying, look, Apple, you gotta pay up $2 billion for violating this law we just passed a couple days ago. Pay up right here. And in the US we’re, all right, well, I guess we’ll file a lawsuit and we’ll see what happens.
Mike Papantonio: You know what’s so interesting about this? You have all of these so-called progressives pushing the progressive agenda. The guy in charge of Google, oh my God, every day it’s some new push that he does. And we think, oh, he’s not capable of breaking the law because of what he’s saying in public. Same way with Facebook, with Zuckerberg, same place, Instagram. Oh this is, you know, this is okay because they’re pushing a progressive agenda. You know, what they’re doing is the same thing that’s been done for generations. It’s antitrust, it’s monopoly, but we don’t wanna call it that. We don’t wanna call it that. The information is overwhelming in this case. Would you agree?
Farron Cousins: Oh, absolutely. You have concrete evidence that Apple is squeezing out these competitors, making them jump through hoops, charging them exorbitant fees just to get this, I developed a little game, you know, and I want to get it on the app store.
Mike Papantonio:: You don’t have a chance of getting your game on do you?
Farron Cousins: Right.
Mike Papantonio: Unless, unless you do what?
Farron Cousins: Well, you’ve gotta either pay up big bucks, or most likely you have to sell yourself to Apple. So then Apple owns you and then your app can go, but you get nothing from it.
Mike Papantonio: We see this in the music industry. Used to have, and it probably still goes on, if you were an emerging entertainer, you could not get into the business unless you paid money. It was either Nashville, Detroit, New York, LA, you had to pay to play. That’s what these sites are doing. They’ve learned, we had years and years of that history going on in the music industry. They’re doing the same thing here.
Farron Cousins: Yeah, absolutely. And it’s a lot like the old days of Hollywood where they owned the movie studios, they owned the actors and they own the movie theaters. So you could only see this actor in this movie at this theater owned by MGM or whoever it was. It is exactly the same with these apps.
Mike Papantonio: It’s called lateral systems.
Farron Cousins: Exactly.
Mike Papantonio: Lateral systems, own the thing that might help this kid launch his new app, own it, and don’t let him do it unless he pays homage to us. Homage means you pay us big money or we buy you out and you disappear. Right?
Farron Cousins: Yeah.
Mike Papantonio: Farron, thanks for joining me.
Farron Cousins: Thank you.
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. 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 their advertisers won’t let ’em, or their political connections won’t allow for it. Because if you’re Republican, you have to color within the Republican circle. If you’re Democrat, you have to color within that circle. But you know what? We don’t color within the lines on Ring of Fire. We’ll see you next time.
