i mean it's still on our to you america i'll make sure you don't get railroaded you'll get the straight talk in the break. a law and tell her about washington d.c. here's what's coming up tonight on the big picture even of a passes and decimates our health care system has trumped care already made single payer inevitable chorus cooper and sam's sex and it's politics in just a moment and is america's opioid epidemic

a drug problem or another example of corporate malfeasance run amok i'll ask america's lawyer mack might it might happen to podio later on in the program. center republicans have unveiled the revised version of their so-called health care bill they say it's a step forward but is a really any better than the medicaid destroying tax cut for the rich in disguise what they came out with a few weeks ago let's ask tonight's politics panel. with a for tonight's panel our horoscope or attorney and senior fellow at the national center for public policy research and same sex writer and founder of the co-founder of the district's sentinel thank you gentlemen for being with us going to get you both here so as promised senate republicans revealed the new version trauma care

three point zero today the bill does have some noticeable differences from its predecessor predecessors for example it doesn't include as many absurd tax cuts for the rich although it does give multibillion dollar tax cuts to industry also sets aside forty five billion dollars to help with the nationwide opioid epidemic and an additional seventy billion dollars for high risk patients thanks to ted cruz this bill would also allow insurance companies to sell plans that don't include obamacare protections something experts warn could cause an industry death spiral at its core though the new version of trump care is just like every other version of trump care it repeals the individual mandate it defunds planned parenthood it guts protections for people with preexisting conditions and most importantly it slashes hundreds of billions of dollars for medicaid and repeals medicaid expansion under obamacare so rand paul says is a big no susan collins says she's a no how many more no vote while one more no vote in this thing is dead thoughts

porus am well you know i think the mistake here has always been a failure to tell the truth to the american people right now people are suggesting . about fifty five or sixty five percent of the american people believe it's the government's job to provide you with health care so it's true in every other developed country in the world and it doesn't work in every other country in the world and that's why they have longer lifespans and we do and the american people aren't trusting the kinds of comments that are being offered by those who don't support obamacare because they aren't prepared to tell the truth which is we need to create an environment where we get as many people as possible covered and get them good treatment ironic sometimes without the government. at their own expense up to go we need to create and are going to do that in a country where fifty percent of the population could not withstand a one thousand dollar annual expense that was on anticipated yep that's part of the

problem is that we've created an economic environment where everybody everybody is practically having to live paycheck to paycheck you know reaganomics is like a devastated the drama care is only exacerbated that situation saying look this bill the reason why it hasn't passed yet you could give a lot of credit to groups like adapt and people who've had called members of congress and the republican town halls but fundamentally the reason why this bill doesn't pass is because republicans among themselves haven't yet agreed on just how many americans should die as a result of their health reform plan because that is what's going to happen when you start getting rid of medicare you're going to be looking at hundreds of thousands of people over the next however long you want to go there are going to have health insurance just that are going to be smaller every dollar as you guys you've got a society harvard university and the american medical association fine since two thousand and nine with the number of people who aren't presently covered and i don't someone who are you are i learned my you know my uro when i have

a calling for single payer health care bill long before obama i am one of the people who is disappointed by obamacare obamacare was a half measure so if you go here in osiris the republicans. for a plan that quote is going to kill people when in fact the existing plan kills by the very base not listen to hillary clinton all of the existing plan kills people to the extent that republican governors refuse to give the notice arlene yea i look at charlene dillon florida surely one is the mother of three she had a heart condition she couldn't afford her medication and because she was working three jobs this woman she still wasn't making above the poverty level so she didn't qualify for obamacare and because rick scott the republican governor of florida and the poor and the c.e.o. of the company that committed the largest medicare fraud in the history of the united states rick scott refused to expand medicare she was cut your bells ring and i didn't waveguide it on heart attack rick scott republicans have a lot on their hands rick scott didn't wave a magic wand and make all of america pay for

a program that is never going to work and is never going to achieve one hundred percent it's not going to cheapen their own initiative on horris nobody nobody buys the stuff nobody is buying that on top of the governors who have chosen not to expand medicaid just the fact that we still rely on a system in which companies make profit off denying health care to their customers you will have people who are inevitably condemned to death those are the death panels that we live in the health insurance companies they've always been the death panels as long as they've been there so whenever we hear about government death penalty or anything that's all fantasy we live. here and here right to everybody to have health care like the rest of the developmental because they're old easy. is watching your plan play out in the united kingdom where a family is sitting there saying that doctors are telling me my child is supposed to die they want to turn off the switch and they want to deny me deny me the right to take my child put him on a plane and at my own expense and get him treatment that's what we're looking at

are that's where it is here and trying to draw it out over terri shy of a two point zero it's like it's a terrible terrible exam terrible tragedy. larry hamleys got nothing to do with their health care system speaking of single payer health care no one is arguably more responsible for bringing some single payer back into the mainstream of american politics and vermont senator bernie sanders it was the centerpiece of his twenty sixteen presidential campaign and perhaps as two thousand and twenty one as well and a new interview on mark thompson's paresi radio show bernie said he's not ruling out another run for the white house are you leaving two thousand and twenty on the table you taking it off the table not not taking it off to a larger set up not made any decisions but i think it's what you do what really should bernie run again he's the most popular politician in the united states right now and is effectively a shadow leader of the democratic party even though he's not in the democratic party or does it behoove the left to look for a younger figure and he's clearly the most popular politician in america he's built up the infrastructure that he didn't quite have in you know when we ran in two

thousand and sixteen he's got it now he's got the name recognition that he didn't have back then i think he's clearly the front runner the only issue is his age in the burnie doesn't exactly show any signs of slowing down he's already going around the country holding these health care rallies all the time i don't see anybody else who can who can knock him off that top spot right now as the top contender except the democratic party itself or possibly it was with worn by being maybe i. seem to quieted down a lot as you just raised about iowa body. but any for reelection the age of bernie sanders in my mind has absolutely nothing to do with whether he could be fit to serve as president the fact that he has some of the core aisy is idea in the world like everybody's going to get health care paid for by the guy everybody else but the entire best world like crazy idea and it doesn't work there and it doesn't work there but i save sandon there is no guarantee that

a rerun of pulleys tell the truth i've always said this about bernie he told the truth that democrats have been lying for the longest about what. the real ambitions are let's go rename it medicare for all if you like but let's go with this idea that the people who brought you the post office are going to provide you with quality health care and frankly ben franklin event of the post office just. go to the post office and drop a letter in the mail and they'll send it all the way to hawaii for forty cents or fifty cents or megan's a pretty good way you know they are a very high rate of success there is a very high rate of success and if they plan to talk about the reason why they're losing money we can go and talk about legislation those kind of stare it's not that big a deal if however i go to the doctor and it turns out my heart ailment isn't getting treated properly because of malfeasance or because they're incompetent or whatever reason out of health care refuse to pay the doctor no because of the reality of the

actors who take medicare or uncommon hope and fact the very thing is their income their truth is a declining number of them are and as long line number of doctors are taken insurance to the the fastest growing fad in medicine in the united states right now is concierge practice apple is on movingly only sure it's cold so i go down because they are so sick and tired you know with the united healthcare at all those other why aren't you in favor of a situation where we make it possible concierge medicine really only works for people who make over two hundred thousand i will note that's not true there are not many people can if there are no write a check for six thousand dollars a year there are in fact obamacare itself explicitly created co-ops so that small organizations can set up their own concierge services and if you listen to concierge service they have a variation on h.m.o. but anyway it's in a disturbing preview of what awaits us on our rapidly warming planet a twenty two hundred square mile iceberg shelf is broken free from the larsen sea

ice shelf in antarctica scientists have anticipated this break for months a delaware size iceberg is now floating freely on the weddell sea global warming in the devastation it will bring to everything on this planet is a choice so why horus are you and your republican friends embracing the apocalypse. because we like science more than you guys do any if you look at this particular case the scientific evidence is overwhelming that this is not a factor of global warming you guys are the signs deniers on this particular factor but you don't mind with your alarmism because it serves a purpose i think what you meant to say is you're like the fossil fuel industry funded science because those are the only scientists are on the record and that global warming isn't a problem that it's not gonna go on to win this long you don't want to actually make everything better for humans will have to look a little bit warmer days from the summit about this because of

a fairly broad consensus that a this is not going to raise sea level. you know sea water levels because ocean levels because it's already in the ocean but be that it does have to do it absolutely not in fact in p r c n n whatever your new source in the weather channel when they have reported on this they they have interviewed doctors scientists and of the federal government representatives of nations across the globe who all say this has happened it continues to happen this is not an act of globalization has been calving forever but essentially what i've been hearing it isn't even the largest and i don't disagree it's one of the top ten largest and one with human known history but you know it's not the largest but basically the argument that you're making that i've been hearing from other conservatives is the old smoking argument there's not a little flag the pops up on this tumor this is came from those camels that is smoked back in one thousand nine hundred eighty three and similarly when a glacier calves off there's not a sign that says this was caused by global warming but when more and more glaciers

are calving off all of a glacier zinah in out take it up with the scientists i'm not talking about spokesman take it up with the scientists it's the scientific community that disagrees with what you know is the scientific community is saying sure global warming is a factor but it's not the claws of this particular and i can't say we can't say for . just like you can't say this particular cancer was caused by this particular cigarette but that doesn't mean the cigarettes don't cause cancer does mean global warming doesn't cause glaciers to melt we're out of time here i'm sorry i got to wrap it up sam horace thank you both executives tonight coming up is big pharma to blame for america's deadly opioid epidemic i'll ask america's lawyer might happen tony you know right after the break. there's a real irony going. to play a responsible points in the people and that's all you saw that's what they thought

so it's supposed to. already know full scale surveillance and see how you have all made while those willing to do so since the instructor has used so excuse me while i always thought this story was a scar or a real. i think the average viewer just after watching a couple of segments understands that we're telling stories in our critics can't tell me you know why because their advertisers more let them. in order to create change you have to be honest you have to tell the truth parties able to do that every story is built on going after the back story to what's really happening out there to the american what's happening when a corporation makes

a pharmaceutical chills people when a company in the environmental business ends up polluting a river that causes cancer and other illnesses they put all the health risk all the dangers out to the american public those are stories that we tell every we can you know what they're working. good institutions. they did except the reject. so when you interview for us. some want. to do it for us this is what. you get. interested in the way.

if republicans don't mess things up it's about to get a whole lot easier for you to take banks to court that's because earlier this week the consumer financial protection bureau you know the thing republicans talk about like it's the second coming up whole pot unveiled a new rule the bans companies for requiring customers to sign away their right to a class action lawsuit sounds complicated but this is a really big deal here with me now to explain why is my pappa tonio host of america's lawyer right here on r.t. host of ring of fire radio and author of the new legal thriller law and disorder pap welcome back. could be here thank you it's great having you with us you're a career trial lawyer you've led many class action lawsuits can you talk about the significance of what the c.e.o. of p.b. just did. yeah well forced arbitration is where the corporate america's biggest scams there are arbitration clauses in your credit cards your contracts your cell phone plans you have to sign these if you buy

a car the list goes on and on the point is this what they've tried to do is say that's not really the way we should conduct life for consumers consumers should have the right to go to court when a corporation has committed fraud when a corporation has stolen from them when a corporation has made a product that has potential to cause harm to them in some way and so what the chamber of commerce did is chamber of commerce said how do we take lawsuits away from consumers and they came up with this idea of arbitration arbitration in a nutshell is the company that has caused you the harm that's lied to you that has stolen money from you that's committed fraud that's affected your family the criminal corporation that those folks they get to name basically who the arbitrators are so it's the equivalent of a corporation stealing your money in saying gee i really want my case heard and then you have to appear in front of the same criminal corporation that stole your money with arbitrators that are so stacked against you that the chances of recovery

are almost impossible and so the c.f.e. to be has tried to say we've got to end this people ought to be able to bring a class action and the beauty to what the corporate thug gets away with is if they're only stealing one hundred dollars each like you have a credit card that they have some credit card scam that we see from all the wall street banks in some form or fashion over the last ten years if you have a credit card and we're able to steal from you only one hundred dollars the corporation knows that individuals can't go to court for one hundred dollars the attorney's fees to get there are going to be far more than that and there's no recovery beyond that one hundred dollars so they keep pushing arbitration because they understand it's a way to see. stop consumers from ever fighting back when the thieves from places like wall street go after go after consumers money where are the places for somebody who's watching right now and doesn't you know is unfamiliar with the word

arbitration or doesn't doesn't doesn't know what you just shared with them where are the places what are the contracts where you would find forced arbitration clauses where an average consumer would that they might not expect in that they should look for and what can you do if you find them well. yeah so well you're going to see him on virtually everything your phone you know doing business on a phone buying a car virtually every every contract involving involving a credit card they're all going to be there and so but the point the point is the place that they're really headed with this is to say to you you know you have to sign this if you don't sign it we're not going to give you your phone and if you don't sign this we're not going to give you your credit card so the average consumer says what the heck and the so right now you have a live elizabeth warren's group that says you know that's just not right because

your chance to ever change the corporate corruption at one hundred dollar losses for a million people a million people can't file you know can't follow a million lawsuits with a million different lawyers for one hundred dollars each it's never going to work like that so there was something called class action you bring a class action somebody represents all of those million people they get all the one hundred dollars back and that's a way to control the corporate thuggery that now has overrun america it's the worst you know i've been doing this i've been doing this for thirty five years and i don't ever remember a time in history tom when it's been as bad as it is right now and in so all arbitration is is just another way for wall street to steal from you the u.s. chamber of commerce loves arbitration because it allows their corporate members to steal from you to commit fraud to get away with virtually all kinds of awful things

and you know that you really can't go to court you can't have a jury hear it you have to hear three people that are lined up by the very corporation that caused you the harm or at they are bitters i do i want to move on to opioids but just. well yeah let's just do that we were talking earlier today about how the new version of trump care that was unveiled unveiled today sets aside fifty four billion dollars to help combat the opioid epidemic you're currently part of a lawsuit against big pharmaceutical companies for their role in creating this opiate addiction crises crisis talk about that how are they responsible for creating this crisis. well it was brilliant. the opioid distributors did people like mckesson and the manufacturers produce for example that made these that created this call this colossal catastrophe what they did is they understood that

they had to sell an awful lot of opioids to make the twenty five billion dollars that the industry brings in every year so what they did is they promoted the idea of over use i've been handling cases in virginia for counties in municipalities governments in west virginia in kentucky and in the ohio and what we find is you'll have a county where they'll be one hundred thousand people and the opioid industry goes in there and the distributors the people that are what we call detailers the sales people on the road they find all kinds of ways to push their drugs and so they'll have a county of one hundred thousand people where they've sold two million opioids in that county of one hundred thousand people over a period of about eight months so the industry knew that they were creating drug addicts there is no question the information we have so far is overwhelming there's an incredible book i recommend it to everybody it's called dreamland it's called

dreamland it talks about how the industry created this catastrophe what they would do tom is they would figure out where can we sell drugs who are the most who are the people most likely to sell drugs they did again a demographic analysis they said go to white middle class that is that and is in a declining economy let's go where they're losing jobs where the u.s. government is shipping jobs out of the country where there isn't work where there is despair let's go to those places because we think we can sell more more opioids in places like that and they were right and if you look where they went the story plays out every time they did a good demographics analysis they said who's going to buy our drug. and how can we sell more drugs not just for use of acute pain these drugs never should have been used for chronic pain they were made for acute pain surgery two days maybe after surgery but right now this is a startling number ninety nine percent tom ninety nine percent of all the vis class

of opioids is sold in america ninety nine percent well truth is we have the. ninety nine percent worldwide us buys ninety nine percent of all these opioids that i'm describing and that's we have we have such an addiction problem we've got the counties that can't even afford for the medical care they can't afford the the rehab care they're having to build entire new elements to their to their police departments their dependency cases are over overwhelming them where they're taking children away from these attics there are cities and counties in this area right now these areas that i'm describing were eighty percent eighty percent of that of that of that city is not just first generation but sometimes second generation of opioid addicts and then comes after the opioids are after that's cured income is

what we call the black tar heroin that comes from places around mexico and they follow the opioid business opioid comes in they target by demographics the the black tar heroin business comes in and simply follows that to to reverse this a typical county is going to need three hundred million dollars just to solve the problem if they face this problem for more than five years three hundred million dollars won't scratch the surface of what's going to take to clean this up so those are the cases that myself in a brilliant young lawyer named paul feral he's from west virginia who's come up with the schematics of how to go after these companies have salute one of the most brilliant young lawyers i've ever worked with and so we're all involved in trying to bring these corporations into a courtroom in take away this dirty disgusting blood money that they've made for so many years selling these drugs mike in the final minute

a half or two minutes so we've got here what does this say about our justice system that we've thrown millions of people in jail for selling pot over the last few decades. it's but a lot of these giant pharmaceutical companies to create the biggest addiction crisis perhaps in human history i don't i don't know the history of the old opium wars but the seems like it's got to be right up there. no it is the biggest in history here is the quick answer the department of justice has always done they they did it under literate loretta lynch the entire obama administration was faced with this it started about the end of the bush administration and then the obama administration the way they dealt with it was to say to these companies that they knew were pushing these drugs well gee whiz we're going to fine you you're going to have to pay fines but you know what not one of them went to jail and we're talking about overdoses there are some communities tom the size of right here in pensacola the size of this community they're having ten to twenty overdose deaths

a day and it's being ignored by corporate media of course because corporate media you know they don't want to tell this ugly story they're unwilling to tell this story because advertisers won't let them tell the story so this is handled under the radar for two decades and finally this brilliant young man paul farrel connects all the dots and says well we're going to we're going to we're going to come up with a way to do this so on i'm totally committed we have probably the best team of lawyers they've been put together since the tobacco wars that are going to go after these corporate thought good and that's the only way i know to describe them after understanding what they've done that's great mike papantonio it's always great having you with us thanks so much. and that's the way it is it's a night and don't forget democracy is not a spectator sport get out there get active tag you're it.

ah. in case you're new to the game this is how. the economy is built around corporate. washington washington. voters elected to businessman to run this country business if. you must it's not business as usual it's business like it's never been done before. what you have for breakfast yesterday why would you put those through. what's your biggest fear. of a big moment a ride with the last time you read

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